Birds Without Wings (36 page)

There were many who believed that Ali the Snowbringer was so called because his profession was to bring ice down from the mountains, but the truth was that he had earned this sobriquet because, on the night of his birth, it had snowed for the first time in seventy-five years.

All day long, an unnatural stillness and a dry cold had settled upon the coastal plain. People stamped their feet and grumbled, because this was a place where permanently fair weather had left the inhabitants softer than those from the Anatolian vastness. Only the hunters and shepherds up on the slopes had ever experienced anything quite as penetratingly icy as this. In the late evening the air stirred, and the poyraz wind sprang up from the north-east. Old men of apocalyptic disposition muttered ominously that at this time of year there were supposed to be gales from the south, and that a knife-edged wind at such an odd time could bode the world no good. Dull and heavy clouds gathered above, and the cold intensified as the twilight grew suddenly black.

It was with wonderment that, as the birth-cries of Ali’s mother died away, the people ran out of the houses and beheld the white flakes begin to descend upon their town. The dogs barked and yelped, bounding up on their hind legs and shaking their heads as they attempted to catch the snowflakes in their teeth, and the townsfolk gathered outdoors, dark and cold as it was, to marvel at the eerily silent descent. “Çok güzel, çok güzel!” they exclaimed, this people innocent of snow, enchanted by its pristine novelty even as they shivered, and the children caught it on their tongues, or scooped it up and crammed it into their mouths.

It fell only to half a hand’s depth, and by the following mid-morning it had gone, leaving behind it only a new child, and a communal memory that had the savour of those stories that tell of lost Edens and magical lands. Ali amounted to that memory made physical, and therefore,
throughout his life, he had the good fortune to be aware of himself as someone special, someone marked out significantly by providence, and this despite the fact that in his whole life he did nothing remarkable until his one noble deed at the time of the exodus. He would explain to people that not only was his donkey a proper Muslim donkey because it was brown all over and had no cross upon its shoulders, but that he spent his life bringing ice down from the mountains because he was Ali the Snowbringer, but he was not Ali the Snowbringer because he brought ice from the mountains.

He did, however, play a small part in the little drama that was Philothei’s life, for by the time that she was fourteen, as oblivious as anyone else to an outside world that was poised upon the brink of the first technologised mass slaughter in history, she had flowered into a prettiness so irresistible and adorable that it was impossible for any man of the town to remain at ease.

Shaped by nature and by Leyla Hanim’s careful and loving tutelage, she had grown in physical loveliness day by day, until she had become as luminous as Selene. Even Leyla, generous in spirit as she was, began to find that Philothei’s presence, however enchanting, was causing her anxiety. She perceived that often the sad eyes of Rustem Bey rested upon her companion rather than upon herself, she saw the glittering of his momentary pangs of delight and pleasure, and she felt the points of sexual jealousy pricking at the back of her throat, repress them though she tried.

It would be easy to say that Philothei was supremely beautiful, but, even though many people certainly thought that she was, such would be an oversimplification. Some women are ugly, but in their presence men become dry-mouthed with desire. Some women are neither ugly nor beautiful, but a light shines out of their faces that causes them to become beloved. Sometimes a woman is objectively beautiful, but no man desires her, because there is no light. In Philothei’s case it was the high spirit that shone out of her face that made her captivating. It was a matter of intelligence and good humour, and consequently it would be unprofitable to taxonomise her beauties, to dwell upon the shape of her mouth, or the arc of her eyebrows, or the line of her nose. She was a pretty girl made beautiful by her youth, her sweet nature and her manner.

All through his childhood Ibrahim had dogged her faithfully, sure of his destiny as her husband, but now other men began to find her populating their daydreams. When she passed, men in conversation would fall silent and watch her until she had gone. Others knew the times that she went to
Leyla Hanim, and arranged to be by the window or the front door, or in the meydan. Even the Dog came down more often from his anchoritic home in the tombs, terrifying Philothei with his ghastly smile as he sidled by her and tried to catch her eye. For his part, Ali the Snowbringer started to neglect his work in order to follow her.

He would straggle behind, pathetically trying to look as if he were about his business, ambling from door to door, or flitting up an alleyway so that he could descend by another and greet her coming the other way, his expression full of longing and shame. Philothei, entirely oblivious to him, proceeded on her way as if he did not exist, but Ibrahim noticed, and so did many others.

