Part 2

I renewed many old friendships that night at the club, and my wife began there many acquaintances which developed later most cordially. My wife was surprised to meet many foreign girls who had, like herself, married Turks.

When we announced our engagement several of her friends in America had endeavoured to dissuade her from marrying a Turk. Surely a Turk could not make a good husband, East and West could never mix and anyhow why should she be the first foreigner to marry a Turk? She had of course set aside all these arguments and had believed me when I told her that many Turks had married foreigners and lived happily ever after. I don't think, however, that she ever conceived that foreign marriages had been so usual. That evening at the club and during our subsequent stay in Constantinople, she found herself in a most international _milieu_, although associating exclusively with Turkish families. She met in Prinkipo a charming Austrian girl, who had married an admiral of the Turkish navy. The mother of one of my childhood friends is a Russian lady, while the wife of another is a most attractive Bavarian girl. Many are the Turks who studied in France and married French girls. But the first prize for international marriages goes unquestionably to the family of Reshid Pasha where four out of seven members married foreign girls? Italian, English and American. So, after all, my wife found out that not only she was not the first foreign girl, but she was not even the first American girl who had married a Turk and she hastened to write it to her friends in America and to tell them that from what she could see and by her own experience East and West could and did mix. The Moslem religion and the Turkish customs allow complete latitude as far as marrying foreign girls is concerned and leave them of course absolutely free to practise their own religion. As for the Turks making good husbands, I believe of course that this is entirely dependent on the individual and not on the race. There are good and bad husbands among the Turks, just as there are good and bad husbands among other nations.

Our stay in Prinkipo turned out to be one of the most pleasant summer vacations I ever had. I would go to town to attend business regularly, but would take long week-ends off; that is, I would do as most business men do in summer and would stay home Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. We would then go bathing in the mornings, and play tennis or go out sailing in the afternoons. The Sea of Marmora is ideal for yachting, and numerous are the sailing yachts which use Prinkipo as their port. Of course the fact that we usually used Turkish yachts would somewhat hamper our movements, as boats flying the Turkish flags were not allowed to go anywhere near the Anatolian shores, the Inter-Allied authorities enforcing at that time a strict blockade of the Nationalists.

Often there would be tea-parties or informal after-dinner gatherings in the Turkish homes. And while these were small, unpretentious affairs--the Turks cannot afford to entertain elaborately on account of their precarious means--they were a most pleasant manner of passing away the time. There was always someone interesting at these gatherings. A man or a woman of prominence who would give to us a new point of view or some insight into the general situation. Once an Egyptian princess told us of the difference in the progress accomplished by the Turks and by their cousins of Egypt in the last years. How, despite the fact that the Turks had been hampered by political circumstances while the Egyptians had had the supposed benefit of British help, Turkish women now enjoyed a much larger political and social freedom than Egyptian women, and public education had spread more generally in Turkey than in Egypt. Another time the director of the Turkish Naval Academy in Halki told us how he had taken advantage of the temporarily complete independence of Turkey during the war to make of his school one of the most progressive and up-to-date naval academies in the world--how since the armistice he was meeting seemingly insurmountable difficulties in protecting his school from the process of disintegration systematically applied by the Allies to everything Turkish in Constantinople. Another time Zia Pasha, former Turkish Ambassador in Washington, told us how for years Sultan Abdul Hamid succeeded in keeping his Empire intact by playing the greedy ambitions of one western nation against that of the other. Once again Reshid Pasha, the Turkish diplomat who negotiated all the peace treaties made by Turkey in recent years--up to but excluding the Treaty of Sèvres--told us of his experiences at the London Peace Conference following the Balkan War. His position was most delicate as he was representing a nation which had been defeated on the battlefield and had to contend also with the inherent enmity that the ever-grasping imperialistic western powers have always felt in regard to Turkey. His was a pitched diplomatic battle against the Greek Venizelos. Reshid Pasha was too modest to add what everybody knows: that he came out the victor, having turned the tables on Venizelos to such a degree that the Greek statesman came away from London with his reputation as a diplomat greatly imperilled.

Unfortunately, subsequent events had put back Venizelos to the fore, and after numerous shifts of policy the Greeks had succeeded before our arrival in having the great powers present to Turkey the terms of the Treaty of Sèvres. Naturally, past, present and future politics were the subject of all conversations. Feeling was running high in Turkish circles. Every one was incensed both against the Allied powers and against the Turkish Government of the moment. The Grand Vezir, or Prime Minister, was being severely criticised and accused of trampling on the dignity of the nation by accepting the Treaty of Sèvres. The Nationalist movement had already started and while the Turks remained stoically calm in Constantinople for fear of reprisals by the Inter-Allied fleets upon the innocent population of the city, the tide of despair was rising in Anatolia. The Nationalist movement was as yet not thoroughly organized. But the set purpose of preventing the application of the terms of the treaty was already noticeable in the activities of the Turkish Nationalist bands who had sworn to die rather than to lose their independence. They have, since then, stuck most efficiently to their patriotic aim.

