Out of Istanbul

by Bernard Ollivier

  I walk taking small steps. With each one, the bend in my shoe presses on the infected areas. The pain is made even worse because the gauze I used to wrap my feet means there is even less space inside the shoe. I take it off, but that doesn’t seem to help. To soften the leather, and since Zekai did not have any special lotion that might have worked, I rubbed my boots with tractor grease that I collected from an engine in the yard. I can’t get my mind off the pain as I walk, blind to the surrounding scenery. I notice, however, that the sun has returned, slowly drying the drenched and slippery ground. Finally, after walking for an hour and a half, little by little, the pain disappears, neutralized by the endorphins that my body must be churning out now in phenomenal amounts. I can once again contemplate my surroundings, which have changed. Yesterday, the soil was red and the vegetation sparse, somewhat like that of the highland plateau in the Aveyron region in France’s southwest known as the Causses. Today, there are vast cultivated hillsides. When I reach the summit of one of them, I discover, for as far as the eye can see, geometric plots of freshly plowed black dirt, and the soft green of wheat and rye. Since morning, I’ve also noticed an increasing number of hazelnut groves.

  I lose my way two more times. There are few signposts, if any. And when there are, they’re illegible. Turkish road signs are made of painted sheet metal, and city names are written in blue letters on a white background. I should say “were written,” for hunters—and there must be quite a few in this country—apparently find them ideal for target practice. And most of them must hunt with bullets. These unfortunate signs remind me of the griddle I use to roast chestnuts every fall. Peppered with holes, rust has eaten away at whatever information remained between the impacts. Turkish road signs are, in fact, good only for reading the signs in the sky that can be glimpsed through the holes. I can hardly rely on the villagers that I run into, either. This morning, I met two young boys roughly twelve years old who had never even heard of a village located just eight kilometers from where they lived.

  I leave dirt roads behind and head out onto a small road suitable for vehicle traffic. My unusual appearance makes drivers of tractors and cars curious, and so they stop. With looks of incomprehension, the palm of their hand turned up toward the sky, no doubt in the hope that some information will fall from above, they ask me about my journey. Then they offer to give me a lift. When I turn them down, they rummage around in their trunks and present me with apples, cherries, cans of Coke or fruit juice, and chocolate bars that I either eat right away or throw out, out of fear they’ll melt in my pockets.

  Around 5:00 p.m., I’m closing in on the destination I’ve set for the day: Ambarcı (am-bar’-djuh). According to my map, I’ve covered thirty-five kilometers, and that’s the distance I record for the day’s leg. But in reality, having been lost twice, I’m sure I covered over forty. Which is probably why, with the finish line in sight, my endorphin factory has decided to go on strike. I limp along, gaining no ground. To make matters worse, the burning sensation on my hips from my backpack’s waist belt has come back to life. I take it all philosophically. I had prepared myself for what I call the “breaking-in period” of a long walk. The first few days, the body strengthens overworked muscles, and severe aches and pains make it hard to get going again. In addition, areas subject to a lot of rubbing—the feet, the thighs, the buttocks, and points in contact with the pack—heat up. This leads to either open lesions or blisters. All of this amounts to nothing more than superficial wounds that will disappear in ten days or so. The sores I’m suffering from are also payback for not having kept to the very manageable walking schedule that I laid out for myself in Paris. I had planned short stages, between eighteen and twenty-five kilometers per day (11 to 16 miles). Foolhardy, I pushed ahead, and have averaged over thirty-five kilometers (25 miles). I’ll be in Sakarya tomorrow evening, two hundred and two kilometers (126 miles) from my starting point, and will have taken six days. My schedule called for eight.

