PROFILE
Madam Anahit is a survivor
;
whose accordion
playing and joie de vivre are lively reminders of
what life was like in one o f Istanbul's most
colourful districts. She talks to AM ELIA
F R E N C H about old times and new
OF BEYOĞLU
P
USHING MY WAY PAST GYPSY CHILDREN PLAYING IN A SMALL street decked out with washing in the Beyoğlu district of Istanbul, creeping nervously up a dark staircase, I find myself in a small flat, crammed with curios and oddments of the kitschest kind. In their midst is a huddle of people, locked in impassioned argument about a recent spate of animal killings, part of a campaign by the Istanbul municipality to reduce the population of stray dogs and cats in the city. Holding court is Anahit Terziyan, better known as Madam Anahit, the accordionist in Istanbul’s famous Çiçek Pasajı, or Flower Passage.Both Madam Anahit and the Pasaj belong to the traditional trappings of Beyoğlu, once the lively cosmopolitan centre of the old city, now run-down and seedy in p arts. Madam Anahit is part of the fast disappearing culture and life peculiar to Beyoğlu, or Pera, as it was called in the days when it was Istanbul’s sm artest area, dotted with embassies, and played host to Greeks, Armenians, Jews, Levantines and diplomats.
The fine houses on istiklâl Caddesi, formerly known as the Grande Rue de Pera, are a fascinating blend of architectural styles, witnesses to a more glorious age. Like Madam Anahit, aged 63, they have seen happier days.
Madam Anahit’s portly figure has appeared in the Pasaj for the past 30 years, since she left her husband (“he was difficult and jealous”) and had to make ends meet. Her tragi-comic face can open into a wide smile or furl into a frown of anger at a moment’s notice. As hostess, she is in her element and the smile is correspondingly wide.
PROFILE
Her renderings of “Che sera sera’’and “La Vie en Rose” are an integral part of an evening spent in the Pasaj. Her repertoire includes Turkish songs, but she professes a marked preference for European music — however, she will only play if it is made worth her while financially. People who do not oblige with a donation receive a look of haughty disdain and Madam shuffles on to the next table.
In her own home, Madam Anahit is generosity itself. There seems to be a constant flow of guests, mostly waifs and strays; and both people and animals are met with the same bossy hospitality.
Born in 1926 into an Armenian family, Madam Anahit sees herself as an old İstanbullu. She has spent her life in and around Beyoğlu and belongs to a vanishing breed of ethnic minorities, principally Greeks, Jews and Armenians. Her father was the wealthy owner of a pharmaceuticals depot and she was educated at the Armenian Girl’s School, Esayan, which still exists near Taksim today. When she was a girl her father left, with his money, for France. Anahit was given the option to go with him, but declined. Mothers, she says, are irreplaceable.
Her father married a French woman and had two children, Alain and Josea. Alain, Madam Anahit says with a twinkle in her eye, is none other than the French actor, Alain Delon. “We are brother and sister, but he doesn’t know that,” she says. “My life’s like a novel.”
The accordion entered her life on Heybeliada, one of the Princes Islands near Istanbul, where she spent a lot of time as a young girl. “One day I was in a hotel there when I saw a young man playing the accordion. I fell for it at once.”
Shortly after, her mother caught scarlet fever and a sign was placed on their front door warning of the illness. Anahit had to wait until her mother recovered three months later before a second-hand accordion was finally bought from a shop called Papa George, off Taksim Square. “As soon as we bought it, I went straight to the church of St. Antoine and said a prayer to the Virgin M ary,” says Madam Anahit, a devout Catholic.
Lessons were arranged at great cost with a French concert pianist, Artaud Benot, who was in Istanbul at the time. Since then, she has never looked back, playing initially for pleasure and then at weddings and other social functions to earn money.
With ju st a hint of satisfaction,
Madam Anahit says a good day has never
come her way
The latest chapters in Madam Anahit’s “novel” have been among the most difficult. Her troubles started in September 1987, when she was ousted from the five-room flat she had inherited from her mother. The former Motherland Party mayor of Istanbul, Bedrettin Dalan, had decided to build a dual carriageway through the old district of Tarlabaşı, where Madam Anahit lived with her younger son. They were given a week’s notice and two million Turkish lira in compensation.
One morning a band of workers arrived to demolish the building. They had no official papers and refused to wait for them to clear out. “The house came down around my ears. I lost a lot of valuable, antique ornaments. Our old flat was large and nice, now look at what we’re left with.”
114 TURQUOISE
Her flat is covered with ornaments, stuffed toys, plastic flowers, pictures and coloured-in photographs of Madam Anahit posing with Turkish filmstars in the Pasaj. But they cannot conceal the crumbling, cramped state of her temporary home. On the brighter side, she sued the municipality for compensation and can now buy a new home in the same area.
“I was born and brought up here and it’s close to my work,” she says, although she admits that Beyoğlu is barely recognisable from the old days. There has been a complete change in the area’s population. Most of the old inhabitants have left and have been replaced by gypsies and poor villagers from eastern Turkey. “There used to be a lot of G reeks,” she says. “I like the Greeks. They were fun-loving people and there used to be a lot of tavernas in Beyoğlu.”
Not long after she was forced out of her old home, the mayor of Beyoğlu decided the Çiçek Pasajı should have a facelift. After three months of renovations, the Pasaj was reopened in the summer of 1988. Gone were the makeshift formica table-tops balanced on beer barrels, the impish chewing-gum sellers, street pedlars and entertainers.
“People who can
7
treat animals properly
can
7
treat people p roperly.
The new look was clean and orderly. Uniformed waiters stood outside restaurants, with nothing to distinguish them from each other but their different arrangem ents of foreign flags. Even the musicians were ousted — and that included Madam Anahit. “I told them I’d lost my home and now they were threatening to take away my work. I said I didn’t do anyone any harm. I don’t drink, steal or do anything bad.”
In the end, most restaurant owners decided she could stay provided she kept a low profile and didn’t play where she wasn’t wanted. “Recently, one of the owners tried to chase me away, but the customers said, she’s the rose of the place Madam.” What hurts most are the young waiters, some barely in their teens, who chase her away. She complains that they have no idea of art and culture and, above all, have no respect for their elders. She also gets very angry with people who stop her feeding the cats in the Pasaj. “These wild people don’t allow the poor animals to have anything,” she says. “People who can’t treat animals properly can’t treat people properly.”
The animal lover is the other side of Madam Anahit. She is the vice-president of the Animal-Lovers Economic and Agricultural Party. There are 30 members and the aim is to stop the poisoning and shooting of dogs and cats, both in Istanbul and in other cities, and to set up an “animal village” for the strays.
With just a hint of satisfaction, Madam Anahit says a good day has never come her way. Her life so far has reflected the fortunes of one of Istanbul’s most colourful districts. But the restaurant owners of the Pasaj have failed to budge her so she continues to scrape a little more than a living. And she has the spirit and determination to keep fighting for her own survival and that of the animals she loves. □
Amelia French is a contributing editor on Dateline newspaper in Istanbul.
Kişisel Arşivlerde Istanbul Belleği Taha Toros Arşivi
