The dining room was far less formal in the mornings than it was at dinner, and tables were not assigned. I found Maggie and Paul seated near a window and greeted them cheerfully, resolutely thrusting both Markos and Gene to the back of my mind. I gave the waiter my order, then turned toward the window to watch the bustle of activity below. Dock workers swarmed about the ship, securing her in her berth with thick ropes. Beyond them, wooden pallets were stacked high with sacks of onions and potatoes; apparently the galley stores would be replenished while we were docked here at a major port.
“So this is Istanbul, the gateway to Asia,” I remarked. “And yet potatoes and onions look the same all over the world.”
“Actually, this is Europe,” Paul corrected me. “Asia is over there.” He gestured with his fork across the water to the opposite bank. “Istanbul is the only city in the world that straddles two continents.”
“Isn’t that the spot Lord Byron swam across, Robin?” Maggie asked, hunching down for a better look. “It’s awfully wide, isn’t it?”
I shook my head. “Actually, Byron swam across the Dardanelles—although it was called Hellespont at the time—which we would have passed at some point in the early hours of the morning. I believe it’s even wider than this.”
“Three-quarters of a mile, while this is less than half,” Paul concurred. “All the more remarkable when one considers he did it in spite of a club foot.”
“Or maybe because of a club foot,” I suggested. “Or maybe he was just trying to get away from Lady Caroline Lamb.”
“Either way, he has my sympathy,” Maggie said, glaring at her own bad foot. “At least I know mine will heal—although not in time to salvage my trip.”
“What are your plans for the day?” I asked. “Will you get to see any of Istanbul?”
“I contacted the purser’s desk, and they were able to make a reservation for Paul and me on a Bosporus cruise,” she said, brightening. “The price includes a full Turkish meal on board the boat, so I’ll get a taste of the city in more ways than one, all without too much walking. I would have included you in the reservation, Robin, but I thought you would prefer a more in-depth exploration on foot.”
“I would, but I hope you have a wonderful time all the same,” I assured her.
“Oh, look,” Maggie said, unexpectedly sober.
I turned back to the window and saw a crewman in starched white solemnly pushing a stretcher bearing an elongated bundle wrapped in what appeared to be oilcloth. A tall, silver-haired man kept pace beside him, occasionally reaching out to lay a gentle hand on the oilcloth. I didn’t have to see his face to recognize Graham Grimes, escorting Sylvia for the last time. Even from this distance his grief was obvious. The sorrow of loss, I wondered, or remorse at the impulsive act of violence that had deprived him of feminine companionship? There was something wrong with that theory, something missing, but before I could put my finger on it Maggie spoke again, and I lost my train of thought.
“It’s a shame he’s all alone. If we’d known, we could have stayed with him,” she added to Paul. “After all, we’ve been through it ourselves.”
“He told me his children would be here to meet him.” Even as I said the words, a trio of well-dressed, middle-aged adults—two men and a woman—stepped out from between the vegetable-laden pallets. The woman broke into a run, and threw her arms around her father’s neck. Clearly, whatever her opinion of Sylvia (and I wasn’t at all certain I wouldn’t have felt the same way, if it had been my own father who had taken up with Sylvia or someone like her), she loved her father. I was relieved to see he was in good hands, whatever he might have done.
“I’m glad of that, anyway—although it does make for a solemn beginning to our day in Istanbul,” Maggie said. “Oh, speaking of solemnity, that reminds me! Robin, if you’re planning to visit the Blue Mosque, you’ll need a head covering. Do you have a scarf? You can borrow my green one, if you need it. You’ll also have to take off your shoes, so you might want to be sure and wear a pair that slips on and off with no buckles or laces to deal with.”
I assured her I already had it taken care of, even offering proof by directing her attention to my espadrille-clad feet and digging my blue chiffon scarf out from under the camera that took up most of the room in my straw bag. Having finished our breakfast, we left the restaurant and headed down to the lowest of the public decks, which offered access to the gangway. Once on the dock we parted ways. Maggie and Paul took a taxi to the much smaller pier from which the dinner cruises departed, while I boarded a bus for the historic city center. From there, the man at the purser’s desk had assured me, I could board a tour bus much like the ones we’d taken in Rome.
