Portrait of a Turkish Family

by Orga, Irfan

  The batman was disappointed that nothing more spectacular had occurred and sat down to his meal in a very disgruntled frame of mind, for he rightly felt that after so much effort on his part, something really dramatic should have happened. After she had eaten, my mother was told to sleep and forget everything and, amazingly, she was able to do this.

  When she had woken up on the following morning her first thought was to feel for the offending lump but to her amazement it had entirely disappeared.

  She had rushed to a mirror only to find her neck back to normal once more; then she had started to cry with joy and immediately called all the household to witness her marvellous recovery.

  I listened to their combined story with growing horror and indignation, furious that my mother had allowed herself to be persuaded to employ the wiles of an old half-crazy woman.

  I gave tongue to my feelings but when I had finished, my grandmother said perfectly reasonably: ‘But what is there to be cross about? The swelling has gone and your mother is better.’

  This I could not dispute.

  My batman brought the bowl to me so that I could see the aftermath of the wonderful cure for myself and when I looked into the bowl I saw the queer, twisted shape of the lead and the egg floating on top, looking indeed oddly like a giant eye.

  ‘And what about the bone?’ I asked, feeling that they were quite capable of having kept that too.

  The batman looked sheepish and hung his head.

  ‘It’s back in the graveyard again,’ he said. ‘I was told that it had to be put back there before the dawn came, otherwise something awful would have happened to me.’

  CHAPTER 27

  Kütahya and İzmir

  At the latter end of 1937 I was ordered to Kütahya on duty and I travelled there one bitterly cold morning in search of a house to which my family could be transferred, for they had made it quite clear that they had no intention of remaining alone in Eskişehir. At the station of Kütahya I hired a Tartar phaeton to take me into the town. The bleakness and loneliness of the place were depressing and I remembered the much-maligned Eskişehir with positive affection.

  The scenery was flat and uninteresting, the few houses we passed were old and so dreary-looking with the eternal kafes on the windows. When we got near to what looked partially like civilisation I called to the driver to stop. I had no desire to go any farther.

  I turned in at the door of a café to get warmed but the music blaring from a loud speaker, the thick blue fog of smoke, the terrible noise from innumerable tric-trac sets caused me to hastily back out again, deciding it would undoubtedly be better to die in the cold.

  I saw a chemist’s shop and I entered, ostensibly to purchase aspirin, but I soon fell into conversation with the owner of the shop, who was bored with the rough life around him and eager to exchange pleasantries with a newcomer.

  I said that I was looking for a house and he said he did not think I would be successful in this respect. He introduced me to a fat, short man who said that he knew everything there was to be known in Kütahya and everyone and he readily offered to accompany me in my search for somewhere to live.

  I asked if he thought it possible for me to find a brick or cement house and he threw back his leonine head and roared with laughter.

  ‘There are only two brick houses in the whole of Kütahya,’ he said, ‘and both of them are occupied – one by an artillery major and the other by a Russian captain.’

  ‘What the hell is a Russian captain doing here?’ I asked.

  But he did not know and I thought it extremely odd indeed. Although why it was odd I did not know – perhaps because he was a Russian.

  That day we discovered five empty houses but none of them was suitable. In particular, two of them were in the older, lower part of the town in streets so narrow that it was possible to shake hands from your windows with the occupants of the opposite windows.

  The ancient houses were so tall that one could not but wonder if the sun ever shone in these dreary streets, or if it was only a remote brightness out of sight in the far sky. All the windows were tightly latticed with kafes so perhaps in the long run it did not matter whether the sun reached these streets or not, for the rooms of these houses could never have felt its warm touch or the cooler chill of the wind.

  We entered one of the houses and the ceilings looked as if colonies of bed-bugs lived there – in the dark, broken wooden beams – and no light filtered through the close kafes. I was suddenly depressed and longed to get out into the cold harsh air again, into the light. I could not imagine my mother living in a house such as this.

  In the end the only place I was able to get which seemed to be in any way suitable was the house that had once been the chapel of the Mevlevi Dervishes, before Atatürk had abolished them. It had apparently lain empty for some time for people had a reluctance to make it into a home.

  It was a big, roomy place though with many windows and was arranged very compactly on two floors. Unfortunately the tomb of a Mevlevi leader lay in the garden and I could not think I should feel entirely comfortable with him in such proximity. Since the front and the back of the house appeared to be alike, nobody ever knew for certain which was which so we all took to using the door which came handiest to our approach.

  From one side of the house we faced other houses but on the opposite side we looked right across to an old Mevlevi cemetery which was at the bottom of a high, bare mountain. At the apex lay another grave and to look out to such continual greyness and unrelieved bleakness seemed to be like looking at the edge of the world.

  Surprisingly my mother liked the strange house, loving the largeness of the rooms and the tall, bright windows, but my grandmother complained that badness lay over it and could not be persuaded to like the house the short time she lived there.