During those critical days following the publication of the terms of the Treaty of Sèvres, and during the first weeks of the conception of the Turkish Nationalist movement, many a time have we watched from Prinkipo the smoke of firearms indicating encounters between Turkish Nationalist bands and British Colonial troops, on the hills dominating the nearby shores of Anatolia. Once we witnessed a big forest fire engineered for the purpose of destroying the hiding-places where the Nationalist volunteers would take refuge after their successful raids against the armies of occupation. These Anatolian hills lie to this day, their once smilingly green slopes bare--a silent example of the work of destruction undertaken in the name of civilization by the western powers who champion the rights of certain small nations by destroying the properties of others. These Anatolian hills are at this day, desolate and sad--but a proud monument commemorating the unsuccessful attempt of the so-called civilized governments to pass a death sentence upon a small nation whose will to live independently could not be conquered either by fire or by blood. The prologue of the greatest crime perpetrated in history since the partition of Poland was thus gradually unfolding itself almost under our very eyes, while the Turkish circles of Prinkipo and Constantinople--prisoners in their own capital--had to watch, aloof. It was an edifying show of real Oriental restraint to see all these people stand stoically and without a murmur so that their brethren in Anatolia might have time to organize. In the face of the worst adversities and while their hearts were bleeding, they furnished to Anatolia the breathing-spell it required. To the cry of “chase the Turk out of Europe” shouted in their very face, the Turks of Constantinople were opposing a passive and dignified resistance. A friend of mine summarized one day most clearly the motive underlying their passive resistance. We were on the Prinkipo boat going to Constantinople--the boat which in the old days was full of Turkish dignitaries going to their offices. Now only a few Turkish business men were distinguishable in the crowd. A few foreign officers were lounging comfortably on benches “reserved for Inter-Allied officers”--large enough to accommodate twenty people--while crowds of men and women were standing all around for lack of place to sit. The boat was filled with noisy Levantines, Armenians and Greeks, eating dates and pistachio nuts, throwing the seeds and the shells on the deck, making of the floor a place not fit for animals, and rendering themselves generally obnoxious. My friend pointed to them and said: “These are the people who want to take Constantinople away from us in the name of civilization! But we have to overlook their impudence, we have to close our eyes on their misbehaviour, we have to stand and bear it all. What else can we do? If we weaken and join “en masse” the Nationalists in Anatolia, we would leave in Constantinople a majority of these people and the Western Powers would take advantage of this majority to detach the city completely from the rest of Turkey. If we can't control our patience, and rise against the foreigners and the usurpers in our own city, the Western Powers will interfere and their battleships will destroy our homes. But if we stand pat and ignore them they can not do us any harm. Our duty is to preserve our city for Turkey and we can only do it by remaining here and by opposing to those who plot against us a passive and silent resistance.”

In this atmosphere of suspense the last days of our stay in Prinkipo drew near. Our house in Stamboul would be ready now in about a month. I had promised my wife to take her to Erenkeuy and to the Bosphorus. My father wanted us to discharge our obligations towards the rest of the family and besides he was soon going back to town himself. The season of Prinkipo was at its end. Constantinople and its surrounding are at their best in the early fall, but Prinkipo gets too cold. The bathing season was finished, the yachting season was at its end. The hotels were closing. One by one the villas were shutting their hospitable doors. The summer colony was disbanding. Prinkipo was preparing for its annual winter sleep.

We packed our bags and went to visit my aunts.

