Unveiled; the autobiography of a Turkish girl

Contents

Fear Knocks at THE Door .

AN INTERLUDE OF SUNLIGHT GoING To JERUSALEM

My First New Ciry .

Chapter I The Shadow Of Fear

WInTER has come with its smell of roasted chestnuts, the crackling of logs in china stoves, the gentle hum of the kettle buried in the glowing embers of a brass mangal. Winter has come and houses look like icebound ships, trees are laden with crystal flowers and streets are heaps of fresh white snow. Winter has come, the north wind swirls down the chimneys, the nightwatchmen pound their sticks and every child takes to bed a heart frozen with fear. Winter has come, the horses slip and slide, children muffled to their ears throw snowballs at passers-by, cheeks red as apples, eyes glowing and breath frozen. Constantinople has donned her bridal dress, she is all curves and softness except for the tall minarets that stretch dreamily to the sky while the snow falls big as birds’ heads, silently and mysteriously. Among a row of houses stands a solidly built wooden dwelling, vaguely seen and vaguely felt now, whose influence was temporary but which still harbors in its corners the memory of my earliest childhood. A house that came and went in my life and all that I can distinctly see now is a big room with a blue china stove in a corner, a mangal 1 filled with embers, red as pomegranate seeds, a low Turkish divan and chairs and heaps of soft colored rugs.

Pressed to the window-pane stands a little bit of a girl with fair hair falling in bangs right in her eyes. Her nose is flattened against the glass and looks white and cold. Her eyes are sad and her sadness awakes in me a touch of melancholy. That forlorn little girl is myself, a being so mysterious to me now that I am grown up.

By the china stove slumbers an old woman sitting cross-legged on the floor, her soft white hair drawn under a black kerchief. A face of a thousand wrinkles where a thousand sorrows have come and gone. Her brown cheeks sag as if they were tired of struggling and are bowing away before a long and prominent nose. The room is warm and yet she is wrapped in a black coat lined with fur. Her head falls gently downward, nearer and nearer to her lap. Round her are strewn a few dolls, a hobby horse, a red book with gilt letters, and her knitting which has fallen from her hands. |

“Dadi, dadi—” the little girl turns round—“I too want to be out in the snow.”

The old nurse wakes gently; opening one eye her false teeth rattle in place.

“Can I go, dadi?” insists the little girl.

“My little one, come away from the window, there is a cold breeze that comes in and will penetrate to your bones and your cold will get worse.”

Suddenly the door of the room is flung open and a boy and girl come in red with the cold, eyes glowing with mirth. Instantly the room is alive with voices and laughter. ‘The talk is all about a snowman with charcoal eyes and even wearing a fez. Soon there are loud cries for food and tea. The old nurse has gotten up leaning heavily on her hand. The thought of food has awakened her, for she keeps deep

THE SHADOW OF FEAR 3 in her heart a love of good things that makes her eyes shine. Teacups rattle, the kettle starts a gay little tune, and we children crowd round the table. The door opens again to admit a round ball of a woman, a round face, round piercing eyes filled with mirth; she is all curves.

“Vallahi! you were going to have tea without me,” she screams in a high voice that is cut with peals of laughter.

“No, Ferhounde dadi, we are waiting for hanoum effendi, our lady mistress,” answers the old woman.

One feels the rivalry between these two, the air becomes tense with it. The old woman with the kerchief is my old Armenian nurse who has taken care of my brother and elder sister and now looks after me. Ferhounde dadi takes care of the youngest, the baby of the house. She is Turkish and a trained baby nurse recommended by the family doctor.

“Ffanoum effendi is late and the snow is falling fast again. Allah help the poor people.” Ferhounde dadi walks to the stove swaying from left to right.

The narrow street below is filled with the rattle of wheels and the stumbling of horses. A carriage rolls over the cobblestones and the voice of the coachman floats to the window. Wheels grind to a stop, and the bell pierces the silence of the house. In an instant we are up tearing open the _ door, not listening to nurses who scream after us. Down the stairs we stumble, my brother sliding down the banisters. In front of the door mother is shaking the snow off her clothes. The maids have gathered and are helping with the parcels.

