Portrait of a Turkish Family

by Orga, Irfan

  This time it was my grandmother who broke the silence, obstinate, wayward, still indomitable.

  ‘Because you may be called to the war, Hüsnü,’ she said – ‘and I must say the possibility seems remote to me, although no doubt you think me a stupid old woman – it still seems drastic to sell your business. Your father and your grandfather built that business and surely this war which you talk about cannot interfere with the selling of our carpets to Persia and Europe. There must still be people left in the world who appreciate beauty.’

  She was answered by a shout of laughter from my father, strange laughter that sent little shivers down the spine. He said: ‘Mother, I kiss your hand and have a great respect for you and I know you will forgive me if I say you are talking nonsense. When Turkey is in this war nobody will care about our carpets or the business my grandfather built so diligently.’

  ‘Very well then, Hüsnü,’ declared my grandmother, unexpectedly capitulating. ‘I do not understand why this war can make so much difference but you are a man and know these things better than I, so sell your business if you wish but leave me my home, if you please.’

  My father sighed heavily, the sound ghostly and distinct through the vine. Perhaps his eyes appealed to my uncle, for presently I heard the deep voice of Uncle Ahmet saying: ‘Hüsnü is right, mother. You must let him sell that barn of a house and find a smaller one and you must get in supplies of food. Prices are rising, the peasants beginning to hoard their wheat. It is better to provide now against the day when the shops may be empty and you and my sister Şevkiye have to look after yourselves.’

  ‘I wish I knew why we are all so gloomy,’ said my grandmother, ‘and why we have to look after ourselves. Where will Hüsnü be?’

  ‘God knows,’ said my uncle feelingly.

  ‘Even if he goes,’ continued my grandmother, determined to be fractious, ‘he will be an officer and will be able to send us many things. He will surely not see his family hungry.’

  My father said quietly: ‘The Ottoman Army has too many well-trained officers already. They will not want more officers, they will want good material to feed the guns.’

  I did not know what he meant but apparently my mother understood for she made a little moaning sound of protest, and my grandmother was silent for once.

  I could hear my mother softly crying and my heart began to pound and my skin to prickle uncomfortably. What had happened to my mother and my jolly father? What was all this queer new talk of war, and what was ‘war’? I was wide awake and suddenly sleepless. I would like to have called down to the little group sitting so still under the protective old vine that listened to their tragic secrets. I did not know why I was afraid but I was old enough to realise that I had eavesdropped on a conversation not meant for my ears.

  The next morning after İnci had dressed me I ran impatiently downstairs, anxious to know what change there would be in my parents. They seemed perfectly normal. My mother calm as ever and my father smiling-eyed. I felt a great relief. Perhaps the night and the darkness had played tricks with my imagination and I had never heard their conversation at all.

  My uncle greeted us merrily and cut great clusters of grapes from the precious vine, with a fine disregard for economy. All that day I seem to remember that my father sat idly in the gardens, sometimes throwing sticks for the dogs, or playing with us children. He asked me if I would like to go to school, and when I enthusiastically replied in the affirmative he said he would make arrangements when we returned to İstanbul.

  I timidly asked him if we were going to leave our house and he looked startled for a moment and I thought he would ask me where I had learned this, but he did not, only sighing a little and saying that perhaps we would have to leave.

  Before going to bed that evening I sat playing alone on a corner of the veranda. My father and my uncle sat sipping wine and talking quietly together. I listened idly to what they were saying and heard the strange, new word ‘war’ repeated over and over again. The word appeared to dominate all thought lately and cropped up with unfailing regularity whenever the men were alone together.

  My father was saying: ‘The German officers are not training the Turkish Army for the sake of their black eyes.’

  ‘But,’ my uncle was inclined to disagree, ‘if we go into this new war we are finished as a nation. Already we have lost our Empire and have just come out of the Balkan war, defeated and belittled. Surely Enver’s conceit is not so great that he will see his country in ruins?’

  ‘When a man is trying to create history about his name there is little he will not do, and the Sultan is powerless, which is perhaps just as well, since there is little to choose between the two of them.’

  ‘What treasonable talk is this?’ enquired my grandmother’s voice sternly, and I looked up at her, as much surprised by her silent approach as the two men.

  ‘Treason is a word that has very little meaning these days,’ replied my father and his eyes caught mine, for I was watching him intently. ‘Where is İnci?’ he demanded. ‘Why is this child sitting here with us at this time of the night?’ and he violently rang the handbell.

  After that I heard no more disturbing talk of ‘war’, or of anything else, for my parents were most careful to see that I was fully occupied, or safely in bed and asleep before they began their unsettling conversations.

  Those days at Sarıyer passed swiftly and we children grew brown beneath the sun. My father began to fish with my uncle during the evening and idle in the gardens during the day. The ladies would go for short drives, pay calls on the one or two big houses in the district and sip Turkish coffee in the cool of the afternoon under the spreading branches of the magnolia trees.

