Portrait of a Turkish Family

by Orga, Irfan

  It was about this time too that my grandmother became almost totally deaf and her thick, dark hair showed more and more grey and began to fall out. Decay and rot were setting in everywhere.

  The day eventually came of course when my mother seemed to grow out of her morbidity, when her eyes showed alert awareness again and she took an interest in those about her. Just as she had been listless before, now she was teeming with energy as though long sojourn with grief had revitalised her. She spoke of going to the War Office, and when she had made the decision, was impatient to be off at once. We were left to my grandmother, who nowadays seemed bowed and old, mumbling into the Koran most of the day, doling out money from her tin-chest without murmur or protest. The day my mother went to the War Office, she sat in the salon, reading from the Koran, talking to herself in a loud, grumbling voice for she was so deaf that she did not realise she spoke aloud. By the time my mother returned we were starving, for my grandmother could not be weaned from her prayers to prepare a meal for us.

  My mother looked tired herself and clicked her teeth exasperatedly when she saw that nothing had been prepared for her. She went to the kitchen, Mehmet and I excitedly running around her, the good smell of cooking that she was creating causing our mouths to water and our empty stomachs to ache. She was unusually patient with us, ignoring it when we snatched eagerly at the fresh, crusty outside of the bread she had brought home with her. When all was ready, we were told to call my grandmother and we bellowed loudly from the foot of the stairs and, reluctantly, she put away her Koran and came down to eat.

  My mother told us of her day. The War Office had been crowded with other black-clad, anxious women, demanding news of their husbands. Harassed officials had bleated that no information could be given and had attempted to restore law and order and dignity to the War Office. But to have restored these that day would have required a Herculean effort, more than the few officials between them could manage, and one of them had retired to get more help. My mother had stood for hours in that smelling, angry queue of humanity, eventually learning that what she had been told by Captain Ali, at Yeşilköy, had been true. The records showed that my father had been dead for many months. Timidly, my mother had asked where he died, and the official, dealing with her, had snapped that he could not be expected to know everything. Surely it was enough for her to know that her husband was dead?

  ‘But are you sure?’ my mother had pleaded, impotent against such open, uncaring cruelty. ‘I have received no confirmation from you. Why did you not let me know before this, without my having to come here?’

  The official had broken into her words brutally, saying: ‘Hanım, your husband is dead, and with so many dead and dying we cannot be expected to notify everyone!’

  My mother, remembering, said that he had spoken with great petulance, as though she and all the other unhappy women waiting here were in some way responsible for the deaths of their menfolk, thereby causing this gallant young man a great deal of unnecessary trouble.

  She had wanted to ask him something else but he had forestalled her, slamming the wooden window-shutter in her face, so that she had been forced to retire. She said that all about her the women were being treated in the same way. Crying, wailing, beseeching for information, old ones and young ones with babies, being unceremoniously pushed back from the enquiry windows. Then one woman, driven beyond endurance, commenced to shout insults whilst she held her startled baby above her head.

  ‘Dogs!’ she had shouted passionately. ‘My husband left five children behind him, and a mother to support. Are you going to support them, you miserable sons of bitches? Did my husband ask to be taken from his work and his family to fight for people like you? Will you give us food to put in our hungry stomachs? Do you care if we go hungry and naked, if strange men insult us in the streets or if our children die of disease and starvation? Our husbands died to save their country and then bastards like you shut the windows in our faces, because we ask for news – ’

  She had been roughly handled by the police and dragged, screaming further abuse, from the building. My mother, retelling her story, became heated for the injustice done to that woman and to all the women of Turkey.

  ‘She was right, right!’ she insisted passionately to my grandmother’s disdainful face. ‘And she was no street-woman either and she would never have said what she did say without provocation. We didn’t ask for this war. My poor, wise Hüsnü was right when he once said that the conceit of a few men could ruin our country.’

  She commenced to cry bitterly, my grandmother stirring uneasily in her chair. She was so deaf that she had heard only part of my mother’s speech and she did not know what to do to give comfort.

  My mother raised her head to look at my grandmother.

  ‘If we had not had your money,’ she said to her listening, straining face, ‘we could not have survived. There are thousands who have nothing; still the Government ignores them and leaves them to die in the streets. Is this what our men went to fight for? Did my husband leave me for this? If there is a God above He must show mercy to the widows and orphans who are left! If there is a God above!’

  My grandmother’s half-silent ears had caught some of the last words and her lined face puckered with distress.

  ‘No!’ she protested gently. ‘Do not call upon God in that way. You will be punished, my child. It is not right for us to question His ways.’

  ‘Ach!’ said my mother in disgust. ‘Will He feed us, mother? Will He come down from His heaven and put food in my children’s hungry stomachs?’

