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Wednesday, October 16 - Istanbul (Sultanahmet)
It’s down to business today. Mario will return Friday night and I need to get a bike lock and my mail. I have my breakfast and wait until the rush hour traffic dies down before I set off for the tourism office in Sultanahmet. I stop first at a local store to buy bus tickets for the return trip. I am able to get a booklet of tickets for a reasonable price. The route is obvious as there is a bus called Sultanahmet that passes by Besiktas along Maullim Naci. The stop is right near the bottom of the hill from Mario’s place, next to the store where I bought my city map yesterday.
The route follows the Bosphorus over the Galata Bridge, a sort of pontoon bridge over a small inlet that separates the rest of the European side of Istanbul from the Golden Horn, a horn-shaped peninsula that was the location of the ancient walled city of Constantinople and the historic seats of the Eastern Roman and Ottoman empires. Its defensible location over the entrance way into the Bosphorus and the Black Sea made it an obvious choice for a fortified city of major importance.
The bus is standing room only. I bend over slightly to look out the window along the waterside as the bus rattles under the great Bosphorus Bridge and past a small, ornate mosque jutting into the water, much like the Torre de Belem beyond the big bridge in Lisbon. Two kilometres past there, we stop by a great palace fronting on the water between the road and the Bosphorus. The bus is packed now. It is harder to see out the window but I continue to try.
Unseen by others in the packed bus, a man slides his hand down the crack of my ass as I bend over to look out the window. His fingers grope for my anus through the thin fabric of my cotton pants. I jump with a start, almost hitting my head of the hand rail above me, and I turn to glare at him. I expect to see a lecherous old troll with no redeeming features, but he is a tall handsome man with dark seductive eyes, perhaps a bit younger that myself. He looks straight into my eyes without fear, as though he has done nothing wrong. My impulse is to shout at him and make a scene, but his look catches me off guard. In the same instant, I feel violated, horrified and confused. Perhaps this is some form of Turkish compliment. If I make a scene, my complaint could be misinterpreted as I don’t speak Turkish and he likely does. I am also afraid that the other riders would find it more amusing than disgusting. I think too long and the moment for reacting passes.
I turn to face him to keep his hand off my ass. He keeps looking at me with those eyes, winking and trying to make a connection with me. I am blushing. We are crossing the Galata Bridge but I can’t really see it. As the bus turns aggressively on the far side, he leans into me. His hand finds it way around to my ass cheek again. I reach down to pull it away. He lets me, but guides my hand to his hardened crotch. I jerk my hand away but he has won his victory. My heart is racing, I am flushed with embarrassment and my own cock is rapidly swelling. I cannot possible draw attention to us now.
Thankfully, our bus arrives at its destination in the Sultanahmet neighbourhood. He is right behind me as we step off. I turn to face him as he follows me. “If you want to get to know me you can buy me a coffee first,” I say to him. He shrugs and looks away awkwardly and then walks off. He probably doesn’t speak a word of English. Anyway, I doubt he was looking conversation. I sit on a retaining wall to catch my breath and figure out how to get t the tourism office from here.
The tourism office has English-speaking staff. They have detailed maps of the Golden Horn and they mark on one where the post office is and where I can find the local bike store. The clerk in the bike store speaks minimal English but using what he knows and sign language gestures I get him to understand that I need a lock. The store doesn’t sell Kryptonite U-locks but they have high quality cable locks, and that is much better than nothing so I buy one.
From the bike store, I make my way to the main post office, the Sirkeci PTT, in the Eminonu district next to Sultanahmet, to pick up my mail at Poste Restante. I am disappointed to find only two letters waiting for me, one from my mother and one from Mike Silk who I have been expecting to meet me here. I have brought a letter to leave for him, so he will know where to contact me until Saturday, but before I leave it I open his letter and read it. It is dated a week ago from Athens. He has decided to head there instead to catch a flight home. Things have come up at home concerning his family and business related to his house so he has decided to end his traveling. So that is that. I toss his letter and mine for him into the garbage. I will have to figure out what to do later, but today I will just walk around and see the inner city.
