Portrait of a Turkish Family (20 page)

The barber greeted me with an oily effusiveness which I instantly mistrusted. He said in a hissing whisper to my mother that he would train me well and see that I did not get into any mischief.

‘You do understand,’ said my mother insistently. ‘He is not here to earn money but to keep him occupied until a suitable school can be found for him.’

‘Of course!’ said the barber in a perfectly indescribable voice. He bowed to my mother, hiding his eyes from her open face, and his enormous shoulders shrugged under his soiled, patched shirt.

‘I shall look after him like a father,’ he added. ‘Like a father!’ he repeated, flicking his eyes over me rapidly as though wondering just what sort of father he ought to be to me.

My mother looked terribly doubtful now that we were here, but
nevertheless
she left me in his care and went home, perhaps feeling thankful that at any rate I was not roaming the streets that day. I had terrible doubts too. Looking about me I could not recognise the glowing picture which had painted itself on my mind. The shop was very small, with only two customers’ chairs and primitive in the extreme. A copper
mangal
stood in one corner, used for heating and at the same time for brewing coffee. The window was draped with some sort of muslin, much in need of washing, and the glasses were all fly-blown and bluish with the haze of dirt and smoke and dust. I no longer believed in the romantic aspect of such a job, but the thought of the tips still lured me on.

After my mother had departed, the barber lost all of his oily civility and said to me: ‘This is a good job, my boy. If you are clever and keep your eyes open you will learn much and then you will pray for me all your life, yes?’

His little eyes snapped at me and, as he bent his face closer to me I could smell dirt and perspiration, and the blue tassel of his greasy fez waggled with a separate life of its own.

‘Over here,’ he said, waving his hand, ‘is the box where you will put all the tips. When I shave a customer or cut his hair, you will stand beside me and you will watch what I am doing. At the same time you will watch in my eyes and when I want soap or a towel you will get them immediately. You will make coffee and take it to the neighbouring shops and they will pay you for it. You will
not
come back without the money, you understand – yes?’

‘Yes,’ I muttered sulkily, already in a mild state of rebellion against this dirty saloon and the dirtier old barber.

‘Smile when you say “yes”,’ he snarled, pulling back his upper lip from his broken teeth and giving an imitation of a smile.

‘You gotta learn to smile in this job,’ he continued, ‘and if you break any coffee-cups I take the money from your tips, and if you haven’t any tips I break your god-damned head, yes?’

‘No,’ I said and fled from his upraised hand.

All the morning I spent beside him whilst he shaved and cut hair and passed rough jokes with the customers, all of them street-sellers or small shopkeepers, curious about me and inclined to jeer at my accent. My eyes became tired with the strain of watching what the barber did and at the same time trying to watch his eyes for signals, although I never brought the right things for him. My head was constantly twisting and turning until finally I thought it would twist itself off my neck altogether.

At midday I was sent across to a delicatessen store and ordered to bring back one and a half portions of haricot beans, already cooked in oil and onions. I got bread too, great hunks cut by unclean fingers. The half portion was for me and we ate in the customers’ chairs, washing down the meal with water from smeared glasses.

The afternoon passed quietly enough until suddenly an order came from a shop across the way for five coffees. I was set to make it but the fire had died in the
mangal
, so I tried to light it again with charcoal. This is not nearly so simple as it sounds. The barber swore at me and threatened to break my bones, but I had learned to ignore him and placed pieces of wood on the
mangal
, afterwards building up with charcoal. Then I poured oil generously over the whole lot, to the consternation of the barber, who said that I would set the place on fire. A match was applied and ‘wouf!’ went the contents of the
mangal
and a yellow sheet of flame almost enveloped me and dust flew everywhere. The barber chattered with rage, and just at that awkward moment a customer came in and the dirty remains of the haricot beans had to be removed from the chairs before he could sit down. The barber was forced to fetch water and towels for himself and alternated between bright, pleasant conversation with his customer and brief, pithy asides to me. I lay stretched full length along the stone floor, going ‘pouf-pouf’ at intervals at the reluctant
mangal
, red in the face with my labours and oblivious to the fumes and dust I was creating. Finally the barber lost his patience, left the customer half shaved and lay down beside me on the floor and blew with tremendous energy. His fat, pendulous belly wobbled under him, I watching it with fascination, and the customer came over to us, one side of his face still white with lather. He gave encouraging advice to the barber, who did not want it.

