Portrait of a Turkish Family by Irfan Orga Read Free Book Online Page B

and she replied that she had but as I had been asleep she had not wanted to awaken me. She said she was proud of me because someone had told her I had been a brave boy. I blushed with shame, trying to explain that I had not been brave at all but she laid her cool fingers over my mouth and would not let me finish.
    ‘Sometimes the weakest of us are the bravest,’ she said.
    Mehmet had sent me lokum to eat and had cried for me during his breakfast. I was so touched by this that I resolved never again to be impatient with him when he could not follow a game. I kept that resolve for quite three days.

CHAPTER 4
     

Sarıyer
     
     
    The most beautiful present I had received for my circumcision was a big rocking-horse, brought me by my uncle Ahmet.
    Uncle Ahmet was my father’s brother. He was big and jolly and very good-looking. In his younger days he had been the despair of my grandfather ’s life but after his marriage, to a young and wealthy girl, he had apparently settled down considerably. I loved him and his wife too, for they had no children and used to spoil me atrociously.
    The day after I arrived home from the Colonel’s house, Uncle Ahmet and Aunt Ayşe arrived in a horse-drawn cab, laden with presents. They had come unexpectedly but there was a great joy in welcoming them, with we children making most of the noise and refusing to be hushed. My uncle brought many stuffed animal toys for Mehmet and butter and cheese and eggs from his farm for my mother.
    Aunt Ayşe was a lovely, shy person, most surprisingly blonde with large dark eyes. I think she was a little frightened of my grandmother for she hardly ever opened her mouth in her presence or expressed an opinion. I discovered later in life that she need not have been afraid, for my grandmother had a great liking for her and her money. Her greatest respect in life was for money.
    The day they arrived the house was soon filled with noise. Our squeals of delight, coupled with the loud hearty laughter of my uncle and the orders screamed by my grandmother to the servants, the chattering voices of my mother and my aunt, all served to give a stimulus, a sort of artificial gaiety to the drowsy old house.
    My rocking-horse was borne off to the playroom by my uncle, I following slowly and painfully for I was still unable to walk properly. Mehmet was lifted, chortling with joy, on the lovely horse and I was bitterly jealous because I could not yet do the same. My uncle played with us for a long time and promised me that he would ask my father’s permission to take me back with him to Sarıyer, which was the name of the place where he lived. I loved to stay at Sarıyer for it was much bigger than our house and had vast gardens and an orchard and many greenhouses . There was a gardener there too who, contrary to all accepted ideas, loved little boys.
    It was the custom for my family to spend three months of every year at Sarıyer. Usually we went there during May, when the heat of İstanbul began to become unbearable, but this year my grandfather’s death and my approaching circumcision had kept us in the city all through the interminable dust and heat and flies of summer. We had suffocated beneath mosquito nets and insufficient fresh air, for the windows had been fitted with fine netting in an effort to keep the insects away and the shutters tightly barred at night. Yet just the same the mosquitoes found entry, filling the dark nights with their whining music. So that it was the middle of that fateful August of 1914 that eventually brought my parents to Sarıyer.
    Permission was readily given for me to return, on the following day, with my uncle and aunt – the remainder of the family to leave İstanbul as soon as my father’s business activities permitted. I was very excited to be travelling without the restrictive eye of İnci or my grandmother. I helped İnci to pack clothes for me and lovingly stroked my rocking-horse, for this was to come with me. Mehmet’s