I stay at the only hotel in Gerede (gay’-reh-deh), a small city with an old quarter filled with tiny shops. The merchants appear to be busier entertaining friends than handling customers. The sight of teacups and sugar on trays set out on a workbench, table, or chair makes these shops feel more like sitting rooms. Two men suffice to fill one. Who are these people, prattling on while the shopkeeper is busy sewing, sharpening, or whittling? A friend? A client? A supplier? A relative? They are all endlessly babbling away . . .
Nowhere is it announced, and so it is by sheer luck that I discover, straying beneath a worm-ridden portal, Şehit (shay-heet’ ) ancient and marvelous caravansary. A short thin man with a scanty mustache, Şehit gets up from his seat at a neighboring teahouse as soon as he sees me, a camera-equipped tourist, standing in the courtyard of his architectural marvel. The man is no less venerable than the building itself, and he’s delighted that someone has taken an interest in what is no doubt the focal point of his life. He gives me a guided tour. The paved, rectangular courtyard is framed by a structure two stories high, comprising countless cells that once housed caravan travelers. The wood used to construct passageways and staircases, worn by the elements, has turned various shades of amber. To prevent accidents, fencing has been added to reinforce wood balusters that have rotted over the passing years. The walls, whitewashed in times past, now bear innumerable black bruises. There are holes above some of the cell doors, where it seems likely a stovepipe was installed at one time.
Perhaps all the wrinkles of the place are what make it so magnificent. Şehit opens a door and makes his way down a staircase, inviting me to follow. The former basement stables, built for an entire cavalry, now house only his small horse. He caresses the animal while speaking in a soothing voice. Poor old Şehit can do nothing but watch as his caravansary falls into ruin. For two years now, he has been requesting financial assistance to repair or preserve the roof at very least. He still hasn’t received a reply. It’s a sad thought that, in only a short while, this remarkable testimony to the Silk Road will, like so many others, simply disappear.
Of course, while we were talking, a group of men left the teahouse and came over to join us, eager to take part in our conversation. I ask when the caravansary was built. Şehit doesn’t know but speculates that it might be six hundred years old. An old man, Mehmet, who has said nothing up to now and to whom everyone listens with respect, offers a more precise answer. Deliberately, trying to find simple words, writing in my notebook and thumbing through my dictionary, he explains. This caravansary, or rather this han, predates the Ottomans, which means it is nearly eight hundred years old. As proof, he points out that the han’s name includes the word kiliseli, which means that it belonged to a church and not a mosque. I had indeed previously heard that, in close proximity to the mosques, other related structures were built, such as bazaars, shops, and caravansaries, and that the revenue they generated paid for the maintenance of the religious edifice. This was, for example, the case of Bolu’s han. Was this also done for Christian churches, such as the one at Gerede? Try as I might, I can find no confirmation of this hypothesis. And the idea isn’t entirely convincing, either. Numerous churches survived the Ottoman conquest, being abandoned only after the Kemalist revolution and the departure of the last Greek Christians. Nevertheless, it’s not so common to find vestiges of caravansaries in their vicinity.
On the morning of May 27, as I leave the city, I feel rather merry. My feet have almost completely healed, and, nicely bundled, they’re no longer painful. It’s cloudy out, the air clear and cool. The road, leading straight ahead, undulates slightly as it passes alongside the mountain. Down below, appearing ridiculously small, villages composed of houses with red-tile roofs look as though they’re held down in the landscape by their white minarets, thin as pins. Clouds roll across the sky, sending their shadows scampering up the slopes of Köroğlu (kuh-rohl’-oo), a mountain spire about fifty kilometers away, topping out at 2,100 meters (6,890 feet) and still capped by winter snows. At an intersection, a police car is keeping watch. One of the officers gets out, comes over to me, and, since he speaks English, strikes up a conversation. He leads me back to his vehicle and offers me a Coca-Cola. I observe once again that the officers of the “polis,” whose job is to regulate traffic, are not nearly as agressive as the jandarmas, who are more interested in fighting terrorism, or the “askers,” the military police, who are typically arrogant and think that by acting that way, they might be able prove just how indispensable they are.