“Mehmed aga,” mother calls out to the coachman, “‘come in and drink a cup of hot coffee.”

The coachman, an old man, shambles in, ears red with cold.

“Allah grant the wish in your heart, my hanoum effendi.

It is many a time I have taken you in my carriage and if Allah is merciful I shall take your daughters as brides.” The coachman walks off to the kitchen.

We are going up, maids, parcels and all, to the cozy room where the logs are crackling, the kettle boiling and the cups are lined in a row.

“Arslanim, my lion, you are frozen with cold,” murmurs Ferhounde dadi while my mother has settled herself on a low stool near the mangal. Maria, the maid, has brought in mother’s woolen slippers and is kneeling to take off her wet shoes. We children sit with fingers itching to open one package after another, but not daring before mother has given us permission. At last the packages are opened, dolls and toys are unwrapped. Maria, the maid, folds the papers and strings carefully. Mother is busy rolling a cigarette with her delicate white hands and warming her feet under the mangal.

Teacups rattle once more, hot tea is steaming, with hot cocoa for us children. Gradually night is drawing round us, weaving a dark web over the house.

Mother has ordered the lamps to be lighted and into her voice has crept an anxiety, a touch of restlessness she is trying to control. The petroleum lamp is lighted and throws a yellow glare over our faces. The glow has faded in the sky and the streets are shrouded in darkness. The professional lighter has come to our street with his long stick and one by one the lamps flare with light, as if he were dropping out of his pocket star after star.

Inside the room there is a silence, my mother is nervously smoking her cigarette, the old dadi is crouched by the stove; Ferhounde dadi is squatting on a chair, her jovial face has grown dark and her eyes have lost the sparkle of mirth.

“He has not come again,” my mother breaks the silence

THE SHADOW OF FEAR 5 with her fears. “How dark it has grown of a sudden. If only darkness did not exist, when it creeps over me I feel my fears surging to my head.”

“Arslanim, you are worrying your heart with these dark thoughts. What happens, happens to you. Our bey effendi, our gentleman master, will come soon. Maybe his friends detained him in the palace.” Ferhounde dadi spoke, her two plump hands crossed over her breast.

“T know it is all nerves, but I am tired of waiting in anxiety every night, watching the night close over me like a prison. When will this reign of tyranny end? When will men be free to talk and breathe and live?”

Up and down my mother paced the room. We children sat huddled in corners vainly trying to draw ourselves apart from this gloom and sorrow. Outside the snow is falling silently, a few steps are heard and occasionally a muffled voice of a street vender drifts to our ears.

“Taze simit, kitir simit, haniya aksham simiti—fresh simits, brittle simits, where are the evening simits?” My mouth watered at the thought of these favorite pastries, a sort of Turkish pretzel, covered with sesame seeds.

Then the door was slightly opened and a head was poked inside. An ugly face that drew one’s attention with the extraordinary brilliance of the eyes. The face grimaced, grinned and suddenly a man shambled in. This was Isaac, an old Armenian retainer of my grandfather Namick Kemal, and a favorite of the house.

*““Hanimdjim, my lady, your slave has laid his humble hands on those missing handkerchiefs.” One eyebrow up, eyes rolling, mouth twisted in changing grins, Isaac talked in his soft drawling voice. His hands, with bony fingers, waved the air in circles, his head was bent to one side.

“Ky, where did you find them?” queried my mother in an absent-minded way.

‘Had I not brought these handkerchiefs for your sweet sake these two days ago?” Isaac continued rolling his eyes with a sidewise dart for my mother. “Of course I meant to sell them. Can I, your humble slave, offer you a gift? And didn’t these handkerchiefs walk on their legs and leave me? Of course no one had taken or even seen them. I found them tonight, where would you say? Come and guess, hanimdjim.”

“T can’t, Isaac,” replied my mother, her eyes on the dark windows. “Here, roll yourself a cigarette and tell me.”

