Young Turk Read online

  Of course, I admit, with hindsight, that what we kept seeing must have been beauty spots or freckles or moles or birthmarks and, no doubt, on occasion, the odd pimple or wart or razor nick.

  Naturally, when we described to our friends, particularly our Gypsy friends, all that we had feasted on with our eyes, they believed us. And so we felt important. And when we went to sleep counting not sheep but clitorises, we felt sublime. And when we woke up and felt our genitals humming as happily as the night before, we basked in ultimate bliss.

  An aside here, if I may. Inconceivable as it may sound, we never investigated Sofi’s features. But she was, after all, family, therefore immaculate, therefore non-sexual. Now, looking back on old pictures, I note that she was rather attractive. She had the silky olive-coloured skin that makes Armenians such a handsome people. Moreover, she had not had children, hence, had not enjoyed, in hamam parlance, ‘usage’. Consequently, though in her mid-thirties, she was still firm-fleshed and robust, still a woman in her prime.

  When my family moved from Ankara, soon after my bar mitzvah, Sofi went to work as a chambermaid in a resort hotel. We kept in touch. Then, in 1976, she suddenly left her job and disappeared. Her boss, who had been very attached to her, disclosed that she had been seriously ill and presumed that she had gone to die in her birthplace, in the company of ancestral ghosts. Since neither of us knew which particular village in Kars province she had originally come from, our efforts to trace her soon foundered.

  But I never gave up hope of finding her. Whenever I met Armenians, I always asked them whether they had ever come across Sofi or, better still, whether they could inquire about her within their own circles of relatives, friends and acquaintances.

  Then, one day, a friend in Canada wrote to me about Kirkor Hovanesyan, a sickly sixty-year-old Armenian immigrant from Turkey who, on becoming a widower, had decided to go back to the old country and spend the remainder of his days drinking raki and eating mezes by the Bosporus. But no sooner had he arrived on our shores than he fell prey to our notorious bureaucracy and was conscripted into the army for the military service he had avoided as a young man. He was duly sent to the east, to Kars; but, because of his age, had served as an orderly in an officers’ mess. During his time there, he had not only regained his health, but had also formed a liaison with a distant relative. After his discharge, he and this woman had married and, moving back to Istanbul, had bought and rebuilt a famous Romanian restaurant which had been destroyed in a fire.

  Armed with this information, I rushed to the said restaurant.

  And there, to my great joy, was Sofi.

  Her husband, Kirkor, has long since died, but Sofi is still alive – though pretty old. She is well looked-after by Kirkor’s children from his first marriage and, of course, by her true sons – Selim and me.

  Alas, our time in paradise did not fill a year.

  Expulsion, when it came, was as sudden and as unexpected as from Eden. And just as brutal.

  It happened on 5 July. The date is engraved in my mind because it happens to be my birthday. In fact, the visit to the hamam on that occasion was meant to be Sofi’s present to me. A few days earlier she had asked me what treat I would most like, meaning what special dish or cake she could cook for me, and had been amused by my resolute preference for the hamam. But she had readily agreed, even approved of my choice; after all, she cooked my favourite dishes all the time.

  Summers in Ankara are suffocating; and that particular 5 July was exceptionally stifling; hardly the sort of day, one might think, to induce people to seek shelter in the Turkish baths. Not so. For a start, it felt fresher inside the hamam than anywhere else; there was, at least, refuge from a sun that seemed determined to boil people’s brains. Secondly, it was in the hot season that the Temperate Room earned its keep by turning into an oasis. Thirdly, according to those who claimed to have scientific minds, a thorough scrub – so thorough that it could only be achieved after a few hours in the baths – improved a person’s cooling mechanism by opening up all the body’s pores.

  And so, on that 5 July, the women’s hamam was exceptionally full. (Maybe I had known or heard or intuited that it would be.) Selim and I were having an awfully hard time trying to look in many directions all at once. Such was our excitement that we never blinked once. (Today, when we concentrate on something that fascinates us, we still contort into that goggle-eyed look). It was, in effect, the most bounteous time we had ever had in the baths. (Given the fact that it was also our last, I might be exaggerating. Nostalgia does that.)

