The Seamstress of Ourfa

by Victoria Harwood Butler-Sloss

  “China blues. They’re rare,” Billy says. “I had three and I won the other one yesterday. Piyoong!” He flicks his finger and thumb with one eye shut and runs off to get his collection.

  My legs are beginning to feel wobbly. Nene Khatoun sits me on the floor and crouches down next to me so we can explore the bed together. There are little sheets tucked in, the top one embroidered at the edge with blue and yellow flowers. The same embroidery is on the pillowcase and in the middle of the pale blue blanket. The mattress is covered in stripes the same as the pillow. Nene Khatoun says it is stuffed with real hair.

  “Our hair,” she says, pointing her finger around the room.

  Everyone is still wandering around us, legs and feet, legs and feet. Their voices come and go. The television laughs. At least Grandad has stopped crying. He’s playing with beads now. Clickclickclick. He counts them on their string, sitting on the sofa, looking exhausted. My eyes are itching so I rub at them like I know I shouldn’t.

  Nene Khatoun reaches out and strokes my face, “Go to sleep,” she says. “Don’t worry about us. We’ll all be here in the morning.” She puts her arm around my shoulder. “And the next day, and the next, and the next. And always.”

  And then she crumples me up, gently, like a tissue until I am small enough to fit in my new bed. She tucks me in, singing a lullaby, and I can smell the fresh cut wood as the sheets cover me in a cobweb of sleep. I am falling. Falling, falling, falling.

  The night is black velvet lit with sparkler fire. My family are old – ancient as angels – and they live near the sea and smell of onions and mothballs and cry when they’re happy. They wear keys and loose slippers, smoke cigarettes and drink Coca-Cola and pin us to their hearts with our hair.

  My family, my family, my family and me.

  [1]Downtown, Petula Clark, 1964.

  Khatoun Khouri

  Ourfa, The Ottoman Empire, April 1895

  Khatoun

  Two figures appear at the crest of the hill. Two strokes shimmering against the flat glare of sky. A mother and her son, walking side by side, their feet throwing up dust as they go.

  It is a beautiful spring morning, the kind that takes your breath away and makes you love your neighbour. The sky an ever-reaching cerulean heaven. Bright, startling, without cloud. The air is alive with the hum of insects and in the distance a dozen boys whistle and call to each other over a ball. The mother, a graceful woman of fifty, walks tall. Her son, late twenties, follows a pace behind; bent, brooding, melancholy. He’s wearing formal dress in dark colours as if his purpose were serious – marriage perhaps, possibly death.

  Whatever it is, Iskender Agha Boghos has his eye fixed on one thing – the tin flask swinging at his mother’s hip. It contains nothing special, just water, but his doleful eyes tell how desperate he is to stop and rest under the eucalyptus – to let his collar go, take off his shoes – go anywhere but forward. If only he dared ask.

  She strolls beside him, his mother. Seyda Agha Boghos; wife of Abraham; mother of four. Pale skin, a dusting of freckles, grey eyes narrowed against the sun. Seyda has covered her hair with a scarf as always; nevertheless her fingers constantly seek loose strands, peeling them from her forehead and poking them back under the muslin. She’s ignoring Iskender, pushing forward through the heat, her gaze steady.

  She can see it. There she sits at the head of the table, a streak of white sweeping through her glorious red hair. A large, straight-backed chair, fine white linen, crystal glasses, the wine from abroad. And family. A large family with lots of grandchildren. Hacme the fortune-teller had seen it. So had her friends. So why were her children spoiling her plan? Yes, Loucia and Sophia, her other two daughters were already married with children but they lived miles away. Baghshish and Damascus. Hardly ever visited. So what had happened to Ferida and Iskender, the two still at home? Ferida – skinny as a stick with vile language and that horrible habit of squashing down the backs of her shoes. Who would marry her? Or Iskender? Who wanted a husband who read books all day? Dungulugh. Idiot. She shifts her eyes sideways and watches him as he walks.

  He has her nose and teeth and her husband’s smile. That’s good. Not much hair up top but a thick moustache to compensate. (If he could just keep his fingers out of it – that nervous tic.) Dark eyes, the colour of olives. Maybe set too close together. Maybe not.