Isaac darted up and took between his crooked fingers the box of tobacco which my mother was giving him. He turned the golden leaves slowly in the palm of his hand, his face covered with malicious laughter.

“T found them in Maria’s pocket,” he cried out at last, deftly rolling a cigarette as he talked. The match flared and Isaac blew a cloud of blue smoke.

“Yes, hanimdjim, that girl without a heart had stolen my few handkerchiefs. Tonight my eyes were caught by her and I noticed that her pocket was swollen like an angry river. Quickly I caught the girl and out of her pocket I drew my handkerchiefs. She did not even blush, ay, I shall burst.” At this Isaac threw his head back and lifted his arms up in the air.

“Are you sure she stole them, Isaac?” mother asked.

“Aman, Allah, since I found them in her pocket.”

Then there was silence again. Mother resumed her pacing, Isaac blew smoke round his head, my old nurse was closing one eye.

“Today, your slave ate one whole chicken, a plate of Pilaliiiy 4377

“Always thinking of your stomach,” my old nurse cut

in, her eyes now wide open.

THE SHADOW OF FEAR 4

“So would you if you had eaten all that,” Isaac answered with a sly look towards my nurse.

“Allah, Allah, and how you can eat,” answered my old nurse and yet ‘her mouth watered. “I am satisfied with a little bit like that,” showing her four fingers.

“Yes, that is why you were sick two days ago.” Isaac had turned to her maliciously.

“My stomach had caught cold then,” answered nurse.

‘We know what that means, don’t we, hanimdjim?” asked he. “We eat and eat and then the cold gets in our stomachs.”

““Haide, get out of here and leave an old woman in peace.” My nurse was furious, but we children were laughing.

“Do I hear footsteps?” asked mother, suddenly all ears.

“It is only the nightwatchman,” answered Isaac. “Djanim effendim, lady of my life, you are growing thin with worry.”

“But what can keep him so long?”

The question rose formidable like a fear with which one cannot battle and which one cannot name. These days it might mean a quick thrust in prison, a cloud of suspicion, exile, misery. And how dark the night was and how listlessly fell the snow.

Isaac now sat silent rolling his eyes; his efforts at gayety had clashed with the power of night. Dark thoughts for a dark night. Only the logs in the stove kept up their merry crackling and threw a warm glow over the soft carpets, a changing light that flitted gayly.

An interminable silence weighed us all down. The room grew hazy with smoke. Then once more the house was pierced with the shrill voice of the bell. In an instant we were all alive, even the room and the house were craning their necks and palpitating. Mother ran to the door and we all followed respectfully behind. Down the winding stairs we went, each step creaking beneath us. Then we heard from below the one solitary cough of my father. Mother was near him now with all her anxiety. My father’s voice seemed graver than usual. He was taking off his overcoat and his muffler. His red fez was speckled with snow, snow clung to his fair mustaches and his hazel eyes had a worried look. One by one we kissed his hands, shivering in the cold. Maria, the maid, had run to the kitchen to cook father’s coffee. We all went to the hot room and stood waiting on father. Mother brought his slippers and he warmed his hands by the stove.

*“No one knows how to tend these stoves,” father murmured as he drew the glowing embers forward and poked the logs. Instantly the red glow flamed higher, the crackling of the logs increased. Even the stove was glad to see my father and sang loudly its tune of thanks.

Mother was asking my father what had kept him so long in the palace. My father was explaining a long story about a friend of his and I caught vaguely the last words:

“He is being sent to Konia, an exile.”

The word exile echoed in my ears. What could it mean and why was my father so sad about it? Maybe it was some kind of torture, like being kept in a dark room all alone.

“And do the spies still come after you?” asked mother.

Yes, they still followed him, my father explained, and it was lucky he had discovered the existence of these spies. The tall Albanian had come so near tonight that father had heard him breathe.

