Part 3

My aunt, with her two sisters, their children and the servants had formed a semi-circle inside the entrance hall and were awaiting us, outwardly calm but with their eyes shining with restrained excitement. Turkish etiquette requires composure no matter how excited one is. Every one has to wait his turn and we greeted each other accordingly, starting by the eldest and going down the line according to age--kissing the hands of those older than us and having our hands kissed by those younger than us. This hand-kissing is a sign of respect which remains supreme in Turkey; no matter what their respective social position, when two Turks greet each other the younger one always at least makes a motion as if to kiss the hand of his elder. It is a quaint, graceful acknowledgment of the respect and allegiance due to old age.

With all the formality attached to it the reception extended by my aunts at our arrival was vibrating with sincerity and emotion. The dear, dear ladies were patting us and embracing us, their eyes full of tears, with little sighs of delight and whispered prayers of thanksgiving to the Almighty to have thus permitted our reunion under their roof. They took us to the sitting-room where we all sat in a circle, and a general conversation, in which my wife's Turkish had to be helped by my cousin or by myself, started around. My aunts do not speak English but this handicap of language did not prevent the establishment of ties of love and devotion between them and my wife. These bonds in fact developed in the course of time to such a degree that to-day they are as strong as the ties of blood uniting my aunts to me. They took to my wife immediately and wanted to know how she liked Constantinople. Wasn't she missing her country and her sisters? But now she had a new set of sisters and brothers. Their own children would surround her with love and try to make her feel less the absence of her sisters in America and they themselves were my wife's aunts. She had become one with me by her marriage and how would we enjoy staying with them in Erenkeuy? The life here was very quiet, a great change for people coming from America.

A few minutes later my uncle came to join the family circle. We all got up respectfully and stood until he sat in his favourite easy-chair. He greeted us with warm words of welcome, in his quiet, unostentatious way. Every one was conscious that the head of the family was now with us, although there was no strain whatsoever. Just a note of deference, that was all. Coffee was served. Then a maid brought us jam on a silver platter and each one took a spoonful, drinking some water immediately after. We exchanged news about the different members of the family and about our friends, talked of the past and of our future plans. At tea time we adjourned to the dining-room and had our tea Turkish fashion: weak, with lemon and plenty of sugar. No toast is served but instead bread and that wonderful white cheese which melts in the mouth. They explained to us that during the war they drank the boiled extract of roasted oats instead of tea or coffee.

After the ice was completely broken I had to call on my uncle and my aunts to convince my wife that we were really in a “harem.” I must say that they were very much amused. Of course this was a harem and no man except the members of the family had ever passed its threshold in the days gone by. But that did not mean that my uncle had ever had another wife besides my aunt. They always had lived together ever since the divorce of my second aunt, and my youngest aunt had also lived here always with her husband. They suggested showing my wife the gardens of the harem and we all wandered out together.

What a great difference ten or twelve years had made in these gardens! The last time I had seen them--before my departure for America--their alleys were carpeted with clean small pebbles, their trees were trimmed, their well-kept flower beds and orchards were a pleasure to the eyes, while the hot-house at the corner was filled with rare tropical plants and fruit-trees. The whisper of running water flew continuously from many fountains and in a small artificial lake a miniature rowboat of polished mahogany lolled lazily in the shade of branches hanging from the shores. It was a thriving garden, speaking of ease and prosperity. But now! It looked as if it had been asleep since the last few years. Gone are the pebbles in the alleys. Broken are the window-panes of the deserted hot-house with its shelves covered with dust and its cracked vases with dried stumps which were once the trunks of tropical plants. Dead leaves rustle under your feet and hush your steps. The trees have grown in a maze of unruly branches. The rose beds of yesteryear have turned wild and now prickly bushes bearing anemic flowers stoop to the ground, fighting for supremacy in the flower garden. Shrubs of lilac, jasmine and honeysuckles--which blossom here in the early fall as well as in spring--faintly scent the air with their reminiscent perfume of past glory. The fountains are silent and the little lake is dry--while the sad nakedness of its gray cement marks the resting-place for the broken remains of what used to be the shining little mahogany rowboat. The beautiful garden is now the ghost of what it used to be. Its soul is alive--perhaps more so than before--but pensive, sad, desolate. The greedy monster of war must have reached as far as this peaceful estate in Erenkeuy, sucking its vitality in its all-devastating tentacles.