III

ERENKEUY

Since our arrival at Constantinople my wife had been complaining that I had not shown her a “harem.” So she was very anxious to visit my aunts, in Erenkeuy, when I told her that it was there that she could see one, at least in the Turkish sense of the word. Harem in Turkish means nothing less, but nothing more, than the special house or the special section of a house reserved to the ladies of the family. In the old days when the ladies did not associate with men they used to live in the main house or in a part of the house, generally the best, where they had their own sitting-rooms, dining-rooms, boudoirs, etc., distinct from the sitting-room, dining-room or den of the men of the family. When I speak of “ladies” and “men” in the plural it is well to remember it was and still is the custom in Turkey for all the members of the same family to live together under the same roof. The Turkish family is a sort of a clan. So while there are always many ladies in a family, foreigners must not imagine that there are many “wives.” This is a true narrative of Turkey and the Turks as they really are, so I have to speak the truth even at the risk of shattering many legends. I am bound therefore not to fall in line with the traditions established by other writers who never fail to refer to a servant in a Turkish household as being a “slave,” and to the ladies of a Turkish family as being “wives.” The truth is that slavery was not generally practised in Turkey even before the Civil War in America, and the “wives” referred to by most of the foreign writers either exist only in their imagination or else are the sisters, sisters-in-law, daughters or cousins of the head of the family which foreign writers innocently or purposely represent as his wives. Of course there might be several wives in the same household--but not the wives of the same man. For instance, when we were visiting my father in Prinkipo, there were four “wives” living together: my father's, my uncle's, my cousin's and my own wife. Anyhow I warned my wife that she would see in Erenkeuy a “harem” in the Turkish sense of the word and not the kind of private cabaret which exists only in the fertile imagination of scenario writers, and in the ludicrous pages of sensational newspapers or dime novels.

Erenkeuy is a little village at about half an hour ride from Constantinople and on the Asiatic side. The shores of Anatolia are here covered with country estates uniting small villages all the way from Scutari to Maltepe--a distance of about fifteen miles and all except Cadikeuy and Moda are peopled with Turks. The Turks living here are mostly conservatives. They are not old fashioned and narrow but they have kept to the Turkish ways of living more accurately than the Turks living in other sections or suburbs of Constantinople. It really cannot be explained but there is here an indefinable something that makes you feel that you are in Turkey more than you do in any other suburb of Constantinople. Perhaps it is only due to the fact that you are on the hospitable soil of Anatolia.

Suburban trains running on the famous Bagdad railroad take you to Erenkeuy. I again had a jolt on these trains. In the old days the company belonged to the Germans and was run by the Germans. But it endeavoured not to arouse the susceptibility of the Turks by flaunting in their faces that it was a foreign company. All the employees on the train wore the fez, the national Turkish headgear, and the greatest majority of them were Turks. Now the Allies have replaced the Germans and have taken over the railroad as part of Germany's war indemnity towards them. The result is that their systematic campaign of humiliating the Turks has been practised even here. The new Allied administration employs mostly Greeks and Armenians--and all the employees of the company now wear caps. Really the difference between caps or fezzes is only one of form, but it has a psychological effect. For instance, even in my case, although I dislike the fez as a most unpracticable and unbecoming headgear, and although I have worn hats the greater part of my life I could not help resenting the change: it rubbed me the wrong way. It made me most vividly feel as if we were not the masters in our own homes--at least temporarily in Constantinople and its environs.

We arrived in Erenkeuy in the afternoon on one of those beautifully clear days-which make of the fall almost the most pleasant season of Constantinople. The air was mildly heated by an autumnal sun shining in a marvellously blue sky. The leaves of the plane trees surrounding the station had turned golden red and had become scarce on the branches. Even now some were volplaning to the earth on the wings of a gentle fall breeze. The square in front of the station, with its clean little shops--each a diminutive bazaar of its own--opened itself smilingly to us as we emerged from the train with our baggage. In the background we could see the little mosque where villagers were entering for their afternoon prayer.

We decided to walk to my aunt's house, which is not far from the station. Besides, it was prayer time and we should avoid arriving while the whole household was at prayer. We heaped our luggage in a carriage--a typically Asiatic conveyance with bright coloured curtains hanging from a wooden canopy and with seats char-a-banc fashion. It disappeared in a cloud of dust to the gallop of its sturdy little Anatolian horse. My wife was delighted, this was at last Turkey somewhat as she had imagined it to be. But what would happen to our bags if the coachman was not honest? Had I a receipt? Didn't the coachman give me a check? At least I had taken the number of the carriage, hadn't I? I reassured my wife: the coachman was not a Greek--he was not even a taxicab driver of one of the “civilized” western metropolises. He was a plain Turk, just an Anatolian peasant, and our luggage was as safe in his keeping as it would be in the strong box of a bank.

We leisurely followed the carriage through a little country road bordered by garden walls on both sides. High stone walls, white washed, protected the privacy of the gardens from the glances of passers-by. A big gate here, a half-opened door there would give us a glimpse of houses, small or large, surrounded with trees--elm trees, plane trees, fig trees, cedars and cypresses--whose dark branches enshrouded the houses in a mystery of falling leaves. The only house of which we could get a full view from the road was a little old house, with a slanting brick roof, an enclosed balcony hanging high in the air and supported by arched pillars, a cobbled courtyard where a few hens were picking their feed while a big brown dog, a relic of the old street dogs, was peacefully sleeping. It was at the corner of a street, its gate wide opened, and there was only one big old tree in the garden. The others must have died of old age, and the owner must have been too poor to replace them.

