The Dark Moment

by Ann Bridge

  “Yes?” Féridé said, with a delightful warmth and encouragement in her voice, watching the English girl.

  “Well, it is true,” Fanny said, getting up and going over to the window again. “It’s glorious,” she said, turning around. “Oh!—well, I’ll tell you the rest another time,” she ended awkwardly. She came back and gave Féridé another kiss. “Goodness, I am so glad I came! One doesn’t want to lose the biggest thing in one’s life,” she said slowly, sitting down again. “But if one did find out that it wasn’t true, one would have lost it.”

  This conversation intrigued Féridé considerably. She could take Fanny’s point about her two worlds well enough, and understand her need to come back and test the reality of her childhood’s paradise, for the yali had been a paradise to her too. But she had an intuition that there was more to it than that. However, she took no steps to find out just then—these things had a way of declaring themselves, sooner or later. Soon she took her guest upstairs to her room, also giving on a balcony smothered in vines, but with a different view—westwards, over the tiled roofs of the farm buildings beyond the upper courtyard to some nearer slopes covered with vineyards and tillage. Fanny of course went at once to the window—Féridé followed her. “Over there, to the left, do you see the tops of some big poplars? That is where the Kiosk stands —you can’t see the house itself.”

  “What is the Kiosk?” Fanny asked; she could see the poplars.

  “The Ghazi’s house.”

  “The Ghazi?—oh, Kemal Pasha; yes, of course. Do you know him too, Féridé? What’s he like?”

  “I expect you would find him agreeable,” Féridé said temperately— “people do, very often.” (She, by “people,” meant women.) “Of course for us he is simply the saviour of our country; we know him as that, and so to us he is wonderful,” she ended quietly.

  “Alec always says he is a wonderful general,” Fanny incautiously slipped out.

  “Alec? Who is Alec? Fanny!—Who?”

  Fanny laughed.

  “He’s my fiancé, dji-djim. Yes, I’m engaged. I was going to tell you presently,” she added, a little embarrassed.

  “Is he a soldier? The red one—who came to the yali, and sent on my letter? But that was ages ago!” Féridé said, her eyes wide.

  “Yes, that’s the one. It did take rather a long time,” Fanny said, a little shamefacedly. “But why do you call him the red one? Did you see him?”

  “No, of course not!—how could I?” It was Féridé who was embarrassed now—her tongue had run away with her. “Baba saw him—he liked him. But is not his hair red?” She suppressed the lively picture which the Pasha had drawn for her at the time, of a red face, red hands, and red knees under the kilt.

  “Well, yes, it is—absolutely couleur de carrottes!” Fanny said gaily. “But he is frightfully nice. I like red hair.” She left Alec—she did not tell Féridé that she too would like her fiancé very much, because she felt morally certain that if they ever met they would have practically nothing to say to one another. She went back to Mustafa Kemal, who at that time aroused a sort of international curiosity, as certain individuals occasionally do. “Tell me more about the Ghazi,” she said.

  “Oh, do call him that to Orhan! How nicely you said it,” Féridé exclaimed.

  “All right, I will. But tell me about him. Is it true that he’s married?”

  “He was,” Féridé said.

  “Well, what happened? Did she die?”

  “No. There was a divorce. It is rather a sad story,” Féridé said thoughtfully. “Latifé Hanim was a splendid person, I thought-clever and quick, well-educated, and with advanced ideas. But”—she paused.

  “But what?” Fanny was deeply interested.

  “She was rather politically-minded,” Féridé said thoughtfully.

  “But doesn’t he like women to be politically-minded? I thought I remembered reading that he was all for women’s education, and the equality of the sexes, and all that. Didn’t he make a speech about it?”

  “Yes, he did. Yes, he is, really” Féridé said; “I mean in theory. Oh, and in practice too, I am sure—in time. But I suppose a man’s wife can be a little too political, even in Europe—n’est-ce pas?” she said, with a fine little smile.

  Fanny laughed.

  “Oh, goodness yes! We have them in dozens! But certainly ultra-political wives must seem rather strange here.” She paused. “I suppose everything is changing—bound to, probably. Oh Féridé, what a lot we shall have to talk about! Tell me, what time is lunch?”

