DJIMLAH
On the day of Beiram my father was about to set out for a call on a
Turkish pasha.
“Take me with you, father,” I begged, thinking of the pleasure of being
with him more than of going into a Turkish home. He acceded to my
request, actuated by the same motive as mine.
The old pasha was receiving his guests in his superb garden, and I,
after eating all the sweets my father would permit me to, and becoming
tired of their talk, which happened not to interest me, slipped away. I
wandered about in the garden, and presently came across a little girl,
older than myself, yet not so old as to form a barrier between us. It
is true that we came very near fighting, at first, over the bravery of
our respective races, but we ended, thanks to the courtesy of my little
hostess, by becoming friends.
Taking my hand in hers we ran all the way to where the pasha and
my father were seated. She interrupted their conversation without
ceremony, and perching herself on her grandfather’s knees, she
demanded that he should borrow me for her from my father.
I stood listening, confident that my father would never, never consent
to such a terrible thing. When my father consented--reluctantly it is
true; yet he did consent--cold shivers ran up and down my back, and
my eyelids fell heavily over my eyes. I felt abandoned--abandoned by
the one human being for whom I entertained the greatest confidence.
Sheer will-power kept me from throwing myself on my father’s knees
and imploring him to save me from the Turks. Had I not been bragging
to the little girl but a few minutes before that I was a Greek, and
consequently an extremely brave person, I am sure I should have broken
into sobs. As it was, I let myself be led away by the little girl
without even kissing my father good-bye; for that would have broken
down my self-control. That, I felt, was more than even Greek blood
could do. I resigned myself to my dreadful fate, but my legs felt like
ripe cucumbers.
Little Djimlah enveloped me in a long caress. “You are my very own
baby,” she said. “I never had one before, and I shall love you vastly,
and give you all I have.”
Holding my hand in hers she began to run as fast as she could, pulling
me along down the long avenue of trees, leading to the house. At the
door she did not knock. It opened as by magic of its own accord.
My first glimpse of the interior corresponded exactly with the pictures
of my imagination; for in 1885 Turkish homes still preserved all their
oriental customs. The hall was large, dark, and gloomy; and the eunuch,
who had opened the door by pulling his rope, added to its terrors. And
since that was a great festival day, and many ladies were calling, the
hall was lined with these sinister black men, the whites of whose eyes
glistened in the darkness.
Still hand in hand, Djimlah and I mounted a flight of dark, carpetless
stairs and came to a landing screened by very much the same kind of a
curtain as those that hang outside the doors of the Catholic churches
on the Continent.
“Open!” Djimlah cried, and silently two eunuchs drew aside the
curtains, and we passed to another flight of bare stairs, now full of
light and sunshine. With the sun a peal of laughter greeted us, and
when we reached the upper hall I felt a trifle less afraid.
Scrambling about on rugs were what seemed to me at first to be a
thousand young women, very much like my Kiamelé, dressed in as many
colours as there were heads, barefooted and barearmed. They were having
the greatest frolics, and laughing like a pack of children.
“Hullo, there!” cried Djimlah.
They stopped their romping, some of them rising up on their knees to
see us the better.
“Why, Djimlah Hanoum, what have you there?”
Djimlah surveyed me with eyes full of that humour which is so strong a
characteristic of the Turkish people, and replied seriously: “It looks
to me like a Christian child.”
“And where did you find it?” they cried.
“I borrowed it from the effendi, her father, who is out in the garden
talking to grandfather. She will be here a long, long time, as my own
baby.”
“Really?” They became quite excited about this.
“Yes. And she can understand us, and talk the way we do,” Djimlah
announced proudly, as if she had imparted to me a knowledge of her
language in the short time she had been holding my hand.
“_Os-geldi! os-geldi!_” then they cried to me in welcome.
“Now let’s go to grandmother,” said Djimlah.
This bevy of women were the slaves of the house and the slaves of the
ladies who were with the great lady within. We passed through several
rooms, filled with the outdoor garments of the visiting ladies, and
then came into the _divan-khané_, or principal reception room,
where the hostess was entertaining her guests.
Djimlah, placing both her little hands on the floor, salaamed, and
then walked up to her grandmother, who, magnificently attired in her
orientalism, sat cross-legged on a hard sofa, which ran around three
sides of the room.
“Here, grandmother, here is a Christian child. The effendi, her father,
is out with grandfather, and he has lent her to me.”
I stood still, quite uncertain what was the proper thing for me to do.
I had never before come so near to a Turkish lady; and this one, with
her deeply dyed finger-nails, and her indoor veils, and her hundreds
of diamonds, distracted all my previous education in decorum. I merely
stared.
“Welcome, little _hanoum_,” she said, after she, too, had stared
at me. “We shall do our best to make your stay among us seem like a
happy minute.”
I picked up my little skirts and made her a European curtsy. She was
childishly delighted with it, and I was made to repeat it before every
lady in the room, who sat in her magnificence, cross-legged on the
divan.
There were many, and by the time I finished my curtsies, and told my
name and my age, and how I had learned Turkish, and where I lived, I
felt quite at home, and when the old lady made us sit by her, and gave
us such quantities of candy as I had never been permitted to eat in an
entire year, I did not think once of the little flag that my sons were
to carry.
They talked before us as if we were not there, and told a lot of funny
stories at which we were permitted to join in the laugh.
The audience over, the ladies rose and salaamed. Djimlah and I rose,
too, and as Djimlah now kissed the hems of the ladies’ dresses, so did
I; and I was pleased to do so, for the ladies were reeking with strong
perfumes, a thing I had been taught to consider ill-bred, but which I
secretly thought lovely. We escorted the guests out to the ante-rooms,
where their attendants wrapped them in their black wraps and heavy
white gauze head-gear, and there we bade them good-bye.
Some of them took me in their arms and kissed me, and their perfume
stayed with me even in bed that night.