Portrait of a Turkish Family Read Online Free Page A

chair so that I could watch what she was doing. But the hot smell of food overcame me and in any case I was far too excited to sit still for very long, so I demanded to be lifted from the high chair and went in search of my grandmother. I discovered her in her bedroom and as she was in a gracious mood she permitted me to enter just inside the door to watch what Feride was doing. I could not help laughing when I saw her because she looked so funny. She was sitting in a straight-backed chair in front of a long mirror, Feride beside her placing layer after layer of clean white paper over the revolting brown mess of henna which covered her hair. A silver cup with the remains of the brown mess adhering to its sides stood on a low plaited stool beside them and next to it was a Moorish table piled with snowy towels and a tray of small gold hairpins.
    Because my grandmother had henna on her hair she was unable to go to the salon or the dining-room, so she stayed in her room and ate lokum (Turkish Delight) out of a large dish on her lap and drank rose sherbet. She then languidly refused the tray of luncheon brought to her by İnci, saying she was not hungry and that she needed very little to keep her going. I begged to be allowed to eat the tray of refused food and permission was indulgently granted but my mother was furious when she heard of it and sent İnci to fetch me to the dining-room. I regretted having to leave the close, scented atmosphere of my grandmother’s room and bit İnci’s finger on the way downstairs in revenge.
    After luncheon was over Feride reprepared all the bathrobes and lingerie İnci had so carefully packed during the morning. Feride put little bags of lavender between each fold, annoyed because İnci had forgotten to do this. The smell of lavender always lingered in our house for all the drawers and cupboards were full of it, tied into little muslin bags and placed between the linen.
    Every year the wild, gaunt-looking gypsies used to gather it in the hills then come down to the city to sell laden baskets full of its sweet perfume. Lavender grew in a corner of the garden too but we always bought from the gypsies. I remember a merry-eyed gypsy girl who used to come to the house when I was small. She would stand in the street singing her lavender song and then she would be brought into the house by Feride, who would bargain astutely for the lavender. Hacer would make Turkish coffee for her to drink and I would steal into the kitchen to look at the dark, alien face of the gypsy girl as she sat on the table and swung her long, bare legs. Sometimes my grandmother would order Hacer to give the gypsy a good meal and afterwards she would be called to the salon to read the future for my mother and grandmother, who both had a childlike belief in such things. She would be given a cushion and would sit on this, just inside the door, fearful to advance too far into the elegant room, careful not to put her bare, dirt-grimed feet on the carpets. Having read the amazing things revealed in her shining crystal ball and thoroughly fevered my imagination, she would take out a handful of dried broad beans from a bag attached to the wide belt she wore, extricate a handkerchief remarkable for its cleanliness and some blue glass beads and begin the fortune-telling all over again. When this was finished my grandmother would toss her a gold coin which she would catch dexterously.
    She had long slim fingers, I remember, the filbert-shaped nails always tinted with henna, and a brown little face with a wide mouth that always seemed to be laughing. She wore strange, exotic garments of every hue and her shining black hair had twisted through it many vividly hued glass beads. She would tell us about her life in the tents and of her husband, who made baskets to sell to the peasants or sometimes to the rich house of İstanbul. She gave one the impression that she was sharp as a monkey and oddly alluring, and I used to imagine a fine,