Portrait of a Turkish Family (9 page)

On came the thundering trains bound for Edirne and God knew what hell afterwards. On the other line we saw a Red Crescent train come in and I felt my mother shiver beside me, as she said to my grandmother: ‘An ambulance train, mother! I wonder if they are sick or wounded soldiers?’

And my grandmother replied: ‘Stop tormenting yourself like this.’

The Red Crescent train slipped past with its weary travellers and then another train, coming in the opposite direction, caught our senses. With such suddenness that we were almost startled, we saw my father’s face at a window and his white handkerchief waving to attract our wavering attention.

‘Look!’ Mehmet shouted. ‘It’s Baba!’

My mother waved to him and threw reckless, last-minute kisses, half laughing, half crying in her excitement. As the train roared past, my father leaned far out of the window and shouted: ‘Goodbye! God bless all of you!’

And my mother cried back to him, ‘Not goodbye, Hüsnü!’

But the train had passed on so perhaps he never heard what it was she said to him, those last, poignant words which she did not know were to be her last words to him.

One little moment more we saw his outstretched hand and the waving, waving handkerchief, then that too was gone and he was gone and the cold morning seemed suddenly colder. We returned home to a warm fire but the chill that was in our blood took a long, long time to thaw.

But life had still to march on and the slow, agonising days of waiting for news to be lived through. Then other problems began to present themselves, creeping insidiously into the normal pattern of life and disrupting it. Firstly arose the problem of food. For weeks past Feride had been using our reserve stocks and my mother became alarmed by the rapidity with which they ran down. Six of us to be fed several times in a day made great inroads on flour and sugar and rice. Feride spent more time hunting open shops than she did in the kitchen. Our bread consumption was cut to the minimum. Sweets with luncheon became things to be remembered and fresh milk was scarce and costly. When it could be bought, it had to be boiled for several minutes before it was safe to drink and was almost half water. The odd-job man was dismissed, since formerly he had always had all his meals in the house. The washerwoman was, for the moment, retained since she only ever came once a week and she was deemed a necessity.

My grandmother professed to take no interest in these domestic problems but many times I heard her grumbling voice declaring that in her time six servants had been necessary to run her house and that now my mother expected to get the same results with two and a washerwoman. My mother ignored her. She had ceased to be a lady of leisure and was frequently to be found in the kitchen these days during Feride’s shopping expeditions. Prices had suddenly become fantastic, and when food could be bought, treble its normal price was asked. But in those days our trouble was not one of money. When my father had sold his business he had brought all the money home to us, in notes and in gold, and it was decided to keep this large amount in the house, since banking systems were deemed to be too intricate for my mother to understand. So the undefended money lay in the house, many thousands of
liras
dangerously reposing in a flat wooden box in my mother’s bedroom. And none realised the danger of that arrangement.

My grandmother had no money of her own. My grandfather, according to old Turkish custom, left everything with my father, merely stipulating that my grandmother should be cared for all her life. Since this was the usual manner of leaving possessions or property, my grandmother felt no resentment. She had many fine pieces of jewellery and the lack of ready money was no drawback to her. She had never been allowed to handle money in her life, rarely went out anywhere and had no knowledge of the value of anything. She got impatient if my mother complained of the dearness of things and could not be made to understand why no sweets were nowadays served with luncheon. She had a great appetite for the heavy, syrupy Turkish sweets, made with butter and eggs, and accused my mother of trying to starve her, now that there were no menfolk in the house to defend her. She would imperiously demand fruits or bon-bons and sulk when she was told she could not have them. And she complained that her Turkish coffee was not sweet enough and took to secreting little packets of sugar about her person, tipping a little surreptitiously into her cup when my mother was not looking.

