Portrait of a Turkish Family

by Orga, Irfan

  ‘Here he comes!’ I yelled, panic-stricken in earnest this time.

  The footsteps drew nearer and nearer, entered our front door and mounted the stairs – slowly, wearily, heavily, just as I supposed a long-dead holy man would walk. My heart was ready to stop forever and I lay under the praying-mat, with Mehmet screaming his lungs out, and a stern hand pulled the praying-mat away from our faces.

  ‘What is this?’ enquired my mother’s voice.

  I was so relieved to see her that I was totally unable to reply but Mehmet managed to stutter ‘D-Dead man!’ and then went off into a fresh paroxysm of wailing. My mother strove to make him cease, sorting him out from beneath me – where he had wriggled – and trying to wrest the corner of the praying-mat, which he tightly clutched, from his fingers.

  When she had finally extricated him, it was discovered that he had wet his pants a couple of times, and looked as if the slightest cross word from my mother would cause him to do the same again.

  CHAPTER 11

  The End of Sarıyer

  Life was by no means dull in our street. From the arrival of the first, early morning sütçü, to the departure of the last evening yoğurtçu, there was noise and bustle and arguing and laughter. I used to sit in my corner window, a pile of cushions placed on my chair so that I could see the better, and watch the street vendors leading their lazy-looking mules up and down, up and down, crying their wares and shouting insults at each other. There were the aubergine sellers, the tomato-sellers and traders with great, glowing heaps of lemons. And, in their seasons, the water-melon sellers and grape-sellers. They would lead their mules drowsily, enormous baskets strapped on either side of the beast to display the aubergines and the tomatoes and the tender, young French beans. They would cry hoarsely to the listening houses that no finer vegetables than theirs were to be found in any part of the world. A shrill housewife would demand the price and, upon hearing the reply, would commence to abuse the seller. Perhaps even a battle would ensue, the trader and the housewife each vying with the other for the honours of the slanging match. Sometimes other housewives would join in, defending their representative. A few of the other traders would listen sceptically, and after a while the battle of words would reach such a pitch that the combatants had to search deeply into the opponent’s antecedents, in order that fresh fuel might be added to the fire. There was never any danger of either side running out of words, even if it meant reiterating the same ones over and over again. It was nothing to hear one of them informing the other that he was a son of a donkey or that he was the husband of a prostitute or the father of innumerable illegitimate children. These were mild epithets against the stronger ones that could be used if the housewife really got into her stride. She usually bested the trader, for she almost always had grown sons, ready to defend her honour should he reply to her in like manner. And of course there were always the other housewives, who would think nothing of setting about the poor unfortunate seller, beating him with whatever came to their hands, whilst their children would rifle his laden baskets, lying across the back of the phlegmatic mule.

  There were a great number of children in the street, dirty-nosed, underfed children who were tougher at seven or eight than many a man is at forty. Mangy cur dogs roamed the dustbins, which were left outside the houses, for we were no respecters of authority in our street. Thousands of cats, in all stages of growth and development, ranged the rubble-heaps and chased the rats from the sewers, and were even capable of eating each other when their hunger became maddening. Through all this wretchedness and dirt and poverty, my mother walked with her proud, firm step and the other women eyed her suspiciously and murmured against her because she thought so little of their censure, that she had torn the kafes from her windows and walked amongst them as shamelessly as a prostitute. And the small boys threw stones after her and the men leered into her veiled face and she passed through their malevolent ranks like a queen. She would not allow us to play in the street, for despite her destitution she retained her snobbishness. Our daily exercise depended on the amount of time she had left over from her shopping expeditions. She rarely bought from the street-sellers, having no bargaining capacity and rendered shy before the cold, appraising scrutiny of the other women, who automatically crowded their doors to see what she bought and how much she was foolish enough to pay for it. She bought in the local marketplace, a street urchin – always to be found in the markets – to carry her wares in a basket slung over his thin shoulders. She would walk home before him, direct him upstairs to the smelly landing, tip him and send him away.

