Out of Istanbul

by Bernard Ollivier

  Around noon, I’m reluctantly back on the highway, but there’s no other way to get to Tokat. A group of peasants hails me, inviting me to partake in their meal. They’re seated in the corner of a huge tomato field, under a roof of branches set atop high poles protecting them from the sun. In the ditch, they’ve dug a hearth and covered it with a stovetop fit with a long pipe that keeps them from being smoked out. It’s a joyful group, and they are delighted to have a tourist join them, an unusual event in their monotonous existence. There are four men, about ten women, and a child. “Work is hard,” one of the women tells me, “but tomatoes pay well.” Each person’s meal consists of a piece of flatbread served with a tomato and onion. It’s all washed down, of course, with tea drawn from the samovar now humming away on the makeshift stove. The women eat separately from the men, and they all sit on cleverly designed beanbag chairs made of plastic bags filled with oat husks.

  One of the youths suddenly asks if he can travel with me to Paris. I don’t know what to say. But he insists. He asks me to give him ten minutes, enough time for him to run home to grab the two shirts he owns. No one seems to want to reason with him. He begins stretching, convinced that it’s as easy as that. How will I convince him that stringent regulations exist among countries? Has this wide-eyed teen ever even heard of administrative red tape?

  “You want to emigrate? Okay then. Do you have a passport?”

  “No.”

  “That’s the first step. It’ll take a few weeks, and I can’t wait.”

  Surprisingly, he immediately admits this major setback to what he’d like to do, and his dream of exile disappears as quickly as it appeared. Everyone witnessed the episode, they each had something to say, either pro or con, but now that the boy’s fervor has waned, they all return to their tomatoes, and I get back on the road to Tokat.

  In the seventeenth century, under the Ottoman Empire, this city, which today has a population of nearly one hundred thousand, was Christian. Jean-Baptiste Tavernier—in whose footsteps I’m faithfully following—tells me that Tokat once had no fewer than twelve churches, four convents (two for women only), and that it prided itself on the presence of an archbishop. There was also a Jewish settlement. There are still some Jews in the city, but not a single Christian. One Jew, Nuri Amca (ahm’-djah), to whom I was referred since he’s an amateur historian, knows the road’s history well. But unfortunately, I won’t be able to meet up with him during my two-day stay.

  The city’s vast, renovated caravansary is not nearly as majestic nor as large as the one in Pazar. It comprises several dozen small bedroom-cells, each with its own hearth, which gives the roof an unusual appearance, bestrewn as it is with sixty-some chimneys. Merchants and artisans, working with copper here since time immemorial, occupy the tiny rooms now converted into shops. The courtyard is vast, partially paved and planted with thorn trees providing shade for the tables of the inescapable teahouse. This isn’t a particularly old caravansary, but the enormous central heating radiators that can be seen everywhere, the aluminum frames on the windows looking out over the courtyard, and the green sheet metal roof with which it has been afflicted fail to blend in as period additions.

  Tokat, which was subjected to fourteen different occupying powers over its two thousand-five-hundred-year history, has one peculiar attribute: the city’s soil has risen five meters (17 feet) since the thirteenth century, the result of earthquakes that shook layers of sediment down from the surrounding hills. To such an extent that the subsurface no doubt contains a trove of hidden treasures. I visit the gök medrese (guhk meh-dreh’-seh) (the blue Qur’anic school, gök meaning both “blue” and “sky”). It has been converted into a museum and was constructed on one level. As for all the ancient monuments in the lower part of the city, you have to go down a flight of steps to visit it. Some of the beautiful blue ceramics that once adorned the facade and gave the building its name are still visible. Inside, one of the vestiges of the city’s Christian past is a surprising wax figurine of Saint Christine, martyred at the hands of the Romans.

  The city, which was the sixth largest in Turkey under the Sultanate of Seljuk, came to an abrupt halt once it was captured by the Mongols of Tamerlane. Under the Ottoman Empire, it later regained some of its importance, thanks to its privileged position as an important hub along the Silk Routes. I also visit, on my day off, the very beautiful Ottoman-era private mansion Latifoğlu konağı (lah-tee-foh’-loo koh-nah’), which is open to the public.