As the winter grew more severe she became more and more
cantankerous
and would sit huddled over the fire in the salon, wrapped in numerous shawls. She was morose and irritable, her appetite insatiable and she found fault with everything. One morning she threw us all into a flurry by announcing over breakfast that she was going to Sarıyer, where she insisted she would get more to eat than she was getting with us. She demanded that Feride should accompany her, remaining with her during her stay with Aunt Ayşe. My mother indignantly opposed the idea, asking what she was expected to do without her treasured Feride. My
grandmother
grunted, implying tacitly that she neither knew nor cared. She wanted Feride and that was all there was to it. However, in the end it was all arranged to everyone’s satisfaction. Feride would accompany my
grandmother
but would return to us that same evening. We bolted our meagre breakfast and Feride tore herself in little pieces, trying to do too many things at once. But at last we got them off, my grandmother having her last little grumble because she had to travel to Galata Bridge in a hired cab.

Mehmet and I followed my mother into the kitchen, where she was going to take Feride’s place for the day. She wore an apron over her pretty dress and we were set to work to help her. I was put to peeling potatoes, a job I loathed only a little less than I loathed the taste of potatoes. Mehmet was given the easiest things to do and happily staggered about, taking the dried cutlery into the canteen in the dining-room, hanging cups and managing to break a few.

‘Times are changing,’ said my mother to me conversationally, briskly shaking out the freshly washed kitchen-cloths. ‘Perhaps there will be many things you will both have to learn to do until this war is over. When your father comes back again everything will be all right but until that time we must all learn to look after ourselves. Your grandmother is old and she does not understand things, therefore we must have patience with her.’

She sounded hard and a bit impatient and I wondered why she spoke of my grandmother like this. She felt me watching her and said: ‘She is a very good woman but she will not accept the fact that there are many things we cannot get nowadays. All those little luxuries your grandfather used to bring her – ’

And she broke off, pondering on the changed conditions. Her hands looked red and ugly and I was horrified to see that they looked like Feride’s or İnci’s. All their smooth, cool whiteness seemed to have
disappeared
. She caught my look and smiled at me, then glanced back to her rough hands and seemed proud of them. I thought she was very brave. She was only twenty-two at that time, well born and accustomed to the sheltered life that only the well-born women of old Turkey really knew. Yet she had taken on her shoulders the responsibility of us children and my grandmother and was so sensitive to the welfare of her servants that she shared their work willingly. She could not sit idle whilst two servants did the work of four and, despite the fact that she was a shocking cook in those days, was always ready to help in the kitchen, humbly learning from the experienced Feride.

During my grandmother’s sojourn at Sarıyer we received a letter from my father. He was somewhere near Edirne, was well but worried because no letters were being received from us or from Uncle Ahmet, to whom he had repeatedly written. He wrote of his longing to be with us and of the appalling misery of the Turkish soldier. It was the first news we had had for many weeks and it was like a tonic for my mother and we heard her lilting, singing voice again about the house.

My grandmother brought back news that Uncle Ahmet was at Şam, in Syria, and that my aunt was worse than we had suspected. Sarıyer, she said, was in a shocking condition, all the young men having gone to the war and only the old ones left to look after the estate, with no supervision to guide them. She brought back eggs and chickens and fresh butter, eagerly saying that Feride could now make for us some nice, heavy, sticky sweets. My mother was going to indignantly veto any such idea but perhaps the old lady looked pathetic, for she suddenly relented and let my grandmother have her way. The visit to Sarıyer had done a lot of good for my grandmother. I think the state of things there had depressed her unutterably for now she took to doing small things about the house and stopped complaining, appearing genuinely glad to be back in the sane, healthy atmosphere of our house.

One day the wife of the local İmam paid us a surprise visit. She was a vast caricature of a woman with treble chins and a bosom that shot straight out like a board. She sat very upright in the salon, obviously not wanting the presence of Mehmet and me. My mother apologised for us, explaining that İnci had so much else to do that she could not be expected to look after us exclusively. The İmam’s wife nodded gravely and said she quite understood, but her hard eyes raked us with positive dislike and I felt quite sure she did not understand at all. She settled herself comfortably near my grandmother, beginning to talk in a penetrating, sibilant whisper. She was telling her that a certain well-known gentleman of our slight acquaintance, a rich, eccentric old gentleman, was looking for a wife! She put a world of meaning into that one word.

