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OtherRealms Issue 28 Part 10
Electronic OtherRealms #28
Fall, 1990
Part 10 of 18
Copyright 1990 by Chuq Von Rospach
All Rights Reserved.
OtherRealms may be distributed electronically only in the original
form and with copyrights, credits and return addresses intact.
OtherRealms may be reproduced in printed form only for your personal use.
No part of OtherRealms may be reprinted or used in any other
publication without permission of the author.
All rights to material published in OtherRealms hereby revert to the author.
Romancing the Turquoise [Part 4 of 4]
Whereupon one Swiss tourist offers me help in German and three Turks
wave him away; I am obviously an American, if a rather tear-stained one;
and the best thing to do is to get me off the ferry and safely to my
hotel so the rascally taksi drivers of Istanbul won't rip me off.
This plan is promptly put into effect. Istanbul streets are even more
convoluted than those of the cities I know best, New York and Boston, in
which the oldest parts of the city make no sense at all: we get promptly
lost near the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia. I almost don't care; I'm
seeing what I came to see.
Finally, directed by the cats and the local jandarma, I get to the Otel
Sumengen, a very pretty restored Ottoman house with a fountain, a white
facade, welcoming lights, and a teen-aged girl who insists on carrying
my suitcase. And the familiarity with every other major city promptly
increases exponentially; there is a hotel screwup. The woman who took
my reservation has quit her job, and left no trace of it.
This is scary, but ten years of traveling to conventions leave me with a
lot of experience. I know just the thing to say.
"If someone came in off the street and needed a room, would you have one
for him?"
(Fortunately, I can argue in English, not French or German.)
"Yes."
"Fine. Forget the reservation and give me that room."
Miraculously, that works. I am settled -- for the night at least -- in
a very pretty room with nice rugs, velvet upholstery, and stained glass.
Tomorrow, I will have to speak with Mr. Murat, the manager.
The next morning brings breakfast in a pretty salon overlooking the Sea
of Marmara. It is actually two colors of blue, dark in by the shore,
pale out where the shipping rides at anchor. The girl who took my
suitcase stops by. She is pale and unhappy; she's got a cold; and she's
still young enough to turn automatically to the nearest female adult for
comfort. Reaching into my handbag, I pull out aspirin, pour her some
coffee, and insist she have orange juice (portykal suyu) before I
realize that this is not an Elizabeth Peters novel and I am not Amelia
Peabody.
Mr. Murat is expected in at nine, then "in a few minutes," then, by
noon. And all Istanbul lies outside. No way I'm waiting around. I
make a few phone calls. My first, to the American Consulate, produces
an invitation to meet for lunch at the Pera Palas, where people used to
stay when they got off the Orient Express. Hotel screwup? No problem:
Consul Nancy Cope will introduce me to the travel officer.
Leaving my baggage in the room, taking my key, and reclaiming my
passport, I head up the street. The map tells me that the Blue Mosque
and Hagia Sophia are ten minutes walk away. There's another reason that
Istanbul resembles New York: militant, enthusiastic, and incessant
capitalism. Everyone's got an angle; everyone's got something he wants
to sell you over a glass of tea or a cup of coffee -- no obligation, no
problem, we're all friends. And so we are...but this isn't getting me to
the Blue Mosque.
"Lady, where are you from?"
"New York."
"Ah! America. Long Island. Go see Neva Shalom Synagogue too. But I
have fine rugs, coffee, tea...no obligation..."
You have to learn to say no in Istanbul or you'll never see anything but
rugs. (Except maybe pottery, leather goods, brass, and jewelry.) I
start saying "yok" (no) in earnest as I reach the Mosque (Hagia Sophia,
directly across from it is shut on Mondays) and am besieged by men,
boys, and toddlers, each with guidebooks, postcards, stuffed camels,
film, headscarves, evil-eye charms, and anything else that a peddlar's
fevered mercantile imagination can delude itself into thinking that all
tourists can't live without.
More subtle -- and useful -- are the grown men who cut individual
tourists out from the herd, offer urbanely to guide them about, and
actually do a fine job of it. The payoff comes later, when they take
you to their cousin's rug store. But, hey, "no obligation" works two
ways.
