The Sultan of Byzantium (14 page)

I was as excited as a child let loose in an amusement park. I created my own labyrinth by rushing down nearly every street we encountered. I was in a hurry to discover a new sight, sound or smell with each turn I took. Nothing was strange to me though – the houses with their curtains of old lace, the shops with wrinkled flags in their windows, children clumping around in slippers, and boastful cats. Despite the cool evening, nearly all the customers at the coffee shop where we took a break preferred the outside tables. They seemed to be peacefully awaiting an order. In front of the building next to the café, a few people in a ragged queue began exchanging words. Would they dance shoulder to shoulder if somebody struck up a
sirtaki
tune?

The building looming up at the square to which Askaris led us was the Orthodox cathedral. It took me thirty seconds to turn to him and say, ‘Are you trying to tell me that this is the most glorious holy building of the city and therefore the city doesn’t really have a glorious holy building?’

‘Excellency, may I trouble you to walk toward the statue at the end of the courtyard?’

I turned to look behind me; the courtyard looked like a disused ice rink. In the center stood the statue of an archbishop who was a secret hero of World War II. It seemed odd for him to have the expression of a pompous chieftain. Was that another statue behind his, between the cathedral and the square’s perimeter? As if hynotized, I walked slowly toward the massive object that seemed to be signaling like a lighthouse. On a pedestal of ordinary marble, the kind used in bathhouses, stood a bronze statue of my ancestor Constantine XI. He wore his commander-in-chief uniform and in his right hand was a miniature sword. He looked old and tired, as tragicomic as Don Quixote setting forth on his last journey. If the sculptor wanted to carve a noble, scornful face disgusted with treacherous allies, he’d certainly succeeded. The figure had a long nose like my grandfather Yahya, high cheekbones like my mother, and a long face like mine. Despite the poor lighting I could sense his presence, cell by cell, and feel him like a human soul. As I slowly circled him, I seemed to feel the weight of our shared history passing into me. I chased away the birds perched on his head and cleared away the leaves heaped on his feet. I paced briskly and purposefully before him as though I were on guard duty. I was the helpless, neglectful grandson who returning after a long absence finds his mythical grandfather on his sickbed. Evidently I was under the influence of a trans-generational blood tie. I turned to the team who stood watching me, stunned, and said, ‘This statue of Byzantium’s last emperor is a size smaller than that of a nameless archbishop and is moreover hidden in its shadow. And this is the very Constantine XI who supported the union of the Catholic and Orthodox churches. The people who put this statue here have insulted Byzantium and its memory. Is Nomo unaware of this scandal – or have they not seen fit to correct it?’

In touristy Plaka, a town about to begin its winter hibernation, I chose a tavern called Byzantio for dinner. What was positive about the place was that it resembled a simple Anatolian restaurant and was music-free. I was alone with Askaris and about to hear him hold forth on Mistra. There were three tables in the tavern. Just behind us an old Greek was showering compliments in rudimentary English on a Japanese girl young enough to be his granddaughter. The girl focused her gaze on the plate before her. I was willing to bet that she would make her escape as soon as she finished eating. It was embarrassing. I tried to shame the shameless rogue with my stares, to no avail. But I relaxed as I drank more and more of the white wine. Askaris was unable to add anything to what I already knew about Mistra, a name that recalled the word ‘mystery’ in several languages.

A group of eight local people sat at another table, as easygoing as if they were lounging on a boat deck. Whenever a new topic of conversation arose, it issued from a weathered eighty-year-old grandmother who was knitting a turquoise vest. I rested my gaze on her hands – the hands of a maestro – and said to Askaris, ‘I feel like I landed in Athens ten years ago, not ten hours. Even the smells spilling from the garbage cans are familiar. In fact, it looks to me like Athens and everything here just happened to break loose from Izmir Bay and got stuck to the European continent.’

