by Defne Suman
His exhausted face seemed on the verge of tears. He looked beyond the rose garden in the direction of the invisible sea. I tried to imagine the man I loved at a young age, bringing his new bride to Smyrna for the first time.
I saw him standing at the door to the entrance hall of the house on Bulbul Street in Iki Chesmelik, a cigarette again dangling from the corner of his mouth, watching the setting sun paint the clouds pink and purple. With his tall boots made in Crete pulled up to the knees of his navy-blue trousers, two guns stuck in his leather belt, and an aubergine fez just out of its mould on his head, he was most handsome. Before coming home, he would have stopped by the barber’s shop for a shave and to have his moustache oiled and lemon cologne splashed on his cheeks.
There was movement over by the kitchen door that opened onto the garden. Gulfidan had got up and was drawing water from the well, looking at us from the corner of her eye. To show that I was not simply a concubine but the lady of the house in Sumbul’s absence, I pointed to the coffee cups. Five minutes later she reappeared, her face expressionless, and served us our second cup of coffee.
Oblivious of the tension between us two women, Hilmi Rahmi rolled another cigarette and stuck the paper together with his pale, dry lips. The sun had risen behind us and the smell of dry grass was beginning to drift over the garden. At that moment I felt Sumbul enter the arbour, in the elegant manner of her pre-ghost days, and sit on the edge of the empty third chair. Hilmi Rahmi must have sensed the same thing, for he opened his eyes, having had them closed for some time, and stared at the heavy white-painted iron chair between us. He coughed, then suddenly stood up.
‘Get up and dress. I’m going to take you somewhere.’
I involuntarily held tight to the arms of the iron chair. He leaned down, took my chin between his hands and turned my face to his. In spite of all my sorrow, my fear, I shivered inside. I turned away, as if my eyes were dazzled by the sun, and gazed at the roses.
‘I beg you, do not be afraid. This is just a brief outing. Mia volta! Please do not hurt me by refusing.’
I looked with disquiet at his face, his disproportionately large ears. Were those tears in his lustreless hazel eyes?
*
It was the first time I had been out on the streets since we’d moved into the Mansion with the Tower. The European houses in the neighbourhood had filled up again. Tow-headed little boys sat on the walls surrounding the mansions like birds, and little girls with big white ribbons in their hair raced from house to house. Some of the Europeans who had fled at the time of the Great Fire had returned from Malta or Europe, where they’d stayed for two or three years. Turkish officers like Hilmi Rahmi had moved with their families into the homes of those who had not come back.
The Mansion with the Tower was very near the Aydin train station, which we used to call Punta Station. We were there in five minutes. Walking side by side, we passed through the square in the shade of giant plane trees. Because the fire didn’t get that far, the houses overlooking the square stood as they had in the past, faced with green stone or marble. I was relieved. I wasn’t going to have to confront the ghost of the lost city as I had on the day we’d driven from Bulbul Street to the Mansion with the Tower in an open-topped motor car. I cried so much that day that Sumbul had closed my eyes with her hands – the same hands that reminded him of doves.
Hilmi Rahmi was looking about him in surprise, as if he were in a dream.
‘This square is like a painting, isn’t it, Scheherazade? Just look at the British perfection of the paving stones, for God’s sake. Despite all the looting, fighting and disasters, not one stone is out of place. And they’re sparkling clean. No dust, no mud. When it rains, they gleam. Truly, this place is like a picture postcard.’
With Hilmi Rahmi in the lead and me following, we passed the vehicles waiting outside and went into the station building, through its wide door. The orderliness and tranquillity of the square continued inside. Beams of red, blue and green light from the coloured glass of the windows set high up near the ceiling played on the mirrors of the walnut console tables. Passengers were waiting in grave silence on the wooden benches that lined the walls. Hilmi Rahmi joined them and I sat beside him, holding my hands in my lap. If it hadn’t been for the huge round-faced clocks, I would have thought I was in a church, not a station.