  In the pretty dining-room, over the delicious Turkish food—“I must say it is wonderful to eat a kebab again,” Dr. Pierce said, wiping his moustache after demolishing a plateful of little noisettes of mutton, grilled on a spit and served on a basis of sour milk curd, and smothered in a rich sauce—Fanny was careful to slip in a remark about the Ghazi, as naturally as she had done upstairs, and Orhan turned to her with obvious pleasure, and with more attention than he had yet bestowed on her. He had agreed readily to his wife’s eager desire to have the Pierces to stay, and had given himself quite a lot of trouble to arrange the visit, telling his chief what an important Turkish scholar Dr. Pierce was—really with an international reputation—and how turcophil; on these grounds the Embassy in London had been instructed, as an exceptional measure, to grant them visas, and Orhan had seen to it that the formalities on their arrival at Istanbul were not too tiresome. He had been genuinely curious to meet the Doctor; as to Fanny, his attitude to her had approximated fairly closely to Alec Grant’s towards Féridé—a childish enthusiasm, idealised over the years, which could not really have any serious importance for his wife; but if she wanted her to come, come she should. With Dr. Pierce he was already delighted: he was learned, he was cultivated, employing very choice elegant Turkish turns of phrase—Orhan had a passion for elegance of phrase, written or spoken; and now that he turned his attention to Fanny, he began to be pleased with her too. It was an odd experience, whatever he might say about the desirability of the disappearance of the haremlik, to find himself sitting at table in his own house next to a foreign woman; and this particular foreign woman also talked astonishingly good Turkish. He asked her how that came about—“I should have thought you would have forgotten, in all these years.”

  “Oh, Fanny has kept it up—we’ve worked a good bit together, and she took a course in Persian and Turkish classical literature, after the war was over,” Dr. Pierce answered for her.

  “Persian, too? No, that is really astonishing!” Yes, she was quite a personality, this little Canary of Féridé’s, as her sharp lively observations showed—and what an enthusiast for his country! “We shall show you everything!—Féridé, we must make many expeditions,” he said.

  “Before anything else, we must go up to the citadel, Féridé and I, and see your old house, and Sitaré Hanim,” Fanny said.

  “So!—you even know of Sitaré Hanim! But that was a terrible place,” he said. “It would hardly interest you.”

  “On the contrary, it will interest me passionately,” Fanny said briskly. “Not see the place where Féridé lived through the war?—what an idea! I must see that, and the Red Crescent building, and the hospital—everything!” And Orhan, half-pleased, half-startled at her decisiveness, had to laugh and agree.

  They went a few days later. Orhan had to be at his bureau in the mornings, and for part of the afternoon too; Dr. Pierce had settled himself and his papers into the little room allotted to him, and worked there a good deal, but he also started going off for long walks alone, along the tracks between the vineyards and up over the stony hills beyond, covered with stiff sun-dried thorny plants, nearly all shining with glittering silver or gold seed-heads—he chatted with the older peasants he met, and usually came home very pleased, with several new proverbs or folk-tales. So the two girls, haremlik or no haremlik, had the salon to themselves, and talked away by the hour, covering bit by bit, patchily and discursively, the immense amount of ground le
ft by their eleven years of separation, and re-learned one another as two people.

  Sitaré and Ibrahim had moved back into their own larger house when their tenants left, and when Féridé lifted and let fall the big ring-shaped knocker on the familiar door, and stood waiting for it to be opened, she pointed out to Fanny the various features in the courtyard. “We pulled all our water up from that well, when we were washing for the wounded,” she said.

  “Goodness! But what a glorious well-head. It’s Greek, surely?”

  “Orhan thought it was,” said Féridé carelessly—nothing Greek had any great merit for her. “And look—that is the kitchen, over there; we must wait for Sitaré Hanim to show it to us—it is a most extraordinary place!”

  The door was now opened by Étamine, her lovely little face deliciously swathed in pale green muslin; gone were the careless days of the flying bas-ortü.

  “Oh Féridé Hanim, it is you! Oh, what a pleasure! I will seek my Mother.”

