The Blue Monkey Review

At my hotel in the Sultanahmet section of the city, they had my reservation and everything was in order except that they didn’t have a room for me for that particular night. They had alternative accommodations lined up, and I was eager to just unpack and get cleaned up when I saw the room in the hostel across the street. But later I reflected that the last time I had a room with similar amenities I was in a cloud forest and paying $5 a night. The bathroom was about the size of a shower stall; in fact, the bathroom was the shower stall. It worked well enough, but the toilet paper got a bit damp. I comforted myself that at least they had toilet paper and do not charge for towels or sheets.

In fact, the staffs at both my temporary lodging and the Poem Hotel where I spent most of my time turned out to be very accommodating. I suppose Poem deserved its 3 star rating, but far more important than the physical amenities was the hospitality shown by the desk clerk, the manager, the woman who worked in the kitchen—everyone I had any contact with there. And then, they had the rooftop view where you could turn your head just slightly to see, in succession, Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, and the Bosphorous.

I slept pretty well that first night and subsequent nights, though there was no sleeping through the call for morning prayers at a nearby mosque. The loudspeaker began the call at 4:30. That’s right. A.M. I got back to sleep, rose with somewhat more optimism than when my head hit the pillow, and after breakfast I was off for my first full day in the capital city of Constantine the Great and Suleiman the Magnificent. I made it to Hagia Sophia right about 9 A.M., opening time, bought my ticket and got through the security behind some Japanese tourists. But they all gathered in a group, waiting for everyone to assemble, so I walked into the large doors of the church on my own.

And suddenly I realized something. I’m alone. Except for a few workers in the corridors outside the actual church, and one other lone tourist, I have the place to myself. For a few precious minutes I can walk in silence through what had once been the grandest church in Christendom and then the grandest mosque of Islam. I’ve been reading about this building since I was 17, and had wanted to walk into it for about that long. I found myself more moved and emotional than expected.

Hagia Sophia was built in just six years in the early 6th century. Contractors mined stone from all over the empire, including stripping many of the ruins of antiquity of their marble. The church still boasts the world’s largest dome. Everything there inspires respect for the importance and the antiquity of the place. The marble entry walks are worn from long use into wave-like forms. The walls up to the base of the dome share both Islamic calligraphic art and Christian mosaics (the building became a museum after the Turkish revolution). There is no altar in front, though there is the niche that tells worshipers in a mosque the direction of Mecca. I suppose the pulpit has changed over the years, adapted for use by Mullahs. But I imagine John Chrysostom preaching from it to the gallery where the empress sat and condemning her for some transient immorality.

I was not alone in the upper gallery where you have a close look at what must be among the most famous mosaics in Christian art. But, once again, my luck held out and only a few other people wandered through the huge balconies. The expression of Christ still inspires awe—the severity of Orthodoxy has deep roots. Both emperors and empresses are pictured with halos in these mosaics, and they are pictured presenting Christ some gifts of wealth. Very clear message. This must have impressed the other worshipers.

I didn’t want to leave, but after seeing the sanctuary filled with tourists I felt less reluctant. No other building on this trip impressed me nearly so much, and none reached me the way Hagia Sophia did. The Blue Mosque is perhaps even more beautiful than Hagia Sophia, but it had no context in my life. I found the Hippodrome area much more interesting, with its two obelisks (one taken from Egypt) and its pole of intertwined serpents that the Greeks had erected at Delphi to celebrate their victory over the Persians.

Throughout my time in Istanbul I kept returning to the square by Hagia Sophia and also walking through the Hippodrome. On my last morning there a young girl greeted me in English, “Hello, how are you?” she said. Other children had greeted me this way, assuming that the camera I carried marked me as an English speaker. I respond and soon I was having a conversation in schoolbook English with this thirteen-year old. Her two friends joined in, but kept getting confused and switching to Turkish. “How old are you?” she asked, and I tell the truth in response. “Are you going to school?” I asked (they all had uniforms on). “Yes, we go to school.” And much more information exchanged hands.

This interaction contrasted with the frequent offers of help and friendship from complete strangers. “I am here, brother,” you can hear as you stand at the ATM. One spontaneous acquaintance managed to talk me into the family rug shop, which I escaped after 10 minutes. From then on I was pretty surly toward these potential new relationships. I recalled Bill French in Jerusalem, who had no end of help in the souk. “This not business, this is friendship.”

As it neared noon on my first morning I stopped to have ice-cream at a cafe with a prospect of the Bosphorous. I tried to understand how this small waterway could have stopped the Persian army, even briefly. And where did Xerxes order soldiers to lash the waves for defying him? Then I went along the waterway itself to the Galata bridge, where hundreds of people were fishing, shoulder to shoulder. How do they manage that without fouling their lines? I wondered. And then, with my own feet, I walked from Europe to Asia. No line marked it, so I don’t even know when that transition took place.

On the Asian side there was still more to see. I toured the harem side of Dolombache Palace where the royal family moved its residence in the 19th century. I’d have to say that I could have saved the time and entrance fee and not have suffered any diminishment of self. The palace is huge, but it has nothing of intrinsic interest. The royal family lived in plush, bourgeois discomfort, with no privacy. What is royalty “save ceremony?” The Topkapi Palace, which I saw the next day, was more interesting and contained many interesting artifacts. But Dolombache had already robbed me of my interest in seeing how the Ottoman royals lived, so I didn’t pay to go on any of the special tours.

Using a tram and then a special underground train that only goes uphill for one stop I arrived in Taksim, a shopping area on the Asian side. I had coffee and lunch and just planned to wander around a bit on my way back to the hotel. But after walking about 100 meters I passed a sign with the unmistakable figure of a whirling Dervish. A ceremony would be held in just 45 minutes, and it is open to the ticket-buying public.

Forty minutes later I was sitting in a circular room just a few feet away from the stage or central part of the small building. A chorus of women, accompanied by women musicians, performed first. They filed out and then in filed the Dervishes, perhaps fourteen in all. The ceremony proceeded in the traditional form, with music, singing, and the ritual of the Dervish worship. They walked around the room in a circle, each bowing to the one before and the one after, three times. And then they whirled. All nature revolves, the program had said. And here are these adepts conforming their ceremony to the universal motion. The whirling of the twelve young Dervishes had real power, and they circled as they turned, filling the entire performance area with arms (the right hand turned up, the left down) and billowing robes. After they whirled I felt like they had done enough, they had fulfilled all my expectations. But it wasn’t over. They whirled again. And again. Four times in all. I could not believe they didn’t drop from exhaustion.

For the rest of my time in Istanbul I took a slower pace and even became somewhat friendly with two of the men who solicited for their restaurants. In spite of my suspicions, I found myself drawn into the transient relationships that subsist between tourists and those who meet their needs. I ate at both places, had drinks there, talked with the one man about his Kurdish origins, his sense of loyalty to Turkey, his low opinion of Iraqi Kurds.

When I left I felt much more in the frame of mind for Byzantium.