University of Northern Iowa

Traveling in Turkey
Author(s): Leo Hamalian
Source: The North American Review, Vol. 252, No. 4 (Jul., 1967), pp. 14-16
Published by: University of Northern Iowa
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25116632
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Herbie thought of him: Herbie thought he was dumb.
He thought Herbie was smart, but he didn't think
Herbie used his brains and there was the difference.
It was dumb to be tough. You kick a guy's ass and
you're tough. So what? Big deal. Three guys go out
and hook something from Woolworth and they're
tough, then they do a year for a tie they wouldn't
wear in the first place. Very smart. Later for that.
Sixteen and a half years old, Leon was five feet
three and weighed one hundred eighty five pounds,
with a gut that was huge and hung over his belt. He
liked the gut. He wore his belt as low as possible, to
emphasize it, to catch it at the bottom and cradle it
rather than slashing it in the middle and dividing it.
He had a chest that was bigger than his gut and a
face that seemed bigger than his chest. There was no
neck. His face was a mass of giant red splotches,
topped by a head of dirty brown hair that leaned in
every direction, uncontrolled, uncontrollable. He had
trouble with a fifth grade reader, but knew he'd kick
Herbie's ass one of these days. Knife or no knife,
that didn't frighten him.
Mrs. Kale had said to Mr. Kale, "What's a family
for?" when, two years ago, she'd successfully tried to
convince him to take Herbie in.
"I'll tell you what a family's for," Mr. Kale answer
ed. "To live with. Herbie got a family, let him go live
with them."
"After stabbing his brother?" Mrs. Kale said.
"I'm not as close as a brother, I'm only an uncle, me
he'll probably execute."
"Stop the nonsense."
"Ida, do I want a person who stabs people to come
and live with me?"
"It won't happen again."
"Glad to hear it," Mr. Kale said. "Let him go and
live with his family, no danger."
"Impossible," Mrs. Kale said. "Not after what hap
pened."
"And how about for Leon?" Mr. Kale asked. "You
think he'll be a good influence on our fourteen year
old genius?"
"He'll be good for Leon," Mrs. Kale said to her
husband.
"Good for him? What's Leon, a birthday cake that
he needs to get cut?"
"No," she said, "he's a boy and he needs an edu
cation?a college education. You hear that? That
takes money."
That quieted Mr. Kale. That settled it.
Because the Kormans had realized some money
from the sale of the shop, because Arthur was now
working as a tv repairman, because Arthur lived with
his parents and contributed generously, things had
never been better. For the Kormans.
Not for the Kales. Kale's Candy store did poorly. It
always had, it always would. The Kormans, in a
straight business arrangement, paid the Kales sixty
five dollars a month to keep their son. Herbie was out
of jail, and away from them.
All the way around it was a sweet deal.
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Traveling In Turkey
Leo Hamalian
It is possible ? sad thought to contemplate ? that
our children may never leave home. Of course, they
will mount ramps to supersonic aircraft and climb
gangplanks to luxury liners that will carry them to var
ious points abroad, but "abroad" will no longer be
abroad in the old sense. "Abroad" is fast becoming
an extension of America.
When our sons get to Sable de l'Onne, they will dis
cover an Atlantic City without the boardwalk; Myko
nos may remind our daughters of St. Augustine in
whitewash; on the Costa Brava, they will speak English
and drink Cokes while their ears are assaulted by ag
ing Beatles; the Italian Rivieras have gone west in
every way; at the other end of mare nostrum, Beirut
is bidding to become the Miami of the Mediterranean.
When the natives are calm and the weather is cool,
Syria can offer much that is unique and bizarre but
perhaps not worth the assorted risks involved for any
but the most intrepid of travellers. Israel and Jordan,
like Egypt, are flooded all during the season with tour
ists, and if one manages to find satisfactory hotel ac
commodations, he is likely to meet a neighbor from
New Jersey in the corridor, also wondering where on
earth his traveller's checks have gone to in these
supposedly "cheap" countries. Hungary and Rumania
specialize in bad service, terrible food, depressing at
mosphere, and red tape. The islands, even the larger
ones like Crete, Cyprus, and Rhodes, induce claustro
phobia after three days, too large a price for escape.
The eye continues to circle over the map, then
pauses over that vast peninsula, Turkey. Yes, what
about Turkey? What can be said to introduce Turkey
to those who have a hazy notion of it as the land of
potted politics, missile bases, and no Armenians? First
of all, Turkey is sufficiently distant and disorganized
to be an adventure, inexpensive enough to appeal to
the pocket (the currency sells at 20% discount out
side), and very resistant either through pride or in
sularity to most of the cultural influences that usually
accompany the American military presence abroad.
According to the brochures showered upon the vis
itor the moment he crosses the frontier ? and for a
change, the brochures do not exaggerate although the
LEO HAMALIAN is Professor of English, City College of
New York. He was a Fulbright Lecturer in Damascus in
1962-64. His book, The Shape of Fiction, was brought out
by McGraw-Hill and Atlantic Press will publish his D. H.