Mete (two syllables) singles me out, offers to show me the Blue Mosque,
and waves off the flock of eager hucksters. A moment later, I have my
shoes off and my shawl over my head, and I'm gaping at what has to be
one of the most beautiful spaces I've ever seen.
Look: this isn't a guidebook. Strolling Through Istanbul or the Blue
Guide will tell you more than anyone needs to know about the manufacture
of the magnificent blue tiles that give the mosque its name, the
influence of the domed basilica Hagia Sophia on Ottoman architecture,
and the architectonics of a domed space as huge as this one. The effect
is stunning. Tourists, fenced away from the area reserved for prayers,
mill about open-mouthed. A few black-swatched Saudi tourists crouch in
the spaces reserved for women, praying without self-consciousness.
The Sultan who ordered the mosque built was so eager to have it
completed that he himself worked on it. He died at age 27 before
getting to enjoy it long; his turbe, or tomb, is outside, somewhere
among the welter of ablutions fountains (Islam requires the Faithful to
wash before prayers), medressehs, hospitals, and hucksters.
Getting out of the mosque is difficult. Too many French tourists have
poured in, and they're pushing... If I push back, I'll be an ugly
American. Mete doesn't quite know what to do, either. Then inspiration
strikes.
Pretending it's the E-train at rush hour, I hunch up one shoulder and
plunge forward. "Verzeihung, entshuldigen Sie, meine Damen und Herren,"
I mutter over and over again. The French grumble, but German tourists
are renowned for pushing worse than French ones; and my accent -- if not
my grammar -- is good enough to get me through the crowd. Triumphantly,
I reclaim my shoes.
A cry of "polis!" goes up. Immediately, a tsunami of illegal hucksters
pours down the steps of the Blue Mosque and out of its courtyards. All
the tourists -- French, German, American, English, Japanese, and Turkish --
stand and laugh.
Mete and I cross the Hippodrome, site of the Nike revolts in which
Belisarius killed about 30,000 people and saved Justinian's throne.
Nothing of the original stonework remains, except for some obelisks and
triumphal columns. Istanbul University is nearby, and a large Ottoman
building stands on the site of the Imperial box, or kathisma, I've had
so much fun sticking characters into. We take off for the Sulimaniye
Mosque, cutting through a corner of the Grand Bazaar, with its vaulted
arcades, its thousands of shops, its dizzying array of stores with gold
chains hung like sausages with bright lights catching molten gleams...
... and here we have a very nice rug shop! I should have guessed. In
fact, I did. But Mete is doing a fine job of guiding me, however, and I
don't want him to lose face. Fortunately, I can plead a previous
appointment. I must see the Sulimaniye, and then I am due at the
American Consulate for lunch, a duty I cannot escape; I'm sure they
understand official business; I'll be back; thank you so much.
The Sulimaniye is more somber than the Blue Mosque, and very beautiful.
The guidebooks will tell you that it was built by Sinan, the great
Islamic architect, who built about 500 buildings, lived to be almost
100, and shouldn't be as little known in the Western World as he is.
In the Sulimaniye, I am approached by two nice tourists from Wayland,
Massachusetts. They have seen my guidebook (Sarge's guidebook) and want
to know where I got it. The woman blanches; her head is uncovered, and
she insists on stopping right then and there to get out a scarf. She
thinks I look Turkish, she tells me.
Leaving the Sulimaniye, Mete and I head for the cabs. He hails one,
instructs "Pera Palas, lutfen," invites me to a son et lumiere, then
disappears into the crowd in search of better rug-shop fodder.
The taksi crosses Galata, a pontoon bridge, into the newer part of the
city. Galata Tower, a medieval Genoese structure, looms up; it's now a
nightclub. Beyond it are the great international hotels of chic Tacsim --
and the Pera Palas, built in the nineteenth century to house
passengers of the Orient Express. Soft greens and whites in the Ottoman
style on the outside, inside it's very much a period piece out of
nineteenth-century Europe, all wood and brown velvet furnishings, high
walls, stone floors, clouded mirrors. Just to a point: hanging on the
old, wrought-iron elevator is the biggest blue evil-eye talisman I've
ever seen. Old menus and exhibits, and tributes to Agatha Christie
attest the grand old place's position in the mythology of travel and its
legendary status as a refuge for royalty, expatriates, artists, and
spies.