  Mehmet and I were always given the job of sorting the vegetables into their respective places, for in those days she soiled her hands as little as possible. She hated the street and its inhabitants, their coarse humour and their impure speech. She had an almost academic passion for purity of speech. Once home, she would remove her veil, sink into a chair and look about her at the treasures of my grandfather’s day. Gradually peace would creep back into her face again. She lived always in the past, emerging unwillingly for the daily routine. Each night saw her tranquilly sewing in a deep chair, where the lamplight caught her hair, or tending her nails, the curtains drawn and her face composed, as though no hostile strangers lurked outside in the mean street. Her habit of going back to the past, of turning her mind ever inwards would become perilous in later life but none of us knew that then. She roamed around always in her memories, refusing to recognise the ever-encroaching future of penury.

  Money was very scarce but still she spent what we had like water. If she thought she was going to start worrying about it, down came the shutter over her mind and the thought was pushed into the uneasy background – along with all the other unpleasant thoughts she did not want to recognise. When my grandmother frequently remonstrated about the way money was slipping from our grasp, my mother would turn the subject aside, perhaps showing my grandmother some piece of embroidery she had just completed and the discussion on money would be dropped almost as soon as it had started. And my mother would talk vivaciously about many things, eagerly switching the conversation if money threatened to crop up again. She acted the part of a fashionable young woman of position and began to talk of my father’s return from the war, and after a time a disquieting note crept into her talk for she began to forget that there was any war at all and took to mentioning names of men long dead. She would not accept defeat but defeat crept up behind her like a stab in the dark. She planned a visit to Sarıyer, animatedly promising Mehmet and me a long holiday there, but now and then a little shadow would cross her face as though she knew she was talking nonsense but preferred her nonsense to the unsavoury truth. The more contact she had with the outside world the more she turned her thoughts inwards, the more extravagant became her plans.

  I never remember her to be demonstrative, clasping her children to her or kissing them in moments of nearness. We never had any moments of nearness to her but, nevertheless, she remained our only bulwark against the world, our one security. The touch of her cool, remote hand, the rustle of her skirt or the sound of her light, emotionless voice was enough for us. These things could still all our fears or soothe away pain. As time passed, she grew more cordial to the widow below us, although my grandmother did her best to discourage this. But my mother genuinely liked the widow. She had a sort of sure instinct for human nature, ignoring the outward pattern and swooping down to discover the heart, with a beautiful compassion.

  The rest of the street shunned the widow, hinting that she was no better than she should be. My mother, shunned and shunning, had a deep sympathy for this. She would ask the widow to come upstairs and drink coffee, ask her mature advice on the method of making clothes for Mehmet and me, or how to cook such and such a dish. The widow became very grateful for these little attentions from my mother, these subtle flatteries, and rapidly became the devoted slave of the family. She would sit with us and amuse us when my mother was out, wash us and feed us and dandle Muazzez for hours on her c
apacious knees. She was a sort of unpaid servant, an İnci and a lewd Hacer rolled into one and was, no doubt, very useful to my mother. She even took to preparing all the food for us but this my mother put a stop to, for the widow’s hands were seldom clean and she had a habit of scratching her sparse, grey hairs so that some usually fell into whatever it was she was cooking. My mother’s passion for cleanliness was as great as her passion – an odd one in the old, vanished Turkey – for fresh air. One morning there was a great knocking at the door and I heard someone asking for my mother. I called out to her and she ran down the stairs, then her voice cried: ‘Hasan!’

  And whilst I was wondering whom ‘Hasan’ might be she thanked Bekçi Baba for having directed her visitor here. Then I suddenly recognised the voice of the mysterious ‘Hasan’ and he was no mystery any longer for he was the gardener from Sarıyer – the gardener who must be commemorated forever because he liked small boys.

