Out of Istanbul

by Bernard Ollivier

  My next stop is in the big city of Amasya. The small road leading there snakes its way through a valley among profuse and luxuriant orchards. Turkey, and this very region in particular, is considered the birthplace of the cherry tree (kiraz). The harvest is in full swing, and so clusters of women are perched on scaffolds, carefully filling wicker baskets. Only men address me, encouraging me to eat as many as I want. I gorge myself on the sweet, fresh, and pulpy cherries, as well as on this friendly encounter, sweet and rich, earthy. Of course, it’s a diet that does nothing to help the case of diarrhea I’ve been suffering from over the past two days, and I have to set my gear down in a panic several times behind the shrubs between the orchards and the road.

  Around noon, a cold rain beats down on the region. For the last five kilometers leading into the city, the road resembles a highway. Zooming past, the trucks spray clouds of ice-cold water that thrash me, and so, when I finally catch sight of the first dwellings, I’m soaked and chilled, with a belly full of liquefied cherries. My ordeal is still not over: the suburbs seem to go on forever. Amasya is set in a small, narrow valley, and I have to walk more than three kilometers to reach downtown. Exhausted and frozen to the bone, I hop into bed at 7:00 in the first hotel I stumble upon, foregoing dinner, and I get a long night of dreamless sleep.

  By early morning, the hot sun is back. Amasya, rich in history, is also an attractive city, where the reflections of Ottoman houses, which for once have been preserved, shimmer in the river. Squeezed into a kind of canyon, overlooking the city is a fort that was built, I’m told, by Mithridates. The kings of Pontus who, in the second century BCE, reigned over almost all of Anatolia made this their capital. Founded by the Hittites, conquered by Alexander the Great and then by the Romans and the Mongols of Tamerlane, under the Ottomans the city became a stronghold from which they launched all their attacks on the Persians. Traditionally, the Sultan’s heir came to Amasya in order to put his education into practice and learn to govern.

  My hotel faces the steep wall towering over the city center. Cave-tombs were carved in the rock for the kings of Pontus. I have every intention of taking a day off to rest here and use the time to gather information on the Silk Road. But it’s a daunting task. As in every Turkish city I’ve visited where they in fact have a tourist office, it’s extremely bare-bones and entirely incapable of providing even the most basic information. Two young people, neither one proficient in a foreign language, hand out leaflets. The same disappointment at the museum, whose director, Ahmet Yüdje, a trained archeologist, is thrilled about the recent discovery of a Roman road. But the trading history of the caravanners is a mystery he has never tried to unravel, no more than anyone else has. He refers me to a local celebrity, Ali Kamil Yaltchin, who, he claims, can shed light on the question and who also speaks English. I hurry over to the Ilk Pansiyon (Boarding House No 1) the man manages. But he’s away on a trip. The house he renovated is exquisite. I rent a room and move out of my dive hotel forthwith.

  It’s an Ottoman house dating from the early part of the last century. Of earth and wood construction, it has three stories with the first floor partially underground. A small paved courtyard, shaded by two trees, a walnut and a willow, is perfect for a siesta or aimless palaver. On display there are some ancient agricultural and household tools, part of the owner’s collection. An outdoor kitchen is used for grilling meats, so odors don’t spread throughout the house. On the second floor are the kitchen and service quarters. The third floor is accessed through a porch with a double stairway, sheltered beneath a canopy supported by columns, and opens out onto two large reception rooms. Abundant windows protected with wrought-iron grilles flood them with light. The top floor is divided into three bedrooms, one of which is adorned with a coffered ceiling decorated with stylized, pastel-colored abstract animal motifs. Ali Kamil installed bathrooms in the closets originally used to store bed linens during the day. I decide not to stay in the house itself, but in a small bedroom—a veritable refuge—whose entrance is hidden in a shady corner of the courtyard.