  “He’s too handsome,” her friends tut-tutted, “it scares the girls away.”

  “Pah!” Seyda snorts. She blames education not beauty for Iskender’s predicament. If Pastor Tovmasian hadn’t persuaded them to send him to college, he wouldn’t have learnt how to think too much. Iskender can cut a mean deal in Farsi, write accounts up in French, read the papers in Turkish and recite sonnets in English. And that’s where it ends. When it comes to holding a simple conversation in his own language with the opposite sex he’s as dumb as a mule. Handsome, poetic, an expert on world politics but no wife and no child and what use was that to anyone?

  Seyda tucks back that annoying wire of hair again. Iskender is carrying, of all things, a book under his arm – as if he thinks he’ll have time to read somewhere, somehow on this busy morning. Surely he must know the true purpose of their visit? She looks down at his feet. The right foot pointed inwards, dragging like a child’s.

  “Turn back! Go home!” his boots cry out step by step. Seyda sighs. Poor Iskender. How much happier he’d have been left at home with his books.

  Iskender – and yes, he does know the true purpose of their visit – feels the same way. It’s not that he’s averse to the idea of marriage; in fact, he thinks he might like it. But the thought of sitting in a stranger’s parlour being served lemonade and sweetmeats by a girl he’s supposed to look over and appraise. To him that’s barbaric. Everyone watching, breath sucked in, nudge-nudge. His every tic and awkward manner discussed later over dinner with another dozen people. On top of this, he’d actually have to start a conversation with the girl. Appalling! So much simpler to stay single and have his sister Ferida cook his food until he dies. He looks down at his gleaming boots.

  “Turn back! Go home,” they squeal.

  “I would,” he mutters into the dust, “I would if I could.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothing, Mayrig, nothing.”

  “Hmph. Now it’s back to nothing is it?” Seyda rolls her eyes. Her son. Like a lamb to slaughter. And her dragging the poor beast by the neck, skittering over the stones to the public drain. Everything would have been fine; things would have stayed the same if it hadn’t been for The Ourfa Ladies Sewing Union and her meddling friends.

  “She’s a little young to rush straight into marriage…” Digin Tamar, head of the Union and self-appointed matchmaker, had pronounced at the ‘emergency meeting’ several months ago.

  “But young enough to learn the proper way to love your son!” Beatrice had added, making a lewd gesture with her fingers. Digin Tamar had shot her a dangerous look before continuing.

  “The girl’s name is Khatoun Khouri. Father is Palestinian from Jerusalem. Mother an Assyrian from Mosul. They all speak Armenian. Girl is thirteen. Pale skin. Thick hair. Good eyes. All of her teeth. She cooks, helps around the house and is good with animals. Two sisters. Married. Father and two brothers are goldsmiths. Another brother, a student. They have a farm inherited from the mother’s side. Sheep, wheat, olive groves. They’re up to here with stuff.” She sliced her hand across her neck. “It’ll be a good dowry, land in Garmuj, just outside the city. Never mind they’re not Armenian. They’ve assimilated.” She winked at Seyda, put her hand out for more nuts and the room murmured in assent, the fire crackling, the coals shifting in the tonir.

  “Good!” Seyda nodded pensively. She understood land. Land meant a future as far as the horizon. She looked up from the fire. “She sounds ideal. But my son – he’s a funny one you know – he likes books. Does she read, this Khatoun?”

  “Of course! She’s rewriting the Bible as we speak!” Beatrice quipped.


  “Ouf! Shut up!” Digin Tamar spat a husk into her palm. “Give you wine, you turn it into vinegar. Ignore Beatrice, Digin Seyda. And no, Khatoun doesn’t read but one of her sisters does – she’s a teacher in the provincial school. And the other brother is at university in Damascus. I’ve seen him at the train station with his books.”

  “Ah, that’s good,” Seyda smiled. “The brother reads.”

  “Oh yes, the brother reads. All of them do.”

  “That’ll do. That’s good. Brothers that read are good.”

  “What more could Iskender ask for?”

  “Nothing.”

  “No.”

  “Perfect.”

  “Insha’Allah.”

  The women huddled closer, their feet tucked under the blanket around the warm tonir. The dishes of treats were shuffled, emptied, refilled. Beatrice shoved a handful of raisins into her mouth, swallowed and belched.