Thus it was that in the hamam one day, Safiye, wife of Ali the Snowbringer, plonked herself down on the slab next to Ayse, wife of Abdulhamid Hodja, sighed portentously, and began, “Peace upon you, Ayse Efendim.”

“And upon you,” replied Ayse, even though she heartily wished otherwise. As far as she was concerned the hamam was a sacred place in which one accomplished the essence of nothing, and she resented having to speak in that infernal paradise of steam, olive-oil soap and perspiration. Least of all did she wish to speak to Safiye, who lived in the hollow trunk of an admittedly large tree with her husband, four children and a donkey, and who was, moreover, rather unprepossessing in appearance. Ayse liked to look upon the young women, with the fat shining on their thighs and hips, their round breasts and their sparkling brown eyes. She particularly liked to see Leyla Hanim, even though she was a Circassian whore. Leyla’s good living left her plumper and more at ease in her skin with every day that passed. Ayse took no pleasure in the older women, however, whose breasts pointed downwards, and in this she was, of course, a hypocrite, who, like all hypocrites, would have been the last to realise that that was what she was. The two middle-aged women, identically pendulous, sat side by side in the stupendous humidity whilst Safiye explained her problem.

Ayse listened wide-eyed, wiped the sweat futilely from her brow, and protested, “Are you serious? You want my husband to do something about it?”

“Oh please, Ayse Efendim, you must ask him to speak to the father of Philothei.”

“It’s not Philothei’s fault if your husband has become silly,” replied Ayse. “Why should my husband have anything to do with it?”

“You don’t understand, it’s because your husband is an important man,
and the father of Philothei will listen to him. You don’t know what it’s like! My husband has not brought down any ice for two weeks. We don’t have one para left! He just follows Philothei. I know it, because I followed him myself. He’s bewitched.”

“You followed him?”

“What else can a woman do, a poor wife like me?”

“Why don’t you speak to Philothei’s mother? Surely you know Polyxeni?”

“I don’t know her. We’ve never spoken. She’s Christian, and her family is richer than us.”

“Never spoken? A lifetime in the same town, and you’ve never spoken?”

“I never needed to,” replied Safiye, miserably. “I don’t know how to speak to her.”

Ayse rolled her eyes impatiently. “Do you think that a Christian would bite your nose off?”

“Well, they aren’t like us.”

“They’re not so different either,” Ayse told her, “and a mother is a mother whatever she is. Would you like me to speak to her?”

“No. I want Abdulhamid Hodja to speak to her father. Abdulhamid Hodja is wise, and will know what to say.”

Ayse bristled with indignation. “Safiye Efendim, are you saying that I am not wise?”

“Oh no, Ayse Efendim. I want someone to speak to her father, because he has more authority, and you can’t speak to him, can you? It wouldn’t be decent.”

Ayse saw the sense of this observation, and accordingly mentioned the matter to Abdulhamid Hodja that evening after prayers. She relayed Safiye’s request with some scorn and sarcasm, adding, “Whatever next! What a ridiculous thing, not that my opinion ever counts for anything. Not that anyone ever listens to me.”

Abdulhamid, reverend and sensible as he was, had also been suffering some private discomfort on account of Philothei, and therefore had more insight into the nature of the problem than he might have wished his wife to realise. There was nothing like a young woman’s beauty for sowing discord in the world, and everyone knew many tragical stories concerning it.

So it was that he found himself in the improbable position of having to approach Charitos, father of Philothei, in the coffeehouse and having to talk quietly to him whilst they played abstractedly at backgammon, that
game which mirrors life by being composed half of calculation and half of luck, with the luck, good or bad, mainly occurring in the second half. Charitos drew on the waterpipe that they shared, drank his coffee and listened, twisting the ends of his moustache and frowning.

“I suggest,” concluded Abdulhamid, having explained the nature of the quandary, and listened sympathetically to Charitos’s protestations of his daughter’s absolute innocence, “that you do as the Sultan once did when the capital was still in Bursa.”

“What was that?” asked Charitos, the response for which Abdulhamid Hodja had neatly angled.

