Ankara - 1995

Ankara—1995?

Our hotel in Ankara was on a small street half a block from two major arteries. These two converged a block away on what certainly looked like a city center: a big roundabout crowned by a colossal replica of the exquisite bronze artifacts of pre-Hittite culture on display in the museum up the hill. The only problem was that we didn’t know what this center was called, nor did we know the name of the large park with beautiful fountains that lay on one side of it—neither was mentioned in any guidebook available.

Taxi drivers were baffled. We would show them the hotel card, which gave the address, and it meant nothing to them. It is not possible to describe to a Turkish taxi driver what a pre-Hittite sculpture park looks like. (The Cadogan guide says “circular or elliptical shapes, covered with various geometric lattice designs, many with stags, bulls, or asses in the act of passing through the circle.” This is one of those, only about forty feet high.)

One driver was the limit: after asking directions of other cabbies four times he simply dropped us off on a quiet street in the dark and gestured down the hill. We started down, but Ankara’s broad boulevards tend to look all alike, particularly at midnight. We knew we were near, but where? Finally we saw a policeman on a corner. “Lütfen, please,” we said, and showed him the card. He didn’t know either, but a man strolling by eating an ice cream cone wandered over, looked at the card, and said “Is no problem. I know. You come.” Sheeplike, we followed him. He ascertained between bites of ice cream that we were Americans, and then casually volunteered that he was an Iraqi. Oh, my, we said, giggling nervously. “Is okay,” he said seriously. “I hate Iraqi government. I live in Turkey twelve years, marry Turkish woman.” A block further on he gestured to the right. “Up there,” he said, pointing to a flight of stairs set well back from the street. Luckily, Don and I had gone exploring earlier in the day and had gone down that same stairway; it was right beside the hotel. We thanked our benefactor and headed for bed.

The reason we recognized that stairway was that we had spotted a fruit-and-vegetable market below the hotel that morning and visited it. We love Turkish apricots. We were in the process of buying a bag of nice rosy ones when a well-dressed man said “You speak English? These are sweeter,” pointing to some greenish ones. We thanked him and he told to proprietor to dump out the ones we had been buying and give us these. We started chatting with him, and it turned out that he and gone to the University of Pennsylvania Engineering School at the same time Don was at the School of Architecture.

The other problem with the hotel’s otherwise sterling location was that during the business day cars parked illegally on both sides of its tiny U-shaped street. Our bus could make it down the straight part just fine, but the dogleg beyond the hotel was narrowed to impassable by the cars. The driver headed into it regardless, and bogged down immediately. So he got off the bus, gestured to some idlers nearby, and, joined by some of the hotel staff, they proceeded to pick up the cars and move them. About four or five men would grab each bumper, they would count “Bir, iki, üç” and heave the car’s inside wheels up on to the high curb. After about five cars received this bizarre treatment we could proceed, waving happily to the helpers.

That morning the group was headed for the Museum of Anatolian Cultures, which is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful in the world. High above the city, it is housed in a covered bazaar built in 1471 by order of the Grand Vezir Mahmut Pasha. The exhibits range from a temple from Çatal Hüyük, 8000 B.C., to Greek and Roman statuary, including the aforementioned bronzes from the Hattite culture, about 3000 B.C. The array is mind-boggling and enthralling.

Afterward, we all trudged even farther up the hill to the old town and Citadel. It was early afternoon. Looking for lunch, we came upon one of several restored houses in the old town that function as multi-storied restaurants, craft shops, craft demonstration workshops, and antique shops—all mixed together in one building. We settled down in one of the spacious rooms, with wide windows overlooking the smoggy city, and enjoyed our meal.

All during this trip Don and I had kept in mind that we needed to buy a rug. The one in our library at home was held together with iron-on tape and wishful thinking, and something had to be done. We had priced a very nice rug in Urgüp, but it turned out to be silk knots on silk backing and cost about five times our budget. And we had seen a terrific one at a rest stop back on the Aegean coast, but finally realized that it was entirely the wrong size. We were facing the task of coping with the importunings of the innumerable rug dealers in the Istanbul Covered Bazaar, and as non-bargainers, we weren’t looking forward to it. So we kept our eyes open.

After lunch, the group with the bus was going to the Atatürk Tomb. Since this was our third trip to Turkey, Don and I had decided to skip the tomb this time. We yield to no one in our admiration for Atatürk, who was Turkey’s Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt all rolled into one, but the tomb (actually a building/park complex covering several blocks) is a bit bleak for frequent visiting. We decided to take camera and sketchbooks further into the old town and spend the afternoon just moseying around. But the camera and sketchbooks were back on the bus. Don volunteered to go fetch them while I stayed behind and paid the check. As he left, he pointed to the floor near our table and said “That’s a really nice rug.”

I stood with the group to pay our check. Dick, our professor leader and an old friend by now, was next to me. “Don said that’s a nice rug,” I commented idly. I should have known better. Dick is noted for getting you into things you weren’t expecting to get into.

“I’ll bet it’s for sale,” he said, and asked the waiters. It was. They flipped up the edge and showed a price tag. “It’s about sixty years old, a Shumak Kilim,” they told us. “What will you pay?” Swallowing hard, I named a price a good bit below what the tag said. I should have named a lower one; they conferred very briefly and accepted. Suddenly the rug, dirt and all, was bundled into a plastic bag and handed to me. It was very big and very heavy.

So there I was with a rug. Then the problem was how to pay for it. I had a credit card, but that involved adding on the percentage they would have to pay the card issuers. I also had travelers’ checks, but they had Don’s signature on them and Don was out finding the bus. Also, near the end of our trip, we didn’t have that many left. We dispatched the rest of the group to find Don and tell him to hurry, and meanwhile I negotiated a half-and-half arrangement—half on the credit card, half in travelers’ checks.

Don finally arrived, breathless, having been told by at least fifteen different people that I needed him. “Boy, leave your wife alone for ten minutes…!” he grumbled, cheerfully signing checks. Anything to avoid the rug dealers, who cry on your shoulder if you don’t like their wares and are harder than a prison to escape from.

Out we went, this time with camera, sketchbooks, and a very large rug. Immediately the handle of the plastic bag broke off, leaving Don hugging the bag to his chest. We got as far as a little park near the restaurant, decided that sketching could go on just as well there as farther on, and sat down. As usual, we were promptly surrounded by kids.

“Hello, hello,” they said. “How are you? You are American?” All Turkish kids have to take English, and they are all told to practice it whenever they get a chance. You get to say “hello” back a lot, and then they giggle. These were about seven or eight years old, with a little sister about four. Don reached in his pocket and produced balloons, which he blew up for them. Turkish balloons are very small and weak, and kids are always nervous and awestruck when he blows up American balloons to enormous size. They batted the balloons around happily for a while, coming back to practice more English and watch the progress of our sketches. More kids arrived. More balloons.

One little boy was pushier than most, and after exhausting his supply of English kept trying very hard to talk to us in Turkish. No amount of shrugging and gestures of no comprehension could keep him from believing that if we tried a little harder we would understand. Since it took me three trips to Turkey before I could count all the way to ten and say “Thank you” properly—tesekkür ederim—I was not about to understand. He tried shouting louder. I could at last tell that he was repeating the same thing over and over, desperate to communicate.

Suddenly the distorted syllables resolved themselves.

“MI-CHAEL JACK-SON!” he was saying.