The Silence of Scheherazade Read online

  When the men in the coffeehouse at the foot of the bridge saw her approaching, they jumped off their stools in surprise. Within moments they were chasing after the car, racing through the picnic area shaded by dark green cypresses next to the cemetery and leaping over the swings the children had made from the branches of plum and pomegranate trees. The nomad women stared in amazement at the woman driver passing through their encampment. They too followed after her, leaving their babies asleep in the cradles they’d hung from lines rigged up between the pine trees and their tents.

  At this point I stopped and imagined the beautiful Edith – I didn’t know she was my mother at that time – driving a car. Sumbul saw the dreamy look in my eyes and, being an expert at reading my mind, yelled, ‘What children? What coffeehouse? For God’s sake, Scheherazade, who was brave enough to venture out into the streets that day? The soldiers were drawing their bayonets on any man wearing a fez, no matter who it was, and palikaria, local Greek gangs, were tearing through our neighbourhood with knives, smashing windows, hurling everything out onto the street. When our former street guard, the coffeehouse owner Hasan, refused to give them his watch, they pushed him around. Hasan came at them with a pole, and the Greek soldier who’d joined them pulled out his gun and shot the poor man. We had closed the doors and windows and all of us were hiding on the top floors.’

  Okay, the situation is clear. Nobody chased after Edith as she drove the midnight-blue motor car from Chorakkapi into the city. The women in the women’s quarters of the house on Bulbul Street had taken up their needlework to distract themselves. The hall door on the second floor and the windows facing the street were fastened tight, the shutters closed. Prayer beads were turning, tick, tick. The maidservant kept refilling the tea glasses. There were no men in the house except for the Ethiopian boy, Ziver, who was still a child. As if it wasn’t enough that he was planning to run off that night, Huseyin had left before dawn with Tevfik on some business or other. Great-Aunt Makbule had temporarily dropped her usual grave expression and was looking into Sumbul’s eyes, pleading for help. The looters had taken a break when it had started to rain, but they would surely resume their pillaging as soon as the storm abated.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Sumbul, without raising her head from her lacework. ‘What business would they have with us? Besides, our neighbourhood is so high up, they won’t come all the way up here.’

  Even so, she wondered whether they had put ammunition in with the weapons in the sack in the well shaft. Through the slats of the shutters she saw that the neighbours across the street had hung a Greek flag from their window. When had they got that? She wished she’d sewn a blue and white flag and kept it secret from Huseyin. They could have draped it from the window and rested easier. The important thing was not saving your country but saving your children’s lives. Being terrified was a thousand times worse than death itself.

  Just then the door knocker for the men’s quarters was struck hard three times. All at once the fingers holding the embroidery needles, counting the prayer beads and pouring the tea froze.

  ‘They’ve come into the garden, Sumbul, sister!’ Mujgan screamed. She had sprung up from her place and was standing barefooted in the centre of the room on the rug with the bird and fish design.

  Mujgan’s daughters, sitting on the couch, drew near Sumbul.

  ‘What should we do, sister? Let’s hide the girls in the attic right away. Oh, my God, they’re going to tear us all to pieces.’

  Without saying a word, Sumbul laid her lacework on the couch, ran to the bedroom and took Hilmi Rahmi’s sword bayonet from the bottom of the dowry trunk where they had hidden it. Trying not to make any creaking sounds, she descended the stairs. Ziver had gone into the entrance hall and was waiting at the door, his eyes wide and white with fear. The two of them backed themselves against the wall behind the door.

  From outside, a polite, high-pitched voice called out, ‘Gentlemen, open the door. Huseyin Bey, it’s me, Mimiko, from Yorgi’s Tavern. I bring your father, Mustafa Efendi.’

  Hearing her father-in-law’s name, Sumbul put all her suspicions aside and opened the door wide. On the top step stood a thin, pale-faced man, his capped head hanging low as if in shame. In his weak arms, he was holding, with difficulty, Mustafa Bey, whose fezless head was shaking like a bird with a broken wing. What was this? Oh, my God! Was he dead? Unconsciously, Sumbul took a step back into the entrance hall.

  Mimiko rushed into the men’s quarters and laid old Mustafa on the couch in the front room as if he were dropping him. Throwing a cloak over her shoulders, Sumbul followed.

