Portrait of a Turkish Family

by Orga, Irfan

  1925 is also memorable for me because I met Suna. She was sixteen and we saw each other at weekends, our meetings being a great secret from our families. When I had enough pocket money we would go to a cinema, where we could sit and hold hands in the dark, never bothering to watch the flickering, leaping shadows on the screen. At other times we would climb the hill to the Casino, where we would drink iced lemonades through straws. If I had no money we would walk in Gülhane Parkı or join the crowds on Galata Bridge to watch the boats. I loved to do this but Suna was not interested in a remote future of travel and would complain that the boats were smelly and noisy and gave her a headache. Nevertheless I was sadly and tenderly in love with her.

  Sometimes I and a few others would take our textbooks into the country at weekends, asking farmers on the way if we could buy cucumbers or tomatoes from them. Usually they permitted us to take as much as we wished and then would refuse to accept payment from us. Well laden we would go to the top of the hill above Kuleli, a quiet lovely spot where a little spring trickled icily, and we would put our vegetables or fruits here to wash them before finding a comfortable place to study. Time passed swiftly there in that tranquil place. When we were hungry we would feast royally off the collection of food, feeling at peace up there in the lonely, silent hills.

  Sometimes tiring of study I would lean against my particular fir tree and look down to the Bosphor shining coolly below me. There was a good view from that tree, I remember, right down the Bosphor to the Black Sea. Little Bebek was in front of me in all its shimmering morning beauty. If I turned my head a little to the right I could see the famous fortress walls on the Asian side. Back again to İstanbul to that other fortress, that old crumbling fortress built in 1451–2, and the parts I could see from my tree are the narrowest parts of all – being a little over six hundred and forty-nine metres only – and there is a story about this which says that the Sultan Mehmet once approached the Emperor Constantine and asked to be granted a piece of land on Europe’s side. Constantine, it appears, acceded to this request, stipulating that the land would only be the size of a cow’s skin. So Sultan Mehmet took a cow’s skin, had it cut into narrow strips. He then laid them end to end and built his fortress according to this measurement, and no matter how the Emperor protested he was always told the one thing – that the land only measured just so much as a cow’s skin.

  When I was a child how often I heard this story!

  And all down the Bosphor, down, down to the Black Sea, ran the tall trees and the old wood houses that suit the skyline so well. If I turned my head to the left there on the hilltop, I could see the Dolmabahçe Saray white and artificial as a wedding cake in its peaceful setting. Miniature mosques front the water’s edge and there at the end of all the shining palaces lay İstanbul – my İstanbul that will forever hold something of my heart. Grey it would look from this hill and the smoke from the boats would lie over it like a soft veil and tall and tapering are the minarets that enchant the skyline, and from my hill I would see, behind the mosques, the Marmara like a faint line of thread.

  Study would be suddenly hard and I would turn back to the books reluctantly, only half aware of the printed word.

  Towards evening, when the sun grew kinder, we would put away our books and stroll down the hill to Anadoluhisarı, where we would play football – for we never forgot to bring the football whatever else we might forget.

  Later in the soft green dusk, the hot day behind us only a memory, we would return to Kuleli and there was no one to notice our coming – save perhaps the fishermen in their rowing-boats and to them we were no novelty.

  CHAPTER 21

  A Bayram Morning and a Journey into Bleakness

  A Bayram was approaching and Mehmet and I hurried into İstanbul for three days’ holiday and money in our pockets with which to buy presents for the family, as was the custom at Bayram. When we got off the boat at Galata Bridge we automatically made for the Kapalı Çarşı – a sort of covered market very famous in İstanbul. Most of the traders were Armenian or Greek with a sprinkling of Turks amongst them and I do not know which were the worst for cheating – the Greeks, the Armenians or the Turks. Mehmet insisted on separating from me, telling me fussily that we would meet at a certain place at a certain time. He then went off by himself, his hands thrust into his pockets, his shut-away face oddly like the image my mind still held of my father’s face.

  He never liked to shop with me. My methods bored him profoundly for I would pore over something for a very long time until I was finally persuaded into buying it by a weary trader. Mehmet bought everything with great care and never afterwards regretted a purchase as I frequently did.

  I went to the antiques section where I immediately lost my heart to an old samovar – a shining, elegant thing – a reminder of lost days. I stood admiring it for so long that the owner became quite nervous as to my intentions and was too apprehensive to even cry out his wares in the usual wheedling tone.

  In the end I bought a brass candlestick for my grandmother for she had a passion for old things and knew about them in a way I could never hope to imitate. When I had paid over the price demanded there was an absurdly small amount of money left in my pocket. I hastily tore myself from the lovely old treasures in search of something which would please my mother and at the same time cause no heart-burnings over the candlestick. I searched wildly for something to fill these requirements and finally, in sheer despair, I bought some sort of a sachet which looked absurdly small in relation to the price asked for it. However, I felt I could not bargain for a present for my mother, so bought it resignedly. A red hair ribbon was purchased for my sister, on which I saved ten kuruş for I had no qualms about bargaining for a present for my sister. A solid-looking comb was bought for Mehmet, which might be a useless present since he had no hair to comb, but nevertheless the price of it was just right for the amount of money I had left in my pocket.

