Chapter III: Background and Atmosphere

The Turkish home in which I am staying at present has little in common with the harem described by most Western writers, and no doubt those readers accustomed to the _usual_ notions of harem life will consider my surroundings disappointingly Western.

Had I been able, as I hoped, to send some photographs of the interior of my friend’s house, those photographs would probably be considered “fakes,” or perhaps even they might be returned (as they were returned to me when I last stayed in Turkey five years ago) with the comment, “This is not a Turkish harem.”

For a long time now, European furniture has been the fashion in Turkish homes. At first this craze for everything Western began in the homes of the Government officials, but it has been gradually spreading ever since, so that to-day, in the smaller homes, cheap, gaudy furniture of the worst kind has replaced the beautiful embroideries and accoutrements of the East. And now the pendulum will swing the other way. With this new movement of “Turkey for the Turks,” thinking women like my hostess, who look round their houses to-day, must necessarily ask themselves the question, “Is this really a Turkish home?” With as much zeal, then, as she showed in filling her house with the ornaments of the lands she longs to visit, my friend Fâtima has now begun to collect the furniture, ornaments, and embroideries for the real Turkish room which is to be mine when next I visit this country. Day after day we have sauntered through the old bazaar, which is always an attraction for a woman of the West, buying those quaint and delightful souvenirs of the Turkey of the past, in much the same way as we English who can afford it indulge our tastes for the furniture and porcelain of a century that is gone. And when we visit the mosques, too, and the sacred tombs, we generally come away with ideas for “my Turkish room,” so that next time I come to Turkey I shall not have the disappointment of travelling all these miles to sleep in a room furnished with an Empire suite (however beautiful it may be), a Western sofa, armchairs, and tables.

Sometimes in the morning when I wake I still wonder where I really am. Am I in Europe, or am I in Asia? My room is as large as any of the largest rooms in our country houses at home, and its ceiling and high walls are painted with the primitive gaudy colouring seen in the mosques. Fortunately there are seven windows, for there is no open fireplace, and the room is carpeted from end to end. A solid silver basin and jug of the real Eastern shape are on my washstand, the rest of the toilet service is French, and there is a Venetian glass bon-bon service, with sweets, liqueurs, and other drinks, beside my bed, and tables--tables of all nations. One table put there specially for my use was a gift from the late Pope Leo XIII. to my friend’s father, and on it stands a Bible which my friend, though a Moslem, often reads. On another table stands a signed portrait of Great Britain’s King and Queen, removed for a short while from its place of honour in the big salon as a sign of my friend’s great affection for one of their Majesties’ humble subjects. It was a most delightful and delicately turned compliment. But there are pictures in my room, too, pictures in a Moslem house! A print water-colour of Windsor Castle and copies of two of Reynolds’s pictures in the National Gallery, and many English books. Is it surprising that when I look round this curious room I wonder whether I really am in Turkey?

The more I stay in Turkey the more I admire the inborn aristocracy of the Turk, and yet “aristocracy” as we understand it does not exist. Turkey is the country where brotherhood and equality have been best understood. The Turkish woman does not often open the doors of her home to the foreigner, not for lack of any friendly feeling towards her, but because the foreigner has lost her confidence, the foreigner has made fun of her, and, above all, the foreigner “pities” her. But when the Turkish woman opens her door to the foreigner, she opens her big, generous heart. Always, however intimate may be their conversations, the honoured guest stands on a pedestal, and the hostess is at her feet longing only for an opportunity of showing courtesy and kindness. In no other land have I met with such lavish hospitality--hospitality even that makes one feel a little uncomfortable, especially when one realizes how little one has done to deserve it. The courtesy, also, is almost overwhelming. Every time I go in and out of the room the assembled company, men and women, stand, and every time coffee, cigarettes, and sweets are brought by the slaves for the guests, my hostess rises to serve me herself. Always, too, I sit in the place of honour, as far away from the door as possible, and sometimes right in the draught of the window!

It is the custom, too, for the master of the house to pay all the visitor’s bills. That I should have proposed to stamp my own letters hurt my friend. The result is that, nowadays, I write no letters and buy practically nothing. I feel almost guilty when I accept what I do and give nothing in return, and always I have before me the haunting fear of the terrible disappointment my friend will have when she visits my country, for our hospitality cannot be compared to this.

When I asked my friend how long she expected me to stay, she was surprised at my question. “As long as ever you like; you need never go away; how I wish you would stay always.” And so it is in most Turkish houses. There are guests here who came, as I did, for a few days, but they have never gone away at all; some even came to visit Fâtima’s grandfather, and still they remain; they have become part of the house itself.