“There was an influx of Circassian refugees. More persecution by the Russians, no doubt. The Circassian women were so beautiful that the local men began to fight about them, and so, in order to restore the peace, the Sultan summoned the leader of the Circassians, and told him to veil the women. This was done, and the fighting finished.”

“You want me to veil my daughter? With us, this isn’t done. How can I do that? Not even your women veil themselves round here. Everyone will think she has become an infidel from somewhere else!”

“ ‘Infidel’ is a word that should be picked up from a safe distance with tongs,” reproved Abdulhamid. “To you I am an infidel, and to me you are an infidel. So, neither one of us is an infidel, or we both are. The Angel commanded the Prophet, peace be upon him, to write that for every nation there is a messenger, and for every nation there is an appointed time, and to write that for each God has appointed a divine law and a predetermined way. We are commanded to vie with one another in good works, and when we all return, God will inform us of the things wherein we differ. Your prophet, Jesus Son of Mary, peace be upon him, commanded his disciples to go out among the Gentiles. So we will have no more talk of infidels. And you forget that Philothei has been long betrothed to Ibrahim, and obviously she will become a Muslim when they marry. Will she then be an infidel?”

“She will be a Christian Muslim,” protested Charitos, who, like most of us, was quickly wearied by preaching and was paying little attention to his own words.

Abdulhamid paused, smiling to himself, because this was a theoretical impossibility that was daily experienced as a practical reality, and said, “I am not talking about veiling her, exactly. Let her hide her face more. Let her wear her scarf so that her face is more in shadow. She might pull her scarf across her face when she is out in the street or in the meydan, that’s all. She must adopt greater modesty. It will be for the better peace of all.”

Philothei was horrified when she heard the news that she must adopt such forced modesty, and she ran first to Drosoula’s house, crying, “Drosoulaki, Drosoulaki!” The two girls went together in a rush to the konak of Rustem Bey, hurrying through the steep narrow alleyways, negotiating their way past the crush of hawkers, donkeys, dogs and camels. They left their slippers in disorder outside the door of the haremlik, and entered, Philothei throwing herself down on the divan, wiping the angry tears from her face whilst Drosoula stood slightly awkwardly, making sympathetic faces and toying with the leaves of the basil plant that had been left on the sill to keep the mosquitoes away. The room was quite dark, on account of the shutters being semi-closed, and the heavy red carpets hanging from the walls. A brass coffee pot was beginning to raise its froth on the ashes of the brazier, and Leyla, clad in shalwar the colour of lapis lazuli, was reclining on her bed, popping syrupy morsels of tulumba tatlisi into her mouth, in between smoking a tightly rolled little cigarette from her unfeasibly long silver cigarette holder, and caressing the cat Pamuk, who was purring stertorously, kneading the covers with her claws, and dribbling. Leyla picked up her oud and ran a long, languid nail across the strings. She let the thoughtful chord ring and fade, put the instrument down again, and went to sit next to her tearful handmaiden on the divan. She put her arms around her neck and kissed her fondly. “My little partridge! Tell me all about it, come on.”

Philothei was much comforted in those plump and maternal arms, breathing in the scents of amber and frankincense, cinnamon and rosewater. She calmed down a little, and related the awful news, whereupon Leyla clapped her hands with delight, and cried, “It’s the best thing I’ve ever heard! Oh, it’s so marvellous, and I’m so pleased for you!”

“Pleased for me?” repeated Philothei. “Have you been listening? Is there something wrong with you? They want me to cover my face.”

“But it’s only in public, and just think what it means! It means that you’re too beautiful! What more could you possibly want? Everyone will know that you are too beautiful! God knows, I wish I could have such luck.” She looked up at Drosoula with a conspiratorial expression that seemed to mean “Isn’t that what we’d all want?” She took Philothei’s face between her hands and kissed away her tears for sheer vicarious happiness.

Philothei, who was not entirely without vanity, began suddenly to come round to Leyla’s point of view. Leyla threw the damask covering off her trunk of clothes, and burrowed eagerly in its depths. She rummaged for handfuls of silks, satins, gauzes and finely woven cottons, and threw them on to the divan. Standing behind Philothei in front of a mirror, Leyla
reached over her head with the veils as they tried first one, then another, then the first again, giggling and exclaiming, until they had settled on a selection that would set off Philothei’s prettiness to the best advantage.