Lion Eyes Page 7
Everyone I knew, in fact—Charlene excepted—seemed to be experiencing a degree of detachment from the Reality Principle. Arsalan was increasingly convinced that he was communicating intimately with his mother’s cat: “It’s a pity I don’t know more about Mesopotamian cat iconography. Wollef and I would have such interesting things to talk about.” He had come to think of Wollef as somewhat mentally retarded, as cats go. The cat reliably tripped over his own paws whenever he attempted to jump up to the counter, and he took no interest in grooming himself properly, wandering about blithely with milk-matted fur and crumbs in his whiskers.
. . . But we have had an exciting morning, Wollef and I! A small bird flew in through the open window! Wollef is no athlete and succeeded only in frightening the thing half to death. I spoke to Wollef sharply—“Wollef, let it go!” Then I caught the poor little bird myself and released it. Wollef has since been sulking. He is on my lap now, remonstrating with me for ruining his fun.
As for your question, Wollef is not a Persian name and moreover could not be a Persian name; we do not have a “w” in Persian. The name was my mother’s confused corruption of the word “wally.” Perhaps you know what this rude word means, and for using it I am sorry. Once I had returned from school as a child, calling one of my classmates this word which I had just learned. My mother enquired what the word meant. I feared I would be reprimanded for my coarse word, so cunningly I replied that it meant “a very sweet and well-behaved child.” My mother was never the wiser and from that day called anything small and dear to her a “wollef.”
I did, in fact, know what that rude word meant. But I gathered that if the cat objected to being called a wanker, he never let on.
• • •
A few days after my lunch with Charlene, Arsalan asked me if I knew how to clip a cat’s toenails.
. . . I believe my mother did this, but he refuses to submit himself to the procedure. Still, I am sure it must be done. He resembles now a Chinese dowager empress. This morning I discovered him honing his claws still further on my mother’s carpet, a Mashad of great artistry with a rare peacock motif.
I wondered if he was referring to the carpet I’d admired in the photograph on his website. I remembered that I had thought the carpet unusually beautiful. I went back to the site to look at it again. A new link had been added at the top of the page. The text was in Persian. I clicked on it. It took me to the most recent issue of an obscure online archaeology journal. One of the articles, in English, concerned a dig at the Burnt City. It was illustrated with a photograph. The photograph, according to the caption, had been taken six months ago.
The snapshot was overexposed, and the details weren’t entirely clear. Shovels, brushes, sieves, and buckets surrounded a square pit in the desert, cordoned off with tape. In the background, white sunlight poured down upon a dusty landscape dotted with scrubby bushes. A tall man in his late thirties, lean but powerfully built, dressed in faded jeans and a white cotton shirt rolled up at the sleeves, was standing with one foot in the excavation site. He was cradling a goblet in one hand and holding a measuring tape against it with the other. He was covered in dust. Everything was covered in dust.
According to the caption, this man was Arsalan.
But the face in the photograph wasn’t at all the mournful face I had imagined. It was the face of a diamond smuggler, or an insubordinate but supremely courageous World War II flying ace—a vibrant, swashbuckling face.
He had deep lines around his eyes, as if he had spent years in the sun, and the kind of lean musculature that men develop when they work outdoors all day. His features were Persian, no doubt: his long nose and his expressive, hooded eyes reminded me of certain Moghul paintings I’d seen in books—paintings of emperors and palace guards, scenes of royal intrigue. Clearly he had the blood of Darius and Xerxes in his veins. But there was something European in his manner: he had wild, long curly hair, but no beard or mustache. His posture and expression were assured and confident.
I stared at his eyes for a very long time.
He was aptly named, I thought. There was something leonine in his broad shoulders, and in that thick wild mane of hair, and in the powerful way he carried himself.
When I saw his photograph, I began to think of him as I think of him to this day.
As the Lion.