  Sitaré, more roly-poly than ever, but still exceedingly pretty, was at the door in no time. “Ah, my dear dear Féridé Hanim! How seldom you visit me!—What an honour!” She checked at the sight of Fanny, an unveiled stranger in a hat, and with such yellow hair, plain for all to see! —a foreigner, obviously.

  “This is my friend Fani Hanim, an Englishwoman,” Féridé said, with due ceremony. “She wishes, Sitaré Hanim, to see the house where I lived so long, through the dark moment—if you permit?”

  Sitaré babbled a startled acquiescence; she was astounded to be answered by the foreigner in fluent Turkish, with graceful thanks and all the correct expressions of politeness. In any visit to a purely Turkish house, however modest, there is always an immense amount of ceremonious formality, a sort of ritual of courtesy to be gone through. The two guests were led through the long hall into the “best” room at the further end, and made to sit on the best divan; Sitaré handed them sweets in a glass dish, Étamine hastened to bring cups of coffee, while various female relations, hearing of the exciting visitors, came in one after another, were introduced, and then seated themselves to listen silently to the main conversation. Several, to Fanny’s great entertainment, brought their needlework in with them, and, their feet tucked up under them on the divans, continued either to do delicate embroidery on pieces of soft muslin, or to crochet narrow borders of silk lace along the edges of bas-ortüler or head-scarves; from these borders crochet roses, exceedingly close and fine in texture and an inch-and-a-half across dangled at intervals. These enchanted Fanny particularly, and she went over to a girl who was actually making one and asked to be shown how to do it, and what they were called? Oya, the girl said shyly. “A specialty of Ankara, Fani Hanim,” Sitaré called across to her. Gradually the formal politeness gave way to a flood of eager chattering conversation, in which everybody joined; Fanny was struck with the immense gaiety and liveliness of these Ankarian women. Since embroidery clearly interested the English visitor, Sitaré Hanim, helped by Étamine, brought out her household treasures from the sandik, a splendid chest of inlaid wood, rather like an Italian cassone, which stood at one side of the room—embroidered muslins, nahlins, an embossed silver ewer; Ibrahim and Sitaré were substantial people, and had a great store of such things.

  But one can have enough of other people’s household treasures, and when they had been duly admired Féridé turned the conversation onto the war, which she knew was what most interested Fanny. At once a pandemonium of reminiscence broke out. The noise of the guns; how the houses shook and the windows rattled; Sitaré led Fanny to the window to show her where they had seen the red glare of burning villages in the sky—“There, over behind that long hill. So close!—we expected the Greeks at any moment. Many went away.” They turned to their own immediate experiences—the washing, the cooking, the toiling up and down the hill laden with burdens. “Féridé Hanim did wonders-she who had no experience of such work—cooking, washing, nursing! Imagine!” Sitaré turned on Fanny—“Féridé Hanim nursed in the hospital, exactly like my Étamine, who was but a child, not yet wearing the çarşaf.”

  There was an interruption then. Someone brought in Güli Hanim —the news of Fanny’s and Féridé’s visit had spread through the quarter, and Güli had hastened up to get her share of the excitement. She like all the rest marvelled to see an Englishwoman, marvelled still more to hear her speaking Turkish; but being what she was, the Rose rather took charge of the conversation. “Did you know my dear Nilüfer Hanim?” “Yes, I met her once or twice,” Fanny told her, and this led oft onto “a dramatic account of the confinement—“Ah, what a night! Never shall I forget it! And the fine little manlet, dying after all! And then his poor father killed too—so handsome, so brave!” That led them back to the war again; most of these cheerful chatting women had lost a husband, a brother, or a son. “Ah well, it was the will of Allah,” they said. “They died for our country; they saved us.” And then, quite spontaneously they began to speak of Kemal Pasha, with a simple fervour which astonished Fanny. “Ah, he was our leader! They gave in, those others down in Istanbul, but not he—not the Ghazi! He said we should be free, and free we are today.” “And not sparing himself, look you— always in front, always among his men. My son told me—” the red-hot epic flowed on, till Fanny glowed. “How he used to shout, how he used to curse!—so my brother said.” “And he made them laugh, and then they could fight again.”

