It is said that on a certain day in June the crazy tilt of the buildings allows the sun briefly into this alley. Between solstices it gets its light second-hand; from slime-silvered cobbles and from shining marble table-tops awash with beer. Osman Efendi passed by here an age ago and his delight in what he saw was such that the alley has been named for him. The Street of Osman Efendi Passed By leads from the flower-market to the fish-bazaar by way of an arcade lined with meyhanes, or kerbside taverns, and is therefore a museum of Stamboul smells. It is more often called the Çiçek Pasaji, the Passage of Flowers.
The meyhanes of the Passage are the favourite haunts of the Akşamcılar, the Evening Drinkers, who can be seen there daily draining giant glasses of beer called Argentines. The Evening Drinkers, who on occasion have been known to drink in the afternoon and in the morning too, usually sit at long marble tables inside these meyhanes. In good weather they move out into the alley itself, taking their meals from the tops of beer barrels. Some prefer the Church, a spacious tavern hung with rococo chandeliers, but I prefer the Senate because the talk is best there. The Senate is in session throughout the day, but more important affairs are discussed in the evening, after the sun has set and steel shutters come crashing down in the shops around town. This nocturnal congress is illuminated by coloured lights, protected by pendant talismans, and presided over by a bored and omniscient cashier.
The meyhane kitchens perch on the upper floors of the taverns. Swarthy, unshaven cooks lean out from smoke-spewing windows and gossip with their friends across the alley, commenting on the deformities of the strollers, whistling at passing girls, now and then disappearing into their cave-like kitchens when waiters rush out into the Passage shouting up orders from the taverns below. I sometimes amuse myself by walking quickly through the Passage, calling out the names of all my favourite dishes, and then sitting quietly at a beer barrel while waiters run about looking for the gentlemen who ordered the stuffed mussels, the grilled mullet, the shish-kebab, the fried brains. Once accusing fingers were pointed at me and I was forced to eat it all, and did so with pleasure.
The Turkish meal is a long and unhurried ceremony; a procession of delicacies carried by platoons of staggering waiters; irrigated with rakı, that soul-satisfying, intellect-deadening, national anise drink; and, above all, accompanied by talk. The talk is continuous, loud and passionate; emphasised and punctuated by ritual hand-gestures; illustrated by dramatic facial expressions; all pronouncements requiring exclamations of agreement, disagreement, astonishment or disbelief; all tipsy speeches applauded with roars of laughter and an exchange of rough embraces and bristly kisses; followed by a glass-clinking toast and a bellowed order for more food and drink. Exhausted waiters in unlaced shoes shuffle to the table with yet another tray of ‘Belly-Split-Open’, a sweet plate of ‘The Lady’s Navel’, a savoury dish of ‘The Imam Fainted’, a girth-expanding mound of zerde pilavı, that favourite dish of eunuchs and Janissaries, and one more round of rakı. And when they have had their fill of food, these stout men sing to one another soft and quavering Turkish love songs. Late at night, as they sway together at their long tables, the Akşamcılar resemble apostles at a drunken sacrament.
Istanbul is best seen from a seat by a tavern window in the Passage of Flowers, froth-crowned Argentine in hand. The city is at heart nothing more than the sum of its citizens, and most of these will eventually stroll by your window or sit next to you, drinking an Argentine themselves. You will get to know the Stamboullus in this way, and later you can visit them in the monuments they inhabit. This is the Levantine approach to sightseeing, a distinct improvement on the Guide Bleu.
The Stamboullus pass by with their hands clasped behind their backs, fingering worry-beads. Their faces are seamed, furrowed, wrinkled, weathered and warted; their hooded eyes rheumy, bloodshot and jaundiced; their hooked and hairy-nostrilled noses dripping beads of snot; their hat brims turned down and their collars up; their long, black, shroud-like overcoats skimming the muddy pavement; walking with the lurching, stumbling gait produced by a lifetime on cobblestones. They stroll through the Passage slowly, staring into the taverns without apparent interest, turning their massive bodies rather than their immobile heads, occasionally crashing into one another and rebounding impassively, then continuing on their aimless way. The hours pass as I review this drab parade, and grey afternoon changes imperceptibly into grey-blue evening. For there are no clocks in town and the light in the Passage is too diffuse to give the hour. The weather is known from the shine on the cobbles and the season from the dress of the strollers.
But I know that twilight has ended when I see the night people of Stamboul beginning to make their appearance in the Passage. There are itinerant pedlars: sellers of hepatitic shellfish, uncrackable nuts, timeless wristwatches, second-hand shoes with the backs folded down for easy removal in mosques, worn overcoats still warm from their last owners, horoscopes for the unlucky and zodiacal lapel-pins for the star-crossed and superstitious. There are wandering mendicants: beggars deaf, dumb, blind, legless, armless, or with thickets of twisted limbs; along with widows, orphans, veterans and abandoned patriarchs. There are Gypsies: leading bears, playing fiddles, beating tambourines, pounding drums, dancing, singing, begging, pimping and pilfering, their dark eyes always alert for the possibilities of plunder. A drunken painter sells landscapes of an arcadia which can be reached only after a long trip on cheap wine. A hairy peasant sells chances on gaunt chickens which are always won by another hairy peasant who is undoubtedly his brother. A purple-eyed prostitute offers to measure our blood-pressure, which does not rise at the sight of her elephantine charms. A prick-eared dwarf limps by using a tree-branch for a cane, striking out at the tormenting Gypsy boys who pluck at his rags. A hunchbacked crone stops for a thimbleful of beer and hands a passionate love note to Ali, the handsome young barman … One evening, while we were drinking by candlelight during a power failure, a swift ancient came running through the Passage and sold a whole carton of cigarette-lighters; he assured us that they had been just recently stolen by him. At the sound of police whistles from the fish-bazaar we put out our candles to assist the old thief in his escape. Then, upon the arrival of the blundering police, we flicked our lighters on and off to illuminate the comic chase as in a silent movie, while the Passage echoed with cheers and derisive laughter.
