Two Women of Istanbul


They were not lovers or relatives or simply friends or exactly mistress and servant. Though their relationship showed certain aspects of each of these groupings.
They lived together in Istanbul, at the time I knew them, from 1969, the only two persons in a household, residing in two flats cobbled together in a modern apartment block in Şişli.
There are certain pairings that do not fall under any of the conventional human close relationships. Tiko and Madame Jeanet were such a twosome. They were in their 60’s and 70’s when I was friends with them. Tiko’s real name was Beraet Bulayır; Mme. Jeanet called her Cici’m (pronounced jijim—my Pet? my Dear? at home and Beraet’anım (Ber-eye-et hanım—lady) in public. Tiko pronounced Mme.’s name Zha-net and is the one who spelled it Jeanet. The rest of us thought it was Jeannette, as in the French song: ‘Madame Jeannette, when the sun goes down,/ sits at her door at the edge of the town...’ waiting for one who will not come—who lies buried, in the great Pere- Lachaise cemetery.
Close-bonded as they were—though each also had some life separate and apart—there was a definite asymmetry in their relationship. Tiko (the name she used with her foreign friends, because ‘Beraet is too hard to say’—or because she wanted something distinctive and endearing for this feature of her life?) held the higher social position, and presided over the household when guests were entertained. Mme. Jeanet was definitely the housekeeper, shopping and cleaning, and cooking and serving, whenever I was there: she wouldn’t sit at the table until all had been fed, and Turkish coffee was presented and drunk and fortunes read out from the thick dregs.
Bobbing in and out of the kitchen, she was part of the conversation at all times, though, as much as the language situation allowed. They spoke French with each other, and with some of their relatives and friends, Turkish with their neighbors and some of their relatives and friends, Greek with some others, and Russian with yet others. And Tiko spoke English with some of her Turkish friends, who had gone to the same American school at Arnavutköy (Albanian Village) on the Bosporus. Mme. Jeanet didn’t know English, and since most of their foreign guests used English, were in fact Americans, knowing varying amounts of Turkish and French, or none, it was tricky to involve Mme. Jeanet fully in the table talk, however much she was interested, and included, in principle.
Mme.’s education had been in French at the Notre Dame de Sion (girls lycee) near Taksim Square at the center of the European city. She was Greek, and Christian, but Roman Catholic rather than Orthodox—a minority within a minority in Istanbul. Her husband was Russian—Yemelyanenko, his surname—but he was considerably older, and had died before I came on the scene. I saw his gravestone in the Şişli Cemetery only after she, too, was buried there. They had no children.
He had been some kind of retainer in the household of Tiko’s father, Ali Ekrem, himself the son of Namık Kemal, the chief poet and writer of the Young Ottoman nationalist movement of the nineteenth century, intent on converting the imperial sultanate into a Western-style constitutional monarchy or republic—not accomplished until Atatürk led the way to the present Turkish Republic in 1923.
Ali Ekrem was himself a secretary of the Sultan, a professor at Istanbul University, and a Governor of Jerusalem (Palestine) and of the Greek Isles. He had four children and no doubt numerous servants, assistants, and hangers-on. Ottoman extended families, as in the American South or in Czarist Russia, often included unmarried or widowed relatives or family friends or students or governesses and nurses or individuals whose role was hard to define—better undefined. Mme. Jeanet had come as a bride into that patrician compound, and simply stayed on after her husband died.
Whether she was a little older than Tiko or not, she played a protective role towards her. And Tiko showed some noblesse-oblige attitude in her care for Jeanet. They had all lived together in a fine old konak and garden in the Süleymaniye (Solomon’s) district of historic Istanbul, near the great Sinan mosque of that sultan-emperor’s name, and beside the old Museum of Turkish and Islamic Decorative Arts, before it moved to the grounds of the Archeological Museum at Gülhane.