As the bus set out from the dock, I stared out the window, practically pressing my nose against the glass in my eagerness to learn as much as I could about this exotic and mysterious port of call in one day. The skyscrapers in the near distance would have looked right at home in New York or Chicago, but the needlelike minarets puncturing the skyline at intervals made it clear that this was no Western city, at least not entirely. Likewise, the people milling up and down the crowded sidewalks ranged from bearded and turbaned men in the flowing robes of the Middle East to well-tailored Dapper Dans in business suits that might have come straight from Savile Row. Women in the latest from Paris or Milan mingled with others covered from head to toe in long black garments with veils over their heads and faces, covering them entirely but for an occasional glimpse of liquid dark eyes. No, whatever its influence over Western civilization over the centuries, this was no Western city.
At last the bus lurched to a stop with a hiss of brakes. I disembarked with the other passengers and got in line at a kiosk where I parted with several of my Turkish lira and received in exchange a ticket for one of the tour buses that crisscrossed the city, stopping at all the most popular sites. Our first stop was the Topkapi Palace, royal residence of the Ottoman sultans for almost four hundred years. The imposing crenellated structure flanked by coned towers, which I assumed was the palace, was actually the enormous Gate of Salutation, the entrance to the second courtyard. Beyond this gate, a series of paved paths radiated outward like the spokes of a wheel. I chose one at random, and began my exploration. I turned to the right, where the extensive kitchens were recognizable by the double row of round chimneys rising from the roofs, resembling the smokestacks of a ship. Inside, the sultans’ extensive collection of blue and white Chinese porcelain held pride of place, each piece having been transported by camel caravan over the old Silk Road. I couldn’t help wondering how many additional pieces had broken along the way.
After leaving the kitchens, I passed through yet another gate into the third courtyard. Here was the aptly named Conqueror’s Pavilion, which held the imperial treasury. The sultan’s gold and jewel-encrusted armor was on display here, along with his sword, shield, and golden stirrups. I had to wonder how practical such showy pieces would actually be in battle, but given the wealth of riches that surrounded me, I certainly couldn’t argue with the results. A second room housed the gold- and emerald-adorned Topkapi Dagger in a glass case in the center of the room, but I was more impressed with the cases lining its perimeter, in which were displayed the elaborate crown jewels, either gifts from foreign powers hoping to curry favor or spoils taken by force from conquered enemies. This observation, along with the armor displayed in yet another room, served as a stark reminder of how much violence this city had seen in its long history.
From the treasury, I wandered to the seraglio where the women of the harem would have been kept secluded from prying eyes. Here were no sunny courtyards, but a series of bewildering corridors and a rabbit warren of rooms opening from one into the next. Which was not to say they weren’t beautiful; the walls were decorated with blue and white Iznik tiles, the windows made of stained glass or covered with lattice screens that filtered the bright sunlight and cast geometric patterns onto the floor, giving the women of the harem distant glimpses of the water tha
t was the city’s lifeblood, yet preventing them being seen by the outside world. Still, I wondered what it must have been like for the young women who lived here in these opulent surroundings day after day and year after year, awaiting the sultan’s pleasure. A gilded cage, perhaps, but a cage all the same. If any one of them had been discovered betraying the sultan as I had betrayed Gene, she would have been stuffed into a sack and thrown into the Bosporus. Would she have considered it worth the risk? Did I? Not that anyone would throw me into the Bosporus, of course, but what would Gene do if he found out about me and Markos—for instance, if Maggie let something slip? Would he break the engagement? Did I want him to?
Did I want him to? That was the question, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer. I hurried away from the claustrophobic surroundings of the seraglio and returned to the bus stop. I didn’t have to wait long for the next bus, and soon my fellow passengers and I were set down at the edge of a busy square flanked on each side by enormous domed buildings bristling with minarets—the red and gray Hagia Sophia on our left, and the aptly named Blue Mosque on our right. Most of the crowd drifted to the right—a lifelong habit of following traffic laws, I supposed—so I went against the flow and turned left, toward the Hagia Sophia.
