IN THE HOLLOW OF ALLAH’S HAND
My visits to Djimlah continued, and her daring spirit was a continual
delight to me. I had never seen her afraid of anything, and she did
pretty much as she chose. One day when I was visiting her, a tremendous
thunder-storm broke out, and I said to her:
“Oh, Djimlah, let us go out in your grounds and watch the storm. They
never let me do that at home, and I do so want to find its roots.”
She did not accept the proposal with alacrity. “It will rain hard in
a minute,” she objected, “and we shall get wet. I hate to look like a
rat--and all the curl will come out of my hair.”
“I believe you are afraid, like the other women,” I mocked her. “Maybe
if you had a European bed in your home you would go and hide under it.”
She rose majestically: “Come, we will go and see whether I am afraid.”
We went out, bent on finding the beginning of the storm. I always
thought that a storm must have a beginning; and from the windows of
my nursery, where I watched the storms, it looked as if it were just
around the corner. In vain, however, on that day did we wander around
many corners, on Djimlah’s grounds: we could find no beginning.
The storm grew fiercer and fiercer. The whole sky was dark
lead-coloured, and black clouds rushed along as if a tremendous force
were pushing them from behind. The lightning, like a vicious snake,
was zigzagging over the sky. Then there came a bang! and a crash of
thunder. By that time we were far from the house, and on the cliffs.
Djimlah put her arm within mine.
“I am possessed with fear,” she gasped; “for Allah is wrathful.”
Her tone was full of awe, and it subdued me. “Let us go back,” I said.
“No, it will overtake us, and crush us,” Djimlah answered. “I don’t
want to die--not just yet. We must hide somewhere.”
At this time I was being taught my Bible, and felt that I knew a great
deal about religious subjects.
“We can’t hide from God,” I explained. “He sees us everywhere--even in
the darkest corner of a dark closet.”
“I don’t want to hide from God,” Djimlah corrected, “I want to hide
from the thunder. Come! I know where we can go--to the Hollow of
Allah’s Hand.”
Hand in hand we ran as fast as we could against the hard, beating
rain, the fierce wind blowing against us, bending even big trees,
and mercilessly breaking off their branches. With the agility of
children we managed to reach a high cliff partly concealed by pines.
It resembled a gigantic hand, rising up, the fingers curving over and
forming a protected hollow. Into this we crept and sat down, high above
the Sea of Marmora, with miles and miles of horizon in front of us.
In our little shelter the rain could not get at us, but we were already
wet, and our clothes clung to us uncomfortably.
“Let us take our coats off,” suggested Djimlah, “for the under layer
must be less wet than the upper one. And also let us take off our shoes
and stockings. We shall be more comfortable without them.”
We divested ourselves of some of our clothing, and as the hollow where
we sat had sand, we stretched our coats in front of us to dry, curled
our feet under us, and snuggled very close to each other.
The storm was still raging, but we now looked upon it with the renewed
interest and pleasure derived from our safety.
“We didn’t find its roots after all,” Djimlah observed. “I believe it
begins at the feet of Allah and ends there, and since we are sitting
in the hollow of his hand it can’t hurt us.”
It struck me as curious that she should be talking of God so
familiarly. In my ignorance of their religious side, I considered the
Turks as infidels and without religion.
“I didn’t know that God had any hands,” I remarked. “I thought He was
only an eye--at least that is the way He is painted on the ceiling of
our church.”
Djimlah shook her head. “How can He be only an eye? Have you ever seen
a person being only an eye?”
“He isn’t a person,” I retorted. “He is God, which is very different
from being a person,” and yet as I spoke the words, something I had
just learned popped into my head, that man was created in the image of
God. Magnanimously I mentioned this to Djimlah.
“I always knew that,” she agreed, “and I know whom He looks like, too.
He looks like grandfather at his best.”
“Your grandfather is old,” I protested. “God isn’t an old man.”
Djimlah pondered this. “Well, He has lived ever since the beginning of
the world--and grandfather is only sixty.” She looked at me puzzled.
“That’s funny. I never thought much about His age.”
“Yes,” I put in more perplexed still, “and His Son, if He had lived,
would have been almost nineteen hundred years old.”
She turned abruptly, and her face in the little hollow was very near
mine.
“What son?” she inquired with interest.
“Jesus Christ, our Lord,” I answered.
“Your prophet? Why, He wasn’t His Son. Allah never married,” and again
the words flashed into my mind that there was neither giving nor taking
in marriage in heaven. Yet I stood by my orthodoxy.
“Christ _is_ the Son of God,” I maintained.
Djimlah, too, stood by her belief. “Allah had no children of the flesh.
Christ was only a prophet--and He was second to Mohammed.”
A brilliant idea came to me. “You know, Djimlah,” I explained, “I am
not talking of Allah, I am talking of God.”
