Portrait of a Turkish Family (7 page)

The newness wore off and we became accustomed to the sight of Feride in the kitchen and I still continued at school. One evening when I returned from school I saw that my mother had guests. I flung my satchel on the hall table, washed my hands and went into the salon, where my greater years or the slight relaxation of discipline now gave me the right to enter freely.

A very elegant-looking lady was seated on the sofa, drinking Turkish coffee, and two children, about my own age, sat demurely with her. My light-hearted entrance was somewhat checked by their presence, for I had not realised children would be there. My mother, however, introduced me before I could turn tail and run to find İnci.

‘This is our neighbour, Madame Müjğan,’ she said and I had to step forward and kiss her hand. ‘This,’ continued my mother, bringing forward the girl, ‘is Yasemin and her brother, Nuri.’

I bowed to them both, then retired a little shyly but my mother rang for İnci and we were told to go into the garden and play together.

Once out of the presence of our elders, our shyness melted and we talked to each other freely. Nuri, I discovered, was two years older than me and Yasemin one year younger. From then on we frequently played with each other, our friendship being smiled upon by our elders. Nuri was very jealous of his sister and seemed to resent the quick friendship which sprang up between her and me. He would suddenly leave us in the middle of a game and go stalking off by himself to sulk. He was a heavy handsome boy, unable to bear the sight of his sister hero-worshipping somebody else. One day he and I had a fight and arrived at our homes with
bloodstained
noses and a couple of ripe black eyes. Our outraged parents forced us to apologise but, although we were civil enough before them, we continued the feud in private for many weeks.

One other day stands out in the memory. Yasemin and I were playing alone together in our dining-room. We were playing the age-old game of ‘husbands and wives’ and I was proudly returning from my ‘work’, greeting her with a passionate kiss when a sharp slap on the backside put paid to that. İnci had discovered us and went to inform my mother, who apparently blushed deeply, locked me in my room and escorted a tearful Yasemin to her own home. It appears that the two ladies talked long and earnestly, later informing their husbands of this dark deed, and the upshot was that Yasemin and I were separated and forbidden to play with each other again.

So Nuri got his sister back again. I would see them playing in their garden together, and if Yasemin were to catch sight of me she would give a little precocious, flirting tilt to her head, ignoring my placatory smiles.

Life was full of resentments for me just then. I was very hurt and puzzled by my parents’ attitude towards the kissing of Yasemin and angry that nobody would give any reasonable explanation as to
why
I should not kiss her. I became suddenly troublesome at home and at school, being surly with my teachers, who promptly reported this behaviour to my father. One other night I refused to eat my dinner, demanding that İnci should serve me with the sweet course first. When she refused, I bit her hand and, knowing that trouble would arise from this behaviour, added insult to injury and pinched her hard. She howled with pain and rushed to tell my mother. My father was very angry. He beat me with a stick then sent me to my room without anything to eat. In my room I angrily kicked all the furniture, hoping thereby to damage it. I tentatively used some of the swear words I had picked up from the other boys at school, half expecting that the house would fall on me with the wrath of God. When nothing happened, I used the words more freely, shouting them aloud to the empty room and, to make matters worse, I could see Yasemin and Nuri playing in their garden, uncaring of my misery.

I was so hungry I wanted to cry. After Mehmet and İnci slept, I debated with myself whether I dare go downstairs and raid the larder. Before I could summon enough courage however my grandmother crept stealthily into my room with a slice of bread and white cheese and a glass of milk. I ate ravenously and she whispered that she had been unable to bear the thought of my hunger, but that I was not to tell my mother that she had given me anything. I promised fervently and soon went to sleep.

I had been at the French school a little over two months, when one morning upon arrival all the pupils were told to go into the music-room, instead of their classrooms. 

We were very curious, especially as all the teachers were also gathered there, and wondered if we had done something awful. Presently the Director of the school arrived, going to the dais and looking sternly down at us. At least we thought he looked stern.

