Out of Istanbul

by Bernard Ollivier

  English translation © 2019 by Dan Golembeski

  Originally published in France as Longue marche: À pied de la Méditerranée jusqu’en Chine par la route de la Soie. I.–Traverser l’Anatolie by Éditions Phébus, Paris, 2001.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  Cover design by Brian Peterson

  Cover photo credit: iStockphoto

  ISBN: 978-1-51074-375-5

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-51074-376-2

  Printed in the United States of America

  For Mathieu and Thomas

  CONTENTS

  Maps

  I. The Cities Where the Road Begins

  II. The Philosophical Woodsman

  III. Misafirperver

  IV. Doubts

  V. Kangals

  VI. Veni, Vidi . . .

  VII. One Thousand Kilometers

  VIII. Jandarmas . . .

  IX. Caravansaries

  X. Women

  XI. . . . and Thieves

  XII. Down on High

  XIII. The Great Pain

  Translator’s Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  CHAPTER I

  THE CITIES WHERE THE ROAD BEGINS

  May 6, 1999

  My children are out on the platform, waving their last good-byes. The hand of the rail station’s large clock suddenly lurches forward: it’s time to go. The train pulls me away. The city, with all its noise and light, recedes into the distance. We move through shadowy suburbs, and then into the deep night of the countryside, pierced by fugitive streetlamps. I’m finally on my way. My long Silk Road journey has begun.

  As I stare out into space, my nose pressed against the windowpane, my eyes following the fleeting lights, three retirees come alive in our shared compartment. Two are on a long-overdue honeymoon. Thirty-five years and they never found the time. “Business,” the woman—a grocer from Brittany—told me a moment ago, “is time-consuming.” The other woman, traveling solo, already knows the city. She’s back to see the Carnival. In Venice, the season is just getting underway.

  I spend a long time in the aisle. I have no desire to talk. In my mind, I’m already out on the road, that incredible road, which has so haunted my dreams. I think about how wise it was to ask my friends not to come out onto the platform with me. Half of them, the ones who are truly upset to see me leave, would have asked me once again: just what is this trip all about? If I were a young man, they would understand: adventure awaits. But when a grown man sets out on a three-thousand-kilometer journey—on foot, with only a pack on his back, in a region reputed to be dangerous—instead of staying home to pamper his peonies in his retirement hideaway in Normandy, it’s completely preposterous. And as for the others, those who admire me for what I’m doing or who are simply envious that I’m taking an extended vacation, their presence would have done little to stiffen my resolve. What if I were to disappoint them?

  Gazing out into the dark night, never have I had as many doubts about my ability to complete the journey as at this very moment. This is, though, apparently rather common: grand departures are often accompanied by a little bout of the blues.

  I explained and reexplained my reasons to them all a hundred times. I’m sixty-one, an in-between age. My career as a journalist, first covering politics and then economics, ended a year ago. My wife and I had been partners in travel and exploration for twenty-five years; then, ten years ago, my heart was broken when hers stopped beating. My sons have begun to lead their lives as full-grown men. They’ve already experienced the terrifying feeling that, even among others, we are alone. I love them so very much! Together, my sons and I stand before the ocean of life. For the moment, they see nothing but an endless expanse of sea. I, however, have already glimpsed the land where one day I will have to go ashore.

  A happy childhood and a somewhat difficult adolescence, then a busy adult life: I’ve lived two productive, full lives. But why must it all end now? What do “those who wish me well” really want? For me to wait around, lifeless and resigned, reading books by the fireside and watching TV from the couch, so that old age can sneak up and grab me by the throat? No, for me, that time has not yet come. I still stubbornly crave fresh encounters, new faces, and new lives. I still dream of the faraway steppe, of wind and rain on my face, of basking in the heat of different suns.