“They are all the same,” she asserted. “There is but one Heaven and one
Earth, and one Sun and one Moon. Therefore there is but one God, and
that is Allah, and we are His children.”
I was staggered by her confident tone. Djimlah with her words had made
of me a Mohammedan and an infidel--something religiously unclean and
unspeakable. And, what is more, she was unconscious of the enormity of
her speech: she was excitedly watching the lightning, now making all
sorts of arabesques on the sky.
“Watch, darling, watch!” she cried. “I know now what the storm is. It
is fireworks, Allah’s fireworks!”
“Fireworks--foolishness!” I exclaimed peevishly; for I was sorely hurt
at the idea of her being on equal terms with me before God. “God is not
frivolous--He does not want any fireworks. He is vastly busy watching
the world, and guiding the destinies of the human race.”
“Why should He watch and guide?” Djimlah said proudly. “He knows
everything from the beginning; for He writes it on the foreheads of
people. My destiny is written here,” she pointed to her forehead, “and
yours is written there.” She tapped my forehead.
I hated her, and crossly pushed her finger from my forehead.
“He doesn’t,” I cried, “for He leaves us free to choose whether we
shall be brave or cowardly, whether we shall do good or evil.”
She laughed derisively. “A nice kind of a father you would make of
Him--taking no more care of us than that. But do stop arguing and watch
the storm. Isn’t it glorious?”
Indeed the lightning over the Asiatic side of Turkey was wonderful. The
storm had worked its way over there, and the rain had followed, leaving
our side of the coast clear. Right above us a yellowish cloud tore open
and disclosed the sun. Djimlah greeted him with delight. She extended
her little arms up toward him, crying:
“Come out, Sun Effendi, come out! You are so golden and warm, and I am
so cold.”
She shook her little body and rose, jumping up and down to get warm.
As if to oblige her the sun’s rays grew stronger and stronger, and
we began to feel better under their warmth. We could hear the storm
growling miles away now, and see only bits of lightning.
“It’s working its way back to Allah,” said Djimlah, “so let’s go home,
and get dry clothes and something to eat. But I am glad we came out,
for now you know that it has no roots.” She put her arm around me. “I
used to be afraid of the noise,” she confessed sheepishly. “I used to
hide my head in some one’s lap. I never knew it was so beautiful. You
made me see that.”
This deference pleased me, yet it did not take away the smart from
which I was suffering. Indeed, the calm assertion of Djimlah that we
were all in the same way children of God hurt me more than any abstract
proposition has since been able to. Had she intimated that the Turks
and the Greeks were alike, I could have proved to her by actual facts
that the Greeks were superior to the Turks, because they had attained
to the noblest civilization, the most beautiful architecture, and the
greatest literature in the world; but how was I to prove my position of
superiority before God?
The afternoon passed in various games, in which I took only a
half-hearted interest. Then came supper and bedtime. I was spending the
night there, and by the time I was to go to bed my smart, instead of
being lessened, had grown tremendously. I undressed silently.
The old _hanoum_ came in to hear us say our prayers. Up to this
time I had not minded praying with Djimlah to Allah. I was sure it did
not matter, because when I was tucked in bed, I crossed myself three
times, and implored the Virgin Mary to watch over me and over those I
loved. To-night it was different. If I were to show Djimlah that I did
not believe in her words, I must stop praying to her god; so I said:
“I shall not pray to Allah to-night.”
“Oh, but you _must_,” Djimlah declared. “You wouldn’t like to
disappoint him, would you?”
“I don’t belong to him,” I asserted passionately. “I don’t belong to
him. I belong to God, so I don’t care whether I disappoint Allah or
not.”
“Djimlah,” interposed her grandmother, “you must let the little
_hanoum_ do as she likes. You and I can pray alone.”
Djimlah stood before her grandmother, her face tilted upward, her hands
outstretched, palms upward.
“Allah, the only true god of heaven and earth, be praised! There is
no other God but God, the great, the wonderful, the just. Allah be
praised!”
She kissed her grandmother and me, and the old lady kissed us both, and
put us to bed. No sooner was she out of the room than Djimlah said:
“Baby mine, I believe the storm has upset you. You have been so quiet
all the afternoon--and now you don’t even pray.”
“I am upset,” I replied. “But it isn’t the storm--it’s you.”
She sat up in bed. “Now what have I done to offend you, when you are
under my roof?”
“It wasn’t under your roof. It was when we were in the open, during the
storm.”
“That part of the heavenly roof being over grandfather’s land is our
roof,” she corrected me.
“Well, I don’t care what you call it, you have offended me.”
“But, darling,” she cried, “how did I do it? I don’t remember it.”
“I can’t quite explain it; but, although I have been very fond of you,
I don’t like you to say that you and I are the children of God in the
same way, and----”
She interrupted me--and it was a pity, too; for at the moment I was
getting it quite clear how she was not my equal before God, and
afterwards I could not quite get it again.
