THE CHIVALRY OF ARIF BEY
Up to now I have only spoken of the women of Turkey, because such are
the conditions there that men and women do not mingle freely.
By the Western world Turkish men are held in low estimation: it may be
with reason, and it may be merely out of ignorance. One of the episodes
of my life deals with a Turkish man, the Arif Bey who used to come to
our house as my brother’s friend, when I was a little girl, and who for
awhile got mixed in my head with the Greek demi-gods. I had not seen
him for years. Once I had asked my brother about him. He had only told
me that he was now a pasha, and then changed the conversation.
My brother and I were invited to spend a week in Constantinople with
some friends, the Kallerghis. Our host was a charming, dashing man of
over forty, one of the few remaining members of a formerly rich and
powerful Greek family. He was a Turkish official, and the only support
of a bedridden mother, to whom he was so devoted that on her account he
remained a bachelor.
He was very fond of talking, perhaps because he told a story so well,
or perhaps because, being of an adventurous disposition, he had been
in many a scrape. One night, he told us of his experience when, in
disguise, he had managed to penetrate into the _tekhe_ of the
dervishes of Stamboul and witness one of their secret ceremonies. It
was one to which the most orthodox Mussulmans alone were admitted,
and a Christian took his life in his hand if he tried to be present.
He described the ceremony as something weird but not unpleasant, as
something worth seeing.
There are people in the world who add splendour to whatever they
describe, a splendour which is in their hearts and minds and not in the
seen thing. Such a man was Damon Kallerghis.
In the silence that followed his words, the tapping of the hour by
the _bektchi_, on his nightly rounds, came to us from sleeping
Constantinople outside.
“And how often do the ceremonies occur?” I asked, breathless with the
interest he had aroused.
“Twice a year. The next one will be in six weeks.”
That night I could not sleep for the haunting remembrance of the
uncanny wonders to which I had listened. I did not even go to bed.
Sitting by the window I looked at the white minarets, faintly gleaming
against the dark blue oriental sky. Yonder was Stamboul with its
mysteries and its charm. Which of all those graceful peaks reared
itself above the mosque of the dervishes? My desire to see that of
which I had heard grew ever stronger as the hours passed, until I could
stay quiet no longer.
My brother’s room was next to mine. To it I went, and with the
unscrupulous cruelty of my age, I woke him.
He jumped up, rubbing his eyes. “What is it, child? Are you ill?”
“No,” I said, settling myself on the foot of his bed. “Brother, I want
to go to the dervishes’ dance next month.”
“Upon my word!” he exclaimed. “Go back to bed at once, or I shall think
you have gone crazy.”
“Brother, you have got to say that you are going to take me there.”
My brother was thoroughly awake by this time. He looked at me with a
kind of despair.
“But didn’t you hear how dangerous it was--even for Damon Kallerghis?
As for your going, you might as well prance off to prison at once.”
“I don’t mind going to prison, if I can see the dervishes first,” I
persisted.
My brother, as I have said, was fourteen years older than I. He
had been my playfellow and my instructor, and was now my guardian.
Unfortunately, he was neither stern with me nor prudent himself. I
knew that I could make him grant me this wish if I only stuck to it
long enough; and when I returned to my room, an hour later, I went to
sleep delighted with the thought of the extracted promise.
The next six weeks passed slowly, although we were busy with a number
of preparations. We had, of course, to be provided with Turkish
clothes, correct in every particular; and since, according to Osmanli
custom, a lady never goes abroad alone, at least two other women, on
whose courage and discretion we could count, had to be enlisted. It was
not difficult to find men to accompany us. Any enterprise, the aim of
which was to outwit the Turks, could not but appeal to Greeks. The two
young men whom we chose were both government officials, but this did
not in the least abate their enthusiasm for the enterprise.
