Maggie Gee - Virginia Woolf in Manhattan

ANGELA

This was the place of women. So we should have had a female guide. I did say that to Virginia, but she pointed out that there weren’t any. Was she, really, a feminist?

VIRGINIA

His eyes glinted behind his round gold glasses; his teeth flashed; he was enjoying himself. I had thought the Harem was the realm of the erotic, I was looking forward to hearing about that, I thought Max would tell the story well — but he talked about history and politics. And so I had to imagine the rest from a few wide beds and elaborate bathrooms, white marble enclaves with anterooms. Yes, I glimpsed pairs and trios of women, semi-naked, langorous …

ANGELA

Muhsin’s narrative was all about power. The women were chosen from the slave markets, to avoid dynastic quarrels with Turkish families — Circassians, Russians, Ukrainians, Greeks — teenagers, separated from their parents, pretty children trained by the black eunuchs; then the ‘best’ were picked by the sultan’s mother, and the first to give birth became the sultan’s wife. As soon as they were women, the power games began. Everything was focused on the future of their sons. Some would inherit, others would die.

VIRGINIA

Their living quarters were ornate but sad. Elaborate landscapes to replace the real world. The gaolers must have understood what they craved, for the paintings on the walls and the golden furniture were of wild flowers, fruit trees, boats on the ocean, wide sunlit landscapes they would never walk in. Maybe it just sharpened their hunger. The stone was worn away by their slippered feet. Those window-panes; women must have pressed against them, eyes yearning up to find the sky, soft flesh rubbing the sills away. Lives which left no other imprint. And every summer too hot, I thought, but they could never stroll on a hill in the breeze, and week followed week, and every morning the pattern of the sun on the wall would be the same, every morning until they were old.

Were they watching us and whispering, the ghosts of mistresses left behind?

Would they be glad, or envious, to see us — two free modern women, with a man we were paying to serve our needs?

‘The only men allowed were the Sultan or the black eunuch. They had absolute dominion over the women’s lives …’

Max was surely enjoying this a little too much.

ANGELA

Out of the blue, Virginia interrupted. ‘Maybe the women were fucking each other.’

Fortunately Muhsin appeared not to hear. ‘Virginia!’ I protested, shocked, though part of me just wanted to laugh.

‘ You say “fucking”,’ she said, ‘I’ve heard you. I thought it was normal?’

‘I haven’t said anything like that .’

‘But you do say “fucking”.’

‘Well … only when I don’t mean it.’

Muhsin, meanwhile, had ended his tour. Virginia gave him an excessively large tip.

I got lumbered with taking their photograph together. It was Muhsin who suggested it, when he realised he had read one of her books. Fortunately he was vague about dates when it came to modern literature! ‘ Mrs — I’ve forgotten,’ he said, enthusiastically. ‘We read it at Istanbul University. Wonderful story about a party. Did you really write it? I would like very much a picture with you.’

Virginia was preening herself — I think that is an objective description ‘ Mrs Dalloway, ’ I interrupted. I wanted to cut short the love-fest. ‘She doesn’t like photographs,’ I added, but she didn’t back me up; just smiled at him, so I felt foolish.

‘Yes, Mrs Dalloway , exactly. Very famous book! Very famous author. Take my camera,’ he said to me, peremptorily.

‘I write novels too,’ I said. ‘I’ve written eight. I am translated into Turkish. We could ask one of these Chinese people to take all three of us. They’ve been taking photos non-stop, they are experts.’ But neither Virginia nor Muhsin was listening, they had gone to find a spot where they would look photogenic. Virginia, true, pretended reluctance, and jammed her boater down over her eyes, wailing ‘For heaven’s sake get a move on’, but when Muhsin begged her, she took the hat off, because he wanted her to ‘look like the photo he remembered’.

I must be more short-sighted than I was, because I took several pictures, posing them so light would fall on Virginia’s hair — lit from behind she looked particularly young, next to Muhsin’s white head hers was golden brown — I swear I did my best for them, but when Muhsin checked the pictures, he said ‘Where’s Virginia?’ I looked, but all I could see was him, the passage behind and a patch of darkness, and Virginia refused point blank to pose again.

VIRGINIA

She deliberately left me out of Max’s photo. As I said, she was in love with him. True, I found him charming, and wanted to please him … So I may have bent my rules a little, and this was her way of taking revenge. I suppose we were fighting over a man! It made me feel — amused, and young. I liked the new me. This was an adventure.

ANGELA

We said goodbye to him. He said it was an honour. I think that included both of us.

VIRGINIA

The tall trees en route for Aya Sophia reminded me of somewhere else — their gentle leaning, their high graceful arcs, the complex patchwork of colour on their bark, grey-green and eau-de-nil, in the sunlight — recalling something intensely hopeful — yes, it was the trees when I emerged from hell, the delicate pale giraffes of trees by the New York Public Library where my new life began. And there were crows: chattering ungainly, hopping and scattering over the grass, cawing at me. ‘ Kaar, Virginia .’

(Were countries real? Were cities real? The birds, the plane trees spread all over the world?)

The leaves moved above us and above the tired tulips. Deep purple pansies blew in beds, an intense depth of colour with a dust of white weeds. Two yellow dogs slept on the green. Summer was coming — would I still be here?

‘Time for the Aya Sophia,’ said Angela.

But I couldn’t stop thinking about the Harem.

Somewhere in the warm colonnades of Topkapi, on the side of the palace that looked over the sea, did the souls of the imprisoned women become birds, swooping in and out over the blue water? Had their suffering earned them a thousand years of freedom, like the children of air in Hans Andersen’s ‘Little Mermaid’, set free from the green and gold book in my library?

(Could I escape too, from my old story? Could I ever recover my own desires? My own desires, which were stolen from me.)

ANGELA

‘Was anyone allowed to say “No” to the Sultan?’

(I thought, it would be nice to be a Sultan. Whereas I had to be unselfish. Mostly. Was I? Edward claimed when he was home he was always looking after me. Just because he’s good at getting up in the morning! It’s not much trouble making cups of tea.)

A line of crows stretched across the lawns. Big-headed, powerful, a living chain. Their black beaks rose and fell like hammers.

VIRGINIA

‘I suppose — yes, but only if he loved them. If you want someone’s love, you can’t coerce them. My Leonard let me say “No” to him.’

Poor Leonard: those first years, we shared a bed. I felt no more than if I was a rock, and on my rock, he starved and suffered. But kisses: yes, and caresses, I gave, like swallows landing, then I darted away.

ANGELA

‘I could say “No” to Edward, too.’

Though I probably said it too often. I was tired of course, I was a young mother. And then, an author … maybe modern women are always tired.

VIRGINIA

‘I had brothers … difficult half-brothers. One couldn’t always say no to them. It’s a knack girls need to learn quite young.’