Portrait of a Turkish Family (29 page)

Mehmet returned to İzmir in August 1939 for his wedding and Muazzez and Ali arrived from Ankara, adding grandeur to the little house.

I never saw Mehmet married, for the day before I was ordered to a manoeuvre and had to leave all the bustle and the excitement behind me. The manoeuvre lasted ten days and when I returned home I was unutterably shocked for my grandmother had left us for good, returning to İstanbul with Mehmet and Bedia. My batman was in hospital.

It had previously been arranged in the family that when my grandmother went to live with my brother and his wife my mother would go to Muazzez in Ankara. My grandmother would never have left us at all but for the fact that Mehmet was more often away at sea than he was at home. It was felt to be unwise to leave the youthful Bedia unchaperoned. Perhaps this chaperonage would be quite unnecessary in other countries but to leave Bedia at seventeen alone in İstanbul, where scandal false or true needs but the slightest flicker to grow into a roaring flame, was unthinkable. There were far too many traps for unwary young wives in İstanbul.

When the arrangement was originally suggested my mother professed herself pleased, telling me in confidence that she had perhaps lived too long with my grandmother and that living in Ankara would do her good.

It was therefore a surprise for me to return to İzmir and find her still there and that she was alone in the house made it seem far worse.

‘Where is the servant?’ I asked.

‘I dismissed her. She was lazy,’ returned my mother, who hitherto had always extolled her.

My mother herself was in a terrible state. I trembled when I thought of the heartless criminality that had left her alone in that echoing house. She was unwashed, uncombed and slatternly and, worst of all, she was unaware of this.

I cursed Mehmet for having done such a thing but could scarcely blame the flighty Muazzez, who was always much too concerned with her own affairs to have bothered very much when my mother refused to accompany her.

I enquired for my batman and was told that he had gone to hospital. She started to complain in a high, whining voice of the maid she had dismissed. And all the time her hands were twisting, twisting, busily rending a lacy handkerchief. She looked as if she had not eaten for days and the house was a shambles. Most of my grandmother’s furniture had gone to İstanbul and the few pieces that remained were pulled out from the walls. Beds were unmade and the kitchen littered with the remains of meals, obviously several days old.

I took her into the stuffy, airless salon and flung wide the windows. Here was shambles too. It was heartbreaking to see my mother like this, in this dirty, uncared-for house.

‘Why did you not go with Muazzez?’ I asked her gently and she stared at me for a moment or two and then she replied: ‘And who would look after you if I had gone?’

I bit back the searing retort that burned on my lips and she said fretfully: ‘I told your grandmother not to look back when she left the house. I said that if she did it would bring us bad luck. But she ignored me and she stood at the corner, looking back for a long, long time and I had to shout to her to go, go, go!’

My mother’s voice was high with hysteria and I stirred uneasily, seeing the scene again through her eyes. The old woman leaning on her stick at the corner, looking back to a place where she had been happy, and my mother on the terrace shouting at her, attracting attention perhaps, my batman trying to pull her back to the silent house.

She watched me unwinkingly, trying to find out my reaction to what she was telling me. I said nothing. She had been silent for so long alone that talking was necessary to her now.

‘Your grandmother did not want to go. She said that I wanted to be rid of her. That is why she turned back when I had told her not to, so that she could leave her curse on this house and everyone in it. I know’ – she nodded to me. ‘She hopes I will die!’

‘Oh, Mother!’ I said, wondering when this feud would cease between them.

Still I could see the departing figure of my grandmother and I wondered if we had done the right thing, we younger ones who had thought only to separate them, to keep them from fighting as they had done all through the years. I thought of my mother, remaining here for me, and could not see her in the alien atmosphere of my sister’s house in Ankara. I did not know what I could do with her now, when only I was left with her. I had tried to be good but had failed somewhere, perhaps many years ago. I felt helpless sitting there, watching her. The others had shelved their responsibilities and had gone away, leaving us alone, the one thing I had always dreaded.

When my batman returned after a few days the house was normal again, and I was glad to leave her in his hands each morning when I went to the aerodrome, knowing no harm could come to her.

At the end of August I was sent to Kayseri, to bring back a new plane for my unit, but on September 3rd I received a telegram from the
Commanding
Officer ordering me to return immediately.

War had again come to Europe and Poland had been invaded and all the lights of the world were going out again, one by one. When I arrived at Eskişehir for refuelling, I saw that all the planes were out of their hangars in the fields. Tents were out and lorries and I wondered if Turkey would come in and, more important, on whose side.

I was told in Eskişehir that all leave had been cancelled, that all officers had now to remain in the aerodromes day and night. I took off for İzmir, wondering about my mother. Who would look after her now?

