camera phone.
Bang!
‘
Çekil yolumdan!
’
The alleyway was crowded and another passer-by in a hurry had cannoned into him, a big man in a bright blue turban, a flowing white tunic and loose pyjama-y trousers. A man with two pistols and a knife stuck in his belt. Stanton mumbled an apology and moved on.
One corner, then another. A darkened passage then a burst of light and a tinkling fountain in a walled square. Horse dung on his nostrils then delicate perfume. Tobacco, hashish, oranges, fried meat, rose water and dog piss. There were so many dogs.
He heard shouts and clattering and the squeal of metal on stone.
Just in time Stanton jumped to avoid a sweating carthorse as it skidded down the street in front of him. Stamboul was a city on a hill and the gradients of some of the alleyways were almost precipices. The foam-mouthed beast was struggling to restrain the heavily laden cart which theoretically it was pulling but in practice now threatened to push it down the steep hill. The drover cursed Stanton and pulled on the horse’s reins. The man knew a
feringi
when he saw one, an obvious foreigner in his Norfolk jacket and moleskin britches. A man out of place and out of time.
Stanton felt exposed. Eyes peered out at him from deep within dark and barred recesses. Others flicked a glance through niqabs. A young soldier strode past, chest out, eyes front, but he too stole a glance at the foreign stranger. It felt to Stanton as if those eyes could see through him and knew his secret.
He needed to pull himself together. He’d already been nearly killed twice that morning, first by a car and just then by a horse. He might even have been killed by the man with the pistols in his belt. Life was clearly cheap in the old city and offence, once taken, was mortal.
He had to concentrate. Whatever his personal sorrows might be, he had a mission to accomplish and one he truly believed in. Cassie and the children were gone, evaporated like the morning mist on the Bosphorus, along with the century in which they’d lived. He couldn’t save them but it was in his power to save
millions
of others. Young men who would very shortly be choking on mustard gas, hanging limp on barbed wire and vaporized by shells. Unless he changed their fate.
But to do that he needed to keep his head.
He decided he would drink some strong Turkish coffee, and found a cafe on a tiny square in the shadow of a mosque. Everything in Stamboul was in the shadow of a mosque. Or else jammed up against some decayed and rotting palace which in its days of glory had housed a prince or potentate with his eunuchs and his harem. Nowhere else on earth, Stanton thought, could current decay have lived so entirely within the shell of past glory.
It reminded him of London in 2024.
The little cafe had just two small tables and a counter but it was scrupulously clean and well ordered. There was a splendid hookah pipe on display in the window and neat little rows of pink and green sweetmeats lined up in a glass cabinet on the counter. Each table had a well-brushed, tasselled velvet cloth on it, a clean ashtray and a small bowl of salted almonds. Such calm and order amid the seemingly random chaos outside allowed Stanton his first moment of reflection since the Crossley 20/25 had thundered on to the Galata Bridge.
He was shown to a seat and brought coffee and bottled water. Whatever suspicion of
feringi
he had felt out in the street was not evident in the cafe. Business was always business, whatever age or town you were in.
Speaking in Turkish, the cafe owner pointed at the cakes and pastries. Stanton made an expansive gesture as if to say that he was happy to be served as the proprietor wished.
He was brought some marzipan and a kind of semolina doughnut in a sticky syrup, the first food he had eaten since dinner the evening before, a hundred and eleven years ago. It was a strange sort of breakfast but he was grateful for it. He laid a ten-lira note on the table and
Bang!
‘
Çekil yolumdan!
’
The alleyway was crowded and another passer-by in a hurry had cannoned into him, a big man in a bright blue turban, a flowing white tunic and loose pyjama-y trousers. A man with two pistols and a knife stuck in his belt. Stanton mumbled an apology and moved on.
One corner, then another. A darkened passage then a burst of light and a tinkling fountain in a walled square. Horse dung on his nostrils then delicate perfume. Tobacco, hashish, oranges, fried meat, rose water and dog piss. There were so many dogs.
He heard shouts and clattering and the squeal of metal on stone.
Just in time Stanton jumped to avoid a sweating carthorse as it skidded down the street in front of him. Stamboul was a city on a hill and the gradients of some of the alleyways were almost precipices. The foam-mouthed beast was struggling to restrain the heavily laden cart which theoretically it was pulling but in practice now threatened to push it down the steep hill. The drover cursed Stanton and pulled on the horse’s reins. The man knew a
feringi
when he saw one, an obvious foreigner in his Norfolk jacket and moleskin britches. A man out of place and out of time.
Stanton felt exposed. Eyes peered out at him from deep within dark and barred recesses. Others flicked a glance through niqabs. A young soldier strode past, chest out, eyes front, but he too stole a glance at the foreign stranger. It felt to Stanton as if those eyes could see through him and knew his secret.
He needed to pull himself together. He’d already been nearly killed twice that morning, first by a car and just then by a horse. He might even have been killed by the man with the pistols in his belt. Life was clearly cheap in the old city and offence, once taken, was mortal.
He had to concentrate. Whatever his personal sorrows might be, he had a mission to accomplish and one he truly believed in. Cassie and the children were gone, evaporated like the morning mist on the Bosphorus, along with the century in which they’d lived. He couldn’t save them but it was in his power to save
millions
of others. Young men who would very shortly be choking on mustard gas, hanging limp on barbed wire and vaporized by shells. Unless he changed their fate.
But to do that he needed to keep his head.
He decided he would drink some strong Turkish coffee, and found a cafe on a tiny square in the shadow of a mosque. Everything in Stamboul was in the shadow of a mosque. Or else jammed up against some decayed and rotting palace which in its days of glory had housed a prince or potentate with his eunuchs and his harem. Nowhere else on earth, Stanton thought, could current decay have lived so entirely within the shell of past glory.
It reminded him of London in 2024.
The little cafe had just two small tables and a counter but it was scrupulously clean and well ordered. There was a splendid hookah pipe on display in the window and neat little rows of pink and green sweetmeats lined up in a glass cabinet on the counter. Each table had a well-brushed, tasselled velvet cloth on it, a clean ashtray and a small bowl of salted almonds. Such calm and order amid the seemingly random chaos outside allowed Stanton his first moment of reflection since the Crossley 20/25 had thundered on to the Galata Bridge.
He was shown to a seat and brought coffee and bottled water. Whatever suspicion of
feringi
he had felt out in the street was not evident in the cafe. Business was always business, whatever age or town you were in.
Speaking in Turkish, the cafe owner pointed at the cakes and pastries. Stanton made an expansive gesture as if to say that he was happy to be served as the proprietor wished.
He was brought some marzipan and a kind of semolina doughnut in a sticky syrup, the first food he had eaten since dinner the evening before, a hundred and eleven years ago. It was a strange sort of breakfast but he was grateful for it. He laid a ten-lira note on the table and
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