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The bus is proceeding at a high speed on an endless desert plain. I fall asleep imagining to be in one of those American movies where the protagonist travels the States coast to coast.
Meanwhile in Ankara, lieutenant Karim, the one from that never ending afternoon at the customs, gets back home where his two sons are waiting for him; their mother left years ago.
Aturk, the oldest, was standing behind the doors from several minutes and he slams it open when he hears the noise of his father’s old car. «So, are they giving it to me?»
«Don’t we say hello anymore?» answers grouchy his dad.
«Welcome back, Mr lieutenant» says Aturk in a mockingly serious tone, then he repeats: «Will I get it?»
Karim does not answer, he enters his house, leaves the uniform jacket on the coat hanger and goes sitting on a brown armchair in the living room; his son follows him.
«They haven’t told me anything.»
«Can’t you just call them? Do you realise how important this is?»
«I know» he says grumpy. «Get me something to drink.»
The lieutenant gets up to pick up his jacket again, he takes a small black leather diary from a pocket, goes back to the armchair and dials a number on the phone: «Good evening, this is…»
«Don’t say your name!» The voice at the other side immediately interrupts him. «I told you not to call.»
«Yes… I know, but, you see…»
The mysterious voice cuts him: «Did you do what I asked?»
«Yes, Mister…»
«I told you: no names!»
«Well, that Italian: we stopped him and hold him until we could. Now he has a document from the embassy, he will get back his passport only on Monday.»
«Good! Remember: when he gets back to Ankara with the coffin, do as we told you.»
«Yes, seal it well and carve the letters…»
«Follow the instructions» stops him abruptly the voice.
The lieutenant proceeds, fearful: «Of course. I wanted to know if, as agreed, my son…»
«He can apply.»
«So, you guarantee he will…»
The voice again: «I told you he must apply: this means he will succeed!»
«I… Thank you.»
«Goodbye. Don’t call here ever again!»
«Thanks again and good night.»
Aturk enters from the kitchen, slowly and goofy watching out not to let a single drop fall from a glass full of a low-quality white wine: «So?»
«You can apply.»
His son doesn’t understand either: «I’ve got the application ready since months ago…»
«I told you to apply: the place is yours.»
«Thank you, thank you» Aturk gets closer to his dad, as to kiss him. He just hugs him, to be coldly hugged back.
«Come on, go make dinner for you and your brother now.»
The lieutenant sips his wine slowly, before going to bed, satisfied with what he had done during his day.
Saturday 17 July
I fell asleep California dreaming and I wake up in the middle of traffic noises and undistinguished yelling, while the bus gets slowly into the station: Tarsus reminds me of Palermo, which, according to the movie Johnny Stecchino is famous for its chaotic traffic.
I walk to the city centre, or at least what I imagine it to be: there is a monumental door from the roman era (might this be the renowned door where Antony met Cleopatra before Actium’s defeat?). Here no one speaks German, I just show the paper with the engineer’s address to anyone I meet: between gestures and half English words, they show me a road running along the Berdan river. My classical memories remind me that is the Cydnus, famous in ancient times for its transparent but freezing waters, which almost caused Alexander the Great’s drowning. Now it’s reduced to a disgusting blackish river, due to the many industrial petrol waste discharges from the area, I assume. I ring the bell at number 60, a sort of stilt house: an old hunchbacked lady opens the door.
«I am looking for Fatih Persin…» I ask, a little distracted, in my own language.
«Italian, come in Italian» the old lady smiles, showing her few remaining teeth and inviting me in with her hand. She then runs away up the stairs.
This house is weird looking: half laying on the river, it is almost empty of any objects or furniture, but very original in its style. I make myself comfortable on a red wooden chair, the seat made of woven straw. The smell of meat sauce slowly cooking has filled the whole dwelling.
From the unstable step ladder that comes out of an opening in the ceiling, a man in his forties comes down, tall and thin, very tall and too thin: «Good morning, I am Fatih» he shakes my hand and says something in Turkish to the lady.
«I am Francesco Speri, Chiara gave me your address… Chiara…» I forgot her family name.
«Rigoni» he finishes a bit surprised. «What I do for you?» The engineer has some trouble with Italian, but we manage to communicate; while he sits, his mother, or at least I think, comes in with a tray and two big cups of coffee. The look is not very tempting: something is floating in it and the smell is sour, yes sour, not bitter.
I perform a thanking gesture, while picking up the enormous cup. «Chiara said I could ask you for help: I need to follow the road along the river to get to mount Taurus. Somewhere there my archaeology professor was digging, when…»
«Italian coffee better, right? It’s lemon inside» Fatih explains seeing my suspicious face. He smiles: «No problem, today is Saturday: I go there with you with motorbike».
I accept his help, not before gulping down this sort of hot lemonade that tastes like coffee.