Lawrence in Italy. His shorter work appears regularly in
leading magazines.
14 The North American Review
prose is sometimes wildly improbable ? Turkey is
the tourist's paradise: it has art, archeology, and an
tiquities; camels and wild bears; lots of scenery from
sullen mountains to desolate salt lakes and untamed
deserts; excellent food and service in some places; a
friendly, cheerful population innocent of the art of
tourist trapping; and the mystery and misery of the
Middle East lurking behind the occasional western
comforts. It may be the one place where our children
will be abroad, without exorbitant demands upon their
time, money, and tempers.
To the surprise of the naive who picture brigands
swooping down on unwary intruders, Turkey is safe
and easy to get around in. C 47's and DC 3's link the
main cities on reasonably regular schedules. The old
Orient Express still runs ? limps is perhaps a more
accurate description ? from Istanbul to Aleppo and
travelling by it can be exciting experience if one is
prepared to meet fish, flesh, and fowl in equal pro
portions within the confines of a narrow compartment.
From Istanbul to Ankara there is a sometime super
highway which brings the present capital within five
hours of the old; a good road cuts across the Anatolian
wilderness from Ankara to Adana in the south and re
quires only eight hours to traverse. Petrol stations with
colorful pumps and banners advertising "Turk-petrol"
and "British Petroleum" are becoming plentiful (gas
is $.45 a gallon). Fast buses bearing names like "Jet"
and "Rocket" operate frequently between the main
cities, and feeder lines fan out to points of lesser im
portance. When the bus schedule is inconvenient, there
is always the "dolomus" or public taxi for only pen
nies more.
Hotel accomodations along the way are often primi
tive (carry soap, aerosol bomb, toilet paper, and En
tero-Vioform), but growing rapidly is a network of
motels equipped with glass facades, flush toilets, and
air-conditioning. Camping facilities are springing up
along the Mediterranean and Aegean coasts (hot show
ers, laundries, and gas stove) where you can swim on
sandy, secluded beaches nine months out of the year,
within spitting distance of Armenian castles and Alex
andrian ruins. If you are driving, you can picnic on
melon, olives, goat cheese and peasant bread among
the ruins of Roman cities.
Everywhere the traveller is confronted by the incon
gruities which constitute everyday life for the Turks.
One sees women carrying water from the well, not in
graceful ceramic jugs but in five-gallon Mobil Oil tins
balanced expertly on their heads. Peasants wielding
flails or mattocks are dressed in occidental suits and
peak-caps. Camels look up nonchalantly from their
grazing at Magnus-Deutz trailer trucks that thunder
past road building machines which menace traffic even
as they pave the way for further penetration into the
hitherto inaccessible hinterlands. Castles built by Ar
menian kings of another age stare down on John Deere
tractors plowing the fertile plains below.
But it is in Istanbul that one encounters such in
congruities in their most exciting confusion. The Is
tanbul Hilton stands on a hill commanding a speetac
July, 1967
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ular view of the Golden Horn, with its tumult of sea
traffic as old as the city itself; at Taksim Square, don
key carts and Mercedes 220's move in orderly streams
under the direction of policemen garbed smartly in
white. Couples in evening dress alight from taxis and
head for swank hotels where workers in the kitchen
still leave their labors five times a day to answer the
ancient call of the muezzin ? "There is no God but
Allah and Mohammed is his prophet" ? which crash
es upon the ears with wicked emphasis ever since the
minarets were equipped with modern loud speakers.
Almost every street seems to have its own "bankasi,"
where some of the billions poured into Turkey gather
interest for the rising middle class in this city. At the
bazaars ? disappointing after the souqs of Damas
cus and Baghdad ? one finds the bric-a-brac of the
modern world ? plastic toys and household goods,
leather luggage, nylon lingerie, and Japanese cameras
?sold alongside of the stalls specializing in slippers,
silver ornaments, and rugs woven by peasants. Be
hind the modern facade lie the other reminders that
Istanbul is essentially an Oriental city ? narrow wind
ing streets and dirty alleys, small and large mosques,
minarets, animals scrounging for scraps, cries of every
kind, and above all, a swarming humanity in rags
that discourages even the confirmed humanitarian. One
truth is borne home implacably: here copulation
means population.
Similarly, the suburbs ? one ought not to ignore
them ? present the same contrasts if less sensationally.