  My grandmother strained pitifully to catch the angry words and shook her head protestingly.

  ‘No, no!’ she repeated. ‘It is not right to talk like this. Have you not had enough punishment? Do you want to see your children struck dead or blinded before your eyes?’

  Her direful words made us shiver with horror. My mother said to her: ‘You are old, mother. You will never understand what it is to lose your husband when you are young, to know that never again will you be able to lie beside him at the end of the day or to feel his warm body close along the line of your back. Your day is finished and you lost your husbands when all passion had gone from you long ago. But I lost mine before my body had time to wither. All the young and the brave are dying and only the women and the helpless children are left. And our good Sultan keeps to his Palace and assesses the worth of a man in terms of money and will give me ninety-nine kuruş a month, to compensate me for the loss of my husband. My husband who was young and strong and who rots in some grave we do not know where. Ninety-nine kuruş!’

  ‘What is the ninety-nine kuruş?’ asked my grandmother, bellowing in her anxiety so that Mehmet and I trembled.

  ‘The pension I shall receive for myself and my three children,’ replied my mother.

  ‘Pension?’ queried my grandmother, not fully understanding anything, I think, but anxious to appear intelligent to the passionate young woman who faced her across the table.

  My mother carefully kept her patience to explain.

  ‘A pension is money you receive from the Government if you have lost your husband in the war. They have decided to give me ninety-nine kuruş because that is all Hüsnü was worth to them. I have lost my home because we are at war. Ahmet is dead and Ayşe – and Sarıyer will soon be less than a memory. My children grow and must be fed and you and I cling to life because sometimes it is easier to live than to die. Bread is fifty kuruş a kilo and lasts us one day, two if we go hungry, and a man at the Treasury today congratulated me because I gave a man to the war. “God has blessed you,” he said, “your husband died şehit (for his country) and his place is in heaven – and now, if you will just sign here please – ” and he gave me the paper which said I was willing to accept ninety-nine kuruş for my husband.’

  Her passionate voice broke and she sat staring into space, her eyes full of the saddest dreams and curiously but not frighteningly so, oblivious of her family about her. My grandmother noisily sipped
her soup but spoke no word for her deafness gave her a remoteness from life and she could not always follow my mother’s tripping tongue.

  The first time my mother went to collect her pension, I went with her, to the building that is today the İstanbul College. Everywhere was crowded with pushing, shouting women and the queues reached far down the street. But they were not the orderly, disciplined queues that I came to know so well in wartime England during the Second World War. No indeed! These queues could scarcely be called queues at all, since they consisted for the most part of women shrieking insults and imprecations at each other, pushing each other out of the way and arguing spiritedly with the police who, for a time, tried to instil some sense of decorum into the crowds. But the women, en masse, were too much for the police, so they left them to fight out their battles.

  My mother and I awaited our turn, she with considerable asperity, and if anyone attempted to take her place, she rounded on them so venomously that the attacker was forced to retire. Her sharp, uncompromising attitude brooked no interference and I admired her for being able to defend herself against these rough women.

  When it was our turn at the pay-window, she took the money offered, handed it to me and told me to buy sultanas for myself.

  The official said sharply: ‘The Government gives you that money for food, sister, not to give it as pocket money to your children. Or are you too rich to need this money?’

  My mother turned to him viciously, returning to where he stood at the little window, lightly pushing aside the woman who was awaiting her money.

  ‘Your job,’ said my mother, with remarkable self-control, ‘is to attend to the people who come here, not to give them advice for we none of us need your advice’ – a cheer went up from the other women – ‘I wonder how much your munificent Sultan pays you in a month? Enough to feed your family well? I do not think so, for your suit, God help you, is a disgrace to you and your thin body looks so weak that it is no wonder they did not send you to fight the English. If I give the money I receive here to my son, for sweetmeats, it is all I consider it to be worth. I came here to collect a pension, not to listen to your uncalled-for advice.’

  ‘I’ll have you arrested – ’ spluttered the young man, very red in the face, and I shook with terror for I thought perhaps he could really do this.

  And my mother’s clear voice rang out challengingly: ‘Try to have me arrested!’

  And the voices of the other women rose threateningly, against the arrival of two policemen, who remained however at the edge of the crowd, not yet brave enough to wade through that angry, milling crowd, to lay hands on my mother.

  The women shouted hoarsely: ‘Well spoken, sister!’

  And they moved protectingly about her, ready to defend her if the police came too near. She stood staring at the hesitant police, her head thrown back proudly, but they made no move towards her. She moved through the ranks of women, her head still high. Some of the women caught her sleeve as she passed and cried: ‘God bless you, hanım efendi!’

