The Sultan of Byzantium

by Selcuk Altun

  ‘Yes, okay, why not?’ I said, trying not to appear too eager.

  Inside the green cloth bag was an Aquascutum briefcase that contained two folders and a thick Venetian notebook with an ornamental cover. On the first page was written REHA EKIN in black ink. Two arrows drawn over it intersected in such a way as to say: Read this in reverse. NIKE AHER. The words moved me. ‘Nikea’ was the Greek form of ‘Iznik’, and ‘Her’ was a shortened version of the town’s first known name, ‘Helikore’. Even if Reha Ekin was not a real person, or if he failed to present a useful clue in the thick journal, I was sure to find an intriguing life story. One of the folders contained maps and pencil drawings of people and historical buildings; the other contained notes in English and the chapter-by-chapter outline of a proposed book. My soul was overwhelmed with a near-orgiastic excitement. I respectfully closed the briefcase and slipped a hundred-lira note into Recai’s pocket that he pretended not to notice.

  We went to the nearest fish restaurant as a group. To annoy Askaris I invited our driver to join us. All four ordered catfish. I called them sharks with feet. It was amusing to see the Laz driver gazing at me with piteous eyes as I ate my vegetarian meal of salad, yogurt and toast. When our coffee arrived I said, ‘Gentlemen, I’m going upstairs to review a couple of local sources, but we all know that’s not going to be much help. My feeling is that this may well be our last supper together.’

  *

  I knew Recai would give me Reha Ekin’s room with the lake view. Quickly I laid out the contents of the capacious briefcase on the table. The notebook was more of a yearbook than a diary. The ex-resident of this soap-scented room, after offering family information on the first six pages, gave a condensed narrative of each of his years in three pages or less. Every ten years he stuck a photo of himself to the top right corner of the related page. (I compared him to the young Franz Kafka and the old Constantine Cavafy.) The yearbook was written in black ink and fluent English. But his language, which he’d perfected at university, began falling apart in the last fifty pages. I finished the notebook, after two tea breaks, at 2 a.m. (I read once in somebody’s diary that this was the hour when most people died.) I mentally summarized what I’d read.

  When the Ottomans finally captured Iznik, the Vatatzes, the city’s most aristocratic family, converted to Islam. (According to the Byzantium family tree, we could actually be relatives.) But it was a false conversion. Their aim was, first, to preserve their wealth and, second, to preserve the town’s Byzantine heritage. (I learned incidentally that people who were Muslim in name but Christian in essence were called crypto-Christians.) The last of the Vatatzes, Sefa Efendi, moved to Istanbul with his wife and daughter in the twentieth century because he feared developments in the War of Independence. His son Reha was born in the winter of 1932. He had great expectations of this fragile boy. On the advice of his favorite teacher at the English High School, Reha went off to Scotland to St Andrews University, which was founded forty years before the Fall of Constantinople. He planned to study history in accordance with his father’s wishes.

  During his early days at St Andrews, his depressed sister committed suicide. His discovery of his homosexuality the following year was the first breaking point in his life. His demanding father expected him to marry and continue the Vatatzes bloodline as well as to write a book on Byzantine Iznik. Sefa Bey learned that his son was a homosexual the year the boy graduated from university, and kicked him out of the house. Reha pursued a PhD with the secret support of his mother, and worked in London at the Research Institute for Byzantine History. He failed, however, to complete his doctorate and lived through several short-term unhappy relationships. The day before his thirty-fourth birthday he received news of his father’s death, which was synonymous with financial relief.

  The second breaking point of his life was the moment he met L., five years later. L. was as handsome as the Roman Emperor Hadrian’s lover Antinous of Bithynia, and fifteen years younger than Reha. And fond of luxury. To make him happy Reha started selling off the Byzantine icons and jewels that were considered the sacred trust of the Vatatzes. Without his mother’s knowledge, of course. L.’s wish was to live like a princess in the fleshpots of the world. Suddenly one day, leaving his older lover behind, he ran off to Nice with a new boyfriend. Reha Ekin was unable to cope with this and took to drink. Three years later, when L. came back, Reha was so ecstatic that he didn’t much mind that L. had AIDS. To pay L.’s medical bills Reha sold off his priceless manuscripts of Iznik history to the Research Institute, for which he still worked. His method was first to make photocopies of critical documents and then show them to trusted friends. L. in the meantime was deteriorating rapidly and began pressuring Reha to kill him. One night in the sickroom, when Reha had reached the bottom of a flask of cognac, he smothered his lover with a pillow. Then he fell into severe depression when L.’s family, conforming to their son’s wishes, buried him next to his French lover, who had himself died just after transmitting the AIDS virus to L.