When the evening is at its height our joy is momentarily withered by the appearance of a cigarette-seller with unfocused and uncoordinated eyes, one orb apparently fixed on hell and the other on paradise. We quickly buy his cigarettes so that he will leave, after which we touch our amulets to ward off the evil-eye before resuming our conversations.
And although he has been standing in the doorway for hours, we do not notice until late in the evening the bankrupt belt-seller, Mad Ahmet. Swathed to the eyes in a black muffler, he peers through his matted tangles of hair and beard and stands dreaming in a hashish cloud while his belts are stolen by Gypsies. He buys the belts back later at a loss, but being demented he is not aware of the unfair exchange and so is not disturbed. The more cynical of the Akşamcılar say that he is a police spy.
Each evening new and eccentric characters appear upon the scene. An acrobat stands on his head in the centre of the Passage. He walks upon his hands along the tops of beer barrels to my window. His earrings dangle beside his swarthy, upside-down face and I notice that he has a purple star tattooed on his forehead. I attempt to engage him in conversation but he silently takes my coin and leaves, walking along the Passage on his hands, hardly noticed by the strollers. A young man seated across the table lifts his Argentine to me and smiles. He has a darkly handsome face and the chest and shoulders of a young Apollo. He finishes his beer and bids me good evening, after which he climbs down from his stool and disappears. A moment afterwards I see him in the alley as he turns and waves back to me, a bisected demigod striding on his stumps over the cobbles of the Passage.
As the evenings go by, I watch for the unpredictable transits of Arnaut Mehmet, the Albanian flower-pedlar. At times he is not seen for many months and I am told in the taverns that he is dead. Others who know him better say that he is wandering in the lower depths of Istanbul and that we will see him again when he has run his course. For this bum has the unerring sense of season of a migratory bird, and resurrects each spring along with the flowers he sells, like a drunken phoenix. We know that he is back when we hear his familiar shout – ‘Rose! Rose!’ – as he staggers into the Passage from the fish-market, swinging his bouquets about him to clear a path through the throng. Totally and unredeemably drunk, his forehead deeply creased from an axe-blow, bloodshot eyes burning in his grimy face, nose busted, teeth shattered and lips swollen from his violent encounters in the underworld, grey-haired chest showing through the torn shirt and tattered suit which have been stained by every foul alley in Istanbul, ragged trousers held up by a piece of frayed rope and the seat ripped out as if by a mad dog, pant legs ripped and flapping in the breeze, black toes protruding from the shards of shoes which he must have fought for with an alley-cat, his body caked with dirt and stinking like a leprous rat, he has, nonetheless, a certain dignity about him. Standing now before my window, the Albanian offers me a rose from his bouquet and bows from the waist when I present him a double rakı in return. He downs the rakı in one gulp, smacks his lips appreciatively, and then smashes the empty glass on his head before continuing along the Passage. He now feels fit to resume his flower-peddling and approaches lady shoppers with a charming but incoherent speech and what he believes to be his most patrician manner. But when they see and smell this drunken, reeking apparition the ladies invariably flee, while the Albanian stumbles through the crowd in angry pursuit, hurling his roses after them, bellowing in what I imagine must be Montenegrin. When the ladies make good their escape to the safety of the main street, the Albanian, now rose-less, shrugs his shoulders and staggers sadly back through the Passage. Stopping once again before my window, he bows to me and his ruined face brightens in an angelic smile. I buy him another double rakı, which he quaffs with the same ceremonial shattering as before. Then he bows again, twirls his cap around on his scarred head, and staggers off down the Passage shouting – ‘Rose! Rose!’ – that unconquerable spirit. The Albanian is always followed in his wanderings by two furtive and stumbling figures, even more ruinous than he, who steal his roses from him, picking them up after he has thrown them all over the Passage in his wild career. And there are others, I am sure, who depend on these two in turn, living off them in some dark corner of this fantastic town.
After the Albanian has gone, a wandering minstrel enters the Passage through the fish-market gate. He strums a few chords on his saz and is then called to play for a group of old friends sitting together at a beer barrel. The minstrel sits with them and plays while the old men sing plaintive Anatolian ballads centuries old. When the old men have finished their songs and toasted one another with one last rakı, the minstrel bids them good-night and sings a traditional parting-song. Then he leaves too, and I hear the echo of his voice as he wanders off to play in the meyhanes of the fish-bazaar, still singing of unrequited love.
And as I sit alone by the tavern window I recall the words which Evliya Efendi wrote so long ago, speaking of the wandering minstrels of his time: ‘These players are possessed of the particular skill to evoke by their tones the remembrance of absent friends and distant countries, so that their hearers grow melancholy.’ And Evliya’s words evoke for me the memory of the dear friends who once sat with me in the Passage, most of them now far away and some of them gone for ever, and so I grow melancholy too. Then I think of Evliya himself, who for so long has been my unseen companion in my strolls through Stamboul, and I wonder what he would say if he could see his beloved town today, so changed but so much the same, and then I lift a last glass in his memory.
Thus the evenings pass and the years go by in the Passage of Flowers, a little alleyway in Stamboul.