  We had bought a dog whilst we were in Eskişehir, a small ball of white fluff whom we had called Fidèle with I wonder what unconscious memories stirring of the dogs who had roamed the gardens of Sarıyer so long ago. This dog was now full grown and more my mother’s dog than anyone else’s, and when he entered the house with us that day in Kütahya he ran sniffing everywhere then came back to lie at my feet, whining a little.

  He could not be coaxed to mount the stairs voluntarily and I had to carry him up, he all the time shivering as though some terrible thing was about to leap out at him from the shadows.

  From the very beginning my grandmother was difficult about the place. She chose a bedroom overlooking the other houses and steadfastly refused to remain alone, even during the daytime, and almost succeeded in frightening us all. She kept looking over her shoulders at odd moments and would sometimes pause in the middle of a conversation to ask what was that peculiar noise and from whence it came. I am reasonably certain that she never saw or heard anything she would not have seen or heard in any other house, but because she knew that the Mevlevi Dervishes had once been here she never failed to associate evil things with their name. We could not fathom why.

  My mother’s health sadly deteriorated here. She grew more and more morbid and absent-minded and complained all the time of headaches. Eventually I managed to obtain a transfer to İzmir on the strength of the doctor ordering a change of air for her.

  Mehmet, who was at the time stationed also in İzmir, arranged to find a house for us and I sent my family on ahead of me whilst I remained for a few days longer in Kütahya to clear things up.

  Mehmet and I had not met for over two years and when we saw each other in İzmir we embraced each other warmly and commented on the apparent ruddy health of the other. He told me that my mother and grandmother had already settled down very well in the house he had discovered in Karşıyaka, a pretty house, he said it was, on the other side of the harbour.

  He and I sat in a Casino overlooking the harbour and we discussed my mother.

  ‘She is very neurotic, of course,’ said Mehmet with detachment, as if she were just a patient and not his mother.

  I envied
him his indifference and then I remembered that he had not lived at home for a very long time. I thought too how little we all knew about each other, how – springing from the same root – we had nevertheless divided until now we knew less than nothing about each other’s dreams. Mehmet’s decisive eyes looked as if he were not interested in dreaming. He was only interested in the physical ailments of humanity and the best way to cure them, anxious to make well the pain, not studying too deeply the psychological pattern the mind made.

  He asked me what it was I was thinking about so seriously, and I said it was nothing, unwilling to share with him the intimacy of thought. I suggested that we should go home.

  The new house stood squarely in a garden full of palm trees and roses and a large sloping lawn at the back gave on to a patch where lemon trees grew stockily and tangerines; and what was it about that house that reminded me of another house that had stood squarely in its gardens, that had been burned so long ago?

  There was a terrace which overlooked the harbour and I hoped that this peaceful spot would give my mother back her health.

  There was a balcony too at the front of the house and my grandmother never tired of sitting here to watch the passers-by, but my mother sat at the back and watched the boats that sailed to far places. And she would talk of İstanbul and the Bosphor and I knew that her heart would remain in her beloved city forever. Far into the nights they would sit together talking with the moon riding high in the clear skies, throwing its reflection to the water, lavishly gilding a path in the sea, softening the outlines of the houses that by day could look so harsh. My mother appeared to be contented. She had her sons with her once again, she complained less and less of headaches, but she talked about İstanbul with nostalgia as if she would never return to it again.

  I wish I had the words to paint the strange enchantment of İzmir – the little crooked streets with their air of secrecy and squalor; the haphazard shops in the side streets; the open carriages and the noisy trams and the hooting of the boats that over-rode all other sounds; the Casinos fronting the harbour with the never-ending strains of music issuing from them; the hot sunlight and the blue sky and the golden sands; the tree-lined roads and the wisteria and bougainvillaea that hangs everywhere like a scented purple curtain.

  Many times Mehmet and I rode in the open carriages, drowsing under the evening warmth, the steady clip-clop of the horses’ hooves beating their rhythmic tattoo. The tall green mountains rose steeply behind the city, the half-tropical vegetation grew rankly and luxuriantly amongst the old, sun-warmed stones.

  On hot nights we would sometimes visit the swimming-pool, which was filled with sea-water, and we would walk back home together in the moonlight, the houses we passed standing in sleep in their tranquil gardens. The smell of tangerine and orange trees would hang heavy on the air, the lime trees giving off their own soporific essence. Most of the houses had vines growing and fig trees and exotic palms and near the harbour were tree-lined new boulevards and always, no matter what the hour, the twanging of a guitar or the strains of a Turkish tango from the casinos to break the stillness sweetly.

  There was a fishing village just beyond Karşıyaka and occasionally I dined there alone in a little café where the fish were cooked upon request. The owner of the café showed me the sea-pool where swam the fish and invited me to take my choice and I would spend many a pleasant hour there, choosing and eating and drinking rakı until my belt had to be ignominiously loosened.

  Farther on lies Güzelyalı, where the houses march up the green hills facing the sea. There is a cool, hillside café here with terraces and tropical vegetation in the gardens and good food to make the journey worth the while. And everywhere in İzmir in crazy profusion are the flower-beds, with their hot splashes of colour to hurt the eyes and beat upon the senses, and İzmir still looks foreign – a cosmopolitan city with only the mosques and the slender minarets to remind one that one is still in Turkey.

