Here, at sea, I am breathing cooled Hellenic air again. The gossamer breeze makes me want to say the word aeolian. The Milky Way strews a path of grated diamonds. Off the port side the coast rises, mysterious in shadowy outlines against the sky, and on the starboard, only swells breaking against the ship, swells that almost break. Out there somewhere a shell rides the foam, bearing Aphrodite covering her breasts with a handful of seaweed. Tonight the sea resembles shiny obsidian, the calm water a mirror, the mirror into which Ed’s father looked in his last week on earth and said, Who is that, and why isn’t he saying anything?
Inside they’re always dancing to music that goes way, way back: “Night and day, you are the one,” I sing along. “Listen to that, Eddie. You are the one.”
Since distances are not far, the ship zigzags to fill the allotted days. At Rhodes we hit the full tourist impact. Although we skip breakfast and disembark early, the streets are a human avalanche; you could be crushed. We decide to return to the ship and come back someday to Rhodes, perhaps some rainy February. As we retrace our steps, we see one of the gentlemen hosts sitting on the curb drinking a beer and looking dejected.
We cross to the Turkish coast and moor at Kusadasi. Back on a bus, we’re en route to Ephesus, zooming past figs along the road, peach and orange orchards, and broken columns and carved blocks scattered along the way as though unremarkable. The messy nests of storks festoon chimney tops and electrical poles. If we were driving, we would stop for a basket of peaches, park under crape myrtles, and let the juices run over our fingers. Instead, I sip bottled water and pray that the sun does not turn us into pools of butter.
We make an unexpected stop at the House of the Virgin Mary. A Jewish friend told me he was unexpectedly moved by the house and the outside wall of Kleenex ex-votos, tied on for memory. I see, also, one knee-high stocking, a few rags, and scrawled notes on paper napkins, as though we are all unprepared when we want to give thanks. Inside the little house—it is almost surely only a wish that Mary lived here—the familiar candles in sand lift the gloom. The idea of Mary in her later life living in a small house near the ruins intrigues me. Maybe she had another child, a girl who climbed the dusty trees and played on the marble streets of Ephesus. As we board the bus, I hear a British tourist say, “That was spot on.”
Ephesus—hallowed by Saint Paul and by Heraclitus. At the entrance an impish child sells thirty postcards for one American dollar. As we pass up that bargain, he says, “You break my heart.”
“Jingle jangle,” the guide says. “These stands are selling jingle jangle.”
Then we’re walking those marble streets in a stream of other people. Several guides are lecturing in front of the famous library, after Alexandria and Pergamum the greatest in the ancient world. By now adverse to our guides, I walk around the groups, listening to snatches of their guides’ spiels. The statues are protections by Wisdom, Intelligence, Destiny, and Science, although another guide omits Science and says Love.
Medusa’s blue eyes protected the Temple of Hadrian. Was this, as the guide claims, the origin of protection against the evil eye? That eye decorates the prows of boats and the doorways of houses. It is to Greece what the household shrine is to Italy. Protect this house.
Our guide lets us roam the amphitheatre after telling us in an accusing tone that Sting, in a high-decibel rock concert, cracked the theatre’s foundation. “Imagine, after all the centuries, the American causes this.” She grimaces and glares. We don’t bother to tell her that Sting is English.
Where is Heraclitus’ Maeander, the river you cannot step in twice? I can see only stone and tourists. For the water is already far downstream. But Heraclitus, it’s not the water, it’s the river, and I always step in the same river twice. The flow of the river is memory, just as the mitos, the white ball of thread Ariadne handed to Theseus as he entered the labyrinth, was the thread of memory.
The bus makes a stop at a center for rug making. A concept for tourists, but nevertheless we see that the colors of the wool are the colors of herbs and spices—saffron, bay, cinnamon, paprika, sage, turmeric. I like hearing that one cocoon yields one and a half miles of silk thread. My favorite art springs from folk tradition, and I’ve always loved the spontaneity of woven rugs—the little animal and human figures that interrupt a design, the abrupt changes of color when the thread runs out and the nomads have moved on to other locales with other colors available for dying the wool. I like the use of what’s at hand, walnut shells, rock-rose hips, oak bark, tobacco leaves, medlar. Even these bored women hired by the state to demonstrate weaving techniques must find a little magic emerging on the loom.