  And then, throughout my previous lives, all too often I was on the run. I never found the time, just like the shopkeepers tirelessly chattering the night away in the compartment behind me. I had to secure a position, work, study, and earn my stripes. Constantly driven by farcical needs in the rush of the mob, endlessly running, dashing about, fast and faster still. Throughout all society, this senseless stampede is still gathering speed. In our noisy, urgent foolishness, who among us yet finds the time to step down off the treadmill to greet a stranger? I yearn, in this third life, for slowness and moments of silence. To stop to admire eyes rimmed with kohl, the flash of a woman’s leg, or a misty meadowland immersed in dreams. To eat bread and cheese, sitting in the grass, nose to the wind. And what better way to do this than by going for a walk? The world’s oldest form of transportation is also the one that allows us to connect. The only one, in fact. I’ve had my fill of viewing civilization in boxes and culture grown under glass. My personal museum is to be found in the pathways themselves and in the people traveling them, in village squares, and in a bowl of soup sipped with strangers.

  Last year, for my first year in “retirement,” I hiked one of the world’s oldest roads: The Way of St. James of Compostela, from Paris to Galicia. Two thousand three hundred kilometers (1,430 miles) on foot, pack on my back like a donkey. A marvelous road, full of stories and Histories. I wore out my soles—morning in, morning out—on the selfsame stones of a road that has, for twelve centuries, guided millions of pilgrims, sustained by their faith. For seventy-six days, I was one with the landscape that had seen them all go by, I sweltered on the same slopes, smelled the same smells, and, in its churches, stepped on same slabs that had been buffed by the boot nails of their shoes. Although I did not find faith on the road to Compostela, I returned home elated, feeling closer than ever to those who, from the earliest of times, had left their mark along the way. As I neared the end of my journey, drunk on the fragrance of Galicia’s eucalyptus forests, I promised myself that, for as long as my strength would allow, I would continue to walk the world’s pathways. And what path could be more inspiring, more impassioned, more infused with history than the Great Silk Road?

  At the end of the road to Compostela, I found my new road. That well-known road of men and civilizations. So it was decided: I would walk the Silk Road, from Venice and ancient Byzantium, all the way to China. One foot in front of the other, taking my time. Since I didn’t want to be endlessly apart from family and friends, from life as it flows along, I decided to tackle the journey in l
ong stages, hiking three or four months each year, that is to say, from two thousand five hundred to three thousand kilometers (1,550 to 1,865 miles) at a time. For the year at hand, 1999, I planned to go from Istanbul to Tehran.

  But before strapping my pack on my back in Istanbul, I felt a need to take in the air of Venice—musty though it is—and catch my breath, looking out at the city’s oyster-colored lagoon. Tomorrow morning, I will be in the very city that, over seven centuries ago, saw a young man of fifteen head off to the outer limits of the known world: Marco Polo.

  Everyone is fast asleep when I finally slip into my couchette. My gear is here, beside my head. It will be my only companion. I am headed out onto paths of silence and dreams. For the past three months, I have thought only about this. Maps, stopover points, equipment, visas, reading material, clothes, hiking boots. I am hoping to leave as little to chance as possible. This road-before-the-road has, for some time, robbed me of both my nights and my days.

  I finally fall asleep, lulled by the soft whoosh of the wheels, my mind filled with visions of caravans advancing across the steppe at the slow, rocking pace of a thousand wooly camels.

  The sun is coming up as the train glides silently over the still-sleeping lagoon. At first, only the campaniles break through the soft light of early morn. Then, suddenly, the whole city is upon me. A fairy city, a sorceress city, a city for walkers, a Christian city, a pagan city whose grandeur came from commerce and from, above all, the invention of a form of democracy, albeit quickly snuffed out, it’s true, by the patricians. A major breakthrough since, at the time, it was commonly believed that empires were only established through force.

