Portrait of a Turkish Family (4 page)

The long hot summer sped by and my grandfather’s death was eclipsed for me by the autumnal approach of my sixth birthday and –
CIRCUMCISION
!

Circumcision was only a word to me but as time went on it became the most exciting word in the world. It cropped up frequently in my parents’ conversations. My father would start the ball rolling by perhaps remarking that Ali, the son of the local schoolmaster, had been circumcised a few days ago and that the whole neighbourhood was still talking of his bravery. This was the signal for my grandmother to look disbelieving, furiously clack her knitting-needles and remark, disparagingly, ‘What! That unhealthy-looking child! Impossible for him to show any bravery, it isn’t in his blood!’ and she would go off at a tangent into some long story about his father and his grandfather and their lack of bravery, until I would begin to wriggle impatiently and she would check herself and end triumphantly, ‘Wait until they all see
my
grandson.’

And because she meant me a hot thrill of pride would surge through my veins.

My mother would contribute in her cool voice: ‘You are quite right, of course. My son will be as brave as a lion and we shall all be proud of him.’

Nobody ever explained what this terrible ordeal was which lay before me, requiring the courage of a lion, and I was too timid to ask though becoming more and more curious about it. One day I asked İnci to explain but she only laughed and told me to wait and see. So then I flew to Hacer for advice and she popped freshly made
baklava
into my mouth and grinned coarsely. She made a gesture somewhere in the lower regions of my anatomy but I did not understand and probably looked very puzzled, for she sobered her grinning and told me to run away and not to be bothering my head with such things. My mother was little more explicit but at least she tried to form some sort of picture in my mind. She told me that all little Muslim boys had circumcision and that it would be the start of my ‘manhood’ and that lovely new clothes were to be prepared for me, for the act of circumcising was a great ceremony in Turkey. I thought about her words but, without knowing it, she had given me a new problem to wrestle with in my already overflowing mind. What had she meant by the word ‘manhood’? Had it anything to do with my father – whom I had heard referred to as a ‘man’? It was all very odd to a small boy’s mind, but all these conversations had the desired effect of making me impatient and eager to experience circumcision.

Every evening I used to climb on my father’s knee and ask when it would happen. He would pretend to look very grave and would ask my mother if I had been a good boy that day. The answer was always yes. Indeed, since the idea of circumcision had taken hold of me, I had walked in saintliness. So then my father would promise to arrange everything before my birthday and I would swell with pride and the days could not pass quickly enough.

It became my custom to wait each evening at the side of the house for my father to return from his business. When I saw him turning the corner, I would run to open the gate for him and examine his bulging pockets, usually filled with toys or sweets for Mehmet and me. One evening he was carrying a large cardboard box under his arm and when I demanded to know what was inside it, he told me it was my circumcision robe. I was almost delirious with excitement and begged to be allowed to carry it into the house. In the hall we met my mother and I pointed out the box to her, almost bursting with pride at the thought of what it contained. She restrained my high enthusiasm and I rushed off to find Mehmet and İnci to tell them the news.

Mehmet was now two and he began to cry because the robe was for me and not for him. He wanted a new dress too, he wailed. İnci popped sweets into his mouth, telling him to stop crying for he was lucky not to be having circumcision, since it would hurt him.

It was the first time anyone had mentioned anything about hurt and I felt the first chill of apprehension. I remember that İnci stared at me with round, appalled eyes because she had told me something she had obviously been warned to keep to herself. I rushed from the playroom, down the stairs and into the salon, in my panic forgetting to knock at the door and wait for permission to enter. As I burst in my father looked at me in astonishment.

‘What is the meaning of this?’ he demanded sternly.

And I burst out passionately: ‘Baba! İnci says it will hurt me. Will it?’

My father looked swiftly at my mother, then back to me and replied: ‘Nothing will hurt you. It’s all very simple and quick, and now let us look at your robe and see if you like it.’

