by Ann Bridge
When he came in Fanny guessed from Féridé’s manner who it was, even before she was introduced and heard the great man’s name. Like the women in the citadel he stared in surprise when she spoke. He did vaguely remember about the English Professor who was such a famous Turkish scholar, and had even thought he would like to take a look at him some time; but if he had ever heard of a niece, or daughter or whatever she was, he had forgotten all about it, and he was immensely surprised to find a little yellow-headed Englishwoman, talking Turkish like a native, in Orhan Bey’s drawing-room. He put one of his brusque questions to his hostess—“But how comes it that your friend speaks Turkish like this? She is not a professor?”
“No, no,” Féridé laughed; “but she was much in Turkey as a child, and often at our house—she even stayed with us. She can write Turkish also,” she added, a little mischievously.
“The script?”
“Yes, the script.”
He stared at Fanny with his ice-blue eyes under the bushy eye-brows —she met his gaze steadily, a thing few people could do with any comfort for long together.
“How came you to do that, Mademoiselle?”
“Oh, I picked it up from my Uncle, and then it was useful for helping him with his transcriptions.” As he merely stared harder—“Féridé Hanim and her family were so good to me,” she said easily. “The happiest days of my life were those spent in Turkey.”
“She was my favourite companion,” Féridé put in.
“Yes, but the dadi did not approve of me, because I made you do such wild things!” said Fanny gaily, with a side-smile at their visitor.
“For example?” he asked, only relaxing his rigid scrutiny a very little.
“Oh, climbing trees, and tearing and losing her çarşaf,” Fanny rattled on. “I may tell you, Your Excellency, that as a small girl Féridé Hanim had a great detestation of the çarşaf!” She had heard a good deal already about the Ghazi’s views on the veil, and spoke with a half-mischievous intent.
“She has my sympathy,” he said. “And you, Mademoiselle, what do you think of it?”
“Oh, enormously dignified and picturesque, of course, but madly unpractical. I should hate to have to wear it myself,” said Fanny frankly.
“Some of our ladies are, I hope, learning to share your views,” he said.
At this point coffee arrived, and immediately afterwards Orhan and the Doctor came in from their ride—they had heard from the servants who was there, and came straight to the salon. After the introductions Orhan promptly steered the conversation onto folk-lore and Dr. Pierce’s book; he knew that mere chit-chat was apt to bore his chief. Kemal Pasha at once began his characteristic catechising—it was one of his chief ways of conducting a conversation, by which he amused himself and studied the person he was talking to at the same time. Intent, brusque, and yet not unfriendly, he rapped out questions. “Your book was well received?”
“Quite well,” Dr. Pierce said tranquilly. “It sold over 9,000 copies. That is rather a lot, you know, with us, for such a specialised type of book.”
Since a book which sells 3,000 copies in Turkey has had practically a succès fou, Kemal Pasha was impressed. But he did not show it—he never did. He went on to the next question.
“You study the folk-lore of all nations?”
“To some extent—for purposes of comparison. Of European countries, I mean; I know very little about the African and South American stuff,” said Dr. Pierce, with his quiet scholarly comprehensiveness.
“Well, let us confine ourselves to Europe,” said Kemal Pasha, on whom this carefulness of expression was not lost—here was obviously a man who knew enough to impose limitations on himself, and recognising limitations was his own strong suit. “Do you find in Turkish folklore any special features, different to those of other countries?”
Dr. Pierce considered this.
“Not many,” he said at length; “not beyond what one would expect. All folk-lores reflect the mode of life of the people who have created them.”
“Do they not also reflect a people’s attitude to life, a national character?” Kemal Pasha asked rather sharply.
“To some extent. It varies.” Dr. Pierce was not going to distort facts for any man. “The folk-songs here show rather marked differences,” he pursued calmly—“they are quite distinctive.”
Mustafa Kemal pounced.
“For example?”
