Tag: Turkey

The Past Tense Of Youth: The Slave Market

On By Renee Lou Dallow ( Bourgeoise Bloomers )In Now and then, stories of mystery and romance

Constantinople marketsThe name Rana meant reborn. So that was it.  The woman in the painting had returned to her past and taken me with her.  But why?  Maybe the answer would be here in her diary.  I read on.  As I read about her capture and sale at the open markets I had a sort of deja vu as if it  were me standing there in the bright sunlight waiting to be chosen.Rana was of Roma descent and her family had moved to Georgia  in the Caucasus  near Mount  Elbrus where they entertained the villagers withthe traditional music and dance that had been the gypsy’s stock and trade since time began.Rana had been sold  into slavery by her  parents who wanted their beautiful daughter to have all the finer things that life could offer and also make a tidy profit themselves .This despite the fact that she was to be married to a young circassian soldier already chosen for her and with whom she was very much in love.

And so it was that she found herself at the markets that fateful day with five others also on display.  As she and three others chosen by the sultan’s eunuchs waited under guard during financial dealings I had a memory of  Rana gazing towards the ocean mesmerised by a pair of light blue eyes gazing back at her.  She wrote “His hair was dark and his smile dazzling”.  She had wanted to break away at that very moment and run into his arms as he mounted his white horse and came toward her.   He had found her.  She had known that he would come.    Would he dare to free her?   For a moment it seemed possible as he came closer  and closer still.   But one of the black Eunuchs turned to face him and with one arm outstretched to grab the horses reins and the other preventing Rana from taking one more step in his direction.  The moment was broken. It was all so clear in my mind.  This was more than words on a page. It was all as real to me as  the room I had just entered and felt so much attachment to.

I had also been chosen on that day.  The eyes that had stared down upon her from that great white horse were Gurel’s eyes. I would know those eyes anywhere.  The eyes he looked into had once been mine. Not hers.  But if this were so how could he have been her lover and how could she have described him so exactly?    How would this impact on me, on my marriage, on the world I inhabited ?

The world I wanted to return to nearly thirty years into the future.  If only I hadn’t stayed behind.  If only I hadn’t climbed that staircase. If only I had never entered this room.  If only I was not the only blonde  English girl in the harem. If only ….

 

 © Renee Dallow ( Hybiscus Bloom ) 20/8/2014

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The Past Tense Of Youth: By moonlight

On By Renee Lou Dallow ( Bourgeoise Bloomers )In Now and then, stories of mystery and romance

Rana sees beyondAn irresistable force was pulling me back, back into the room , from which the woman had fled just moments before.  I glanced back at the painting.  The woman had been replaced with someone new.  I couldn’t quite make out the face but the more I stared the clearer it became.  The face was mine. What did this mean?  Some kind of reference to ‘The portrait of Dorian Grey’?  But I had done nothing wrong. Had I unwittingly destroyed  a life by merely entering a room?  I tried to open the door and stood there just long enough to catch a  glimpse of the graceful figure at the end of the stairwell flowing into the courtyard below.The door closed suddenly and  I fell back onto the bed.

Hard as I tried I could not move.  Strange that  after very little effort, I no longer felt inclined to do so.  I felt my eyelids growing heavy and drifted off into the land of my subconcious.  My mind travelled back to the night I first met Gurel.  A fancy dress party at The Hydro Majestic in The Blue Mountains about two hours out of Sydney Australia.   We had first laid eyes  on each other whilst dining on the  grand terrace overlooking the valley .  I was on holiday with my family and he was dining with some very distinguished looking gentlemen. I later found out that he was a university student who had just won an academic prize for excellence in his field of study.  He had come with a group of his peers.His dream was to be a great architect not only of buildings but of change in his own country.  He had dark hair, a dazzling smile and sparkling blue eyes which were very unusual for a Turk.  I was smitten.We danced on that terrace in the moonlight and meandered down into the valley with the stars paving the way.

 By morning that nothing anyone could say or do would ever make us part.Together we would change the world somehow. Of that I was sure.  

