Chapter XVII: Inconsistencies on the Shores of the Bosphorus

I have been to stay with Zeyneb at her little Yali on the shores of the Bosphorus. I had not seen her since she so resolutely and for ever closed the book of her European experiences, and our first meeting was just a little painful. Zeyneb is a dear friend--a curious, interesting study--a woman who had gone forth with a flourish of trumpets to try the great, wonderful liberty of the West,--a woman who cast aside her own civilization to throw herself before the altar of ours. She was not prepared for our civilization, she was not armed for the fray, the hurricane of progress took her off her feet, and now ... she is back in the little Yali again.

This time I came in a caïque, for the house is right on the water’s edge. It looked from the river like a tiny house--almost a Henley villa--yet once inside, it grew and grew, and every room seemed to give birth to a new one. I felt as though I were visiting a genealogical tree....

I cannot master Turkish architecture--at least, this funny place has entirely upset my calculations. Perhaps in the days when polygamy was practised the master of the house, beginning with one wife, built the façade, then extended his premises as he extended his family; the fact that his eighth wife is still living permits me to make this bold supposition. A hateful idea it is, to have rooms with more than one door; it’s like having people with eyes in the back of their heads, and I wonder whether there is not also a door under my bed and one in the ceiling. It’s rather uncanny too, for in a country where doors have no locks and would not lock if they had, every one flits unheard into one another’s room....

Fortunately there is some one in all the three rooms leading out of mine. I have a big brass bed with mother-of-pearl decorations, the mattress is comfortable, so surely, being very tired, I will sleep. I close my eyes, and shortly afterwards wake with a start. In the semi-darkness I see a figure in my room; I call out in some language. “Don’t be afraid,” replies the figure, “it is Zeyneb.” She has been to fetch a fire lest I should be cold. In her one hand is the brass _mongal_, about the size of a pail, which throws out a welcome heat, and in the other a big silver teapot to warm the water for my bottle after I am sound asleep. “Don’t be afraid,” again says my hostess, but it is just a little strange to see in the dim moonlight a long, sweeping dressing-gown, a turban-headed figure armed with a _mongal_ and a teapot.

As time goes on, however, I grow accustomed to these nocturnal invasions and too lazy even to acknowledge them. Sometimes it is my left neighbour who comes in to help herself to my candies or my syrup, sometimes my back neighbour wonders, since she cannot sleep, whether I am also awake, and if so perhaps a story ..., and sometimes Zeyneb wakes me to see whether I am dead, so peacefully do I sleep.

I am invited to coffee in the Selamlik. Zeyneb must not accompany me, she who was a Western club woman--she who ate _décolletée_ in the presence of men....

A charming diplomatist who is there--he is a Turk of the old school--rises politely when I enter and asks permission to talk for a few moments to his brother diplomatist, a European, in French. Their conversation is charming and interesting--both speak French with a curious, original construction. What kind of French construction shall I have acquired, I wonder, by the time I return to Paris?

But the Turk has me on his conscience--he cuts his conversation down to the lowest possible brevity, and then _en galant homme_ comes right down to my level!

I asked him for political news. “Mademoiselle is very polite,” said he; but he would not allow me to sacrifice myself in that manner. I remained firm, so did he. “Poetry for women,” said he, “politics for men.” “In my country women like politics better than poetry,” said I. “Yes,” he answered, “but not you. I have seen pictures of your political women!”

We were to go for a picnic--a mysterious little semi-Western performance, and no one was to know about it. Our plan of action was soon determined.

It is noon and we have already lunched. A springless wagon is before the door. Thickly veiled, we get in and the curtains are drawn. A short while after another wagon starts. This wagon will follow us, but it does not convey veiled women. Let me at once confess, it contains as many men as we are women. What a bold adventure!

The men are Turkish gentlemen, and will keep within the confidence of our little circle what we are rash enough to do. There is amongst our party _une jeune fille à marier_, and we would not care to wreck her matrimonial prospects for any pleasure, great or small, that might be ours....

A charming drive it is--a little long perhaps, but the jolting of the carriage is exercise in Turkey. One has every horseback sensation from walking to jibbing, except a good canter.

Along the zig-zag path we plunge. We catch hold of one another as we dive into the holes; we crawl up the hills and crawl down, and finally arrive at the forest and at the lake where we are to meet.

It is a sleepy, beautiful lake covered with pink and white water-lilies, and a little old boat has been taken prisoner amongst them.

Not long after our arrival we are joined by the Selamlik. I don’t know any of the men, and we are introduced and bow in the picturesque fashion, carefully keeping our hair covered, and we speak to them as naturally as though we were in the West.

Together we admire the beautiful nature around. We speak of the war--we speak of the future--we make plans for Turkey, and the men present us each with boxes of cigarettes and chocolates, and eat them with us until the sinking sun reminds us that it is time for us to be returning the way we came. Then the two sexes--the Harem and the Selamlik--are separated again, but both feel better for the little interlude.

We have done no harm, nor is our adventure particularly thrilling, though charming all the same. Perhaps after all the Turks are right--they can give to innocence, as we cannot, a lovely dash of wickedness.

* * * * *

One more household to stay with and my visits on the shores of the Bosphorus must be ended. Fâtima wants me back, and that is sufficient excuse for my leaving my friends without offending them. Also, it is getting very chilly near the Bosphorus, and already the general exodus back to Constantinople has begun.

I watch the removal carts packed with luggage passing before the windows. Sometimes it is a donkey or a series of donkeys who remove the goods on their backs, but whether it be cart or donkey the things have a peculiar habit of falling off or out, and but for an honest passer-by who draws the driver’s attention to the fallen articles, they would be lost. And all this takes time, and yet the Turk says, “Why hurry? One’s destination will not walk away.”...

I am now to stay with the family of a Cherif--a high dignitary of the Moslem church. In this family the division between Harem and Selamlik is strictly kept--and such a family will be the last to cast aside any of the traditions or superstitions that have crept in like a weed to spoil and strangle Islam.

* * * * *

My visit is over. It has been interesting as an experience, but not one man have we seen for one week, for as the Cherif may see no woman farther removed in blood than a sister--and there are generally other women visitors there--he cannot come to the harem.

In this household, only one lady spoke French, and that not at all well; added to this, she is timid and prefers rather not to speak than to give me an opportunity of criticising her. Our conversation therefore is reduced to signs, and our pleasures to eating and drinking. We have the east side of the house, the men the west; and we each have a separate garden, and a wall that no one would dare to climb separates us.

Our long unending meals are still longer since I require both my hands to talk with. An old negress insists on filling up my plate with good things. “I simply can’t,” I say to her in English; she laughs the bereks off the dish. Then she explains to me with signs which the French speaker finally puts into French: “_Beaucoup corps, beaucoup manger._”

In the afternoons, since we cannot speak, we try on all kinds of costumes and drink coffee, the ladies always taking possession of my grounds to see whether something good is not in store for me. A sign of “abundance” is always there, but since the interpreter has never been able to define the kind of abundance to which I am limited, let us hope an abundance of all kinds of good things is coming.

It is a curious household and quite without interest to me after one day. A weary round of days exactly the same--women who know little of their own land and nothing of any other. I begin to feel myself a “sin” in such surroundings. Perhaps after my visit these women will begin to think. They were perfectly happy before I came; will they still be happy after I have left? Yes, I believe so. Some power has arranged their life as it is. Were that power to wish it otherwise, that power would change it. Every nation must have doormats at its threshold.