“But, _yavroum_, much loved by the stars and the rivers, are we
not Allah’s children, you and I?”
“No!” I cried bitterly, “I have nothing to do with Allah. He is a
cruel, beastly god, who tells people to kill--and you _know_ you
have killed thousands of us--and little babies, too!”
To my surprise I found myself hating the Turks with a hatred I never
thought I could feel since I had come to know them. And I was miserable
because I was in the same bed with Djimlah.
Her eyes glistened in the semi-darkness. Our little bed faced the
windows, where there were no curtains, and the light undisturbed was
pouring in from the stars above, which we could see twinkling at us.
“Funny! funny! funny!” she kept saying to herself. “I thought you liked
us--and oh! I do adore you so! I felt as if truly you were my own baby.”
She had on a night-dress made of light brown cambric, with yellow and
red flowers on it. Her hair was tied at the top of her head with a
yellow ribbon, from which was dangling a charm against the evil eye. It
came over me how unlike a Greek child she was, and how very Turkish.
“Djimlah!” I cried, “you are not, and you shall not be my equal before
God.”
She crossed her hands on her breast and became lost in meditation.
After awhile she said:
“There is no other God but God--and we are all His children. So they
told me and I believe it, don’t you?”
I shook my head. “There is Allah, and there is God,” I replied. “And I
am a Greek, and you are a Turk--and the Turks are very cruel people.”
“Have we been cruel to you, all this long time you have come to see us?”
“No,” I had to admit, “but you are cruel just the same. If you will
read history you will know how cruel you are; for when you took
Constantinople, for days and nights you were killing our people and
burning our homes.” I was ready to weep over our past wrongs, and my
blood was boiling. “I don’t love you any more--and God doesn’t love you
either.”
Djimlah’s eyes opened wide open. “I don’t understand. Let’s go to
grandmother: she will explain things to us.”
“I don’t want them explained. I shall go home to-morrow, and never,
never, so long as I live, shall I again speak to you, or to any Turkish
child.”
At this Djimlah began to cry: at first softly, then yelling at the top
of her lungs. This brought not only the old _hanoum_ but a bevy of
the younger ones.
It took some time to pacify Djimlah, who managed to convey between her
sobs that I, her own baby, “her own flesh and blood,” as she put it,
was no longer coming to see her, because she was a Turkish child and
because Constantinople had been burned.
The old _hanoum_ sent the younger women out of the room, put
Djimlah on the hard sofa by the window and wrapped her in a shawl. Then
she came to me, tucked me in a blanket, and carried me near to Djimlah.
After that she fetched two enormous Turkish delights with nuts in them,
and two glasses of water.
“Both of you, eat and drink.”
When this operation was over, she said quietly: “Now tell me all about
it.”
As well as I could I told her of what Djimlah had said, and of my
feelings on the subject.
“I don’t want to be equal with her before God,” I protested. “It isn’t
right; for she is a Turk, and I am a Greek.”
“Well, my sweet _yavroum_, you are all mixed up about just where
you stand before God. At present you stand nowhere, because you are
only babies. As you grow older your place will be determined by your
usefulness in the world, your kindness and gentleness, by the way you
treat your husband’s mother and his other wives, and how healthy and
well brought up his children are. As to your being a Greek and Djimlah
a Turk, that is only geography,” she explained vaguely. “When we shall
die and go to God, we shall be that which we have made of ourselves.”
“She says that we are wicked and brutal, and burned Constantinople,
and killed the people,” Djimlah moaned.
“That was because Allah willed it. Nothing happens without the will of
Allah, and his word must be carried by the sword. We like you and love
you, and could no more harm you than we could harm Djimlah.” She leaned
over and took me on her lap. “Now, _yavroum_, remember that Allah
is father to you all, and he loves you equally well; and all you have
to do is to love each other and be good and go to sleep, and that will
please him.”
She kissed me, and drew Djimlah to us, and made us kiss each other.
A latent sense of justice made me recognize how good she was; and
although I did not relinquish my nationality as a bit of geography, I
recognized that there was something in what she said. So I kissed the
old _hanoum_, and kissed Djimlah, and obediently was led away to
bed. Then she sat by us and sang us a little lullaby.
After she had left us Djimlah put her arms around me and whispered: “Do
you love me again? For I love you just the same, and when we grow up
let us marry the same effendi, and never be separated.”
I did not go away the next day because Djimlah would not listen to it.
She was afraid lest I should keep to my first intention, and never
return. She wanted to talk over everything with me, which we did; and
with the help of the old _hanoum_, her light and her kindness, I
saw things a little better.
Just as my idea of the ferocity of the Turks in their homes had long
ago vanished, so what they believed and taught God to be appealed to
me; and, although I retained my own idea of the relative importance
of the two races in this world, I could not help feeling that perhaps
the old hanoum was right, and that our position before God was less a
matter of creed and belief than of how we lived our lives.