The subject was dismissed but I noticed that my mother gathered up her sewing and quickly left the room. I knew she was going in search of İnci and had a moment’s swift regret for what she was about to say to her.

However my father’s words had partially reassured me so it was with a light heart that I went out to the hall table, where lay the precious package, and brought it back to the salon. My mother returned in time to open it for us and I stole a glance at her face. She looked very composed but there was a slight tinge of colour in her cheeks.

The robe was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Blue it was, thick blue silk that slid against the face, embroidered lavishly with threads of gold and silver and rose. There was a blue cap in the same material, a sort of fez, and written across the front, in letters of brightest gold, was the word – ‘Maşallah.’

I was so overcome with emotion that I could not speak and my
grandmother
imperiously called for Feride and Hacer and İnci to come and see the pretty thing. Amidst their exclamations and cries of delight I strutted proudly as a peacock and was only shaken once when I saw Mehmet put out a tentative small hand to take the hat. Fortunately İnci coaxed him away from the shining wonder and my heart began to function again.

After this I became consumed with impatience. I wanted a definite day to be told me, to hold in my mind – and my shadowy fears began to grow bolder, threatening to swamp my mind. İnci had told Mehmet it would hurt. My father had assured me it would not. I trusted my father implicitly but I trusted İnci too. I could not remember a time in my life when I had not seen her black laughing face bent over me. She was as much a part of life and existence as were my fingers and toes. I began to have frightening dreams but had nobody to whom I could run for consolation. Oh the dim, incomprehensible fears of childhood and the total inability to share or lessen those fears!

At times I would run to my mother, putting my head in her lap and bursting into floods of tears. She would take me on her knee and I would smell the comforting, familiar smell of her eau-de-Cologne as I nestled against her shoulder. She would ask me to tell her what was the matter but shame and pride forbade me discussing such a purely masculine thing as circumcision with her. But one unexpected day fear and doubt became things of the past – things to be looked back on with amusement and a certain lingering shame.

That morning dawned differently from the others. In the first place my father did not go to his office and all the house was caught up in the bustle of extra cleaning. Poor Hacer was almost beside herself in the kitchen, with my mother and grandmother constantly going to inspect what she was doing. Feride was ordered to finish her work upstairs quickly in order that she might assist the near-hysterical Hacer. İnci was taken from Mehmet and me and we were left in the garden with my father, who would have been almost certainly better in his office, since the uproarious house was no place for him.

In the middle of the afternoon I was whisked off to be bathed, an unheard-of thing – since my normal bathtime came prior to going to bed. Whilst İnci was drying me, she told me that I was going to be circumcised. Just then my mother arrived, in a flutter, with a bottle of her own especial eau-de-Cologne, and practically drenched me in its sickly, overpowering smell, damping and flattening down my curls with it and rubbing it across my body. İnci screwed up her little button of a nose and said I smelled like a woman, then quickly stuck her tongue between her teeth to make me laugh. When they finally let me go – having powdered and perfumed me to their hearts’ content – the blue robe was lifted from its box and lowered over my head. The cap was placed over my flattened hair at a becoming angle, for İnci had a great sense as to how a fellow should wear his headgear.

I could hardly stand still with excitement and was several times sharply reprimanded by my mother, who was trying to pull white socks over my dancing feet and fasten intricate silk slippers. Yet even though I was excited, my stomach was playing funny tricks, and when Feride appeared with a little tray of fruit and milk it revolted in no uncertain fashion. However I was forced to swallow some milk, even though it tasted like poison, then I was taken down to my father. He held me at arm’s length and laughed at my timorous face. Hacer and Feride came to inspect and Mehmet, clinging fiercely to İnci’s red skirts, suddenly burst into loud howls – whether of envy or horror, I shall never know. He had to be taken away hurriedly for my grandmother’s frown of displeasure threatened to make him worse. The salon was full of people. Feride helped my mother dispense liqueurs and bonbons and there was a great deal of noise and laughter, with everyone drinking my health and crying ‘Maşallah’.