  We must have been there for some time when, to our dismay, we saw one of the women grab hold of an attendant and command her, while pointing at us, to fetch Lady Aunt. It took us an eternity to realize that this nymph of strident fortissimo was the very goddess whom Selim and I adored and worshipped, whose body we had judged to be perfect and voluptuous – we never used one adjective where two could be accommodated – and whom, as a result, we had named ‘Nilüfer’ after the water-lily, which, in those days, we believed to be the most beautiful flower in the world.

  And before we could summon the wits to direct our gaze elsewhere – or even to lower our eyes – Nilüfer and Lady Aunt were upon us, both screaming at lovely Sofi, who had been dozing by the kurna.

  Now I should point out that Selim and I, having riveted our eyes on Nilüfer for months on end, knew very well that she was of a turbulent nature. We had seen her provoke innumerable quarrels, not only with Lady Aunt and the attendants, but also with many of the patrons. The old women, comparing her to a Barbary mare – and, given the ease with which she moved her fleshy but athletic limbs, a particularly lusty one at that – attributed her volatility to her recent marriage and summed up her caprices as the dying embers of a female surrendering her existence to her husband, as females should; one day, a week hence or months later, when she felt that sudden jolt which annunciates conception, she would become as docile as the next woman.

  And on that 5 July, Selim and I had been expecting an outburst from Nilüfer – though not against us, of course. (The curious fact that she had never before turned against us – nor had ever bothered to act modestly before our eyes – meant, we had decided, that she liked us and wanted to please us.) In fact, we had noted that she was troubled the moment she arrived: she could not sit and relax with the women who had come with her, nor even stay for any length of time in the Temperate Room to which she kept going every few minutes. And she kept complaining of being pummelled by a terrible migraine, courtesy of the accursed heat outside. (The migraine, Sofi wisely informed us later, shed light on the real reasons for Nilüfer’s temper: for some women migraines heralded the commencement of their flow; what might have made matters worse for Nilüfer – remember she was not long married - could have been the disappointment of having failed to conceive for yet another month.)

  It took us a while to register Nilüfer’s accusations. She was reproving us for playing with our genitals, touching them the way men do. (I’m sure we did, but I’m equally sure we did it surreptitiously. Had she been watching us the way we had been watching the women, seemingly through closed eyes?)

  Sofi, bless her dear heart, defended us like a lioness. ‘My boys’, she said, ‘know how to read and write. They don’t need to play with themselves.’

  This non sequitur enraged Nilüfer all the more. Stooping upon us, she took hold of our penises, one in each hand, and showed them to Lady Aunt. ‘Look,’ she yelled, ‘they’re almost hard. You can see they’re almost hard!’

  (Were they? I don’t know. But, as Selim agreed with me later, the feeling of being tightly held by her hand was sensational.)

  Lady Aunt glanced at the exhibits dubiously. ‘Can’t be. Their testicles haven’t dropped yet ...’

  ‘Yes. Thanks for reminding me,’ howled Sofi. ‘Their testicles haven’t dropped yet!’

  ‘No, they haven’t!’ Selim interjected bravely. ‘We’d know, wouldn’t we?’

  Nilüfer, waving our penis
es, shrilled another decibel at Lady Aunt. ‘See for yourself! Touch them! Touch them!’

  Shrugging like a long-suffering servant, Lady Aunt knelt by our side. Nilüfer handed over our penises like batons. Lady Aunt must have had greater expertise in inspecting the male member; for as her fingers enveloped us softly and warmly and oh so amiably, we did get hard – or felt as if we did.

  We expected Lady Aunt to scream the place down. Instead, she rose from her haunches with a smile and turned to Sofi. ‘They are hard. See for yourself.’

  Sofi shook her head in disbelief.

  Nilüfer celebrated her triumph by striding up and down the baths, shouting, ‘They’re not boys! They’re men!’

  Sofi continued to shake her head in disbelief.

  Lady Aunt patted her on the shoulder, then shuffled away. ‘Take them home. They shouldn’t be here.’

  Sofi, suddenly at a loss, stared at the bathers. She noted that some of them were already covering themselves.

  Still confused, she turned round to us; then, impulsively, she held our penises. As if that had been the cue, our members shrank instantly and disappeared within their folds.

  Sofi, feeling vindicated, shouted at the patrons, ‘They’re not hard! They’re not!’