At last the night of nights arrived. We met at the Kallerghis house,
dressed there, and stole down the back way to two carriages awaiting
us. These took us to the Galata Bridge, whence we proceeded on foot. A
faithful manservant, dressed in the Anatolian _salvhar_, headed
the procession, carrying a lantern. We women came next, and our escorts
followed a little way behind, since Turkish women never walk in company
with men.
Stamboul in the daytime is clamorous and overcrowded. The hundred and
one cries of its pedlars and shopkeepers come at one from all quarters,
and in half the languages of the earth, while one can hardly move about
for the congestion of people. At night it is as silent and dark as
the tomb. As we hurried along the narrow, crooked streets, we heard
the occasional tramp of the night patrol, the sharp yelps of the dogs
at their scavenger work, and that was all. I had never before seen
Stamboul at night, and I doubt whether I shall ever wish to see it
again.
I began to realize the enormity of our enterprise, and to appreciate
that, had my brother been of a less adventurous temperament or a more
careful guardian, we should never have been where we were at that hour.
As we stumbled along over ill-paved alleys, which little deserved to
be called streets, the bravery with which I had confronted the idea
of possible dangers oozed out of me. Nursery tales of the ferocity of
the Turks recurred to a mind which the consciousness of doing wrong
made susceptible to fear. We were on our way to steal into a mosque,
the door of which was strictly closed against us. We were dressed in
Turkish clothes, and Christian women were forbidden under a heavy
penalty to dress as Turks, except in the company of Turkish women.
We were all Greeks, and the Turks had been our hereditary enemies
since 1453. Had I had the courage at this juncture to demand that we
returned, as I had insisted on coming, I should have been spared one
of the most terrifying nights of my life; but I lacked this, and my
shaky legs marched on through the unnamed and unnumbered streets to our
destination.
The man who had been the primary cause of our risky enterprise awaited
us at the arched gateway of the _tekhe_. He signalled us to follow
him, and we entered an ill-lighted outer courtyard. Thence we went down
a steep staircase to an inner one that must have been considerably
below the street level. My recollections of our movements for the next
few minutes are hazy. We walked through one crooked corridor after
another till we came to what looked like an impasse. A young dervish
was standing so flat against the wall that I did not notice him until
Damon Kallerghis made a sign to him, to which he responded. He lifted
the heavy leather _portière_, which I had taken to be the solid
wall, and permitted us to pass under it, and, as it seemed to me,
beyond any human protection. Up to this moment it was still possible
for us to turn back; but when that leather _portière_ closed
behind us, we were in the dark _tekhe_ itself.
An insane fear seized me. What if our guide had entrapped us here to
our destruction? I did not stop to reflect how much persuasion it had
required to get him to conduct us on this hair-brained escapade: I was
simply afraid, and my fear robbed me of every vestige of common sense.
Fortunately, beyond trembling till my teeth chattered, I attempted
nothing.
A few yards farther over the stone floor, and we were pushed into a
stall, and another leather _portière_ closed us in. This was
the end of our journey. The front of the stall was covered with
lattice-work, and through its holes we could look down into a cavernous
square arena, dark, save for a big charcoal fire smouldering in the
middle. Around the arena ran an arcade, and under it we presently made
out the reclining forms of many dervishes of different orders, and
numerous Mohammedan pilgrims, quietly smoking. The stall on our right
and left must also have been occupied, for we heard the scuffling of
feet on the floor, and then silence.
I really cannot say how long we sat on our low stools, looking down on
the weird scene beneath us, before the oppressive silence was broken
by a fearfully plaintive sound which seemed to come from far away, and
which, for lack of a better word, I shall have to call music. On and
on it went, rising and falling, monotonous, dull, and melancholy. It
penetrated the whole place, seeming to drug the atmosphere, till one
felt as if any phantasmagoria of the brain might be real.
It had another effect, this dreadful, insistent sound. After a few
minutes a desire to shriek, even to bite, came over me, and I began
rhythmically to tear my _feredjé_ in time to the music.
