The Sultan of Byzantium

by Selcuk Altun

  I retraced my steps, observing the odd neighbors of the walls frame by frame. All those streets bearing spiritual names were like huge maquettes drawn without rulers. I saw women leaning from the windows of their miniature houses in startling postures and locked in a studious chorus of gossip. The lady of a house painted in a hue of green I’d never seen before was scolding her son – ’My worthless fucking offspring’ – while her husband sat like a chieftain at the window counting his beads. Young men about to begin their military service strolled up and down the streets holding cell phones like bombs. The colors of the clothes worn by the carefree, jobless neighborhood crowd and of the aging cars they drove faded at the same rate and met in the same hue. A robed imam approached me with a folk song on his tongue. I felt a kind of test in his greeting; he was surprised by my reciprocal sincerity. As he pranced off I wondered if he knew that most of the words in his memory were borrowed from the Old Testament.

  A coffee-shop entrepreneur had set up a few small tables and chairs in the shade of the walls, and sidewalk pedestrians had to detour around them. I sank into one of his chairs next to a group who spoke in whispers, perhaps in Kurdish. The young waiter seemed surprised by my question: ‘How old are these walls?’

  ‘How should I know?’ he said, almost scolding me. Then he reported me to his boss and had him laughing too.

  Down from the arched gate was a row of one-storey houses that were perhaps attached to the walls. It looked like they would fall down if they were separated from one another. I crossed to the other side of the street and looked at the fourth one from the left. Its windows were paved over. Anyone would think it was a small innocent warehouse. Not very much later I would show up at its door full of curiosity about the trials I would meet inside.

  *

  At midnight the following day I rang its doorbell, three long and two short. (I’d rehearsed in advance to prevent possible rhythmic embarrassment.) I knew that I would find Askaris and his two assistants bowing and scraping the instant the door opened. If I said ‘Good evening’, they would cast a respectful glance or two at me. I was becoming accustomed to the dichotomies of the period. Two of the rooms were full of large cardboard boxes: a successful camouflage. In the room on the left Kalligas moved one of these boxes, stepped on a spot just beneath it, and stepped back. There was a faint mechanical whine, then a black rectangular opening appeared. We descended as a team and as we did the room darkened and the basement we stepped into lit up. I must admit that I was stunned when, after twelve steps, we entered a salon. The ceiling was painted with colorful icons and along the walls in glass cases were marble busts of the Byzantine emperors. Had I failed to scrutinize the ten-inch-high busts one by one, I would have insulted the Nomo representatives. Constantine the Great, Theodosius II, Justinian I … it was embarrassing to see myself commemorated there along with the others. But I was relieved, as I passed Fokas, to realize that I was not the ugliest link in the chain. My many times great-grandfather’s expression carried the resignation of an old Casanova constantly rebuked by his wife. The bust of my own majesty, Constantine XV, had perhaps only been brought yesterday. In it I tentatively confirmed the condescending features of a young man listening to someone else.

  In the middle of the salon was a huge white marble table, and on it a large ivory model of Constantinople. I almost expected to find a button on this splendid toy city that I could push to start up the life within. I wanted to caress the figures belonging to the palace, the hippodrome, the aqueducts. I inspected the model for a long time, monument by monument, magnifying each at least 200 times in my imagination. I could not have cared less whether the Nomo representatives might think I was putting on a show. When I looked up I felt mentally exhausted, and wiped my forehead weakly. I heard someone say, ‘Excellency, would you like a glass of water?’ I turned and with an effort stammered out, in every language I knew, ‘Mankind is a worse plague than natural disasters.’

  It was odd of me not to have noticed earlier the bitterness in the Byzantine emblem on the black lacquer table between my bust and the model. The purple double-headed eagle glowering at East and West simultaneously was a true mirror of the Empire’s fatal dichotomy. They invited me to be seated in the most ostentatious leather armchair in the room. The team, with Askaris in the middle, sat opposite me on the edge of their chairs, after of course asking my permission. They clasped their hands and bowed their heads. Askaris first expressed Nomo’s gratitude to me and then began to explain the nature of the examination.

  He took a two- by six-inch silver box from a purple leather bag and pointed at a not-quite-antique mechanism just under the lid. It was stamped with a royal seal. This he slowly raised. When he held the box upright you could see, on the left side of an aluminum panel within, six small empty squares lined up equidistant from one another. And at the very bottom was a one- by two-inch rectangular glass surface that was gray in color. On the right side of the uppermost square was written, ‘Antioch Museum’. What I had to do was go to that museum and find a half-inch by half-inch piece of magnetized purple metal hidden in one of the objects on display, then place it in the first square. When this was done, the name of a historic site would appear on the right side of the second square. I was then expected to look for a second piece of metal at that venue. The last item in Constantine XI’s will was concealed in the artefact that I needed to find as the sixth step. I had a year in which to do all this. Either my great-grandfathers had failed to find that final item or else they could not decode its meaning. If I were successful – and Askaris could not enunciate this possibility in a tone indicating confidence – Nomo and I would together formulate a plan to carry out the will’s last instructions.