  Her voice echoed from the marble walls. But no one paid her any attention.

  She remained defiant even as Lady Aunt saw us off the premises. ‘I’ll be bringing them along – next time! We’ll be back!’

  Lady Aunt roared with laughter. ‘Sure! Bring their fathers, too, why don’t you?’

  And the doors clanged shut behind us.

  And though Sofi determinedly took us back several times, we were never again granted admission.

  3: Robbie

  A Tale of Two Cities

  This July of 1942, the people of Istanbul were insisting, was the hottest in living memory. Around Sultan Ahmet Square, where the Blue Mosque and the Byzantine monuments faced each other in historical debate, the traditional çayhanes had appropriated every patch of shade. The patrons of these tea-houses blamed the heat on Şeytan: the land was fragrant with the verses and compositions of the young bards, and the Arch-demon, jealous of the Turk’s ability to turn all matter into poetry or music, was venting his resentment. The narghile-smokers, mostly pious men revered as guardians of the faith, disagreed: such temperatures occurred only when sainted imams lamented the profanation of Koranic law; and, under this heathen administration called a ‘republic’, they had much to lament, not least the growing number of women who were securing employment – as well as equal status with men – in all walks of life. But down the hill, along the seaside meyhanes, where the solemn imbibing of raki engendered enlightenment far superior to that of tea or opium, the elders, veterans of the First World War, offered a more cogent reason. Pointing at the dried blood from Europe’s latest battlefields settling as dust on this city, which Allah had created as a pleasure garden for every race and creed, they affirmed that man, that worshipper of desolation, was once again broiling the atmosphere with guns.

  We believed the drinkers. Well, we either had just reached our teens or, like Bilâl, were at the threshold and knew, with the wisdom of that age, that old soldiers, particularly those who open their tongues with alcohol, never lie. Besides, Bilâl – actually, his mother, Ester – had kept us apprised, with first-hand information, of the carnage devastating Europe. In Greece, where she had been born, Death was reaping a bumper harvest. Letters from Fortuna, Ester’s sister in Salonica, were chronicling the atrocities. Though these accounts often verged on hysteria – and tended to be dismissed as exaggerated, even by some Jews – they were corroborated, in prosaic detail, by the family’s lawyer. When, about fifteen years before, Ester had left Greece to get married in Turkey, this gentleman, Sotirios Kasapoglou by name, had promised to report regularly on her family’s situation.

  It was in the wake of this lawyer’s latest missive that Bilâl, Naim and Can, another gang member, approached me. You may have guessed, from my references to Ester’s concern for her relatives, that Bilâl – and, indeed, Naim and Can – were Jewish; and you may be intrigued by their Muslim names. There is a simple explanation: Atatürk, determined to distance the new republic from the iniquities of the Ottoman empire, had sought to instil in the people pride in their Turkishness. Consequently, by law, all minorities were obliged to give their children a Turkish name in addition to an ethnic one. Thus Benjamin had acquired Bilâl; Nehemiah, Naim; and Jacob, Can.

  I remember the exact date of their visit: Monday 27 July 1942. I was with my parents in sleepy Florya, a resort some fifty kilometres west of Istanbul, on the European coast of the Sea of Marmara where, during the summer months, the British embassy maintained a spacious villa for its staff. We had just heard that the RAF had bombed Hamburg and, somehow, this news had raised the morale of the diplomatic corps much more than the month’s significantly greater achievements such as holding the line at El Alamein and bombing the U-boat yards in Danzig. Suddenly the whole British legation felt convinced that we would win the war and my father, Duncan Stevenson, had seen fit to offer me my first dram of uisge beatha, the water of life. Though, at the time, I had already perfected the art of downing leftover drinks, these had mainly been sherry; consequently, my first taste of whisky proved a revelation – which may well be the real reason I remember the date.

  My father must have come up to Istanbul for an ‘appearance’. His outfit, the British-American Co-ordination Committee, set up to entice a still-neutral Turkey to join the Allies by providing its army with vital supplies, was headquartered in the capital, Ankara. To shield his activities from enemy agents, his official position had been listed as vice-consul in Istanbul. To safeguard this cover, he had to be seen living there. Thus we became prominent residents of the cosmopolitan suburb, Nιşantaşι. It was there that Bilâl, Naim and Can found me drifting aimlessly in parks and playing fields. And when they discovered that I could kick a football like a budding William Shankly, they made me their friend for life.

