Page 27 of There Are Rivers in the Sky

—O— ARTHUR

On the way to the River Tigris, 1872

T he British Embassy is in Constantinople’s cosmopolitan Pera district. Designed to look like a miniature of Buckingham Palace, it is adorned with Grecian columns and large windows that overlook the Golden Horn. The massive chandeliers in the ballroom, originally intended for the British Embassy in Moscow, were installed here when the Crimean War broke out.

They put Arthur up in a small room tucked under the eaves. Exhausted, his eyelids begin to droop as he eats the dish in front of him – slow-cooked rabbit stew with barley. When he finally gets into bed, he pulls the blankets over himself and listens to the noises leaking through the window – Constantinople, stirring and susurrating in the dark, like a nocturnal creature snuffling around for prey.

In the morning, he is summoned to meet the ambassador. Climbing a curved marble staircase, Arthur enters a spacious, high-ceilinged chamber, richly furnished with bronze sculptures, antique cabinets, oil paintings, ceramic plates and vases of all sizes. Ornaments from India and East Africa are juxtaposed with paraphernalia from across the Ottoman Empire and displayed on étagères. In the midst of this grand collection stands the ambassador, square-jawed and broad-shouldered.

‘Arthur Smyth! Welcome to Constantinople – or, as the Turks like to call it, the “city of a thousand domes”.’

A scion of a long-established aristocratic family, educated at Eton and Cambridge, the ambassador is a man who has enjoyed a privileged route into the Foreign Office, and it reflects in the confident way he holds himself and the practised ease of his manner. As he extends his hand, he says, ‘I have heard much about you. They say your speech made quite an impression on the prime minister.’

‘When may I travel to Nineveh?’

The ambassador laughs at his guest’s failure to adhere to the fine art of small talk.

‘I’m sorry,’ says Arthur, realizing his mistake. He tries to revert to the expected social niceties. ‘This is such an impressive building you have here.’

‘We are terribly grateful to have a little roof above our heads to accommodate visiting artists and eminent scholars like yourself.’

Arthur shifts uncomfortably from one foot to the other. He is not sure whether he should point out that this is not exactly a ‘little roof’ or whether he ought to pretend that it is.

Observing him, the ambassador says, ‘These old tablets seem to have a hold on you. Such dedication. I admire it, I must say. There are those who’d never understand your passion, but I’m not one of them.’

Arthur swallows. As often, he is perplexed by the way the upper classes speak. They have a circuitous way of expressing themselves. He can never tell whether he is being genuinely praised or subtly mocked.

‘When may I leave for Nineveh? I would like to set out at once.’

‘Well, it’s not a matter of what you want, my good man. It’s what the sultan wants.’

‘I thought all arrangements had been completed prior to my arrival.’

‘You cannot excavate on Ottoman ground without a firman .’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘A firman – an official permit. A seal of approval. A royal decree issued by the sultan or the authorities. Without that, you cannot dig at Nineveh, and, if you do, you will find yourself in a scrape – even I would not be able to come to your rescue.’

Arthur’s face tightens. ‘But surely I do not need to wait here? The authorization letter will arrive while I’m on my way. That will save me time.’

‘Time …’ repeats the ambassador, as though the word is new to him. ‘It means different things in different parts of the world. The Turks have their own version, which can be painfully slow.’

Arthur shakes his head. ‘I have been told that the sultan does not care about ancient clay tablets –’

‘Oh, he doesn’t, not at all, but then, suddenly, he does. The whims and fancies of the Sublime Porte …’

Arthur feels his stomach drop. In his desperation, he focuses on the patterns of the Turkish carpet, taking comfort in their regularity. He swiftly calculates there are 244 diamond-shaped motifs on its surface, including the halves and quarters along the edges. Whenever he looks again, it will still be the same number. This is something he can control.

‘My dear fellow,’ says the ambassador, ‘I can see this news upsets you. I have something that might help.’

He strides over to a cabinet and pours a glass of colourless liquid. He offers the drink to Arthur and takes one for himself.