In the hour we have to roam in Kusadasi, we go into a couple of rug stores. One dealer says, “I can take your money.”
At sea, tooling along the coast at night, the water looks blue, the darkest blue, a folded uniform at the bottom of a trunk. And the air in the dark—great tides of fresh sea air. The lights of fishing boats blink in the distance, and I imagine the men on board playing cards, looking up at the white apparition of our ship passing across their porthole. At sea, I get up early for the dawn colors reflected in the lovely, lovely water, bluer than thy first love’s eyes. I could not have imagined the glancing of light on these waters. All I want to do is lean over and watch the petticoat flounces of white foam and the heaven-sent blue. The impulse to jump feels strong and not destructive but rather a joyous desire to join another element.
Bodrum, the next stop on the Turkish coast, is simply appalling. Not yet totally ruined by development, it soon will be. The streets pulse with holiday people in T-shirts, halters, and short shorts, drinking beer as they go. Ticky-tacky condos spread like a case of shingles on the hills. I wonder why at this late date the town powers would allow such a rape of their sublime coast, the old city of Halicarnassus. Isn’t it obvious that development quickly reaches the point of diminishing returns? Those previously drawn to the glorious place will go elsewhere. We trudge through the castle and have lunch in a waterside restaurant where garbage floats just under our table. “Height of summer,” Ed says.
“Let’s go back to the ship where it’s cool. We can have a frozen daiquiri and go to the string quartet concert.”
“To hell with Halicarnassus.”
As we enter the Dardanelles, the color of the sea changes to green, and the green does not have the happiness of the blue. We’re entering the territory of Dardano, our hometown boy. He was born in Cortona, according to legend. In his wanderings he founded Troy; then Aeneas left Troy to found Rome. Because of Dardano’s circuitous history, he made Cortona the “mother of Troy, grandmother of Rome.”
We wonder if the pillboxes along the shore are “the tumbled towers of Ilium,” but no, we are passing a more recent catastrophe in these historic waters, the site of the battle of Gallipoli. All the British passengers move up to the bow and silently watch as we glide by. Their fathers, grandfathers, even great-grandfathers have perhaps breathed the word Gallipoli. As the captain recounts the action over the loudspeaker, the Germans stick to their novels and deck chairs and the Americans look puzzled: Gallipoli rings a bell but far away. We were not raised on stories of how the sea turned red with blood in 1915.
We awaken just in time to see the cut-out domes and minarets against the sky as the ship glides into the Istanbul harbor at dawn. This is the bookend to the evening sail out of Venice. The memory of arriving in Istanbul as the opaline colors spread across the sky and the city comes to life will always be worth the mobs of Rhodes and Bodrum. Our bags are by the door of our “stateroom,” and we do not bother with breakfast. We disembark without a backward glance.
The Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet was imprisoned for years in what is now our hotel. We arrive early, but our room is ready. In the dining room I see on the menu “wine leaves,” “clothed cream.” The gorgeous young woman server offers to read Ed’s fortune in his coffee grounds. She looks at him with great solemnity and says, “Your mother has died and she wants you to
visit her grave.” We are silent. This comes out of nowhere. Since Ed’s mother’s death, he has not returned to his hometown.
In a magazine I read a recipe for Head Broth. It begins, scrub a sheep’s head with salt and spices, rub with onion juice, wrap in parchment and roast. Undaunted, we are ready to taste Turkish food in the capital. On the first dinner menu we find söylenmez kebap—kebab that shall not be named. The waiter enlightens us; the kebab is made of ram testicles. I prefer bride’s soup: red lentils and rice, with mint, tomatoes, and herbs. For dessert, güllac: sheets of pastry flavored with rose water. The waiter takes our credit card and smiles. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
We sleep in the luxurious hotel in great comfort. Big bed, soft, and no sound of water sluicing below, threatening to rise and swamp us. Only the memory of the literary prisoner, who might have written his poems in this very room. I awaken to the call of the muezzin from a minaret. Mournful, innocent, shrill, otherworldly—a call of the wild—it stops my heart. If I were Muslim, I would prostrate myself immediately for prayer. The domes are rising suns, the minarets its rays.