  I should therefore walk for shorter periods of time, less in the sun, less in the rain. You can’t cheat when you walk. You have to give it your all. I carry everything myself: my body, my souvenir-bag, my medicine-bag, my clothes-bag, my food-bag, and my bed-bag. Each and every miscalculation comes at a cost, on the spot or the next day. I walk alone, and so I have nothing and no one to fall back on. I’m isolated by language, by my lousy map, by the road I’ve chosen. The only indication of modern civilization are the two small plastic rectangles in my pocket. One, a phone card, reconnects me with the world; the other lets me withdraw money. But in both cases, I can only use them in cities. Out in the middle of the prairie and hazelnut trees, atop mountain passes, they are, at best, out of place. What I eat, where I sleep, and my personal safety do not depend on international phone calls or paper money. Those things are in the hands of my fellow human beings—so much like me and yet so different—the very people I’m walking toward now as I stir up these bleak thoughts.

  The village of Ambarcı is almost deserted. Alone in the small square in front of the mosque, a young boy is playing with a rusty old bicycle wheel. The grocery is closed. Out front, a wooden bench invites me to sit down. The morning rain has let up, and a hot sun has begun to dry the sweat making my T-shirt stick to my skin. The boy, who says his name is Recep (ray-djep’ ), comes over and sits down beside me. I settle in on the bench, in the sun, and rest for a few minutes. Since the bakkal is nowhere in sight, I go off to visit the village. An old woman, out behind her house, is readying an oven to bake bread. She doesn’t seem particularly surprised by this stranger in shorts, who has come over to watch her work. But as soon as I return to my bench, she approaches, acting as though she were going for a walk, while looking me over out of the corner of her eye. She must be dressed in the same way women dressed here a thousand years ago: a long, black skirt hanging down to her ankles, a shawl, and a scarf to cover her hair and neck.

  Shelves run the length of the window serving as the grocery’s storefront. They are piled high with packets of cookies and candy, looking all the same under an ancient layer of dust. Between the packets, little piles of mouse turds are artistically scattered on the newspaper pages covering the bare wood. Recep points to a man crossing the square with a sickle in one hand: the grocer. He’s a dry old man with a purposeful step. His short, white beard softens his face, and his eyes sparkle under thick, deep black eyebrows. He’s wearing a firecracker-blue knit wool skullcap and a plaid shirt. His skin is surely bronze from the hours he spends out tilling his field, not in his shop, and the stoop in his back cannot be ascribed to long hours tending his till.

  He apologizes for being late, opens his store, looks in a cardboard box for a can of fruit juice, and asks if I want to sit down on one of the two benches that take up most of the floor space. At Mostafa’s, more time must be spent engaged in conversation than in business, and more energy must go into business than housekeeping. Surprise, then disbelief, transforms him into a statue upon hearing where I come from. Since the front door is wide open, some bold, cackling chickens jostle their way in to peck away at grains of rice under one of the many sacks, the one that mice have chewed holes in. Worried that I might be annoyed, Mostafa repeatedly waves his arms in an attempt to shoo them away, but to no avail. You get the sense that the real masters here are the birds. But the man is concerned for my comfort, and so he keeps at it. As I describe my odyssey, he interrupts me two or three times to ask me if I’m all right, whether the sun, now winking at me from an angle, isn’t in my eyes, and whether I’d like a cushion. Fatigue must be written all over my face.

  Too exhausted to find the right words to ask for accommodations, I take out a short paragraph I had the two young Turkish women I know in Istanbul write out for me. With all the appropriate conventions and using much purer language than my own usual babble, it explains my itinerary and states that I’m looking for a place to stay for the night. Mostafa reads it attentively, slowly, and then looks at me, smiling widely. Just like Mostafa the woods
man, he points to himself. He himself will host me. And, as it turns out, that makes him very happy. Me too, since I positively like the fellow.

  The first people alerted by Recep—who has been combing the village, announcing, as if with a bullhorn, the presence of a foreigner in shorts—finally show up. This is no doubt a first in this out-of-the-way hamlet, whose only link to the rest of the world is a small dirt road full of ruts left by tractor wheels. Every last inhabitant will parade by. They stand in the doorway, say something to Mostafa, then sit down on a bench, ask a few questions, hang around for a moment, and then go back out. As the flow of visitors grows, my host increasingly quivers with pleasure. Visibly, in the eyes of the entire village, it is a considerable honor for him to host a foreigner. Every five minutes, after a sentence or two to his friends, he turns to me, concerned, asking if I’m hungry or thirsty, if everything is okay. His cheeks are red from the excitement. His little, sunken eyes twinkle with delight. From time to time, a mouse or two sprints across the grocery’s double ceiling, but I think I’m the only one to hear it, despite the loud pitter-patter. In a brief lull, a woman comes in to buy eggs. Mostafa looks over at me with a look of remorse, for he has to take care of a customer, and apologizes, uttering one word: “business . . .” That’s the only time, during my entire stay, that I’ll see him work.