  After all this there was another, second, round. If I happened to succeed in this too I could discard Nomo, whose mission was accomplished in any case, in whatever manner I wished. In that event, ‘You will control a fortune whose size cannot even be estimated,’ said Askaris in a trembling voice.

  But if I was unable to get beyond the fourth or fifth square, Nomo would evaluate my ‘transcript’ and, if possible, award me ‘selected’ status. I could then join Nomo’s three-person Board of Directors as President. It seemed a bit weird for Askaris to tell me that if the Board got stuck two-to-two on an issue, the President’s vote counted double.

  I wondered to myself, as I listened to the recitation of rules and regulations, about how many rounds of testing I could complete. Askaris didn’t ask if I had a question. He gave me all the information I needed, and I felt sure he wasn’t holding back anything. My inner voice told me this was not the first time he was going through all this, but there was no way to know for certain. It was the 500-year-old Nomo tradition to say little and ask no questions.

  The reality, which required no question or answer to confirm, was that I was underground at a point not far from the old palace. I would definitely be surprised if the door behind the bust of myself did not open into a tunnel and end somewhere in the Tekfur Palace. I thought it the better part of valor to let myself go along with the excitement of playing the leading role – in a historical TV serial. I thought about the people in the neighborhood above me, living like actors in a Fellini movie. Some were probably fast asleep, others watching shallow television. Maybe one or two were making love. Were they in my shoes, they might start contemplating how to reduce all the billions that would potentially be in my hands. In my case, I could have a glass building built in the shape of a book in the city center. I could establish the greatest library in the world for dictionaries and poetry. At night a laser show on the front of the building would project, in rotation, the letters of all the alphabets of the world. On another wall a new poem would be illuminated every night. The building would be my shield from the world’s ugliness, and also my grave. The rest of my fortune I would leave to the most beautiful creatures in this world: poor children.

  THETA

  The town of Antioch (the present-day Antakya) was founded in the f
ourth century B.C. on the curving banks of the beautifully named Orontes River, known in Turkish as the Asi. It was there that early disciples of Christ adopted the title ‘Christian’ and founded their first church in a cave. Antioch grew to be the third-most important city of the world, after Rome and Constantinople. No doubt this is why the evil eye fell on it more than a few times. First, in 525 A.D., precisely when it had become the apple of the Byzantine eye, it suffered a great fire. Then in 526 A.D. an earthquake hit. The earthquake struck on May 29 – the same day of the month on which Constantinople would later fall – and brought total ruin to the city. The historian Procopius claimed that it killed 300,000 people. But Antioch rose out of its own ashes, mainly because Justinian I wanted it rebuilt. It was the massacres by the soldiers of the First Crusade in the eleventh century, followed by a twelfth-century earthquake that killed 80,000 people, which ultimately did the city in. After that it would be little more than a nostalgic point on the map.

  These headline topics were followed by a virtual fashion show of antique engravings of Antioch. In every frame I sensed the magic of a lost fairy-tale city. I murmured to myself Cavafy’s respectful lines on Antioch. I needed such poetic therapy as I walked along the Orontes in the center of the city, for the magnificent river had become a puny creek, prostrate in its concrete bed, a hopeless trickle of brown water.

  Was it the final mission of the Orontes to divide the town into two? The rich had moved to the north. (For some reason, the north is mostly the superior.) It might have been the lack of architectural detail in the buildings I encountered on my way, or a certain kitschiness in everything around me, but I was irked. I liked the Savon Hotel, a 200-year-old converted soap factory, because it was in the south. Besides, it had a spacious courtyard that gave it the magnanimous air of a lord’s manor. South and north seemed to live in different time zones. In the September afternoon the south, emanating aromas of citrus and spice, was charming.

  My orientation tour began with Kurtuluş Avenue, which was busily filling the hotel with noise. I soon found myself surrounded by run-down buildings left to fend for themselves. (They had managed to survive a few earthquakes, after all.) But their looks revealed the charm of good craftsmanship and they seemed to enjoy the taste of being left alone. The tiny streets were hardly wide enough to accommodate two people side by side. In the market there was a barber, a mosque, a glassware shop, a bookstore and a bakery shoulder-to-shoulder. In rows of jars on shelves in the grocery shop the only product I recognized was olives. Lined up next to them was a pair of tired-looking slippers. Taped to the window of a jewelry store, a flyer conveyed the good news that spectacles might be mended inside. Although nearly all the shops were empty, the shopkeepers weren’t aggressive. They spoke Arabic among themselves but would resort to Turkish for an unfamiliar customer. Since nothing in this town required haste, they were quite good-humored.

  I’d taken a Mediterranean tour ten years earlier with Iskender. We stopped at Antioch on that trip but had to pass up the museum because it was closed. I remembered that we had a samovar picnic at Harbiye, called Daphne in Roman times because of the nymph’s encounter with Apollo there. I also remembered the embarrassment of several youths at being chosen for the task of answering our questions about an address. Antioch, boasting two of the oldest and most significant mosques of the Islamic world (and a rare sight: their main gates were just below their minarets), was a visual pleasure that wouldn’t escape me this time.