We said: ‘Bonjour, Monsieur le Directeur,’ and he replied in kind.

Then he spoke in Turkish, which was very unusual, but he wanted to make sure we all understood him. He said: ‘My children, this country is at war. This is a French school and my country and your country are now enemies. This school will be closed indefinitely. You may all go home now and God bless you.’

His voice cracked and his little goatee quivered mournfully. And that day too my father told my mother that a pact had been signed between Turkey and Germany and our country was now in the war.

Thus ended an era for us, quietly and soberly and with no indication that these times would never come back again.

About this time I became acquainted with Bekçi Baba. There is still a Bekçi Baba in Turkey, but the ‘Baba’ has been dropped and his duties are less onerous than they were in the old days.

Every Bekçi Baba is attached to a police-station, and thirty-five years ago many and varied were his tasks. During the day he would bring vats of drinking-water to the houses and during the night he became our guardian and our watchman.

He used to carry a large, thick stick, the bottom of which was bound with an iron rim. This was very useful when he wanted to beat a miscreant, or knock him unconscious until the police arrived. It was also Bekçi Baba’s duty to beat the drums during Ramazan, or any other religious Bayram. He had to announce important tidings or give warning if there was a fire in any part of İstanbul. This latter warning was the signal for all the young men in the district to leap from their beds, hastily collect the one and only pump allotted to each street and rush madly and with wild cheers to the scene of the fire.

I had never seen Bekçi Baba, for during the day, when he called with the water, I was never allowed into the kitchen, and at night, when he turned watchman, I was generally in bed and asleep.

But one night I was lucky for I was lying in my little bed, wide-awake, looking out at the evening sky. The pale light from the street gas-lamp shone faintly into the room and there was a great stillness everywhere. Not a soul seemed to stir in the streets and only now and then could be heard the faint, far barking of a dog. Suddenly a noise came out of the quietness – a heavy tak-tak-tak … The sound grew nearer and I heard a voice crying something but it was too far away to distinguish what it said.

My father came out into the hall. He was calling back to my mother and grandmother in the salon: ‘Bekçi Baba is coming. He’s shouting something but I do not know what he is saying. There must be a fire somewhere.’

I began to feel excited up there in my little lamp-lit room and I sat up in the bed to listen. The noise of Bekçi Baba’s stick was nearer now. It went tak-tak-tak on the cobblestones, and the old man shouted: ‘Fire! Fire! There is a fire in Beyoğlu – ’ spacing out his words carefully and clearly, so that none should misunderstand.

I jumped out of bed and ran to the window.

Bekçi Baba was coming up the road, a fearsome-looking figure with his dark cloak flapping out behind him and his stick thumping the ringing stones. He stood for a moment under the gas-lamp in front of our house, and to my heated imagination his face looked ghastly.

The poor, wavering light from the lamp leaped and flickered over his face, now lighting, now shading the prominent cheekbones and the cadaverous eye-sockets. My father called out to him: ‘Where is the fire, Bekçi Baba?’

‘Beyoğlu!’ the old man rasped and was off again on his way, his cloak still flying out behind him and his stick going tak-tak-tak far into the distance.

For a long time after I ceased to hear his voice I heard the echo of his stick coming back to me, ever fainter. Probably Bekçi Baba was still shouting of the fire in Beyoğlu. 

The end of 1914 and Turkey at war.

How little that meant to me then or to my family, save perhaps my father, who had the gift of vision and foresaw things more clearly.

Just at first there was no change in my home. It is true I no longer went to school but the events of the house continued without change.

One evening our neighbours were to dine and, war or no war, food must still be served, wine decanted. My grandmother took an active interest in this little, quiet dinner-party. She felt she could not trust Feride to do everything properly and lamented the loss of Hacer.