From time to time, a few raindrops fall, cooling the air even more, and this chilly temperature is ideal for walking. One more self-examination reassures me that my muscles have adjusted to the harsh routine I’ve imposed on them for thirteen days now. My pack feels light. My resting pulse has dropped to sixty beats a minute and never exceeds eighty-five, even when walking along. One of the privileges I now share with top-level athletes is that I recover almost instantaneously, so I can keep moving nearly nonstop without needing to take breaks. At sixty-one, despite all my fears on the Samsun, I’ve regained my physical youth. My first battle, that of getting my body to adjust to the challenge I’ve set for myself, seems to have been won. I feel a kind of exhilaration emanating from every cell in my body. In this breathtaking landscape, I feel as though I were flying. I’ve finally entered the walker’s nirvana.
Just like last year on the Spanish Meseta, on the way to Compostela, I’m rubbing elbows with the divine. For that to happen, at least for me, three conditions have to come together. First, I must be completely alone. This is the first and most important requirement if I want to sail up to the clouds. Too secretive, too distrustful, and willfully remote, the gods do not open their door to tour groups. But it takes more than just being alone to gain admission into Olympus. You must also choose the right place. Sitting by yourself in your room in a city really isn’t ideal. To draw nearer the altar, seek vastness. I’m a lover of mountains, but I can imagine that for some privileged souls, the sea provides a similar sense of the infinite. When nothing but the horizon blocks your view, or your eyes are drawn upward to mountain peaks touching the sky, nirvana is close at hand. But that’s still not enough. The final condition, just as essential, is that body and mind must be in perfect harmony. As you’re walking, when the muscles, acclimatized and seemingly lubricated through daily exercise, reach an ideal temperature—that is, when your skin is perspiring lightly—and when well-oiled joints deal effortlessly with the ups and downs of the trail, then a mysterious alchemy transforms the body, allowing it to levitate. Spirit, pure spirit, hovers along over the heath, the steppe, or the mountain peaks. Grain of sand in a sea of sand, invisible in the vastness, weightless as the flight of the butterfly: all of a sudden, the walls of our familiar prison fall away. And the doors of heaven are opened. On these roads that he himself once traveled, I have often thought about Saint Paul and his vision of a great light on the road to Damascus. How, if he had been on horseback (which religious imagery sometimes assumes, without any proof) or riding atop a cart, the face of Christendom might have been quite different.
The traveler’s bliss doesn’t last forever. How long? It’s hard to keep track of it. It comes to an end because some strong emotion sets the heart aflutter, disrupting the soul; or because a stone along the path throws off the subtle equilibrium; or when a farmer, leaning on his hoe, suddenly stops what he’s doing and calls out you in a loud voice, waving his arms.
Come lunchtime, I eat a tasty tas kebab in a lokanta. It’s twice the usual price. But what else can I do? Prices are never labeled in this country. They’re calculated at the checkout or at the door, on a case-by-case basis. Today, the owner decided that, since I’m a tourist, I could cough up a little extra.
Five kilometers down the road, a strapping fellow comes out of another lokanta, shouting: “Gel, çay!”
He’s the owner. He drags me almost forcibly into his restaurant. I agree to a cup of tea. But he motions to his help, and they
bring me an assortment of meze, which, ordinarily, would be a real treat: there’s nothing I love more than that profusion of flavors that can either be eaten together, or savored at the taster’s whim. He insists that it’s all free. I try to say no, but in vain. I just gorged myself on the kebab served up by the cook next door, but he really wants me to honor his offering, and I don’t know how to tell him that I’ve already eaten. So as not to disappoint him, I have a few nibbles.
Once I’m back on the road with every intention of getting some exercise to help me digest, a minibus stops alongside me and offers me a ride. I thank him, but no: I’d rather walk.
“But for you, it’s free,” the driver assures me.
“Para yok, para yok! (no money, no money!),” the passengers all shout, thinking I don’t understand.