  I wander for most of the day around the western district, which overlooks the city. In the narrow, winding streets where I wander, the houses lean in at such a sharp angle that there’s hardly any sky. With tiny shops, mosques, and perhaps a derelict bedesten, the district has retained the feel of Ottoman culture that has been erased almost everywhere else. Here, concrete has not replaced the wood houses. Huddled together as though in numbers they might better fend off the bulldozers, they are sources of inspiration, like old-fashioned poetry, and you tell yourself that this must be a place of rebellious, fraternal, and stubborn spirits. Houses, too, have souls. It’s hardly surprising, then, that it’s here, on a small square in the shadow of a collapsing mosque, that I bond with three elders who’ve fulfilled their life’s dream of making their pilgrimage to Mecca and who display long white beards as if they were flags. I stay with them a good while and time stands still: I am happy.

  I also befriend three young men who launched their own computer business. They work day and night. They began with a computer one of their fathers bought. Today, at twenty years old, one of them is the company CEO, while at the same time fulfilling his military service. His brother, who is only fourteen and still attends school, and his other nineteen-year-old associate are equally motivated and enterprising. The company operates out of both floors of a building. Business equipment, computer courses, sales and repair, internet café, software programming: they do it all. In speaking with me, they’re eager to show a Westerner that they’re tech-savvy and interested in new technologies and modernity from the West. I reassure them: in France, I don’t know many people as young as they are with as much business sense and who show themselves to be so ambitious and professional. My words are music to their ears.

  Finally, I decide to make a sacrificial offering to my taste buds, having eaten for the sole purpose of maintaining my strength ever since leaving Istanbul. I’ve heard that at the Husuk Restaurant, they serve a mouth-­watering dish, Tokat kebab, available nowhere else. It consists of two kebabs cooked in an oven rather than over coals, and that completely changes the flavor. The first skewer has chunks of lamb, potatoes, and eggplant, and on the other—for the cooking time is different—there are tomatoes and hot peppers. The dish is served with a head of garlic that has been grilled and crushed. It’s such a wonderful delicacy that I’m back again the following day.

  The way back to the hotel is swarming with uniformed men carrying machine guns who are checking every shop, every corner, every car. At the bottom of a terrace stairway, six stern-faced soldiers stand guard, each holding an assault rifle across his chest, finger on the trigger. Music spills out from beyond the top of the stairs. I want to inquire, but a soldier yells at me to keep moving. The grunt seems sufficiently edgy that I comply. In a nearby ice cream shop, the manager explains: the army’s having fun and the officers are throwing a party. They worry about “terrorists” crashing their party. Terrorists . . . Should I translate that as “the Kurds”? In any case, I’m clearly entering a danger zone.

  When I leave Tokat, I feel strangely depressed. After considerable reflection, I come up with several reasons. Fatigue is number one. For two weeks now, I’ve been traveling long stages, some too long: one was forty-seven kilometers, two were forty-six. Telling myself to slow down hasn’t done any good, it isn’t so simple. To get from one city to the next, there is often no alternative. And I have good reason for wanting to stay in cities. Stopping in villages, I can’t wash up, relax, and sleep as well as I can in hotels. Up
on leaving Tokat, I’ll be starting a ten-day walk without a single city along the way, which means ten days without a balanced diet, ten evenings of watching entire villages parade by, ten days of having to rise at dawn at the same time as my hosts, and, above all, ten days without a shower, having to stew in my own sweat. These are unavoidable difficulties. The hardest part is taking the first step. Add to that the facts that for some time now every village is just like the last, that flatlands are followed by more flatlands, that the excitement of discovery has clearly worn off, that even Kangals no longer scare me. It will come as no surprise then that, having lowered my guard and with my enthusiasm at half-staff, there’s a little less spring in my step right now.