One of the dinner dishes she particularly wanted prepared was
lahana
dolması
– stuffed cabbage-leaves – of which she was very fond, and she spent the entire morning complaining to my mother that Feride would ruin them. Eventually she marched into the kitchen herself, tied a large overall over her black satin dress, deposited her many rings in a safe place, and started to prepare the
lahana dolması
. She explained to Feride that although she had never
actually
cooked them, she nevertheless knew perfectly well how to do it.

Apparently Feride watched her noisy preparations with a great deal of misgiving, and found difficulty in getting on with any other work, since my grandmother continually got in her way.

I was allowed into the kitchen to watch. I was continually directed to do this, that and the other – all the dirtiest jobs incidentally.

She called Feride to her side and gave a demonstration of how onions should be chopped, looked up directions in an old cookery-book, then disagreed with them. She chopped onions with great gusto, calling upon my mother and İnci to witness her handiwork. Whilst my grandmother busily explained to us how capable she was, Feride was frantically trying to interrupt to tell her the cabbage leaves were boiling over and what should she do with them? My grandmother disregarded her. My mother said thoughtfully that it did seem to her rather a lot of rice was being prepared, surely too much for a quiet dinner party of a few people? My grandmother airily disregarded her too and proceeded to wash and drain the rice. She then proceeded to mix her finely chopped onions with it, and poor Feride, unable to stand the strain any longer, burst into loud tears. My grandmother paused in the mixing, looking with astonishment at the violently weeping Feride and asked what was wrong. Poor Feride gasped between the paroxysms that shook her that the onions had first to be cooked with
şam fistiği
, nuts in olive oil,
before
being mixed with the rice.

My grandmother paused uncertainly, then demanded from my mother what the cookery-book said. The cookery-book, unfortunately, said the same as Feride.

My grandmother looked down at her messy fingers, the piles of wasted rice mixed with the wasted onions, then rinsed her hands under the tap declaring she was finished cooking. Amidst a great silence she untied her overall, put all her rings back on her fingers again and told Feride that she could make the
dolma
herself – the way the cookery-book advocated. She declared she would never set foot in the kitchen again, having expected a little gratitude from Feride, not tears. She then went haughtily out to sprinkle eau-de-Cologne on her hands. Afterwards she complained of the smell from the cabbage leaves and was all for having them thrown down the drain and vine-leaves substituted. My mother restrained her and led her to the salon still grumbling. She then began a long tirade, pointing out the shortcomings of Feride and the merits of the absent Hacer.

That evening, despite my grandmother’s poor opinion of Feride, a dish of beautiful
lahan dolmasi
appeared on the table and my grandmother told everyone she had made them herself. When she caught my astonished eye she stared so haughtily at me that it was I who was forced to blush and look away first. Indeed she half convinced me that she was right.

Our guests arrived early and were taken to the salon, where a bright fire crackled merrily in the white china stove and İnci served little dishes of
lokum
.

Yasemin and Nuri were on their politest behaviour and very demure. In the dining-room they sat with Mehmet and me at a smaller table in a corner whilst our parents ate at the big walnut table in the centre.

During dinner my grandmother talked vivaciously, even being prevailed upon to sip a little
rakı
, which brought the colour to her cheeks.

Just as dessert was being served – slices of yellow water-melon in a silver dish surrounded with ice – there came a strange, odd noise which sounded like drums. Everyone at the big table was suddenly stilled. I, noticing the silence, looked at them and saw the colour ebb from my grandmother’s face and my mother’s hand unsteadily reach out for a fruit-knife.

My father said: ‘They are playing the drums tonight – that must mean an announcement of some sort. Let us hope it is good.’

Our neighbour, Orhan Bey, replied: ‘They play the drums during Bayram or Ramazan but tonight is neither. What can it be?’

‘They play the drums for war also,’ said my mother faintly, and we all looked at her, surprised that she should intervene in a masculine conversation.