‘Have you tried this before? They call it vodka – it was invented in a monastery by a Russian monk, God rest his jovial soul. He named it “bread wine”, as it happens to be distilled from wheat. I must warn you, though, it is strong.’

Arthur takes a large sip. He coughs, turning bright red.

The ambassador smiles. ‘I’d advise you to take things slowly in Constantinople. As they say, in this part of the world, if you run too fast, you will miss the safe place where you might have hidden yourself.’

Constantinople … such an elusive place, hard to grasp. An eel of a city – just when you think you have caught hold of it, it slips out of your hands.

A week goes by, then another. There is no news of his firman . Arthur sleeps fitfully at night and wakes up tired in the mornings, as if chased by beasts in his dreams. Several times he tries to engage with the Ottoman authorities, but, ricocheting from one official to the next, he gets nowhere. It does not help that he cannot speak the language. As a boy he showed a remarkable aptitude in learning Yiddish and Irish by eavesdropping on native speakers, and if he can only steady his nerves he will probably pick up Turkish just as fast, but he cannot shake off the feeling that even then he would not be able to make himself understood.

‘Fish out of water,’ says the senior clerk. ‘You do not know how to grease palms, you do not understand baksheesh . You are too sensitive, impatient.’

If Arthur has a hard time with the Ottoman gentry, he does not fare any better with the British Embassy personnel. As well as the ambassador and his wife and their three children, settled comfortably on the premises, there are numerous clerks, attachés and secretaries. Merchants, too, come and go, even though the Levant Company surrendered its hold over trade across the region long ago. Arthur learns that, in the past, the residence offered a safe haven from the waves of bubonic plague that devastated Constantinople. But, despite its exquisite gardens and elegantly furnished spaces, he feels uncomfortable within these walls. The officials are suave and debonair, the guests full of swagger and bluster – men used to having their every whim indulged and every wish anticipated. Unable to match their conversational style and having little interest in the subjects discussed, each day after supper, instead of joining them for a drink around the fireplace, he seeks permission to retire to his room. He knows he should make more of an effort, and he senses they gossip behind his back, disparaging his uncouth manners and awkward ways, but he has neither the desire nor the ability to fit in.

On occasion, Arthur is invited to dine at the house of a local family. The kebabs, loaded with spices, upset his stomach. He finds the rice and mutton too fatty, though he enjoys the hoshaf they serve at the end – a bowl of sugary water with stewed fruits. Like Queen Victoria, the Turks have a sweet tooth and consume a dazzling variety of desserts, some with bewildering names – Bottom of the Cauldron , Lips of the Belle , Wife ’ s Belly , Floozy’s Treat , Vizier ’ s Finger … But the one Arthur prefers is the ashure – Noah’s Ark pudding, a recipe with forty ingredients, said to have been invented on the coracle to celebrate surviving the Flood. It is still alive, in this part of the world, still shaping everyday life, the memory of water.

Arthur likes the coffee-houses and makes it a habit to visit them often. With their dense covering of ivy, wainscoted walls and cushioned benches, they are charming and, unlike the streets, very clean. Perched under a pergola, he sips his coffee as he pores over a collection of poems. Sometimes he sketches his surroundings – children playing Knucklebones, men with fezzes and turbans, fruit-sellers bearing trays of figs … The first time he tries the water pipe, the narghile , he inhales too fast, spluttering and coughing so much that he makes the serving boy laugh. After that, he is careful. He observes the other customers, who hold themselves utterly still, as though they are not smoking but meditating on the ways of providence. Time slows down; the bubbling of water in the crystal bowl soothes.

A few yards from his favourite coffee-house in Ortak?y is a ramshackle hut frequented by a troupe of fishermen. Arthur watches them with admiration as they repair their nets or grill their daily catch. They invite him over one afternoon. Unlike the people at the embassy, the fishermen do not engage in small talk; they are content with silence. They sit in a circle around the fire, the neighbourhood cats forming another circle behind them. They offer him freshly caught, chargrilled bonito with flatbread and pickled turnips. Nothing he has had before has ever tasted this good.