When Tiko’s mother and father and brother and oldest sister were all dead (the brother ended his own life young, it was said out of rejected love for his violin teacher; Selma abla had decamped to New York as a young woman), one person of the collective whom Tiko called ‘Teyze’ (Aunt) inherited Tiko and Jeanet (Tiko’s marriage to Ziya Bey not lasting) and moved the three of them to the flats in Şişli. Only when it was too late did she realize they were at the bottom of steep Sira Cevizler Sokak (Walnut Stand Street), a stiff climb to shops or to bus, dolmuş, and taxi.
By my day, this Teyze, too, had died, unfortunately without transferring deed to the flats to Tiko as she had wished to do and Tiko had unsensibly declined to allow. When Tiko died, Selma could not sell or possess them, either, as Selma had rashly renounced her Turkish citizenship when she left for America. (They went to a distant relative Selma had never even seen.) At Tiko’s death Selma was old and partly crippled, so I escorted her from New York to Istanbul for the post-death period and tried to help with all she had to do. Some years later, after Selma herself had died, I was surprised to learn from her lawyer that she had left me a more than token legacy.
Distributing Tiko’s possessions had proved a sad but interesting chore. The Şişli rooms were a cabinet of curiosities, filled with Ottoman furnishings and decorations from various Muslim lands, not grand or luxurious, but tasteful, unusual, and eloquent of a lost world—the way Freud’s consulting rooms in Vienna were stuffed with tokens of many cultures and religions (including Turkish carpets, one on the famous couch for patients)—a sanctuary-museum of sorts, in contrast with the bland bourgeois propriety of the family rooms his wife had charge of.
Another comparison comes to mind. The flats shared by Gertrude Stein and Alice B.Toklas in Paris were crammed to the ceiling with paintings and artfully old furniture and possessions. And Gertrude was definitely the hostess and initial attraction for guests—as was Tiko—with Alice doing the food, and often having to chat with the wives or less-so partners of the famous and talented, who were monopolized and beguiled by the self-proclaimed genius, Gertrude.
There the simile breaks down. Tiko was not the least pretentious, though she was imbued with both inherited and natural nobility. And Tiko and Mme. Jeanet were not, like the Americans in Paris, lovers—though they were equal in dignity and affection, fulfilling their different roles.
Mme. must have had some meager income of her own. She was not paid as housekeeper. Once a month or so she would disappear—‘gone to her family’ (a niece or two, with children, in Istanbul), and once in a great while she would board a coach to Athens to visit a sister. She had a great friend, a Russian, a nurse (had they met caring for the Teyze?), Madame Nadia, who had a son who was a State Theater Director in Lyon, France. They would go out together, and Nadia would come to the flats in Şişli.
Mme. Jeanet was godmother to all the neighbors, and to anyone who presented a need. She was short and rotund, her black hair plastered; she was wall-eyed, like Jean-Paul Sartre, and wore round-rim glasses. Her face and head were round, her dress, non-descript, respectable, not quite all-black as a traditional Greek or Italian widow’s. She could smile winningly, tease and be teased, but her characteristic attitude was solicitude for her Cici’s comfort and wellbeing, and anyone else’s in her ken.
At the end, it was her health that went, before Tiko’s. The roles were reversed. This grieved Mme. Jeanet, to be waited on and nursed by her revered lady. She entered a nursing home run by nuns in Mecidiyeköy, adjoining Şişli. Tiko visited every day, took her little treats, and took tea with the community. I went a few times, but felt it saddened Mme. Jeanet not to be able to serve the visitor. I was in New York when she died, going to the grave only later. She would have been pleased I was still trying to learn Turkish. She would approve my closeness with Tiko, and more and more with Selma, too, especially after Tiko died.
Tiko may have had some small pension, but she supported herself by giving private English lessons, She preferred to go to her students rather than have them at her home. With certain families she could make it also a social occasion. After the lessons they would all have a lavish tea together. The adults as well as the youngsters (most, not all, of her students were also getting some English at school) doted on her and were honored vicariously by her descent from a distinguished father and grandfather. I went a few times with her to Burgaz in the Princes Islands, where one after another in one large family, the Dayans, studied English with her, and gave us a day of swimming, friendly visiting, and refreshment.