I walk west along Vasif Cinar, a major street, to the Sultan Suleyman Turbesi, which is a mosque and graveyard, and the Kalenderhane Mosque, obviously a Byzantine Eastern Orthodox church that was
converted to a mosque later by the Ottomans. It is unusual to see a mosque with a Greek cross on top of the dome. I go into the entrance of the second one. I imagine what I could do in stained glass with that incredible grid of blank squares.I am not really sure where I am wandering now, or what I will find. The city is full of treasures unknown to me. From my map I can tell I am below the seventh hill of Constantinople, over which the great walls of Constantinople were built. A Roman aqueduct runs along the base of the hill only a few blocks north of the Kalenderhane Mosque, so I walk to it to have a closer look.
I climb the hill to see the Fatih Camii, another converted Byzantine church on top, but I don’t go into it. My map also directs me to a former nunnery built in the 13th century which was converted into a mini-mosque, called the Monastir Mosque. There are more signs directing me to this diminutive and rudimentary piece of architecture than the Fatih Camii, so I suppose it has more significance than my guide suggests.
At the Monastir Mosque I am approached by a man in his thirties wearing a blue jacket and toque with a small knapsack. He doesn’t look like other impoverished Turkish beggars with their hands silently outstretched that I have passed. He speaks English. His name is Ilio and he is Italian. He explains he is stuck in Istanbul, the victim of bad luck and misfortune. He isn’t really asking for money, though he doesn’t appear to have any. He asks me if I know anyone who to act as his advocate at the Italian embassy as his passport and ID were stolen and the embassy has been unable to locate any of his references in Italy. I am not sure how I can help him, but he speaks near-fluent English and definitely looks out of place here.
Ilio’s story, or at least the one he offers me, is that he was traveling in Turkey and wanted to see Istanbul, even though he was out of money. He thought he could find work under the table somewhere or gain passage on a ship back to Italy in exchange for work on board. He asked a local taxi driver where might be a good place to sleep outdoors to save on the little money he had left. The cabbie suggested he climb over the fence of a certain park after it closed and suggested the best place to hide. Later that night, while he was sleeping the taxi driver returned with several other cabbies to beat and rob him. He couldn’t even afford to go to the hospital.
That was a few months ago. He has been on a downward spiral since then, living off begging, found or stolen food, odd jobs and the kindness of strangers. His eyes are those of a beaten and abused puppy, pleading for mercy but not expecting it. I have never met a man more in need of a hug, though that would do little to save him. He sees that I am kind and feels safe in my company, even if I cannot do anything to help him out of his situation. I offer to buy a him a coffee and sandwich and he gladly accepts.
He has an eloquent way of talking that only someone with education uses. He is intelligent too. I am not sure I believe all he tells. Logic suggests there is a lot more he isn’t saying. Perhaps he has caused his own demise though carelessness or being caught stealing small items, but I can tell he is aching for friendship and kindness. He asks if I would pay him to be his tour guide tomorrow, as he knows his way around. He has often made money this way off tourists, using his superior language skills. The fee he is asking seems more than reasonable so I happily accept. We agree to meet at 10 am at the German fountain in the Hippodrome, which he points out to me on my map. He walks me back to the end of the bus line in Sultanahmet and I leave him beaming with joy when I climb on the bus.
I look for the tall man with dark eyes who grabbed my ass on the way here, but he is not on the bus. I am slightly disappointed, but my mind is on Ilio and his pleading eyes. I am trying to imagine how I would survive the undertow of such unfortunate circumstances. I want to believe that I would never let myself sink that low, but I am starting to see a darker side to the world I have not seen in my protected Canadian existence, one that might not afford me any choices if I get caught up in it.
Even here on this side of the Bosphorus life is beginning to feel ominous. I wonder what is in store when I enter Asia or North Africa where my skin and facial features, my clothing and habits are obviously those of a rich outsider in a foreign land. It will not likely be as it was with Zoran in Bar, Montenegro, finding connections with a lost brother on the other side of the world.
PHOTO 1: Sultan Suleyman Turbesi mosque
PHOTO 2: Kalenderhane Mosque
PHOTO 3: windows in Kalenderhane Mosque
PHOTO 4: the Roman aqueduct
PHOTO 5: Fatih Camii
PHOTO 6: at the Monastir Mosque
PHOTO 7: Ilio
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