  My mother and he came up the narrow stairs and into the salon. Hasan greeted Mehmet and me then with the privilege of a very old family servant, looked all about him and said querulously: ‘What is this dreadful place, hanım efendi?’ and before waiting for any answer shook his old white head sadly. He peered at my mother with his near-sighted eyes and said uncertainly: ‘I went to your house first. Such a shock I got!’ he grumbled. ‘I did not know it was like that, hanım efendi; the news has not reached Sarıyer.’ He paused for a long minute, still grumbling into his beard, then continued, ‘It was Bekçi Baba who directed me to this house. Eh dear, dear! To think of you in a place like this!’

  And to my acute embarrassment large tears dropped from his eyes, spilling down his ancient coat.

  ‘Now, Hasan!’ said my mother, reprovingly, much as she would speak to one of us children if we too easily gave way to tears.

  Hasan wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.

  ‘Ah!’ he said deeply and darkly, ‘things are altering, hanım efendi. Nobody knows from day to day what will happen next, but to see you in a house like this – ’ and he paused, trying to find the right words.

  My mother covered the gap by asking swiftly: ‘And what news of Sarıyer, Hasan?’

  The old man’s eyes filled with tears again, the weak, easy tears of a very, very old man but I could feel the laughter bubbling up in my throat, like water from a spring well. My mother’s eyes reproved my levity, which made me worse, so that I got quite red in the face with the effort to contain myself. But my laughter flew before Hasan’s next words, which were so unexpected that they hit my brain like a little series of electric shocks.

  ‘The master is believed dead, hanım efendi – ’ he said, then broke off to cry bitterly, unable to contain himself any longer and my mother looked over his bent head, blindly and with a face that might have been carved of stone.

  ‘Dead!’ she said. ‘Ahmet dead!’

  And frightened of her white face, I began to cry too and Mehmet followed and pandemonium was let loose in the room. I am sure I did not cry for Uncle Ahmet, being still young enough not to fully appreciate the meaning of the word ‘death’. And I did not cry because I would never go to Sarıyer again, for that I did not know.

  I cried, I suppose, because Hasan cried, because my mother had turned to stone and had gone far away from us and this still, summer room. I cried on and on, bitterly, not knowing why I was crying but liking the noise I was making. Even when the tears had stopped flowing I still cried on, broadcasting my woe to the house-tops and never wishing to stop. There is something so elemental, so primeval about human tears that the sound of them causes ripples and tremors to course up and down the spine and through the blood-stream and my own tears that day had just that effect upon me. It was my mother’s sharp, stinging hand on my cheek that made me cease, bringing me up short in the middle of a particularly heart-rending sob.

  ‘Stop!’ she cried so imperiously that stop I did immediately, my mouth still foolishly open but no sound emerging. Mehmet and I were sent to the sofa, in the far corner of the room, where we gulped and sniffled our way back to sanity.

  ‘Hasan,’ I heard my mother say gently, ‘tell me all about it. How did your mistress discover?’

  The old man made a valiant effort to recover himself and after a moment or two, began to speak.

  ‘My mistress has been worrying for many months and last week she sent me to the War Office to ask if they knew anything about my master. But they knew little there. At last a Colonel was found who said my master was believed dead. They know nothing else about him. Nothing!’

  ‘But that is terrible,’ said my mother in an odd sort of voice and was my father’s image in her eyes, I wonder?

  Hasan continued: ‘My mistress took the news very hardly, hanım efendi. She has not eaten for three days now and her cough does not get any better. Last night she had a haemorrhage.’

  ‘Poor Ayşe,’ said my mother. ‘Of course we guessed she had consumption – ’

  ‘Do not tell this news to the old lady,’ warned Hasan, the ‘old lady’ being my respected grandmother, who would have been most indignant had she heard this term applied to herself.

