From Souk to Souk Read online

  I turned and began walking away as casually as I could, conscious of the embrace of the warm city air. A moment later, I realised my would-be guide was following me, clearly determined not to give up so easily.

  ‘How much do you want to pay?’ he repeated.

  ***

  The next morning I had breakfast on the rooftop restaurant of my hotel, from which I had a panoramic view across the city, already humming and sparkling with life, a flash of morning sunshine occasionally reflecting off distant panes of glass across the water, perhaps a window opening, a car turning: a banal action in an anonymous life that unknowingly sent a momentary twinkle into my own. I sipped my cappuccino: I was not yet ready for a Turkish coffee.

  I pondered on how, considering it was one of the oldest parts of Istanbul, the Sultanahmet quarter was surprisingly open and leafy. Yet, beneath the thin veneer of green lay 25 centuries of history and, from the division of the Roman Empire in AD 395 to the end of the Ottoman Empire in 1922, this city had been the seat of power for over 120 emperors and sultans. As I had walked past the neat lawns and flower beds of the Sultanahmet Meydanı the day before, it had been hard to believe that the site of this formal park was once considered the centre of the world, the nearby Million Stone marking the spot from where, after the Emperor Constantine made the city his eponymous capital in AD 330, all roads in the Roman Empire began. Wandering around the site of the former hippodrome, I had realised it was only time, not space, that separated me from the 100,000 spectators who once filled its terraces to watch and bet on the chariot races, the four teams each sponsored by a different political party in the Senate. The crowds that cheered the Blues, the Greens, the Reds and the Whites and, on occasion, rioted on an unimaginable scale, sometimes leaving tens of thousands dead, were no more, their shouts and cries forever lost on the winds of the Bosphorus, the atoms and elements that made up their bodies since reincarnated countless times in all the things we see around us – in ourselves even. I had looked at the palms of my hands and considered whether the carbon, iron and copper within me had previously existed in the body of one of those men or women. Yet what, I had wondered, had happened to their souls? Had they been simply discarded on a current of sea air in the same way as their words and laughter? As the day had drawn to a close and the shadows across the park had grown longer, I had become increasingly aware of the contrast between the longevity of the urban creation around me and the ephemeral existence of those who walked its streets. Now, in the bright light of the morning, yesterday’s thoughts seemed almost as distant as the Constantinople of the Eastern Roman Empire.

  I finished my coffee, checked my watch and went down to the lobby where I found Osman already waiting for me. He had scrubbed up well and was sporting a perfectly ironed white shirt, together with the same pointy shoes as the evening before. He seemed relieved and greeted me effusively whilst throwing a triumphant glance at the grey-haired receptionist who was watching us from behind the counter.

  ‘I want to take you somewhere special,’ he announced. ‘Come!’ And, lightly touching my arm, he ushered me out on to the street, his sudden physical proximity bringing with it the heady notes of fresh perspiration beneath a vigorous cologne.

  ‘First time in Istanbul?’ His tone was an odd mix of the cheerful and the serious.

  ‘Yes,’ I nodded.

  ‘Then I will show you everything.’

  Over breakfast, my doubts about employing the services of a guide had crept back, but Osman had a certain charm and I could hardly have stood him up. Still too early for the big tourist groups, the streets of Sultanahmet were strangely quiet and after just a few minutes’ walk we arrived at a small, single-storey building above which towered a section of some ancient wall, its uneven stones held together with mortar mixed by long-forgotten hands. Leaving the early autumn sunlight behind, I followed Osman through the doorway and descended countless steps into a cool underworld at the entrance of which stood an unassuming ticket office. ‘This is the Basilica Cistern,’ he smiled. ‘In Turkish it is called the Yerebatan Sarayı; it means Sunken Palace.’ Something in the tone of Osman’s voice made me think he was beginning a well-rehearsed spiel.

