FREEDOM’S DOUBTFUL ENCHANTMENT
TERRITET, _Dec._ 1906.
I am conservative in my habits, as you will find out when you know me
better, although Turkish women are generally supposed to be capricious
and changeable.
Every day you can picture me sitting on the same terrace, in the same
chair, looking at the same reposeful Lake Leman and writing to the same
sympathetic friends.
The sea before me is so blue and silent and calm! Does it know, I
wonder, the despair which at times fills my soul! or is its blue there
to remind me of our home over yonder!
In the spring the Bosphorus had such sweet, sad tints. As children when
we walked near its surface my little Turkish friends said to me, “Don’t
throw stones at the Bosphorus—you will hurt it.”
Lake Leman also has ships which destroy the limpid blue of its surface
and remind me of those which passed under my lattice windows and
sailed so far away that my thoughts could not follow them.
Here I might almost imagine I was looking at the Bosphorus, and yet, is
the reflection of snow-clad peaks what I ought to find in the blue sea
away yonder? Where are the domes and minarets of our mosques? Is not
this the hour when the Muezzins[9] lift up their voices, and solemnly
call the faithful to prayer?
On such an autumn evening as this in Stamboul, I should be walking in
a quiet garden where chrysanthemums would be growing in profusion.
The garden would be surrounded by high walls, giant trees would throw
around us a damp and refreshing shade, and the red rays of the dying
sun would find their way through the leaves, and my companions’ white
dresses would all be stained with its roseate hues.
But suddenly we remember the sun is setting. To the cries of the
frightened birds we hurry back quickly through the trees. How can a
Turkish woman dare to be out after sunset?... Ah! I see it all again
now—those garden walls, those knotted trees, those jealous lattice-work
windows which give it all an impression of distress! and I am looking
at it without a veil and eyes that are free!
* * * * *
Even as I write to you, young men and maidens pass and repass before
me, and I wonder more than ever whether they are happy—yet what do they
know of life and all its sorrows; sorrow belongs to the Turks—they have
bought its exclusive rights.
In spite of our efforts not to have ourselves spoken about, the Sultan
still interests himself in us. In all probability, he has had us
reported as “dangerous revolutionists” whom the Swiss Government would
do well to watch. And perhaps the Swiss authorities, having had so many
disagreeable experiences of anarchists of late, are keeping their eyes
on us! Yet why should we care? All our lives have we not been thus
situated? We ought to be used to it by this time.
Around me I see people breathing in the pure air, going out and coming
in, and no government watches their movements. Why should _Fate_
have chosen certain persons rather than others to place under such
intolerable conditions? Why should we have been born Turks rather than
these free women who are here enjoying life? I ask myself this question
again and again, and all to no purpose; it only makes me bitter.
Do you know, I begin to regret that I ever came in contact with your
Western education and culture! But if I begin writing of Western
culture, this letter will not be finished for weeks, and I want news of
you very soon.—Au revoir, petite chérie,
ZEYNEB.
* * * * *
TERRITET, _Jan._ 1907.
Your letter of yesterday annoys me. You are “changing your _pension_,”
you say, “because you are not free to come in to meals when you like.”
What an awful grievance! If only you English women knew how you are to
be envied! Come, follow me to Turkey, and I will make you thank Allah
for your liberty.
Ever since I can remember, I have had a passion for writing, but this
is rather the exception than the rule for a Turkish woman. At one time
of my life, I exchanged picture postcards with unknown correspondents,
who sent me, to a _poste restante_ address, views of places and people
I hoped some day to visit.
This correspondence was for us the DREAM SIDE of our existence. In
times of unhappiness (extra unhappiness, for we were always unhappy),
discouragement, and, above all, revolt, it was in this existence that
we tried to find refuge. The idea that friends were thinking of us,
however unknown they were, made us look upon life with a little more
resignation—and you, my friend, who complain that “you are not free to
have your meals when you like,” should know that _this correspondence
had to be hidden with as much care, as if it had been a plot to kill
the Imperial Majesty himself_.
* * * * *
When our correspondence was sent to us direct, it had to pass through
the hands of three different persons before we had the pleasure of
receiving it ourselves. All the letters we sent out and received were
read not only by my father and his secretary, but by the officials of
the Ottoman Post.
One day, I remember, the daughter of an ex-American minister sent me a
long account of her sister’s marriage, and she stopped short at the
fourth page. I was just going to write to her for an explanation, when
the remaining sheets were sent on to me by the police, whose duty it
was to read the letters, and who had simply forgotten to put the sheets
in with the others.
You could never imagine the plotting and intriguing necessary to
receive the most ordinary letters; not even the simplest action could
be done in a straightforward manner; we had to perjure our souls by
constantly pretending, in order to enjoy the most innocent pleasures—it
mattered little to us, I do assure you, “whether we had our meals at
the time we liked” or not.
* * * * *
All around me little girls are playing. They wear their hair loose
or in long plaits, their dresses are short. Up the steps they climb;
they play at hide-and-seek with their brothers and their brothers’
friends. They laugh, they romp, their eyes are full of joy, and their
complexions are fresh—surely this is the life children should lead?
I close my eyes, and I see the children of my own country who at their
age are veiled. Their childhood has passed before they know it. They do
not experience the delight of playing in the sun, and when they go out
they wear thick black veils which separate them from all the joys of
youth.
I was scarcely ten years old when I saw one of my little friends taking
the veil, and from that day she could no longer play with us. That
incident created such an impression on us that for days we could hardly
speak. Poor little Suate! No longer could she dance with us at the
Christians’ balls nor go to the circus. Her life had nothing more in
common with ours, and we cried for her as if she had died.
But we were happy not to be in her place, and I remember saying to my
sister, “Well, at least I have two years before me; perhaps in a short
time our customs will have changed. What is the use of worrying so long
beforehand?”
“I am still more certain to escape, for I have four years before me,”
she answered.
Little Suate was veiled at a time when those delightful volumes of the
_Bibliothèque Rose_ were almost part of our lives. From them we learnt
to believe that some good fairy must come, and with the touch of her
magic wand all our destinies would be changed.
But to-day, when I am no longer a child, I ask myself whether my
great-great-grandchildren can ever free themselves from this hideous
bondage.
Melek is writing for you her impressions of taking the veil. They are
more recent than mine.—Your affectionate
ZEYNEB.