Twice a week Tiko gave her services as a volunteer at a dernek (charitable organization) for poor village boys who boarded there in Istanbul and got their education. Perhaps she was one of a board of directors or committee of supporters. I went only once. She was adored and deferred to. Another society she frequented was a women’s university graduates group, who had luncheons with speakers, put on kermesses—charity sales—and such. This brought her American contacts too.
Any number of people considered Tiko their ‘aunt’ or blood relative, whether she was or not. And Tiko claimed the same from among her family’s associates and circle. One of these was Leyla Cebesoy, wife of General Ali Fuat Cebesoy, who had been Atatürk’s fellow student and best friend at the Istanbul Military Academy and later one of his co-creators of the Turkish victories and new republican state-founding. One of Istanbul’s communter ships is named for him.
Their daughter Ayşe was Director of the Turkish American University Association, that taught English to Turks, Turkish to foreigners, and presented lectures, art exhibits, and concerts. She organized (her middle name was Organizer) bus trips throughout Turkey—day trips, overnighters, or up to a week. We went—Tiko and Mme. Jeanet and I—to Ayvalık, Pamukkale, Kuşadası, Ephesus, Didyma, Side, Alanya, Antalya, Bursa, Şile on the Black Sea, and to choice spots all around Istanbul.
Another place Tiko alone took me to was Avşa, seven hours by boat from Istanbul, a small Marmara island with, then, no electricity, no hotel, no restaurant in its two tiny villages, one at the boat landing, another an hour’s walk to the other, windy side, Araplar (the Arabs). At Avşa village a few houses rented out a room and gave meals. One house had a battery-powered radio, that woke me one morning, in August 1974, turned up loud with the news that U.S. President Richard Nixon had resigned—inexplicably to many foreigners, who took illegal wire-tapping and obstruction of justice for granted in high political circles. Besides, Nixon’s foreign policies were widely approved.
Ayşe’s husband was Ruhi Sarıalp, Turkey’s first Olympic medal winner, and a professor of physical education at the Technical University. Leyla was actually English but lived most of her life in Constantinople/Istanbul. Ayşe took a doctorate in American literature and was a one-person alliance, strong as NATO, binding Turkey and the United States. Their daughter Nazlı-Defne studied in America. Nazlı and her grandmother Leyla were regulars on our trips under Ayşe’s flag.
One of Selma’s classmates was also a close friend of Tiko’s—and later of mine: Munise Başıkoğlu. Her father was Rıza Tevfik, a poet and philosopher, fluent in English, Arabic, and Persian, as well as Ottoman Turkish, who had the unfortunate fate of being one of the three signers for the Sultan of the disastrous Treaty of Sevres after the First World War, by which the Allies intended to distribute the Ottoman lands among themselves and Turkey’s neighbors, leaving Turkey only a small and landlocked state surrounding Ankara.
When Atatürk and his fellow-officers rallied a native army and defeated these victors and abolished the sultanate to make a republic, Rıza Tevfik was exiled to Arab parts, being reprieved only near the end of his life. Munise wrote his biography late in her own life for the Turkish Tarih (History) periodical. Turkey is more and more able to reevaluate and encompass its Ottoman heritage, as Russia, for instance, is now able to embrace its own Czarist imperial past, after expunging it for decades of nationalist priorities.
Munise’s brother Nazif was manager of the Istanbul Hilton Hotel and sometime of the Izmir and the Bosporus Tarabya Hiltons. His wife Zerrin Bölükbaşı is a professional sculptor. Both she and Munise also wrote poetry, which along with their love of laughter and companionship endeared them to me. Munise’s son Rıza Başıkoğlu added to the family gifts with his playing and teaching of the classical guitar. I met him by chance on my first visit to Istanbul at the Pierre Loti Cafe at Eyüp. His father Hamdi Bey lived long, as did his mother Munise, virtually centenarians, both. One day at their house in Moda Hamdi came in, disgusted with the music the ‘young fellows’ were playing down at his coffee house. ‘You mean teenagers?’ I asked , surprised that rock’n’rollers or such would hang out there. ‘Oh, they’re hardly much more than 70 or 80,’ Hamdi grumbled.