ISTANBUL
In every psychoanalytic treatment of a neurotic patient, the strange phenomenon that is known as “transference” makes its appearance. The patient, that is to say, directs towards the physician a degree of affectionate feeling (mingled, often enough, with hostility) which is based on no real relation between them and which—as is shown by every detail of its emergence—can only be traced back to old wishful fantasies of the patient’s which have become unconscious.
—SIGMUND FREUD
CHAPTER FOUR
As others have pointed out, it is fairly evident that Ms. Berlinski had some “inside” information on the training of CIA agents . . .
—Customer review
of Loose Lips on Amazon.com
I was in Istanbul—and sleepless—because I no longer loved Paris.
“There is nothing wrong with you,” the Lion had written. “You have been there for years. Even the most exciting place grows old with time, and Paris has grown old without remaining exciting. I suggest a new adventure.”
Several hours later, he wrote to me again.
From: Arsalan arsalan@hotmail.com
Date: September 20, 2003 05:11 PM
To: Claire Berlinski claire@berlinski.com
Subject: Fw: Housing Exchange, Istanbul–Paris
Here is an idea to cure your restlessness. This gentleman was my dissertation supervisor at Tehran University. He is highly upright, scholarly, and tidy. May I suggest you entertain the notion of his offer?
——Original Message——
Date: 20 Sep 2003 12:06 PM
From: “Prof. H. R. Mostarshed”
Sender: TURKISH-ARCHAEOLOGY-INFO mailing list
Reply-To: “Prof. H. R. Mostarshed”
Subject: Housing Exchange, Istanbul–Paris
Comments:
Dear Colleagues,
I am seeking a two-month Paris–Istanbul housing exchange. I will be in France during October and November for archival research. My Istanbul apartment is large, with bath, office, kitchen, furnished, two balconies, one of which overlook Bosphorus view. The neighborhood is on the Europe side. Please write for more information and strong references.
Best regards,
Dr. H. R. Mostarshed, President of TOCSED
University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
Visiting Professor of Archaeology
Department of Ancient Cultures and Languages
Istanbul Bogaziçi Üniversitesi
“Istanbul?” I wrote to Arsalan. “What’s that like?”
“You would not write to me again that you are bored, my Claire, that I promise.”
One Dr. Mostarshed wrote to me that evening. My apartment was just what he had been looking for, he said; the Place Dauphine was his favorite location in Paris, and Arsalan his favorite student. We determined that I would leave my keys with Monsieur Tubert. Dr. Mostarshed would leave his with the kebab restaurant beneath his apartment. He sent me detailed instructions for the care of his cactus, the special way his front door was to be locked, and what to do if the electricity went out.
I was on a plane one week later.
Strange sounds of Turkish on the plane. From the air, my first thrilling sight of the Bosphorus. Crowds pushing and jostling at the luggage carousel. A terrifying ride in a decrepit smoke-filled taxi, the driver weaving madly in and out of traffic. At last, Dr. Mostarshed’s apartment—spacious, as promised, with a view of hills, water, domes, minarets.
A thrashing, maniacal bass guitar, wildly out of tune.
I set down my luggage in the bedroom and opened the window. Vibrations rattled the artifacts on the bookshelf. Where was that noise coming
from? I looked out the other window and saw a large industrial building with a neon sign that read MUSIK.Was it some kind of recording studio? There were four more buildings like it within eyesight, each with the same sign.
Dr. Mostarshed hadn’t mentioned that.
I closed the window again and lay down on the bed to test it. Immediately I heard a spooky cry, and then another. I had known that Muslims pray five times a day, of course, but I’d never known so much electric amplification was involved. Voice after voice joined the chorus. The bass guitar held its own, mingling with the muezzin and with traffic noise—Turkish drivers, it seemed, labored under the impression that the clutch and the horn must be used in tandem.
The guitar and the horns kept up throughout the evening, punctuated by outbursts of high-decibel piety, almost but not quite drowning out the sound of children kicking a soccer ball against the wall of Dr. Mostarshed’s building while shouting at one another and blowing a traffic whistle. Hammering. Tapping. Drilling—from the apartment next door. Men bellowing at the tops of their lungs in the street. Every few minutes—car alarms. Jackhammers. Gulls shrieking. Cats in the alleyway mating and howling. A truck rattling over the cobblestones, blaring Turkish from a loudspeaker.