  As I leave Tokat, a police officer, directing traffic by wiggling his arms around like worms, literally lunges at me, bawling me out at the top of his lungs.

  “Where are you going? Where are you going? Where are you going?”

  When he thinks he hears “Erzurum,” he thinks I’m messing with him: he starts yelling even louder, jostling me before rummaging through my pack. I dread to think how he might have reacted if I’d told him the truth: “Tehran.” His partner intervenes and, praise be to Allah, gets him to calm down. The valiant fellow apologizes on his partner’s behalf: “My buddy’s a little jumpy.” From which I learn nothing, and, in any case, it doesn’t help to cure my blues.

  Fortunately, a little farther down the road, I crack a smile when I stumble upon a scene that is, to say the least, nonsensical. It’s the middle of nowhere; the straight, monotonous road seems to completely ignore its surroundings. There, beneath a half-finished wooden hut, two men sit cross-legged in front of two mounds of watermelons, waiting for customers. It’s hard to imagine a more unlikely spot to conduct business, but the two men seem confident, completely relaxed. They jabber away smoking cigarettes. Since I offer to take their picture, they give me some cherries. To my question “Do you have a lot of customers?” they answer, “No,” and smile disarmingly, and such undaunted optimism in the face of life is all I need to cheer me up. It’s an image I need to bear in mind and think back upon whenever the world’s annoying side tries to take away my peace of mind.

  Later on, out in front of a school building, as is the case every Monday in all Turkish schools, the principal is waving a baton, leading his schoolchildren in patriotic songs, and the scene brings to mind a memory: in my hometown in the country, I’m six years old, and we’re singing Maréchal nous voilà in the “big school” where I just started, but that I will have to leave a few weeks later because of the war. Children the world over display the same fervor singing at the top of their lungs songs of which, by and large, they have no understanding: a great show of confidence and unquestioning obedience: this is how we turn children into young combatants.

  At the Kızıliniş Pass, I attack the climb, which will hoist me to an elevation of 1,150 meters (3,800 feet). Tokat’s broad plains, planted with tomatoes and poplars, gives way to a rugged mountain road, carved through the rock itself. Wild mimosa trees release their sweet smell, much to the delight of bees swarming upon them by the thousands in a buzzing banquet. Vast stretches of fertile land, planted with grain, undulate off to the horizon. Here and there, an oak tree rises from the landscape, casting a shadow on a steaming samovar, the promise to all who work in the sun, both women and men, that there will soon be time to rest and sip some tasty tea. At noon, a restaurant provides me with a meal—a trout fished from a large pond—and a restful pause; I take the time to savor them both.

  As I enter the small village of Çiftlik (cheeft’-leek), I’m approached by two rascals who seem to come from nowhere. They don’t beat around the bush: one of them wants my watch, the other wants money and crudely shoves his hand in my pocket to help himself. I break free. Are they going to assault me in broad daylight? Three or four peasants working in a nearby field come over to find out more about this traveler who has wandered into their village, looking like a packmule. After a few pleasantries exchanged with the farmers, I make a discreet getaway, glancing back two or three times to make sure the two rogues aren’t following me. What a fool I am. I’d been warned to watch out for thieves. My watch, with its large face and chronometer-like appearance, is a source of temptation. I tuck it away, deep in a pocket, and I’ll only take it out from now on when I need information: the elevation, the barometric pressure, the direction I’m traveling, and, of course, the time of day.

  As I’m leaving the village, an imam is waiting for the bus with his wife, who’s rocking a baby in her arms. He seems on edge and asks me if I’m afraid. In the gas station nearby where he buys me a cup of tea, he brings the subject up once again: really, I can tell him, he’d totally understand—aren’t I afraid? For, after all, he exclaims, “there are terrorists,” and he mimics a bad guy aiming his gun at me. These folks are all acting so nervous, they’re gonna wind up giving me a nasty case of the jitters! And it won’t take much. Solo travelers never leave home without a little fear tucked away in their baggage. It silently slips out in the silence of the forest or the night and is near at hand, first and foremost, in every encounter. To walk alone, pack on your back, is to open yourself up to danger and to the Other. You cannot flee as you would on a bicycle or take refuge as you would in a car. Up to this point, apprehensiveness remained bottled up, a source of shame, in my pack. Each day, each encounter, was a celebration. But here I am now facing insidious, creeping fear.

