by Moris Farhi
As mentioned before, the multi-ethnic constitution of our dormitory had been forged by our literature teacher, Professor Ahmet Poyraz – nicknamed şιk Ahmet, ‘Amorous Ahmet’, for reasons I will shortly explain.
şιk Ahmet, who has remained an inspired mentor to most of his students, has been the most vociferous defender of the Ottoman empire’s immense contribution to civilization. More to the point, he took this stand at a time when the luminaries of modern Turkey were competing with each other to denigrate the accomplishments of their predecessors in order to ingratiate themselves with the so-called ‘civilized West’. His contempt for the cupidity of the Occidental powers, who claim to be paragons of morality while happily killing millions in wars and in pursuit of colonial possessions, has become legendary. Treasuring the Ottoman empire’s millet policy – a policy that had ensured tolerance towards its many peoples – as a great leap forward in political philosophy, şιk Ahmet had progressed to Rousseau and to the need to unify humankind in brotherhood. Naturally enough, the concept of the United Nations had also affected him profoundly even though the first attempt at such an organization, the League of Nations, had foundered so disastrously.
Consequently, in support of the evolution of a ‘world nation’, he set out to restore what he called ‘real Turkishness’, a multi-millet community. Our dormitory was to be the prototype. We would demonstrate, not only to our government but also to the world, that chauvinist policies seeking to impose unity in a country of diverse peoples and religions were doomed to failure because they specifically sought to reduce plurality to singularity. If such an objective were to be achieved, society would become monolithic and ultimately perish as a result of inbreeding. Our dormitory, by contrast, would demonstrate that harmony could only exist through the preservation of plurality, that only a multi-millet policy could elevate Turkey to greatness whereas rabid nationalism – always camouflaged by such emotive terms as Turkification or Kemalism – would blight it irredeemably. We would prove, with our prototype ‘world nation’, that, in an unfettered crucible, different races and religions would create an ethos of mutual respect where all individuals would be equal and free. We would prove that our achievements in microcosm could also be achieved in macrocosm.
(The experiment, I should declare promptly, proved immensely successful. But then, pluralism always does – until, of course, Fate tampers with Pandora’s box and releases shoals of politicians who behave like sharks at mob-feeding time. Or, as in our dormitory’s case, it delivers Pandora herself ...)
şιk Ahmet was a tall, craggy, athletic man with impeccably coifed hair and moustache. He was always sombrely dressed in a dark suit and polished black shoes. The girls in our sister college found him very attractive – a cross between Errol Flynn and Boris Karloff. But since he never taught them, they never had to face his fierce temper or run for cover as he stormed through the corridors like his surname, the north wind. He was a hero of the War of Independence and a visiting professor at various universities – and, as a result, his status among the teaching staff was above even that of the Regional Inspector of Schools. He was, in effect, a law unto himself, unchallengeable, beyond criticism.
For şιk Ahmet, education started with poetry. Unless anointed by a balm of sublime verse, he claimed, we would turn into soulless bodies, lives devoid of life.
He was a formidable champion of Nâzιm Hikmet. The latter, indisputably one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century and, for many of us, the most immaculate Turkish soul, had been convicted and imprisoned for preaching communism; calumnied by the Establishment, most of his writings had been banned. Despite that, şιk Ahmet not only openly lectured on his poetry, but also led a samizdat network for disseminating his works. (Such devotion to justice was typical of şιk Ahmet. For instance, at the time of the Second World War, he had been very active in helping Jews and other minorities who had been crushed by the Varlιk, the infamous Wealth Tax. Some of the sons of those he had helped had become his students – like Zeki, a member of our dormitory, and Musa and Naim, two years ahead of us.)