“What does he want of me?” my father burst out loudly. ‘Why has he put spies to my heels? Am I not squeezed under his thumb unable to move or breathe, as

THE SHADOW OF FEAR 9 secretary of his palace? He has killed my father with his exiles and he cannot forget that I am the son of Kemal. A being suspected even when honored, a being that casts the shadow of fear in his heart even at the height of his power.”

Spies—the very name threw dread into my heart. Did I not hear my mother saying that the very walls had ears? These mysterious beings that could fit in a needle’s eye, that pushed themselves everywhere and came when least expected. They were hideous djins with pointed ears and a tail, pictures of them I had seen in my fairy books.

When dinner was over my parents sat talking in low tones. We children were sent to bed. We kissed our parents’ hands and pressed them to our foreheads, then climbed slowly upstairs to our rooms. I insisted that sleep was far from my eyes and that I wanted to sit up. But nurse would not hear of it and so meekly I followed her to our bedroom. But my mind was busy.

“My little nurse, tell me, why is mother so scared every night?”

“It is life, my little one, filled with worry and sorrow. How many I have seen and how my eyes have cried like two fountains !’’

“But is my father in danger?” I asked, suspicious.

“Don’t be so loose-tongued,” nurse scolded. ““When you grow up you'll understand all about it.”

“But where does father go every morning?”

**He goes to the Yildiz palace, those white buildings you see out of your window.”

“And he is secretary there, is he not?” I asked, repeating mechanically a phrase that I had heard so often.

“Yes, my lamb, your honored father is secretary to his majesty Abdul Hamid; he has been there these many years.”

“T know,” I cried out excitedly, “the sultan is that wicked man who killed my grandfather.”

“Hush, hush, child, what words are these!’ Nurse looked round frightened.

“I know him,” I continued, not heeding my nurse, “he has a long crooked nose, bead-like eyes that never look anywhere, he is all bent over and ugly, so ugly, more so than Isaac. And I know he is wicked more so than any djin. I hate him because he killed my grandfather. Oh, dadi, he will not hurt my father, will he?”

“What is all this talk??? Nurse was severe. “Go to bed like a good child.”

She tucked me in my crib and lighted the small candle for the night. Then she went hither and thither putting order in the room, and a little later she went out and closed the door.

The room lay round me, all cold darkness, closing over my head its wings of fear. From the candle came a golden path that grew and spread over the wall. And in it I saw ugly faces twisted and contorted, faces with long noses, faces with eyes almost shut. Then I saw other faces in fright, pale faces, harassed faces, and they all twisted their lips and cried out. Soon these faces became hazy and before my eyes rose my grandfather, Namick Kemal. A mass of hair brushed back from an enormous forehead, two eyes filled with the sadness of the world and a mouth shut in a straight line. These sad eyes, that I had seen only in pictures, followed me and the ugly faces faded into the wall one by one. From below I heard murmurs and bits of voices. The house was still alive, crouching in its corner, waiting for the sunshine to chase away the shadows of fear.

Chapter II Fear Knocks At The Door

Anotuer night has drawn its curtain over the wooden house. The blizzard has abated and all day long a sickly sun shone over a world of cold whiteness. We children had been allowed to build a snowman in the garden, but with the fall of night my mother had gently rapped at the window-pane and we had come in obedient yet regretful. We were warming ourselves and playing in the house when of a sudden the doorbell rang and a minute later we heard father’s voice. Home so early, what had happened to him? We all ran to the door and kissed a hand which he gave us absent-mindedly. And we noticed that his face was set in hard thoughtful lines.

Once the maids were out of earshot my father turned to my mother:

“Kemal pasha has been arrested today, his house has been ransacked and put under seal, no one knows for what reason. ‘he palace was upside down, my friends told me to be careful.”

“But why should you fear? You have done nothing. Being a friend of Kemal pasha does not mean you are guilty of a crime.”

‘Abdul Hamid does not want his secretaries to frequent many houses,” my father explained lamely.

