Last Train to Istanbul

by Ayşe Kulin

  It was her paternal grandmother who had first planted the seeds of jealousy in her heart; she always made such a thing about being tall. Sabiha still remembered how her grandmother would check their height against the bedroom door almost daily, and what a fuss she had made when Selva, two years younger than Sabiha, had reached the same height. She believed that she and Sabiha, with their opalescent green eyes, were cut from the same cloth, and longed for her granddaughter to be tall and slender. As she marked off her height with a pencil, she would scold Sabiha: “You’re not drinking enough milk. Look at Selva—she’s getting taller and taller. You’ll stay a midget if you’re not careful.” Sabiha even heard her grandmother telling Leman Hanım off when her mother tried to erase the pencil marks on the bedroom door with soap and water. She overheard her mother saying, “Please don’t do this. You’re subjecting poor Sabiha to unnecessary pressure.”

  “I am doing it deliberately in order to encourage her to have more dairy products.”

  “Dearest Mother, it isn’t quite as simple as that. Genes are genes. Selva has taken after my grandfather; Sabiha hasn’t. It is as simple as that and very little can be done about it.”

  “Oh God! Dear God! How can you say that? Do you want your daughter to remain a midget?”

  “She isn’t a midget at all; she is quite normal for her age. It’s the other one who is like a beanpole.”

  “Height is a wonderful thing. It suits both men and women. I just love it.”

  “I don’t think it suits women. Women should be tiny. After all, don’t they say good things come in small packages?”

  Sabiha was too young to appreciate the wisdom of the proverb and returned to her bedroom. She was her father’s beautiful daughter, and Selva was his intelligent one. No matter how Fazıl Reşat tried to cover up his weakness for his younger daughter, he couldn’t hide it. His admiration was obvious to anyone who saw the affectionate look in his eyes. He wasn’t impressed by Sabiha’s beautiful green eyes framed by very long eyelashes that were just like her mother’s. Sabiha knew only too well that her father was far more impressed by brains than beauty. She was used to that, but now this height business too. Small package indeed! She was what she was, a small package. She had the more beautiful face, but that didn’t count. She was still a shorty compared to her sister, a full handbreadth shorter, a small package. Sabiha buried her face in her pillow and cried.

  Selva sat innocently admiring her sister, not knowing of Sabiha’s guilty feelings because she was scheming to avoid potential rivalry.

  “Rafo is indeed a gentleman,” Sabiha said, “and what’s more, he’s very handsome. I don’t suppose it would do any harm to flirt a little.”

  “Do you really mean that?”

  “Yes, why not? Why don’t you invite him to the end-of-term ball?”

  “You must be joking—they would never allow it.”

  “I could come with you.”

  Selva threw herself into her sister’s arms and nearly drowned her with kisses.

  “I didn’t realize how much you thought of Rafo. Why didn’t you say something before?”

  “Well, I have now, so there.”

  Selva looked at her sister with her big brown eyes. Why this sudden change of heart? she thought.

  Sabiha was thinking too. How would Macit react to her younger sister dating a Jew? Would he mind? Somehow she didn’t think so. After all, a young man educated in France must have more worldly ideas. Why should he care if her sister was flirting with a guy who had a different religion? Better she was flirting with him than no one at all. But then, if that was the case, maybe Macit would be interested in Selva, being taller and doe-eyed, and with bold ideas.

  “Come on, then, let’s invite them both to tea. You can concentrate on Rafo and I’ll look after Macit.”

  Selva clapped her hands with joy.

  A week later, they were all enjoying a lovely tea party. Selva’s classmates rehearsed their play, and then wound up the gramophone to dance the fox-trot to their 78s.

  The following day Leman Hanım couldn’t help asking her eldest daughter about Rafo. “Did you see how Selva kept looking at that Jewish boy? She was almost devouring him every time he spoke.”

  “He’s a polite young man. As far as I am concerned, he is more of a gentleman than those Turkish guys who are so full of themselves.”

  “The Alfandaris are an old, established family. They come from a line of palace doctors. They have savoir faire, but all the same, our girl is…well, you know what she is like. She is unpredictable and stubborn. She has a mind of her own.”

  “Yes, Mother, but Rafael wouldn’t dare take things further with Selva. Please don’t worry. Besides, don’t forget that I am around, and if I notice anything untoward, I’ll tell you.”

