Last Train to Istanbul (5 page)

Leman Hanım called over the banister, “How did it go? Was it fun? Were there interesting people?”

“What Mother means is, were there any eligible young men?”

Leman Hanım was angered by Selva’s remark. “That’s enough, Selva, you’ve had your say and now it’s becoming boring.”

Selva realized that she had overstepped the mark. “Sorry, Mother.”

Sabiha gave her cloak to Kalfa and rushed straight upstairs to her room. She threw herself on her bed, clasped her hands under her chin, and gazed starry-eyed into the distance.

Her mother followed her into the room. “My God, you’ll ruin your pretty dress. You shouldn’t be lying around in that lovely silk dress. Come on, don’t keep us in suspense. Who was there? How was it?”

“Oh, Mother, it was wonderful. There was someone called Macit. Apparently he is Necmiye Hanım’s nephew. He was educated in Paris and has joined our Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was great—I mean, very handsome.”

“And?”

“Well, it is difficult to say. He danced with Necla but he spent most of the time talking to me. He seemed very interested in me.”

Selva interrupted, “Didn’t I tell you that you’d be the prettiest one there?”

“The other girls were very pretty too, but he spent most of his time with me.”

“What about the others? Who else was there?”

“Let me see, there was Necla’s brother, Burhan, for instance.”

“What about him? What does he do?”

“Who?”

“This Burhan.”

“Oh! I really don’t know. He did tell me but I can’t remember.”

“I see. It seems you are keen on this Macit. I’d better find out more about him before it goes any further.”

“There’s nothing to find out. I told you, Mother.”

“You’d better take off that dress before you ruin it completely. Your father should be home shortly,” Leman Hanım said as she left the room.

Selva watched Sabiha undress. She couldn’t help admiring her sister as she removed her clothes, examining herself in the mirror.

“Have you actually fallen in love, Sabiha?”

“I don’t think so. Can one fall in love in one day? But he really was very attractive!”

“I have asked Mother if I can invite some school friends over next week. Why don’t we ask him too?”

“With all those girls? You must be joking. He’d be bored to death.” She wasn’t keen for Macit to meet Selva. After all, she was taller, if not more beautiful, than Sabiha.

“I’ll invite Rafo as well.”

“You mean the Jewish guy?”

“Yes, the Jewish guy,” said Selva, imitating her sister.

“Don’t get uppity. Am I lying? He is Jewish, isn’t he?”

“Yes, he is, but he is different from the others. He’s much more intelligent, he’s got good manners, and he is very mature—”

“Don’t bother going on. Save your breath. Whatever he may be, it is an impossible situation.”

“Impossible? Can one only be friends with an eye to marriage? Is that it?”

“Life is too short, Selva. How often has Father told us about the value of time? Time is not to be wasted.”

“If life is too short, isn’t that more reason to make the most of what we’ve got? To live the way we want to?”

“Does that mean Rafo is what you want?”

Selva didn’t reply.

“Rafo…” Sabiha continued. “He’s certainly a gentleman, I won’t deny that. On the other hand, if you’re to remain just friends, why not?”

“If he is a gentleman, why shouldn’t one marry him?”

“Don’t be silly; you know that’s impossible.”

“Why? Didn’t we form the Turkish republic to do away with such ridiculous prejudices?”

“Now stop right there, Selva. Did you or I form the republic? Stop giving me all that ‘we’ business! Furthermore, those who did form it didn’t have the marriage of Turkish girls to non-Muslims in mind, that’s for sure. Anyway, this is a typical Selva argument. I don’t know why you continue with these loony ideas. You’re being childish again and that’s that.”

Selva decided not to continue the argument and Sabiha’s mind went off on a tangent. If her sister was occupied with this Rafo, it would prevent any rivalry between them over Macit. Why was it that men always paid so much attention to girls like Selva who didn’t make themselves attractive or dress well or even flirt? As far as Sabiha was concerned, Selva’s only redeeming features were her long hair and swanlike neck. She was polite and sincere, and those qualities appealed to some guys. Still waters run deep, she thought. Sabiha felt a pang of jealousy.