But was that a reason to look white and worried? My mother was pressing him with questions while he walked up and down the room smoking thoughtfully. We children ie UNVEILED had squeezed ourselves into corners, all ears and eyes, following this conversation that we hardly understood. Our elders had forgotten us, so deeply immersed were they in their troubles.

“And the letter that I wrote in a fit of madness, what will I do with it?” burst out father finally. “That letter in my handwriting which I left thoughtlessly in the hands of Kemal pasha. The house has been ransacked, and if my letter was found among his papers it is enough to bring ruin on all of us. How quickly Hamid will jump on that excuse to get rid of Namick Kemal’s son.”

It was of course years later that I understood the portent and the background of this tragic moment in our lives.

It seems that when my father was a young man and I was still grazing grass in Paradise, he had gone with his brother-in-law to a pleasure.resort. When they were returning by train a young officer was in their compartment. The train passed through some fields where there were cows and the animals ran away.

“The train is civilization that follows its course and never stops.” My father leaned over to his brother-in-law. “But the cows are es uncivilized nations which are frightened and run away.”

This remark reached the ear of the young officer who came over and asked:

‘Are you not the son of Namick Kemal?”

My father assented and the officer introduced himself as Kemal, the son of the famous Gazi Osman pasha, the hero of Plevna, he who had held the fortress of Plevna with a handful of men against the army of the Tsar. The honorary title of Gazi had been given to the hero and many honors heaped on his head.

This Kemal was no relation of ours; indeed, it is difficult to trace relationships through names. My grandfather’s name is Namick Kemal, my father’s is Ali Ekrem and one would never think the two were related unless one knew about it. There are practically no family names in Turkey and there might be one thousand Kemals in no way related to one another.

This acquaintanceship was carried over the years into a friendship that ripened. Kemal became quickly a pasha, a marshal in the army. Sultan Hamid gave him his second daughter, Princess Naime, in marriage. But still Kemal pasha remembered my father and invited him to his palace.

Power went to Kemal pasha’s head. He became nervous and eccentric and poured into my father’s unwilling ears all his complaints. He had no freedom, his royal father-in-law was strict. He wanted to travel and see the world but Hamid would not hear it. Instead Kemal pasha took to learning French and to reading the French freethinkers in secret. He built himself a magnificent library which attracted my father a great deal. Another reason that he still frequented the pasha’s was to hear all the great musicians, who were asked to the pasha’s palace when they came to Constantinople.

One cold winter’s day as my father was ushered into Kemal pasha’s library he saw him by the open window with the snow pouring in. My father exclaimed with surprise but Kemal pasha said he needed some fresh air for his violent headache. Just then father glanced across and happened to see a curtain of the opposite house move slowly to place and a shadow glide away. This was the palace of Princess Hadidje, the daughter of the crazy Sultan Murad whom Hamid had replaced and imprisoned and whom he hated bitterly. The incident of the open window lingered in father’s mind and puzzled him a great deal. And one day the mystery was solved. A group of his palace friends sat whispering and laughing together and father went to them and found out that Kemal pasha was carrying on a window-to-window flirtation with Princess Hadidje. He was doing this merely to spite Hamid whose dislike for Murad and all Murad’s family he knew well.

My father was much worried and decided to go and talk to the pasha and warn him. But before he could leave the palace a man came to him and told him Kemal pasha wanted to see him on urgent business. Father left the palace, jumped into a carriage and was driven to the. pasha’s palace. He was sitting in front of his big desk in his library fingering a paper nervously, with stormy eyebrows. As soon as my father came in Kemal pasha shouted:

“Ah, that tyrant of tyrants, that vile man, he wants to grasp the house of my father out of my hands.”

Osman pasha, the hero of Plevna, had died recently and had left to his son a house that was just opposite Hamid’s palace Yildiz. This house had been given to Osman pasha by the sultan as a present. Now Hamid wanted to buy it back from his son-in-law. That house was too near the palace, inquisitive eyes might linger behind lattices, plots hatch and ripen into a bombardment of Yildiz. With these thoughts in mind Hamid wanted the house at all cost. And simply to annoy the sultan, Kemal pasha was refusing to sell it.