  The Turks, originally a nomadic people, live in their houses as if they were in tents. Almost always, a single room is used for welcoming guests, for eating, and for sleeping: this is the original tent. The floor here is always covered with rugs, even in the most modest homes. Among more well-off Turks, the rugs also climb up walls and onto bunks. Floor pillows that were part of tent living are still ubiquitous, but increasingly the couch is becoming the one obligatory piece of furniture in Turkish houses. Indeed, by its transformable nature, it’s suitable for both conversation and sleeping. As for meals, people still eat seated on the floor, the various dishes on a large platter set directly on the ground.

  I also wander about for some time outside the “Sultan Beyazit II” Mosque, the city’s largest Muslim temple. The edifice, as elsewhere in Turkey, plays more than just a religious role. It’s also a center of community life. In the wee hours of the morning, after their ablutions in the attractive fountain near the entrance, the faithful go to prayer. Afterward, they may opt for tea in the neighboring parlor, or go for stroll in the shady gardens. Students have at their disposal a very handsome adjoining library, said to be full of rare books. I discover a work written by a Frenchman, Albert Gabriel, in 1934. In it, he provides abundant descriptions of Turkish monuments in Anatolia, but, unfortunately for me, this architect, who held an important position in Istanbul early in the century, says everything, absolutely everything about Turkish mosques, mausoleums, and fountains but shows no interest whatsoever in structures designed for merchants, the very ones, as I’ve already said, with which I’ve become so enthralled. Perhaps, as they were too commonplace at the time, they didn’t stand out as particularly original, and so from an architectural point of view, no one thought them to be of any interest. I’m nevertheless very disappointed, once again, to have failed to find some trace of caravan buildings.

  But I do spot, however, on an old photo of the city taken in 1928 from high atop the cliffs overlooking it, two enormous structures. They’re the caravansaries where travelers were housed. So, for two thousand years, Amasya occupied a strategic position on caravan routes going east. It was also a staging post for traders journeying overland from the Black Sea toward Syria. Today, one of the two hans is gone. The other is in ruins. In the several cells on the ground floor that haven’t collapsed, artisans have set up shops where they work with wood, iron, and copper. The domes of a large bedesten next door, whose second floor has been destroyed, still provide cover for bustling business activity below. On June 12, 1919, Atatürk, who at the time was still known only as Mustafa Kemal, gathered in Amasya a large contingent of his friends and laid the foundations for the soon-to-be-established Turkish Republic. Amasya, ever loyal, commemorates the event with a festival that people speak to me at great length about, telling me how disappointed they are that I’m not planning to stay three more days to be here for it. For today is June 9, and it’s simply unfathomable to people that I would have come here for any reason other than the festival. But the soles of my feet are burning: I have to get walking. I often wonder about this phenomenon. What impels me to keep going? What unstoppable force, despite being barely awake, drives me out onto the road? My difficulty isn’t walking but stopping, for I’ve achieved that special state of physical plenitude: as soon as most of the fatigue is gone—and that happens very quickly given my conditioning over the past few weeks—I long to get walking, to keep on walking.

  It has been observed, among pilgrims in particular, that once an average of thirty kilometers a day has been reached, physical conditioning neutralizes our sensations of the body. In almost all religions, the pilgrimage ritual seeks as its main objective to elevate the soul by putting the physical body through hard work: the feet touch the ground, but the mind is nearer to God. This explains the intellectual side of walking, which laypeople fail to grasp. Those who’ve never experienced such an adventure themselves most often think that walking is suffering. That m
ight be the case for those who, out of masochism or religiosity, inflict tortures on themselves, walking on their knees or barefoot on stones. But for distances less than thirty kilometers a day, walking is pure joy, a wonderful drug.

  Solitary walking forces us to confront ourselves, freeing us from the limitations of the body as well as those of our usual environment that restrict us to conventional, acceptable, and prepackaged ways of thinking. After a very long walk, pilgrims almost always believe that they’ve been transformed. This is because they encounter a part of themselves on the road that they would no doubt never have discovered without such a long face-to-face experience. This is also why greater emphasis should be placed on solitary walking, which of course doesn’t preclude happily meeting up with friends during stopovers. The advantage that a Silk Road pilgrim or caravanner has over me lies therein. In the evening, with other walkers, whether they all share their same beliefs, fatigues, and discoveries or not, they can exchange and compare sensations, their moments of awe, and submit to scrutiny the ideas they’ve developed throughout the day.