  CHAPTER 28

  The Beginning of the End

  Life in İzmir was a great deal easier than anywhere else I had ever been.

  Duties at the aerodrome were not onerous and the summer passed pleasantly with my mother seeming to grow stronger and better with each day. She spent most of her time in the garden, eternally planning new borders, new arrangements of flower-beds, finding an outlet for energy in the design of growing, living things. Sometimes we found her embroidering – something she had not done for many years. She would sit out on the terrace, a scarf protecting her head from the heat of the sun and a pile of shining embroidery silks on a small table beside her. Seeing her thus the years fell away from all of us and we were back again in a gracious house where my father had walked, and where the rafters had rung with the shouted laughter of my Uncle Ahmet.

  My sister arrived on a visit to us from Ankara with a baby and an Arab nurse, and looking at the dark face of the nurse the illusion of childhood was complete: it might have been İnci again or Feride.

  Muazzez appeared peeved when told that she and her unnecessary entourage crowded the little house. She flew from my sarcasm to the spoilings of my grandmother and complained that I was becoming embittered.

  She remained with us for a month, her husband joining us for the last week of the visit, and every day my mother appeared better and we heard her joyous laughter for the first time for many months.

  Mehmet and I, noticing this, told each other that she was getting better, that she would never slip back into depression again.

  On the 10th of November, 1938, Kemal Atatürk died and great was the sense of bereavement when we heard the news. Turkey wept and wailed for her lost leader, the whole nation plunged into mourning. I got permission to go to İstanbul, travelling in civilian clothing. I realised my error afterwards, when I was caught in the press of frenzied people whilst uniformed officers strutted freely where they might. I joined the never-ending crowds entering the Dolmabahçe Saray, where Atatürk lay in state and the police tried vainly to keep order. Old women and young women wept for their hero who would never come again. Bareheaded men shuffled silently into the vast hall of the Sultans where the Father of Turkey slept his last long sleep.

  They had draped him with the Turkish flag and four officers stood on guard about him, their swords held upwards in their clasped hands. The weeping, desolate people he had liberated filed past him, paying tribute, and I remembered many things about him. I remembered my first sight of him close-to, on the tenth anniversary of his Republic, almost five years ago. I remembered how the lean, fanatic’s face could light with a smile so dazzling that even his enemies forgave him much and how, more frequently, the pressed-in lips smiled when the eyes remained dark and sombre, challenging.

  The day they took him to Ankara I managed with incredible difficulties, with much unchivalrous jostling, to get a place in one of the boats leaving Galata Bridge. We followed the battleship that was taking him to his capital, the city he had wrested and built out of Anatolia, but we only followed as far as the islands in the Sea of Marmara. There we waved farewell to him for we could go no farther. We watched over the rails as the bleak battleship rode the unquiet sea and Atatürk – perhaps one day to become less than a memory – continued his voyage alone. We who had been privileged to know him even a little would look for a long time and in vain for the figure that would not come, the tall stern leader with the hard eyes that could so suddenly soften, the welcoming hand on the shoulder and the amused, harsh voice that said: ‘Well, lieutenant, still running the Air Force?’

  The lack of ceremony surrounding him upon formal occasions had not perhaps been in keeping with his impatient, autocratic temperament, yet sometimes he had affected simplicity. We had never known when he would drop into the Officers’ Club, what he would next suggest. As I looked back to the battleship I remembered the person he had been and I felt the tears rise to my eyes, as if a friend had gone.

  December 1938 and winter touching İzmir kindly with the lightest of fingers, and speciali
sts once again were called to my mother. Injections gave her some temporary relief and quietness, but my grandmother’s straight shoulders sagged permanently now under the great weight of my mother’s illness.

  The early spring of 1939 – my nerves reduced to tatters after the long months of tension at home – then Mehmet bringing home a small, fair girl with babyish blue eyes, telling us he was engaged. Bedia her name was and she looked frail as a doll and one could not help wondering what sort of doctor’s wife she would make. But they were so much in love, she seventeen, he twenty-seven, that one could not remain indifferent. My mother received the news calmly but my grandmother, dear martinet, loudly demanded to be told where the girl had come from and who were her parents. I think Mehmet must already have warned Bedia for she showed no surprise, no trace of indignation at the questions, only smiling her gentle angelic smile, moving closer to the dark Mehmet, who gave the information my grandmother required.

  For a space my mother came out of her dream world and dinner-parties were arranged and she bought new clothes to attend other parties. Muazzez wrote peremptorily from Ankara, growing more and more like my grandmother in her younger days, and demanded that the happy couple visit her in order that she might have an excuse for giving parties too.

  And that incredible, undying beauty came back to drape my mother so that one was always caught by the exquisite surprise of it and the years dropped away from her like magic and she became a young girl again, to match Bedia’s innocent youth.

  One evening she asked me when I would marry too, and before I had time to make any answer my grandmother said with a coarse laugh that half the mothers of İzmir wanted the same question answered. I could not but laugh at her sublime, conceited exaggeration and my mother repeated her question.