From this condition I was roused by a strident yell, and looked
through the lattice with renewed attention. The arena was beginning
to fill with long-cloaked dervishes carrying lighted torches. A mat
was spread near the charcoal fire, and on this the sheik, or abbot, of
the brotherhood took his place, cross-legged. The nerve-racking music
ceased while he offered a short prayer.
When this was over, other dervishes came into the arena, received
torches, and ranged themselves under the archways, like caryatides.
The maddening music started again, and the dervishes, joining hands,
made the round of the enclosure in a slow, dancing step, somewhat
like the step of a dancing bear, gradually increasing the violence of
their movements. Then each one took off his _taj_, or head-dress,
kissed it and passed it over to the sheik. The music grew faster, but
lower in tone, and more infuriating. The dervishes, with heads bowed
and shoulders bent, danced more wildly about the smouldering fire. The
long cloaks were thrown aside, and the men appeared, naked, except for
the band around their waists, from which hung long knives. They threw
out their arms, as if in supplication, and bent back their heads in
terrible contortions. Yells of “_Ya Hou!_” and “_Ya Allah!_”
mingled with the music.
Little by little the men lost every vestige of resemblance to human
beings. They were creatures possessed by a demoniac madness. They
shrieked and yelled inarticulately, their voices blending curiously
well with the hellish music. When their frenzy reached its climax,
they drew their knives from their belts and began stabbing themselves.
The blood trickled down over their bodies, and added to the sinister
aspect of the scene. After a while some of them threw themselves into
the fire, and then with ferocious yelps jumped out of it. Others, as if
they were hungry wolves, and the fire their prey, fell upon it and ate
the lighted charcoal. The smell of burning flesh was added to the smell
of sweat and blood, and made the close air almost unbearable.
When at last they could whirl no more, yell no more, stab themselves
and eat fire no more, one by one they fell to the ground. The music
became ever faster and fainter, as if it were agonizing with the men
who danced to it, until, as the last man collapsed, it, too, ceased.
The sheik then rose from his mat and went from one prostrate form to
another, breathing into their faces, and ministering to their wounds.
He who died on such a night, it was said, would become a saint.
Dazed and shaken, we left our stall and stumbled along the corridors
until we reached the entrance. There were other people, and I was
vaguely aware of cries and sobs, but heeded nothing. I wished to get
out of the _tekhe_ as if my salvation depended on it. At the outer
door I gave a great sigh of relief, and ran on after our Anatolian with
his lantern.
I was by no means myself yet, but a feeling of relief came upon me when
the cold, damp air of the night struck my face. I was trying to get
away from the music, which still clung to my nerves. For a considerable
time I walked on until a hand touched my shoulder. Startled, I turned,
and by the light of the moon, which had risen, looked into the eyes of
a veiled woman who was a stranger to me. Other veiled forms surrounded
me, none of whom I knew.
“Hanoum effendim,” said the one who had touched me, smiling, “I am
afraid you have lost your party, and by mistake have come with ours.”
Her words were like a cold but revivifying bath.
“I must have done so,” I replied, trying to avoid much conversation. “I
will go back.”
“Come with us for the night,” she suggested.
Thanking her, I took to my heels. I had not paid much attention to
the crooked streets traversed thus far, and as I absolutely lack the
sense of location I must now have gone in some other direction than
that of the _tekhe_; for after long running back and forth, and
hiding in the by-streets whenever I heard anyone approaching, I came
to the awful conclusion that I could not find the _tekhe_, and,
alone and unprotected, was lost in the streets of Stamboul. I wondered,
too, what the others were doing. Afterward I learned that, when they
got to the entrance, one of the women of our party had fainted, and,
to avoid danger, they had hidden in a dark passage while waiting for
her to come to her senses. In their excitement they did not notice my
disappearance, and when they found it out they searched everywhere,
finally deciding that the others should go home while my brother and
one of the men hid near the _tekhe_, thinking that sooner or later
I should turn up there. It was only in the early morning that they went
away, hoping that by some lucky chance I had returned to the house.