  ‘Kyra mou, my lady, forgive me, I enter uninvited, but Huseyin Bey, he know me. I play the baglama, my name Mimiko. They say “Gypsy Mimiko” because I play music. I find Mustafa Efendi near the Church of Agia Ekaterini. He fallen in old mansion garden. No one see him because it raining. His head, it hit, I think. I ask coachmen. One of them know. “He Huseyin Bey father,” he say. God bless him, he bring us here, not take money. No blood, but will be good if doctor come, yes?’

  Sumbul was beside herself. Not with sorrow or worry, but with rage. Because that scoundrel master of the house had fallen in with the National Struggle troublemakers, he had left them with no protection on a day like this. She pulled the fez off the servant boy Ziver’s head, and, with no regard for the consequences, replaced it with Mimiko’s cap, then sent him out into the street. ‘Run fast,’ she yelled after him. Her throat, as white as milk pudding, had swelled, the veins on her neck were raised, her green eyes shone like fire. ‘Go wherever you need to; go as far as Manisa or Aydin or Chios, but don’t you dare return to this house without Huseyin. Do you understand? Hurry! Find whichever hole they’re meeting in. Ask, inquire. If you come back empty-handed, you’ll answer to me!

  ‘Mimiko, I know it’s a lot to ask, but would you go to Reshidiye Street and find Dr Agop. He works at the Armenian Hospital. Tell him Major Hilmi Rahmi’s wife sent you and asks that he come urgently.’

  Left alone in the big room, she wiped her father-in-law’s forehead and held cologne compresses to his limp wrists. The old man’s face was drained of blood, his lips as white as paper. What could have happened to him? Had someone attacked him or did he faint? Was Gypsy Mimiko telling the truth? May God protect them! The anger she felt towards her husband for having left them to fend for themselves against the infidels had long been a glowing coal; now it burst into flames. No matter how often she said to those who asked, ‘It’s all fine. I’ve learned how to look after the whole house by myself. I got used to packing figs in a factory and rolling cigarettes in tobacco workshops – I’m tough,’ tears of injustice fluttered inside her, like a bird caught in her throat.

  A while later, Huseyin’s footsteps were heard on the steps. He must have been out of his mind with anger, for he was cursing as never before. Thank goodness Tevfik Bey was not with him or Sumbul would not have been able to look him in the face for embarrassment. She quickly closed the door to the room where Dr Agop was examining Mustafa Efendi.

  ‘May they all burn in hell. God damn Greece and the British sons of whores, the bastard palikaria. All these years we’ve harboured snakes. The treacherous sons of infidels, they’ve shown us what putrid dough they’re made of. Where is he? Where’s my father?’

  Shoving aside Mimiko, who was waiting in the entrance, he stormed into the large room.

  Sumbul shouted behind him, ‘Huseyin, have some sense, I beg you! Mimiko Bey brought your father all the way from Agia Katerina by cart. Dr Agop is examining him in there. Calm down, please. Thank God, there is no significant damage. Hopefully, he will regain consciousness soon. I’ll tell Mujgan to bring you a glass of tea.’

  Huseyin turned in anger. With one hand on the door into the men’s quarters, he had opened his mouth to curse his sister-in-law when the bell on the garden gate rang. Sumbul pushed him aside, slipped into the salon, grabbed the bayonet she had left under the couch, and was all set to run into the garden. But Huseyin
had got there first and was already standing in the hall with the Greek Mauser under his arm, taking aim at the door. As if his running off that morning and leaving them with only the Ethiopian servant boy Ziver for protection was not enough, he must have also removed the weapons from the well – God forbid! – ready to take with him.

  When he saw how Sumbul was staring at the Mauser, he growled, ‘Woman, when I am here, why are you running to the door?’

  ‘Huseyin, I am aware that you are planning to leave us women here by ourselves. At least allow us to protect our home.’ How calm her voice sounded, despite all the anger inside! If she’d been a man, she would have fought Huseyin right there. Fury was boiling inside her. Worse still, under his moustache he was muttering something like, ‘I left you the double-barrelled shotgun.’ He needed to speak up, make himself clear.

  Just at that moment a hoarse and familiar voice came from the street side of the wooden gate.

  ‘Huseyin, my son, we are worried about Mustafa. Is he all right? Is he here? Look, the lady has come from Bournabat to pay him a visit.’

