Young Turk (17 page)

Interestingly, because she had never married or been known to have liaisons with men, Allegra was often rumoured to have Sapphic tendencies. Her answer to such gossip was that in order to be clear-thinking and effective while doing God’s work, matchmakers had to be celibate, like the Pope.

Anyway, as Fate would have it, the two great-uncles wended their separate ways to Allegra within a few days of each other.

Jak, my maternal grandmother’s brother, waxed lyrical about Ester, aged eighteen, his beautiful and remarkably modern niece in Salonica, who not only possessed all the rubineous virtues of a Jewish woman but, as singer, pianist and painter, was also an artist thrice over. Moreover – and how marvellous that one so young should be so wise – she still saw Turkey as the spiritual home of the Jews of Salonica, and would be prepared to come and live here.

The other great-uncle, my paternal grandmother’s brother-in-law Şaul, known as El Furioso, stated imperiously, as if rewarding an underling, that he had a nephew in Izmir, one Pepo, who worked in his drapery shop but who, no longer needing to look after his mother and siblings (his mother and sister had both married and settled, respectively, in Alexandria and Beirut; his brother had emigrated to Venezuela), had turned into one of those dashing, forceful young Jews and was now having ideas
au-dessus de son rang
. Moreover, Pepo, who was also a veteran of the War of Independence – and that tells one a thing or two – wanted to spread his wings, travel a bit, chase some Jezebels, even study something that would put his considerable abilities to good use – study,
nom de Dieu
, at age twenty-five! The truth was, and Şaul was loath to say it, Pepo had become indispensable to his business and had to be made to abandon all those grandiose ideas. What better than chaining him down to real life with an adamantine wife and – the things one had to do for the lesser members of one’s family! – reward this loss of freedom with a minor partnership in the business?

The methodical Allegra duly visited first Salonica, then Izmir. And she contrived to meet, seemingly by chance, both Ester and Pepo. Thereafter she spent several weeks conjugating the two with various potential candidates in her books. In the end, guided by her special formula on equipollent couples, she decided that the spirited Ester and the enterprising Pepo were ideally suited to each other. For good measure – since Ester, as an aristocrat, would need something extra to consent to the proposal – Allegra concocted a variety of spells and potions. One charm, my father swears to this day, worked wonders with him: silk French knickers dusted with cinnamon powder to induce sweet turmoil in his genitals. Another, attar of roses on my mother’s pillow to clear her mind of all thoughts except love for my father, was also apparently very effective.

Whether through professional acumen or through spells, Allegra’s reputation for arranging an immaculate union was validated in no time at all. In a courtship that stunned even the matchmaker by its speed, my father and mother fell in love. Within weeks they were married – ‘in indecent haste’, according to the gossip-mongers.

On one of those luminous blue days when the gods frolic like dolphins in the sea and all barriers between parents and children crumble, I asked my father about his hasty marriage. With those eyes that look at the world in adoration, he admitted that, indeed, as the old vestals claim, he and my mother had been consumed by desire from the moment they met. But since like all good Jewish youngsters in those days, they had to observe tradition and would not have sex before matrimony, getting married as soon as possible had been their only course to satiate this hunger. So no truth in all that talk about me being conceived out of wedlock. I arrived in this world in seven months. I hope I will not leave it as prematurely.

No, I’m not afraid of the mission ahead. That will go smoothly, you’ll see!

There was, however, another factor, one which proved as strong as carnal hunger, that further contributed to the hasty marriage: my mother’s love for my father’s stories about his adventures.

Mother, as mentioned before, was an accomplished singer, pianist and painter. But, according to Uncle Jak, her gifts needed to be nurtured. They needed drama, strange characters and extraordinary episodes – in effect, compelling narratives. And my father who, despite his young years, had lived an eventful life and who, moreover, was a virtuoso storyteller, provided these in abundance. (Sadly, Mother abandoned her artistic aspirations soon after my birth. In the impoverished early years of the republic only the very few could pursue a career in the arts.)