‘Everything changed so suddenly. The city’s main arteries were severed and this became a silent, lifeless, lost land. Whereas when Sumbul and I first came here, everywhere was full of life and excitement. Beautiful, stylish ladies, immaculate gentlemen, bright-eyed children twirling whirligigs…’
Hilmi Rahmi had placed his elbows on the knees of his creased trousers and his face between his palms. He spoke in a whisper in order not to disturb the reverent atmosphere. I leaned forward to hear him.
‘There was a stationmaster, Giannakos Efendi. You should have seen his uniform – so fancy! He had learned from the British to speak in a low voice. He was a heavyset fellow with a bushy moustache and eyebrows that were equally thick and black. Even his giant hands, when he held the door, were covered with black hairs. He must have been two metres tall.’
He raised his head, looked up at the ceiling with its crystal chandelier, and smiled, showing his orderly teeth. The conductor was calling from the platform. The train to Boudja was about to depart. There were no passengers to be seen.
‘He was a poet. One of the local newspapers had published his poems. When Sumbul heard this, she burst out laughing. She was a child then, of course, but even Giannakos Efendi himself found it hard to believe, so he carried a copy of the newspaper folded in quarters in the pocket of his uniform. He took it out and showed it to us – not that we understood anything; the newspaper was in Greek – but, anyway, little Sumbul turned as red as a beet. Those first years she got embarrassed a lot and would blush frequently, poor thing. It passed after Cengiz was born; she relaxed, got used to things. Then… Oh, God, why have you deemed me worthy of such sorrow?’
He lowered his gaze from the ceiling. The floor was decorated in an elegant mosaic of purple and white stars, circles and flowers. It was becoming harder and harder to hear his whispering.
‘They took Giannakos Efendi as a prisoner of war. We were picking up everyone then; all the male infidels who remained in the city. They were marched through Smyrna in a group with their hands tied, as a lesson to everyone. Then over at Degirmendag they were executed by our soldiers, all of them. I learned too late that they had taken Giannakos Efendi. The poor man hadn’t even been to the war. He had stayed here, working for the British officials, with his fancy uniform and his poems in his pocket. The soldiers got him and took him away. But even if I had known in time, could I have saved him? So many people died. Some pleaded, ‘I am not Orthodox, I am a Catholic, please don’t shoot me,’ but our soldiers would just laugh, saying, ‘An infidel is an infidel,’ and pull the trigger. War, Scheherazade, is not what you know. It’s awful, a calamity that makes a man ashamed to be human. May God not wish it on anyone, not even an enemy.’
Lost in the nightmare of his dark past, a tulle curtain had lowered over Hilmi Rahmi’s face. He didn’t notice that I had begun to tremble like a leaf. The blood drained from my hands and feet, I was sweating beads of perspiration. I struggled to open the pin of Sumbul’s old cape the colour of pomegranate flowers that I had foolishly thrown around my shoulders despite the summer heat. I couldn’t get it open. I reached out my hand and put it in his lap, as if begging for help, then tried to stand up, but it was as if my legs were made of clay; I couldn’t straighten my knees. The wall clocks were whirling, mixing with the stars and squares of the floor mosaic. Just as I was falling to the ground, Hilmi Rahmi’s arm caught me, like in an old dream. My legs left the floor.
When I woke up, I found myself in the mansion, in my room. After that day, I swore an oath. I would never again set foot outside the Mansion with the Tower.
Borrowed Time
‘How have we sunk so low,
Sumbul, sister?’ grumbled Mujgan.
Side by side, she and Sumbul were rolling out dough in the spacious kitchen of the Thomas-Cook residence. The kitchen was like a beehive. Women in colourful headscarves were leaning over counters, working non-stop, their skilful fingers shaping dough, meat, vine leaves. The Italian head cook was strolling among them, inspecting their work. Instructions were being called out in all the languages spoken in Smyrna. Young men were carrying trays laden with hors d’oeuvres and canapés to the ballroom packed with guests.
‘Don’t complain, Mujgan,’ whispered Sumbul, wiping flour off her forehead with her arm. ‘Where else can we earn this kind of money these days? We get five times more here than we make packing figs.’
‘For God’s sake, stop, sister! Are we the kind of women to work as maids for foreigners?’