“TY shall not sell it, a house left to me by my father,” insisted the pasha furiously. My father reasoned with him, argued, until feathers grew on his tongue, but Kemal pasha would not listen.

“Write a letter to the head secretary of Hamid and tell him I will not sell the house. But make it salty and peppery so it will sting the tyrant,” Kemal pasha said. He had called my father to write this letter as he was not scholarly enough himself to turn out the forceful phrases he wanted.

Kemal pasha gave father paper and ink and then left him. My father in respectful terms wrote a polished letter and explained that Kemal pasha did not want to sell his house as it was a relic from his father. When the pasha came in and read the letter he smiled disdainfully and said:

“This smells too much of the honorable secretary of the palace. I want something that will touch the old man’s tooth.”

So my father wrote another polite but firmer letter but when the pasha read that he tore it to pieces and exclaimed in anger:

‘You are not a man. If your father had been here he would have shown you what writing means. And you call yourself the son of Namick Kemal.”

Blood sprang to father’s head and he shouted angrily:

“T will write you a letter and such a letter that you will be afraid to put your name below it.”

“TI am not scared to put my name below any letter that you might write,” shouted the pasha. “Write it and you will see.” With these words he banged himself out of the room.

White-faced, father sat before the table. All caution was gone from him, every spark of reasoning, every thought of family and danger had vanished, swept away with the torrent of his anger. His anger he spread on the sheet of paper. Fine, curved letters so biting and humiliating that every word was like a sharpened dagger.

Kemal pasha was bending over him reading the letter.

“Take it,” shouted father, “take it and send it if you dare.”

“This minute I will,” retorted the pasha; dragging a chair he set to copying the letter father had written. But my father had gone to the door, he was out of the house without even waiting to make sure that the original letter in his own handwriting was destroyed, while the pasha bent over his table and the silence of the room was broken by the scrunching of his wooden pen on the glossy paper.

It was this letter that came before my father’s eyes tonight. Knowing every word, he was filled with dread. Judging the letter now that his anger had cooled, he knew too well that Abdul Hamid would never forget such an insult. The sultan knew his handwriting. Had he not seen letter after letter which my father had written in the palace? And what did that monster of intelligence ever forget? This very minute while my father walked up and down the small room the letter might, be in the hands of the sultan. How his narrow brown face would twitch, his small eyes grow smaller. One gesture of the hand and his dreaded police might be hurrying now to our house to drag my father away.

They came several nights later. We were all gathered in the dining room finishing supper when Mehmed, the man servant, came in with a white scared face.

“There are two officers who want you immediately, bey effendi,” he announced, his eyes big as saucers.

My father rose quickly, his face had gone gray as ashes, and my mother jumped up with a cry. We children, frightened and neglected, rose from our chairs.

“Stay here, all of you,” father said firmly and he walked to the door.

We ran to the door, all of us, and pulling it ajar we stood squeezed one next to the other listening and hearing only our hearts beating. We could see in the hall two men in uniforms with long sabers and revolvers. One of them moved to my father and said loudly:

‘““Ekrem bey, you are wanted in the palace immediately.” A loud cry broke from my mother, and frightened, we clung to her skirt and started to cry also not knowing why.

“T shall follow you, gentlemen, as soon as I have passed a coat over me,” my father answered in a deathly calm voice.

He came to us huddled near the door, my mother was weeping and clinging to him. “It has come, all that I dreaded those long miserable nights. You are going, and Allah knows what will happen to you.”

My father was comforting her and kissing each of us lingeringly. Then there was a discreet knock at the door, my father tore himself away, the dining-room door was closed. Out in the hall we heard footsteps and then the street door was closed with a bang. We were left alone with the night and our fears. The house was alive now, every whisper echoed loudly in every corner, every room stood bristling, passing the shadow of fear from one to the other. People came in, nurses and the maids, all whispering and white-faced. And we sat long in that room bowed with tears and the gloom of whispers hanging heavy on our heads.