Meanwhile I was roaming far from the _tekhe_, exposed to all kinds
of dangers. I grew desperate. Horrible stories of the Greek Revolution
recurred to my mind: how our women were tortured to death by the Turks,
and how others, to avoid shame and torture, had thrown themselves into
the sea. If I could only reach the water! With that idea in my mind
I ran in the direction in which I thought the sea lay. Fragments of
prayer taught me in childhood, and long forgotten for lack of use, came
back to me, and I began to pray. I was glad for the many saints in the
Greek Faith to whom I could appeal. I tried to remember where in the
church was the particular niche of each of the saints. It took my mind
from my danger, and gave it a definite object, as I hurried on.
Into the intensity of my prayers there broke the muffled sound of
leather boots. The night patrol was on its rounds. I stood still.
To all appearances I was a Turkish woman, alone in the streets. The
patrol would arrest me. What if I threw away the _feredjé_ and the
_yashmak_? Though as a Turkish woman I should be taken to prison,
what my fate would be as a Christian I did not know, and the unknown
fate was the more terrifying. The Turkish garb was my danger, but also
my momentary protection.
I drew the black silk about me. While waiting for the approach of the
night patrol, my mind worked quickly. I must belong to some man’s
harem, either as lady or slave. I was afraid that I might not act
meekly enough for a slave; then it must be as somebody’s wife. Whose
should it be? The tall, stalwart figure of Arif Bey flashed across my
mind’s eye. He had had two wives when I knew him: he probably had more
now--and besides I knew where his town house was.
By the time the patrol came near me I felt quite safe in the thought
of the dashing figure and handsome face of the man I had chosen as my
husband. I walked up to the patrol, though I was swallowing hard, and
told them that I was lost, and wished them to take me to the police
station and send for Arif Pasha, my husband. I addressed myself to the
man who appeared to be the officer of the small band, and spoke very
low, in order that he might not detect any hesitancy in my Turkish.
He saluted in military fashion, divided his few men into two
groups, and between them escorted me to the police-station. There a
consultation took place between him and his superior, and the latter
asked me where I had been, and how I had happened to lose my party.
I smiled sweetly at him. “I shall tell that to my husband, and he will
tell you, if he thinks best.”
This was so admirable a wifely sentiment that it left my inquisitor
bereft of questions.
“It is a long way to your house,” he remarked. “It may take some hours
for your husband to come here.”
“That does not matter, if you will only send for him.”
He took me to a large room and locked me inside. I had no means of
knowing whether he would send for Arif Pasha or not, but I argued to
myself that the name was too big for a policeman to trifle with. It
remained to be seen whether the pasha would come at the summons, or
would first go into his _haremlik_ to find out whether one of his
wives were really missing. And if he had several homes, as rich Turks
often have, would he be at the address I gave, or would he be with
another wife at another house, or possibly not even in the town?
My thoughts were far from pleasant. I sat on my stool praying to my
Maker as I have never done before or since. I thought that after this
experience I should become a very wise and careful woman. Alas!
The night grew older, and the greyish light gradually pierced the
darkness, as I disconsolately wondered what would happen to me.
There were steps outside, the key turned, and Arif Pasha entered the
room, and shut the door behind him.
My father used to say: “Don’t be humble with the Turks. Ask them what
you want, and ask it as your right.”
“Please be seated, Arif Pasha,” I said, “and I will tell you all about
it.”
“And, pray, who are you?” he asked.
“I will tell you that also,” I answered, with as confident a manner as
I was able to assume.
He drew up a stool and sat down opposite me. Then I told him the whole
adventure, adding that I had sent for him to get me out of the scrape.
When I had finished, he threw back his head and laughed heartily. “So
you are my wife, are you?” he exclaimed.
I laughed, too, tremendously relieved that he was not angry with me.