  Venice’s fortunes came by way of the Silk Road. At the start of the thirteenth century, as the age of Byzantium was drawing to a close, the golden age of La Serenissima was just beginning. There were now no limits to the city’s merchants’ desire for ever-greater riches. To conquer new trading posts and establish themselves along new roads, they were in an exceptional position, between the mythical land of China on one hand and the wealthy West on the other, hungry for spices, silk goods, paper, and precious stones. A powerful fleet gave them control of the Mediterranean. One more stroke of good luck: a new route to the East, one that six centuries later would be called “the Silk Road,” was now open. The “Pax Mongolica,” set up by Genghis Khan’s successors, made the route a safe one. Was it not said that a young virgin, bearing a golden cup on her head, could cross the territory from the Caspian to modern-day Korea unafraid for either her virtue or her fortune? On roads built by Alexander the Great and secured by the Tartars, business boomed and fortunes followed, hidden in bundles strapped on the backs of camels and yaks.

  To get to know Venice, one option is to take one of the vaporettos of the Grand Canal, but she surrenders herself most readily to those who stroll her shaded side streets. Heading into Venice is like traveling back in time. I get lost in the piazzas, dreaming of one of the first and most amazing adventures that the Silk Road has ever known: that of the Polo Brothers. Perhaps they traversed this very square, built of solid marble and crumbling brick, before venturing out one morning in the year 1260. They set off seeking riches beyond the borders of the known world.

  They came back nine years later, having sojourned at the court of the great Kublai Khan. They had convinced the Mongolian emperor that their religion was superior. And so, Kublai gave them safe passage back home. No sooner had they returned than they wanted to head back out, this time to convert the Mongolian barbarians to Catholicism, but also—and chiefly, no doubt—to round out their wealth. They knew what extraordinary riches lay hidden in the Far East. So the two men were back on the road in 1271, accompanied this time by Nicolo’s sixteen-year-old son, whose mother had died. First by sea, and then on horseback: the grand voyage was underway.

  It wasn’t until twenty-five years later, in 1295, that the three men finally returned home to Venice. Venetians were dumbfounded. The trio had been presumed dead, and their inheritance had already been divvied up. Marco, who had a talkative streak, told of the splendors he’d seen twelve thousand kilometers away, cities where, he said, there were inhabitants by the milioni, and he bragged that the emperor had given him gold pieces, by the milioni. It all seemed so incredible, so extravagant, that no one took him seriously; and so, in jest, he was given the nickname of Il milione.

  As I stroll through the city, I notice how Venice unabashedly celebrates its doges, musicians, painters, and poets. But for Marco, I find nothing. Not a single vicolo, no campo, not the least plaque to call to mind the name of the most famous of all Venetians. Very recently, the city made up for this by renaming its airport Venice Marco Polo: tempting us to other forms of travel. When the house where he lived burned down, just a step or two from the Rialto Bridge, a modest little brick building was rebuilt on the site. But I search in vain, on the piazzetta, for some sign of the most famous of early travelers to the Orient. I keep looking, and finally, yes indeed, I find one: the place itself is called the piazza del . . . Milione.

  It’s early May, and tourists are pouring into the city. They walk in circles among the pigeons in St. Mark’s Square, hardly noticing, for the most part, the incredible equilibrium of the place: religious power symbolized by the Basilica, civil power epitomized by the Doge’s Palace. Would we, in the civilizations we live in today, be able to represent that kind of dualistic power so harmoniously? I find myself wandering about, feeling rather giddy, savoring these moments on the eve of a grand departure. I wander through the Museo Correr, whose treasures I had the occasion to admire on an earlier visit. And then I finally explore the maritime museum, which I missed on my previous journey. But the city’s magic that so gripped me on my first visit has somehow worn off; to tell the truth, in my mind, I am already out on the steppe.

  The Samsun is a large Turkish ferry providing weekly service between Venice and İzmir. Docked at the wharf, the enormous white ship juts out over the roofs of a city built at sea level. The immense forward gates are wide open, gobbling up a host of powerful German vehicles lined up single file on the wharf, loaded with packages, some even on the roof. They are driven by Turkish workers headed back to their hometowns for the summer, who would never think of simply leaving their cars in garages in Frankfort or Stuttgart. In their home villages, such vehicles provide concrete proof of their success.