The road we followed was dusty and almost deserted, with deep furrows left by chariots, carts and carriages since the beginning of time. In winter the rain and the snow turned the soft, pinkish Anatolian soil into a greasy mud and every winter, ever since the days of the Janissaries, chariots, carts and carriages had passed on these roads, furrowing always deeper. One felt as if the clock of time had stopped here years ago. An acute sense of the living past permeated everything.

On our way my wife asked me to tell her something of my aunt's family. Our surroundings reminded me of old stories and I told her the story as told to us by my grandmother when we were tiny little boys. I used to love it as it opened before my mind vast visions of heroic ages. “Centuries ago,” I told my wife, “there lived a young man, almost a boy, in the faraway mountains of Anatolia, bordering the snow-covered peaks of the Caucasus. He was tall and handsome but did not marry because he had to support his old father and mother who were so old and so poor that they could only sit on their divans all day and pray the Almighty to call them back to him so that their boy might be left free of worries and responsibilities. But they were good parents and the boy was a good son. Therefore, the Almighty heard their prayer and freed their son of all worries, but not in the way the old people had prayed for. It so happened that the “Frank” kings of Hungary, Servia and Bulgaria declared war on our powerful Sultan and invaded his domains. To repulse the invaders our Sultan called all his brave subjects under arms. They flocked from all over to the standard of their emperor. The young boy from the Anatolian mountains near the Caucasus heard his sovereign's call and answered it immediately. But he was so far away that when he came to Adrianople, which was at that time the capital of the Sultan, he found that the armies had left many days before to meet the detested foes. He galloped post haste through the Balkans, days and nights without rest until he finally reached the plains of Kossovo. But, alas, what a sight met his gaze when he arrived there! The armies of the allied “Frank” kings had captured the standard of the Sultan, and the Turkish armies were in rout. Tooroondj--that was the name of our young hero--decided to recapture the standard of the Sultan and in the depths of the night when the “Frank” armies were asleep, he climbed the walls of their citadel, killed the sentry on watch, took the flag and returned to the Turkish camp. Next morning at dawn the Turkish soldiers, awakening and seeing the standard of the Sultan waving again on the imperial tent, were filled with renewed courage. The Sultan assembled them all and before all the Turkish armies he called Tooroond; to him. He gave the imperial flag to our hero and ordered him to lead a final charge against the enemies. Tooroond; was so brave that he planted victoriously the standard of his emperor on the citadel of the enemies. Thus, first through his bravery in recovering single-handed the standard, and second through the valour he showed in leading the charge Tooroondj won for the empire the first battle of Kossovo. In recognition of his services the Sultan made him Bey of his natal province. After the war Tooroond; returned to his principality and to his old father and mother, and took to himself a wife. His descendants have ruled there until feudality became gradually extinct. Then the main branch came to Constantinople where it has ever since served the empire in all branches of the government services. Now the last descendants of the main branch are here, in Erenkeuy, and we are entering through the gate of their house.”

A wrought-iron garden gate opened on a road bordered with trees. Right near the gate and on each side of the road were two little houses of seven or eight rooms each. These used to be the “Selamlik,” or quarters where my uncle received his men friends in the old days, entertained them or talked state matters with them. When business required it, or when the friends desired, they would stay a few days as his guests. The little houses were specially designed for this purpose, each of them having even its own kitchen. The service was made by a retinue of men servants alone and in the old days only men were to be seen in and around these two little houses, as around all “Selamliks.” They were a sort of private club at the time that Turkish ladies were not allowed to associate with the social or business activities of their men. But now that the barkers curtailing the activities of women have been torn down the two little houses were rented to two families. Some of the tenants were sitting on the verandas and looked at us with the curiosity that all people living in a quiet country place feel towards strangers.

We followed the road winding its way through old trees and shrubs and soon reached an inner wall covered with vines, separating the gardens of the “Harem” from those of the “Selamlik.” The road skirted this inner wall and took us to the back of the main house, or “harem” proper which in the old days was consecrated to the living quarters of the ladies and the private quarters of the family. It is a big building with its main entrance opening on the outer court, but with its façade turned toward the gardens of the harem, so that there is no communication with the old Selamlik other than this entrance. The door was ajar and opened as soon as we set foot on its steps.