Portrait of a Turkish Family

by Orga, Irfan

  He looked at my mother.

  ‘We are, unfortunately, not yet organised here,’ he said. ‘There is still a great deal to do and we have been saddled with many Kurds and Armenians from Eastern Anatolia and there are, as yet, only a few Turks. No doubt one day the authorities will make up their minds which are to remain and which are to be sent elsewhere. Our intention, hanım efendi, is to bring up a new generation of purely Turkish officers.’

  It was odd but when he commenced to speak in sentences, he forgot his stutter and poured out a lot of irrelevant detail to my mother as if now that at last he had begun to unburden himself he could not cease.

  When he had tired himself with talking he stood up and said, with the stutter back again, his mouth twitching nervously: ‘Well, hanım efendi, you may safely leave the boys in my hands. You may visit them once in a week if you wish but they will not be permitted to go home until they have had several months’ training.’

  My mother thanked him and we kissed her hands and Hüseyin Ağa shuffled out into the garden, to escort her to the main gates.

  Mehmet and I were left alone with the captain and he looked at us quizzically and we solemnly stared back at him and I remembered all the things he had told my mother. And suddenly twenty-five years seemed an awful long time, a lifetime surely, and I looked through the unclean windows into the rank, untidy gardens where the hordes of boys were streaming from the dining-room and my heart began to beat nervously.

  The gilt had worn a bit off the gingerbread. It was still true that this was the Military School, to which I had passionately wanted to come but where was the glamour I had expected, the pomp and the military splendour?

  CHAPTER 18

  More About Kuleli

  When I think back to that day in Kuleli, in that grey, dilapidated building on the hill, I cannot but be glad that it has been abolished, that the present generation of cadet-officers are better housed and study under better conditions than obtained when we were there.

  Sometimes when I see them in the İstanbul streets with their smart, dark-blue uniform, the dashing red line running down the trouser legs to show that they belong to the military caste, I cannot but remember my generation’s early years as cadets.

  That morning in May 1919 when my mother had left us and we stood there in the captain’s forbidding room awaiting his instructions, all the romance of soldiering left me.

  Mehmet and I stood there uncertainly whilst the captain rustled papers on his desk and ignored us.

  I suppose I cried myself to sleep that night. A bugle commenced to play from the garden, low and mournful and full of sadness in its isolated loneliness. It was the one thing needed to make me feel conscious of being far away from home and I buried my head in the pillow and started to cry.

  I awoke some time in the middle of the night yet no noise had disturbed me for the dark dormitory was full of gently breathing boys.

  Something was pricking my body like a thousand red-hot needles and I scratched tentatively and as I moved my arm something ran down it and my flesh crawled with loathing for my bunk was alive with bed-bugs.

  One dropped on my face from the bunk above me and I wanted to shout out with horror for the dark things that walked by night. But eventually I let them have their way with me and slept again – for exhaustion was stronger than fear.

  I awoke to a bugle playing Reveille and a Duty Student stripping the blanket from me.

  ‘Open your eyes!’ he bawled and I looked around me dazedly, having forgotten for the moment where I was.

  I moved and was conscious of stiffness for the bunk was hard and my ribs ached. To a lesser degree I was conscious of the swollen lumps on my legs and arms where the bugs had feasted all night.

  The boy in the bunk next to me told me to remove my vest and at that moment I heard the voice of the Sergeant yelling ‘Lice examination!’

  We all divested ourselves of our vests and I discovered that my body was a mass of itching sore red places. I carefully examined my vest for lice but could discover none. Plenty of bed-bugs lurked in the seams though and I picked them off with repugnance, throwing them into the bowls of water which stood beside the lower bunks. Here they furiously exerted their fat swollen bodies trying to escape from the water.

  The boy beside me proudly showed me two lice he had caught and I tried not to feel sick as he killed them, declaring to me that if one did not immediately kill the beasts they would eat one.

  The lively bugs still kicked in the water-bowls and when the lice examination had been concluded we were permitted to wash ourselves. Everyone made a great clatter entering and leaving the wash-houses for we all wore takunya on our feet.

  After dressing, with a great deal of fussiness on my part for fear vermin had embedded themselves in the seams of my jacket or trousers, we assembled in the corridor for morning Roll Call. The Sergeant read out our names in a brusque voice and meekly we all answered to our names. We filed to the dining-room for breakfast, which consisted of the black bread from the night before, a handful of black olives and the minutest possible portion of cream cheese and thick, strong tea – milkless and not sweet enough.

  Afterwards we walked in the gardens for there was nothing else to do, but soon a bell clanged and we had to assemble at the main gates where the Sergeant awaited us. He took us to a hill at the back of the school, told us to sit down on the grass, then ordered us to undress. It was another lice examination and I wondered how many times in a day this would continue. We all sat there in the morning sunlight, diligently searching our clothes and I thought of my mother and how shocked she would be were she to see her eldest son sitting naked on a hill – searching himself for lice.

  There were no lessons. The days slipped by and we continued to be ignored by the War Office and the outside world alike. They were lazy, sun-filled days and all of us had far too little to occupy our minds or our bodies, so physical exercise was mostly in the form of fighting.