Along the road parallel to the Bosphorus, stop at one
of the numerous outdoor restaurants, gaily illuminated
by lanterns at night; while watching freighters and
cruise ships steaming for the Soviet ports, you can eat
the best shishkebab in the Orient, the real thing, mar
inated in wine and olive oil for 24 hours prior to broil
ing, at prices that suggest how little human labor is
valued in this part of the world. For a slightly larger
sum, you can have a side dish of fasoulia plaki and a
portion of Black Sea caviar. At Bebek, Turkish beat
niks gun their Alfa-Romeos through crowds of droopy
breechered hamals and whoop it up in quayside night
clubs in the shadow of Rumli Hisserl Castle, where
one can sit evenings on a grassy knoll overlooking the
Bosphorus and watch Shakespeare performed in Turk
ish. At the Black Sea, an hour's drive to the north, one
can bathe in the warm clear blue waters of that mis
named lake, then dine on grilled sturgeon prepared ac
cording to a recipe as old as Homer.
One cannot appreciate the size and diversity of
Turkey until he tries to "do" the outstanding sights
described in the excellent Hachette, and one should not
try to "do" them in less than a month. From Istan
bul, one can begin his exploration by hopping a plane
or bus to Ankara. The traveller who is willing to leave
the main road for the secondary roads (dirt surfaced
but excellently maintained) will encounter village after
village that will make him think he is back in Switzer
land. If you stop at a cafe for Turkish coffee, be ready
to receive the entire curious population of the town.
When rapport has been established (by gesture and
15
 the capital of ancient Armenia, and the Caucasus lie
THE THANKS farther to the east, a challenge to the tourist who pre
fers the unbeaten path. Trapizond and Samsun, the
what oldest ports on the Black Sea, may be reached by car
thanks is over very poor roads.
From Ankara, once a week, you can take a train to
there like
Erevan, the capital of Soviet Armenia, but while
no
awaiting a visa, fly to Bursa, a jewel of a city on the
slopes of Uludag, the Asiatic Mt. Olympus. This an
thanks cient capital of Turkey reaches down to a rich green
I can't plain where everything flourishes but ambition. One
want it should see the splendid mosques built by Murat I,
which especially the famed Green Mosque, before coming
down with "mosque sickness" (overexposure to
won't mosques). A venerable horse and carriage, guided by
an even more venerable driver whose only word of
make you
English is likely to be "Goot?", will take you there,
glad and past the rose garden for which the city is famed,
who through the cobble-stoned streets of the old quarter?
and will wait while you explore a scene that should
is have been the background ? not scorched, baked
supposed brick Baghdad ? to the Thousand and One Nights.
A minor fact that adds to the charm of Bursa (but
to be subtracts from its convenience) is that most of the
that population seems to be unfamiliar with the sight of an
Amercan dollar. A traveller's check is no better than
Confederate money there.
MINE, GRANDFATHER'S By contrast, Izmir on the Aegean coast is alive with
In the name commerce; however, it is commerce Eastern-style. The
of our first streets are full of merchants gesticulating, arguing,
rushing to their affairs. Figs, currants, and cotton are
name, after loaded onto scrubby coastal steamers and barks. There
not what we remains little of antiquity in this sunny city founded
by the Lydian king Croesus, but its dramatic setting
do but what and proximity to places of the past put it on the itin
we love ? James erary (families travelling with children are welcome to
take their meals at the American Commissary there).
is lovely.
To the north, there is Pergamon; whose king made
James L. Weil the city a present to flabbergasted Romans; to the south,
the incomparable marble grandeur of Ephesus, where
the tomb of St. Luke is but a stone's throw from the
JAMES L. WEIL edits books and a periodical from Roman brothel. Pammukule must be one of the most
the Elizabeth Press. He is the author of several books astonishing sights in the world. Above the hot springs
of poetry, including The Thing Said (1965).
and snowy-white travertine cliffs that made it a favor
ite watering place of the Romans sit the walled ruins
of three ancient cities and perhaps the most extensive
necropolis yet unearthed by archeologists. From Izmir
pidgin-English), you can trade a carton of American one should visit the stones of Troy and the burial bar
cigarettes for a dozen old coins or for small Roman row of Achilles. It is all quite unbelievable.
statuary. One may leave Turkey via the Dardanelles, stopping
Ankara itself is an architect's achievement and the at the numerous sites of interest near Gallipoli, the
home of the best Hittite museum in the world, but scene of a major Allied defeat in World War I (there
more than that, it is a jumping-off place to little-known is a magnificent monument commemorating the Turk
eastern Turkey. After a visit to Kayserli, the Caeseria ish victory); or one may take a ship from Izmir to
of the ancient world, and to the fantastic conical
Piraeus or from Kusadasi to Samos and there pick
churches carved out of stone near Ugurup, you can
take the new highway to Lake Van, an area recently up the regular service to Greece. One leaves this land
opened to civilian traffic, and there make arrange persuaded that it is linked to the West more by its past
ments to see the ikons of the medieval Armenian than by its present, but before that too is altered, our
church on the island of Agh Tamar. Mt. Ararat, re children still have the chance to stand in a world dif
putedly the resting place of Noah's Ark, Kars, once ferent from their own in spirit as well as in scene.

16 The North American Review

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