  And the police made no attempt to touch her, even though the words she had spoken that morning were treacherous in old Turkey.

  After that episode she did not ever again go to collect the meagre pension but would let me go, for I used to buy nuts or sultanas for myself and Mehmet. But one morning I too had a never-to-be-forgotten experience and after that the pension lay forgotten for none of us bothered to claim it.

  That last day I went, the crowds were as thick as ever and I patiently awaited my turn. Although many people left the pay-windows, still so many more were entering the hall that I never seemed to get any nearer to receiving money. I swallowed my fear of the fierce women and pushed my way between them, sometimes crawling under them, ignoring the threats of the angry men and succeeded in almost reaching one of the windows. There was a tall man behind me and, seeing that I was not tall enough to reach up to the ledge with the pay-book, he lifted me up. Then, to my intense embarrassment, he quickly inserted his fingers into the crutch of my short pants and I wriggled and shouted like a mad thing. My threshing legs hit a young woman on the side of the head and she angrily beat me. The man who held me continued with his investigations and I screamed wildly and tried to hit out at him. There was an ominous muttering from the crowd and I struggled to free myself, easy now, for the man had partially released me. I almost fell to the floor, hurt and bewildered that anyone should want to do such things, and I fled through the crowds, the pension-book forgotten.

  I ran home as fast as my legs could carry me, although they were trembling so much that I do not suppose I really made very much progress. When I got home I sobbed out the whole story to my astonished mother and I saw her mouth tighten, then she bade me wash myself and to say nothing of this to Mehmet.

  Afterwards she explained: ‘When you are older I shall tell you all these things, for now I am your father and your mother. But always remember that, to certain men, boys are more valuable than girls, especially a nicelooking boy like you.’

  She said no more, beyond adding that I must try to put this day out of my head.

  But it was hard to put this memory behind me. The shock had been so intense that for many a long day afterwards I flew like the wind from every man I met. And right through childhood and youth the suspicion remained, and all men were potential enemies.

  CHAPTER 14

  Poverty Makes a Bargain

  My grandmother was ageing fast. She still read from the Koran each day and latterly had taken to accusing my mother of trying to get another husband. She would mumble that nobody wanted her any more, that her money would soon be finished and that once my mother had married again she would never be allowed to see her grandchildren. She wallowed in self-pity, refusing to listen when my mother explained that she had not the slightest intention of remarrying. She shouted everything out in her loud voice for the whole neighbourhood to hear. One day she bellowed to the widow, who was passing the door, to come up and drink coffee with her whilst she told all her troubles to her. The widow being a kindly soul forgot the many times my grandmother had snubbed her almost out of existence and declared herself willing to drink coffee. She entered the house saying that she never drank good coffee unless she drank it in our house.

  ‘Where do you get the sugar – ’ she sighed but my grandmother did not enlighten her and probably heard only part of the conversation in any case.

  Although it was the widow who had been invited to partake of refreshment it was she who made it, my grandmother roaring instructions at her, scarcely pausing for breath, insisting on the best cups being used. In a very short time the whole street knew that coffee was being brewed in our house and very soon too they were going to hear that the family was practically destitute.

  Wood was added to the great white stove and armchairs drawn forward for the two women. I hovered uncertainly in the background and, no notice being taken of me, finally sat down on the soft, warm carpet. The widow was delighted with her good luck and showed no inclination to leave this cosy room. My grandmother started to tell her that we had no money left but the widow paid little attention to this, since she herself had never known anything else but a lack of money. When she finally got a chance to talk, she said cheerfully: ‘But you have a sewing-machine, hanım efendi, and with a sewing-machine you can never be hungry. Why, I have eaten my bread from one for the last fifteen years!’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said my grandmother. ‘How can I learn to use a sewing-machine at my time of life?’

  ‘What about your daughter-in-law?’ yelled the widow, drawing closer to the crackling fire.

  ‘Şevkiye?’ said my grandmother, in great surprise. ‘Why, she is as useless as I am!’

  ‘No, she isn’t,’ contradicted the widow. ‘Look how quickly she learned how to make the children’s clothes?’

  ‘Yes,’ said my grandmother, thoughtfully. ‘Of course she does the most exquisite embroidery – ’

  ‘Embroidery!’ snorted the widow, with great disdai
n. ‘That’s no use today in the world, hanım efendi. But machining – now that’s quite another thing. Perhaps my patron in the Kapalı Çarşı (Grand Bazaar) would give her some work to do. I shall ask him tomorrow and if he is agreeable I shall help her and show her how to do the things he wants.’

  ‘You are unusually kind,’ said my grandmother wonderingly, and the widow looked pleased.

  In the midst of their talking, my mother came in, looking so odd, so dishevelled, that my heart gave a lurch of fear.