I buy postcards and sit down at an escritoire to write them. The
concierge looms over me. "I'm meeting someone at 12:30 for lunch, and I
prefer not to sit in the bar alone," I explain.
The bar too is all dark wood and dark velvet. An evil eye hangs above
the gun collection. Nancy Cope hurries in. In overstuffed chairs by a
bay window, we order wine and sandwiches. I tell her what I can of what
I've seen and whom I've met. She tells me of her upcoming posting to
Yemen.
I promise to send her a copy of Silk Roads.
"Is there a good romance in it?" she asks.
Not even the Ideal Traveler gets handed lines like that.
We return to the consulate, a huge Genoese palace converted to official
use. It had -- and should have -- ceiling frescoes in the tradition of
Tintoretto in it, but the wife of a long-gone Consul General decreed
that they were indecent, and it would cost too much to restore them.
The travel office lives in a quonset hut. Mehmet Ozen, its manager, is
a cheerful, elegant man. Am I sure I want to stay in the Sumengen? He's
never heard of it. Is it nice? New? Clean?
Fine. He's on the phone. What sounds like a war in Turkish follows.
My reservation is reinstated: no problem, but here's his card, just in
case. There's a hidden agenda here -- every hotel in Istanbul wants to
get on the list that the Consulates use to recommend to visitors. The
Sumengen isn't on it yet, and Mehmet has now promised to inspect it.
I arrange a one-day tour of Istanbul for Wednesday, shake hands, catch
him up on news of Sarge, whom he admires for his travel experience, and
go back to the hotel. I am greeted like a returning princess and
thanked for looking after the eighteen-year-old. I unpack, then go to
the salon for tea, taking opera glasses with me so I can look at the
ships.
Ordinarily, when I travel alone, I pretend I'm someone else -- a spy, a
ship captain (usually a starship captain, but let's get real), a
Byzantine princess. Here in Istanbul, I can't think of anything I'd
rather be for the moment but myself.
I begin the next day with a futile trip to see the mosaics at Keriye;
it's closed on Tuesdays. I take counsel of one of the street cats and
catch a taksi to the Mosque of Eyup, outside the Byzantine walls. Eyup
Ensari was Mohammed's friend and standard bearer. Killed outside the
walls of Byzantium in the siege of 674-678, he was buried where he fell.
The truth is that his grave has always been a pilgrimage site and its
safe-keeping has been a matter of treaties with the Byzantines. The
legend is that it was lost until after the conquest of Constantinople in
1453 by Fatih (the Conqueror) Sultan Mehmet; whereupon the Sultan built
a shrine on the site. Whatever: after the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem
and Mecca itself, Eyup Cami is the third-holiest site in the Islamic
world.
It is heavily overgrown, an island of sanctity in the middle of a rather
rundown neighborhood. It is not crowded, except for individual pilgrims
who come and quietly pray while their wives look on, or phalanxes of
head-shawled schoolgirls. The actual shrine of Eyup is covered by a
green and gold silk cloth and illuminated by green light from the
stained-glass windows above it: Eyup is bathed forever in the color of
the Faithful. I shove my camera in my bag and stand quietly. The
sexton gives me a lump of sugar to make certain the memory of my visit
is sweet just the way the old rabbis who taught Hebrew school would
smear the boys' slates with honey.
From Eyup to Hagia Sophia is a quick taksi ride into the heart of the
old city. With a heroic effort, I manage not to start crying again.
Hagia Sophia has the noblest proportions I have ever seen in a building;
even the sheer breadth of its galleries awes me.
It was here that the last emperor made peace with God before going out
to die in 1453. It was here that the Christians of Constantinople
huddled, praying for a miracle. And it was here that Fatih Sultan
Mehmet entered, spared the lives of those who made no resistance, and
ordered that the great church be converted into a mosque. It opened for
prayers a day later.
I find the runic graffiti that some bored Viking -- I like to think it
was a Varangian, but I suppose that's too much to be hoped for -- etched
into one of the marble railings in the galleries and take photos of the
surviving mosaics.
After so many years of war and change, Hagia Sophia is quiet now, except
for the tourists. Outside it are more gardens and roses. I remember
writing roses into my novels and making them lavish; but these roses
exceed my wildest expectations.