The massive structure—not named for Saint Sophia, as I’d assumed, but for Holy Wisdom—had stood for more than fourteen hundred years, and had changed hands several times. First built as a Christian Orthodox church in the sixth century, it had briefly become Roman Catholic after falling to the Crusaders in the thirteenth. The biggest change had come two hundred years later, when Constantinople was conquered by the Ottomans and the church was converted into a mosque. The building, already almost a thousand years old, had fallen into disrepair by that time, and it was quite possible that the Muslim invasion saved it from collapse—which was probably small comfort for the many defenseless Christians who had fled to the church for sanctuary during the siege only to find themselves part of the spoils of war when the city fell and the invaders sacked and pillaged the building.
Only twenty-five years ago, in 1935, the Hagia Sophia had been converted into a museum, and now, looking about me, I could see signs of its mixed heritage. The four minarets outside, of course, were the most obvious sign of its Muslim years, but inside were more: the raised lectern where the imam would have preached, as well as large round disks bearing calligraphic writing, the meaning of which I couldn’t begin to guess. On the Christian side, the mosaics had not been destroyed, but only covered in plaster, and now the tranquil gazes of Jesus and the Virgin Mary, along with various saints and angels, gazed serenely down from ceilings and walls, and the carpets had been removed to expose the marble decorations inlaid into the floor, including the Omphalion, the circular marble slab where the Byzantine emperors had once been crowned.
Having looked my fill at the Hagia Sophia, I exited through the massive doors and crossed the square to the Blue Mosque. At “only” three hundred years old, this was practically new compared to its neighbor, and had been built as a deliberate attempt at one-upmanship. As Maggie had predicted, I had to take off my shoes and leave them with an attendant, who thanked me in broken English and offered me a piece of plain cotton cloth to use as a head covering. I declined with a smile and withdrew the chiffon scarf from my handbag, then draped it loosely over my head and passed through the open door.
I’d assumed the Blue Mosque was named for its bluish-gray exterior, but once inside I realized my error. Here were no mosaics as in the Hagia Sophia, as the Muslim religion prohibited the representation of living beings; instead, the interior of the mosque was decorated with twenty thousand blue and white Iznik tiles and more than two hundred blue stained glass windows. Where the Hagia Sophia spoke of power, antiquity, and a turbulent past, the Blue Mosque whispered of beauty and elegance on a grand scale. I padded about on the thick red carpet, snapping photos to show my aunt.
Eventually I retraced my steps back to the bus stop, where I boarded the bus to the Grand Bazaar, a sort of fifteenth-century shopping mall encompassing sixty-one streets and over four thousand shops, all under one roof. Somewhere in my bag, among the sunglasses, scarf, camera, passport, and all the other accoutrements of travel, I had Turkish lira, and I was ready to spend them. I passed through the gate into the covered pedestrian thoroughfare with its arched ceiling, blinking as my eyes adjusted to the dimmer light within. I groped in my bag for my camera and stopped just inside to take a photo. The place was packed with tourists as well as locals, and merchandise spilled out of the cramped little shops and into the passageway where it impeded the shoppers’ progress, forcing them to slow down for a better look whether they wanted one or not. Young Turkish men, no doubt the shopkeepers’ assistants, worked the crowds, their voices echoing in the enclosed space as they called out to potential customers in fractured English to come and inspect their wares.
“Beautiful English lady!” one called, obviously speaking to me even though I wasn’t English and had never thought of myself as beautiful. “Beautiful English lady want good Turkish rug? Only forty lira!”
Even I knew forty lira was far too little to pay for a “good Turkish rug,” but I had to give him credit for trying. I smiled at him and shook my head, and soon discovered my mistake. He took my smile for encouragement and stepped up his efforts, joined by his counterparts from several other stores.
“Come look at rugs and buy!”
“Pretty lady want gold? I give good price!”
