One of the delights of the Asian side of İstanbul are the marvelous old "köşkler" -- the old summer mansions of the rich from the days when İstanbul just meant the European side, and the Asian side was reached by ferry and was a place for holidaying, picnicking or just generally getting away from the hustle and bustle. Some of these are dilapidated, and boarded up; silent witnesses to the changing city. Others, set in delightful gardens, have been restored to their former glory as magnificent homes for wealthy families, restaurants for the İstanbul elite or head offices for companies for whom tradition is style. Just occasionally there is an uncomfortable juxtaposition of the old and the new as a traditional Ottoman summer mansion is lit up with a multinational's neon sign. I am half expecting to see a Starbucks in a köşk any day soon.The names of many of the suburbs of İstanbul in Asia are also reminders of its past as a rural retreat. Amongst these are Bostancı, the market gardener; Fenerbahçe, lighthouse garden; Çiftehavuzlur, two pools; and Acıbadem, bitter almond.
The narrator of Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar's "The Köşk in Acıbadem" reminisces fondly of his childhood in an age long gone: İstanbul in the first decade of the 20th century. This was a period when horse-drawn vehicles were being replaced by the very first motor cars, streets and houses became lit up with gas lamps, plumbing came indoors, and ladies' hem lines rose daringly to just a little above the ankle.
"The Köşk in Acıbadem" is an episode that is part of the Epsilon series of vignettes of Turkish literature, a series of short stories that showcase the range and vitality of Turkish literature. Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar lived between 1901 and 1962. He was a literary historian and professor of literature at İstanbul University. But his career was not only that of an academic commentator ("those who can, do; those who can't, teach"), he was also a successful poet, a popular short story writer, novelist and essayist.
The Köşk was built and lived in by the narrator's uncle, Sami Bey. Sami Bey was a retired naval captain, but there is some doubt as to whether this was as a regular or as a marine engineer, because Sami Bey is the classic absent-minded professor. He is somewhat like the inventors Caractacus Potts and his madcap father in "Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang." The köşk is built to his eclectic design, as is its continually overheating and unpredictable indoor bathroom. "In a district of İstanbul famed for its idyllic scenery, these kindly people had set up, in accord with their truly remarkable personalities, the strangest, the most comical, and especially for a child, the most entertaining household in İstanbul."
The house was a maze of doors and locks. It had free and prohibited zones. The uncle who was afraid of burglars had designed a house so that the normal passage from one floor to another did not flow logically. Instead, "entering the house the main door you would ascend the stairs to the top floor by following straight on, to the second floor by taking the stair to the right, whereas the stair to the left would take you to the basement." The first house in its neighborhood to have a fire escape, the windows leading to this were always left ajar whilst others were locked tight. Many of the keys did not fit the locks, and to surprise the unsuspecting there were false doors painted on walls, and real doors were disguised as bookshelves and cupboards.
Such a house is a delight to a young boy learning to explore his world. He soon grows into a young man who sees this house as a metaphysical allegory of life. Paths are convoluted and the explorer may go down many a blind alley, pass by many a concealed door which would have led to happiness, and enter many a circuit that leads him round in circles.
Uncle Sami was also a kleptomaniac. "Being a former naval engineering captain, my uncle loved machines and inventions of every kind and would pick up every single piece of machine part, useful or useless, he found in the street, peddlers' stalls, the workshops at Haydarpaşa train station, at auction sales, the docks, scrap iron shops and bring it here."
His workshop became a veritable Aladdin's cave from which all manner of amazing contraptions could be constructed.
The most amazing of these devices was the water boiler. As with all amateur do-it-yourselfers the pleasure was in the design and construction stages, and then the permanent tinkering to improve on performance phase. It would have been simpler, cheaper and less painful for the other family members if they had just called in an expert to install a commercially available bathroom unit. But, no, to the inventor this would defeat the very purpose of achieving something for oneself. A considerable prize when compared with the slight inconvenience of alternating between disasters such as scalded skin or exploding boilers.
No ordinary bathroom, this one was possessed of a Heath-Robinson-like contraption that would soap you, scrub you and then rinse you down all at the twiddling of a few taps. "What perfection. What a marvel it was! And how astonished we were when the first time we set foot in it!" If only it had worked reliably: One day uncle's body was carried out of his precious bathroom, half-dead.
But according to uncle, every force of human intelligence known to man had but three aims: invention, improvement and modification. I guess if your inventive designs are faulty then you need to perform improvements and modifications, but maybe that is a cynical 21st century way of looking at things.
For Uncle Sami at the start of the 20th century, his was the great age of invention. "Just as invention was possible through modification and improvement, modification through improvement, and improvement through modification were also possible and advisable." These three thus formed a triangle of interlinked principles.
Uncle Sami's family finance his endeavors, rejoice in his successes, suffer from his failures and, above all, diplomatically endure his inability to see any shortcomings in his talent.
If I were to tell you the tale of how he modified the horse-and-cart to make a bicycle and then improved the bicycle to result in a horse-and-cart it would spoil this cameo from Turkish literature for you! Best to read it yourself, and draw your own parallels with the way modern "improvements" often lead mankind backwards.
"The Köşk in Acıbadem," by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, Published by Epsilon, Paperback. YTL 3. ISBN 978-975331532-6