How did it ever come about? My uncle and my aunt must have had some reverses unknown to me, they would not carelessly let their property deteriorate in this way if they could have helped it. The thought worried me and I turned to my aunt for an explanation. With her diminutive slippers crushing the dead leaves covering the ground, her jet black hair covered with a delicately embroidered white veil, my aunt was slowly walking on my right through the desolate alleys. Her husband was next to her while my wife, with my cousins and my other aunts walked ahead in the distance, fading gradually in the subtle shadows of the desolate garden. My aunt explained. Her voice was subdued but she was dispassionate, firm and resigned.

“We have tried to be too careful, my son,” she said, “and God has taught us a lesson. Long before the war we had deposited all our holdings with a British bank in London. We believed it would be safer there than in any other place and we lived contented on the income it brought us. It was nothing much but it represented with this place all our savings and it was enough to allow us to live happily and to take good care of our estate. The war came suddenly and our deposits in the bank were seized by England. It was fair, all the nations did the same and confiscated enemy properties within their reach. So we bowed to the inevitable and passed the long years of war as best we could. Your uncle took sick. He is just getting over an ailment which forced him all this time to live in retirement. Nothing was coming in. The family is large, the children had to be educated. We dismissed all hired servants and sold our family jewels. At last the armistice came and we hoped to get back what was ours. But years have passed and years are passing. England has returned the properties of Armenians, Greeks and Jews who are, like ourselves, Turkish citizens, on the grounds that they were pro-Allies but she still refuses to give back the private property of the Turks. No exception is made for those who, like ourselves, were not in politics during the war and even for those who, like your uncle, tried to dissuade the Government from entering the war. Our only crime seems to be that we did not betray our country during the war, that we could not be pro-Ally after our country had entered the war! Well, what can we do? We still must be grateful to God that we have a roof over our heads. Thousands of others are much worse off. We can't take care of this property, but we have mortgaged it and we live as best we can. God has helped us in the past, God will help us in the future if we realize that no matter how careful we are we can't foresee the future, we cannot avoid the decrees of Destiny.” I look in silence at my aunt, there is no bitterness in her, but her finely chiseled face is pensive. She is lost in retrospective thoughts. She is visualizing her garden as it used to be, while her night-dark eyes glance, unseeing, over her present surroundings. She walks slowly, her slender body wrapped in the loose, flowing folds of an Arabian “Meshlah” of silk, glittering with silver threads, which she had thrown over her shoulders when she came out in the garden. She looks typically Turkish. Her slightly aquiline nose gives a refined expression to her proud, clean-cut features. She is small and thin, but her dignified carriage gives the impression of power and self-confidence.

The Pasha, walks next to her, slightly bent by his recent illness. However he is well on his way to complete recovery; his sprightly step, his rosy cheeks, his keen bright eyes denote vigor and growing strength. He caresses his small gray beard and smiles. He passes his hand in his wife's arm and cheerfully says: “Hanoum, we should not complain, we are better off now than we ever were, if our trials have made us wiser. We know better the real value of things than we did before. The Almighty has made me recover my health, we are all alive and well. I am not so old yet, I can work. I will work, and you will again help me as you did in the past. We will together rebuild our home. It is for us to deserve the help of God. We must work for His mercy.”

In the silence that followed new hopes were born in me. The undaunted spirit of the Pasha faithfully reflects the feeling in the Turkey and the Turks of to-day. This is the spirit that has brought them through all their past trials, this is the spirit that has been taken for fatalism, but which is nothing else than an indomitable blend of resignation, confidence in one's self and confidence in the justice of God. It will save Turkey and the Turks as it has saved them in the past. They never have been despondent and they never will give up. Calmly, without any show, without any complaint they always step back into their normal lives, confident that the future will justify their immovable trust in the justice of God.

We slowly return home in the silent twilight of the evening. It is almost dinner time. The old fashioned Turkish families dine always soon after sunset, no matter the season. Here in Erenkeuy the food is supplied by a community kitchen to which most of the neighbours are subscribers. It is distributed twice a day, so the food is always freshly cooked, clean and wholesome. It is less costly and less worrisome than to keep one's own kitchen and my surprise is great to find such an efficient modern innovation in a little village at the outskirts of Anatolia.