  On the morning of June 9, having risen early, I eat a piping hot and delicious çorba—the staple of my meals—near the Ilk Pansiyon, when five minibuses full of soldiers in camouflage fatigues, armed with heavy rifles and machine guns and wearing bullet-proof vests, drive up and park out in front of the restaurant. An armored vehicle pulls up to join them. They were on patrol all night long on roads in the surrounding area. Kamil mentioned “terrorists” to me around Tokat. I’m not there yet, but the army’s activities prove that, here too, security should not be taken for granted.

  At 7:30, just as I am leaving the last houses behind me, two schoolboys, perhaps twelve years old, come up to me asking the usual questions, this time in English. They want me to talk about my travels in front of their classmates, who as it so happens are going to start the day in English class. I hesitate for a moment, as I like to take advantage of the cool hours of the morning for walking and today’s destination is over thirty-five kilometers away. But they’re persuasive, so I go along with the idea: I always have a hard time saying no to children. Flanked by the two youngsters—rather proud of having snagged such a prize—I head through the front entrance. The children are all in uniform. Everyone’s wearing a blue blazer: white shirt and gray pants for the boys, white blouse and pleated gray skirt for the girls, who, in addition, are wearing a blue-gray chador. Forewarned by one scamp who is scampering on ahead, the teachers are ready and waiting for me in their lounge. We drink tea, of course, and then my guides take over once again and lead me to their classroom and their teacher.

  A tiny woman, Öznur Özkan stands no taller than her pupils. But she must be one heck of a language teacher, because the children’s level of English is excellent. In ten minutes, I’ve explained my undertaking. They listen enthusiastically and then bombard me with questions about my route, motivations, family, and about Paris. I answer everything, but they still want to know my favorite animal and the Turkish singer I like best. When the tide of questions finally ebbs, at least forty-five minutes have gone by. As for me, I tell them how surprised I am by their chadors. Öznur—who is not wearing one—explains that this is a religious middle school. In the public system, all distinctive religious symbols are forbidden. A particularly inquisitive and enthusiastic young girl, the only one in her class not wearing a chador, asks her teacher if she can accompany me to the school gate. After the souvenir photo, permission is granted, and only two pupils stay behind in the classroom. All the others rush to follow me out, thrilled to escape their regular lessons for a few minutes. I depart with an escort of even more circling and chirping children than when I traversed the vast schoolyard on my way in. All the children give me their names. As I head out the gate, they still don’t give up but run along the park overlooking the road. Then they just stand there, waving and wishing me a good journey at the top of their lungs, until a turn in the road finally takes me out of view.

  I traverse a village whose main street is called “the Silk Road” and a little farther on a hamlet named “the Silk Village.” At least I know I’m on the right road. But those are the only signs. On a mountainside overlooking the road, the slogan “ne mutlu Türküm diyene” has been scrawled with large white stones, which I translate as “the greatest happiness is Turkey.” Some inhabitants have painted this slogan on their houses. Expressions of national pride like this will crop up again and again. Other slogans, drawn with white stones, sing the praises of the region, the army, or the jandarmas. Speaking of which, the army is omnipresent in these parts.

  I spot two soldiers positioned along the roadside next to a mounted machine gun; farther on, a small group of soldiers are stopping cars and trucks. They’re taken aback to see a someone on foot. They make a few jokes about me but leave me alone, wishing me happy trails.

  I give up on the main highway and head for the back roads. In two days’ time, I will reach the city of Zile. This evening, if I get that far, I’ll spend the night in a village whose name on my map has attracted my eye: Kervansaray.