The sound on my computer, letting me know I had mail.
“Have you found everything you might need?” Arsalan asked the morning after my arrival.
I didn’t answer him. I could barely keep my eyes open.
• • •
From: Arsalan arsalan@hotmail.com
Date: September 30, 2003 01:15 PM
To: Claire Berlinski claire@berlinski.com
Subject: Re: Groceries?
Yes, there is a famous open-air fruit and fish market up the hill, at Galatasaray, and surely too a small shop where you might purchase your coffee and milk. There is an excellent Persian bakery and confectionery down the hill by the Galata Tower. You should find the tower easily; it dominates the skyline. It was built by Genoese conquerors and used to send fire signals. This was part of a communication system devised by the Romans and inherited by the Byzantines. Should you pass by the bakery, do say hello to the baker, my friend Hossein, and sample his pistachio baklava. Even my mother agreed it to be of her exacting standards. Tell him you are my friend. Of course, you will wish to go to the Egyptian market for your spices. That is a wonderful morning’s excursion, though you must be on the alert for pickpockets, I am afraid. I am sorry Dr. Mostarshed did not think to leave basic provisions for you; that was inhospitable of him.
I set out to buy groceries, wandering through the zigzagging, soot-covered alleyways around Dr. Mostarshed’s apartment. Laundry and political pendants, strung on lines between apartments, flapped in the breeze; gulls swooped and laughed, playing in the rooftop gardens and balconies that overflowed with tangled vines and plants stuck not in planters but in disused drums of sunflower and olive oil.
I lost my way within minutes. I wandered through the twisting streets, passing nargile cafés full of Turks lounging on cushions, drinking tea from tiny cups with stained-glass patterns, drawing lazily on hookahs. The air was heavy with the smell of fruity tobacco. At last I found my way to the Bosphorus. The light in Istanbul wasn’t bright or clear. It was as if the city had been shot in black and white. The edges of the mosques and minarets across the water seemed to fade slightly into the sky, as if smudged with a thick brush.
The Bosphorus itself was turquoise, teeming with massive, slow-moving quadruple-decker cruise ships, cargo vessels, fishing boats that sailed under a massive concrete bridge lined from end to end with fishermen, who cast their rods and reels into the Bosphorus and pulled them back glittering with fish. So many lines had been cast over the side that the bridge looked like some elaborate stringed instrument. Hawkers by the water were selling nuts and figs and bright red apples from horse-drawn carts; waiters tried to coax me into their restaurants, gesturing grandly at the fish displayed in their storefronts. The air smelled of charcoal fires, lignite, car exhaust, grilling meat, fog, fish, the sea. Cars honked, people shouted, motorbikes weaved in and out of traffic. I stood on the corner for nearly ten minutes, waiting for the traffic to stop. At last, a child of about eight came up to me, took my hand, and helped me across. “Where you from?” he asked.
“America.”
“Very dangerous country!”
As I walked the crowds grew dense; the sky darkened. Faces surged by me—dark faces, light ones, broad flat Mongol faces, faces with high chubby cheeks, faces with magnificent thick mustaches; Turkish schoolgirls in seductive schoolgirl outfits, with short skirts and knee socks; fat women in hijab, their weight shifting slowly from hip to hip as they walked; Japanese tourists; a curvaceous round-hipped woman in a tight skirt, swaying on high heels, with her hair tucked modestly under a scarf. I saw heads reminiscent of paintings on Etruscan pottery, the caricatured hooked nose everywhere, the grape-black hair and cruel, dark eyes—eyebrows high and arched, lids round and sensual and languorous—but then I saw astonishing ebony-flecked blue eyes, peering out below eyebrows that were fierce and closely knit and feral.
I had forgotten to look for groceries.