After dinner we sit around and talk some more. My cousin plays and sings for us some old Turkish songs. Then we all retire, for the night, the younger ones again kissing the hands of their elders. When we are alone in our room, my wife tells me how much she has liked my aunts. It must be mutual because there is a knock on our door and my aunt enters. She comes to give my wife a pair of small diamond earrings as a token of welcome under her roof. My aunt insists on her taking them. They have no value of their own she says, but they have been in the family for a very long time--my mother wore them when she was a child.

IV

MODERN TURKISH WOMEN

Our stay in Erenkeuy which had started under such pleasant auspices continued in perfect harmony and developed additional ties between my wife and her new Turkish relations. A most cordial friendship grew between her and my cousin, the daughter of my second aunt. She had been educated at the American College for Girls of Constantinople and her education was therefore a most happy blend of the Orient and the Occident. It opened an additional ground of common understanding between the two girls who became rapidly inseparable friends. The following winter when we were all in the city my cousin, my sister and my wife formed a constant trio which broke up only when my sister left Constantinople for extensive travel in Western Europe.

There was another Turkish girl in Erenkeuy who came often to call. She was a school mate of my cousin and not only spoke perfect English but wrote it perfectly too. Her ambition was to make English-speaking people familiar with Turkish literature. This Turkish girl is very active in the American colony of Constantinople.

She was then hoping to induce the American Relief Association to engage in relief work for the needy Turks also. But I am afraid that she found this task somewhat difficult. I have heard it said that while it is comparatively easy to obtain financial support for Armenians and Greeks, it is more difficult to obtain funds for the Turks. A well-managed campaign following an energetic propaganda by which Turks are represented as committing wholesale massacres and atrocities against the Christian elements in the Near East is always sure to bring substantial financial assistance for Armenians and Greeks and incidentally to secure a longer lease of life to the jobs of all those employed in Relief or Missionary work in Turkey. But how could money be raised for the Turks? To create public sympathy for them in America would necessitate the destruction of all the fables so elaborately created by years of anti-Turkish propaganda. It is easier to follow the lines of least resistance, to follow the beaten road by spreading news of massacres and atrocities whenever funds are needed. The only requirement in this case is to make a propaganda whose virulence is in direct proportion to the reluctance of the public in subscribing for new funds. Whenever the public seems to have lost interest or seems to be acquiring a more accurate knowledge of the Greeks and Armenians--whenever either of these conditions coincide with the need of more funds--a spectacular report on new Turkish atrocities is staged and the flow of money is stimulated. The tide runs Eastward, but there it is carefully canalized into Greek and Armenian channels alone. The money has been collected for them and must be distributed exclusively to them. What difference does it make if hundreds of thousands of Turks, old men, women and children rendered homeless by the Greek invasion or by the repeated Armenian revolutions, are dying from lack of clothes, lack of shelter, lack of food. The Turks are human beings too, that is true, but they call God “Allah.” and it does not sound the same!

The Turks are thrown exclusively on their own meagre resources for relieving their own refugees, for helping their needy. I must say that despite their extremely restricted means they achieve this difficult task with unexpected efficiency. The work of relief is almost exclusively in the hands of committees of Turkish women who work with untiring abnegation. The president of one of these committees, Madame Memdouh Bey, a cousin of my aunts', was quite a frequent visitor at Erenkeuy and told us of how they are organized and how they work. These committees are built upon such efficient business lines that I feel I should describe them to some extent so as to give an idea of the administrative and organizing capacities of modern Turkish women. Each relief association specializes in a given activity. One takes care of refugees, another of the needy orphans, a third one of the Red Crescent--which is the Turkish Red Cross--and so forth. Each Association is divided into Committees, every one of which is assigned to one district and is an autonomous unit with a president and also a secretary managing its executive work. These committees are divided into sub-committees: one in charge of collections, one responsible for distributions and one to organize and conduct productive work. The ladies in charge of collecting continuously canvass their districts and classify all donations--be they money or wearing apparel. They organize tag days, garden parties, concerts, etc., to secure any additional supplies and funds possible.

My wife participated in several of these tag days but on such occasions she had to don the “charshaf” so as not to be conspicuously the only foreigner among the Turkish ladies. On these days the streets of Stamboul are full of groups of Turkish ladies, young girls and children, a red ribbon pinned on their breasts with the name of the Association they are collecting for written on it, smilingly offering their tags to the public. They bother the foreigners very little and solicit charity only from the Turks. The ladies who have shouldered the responsibility of distributing the charity thus collected canvass thoroughly their respective district, to find the refugees or the needy who deserve the most urgent attention, determine systematically their needs and supply them with the help they require. Any funds that remain available to the Committee after such distribution are then turned over to the sub-committee in charge of organizing and conducting productive work. Here all needy women and girls who can earn their living are brought together and given work in dressmaking or embroidery establishments which are under the direct management of the ladies of this sub-committee. The men are similarly given work in furniture making or carpentry establishments. Men, women and children thus employed are of course paid for their work, their products are sold and the profits realized on them are again placed at the disposal of the Committee.