  “Well. I’m ahead in the game. I took the trouble of finding out when she would be at the baths and went to have a look.”

  “No!”

  “Yes.”

  “No!”

  “And?”

  “Small.” Beatrice giggled. “No hair. Slim in the hips. Not quite a woman yet…”

  An impatient flap of skirt stopped her short. The Elder Shoshan, tucked like a crow into the darkness. “You stupid gossip!” the old woman snapped from her bed. “None of this matters. The girl comes from good family. I knew the grandparents – that’s what matters. Her grandfather was a priest, his brother a doctor. That’s all you need to know. The rest is gossip.”

  “Well, I thought it was important,” Beatrice said. “I’m not ashamed I went to look her over.” She ignored The Elder Shoshan’s eyes boring into the back of her neck, grabbed another handful of walnuts and proclaimed, “There’s no doubt she’s a virgin. Her boutz was smooth as a peach!”

  “Asdvadz! Of course she’s a virgin!” Seyda cried out, outraged. “How could she not be? She’s a child!” Sadly, before she could reach Beatrice with the back of her hand, Digin Tamar had intervened.

  “Calm down, Seyda! You know better than to listen to Beatrice. Frivolous girl. Always causing trouble. I have to admit, though, she has a point – tastelessly put, of course. In a situation like marriage, all things must be considered.” She silenced Seyda with a raised hand. “Ah, ah, ah! You wouldn’t buy a bolt of cloth without checking it for imperfections first, would you?”

  “Ha!” Beatrice stopped poking at her teeth with a stick. “I remember the day Digin Seyda refused to buy cloth from us because she saw a moth in the shop. Can you imagine? One little moth woken up from its sleep and she got all high and mighty!” She winked and dug the stick back in.

  “That isn’t true!” Seyda jumped up. “I didn’t like the weight for a dress. And you, would you buy flour from a shop where you saw mice?”

  And then, just as Beatrice stood up, a shriek. “You women are soft!” The Elder Shoshan hit the floor with her stick, overturning the bowl of empty shells with a clatter. “Talk about the girl – not your own vanities!”

  The two women sat down again. Silence settled over the room and Beatrice, still unable to control her childish urges, crossed her eyes at Seyda who sat glaring at her across the tonir. The coals fell. Settled.

  “Well, there you have it,” Digin Tamar concluded, taking the walnuts from Beatrice and handing them round. “Good background, good family, educated brothers and an excellent dowry. It’s a match. Our only problem is getting that mute son of yours to open his mouth and propose. Remember, love enters women through the ears not the eyes.”

  “You do it the right way,” the Elder Shoshan yelled from her corner. “The old way. You take him to the house and she brings him a lemonade. Let him take a look. Then you arrange it – the parents. Never mind that he’s twenty-eight. All men are children. They need help. Digin Tamar will make the introductions. I will give my approval, and that’s it. Enough. And enough of this chitter-chatter. Go away, I need sleep. Beatrice, show the ladies out.” She waved her stick at the door and sat clutching her shawl to her chest, her face lifted at an austere angle for the women to kiss as they filed past.

  And so it had been arranged. Digin Tamar had spoken to Khatoun’s mother, Mertha. Genteel nods had been exchanged at the baths, introductions made, coffee drunk, oranges peeled, relatives consulted and, finally, Park Asdoudzo!, the first visit set for this beautiful blue morning, clear as a church bell. Seyda had said nothing about the true nature of their visit, telling Iskender that she had business with the Khouri family that went back years. She had to go and see them and their farm was almost two hours’ walk from home. Of course Iskender would have to accompany her. It was not safe to travel anywhere alone these days.

  No one had mentioned the word marriage but as they’d left home this morning, several ladies had stopped their sweeping to wave and nod like conspirators as mother and son passed. Iskender had laughed.

  “Moses walking through the Red Sea, the whispering waves closing in behind him,” he’d muttered. He waved at the neighbours, called out “Good morning!” cheerily and irritated Seyda. Oh, he looked like a suitor all right – tall and imperious in his suit jacket and fez – but looks and smiles would not be enough.