“I remember you well now,” he went on, “and, if you are not any better
disciplined than you were a few years ago, you will make a troublesome
handful of a wife,” and again he roared. “I told your precious brother
once that, if he didn’t use more discretion in bringing you up, you
would keep him pretty busy. And now what do you think I can do for you?”
“Why, you will just get me out of here, and drive me to the Kallerghis,
where I am staying.”
Arif Pasha looked at me with a kind of puzzled exasperation. “How old
are you?” he asked.
“Sixteen.”
“Well, can’t you see that if I drove you there at this hour your
reputation would be ruined?”
“Oh!” I exclaimed blankly. “Then what must we do?” I was quite willing
to leave it all to him.
A fresh access of merriment overcame the Turk. He laughed till the
tears came into his eyes. I stood by, inclined to join in with him, yet
not quite sure whether it was directed against me or not. In truth,
there was a sardonic humour in the situation which I did not understand
until some hours later.
“Did ever a man find himself in such a position!” he gasped, wiping his
eyes. “Here I am routed out of bed at an unearthly hour, and dragged
across Stamboul to a police-station, to discover myself possessed of a
Greek wife I never knew I had--and to get her out of jail!”
He went to the door and clapped his hands. To the soldier who responded
to the signal he said a few words, and then returned to me.
“I have sent for coffee and something to eat.”
“But I don’t want anything to eat. I only want to get out of here,” I
said petulantly.
“Pardon me,” he said with severity, “but I am not accustomed to speak
twice to my wives. They do what I say without objections.”
“But I am not your wife,” I retorted, nettled at his lofty tone.
“No? I thought you said you were,” and again his laugh filled the room.
When the coffee and _galetas_ were brought in, I ate meekly, and
they tasted good. The hot coffee, especially, warmed me, and made
things seem more cheerful than they had.
When we had finished eating, he said to me: “Now, mademoiselle, my
carriage is downstairs, but I have explained to you why I cannot drive
you direct to the Kallerghis.”
“Suppose you take me to your home, and tell your favourite wife about
it,” I suggested.
His dark-blue eyes danced. “You think she will believe me,
mademoiselle?”
“Why not?”
He shook his head. “When you are a woman, you will understand many
things you do not now, and I hope you will still have cause to trust
men as you do now. But, mademoiselle, they are not all trustworthy, and
women are right not to believe what they say.”
He caressed his clean-shaven chin and became lost in thought. Presently
he unfolded his plan, and, even in my youth and impatience, I began
to see that the sole object of his precautions was to get me into the
house in such a way as to save me from any breath of scandal.
The sooner we left the station-house the better it would be. He spoke
a few words to the police-officers, and then told me to follow him.
There was a closed coupé awaiting us, and when we were in it he pulled
down both curtains. “We are going on a long drive until it becomes
respectable daylight. Then we shall go to your house, as if I were
bringing you back from a visit to one of my wives.”
It was after nine o’clock when we reached the Kallerghis house.
“Now,” he said, “arrange the _yashmak_ so that it will look like
a European scarf, and hold your _feredjé_ as if it were a silk
cloak, and don’t look frightened. I will get out and ring the bell, and
stay here talking and laughing with you for a minute. If you see people
whom you know, bow cordially to them, and do not act as if there were
anything unusual in the situation.”
When the servant answered the bell, I got out of the carriage, and Arif
Pasha, bending over my hand, said:
“Mademoiselle, tell your brother that I shall forget ever having seen
you to-night.”
“Thank you,” I said.
Of the man who opened the door I asked: “Is my brother or Kyrios
Kallerghis in?”
“No, mademoiselle. They have been here several times this morning, but
are out now. They seem to be in some kind of trouble.”
“As soon as they come in, tell them I should like to see them.”
It was a haggard and miserable brother who came to my room an hour or
so later.
After telling him all my adventure, I repeated Arif Pasha’s message.
My brother gave me a long, thoughtful look.
“Do you know,” he said at last, “that Arif and I have been deadly
enemies for the last three years?”