At every opportunity, Arthur strolls along the Bosporus, watching the blue expanse, dazzling and unfathomable. Sparrows skim the water; seagulls swoop down to peck at scraps. He is surprised to learn that the Turks regard storks with great respect, believing that the birds make the pilgrimage to Mecca, and return each year, wiser and holier. There are fewer camels in this city than he expected, but once he sees two of them collide in a lane. The riders instantly find a solution: the camel with the lighter load sits while the other jumps over it. Unspoken agreements and unwritten rules govern daily life, and they must be obeyed by humans and animals alike.

It is the dogs that surprise him the most. They saunter around, bask in the sun, claiming the streets for themselves. A hundred years before, the reigning sultan ordered them to be bundled into sacks and exiled to an island in the Sea of Marmara, where many starved to death. The inhabitants of Constantinople, profoundly unhappy with the sovereign’s cruelty, managed to bring back the surviving canines, and since then they have proliferated with a vengeance. No one can touch them now.

Going from one neighbourhood to the next feels as much a change as leaving one country and crossing over into another. Arthur cannot help but suspect that Constantinople is not a city but several hidden in one; not a singular entity, but a thousand broken shards. A wide array of languages is spoken here, depending on which street you happen to be on: Turkish, Greek, Armenian, Kurdish, Arabic, Persian, Ladino, French, English, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian, Albanian … On his daily peregrinations, Arthur observes European diplomats with their distinctive attire, Jews in side curls, Albanians with black pistols and white petticoats, Tartars in sheepskins, Armenian porters doubled under the weight of the baskets on their backs, Georgians sporting metal belts around their waists … He runs into Dominican friars, Jesuits, priests, rabbis and imams. He sees Sufi dervishes with conical hats. He learns how to identify members of different communities: Pomaks, Croats, Maronites, Romanis, Bedouins, Druzes, Syrians, Circassians, Egyptians, Cossacks … All kinds of accents bubble up in the gargantuan cauldron that is Constantinople. Some people wear watches with two dials, each showing a different time. The entire city runs on multiple time zones at once.

One major contrast between the streets of London and those of Constantinople is the scarcity of women in the latter. Once he glimpses a concubine leaving the sultan’s harem for a rare outing, carried in a palanquin by liveried chairmen. A eunuch – most likely one of the many slaves kidnapped from Africa and viciously castrated as a boy – rides ahead of the group, berating anyone who dares to peek inside. Another day, whilst traipsing along the Golden Horn, he spots three Muslim women in a ca?que, propped up against cushions, their laughter echoing off the surface of the water. He watches them until their boat skims out of sight.

In Scutari, he saunters along gravel paths bordered by birches and willows, until he finds himself in front of a military barracks: a huge, rectangular building with a parade ground at its centre. This is where thousands of casualties from the Crimean War – British, French and Turkish soldiers – were treated not that long ago. Arthur has heard so many stories about the Lady with the Lamp and her fellow nurses making their rounds, and the patients with gangrene and frostbite wailing in the dark, that he half expects to see them all here now. But there is no sign that they were ever here; only the rage of the wind – lodos – remains. It occurs to him that Constantinople, more than any other place he has seen or heard about, is a city of forgetting.

Three weeks into his stay, Arthur is taken to the Grand Bazaar by a dragoman who works as an interpreter for the embassy. They thread their way through arched alleys, pigeons darting in and out of the cupolas overhead. Walking in tandem with a steady flow of shoppers, they pass through carved columns and return the greetings of vendors sitting cross-legged on rugs, sipping tea as dark as their eyes.

Arthur discovers that each quarter of the bazaar specializes in a particular type of merchandise. One street sells only fabrics: brocade, cambric, muslin, silk, cashmere, velvet, damask … Another, decorative glass: ribbed, gilded, bubbled, engraved … The next is for smokers: bundles of chibouks , pipes of ivory, narghiles of crystal … In a different row, dedicated to perfumes, scents from countless bottles, powders, pomades and ointments mingle in the air. Arthur marvels at incense burners encrusted with stones, boxes of henna, pouches of musk, kohl to embellish the eyebrows and antimony for the eyes. This part of the bazaar is so packed that the crowd sucks him into a human slipstream like a tide dragging a boat under the water.