“Allusiveness; the indirect approach; and a sort of quality of reverie,” said Dr. Pierce. “North European folk-songs, especially, are often just long stories full of incidents, ballads really, however dramatic—like the Twa Sisters o’ Binnorie or the Berkshire Tragedy. I believe that has something like twenty verses, hasn’t it, Fanny?” She nodded. “Whereas the Turkish songs,” he went on, “frequendy express a single situation, or not even that—just a frame of mind, an emotion, rounded into a brief lyric, and so full of allusions to the whole body of the people’s thought and history that a person unfamiliar with those can t pick up the point at all. I think that does throw a light on the national character—the pensiveness, the sense of nostalgia of the people.”
Kemal Pasha had been listening with close attention; when Dr. Pierce ceased speaking he leaned forward and asked—“Can you give any instances?”
Dr. Pierce considered a moment, and then turned to Fanny.
“That song you got from young Ahmet, our last summer at Bebek— that was a good example. Can you remember how it went?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Well, let His Excellency hear that.”
“Shall I say it or sing it?” Fanny asked, turning to Féridé.
“Sing it,” Féridé said, with a glance at her guest—he nodded.
Fanny was no shyer now than she had been as a child. She stood up, and launched without hesitation into the Falcon Song, in her clear strong voice—the evocative words and hunting melody filled the low room, in which shadows were already gathering, though outside, beyond the foliage of the balcony, the bare heights were taking on a glow of pale gold. Orhan watched his chiefs face while Fanny sang— half in reflected light, half in shadow, all the rugosities of its strange structure were brought out and intensified as he sat listening. When the song ended—“There, you see—” Dr. Pierce began; but Kemal Pasha held up his hand.
“Once again,” he commanded curtly.
Fanny, with a half-glance of amusement at Féridé, sang the song once more. Even through her close singer’s concentration on the sounds, the articulated syllables, the emotional content of what she sang —one of the most elaborately complex forms of consciousness that exists —she was just aware of the thought—How strange to be singing this again, in Turkey—and for Turkey’s ruler, Mustafa Kemal!
When Fanny’s voice fell on the last notes for the second time, Kemal Pasha turned to the Doctor.
‘Tes, an excellent example of what you say—and a beautiful song.” He wheeled round on Fanny—“Sung by an admirable singer! You have completely caught the spirit of it. My felicitations, Mademoiselle.” From then on he gave rather more of his attention to Fanny; he was evidently pleased by this foreign singer of his country’s songs, praised her voice, and asked if she had had it trained?
“Oh, Fani Hanim could always sing,” Féridé put in; “when she was little we called her la Canaria.”
He smiled, courteously, slightly, with a half-glance at that yellow head. ‘Tes, a true Canary—a genuine song-bird.”
Fanny asked Féridé if she still had the setting which Orhan had made for the song.
“Oh yes—it is among my things.”
“I should like to hear it again,” Fanny said, “and be sure that I have got it right.” She turned to Kemal Pasha—“Eleven years is a long time to carry a melody in one’s head, Your Excellency.”
“It is eleven years since you heard it? More remarkable still! But I too should like to hear this setting made by Orhan. I did not know you composed, mon enfant.”
“The
re has not been much time, Sir, for composing music these last few years,” Orhan said gaily—he was delighted with Fanny’s little success.
“Quite right, quite right! Nor will there be in the next few years —we shall see to that!” Kemal said laughing. He rose, and slapped his A.D.C. on the back. “Plenty of work for the good workers, who can do it!” Then he turned to his hostess. “But, now, Féridé Hanim, I must hear this early opus of Orhan’s, and I must hear your Canary—or nightingale, perhaps”—glancing in Fanny’s direction with a little bow— “sing again. You must all come and dine at the Kiosk, when I shall also hope to talk more with you, Professor. Would tomorrow suit you?”
“Tomorrow Fethi Bey and half the Cabinet are dining with you, Sir,” Orhan reminded him.
“Are they, my son? I am sure you know! Well, my social conscience, tell me when it can be?”