  They looked so gay and elegant there, seated in their chaises-longues, chattering like magpies, the sun washing their vivid silk dresses to shades of pastel. Sometimes I used to stand at a little distance from them, watching them embroidering or lifting the coffee-cup to their lips with white, languid fingers that flashed fire as the sun’s rays caught the gleam of their rings. Perhaps the parlour-maid would come across the lawn to them, her apron dazzlingly white against the sombre darkness of her dress and I would feel nostalgia clutching at my heart, for I knew not what. Vague fears would begin to tremble formlessly in the mind and I would want to catch and hold that brilliant, vivid scene for ever. But at last the day came for us to leave Sarıyer and returning home to İstanbul and Feride and Hacer was filled with its own excitement.

  My aunt parcelled quantities of food for us and Hasan presented my mother with a bouquet of roses.

  As the boat passed the bottom of the garden we waved gaily to my uncle and aunt and all the servants, who had gathered there with them, and we none of us knew that we were saying goodbye to a life that had gone from the world forever.

  My aunt waved her scrap of pink handkerchief and I did not know that in after years, whenever I saw just such a pink wisp of cambric, it was to bring that day before my eyes again. I did not know of the long years of poverty ahead or that one day this I, this happy boy, would eat the grass because he was hungry.

  CHAPTER 5

  The New House and Other Things

  Murat, with the phaeton, met us at Galata Bridge, less bad-tempered this time about my rocking-horse and travelling at a sedate pace, because my grandmother was with us. On this occasion incautious pedestrians were quite safe from the hooves of the horses; but I was bored, longing for speed.

  Once home, life very quickly resumed its normal tempo again, our holiday a thing of the past and already beginning to lose its bright shape in the memory. No more talk of ‘war’ threatened to disturb our peace of mind. It was arranged that I should start at the local school and several days were taken up with the preparation of new clothes, and a smart leather satchel was purchased. Hacer made tray after tray of lokma, a heavy, syrupy sweet, for it was the custom, thirty-five years ago, for newcomers at school to provide sweets for the other pupils. I was taken to the school by my father, full of
importance and pride. We were met at the entrance by the hoca, a teacher who looked very fierce – or, at least, it seemed so to me. However, he patted my head kindly enough and my first impressions were somewhat allayed. He wore a large black beard, a black robe to match and a white sarık bound about his head. We followed him into the school, which consisted of one classroom. There were no desks, no chairs, no books, indeed no evidence to connect it with any scholastic activities. Twenty or thirty children were seated cross-legged on cushions on the floor. The hoca sat on the floor also but on a bigger cushion and away from the children. The trays of lokma were brought in by Murat, who gave a sour look at the hoca, who peered into the trays, took a few lokma between his fingers and popped them into his mouth. He chewed ecstatically, his eyes raised to heaven, then bade Murat place the trays on the floor, whilst he himself arranged the children around each tray.

  I was told to say goodbye to my father and kiss his hand, which I did, feeling vaguely uneasy for I did not like the hoca and did not think he was liable to improve upon closer acquaintance. I was given a place on the floor with the others and listened disconsolately to my father and Murat driving away. I was soon called to attention, however, by a smart rap on the head from the hoca’s large stick. It was about ten feet long, which enabled him to chastise any child without moving from his cushion. I cannot remember any lessons from that day and am inclined to think that there were none, save occasional readings from the Koran. I best remember my horrible fascination as the stick of the hoca descended on some luckless pupil’s head. It descended on mine too, frequently, and no matter how hard I tried to dodge it, the hoca was always quicker than I. Other refractory children were put in the various corners of the room and made to stand on one leg, with their hands in the air. They looked extremely funny but I was afraid to give way to my mirth, for fear the hoca should stand me there in similar position. He used to preface all his remarks with ‘Padişahim çok yaşa’ – (‘Long live my Sultan’) – and we had to chant it after him.

  That evening my father closely questioned me about the school, appearing to have been suffering from the most terrible misgivings all day. I described it to him and I noticed the glance he exchanged with my mother. My grandmother was highly indignant that the ignorant hoca should dare to beat her grandson.

  ‘Ahmet was right,’ declared my father firmly. ‘He must be sent to the French school at Gedik Paşa.’

  So ended my first and last day at the district school, İnci lamenting the trays of lokma which she evidently considered far too good to have been eaten by the hoca and his pupils. Arrangements were made with the Principal of the French school, a smart grey uniform ordered for me and primers and notebooks put into the leather satchel. In September of 1914, one month before my sixth birthday, I started school again.

  The French school was totally different from the district school. In the first place there seemed to be an abundance of teachers and many classrooms. I learned to say ‘Bonjour, m’sieu’ or ‘Bonjour, mam’selle’ as the case might be and to count to ten in French. I made many new friends at the school. The majority of the pupils were Turkish, from families in the same social strata as my own, but quite a few were French or Armenian. I soon learned to go to school by myself and would meet my friends on the way. We would bow to each other and affectedly say ‘Bonjour, mon ami. Comment allez-vous?’ for it was the fashion to ape our elders and to speak French in public, a rather grand and adult thing to do.

  Sometimes my new friends would visit me at home and I began to grow away from Mehmet and İnci. I would refuse to play babyish games with Mehmet and when he used to stagger into a room where my friends and I were gathered, would peremptorily ring for İnci and tell her to take him out of the way.