  Sabiha’s promise relaxed Leman Hanım a little. After that first tea party, the same group went to several concerts and picnics together, and each time, Leman Hanım sent Kalfa along as a guardian.

  Sabiha and Macit became engaged to marry soon but, according to tradition, Leman Hanım insisted that Selva accompany the couple whenever they went out together. Sabiha turned this to her advantage. The three of them left the house together and went off to a prearranged point, where Rafo would be waiting. From there the two couples went their separate ways until it was time to return home. By the time Sabiha realized how wrong this was, it was too late.

  Eighteen months later Sabiha and Macit were married. After a splendid wedding, they moved to Ankara so Macit could take up his position in the foreign ministry.

  Selva started university, studying literature, while Rafo decided to follow in his family’s footsteps and study chemistry. Rafo often picked up Selva from her classes or, if he had time, even attended her lectures, just so he could be near her. Some of the other students took exception to this and sometimes picked fights with him because he was daring to court a Muslim girl. One of them remonstrated with Selva: “Can’t you find someone of your own religion in the whole of Istanbul?” Another student from the East said, “If you were back home, we’d shoot you for this!”

  “Are you really proud of those primitive thoughts?” asked Selva. “How does shooting a person reconcile with being a Muslim, I wonder?”

  The situation escalated with continual abuse and harassment toward them until, finally, two years into his studies, Rafo had to leave the university. Selva was distraught; Rafo had had to leave because of her. She began to skip lectures and by the end of the year had left the university altogether too. She found it very difficult to explain all this to her father.

  Gossip about the love between the son of the Alfandaris and the younger daughter of Fazıl Reşat Paşa gradually spread to the family. When it got back to Leman Hanım’s ears, she took action to try to keep it from her husband. Rafo was banned from visiting the house and Selva wasn’t allowed to go out alone. She spent her time playing the piano, reading books, and corresponding with her sister in Ankara. The only people she saw were either close family friends or relatives.

  Fazıl Reşat Paşa wasn’t very happy with his wife’s strict attitude toward Selva. He thought that Leman Hanım was devoting too much energy trying to control Selva now that Sabiha was living away from home. He suggested that Selva should be sent to stay with Sabiha on the pretext of helping her with the new baby. Leman Hanım liked the idea and hoped that her younger daughter might meet a suitable young man.

  Having received many letters from her mother on this subject, Sabiha set about introducing Selva to as many of their friends as possible. She organized parties at home and took Selva along whenever they were invited out. Through Macit she introduced Selva to every eligible bachelor in the Foreign Office. Many of the young men took a shine to Selva, but none really interested her. She left them all in Ankara and returned home.

  Then Leman Hanım insisted that Selva should spend some time with her uncle in Cyprus. The poor woman hoped that if her daughter went away, the flame inside her would burn out, and tha
t would put an end to the gossip. All of these frantic efforts came to nothing. Selva kept that flame alive through her correspondence with Rafo wherever she was.

  It was inevitable that Fazıl Reşat Paşa would hear about it, and when he did, he was furious. The paşa confronted his daughter.

  “Is what I hear true? Please tell me that these are false accusations spread by nasty-minded people. Tell me that it’s malicious gossip,” he said.

  “I wish I could, Father, but I love Rafael Alfandari with all my heart, and if you should grant us permission, I will marry him.”

  “Never! Over my dead body! Do you really expect me to permit such a thing? Doing that would destroy all of our family values and make a mockery of us all. Is this how you repay me for taking such care of you and sending you to foreign schools?”

  “I had thought that my education was meant to expand my horizons, that you wanted me to be an equal, Father.”

  “I had you and your sister well educated hoping that one day you would present me with grandchildren, not so you’d rebel against me.”

  “Rebelling against you is the last thing on my mind, Father; all I ask is that I choose my own life’s partner. I am not asking you to accept an immoral, worthless person as a son-in-law. The only thing you can object to is that he is not a Muslim. Haven’t you told us on countless occasions that people should be free to worship exactly how they wish and that every belief was holy?”

  The gravity of the situation brought about a rage that could not be associated with the sort of gentleman Fazıl Reşat Paşa was. He managed to control his actions around his daughter, but the moment he dismissed her he set about breaking every single crystal vase and mirror in the room.