On the way to Topkapi, we pass shops emitting smells of lacquer, spices, leather, straw, lanolin. Topkapi is still a wonder of the world! Those sultans! When they wanted someone executed, they stamped their feet. They sprinkled rose water on their hands. Their spoons were made of mother-of-pearl or horn, with handles inset with rubies and turquoise. The crests for their turbans were huge emeralds with plumes. I stare at the hand and occipital bone of Saint John the Baptist, a dagger with a carved emerald handle, wild dress-up clothes with crests of jewels startlingly large, water pitchers and rose-water sprinklers bedecked with pearl, lapis, and coral. The place itself is leafy and serene, with courtyards and pavilions and cool tiled fountains and delicate wall paintings. The architecture, perhaps inspired by a tent camp in the desert, feels harmonious and inviting and at the same time utterly strange and fascinating. In feeling, it reminds me of its opposite, a fine liberal arts college.
There’s a long line waiting to go inside the Harem, which once was home sweet home to a thousand concubine slaves. Hardly anyone stirs in the rooms where the treasures are displayed, and I can imagine the sultan stepping into one of the lavish robes in the Royal Wardrobe and making his way to his prayer room.
This is our two-day tasting menu of Istanbul, a city that requires at least a month. Those mosques! Muslim men prostrate themselves in the courtyards, on the steps, and at the entrances to the mosques on Friday. They spill over into the street, among the parked cars. The Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia (built as a Christian church, mutated into a Muslim mosque, now a museum), the Tulip Mosque, the dozens of scattered mosques, all punctuated by the minarets, offer their domes to the sky, giving the city a soft aspect. How far back does this city travel across time? In 658 B.C. Byzas, a Greek, consulted the Delphic oracle. Where to go? he wanted to know. She advised him to settle on the banks of the Bosporus. His city became his namesake, Byzantium.
Istanbul! It is nobody’s business but the Turks’—that is, the mysterious city does not open to the foreigner easily, though anyone will be struck by the architecture, the bazaars, the encounters with merchants and buskers who stroll around trying to lasso tourists into some shop. The old-quarter outdoor cafés look so inviting with low benches and tables covered with kelims. Little wheeled carts are laden with mesir, roasted corn. In the cobbled, narrow street behind Hagia Sophia, we find a row of wooden Ottoman houses built against the town walls, a quiet enclave of fountains and birdbaths, a place one could live.
Many women wear ankle-length coats of ugly gabardine over long sleeves, with gray long skirts, leggings. They must be boiling. I’d faint. This must be their choice, since many Turkish girls are in short skirts and sleeveless T-shirts, with bra straps showing. For the covered, only the feet are exposed. Ugly sandals, too. I bet they have on pink silk thongs and push-up lace bras. A few are masked but walk hand in hand with young children in shorts. The young wife of a rug merchant tells us, “I like fashion and alcohol, and I don’t want to cover myself. For what? I have Allah inside. That’s what matters.”
The hawkers are aggressive. “My brother lives in Seattle,” they call.
“Honeymoon?”
“Second honeymoon?”
“Do you want to be my first customer today?”
“I’ve seen you three times. We are already well acquainted.” We have to laugh at that and are then followed for blocks.
“You are going the wrong way,” one calls. They are lined up outside a shop near our hotel. Much of their banter is for their mutual amusement.
We ask our concierge for a recommendation. “What kind of rug do you want?” he asks.
“Old, faded colors, like the one we’re standing on.”
“Oh, that is for sale. The rugs we have are from a merchant we know. Go there.” And so I fall into the hands of an expert rug merchant.
We meet Guven Demer, speaker of eight languages, young and passionate. We are no match for Istanbul rug dealers. They are performers and shrewd psychologists. They are relentless and should give lessons to international negotiators of foreign affairs. They could prevent wars. Guven, in business with four brothers and several cousins, has practiced his craft for two thousand years around the Mediterranean. After an hour he has the smell of the hunt about him. The rugs are flying through the air, the prices fly, combining with other prices, turning from Turkish billions into dollars and back again. The showroom is windowless, stacked with rugs that go back, in the heat, to the scents of camel. He begins to touch us, a tap on the shoulder, a hand on Ed’s knee. Sweet tea is served, boxes of Turkish delight presented. The rugs are too bright for me, too new, and he asks for two hours, during which time he scours his contacts. When we return, the rug I had envisioned lies on the floor, and I nod and say “Guven, it’s beautiful.” It is a hundred-year-old Herez of faded blue and salmon and biscuit colors.