Turning a corner, Arthur finds himself in a passage glittering with gemstones: opals, agates, aquamarines, emeralds, sapphires, pearls, garnets … Arranged on stalls are piles of tespih , the worry beads that the Turks love to click. He stops to look at a blue cabochon.

‘A fine choice,’ says the storekeeper in fluent, if heavily accented, English. ‘That’s a special piece.’

‘It’s lapis lazuli.’ Arthur smiles as Mr Bradbury’s words ring in his ears. Lapis from Latin, meaning ‘stone’; Lazuli from Arabic and Persian, meaning ‘heaven, sky, dark blue’ …

The celestial gem of the Ancient Mesopotamians. Ancestors’ Rock. In his readings of the Epic of Gilgamesh , Arthur has come across mention of a blue tablet, but he always assumed this to be poetic licence. Yet now, as he holds the stone in his palm like a frightened bird, it feels wholly plausible that somewhere by the River Tigris, buried beneath the rubble, there might be just such an inscription in lapis lazuli.

‘I give good discount. Just for you.’

Hardly has Arthur thought of a reply than he hears a commotion. Whoops, hollers and whistles – and then a cry of desperation.

‘What in God’s name is going on?’ Arthur asks.

The dragoman cranes his head to see better. ‘It looks like they are having a bit of fun with a devil-worshipper.’

Arthur rushes in that direction, still holding the stone – the shopkeeper and the dragoman on his heels.

A rabble of noisy youths has gathered nearby, their voices rising in waves. Chalk in hand, one of their number is drawing a circle around an elderly peasant. In the centre of the geometric shape, the man stands motionless, his shoulders hunched, his face etched with hurt.

‘It’s an oddity of the Orient,’ says the dragoman, catching up with Arthur. ‘Some people believe if you make a ring around a devil-worshipper they cannot get out – until a passer-by erases it. I’m not sure if it’s true, but there is always someone willing to give it a try.’

Arthur pushes his way through the crowd. Upon reaching the front, he takes out the paisley handkerchief he purchased on Regent Street, a frippery. Slowly, he rubs out the circle. People fall silent as they watch him with amusement. The sight of a Yazidi being harassed is nothing exceptional, but a farangi on his hands and knees coming to the aid of one is something to behold in the Grand Bazaar.

Reluctantly, gradually, the rowdy youths disperse. All this time the old man has not taken his eyes off Arthur, but now he mutters something under his breath.

‘What’s he saying?’ Arthur wants to know.

‘He’s thanking you.’ The dragoman shrugs. ‘The ravings of a dodderer. He says, you are a kind person, but you must be careful because you are endowed with a restless heart.’

Arthur’s eyes widen as he recalls the line uttered by Gilgamesh’s mother: Why did you endow my son with a restless heart? You have moved him to travel … Just as he wonders if the man might have heard of the epic, another stream of words follows.

‘What is he saying now?’

‘That there is a river running through you – whatever that means.’

Arthur studies the man, his skin wrinkled like leather, his nose majestic and broad at the bridge, his forehead wide and his dark hair abundant and curly, merging with the beard that rests on his chest. So alike is he to the images of the Ancient Mesopotamians that he might just as well have stepped out of an Assyrian bas-relief from the time of Ashurbanipal.

‘Are you going to buy that stone or not?’ says the shopkeeper.

By the time King Arthur of the Sewers and Slums leaves the four-hundred-year-old Grand Bazaar, holding a lapis lazuli piece in his palm, he is still thinking about the old Yazidi’s words. What could he have possibly meant? In the Epic of Gilgamesh , the poem’s troubled hero travels far away from home, making it to the mouth of the rivers at the end of the world – all for an adventure that is bound to end in failure. Maybe Arthur, too, suffers from the same malady. Maybe that is why he is incapable of settling down. All he knows is, if there is a river running through him, it seems always and in every way to flow towards melancholy.