When the charcoal was eventually persuaded to burn, the barber was tired from all the puffing and blowing he had done, and black streaks ran down his face, charcoal dust and perspiration mingled. The customer started to lose his patience and within a very short time they had nearly come to blows. I quickly brewed coffee, preferring to keep out of their way until their tempers were cooler. When the five coffees were ready, I placed them on a brass tray with a suspended chain to carry it, and went over to the shop that had called for them. I gave the coffees and asked for the money, and they all laughed at me and said between the spasms of laughter, ‘Tell Ali Bey he has our compliments.’

Ali Bey was the name of the barber.

When I got back to the saloon and delivered this message, the barber tore at his sparse grey hair, pulled me by the ear to the box for ‘tips’ and emptied the meagre contents into the palm of his hand.

‘This is for me,’ he said grimly and I was sad, reflecting that it was not easy to earn money – even ‘tips’. ‘You will learn the job like this,’ said the sadistic old barber grimly. ‘If you are such a fool that you let them drink coffee without paying for it, then you must pay for it. You see?’

I commenced to argue with him and called him a son of a donkey and many other choice expressions I had picked up in the streets.

‘
Pezevenk!
’ I yelled indignantly, which even to this day in Turkey is a deadly insult, and he danced around me, threatening to break my bloody head if he got at me. I continued to dance with him, but in the opposite direction, feeling that closer acquaintance would not be beneficial while I searched my vocabulary for more insults.

Were it not for the fact that a customer walked in, he would probably have half killed me. As it was, he collected himself sufficiently to attend to the customer. But his temper had suffered so badly that he nicked a piece out of the customer’s cheek and heated words flared up immediately, and I crouched sulkily in a corner and refused to hand towels or anything else. Another order came in for coffees and I made them, anxious to be out of the saloon for as long as possible before some harm befell me. Unfortunately, in my haste to get out I collided with two more customers in the doorway. The tray with the coffees lurched dangerously and deposited all the contents over the legs of the prospective customers. I yelped with dismay, dropped the wet tray with a clatter and streaked through their coffee-stained legs. Their threats and curses filled the air after me. One man even gave chase, but I was fleeter than he and continued to run like the wind until I arrived home. Even there all I could do was to choke and gurgle with aching laughter, for the brief glance I had had of the barber’s face – after I had upset the tray – was excruciatingly funny.

Thus, ignominiously, ended my first and last day as a barber’s apprentice. 

Nineteen hundred and nineteen, the war over and İstanbul filled with Allied Commissioners and officers in their dull khaki uniforms. The sibilant twittering of the English language filled the air, and the English with the French and the Italians supervised the police and the ports. They were everywhere – advising and ordering and suggesting.

One day my mother came home from Beyoğlu with two items of exciting news. The one concerned herself, for her designs in needlework were attracting attention and she had taken so many orders that morning that she wanted my grandmother to help her to complete them. This my grandmother was perfectly willing to do for although she perhaps lacked true creative skill, she was an expert needlewoman – quite frequently paying more attention to detail than my mother. My mother had great sensibility and during the times when she was working out her patterns she could lose herself to the exclusion of her family and the world.

Her designs were most vivid and appealing. They lived in bold colourings and outline as though painted on the materials. A number of foreign women had asked for repetitions of her work but she refused to repeat, even if the money offered was high. Instead she would work out some new design for them, intricate or simple according to her mood of the moment, offering it casually as though it did not matter whether they accepted or not. I often wonder what they thought of her, so slim and haughty with the flaring wing of nose and the delicate eyebrows that seemed painted on, her unveiled face and her halting French. Today all women in İstanbul and the other cities and towns go unveiled but in 1919 she must have been a rare sight. Many of the shops in Beyoğlu suggested that she should open an atelier but she would laugh at them, saying she had no head for business. My grandmother, excited by the fuss created by my mother’s designs, also nagged that an atelier was becoming essential. She even wanted to turn her bedroom into one, declaring that she would sleep somewhere else, but my mother held out against this for a long time.

The year 1919 saw my family on its feet again, my mother being the bread-winner.

The second item of news that spring day concerned Mehmet and me. She had met in Beyoğlu the wife of the colonel in whose house I had been circumcised but he was a general now and an important person in the War Office. His wife had been so delighted to see my mother after the lapse of years that she had insisted upon her returning home with her to partake of coffee and gossip about all that had happened in the years they had not met. She had hustled my unveiled mother into her husband’s motorcar, driven by his batman, and my mother never having been in a motorcar before was too terrified to speak during the journey to Bayazit. She told us that the sense of speed was terrible, that her heart had been perpetually in her mouth and that every time another motorcar had whizzed past in the opposite direction she had closed her eyes and left herself entirely to God’s mercy. This feminine attitude annoyed Mehmet and me who would have given much to have been in her place.