  The next year Reha retired and returned to Istanbul to live with his mother. When he was sixty-four his mother died in her sleep, leaving him all alone on earth. He tried to rearrange his life on a London-Istanbul axis. He also went into rehab and managed to reduce his alcohol intake somewhat. If, as the last Vatatzes, waiting for death was his destiny, his one wish was to write a book titled Byzantium in Iznik. He had done the research. But whenever he tried to start the book his hands shook, his head hurt, and his struggle with his memories began anew. He had an army of chronic illnesses to contend with, led by congestive heart failure. His summers in Iznik were therapy, but turning into the town fool was the last straw.

  At seventy-seven he had nothing left to sell except the house in Şisli where he lived. He sold it to a man from Azerbaijan and went to stay with friends in London. On his last visit to Iznik he became erratic in taking his medication. The four final sentences of the thick notebook were in Turkish: ‘I will go to Nice. I will visit L.’s grave every morning. I have no friends except exhaustion. A meaningful end is my right too.’

  I read the Turkish paragraph twice; the certainty that it was written in this room disturbed me. I stood up. I needed to strip away the exhaustion caused by reading something that was autobiography, crime novel, travelogue and erotica all at the same time. I went out on the balcony – which made me think of a pilot’s cabin – and focused on the lake, with odd expectations. From the vantage point of a curtain deliberately left open I had peered into a secret chapter of a life that ended in suicide. I could not respect the love affair of Reha Ekin, who savored the pleasure of deceit up to his last breath. On top of everything else he had, for L.’s sake, become a murderer – though I had some doubt whether the motive was wholly love. I changed my mind about drawing an analogy between Nice and Nikea.

  I took only the map of ancient Nicaea from the files, which were a researcher’s treasure chest. Reha Ekin had enlarged the map and included the modern name of each monument as a subtitle to the original Latin. On this map the ‘Council Palace’ was situated between the lake and the restaurant where we’d dined. Which meant that the twelve-foot-high pillar still standing at that point on the shore was not a part of the city walls, but perhaps the last remnant of the palace. This clue jibed with Sahaf Püzant’s information. If they were not intending to wreck things, Nomo, as the last owner of the Vatatzes manuscripts, might have placed the fourth square on that column.

  The next morning as I paid the bill I gave Recai – who did not ask for the bag – the tip of his life. After breakfast we walked along the coast road to the pillar. The team had probably noticed that I was in an expectant mood from the expression on my face. But what about the lake, whose waves were gradually growing larger. Was it becoming worried? I felt my way stone by stone around the weary ruins of the palace that was acknowledged as one of the most sacred sites in Christianity. Then I carefully reached for the fourth purple square that awaited me high on the eastern face of the pill
ar. I knew Askaris would be happy to see me come back with something in hand. I reminded myself of my decision not to be curious any longer about who put the magnetic piece there.

  The team was as excited as a gang of roulette players as I inserted the purple square in the silver box. The fifth stop would be the Tokali Church in Cappadocia. They applauded like they were cheering a winning amateur bingo player. I shot them a dark look. Their company was beginning to bore me. I released them until the end of March, using the harsh weather of Cappadocia as an excuse.

  I put Reha Ekin’s journals into a plastic bag as soulless as a shroud, added two good-sized rocks, and tied it tightly. As I hurled them into Lake Askania, in the wake of their author’s ashes, I composed a cheap graffito: ‘Passion isn’t deathless, it’s lethal!’