Fâtima has put her entire trousseau at my disposal. Many of the stuffs and embroideries were brought to her when she was a child by her father’s friends. They made a special pilgrimage from the depths of Asia Minor to bring their offerings to the daughter of the “father of the people,” as the ex-Pasha was known for many years. I take out these precious gifts sometimes and examine them at leisure, trying to imagine the arrival of the “wise men” of the East to pay honour to the father of the little baby girl lying in the cradle. For these pilgrims were, many of them, real “wise men” of the East, and they brought, amongst other garments, a coat I am to wear when I dine with European friends, but I am sure to tremble all the evening for its safety. The tissue itself is pale blue silk, the yoke, collar, and cuffs all studded with precious stones. It is a present from Mecca, and it lies with the other priceless possessions in my room--jewels, linen, embroideries, money, and letters too, in drawers that have no locks, and in a house where all day long the doors are left open for any to enter who will. Truly, this is a restful civilization!

It was nine o’clock this morning before I tinkled the little silver bell beside my bedstead to summon my “chocolate” attendant. This is a very old Turkish house, and in spite of its Western furniture it rejoices in neither electric bells nor electric light. As a rule, however, my negress is in my room, patiently waiting till I wake, not daring, although she has been asked to do so, to disturb my sleep. Miss Chocolate, clad in a scarlet-coloured dress, her woolly head tied up with a scarlet scarf, brings in two silver trays, on which my breakfast is served. Her skin is like brown velvet. Round her neck she wears a gold necklace, and on her arms she has clanging bangles, which announce her arrival. On one tray Miss Chocolate has collected all kinds of jams, varying from quince to strawberry and violet, and many kinds of biscuits; on the other there are Turkish coffee, milk, powdered chocolate, and tea. Fâtima is generally present to see that I do honour to this curious repast.

My breakfast finished, I follow Miss Chocolate into the marble bath-room attached to my bedroom. But it is not a bath-room which is in the least designed to accompany the Empire suite in my room. A real Eastern bath-room it is, _i.e._ it has a marble floor with a gutter, so that all the water thrown over me runs away, and it contains also the marble basin like a fountain in which the Turks wash, always in running water. The morning after my arrival here I took advantage of Miss Chocolate’s leaving me alone for a few minutes to plug up the marble basin, and began to wash as we wash in Europe. But Miss Chocolate returned sooner than I expected, and with much the same expression as the mother who scolds a child who has been playing in the mud, she extracted the handkerchief which served as my plug. “Ach, mattemoiselle,” she exclaimed, in Turkish. “What a horrid way to wash!” And she is astonished to see my skin so white--now she knows I have washed all my life in dirtied water. Also when, after meal-time, she pours the water over my hands, she carries away first the basin of dirty water, and then comes back to fetch the jug, thinking it wiser no doubt to keep temptation out of my way.

But not only Miss Chocolate, most of the Turkish women I have met dislike our manner of washing. Indeed, they consider it dangerous to sit in a bath which is not exclusively reserved for their own use. Were they only in other ways to show this fear of spreading disease! But cleanliness, as every one knows, is godliness itself in the Moslem religion, and no doubt the Eastern bath-room will exist even after the veil has disappeared.

Miss Chocolate interests me. She certainly is an excellent maid. She sews well, keeps my clothes well brushed and tidy, washes me well, and has an unending capacity for taking pains. By degrees I shall find out her life history, as I shall find out, perhaps, before I go, the names and social status of all these women here, but I have to work slowly and carefully, lest my sympathetic interest should be mistaken for idle curiosity, and so far I have found out little about my faithful negress. Bought at the age of four by the Pasha, Fâtima’s father, for the sum of forty Turkish pounds, she has a record of twenty-five years’ faithful servitude. But that is all I know. Since the Constitution, the sale of slaves and eunuchs has been forbidden, and all those at present employed in the house have been offered their liberty. Every slave in this household has, however, refused her liberty, preferring to keep to the original terms of her contract--her freedom only on marriage, with a dowry from the Pasha. Slavery, then, can be considered as no longer existing, and only a few eunuchs remain in the palaces to remind us of an ugly chapter of history that is closed.

Miss Chocolate’s features show that she must first have seen the daylight somewhere in the neighbourhood of Lake Tchad. Many lies have been told about the treatment of these slaves, but Miss Chocolate has never been beaten, she receives only kindness; she is invited, with all the other members of the “domestic sisterhood,” to see us dance and hear the Western music when we dance and sing in the evenings, but generally we read and sew. And yet never does she nor any other slave take advantage of her mistress’s familiarity, standing always at the door, although bidden to come in. And she has a heart of gold. When she saw my face so covered with mosquito bites that I was unfit almost to look upon, the tears ran down her brown cheeks. “And to think,” she said, as she rubbed in the ointment, “they might have eaten the whole of my face and it would not have mattered”--the mosquitoes evidently preferred mine.