  I share my cabin with two Armenians headed home with two large Mercedes, bought in France. For the entire three-day voyage, the only time they leave their berths is to eat. They make sure the sink is constantly stocked with a few cans of beer, kept cold by letting the tap run nonstop. I don’t quite get it: why travel so far to pick up a couple cars? The youngest one, who speaks a little slang-laden French, tries to prevent me from coming to the wrong conclusion: don’t get the idea, he tells me, that they’re involved in trafficking cars that have been chouravées (stolen). The next day, as we talk, I discover that he learned to speak our language in the fair city of Lille . . . in one of its prisons, that is.

  Slouched in an armchair on a part of the deck where a bar has been set up near the ship’s stern, I try to make out the Croatian coastline, not far off. The war in Kosovo serves up its daily dose of horror. That evening, while we are at dinner, one of the waiters suddenly yells out. We look in the direction he’s pointing: in the night sky, a long trail of fire, followed by a column of smoke, informs us that a missile has just blasted off from one of NATO’s ships on its death mission to Serbia.

  On board, I meet three French nationals, white-haired adventurers, like me. Louis, a former industry executive, and Éric, a dentist, are both retirees. Long-time companions, they have been through a thousand adventures, traveling each year with friends, from the Tropics to the high Arctic. This year, they’re cycling a series of stages that should take them from Gaillac—Louis’s home village in the Aveyron department in France—to Jerusalem in the year 2000. They have, at the ready, a treasure trove of colorful anecdotes from their earlier ad
ventures; they have explored half the world but want nothing more than to roam the other half. Their stories bring me back to my own fears. Like all travelers, Louis and Éric remember their journeys solely in terms of the trials, catastrophes, and accidents that toughened them up along the way. As if we could reduce travel to only its troubles and torments, its particular way of putting us through the paces that, later on, makes us laugh all the heartier. The narrative, most often, goes like this: “My travels were amazing, and to prove it, let me tell you about the three times I came this close to dying.” A few years ago, Éric was stricken with a horrific foot infection, picked up while on a train on his way to the Far North. (In my head, I say to myself: I sure hope my own feet hold up.) Another time, the two rascals got lost in the fog on a glacier, such that just one misstep would have sent them to spend the rest of their lives at the bottom of a crevasse. (In my head, I imagine myself lost in the deserts of Central Asia; as for sheer drops, in Anatolia and the Pamirs, I will see a thousand of them. But there’s a difference between their story and mine: I will be alone.)

  The other Frenchman, Yvon, a solid, stocky, square-jawed Breton, walks up and down the ship poking about like a veteran seafarer. He spent his entire life working on offshore oil rigs. He, too, has knocked around a lot and wants nothing more than to keep on going. He’s headed to Turkey, to the city of Çorum (cho-room), where he will assume ownership of a sixteen-meter (52-foot) sailboat that he was finally able to buy for himself, realizing the dream for which he slogged away for forty years: to stand at the helm of his own ship. I like this partner in madness who—alone, like me—is going to cross the Mediterranean, then head up the Atlantic to his native Brittany.

  Roused by their stories, I talk about my own dream, too: to walk, step by step, from Istanbul to Xi’an—Xi’an, the former imperial Chinese city that became world-famous when a “buried army” was discovered there some years ago by a man digging a well.* Yvon, taciturn like a true Breton, listens to my story without saying a word, but the two others admit that they’re astounded by my plans, a reaction that succeeds in rekindling my own fears. If globetrotters like these consider my trip reckless, then perhaps my own plans should be little less ambitious. Perhaps I should stop acting, head high and heart hopeful, as if I were invulnerable to the wicked ways of the world.