  Sabiha was asked to come from Ankara at once to try to help calm her father down and to persuade Selva to give up her obsession. Both she and Leman Hanım spent days on end trying to bring Selva to her senses.

  Leman Hanım was beside herself. She couldn’t sleep at night and spent hours walking from room to room tearing at her hair. How on earth did we come to this? Why the hell did I allow that snake to slither into my house? Why didn’t I see this coming?

  Seeing her mother’s despair made Sabiha feel very guilty, but she didn’t have the strength to tell her mother the truth. If she had only been able to say, “It’s not your fault, Mother, it was me, I used Rafo to get Selva out of my way.” Just these few words would clear her conscience a little. She had even wished that she were a Catholic. If she were, it would simply be a matter of confession, accepting whatever penance was meted out by the priest. At least she would have been able to rid herself of this burden. Realizing that Selva was a lost cause, Sabiha turned her attention to her father. He felt that Sabiha had made a good choice and found an ideal husband, but she couldn’t even rejoice in that, knowing how she had gone about it.

  Fazıl Reşat Paşa felt completely betrayed. He had brought up his daughters to be part of the modern world—exactly the same as if they’d been sons—as was expected by the new republic. They had had good educations, spoke several languages, and were fit to play active roles in society. But he was beginning to have second thoughts now. What exactly had he achieved, having such great ambitions for them? Hadn’t his eldest daughter married before she was nineteen, just like in the old days? As for the younger one—that wise, clever, quiet girl with personality to spare—hadn’t she betrayed him in the cruelest way? This all seemed to be a terrible nightmare. What made it even worse was that Selva had used all the advice he had ever given her against him.

  Fazıl Reşat Paşa realized he had been wrong; the only honorable thing an officer and gentleman could do was to pay with his own life. He felt sure that if Selva saw him dead she would realize how foolish she had been. Maybe she would change her mind if she saw that his only peace lay in his grave.

  Selva wrote a note to her father saying that, as the family didn’t approve, she would not marry Rafo, but that she would not give him up. Fazıl Reşat Paşa went ahead with his suicide attempt, but it was foiled by Kalfa, who wrestled the gun from him, causing him to shoot himself in the shoulder.

  This emotional blackmail annoyed Selva more than it frightened her. “It has become impossible to live in this city,” she told her sister. “We are going to live in France. His family is against our marriage too. We have no alternative under these circumstances.”

  Leman Hanım swallowed her pride and sent word to Rafo, asking him to reconsider this move. The only real problem was his religion. Maybe he could convert to Islam. If he were to do that, then maybe they could persuade Fazıl Reşat Paşa to accept him into the family.

  Selva didn’t give Rafo a chance to respond to this preposterous suggestion, telling her sister, “I’d rather give him up than ask him to change his religion for me. What sort of people are you? Can you imagine if the boot were on the other foot? How would you all feel if he asked me to change my religion to please his family?”

  Macit was then asked to try to intervene. Maybe the young rebel would listen to her brother-in-law, because she loved him very much.

  “Macit, I am sure you know about the Jewish way of life. They believe that the children should follow the mother’s religion. Can you imagine what it would mean to them to have a daughter-in-law of a different religion? Oh, Macit, why is there all this fuss? Something that should bring joy has turned our lives into a nightmare.”

  “Listen, Selva, we can talk about religion till the cows come home, but let’s first of all try to solve this problem. To begin with, why are you being so stubborn about asking Rafo to convert to Islam?”

  “It’s a matter of principle, Macit; we fell in love knowing exactly where we came from. Everyone has the right to their own beliefs. Had he asked me to convert, I would have been hurt and angry myself. No! Rafo will never change his religion! Please give my apologies to my father.”

  “You should apologize yourself. Give it another try. Speak to him.”

  “He refuses to see me.”

  In despair, Leman Hanım, caught between a stubborn husband and an equally stubborn daughter, broke down and sobbed. “Let her marry the Jew! God forbid we should have to bear the shame of our daughter living as someone’s mistress.”

