However, the other cases that followed did not go as smoothly. In early December, an Italian shopkeeper, Ermano Mendelino, wrote to Ravndal that Frederick owed him 252 Ltqs (around $5,000 today) for wine and groceries and had failed to pay the bill after asking for and receiving an extension. In a direct reference to the Capitulations, Mendelino also accused Frederick of behaving this way because he believed that the Ottoman courts could not touch an American citizen. Ravndal again called Frederick in and tried to mediate between him and Mendelino, but over a year later the Italian had still not been paid. Next came a Bulgarian named Bochkarov who claimed he was owed 34.28 Ltqs for milk that he delivered to the Villa and to Frederick’s home. A baker wrote that Frederick owed him 47.93 Ltqs for daily bread deliveries. Another man complained that he had not received the 55 Ltqs he had been promised. A prominent French firm in the city—Huisman, suppliers of furnishings of various kinds—which started doing business with Frederick several days before the Villa opened and delivered goods to him worth 964.95 Ltqs (over $20,000 in today’s money), presented its bill to the consulate general. Frederick paid part of this debt, but not until nine months later and only after Ravndal had interceded once again. There were many other such cases to come.
All of this was annoying and humiliating for Frederick, especially in light of the financial security he had achieved in Moscow. It also put him in a false position; although he was quite willing to bend laws when it suited him, he was not the kind of man who would try to swindle tradesmen. But even worse than facing angry creditors who caused scenes at the Villa was enduring the sanctimonious lectures of the diplomats at the consulate. When dealing with them, Frederick found himself transformed from a businessman who commanded dozens of employees into a supplicant trying to placate unfriendly superiors. Shortly before Christmas of 1919, Ravndal admonished him “to arrange all these matters amicably in the very near future…. I should like to avoid the annoyance and expenses of court proceedings in these matters but I cannot refuse to take cognizance of suits if such are filed.” Frederick’s financial problems were becoming an embarrassment to American interests in Constantinople.
His problems were not restricted to the Villa during the difficult fall of 1919. In November he tried to find Olga, his oldest daughter, who had been separated from the family during their evacuation from Odessa in April. Contrary to the hopeful suggestion of the British consul, she had not turned up in Constantinople on any of the other refugee ships from South Russia. Frederick made additional inquiries through the British embassy in Constantinople, and to add weight to his request he deposited thirty pounds sterling with the embassy to cover Olga’s passage, should she be found. This was a substantial sum (worth around $4,000 today), and it would not have been easy for him to raise when he could not pay the milk and bread bills for his three sons. The British in Odessa made an effort to find Olga, but without success. It would be several more years before Frederick would learn anything about her fate.
With the onset of Constantinople’s cold, wet, and frequently snowy winter, Frederick’s business problems got even worse and the prospect of financial ruin began to loom before him. The Anglo-American Villa’s optimistically named “Winter Salon” became unusable after the fall season, and the only solution, despite the heavy new expenses this would entail, was to find a heated space. On January 20, 1920, he announced the opening of “The Royal Dancing Club” at 40 rue de Brousse in Pera, a central location in comparison with Chichli, and the site of a previous establishment called the “Jockey Club,” a name he also kept. To attract new clients and keep his old ones happy, Frederick tried several innovations. The place was organized as an actual club that people had to join—an arrangement that may have been necessitated by the gambling, specifically baccarat, which went on in an upstairs room. Frederick also stressed ballroom dancing and provided free lessons in the fox-trot, shimmy, and tango by American and Italian “professors.” Together with jazz, “dancings”—as such events and the places that fostered them came to be known in Constantinople—would become one of the main reasons for his later success. And like jazz, European-style dancing would also become culturally and politically loaded in Turkey in the 1920s because of the way it broke down the barriers that separated men and women in Ottoman society. Mustafa Kemal would personally encourage this during his aggressive campaign to secularize the country starting in 1923.
Frederick was fortunate that Bertha was still willing to continue their partnership that winter, despite the unpleasant discussions they were beginning to have about unpaid bills. Her bar remained an essential draw for military clients and helped to keep the entire enterprise afloat. A young American who visited one night with a friend, an English major, captured the seductive atmosphere of cosmopolitan wantonness that it fostered.
Bertha’s Bar looked like the lithographs of “Uniforms of all Nations.” A monocled French Colonial commandant sat at a corner table. Two handsome girls were with him. Two young men in Italian blue-grey sat along the bar. At another table was a group of mid-Europeans who wore their caps, with the flat, square crown and a tassel, with gravity. A sprinkling of British subalterns, a couple of French sous-officiers de marine, in their rather shabby and inelegant blue, and several young women, completed the picture.
Bertha leaned ponderously forward and put a mammoth confidential elbow on the bar near the Major….
He sipped meditatively.
“Where’s Aphro, Bertha,” he inquired presently.
Bertha looked at him with a speculative eye.
“She’s not here any more,” she responded negligently.
The Major did not pursue the subject.
“Melek?” he inquired.
“Her mother is sick in Skutari,” said Bertha with precision.
“Nectar?”—the Major turned to his companion—“a lovely Armenian kid,” he said.
“Nectar is here,” said Bertha.
“Where,” asked the Major.
“She’ll be here soon,” Bertha answered….
Bertha put down her knitting and became confidential again.
“You’ll fancy the new little Greek,” she said.
“You don’t say,” said the Major. “Quite new?”
“Yes—from the Dodecanese. She just came up from Smyrna today.”
“From Smyrna? M-m-m—that’s not good,” said the Major. “Pretty big port, Smyrna.”
Bertha leaned back and scratched her neck with a knitting needle. She turned her head sidewise.
“Doris,” she called….
A slender wisp of a girl appeared in the doorway. She was dressed in a white frock, cut square across the breast and suspended over either shoulder by a little silken strap so that no trace of their marble beauty was shrouded. Neck, shoulders, and head merged with an elegance and justness that seemed artificial, it was so perfect. The head was small, the features regular and exquisitely moulded. Gold hair drawn loosely back and up from the nape of the neck revealed little ears. Eyes were large and blue, the mouth was rosy. Doris’ expression was mild and ravishingly child-like.