‘But you are not afraid of trams,’ Mehmet said in great contempt and she replied that trams ran on lines and were, in consequence, perfectly safe, and did not go so fast as a motorcar. During coffee the general’s wife had asked about us children and when she heard of the difficulties of having us suitably schooled came out with the suggestion that we should be sent to the Military School.

‘The what?’ roared my grandmother, perhaps feeling like us that she had not heard aright, and a queer little excited feeling began to pull at my heart.

‘The Military School,’ repeated my mother with some impatience. ‘She told me that a very close friend of her husband’s is in the War Office and can use his influence to enter the boys. Apparently the Government intend to establish a junior school, which will be attached to the Academy, and they will only accept pure Turkish children so that eventually only Turkish officers will be in the Army.’

‘I shall be a general,’ I said boastfully and Mehmet said gently: ‘I shall be a doctor and then I can help the wounded soldiers to get better – ’

And if I may digress a little, of the two of us he got his wish.

‘But what sort of education will they get in a Military School?’ demanded my grandmother, who knew nothing about schools but who always liked to put in her opinion.

‘How can I know?’ demanded my mother, displeased that her startling news had not had a better reception. ‘And I do not suppose it matters very much,’ she added, ‘for if they are going to be officers they need to know very little, excepting how to kill each other of course.’

‘I shall not kill anyone,’ interposed Mehmet in his soft voice and taking her words with literal seven-years oldness.

‘Do you really think the general can do anything?’ I asked, thrilled by the idea of life in a Military School, picturing it to be anything but what it turned out to be.

‘Let us see,’ returned my mother. ‘Anyway, the general’s wife is going to see her husband’s friend this afternoon to discuss it for me.’

‘Shameless woman!’ interjected my grandmother in horror, still firmly entrenched in the past, and we began to laugh at the bewilderment on her face for she was half inclined to believe that the general’s wife was conducting a clandestine affair with her husband’s friend.

That evening the general’s batman arrived with a letter from the great man himself which said that he had talked over matters with the general in charge of the scheme, that he was willing to see us at the War Office the following afternoon, that he himself had given some information about the family and its present difficulties, that he hoped my mother would take advantage of the good life offered to her sons, etc.

My mother thoughtfully folded the letter, and the widow, who was spending the evening with us, declared that good luck was returning to the family.

‘Perhaps you are right,’ said my mother. ‘But of course I was told this afternoon that everything at the school is still very disorganised after the War, that it will take a long time before it settles back to normal. Still, it is a great opportunity.’

I began to laugh, remembering the barber’s shop and my mother with remarkable intuition looked across at me, saying: ‘Well, at least there will be no more coffee-cups to break!’

The following afternoon Mehmet and I were taken to the War Office, excitement and fear gnawing at our vitals, hunger too, for we had been unable to eat any luncheon. My mother seemed nervous also but tried to put this behind her when we arrived at the War Office. A soldier showed us into the office of a very beautiful young officer, the general’s adjutant, and he blushed when he spoke to my mother, asking her name and her business. She gave him this information and he asked her to be seated for a moment and dashed gracefully into an adjoining room where
presumably
lurked the general. Mehmet and I stood awkwardly whilst my mother sat stiff as a ramrod on a hard chair, a bright spot of colour in either cheek. The adjutant returned, saying that the general would see us at once. He held the door open, keeping his eyes respectfully on the ground as my mother passed him. I passed through the door last of all and looked back to see the beautiful young adjutant staring at my mother’s back, an unreadable expression in his eyes. Maybe he thought it strange for a Turkish woman to go with open face.

The general was tall and lean with silvery hair and a kind intelligent face, or did it only seem kind as it looked at my mother with that especial look that even old men reserve for lovely women?

He pushed forward an armchair for her, hard ones for Mehmet and me and said with an affectation of joviality: ‘What! Are these young lions yours?’

My mother replied that this was so.

‘Well, well!’ said the general, as though this was a great surprise. ‘Our old friend, General X, has told me all about you. I once knew your
father-in
-law, in my youth you know. A very fine man. I was sorry to hear that you lost your husband during the War. I am afraid things cannot have been easy for you.’

‘I lost my brother-in-law too,’ said my mother.

‘Very sad,’ said the general, painting sympathy on his face, and he fiddled with papers on his desk and for a few more moments they talked family gossip.

Then the general turned to me and said: ‘So you are İrfan! How old are you, my boy?’

‘Ten, sir,’ I replied in a weak voice.

‘This War! This War!’ He sighed to my mother. ‘This child should have been at school three years ago. However he looks intelligent; let us see what we can make of him. So you would like to be an officer?’ he demanded, turning suddenly to me.