I have to come up with clever ruses and muster a fighter’s energy just to earn the right to walk. Others’ thoughtfulness can, at times, be truly exhausting.
I plan to stop in the village of Dereköy (deh’-reh-kuh), nestled in a valley, a little over thirty-five kilometers from my starting point. I spot the village perched atop a kind of natural terrace overlooking a generous valley. At an intersection below, the road veers north toward the Black Sea, while State Road 100 continues heading east. From my bluff, I see Ismetpaşa, a small train station that I had spotted on the map. It is 5:00 p.m. I feel good. Common sense tells me to stop here. But who knows what evil demon it is that manages to convince me to keep going: to hell with caution, I decide to push on to Ismetpaşa, heading down over the grasslands.
I somewhat overestimated my strength. In no time at all, as I’m barreling down the slope, my wounds come back to life, and the station, like an oasis, seems to keep moving away the closer I come. When I finally reach my destination, I’m very tired. The houses are small, dirty, and run-down. The station, slightly back from the road, is the town’s only solidly built, well-maintained structure. I decide to stop in a teahouse run by Mustafa, a sixty-five-year-old retiree. I tell him—or rather, I stammer my way through something intended to be a short summary of my journey—and I mention that I plan to stop here this evening. He’s incredibly untalkative, goes into an adjoining closet to get four eggs, which he drops into a teapot to cook them. We eat them with salt and bread, in silence.
I hardly know what to think. Should I continue on? Look for another place to stay? Still mute, after serving me a cup of tea, my host gets up and goes out, leaving me alone. A refrigerated display case that has been out of order for a long time and four or five dirty tables are the only furniture in this “tearoom.” Spread out on one of the tables are playing cards and a game of stira, a local version of dominoes. There’s sand all over the simple cement floor to help absorb moisture. The walls have never been painted. The storeroom where Mustafa went to get eggs is separated from the room by a partition made of loose boards, such that I can see a mattress lying on the floor, no doubt the owner’s own bed.
When Mustafa comes back, he’s accompanied by a kind, honest-looking man in his forties. Cengiz (djen’-geez, with a hard ‘g’) works for the railroad, operating a crane used to maintain the tracks. He informs me that I’m going to spend the night at his house. Cengiz lives in a railcar stationed on a siding line. A short distance from his house, kids are grilling fish they netted in a nearby pond, and they share a generous portion with us. My host, before preparing the evening meal, spends a long time adjusting the satellite dish moored atop the railcar in an attempt to pull in a French channel for me to enjoy. He finally picks up a program in my native tongue. Pleased at his accomplishment, he bursts into a loud laugh. Cengiz has teeth so white they could be used to represent perfect dental hygiene for an advertising agency. A notable exception, for the vast majority of people I meet display, over and over again, an array of decayed and broken teeth. The program that he found gives . . . the stock market report. So as not to ruin it for him, I act as though I’m thrilled but am a little overwhelmed listening to the latest quotes of CAC 40 companies.
Two teachers from the nearby school, notified by the children, climb up into the railcar to chat. One of them speaks French about as well as I speak Turkish, but it’s already very late to be having a conversation, and we’re in tight quarters made stifling by a red-hot stove. They explain how the Turkish school system functions. Several times throughout the night, trains make their way into and out of the little station without disturbing my host’s sleep, accustomed as he is to being rocked to sleep by the heavy pounding of their diesel motors.
The sun barely over the horizon, I don’t feel overly tired despite having trudged forty-seven kilometers the previous day. But today, I’ll be sensible: I’ve decided to stick to a short stage, stopping this evening in Çerkeş (cher’-kesh), only twenty kilometers (12 miles) away.
* Based on the French translation by Ayhan Erdal.
CHAPTER V
KANGALS
Although my inclination is to head toward villages and side roads, this morning, out of concern for my recovering feet, I head for the highway. The weather is mild and wet, perfect for walking. Around noon, the sun, first somewhat shy, but then downright hot, sets me dreaming. My walkabout is finally just as I like it. After the first few kilometers, my body exults. I move forward effortlessly, free from gravity, pure spirit on the move. From time to time, the landscape’s wild, flat beauty draws me back to reality. Views stretch as far as the eye can see. The grass is short and trees few; the sun meticulously paints the gentle slopes gold. By morning’s end, as my skin starts to burn in the sun, I shade my scalp under a wide-brimmed canvas hat. And then nothing can disturb me. My body and feet, now content, are no longer a concern. My spirit glides over the plain alone. I dream on my feet, walking along.