  When they opened the door, Huseyin in front, Sumbul behind, whom should they see on the threshold but Kosta, out of breath, and beside him in a red dress, standing as straight as a soldier, Edith Lamarck. Sumbul pinched herself. Was this a dream? What was Lady Edith doing at a poor house like theirs? Great God Almighty! Immediately she began calculating in her head: at the full moon they had wiped the staircase and all the furniture, the wood had just been polished with beeswax, and just yesterday they’d beaten the rugs. She could welcome Lady Edith into the women’s quarters without worrying. She stepped back.

  Coming into the garden, Edith tried to greet Huseyin, whom she had known since childhood, but Huseyin, with the Mauser still under his arm, didn’t look her way. He was almost not going to allow his father’s old friend Kosta inside, he being an infidel, but Sumbul’s last words must have affected him, for when he heard his sister-in-law saying to Ziver, ‘Son, take Mr Kosta to my father-in-law, then bring him a coffee,’ he didn’t contradict her.

  Kosta followed Ziver into the men’s quarters with his cap in his hands and his head lowered, as if the attacks by the local Greek gangs were his fault. Sumbul, bursting with excitement at this extraordinary turn of events, took Edith Lamarck, star of so many of Gypsy Yasemin’s stories, up to the women’s quarters. Uncertain as to whether to speak in Turkish or French, she was stammering.

  ‘How kind of you, Lady Edith, to think of us on such a day and put yourself in danger by coming all this way. We are humbled.’ Seeing Edith’s questioning eyes – were they also a bit nervous? – she explained hurriedly. ‘When my father-in-law was brought here, we should have sent word to your lady mother with our boy. We did not think of it and brought you all the way here. We are very grateful.’

  The European woman waved her hand dismissively in the air. Perhaps the natural set of her face was somewhat pouty, but, still, her not smiling made Sumbul think she had done something wrong. She must not let silence descend.

  ‘My father-in-law, Mustafa Efendi, was brought in a short while ago, Lady Edith. Unfortunately, he is unconscious. It is impossible to know what happened to him, of course. Mimiko, a musician at the tavern, found him near the Church of Agia Ekaterini. I know, you are going to say, “How did he come to be there?” Believe me, we haven’t the slightest idea. Thank goodness he has no knife or bullet wounds on his body, but his head has been hit. That is the reason he is unconscious. Mimiko – God bless him – ran and brought a doctor from Haynots, the Armenian neighbourhood, and he is now examining my father-in-law. In a short while we will send my elder son downstairs to learn the result of the examination.’

  The floors of the women’s quarters of the house on Bulbul Street were covered with soft carpets. As soon as you climbed the stairs, the deep reds and purples caught the eye. Multi-coloured flowers bloomed under your feet, and fish, deer and galloping horses were woven into the design. Edith stared in wonder at the magnificent scenes beneath her slippers.

  Without pausing for breath, Sumbul kept on talking. ‘The first things the looters take when they raid a house are the rugs. They haven’t come up this far yet, thank goodness, but the neighbourhood below us was ransacked. Don’t even ask, Miss Edith. Since morning our hearts have been in our mouths. What will become of us?’

  Edith nodded. She had seen it on the roads. Smashed, mud-splattered fezzes on the ground, broken glass, shops turned upside down, their furniture thrown out and splintered into pieces. Hasan’s coffeehouse was a bloodbath. She had seen it all, but she didn’t share the details for she didn’t want to frighten the women even more. She couldn’t describe the image of Avinash’s barber, Hamid, standing there by himself amid the scattered remains of the lemon-scented hair oil which he used to rush to get from Frank Street at the beginning of each month. Or the refugee child sitting against the wall of Hasan’s coffeehouse, holding his master’s purple fez in his arms and weeping.

  She was exhausted. Why in the world had she made so much effort to get here? Sometimes she got so stubborn, and for nothing. When she was focused on something, struggling to achieve it gave her pleasure in the short term, but once she’d reached the goal, that familiar unhappiness would begin gnawing at her soul again. She was fed up with herself. She looked around the room for a cigarette.