We leave immediately, no helmets on. The motorbike is actually a moped: it doesn’t go faster than 30 km per hour, but even in these conditions, not being the one who drives, makes me feel like on a plane! The road is long and bumpy: I hug tighter the poor driver at every turn; it makes me a little embarrassed, but the fear of being thrown out is bigger. This rough path seems endless, but suddenly Fatih stops: he noticed some panels indicating men at work. We leave the moped and carry on on foot until a sloping height: it is the archaeological site dug by the professor.
Poor Julian: buried in a lonely and forgotten mountain moor, away from the fabulous world he used to reign. Actually, it was not his choice: in sign of spite towards the inhabitants of Antiochia, from where he left on his Persian expedition, he promised himself he would have camped in Tarsus at his return, rather than see the Antiochians again. He didn’t come back alive from that war. His officers, as an extreme form of respect, decided to bury him where he decided to camp that winter: a long, never ending, winter.
The access to the pit is forbidden, it was trenched with a basic barbed wire. A man approaches, he is busy with his hand keeping a huge straw hat on his head. He seems sceptical, but as soon as I mention Luigi Barbarino he lets us in, introducing himself as the professor’s assistant. The sun shines merciless. He shows us to follow him into a sort of warehouse: I can see fragments of ancient vases and animal bones bundled up, but also pots and dirty clothes. In this aluminium roofed and very dusty warehouse, this queer guy, apart from working, also seems to be sleeping and eating.
I would like some information about the incredible finding of the Apostate. With a contrite look on my face, I ask first, with the help of Fatih, news about the professor.
The face of my “interpreter” becomes worried and then grim, after all I did not had the time to tell him about the passing of the “brightest”: «He says that he find dead professor other Saturday, next to… how do you say big descent?»
The assistant claims that last Friday, before leaving, he saw the eminent archaeologist performing land surveys in the pit and that the next morning he found him a little more down that slope, laying on the ground. He had a heart attack and then fell lifeless down the escarpment. The Turkish guy does not seem particularly sad about it, probably because working with the professor left him with the same disgusting sensation as I was. The assistant, a short guy with a fast pace, precedes us on the tragedy site: he really wants us to see the exact place of the finding.
«And that up there, what is it? A tomb?» I ask.
«Yes, he took pictures there. Very important: he found rock with writing on, when it happened» translates Fatih.
Panting I get up the small hill, followed by the other two. I see, crumbled to the floor, what could be the ruins of a funeral building. I cannot see though the epigraph that was supposed to be at the entrance. Only the engraved stone, found by the professor last week (about which he told me via email), could confirm that here lies Julian.
«What about the material you found here?» I ask with fake nonchalance.
«For short time still in the hangar where we were, then comes government officer and takes away everything» Fatih tells me in his uncertain Italian.
I must accelerate.
«I should go to the toilet» I say touching my stomach.
«Only in the warehouse.»
«I know the way, you can stay here, thank you.»
I run to the warehouse and start looking frantically among a pile of crates: I try to move some, they’re heavy. On each one there is a note written with a fading blue marker: these should indicate time and digging sector of the findings.
Which day was it when the professor told me about finding the tomb? I check the crate from 9 July: only pieces of plaster and common pottery. Of course: the discovery must be from the day before, since he sent me the email on the morning of the 9 and died that same evening.
I pull out the crate from 8 July and, I can’t believe it, I find the epigraph!
A marmorean fragment, less than one meter long, with Greeks carvings: I’m in a hurry, but it is hard to understand the letters badly preserved; I take some quick pictures with my inseparable Nikon.
With a flimsy paper that was left on a table and a pencil I improvise a tracing: it is a rudimentary but very efficient technique, learnt during my master in Germany. Rubbing the pencil on the paper put against the epigraph, the holes of the engraved letters leave a blank: all the paper looks grey, apart from the spaces left blank, outlining the shape of the letters.
I’ve lost too much time, I run back to the gloomy cliff: «Sorry… probably the curves of the trip or maybe the violent tale of the professor’s death… well I felt unwell, but I’m better now. So, is the professor here?»
The two look at me confused.
«Well, the corpse: can I take it? I am in charge of taking it back to Italy and…»
«No. It is in the public obituary. I know where it is, I can take there if wants» offers kindly Fatih.
We thank the assistant, who keeps looking at us while going away.
We get back on the moped.
«Gülek Boğazi» screams Fatih short after our departure.
Between the noise of the moped and my fear I can’t understand a thing.
«Gülek Boğazi» he insists, pointing at a canyon among the mountains.
I look down and I understand: it is the “Cilician Gates”, the only passage since ancient times from internal Anatoly and the coast. Crossed by Alexander the Great: a role leader for many, including Julian.
«Gülek Boğazi» I repeat, while the precipice makes me hang even tighter to the driver.