And Orhan told him that it could be three days hence.
Chapter Twenty
Three evenings later, accordingly, they went to dine at the Kiösk. As they left the car Fanny paused and looked about her: at the great poplars standing round the spring, their leaves, in the evening breeze, whispering to the murmuring water; at the half-seen view down the glen of the valley and the hills beyond, brilliant in the late light. “What a beautiful place!” she murmured to Féridé.
But no one could call the Kiosk very beautiful inside. Either Latifé Hanim or Kemal Pasha himself had shown little taste in interior decoration—which indeed is not the Turkish strong suit, according to western ideas. Turks still halt undecided between their own carved woodwork, screens and tables, their passion for inlay, mother-of-pearl, and embroideries, and the European furniture of which, having little experience, they are poor judges—for the most part their taste is quite at sea among these alien objects, and they live cheerfully with pseudo-Jacobean horrors, or Victorian mahogany, or just plain Tottenham Court Road. To Fannys eyes the interior of the Kiosk was mostly hideous. They entered by a hall with a fountain in the middle, a piano in one corner, and miscellaneous chairs and tables scattered about; the dining-room was furnished with rather heavy richness—the food however was good, and the wine admirable. The prettiest place was the drawing-room, with pale colours and curtains, and a general effect of light and spaciousness; but they did not spend long in it, for soon after they rose from the table their host ordained an adjournment to the hall in order to try out Orhan’s accompaniment to the Falcon Song. He sat down at the piano and strummed it over a couple of times—he played easily and agreeably—and then summoned Fanny to his side and played for her while she sang.
“Charming, Orhan—very pretty,” he said at the end. “Do you know any other Turkish songs, Fani Hanim?”
Fanny did know one or two, and he vamped an accompaniment to them, not unskilfully—playing the piano was a thing he enjoyed. Dr. Pierce looked on with interest. This tranquil parlour scene threw quite a new light on the brilliant soldier, the harsh politician, the ruthless creator of a new state out of the ruins of an old one.
Next Kemal Pasha asked Fanny if she knew any English songs?—folk songs?
“Oh, many!” she told him.
“Then sing me one—what about this one with twenty verses, of which your Uncle spoke?”
Fanny had no intention whatever of inflicting The Berkshire Tragedy on an audience which understood no English, and declared roundly that she could not remember it. “But there is one—oddly enough it is more Turkish in feeling, for it is just one situation, one mood—a young woman who wishes to cross a river to meet her lover, and asks her maid to find her a boatman.”
“Sing it, then,” Kemal Pasha said, his fingers straying softly over the keys—and Fanny sang The Water of Tyne.
“I cannot get to my love, if I should dee,
The water of Tyne flows betwixt him and me,
And here I must stand, with the tear in my ee
Both sighing, and sickly, my sweetheart to see.
Oh where is the boatman, my bonny hinny?
Oh where is the boatman?—bring him to me
To ferry me over the Tyne to my honey,
And I will remember the boatman and thee.
Oh bring me a boatman—I’ll give any money,
And you for your trouble rewarded shall be -
To carry me over the Tyne to my honey,
Or row him across that rough water to me.”
The Water of Tyne has a singularly beautiful air, pensive in spite of the urgency of the words, which Fanny conveyed very well; there should be, and she gave, a slight rallentando on the last four syllables, all on the same note—her little audience remained silent for a moment at the close. Then, to her great surprise, Orhan burst out laughing.
“But this is not romantic at all!” he exploded—“Sir, it is all about baksheesh! This young lady offers bribes to the boatman, bribes to her maid to find him!”
“And does this never happen in Turkey, Orhan Bey?” Fanny asked, rather nettled. Before he could answer—“Do you know English then, Orhan?” Dr. Pierce enquired with surprise.
“A little—enough!” Orhan said, still bubbling with mirth.
His host spoke rather repressively. “All the same, it is a beautiful song. I thank you for it, Fani Hanim.”