By all accounts, the story that clinched the marriage was the one about the battle of Sakarya, the turning-point in the War of Independence, during which my father served as a signalman in Atatürk’s command post. In my younger days, this story remained my mother’s favourite. She used to make my father tell it to everybody. She even made him write it down when his memory began to blur and he had to guess details that he could not remember exactly. In later years, after the endless quarrelling had started, she stuck to her claim that he had seduced her with that story – poor, naive damsel that she had been – the way Othello had seduced Desdemona. A brutal, worldly plebeian capturing the heart of an innocent maiden with a tale of war and bravery.

Actually, since the Sakarya story is one of my favourites, too (and since this, my composition, whether it turns out valedictory or not, has evolved into a hosanna, my sentimental celebration of my mother and father – alas, no brothers or sisters: Mother thinks one child, particularly if not a girl, is more than enough), I will attach that story, as written by my father, as an appendix to this piece.

A word here about the unhappiness that rules our house. I don’t know when it began. Or how serious it is. My mother and father still appear to be very close and very interested in each other. For instance, they never go their separate ways. Not for my mother, bridge parties or afternoon coffees with other women. Not for my father, the secretive world of the Freemasons or nights out at newfangled clubs with cronies.

But begin it did at some point.

Possibly, as Uncle Jak thinks, one sunless day, Mother took a look at Father and saw, in the brume, the shadow of a man who, though he had looked like a giant in yesteryears, was now impaled on a crag, unable even to defend himself against a buzzard that was tearing out his eyes. Sickened by this sight – maybe even thinking that the buzzard might well be herself and not Uncle Şaul’s damned shop (which my father inherited after Uncle Şaul’s death), she ran hither and thither, shouting at God, ‘Did I abandon my music and paints for this?! I threw away my life for this?!’ That same sunless day, Father, who was indeed a giant, who could have been a savant, a statesman, certainly a great man, if only he could have studied, but who, in order to feed the wife and child he loved, burned his bridges and boats, wept tearlessly, as the winds blew away his days, and asked in turn, ‘Is this all there is to life?’

The tragedy, according to Uncle Jak, was that Mother and Father had taken stock of their lives on the same sunless day. Had they done so on different days, one or the other would have noticed that their lives, though compromised and very much unfulfilled, were also rich beyond their imaginings: their son and their love for each other, for a start ...

After that, the unhappiness advanced with sickening speed. Now, it is a constant. Mother accuses Father of some wrongdoing – always a silly thing like not folding his napkin properly or walking home in the rain at the risk of catching a cold, to save money, instead of taking the tram. Father tries to appease her by apologizing. She responds by raising her eyes and demanding of heaven how many times a woman can forgive a man for the same stupidity. A long silence ensues. She starts again, reiterating her question. He censures her for escalating a minor disagreement into a major quarrel. That infuriates her; she starts accusing him of all sorts of misdemeanours, from being uncouth, to mocking her Greek accent (which he actually finds very endearing), to not giving her enough housekeeping money, to surreptitiously looking, maybe talking, maybe even having fun with other women. Incensed by her imputations, he protests his innocence, then retorts that she would only have herself to blame if he did go and seek the harmony and happiness he craves with another woman. This enrages her all the more: a man who can distort truth so readily, without even a twinge of conscience, is not a man, but a brute, a Nazi, a Goebbels no less. If he had his way, he would slaughter the world, starting with the wife he claims to love so much.

Last night, for instance.

It began, I’m ashamed to say, because of me.