Turkish ladies also run orphan asylums where little boys and little girls who have lost both father and mother in the turmoil of the different wars or in the forced evacuation of their homesteads before the Greek or Armenian irredentists, are taken care of and educated. When the little girls have reached the age of fifteen they are given into families where they work--under the continuous supervision of the Committee for orphans. The ladies of this committee keep a vigilant and motherly watch over the welfare of these girls. Once a month the girls are subjected to a medical examination to determine if their health is properly taken care of. Once a month some lady of the Committee makes an unexpected call in every house where any of these orphan girls are working to ascertain how they are treated, what work they are doing, and if they are satisfied with their employers. She has also the privilege--which she often takes advantage of--using her savings as a dowry to start married life.

Needless to say that the ladies engaged in this relief work are all volunteers. They belong mostly to the upper classes and devote all their time and energy to the charities they have undertaken. We have seen them at work time and again and their devotion and abnegation is beyond praise. I think that the most active of these ladies--at least those who are most in the public eye because of the executive positions they hold in the Committees--are Madame Memdouh Bey, Madame Ismail Djenani Bey, Madame Edhem Bey and Madame Houloussi Bey. But there are hundreds and thousands of others whose work, while not as prominent, is none the less efficient, silent little women with hearts of gold devoting their life to some work of charity and mercy.

In the shadows of the old garden at Erenkeuy, my aunts were incessantly engaged in bringing their contribution to this general work of relief. They would sit in a circle under some big trees and be busy one day sewing garments for refugees, another day packing medicines for the Red Crescent, or knitting socks, sweaters or gloves for the soldiers of the Nationalist Armies. They would remain at work for hours at a time, day in and day out, in their quiet, unostentatious ways making a most touching picture: a group incessantly engaged in humanitarian work--the elder aunt, poised and refined, directing the work of all and participating in it with all her untiring activity--the second aunt, emaciated by years of domestic troubles caused by the kaleidoscopic political changes and wars of Turkey, but still cheerful and hopeful--the youngest aunt, as sweet as a Madonna and as resigned as one--cutting, sewing or packing with the help of their children.

I confess that I was not a little surprised by this continuous activity in which all Turkish women, without distinction of class, took a feverish part. It is true that even before I left Constantinople women were already much more emancipated than they generally were given credit for being by foreigners--it is true that I was hoping to find them at my return well on the road to full emancipation. But frankly I was not prepared for the long stride they had made during these few years. I was especially not prepared to see them so competent in public organization and so businesslike in the conduct of actual productive work. I expected to find them rather inefficient in the new fields opened to them for the first time after so many generations of seclusion.

I said this frankly to my aunt, one Friday afternoon, on the eve of our departure from Erenkeuy. We were enjoying the ever attractive sunset from the terraces of a public garden on the shores of the Sea of Marmora. At a distance and blurred by the purple haze of the horizon, Prinkipo and the other islands were reflecting their dark green hills in the opalescent sea where glimmered the dancing lights of an orange-coloured sun. Gentle waves were breaking in cadence over the rocks at our feet. Around us other Turkish families were sitting at wooden tables in small groups. We had just finished sipping our coffees. The general relaxation preceding all oriental sunsets was gradually creeping over nature together with the lavendar shadows of the coming twilight. My aunts had been working hard that day, and I told them how much I admired them and all their Turkish sisters for their indefatigable activities, for their efficiency in works they had not participated in for generations.

My aunt looked at me. Then she laughed in her musical and contagious manner: “You talk like a foreigner, my son,” she said. “Whenever foreigners talk of the new emancipation of Turkish women, they express their surprise at our efficiency.”

I explained to my aunt what I meant--I said: “Our women have been kept for so many generations out of all activities, their attention has been consecrated for so many centuries exclusively on their homes and families and they have so recently acquired their freedom, that I can not help being surprised to find them turning their freedom into really productive channels and to see how capable they are in their new pursuits.”