The Sultan of Byzantium Read online

  I was happy to learn that the name of our district derived from the ‘barbarian’ Galatians. It was the first time I’d heard the rhythmical word ‘barbar’, and I thought the Galatians must have been heroic horsemen with roots in Gaul. According to Apostol the barber, the most saintly citizens after the prophets were the Byzantine rulers who accepted Christianity as their official religion and standardized the Bible. Whenever I took my seat in his antique chair he would squeeze one of my ears with his scissors and say, ‘Wow! I almost cut it off.’ His son could not manage to take him away from us to Thessalonica, at least until his legs froze up and he couldn’t walk. Apostol claimed that when the Byzantines gave Galata to the Genoese, a wind with a tail appeared over the roofs of the neighborhood.

  The Galata streets are like cards in a mismatched deck. The goal of anyone who dives into that maze is definitely to not rush to get out on the other side safe and sound. Each street is a line from a poem that I would not dare to memorize. In Tristan’s view, Galata and I were the missing chapter in Gulliver’s Travels. I knew the monumental buildings by the way they sighed. The streets, paved with stones from the old city walls, kissed my feet with each step I took. I always began my time travel by rubbing the blackening walls that remained from the fourteenth-century Palazzo Communale. I would watch the army of ants ceremoniously descending from beneath the cracked facade. People say that ‘the most aesthetic stairs in the world’ are the Camondo Stairs curving up from the old banking street, Bank Avenue. The Camondo family, generous benefactor of the Louvre Museum, were also the former owners of our apartment building. Because of the way our neighborhood streets zigzagged it was difficult for the city to tear down our deserted but magnificent old buildings. Their rank decreased in proportion as their distance from the Tower increased. In my opinion they gave the impression of aristocratic men in tuxedos and elegant women in tulle evening gowns. Do weary buildings draw closer together at night to share their troubles?

  The sounds of the call to prayer, church bells, and the screams of gulls all somehow accentuated our quota of silence. Whenever I see those neat symmetrical cities in graphic novels, I’m driven to go out into a Galata street on a late afternoon. Galatians enjoy life on a different timeline. Their stance is dramatic, and I like it. If you want to see how small a tribe we really are, then you should count those few lit-up apartments. You can find more buildings than people in Galata, and it is a reality of the night, that the streets in which children’s voices echo during the day are deserted, even by the cats. But those lanes of loneliness are my music teachers.

  Am I going to part company with the streets I strolled in meditation? I was passing by the hospital where I was born when I saw a puff of smoke fluttering up to the sky as if on wings. The sight gave me goosebumps because I realized that after Eugenio I was planning to be the next ‘Lord of Galata’.

  Whenever I climb the Galata Tower I feel like singing a l-o-n-g ezan, the call to prayer. This time I was touring its balcony as the ‘Candidate for Byzantine-Emperor-in-Exile’, but I couldn’t find an adjective to define my condition in any of my five languages. If Eugenio had been in my shoes he would have launched a tirade, right fist raised: ‘Ah, you were once the property of my forefathers, you ungrateful city.’ I fixed my gaze on the Ottoman mosques hiding behind a fragile screen of fog. My grandmother gave me fifty dollars when I first learned to count them all from our living room without faltering. She was sixty before she discovered that her Georgian forebears had converted from Christianity and was grateful that she’d been brought as a bride into a purebred Muslim family.

  The secret that had been handed to me was of course a hoax, but I was tempted all the same. I wondered about that last item on Constantine XI’s list, and wanted to confront Nomo before buckling down to their mysterious test. Otherwise, whenever I sat down to a chess game I would be conflicted. My grandmother believed there was an angel who could be heard but not seen, named ‘Hatîf’. I especially liked him because of the first two letters of his name. On my therapeutic tour of the cylindrical balcony of the Galata Tower I made myself believe that I could hear a half-human, half-bird sound, something like ‘Be’. Relieved to have heard Saint Hatîf’s murmur of approval, I descended to earth.

