Farewell: A Mansion in Occupied Istanbul (Turkish Literature) (5 page)

“Is the illness serious? We’ll send Hüsnü Efendi.”

“She asks for the girl, not Hüsnü.”

“But how can Mehpare be expected to travel there alone? Hüsnü Efendi can go with our condolences and return with news of the patient. I’ll give him a bit of money for medicine if necessary.”

“If, God forbid, something serious happens you’ll have to answer for it. The letter says Dilruba Hanım suffered heart palpitations last night. Let the girl go to her.”

“But if she goes who will care for you, my boy?”

“Am I a child? Look, I’m better now, I can walk around the house on my own. Please don’t coddle me like that.”

“The girl can go if you wish it. But are you certain this isn’t some ploy she’s hatched? Where’s the envelope? Some sort of assignation, maybe?

“The things you say! God save us from such suspicion. The poor girl hasn’t so much as poked her nose out of doors for months, and all because of me.”

“She’s had ample opportunity to go to the shops. We also sent her to the doctor’s house when you were having your fit of nerves. She’s been distracted these past few days. She’s been strange. I’m an old hand, not so easily fooled. I know a pair of moon-eyes when I see one. That girl’s in love, I’m certain of it.”

“I can’t attest to the girl’s eyes, but with my own I saw her tearing up an envelope.”

“You see!”

“That’s right, I was on my way to the kitchen to get a glass of water . . .”

“Why didn’t you send Mehpare? Why go all the way down to the kitchen?”

“I was tired of sitting in my room. I thought moving my legs a little would do me good.”

“So you’re telling me the letter is authentic?”

“I saw her myself. She removed a letter and tore up the envelope. After she read it, she began crying.”

“You didn’t ask her why she cried?”

“No, I didn’t. She was in the garden. I saw her through the kitchen window. Just let the girl go to her aunt.”

“Not on her own. Hüsnü will go with her.”

“While they’re in Be
ş
ikta
ş
, they can pick up some tobacco for me.”

“Hasn’t the doctor forbidden you tobacco?”

“Not completely. I’m allowed it in moderation. If I’m denied my tobacco as well as everything else, I’m well and truly finished.”

“Ah, my boy. You finished yourself off with your own hands. If we fuss after you now, it’s only to restore your health. I’ll arrange your tobacco if you promise not to drink after meals.”

“I promise,” said Kemal through gritted teeth. “Oh, and could you tell Mehpare to stop by my room before she goes? I want to give her the address of my tobacconist.”

Letter in hand, Saraylıhanım flounced out of the room and promptly ran across Behice on the second floor.

“Is there anything you’d like from the shops, my girl?” Saraylıhanım asked. “I’m sending Mehpare to Be
ş
ikta
ş
. . . You mentioned yesterday that you’d run out of white silk thread . . . Shall I order you some more?”

“Why’s she going all the way to Be
ş
ikta
ş
? Aren’t there plenty of shops here in Beyazit?”

“Her aunt has taken to her bed,” said Saraylıhanım, nodding significantly at the sheet of paper in her hand.

“Let me have a look at that . . .”

“What for! I’ve seen it. I had Kemal read it to me, since my eyes can’t take the strain. I’m sending the girl. She’ll return soon enough. Give her a shopping list and she’ll pick it up for you.”

“Does Re
ş
at Bey know about this? Better not make him mad.”

“Re
ş
at Bey has more important things to do than concern himself with the servants.”

That little minx turns up under every stone, the elderly woman muttered to herself. She’s taken on airs just because her father sends supplies every month. Well, we’ll see whose word is law in this house.

Determined to see her orders carried out before Behice could intervene, Saraylıhanım descended to the kitchen on the floor below, where she found Mehpare absentmindedly attending to a bubbling pot.

“Hurry up, girl. If you’re going, better get an early start. Tell Hüsnü Efendi to get ready. Get into your
çar
ş
af
and onto the streets. I expect you back home before mid-afternoon prayers. No dawdling. Ask after your aunt’s health, find out what she needs and come straight home. Oh, and pick up some tobacco for Kemal. Don’t forget.”

Mehpare didn’t have to be told twice. Flinging a ladle onto the countertop, she raced to her room to get dressed.