  The Turkish designation captures the splendour of this hidden marvel much more effectively than its English name, which makes it sound like some sort of giant porcelain fitting for a Victorian bathroom. The muted light revealed a vast underground hall with over three hundred Ionic and Corinthian marble columns rising eerily out of water, balanced on motionless mirror images like a setting from some fantasy tale. If one were ever to find the ruins of Atlantis, I thought, surely this is what they would look like. For a moment, I forgot about Osman, my thoughts captivated by the scene around me. I half expected a monstrous serpent to come writhing its way through the silent waters or to see the stalking shadow of some mythical beast on the gently under-lit walls. Instead, in a far corner, I found two carved Medusa heads, one upside down, one on its side, serving as bases for the columns above them. Only the distant drip, drip of water broke the silence in this less well-known of Istanbul’s sights, but which, for me, remains to this day one of its most magical.

  ‘In the past, they used it to store water,’ whispered Osman, slipping back into my world. ‘In the Byzantine period, they built lots of them underneath the city. You see, Istanbul has many hidden attractions,’ he smiled.

  Back in the daylight of the city above, we made our way towards the Grand Bazaar. By now, shiny coaches with oversized wing-mirrors resembling giant insect antennae had begun disgorging their cargoes of tourists, and Germans, Spaniards and Italians in ill-fitting summer wear were waddling around the Sultanahmet district like flocks of stray geese. As we passed them, I caught snippets of conversations: a remark about Ludwig next door, a comment on breakfast, a question to Maria; momentary glimpses into lives in Bremen, Alicante and Milan.

  ‘First, I want to show you something,’ Osman said, bringing me abruptly back from my social eavesdropping. ‘You are a Christian, yes?’

  ‘Nominally,’ I murmured.

  Minutes later, I was standing in front of the fourth-century Constantine Column while Osman took a picture. With this piece of Roman art towering above me, I was unconvinced that the result of my eager guide’s photographic efforts would be particularly memorable given that he was standing only a few paces away.

  ‘There is a secret chamber underneath the column containing the nails used in the crucifixion,’ he explained in a matter-of-fact tone as he handed me my camera back, ‘and pieces of the cross itself.’

  It seemed an improbable tale and sounded as if it had been lifted from the script of an Indiana Jones movie, but I decided not to question it, instead politely just making appropriate noises of interest. Although Istanbul today lies in a Muslim country, it does indeed have a long and important history as a Christian city. The adoration of relics, however, whatever their denomination, remains anathema to me. I had read that the Topkapi Palace a mere stone’s throw away on the Seraglio Point was crammed with artefacts from Mecca and Medina, but I had little interest in seeing the cabinets full of casts of footprints, cuttings of toenails, and hair from Mohammed the Prophet and the first caliphs.

  We continued to the Grand Bazaar, weaving our way past guides waving flags and umbrellas as they endeavoured to herd their shuffling tour groups.

  ‘It was built in the mid-fifteenth century,’ proclaimed Osman as we passed through the stone entrance, leaving the Levantine sunshine behind us, ‘and then renovated in 1894 after an earthquake. It has more than 3,000 shops and nearly 60 covered streets.’ He was lapsing into his spiel again.

  My first impressions of the Kapalicarsi, or covered bazaar, were completely different to what I had expected. Instead of narrow alleyways, it was, in places, more like an earlier version of a contemporary shopping mall with long, broad passages lined with modern-style stores and covered by a high, arched roof. Turks and tourists alike wandered along, checking out the shop windows. Further i
n, though, the streets became narrower and glass-fronted shops gave way to open-fronted stalls. Displays of kilims, rugs, spices, silver coffee pots and gaily decorated earthenware bowls poured out on to the tiled floor and fabulous glass lamps, colourful beads, and amulets to ward off the evil eye hung from the walls. Here, the bewildering quantity of objects and the myriad of colours, the twinkling of lights and the sparkling of polished metal, the pungent aromas and the zesty fragrances were an assault on the senses. Who could walk past such a cornucopia and not be enticed to linger, to look, to smell, to touch and finally to end up desiring, needing and buying some fine – or not so fine – object? This was the bazaar as I had imagined it.

  ‘You would like to buy some souvenirs?’ It sounded more like a command than a question, yet I also detected a timbre of optimism in Osman’s voice.

  ‘No, not really,’ I replied: I, for one, could certainly withstand stocking up on the various wares on offer. ‘My house is full of stuff already.’