  Selva and Rafo were married that September at the Beyoğlu registry office in Istanbul, in the presence of two witnesses and a handful of friends. After the ceremony the small group dined at the Pera Palace Hotel, where the young couple spent the night before leaving for Paris by train the next morning. None of Rafo’s family was at the station, but Leman Hanım and Sabiha were there on the platform to say good-bye. Leman Hanım chose to ignore Rafo but waved to Selva as the train pulled away. Selva returned their waves. Her outward calm covered her inner turmoil. The three women continued waving to each other until the train was out of sight.

  On the way home, Sabiha felt a sudden sharp pain, as if she were being stabbed by a knife. The sister she had been jealous of for all those years had disappeared in the black smoke of the train. No more rivalry, no more sharing their parents’ affections, no more sharing her husband’s admiration. They were all hers, now that Selva would be hundreds of miles away. Strangely, instead of feeling relieved, Sabiha felt inconsolably sad.

  About a month later, Sabiha was again called back to Istanbul. Leman Hanım had had an acute attack of asthma as well as uncontrollably high blood pressure. Both parents had been continuously ill—one after the other—since Selva’s departure. They seemed to be falling apart at the seams. If it wasn’t blood pressure, it was chest pains; if it wasn’t chest pains, it was rheumatism; one thing after another. Each time there was a problem, Sabiha came from Ankara on the night train and remained until her parents had recovered.

  When she returned to Ankara, Sabiha took off her nurse’s hat and put on that of a diplomat’s wife, carrying out her duties. The cocktail parties, dinners, and receptions she once enjoyed dressing up for now became a chore. She continued to attend them, but she no longer enjoyed being part o
f the crowd. She was permanently miserable, guilty at having been the culprit; yes, she was the devil that had imposed all the pain and turmoil on her family for her own ends. Time and again, she tried to discuss the matter with Macit, but he would only say that she wasn’t to blame; her bullheaded sister would never change her mind, whatever they said. It was obvious that he was bored of the subject. What had happened had happened. What was the use of opening up old wounds?

  ANKARA

  Sabiha had made a few friends in Ankara, especially among the mothers at her daughter’s school. There were also the wives of her husband’s colleagues, most of whom had been raised in Istanbul too. These ladies would often get together to play bezique or bridge. In fact, Sabiha had her own bridge group. But since Selva had married and left for Paris, more often than not she preferred to stay at home and read a book or play the piano. She was almost scared that if she went along, the inevitable gossip session would turn to Selva, and she didn’t want to face their questions.

  Leman Hanım, despite her various ailments, was better at dealing with the gossipmongers. Whenever the subject was raised in her presence, she would simply say, “Our daughter went ahead with her own life, although we obviously didn’t approve. We may be apart but we certainly include her in our prayers. There is nothing more to say on the subject.”

  Sabiha would react to this by thinking, That’s OK for you, Mother. You have no reason to have a guilty conscience.

  Sabiha’s best and most trusted friend in Ankara was one of Macit’s young clerks, Tarık Arıca.

  Tarık was born in Malatya in eastern Anatolia; he went to primary school there, then secondary school and then the lycée in Sivas, all of which gave him a good grounding for the Istanbul School of Political Sciences, where his excellent results enabled him to join the ministry. He was very bright, eager to learn, and gained rapid promotions. The only problem was his lack of languages, but he was determined to put this right. He took weekend classes in French and studied very hard. Having heard from Macit that Sabiha spoke very good French, he asked if she could help him and she gladly agreed. If he hadn’t any commitments in the evening, he would visit the house and sit and talk to Sabiha in French until dinnertime. Selva would send French magazines to her sister and she in turn would pass them on to Tarık and help him solve the French crosswords. Sabiha grew to love this bright, calm, honest young man; he hadn’t an ounce of prejudice or malice in him. In a way Sabiha felt that Tarık and Selva were very similar in character. One day she plucked up enough courage to tell Tarık about Selva’s scandal. What a relief to be able to tell someone; what a weight off her mind. Maybe her depression was caused from trying to hide the truth. If only Macit wouldn’t stop her talking about it. Macit had behaved this way in order to stop his wife from getting upset. What he hadn’t realized was that she needed to open the floodgates; she needed to cry, stamp, and kick to release all her pent-up tension. Now that she had such a good, trusted listener as Tarık, she was relieved. He had read between the lines and he understood the problem entirely. He hadn’t asked painful questions; he had just listened. Tarık never spoke to Macit on this subject. This was between Sabiha and Tarık alone.