‘Şevkiye
hanım
, I hope you are wrong. I sincerely hope you are wrong.’

He spoke jerkily, fussily, unable to entirely hide his own fear.

The faint drums beat on and we finished our dessert almost in silence. The grown-ups toyed with the melon and my grandmother peeled a tangerine, cutting firmly with her knife into the bright skin, making it stand out around the fruit like a flower. She quartered it with deft fingers, then put it on her plate and sat looking at it with faraway eyes as though wondering how it got there. The drums came nearer and I started to tremble, the fear of my elders once again communicated to me.

They left the table, the ladies huddled by the window and my father and Orhan Bey going into the hall and opening the front door. I crept out after my father and stood beside him in the darkness. The drums were nearer now. They sounded their doom, their terrible message, and even to this day I cannot bear the sound of drums.

We could hear Bekçi Baba calling something but he was too far away for us to distinguish what it was he said. My father put his arms around my shoulders and I pressed against him, feeling intolerably cold and miserable. Then the figure of Bekçi Baba turned the corner of our street, a man beside him beating mournfully on the big drum. They came nearer, the drum beating ceaselessly. Dan-dan-da-da-dan-dan cried the drum and Bekçi Baba came under the lamp before our door, to shout his shattering news.

‘Men born between 1880 and 1885 must report to the recruiting centre within the next forty-eight hours. Who fails to do so will be prosecuted.’

And dan-dan-da-da-dan-dan went the drum and my heart echoed its melancholy.

Orhan Bey shouted: ‘What does it mean, Bekçi Baba?’

And the reply was: ‘War! War! Don’t you know your country is at war?’

Bekçi Baba moved off, and the old, old man with the drum followed him, to spread their news farther.

We went in to the ladies. There they stood by the window, like three flowers blown in out of the black night, their silk dresses spreading about them and their faces pale to the lips.

Madame Müjğan started to speak, then swayed uncertainly and fainted in my mother’s arms. Yasemin and Nuri ran to her, shouting ‘Anne! Anne!’ and İnci was despatched for eau-de-Cologne with which to massage the wrists and forehead of Madame Müjğan. Whilst my mother was busy with her, Orhan Bey put his arms about his two children and said: ‘I was born in 1885 – ’ and broke off, too full of tears to say any more.

He pressed his children closer to him, so close that Yasemin cried out that he was hurting her and then he released them, looking at them for a moment or two with the eyes of a sleepwalker – the eyes of a man who no longer saw two frightened children before him but the long, dark, stinking nights in the trenches and the gun-flashes to now and then lighten the sky and finally the long dark night of death.

Presently his wife recovered. He took her on his arm and with great dignity thanked my mother for her evening and for what she had tried to do for his wife.

He bade us good night. My father went with them across the garden, the two children tightly clutching his hands. Mehmet was taken away to be washed and I stayed in the salon with my mother and my grandmother.

‘Ahmet was born in 1885,’ said my grandmother.

She repeated it softly over and over again like a litany.

The next day my father left home early for he was going to Sarıyer to see Uncle Ahmet.

All that long day the house was a dead house. I tried to play in the garden with Mehmet but I was bored and uneasy, sensing accurately my elders’ alarm. There was no sign of the children from next door and the first hint of there being anything out of the ordinary about the day came with the arrival of the cook of Madame Müjğan. I was on the back porch at that time and heard her asking Feride if the
bakkal
(grocer) had been with the bread. Feride replied that she too was waiting for him, since she had no fresh bread for luncheon. They talked for a few more minutes in whispers and although there seemed to be a great sense of urgency about their talk, I could not distinguish anything. I was just left with that queer, empty feeling of there being something wrong but I could not put a name to what it was. The morning wore away. İnci set the table for luncheon but still no bread appeared. Feride eventually told my mother, who treated the matter lightly, saying that no doubt
bakkal
had forgotten us this day and gave permission for Feride to go out to buy bread. We waited over an hour for her to come back, my mother growing more and more impatient but when she did come wearily back she had no bread.