Tiko and Munise and a handful of their former school friends took turns entertaining at afternoon tea. Sometimes we would also go to picturesque places on the Bosporus or in the parks and historic sights of Istanbul. One such lady was Nasibe, whose brother Nuri Arlasez was an eccentric gentleman friend of Tiko and of other susceptible hanım efendi’s. He had no known profession or gainful occupation. He was tall and bald and gangly, with school-teacherish glasses. His voice was ‘ever soft and low’—like Cordelia’s. He had educated himself in philosophy and history of the sufi sort. He was perhaps himself a sufi; he was devout without being conventionally religious. His family were dönme, Jews who had converted to Islam under pressure in the wake of the messianic movement centered on Sabbatai Zevi. Like that of the Jewish-American and Catholic fellow-traveller, Mortimer Adler, of the University of Chicago’s Great Books Program, Nuri Bey’s favorite thinker was Thomas Aquinas. He would send me long quotations from the Angelic Doctor for my edification. (Americans were ipso facto suspect of decadence and degeneracy.)
Nuri had guided the English world historian and pundit Arnold Toynbee (1889-1975) on his Turkish travels. Later Nuri became a proficient photographer, to try to record and document as many of the mosques and other historic buildings that were gradually being lost in Turkey—somewhat the way the scientist Roman Vishniac tried to preserve through pictures the life of the shtetls of Polish Jewry before the Nazi’s snuffed them out.
Nuri also gathered antique Korans, calligraphies, and other Ottoman handcrafts. (He left this considerable trove and the photographs and negatives to the Topkapı Museum.) He could discourse on these relics of a vanished or vanishing world—in return for a hearty meal or some expensive book he asked you to bring—as a gift--from London or New York. He offered his courtly manners and learning to the tea and dinner tables of Tiko and her set. Sometimes he presented his own handmade ebru, usually with a flower design worked into the swirls and swerves of the marbleized paper. This art had almost died out in Turkey after having been an Ottoman staple (did Florence and Venice learn it from the Turks?). I found only one practicioner, at Üsküdar, in the early 70’s. Now it has been revived by young artists and is available again. Few if any, though, add inscriptions from the mystical writings, as Nuri did (at least to me).
Tiko’s network of friends and associates included Jews (local and foreign), Christians (Armenians, Greeks, and others), Muslims (strict and nominal), secularists, seekers—and fire-worshipers and snake-handlers, had they crossed her tireless ways. Foreigners were her hobby, and, simply, part of her Ottoman cosmopolitanism. Nuri despised the vulgar Republic of Atatürk and all of modern life, except perhaps the photographic camera. He sermonized like Savonarola. Once you played at his wheel a few times, you saw that it was fixed.
Tiko made the transition without complaint, from Ottoman graciousness, aristocracy, and autocracy to modernity, though she had descended from privileged daughter of a rich and richly refined civilization to an impoverished teacher in a demotic and truncated culture, whose newspapers she could hardly read (or wish to) in purportedly her own language. But she persevered, loving to introduce newcomers to what she knew of her departed and present worlds, helping to bridge as she could the generations and gaps between them and between divided and divisive groups.
İf you saw Tiko and Mme. Jeanet on the streets of Istanbul, inconspiculously dressed, waiting for a dolmuş or carrying provisions on their hill, you would not think, ‘These two women, one tall and thin and short-haired, the other, not—are wealthy beyond measure, in generosity and kindness, in knowledge and experience of multitudes of intersecting cultures, and in courage that does not even know itself or call itself courage’.

--Frank White, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, The City
University of New York: fwhitetr@yahoo.com