  Making my way home I passed Apostol’s barber shop, now a posh dress shop. I would always pause and stroke the cast-iron door handle whenever I passed by. When Apostol washed my hair after a haircut, I could always expect him to say, ‘Young rascal, you’re not handsome, but you’re lucky – your face is like an old bust of a prince.’ He always gave back half the price of the haircut, saying, ‘Go buy yourself a chocolate bar.’ Just before he migrated to Thessaloniki they gave him a going-away dinner. I was the only student there and I caused him to cry when I read a poem by Oktay Rifat.

  *

  I woke to the call to prayer, the morning ezan, rising up from the Bereketzade mosque, which happened to be the first place of worship built after the Conquest. I was so busy brushing up on Byzantium on the Internet that I forgot to eat breakfast.

  The entire team was waiting for me in the hotel lobby. All three were dressed fashionably in sharp black suits with purple ties which made me a little uncomfortable. (Purple was the official color of the Royal Palace.) Did they know how I would answer, were they mocking me already in the first round? As I went down to the meeting room just below the lobby a thought about ‘prison poetry’ crossed my mind. I don’t know why but I wondered what it would taste like being locked up in jail.

  They offered me a seat in a handsome armchair and a sheaf of papers. I felt gratified to be handed documents in Turkish, Greek and Latin concerning my election as Byzantine-Emperor-in-Exile. At the bottom of the Turkish text were signatures belonging to the Paleaologus, Cantacuzenus, and Comnenus families. (The Comneni ruled from 1081 to 1185.) While donning my formal robes for the investment ceremony I asked, ‘Why isn’t Nomo here to honor this historic occasion – or are you the Nomo members in question?’ Pappas, who was giving me a hand with the vestments, couldn’t keep from smiling. Askaris glared at him and said, ‘If they’re not watching us right now, they’re certainly listening, my dear sir. Everything is for Byzantium and your safety.’

  A little later I placed my right hand on a dark silver box engraved with the Byzantine coat of arms and took the oath: ‘I swear that I will not reveal my secret to anyone … that I will work for the greater good of Byzantium … this I swear.’ And with my affixing the freshly created signature of Constantine XV to the decree placed before me, the ceremony came to an end. Askaris, Kalligas and Pappas genuflected on their right knees and with their rusty voices recited a passage that sounded like a hymn.

  I was briefed on my duties and responsibilities: after two months of education in ‘Byzantine reality’, the testing process would begin. To pass the test I would have to quickly solve the riddle of the last task on the list in Constantine XI’s will. Then I would meet with Nomo to discuss how to actually carry out the assignment. If I met these challenges successfully, I would also have met the criteria for ‘the Elect’. My deadline was the evening of September 30, 2009.

  During this period I would be known as an employee of the London investment firm, RSIB Finance. I would be a researcher in economics, and every month £30,000 would be deposited into my bank account (Nomo must have been a privileged client of the same investment firm.) My education would take place at the Center for Research in Byzantine History in the same city (they were probably its anonymous sponsors as well).

  As in the case of every majesty, of course, there were restrictions. I would ask no questions about my grandfather’s activities or those of Nomo, and I would never attempt to pry into the CVs of the team.

  *

  First I broke the news to my family that I was going to London to work as an economist at a brokerage firm. I would take unpaid leave from my teaching posts. My mother wondered how I’d found this new job (with the help of a friend from the London School of Economics). And I
knew my grandmother would say, ‘Allah be praised!’ the moment she heard that my salary would quadruple that of the president of our Republic.

  While I was applying for leave a thought flashed through my mind: had Kalligas forgotten to mention my passion for chess when he was ticking off the positives in my career path? Or did they just have a low opinion of my talent?

  DELTA

  As a metropolis London was neither as old as Istanbul nor as young as New York. When I went there for my doctoral studies, I was already a little late in appreciating it. I considered Piccadilly a melodic name for a neighborhood, the Royal Academy of Arts reminded me of a Seljuk caravanserai, and I was sure that the customers of the Le Meridien Piccadilly hotel had all come to town on very important business.