  Seyda knew Iskender would never be able to break the ice even with a girl less than half his age. He would scare her off with his silence and these days, brides had some say. Seyda had to get Iskender talking before they got to their destination and so far she’d had no luck.

  They’d set off early this morning, leaving home via the cool winding streets of the Armenian Quarter, their steady breath the only sound between them. That and the sigh of new shoes. The minutes had passed, Seyda casting her eye around for inspiration. But beyond their neighbourhood with its inquisitive sweepers, the town was still asleep. Eventually, in desperation, she’d flung her hand in the direction of a small courtyard thick with flowers.

  “How beautiful,” she’d sighed. “What kind of plant is that?”

  “Oleander.”

  “Oleander?”

  “Oleander. Poisonous.”

  “And that – what’s that?”

  “Pomegranate.”

  “Pomegranate?”

  “Yes. Very young.”

  “Oh. That’s why I didn’t recognise it,” Seyda had laughed. “No fruit.”

  “No. Too young.”

  And then Seyda had chattered away about everything. The plants, the trees, the cloudless sky, the early morning vendors and their wares, their strange hair and odd fabrics. She conjured up the lives of the people who lived behind the peeling shutters and cracked doors they passed. What were their names? And who could have lost such a fine shoe in the gutter? She talked as if she had never been down these streets before and needed her son to guide her. She prodded and questioned and he replied monosyllabically until the rising heat got the better of her and she too fell quiet, her mouth full of dust.

  The journey had continued in silence. Past the busying market place and on through the leafy neighbourhood of larger houses to the outskirts of town. The sun rose. The air grew stale. They walked past barking dogs and startled children, out into the surrounding farmlands and on until now, when finally exhausted by the heat and silence, Seyda has come to a stop in the shadowy eucalyptus grove at the crest of a hill. She relieves the tin flask from her hip, opens it and takes a slug of water.

  “Here,” she says, handing Iskender the flask and watching him guzzle. “Let’s catch our breath.” She lowers herself down and leans back against a tree trunk, shedding its bark in elegant papery strips. Iskender sighs. He finds a stone big enough to sit on, rolls it next to his mother and perches over it like a bird. He digs his finger into his collar, pulls it away from his neck and lets the heat escape. Seyda wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and points to a distant palm grove in the valley below. A handful of buildings with whitewashed walls glare back in the sun.

  “That�
�s it. The Khouris’,” Seyda says. She stretches her feet out in front of her and rolls them around. “Won’t take much longer.”

  “Hm,” Iskender replies, already lost in the pages of his book.

  They’d whispered for a while that he was deaf. Or stupid. Tore their hair out at nights, not daring to voice their fears lest they come true. When he finally began to speak, Iskender’s voice had slipped through cracked lips like thin parchment. He was four years old. His dreams populated with heavenly creatures, his speech sparse and often unintelligible. Not for him the cacophonous games of children and the tralala of song. Iskender preferred silence and the musty pages of his father’s books.

  Seyda looks up at the majestic trees, wondering how she will bring him back to earth. He’s closed his eyes and is breathing evenly, one finger suspended in the pages of his book, the other hooked in his collar. His lips are moving, his face changing with his thoughts.

  “Gabon,” he says in that startling way of his.

  “Gabon?”

  “Oh. It’s a place. Just thinking,” Iskender smiles at his mother.

  “Well stop it!” she snaps back at him. “Stop thinking!”

  The trees droop. Seyda closes her eyes. Her armpits are soggy, her crisp cotton dress wilted. She can hear them already – ‘That mute crane? What was she thinking? He should join a cloister. More luck there.’ She craves the cool of her room, the smell of Ferida’s cooking. This ridiculous failed mission behind her, not still ahead. She struggles to her feet with a groan, slapping Iskender’s outstretched hand away.

  “Hayde. Come on,” she snaps. “Let’s go.”

  They set off down the hill, happy to be in shade for a while. Iskender hangs back, watching his mother. When they’d set off this morning she was indomitable. Strong and beautiful with only her son’s interests at heart. Now she looks older, her shoulders soft, her footsteps less sure. Her headscarf has slipped and there’s a smudge across her temple where she keeps worrying her hair. Iskender would gladly give her his handkerchief but knows she’ll wave it away, annoyed.