© Renee Dallow ( Hybiscus Bloom ) 8/8/2013 

The Past Tense Of Youth: The Staircase

On By Renee Lou Dallow ( Bourgeoise Bloomers )In Now and then, stories of mystery and romance

Staircase Past TenseIt floated down the long staircase like a feather  from the wings of an angel. All the way down to the banister three stories below where I was now standing. I had complained of  feeling ill and  had made my excuses. I had hung back from the rest of the tour group fully intending to climb the forbidden staircase. I had watched the veil fall and now held it’s creamy silken contours in my i hands as I slowly started my ascent.

I could hear the voices of the others in the distance becoming more and more muffled as my heart began to pound louder and louder. Then suddenly I heard a new voice. Someone was singing … a woman … in a strange  language. It wasn’t English and definitely not Turkish.

It was so lovely … so …. mournful.  I followed  the song to the very top of the staircase and then it stopped. I found myself  in a long corridor with doors on either side which I surmised were the quarters of the concubines.  I tried each one in turn but all were locked . I was halfway down the hall when I again heard singing. It was coming from the door at the end on the left. I turned the iron door handle and found myself in a room beautifully furnished with it’s original decor untouched almost as if it were still occupied.

I sat myself down on the four poster bed and peered through the canopy at the painting on the wall. The painting was of a woman all in white wearing the same veil that I still held in my hands. There was no face but I had the sense of a strong presence in the room with me. The song continued and and drew me further into the painting.

Now I could see a face. The most delicate face I had ever seen. The emerald eyes seemed to be staring straight at me. The long raven hair danced about her shoulders and her lips moved as if to speak.  I moved toward the painting and as I touched it everything changed. The room grew smaller, the light faded and I felt the brush of a gentle hand on my shoulder as the woman stepped out of the painting and into my world.  She moved past me toward the door , opened it and was gone. I tried to follow but …

© Renee Dallow ( Hybiscus Bloom ) 23/7/2013 

 

The Past Tense Of Youth: Reaching Topkapi

On By Renee Lou Dallow ( Bourgeoise Bloomers )In Now and then, Romantic interludes

 

ballroom dancersIt was  July in the year 1936  and I was on my honeymoon. The world had recovered from the great war and I, ever the one to be different , had fallen in love with a young Turk. His name was Gurel and the meaning of that name would become more significant than life itself.  We had met In Australia of all places in a beautiful mountainous region which I shall speak more of as my story progresses. We were spending some time with his family in Istanbul in a small apartment near the bustling suburb of Gostepe. This had been quite an adjustment for me and I had at times felt very lonely.  So I did what I had always done.  I read everything I could lay my hands on.

 Gurel would buy novels for me from an English book stall near the market place and found it difficult to keep up with my never ending requests for new books.  Most were historical romances set in far off places like  India or Tibet.  Lust, intrigue and unrequited love filled my every day moments with splendour. When Gurel arrived home in the late afternoons he found me full of life and ready to share  the intricacies of my new found expediencies with him.

My parents arrived from Cumberland two months later and I was terribly excited to see them.  An itinerary was  arranged by Gurel’s family and I ,along with my parents , was finally going to experience all the famous sites of the city.  There was only one site I was interested in.  Topkapi Palace home of the Ottoman Empire.

The palace of the sultans, of gleaming domed rooftops,of a secret harem hidden from the world of men. Although aware that the time of sultan rule was long since past and that the harem was no more didn’t faze me one bit and my imagination ran wild. I remember that first glimpse of the palace from the deck of the ferry gliding through the smooth waters of the Bosphoros

 

Magnificent! A maze of tiled roofs with towers and turrets reaching to the heavens surrounded by flowering gardens and cedar trees.The palace was now a museum and had become so in 1924 after having been left to retired servants following the demise of the Ottoman Empire.The governing powers had saved it from decay and turned it into a mecca for tourists. When we arrived at the gate of the first courtyard inside the palace grounds we joined a long queue of said tourists and waited for what seemed like an eternity for our guide.

A strange little man with an all knowing, all powerful, all encompassing sense of … something … appeared and we began the tour.  In that very moment as I gazed beyond the crowds and into the corridors ahead I had a feeling of a life lived within these walls that I had somehow been a part of. I felt myself drifting as if in a daze but then became aware of the touch of my husband’s hand on mine and attuned myself to the hypnotic voice of the strange little man leading us through ….

© Renee Dallow ( Hybiscus Bloom ) 9/7/2013