For those students averse to poetry, şιk Ahmet had devised an assortment of punishments. A rap on the knuckles for anyone who dared yawn while he recited – which he did beautifully and sonorously. Ear-twisting for those who failed to fathom the stylized delicacy of the courtly Divan literature or who complained about learning the Arabic and Farsi words with which the verses were suffused. Same punishment for those who failed to appreciate the simplicity and immediacy of folk literature, which always ran a rival course to Divan. A kick to the bottom for those who sniggered when he waxed lyrical about Hikmet. Masses of weekend homework for those who missed one of his classes. And, in the belief that prevention is better than cure, a slap on the neck for those caught in the corridors without a book of poetry in their hands. The last occurred rarely: şιk Ahmet was a chain-smoker and emanated a pungent scent that was a mixture of tobacco and his lemon-scented cologne; thus we could always sniff his presence and get out of the way.
Though we were willing guinea-pigs in his dormitory project, he never treated us preferentially. Paradoxically for someone so liberal, he stuck to the ancient tenet that the relationship between teacher and student was like that between a sultan and a humble subject. On the other hand, fearsome as he was, he was not unaffectionate. Those students, myself included, who had ingested the joys of poetry would regularly get a pat on the shoulder or have their hair ruffled or, if the encounter took place outside the college precincts, be offered, man to man, a cigarette.
Yet I think that during the course of the semester chronicled by this retrospection he did come to perceive us not as adolescents frothy like fresh sheep’s milk, but as young adults with the solid texture of mountain yoghurt.
Most people at the college and just about everybody down the hill, in Bebek, knew that şιk Ahmet was having a passionate affair with a widow called Leylâ. Unable to marry her because she had a young son and risked losing custody of the boy to her in-laws, he was fanatically discreet about this romance and went to great lengths not to be seen in her company. However, on one occasion we – the whole dormitory – caught them in a most compromising situation. We had just won another battle, one that had broken a couple of our adversaries’ noses; knowing that we faced a heavy punishment – no weekend leave, at the very least – we decided to console ourselves, at the risk of further punishment, by cutting classes that day and drinking to our victory in a sea-front meyhane. When we finally decided to return to school late that afternoon, we chose to climb our hill’s ‘wild flank’ – so called because, given its craggy topography, it did not have a road serving the college – in order not to be caught by the caretakers. Suddenly, in a secluded copse halfway up the hill, we spotted şιk Ahmet and Leylâ in an embrace.
When we finally managed to shake off our shock, we scampered away as quietly as we could, restraining ourselves from exchanging lewd looks and, indeed, pretending that we had not even seen them. Though, in the weeks that followed, we could not tell by şιk Ahmet’s behaviour whether he himself had spotted us, we maintained a diligent discretion. I imagine those who never got to know Suna did so in fear of his fury. But the rest of us, having just experienced both the apogee and the nadir of love with our beloved Suna, found a new solidarity with şιk Ahmet. Manliness resides in silence – so our beloved had instructed us when she had made us promise to keep our trysts secret. Those who babble away, be it to boast or to groan, are creatures of indeterminate sex.
Our beloved ...
She appeared outside the college gates, at the beginning of our second semester.
I believe we all noticed her immediately. Standing by her Studebaker convertible and smoking, she looked like something out of the American magazine, Esquire. At first, since she always came on Saturdays, the day our weekend leave started, I thought she was a mother who came to collect her son. As I watched her draw on her cigarette like Rita Hayworth, I felt sorry for the boy: fantasies a
bout voluptuous mothers were our staple for masturbation. (Why do sensual women always smoke? Is it to warn us, men, that we’re only good for a few puffs before being stubbed out?)
She had shining auburn hair that matched – as I eventually found out – the magenta of her vulva. She had inherited her dark-shaded sex, she told me quite seriously, from a Sudanese ancestor who had been a eunuch in one of the sultan’s harems, but who, obviously, had not been a de facto castrato. In contrast, she had such white skin that had she lain naked on the snow she would have been invisible save for her hair, eyes, mouth and nipples.
Soon her presence became intriguing. She had claimed no one as her son. She would just stand near the gates and watch us disgorge from school like prisoners liberated from the Bastille. It was as if she had reserved Saturday mornings for an outing on Bebek’s promenade, where the sea breeze and the view were heavenly and where, for good measure, she could be amused by the wild antics of robust youngsters. Inevitably, I was reminded of stories about perverts who loitered outside girls’ schools and wondered whether she was a female counterpart. After all, perverts were reputedly old and this woman was undoubtedly of a certain age.
