Chapter XV: On the Shores of the Upper Bosphorus

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!