‘What is wrong?’ asked my mother, very surprised.

‘There is no bread anywhere,
hanım efendi
,’ replied Feride. ‘Since I left here I have been standing in a queue, with the people killing each other and breaking each other’s heads to get near the baker’s door. Some of them were buying twenty loaves at a time. Every family in the district is there, with all their children and their servants and all of them trying to get a loaf each. The baker had sold out before it was my turn.’

So we sat down to our meal, grumbling that we had to eat the previous day’s bread. We did not know that one day we might be glad to eat bread a week old.

During the afternoon Feride again went to hunt bread but again returned with empty hands. This time she reported that the shop was shut and that, although the queues were greater than ever, nobody knew when the shop would open. Nerves were uneasy that day and tempers broke easily. My grandmother sat reading the Koran, decorous and
pious-looking
in her black dress and her face pale. My mother sat most of the day in front of one of the windows, watching for my father’s return and her hands strangely empty. What a difference there was already in them! Looking at my grandmother, reading the Koran so soberly, it was difficult to find in her the amusing old lady who only yesterday had made us all laugh at her culinary efforts. My mother was very white, a fact emphasised by the dark stuff of her dress, and her busy hands were twining and untwining all the time in her idle lap. Once she asked İnci to fetch her a glass of wine and the request was so unusual that, momentarily, İnci forgot all her good training to stare at her in wide-eyed surprise.

My father returned in the middle of the afternoon, having been unsuccessful in finding my uncle. My aunt had told him he had left that morning, early, for the Recruiting Centre and she did not know where he was now. She was, my father observed, very distressed.

He had called at the Sarıyer Recruiting Centre on his way back to the boat-station but all had been confusion and uproar there. Harassed officials roared instructions and civilians were herded like cattle, hungry, hopeless and apathetic. No one had been able to give news of my uncle. In fact no one, it appeared, had had time to listen to my father’s questions and at one time he had been in danger of being herded with the other conscripts. My mother mentioned the incident of the bread and he laughed tiredly. The streets, he said, were full of panic-stricken people, all looking for something to buy and store. News of Turkey’s entry into the war had swept fear into İstanbul and rioting was taking place in some quarters.

He went out himself to seek bread and returned after many hours with one small, hot loaf in his hand. He looked ineffably weary and dispirited and there was a long scratch down one side of his face, inflicted by a panic-maddened woman who had tried to snatch his bread.

Dinner was a sober affair, with us children being urged to hurry and our elders silently making a pretence of eating. Gone were the leisured, laughter-filled nights of good eating and good conversation, with my grandmother tossing off sparkling, malicious epigrams and my silent, shy mother only offering her grace and beauty as a contribution to the
dinner-table
.

The next morning Uncle Ahmet came to say goodbye to us. Mehmet and I greeted him quietly, no noise, no fuss this time, for our parents’ faces set the pattern for our behaviour. He had brought boxes of
bonbons
for us and we were sent into the dining-room, whilst they discussed the serious business of war in the salon.

Some things in life stand out sharply in the memory, making a picture so vivid, so clear-cut, that the mind’s eye retains them indelibly forever. Such a precise memory I have, of that November day my uncle visited us for the last time. Sharp and cold was the morning, with sunlight playing behind the scurrying clouds. The house was peaceful and still as if great things were not happening all around it. The odd-job man was sweeping the terrace of the last fallen leaves. Feride was creating a good, appetising smell from the kitchen and İnci was pegging out the washing in the little side yard. The washerwoman sang lustily in the laundry, uncaring of the draughts which swooped moaningly from all about her. What cared she for war? And what cared Feride or the young İnci for war? Everyone that morning had something to do. I stood with my nose pressed against the window-pane and looked out to the windy, rustling garden that held its own wild, winter beauty and Mehmet played busily on the floor.