It was her paternal grandmother who had first planted the seeds of jealousy in her heart; she always made such a thing about being tall. Sabiha still remembered how her grandmother would check their height against the bedroom door almost daily, and what a fuss she had made when Selva, two years younger than Sabiha, had reached the same height. She believed that she and Sabiha, with their opalescent green eyes, were cut from the same cloth, and longed for her granddaughter to be tall and slender. As she marked
off her height with a pencil, she would scold Sabiha: “You’re not drinking enough milk. Look at Selva—she’s getting taller and taller. You’ll stay a midget if you’re not careful.” Sabiha even heard her grandmother telling Leman Hanım off when her mother tried to erase the pencil marks on the bedroom door with soap and water. She overheard her mother saying, “Please don’t do this. You’re subjecting poor Sabiha to unnecessary pressure.”

“I am doing it deliberately in order to encourage her to have more dairy products.”

“Dearest Mother, it isn’t quite as simple as that. Genes are genes. Selva has taken after my grandfather; Sabiha hasn’t. It is as simple as that and very little can be done about it.”

“Oh God! Dear God! How can you say that? Do you want your daughter to remain a midget?”

“She isn’t a midget at all; she is quite normal for her age. It’s the other one who is like a beanpole.”

“Height is a wonderful thing. It suits both men and women. I just love it.”

“I don’t think it suits women. Women should be tiny. After all, don’t they say good things come in small packages?”

Sabiha was too young to appreciate the wisdom of the proverb and returned to her bedroom. She was her father’s beautiful daughter, and Selva was his intelligent one. No matter how Fazıl Reşat tried to cover up his weakness for his younger daughter, he couldn’t hide it. His admiration was obvious to anyone who saw the affectionate look in his eyes. He wasn’t impressed by Sabiha’s beautiful green eyes framed by very long eyelashes that were just like her mother’s. Sabiha knew only too well that her father was far more impressed by brains than beauty. She was used to that, but now this height business too. Small package indeed! She was what she was, a small package. She had the more beautiful face, but that didn’t count. She was still a shorty compared to her sister, a full
handbreadth shorter, a small package. Sabiha buried her face in her pillow and cried.

Selva sat innocently admiring her sister, not knowing of Sabiha’s guilty feelings because she was scheming to avoid potential rivalry.

“Rafo is indeed a gentleman,” Sabiha said, “and what’s more, he’s very handsome. I don’t suppose it would do any harm to flirt a little.”

“Do you really mean that?”

“Yes, why not? Why don’t you invite him to the end-of-term ball?”

“You must be joking—they would never allow it.”

“I could come with you.”

Selva threw herself into her sister’s arms and nearly drowned her with kisses.

“I didn’t realize how much you thought of Rafo. Why didn’t you say something before?”

“Well, I have now, so there.”

Selva looked at her sister with her big brown eyes. Why this sudden change of heart? she thought.

Sabiha was thinking too. How would Macit react to her younger sister dating a Jew? Would he mind? Somehow she didn’t think so. After all, a young man educated in France must have more worldly ideas. Why should he care if her sister was flirting with a guy who had a different religion? Better she was flirting with him than no one at all. But then, if that was the case, maybe Macit would be interested in Selva, being taller and doe-eyed, and with bold ideas.

“Come on, then, let’s invite them both to tea. You can concentrate on Rafo and I’ll look after Macit.”

Selva clapped her hands with joy.

A week later, they were all enjoying a lovely tea party. Selva’s classmates rehearsed their play, and then wound up the gramophone to dance the fox-trot to their 78s.

The following day Leman Hanım couldn’t help asking her eldest daughter about Rafo. “Did you see how Selva kept looking at that Jewish boy? She was almost devouring him every time he spoke.”

“He’s a polite young man. As far as I am concerned, he is more of a gentleman than those Turkish guys who are so full of themselves.”

“The Alfandaris are an old, established family. They come from a line of palace doctors. They have savoir faire, but all the same, our girl is…well, you know what she is like. She is unpredictable and stubborn. She has a mind of her own.”

“Yes, Mother, but Rafael wouldn’t dare take things further with Selva. Please don’t worry. Besides, don’t forget that I am around, and if I notice anything untoward, I’ll tell you.”