  NU

  Back at home I had an uneasy feeling. Was something out of place in my house or missing from it? It looked like somebody had trespassed while I was gone. I squeezed some grapefruit juice for myself and collapsed on the couch I’d inherited from my grandfather. I forwarded greetings from their Iznik cousins to the Byzantine and Ottoman buildings standing shoulder to shoulder in the panorama before me. While cracking the last ice cube between my teeth, the identity of the anarchist messing with my life dawned on me. It was Mistral Sapuntzoglu, who had left behind her a bouquet, of whistles, fragrance and warmth. When I realized this, fresh memories of Mistral rolled over me. I began reliving the hours we spent together and searched for hidden messages in every sentence of hers that I could remember. I was starting to miss this young woman who could effortlessly attract any man she wanted at first sight. Had a fit of sluggishness overtaken me? I found myself dozing off at every chance, or else sitting alone for hours with the melancholy pleasure of yearning.

  When my family began to treat me like someone with latent depression, I decided to share my secret with a person of experience. I met Madam Olga, my knowledgeable procuress, at the Londracula Bar. I might have compared her to a high-school principal except that she was counting her prayer beads. To gain citizenship she had married her Turkish assistant. She spoke fluent Turkish. From her authoritative treatment of the waiters I deduced that she at least partially owned the dimly lit place. It made her happy that I wanted to share my troubles with her. I told her my story, concealing only Mistral’s name and profession.

  ‘Madam Olga,’ I said. ‘There’s a young woman I can’t get out of my mind. I don’t know whether she has a lover, though I assume she does. This crisis commenced two weeks after the girl, who thinks of me as a friend, went back to her home country. She’s got a beautiful face and an inner world too. If I had to choose between them, it would probably be the inner world.’

  She answered in the comfortable tone of a fortune teller. ‘Beautiful women with real personalities are lonelier than men usually think they are, my sultan. So if you’re looking for a cure, go after her. Even if this young lady’s got a regular boyfriend, maybe she can be rescued from a boring relationship by that thing called love.’

  Had I not listened to her I would have been sorry to the end of my life. A winter trip to Stockholm might just add a new dimension to the excursions that Nomo kept assigning me. Before making reservations I went to the Internet, where I learned that Mistral still lectured in the Department of Classical Archaeology and Ancient History at the University of Stockholm. It didn’t occur to me until I sat down to reserve a seat on the Stockholm flight for February 14 that it was Valentine’s Day.

  There were a total of three people in business class. I was glad to see so many empty seats. For four days I’d had a runny nose and a cough. Despite all the medicine and vitamins my cold was not improving. I slept until we landed at the airport with a poetic name, Arlanda. The taxi driver who took me to Stockholm, twenty-five miles away, was named Nedim Arapoğlu and he came from the small town of Kulu in Central Anatolia. In his mid-forties, he had the physique of a retired wrestler, was moustache-free, and chatted cheerfully in accent-free Turkish. After the army he’d married a relative’s daughter and moved to Sweden. They went back to Kulu to pay their respects to the old folks every summer. He was a regular at Friday prayers and fasted during Ramadan, but was faithful to his drink as well. His daughter worked at a hair salon and his son Muharrem – who would kiss my hand out of respect when we met – was in high school.

  I’d noted that the university campus lay between the airport and the city, so I told Nedim of Kulu I wanted to stop by the Archaeology Department on the way. The harmony between the horizontal brick school buildings and the woods in which they were scattered pleased me. The Archaeology Department, which we found after questioning three passers-by, looked like a chemistry lab. Nedim knew that the giant fruitless plant in the garden was actually a wild cherry tree. It was Saturday and there was no security guard at the entrance, not even one. I strolled quietly through the deserted building. When I came across Mistral’s name on a list pinned to a bulletin board, I caressed it.

  A light snow began to fall as we left the campus and headed to the city. The car’s thermometer registered an outside temperature of twenty degrees Fahrenheit. While driver Nedim droned on and on about how 20,000 of the 30,000 Kulu natives who’d emigrated to Sweden settled in Stockholm and how the city’s population was now up to 2 million if you counted the suburbs, I was hatching an action plan. He did not fail to add that the Turkish colony called him ‘Arab’. As I stepped out of the taxi in front of the Sheraton I said, ‘Brother Nedim, I want to discuss a personal matter with you, tonight if possible.’ I knew my homely sincerity would surprise him, like an unexpected gift. We agreed to meet at eight o’clock in the hotel lobby. The snobbish receptionist gave me a room on the fifth floor with a lake view. It was a relief to find that none of the buildings in the panorama filling my large window were constructed during the recent century. Another pleasure was the difficulty in determining whether the body of water bracketed by bridges was river, lake or sea. I swallowed the last of my medicine and crawled into bed. At seven I woke up and went down to the soulless restaurant to fill my stomach.

