At the close of the business day, when I climb the hill leading to our house, I am generally tired and mentally exhausted and the prospect of a quiet evening at home is certainly a relief.
VIII
A STAMBOUL NIGHT
I GENERALLY leave my office at about five-thirty or six o'clock. On my way home I meet the crowd going to the bridge, the commuters who have to catch their boat as well as business people and government employees who live in Nishantashe or Shishli, on the other side of the Golden Horn. It is the rush hour of Constantinople. Every one is going home. The small stores on the avenue, mostly stationery stores and bookstores, are pulling down corrugated iron shutters over their doors. Every few minutes a grinding metallic noise indicates that another storekeeper is starting home. I buy my daily provision of cigarettes from the Persian tobacconist around the corner. I know he is a Persian, although he wears the Turkish fez, from his hennaed beard trimmed in a semi-circle and from the long frock coat he wears. Little Turkish newsboys shout the headings of the last sensational news in the evening papers. I always buy one and if I do not have the proper change the newsboy digs into his fez. They carry their change on their heads and the much worn squares of paper money are the more greasy for it. I cross the street-car tracks congested with cars wherein human cattle is packed as tightly as in a New York subway. People are streaming down the hill in groups of three or four, clerks from the Sublime Porte looking prosperous and smart despite the fact that their salary which is anyhow barely enough to support them, is paid to them every two or three months. They go hungry and live in the cheapest possible quarters but try to look well, these poor Turkish Government employees, in an endeavour to save appearances and to keep up their dignity in the eyes of the foreigners. They walk leisurely and stop to greet each other. They talk politics. I know quite a few of them and every once in a while we exchange “temenahs,” the graceful Turkish salutation. Quite a few go up the hill; Turkish business men and working girls living in Stamboul like myself.
It is twilight. Overhead little puffs of pink cloud reflect the last rays of the setting sun, while one by one lights are turned on in the windows of surrounding buildings, indicating the homecoming of some toiler. The crowd in the street is thinning. I reach our house as the automobiles of the Ministers, who now meet in daily council at the Sublime Porte, pass through the gates of the Government Palace. They work late, they are the last ones to leave.
My wife is waiting for me. Unless we have previously arranged to meet somewhere else, she is always at home to greet me at my return. It is not proper for ladies to be alone in the streets of Constantinople after sunset, and we both like to start the evening together. We tell each other what we have done in the afternoon, we read the evening papers and then we sit down to dinner. We have our evening meal early: everybody dines early in Stamboul. When we are alone we have dinner served in the drawing-room, on an old Italian carved wood table. It is less formal and cosier. When dinner is finished the servants clear the table. My wife sits on the couch with her sewing, I sit next to her in an easy chair. We talk. It is peaceful and quiet. We feel our nerves gradually relaxing from the strain of the day.
It is now evening. The dusk has fallen over Stamboul. Above, the purple sky is getting darker and one by one the stars are lighting in the firmament. Only one of our big windows is opened as it is quite cool outside. From behind the lattices we see the breeze gently swaying the branches of the plane trees bordering our street. Through the cleft of a dark, narrow street which winds its way to the nearby sea we can see the lights of some ships lying in the harbour. Just opposite us the rambling building of the Sublime Porte is silent and dark, the Government Departments are all closed. In the street below only a few belated passers-by are hurrying home. At a distance the Mosque of Santa Sophia raises its minarets high against the starlit vault of Heaven, as in prayer, and the park of the Old Seraglio projects the black silhouettes of its trees: oaks and cypresses which have witnessed the splendours of the reign of Soliman the Magnificent. In the branches of a nearby plane tree a flock of doves flutter and settle for the coming night.
A calm oriental night is falling over the city. The darkness deepens and the quiet increases. I look out from the window. In the streets, a water seller is walking slowly, I can see dimly a graceful brass vessel swinging from his shoulders. He stops before the house, and in a plaintive velvety voice chants the merits of his cool water “as sweet as frozen sherbet”—then goes on his way and disappears in the blue night. At a distance we hear the watchman coming, knocking his club on the pavement to mark the hour “toc—toc—toc—toe ...” He is coming nearer, his beat takes him through our street. Now he stops: the street is so quiet that we can hear him greeting someone: “Selam' u aleykum—peace be with you...” The newcomer tells him something.
Then, in the silence, the man who watches after night over the safety of all raises his voice in a long-drawn note of warning: “Y'a'a'an gun vaaar!” He has been notified that there is a fire and he notifies all of the danger. Most of us live in frame houses here in Stamboul and a fire is dangerous. Time and again thousands of houses have disappeared in a single night, thousands of people have remained homeless. If the fire is near we must all gather our belongings. My wife is anxious. She comes to the window: let us find out where the fire is, the watchman will tell us. He is now quite near, he beats his club almost on our doorstep. “Y'a'a'an gun Vaaar—Mahmoud Pash-ada." It is not so bad, Mahmoud Pasha is the name of a quarter, a wholesale business district where no one lives—so the losers will be the insurance companies who charge such high premiums that they can afford to lose. It is quite far from us although from the windows at the back of our house we can see a red glow behind the mosque of Yeni Djami: it makes its cupola shine and its minarets throw fantastic shadows over the neighbouring buildings. But the conflagration is small and the wind is not strong to-night, so it will be soon under control. Let us return to the sitting-room.