‘Excellency, as a person who knows the town I would like to speak, if I may. As you already know, Greece declared its independence in 1832 with the connivance of the European countries. Their influence saw to it that Athens became the capital city and Otto, the Bavarian prince, became the country’s first king. But the people did not take to a seventeen-year-old Catholic king. It’s said that the taxes he imposed, along with his lack of interest in his subjects, made the Ottoman era look a lot better. Really, nobody thought that either the king or Athens would be permanent. They also predicted that the population of Athens would never surpass 250,000. So neither its yesterday nor its tomorrow was protected. You can see traces of Anatolia in an Athenian, but on the Athens streets the charms of the Greek neighborhoods of the Aegean and the Black Sea are nonexistent. There’s a story about a man who was sent to Greece from Turkey in the Population Exchange and after twenty years went back to Istanbul. He said, sadly, “The Fener neighborhood is more Athenian than Athens.” ’

I didn’t feel like telling Askaris that I was moved by what he said. We left the restaurant when my eyelids grew heavy, but we stopped by the cathedral courtyard again. I knelt down with my back against the statue of Constantine. No poem suitable to the occasion came to me. Since sweet sleep was about to seize my soul, the team members in unison took me by the arms and helped me home.

Next morning I jumped out of bed with a faint feeling of guilt. It was 6:33 a.m. and it occurred to me that I could view the town from my window. The sky was changing from dark to light gray. Atop the Acropolis the Parthenon grinned like a tenured ghost. I took a meditative shower and after read Seferis. When I made a second move to the window the sky had decided on a gentle blue. The Parthenon was shining in its eternal glory while the squat buildings of the town bowed in respect. I was as excited as if I was the first beholder of a freshly completed painting. I threw the window open to discover the background music of this panorama; I would scarcely have been surprised to hear the sound of an
ezan
rising from a remote corner.

The existence of ordinary tourists at Athens’ most historical sites was a bore. They were only there to take pictures; their
joie de vivre
was just a show. The National Archaeology Museum was full of people, whereas there was no one except me in the small Museum of Byzantium and Christianity. (Its two most prominent pieces were pilfered from Edirne and Side, in Turkey.) The team was tense – apparently they thought they would be scolded because of the museum’s deep silence.

‘If you arranged to have this museum closed and reserved for me so that I could visit it properly, kudos to you,’ I said.

Towards midnight Askaris sent two prostitutes to my room. The jingling of their gaudy jewelry recalled to me the grace of the 5,000-year-old necklace I saw at the Archaeology Museum. I was embarrassed.

*

The next morning we headed for Mistra in two limos. Complying with the rules meant staying in separate hotels and traveling in different cars. I was always with Askaris. I’d become somewhat accustomed to this clever and – even more than me – ugly fellow. The deserted road from the Corinth Strait to the Peloponnesian peninsula made me drowsy. The battlegrounds of antiquity that we’d studied and forgotten in our history classes had long lain fallow – hadn’t they? All those mountains that played roles in various Greek myths became a size smaller. Were they waiting for the end? It was belligerent Sparta that surprised me, though. It was now a town of green trees and a population of 20,000. I likened it to a rebel once sentenced to life in prison who now took up gardening.

Mistra, a seven-minute drive from Sparta, had lapsed into a small village. Although it was established by Latin invaders during the Palaeologus period, it became the Byzantine capital of the Morea, the last piece of territory to remain in the hands of Constantinople. The heirs to Byzantium underwent their training here. Why the region was given to Sparta after Greek independence is unknown.

Mistra was a holy place, as holy as a village on Mount Ida. I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw the statue in the miniature agora. Except for being a size smaller, it was identical to the statue of Constantine XI in Athens. Was this an allusion to my great-great-grandfather’s apprenticeship period? One of the tourist signs pointed the way to Steven Runciman Avenue. Runciman (1903-2000) wrote the only thorough book on the Morea. He was high in my esteem because he characterized the Crusades as ‘invasions of barbarians’ and moreover was a lover of Istanbul and Seferis. Also, he had never married.

We started up the hill on the right and I smiled at myself as I said a prayer in Arabic. We’d just rounded the first curve when Taigetos, the center of the Byzantine archaeological site, rose up in our path. This conic hill was 900 feet high and I felt like hugging it. All lined up as residents of the upper town were the blasted Latin castle on the peak, the church of Haghia Sophia a stone’s throw below it, the Despot’s Palace holding the center like a caravanserai, with an Ottoman mosque for a surprise neighbor, and finally the Pantánassa Convent under the protection of the cypress trees. I’d memorized them all from my maps, books, and engravings. At the top of the mist-shrouded hill a range of relics from the Middle Ages welcomed me. I had an idea where I would find the second purple square. But first I needed to familiarize myself with this social complex that was resisting the notion of turning into a ghost town. (This was probably Nomo’s real intention.)