  The Le Meridien receptionist, hearing that I would be their guest for approximately three weeks, bestowed on me Suite number 905 on the top floor. I liked the room, which was spacious enough to host two prostitutes simultaneously. Outside the cage-like windows the city’s historical panorama twinkled like an oasis. I shifted my focus to the Big Ben clock tower. It seemed fragile, like those famous people who’ve grown tired of posing for photographs and brought to mind Galata Tower. (In my childhood fantasy all the towers of the world were cousins.) I lowered my gaze to the other side of the street, where my eye was caught by Waterstone’s. There, in Europe’s greatest bookstore, quite possibly the last book of some marginal poet was waiting for me to find it. It was a tempting prospect.

  New Chatham House was the most depressing building on the street. It was behind the Royal Academy, an exhibition space. So as not to shorten my route, I passed regularly through the Burlington Arcade. The arcade, where each shop sold a different kind of luxury item, sported security guards who looked like circus ringmasters. It was comical, the way they arrogantly clasped their hands behind their backs as they passed out warnings to passersby. I always watched the talentless but uniformed shoeshine man for a while. Evidently it was to spare his ornamented brush that he wagged his big head from right to left. These claustrophobic shops, run probably by the same families since 1819, had two levels. At one time I believed that when the arcade closed for the evening the shopkeepers went upstairs to live.

  New Chatham House from a distance looked like a rectangular chunk of coal, and its undesirability increased as you drew closer. The goal of the receptionist at the main door was to provide a miserable start to your day. I didn’t want to know who the tenants were on the other five floors, but the whole top floor belonged to the Center for Research in Byzantine History. According to the Internet the Center’s library held 40,000 books in seventeen languages. The rest of the twenty-thousand-square-foot space was given over to seminar rooms, exhibition halls, and archives. The furniture in the library section, except for the bookshelves, was modern. I liked the harmony between the purple rugs and the gray granite floor.

  I finished my brief exploratory tour and went up to the information desk. It was presided over by a white-haired woman with a doll-like manner who sat me down in a chair opposite her desk. She held still long enough for me to read her name (Mrs Jocelyn L. Hartley-Singros) on the card hanging from a chain around her neck. I digested the long name and briefly whispered mine to her and was done.

  ‘I’m an academic from Istanbul. My field is econometrics. I want to learn Byzantine history through and through. If you can help me I’ll be very grateful, Mrs Hartley-Singros.’

  ‘My husband was a Cypriot,’ she said, ‘and you pronounced his last name as perfectly as a Cypriot. How nice, at last, to see a Turk here! May I ask how much time you’ve set aside to reach your goal?’

  Reacting to the irony in her tone, I frowned and said, ‘Under the right conditions, maybe a month.’

  I don’t know what kind of look I gave her, but Mrs Hartley-Singros leaned forward on her desk.

  ‘I’m glad to see a young scholar like you have an interest in Byzantium,’ she said. ‘I recommend a program on two levels. First, a chronological history; then, Byzantine civilization and the books that underline the way it was institutionalized. If you wish, I can prepare an essential list for you.’

  In something like panic she began compiling a reading list while I perused the CRBH’s brochure. Founded ostensibly by a ship-owner of Greek extraction, the Center opened in 1853, most likely with my ancestor’s money. Thanks to the benevolent legacy of the ‘founder’, the Center had no need to go to the outside world to meet expenses. It accepted neither donations nor members, a fact that was enough to confirm my suspicions.

  As aids to my education in Byzantium from its birth to death (330-1453), the names of three authors were proposed, the first two of whom were academics. I was to choose one of them, but I preferred to read all three, which meant covering 2222 pages in ten days. Actually, I was curious about how it would feel to be a spectator of the same epic drama as staged by three different directors.

  I absorbed the books, their appendices included, with great patience. I felt as if I was tracking down a secret code that I would recognize the instant I saw it. I doubted myself only on occasions of feeling exceptionally calm despite the long trips time travelling between the fourth and the fifteenth centuries.

