I write this to you not from the accidental new city of Addis Ababa, but from Istanbul, a city that several times and under different names and dispensations has been one of the world’s great centers. My ticket provided for a 12-hour layover here before pushing on to Addis, but between having a good friend here and the leniency of my airline’s fare change rules (or the irregularity with which they are applied), I decided to parlay a half day into a few. Having a hospitable friend to stay with is enough to make almost any place half lovely, but the Stamboul’s charms extend beyond the comforts of hearth and stowage.
My first impression of Istanbul, which appeared very suddenly as our plane finally broke through the low undulating blanket of raincloud through which we had been descending for thousands of feet was of mélange. That breakthrough did not come until within 100 feet of the ground, giving the city an aspect of eastern hiddenness, of purdah, as eagerly I chased some sign of it on our descent. The glimpse I caught was of drab 1960’s modern 4-to-10-story apartment blocks intermingled with warehouses intermingled with mean and roughly timbered-or-masoned single-story dwellings, all in turn intermingled with many mosques whose minarets reached for the sky in the lovely tapering Ottoman style I’d only before seen in pictures.
As a traveler with a Swedish passport, my visa was free and immediate, and although the airport's atmosphere had the oppressive still dampness of a basement in a hot summer rainstorm. It was especially bad in the bathroom before I removed from my face that layer of oil that always attends a long flight.
The decision to stay on was not immediate. Darren, who is taking some engineering courses at Bosporus University, came to meet me outside of customs. Initially the plan was to go into the city, eat, walk, and then return in time for my night flight south over the Mediterranean and down along the Nile and its blue tributary. My thinking changed once we were on our way into the city. Along with the elements of attraction (its beautiful setting on the twin crescent ridges of mountain which, bounding the Bosporus, sweep away from each other in four directions to give a feeling of movement and airy openness, and make the city one of constant breathtaking prospects; the tasty food and the allure of a new people; and the feeling inspired by the apparent presence of a distant past that yet sprouts up among the trappings of the modern—not to mention the east-meets-west cliché), there were enough things to deter me from an immediate bid on Addis Ababa (having nothing but a foggy notion of where within Ethiopia my traveling companions might be, and being unable to contact them; feeling utterly exhausted and a tad unstable from my uninterrupted weeks-long pageant of I’m pushing off now revelry; and cherishing no special fondness for Addis)—and together they were enough to keep me here.
Before mentioning my impressions of Istanbul and making an remark or two incidental to my packing, a note on purpose. Before I left, a friend asked me what my goals were for this trip. I tried to respond in the spirit used to put the question, which was one of challenge, i.e. what could you possibly hope to… I think I cited something about improving my Arabic, looking into the “Afro-Arab fusion” mentioned long ago by a faded friend, perhaps taking more pictures, writing more, etc. But the primary thing, I now realize, is that, like Moby-Dick’s Bulkington, I need to keep open the independence of my sea. The life in New York City, while I’ll admit it’s been kind to me over the last 2 months, is not enough. I undertake this journey because it is my nature, and because I can. I know that these voyages push the envelope of vanity, of self-importance, perhaps of material entitlement—just know that I am keen, no desperate, to put forth as much if not more than I take in while on this voyage. Why should we be ashamed of doing the things of which we are capable?
So what have I been doing for the past few days? I will assume that this is a question you need answered. Flouting the conventions of this electronic medium (best suited to brief chatterings and unfounded oracular statements) with a view to enduringness, I will be at pains not to be pithy in a strict sense, but to provide as much pith as possible. I believe more and more that as with the brief, desperate pageant of life itself, each instance of expression or meditation occurs but once, so I feel compelled to fill it to the utmost, to be expansive, to occur in expression as much as in sentiment. When I returned to Zambia, I heard from many of you that I had not been frequent enough with my posts. I have taken your admonition to heart. Writing is like friendship. It is a matter of trusting investment. Here the act of giving should not be measured in the number of words remitted, but though prolixity comes to me by default, I believe my brand of it to be alloyed with many good and strong bits—so forbear.
And here I am. I am in the northern reaches of Istanbul’s European crescent, where my friend has a commanding view over the remaining sweep of the Bosporus and the limitless vista of the Black Sea beyond. The hour is passing from night to dawn. The muezzin will soon be broadcasting his declaration, which is something I have always liked to be up for, if not awoken by. The night is cold, and I feel warm in my sleeping bag. I am thinking about making coffee. I am feeling clear-headed, lucky. Here I am.