‘We’ve been here for two days, making savoury pies and baklava, and we haven’t even seen a foreigner!’ said Sumbul. Mujgan had touched on a sensitive subject. ‘We’ve rolled out this much dough, made so many pies, we should at least get to catch a glimpse of the ball.’
‘If Hilmi Rahmi were here, you could have been one of the ladies invited to the ball, sister. Don’t you ever think about that? But instead, we’re making baklava and pies for the European guests.’
‘Hold on a minute, Mujgan. Hilmi Rahmi is not a pasha; he’s just a colonel. And even if he was a pasha in Mustafa Kemal’s new army, what difference would that make – the foreigners don’t recognize this new Ankara government anyway.’
‘They might not recognize it today, but they will soon, and then they’ll kneel down in front of it,’ grumbled Mujgan. Taking out her rancour on the dough, she was extra forceful with her rolling pin.
Since Huseyin had left to join the nationalists, Mujgan had grown increasingly fanatical in her support for them. Sumbul was accustomed to this now. Without saying anything, she arranged her dough in the pan. ‘Don’t roll it out so thin, Mujgan. It will tear when they fill it.’
‘Oof, Sumbul, sister, you always know best.’
‘I am trying to be extra careful so we don’t embarrass our father-in-law, Mustafa Efendi. Don’t misunderstand me, please.’
Mustafa had arranged for his daughters-in-law to work in the kitchen for this New Year’s Eve ball given at the Thomas-Cook residence for the wealthiest and most influential people of Smyrna, Bournabat, Boudja and Kordelio. Multitudes of assistant cooks, servants and valets had been hired for the evening.
‘They’ve filled the kitchen with the whole city, sister. Just look at all these people working here!’
Sumbul glanced around the kitchen. It occupied the whole basement floor of the Thomas-Cook residence and could not be described simply as a kitchen; it was a series of kitchens, a place with connecting zones, pantries like an aircraft hangar, multiple ovens, and separate counters dedicated to slicing onions or rolling out pastry dough. Implements that Sumbul had never seen in her life hung from nails along the wall. Some were powered by electricity and caused Sumbul and Mujgan to jump at the noise they made when they were turned on. Only the Thomas-Cooks’ servants themselves were allowed to use these machines, and even among them there was a hierarchy. A little earlier the head cook had caught a woman using the electric mixer who did not have the authority to do so, and he had raised the roof.
‘Since Mr Edward brought this machine back from America, many fingers have been chopped off, so naturally the head cook is very particular. It would be a huge disaster if there were an accident on a day like this,’ explained a young girl sitting beside Sumbul. She wore a pale blue headscarf and she had a sweet face, like a squirrel’s, and a soft voice. As she spoke, she was shelling the pistachio nuts piled in front of her with great dexterity. After they’d been shelled, the nuts would be ground in a mortar and sprinkled on the baklava.
Mujgan glared at the girl. Since Huseyin left, she had stopped talking to Christians or buying from their shops.
‘He’s a little upset anyway because they hired two extra chefs for this ball.’
‘You mean three different chefs are working in the kitchen?’
‘Yes. The one who just walked past us is the Italian chef. He’s the real head cook of the house. Madame Helene hired two more chefs just for tonight. One is here only to cook the fish, and I don’t know about the other. And of course there’s Hayguhi Hanim. She makes the desserts. Hayguhi Hanim taught all of us how to make desserts for parties in the past – profiteroles, crèmes caramel, croquembouches… She’s the wife of the famous baker, Berberian, who has a shop on the quay. You know it? Anyway, they’re the only Armenians in the pastry business.’
While the squirrel-faced girl was talking, Sumbul looked at the balls of dough the stout woman across from her was making. After she shaped the balls, she injected something into them with a needle. Was this what they called ‘croquembouche’, she wondered?
‘Once those balls have been baked in the oven, they’ll be filled with sweetened whipped cream. Then we’ll pile them one on top of the other until they are two metres high.’
‘How tall is two metres?’
‘I don’t really know either, but it’s as tall as I am. We’ll all be called to squirt cream into them.’
Sumbul leaned towards the squirrel-faced girl’s ear and whispered, ‘Have you been upstairs at all? Have you seen the guests?’