Navigating by the looming tower, I walked home through a neighborhood of narrow streets and tea shops, where elderly men wearing caps sat on stools, smoking one cigarette after another under portraits of Atatürk, playing backgammon, their faces cracked and sunbeaten. A pack of young men stood on a corner, shouting at one another, surrounding a skinny fellow turning over cards from a deck. Everywhere men were hauling, pushing, carting, hammering things—there was construction everywhere, but the purpose of the construction was unclear, since nothing appeared renovated. I found the bakery Arsalan had recommended, or what remained of it. It was boarded up. It appeared to have long since been gutted by a fire.
That evening, I wrote long letters about what I’d seen to my friends.
From: Arsalan arsalan@hotmail.com
Date: October 1, 2003 04:15 AM
To: Claire Berlinski claire@berlinski.com
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Impressions of Istanbul
That is the legacy of the Ottoman Empire, Claire. The faces of Istanbul are not Turkish only; they are Kurdish, Balkan, Azeri, Turkmen, Armenian, Anatolian, Persian, Avar, Qashqa’i, Arab, Bulgar, Pecheneg, Bosnian, Hungarian, Venetian, Pisan, Amalfitan, Genoese, Romanian, Albanian, Macedonian, Cretan, Bashkir, Georgian, Lâz, Circassian, Kazakh, Uzbek, Uighur. So you see blue eyes like that, perhaps, because some Anatolian village was sacked by a band of pillaging Cossacks who left behind nothing but their genes.
From: Imran Begum imranbegum@gmail.com
Date: October 1, 2003 06:45 AM
To: Claire Berlinski claire@berlinski.com
Subject: Re: Impressions of Istanbul
Sounds nice. Glad you are so excited. Very busy and happy with Larissa! Breathe deep and hydrate well. Love, Immie.
From: Samantha Allen allens@aol.com
Date: October 1, 2003 01:45 AM
To: Claire Berlinski claire@berlinski.com
Subject: Re: Istanbul
I’m off for the weekend—I’m going up to Big Sur to meet Lynne! xxxSam.
My mother didn’t think Istanbul sounded safe. My father evinced only slightly greater interest. “Very much occupied with prebiotic chemistry,” he wrote. “An absolutely extraordinary subject. Almost finished with the origins of life.”
• • •
From: Arsalan arsalan@hotmail.com
Date: October 2, 2003 09:10 AM
To: Claire Berlinski claire@berlinski.com
Subject: Re: Istanbul
Claire, I am very pleased that you are so loving Istanbul. I love it too. I trust you have at least found groceries this morning? If you cannot find coffee to your European tastes in your neighborhood, you will surely find it in the bazaar behind the Yeni Mosque. If you visit in the morning, the crowds will not be too great. You will then be near the neighborhood of Fener, should you be curious to see ele
ments of old Istanbul life that have vanished elsewhere in the city.
Fener, by the way, is where my friend Hossein the baker lived. Am I foolish to be concerned for him? He was most kind to my mother when she visited me during my sabbatical in Istanbul, and although fortune has robbed him of his position he is an educated, sensitive man who was before the Revolution a jurist. His bearing somewhat reminded me, I must say, of my late father. He invited me once to his home, where his wife cooked for me an excellent Persian meal. A difficult life for such a man. I cannot imagine how he would support his family without his bakery. Perhaps, if you do pass through Fener, you would look for his lavender-colored house, at the very highest block of Sadrazam Ali Pasa Caddesi, and tell me whether that at least remains?
And should you be interested in such sights only rarely seen by tourists, may I also recommend to you a visit by ferry to Eyüp? It is the site of Istanbul’s holiest mosque, named after the Prophet’s companion, who led an army to the city gates. His defeat gave rise to myriad eschatological prophecies concerning the significance of Constantinople’s fall. This is why Mehmet the Conqueror, Selim the Inexorable, and Süleyman the Magnificent all believed they were the Messianic king who would unite the world and its religions beneath their aegis. . . .
Think, in this batter’d Caravanserai
Whose Portals are alternate Night and Day,
How Sultan after Sultan with his Pomp