I visit the Mosaic Museum, which is all that remains of the imperial
Blachernae Palace, and chat with some Germans who come upon me reading
the German labels and draw the obvious and inaccurate conclusion. Lunch
is at the Yesil Ev, or Green House, prettiest of the Ottoman houses
converted to hotels largely because of its garden, with its view of the
Blue Mosque, its enormous rose trees twining about lampposts and the
ornate marble fountain. It is a mistake to order fish: cats mob me with
more determination than the rug sellers.
I spend the afternoon at the Museum of the Ancient Orient, marveling at
the glazed bricks from the Ishtar Gate in Babylon. The Metropolitan
Museum in New York counts itself lucky to have two panels: here, panel
after panel shines on the walls. From there, I head over to the
Archeological Institute to see the monumental Alexander Sarcophagus,
carved not for Alexander the Great (who was finally buried in
Alexandria), but for a petty king, perhaps the one chosen to rule by
Hephaistion.
Sitting down to rest a bad case of museum feet beside a group of sturdy
middle-aged ladies with covered heads, I note an interesting by-play. A
flock of Saudi ladies passes, black draperies sweeping by in a way I
haven't seen since before Vatican II. I don't think I'm imagining that
the ladies "tsk" and square their shoulders: imagine what they do in
that country; I'd like to see someone make me wear that; aren't we
fortunate that Ataturk outlawed such customs here?
They turn from the Saudi ladies to study me. Though I'm conservatively
dressed, I'm obviously European or not-Turkish: my head is uncovered
except for a pair of red sunglasses worn as a headband. I can feel
their regard: what kind of foreigner is that? I smile and look at my
catalogue. Ah! English? the one closest to me asks.
American. New York, I tell them. One woman points toward the
sarcophagus at the tiny, exquisite high relief of Alexander, then toward
my catalogue. They match.
"Iskendar," she says, and I agree. "Iskendar."
We smile and nod, communication having been established.
That evening, I meet two other ladies, both Americans and both writers,
for drinks at an apartment with the most breathtaking view of Istanbul
you can imagine: you look down on the minarets and out to sea. We grab
a taksi and drive out along the Bosphorus, winding up at a gazino for
seafood.
The Grand Tour
Wednesday is the day of my tour of the City. Mehmet Ozen turns up to
make certain I get on the right bus. Much of the morning's trip covers
sites I've already seen, but we do go to the underground cistern, a
silent, eerie place built by Constantine and renovated by Justinian.
Colored lights and Beethoven make it even more impressive; the
occasional plunk of condensation falling into the water cause the whole
complex to appear to shiver as the reflection breaks and the shadows
reflect up the columns into the shadows of the vaults. There are Gorgon
heads at the bases of several columns. It is hard to believe that
overhead, modern Istanbul is vigorously alive.
Around noon, we wind up in Bazaar 54, a licensed and legitimate rug,
jewelry, and leather store. Once again, we are seated on tapestried
cushions and offered our choice: coffee, soda, tea, raki; kilims, silk
rugs, wool carpets, or cotton. Once again, I am cut out from the herd.
I confess it: I succumbed again. The new acquisition is a very
beautiful nomad design from Bergama in shades of blues and true Turkey
red. It's astonishingly light, as I should know: I carted it home from
Turkey myself.
At lunch, I sit with a number of women: two ancient English ladies who
have earnestly quizzed our poor guide about prayers and who insist that,
though Hagia Sophia is now a museum and was a mosque for a good four
centuries, it has never been deconsecrated; a German woman brought to
England as a bride after World War II; a lady from Cairo who works for
the United Nations and who tells us that if we look bored enough, the
hucksters will go away; and me. We can all manage in English, French,
and German, and our similarities seem to outweigh our differences. The
Cairene lady is embarrassed that she has no head covering, but that I
do. She is upset, she says, about the trend toward conservativism among
the educated professional women of her acquaintance even in more secular
Sunni Egypt.
We visit the Topkapi Palace. Our guide, a Turkish woman educated in
France, announces to the appallingly forthright Californian who quizzes
her about prayers that, thank God and Ataturk, Turkey is a secular state
and she can choose whether to observe the times of prayer and whether
she wants to cover her head or not. She also informs us that we will
not be going into the Harem; harems are more powerful in the imagination --
especially, she adds with a sly smile that is pure Paris, in the
imaginations of the gentlemen -- than in the actuality, she states,
first in English, then in French.