  One evening, after I had returned from school and was sitting in the salon telling my mother about my day, my father arrived home with a porter from the marketplace who was carrying several large tins. They were given to Hacer, and my father afterwards explained that these things must be filled with storable foodstuffs.

  ‘The situation is serious,’ he explained to my grandmother’s wooden face. ‘I shall go myself to the market tomorrow. Palace gossip suggests that our country will go to war. Enver and Talat Paşa are strongly pro-German, and if I have to go away I want to feel that everything possible has been done for your comfort.’

  My mother’s face grew serious and I knew that a discussion was imminent. I half expected to be sent away but my father said I might stay, adding: ‘When I am gone you will be the only man in the house, therefore you must know how to guard your womenfolk, eh?’ and he playfully pulled my ear.

  He stood leaning against a console table, and for the first time I felt him to be old. I did not know he was only twenty-six and, perhaps if I had, I should still have considered him old, for twenty-six is a gigantic age to a child. That evening he looked white and tired. Had my father been born in this age, in another country, he would not have fought in any war. He was essentially a man of peace, a good Muslim who feared his God with an awful fear and believed in an afterlife. A man who was appalled by the poverty of his people and who, in his own small way, attempted to alleviate it. The carnage and brutality and utter senselessness of war tore his heart for the ordinary man who was caught up in the military machine. I have no picture of him and his face refuses to clearly emerge from the mists of time, but my mother represented him as a thinker, a bit of a dreamer if you will, a man more fitted for the leisured life than the life he was afterwards to know. He had sure knowledge of Turkey’s muddled politics, the schemings of the peacock Enver, the treachery and greed of his subordinates, the weakness of the Sultan and the lack of organisation, the unpreparedness of Turkey for a new war.

  That evening, I remember, he told my grandmother that he had received an offer for our house, too good he estimated to refuse. She looked thoughtful and said: ‘I do not know how we shall manage in a smaller house and there are the servants to be considered too.’

  ‘Hacer must go,’ declared my father – and one wonders how it must have hurt him to talk like this to his womenfolk, he who only wanted to heap fine gifts on them. ‘Feride,’ he continued, ‘must take over the kitchen. You must arrange these domestic problems yourself but Hacer is to go.’

  ‘Oh dear!’ said my mother, ‘is it really necessary for Hacer to go?’

  ‘Yes,’ said my father. ‘One day gold will buy nothing for you. Whatever amount of stocks we get in now will only last a certain time – so the less mouths there are to feed, the better. Today the Colonel told me that all the Army are buying so fast that the shops are emptying. Murat and the horses must go too, there will be no place in a new house for a phaeton.

  ‘No!’ said my grandmother violently, standing up so quickly that she knocked over a bowl of roses which stood on a little bureau, ‘I refuse to part with Murat.’

  Fascinatedly I watched the water from the overturned bowl spreading darkly on the carpet.

  ‘This is no time to think of grandeur,’ said my father. ‘You have not seen the poverty outside your house or the bewilderment on the faces of the soldiers, with their patched uniforms and their worn-out boots. You cannot be expected to understand politics or know that our country is under the heel of the Germans. We are riddled with German influence and capital, even though we may appear to be only sitting on the fence.’

  ‘I don’t understand a thing you say,’ grumbled my grandmother. ‘And if you only want Hacer to go because of the food she eats … ’

  But though she paused, nobody enlightened her. My father had done with explanation.

  After that, quantities of food would arrive at the house for storing and the kitchen became alive with the sickly smell of jam-making and Hacer was told she would have to go. My mother moved through this activity serenely and calmly, never to my remembrance betraying her feelings. But my grandmother remained stubborn and intractable, spending most of her days paying calls – as though suddenly making up for a lifetime of ne
glected duties.

  She would sit proudly and coldly in the phaeton, ablaze with jewels and hauteur. She would have to give in to my father but she intended to go down fighting. A new house was found and bought, at a higher price than had been anticipated. The prices of everything had risen and many of the shops remained closed for long periods of each day. More and more men were taken to be soldiers and presently one saw mainly women in the streets. Servants and mistresses and prostitutes, they all had to eat and would spend their days tramping the streets in search of an open shop. Bewilderment, resignation was to be seen in all their faces but no resentment. That came later.

  The new house seemed very small after the large, rambling old Konak where I was born. No longer had I a room to myself but shared one with Mehmet. There was no playroom and we children had to use the dining-room if our parents required the salon to themselves.

  The garden was large and had many fruit trees and a pocket-handkerchief-lawn, with a lime tree standing in the middle of it. When my grandmother first saw it she snorted with disgust – if one may use such an inelegant term in connection with my grandmother. She demanded how she could be expected to live in a house that size and wanted to know where all her furniture would go. She made it quite clear that she had no intention of selling any of it.

  When I first saw the house my father said to me: ‘I hope I shall see you here as a grown man, my son, and myself as an old man. But if anything happens to me, then you will have to take my place. Perhaps many times it will be difficult for you but it will be your duty to look after your mother and your grandmother.’