  *

  The Antioch Museum was limited to a single floor. There were five exhibition salons and a small courtyard. The way it reminded me at first sight of a run-down school was of a piece with its faded glory. The salons and courtyard were full of colossal mosaics. I wondered where new ones from local archaeological excavations could go. I knew I wouldn’t find a catalogue in the building – regarded as the most important mosaic museum in the world – which was why I’d brought along a photocopy of an old museum guide borrowed from Selçuk Altun.

  In keeping with rules and regulations of Nomo, Pappas and Kalligas stayed in the courtyard for security. Askaris would accompany me as an observer but of course would not participate in the (re)search. According to a faded sign at the museum entrance, Kemal Atatürk, founder of the Turkish Republic, had declared ‘The foundation of the Turkish Republic is culture.’ (I began my first test with a smile.) Askaris was kind enough to say, ‘Excellency, I’ve visited this museum quite a few times. If you please, I’ll be glad to wait for you at the entrance to the first salon.’ Obviously he didn’t want to annoy me by hovering over me like a proctor. Maybe it was he who had, within the last two days, delightedly stuck that small purple square in some awkward corner.

  In the museum were Roman and Byzantine mosaics along with Greek and Roman statues, reliefs and inscriptions. Were I writing a mystery novel, I thought, I would hide the purple square in one of the giant mosaic panels occupying the walls. The arrangement of the art was consistent with what my veteran guidebook informed me. In Salons I, III, and V were fifty-three mosaic panels, all from the Roman period. Those in the second-century group called ‘Sweet Life’ were more attractive and humorous than the later ones.

  In Salon IV, fourteen of the forty-five mosaics dated from the Byzantine period. I had the whole place to myself as I studied them one by one. The security guards were off conversing with themselves in the morning quiet. I stood before each of the fourteen nominees, viewing and reviewing them from different angles and secretly expecting them to emit signals. I retreated to the center of the room and rotated in order to view them all from the same perspective. I was happy with the alertness overtaking my body. I remembered documentaries I’d watched on television about lions setting off on hunting trips as a family. Instead of diving into a whole herd of antelope, they saved their energy for the victim, which was chosen according to criteria known only to the lions. By and by I better understood the priority they gave to the weak and the small. By contrast, I had no criteria to go on other than a few scraps of information posted next to the panels. I narrowed the field to four candidates. ‘Ananeosis’ (‘The Awakening’) was an inviting title for the beginning of an examination. I approached the seven and a half feet by fifteen feet piece with suspicion. The surface of this fifth-century mosaic comprised probably 125,000 small squares, which formed an odd portrait of a Byzantine woman. Was one of her eyes filled with fear, the other with hope? I noted the dichotomy as, beginning with her chin, I moved my gaze in zig-zags across her face. It was like counting stars and I stopped lest I fall asleep. But was there a little something extraneous on the tip of Sister Ananeosis’s nose? The salon was still empty as I made a furtive grab at that dark patch with my left hand. The touch of metallic cold thrilled me from the inside out. I felt like I was caressing the breast of a naked Byzantine beauty lying on the beach.

  The purple square clung to my fingers like a small bird, and I was a-flutter with excitement. We assembled in the courtyard in front of the Double Lion statue. I was expecting applause for my early goal. As they listened attentively to the account of my search strategy, Pappas and Kalligas wagged their heads and Askaris looked at the floor. I took the silver box from the briefcase in Kalligas’s hands. I almost muttered a prayer as I placed my catch in the topmost recess. As soon as the two squares met, a mechanical groan rose from the box. The window that suddenly opened next to the second recess said: MISTRA.

  We were less puzzled by this venue. Mistra was on the Peloponnesian peninsula and had been transformed into an artistic and cultural center by the Palaeologoi. Once Greece had won its independence, however, it ironically became a ghost town.

  Was starting off the examination in Antioch, where history and geography melded together, meant to convey a special message? Ananeosis meant awakening or restarting. It was a symbolic word sometimes applied to the renewal and rebirth of certain regions of Byzantium. If I were being asked to undertake a mission of re-creation I would have to be hypnotized. And if somebody told me th
at Byzantium was a chessboard made up of an unknown number of squares, I wouldn’t argue.

  IOTA

  I tried to maintain the fiction to my family that I was working for an international company by spending the month of September abroad. In the distant metropolises of Europe I visited zoos, museums and antiquarian book and map dealers that I hadn’t been to before. I participated in erotica auctions and chess tournaments using a code name (Bizansov). I read the biography of Constantine I and the history of Mistra. I looked for good poets and generous prostitutes and had better luck with the latter than the former.

  When a plane ticket to Athens arrived for me with departure on October 6, I would have surprised Askaris if I hadn’t found a hint of mystery in the date. It turned out to be the eighty-fifth anniversary of Istanbul’s liberation from the occupying forces.

  My taxi from Venizelos Airport smelled of lemons. The aroma produced a good feeling in me. I completely relaxed when the sullen driver neither turned on the radio nor asked where I was from. The autumn sun enveloped the taxi and suffused a sweet itch in me. As we neared the city a kind of excitement of seeing the fatherland for the first time swept though me. It was a bit disturbing.