‘Why?’ demanded my grandmother blankly and with such astonishment in her voice that the İmam’s wife huffily sniffed that she did not know but that it was no unusual thing for a gentleman to want a wife. Energetically my grandmother replied that it was highly unusual for the gentleman in question. The İmam’s wife made no comment and then my mother came in with coffee and for a while the subject was not discussed. But as though drawn by a magnet the visitor could not keep away from the matter for long. This time she came straight to the point and propounded the amazing suggestion that my grandmother should marry him herself. We were all flabbergasted. And taking our astonished silence for approval she continued by saying that the old man had himself expressed a great preference for my grandmother! He only waited for her to give her decision before formally declaring his intentions when, we gathered, he would eagerly like a young man leap into the arena and carry her off for himself.

There was an astounded, disbelieving silence when the İmam’s wife had finished speaking. I sat on the floor gaping foolishly until my mother – an exasperated, angry note in her voice – told me to go out of the room immediately and to take Mehmet with me. I rushed in search of İnci to tell her what I had overheard. Her reaction disappointed me for she sagely nodded her crinkly head and said that she knew all about it. I could not believe her but she assured me that every servant in the neighbourhood knew for they had been informed many weeks ago by the old man’s cook – who was too astute to let much pass her ear.

I could not imagine anyone wanting to marry my grandmother for she seemed incredibly, unromantically old to me though İnci pointed out that she was still several years short of fifty and a recognised hostess in the district. What this had to do with her marriageable qualities I did not know but İnci assured me they were both very important.

I heard no more about the matter for several days for my mother would not discuss anything of such a delicate nature before us. Neighbours took to more frequent visiting, to my usually hospitable mother’s annoyance for she had to provide coffee for them and sugar was short. Madame Müjğan breathlessly arrived to give her advice. She pointed out what an excellent match this would be since the old man was fabulously wealthy, owning many coal depots and wharves and heaven knew what else. And – best of all in their opinion – he had no tiresome relatives to interfere saving a nephew who could be trusted to behave. My grandmother noticeably weakened and my mother grew more and more tight-lipped, seeing the whole situation as a farce.

‘Have you lost your senses?’ she demanded one day in exasperation. ‘What do you suppose Ahmet and Hüsnü will say to such a marriage?’

My grandmother replied that Ahmet and Hüsnü had their families around them and that she had nobody to care about her and that she did not wish to grow old and lonely and a burden to all about her in this house.

My mother turned her face from such reasoning and a coldness blew shatteringly between the two of them. Mehmet and I were insatiably curious for knowledge, anxious to know the outcome of such an odd, unorthodox courtship, but little enlightenment came our way. Then one day my grandmother defiantly announced that her mind was made up and that she was going to marry her rich old man. Mehmet and I wriggled with excitement but my mother received the news coldly, merely saying that she would immediately set about listing my grandmother’s furniture and belongings, as she supposed she would be taking them to her new home. Never was a marriage arranged with such lack of warmth, such formality. New clothes were prepared for everyone and Feride drew again on our precious food stocks, for a reception was to be held in our house.

On the marriage morning, Madame Müjğan, the İmam – who was going to perform the ceremony – and his capacious wife and several neighbours gathered in the salon to await the arrival of the bridegroom.

My grandmother looked pale and composed and utterly magnificent in grey watered silk, a material all the rage at that time in İstanbul. The old man arrived in his carriage, his nephew assisting him into the house for he was very gouty. The İmam read from the Koran and after a few minutes my grandmother became a bride again for the second time in her life. Congratulations, false and unreal as a winter’s sun, broke out, liqueurs and bon-bons were distributed before the more serious eating really began. My mother drank to the couple’s health but looked forbidding and was nothing more than politely formal to my grandmother.