At İzmir excited friends crowded about me but I could not listen to them. I sought out the Commanding Officer and begged him to relax the new rule for me, just for one night, as I was anxious about my mother. He knew of her illness and gave me permission to go home immediately, saying that if I should be wanted he would send a car for me.

When I got home my mother appeared quite calm, greeted me affectionately and said that she had heard over the radio that war had been declared. She also had heard from neighbours that I should no longer be able to come home at night. I was relieved by her normality.

During September everything went all right, for my batman was excellent with my mother and I spoke to her each day by telephone. A new servant was engaged and at first she spoke highly of her, then the old dissatisfaction began to creep back to her voice and she no longer seemed pleased with her.

In October my batman was demobilised, having finished his military service. A new one came to take his place and my mother hated him, telling me he was too stupid to do anything or understand half what she said. I sent another one and another one and then another but they would not stay and, in any case, she disliked all of them on sight. Then she threw the servant out and she was now alone in the house with the dog.

I was half frantic with anxiety and would circle in my plane over the garden each day, to see if she was all right. I wrote to Mehmet, explaining the situation and suggesting that my mother go to his house in İstanbul, where at least she would not be alone.

I managed to get home one day and discussed this with her.

‘Your grandmother is there,’ she said. ‘And perhaps we have missed each other more than we know and anyway, I shall be back again in İstanbul.’

Mehmet replied promptly, saying that Bedia would be glad to have my mother with her and to send her immediately.

Again I obtained leave, helped my mother to pack her things and took her to İstanbul.

Bedia welcomed her kindly and showed us the large, airy room she had prepared for her. My grandmother only looked thoughtful as though wondering how this
ménage à trois
would work out.

Alone I returned to İzmir and went to the empty house and wondered what to do with the furniture that was left. The dog, Fidèle, refused to eat his meals, all the time crying quietly to himself, watching me anxiously as though he was begging me to tell him what was the matter.

Now and then he would pad softly to the door, sniffing the carpets, then would come dispiritedly back to me, flopping down beside my chair.

My batman brought dinner and the silent room seemed filled with ghosts. Fidèle had followed me to the table but he would not eat. He lay down, resting his nose on his paws, only moving to cock an ear if he heard a sound. He waited all the time for my mother to walk into the room, but she would not come here again.

The house was given over to silence and the remembrance of all the unquiet things that had happened beneath its narrow roof. 

My mother proved troublesome in İstanbul.

She soon left Bedia’s house and took a room for herself in a tall old house in Sişli, saying she preferred to be alone. Sometimes she would visit my grandmother and she and Bedia soon noticed her rapid deterioration, the carelessness of her dress. She told people that her children did not want her. She started to go without food, giving most of her money to poor people whom she met in the streets. She would talk to all the beggars of İstanbul, inviting them to her room in Sişli, where she would give them quantities of food to take away. She could not bear to see people in tattered clothes and started to give them her own. At other times she would walk miles in the course of a day, returning home weary and hungry but without money left to buy food for herself. She used to go to the old places where she had lived before, frequently taking taxis, haughtily telling drivers to wait for her and then when she could not pay them would direct them back to Bedia’s house. She bought quantities of sweets to distribute to the slum children and once she was discovered sitting in the rank, over-grown garden of our ruined house – the house my father had bought for her before he went to the War. I could not get leave to go to İstanbul and could only write frantic letters, imploring her to return to Bedia and my grandmother, where she would be well looked after.

These letters she completely ignored.

From the time she left İzmir she never communicated with me, even indirectly through my grandmother’s scrappy letters. I grew despairing, wondering what would be the end of this bad business.

On February 2nd, 1940, I received a telegram from Bedia, asking me to go to İstanbul immediately as my mother was seriously ill. I went to the Commanding Officer and showed him the telegram. He took one look at my face and gave me permission to leave the aerodrome. I left Bedia’s address with him and hastily booked a seat by train to Bandırma. From Bandırma I took the boat for Galata, impatient of the slow-seeming journey, my heart continuously in my mouth.

When I finally arrived at Mehmet’s house, Bedia’s tear-stained, swollen face did nothing to reassure me that all might after all be well.

‘Is my mother dead?’ I asked her, clutching her arm and my
grandmother
came through the narrow hall and drew me into the salon. She seated herself and bade me do the same but this I was totally incapable of doing.

‘Tell me,’ I said to her quiet face. ‘Is she dead?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘Better by far that she were.’

I walked up and down the room, seeing the familiar furniture that still could remind me of childhood and hunger, even though I had nothing to fear on that score nowadays. All the houses we had lived in, even when prosperity had come back to us, were linked with those early insecure years, because the heavy old furniture was always there to remind one. There was never any escape from memories.