  The weather is hot and stormy. At noon, I stop in the hamlet of Yıldız (yeel’-duhz). I buy a few reserves from the bakkal and sit down in the neighboring teahouse. The customers are dying to ask questions, but none dare. A poorly-shaved, gaunt man with sunbaked skin comes in and seems to make an impression on everyone. Mustafa Asil glances around the room, spots my bag, and then, quite naturally, comes over and sits at my table. It’s what the others were all waiting for. They grab their chairs and form a circle around us. While I answer their questions, they bring me more cups of tea than I can drink. Mustafa, with small, bright eyes like a shrew, writes his name in my notebook, and then another name on a blank page, then tells me why.

  “If you make it to Kervansaray this evening, stay at this man’s house; he’s my friend, Göz Bektaş (guhz behk-tash). Tell him I sent you, you’ll receive a warm welcome.”

  Like the children this morning, the curious step out onto the teahouse terrasse to watch me leave, waving good-bye until I disappear around the first bend in the road. The climb promises to be long and hard. I’m currently at an elevation of 450 meters. Kervansaray, fifteen kilometers distant, is at 1,200 meters (a difference of 2,460 feet). The storm that was threatening finally erupts. A young lad catches up to me, out of breath. He wants a cigarette. I haven’t got one. But I’m surprised that he would run so hard just to have a smoke. He tells me to wait and points to a man with a gun over his shoulder at a switchback in the road below, struggling to catch up with us. Since the boy doesn’t seem hostile, I decide to wait. The armed man, while walking, has taken the rifle from his shoulder and is now balancing it over his right forearm, barrel downward, the stock wedged up against his body. Friend or foe? The kid, sitting on the roadway and still trying to catch his breath, is not in the least bit threatening, or even nervous. While the other fellow approaches, I tell him where I’m from and where I’m going. When the man with the rifle finally reaches us, he breathes from his stomach, making his little potbelly jiggle. The boy repeats in Turkish what I just told him.

  “A tourist?” the chubby one asks.

  I answer with a nod. They both look at me calmly, then without a word head back down the hill. I’ll never know if the kid ran so quickly just for a cigarette, or in order to warn me about an ambush. What was going through their minds? It’s a mystery.

  The village of Kervansaray sits on a barren, undulating peneplain. Out of the crater of a marble quarry come huge, flatbed trucks on which enormous blocks seem to balance perilously, no doubt only by the grace of Allah’s blessing. The downpour came and went but in combination with the altitude has helped to cool the air. Stables and houses alternate, humble structures of earth and wood. Mud-caked children play in muddy streets. I barely escape the contents of a bucket of dirty water, hurled out onto the street through an open door. As I approach, daily life comes to a halt, the men and children stop to watch me, older women cover their nose a
nd mouth with their headscarf. Isn’t this the same reflex Western women have when they cover their face with their hand to express discomfort, confusion, or embarrassment?

  Göz Bektaş’s house is the very last one. He’s a huge man, his oversize face dashed with a large mustache. Upon hearing the name of his friend Mustafa, he immediately throws open his door for me. My host’s given name is not Göz (eye), which is a sobriquet, but Demirci (day-meer’-djee). His nickname means that he has a determined and cunning glance. He’s not a rich man: he has four cows and fifteen hectares of stingy land. But he knows how to share. He belongs to the Muslim sect called the Alevis (Shiite). Aside from one old, thin man, wrinkly as an apple, my arrival at Göz’s house, fails to attract the usual procession. The village lacks the collective warmth that so charmed me all the way to Amasya. I noticed the silent suspicion of the man with the gun, and the same thing again when I asked several passersby for directions. Is it the ruggedness of mountain living? The presence of these armed men, both soldiers and civilians, encountered over the course of the morning reveals a state of undeclared war. Are there combat zones nearby? I ask but receive no reply.

  One of Göz’s sons works in interior decorating in Istanbul in the winter and spends summers here to help out on the farm. He’s perhaps the reason why the house, as rustic as they come, is nevertheless quite neat and tidy.

  “How many children do you have, Göz?”

  “Four.”

  “I’ve seen two girls and your son; is the fourth a boy or a girl?”