Topkapi is mobbed, especially around the emeralds (where Americans have
set up camera tripods) and the holy relics, including a door from Mecca,
which is filled with Saudis and carefully raised schoolchildren. This
is no place for cameras and none appear. Labels are in Turkish and
Arabic, as well as English and German.
On my way back to the Sumengen, I meet the eighteen-year-old clerk who
had gotten sick with her friend, Gulcan. They are both coming back from
English class. I recognize the friend's name: Gulcan used to be
receptionist at the Sumengen. Here I have the culprit who lost my
reservation! Aha! It's very hard, though, to be angry at a young girl
with long, dark hair and troubled eyes: she is planning to be an au pair
in London; her family doesn't understand; but she has to do this for
herself. "You understand," she insists to me. After all, aren't I
traveling by myself?
I suggest she tell them that she'll be carefully supervised; I can
imagine that they will miss her. She finds out I used to teach English
and shakes hands enthusiastically.
There is no way I can be angry with a girl like that.
Thursday (May 24) is my last full day in Istanbul. I visit Keriye in
the morning; the mosaics are incredible. So are the frescoes, including
one monumental painting in the right apse of Christ raising Adam and Eve
from hell during the Harrowing. If this were anyplace but in Turkey,
artists from all over the world would come to admire it; though I've
studied ecclesiastical art, I've never seen a picture of it before.
After changing hotels to the Hotel Avicenna (owned by the proprietors of
the Sumengen and opened just that day), I reserve my final afternoon in
Turkey for a brief tour of the Grand Bazaar. I bargain for amber; I buy
evil-eye charms, including a gold-and-enamel one. I even visit Mete's
rug shop.
I even get into trouble with a gypsy who is leading a dancing bear and
wants to charge me 50,000 Turkish lira ($25.00) for two shapshots.
"You're nuts," I tell him in English. Three chivalrous Turks agree. A
thousand lira is more like it. The gypsy shrugs: can't blame him for
trying.
Journey to the West
Friday morning is the last I'll spend in Turkey. I visit the Dolmabahce
Palace, the residence of the last three sultans. Set in gardens full of
rose trees, it is a splendid place, rather like a Turkish Versailles.
But of all that splendor, the rooms that the guide considers most
important are the study and the small bedroom in an obscure corner of
the (vacant at the time) Harem where Ataturk died in 1938. The clock is
stopped at the moment of his death, and the bed is covered by the
Turkish flag. A cab ride returns me to the Avicenna. Another cab takes
me to Ataturk International Airport, where I am frisked (by a lady
guard), talk to a Dutch businessman who invites me to visit him and his
wife if I'm in The Hague for the World Science Fiction Convention, and
passed through to Swissair. Hours later, I am in Zurich.
A clean Mercedes taxi whirs me to the nineteenth-century Hotel Tiefenau.
My German is easily understood and cheerfully answered. My room is
ready, including an endless list of services, a minibar, and a courtesy
plate of cheese and fruit.
Zurich would have made a great destination in and of itself, but now I
see the pretty, scrubbed Swiss city in the valley as my reentry point
into the West. The next day I take it easy: a simple tour of the city,
a visit to the Landesmuseum, a walk 'cross town to the Grossmunster, and
then back to the hotel. And on Sunday, May 27, I land at Kennedy
Airport.
"Have a good trip?" asks the customs officer, noting the stamps on my
passport. "Anything to declare?"
I point to my carpet, traveling in state in its own bag with the wheels
and the Benetton logo, and to the evil-eye sign I'm wearing. "Plus some
amber and some gifts I bought in Turkey."
"Turkey?" His attention is piqued, and I resign myself to a luggage
search. "What did you do in Turkey?"
"I had the best vacation I've ever had, visited friends, and researched
a historical novel."
"You're a writer?" Standard New York question. "Ever been published?"
I nod.
"So your trip was like Romancing the Stone?"
I nod again and grin.
"Well, let's see what we can do to get those duty charges down. Glad
you had such a good trip, and welcome back." He waves me through with a
bill for $14. A half hour later, I am swearing at the locks in my
apartment building.
The first thing I unpack is ten rolls of film. The second is my carpet.
I wish it could fly me back. Well, there's always next year. And the
stone I threw for luck in Zilve did land in the basin and stay there.
------ End ------