Without raising her head from the mountain of shells in front of her, the girl whispered her reply. Her Turkish wasn’t bad. ‘I have. I went all the way up stairs a little while ago to hand over a tray to one of the waiters. The tables are lined up end to end, like a railway track. They stretch as far as the eye can see. There are plates and plates of food I’ve never seen in my life on the tables. It’s the apprentices in the kitchen over there who made those dishes; they trained in France. Our people are doing the caviar, squid, octopus, fish in mayonnaise… Bottles of champagne...’
Sumbul didn’t know what mayonnaise was and had never seen champagne. She stopped talking so that her ignorance wouldn’t become obvious.
‘After I’d handed over the tray to the waiter, I waited a while at the top of the stairs to see the ladies. Oh, my God, hanim mou, what gowns, what jewellery! Their necks shone brighter than the lamps. Every single one was like a movie star in the films shown at the Pantheon Cinema. They were so beautiful, so magnificent! Layered evening gowns with long trains; emeralds, rubies and sapphires around their necks and hanging from their ears. Some were wearing diamond tiaras; they must have been princesses. I can’t describe it – you’ve got to see it for yourself.’
The fat woman making dough balls across from them joined the conversation. ‘Did you hear? They invited High Commissioner Stergiadis to the ball.’
With the Greek she’d picked up, Sumbul understood what the woman had said. She asked in Turkish, ‘Do you think he’ll come?’
‘I doubt it. He refuses all invitations. A very bad-tempered man. None of us like him. They say he even shows favouritism to Turks.’
The squirrel-faced girl gave Mujgan a nasty look. Mujgan continued to roll out her dough as if the girl wasn’t there.
‘The man is trying to be fair,’ said Sumbul.
As soon as Stergiadis had taken control of Smyrna, he’d pushed to punish the men who’d looted the Turkish neighbourhoods on the day of the Greek landing, including the men who’d killed the coffeehouse owner, Hasan. All the civilians and soldiers who’d supported them were also called to account.
‘But it’s become so impossible to make everyone happy now that whatever he does ends up benefiting no one.’
‘What good is fairness to infidels who have set their eyes on other people’s homes and country,’ grumbled Mujgan.
As if she’d not heard her, Sumbul turned to the girl beside her. ‘My name is Sumbul. Do you know Mustafa Efendi, the butler of the house next door? We’re his daughters-in-law. This is my sister-in-law, Mujgan. Our father-in-law, God bless him, always looks out for of us, especially now, during
these difficult times. He got this work for us.’
Upon hearing Mustafa’s name, a light passed across the girl’s sweet face. Mujgan angrily slapped a new ball of dough she’d grabbed from the bowl onto the counter.
‘Oh, I am so pleased to meet you, Lady Sumbul. Harika poli. Butler Mustafa is a very honourable gentleman. All of us have great respect for him.’
Just as Sumbul was about to open her mouth, Mujgan interrupted. ‘Wait a minute. Let me guess…’ She’d put her dough and rolling pin down and was leaning her bare arms, covered in flour up to the elbows, on the counter, looking at the squirrel-faced girl and Sumbul with a challenging expression on her face. ‘At the time when that Mustafa gentleman whom you so respect was being assaulted, beaten unconscious and then left for dead in an abandoned mansion, you were waving flags and strewing flowers in the paths of your Greek evzones, were you not?’
The voices in the kitchen that until then had been buzzing like a beehive suddenly fell silent.
Sumbul felt herself blushing up to her ears. ‘Mujgan, please, we are in the house of foreigners.’
The squirrel-faced girl was looking at Mujgan with her mouth open. Sumbul reached out and touched Mujgan’s arm. Mujgan shook her hand away, as if a fly had landed on her arm.
‘Is what I said a lie?’
Silence. After a moment of confusion, everyone decided the best thing to do was to get back to work. Half the people in the kitchen were refugees from Chios and didn’t understand what was being said anyway; the other half pretended that they’d didn’t understand. The head cook, who’d come into the kitchen just at that moment was surprised by the quiet. He was a cheerful, amiable man who always had a glass of wine with him as he worked. If he had been upset by the hiring of additional cooks for the ball, he wasn’t showing it.
