To-day the sun peeping through the latticed windows of the harem has
found me sleeping soundly on a comfortable mattress in the corner of my
hostess’s bedroom.
This is my first experience of Turkish country-house life, and it is so
different to anything I have lived before--quaint, strange, charming,
and at times confusing.
The house is immense--in most countries it would have been classed
amongst the palaces--and it looks much larger than it really is, so
scantily is it furnished.
But what a curious feeling of loneliness and desolation one has on
first entering this house. What has happened to the poor place? Has
it been successfully burgled? Have its inhabitants deserted it, or
have they simply sent the best of the furniture to the emporium and
the “household gods” to the bank? No pictures on the walls, no cosy
corners, not even the elements of comfort. Then all of a sudden one
discovers a table, almost hidden from view, covered with a host of
tiny little articles, some of gold studded with precious stones, and
the tinier they are the more they are cherished, and not one Turkish
woman would change her table of useless nothings for a whole room full
of Western comforts.
A large retinue of slaves and servants, many born on the premises, are
supposed to keep the house in order, yet if every one of them looked
“work” seriously in the face, three times their number would not
suffice to do the work as we in the West would have it done.
But then, after all, we are not dealing with the West. The Turkish
point of view is this: What a lot of fine tears and good worry are
wasted in the West. Why should these Europeans criticise us? Our
beds do get rolled up and put away before it is time to take them
out again. If there is a slight error of an hour on the wrong side
of our mealtimes, we do get them. Should our rooms not be dusted
daily, a friendly wind from the Bosphorus blows through and shifts the
accumulation from place to place. And, says the Turkish woman, “I came
to the country to rest. It may seem like running away from rest in
order to rest, but that’s my business. My household runs on the basis
of good, delicious, creamy Turkish coffee at all hours of the day;
everything else is in proportion.”
The lord and master of the establishment is away. I do not know whether
I am sorry. I find Turkish men so much less interesting than the
women. He, the master, will be back some time within the _radius_ of
a month, and no one ever supposes that my “week-end” will not have
extended long past that date. For an unattached woman to suggest that
she deliberately wishes to leave a friend’s house without a serious
reason for doing so is an insult to a dear friend, and it cannot be
done.
* * * * *
Here in the country we are wearing Turkish dresses--nice, comfortable
dressing-gown arrangements of Broussa silk, with wide sashes which
begin under our arms. Mine has round the neck and sleeves a fine,
magnificent embroidery quite out of proportion in value to the stuff
to which it is attached, that being the case with so many Turkish
embroideries. I’m not sure that my gown suits me, but that is a detail;
it was built to accommodate a person twice my width and half my height.
Only the master’s slippers will fit me, and the noise I make as I
slither along the wide hall in my silk gown is like that of a sail in
the river breeze.
We have done away, also, with our Western _coiffures_, and it’s a
delightful change to be wearing “flapper” plaits again, and so good for
the hair. And then, since the master is away, provided I do not again
commit the indecency of letting the gardener see my hair and the sun
kiss my unveiled head, it matters little whether my hair is up or down.
The old _nourrice_ having fallen out with both her shoes and stockings,
has discarded them for the time being. Fortunately for her the rooms
are carpeted. Taqui, the Armenian servant, who waits at table and is
chief of the bed-distributing servants, has done away with her shoes;
to her heelless and toeless stockings, however, she has become so
attached that no promise of better seems to tempt her away from the
affection she feels for her old friends.
Amongst the staff there are two grooms and a coachman, relics of the
“fat” years that are no more; and although there are no horses in the
stables, they still remain in the family, performing odd jobs like
opening and shutting the huge windows at the back of the house.
In honour of my arrival, a tiny slave, perched like a fly on the top
of a garden ladder, is busy cleaning the big window with a dainty silk
handkerchief. She has been working for an hour, and although during
that time she has toiled and accomplished little, and finally given up
in despair, a small bright and shining place, sparkling in the sun, is
there as proof of her charming compliment to the housekeeping qualities
of my nation.
At the same time, one of my hostesses, seized with a fit of Western
energy, is, with the assistance of a small camel’s-hair brush and a
box of water colours, busy supplying vivid red and green parrots with
those beaks and feathers which a recent rainstorm has swept into air.
I suggest that if a brush can be found for me--or a blunt knife--I
would like to help in re-beaking the parrots, or if anything from a
pocket handkerchief to a towel can be found, I too might make a shining
place on the window-pane (how delightfully Turkish). But no--I am the
honoured guest--cigarettes, coffee, and sweets are provided for me. I
must remain in the seat of honour, as far from the door as possible and
right in the draught of the gilded windows.
What a curious household we are! I have obeyed my hostess’s orders and
brought no luggage except a tooth brush. With everything I have been
provided, including my dresses, and a _sachet_ of linen is placed every
night at the foot of my mattress.
There is in my room a little _coiffeuse_ which looks like a doll’s
table in the emptiness of the room; a big armchair and a carpet
complete the furniture. We wash all together at a marble fountain, and
when the weather is dry it takes an eternity to wash, for the drainage
is primitive and you can only coax the drops of water out of the tap at
the rate of two a minute.
But oh! the silence and loneliness of my bedroom. It frightens me.