  Nedim Arapoğlu arrived on time and all dressed up. We sat at the bar and I talked about Istanbul and myself until he grew used to the environment, then I plunged into my request.

  ‘Nedim, my friend, I came to this town because of an ache in my heart,’ I said to this nice man who avoided asking personal questions. Looking at his face, I realized that I was probably exaggerating Mistral’s positive qualities, but I went on. I needed to profess my feelings for this girl. But I didn’t know whether she already had a lover, and it was against my principles to ask her this question directly. I could have tried doing a bit of research at that small university building, but there was the risk of running into Mistral herself. And besides, I had no energy because of this wretched cold. Now, if I gave him her address, could he possibly do some checking around for me in her neighborhood and get back to me with the vital information? That is to say, I was prepared to pay him one-and-a-half times his normal daily earnings if he could reserve Monday for this job.

  ‘For work leading to such an obviously auspicious conclusion, I would not ask for more than I deserve, my friend,’ said Nedim. We planned to meet again on Monday evening at six o’clock in the lobby to assess the situation and then proceed to his house for dinner.

  I was gradually pulling myself together. While eating breakfast on Sunday morning I observed the American and Japanese tourists, who accepted no boundaries in their sightseeing. While the Americans were living the pleasure of each moment, the Japanese appeared to be dutifully carrying out their jobs as tourists. It wasn’t snowing and I toured the city in the taxi of Tarik from Sarajevo.

  I imagine one of Stockholm’s missions is to imply that heaven may be a boring option. Its buildings were not engaged in a contest for beauty or size. Winter precautions were in force on the streets; no traffic jams were to be seen nor car horns to be heard. I saw no queues, either on the streets or in the buildings. Needless
to add, there were no beggars anywhere. In this city exempt from visual pollution, I didn’t see even one partially rusted garbage can. The designer’s touch was revealed in the weekend dress of these urbanites who moved, annoyingly, as if they were models prancing down a catwalk. I wondered about the incidents that caused them to burst into laughter – maybe the flawless mechanical order of which they were components honed the edge of their responses. Meanwhile I thought about how Istanbulites refreshed their joy of life by fighting against a new and different kind of infrastructure problem that popped up every week. My Sarajevo taxi driver, who had read every Yashar Kemal novel translated into Swedish, informed me that in order to deal with the monotony of life in Sweden the Stockholmers took refuge in detective novels. I was delighted indeed not to find any global masterpieces in the city’s museums: thus the imposition of fashions and names upon the people was avoided.

  A couple passed by me arm in arm as I ducked into a coffeehouse for a break. The tall beautiful girl walked triumphantly close to her shorter, unhandsome boyfriend. I took the sight as an auspicious omen. I had dinner at a pizzeria close to my hotel. Later, as I sat in the hotel bar with a Sudoku book in my hand waiting for sleep, an immigrant prostitute approached and suggested a massage in my room. I sent her away, this hustler who was trying to tempt me into betraying Mistral. Ten minutes later I saw her walking to the elevator with an eager Far Easterner. I laughed at myself; Mistral could be in her lover’s arms at that very moment.

  The next morning I went to a second-hand bookshop with a skeleton in reading position in its window and bought Freya Stark’s Rome on the Euphrates. After that I stayed in the hotel until my private detective showed up. Nedim began his report with, ‘My friend, I have not brought you bad news.’

  ‘I found somebody I knew on her street and asked questions of somebody who knows somebody who knows her. Your lady does not have any boyfriends so far. People say good things about her. She lives alone, and for the last ten days she’s been hosting her father who is visiting from Athens …’ This news gave me the reassuring feeling that I’d covered half the journey.