  ‘There are beautiful carpets here,’ Osman insisted. ‘They would look very nice chez vous!’

  ‘I’m sure they are wonderful,’ I retorted, hearing my own impatience and ignoring his attempt at French, ‘but I have nowhere to put them.’ I was determined not to leave the Grand Bazaar laden with tat or, even worse, having signed up to the industrial-scale export of Turkish furnishings back to my home in Belgium. I should have expected that Osman would know at least one of the store keepers and, despite my declarations, our seemingly casual meander through the vast indoor market was clearly choreographed to ensure we ended up at the shop of a carpet seller he knew.

  ‘These carpets are very good quality!’ whispered Osman, in what was evidently meant to be a confidential tone, his breath warm on my ear, his hand closing round my arm.

  The esteemed purveyor of the rugs in question was a middle-aged man with bulging pug-dog-like eyes and whose clothes stretched over his rotund body like some fitted cover. He tried to wave me into his shop with a greasy grimace, an ingratiating bow and a dramatic sweep of the arm, promising tiny cups of tea without any obligation to buy. I resisted temptation and thanked him with a firm smile before determinedly drifting away. Osman scuttled after me.

  ‘You can look for free,’ he pleaded. ‘You don’t have to buy anything!’

  But, this time, what was on offer really did not interest me.

  Half an hour later, passing the earthy, red and golden hues of a row of fragrant spice stores, we emerged blinking from the Grand Bazaar and headed towards the Galata Bridge. I was trying not to be annoyed with my guide and kept telling myself that being herded into a carpet shop was all part of the experience. Ferries, their bright bunting fluttering in the breeze, lined the shore at Eminönü as they waited to take people to the Asian side or up the Bosphorus; others sailed back and forth on the sparkling waters, picture-book images in a three-dimensional gallery. As I watched the multi-coloured mass of people swarming along the quay, I forgot the carpet incident, my eyes wandering instead to the bridge in the distance on which minute figures and colourful cars passed the rows of fishermen standing patiently by their rods.

  ‘That is the Galata Tower,’ said Osman, waving a slender finger towards the other shore of the Golden Horn, where a round, pointed-top structure of the sort one imagines Rapunzel living in looked decidedly out of place amongst the shabby modern buildings surrounding it. On our side of the water, trams trundled by, flags flapped and seagulls soared and swooped on salty thermals. I paused to watch the vast kaleidoscope of constant movement and colour and tried to imagine how the same scene might have looked five hundred or even a thousand years ago.

  Osman suggested we take a boat ride, an idea that had instant appeal and no obvious catches. As our ferry chugged its way along the Bosphorus, the breeze blowing down from the Black Sea provided a cooling respite from the sun. My companion stood sipping the small glass of steaming çay, or Turkish tea, handed him by a steward in a rather scruffy burgundy waistcoat and with a greying, walrus moustache. The boat gently rose and fell on the brown waters that linked the Mediterranean with what the ancient Greeks called the Hospitable Sea. I watched as the portly waiter drifted between the passengers, deftly balancing his laden tray. We had been among the last to board the busy feribot and so had been too late to find seats. Some, like us, were standing, but many were tightly ensconced on the wooden benches, scarves tied round their heads, bulging shopping bags at their feet. The upper deck with its panoramic view of the passing cityscape had been particularly full, crammed with both locals and tourists, so instead we leant against the railing down below and watched as we glided past the Dolmabahçe and Çirağan Palaces. The Bosphorus seemed to lap at their elegant façades, so low was the land on which they stood and yet, as if mere ghosts from the past, they left no reflection in the turbid liquid before them.

  ‘How many more years do you have left to study?’ I asked Osman.

  ‘Two, perhaps three,’ he shrugged, watching the foam from the bow churn as the ferry ploughed its way northwards.

  ‘And what do you want to do when you have finished?’

  ‘I’d like to travel, to go to Europe, or America, but it’s expensive.’

  ‘Yes, and I suppose you need a visa too,’ I reflected.

  A young woman in a floral summer dress, her blonde hair blowing in the light breeze, walked up and stood next to us to take some photographs of the view upstream, the expensive-looking camera round her neck firing off a rapid series of clicks. When she had finished, she turned to look at us, blue eyes sparkling quizzically before a friendly smile briefly lit up her freckled face. A moment later she was gone.