  Well pleased with myself I sauntered to the spot we had arranged for meeting, to find him already there. He accused me of tardiness and this had so put him out that he did not utter a word to me all the way home. Sulkily he stalked along beside me, his parcels under his arm, and at Bayazit Square he left me on some mysterious, highly secret errand. The square was crowded with late shoppers, men jauntily carrying diminutive parcels and big parcels of exciting shapes, and women stepping sedately on their high heels, hurrying past the moon-faced men almost as though they feared assault.

  I stood at the corner of the square and looked at the crowds and the great old arch of the University that twinkled with electric lights. The twin minarets of the Bayazit Mosque shone with electric candles too, and now a few oldish people were going in to pray, for it was the hour for prayer. And I could not help remembering the old days and the crowds who had answered the call of the Muezzins.

  From everywhere came their lost, mournful cry, half drowned under the roar of the traffic, the klaxons of the cars and the never-ceasing clanging of the busy trams. The guns boomed out to proclaim that now the fast could be broken and I, like the rest of the crowd, hurried homewards for feasting and merry-making.

  I caught up with Mehmet again at the corner of the street. He was loitering there waiting for me, and Muazzez met us at the door of the little friendly house. She pulled us into the narrow hall that smelled of a garden – so full it was of flowers put there by my mother to welcome the Bayram. We went together to the kitchen, where my mother was heating soup, an apron protecting her silk dress.

  We kissed her hands and handed her our presents. She looked very youthful and gay with her face heated from the fire and tendrils of hair falling across her forehead and then she opened my present to her and said that the sachet was really very pretty indeed.

  Muazzez was less tactful. She resentfully examined her hair ribbon and remarked on the poor quality of the satin.

  ‘Red does not suit me,’ she said pettishly, throwing the gay ribbon on the ground, and Mehmet said in disgust, when he saw the comb
: ‘What am I expected to do with a comb?’

  Altogether there was no pleasing them. I hoped to fare better with my grandmother. We judged it time for her to have finished with her praying, for no loud rumbling noises were coming from the salon so we went upstairs to find her. She was just rising stiffly and her first words were: ‘Now my heart is comfortable for I have just prayed for all our dead.’

  We kissed her hands and I noticed that for this Bayram all her rings sparkled and the great emerald lay glinting across her breast. We handed our presents and when she saw the candlestick she said to me: ‘You have a very rare genius for knowing how to please people.’

  And we all burst out laughing. Mehmet showed his comb and my sister thrust forward the offensive hair-ribbon and my grandmother’s eyes twinkled and she said that some were very hard to please, but that for herself she was happy only in being alive.

  She set Muazzez to prepare the table, handing out snowy damask and silver which shone brighter than the lighted lamps. Crystal glasses were set on the damask and wine in a carafe and I teased my grandmother, telling her that no good Muslim would drink wine. She shook her head sadly and said she knew well enough she was not a good person but that nevertheless, surely the good God did not begrudge her a glass of wine with her dinner.

  I looked about the room at the high gleam on old furniture, at the flowers massed droopingly in dark corners, at the silver bowl of early roses which hung their tender heads in the centre of the table and I was glad to be home for this Bayram, proud that the spirit of my family had not died.

  The next morning Mehmet and I were sent to the mosque to pray. We went to the little mosque my father and my grandfather had attended when we were children, the mosque which stood near the burned, blackened skeleton of our old house. And, too, we went there from custom for that mosque was associated with my family and on a Bayram morning it was unthinkable to go elsewhere.

  After the prayers were over we stood on the steps of the mosque and the little garden was thick with wild flowers and people and the tall trees shadowed the lush green grass. The İmam issued the traditional bon-bons and Turkish Delight, and Mehmet and I respectfully saluted the old men.

  One of them came over to me and said: ‘Are you Hüsnü’s son?’

  I replied that this was so and he looked at Mehmet and me and I saw memory slipping a long way back.

  ‘I remember your father,’ he said. ‘But you are not like him. This one here’ – touching Mehmet – ‘now he is very like him indeed. Very like.’

  He paused a moment, struggling with the memories that crowded the old brain.

  ‘Your father,’ he said heavily, ‘used to come to this mosque to pray. I remember him when he was quite a small boy. He used to come here with your grandfather. Ah, well,’ he sighed, ‘that is a long time ago – you could not know of that.’ He patted my shoulder with a frail, gentle hand. ‘You are a fine boy,’ he said. ‘God bless you.’

  He pottered away from us muttering to himself, and I saw him young again and upstanding, with perhaps a child on either hand and watching the approach of the small boy who was to become my father with the young man who was to become my grandfather. And I clearly heard their voices and felt the tug of the impatient small boy. I thought how sad a thing is age and I wondered if that old, old man and all other old people felt this same sadness.

  What did they think when they saw their withered cheeks that were once smooth, their dimmed eyes that were once bright? Did they sometimes wish for death to carry them swiftly from the ancient bodies before they could see any further cruel encroachment?