We abandoned our grandiose automobiles in the hilltop parking lot. Untended goats were grazing atop collapsed sections of the old walls. The bees were performing their final duet of the season with the goldfinches. Rain had fallen before our arrival and the earth smelled of the joy of life. I wanted to climb to the top and inhale a deep breath stretching from Galata to Mistra. We walked carefully along the paths that seemed designed to discourage people from coming to visit – and to annoy them if they did come. Our first stop was Haghia Sophia. The church was ready for a Mass, if only it had had doors and windows. There was a sad harmony between the frescoes on the walls and ceiling. Maybe it had taken 700 years for the figures to achieve the correct pastel tones. The Pantánassa Convent was the only building still performing its original function. The merriment of the tourists who clambered up to it in single file annoyed me. We were casually herded into their line. I don’t know why, maybe it was the glasses she wore, but I was surprised by the young nun who passed us by, eyes cast to the ground. The group of locals invading the convent couldn’t keep quiet – they were experiencing the bliss of setting a holy picnic table. I couldn’t eat the hard candy I took from a bowl proffered by an elderly nun.

‘It’s spoiled because of unheard prayers,’ I whispered, as if the team could hear me.

The convent’s spacious balcony reminded me of the timber summer houses perched in the mountain pastures on the eastern Black Sea. As the fog began to thin, I sensed the luminous glow of a caravan of light made of mosaic squares heading toward the east. I shut my eyes to better hear the hymn that accompanied this timeless phenomenon. When the caravan visually reached Antioch I opened them. Somehow I was disturbed by the team hovering behind me and had a sudden urge to tease them.

Without turning my face to them I asked, ‘Do any of you know the ancient poet of this land, Hegesippos?’

Silence. ‘Congratulations,’ I said. ‘I’ll recite a stanza from him to you:

Nettles and camel thorns on four sides of me.

Be gone, traveler, or you’ll get scratched.

I’m Timon the misanthrope himself.

Hurl your curses however you like, feel free.

Just get the hell away and be gone!

And now it’s time for us too to leave. We have work to do.’

With that I turned and charged into the Despot’s Palace through the Monemvasia Gate. Mistra was a mosaic puzzle laid down on an uneven plot of land. In a way I enjoyed not being sure whether the buildings, the youngest of which was 500 years old, were a question or an answer. I was fairly confident that I would find the second clue in the room where the Despot once held court. But I had a present-day obstacle: the palace was closed to visitors because of restoration work supported by the European Union!

Kalligas had a word with the guard, who gave us the good news that we could go in if we received permission from the construction superintendent. With a hand that he lifted in three movements, he pointed to a young woman stan ding in the middle of the courtyard under a Panama hat. The chief of restoration wore boots, trousers and sunglasses. It looked like it might not be easy to get a ‘Yes’ from her. Using body language for emphasis, she was raining orders on a team of workers arranged in a half-circle before her. I approached with curiosity. Her voice was seductive and the hair springing out of her hat was blonde. If she weren’t speaking Greek like a machine gun I would have thought she was Scandinavian. I wondered why everybody laughed when she came to the end of her melodic sentences. When she clacked her boots with the metal ruler in her left hand, she reminded me of those ranch owners’ daughters in the Western movies who scold their servants, jump on their horses, and ride off into the sunset.

Her team dispersed and I moved towards her. I caught her eye and assumed my most appealing attitude. I stated, in English, that I was a scholar from Boğaziçi University and an amateur historian addicted to Byzantium. Having come as far as Athens, I did not want to leave without visiting the Despot’s Palace. I succeeded in getting her attention when I added that I could pass as Greek on my mother’s side. I refused to give up when she replied, in fluent English, ‘I only have authority to offer privileges to bona fide Byzantine scholars’ and rattled off the names of those Byzantine historians to whom I gave credence. Then I mentioned my personal research at Dumbarton Oaks and New Chatham House.