Fanny bowed slightly. She was still rather cross with Orhan for spoiling her effect.
“Is it not a little close?” she said. “Could we not sit outside, Your Excellency, and listen to the water and the sound of the trees?”
“Certainly we can,” Kemal Pasha said. He summoned a servant, and chairs were carried out onto the driveway in front of the house, where they could indeed hear the gentle voice of the spring and the now almost inaudible murmur of the poplar-leaves high overhead; the stars, huge and splendid, burned in the indigo sky and sparkled through the pale whispering foliage; faint scents of sun-dried aromatic herbage came to them on the small movements of air which stirred the warm night. Fanny, and Féridé too, would have been well content to sit quiet and surrender to the spell of the hour and the place, but Kemal Pasha was never one for sitting quiet—a rather un-Turkish trait in him. Tables promptly followed the chairs, and trays with Scotch whisky and soda the tables, out onto the gravel by the great trees; drinks were poured out. But for the moment the Ghazi had had enough of music and feminine talk, and turned his attention to Dr. Pierce. He sounded him out, in his cross-examining way, on national characteristics in general, and on the Turkish ones in particular—each nation, he insisted, had its particular genius, which must be respected, freed from whatever cramped it, and fostered. He explained exactly how the old system of education had cramped the mind of Turkey, and how he proposed to make the people free of the riches of western ideas by new schools, new methods. “To be modern, to be European, electric light and sanitation are not enough—that is the mistake which the Shah of Persia and the Amir of Afghanistan have both made. I shall not make it! If a people is to be modernised, Europeanised, they must think and feel as Europeans do; and for that they must share in the mental background of Europeans.”
“You mean, give them access to European literature? All along the line, from Sophocles to Dickens?” Dr. Pierce asked.
“Certainly.”
“That’s a tall order. Even when you’ve had the translations made, it’s going to cost hundreds of thousands to get text-books printed for your schools; your script is so infernally expensive to set up in type,” Dr. Pierce said.
“You are right! 75 per cent more costly than roman type. But we shall not use our script!” Kemal Pasha said triumphantly.
“You mean you’re going to romanise the alphabet?”
“Just that. Then, when boys and girls from the higher schools learn French or English, they will be able to read French and English books. That will give them a key which opens the doors of undreamed-of-treasuries!”
“Well, that’s practical,” Dr. Pierce said with approval. He thought for a moment. “They won’t learn the old script at all?” Kemal P
asha shook his head.
“Well, you see what that also means,” the Doctor said. “The key that unlocks one door will lock another—you will close the past to them.”
“My dear Doctor, I wish to lock the door of the past! It is dead—of what use is it to them today?”
“It has beauty and dignity,” the Doctor said mildly.
“Well, scholars can use it!—the old books will be there for them. But —you are a practical man, and I ask you this: has our youth time both to imbibe modern ideas and western culture, and also to mouth over archaic texts? And if they cannot do both, which will serve them best in the world of today?”
“Ah well, I’m a bit of a traditionalist, myself,” Dr. Pierce said. “From the practical point of view no doubt you’re right. The script is certainly an obstacle. But don’t forget that you yourself recognize the importance of respecting the national genius of a people. You’ll make a mistake, I fancy, if you try to go too fast.”
Mustafa Kemal Pasha was not accustomed to having it suggested to him that he might make a mistake. The combination of practicality and sympathy which the Doctor showed for his schemes, together with that hint of caution, caused him to launch into one of his famous orations, this time on the future of Turkish culture and the Turkish people, as he envisaged it. It was very much what Orhan had outlined to Féridé long before, but immensely amplified—the man who, two years later, was to make a speech lasting for six days now held forth to his guests for over two hours. Féridé, to whom these discourses were no novelty, and who secretly longed to be in bed, glanced anxiously at her friends; but Dr. Pierce was listening with attention, now and again trying— and failing—to slip in a remark, while Fanny sat frankly spell-bound.