‘Yes, sir,’ I said, adding boldly, ‘I should like to be a general like you!’

He laughed. 

‘And perhaps you will,’ he retorted. ‘It is something at least to know what one wants from life. And what about the little one?’ he asked, chucking Mehmet under the chin then saying thoughtfully to my mother, ‘Yes, he is like his grandfather. I can see the resemblance quite plainly.’

He mused over Mehmet’s small, shut-away face, then asked: ‘What is your name?’

‘Mehmet, sir,’ stammered my brother, very red in the face with such close, unwelcome scrutiny.

‘And what do you want to be, Mehmet? A general too?’

‘No, sir,’ said Mehmet. ‘I want to be a doctor.’

‘Two young gentlemen who know their minds!’ declared the general. ‘I remember when I was their age I wanted to be a street-seller for they seemed to be the only people who ever had horses. But the only way I ever got a horse was by becoming a cavalry officer, so perhaps to all of us Fate gives our desires in a roundabout way. Well,’ he declared, turning his attention back to my mother, ‘you appear to be a fortunate mother for here you have, in embryo, a future general and a future doctor.’

He patted our heads and rang for his adjutant.

‘I shall leave you in my adjutant’s hands,’ he said to my mother, adding in a conspiratorial whisper, ‘He knows far more about this business than I do!’

We went out to the adjutant’s office, who said: ‘You understand,
hanım
efendi
, that you have to sign a contract for the military education of these two boys?’

‘No,’ said my mother.

The adjutant grew red and could hardly bear to look at her.

‘But did not the general explain?’ he said in astonishment.

‘No,’ replied my mother.

‘Dear, dear!’ said the adjutant fussily, then he cleared his throat and tapped a piece of parchment with a finger. ‘This contract,’ he began, ‘states that your two sons shall be educated at the Military School in Kuleli and afterwards at the Military College – providing they pass their examinations – entirely at the expense of the Government. In return for this they will serve in the Turkish Army for fifteen years but if they fail in their final
examinations
they will serve as Sergeants for the same number of years, without any chances of promotion. There is no promotion from the ranks.’

‘That seems very hard,’ murmured my mother doubtfully. ‘If I sign this contract I sign my sons’ lives away for twenty-five years and how can I tell if they will be able to pass their examinations or not? How can I tell?’ she said again, looking up at the young officer, and he smiled a little, remembering his own years in the military institutions.

‘It is generally found,
hanım efendi
, that if a boy wants to become an officer he passes his examinations.’

My mother smiled too.

‘I think perhaps you are right,’ she said. ‘Nevertheless, I should like a little time to think this over before, with a stroke of the pen, I take their freedom from them. How long will it be before these contracts are ready for my signature?’

‘There are many formalities to complete first,’ replied the adjutant. ‘Perhaps in fifteen days’ time?’

‘That surely gives me time enough to decide,’ answered my mother, and I was in an agony that she, with her feminine prejudices, was going to take this chance from my hands. I dared not interrupt their conversation but I felt sick with apprehension that my bright and shining dream of becoming an officer, a general, would end in nothing.

The adjutant explained that he required certain documents from the local police, from the Muhtar, a certificate of good health from the proper authorities and twelve photographs of each of us.

‘References are not needed,’ said he with some embarrassment. ‘For General X has already given them.’

‘Thank you,’ said my mother with a faint ironical inflection in her cool voice, and the adjutant bowed us out of his office, his eyes once more on the floor, his attitude beautifully restrained.

For the next few days there was a great deal of argument at home for my mother was extremely obstinate, refusing to be advised or guided by anyone. My grandmother said she could not understand why so much fuss was being made since nothing very serious could go amiss with our lives whilst we were in the hands of the military authorities.

‘But can you not see that other schools can be soon found again? Civil schools with as sound an education but without the tie of signing away their lives for twenty-five years?’

‘I do not want to go to any other school!’ I wept, impotent and unable to stand up against my mother’s reasoning. ‘I want to be an officer! Please!’ I begged, as a last sop to politeness.

The battle rolled back and forth, now in favour, now against the Military School. The neighbours animatedly joined in the discussion, my mother not listening to what they said, mistrusting everybody’s opinion. In the meantime however she took us to the Bayazit Police for the necessary papers. We went to the Muhtar’s office, to the hospital for examination, and having obtained all the relevant documents, we went to be
photographed
and still no final decision was forthcoming from my mother.

I took to going to the mosque, praying fervently in that cool, quiet place. I prayed no prescribed prayers for I was unable to concentrate on anything but: ‘Please God let me go to the Military School. Please God let me go the Military School!’ saying the same thing over and over again in feverish intensity.