  ‘Sister Sumbul, ask the lady to elaborate a little,’ begged Mujgan, somewhat comforted by the fact that there were so many men downstairs. Now, especially with a European woman under their roof, they would be completely safe. The palikaria would definitely not touch a house with Europeans in it. Furthermore, Gypsy Mimiko, Dr Agop, Mustafa Efendi, even though he was unconscious, and Huseyin, who wouldn’t put the Mauser down, were all downstairs. In addition, last night while he was lying in her arms, Huseyin had promised he would not leave them; he would stay to protect them all. Maybe they would even have a son.

  Half in Turkish, half in French, Edith told them about her journey there. The women turned their attention from their needlework to their uninvited guest’s story. No one could take their eyes off Edith; not Sumbul, or Mujgan, or Mujgan’s daughters, Munevver and Neriman, or little Dogan, or even Aunt Makbule. They gazed at the way her prematurely grey hair contrasted with her rose-petal-soft skin, at the tiny pearl buttons that ran all the way down her silk dress, and at her white hands that fluttered like a dove’s wings as she talked. What a beautiful, noble lady she was! On seeing the attractive guest, the servant who’d brought the coffee, rose-hip jam and lokum on a silver tray forgot to return to the kitchen and instead squeezed into a corner of the couch. She didn’t even notice Aunt Makbule indicating with her eyebrows and eyes that she should pour the tea from the samovar.

  ‘We have British neighbours in Bournabat. Perhaps you know of them. Kosta is their butler.’

  The women nodded. They knew of the Thomas-Cook family.

  ‘Their son Edward is my childhood friend. Our gardens adjoin and our families are friends. Edward is very keen on cars—’

  She stopped mid-sentence. She wasn’t sure how much she should say. Edward and his elder brother, Peter, had five motor cars in their garage, each brought from America or England. They liked to take parts out and put other parts in at whim, even attaching old engines from yachts in their attempts to try and build a car.

  The women saw a shadow pass over her face but didn’t know the reason. Sumbul became anxious. Had they done something wrong? Had they pushed their guest into talking too much? She motioned to the servant to bring more of Nanny Dilber’s jams, to refresh the spoons. Let the lady taste each one. Whatever was bothering her could be dispersed with sugar. With her eyes she made a sign to Mujgan, who was leaning forward slightly as if she’d been struck by lightning. She shouldn’t sit like that, she’d fall into the lady’s mouth. Unconcerned about being tactless, Mujgan was saying, ‘Sumbul, sister, ask Lady Edith how she learned to drive a motor car.’

  Edith understood the question without Su
mbul’s translation. Her face darkened. Aunt Makbule laid her prayer beads down on the side table with a clink, her hawk-like eyes trained on Mujgan’s face. The servant brought jams of various colours lined up on a tray. Edith raised her slender white hand in refusal, and Sumbul’s face fell. Mujgan, oblivious, kept insisting, ‘Ask her, sister.’ Edith’s eyes had shifted to the flowers, birds and horses of the carpet. She was remembering.

  Many years ago, again in that dark corner of her heart… A midnight-blue motor car parked off the meadow road flanked by pomegranate trees; she in a shimmering silk dress, the same blue as the car, and Ali in a starched white shirt, black sash and aubergine-coloured fez. His thick, fleshy lips were shy. Their fingers met on the walnut steering wheel. Because Edward was unable to say no to anyone, particularly to Edith, he had lent her the Wilson-Pilcher for driving lessons. On the black leather seat, legs exchanged warmth; on the steering wheel, arms intertwined. ‘Get our Ali to teach you to drive, Edith mou. Take the car to the meadows, to Narlikoy or as far as Kokluca. The crankshaft has just been repaired. Drive as much as you want – learn! Women are even piloting aeroplanes now, so how can you not learn to drive a car?’

  Poplars, pomegranates, melon fields, olive groves… Two hearts beating as if they would burst their chests to reach each other. A body leaning gracefully over hers, like a deer, not like a person. The hands that she so enjoyed watching while Ali mended the crankshaft – those hands were now making her skin feel like honey. They were dancing almost without movement on the Wilson-Pilcher’s black leather seat. The engine was humming; the birds were silent on the bare branches. The starched white shirt dropped, mingling with the shimmering silk dress. The deer was running – quick! quicker! – as if the end of the world was coming. Inside, she felt as warm as a loaf just out of the oven, as sweet as halva. Above, bare branches and a grey sky. From every cell of her body, sherbet fizzed and foamed. Was it her screams that rose from the vineyards and orchards, that beat upon the bell tower of the church and returned?