  To be honest, I have mixed feelings about terrorists. My professional curiosity makes me want to meet them. I could question them on their politics and methods, even write a report—though commissioned by no one. Of course, I’m fully aware of the fact that they could hold me hostage, and that’s one of the reasons why I introduce myself as a former schoolteacher rather than a journalist. At the same time, I sometimes fear random acts of violence, a sniper who aims, shoots, and flees or a gang of slapdash terrorists who have no time to deal with an uninvited guest. Another fear cropped up only a little while ago when I met those two bandits at the entrance to the village: the fear of being robbed, and there’s no ruling out the use of force. I quickly sweep aside this most recent worry: being robbed would have serious consequences for me—losing time, for example—but it wouldn’t be catastrophic.

  For a week now, there’s no denying it, there are growing signs that I should be worried. Not a day goes by without someone asking whether I’m armed, or who mimics terrorists aiming a gun at me or running a blade under my throat. The man toting a rifle in Kervansaray and the two thugs who wanted my watch are both warning signs. I remember the advice given me by the traveling salesman who wanted to weigh me down with giveaways: “Watch out around Tokat.” Collective psychosis or real danger? I want to remain calm and keep things in perspective rather than simply give in to some vague sense of fear. But I nevertheless draw the following conclusion: from now on, I’ll only seek hospitality from the muhtar in charge of each village. This political leader can provide undeniable protection.

  Ten minutes after having said good-bye to the imam, I find the ruins of Çiftlik’s caravansary. I also locate two villages, Tahtoba and Ibibse, which do not appear on any of my maps. The fact that there are caravan stopovers here is no coincidence. To avoid the paşa of Tokat’s tax collectors, caravans headed due south of Amasya by way of Zile in the direction of Sivas and sought room, board, and safety in these small inns, which had relatively limited capacity but were close to one another. Another village, also named “Karvansaray,” figures on the map, not far from here. A little farther along, thirty-two kilometers now from Tokat, I photograph the ruins of a small han. A precious photo: the last stones of the stable’s vaulted doorway have at last fallen into the brambles and nettles.

  I say good-bye to the main road to Sivas. For the next ten days, I won’t see any pavement. I veer east toward Kızık, the first leg of a push into the deep countryside that will take me to Suşehri. On the dirt road headed in that direction, two or three tractors o
ffer to take me on board. In accordance with rural hierarchy, the men are riding on the tractor itself, while the women ride behind them, on the trailer. I decline all these invitations. Another tractor comes my way and stops just in front of me. A hefty young loudmouth seated on the mudguard jumps off yelling: “Papers, passport, police, police!”

  He’s clearly no policeman, and I’m not impressed.

  When I question his identity, he takes from his wallet a piece of paper bearing his photograph, indisputable proof that he’s no policeman. This is a country where a cop would never bother to prove who he is. The document he shows me, which I can’t make heads or tails of, doesn’t bear the word “polis” or “jandarma,” which are the only two words related to the police that I know. He rants and raves all the more, but seeing his document has no effect on me, and I hold my ground:

  “I only present my papers to the police or to the muhtar. I’m going to seek hospitality from the muhtar of Kızık.”

  He simmers down, gets back on his tractor, and leaves. It goes without saying that my passport is extremely important to me and I have no intention of showing it to just any old joker. I have no other form of ID: to lose it would be calamitous.

  I’m given a very warm welcome by Mustafa Güsköy, the mayor of Kızık. And, as usual, I have to satisfy the appetite of all the village’s able-bodied inhabitants who parade by for three hours. In the evening, among the curious, I spot my “policeman,” looking rather sheepish. He tells me that in reality he is the bekçi (game-warden). I was the wrong kind of game . . .