Sabiha’s promise relaxed Leman Hanım a little. After that first tea party, the same group went to several concerts and picnics together, and each time, Leman Hanım sent Kalfa along as a guardian.

Sabiha and Macit became engaged to marry soon but, according to tradition, Leman Hanım insisted that Selva accompany the couple whenever they went out together. Sabiha turned this to her advantage. The three of them left the house together and went off to a prearranged point, where Rafo would be waiting. From there the two couples went their separate ways until it was time to return home. By the time Sabiha realized how wrong this was, it was too late.

Eighteen months later Sabiha and Macit were married. After a splendid wedding, they moved to Ankara so Macit could take up his position in the foreign ministry.

Selva started university, studying literature, while Rafo decided to follow in his family’s footsteps and study chemistry. Rafo often picked up Selva from her classes or, if he had time, even attended her lectures, just so he could be near her. Some of the other students took exception to this and sometimes picked fights with him because he was daring to court a Muslim girl. One of them
remonstrated with Selva: “Can’t you find someone of your own religion in the whole of Istanbul?” Another student from the East said, “If you were back home, we’d shoot you for this!”

“Are you really proud of those primitive thoughts?” asked Selva. “How does shooting a person reconcile with being a Muslim, I wonder?”

The situation escalated with continual abuse and harassment toward them until, finally, two years into his studies, Rafo had to leave the university. Selva was distraught; Rafo had had to leave because of her. She began to skip lectures and by the end of the year had left the university altogether too. She found it very difficult to explain all this to her father.

Gossip about the love between the son of the Alfandaris and the younger daughter of Fazıl Reşat Paşa gradually spread to the family. When it got back to Leman Hanım’s ears, she took action to try to keep it from her husband. Rafo was banned from visiting the house and Selva wasn’t allowed to go out alone. She spent her time playing the piano, reading books, and corresponding with her sister in Ankara. The only people she saw were either close family friends or relatives.

Fazıl Reşat Paşa wasn’t very happy with his wife’s strict attitude toward Selva. He thought that Leman Hanım was devoting too much energy trying to control Selva now that Sabiha was living away from home. He suggested that Selva should be sent to stay with Sabiha on the pretext of helping her with the new baby. Leman Hanım liked the idea and hoped that her younger daughter might meet a suitable young man.

Having received many letters from her mother on this subject, Sabiha set about introducing Selva to as many of their friends as possible. She organized parties at home and took Selva along whenever they were invited out. Through Macit she introduced Selva to every eligible bachelor in the Foreign Office. Many of the young
men took a shine to Selva, but none really interested her. She left them all in Ankara and returned home.

Then Leman Hanım insisted that Selva should spend some time with her uncle in Cyprus. The poor woman hoped that if her daughter went away, the flame inside her would burn out, and that would put an end to the gossip. All of these frantic efforts came to nothing. Selva kept that flame alive through her correspondence with Rafo wherever she was.

It was inevitable that Fazıl Reşat Paşa would hear about it, and when he did, he was furious. The paşa confronted his daughter.

“Is what I hear true? Please tell me that these are false accusations spread by nasty-minded people. Tell me that it’s malicious gossip,” he said.

“I wish I could, Father, but I love Rafael Alfandari with all my heart, and if you should grant us permission, I will marry him.”

“Never! Over my dead body! Do you really expect me to permit such a thing? Doing that would destroy all of our family values and make a mockery of us all. Is this how you repay me for taking such care of you and sending you to foreign schools?”

“I had thought that my education was meant to expand my horizons, that you wanted me to be an equal, Father.”

“I had you and your sister well educated hoping that one day you would present me with grandchildren, not so you’d rebel against me.”

“Rebelling against you is the last thing on my mind, Father; all I ask is that I choose my own life’s partner. I am not asking you to accept an immoral, worthless person as a son-in-law. The only thing you can object to is that he is not a Muslim. Haven’t you told us on countless occasions that people should be free to worship exactly how they wish and that every belief was holy?”

The gravity of the situation brought about a rage that could not be associated with the sort of gentleman Fazıl Reşat Paşa was.
He managed to control his actions around his daughter, but the moment he dismissed her he set about breaking every single crystal vase and mirror in the room.