Going down is, as usual, worse than going up: the moped’s breaks seem out of control and at each bend, instead of admiring the landscape, I think about the possibility of falling when right before the cliff it turns and we proceed.
When we arrive at Tarsus’ hospital I am so pale, that they almost take me in as a patient. Fatih asks information to a nurse passing by: I follow my adventure mate, dragging my feet in the long underground corridors until we reach a big ice-cold room.
The anatomopathologist almost invisibly turns up his hooked nose when I show my embassy document. He still lets me sign a series of papers, probably looking forward to getting rid of the corpse. He gets up, gives me two copies of the medical report, then shakes my hand, my arm and then my hand again. Weird way of greeting.
«These documents you give to customs to take body to Italy» translates Fatih, then he adds: «Coffin is outside in the car and with that you go back in Ankara».
I thank him for the translation and all the help, hugging him: I got used to it due to the moped; I try to slip 100 euros in his pocket.
The engineer gets offended: «No… my pleasure, say hi to Chiara, no better, tell her she calls me if she wants. I don’t disturb, but if she… this my number».
«I really don’t know how to thank you, for everything. Greetings to your… mother, as well.»
Outside I find an ambulance: I guess the corpse is in there. I almost got in, when two highly suspicious and huge guys come closer. I try to get away. They follow me and, saying incomprehensible things, push me in front of a shabby white pickup: that’s the designated means of transportation. In open backside I can see the coffin. The two bullies, literally lifting me up, put me there, next to it, while they sit in the front.
The horrible trip of the night before was a joke compared to this one: that one was full of smokers and I had to put my head out, here I am out completely alone with a dead body as company! The coffin, roughly tide with small laces, seems to be jumping out at every hole; I remain holed up on the opposite side: I don’t dare approaching it. I have an absurd fear of finding myself face to face with the corpse: after I left, reluctantly, my job at the University, I never wanted to see again the professor alive, imagine once dead!
I think about the day that’s passed and the one that awaits: the only thought of going back to customs gives me goosebumps, but the task I was assigned from the Literature faculty director is to get back the corpse to Italy. I repeat this mantra to charge myself up along the way, while the wind hits me harsh on the face.
Sunday 18 July
It is around 3 in the morning when the van stops. I’m afraid they want to leave me there, in the middle of nothing.
The two get off and talk to me in an unknown language. The smallest, or to better say the least big, repeats the same sentence doing wide movements with his hands: I understand I have to get off. I follow them until a crumbling shack: it is some sort of motorway restaurant, half family half down at heel business. I run to the toilet. That’s what they call Turkish toilets: a filthy stinking loo without the WC.
Then I enter what, euphemistically speaking, should be the bar: a fatty lady is preparing a weird drink, while the two travel companions are sitting at a table smoking and drinking a huge beer. I take the chance to have breakfast, trying to avoid thinking about the driver drinking in the early morning. I slowly sip the umpteenth boiling long coffee, accompanied by a focaccia stuffed with an odd-coloured salami: it’s not the best taste, but I’m very hungry having skipped dinner due to the sudden departure from Tarsus.
It takes at least half an hour before the two finish another beer and decide to get back on the van. The less drunk offers me an old blanket: the air was hot when we left, now it is that biting one of the early hours of the day. It is the first kind act towards me: left alone in the backside of the van I felt like a spare wheel.
At sunrise we arrive in Ankara; I’m still stunned by the wind and the road, when they heavily unload the coffin from the van, giving it to a group of custom officers. Lieutenant Karim orders me to leave it there and go back the following day to pick it up with the embassy documents: I really don’t like this guy! I thank the two carriers with a lavish tip, that they do not refuse, while I say goodbye to Barbarino, who lays now in a sort of garage in the custom’s undergrounds.
I am exhausted. In front of the airport several hotels shine in the light of the beginning day. I choose the only one with four stars in its panel: Esenboga Airport Hotel. I don’t care if it’s expensive: the University director promised me to refund all expenses if I had taken our eminent colleague back to the mother land.
After two nights spent travelling, I “pass out” on the bed as soon as I enter the room. The sound of my phone ringing wakes me up: it’s six o’ clock! Who could ever call me at this time?
«Hi, this is Chiara Rigoni. Customs told me that you came back with the corpse: there is a series of things to do that I need to explain to you.»
I realise from the light that filtrates through the curtains that it is six, yes, PM. I try to recover: «Why don’t we talk about it later, maybe over something to eat?»
«That’s fine» says Chiara, after hesitating a bit.
«There’s a restaurant in the centre: see you there at 9.30. The address is Izmir Caddesi 3/17.»
«Pardon?» I say still a bit dazed.
«I-Z-M-I-R-C-A-D-D-E-S-I 3/17» she spells it.