  I was told one day that I was to be that evening’s Duty Student and I did not relish the idea. We were all filled with the wildest superstitious dread of the dead, believing that they had the power to come back to haunt us. That night when the retiring student had gone to bed and I was all alone now in the dark, all the old fears returned to me and it availed me nothing to tell myself that it was stupid to be afraid of the dark. It was uncannily quiet, in the way a place full of unaware sleepers always is, and I shivered a bit. The even rise and fall of their breathing was the only sound to be heard but after a bit I heard a clock striking far away, down in the well of the hall, chiming the hour. The little oil lamp flickered and seemed about to go out but it revived again.

  Nothing happened that night but I was glad beyond measure when the first pale streaks of dawn crept up from the East and finally the new day broke over the peaceful, dewy garden.

  But the new day heralded nothing for us but half-cooked food, lice examinations and fights. Our colossal boredom led us into troubles. There was no discipline anywhere, the captain was practically always invisible and the War Office seemed to have forgotten us.

  I learned that the Kurds and the Armenians were all orphans from the East of Turkey and that General Kâzım Karabekir had collected them all and sent them to Kuleli. He was a popular general in the East but when his wild young protégés from Anatolia arrived in İstanbul, everyone had immediately disclaimed all responsibility for them, so they rotted in Kuleli until some day someone would remember them. The same sort of thing applied to the Arabs and the Albanians, who were originally brought to İstanbul by Enver Paşa, but when he escaped from Turkey after the War was over, they too were sent to Kuleli and promptly forgotten.

  In the meantime the Sultan decided that he wanted Turks from good families or the sons of officers to be schooled at Kuleli, so the War Office drew up a very magnificent but unworkable plan and ignored the fact that the school was already overrun with the hordes from the East.

  The Turkish Army was demobilised – those
who were left – the War Office did nothing and famous officers were reduced to selling lemons in the İstanbul streets. It was hardly surprising that nobody worried about us.

  My mother visited us every few weeks and when she first saw us in our baggy uniforms she looked as if she did not know whether to laugh or cry. She asked many questions about our lessons, the sort of food we were being given and was disposed to lump all Kurds and Armenians as murderers. Impetuously she wanted to take us home again. She complained to the captain that the place was dirty and that she did not wish to leave us here any longer. The captain, it appeared, spread his hands expressively and repeated the same old refrain that everything was of course still very disorganised. He then gently reminded her that she had signed contracts for us and that if we were taken home he would be most regretfully compelled to send the Military Police after us. This really frightened her for it had never occurred to her that the contracts would be used against her in this fashion. Not to be entirely thwarted however she furiously told the captain with more spirit than accuracy that she would use her influence at the War Office to have us removed. The captain, no doubt having heard this before, remained unimpressed.

  My mother would come to the school unveiled and several of the older boys said she was a ‘tango’ (tart) and I became involved in many fights.

  I begged my mother to cover her face and although she indignantly refused at first, nevertheless she soon gave in. One day she complained that Mehmet and I smelled, and the next time she visited us brought perfumed soap with her. This we refused in horror, declaring that life was already sufficiently difficult for us without adding to the burden with scented soaps.

  Kuleli Military School proper, the big white palace fronting the Bosphor, was occupied by older boys – boys who would eventually graduate from there to the snobbish Military College in Harbiye.

  News circulated one day that the American occupying forces were going to take over the school for the Armenians. Rumours also spread that our turn would come too but what was to happen to all of us nobody knew and presumably nobody cared. About this time we heard too the first faint magic of the name of Kemal Atatürk, who was gathering together an Army in far-off Anatolia, who had already established a Nationalist government in Ankara.

  The news about the Americans and the Armenians proved to be true enough and one day we saw from our gardens the older boys of Kuleli bringing beds and mattresses and desks into the school gardens. Their evacuation was commencing.

  The hatred between Turk and Armenian is notorious, but that day in our grey school on the hill the hatred was intense. The Armenians could not be held, so proud were they to receive the recognition of the Americans. They swaggered and strutted and fights became more frequent than ever. When the American flag one morning waved over Kuleli, the Armenians went mad with joy and the Kurds berserk with fury. A number of broken heads resulted and the captain’s stick did overtime.

  Our turn came afterwards. One morning we had to assemble in the main hall, the old Monitors attempting to keep law and order and refusing to answer all our questions. We must have looked a rough lot standing there, in our ill-fitting uniforms, our heads cropped and our faces pasty through bad feeding. Some American officers came in through the main gates, an Armenian priest with them and a tall American woman with a flat bosom and severe horn-rimmed spectacles.

  She intimidated me far more than the officers did. A very dragon of a woman she was who would always know what was good for one. We watched them expectantly.

  First they busied themselves with the older boys and some were separated from the lines and we uncomfortably wondered what this separatedness might portend.

  Soon they came to us and an interpreter called out: ‘All Armenians step this side!’