It had been arranged that circumcision should take place in our
neighbour
’s house, a Colonel in the Ottoman Army, for his son and half a dozen other children were also to be circumcised. Presently the
front-door
bell trilled and the Colonel was brought into the salon, very erect and military looking. The mere sight of him and what he represented was enough to unnerve me completely. He chucked me under the chin and boomed in a terrible voice: ‘Well, we’re all ready for you.’

I felt like a lamb being led to the slaughter-house. My stomach turned over and did a somersault without any help from me at all. It felt as if it were pouring away. My mother came over to me and put her arm about my shoulders.

After the Colonel had tossed off his liqueur in one gulp, having waved Feride and her bon-bons indignantly away, he joined my father. Presently they came and took my hand and we went out with the cheers of the guests echoing after us. My mother stayed behind, for it is not the custom in Turkey for the women to be present at a circumcision.

For fear my silk slippers should become soiled, my father carried me across the little side path which divided our house from the Colonel’s. The front of the house was crowded with children and one or two of the bolder ones had even entered the garden to get a better view of the circumcision robes. I would not look at them and buried my face in my father’s shoulder.

Inside the Colonel’s house everywhere was decorated with flowers and silver streamers. There was the same bustle here as there had been in our house, and as I was carried through the long hall I caught glimpses of the native servants entering and leaving the salon with trays of drinks. I was taken to a small room, which had been especially set aside for the use of the children. There were six or seven other boys there, all a little older than me and similarly robed. They talked animatedly, showing no sign of the burning fear that was now rapidly devouring me. They greeted me in a grown-up fashion and I envied their composure, and my father and the Colonel left us whilst they went to pay their respects to the adult guests. When we were alone the other boys, the eldest of whom was eight, strutted proudly about the room and talked in a very off-hand way and wondered which of us would be the first to go to the doctor.

Then a clown appeared, dancing in and out between tables and chairs and playing a flute. Presently a second one came to join him. This one juggled deftly with oranges, and they both looked so funny with their exaggerated eyebrows, their white faces and red noses, that soon we were all laughing merrily and even I was beginning to forget my cowardice. An orchestra could be heard tuning up in the salon and then a woman’s voice broke out in a little plaintive melody that reminded me of Hacer.

Suddenly I began to laugh louder than any and the clowns were delighted and redoubled their efforts to amuse us. But they did not know that I was laughing because I had had a vision of fat Hacer’s leaping, merry breasts. More and more clowns appeared and we eagerly crowded round them and they played gay little airs on their flutes and we children jigged light-heartedly about the room. The eldest of us, the son of the İmam, was very fat and pasty-faced and wore huge, disfiguring spectacles and suddenly one of the others snatched a clown’s hat and put it on his head. He looked so solemn and funny, with his eyes blinking owlishly behind the thick lens of his glasses, that we roared with spiteful laughter. He looked immeasurably silly and he just stood there quite still, whilst we shouted with laughter until the tears poured down our aching cheeks.

The Colonel appeared in the doorway and told us to go upstairs. Clowns, laughter, excitement were all forgotten and even the orchestra no longer played from the salon. We all held our breaths and looked a little fearfully around us. My father came over and took my hand and we followed the others up the stairs. How slowly I took each stair! And how each one passed seemed to seal my doom inevitably!

The fat boy was just in front of us with the İmam, his father, and he was saying: ‘Now there is nothing to be afraid of. You are the eldest boy here, therefore you must be the bravest and set an example to all the others.’

But the poor fat boy only trembled violently and looked slack with fear. The room we entered was at the far end of a long corridor, a large room that overlooked the gardens. I remember that I looked out of one of the windows, across to our garden, and I saw İnci and Mehmet playing together on a rug which had been put out for them. I wished to run to them but there was no escape. My father’s hand held mine reassuringly. He had seen my involuntary glance through the window and I think he wanted me to know that he understood.