(I doubt whether she was older than thirty-five, but for a boy of fourteen, hurrying to be fifteen, every woman about his mother’s age is old.)
And little did I know that I would end up adoring women of a certain age because only they, given their maturity, can provide sexual miracles. After all, to evolve as a sexual miracle a woman needs many years of zealous couplings – and a fair percentage of failure. The failures are particularly important, for without the knowledge of ineptitude, there can be no knowledge of ecstasy. şιk Ahmet, who was much taken with Sufism, would often say, ‘Witness how success and failure, joy and grief, birth and death have the same gossamer texture.’
Anyway, our beloved ...
There soon occurred a series of strange happenings; happenings not necessarily puzzling in themselves but, given the adamantine bonds that held our dormitory together, quite unexpected and inexplicable.
For instance: a dark cloud, after a particular weekend, on the shoulders of Kâzιm, the Azeri, which left him staring disconsolately into space for days on end; whereas normally he would have had us roaring with laughter as he recounted the exasperation his outlandish capers induced in his parents, brothers, sisters and tribe. Or the fanatical refusal of Cengiz, the rock-like Tatar, to sacrifice a weekend leave and partake in a do-or-die football match with a rival dormitory, when at any other time he would have considered such an abandonment sheer betrayal. Or Laz İsmail’s sudden reluctance to allow us to re-examine his single testicle for any signs of change and to discuss yet again whether it was the missing testicle’s length that had been added on to his penis to make it hang, even in detumescence, like that of a horse. Or the tribulations of Eşber, the gentle gargantuan Turk, who, hopeless with words but determined to shower his paramour with poems, terrorized our bard, Zeki, the Jew – acclaimed as a poet of promise by no less an authority than şιk Ahmet – to act as his Cyrano.
And then it was my turn.
It was one of those April weekends when crotchety forty-eight-hour drizzles chase away the balmy spring days. The air was palpable with the frustration of people who scanned the hills for a hint of strawberry shoots.
Like most Pomaks, I am an amphibian myself and, by that winter’s end, I was impatient to join the dolphins in their games. Consequently, as I came out of school, I decided to ignore the rain and walk along the promenade. My friends, not so motivated, hurried off to Bebek to pick up buses, trams or the collective taxis, dolmuş.
I had stopped to gaze at a Chris-Craft, attached to a buoy some twenty metres out. This was a boat I had been coveting for months; the boat, I had promised myself, I would one day own. (Don’t ask me how I would have achieved that when, in pursuit of the idealism inculcated in us by şιk Ahmet, I had decided to take up teaching as a career.)
Then I heard her calling.
‘Young man!’
She was driving her Studebaker and had stopped by the kerb. She might have sounded brusque, but so alluring was she that I stared, bewildered.
‘Yes?’
‘Are you deaf?’
‘Sorry ...?’
‘I’ve been calling you ...’
‘Oh ... Forgive me ... I – was day-dreaming ...’
She smiled. ‘About mermaids?’
‘No ...’
‘Make sure they have legs. Those with fins aren’t much fun ...’
‘What ...? Oh ...’
She laughed heartily at my discomfort. She sounded like one of those society ladies who consider themselves more equal than men. ‘Bebek – how far is Bebek?’
I pointed at the village, barely half a kilometre away. ‘Just there.’
She consulted a piece of paper. ‘I’m looking for a street – Yeni Sokak. It’s where I live. Can you help me find it?’
‘There’s a newsagent at the corner. He would know.’
She opened the passenger door. ‘Get in.’ Seeing me hesitate, she beckoned me over. ‘Come on, come on. I need help. I’ve only just moved here.’
I got in like an automaton. I wanted to say how surprised I was that she couldn’t find her home. After all, Bebek was a tiny village; not even a blind person could get lost in it. But I was tongue-tied.