For Michel Serres, passivity is “another form of the animal state.”* In these daily exertions, this imperceptible but intense push to reach a yet-so-very-distant objective, this beneficial perspiration, I soar to the sky, I free myself from the chains of childhood, from fear, from conventional ways of thinking. I break the bonds society has bound me in, scorning armchairs and couches. I act, I think, I dream, I walk, and, therefore, I live. Although walking is conducive to reverie, thinking while walking is more unpredictable. The flight of an eagle, the path of a cloud, the flight of a hare, an odd crossroads, the heady fragrance of an unfamiliar flower, the call of a shepherd, or hills undulating off into the distance: whatever can be seen, smelled, and listened to frustrates the flow of thoughts. At any given moment, the walker is roused from meditation, distracted by a thousand tiny events, and forced to focus once again on the trail.
Walking is easier on the dreamer. Unlike thinking, reverie can be interrupted and then resumed without suffering much when the thread running through it breaks. Quite the opposite, in fact: the flight of the stork, the rustling of insects, the flamboyant purple of a flower or the unusual shape of a stone stumbled upon, all serve to stimulate the imagination. And it is not uncommon that, while walking thoughts wander off into the realm of the impossible. I often find myself having the ideal conversation with a friend or a woman I once loved. Everything falls into place, since, starting with my memory of them, I’m in charge of orchestrating questions and answers. And I’m not in the least bit ashamed to admit that, in this or that argument, I was in the wrong, since there is no one there to cast stones. Sometimes, when I reach the stopover, I send a note to the person involved, to whom it must come as a surprise to receive a card from half a world away given that we haven’t seen each other in a long time.
Often, as I walk along, I commune with those who preceded me on these roads. John of Plano Carpini, for example, sent by the Pope in 1245. He was in such a hurry to reach the court of the Great Khan that he used Mongolian relays, precursors of the famous American Pony Express. The rider would change steeds up to seven times a day. Upon spotting a relay, he rang a bell. A new steed was saddled up, ready to run. The rider would leap from the tired horse, mount the perky new one, and continue
on, flat out. It’s thanks to these riders that the Mongolian emperors were continuously kept informed of what was going on at the opposite end of their empire, which stretched from the China Sea to the borders of Western Europe.
And then there is the shadow of another traveler, Guillaume de Rubrouck, messenger of Saint Louis, who occasionally ventured out onto the steppe. Long before Marco Polo, he gave an account of far-off Tartary, whose name alone struck fear in the hearts of the West’s fiercest fighters. But through an injustice the explanation for which History has kept secret, only the name of Marco Polo went on to become famous.
What has changed in these landscapes since these illustrious travelers journeyed past them? The road is now blacktopped, telegraph poles have been erected? I have only to move a few hundred meters away from the bitumen, and the scenery is changeless. These fields, hills, mountains, croplands, houses, and peasant farmers are unchanged. These herdsmen, watching over their lambs and waving when they see me, live no differently from how their ancestors did who, from time immemorial, watched on as solo travelers or long columns of caravans marched by. Saint Paul frequented these hills. It is said that, in the space of ten years, he traveled over thirty thousand kilometers (18,640 miles) throughout the region. Mostly on foot. Were the shepherds to whom he proclaimed the good news any different from these?
But preachers and caravanners were not alone on these roads. Fearsome armies, too, fought one another here, viciously and without warning. This is why the cities are mostly positioned defensively on hilltops. Villages are hidden in the landscape, nearly invisible, blending in with the scenery. The earth used to build houses, dug up from the ground, has kept its original gray and red hues. Only the roofs, once made of straw or heather, and now made of tiles, stand out vividly against the colorless mountain slopes.
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