Before I leave this house I hope to get some photos of the interesting persons it contains, but in undertaking to photograph a Turkish household, I had forgotten first that the windows are dimmed by the inevitable lattice-work, which prevents my having a full view of the wonderful landscape which stretches from the foot of our garden to the rising and setting sun, and when the sun shines it shines through the lattices, throwing on to the furniture all around large lozenge-shaped reflections. But there is another and a greater difficulty, and that is, photography is forbidden by the Moslem religion. My friend would certainly let me photograph the house if I asked her. The sacred law of hospitality is part of her religion. She urged me even to eat bacon in the morning, although pork is forbidden in an Eastern house, and no doubt she would have insisted on buying it had I not declared that even in my own country I never eat pork. But Fâtima has to deal with a most fanatical entourage, the women much more than the men, women who for centuries have been taught to interpret the Koran as Mahomet never intended it should be interpreted, women who are purblind to any form of progress, women who still consider that to reproduce the human form created by God involves disobedience to the laws of the Prophet, though the Koran distinctly orders the faithful to march on with the centuries.

It is extraordinary and interesting to watch the working of this household. My host, an exceedingly well-read, intelligent officer, speaking two European languages, and having served three years in the German army, is a man with ideas of feminism and government and social questions quite half a century before his time, and he is surrounded by a household of ignorant fanatics who can neither read nor write. He would give his wife complete liberty this very day if it were possible, and, although she has more liberty than any woman I know, for her sake he cannot too openly defy Islam. The other day one of his brother officers lunched with us in the harem, but we were served by the male servants, as every woman slave refused to appear with bare face before a man who was not a “blood relation” of the lady of the house.

There are some ladies here who blame the Turkish women for not taking their freedom as other women have done; there are times, too, when I feel inclined to sigh for the militant spirit of the Englishwoman, but until one has really been behind the veil one can have no idea of what “fanaticism” really means. Isolated rebellion is of no use--a protest here and there may, or may not, help, but a movement only really counts when women march out in an army, and nothing will ever make them turn back, and there is no fear of death.

The day I first visited my friend Zeyneb in the Turkish home which she left six years ago, and to which she has now returned, the sight of me in a hat made her forget her surroundings, and, as she always did in Paris, she eagerly seized my new hat and tried it on. But she had not counted with the picturesque old lady seated cross-legged in the corner of the room alternately smoking and embroidering. The old lady wore a red tunic and green pantaloons; her tobacco and matches she kept under the arm-chair near which she worked. She, too, had come on a visit to Zeyneb’s grandmother, and never gone away again. Perfectly contented with her lot, as are the women of the last generation, she saw no reason why the children of this generation should sigh for a horizon that goes beyond embroidery, cigarettes, and sweetmeats, especially when it brings them to forget the sacred commands of the Prophet. The old lady, at the sight of my heathenish hat on Zeyneb’s head, muttered something about the giaour I could not understand, ground her teeth (she is eighty, and still has her teeth), and cast at both of us a look of the most profound contempt. Then it was I first understood what the women of this country must put up with whenever they try to take a step forward.

“And supposing you were to go into the street with that hat, what would happen?” I asked Zeyneb.

“The old lady would rouse the neighbourhood, we should be seized by an angry mob, and trampled to death....” I made no comment. It is not for me to criticize the methods of the women who are working for liberty. “These old women are not immortal,” I am assured; “we are concentrating all our efforts on the future generation and educating the people. The rest will come by itself.”

The women are fortunate, however, in having the Government on their side, and without exaggeration I may say they have with them most of the men who count at all, for what thinking man could see any chance of progress while this absurd separation of the sexes continues? I don’t say the Turk wants for his womenkind the liberty of the English or American women. He does not even want them to work, but he does want them, for his sake, to take part in the social life going on around them. The Turk likes society, and he likes theatres, but to-day, unless he has married a Christian woman, he must go there by himself, borrow some one else’s wife, or stay at home.

“Why should I go out and amuse other people’s wives and leave my own wife at home?” said my host one day; and very rarely does he go out in the evening; but all Turks are not like my host. The Minister of the Interior, Talaat Bey, a man of surprising energy, with a clear understanding of men and things, a real God-send to this country in its present state, encourages any work for the advancement of women, and he is paying particular attention to their education. The military governor of Constantinople, Djémal Bey, too, has given instructions that the liberty of the women is not to be interfered with, and no doubt in time his word will become law.

The women, however, as I said before, have made enormous progress in five years. What would have happened five years ago if Fâtima and I had driven home from a family party with her husband at the “indecent” hour of 9.30? Five years ago we never walked a step; now we not only saunter through the bazaar, but go to a big dressmaker’s in Pera, whilst formerly all our goods had to be purchased from Greek merchants and Paris dressmakers who came with their goods to the harem. But not only in the bazaar do we walk; we have walked in the magnificent newly laid-out park, where women are allowed for the first time to walk, in a park where there are men. The men, I must say, have not yet grown accustomed to this new and extraordinary state of things, and vie with the Levantine “mashers” in their desire to see the features under the veil. It is not a very comfortable experience for the Turkish women, but it is the darkness before the dawn. The dawn is coming slowly; but it will come if the Turkish woman really wishes it, and works always with that aim before her--the uplifting of her sex.