  ‘Certainly I shall not,’ said my mother. ‘But she is sure to find out. Oh, Hasan, the terrible things that are happening. All the doors are closing one by one and all the happy families dying. Oh, Hasan!’ and she covered her face with her hands but she did not cry.

  This was another thing to be bottled up, to be pushed into the back of her mind and not to be thought about, until one day the top would come flying off and all these fearsome things leap out at her with a snarl.

  ‘It is the will of God,’ said Hasan simply, and my mother uncovered her face and said: ‘A hard will, Hasan.’

  ‘Do not say such things!’ cried the old man, forgetting his sorrow, so thoroughly scandalised was he that a woman should question the will of God.

  My mother ignored his remark and said instead: ‘Do not tell your mistress of the fire, not just yet anyway. She has enough trouble now and the fire is over and my house gone and talking will not bring it back. We are comfortable enough here – ’

  Her eyes ranged round the room uncertainly, as though seeking reassurance of comfort.

  The old man got ready to leave, placing a basket of food on the table and my mouth began to water as I saw the contents being emptied. My mother thanked him and he looked sad and doubtful, as though reluctant to leave. But he bowed to her and spoke a few more words, then went shuffling down the stairs and we could hear him muttering to himself all the way down.

  My mother sat in a chair, looking as if she wanted to cry but habit was too strong in her and she held back the treacherous tears. She sat looking into space and presently a little smile touched her lips and I wondered what memory it was that had the power to override her sorrow for Uncle Ahmet, so strong to bring light to her eyes and awareness of Mehmet and me, who sat watching her.

  ‘You must not say anything to your grandmother,’ she warned sternly and we replied that we would not and then she left us, to continue with the work which Hasan’s visit had interrupted.

  Mehmet immediately forgot why he had been so recently crying and went back to play, his thin, brown face sharp with anxiety because a certain brick would not stand up on top of another. I watched him for a moment or two, then said: ‘Let me show you,’ and I took the bricks from his docile, clever fingers. ‘There!’ I said, when I had finished, ‘that is the way you must build them.’

  He looked at the edifice I had erected, then patiently, one by one, he pulled down all the bricks again and commenced to build them his own way. The gaily painted bricks toppled and swayed in their insecure positions and fell to the floor and Mehmet sat thoughtfully back on his heels, jabbing at them with his fingers, his little face still sharp with anxiety.

  I left him to it and went to examine the precious things which had been sent from Sarıyer. There was a mountain of rice, a fat chicken, butter more golden than shop butter could ever be, large brown speck
led eggs and home-made bread. I pulled a brown crust from the bread and began to eat it with appetite. Sorrows there might be in the world and in my family but childhood’s especial world revolves around a crust of fresh bread.

  It was inconceivable that my mother should imagine my grandmother would not find out about Uncle Ahmet’s death. I prefer to say ‘death’ and not ‘supposed death’ for two reasons. Firstly, his death was afterwards officially confirmed. Secondly, the War Office of that time was in such a state of flux, so confused and incapable in fact, that alive but missing soldiers were not infrequently listed as dead, even though they might turn up afterwards. But the War Office never rectified their mistakes, perhaps feeling that in the present state of things most of the so-called missing soldiers would eventually be dead anyway. It became fairly obvious to the people then that anyone listed and notified as supposed dead was as dead as he would ever be.

  But to return to my grandmother. Hasan had not long left us when she came angrily into the house, demanding coffee and the reason for Hasan’s mysterious visit. My mother looked astonished and enquired how my grandmother could possibly know of his visit.

  ‘I heard it,’ snapped my grandmother, furious because Hasan had not paid his respects to her and suspicious that my mother had been told something she had a right to know as well.

  My mother said, rather faintly for her, that Hasan had merely brought a basket of food for us. And having said that much, she sat looking at my grandmother, as though the old lady was displaying almost supernatural powers in having known at all that anyone out of the usual had called at our house that day.

  My grandmother sat stiff as a ramrod in her chair and demanded what news there was of Sarıyer.