She sped off like a racing driver. I looked at her with a mixture of admiration and apprehension. And I registered her clothes: black shoes, black stockings, black skirt, black sweater, black scarf and black leather jacket. It suddenly struck me. Here was an existentialist. A Juliette Gréco; an icon of my generation. A symbol of turpitude to the Establishment and our parents. Here was rebellion incarnate.
She prodded me. ‘Newsagent, you said. Where?’
I pointed at the shop.
And almost at the same time, I caught a glimpse of Dimitri and İsmail, standing on either side of the road, watching me. I waved at them; they didn’t wave back.
Then a moment later, I saw Cengiz, then Eşber, then Agop and Kâzιm, all within a small radius of the newsagent. They were drenched, yet were hanging around for no apparent reason. I waved at them too. They didn’t return my greeting either.
As we came up to the newsagent, she pointed at a road on the right. ‘That looks familiar. Shall I give it a try?’
I read the street-sign: Yeni Sokak. ‘That’s it!’
She turned into it, cooing happily. ‘I must have the makings of an explorer! Mrs Magellan! Sounds good, don’t you think?’
I smiled and made a faint acknowledging sound.
‘We need number thirty-eight.’
I had been staring at her hair: a dark shade of auburn, as I mentioned, but loose and billowing in the wind like a weeping willow. Definitely an existentialist. But she was about my mother’s age. Were there existentialists as old as that?
She caught my stare. ‘Something wrong?’
‘No. No ... I’m looking for number thirty-eight.’
‘Good boy.’
Number thirty-eight turned out to be half-way down the street. And it proved to be one of those beautiful wooden buildings that are relics of Ottoman Istanbul. ‘There!’
She stopped the car outside the house, switched off the engine and sighed with relief. ‘Made it!’
I managed to nod.
She patted my shoulder. ‘Thank you. You’ve been wonderful. I’d never have found it without you.’
I smiled shyly. Then, feeling that I might be imposing on her, I clambered out of the car.
She got out, too, and started rummaging in her handbag for her house keys.
I started walking away. ‘Bye ...’
She found her keys. ‘Don’t just go like that! You’ve been so nice! Come in and have a drink! Show me how you young braves imbibe raki!’
‘What’s there to show?’
‘All the mystique.’
I stared at her, puzzled.
‘Do you water it down
or just use ice? And what do you chase it with?’
I nodded lamely. ‘Oh, I see what you mean ...’ I tried to sound worldly. ‘Whatever you prefer?’
By now she had opened the front door. ‘Come on, show me! Ooooh! Nice and warm in here!’
I stood at the doorway, hesitant, yet honoured that such an old – mature – person should deign to invite me for a drink.
She pulled at my sleeve. ‘Come on, let’s get out of this rain!’
As I stood in the ornate hallway, I became aware of the perfume that permeated the house. Her perfume. It would linger in my nostrils for years.
She kicked off her shoes and pointed at the front room. ‘In there! The raki’s out. There’s ice and mineral water. Pour generously. Nothing like a long drink. I’ll be back in a second.’ And she soared up the stairs.
I hung my coat and satchel on the portmanteau. Then I took off my shoes and put on the guest slippers. They could have been magical slippers transporting me from reality into illusion.
The front room enhanced this feeling with its quiet opulence. I could have been in one of those Ottoman inner sanctums that I had read about, seen pictures of, but which, according to şιk Ahmet, had ceased to exist, except possibly in very conservative homes, because Western trends, in the wake of Atatürk’s reforms, had taken possession of the country. The room was crammed with low sofas, soft cushions, ivory-inlaid coffee tables, arrays of exquisite bibelots and ornamental İznik plates, yet it emanated a sense of spaciousness. The original bright colours of the furnishings, particularly of the antique carpet, permeated a genteel glow. I imagined, as I threaded my way to the cabinet where various bottles stood on a tray, that if I clapped my hands a bevy of odalisques would appear to do my bidding.
