The ferry going over is packed. A young man with mountains of packages tells us in fractured German that he’s a guest worker in Germany just arrived home on a visit. The packages are presents. Uskudar’a pier is bedlam. We have no map but don’t need one; we just follow the crowds to a platform draped with flags and bunting. Turkey is in the midst of an election campaign. While waiting for the action, Jerry buys three buns just out of the oven, su boregi (filo dough wrapped around a kind of feta cheese). Delicious. The rally starts; an audience gathers; speakers are passionate. Eventually, having understood not a word, we buy more boregi, settle on a bench under dusty oleanders and wait for the chai man to wheel over his brass samovar. Tea does taste better in a glass as our Russian friends have always insisted. Three elderly men join us on the bench. I try to start a conversation but their English is limited, my Turkish non-existent. We smile a lot. Maybe smiling is what the song "Uskudar" is all about.
Most tourists start their Istanbul sightseeing with the Aya Sofya, "Holy Wisdom." We end ours there. We expect St. Sophia to be quiet but in the rotunda voices from the past resonate. Above the usual tourist chatter we hear—we think we hear—the voice of sixth century Emperor Justinian. He’s just finished his grand basilica with treasure looted from pagan temples. "Oh, Solomon," he cries out," I have outstripped thee." But Justinian’s boast is almost lost in the crunch of artisans crushing jewels into mosaics as the Ottomans convert cathedral to mosque. Pagan temple, cathedral, mosque, all the elements are there; and something else. A strong modern voice speaks: "Forget the mosque. It’s a museum we need—a museum for tourists." Ataturk readies his country for the twentieth century.
On the way back to the hotel we stop at the Spice Bazaar. How different from Istanbul’s more famous marketplace with its thousand-and-one stalls resonating with a thousand-and-one cries to buy. If ever a place looks like birthdays and smells like Christmas, Spice Bazaar is it. We load our flight bags with cumin, nutmeg, cinnamon and coriander. On the bus, which we’ve joined for a week’s tour of southeastern Turkey, the scent of our spices perfumes the air. Winding down the Gallipoli Peninsula the bus passes piles of dried sesame stalks, a gypsy encampment, battalions of tanks and big guns—NATO maneuvers, someone says.
It’s quiet inside the bus as well. I’m beginning to miss Istanbul’s noises. Suddenly, from a distance, I hear the piercing shriek of the ferry that will take us to Asia Minor. I start to hum "Uskudar".
