"Back to the Harem" is the title of the first chapter of Grace's book, An Englishwoman in a Turkish Harem. Such a nonchalant invitation-as though we've all been in the harem before.

I don't think the harem was as exclusive an institution, at least in Istanbul, as Westerners make it out to have been. Only in the Grand Palace of the Sultan were the women rigorously secluded, living their lives at the mercy of the Sultan and his officers who guarded, protected, and punished them. Otherwise, the harem was simply the part of a house where female family members and servants and young children of both genders lived in seclusion and privacy.

My grandmother's mother had been a teacher in the Harem of the Sultan. She was born as the daughter of a very rich Circassian Bey, a Prince, who would whip his slaves regularly. The Bey ruled over a vast estate in the Caucasus mountains that belonged to the Berechen tribe. Her mother, in contrast, was a very kind woman who would tend to the wounds of the whipped slaves, crying with them as they wept in pain. The Circassian Prince had a sister who lived in Istanbul, a childless woman. She sent word to the Caucasus that she would like to have one of her brother's children, a girl, since he had so many and she had none. In those times, children could be shared.

The Prince of course accepted. His sister's wish was granted without consulting my grandmother's grandmother. The last thing my grandmother's mother saw as she looked back at her home from the back of a horse galloping toward Istanbul was her own mother down on her knees crying and screaming her name.

I always imagine this scene like a Paramount picture. My great-great-grandmother is kneeling on the damp ground; it is the month of March; most of the snow has melted. It is early morning. It promises to be a fine clear day, perfect for travelling safely over the mountains. A few grey clouds have gathered around the mountain peak in the background, but that's usual: that mountain peak is always cloudy. In short, the Prince has planned everything well. This is the best day to send his daughter off.

The beautiful daughter, with her piercing green eyes, sees her country receding from her for the last time; her mother drenching the earth of her country with her tears, her father standing erect with his whip in his right hand, her brothers held back by three strong slaves; and the rest of the tribe and the slaves looking into the distance toward her, toward the capital called Istanbul.

Then the scene switches to Istanbul. A very pretty little girl looks out at the street through a latticed window. It is a grey, rainy day. The girl is obviously bored. But then she sees a fancy carriage approaching her house. Her eyes light up. She has seen this carriage before. But where does it come from? And the ladies that descended from it! They are the fanciest ladies she has ever seen, all dressed in colourful silks. The street turns into a happy rainbow when these ladies step down from that carriage, twirling their parasols. The pavement turns to gold when they touch the street with their bright yellow boots. The ladies enter the house next door.,br>
"Who are these ladies?" she asks her aunt.

Her aunt brushes back the child's golden hair gently as she says, "These are some of the ladies of the Saray, the Sultan's Palace."

"I want to be like them; I want to go live in the Saray," says the little girl.

"Hush," says her aunt, "you don't know what you're saying. The Saray is not the kind of place you think it is."

"How can it be other than beautiful?" the little girl responds. "Look at how beautiful these ladies are."

"Beauty is often deceptive," answers her aunt and steps back to cough discreetly into her white lace handkerchief. She crumples it up in her hands to hide from the little girl the spot of fresh blood at its centre.

The scene switches to another grey day. It is not raining. The girl, however, is sobbing as she watches the coffin containing her aunt being carried away on the shoulders of mourners. The neighbour who used to receive the ladies of the Saray is stroking the child's back to comfort her.

"What's going to happen to me now?" asks the little girl when the coffin disappears around the bend of the narrow street.

"We'll send a message to your father," answers the neighbour. "He'll send your brother to take you back home."

"I miss my mother," says the little girl. "But I can't remember her face anymore. I hope to see her soon."

Months pass. The aunt had died in November as most people do. Circassia is under heavy snow, and all access to points west is barred throughout the winter months. The mountains do not listen to merciful pleadings. Mountains cannot be moved.

Five months pass, five dreary months of a lonely winter. Sure, there are the female servants of the house, there is her uncle who is a high official, there are her tutors, her Koran, her French novels, her math exercises. She loves arithmetic and calligraphy.

But they are not enough. She needs the company of young ladies her age. If other girls can dress prettily and travel in fancy carriages, why can't she? One fine cool March morning, she presents herself to the next-door neighbour. She asks the lady whether she could go live in the Saray. The lady, herself an ex-Saray resident, is delighted. Within weeks, my great-grandmother is in the Harem of the Sultan, appointed as a teacher of calligraphy to the Harem girls and the little princes and princesses.

That is in the month of March, sometime in the second half of the 1870s, at the beginning of the reign of Sultan Abdul Hamid II (1876-1909). In April, when she is already a member of the Palace, already bearing a different name, Nazinur Hanoum, given to her by the Sultan, her brother arrives from Circassia, breathless.

He knocks at the palace door. She is told: "Your brother is here. He wants to take you home."

"What brother?" she asks with feigned surprise. I have no brother. I am an orphan. My aunt was my only relative. Allah bless her soul, she is dead."

My great-grandmother, although a very young girl, already knows the workings of the Palace. She denies her brother because she loves him. She knows that once one becomes a member of the Sultan's Harem, one cannot leave easily. Even if she were sent home, for the rules don't allow holding anyone in the Palace against her will, she and her brother would both be killed as soon as they reached the outskirts of Istanbul. The royal rules allow for such killings since the secrets of the Palace may not be shared among the living.

The brother comes back once more, having secured the help of a high official. She denies him once more. And each night she secretly cries into her pillow, knowing she'll never see her native country again or her brothers and her sister. She will never see her mother again. She is now an orphan while her family is still alive.

Years later, at the age of thirty-five, after serving the Harem well in her capacity as a strict and discriminating teacher for twenty years, my great-grandmother was allowed to leave the Palace to marry my grandmother's father. My grandmother was born. When my grandmother was eight, my great-grandmother died during a smallpox epidemic in Aleppo in 1909.

My grandmother, having been inculcated in the ways of the Grand Palace, tried to teach us some of them: how to tread lightly even on bare wooden floors, how not to sit with our feet facing an elder, how to speak only when addressed, in a restrained low voice. We failed in all of her teachings, but know them enough to remember them in times of dire need. Let's say that other, louder, more passionate influences prevailed.

These are some of the lessons I extracted for myself from this small story:

1. Deny your family if you want to save their lives and your own.

2. Beauty is attractive but deceptive.

3. Learn languages and speak them well.

4. Don't forget, you're a princess in disguise.

I should add that my grandmother told me that her mother had told her before she died that the Russians had killed off most of the Berechens, including all of her family, because they were too fierce, too proud, and wanted too much independence.