He turns around and around. He’s a dervish. “She likes it, praise to Allah,” and he dramatically falls to the floor in the prayer position. By the time we have bought the rug, plus two small ones and the one on the floor of the hotel, he is embracing us, inviting us home, inviting us for two days on the Asian side to see how real Turks live. He is coming to visit us in California. We walk out dazed; he had us in the palm of his hand.
“And therefore I have sailed the seas and come/to the holy city of Byzantium.” What a clunky rhyme, come /-tium, I suddenly notice. But I, too, finally have come to Byzantium, to the fabled Bosporus, to the Sea of Marmara. The word, mar, mar, has the breaking of waves in it, the oldest sound other than that of mama, mama.
Leaving Istanbul, the taxi careens along the Bosporus, hot wind blowing my hair behind my ears. We are not “dewy,” as my southern relatives used to say, we are downright sweating. I flash on an image of Alain back on his terrace in Cortona sipping a glass of cold white wine. Then we enter the most state-of-the-art airport in the world, where we are cooled down to morgue temperature until we enter the sleeve of the plane, where it is again one hundred degrees. Everyone is emanating hot odors—oil, the wrung-out stink of lamb, rancid breaths, pungent underwear, a whiff of tea tannin, dirt. I’ve been to Greece and have grazed the edge of Turkey. Praise Allah. Praise Professor Hunter who called me a Maenad. Praise the Oracle. In the plane the fans blow away the smells.
Alitalia seems to take off with more confidence than other airlines. The pilot angles up as soon as the tires lift off the runway, accelerates, spirals up, and turns with brio. We are over Romania, Bulgaria. We are served our last tastes of Turkish food—little meat kebabs and fried pastries stuffed with vegetables, baklava. Then down into Fumicino and home to Bramasole, home to our green paradiso. Home to no electricity and a broken water line, a printer zapped by lightning. Rampant morning glories have vaulted onto the jasmine and across the terrace wall, the blooms, blue as the Aegean, trumpeting joy.
In a few weeks a package from the merchant in Istanbul
arrives. On a small wooden loom we read, woven in a miniature rug of red and tan wool, our names and below:
In Love, Guven.
Bulls, Poets, Archangels
Crete and
Mani
You heard your voice saying thanks
. . . you were certain now:
a large piece of eternity belonged to you.
—YANNIS RITSOS
We have come to Greece for the baptism of Constantine Demetrios Mavromihalis at the Church of the Archangels, Ayion Taxiarchon, in Areopolis, ancestral home of the fierce Mavromihalis clan, deep in the Mani.
First we light in western Crete, near Chaniá. On our cruise through the Greek islands, the stop at Knossos and Heraklion seemed more frustrating than not seeing the places at all. The deadly heat, the crowds, the limited time, and the head ’em up, move ’em out aspects skewed our experience of the island. We vowed to return. Even inside those blighted circumstances, I glimpsed, in a hand flipping a rag at a window, in the rotten sweet scent of fallen apricots that even the bees had left to the ants, in the philosophical goats among the dusty tamarisks, the elemental nature of Crete.
We have rented a house in Chaniá, where watercolored Venetian buildings line the C-shaped harbor, the scene nicely accented by a domed Arab mosque and a lively quay of tavernas with outdoor tables. The town, long swamped by tourism, yields charms at night. Around the bend from the crowds, you can have dinner right beside the water and, looking through your glass of local white wine, imagine the din and activity of the trading port as successive conquerors arrived and took over for a century or two. A sloe-eyed Gypsy girl jangles with bracelets and anklets as she offers her roses for sale. Four old women, who surely would have worn heavy black a few decades ago, sit down next to us, order tall lime daiquiris, and settle in to talk. We dine to the music of their laughter, the occasional clomp of the horse-drawn carriages, and the slap of small waves against the mole.
A Year in the World Page 29