  I’ve been in the spotlight now for over an hour and a half, and I’m ready to drop. The next time my host comes over to ask if everything is fine, I seize the opportunity to suggest that I should carry my pack to the room where he’d like me to sleep. In reality, I need to look after my painful feet, which are feeling feverish. Mostafa quickly gets up, tries to pick up my pack to carry it for me; upon seeing how heavy it is, however, he gives me a look of surprise and leaves it to me to deal with. Mostafa is my host, not my porter. We climb a steep staircase with wobbly steps and walk out into an attic. Through holes where the roofing tiles don’t quite touch, I can see the sky. On an old scrap of cloth, a big tomcat throws us an annoyed look. In a corner of the garret, a sleeping room has been set up. It’s comfortable. A bed sits on a large rug against one wall, and a couch along the opposite wall. Between the two, there’s a window out of which I can see girls in chadors who, since they hadn’t been allowed to meet the stranger in the grocery, now try their luck at the window, hoping to at least catch a glimpse of his profile. I stand at the window so that they can see me, and I smile at them. They run off, laughing. As much as I was annoyed by all this fame at Kömürlük, I’m now actually starting to enjoy it. Mostafa takes a tray from the bed, on which pumpkin seeds were drying out, and places it on a table: my room is ready. He then vanishes, telling me once again to let him know if I need anything. I appreciate everything there is about this man: his smile, his face, his voice, the extraordinary way he cares for those around him. There is an uncommon harmony about it all.

  Alone at last. I have just begun to tend to my feet when the door opens partway. A young boy’s nose appears out from behind. He then opens the door all the way and comes in, followed by three other children. All four of them, silent and attentive, head over to the couch across the room, never taking their eyes off me, and then, like a troupe of well-rehearsed ballet dancers, sit down all at once. Their curiosity is so intense that they’re adorable. I break the silence:

  “Hello, my name is Bernard.”

  They tell me their names and then there is silence once again. They look so much alike that I immediately mix up their names. Their hands placed between their thighs, resting on their forearms, leaning slightly forward, they are like statues. Their big eyes, full of amazement, wander from my feet to my pack, from the clothes on the bed to my sandals, and then to my bottles of ointment. I resign myself to their silent contemplation, and, with the sense that I am their Muse busily sprucing himself up, I go back to caring for my feet. With respect to the latter, the situation seems stable: the wounds have not grown in size, but they’re still weeping quite a bit.

  After about ten minutes, the boy who came in first gets up, immediately followed by the others, and they all leave the same way they came, in single file, with bashful smiles and a silent little farewell bow. The door closes on the last one who practically runs out, so afraid that he might find himself alone with the foreigner. A minute later, three youths about twenty years old come in next. I suspect that Mostafa is at the bottom of the stairs, organizing visits for the latecomers and sending them up in batches. What a delight it is to make people happy simply by existing! Without having to say anything, I start to really enjoy it. The newcomers are more talkative. My Turkish improves. One is a mechanic in the neighboring village, the other is doing his military service, and the third is a college student. They look me over, answer my questions, and head back out a few minutes later. Between two visits, I manage to take off my shorts. This is no easy task, for here, no one knocks before entering. And having seen how extremely modest Turkish people are, I don’t want to shock anyone. Mostafa accompanies some of the groups. Rejuvenated, exhilarated, he is full of happiness, overwhelmed by this unexpected honor. These young people clearly adore him.

  At long last, the visits come to an end, and my host returns all alone with a platter of food. We dine just the two of us, sitting cross-legged on the carpet. It’s a position I have a hard time maintaining, as it’s so uncommon for Westerners, and my spine and legs protest.