On the first day Darren and I sat down to eat a kebab dish in the old city center, close to the Blue Mosque and the Aya Sofia, those incomparable monuments set off against and eyeing each other like two lovely women jealous of one another's charms. On the way to the restaurant, we were greeted by a rug merchant who stepped up to the curb where the cab happened to drop us off. "You are my destiny," he said, smiling. "My rugs are your destiny." Dazed by the combination of air travel and the restraint I always exercise on my English while abroad, I said nothing. But the absurd and strangely poetic hard sell stuck with me. Perhaps destiny will pair me with one of his rugs yet.
After we had eaten, we went back to the airport to change my ticket. The running around I had to do, first to change the ticket, and then to claim my bags before they were loaded into a plane bound for Ethiopia, might merit their own post if I weren't so tired of that cheap mode of travel writing that makes sport of inefficiencies. Why not be content to say I was successful in my attempt, and that it was free to do so? We then returned to Darren’s apartment through a gathering rainstorm. I was happy not to be up among the thunderheads in a hurtling aluminum cage. Reaching Darren's apartment took over two hours, and the last stretch of the journey was on foot up a steep flight of stone steps. By that time it was raining torrentially, and getting cold. The palms looked cowed and unnatural, like the palms of Cornwall. My calves felt like they would melt.
The rain continued the following day. Rivulets flowed down the neighborhood’s steep streets and broken steps. A smell of sewage came up through all the drains in the apartment and I did not shower. Darren's grand view of the Bosporus was streaked by sheets of rain. The anchovy seine fishers were periodically obscured from view, and the container ships and tankers (the former full and the latter empty) bound for Odessa and Sevastopol proceeded with a thundering caution. Sometimes I stood in the window to look and listen (the seine boats, instead of using radios, were yelling out orders and imprecations at each other using bullhorns, the sound of which carried straight up the amphitheatric hill). But mostly I lay ensconced in my sleeping bag on the couch, alternately napping and reading the incomparable Moby-Dick. It was a wonderful luxury (or a return to sensibility) to be able to nap and read like that, unoncerned by the things and dollars needing to be done and made. Darren and I left the house once to get a bite to eat. It was getting blustery, and the sensation of atmospheric cold was another thing I had been craving through New York's latest stretch of eerie Indian summer. We went to a local kebab place whose food was delicious. I sat there, a mute and total foreigner, while Darren did the ordering. He speaks a passable Turkish, of which I managed to recognize a few words through Arabic: [tammam (OK); hisab (bill), ismi (name)]. To the traveler, Turkey presents the challenge (and advantage, as a function of scarcity) of a-anglophonia. I have responded with aplomb, and have gone to the length of learning the words for thank you and bread.
That evening I had a revelation. I had brought too many things. Several hours were spent paring, culling, reorganizing. When all was done, I had managed to shed ten pounds or more. Falling by the wayside were toiletries, a few tattered garments, a stainless steel hipflask, a bottle of gin, a book or two, some superfluous gadgets, and the dirty socks and underwear that just make me more depressed the longer I cart them along. All this fit quite handily inside a leather briefcase that I had no business bringing to Africa in the first place. I secured a pledge from Darren to have the articles shipped down to my mother when upon his return to the States. If you detect smugness, I retort that shedding ballast is an excellent feeling.
The next day was another in the same mold: Rain, reading, relaxation. In the morning I took a long sunlit walk along the Bosporus corniche to shift my onward flight still further into the future, infatuated as I was with the mutually reinforcing feelings of lethargy and bodily recuperation after abuse. The corniche I walked was lined with men fishing for anchovies. Bundled in scarves and caps, many of them also wore suits. According to immutable angling convention, each observed a respectful distance of separation between himself and the next. They smoked, cast, and pondered the waters. Sometimes a rogue wave blasted the corniche in the wake of a passing container ship. Once I’d made it back to Darren’s neighborhood, I walked up to an internet café to let my traveling companions know I was in a suspended state of transit. There I also managed to ascertain that I had won the weekend's fantasy football match-up, though my attempts were long frustrated by a url filter of some sort that must have mistakenly identified my results page as a gambling site.
In the days that remain to me here, I will continue napping, reading and writing. I may also go tour the Aya Sofia and an Ottoman palace or two. Perhaps, if I stay through the weekend, I will even meet some Turks. I will leave as soon as I get through or get an e-mail from Ian and Patra. How long will their Abyssinian vanishing act continue, I wonder?
There. This being the season of naps, I feel one coming on.
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