Father was having second thoughts about my so-called boy scouts excursion to the Royal Hittite Archives at Boğazköy. The country was troubled, he said, orphaned by Atatürk’s death (Father worshipped Atatürk and has not stopped mourning him), opportunist Nazi-lovers were crawling out of their holes. There was a growing economic crisis and these rats, together with right-wing elements in the government, were blaming the minorities, particularly the Jews, as its perpetrators. True patriots were either being marginalized or, as in the case of the poet, Nâzιm Hikmet, were being thrown into gaol. (Father loves Hikmet’s work and maintains that had Atatürk been alive, he would have come to respect Hikmet’s views. I suspect, deep in his heart, Father is a socialist – or, as they call them these days, a communist.)

Anyway, Father feared that if I went on the excursion to Boğazköy, I might be harassed by ignorant fellow-scouts or scout-masters, attacked and ostracized as yet another Jew ‘who drinks the nation’s blood’.

As if this was the opening she had been waiting for, Mother went on the offensive. (For once, I was glad she did, because there is really no excursion to Boğazköy; that’s the excuse we – my friends and I – invented so that I can go to Salonica with Marko and smuggle out my mother’s family.) She accused Father of being jealous of the education I was receiving while he had had to leave school at thirteen; in effect, he was oppressing me, trying to reduce me to a nonentity like himself; any day now, he would probably start burning my books; well, she was not going to let that happen, not as long as she was alive; she was not going to let him victimize her son as well.

Here is a snippet from that quarrel. I copied it down word for word:

He
: ‘Victimize my son? My own flesh and blood? I’d tear myself to pieces for him!’

She
: ‘There you go again with your violence!’

He
: ‘I’d die for him as I would for you. You know that!’

She
: ‘You’d kill us first – that’s what you’d do!’

He
: ‘Woman, you’re mad!’

She
: ‘Yes, I am mad – because I’m all heart! But you? A maniac – waiting to explode!’

He
: ‘I’m a loving man. You took me as a loving man!’

She
: ‘You’ve changed!’

He
: ‘No! All these years – have I ever hurt you? Lifted a hand to you?’

She
: ‘You’ve become like the rest. A man who runs around all day. Comes home angry. Ticks away like a bomb!’

He
: ‘A man who is trying to put bread on the table.’

She
: ‘Oh, yes, never hit a hungry person. Wait for her to finish her bread, then – wham!’

And so it went on. And so it always goes on. And the horror is, she knows – as I do, as everybody we know does – that Father, despite his shortcomings, despite his frustrations, has no violence in him and is truly a loving man.

A few months ago, after an exceptionally bitter quarrel, I heard my father leave the house in a fury. There was a blizzard raging outside. Thinking that he was either going to desert us or kill himself, I went after him. I followed him down to the sea. I watched him as he sat on a capstan and started smoking. He had not taken a coat or a jacket – just a thin sweater on which the snow was settling. I remembered how Naim’s sister, Gül, whom I adored and still miss very much, froze to death on a park bench like a homeless person. Afraid that my father, too, would freeze to death, I went and sat next to him and put my arms around him. He stared at me, seemingly surprised that someone still cared for him. Then he hugged me fiercely as if wanting me to become part of his body. Eventually, joking that we would soon turn into snowmen, he took me to the local
mahallebici
for some hot soup. As the warmth seeped back into us, I asked him why Mother had changed so much, why did she keep accusing him of having a brutal nature. At first, he hesitated to talk about her; then, deciding that I was old enough to know, he told me a bit about her past. He said that Mother’s father had been a violent man who had, on one occasion, crippled his wife by pushing her off a balcony. He told me that, on another occasion, when my grandfather was beating up my grandmother, Mother had threatened to shoot him with a hunting rifle. According to doctors, Father explained, exposure to such violence leaves terrible scars on sensitive minds. Perhaps under different circumstances, she could have lived with those scars without much trauma, but now, with war raging all over Europe, with the Nazis in Salonica persecuting the Jews, persecuting her family, Mother could see nothing but violence and brutal death all around her. But she could be helped through this awful period. With love and patience. Then again, a single piece of good news like her family being safe would probably bring her, in no time at all, back to her old self.

It was after that conversation that I decided to find a way of saving my mother’s family in Salonica.