  Many boys stepped forward, including our Sergeant. The priest – who looked quite terrifying with his black spade beard – began to ask us questions and the woman took matters into her own hands, apparently deciding that no harm would be done were she also to do a bit of separating. She glanced at us coldly as though all of us were so stupid that we did not know what nationality we were. Earnestly she peered into our faces then pulled a few more boys over to the Armenian side.

  They were Kurds she selected and I could not but be curious to know by what means she wished Armenian nationality on them. She peered closely at me too but left me in the lines.

  Soon the selections were completed and the Armenians were put into a large room off the hall. We were dismissed – no one having any further use for us.

  We eagerly ran to the garden to look through the windows of the room where lurked the Armenians. They waved happily to us, jeering and shouting rude remarks. We, not to be outdone, replied in kind. We threatened to push in their faces and the old Monitors implored us over and over again to make less noise.

  Suddenly above all the shouting I heard my name called and I recognised my brother’s voice but although I looked everywhere for him I could not find him. His plaintive voice called and called to me and fear broke over me and I thrust my way to the front of the crowd, sobbingly telling him I was coming.

  I saw him at one of the windows where all the Armenians were and I flew to him, stretching up and grasping his small hand.

  He said with hysteria in his voice: ‘They are taking me with the Armenians!’

  I did not know what to do but I clung to his cold hands until a big Armenian thrust his body between us, forcing our hands apart. I ran to a Monitor, telling him what had happened but his slowness, his indecision maddened me. I dragged him over to the American officers to explain. The interpreter pushed us aside, demanding to know how we dared disturb the lordly American ones.

  He would not listen to me and I noticed that the Armenians had been formed into long lines and were being marched out of the school. I left the old Monitor and the puzzled American officers and ran to the marching, jubilant lines searching for Mehmet. Feverishly I searched, my heart almost choking me, and when I found him I threw myself on him, holding him tightly. Someone tried to separate us and I said: ‘Leave us alone. This is my brother. We are Turks and his name is Mehmet!’

  An Armenian jeered.

  ‘My name is Mehmet too but what does that prove?’

  I pulled Mehmet out of the line but the interpreter who had come to see what all the commotion was about pushed him back again. I kicked him fiercely on the shin.

  ‘Dirty Armenian!’ I said. ‘You are taking my brother with you. He is a Turk!’

  The American officers with the woman and the priest had come up to us by this time and the woman asked what was the matter. The interpreter apparently said that nothing was wrong, bowing himself almost double in his efforts to please her. I kicked him again and one of the officers caught hold of me. Weakly I pummelled his chest, sobbing out the story in Turkish which he could not understand. As a last desperate attempt to make him understand, I jerked my head towards my terrified little brother and said: ‘Turk! Turk!’ and then as he still did not appear to understand, I searched back through the years to the fragments of French I had once known. ‘Il est mon frère,’ I said, and then he understood and he allowed Mehmet to come to me.

  The woman interfered, saying something I could not understand. I was in an agony to kill her, this stupid, righteous woman with the hard, cold face.

  ‘Cochon Américaine!’ I said in desperation and she boxed my ears but more in sorrow than in anger, her face implying that only a Muslim, an outsider from Christianity, could say such a thing. Only a Turk, her face implied, could have used this expression.

  With the Armenians gone from the school we were quieter, only the Kurds still on the lookout for a fight.

  We were still the merest handful of Turkish students but the Kurds soon tired of baiting such unresponsive elements and took to escaping to the far end of the gardens, where they could sling stones down the hill into the Kuleli gardens where walked the Armenians.

  We would see them in their smart, well-fitt
ing American uniforms and hear the bell which called them to lessons. Still we roamed, unlessoned, undisciplined and more warlike than ever.

  One day though the stuttering captain was replaced by a new Commanding Officer, and soon other officers came to the school and lawlessness became a thing of the past.

  The Kurds and the Albanians and the excitable Arabs were marched out of Kuleli and there were many of us who wondered where they went. Perhaps they flooded the streets of İstanbul in warlike waves to sleep hungry under Galata’s impersonal bridge. We none of us ever knew.

  CHAPTER 19

  Growing up the Hard Way

  Once again the Occupation Forces stepped in to disrupt our lives for one day they ordered us out of our school on the hill within forty-eight hours.

  The Commanding Officer announced the news with a grim, disillusioned face and instructed us to assist the young teaching officers to remove all the furniture into the gardens, then he stumped away from us for he was going to İstanbul to thresh the matter out with the authorities.

  We worked all through that long summer day. The heat was intense as we staggered beneath tables and chairs and bunks and mattresses. Towards early evening we broke off to eat a hurried meal then continued working well into the night by the light of oil-lamps strung from the trees at intervals. Once an officer stopped me as I stumbled beneath the weight of a bed. He ordered me to find somewhere to rest and I dragged out a mattress from beneath a pile and searched for my brother. I found him under a tree, already half asleep on the hard ground. When I called to him he obediently rolled himself on to the mattresses and slept on the instant. The next morning my back was painful and I asked Mehmet to examine it.

  He found a great red weal running across it and my vest had stuck to the dried blood for I had probably injured myself when I was hauling beds across the garden.