‘Come, sit down,’ said my grandmother gently; ‘there is nothing to be gained by walking up and down the room or by hysteria.’

I sat down on a brocaded chair, once beautiful but now fraying at the edges through long usage.

‘Where is my mother?’ I asked. ‘What has happened to her?’

And I think I knew the answer before anyone replied. It was Bedia who told me, Bedia who started to cry and irritated me with her persistent tears, yet who had the courage to say what was difficult for my
grandmother
.

‘She has lost her mind,’ said Bedia with a dignity in her voice and I was glad that she was here, new to the family, able to speak of hurting, hidden things as we others would not have done. So new to the family that our horror could not touch her too much.

My grandmother stood up very erect, her face without colour and her stern eyes filled with compassion. She put a hand on Bedia’s young shoulder and said: ‘There! my child. There is no need to cry!’

And she went on patting the thin shoulder absently, her eyes looking to something we could not see, and I leaned against the window, my body light as water, and waited for them to tell me everything.

It was Bedia who was the storyteller.

‘Mother came to visit us two nights ago,’ she said, ‘and she looked very ill. She said she was hungry and I gave her something to eat and then she asked if she might spend the night with us. She complained that her head ached and, of course, I said that I should be glad if she stayed with us, not only for one night but for always. For awhile she was all right then she began to get irritable and would not have the radio on, saying that it made her head worse, so I turned it off. When I had done that she remarked on how obedient I was and asked me if I did not find it difficult living with grandmother. I said no, I did not, and she grew quarrelsome and said that grandmother was a most difficult woman, that all mothers-in-law ruined their daughters-in-laws’ lives and that that was the reason she would not live with me. She said she wanted me to be free of older people’s influence and then turned to grandmother and said she ought to leave me and take a room by herself somewhere. “You are foolish to remain here,” she said; “Bedia does not want you. When one is old one is useless,” she continued, “children do not want one any more.”’

Bedia paused uncertainly and I was aware of my grandmother’s still, immobile face from the shadows of her winged chair, of her
contemplative
hands demurely folded on her lap. Bedia went on: ‘Mother started to get angry because grandmother would not answer her. She seemed to direct all her talk to her; she was really only using me as an excuse. I could see that. Then she told me that she hated grandmother, that she had hated her for many years and was responsible for a house that was burned – a long time ago, I think,’ added Bedia apologetically, not yet being familiar with family history, not knowing of the square white house that had burned to the night skies. ‘Mehmet is in Bandırma, he went there by torpedo-boat a few days ago so he was not here for all this. Mother kept asking for him and kept forgetting that I had told her where he was. Then she burst out that she could not understand what I was doing in her son’s house. “I know you are his wife,” she said, but with an awful contempt in her voice, “but I do not like your painted mouth. Nobody in this family ever used paint on their mouths.” Then she told grandmother that she would cure her deafness for her and asked me to fetch her some olive oil. She said she would heat it and pour it into the bad ears. I did not want to do it but she insisted so I went to the kitchen and got what she asked for. When I came back she was looking at a knife that was still on the table and which she had not used when she was eating.’ Here Bedia shuddered, in remembrance, her eyes going dark. ‘And she said in an odd sort of voice that the knife had a lovely edge, that it was so clean and shining. And she looked at
grandmother
all the time she spoke but grandmother only watched her, not having heard anything she had said. I took the knife from mother and put it away and when I turned back to her she said, “But is it wrong of me to admire the way you keep your cutlery, Bedia? Did you think perhaps I was going to injure grandmother?” I said, no, I had not thought that and then she came over to me and I screamed and she looked surprised and asked why I did that and I did not know what to say. And all the time grandmother sat there, not saying a word, not interfering, making mother more and more angry and I was terrified of what was going to happen,’ she added naïvely; ‘grandmother is very obstinate, you know.’

I nodded, remembering that obstinacy from other years.

‘Yes, I know,’ I said to Bedia. ‘Go on.’