  ‘Have you already done your military service?’ I ventured a few moments later.

  Osman nodded, swallowing and pressing his thin lips together; his thoughts seemed elsewhere.

  ‘And where would you like to go in Europe?’ I asked.

  ‘To Germany, to London,’ he said rather vaguely, rubbing the smooth skin of his chin. And then, turning to face me, he smiled and added after a pause, ‘perhaps to see my cousin in Bruxelles.’

  ‘What about America? Where would you like to go there?’

  ‘New York.’ He sounded more resolute. ‘In America you can make big money and everyone is welcome. Here in Turkey it is not easy to find a good job.’

  I pondered Osman’s claimed area of study, Turkish history, and wondered how easy it would be to find a well-paid position anywhere with that as his qualification. As we sailed under the Bosphorus Bridge, its span high above us cast a momentary, cooling shadow over the boat. We watched the passing scenery slowly mutate from bustling cityscape with its palaces and mosques to more genteel suburbia where generous waterside apartment blocks and mansions were backed by green, forested hills across which the first shades of autumn were starting to appear. To our left lay Europe, to the right, Asia.

  ‘Do you like it?’ asked Osman, pointing to the view with his free hand.

  ‘Yes, I do,’ I smiled. ‘It’s very pretty.’

  ‘I’m sure you will like Anadolu Kavagi. Not many tourists go there, mostly just Turkish people. There are lots of good restaurants where you can eat fish.’ His English was good, but sometimes he sounded as if he were reciting sentences from a phrase book.

  I began to suspect a proposal of lunch was looming as a way of Osman getting a free meal. The memory of the carpet shop incident slunk back and hissed that I should be irked at the prospect of feeding him, but I felt it would be churlish to wriggle out of what was for me a small outlay, whereas for the young student it might be the only square meal he would get that day.

  As we passed under the second great bridge, the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Köprüsü, I saw something dark curve out of the water ahead before slipping back under the gentle waves. I strained my eyes; there it was again, and then again. To my surprise, dolphins were swimming here in the Bosphorus, one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes.

  ‘Look, Osman!’ I cried.


  ‘Yes,’ he smiled, seemingly unfazed by the sighting. ‘You often see them here.’ Then, registering my excitement, he added enthusiastically, ‘You see, I told you I would show you lots of interesting things!’

  He finished his çay, placing the little glass on the waiter’s tray as the latter did his rounds to collect the empties, and then pulled out a packet of cigarettes, which he waved in my direction. I smiled and shook my head.

  Eventually, after several stops along the way, the feribot pulled into its last port of call, Anadolu Kavagi, a small fishing village on the Asian side just before the entrance to the Black Sea. Here, the houses seemed to dip their toes in the rippling waters of the Bosphorus. Stacked next to each other like tightly-packed coloured boxes, many were just one room wide, yet most had a balcony on each of their three or four storeys. A flotilla of small boats was moored in front of the village, the hues of their painted woodwork reflected in a shimmering palette on the water. I walked across the short gangplank and took my first steps onto Asian soil, a strange sensation and something of an anticlimax: no elephants, no pagodas, no rice paddies, just this small settlement at the water’s edge. The centre of the village had been taken over by a cluster of touristic restaurants which, from the look of the customers at the plastic tables, catered mainly to the domestic market, just as Osman had said. A small girl saw me looking and stared back with big brown eyes, a French fry on her fork suspended momentarily in front of two rows of teeth before disappearing into the closing gap between them. The overall effect was not quite as picturesque as I had envisaged, but I imagined Osman’s mouth already watering at the prospect of lunch. I was sure I saw the nostrils at the end of his long nose twitching as a cocktail of smells, predominantly fish, garlic and cooking fat, drifted towards us from the row of eateries where Turkish families seated under tilting parasols were tucking into plates of food with gusto. We walked around for a few minutes, avoiding the few shops selling garish toys and cheap souvenirs, but there was not much to see or do except have lunch and the feribot was not due to return to Istanbul for another three hours. Osman, it seemed, had organised our journey to the other continent perfectly.