Hüsnü Efendi and Mehpare were able to reach Be
ş
ikta
ş
only after changing trams three times. The streets were full of soldiers wearing the uniforms of various nations. While the dejection of the Muslim Ottomans could be read on their faces, the Greeks and Armenians were all smiles. There were few women, Christian or Muslim. Among the scenes streaming past the window of the tram, the ones that most frequently caught Mehpare’s eye were a few turbaned
hodjas
, street porters bent double under their towering loads, beggars sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk, carriage drivers whipping bony horses, Gypsy women with babies slung onto their backs. But it was the swarms of migrants that cut her to the heart: dirty-faced, bawling babies pressed to their mothers’ breasts, women dressed head to toe in black, white-bearded men with creased faces leaning heavily on ragged children. Ethnic Turks and Muslims forced to abandoned all they had, fleeing for their lives, forcibly expelled from the lands they’d once called home. Proud and uncomplaining, they sheltered in makeshift shacks as they set about repairing their shattered lives. Mehpare’s own family had been torn from their land and resettled in Istanbul. Face pressed against the glass, she looked out at the downcast, despondent citizens of a city besieged.

Hüsnü and Mehpare got off the tram in Be
ş
ikta
ş
and walked together as far as the neighborhood where Dilruba Hanım, Mehpare’s aunt, had her home. The shops had opened their shutters, but there was very little to buy. As they were about to turn into one of the side streets in Be
ş
ikta
ş
Market, Mehpare was amazed to see apples displayed at a green grocer’s on the high street. Just a week earlier, their poor gardener had returned empty-handed when Saraylıhanım sent him out for some fruit. Mehpare immediately bought a brown paper bag full of apples, then led the way along a narrow lane lined with wooden houses sporting oriel windows and latticed panes. They stopped in front of a two-storey house completely devoid of paint. Mehpare struck the door with the knocker and waited. The head of a grey-haired woman appeared in a second floor window. As Mehpare pulled back her çar
ş
af to expose her face, the woman smiled and waved.

“Hüsnü Efendi, they’re home,” Mehpare said. “You can go and look after your business now. Come and get me before the afternoon call to prayer.”

Hüsnü Efendi was anxious to do just that, but propriety demanded he delay his departure. “The shopping errands . . .”

“I’ll handle them. I know where the shops are.”

“You can’t walk the streets alone. I’ll wait for you right here at the door and we’ll go together.”

“It’s freezing! You can’t possibly wait here in this weather. I’ll do the shopping with my cousin. She’s the best judge of what to purchase and where. Why don’t you go to a coffee-house, or just do as you wish.”

Mehpare removed a large iron key from the wicker basket lowered from an upper window and slid it into the lock.

“Fine then. I’ll get some seeds for the back garden. It’ll be March soon and time to sow,” Hüsnü Efendi relented.

“Knock when you get back and I’ll come down directly,” said Mehpare.

Key in hand, Mehpare stepped into a dimly lit hall. Happy to be free of Hüsnü Efendi, she fairly skipped up the narrow flight of stairs to her aunt, who was waiting at the top, head covered with a traditional white Yemeni headscarf.

She kissed her aunt’s hand and ritually pressed it to her forehead. Then the two women embraced and kissed each other’s cheeks.

“Has something happened, dear?” asked Dilruba Hanım. “When I saw you pop up out of the blue like this I didn’t know whether to be fearful or overjoyed. I hope nothing’s wrong.”

“I dreamt of you several nights in a row, aunt, and felt the need to see you,” said Mehpare, handing her aunt the paper bag. “I know how much you like apples. I found them at the grocer’s by the public fountain.”

“May this abundance be a blessing to us all, my child,” her aunt smiled. “Come in and sit by the stove, your cheeks are frozen. Would you like some tea?”

“I’d love some.”

“I’ve just put it on to brew, ready in a moment.”

Mehpare beamed at the sight of chestnuts lined up on top of the stove.

“You’re roasting chestnuts for me! Did something tell you I was coming?”

“You were always terribly fond of them, weren’t you? They’re just about done,” said her aunt, as she turned each one over with a pair of tongs. “Tell me, my girl, those dreams you had, did they unsettle you?”

“I’ve been feeling troubled lately, and it’s crept into my dreams, aunt.”

“Has that mad palace woman been upsetting you, Mehpare? Or have you been unable to get along with the lady of the house?”

“No one has troubled or upset me. It’s Kemal Bey who has me worried sick. He’s not getting any better.”

“For goodness sake, thousands of young men froze to death in Sarıkamı
ş
. Your patient has such a strong constitution that he survived. Be grateful that he came back safe and sound.”

“He may be safe, but he’s not yet sound. He’s weak, he frequently falls ill. He still has nightmares from time to time. He recovered only at the end of last summer.”

“So what more do you want? Is it so easy to escape death?”

