An Excerpt from "Three Steps to the Gallows"

It was 100 years ago, on a summer day in Lausanne, Switzerland next to Lake Léman, where the snow had yet to melt and the snowcapped mountains stood like corpses in shrouds to the north. There, people were skiing happily oblivious that the hopes of a nation were melting in the closed rooms to the breaths of those who had gathered with maps in their hands. They had no clue that the Treaty of Sèvres was being buried just below them.

That morning, the Kurds were preparing their sacrifices, distributing meat and expressing their blessing to one another in celebration of Eid, not knowing that Ankara was sacrificing their dreams and burying their many wishes.

As Ismet Pasha, the chief negotiator for the Turkish delegation, put his hand behind his ear to listen to the British Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon’s smooth English speech, the lord opened his box of ivory tobacco, extended it towards Ismet Pasha, and said:

“Smoke.” He smoked and released a cloud of smoke at us and our differences.

Ismet Pasha smiled and took the white handkerchief out of the pocket, wiped his sweat, stroked his moustache, and said:

“Here we are releasing smoke at the Sultan as well,” he said. “He is now just a successor spending his time in the Ottoman Imperial Harem. He is none other than the official of the maidservant. We will also end the caliphate and make Turkey a republic.”

What do you want next?

“Mosul.”

“Mosul! If I don't put Mosul in my pocket, I won't go back to Ankara.”

“No, Mosul will remain in our pocket. Let's dream of something else, Ismet Pasha. The Sèvres vase is more valuable than Mosul.”

With that, Lord Curzon took out a stone from his pocket and threw it at a vase in the middle of the table, surrounded by cigarette smoke, as if it were a mermaid. Ismet Pasha laughed. He picked up a glass of cold water in front of him and drank a mouthful. Then he too took a stone out of his pocket and threw it at the half-broken vase of Sèvres.

The fragments of the vase flew out of the hall window until they reached Lake Léman. Some lingered on the surface of the lake for several moments before sinking into the depths.

With that, the vase of dreams sank in Lake Léman near the city of Lausanne.

Without putting Mosul in his pocket, Ismet Pasha returned to Ankara. But he came back with something more expensive and bigger that filled all his pockets: the destiny and future of the Kurds.

Jan Dost is a prolific Kurdish poet, writer and translator. He has published several novels and translated a number of literary Kurdish masterpieces into Arabic.