I wish one of my friends had offered to share it with me. I wonder
how long the sturdy candle will last! What a distressing shadow the
_coiffeuse_ makes on the wall! There are little draughts coming from
everywhere. The door, bereft of its handle, is attached by a string to
a substantial nail and the window will neither open nor will it quite
shut.
I sink down on to my mattress and fall asleep, but only to wake with
a start a few moments later. Having reassured myself that the door is
securely hooked on to the nail, I go back to my mattress again, but not
for long: the moonbeams forcing their way through the latticed windows
have given birth to all kinds of curious shadows, the _coiffeuse_
is dancing in the candle light, and the deadly solemn silence is
unearthly. If only the trees would shiver as I am shivering! If only a
dog would bark! If only I could sleep! but paradox of paradoxes, it is
the silence that is keeping me awake. “Yet I am not afraid,” I say to
myself. “I will sing to contradict this awful silence.” I try, but not
one note will come, for terror has frozen my voice to my throat.
Summoning up the little will-power that the soul-crushing harem life
has left me, I stagger to the mirror to see how I look--but the horror
of it! Can that hideous, unearthly face be mine? Where am I? and where
am I going? My whole being is numbed, my ears are singing--I can
remember no more....
Exactly how I and my bed were transplanted to my friend’s room I cannot
tell. Did I faint? It is not a pleasant memory, nor one on which I care
to dwell; let me turn my thoughts rather from my lonely bedroom to my
curious bed--my beautiful, comfortable, unpractical bed.
The costliest of linen, the finest embroidery, a satin bolster allowed
to show itself at both ends through the embroidery, satin cushions
heavily embroidered with gold--the sheets sewn to the quilt--the
gold itself worth a nice little sum--this is my bed, and all this
magnificence cast down in the corner of an almost unfurnished room!
* * * * *
The day is breaking; the Bosphorus, so near to our window, is licking
the steps of the rickety landing stage. In a short while the little
white boat will come paddling along, if it has pleased the captain to
start at all, for unless the Bosphorus is calm he prefers not to run
the risk of attaching his little boat to the landing stages which dance
on the waves with more zest than his boat.
To-day the Bosphorus is calm. The rising sun has thrown himself on
its bosom, and their joyful union sheds around an indescribable
happiness. Who could imagine that only a week before, this peaceful
resigned-looking river had raged and stormed and invaded the peaceful
resigned souls who dwell so confidently near its banks? But nothing
will cure these unprepared Turks! Over and over again the Bosphorus
has overstepped its boundaries, swept away landing stages, entered the
houses and caused damage irreparable--it is not natural for a river
which looks so fine when it is sparkling in the sunshine to scowl and
frown and storm, and no doubt each time it misbehaves they hope it will
be the last. It is the character of the Turk, and so it will be always.
Armenians--Greeks--Bulgarians--Germans will overstep his boundaries
until they have swept him out of his harem and out of his land.
* * * * *
My hostess is stirring. How peacefully she sleeps, and how well her
dark skin looks beside her scarlet cushions. She rushes to the window.
She, too, will admire the Bosphorus.
“Beautiful, beautiful river,” she says, half musing. “What would lonely
Turkish women do without you to love!”
“Do you never tire of the Bosphorus?” I asked.
“Never,” she answered; “everywhere I go I see it; it is my fixed
standard for all comparisons of beauty in nature. When we are unhappy,
or think we are unhappy, we throw our woes on to the Bosphorus and
dream them away ... what a consolation to follow even in imagination a
barque that is slowly sailing away somewhere ... perhaps to eternity.”
But I am ravenous. My long, curious, eventful night has begotten for
me the appetite of a wolf. I hope something will be given me to eat
and drink without unnecessary delay. “Taqui,” I call, for just as I
was about to ask for something to eat she pops her head inside the
door without knocking, as is the custom. She kisses and hugs us both.
Her hair, like ours, is done up into a hundred little plaitlets, and
covered with a handkerchief--this method of wearing one’s hair during
the night has been advised by all the potentates of the witchcraft
sisterhood. Turkish women have thick glossy hair--it is the result that
counts.
Taqui has made the tea and is pouring it into a thin egg-shell
porcelain cup. But it is not the same as when the _Hanoum_ herself
makes it. What can have happened? Nothing very serious, dear Taqui,
except that you have forgotten to put in the tea. So tiny an error can
easily be remedied and the water is quite respectably hot.
In the meanwhile there is enough food for me to go on with. A massive
silver tray resting on an unsteady table is covered with all kinds of
good things, but what shall I choose?
Fig compôte bathed and saturated in sugary juice. I cannot swallow it.
Marrow jam equally saturated in sugar, sweet almond biscuits, brown
sausages--(are they shrivelled up from age or is that their natural
condition?)--there is also cheese with an equal proportion of sugar and
more biscuits that probably have seen better days.... I have postponed
my hunger.
Taqui has found the tea--a quarter-pound packet which, like the
biscuits, looks as though it had seen better days. She is to make the
tea; I, as the honoured guest, cannot offer to help. Pausing only to
kiss the back of my neck, which she does whenever an occasion presents
itself (and particularly at table when she is serving a dish floating
in oil), Taqui shoots half the remaining tea out of the packet on to
the lukewarm water ... and waits to see me drink the unhappy result--it
has not even been stirred.... Blessed is she who expecteth less than a
good cup of tea on the shores of the Bosphorus!