  *

  Byzantium. From the Caucasus to Spain, from South Europe to North Africa. Only two centuries after it was founded it would be the greatest and most civilized empire on earth. Because of contradictions inside and developments outside, it sifted away like sand in an hourglass. When Mehmet the Conqueror took Constantinople in 1453, it was an empire on its deathbed. The truly fatal blow had come from the army that set out on the Fourth Crusade by order of the Pope. In 1204 this crazed group of criminals plundered the city during a so-called detour and founded the Latin Kingdom. When they were driven out in 1261, the city lay poverty-stricken and in ruins. It never pulled itself together after that.

  The main internal cause of this melancholy ending was the flexibility of rules for the transmission of power. An emperor might choose his successor but the army, the church, and even civil leaders could intervene. The aim of the process was to let ‘the best man’ emerge. If an unexpected person seized the throne through intrigue and treachery, that was okay too, for it was God’s will. Basil I (867-886), a villager from Adrianople, came to the throne in this way and eventually qualified as ‘Basil the Magnificent’. It was an unfortunate example of God-granted power. In fact it was unavoidable that the system would create perpetual administrative chaos. The Byzantium that survived for eleven centuries was ruled by eighty-eight emperors; sixty-five of these were subjected to palace coups; twenty-nine were murdered; and thirteen took refuge in monasteries.

  If I had to squeeze history into three words, my formula would be: History = Ambition + Chance - Simple Mistakes.

  By the end of my third day the Library Information Specialist and I had drawn closer. We took coffee breaks together and traded Byzantine riddles.

  ‘Which emperor was crowned after his son was crowned?’

  ‘Zeno (474-491).’

  ‘Which emperor are you least sorry about his throat being cut?’

  ‘Phocas (602-610). He was Byzantium’s ugliest, least talented, and most violence-prone emperor. He fomented an uprising and had all the sons of the emperor Maurice killed before his eyes, including an infant in the cradle, before having the emperor himself torn to pieces. He was so ugly that he had to grow a beard to hide his face.’

  ‘How did Heraclius (610-641) cross from Europe to Asia as he was going to war with the Persians?’

  ‘The sight of water frightened him. So they put a line of boats one after the other across the Bosphorus for him to walk on. Walls of potted plants were erected on both sides of the walkway to hide the water. The journey ended in victory.’

  ‘Who was the most famous astrological Gemini of Byzantium?’

  ‘The empress Irene (797-802)! So that she could dominate Byzantium she had the eyes of her son Constantine VI plucked out and imprisoned him in t
he room where he was born. She crowned herself empress. Charlemagne, the founding father of Europe, proposed to marry her in order to create the greatest kingdom of all time. As plans were being made to move the capital from Aachen to Constantinople Irene was dethroned.’

  ‘Which emperor’s mother was a Caspian Turk?’

  ‘Leo IV (778-780).’

  ‘What was the most effective message Byzantium sent to its aggressive neighbors?’

  ‘It was sent by Basil II (976-1025). He defeated the Bulgarian army in 1014 and sent his prisoners back to their own country. Before sending them off he blinded all but one out of every hundred. Those he left with one eye so that they could guide the others. The Bulgarian king, Samuel, on seeing his 14,000 soldiers in this condition, died of a broken heart within two days.’

  Steven Runciman and Cyril Mango were the authors of two of the books I chose for cultural and socio-economic perspectives on Byzantium. What these two scholars had in common was that they had both lived in Istanbul for a long time. As I turned the pages of their books I came to agree with Askaris more and more that Byzantium had brought civilization to her contemporaries and modernism to all humanity. With every paragraph I seemed to rise another step toward the clouds. Meanwhile I continued to pray that I wasn’t the victim of a big bad joke.

  Byzantium was a divinely chosen nation, the inheritor of both the Roman and Greek cultures. The Byzantines were not totally wrong to sneer at the Catholics, since it was they who formed the first Christian state and built that most magnificent church, Haghia Sophia. For a Byzantine to be uneducated was almost as great a crime as being unlucky. They survived for eleven centuries because of their legal system, which was founded on written laws, yet lived in chaos because of their governing system, which was without written laws.