  We had changed into our bathing suits with unusual decorum. I attributed my friends’ subdued spirits to the Gorgon’s presence. For, throughout the time we undressed, even when we turned our backs to her to prevent our willies from turning to stone under her serpent’s eyes – when, normally, like most boys celebrating puberty, we would have been comparing sizes – Mrs Meredith, the housekeeper, had not shifted her chilling scrutiny from us. This martinet, who aspired to discipline even the daisies on the lawn (the epithet ‘Gorgon’ had originated, some years back, from one of our senior diplomats), had a particular fetish for the parquet flooring which contributed so much to the villa’s elegance; no one, certainly not four strapping boys, could shuffle or, heaven forbid, run on it without forfeiting their lives.

  We reached the villa’s private beach. My friends remained subdued. They should have been bubbly: this was a day stolen for fun. Normally, during the week, they helped in their fathers’ shops; moreover, except for the Johnson horde, who were a jolly bunch, the beach was deserted and we could run riot. I became concerned. ‘What’s up?’

  Bilâl, distracted by the Johnsons waving at us, spoke quietly. ‘It’s grim!’

  Thinking that he was referring to yet another crisis with the girl who lived across the road from him and whom he audaciously worshipped from his window, I offered a sympathetic smile. ‘Selma’s ignoring you?’

  ‘No. She returns my gaze. Smiles even.’

  ‘Well then?’

  ‘Salonica ...’

  The Johnson children had risen from their chairs and were coming towards us.

  I stared at Bilâl. ‘What?’

  Can, always the soft voice that calmed us down, whispered, ‘His cousins. Difficult times for them.’

  Naim, the oldest among us and hence our leader, spoke gravely. ‘We must do something.’

  I stared at them. Children talking like adults. ‘What can we do?’

  Bilâl muttered, ‘We can save them. If
you help us ...’

  ‘Me? What can I do?’

  Can, mindful of the Johnson brood who were almost upon us, whispered, ‘Passports – we need passports.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘For the family. To get them out.’

  ‘Yes, get them out! Let’s have a look!’ This from Dorothy, the Johnsons’ oldest. A miniature Mae West since she started growing a couple of tangerines on her chest. But a tease: she wouldn’t let any boy touch her.

  ‘We’re having man-talk, Dorothy! Go away!’

  She hissed. ‘Men, Robbie? Where?’ Then she smiled. She could be blade and balm in the same breath. ‘Dad says: come and join us. Someone’s sent a hamper of goodies: lokum, figs, halva ...’

  I noted my friends’ reluctance, but we couldn’t refuse; it wouldn’t have been, in my father’s parlance, diplomatic. Why do junior staff always feel obliged to pamper youngsters? Still, Dorothy had said figs and Turkish figs were worth an empire. ‘Don’t mind if we do, thank you.’

  We followed her.

  I nudged Naim. ‘We’ll talk later.’

  Naim didn’t respond. He was studying Dorothy’s widening hips. Wide hips are childbearing hips, he had once told us, quoting old Kokona, our neighbourhood know-all, as an authority. Well, that formidable Greek matriarch would have known; she had given birth to fourteen children and, by all accounts, it would have taken her husband a good few minutes to run a caressing hand from one buttock to the other.

  In time, both Naim and Can developed a healthy preference for wide hips. I never did. Like most northerners, I ended up thinking that ample flesh and carnal living were joys that led to immoderation. These days I ask: what’s wrong with immoderation?

  Figs and the other treats were followed by a chess game between Mr Johnson and Can, spectacularly won by the latter who, had he not set his mind on medicine, would have become a grand master. Then a bout of jousting in the sea during which Naim had the bliss of carrying Dorothy on his shoulders – his mouth barely centimetres away from her freckled thighs – while she repeatedly unseated her four brothers despite the valiant efforts of Bilâl and Mrs Johnson, who served as their mounts. Then a couple of hours of serious swimming, an activity at which I excelled. Finally a succulent lunch, courtesy of Emine, the cook, who, except for special requests, never repeated her menus.