‘There isn’t very much more to tell,’ she said. ‘After a while mother said that she would go to bed, that she could not bear the aching of her head and asked me if I had any aspirins. I had not, so she said it did not matter. When she had gone to her room, grandmother suggested that we should get a doctor for her. I asked why, and grandmother said that she knew her daughter-in-law very well, that she had given trouble for years and that in the mood she was in tonight she was capable of doing a lot of troublesome things. Anyway, I went to get a doctor and he came straight here with me, wondering what was wrong for really I had been unable to explain very much to him. When he went to her room she was still awake and asked me who he was. I told her that he was a doctor and that he would give her something for her headache. She seemed very suspicious of him but allowed him to examine her and leave some tablets, and then he came to the salon with me and began to ask grandmother all sorts of questions about mother. Finally he said that it would be better if she were put into an institution for a few months where she could get good nursing and good food. “She looks as if she has been starving herself,” he said. Then he left us but we had not realised mother had heard everything that had been said. You see, the doctor had had to shout to make grandmother understand him and she had shouted back at him, without knowing that she was shouting. It was terrible. Mother came back into the salon in her nightdress and said: “Do you think I am mad that you want to put me away where I shall never see my children again?”
Grandmother
tried to pacify her, although mother was very quiet, but upset too, and she sat down on the divan and looked at me pitifully. “Bedia,” she said, “do you think that I am mad? Is it madness to want to help the poor, to love my children too much, to fear for my eldest son’s death? Is it madness to live alone so that I shall not be a burden to the married happiness of you and Mehmet or Muazzez and her husband?” And I said no, I did not think so. She sounded so terribly sane and I began to think we had done the wrong thing by calling a doctor to her and by telling him so much afterwards. Mother sat there and then she burst into tears and ran back to her room, where she locked the door. I ran after her but she would not let me in and I could hear her moving about all the time, crying, and then grandmother came and banged on the door and roared out to her to open it for us. But her voice seemed to set mother crazy. She suddenly flung open the door – she was already dressed – and she pushed us out of her way saying to grandmother: “You are responsible for everything that has ever happened to me,” then she flew down the stairs and out of the house. I ran after her immediately but I could not catch her. She seemed to have the strength of ten people. We heard afterwards that she had run almost to Şişli and had called a taxi but when she was getting into the taxi she had fainted. She was weak of course for she had not eaten anything for days – only the small amount I had given her that evening. The taxi-driver took her straight to Medical
Jurisprudence
; the police came to tell us so this morning. They said she had screamed at them in the police station and had fought to get away. They had called a doctor and he had given her injections and then sent her in an ambulance to Jurisprudence – ’

Bedia stopped speaking and I looked at her, not yet eighteen, to have seen so much passion unleashed, to have witnessed the outbreak of the sores that had rankled for twenty-six years. And I thought that she had emerged from it all with the little touching look of youth gone from her face forever, her little fragile air vanished like snow before the wind.

‘Where is she now?’ I asked.

‘I do not know,’ replied Bedia wearily; ‘the police will tell you. I would have gone myself to ask but I was waiting for you to come.’

My grandmother laid a hand on my shoulder and I thought of the listening, straining face that must have watched my mother, the closed ears that had heard nothing, even though she must have been aware of danger. I thought of the indomitable courage that had held her in her chair in the face of the bright, sure blade of the knife, when one unguarded movement might have incited my overwrought mother to use it on her. My heart turned over and I felt my skin begin to creep. Of the pain and the heartbreak and the jealousy of the long years, of the teeming, crowded brain of my mother, I would not let myself think. Not just yet, I said. Not yet. Time enough to think of that later on. If you think of these things now, you will hate Bedia and your grandmother for not having
understood
. Think of something else.

I went to Medical Jurisprudence and the doctor who had admitted my mother granted me an interview.

He was an old, white-haired man with kind eyes, and when I asked him if I could see my mother he said gently: ‘She is not here any more. You are a young man and an airman and you have witnessed many tragic things; it would not be right to subject yourself to such torture.’

I pleaded with him but he was firm.

‘She is not here,’ he repeated. ‘We have sent her to Bakırköy. She will be well looked after there.’

I remembered the red, windowless ambulance that had just driven off as I had arrived at Jurisprudence and suddenly I knew it had held my mother. They had boxed her up in that airless place, to make sure that the already unstable brain would crack. I felt the sweat break out coldly on my forehead. Was there no humanity anywhere? Was it necessary to treat her like a possessed, witless creature who had no feelings, who knew nothing? I knew as surely as if she had been speaking to me that she was perfectly aware of what was going on, that she had known why they put her in the windowless ambulance. How her own heart had always been wrung with pity whenever she had caught sight of these ambulances in the İstanbul streets.

‘Poor things,’ she had said. ‘They are unwanted by their families. They are being taken to Bakırköy, where they will not be allowed to give anybody any trouble.’

I could not rest until I had tried once again to see her, to comfort her if she could still be comforted.

I left Medical Jurisprudence and got a train for Bakırköy, fretting at the long wait at in-between stations, cross because I had not taken a taxi for the whole journey.

I managed to get a phaeton at the station and was driven to the Mental Home, a grim building enclosed in lovely gardens and high, unscalable walls all about it.