  With the help of a dictionary, Mostafa wants to know what I do in France. I describe myself once again as a retired elementary school teacher. But he could care less about my profession. He wants to know about my family and where I live. I have a photo of my children, but he doesn’t have one of his. So that he will have one of himself, I take his picture.

  After dinner, I wander slowly around the village, now completely deserted. A community television is crackling in a small shack. It’s a black-and-white set with a picture so blurry that viewers spend more time guessing—than watching—what’s on. It looks like an encrypted channel. A single viewer ensconced in his chair in the darkness seems to be catching everything. The set is located in an iron cage with its door wide open. It’s the duty of the last villager to make sure it’s locked up for the night. My little after-dinner walk is not particularly interesting: I decide to head home and go to bed, which I do with a limp.

  It’s a noisy night. Around 3:30, an insomniac rooster greets the dawn. Two hours later, the imam, over his electric sound system, calls the faithful to prayer. Then it’s the birds’ turn to sing, since, in the time zone chosen by the Turks, day gets a very early start. The sun rises at 5:15. The next to join this bucolic concert are the sheep, demanding their daily portion of the prairie. They make so much noise that they wake up the cows, causing them to start mooing impatiently at 6:30. That’s when I get out of bed, too. Mostafa must be watching for me to stir, because, as soon as I set my feet on the ground, he tells me breakfast is ready. The yogurt mixed with milk and sweetened with honey tastes of childhood. My host, on the grounds that I’m going to walk a great deal today, serves me a big breakfast and wants me to finish everything.

  When I head out all strapped up, he insists on going with me to make sure I find the right road. In the morning sun, the village enjoys a magnificent view. It’s perched high atop a hill, and, whichever way you look, you can see far off into the distance. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” Mostafa declares, telling me that he loves his village. He left it twice. The first time was to go to İzmit to visit his three sons, two of whom are married; the second time was to go to Sakarya, the city where I’m planning to sleep tonight. Two trips, forty kilometers each, in all his seventy-one years. But he has no complaints. The old man, wearing some kind of rubber slippers over bare feet, walks slowly, shuffling along like Charlie Chaplin, with toes out and stiff knees, swaying from left to right with each foot forward. The slow walking pace and sheer joy of conversing with him take my mind off the pain of the day’s first steps. A kilometer on, we stop. We have to go our separate ways. Both of us, I be
lieve, are rather choked up. I shake it off and hold out my hand. Taking it, he then draws me to him and gives me a hug. A tractor is headed into the village. He climbs aboard, and I just stand there for a few minutes, watching as this friend-for-a-day recedes into the distance.

  This evening, I’ll be in a city. The road is easy. For once, my compass and map are in agreement. I have the feeling that this is going to be a good day. Late in the morning, I walk past two men chatting away by the roadside, seated outside a teahouse. They wave their arms for me to come over:

  “Gel, çay, çay . . .”

  Tea? And why not? It’s nice out, and I’m walking without too much trouble, now that my endorphins are back at full strength. As he pours my tea, the server’s curiosity gets the best of him:

  “Where are you from?”

  “Istanbul.”

  “You didn’t walk, did you?”

  “Why yes, I walked!”

  He goes back inside the watering hole and trumpets the news so that all can hear. Almost as if choreographed, the twenty or so people inside come out on the patio and surround me. An avalanche of questions ensues.

  “What country are you from?”

  “Did you really begin your journey in Istanbul?”

  “Where are you headed?”

  “What is your occupation?”

  “Are you married?”

  “How many children do you have?”

  The Turks are endlessly curious and unafraid to show it. One of the customers, a tall, dapper-looking man, somewhat portly, sporting a thin mustache and a three-piece suit, introduces himself. A former schoolteacher, he left the profession, as it did not allow him to make ends meet, and so he started a business. He makes chess pieces that he sells in Europe.

  “Would you like to see my workshop? It’s just across the street.”

  We head over. Children are running the machines. They must be somewhere between ten and twelve years old. I tell this “industrialist” how surprised I am by this. He has no qualms.