On one of the first years of this century that has elapsed (my family is not good at calculating time; that is why we could never identify the exact year), my grandfather on my mother’s side, who was about 16-17 years old at the time, left his Jewish village to the west of Moscow and came south, to the Black Sea and then to Istanbul. Istanbul was not his final destination. He was a carefree, curious and smart young man. He did not want to enlist in the army of the Tsar, he preferred to change his name and flee, to make a fortune for himself in this vast, bad world. Someone told him that the boats carrying immigrants to South America, where gold was so plentiful that it was used in paving streets, could be found in Istanbul...

The sun was setting when my grandfather entered the Strait of Istanbul on a boat coming from the Black Sea. This was a sight he could never forget. The same scene is described by the Spanish poet Jose de Espronceda in a poem that my grandfather, who liked to read poetry aloud, recited from memory years later in Buenos Aires:

Asia on one side, Europe on the other

And in front of It; Istanbul!

Standing on deck, my grandfather first thought for a moment, which according to him was not a brief one, that the city slowly rising in front of him was burning. He then found out that this section of the sea through which his boat went right into the land was called the Golden Horn because of these fiery sunsets. This was a very inspiring start for this young man trying to make a future. As though lost in fairyland, he strolled through the avenues of this astounding city for weeks. Minarets thin as candlesticks and glittering domes resembling giant samovars rose in front of him majestically.

His nose sensed odors, some pungent and some gentle, some sweet and some bitter, some sharp like pepper and grainy like salt, some sweet as apricots and warm as milk, strange and rare... The air was filled with sounds of bells and the call to prayer, the crack of whips, various sounds, the shouting of vendors, the gossip of chattering women and songs that he had never heard before. Many years later, in his old age, as he sat on the low stool in front of his watch store in Buenos Aires, my grandfather would recall some of these melodies and sing them.

Istanbul got him from his heart and held him so tightly that he was almost unable to take up his voyage to South America. "Everything that a person may want is here," he thought, "what is the point of pushing fate further?" Yet he would do so and end his days in Buenos Aires, I believe, as a contented old man. I sometimes wonder how things would have turned out, who I would be, in what language and what kind of story I would now be writing if that black-eyed youth had decided to strike roots in that most fascinating of cities...

Almost one century later, I, who was born in Argentina and settled in Canada many years ago, came to Istanbul with my 15-year-old son to see this city that had so captured the imagination of my grandfather. Due to the vivid memories of my grandfather, the name of Istanbul was always associated with something magnificent in the minds of the family members. Therefore, from the moment we landed at Atatürk Airport and as we moved forward in the busy traffic, I was ready to share this family excitement regardless of what in fact expected us. But that evening on the balcony of Pera Palas Hotel, the same sunset that made my father think there was a fire would take the breath of his grandson and great grandson in the same way. In fact, no warning could have prepared us for the surprising magnificence of these sunsets. Perhaps this kind of fascination cannot be passed from one generation to the next to preserve its impact. Perhaps these scenes should be seen anew every time as though they were never seen before, as though every visitor is a new "Adam." Thus even my 15-year-old son, who quickly gets tired of things like all his peers, was tongue-tied with surprise when he saw a red sun setting above the glittering Galata Bridge.

Besides the silhouette of minarets and domes, the newcomer to Istanbul is most struck by the crowd. Evidently other big cities also have their own crowds hurrying from place to place, but in Toronto, London, Buenos Aires and Paris people seem grim, focused and ill-contended. This is not the case in Istanbul. There appears to be a certain joy and a carefree quality to the crowds strolling along the İstiklal Avenue or the labyrinthine streets of Ortaköy. Everyone talks, holds hands or carries shopping bags, looks around to see what there is to buy, finds time to sit down and have some coffee or a glass of tea... Everyone seems alert, curious and interested. For a foreign visitor, Istanbul is like a city of "eyes": The blue eye that appears to be designed for tourists and wards off evil; the star-shaped eye gazing from the crescent of the Turkish flag; the blue eyes of skinny cats slyly walking all around the city like protective spirits; and above all, the deep-looking, long-lashed, beautiful, large and black eyes of most Turkish men and women who are not shy to look in a manner that many a reserved Englander would not do...

In Istanbul, the observer himself is investigated, examined and observed in a pleasant manner. For instance as my son and I walked around the streets in Taksim or the narrow streets of the Spice Bazaar, we felt both welcomed and probed by Turkish eyes. My grandfather’s feeling of being a stranger must have been reinforced by the clothes of Istanbul’s residents that were different than his Russian attire. For us the difference lies not in the clothing but in the attitude of the people. The eyes of Istanbul seem to say "Your are new here," and then, "Let’s have a look at you..."

When I had started planning our visit to Istanbul by considering what had excited my grandfather most, I included in our program an activity that had stayed fresh in his mind for many years: Visiting a Turkish bath. According to my grandfather, the experience created a feeling of vigor and relaxation that lasted for days. He had later tried the Turkish bath in the basement of a luxury hotel in Buenos Aires but, according to him, had experienced a big disillusionment very unlike his experience in Istanbul. My son and I decided to have a try.

We were told that currently a very small part of the urban population went to baths like they used to do and these places were now mainly serving tourists. No matter what, my son and I had decided to give it a try. Yet we were anxious as we entered the bath at the end of the İstiklal Avenue.

Once we took off our shoes, we were escorted to the small booths where we took off our clothes, and from there, to the hot part. All kinds of men (and all kinds of strangers) either sat or lied down with simple pieces of clothes wrapped around their waists; they waited for plump or heavy-built officials to call them for a reckoning. When our turn came, we were made to lie on the slippery tile floor, once we received a few blows and our arms and legs were twisted, we were soaped, scrubbed and washed until our bodies went numb. The official who was busy with my old bones was pointing to a disgusting piece of flayed skin on my chest and exclaimed, "Look, look!" Yes, I agreed, I needed this. I think I had never been really clean before.