  The visit, as often happens in Turkey, lasted for hours—visits are expected to last for hours in that timeless land, as timeless as Ireland. Fanny did at last succeed in seeing the rest of the house, including the kitchen, which really made her gasp, but not without some forcible tactfulness on Féridé’s part. Before they left, a final little ritual of hospitality was gone through; Étamine, shy, lovely and smiling, brought out a bottle of rosewater, which she sprinkled over the hands of the guests—one of the prettiest forms of speeding the parting guest in the world. “Go with God,” said the women; and “Remain with God” said Fanny and Féridé in reply.

  In the car, driving back, Fanny turned enthusiastically to Féridé. “That was really wonderful—I wouldn’t have missed it for anything. They talked so vividly--one might have been there oneself, during the Sakarya battles! What splendid people they are—and so friendly.”

  “Of course that you can talk to them made all the difference; they soon stopped being shy,” Féridé said. “I doubt if any of them had ever spoken to a foreign woman before.”

  “No, I suppose not. Goodness, how they go on about Kemal Pasha, don’t they? They fairly worship him,” Fanny said. “He must be a terrific person.”

  “He is,” Féridé said, without a smile.

  “I should like to see him, I must say,” Fanny said—“but I don’t suppose he cares about the English much.”

  This time Féridé did smile.

  “He is not a person to garder rancune” she said. “But he does not appear very much now, since Latifé Hanim left; he just sees his own intimates. You might meet him—you never know. I should wish that it might happen; you would be interested.”

  From which Fanny deduced, correctly, that her hostess did not feel it possible to take any steps to bring a meeting about. Oh well, why should she?—he was the Head of the State, after all, and who were they, the Pierces? But she could not help a slight feeling of disappointment—the way the women spoke of him had kindled her interest.

  One afternoon a few days later she and Féridé were sitting in the salon after tea—Féridé did not feel well, so they were not taking their usual evening walk up through the vineyards onto the open slopes above. Orhan and Dr. Pierce had gone riding. Actually Féridé was in the salon, with her feet up, but Fanny was out on the balcony as usual, watching the women on the flat terrace below making tarhara, small cakes or balls of yoghurt, barley, and flour which, dried in the sun, would keep for months, and be used for putting into the winter soup. Others were threading the fresh leaves of the vines onto strings till they looked like fat marabout b
oas; these would be sun-dried too, and used to wrap round small bits of meat when they were stewed or grilled. This was a different procedure from pickling the leaves in brine, which was the practice down at the house in the vine at Chamlidja, and Fanny was talking about it to Féridé, through the open door into the shaded room—“I suppose it’s the dry air up here; probably they would get mouldy down there, so near the sea.” Suddenly—

  “Hullo, here’s a man coming,” she exclaimed.

  “Probably to the farm,” Féridé said languidly.

  “I shouldn’t think so—he looks frightfully urban,” Fanny said, watching a square-set figure approaching along the lower track, wearing a kalpak above a very well-cut suit, a dog at his heels. “Besides, he’s got a pointer with him. I think he’s coming here,” as she saw him turn to go up the steps into the garden. “He’s got such a peculiar face,” she said, coming back into the room—“all points and angles, and furrows. Who can it be?”

  At her words about the dog Féridé had taken her feet down on the sofa, and was patting her hair hurriedly. Instead of answering Fanny’s question—“Is it all right at the back?” she asked urgently.

  “Yes—perfectly. But who is it?” As she spoke a servant threw open the door, and Mustafa Kemal Pasha walked into the room.

  It was a thing he often did. He loved to stroll about the countryside alone, pausing at those flat-roofed dwellings of rammed earth which seemed to be squatting among the vineyards, and chatting with the inmates—he particularly liked talking to the old women, delighting in their broad cheerful earthy humour, their salty shrewdness. Occasionally they knew who he was, much more often not—the rash of busts and photographs of the national hero had not yet covered the face of Turkey as it does now. But when he had had enough of playing Haroun-al-Raschid, he had a habit of dropping in unannounced at the houses of his friends, to get a little informal conversation—it was another form of escape from official life.