“He left home when he recovered. They must not have looked after him, because this time his lungs caught a chill. Saraylıhanım had him brought back to the house. He was so feverish last week. Behice Hanım was terrified he’d come down with consumption, and wanted him sent to hospital.”

“Behice Hanım reckoned that with Kemal Bey out of the house you’d have more time to mind her children.”

“The girls have grown up, aunt. They don’t need minding.”

“The eldest is only fourteen.”

“Leman turns sixteen this year. Her younger sister is nine.”

“Still plenty of time to marry them off. You’ll be the first bride to emerge from that house—that’s what you’re really telling me. With Kemal Bey on his feet, God willing, we’ll begin preparing for a wedding . . .”

“I don’t understand.”

“What is there to understand? You’ve been of marriageable age for some time. Saraylıhanım promised me she’d attend to your prospects. Not yet of course. She’s got Kemal Bey to think of. But the moment he’s fully recovered . . .”

“Shame on you, aunt! I don’t even want a husband.”

“What kind of talk is that? What will you do if you don’t marry? Become an old maid?”

“Exactly.”

“God forbid! Once you’ve married it will be Mualla’s turn, and Meziyet’s. I have my own girls’ future to consider as well.”

“Why aren’t they here today?” asked Mehpare.

“Meziyet is at school. Mualla stayed with her aunt last night. They’ll be home soon. Listen Mehpare, it’s no use trying to change the subject. The order in which marriages take place can’t be changed. And you’re next.”

“The tea must be ready now, aunt. I’ll have a glass and go,” Mehpare said as she escaped to the kitchen. “I have to pick up some things for the house.”

“You’ve come to do your shopping, not for me,” her aunt grumbled.

“How can you say that! Only this morning I wept tears of joy at the thought of coming home. But, seeing as I’d be in Be
ş
ikta
ş
, I was given a list of chores to do. I’ll come and sit with you when I’m done.”

Mehpare gulped down her tea, anxious to attend to Kemal’s instructions, her mind elsewhere as her aunt continued to chatter. She carried the empty glass to the kitchen and had arrived at the top of the stairs when her aunt dashed after her.

“Are you leaving so soon?”

“I’ll be right back.”

“Let me put on my çar
ş
af and I’ll join you.”

Mehpare fidgeted uncomfortably. “Aunt, I wonder if I could ask you for something . . . I miss your
gözleme
terribly . . . Could you prepare some before I return? I hope it’s not too much trouble.”

“Don’t they make you gözleme at the house? There’s a head cook, isn’t there?”

“He’s been discharged. And anyway, no one makes it like you.”

“Flattery, flattery! The ones with cheese?”

“Yes, with cheese.”

As her aunt bustled off to the kitchen, Mehpare rushed down the stairs and into the street. The snow had stopped. She walked towards the marketplace. She knew of a tobacconist there, but couldn’t recall the exact location. It had been so long since she’d wandered through Be
ş
ikta
ş
Market. Some shops were gone, new ones had opened. And unless she also found a sundries and notions shop to buy some thread, she’d have to stop by the shops in Beyazit Market on the way home. She was hurrying along the street when she slipped and bumped into a sesame-roll vendor’s circular tray. The ring-shaped rolls spilled onto the snow. She bought a few from the muttering vendor after he scooped them up off the ground and wiped them on his trouser leg. A sack of rolls under her arm, she cautiously proceeded to the high street and turned towards Akaretler and the address she’d committed to memory.
You won’t have to walk far, it’s on the right, not quite half way up the hill
, Kemal had told her.
The house with the dark green iron door and the green shutters. You’ll know it the moment you see it.

She climbed up the street, scanning every door and shutter, unable to understand why Behice Hanım continued to insist that the family relocate to this neighborhood, and why Saraylıhanım was so adamantly opposed to the idea. Saraylıhanım claimed that the district wasn’t Muslim, but Mehpare knew that employees of the court lived in this double row of identical yellow houses. Saraylıhanım was really something! There was nothing she wouldn’t say to contradict her daughter-in-law. In this case it was just as well, Mehpare thought to herself. There were no signs of life in this wide avenue. The narrow streets of Beyazit were filled with donkeys dragging carts of onions and potatoes, street vendors selling sherbet, fabric, women’s clothing . . . The only sights here in Akaretler, were a few passing phaetons and men in fezzes strolling along the sidewalk. A couple of automobiles belonging to the occupation forces drove by. This was clearly a neighborhood for the wealthy, for those with palace connections. That must be why Behice Hanım wanted to move here. The wife of an acting minister, she no doubt claimed the right to reside in a fashionable district and put on airs.