Once we had been served, we were again escorted to our booth all warm and bundled up to lie down and rest. Even my 15-year-old son felt exhausted. I, who was going downhill from fifty, felt like I could sleep until the drums called the dead on the day of judgement. "Grandfather," I thought, "We did not experience this in the same spirit. You recalled it as reinvigorating and rejuvenating; I, on the other hand, feel like my flesh and bones were turned upside down during a spring cleaning and then set just right." Back in the hotel, my son slept straight for 12 hours.

In fact, my grandfather’s stay in Istanbul was not solely dedicated to bodily pleasures. He was also trying to broaden his horizon. He had been the apprentice of a jeweler and watchmaker in his village and sought people who were in the same business to learn from them. He had heard the story of the 86 carat Kaşıkçı Diamond which is said to have been found by a man collecting objects from the garbage bin, sold in return for three cans of spoons, and which is now part of the Topkapı Treasure, and had imagined that these kinds of treasures were common in such a fascinating city. But what interested my grandfather, who was a little intimidated by luxurious and expensive objects and the culture of the educated, were not big museums. Instead, he would look for the masters who, in the small streets of the Covered Bazaar commissioned by Mehmet II shortly after he took the city in 1453, put cogs to wheels and springs day in and day out to produce little machines that measured time, twisted silver plates to set gems or wrought gold droplets into the thinnest of leafs that were then cut in decorative shapes. Just like all other visitors, he must have been lost in the labyrinth of the bazaar, dazzled by what he saw, dazed by the sounds and overcome by the multitude of everything.

Of course the Covered Bazaar that my son and I saw was different from the bazaar my grandfather had seen. In my grandfather’s time, the Covered Bazaar had been reconstructed in 1898, four years after a big earthquake had shaken the city. But two big fires erupting in 1943 and 1954 had destroyed most of this building, in the 1940s and 50s the bazaar had turned into a sad-looking, bad-smelling place where mice scampered. Yet this situation did not last long. About thirty years ago the Covered Bazaar was rehabilitated once more and the place I discovered with my son had all the grandeur that my grandfather remembered. The fans of originality will say that the Covered Bazaar in Istanbul is not authentic, that it is a tourist trap, a place of illusions or that, as my son who grew up in the consumer society of North America said, "just another kind of shopping center." It does not matter at all. The Covered Bazaar is first of all a universal exhibition center, a virtually endless showcase (the eye really tricks one into believing that the showcase is endless), a living catalogue of all kinds of objects to which human beings may aspire. It seems that every kind of sense, every kind of desire, every kind of hunger or thirst is served with gold and silver, silk and leather, rice paper and cardboard, ivory and plastic. Nothing is missing, or even if it is, its lack cannot be detected in this mosaic created by human activity. Like the peasants lost in these elaborate labyrinths, my grandfather must also have been dumbstruck by the sheer number of the goods present. It is said that as even a brief glance would present to the mortal eye more than it can hold, the sight of heaven cannot be described. With its ineffable, innumerable heaps and clusters defying the imagination, the image of the Covered Bazaar has this phenomenon of multitude in common with heaven.

Amidst the endless displays of tea sets, hookahs, slippers, carpets, mass produced daggers and embroidered hoods; we discovered a small jewelry store where they also repaired watches in a tranquil street of the Covered Bazaar. The strong smell of ammonia used in polishing metal penetrated this artless and simple store (they told me that simplicity in the Covered Bazaar served to cover up wealth), which was no larger than a storeroom and was flushed with a strong work light. Storeowner İbrahim Usluer was a jeweler like his father and had been in this business for 45 years. He had come to Istanbul in 1958 and opened shop in the Covered Bazaar, which was the center of all trade -so he had heard. He had first tried the new styles of jewelry and watch production that were being developed in Switzerland and France. Later, with the onset of new Japanese and American technologies, the demand for fine workmanship declined to make way for regular watch repair jobs. Usluer says he nevertheless likes his profession, his fine work "serving to make the heart of people’s dearest treasures throb." My grandfather had also liked his job. He used to say that working with complex watches and tiny gemstones gave him an eye for details, in his own words, for "the small places where God had left his signature." His job had also taught him to be patient, and the belief that every task had its own time that mortals like us could not forecast and measure but whose rhythm they had to follow with a grateful heart and with obedience...

Usluer’s son Yusuf follows on the footsteps of his father and learns the craft by watching his father at work. He also says that that he likes the touch of metal, the play of tiny pieces that come together in a miraculous certainty. My grandfather would have liked one of his children to continue his job. But he had five daughters (my mother was the youngest) and they were more interested in putting on than making jewelry. His only son and my uncle had become an attorney in the tradition of the Russian families migrating to Argentina.

We leave behind the Covered Bazaar (after losing our way a number of times in this marvelous labyrinth) and loiter in the city. The weather is wonderful, as they say here, "like lemonade." We sit down at a café to have apple tea and listen to the indecipherable hum around us. My son says that he feels deaf in this city whose language he does not understand. I understand him as I too cannot be sure of the meaning of the things I see. My grandfather’s love does not suffice to explicate Istanbul to me: Strange, beautiful, ordinary or surprising, everything that I see must carry a different, mundane meaning for the fortunate people who really know the city. In an anthology of Turkish poetry, I come across the following verses by Orhan Veli which sum up my surprised contentment:

Is this sea as beautiful every day?

Does the sky always look like this?

Is this object, this window

Always as beautiful?

No,

I swear it is not;

There is something more to all this.

Translated by: Oğuz Cebeci

ATLAS, 1999 special issue