“Buy leather jacket for boyfriend!”
And would that be Gene or Markos? a mocking little voice in my head asked as I hurried on, escaping one aggressive salesman only to find myself confronted with another—or two or three.
“Come and look! Come and buy!”
“Bracelets to protect pretty lady from Evil Eye!”
What I needed was something to protect me from importunate salesmen, I thought desperately, as I squeezed past a stout German couple debating the virtues of a “real Turkish rug” with a shopkeeper. I came suddenly upon a corner, and turned into another covered street. This one was a bit less crowded, and I stopped to catch my breath. Remembering Paul’s warning about pickpockets in Rome, I felt for my bag, and was relieved to find that it was still there. A trio of women in head-to-toe black robes and face veils turned the corner, and I looked up to smile sympathetically in the general direction of their hidden faces. If Muslim men were always this persistent, I understood why the women felt the need to conceal themselves.
They were on me before I could react, one locking surprisingly strong arms around me while the other two grabbed for my camera. In retrospect, I suppose I should have given it up without a fight; after all, I had no way of knowing what kind of weapons might have been secreted away beneath those all-encompassing black robes. But I didn’t have time to think. I clutched the camera to my chest and began swinging my elbows back and forth wildly. The woman who held me struggled to maintain her grip, and in the struggle her long sleeve fell back, revealing a muscular forearm liberally sprinkled with dark hair and bearing a tattoo reading “ELAS.”
This was no woman.
Remembering the self-defense class that had been required of all freshman girls at my university, I twisted in her—his—grasp and jerked my knee up. His hold on me loosened at once, and I heard a very satisfying groan of pain. I wrenched myself free and began to run, back toward the busy main shopping street. Footsteps ringing on the pavement told me at least two of the three were in hot pursuit, and although their long black robes might hinder them to some extent, it was unlikely I would be able to outrun two men for very long. I reached the intersection and plunged back into the crowd, ignoring the calls of the salesmen as I dodged in and out among the shoppers. Suddenly a couple of tourists came to a dead halt right in front of me. I couldn’t stop in time. I plowed right into them, all but knocking the woman off her feet.
“I’m so sorry,” I panted, taking her by the arm to steady her. “I didn’t mean�
�”
“Why, Miss Fletcher!” she exclaimed, and relief flooded through me at the sight of Mrs. Hollis’s pleasant, homely face. “Look, Henry, it’s Miss Fletcher!”
“Are you okay?” Mr. Hollis asked, subjecting me to an intense gaze.
“You look a bit pale,” his wife agreed.
“I’m all right,” I said breathlessly, “although I was never so glad to see anyone in my life! Someone—someone tried to steal my camera.” I looked behind me, but saw no sign of my assailants among the crowd.
“They were probably wanting to sell it on the black market,” Mr. Hollis said grimly. “They saw a pretty young girl traveling alone, and thought you were an easy mark.”
“It’s a good thing it was no worse,” Mrs. Hollis concurred. “Maybe you’d better stay with us until we return to the ship.”
Suddenly I’d lost all interest in souvenir shopping. “Thank you, but I think I’m ready to go back to the ship now,” I said.
“If you can wait a minute longer, we’re just about to go catch the bus ourselves,” Mr. Hollis assured me. “Martha wanted to buy a little something she could show all her friends back home.”
At that moment I wanted nothing so much as to hole up in my stateroom and not come out until we reached Venice, or at least until Maggie and Paul returned. Still, shopping with the Hollises seemed less traumatic than running the gauntlet of shoppers and salesmen back through the Grand Bazaar to the entrance gate. “All right, but only for a minute,” I agreed halfheartedly.
“I won’t be long, I promise. I’m not superstitious, but I do like those little blue Evil Eyes,” she said, turning back to gaze at the cluttered display in a shop window, which featured a number of glass disks and teardrop shapes featuring concentric circles of blue, black, and white. “Look, that one is set in the middle of a little yellow cross. Does that make it look a bit less heathen, do you think? I’d hate for us to be kicked out of church, what with Henry being an elder.”
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