  We went home to feasting and merry-making, but before the feasting a certain ritual had to be observed. My grandmother had to seat herself, my mother going to her to kiss her hands as a sign of her respect for her greater age. My grandmother would respond by kissing my mother’s cheeks, then motioning to her to sit beside her. Now it was my turn to pay my respects to the women of the family, next Mehmet, last of all Muazzez for she was the youngest.

  Only at the conclusion of the little ceremony could the serious business of the day begin. Muazzez handed sweets on the tray that had never known any other duty, my mother served liqueurs to drink each other’s health and everyone sat a little stiffly in their new clothes.

  Later in the morning Bekçi Baba came to the street. He was accompanied by the man who played the big drum and another who played the clarinet. The man with the drum had gaily coloured handkerchiefs tied all about the drum – the symbol of all the ‘tips’ Bekçi Baba had received from the various houses in the district. My mother handed a small blue handkerchief to me with money tied in one corner and I handed this in turn to Bekçi Baba in appreciation of how well he had looked after us throughout the year. It was tied on the drum with the other handkerchiefs and the little group then called at the house next door and a crowd of children flew after them, shouting ribaldly. Then it was the turn of the famous local firemen. The dustmen came too and money was given to all of them. Local children played near the house and we tossed exotically wrapped sweets to them, watching them eagerly scrambling for them.

  After luncheon neighbours called, and Mehmet and I decided to take Muazzez to Yeşilköy, to the sea. Yeşilköy, green village, is a pretty suburb of İstanbul and very popular in the summer months.

  The little local trains were packed to capacity and although Muazzez protested of discomfort, Mehmet and I were perfectly satisfied to stand in the corridor amongst the dribbling, crying babies and the hot, sticky children.

  At Yeşilköy we hired a rowing-boat but the Marmara was rough and Muazzez inclined to look suddenly white about the nostrils so we took her on land again, where she soon recovered. We climbed the hilly, village street, quiet and cool with birds singing behind high garden walls. The old grey houses stood back coolly amidst their flower-beds and the striped sun-blinds mocked the early heat of the spring sunlight. Down a wide gravel road, tree-lined and tranquil, we walked and up the hill to the Casino, which was less than a hundred feet above sea level.

  We chose a table overlooking the sweep of the Marmara, a table with a bare, hot top, partially shaded by acacia trees and, because it was Bayram, Turkish music was played by the orchestra and a singer sang sadly of her love who was gone. When the waiter came I ordered pastries and sickly chocolate cakes and iced coffee topped with mouth-melting crème santé. I ordered recklessly for my mother had slipped money into my pocket before we left home.

  Muazzez in her white, soft dress and the gay blue ribbons thrust through her hair was in a seventh heaven of delight, trying to pretend that she was older than her meagre eleven years. Still I see that day before my eyes and the moment I realised that my sister was beautiful. For her eyes that day were the mad, mad blue of the Marmara, catching and matching their mood to the gaiety about her and her young laughter tinkled joyously.

  We returned late from the Casino, glad to rest weary young limbs in easy-chairs and there was a languor, a pallor about my sister which was half childish, half sensual and I realised with a little wondering shock that she was growing up.

  Back to Kuleli again, the Bayram over, and the surging happiness of meeting old friends again, but on the 4th of May of that year certain of us were transferred to the Military School at Tokat, in the North of Anatolia, for a year and a half; and great was our regret to leave Kuleli for such a long time.

  Mehmet was given permission to see me off and he waved madly, growing smaller and smaller as the boat pulled away from the shore. We slid past Kuleli and I looked nostalgically back to it. Soon we had reached Galata and this time it was İstanbul to which I looked back, mysterious under the evening haze, and I thought that it would be hard to say goodbye to İstanbul, my own city. Most fair it seemed against the sky, like a lovely jewel in the Bosphor.

  Down the darkening Bosphor we sailed and still I looked back to the dim face of İstanbul. Presently a friend pulled me by the arm.

  ‘Stop dreaming!’ he laughed. ‘Come and e
at something. I packed extra things for you because I knew you would not remember.’

  I laughed too for it was true that I had not remembered, and I gladly accepted the bread, black olives and hard-boiled eggs which he proffered.

  Soon we slid into the long length of the Black Sea and the Bosphor with all its memories lay far behind and one bade it adieu – as regretful, as sentimental an adieu as though one would never again return to its blue waters.

  That night we slept on deck, only our seniors being privileged to sleep in the comparative half comfort of below. We on deck huddled beneath our overcoats and tried to sleep to the roll and lurch of the uneasy boat, conscious of the keen winds that blew from Russia even though it was May and we had left summer behind in Kuleli.

  The next day we arrived at Zonguldak, a dirty, dusty, coal-mining city, its outline drab and somehow depressing and everywhere covered with a fine thin pall of coal dust. The buildings beside the wharf looked infinitely dreary, all of them coal-begrimed, only a few yellow houses on the hill to add a note of relief. These houses looked oddly incongruous and out of place here amongst all the drabness, having an air of temporariness, insolently clinging to the side of the hill. There was something infinitely sorrowful in the grey roofs against the skyline and we were desolate to think we had to spend twelve hours here whilst the captain of the ship took on supplies of coal, water and other commodities.