On the Road to Byzantium
By SIMON RAVEN T°MORROW,' said the second-class steward of the SS Mustapha Kemal, `we come Iskenderu. Iskenderu is first port of call in Tur- key, There will be the formalities.' He pro- nounced the word with a heavy, whining accent on the penultimate syllable. 'Turkey formaleeties,' he said, and giggled rather wildly. 'Turkey for- maleeties take all day, gentlemans, take all night. So long as customs mans on ship, they eat ship's food, see? So they stay long time—eat break- fast, lunch, tea, dinner, supper. They so stupid with eating, gentlemans, they find nothing.' He went into his cubby hole and came out with an armful of skirts, blouses and assorted lingerie. He spread it all carefully and evenly over the five tables; he then covered it with a layer of newspaper, the newspaper again with tablecloths, and proceeded to lay the breakfast things for the next morning. You see, gentlemans? These things I buy in Cyprus for my wife. Customs mans want much rrmneY—is no good. So I hide here. Customs mans, policemans, always eating. So no one look Under tablecloth.'
At first we were sceptical about this stratagem, but the next morning we saw how sound it was. There were about ten customs officers of vary- ing grades, some fifteen uniformed security men and a fair-sized platoon of hangers-on. From the Moment they came aboard, they started eating in relays in the Second-Class. Dining-Room. At any given moment of the day, half the officials on board would be consuming one meal while the other half was champing for the next. There could be no question of lifting the tablecloths. Our steward, winking and giggling, hurtled in and out of his cubby hole with unending replace- ments of crocks and provender, while the officials gorged and belched like happy schoolboys at a Picnic, as ignorant as Medea's husband of the enormity which underlay their feast.
* At Mersin, the second port of consequence as one sails up the west coast of Turkey, we disembarked ourselves and our car for the drive to Istanbul.
Tormaleeties,' said a man on the quayside. `1311t,' we said, `we went through all the for- malities at Iskenderu.' Here,' he said, `only ver' leetle formaleeties.' A Now, the secret of Turkish formalities is this. 'A document, which is regarded as a symbol of enlightenment and progressive administration, is athing to be reverenced rather than understood. No one really knows whether it is in order or even what it applies to; but reverence for a certain time it must and will receive, and there- fore the fewer documents you produce, the sooner You get away. On the other hand, if you Produce too few you are suspect, not so much as a Potential lawbreaker, but rather as though you were g in the a religious apostate of some kind, lack- properr respect for sacred matters. So dice balance must be struck—enough docu- ments '.ents to reassure people, not enough to occa- sion serious delay. For the `ver' leetle for- maleeties' at Mersin we decided to submit passports, an out-of-date insurance policy for the car (this to test the acumen of our persecu- tor), and one international driving certificate. The out-of-date insurance policy, being on thin and expensive paper, was a great success. The official hopefully asked for more like it, was denied, look his revenge by charging five Turkish lire (three shillings) to stamp the driving certificate, and waved us (not without courtesy) on our way.
It would seem from their history that the three basic elements in the Turkish national character are cruelty, courage and inefficiency. This im- pression is confirmed by the dress and the phy- sical features of the ubiquitous soldiers. In Konya, a famous inland resort where we spent our first night, the Sunday streets were full of them—little men with trailing khaki greatcoats, filthy boots, hatchet faces and beady eyes, wan- dering aimlessly round the town without a kuru in their pockets, some of them hand in hand. They appear as tough as they do unamiable; and I am told that although they are badly led by corrupt officers, in close combat at least they are very effective.
This was explained to me by a schoolmaster in Dinar (a nasty little town apparently built in a marsh), where we spent the following night. The Turkish landscape, he said, is alternately savage and boring. It does not compromise or apologise; mountains are all sheer, lakes treacherous (and often salt), deserts merciless and plains vast. It follows that the men who come from most of this country must be brave and resourceful; to have survived at all they must have developed a remarkable talent for survival, which stands them well under arms. By being a harsh and ungenerous parent, the coun- try has endowed her sons with the virtues neces- sary to defend her. Or so my schoolmaster informant would have had me believe.
* But however brave or cunning they may be, I cannot believe in the Turks' capacity to carry through any enterprise, even that of self-defence, until something is done about that mixture of fatalism and laissez-faire which we should call their inefficiency. Yet what can be done about it? Ataturk tried hard enough, Heaven knows; as a result of his efforts, it now takes only an hour and a half to cash a traveller's cheque in a 'You were right. This is a restful room.' large provincial town, there are only a hundred or so potholes to every hundred yards of road, and even the smallest village seems to have at least one shop devoted solely to the sale of busts and photographs of Ataturk. But for all these blessings, he has really changed nothing funda- mental. For the point is, of course, that the Turks are Moslems—unenthusiastic Moslems, for the most part, but Moslems nevertheless— and they are therefore prepared, indeed grateful, to leave the entire direction of affairs to Allah.
Consider the following incident. A small bridge had collapsed on the main—i.e., the only —road between Selcuk and Ismir (Smyrna). On either side of the bridge there were vast queues of traffic. There was not a single policeman in sight, but a gang of lorry-drivers was attempting, in an aimless and amateur manner, to construct a temporary road of stones, shrub and earth down the bank, over five yards of stream and up the bank the other side. Plainly only Allah knew what would come of this, so we drove away to camp the night in the nearby ruins of Efes.
In the middle of these ruins was a small restaurant-bar, which, although the ruins were seldom visited so early in the year, was luckily open. At the bar were two imposing gentlemen, who greeted us because we were foreigners, allowed us to buy them drinks for the same reason, and announced that they were, respec- tively, the Mayor and the Chief of Police of Selcuk. They had taken refuge in the ruins, they explained, because otherwise people would come and pester them about the bridge and the traffic. (The disaster had occurred just inside their area.) This kind of thing was always happening after the spring floods; it was doubtless very annoy- ing for a lot of people; but what could they do about it? The traffic police would be very angry if called out for extra night duty; the official in charge of repairs had gone to see his brother in Antalya that morning; his men were useless without his direction and almost useless with it. Then when, we asked, did he think we would get to Smyrna? He shrugged his shoulders as if we were talking about Peking. The only thing to do, he said, was to let matters take their or- dained course: one day was as good as another for seeing Smyrna, which was a noisy city full of dirty and expensive whores. Yes, another raki would be acceptable. . . .
Without much hope, we returned next morn- ing to the bridge. By some miracle, it seemed, the temporary road was nearing completion, and the yoghurt vendors, who had done a brisk night's business, were already leaving. And indeed, after an hour more, the traffic began to move—only one way at a time, but palpably to move. Then, at the high moment of victory, ten traffic police- men, magnificent in blue uniforms and white caps, appeared to take charge of the situation they had ignored all night; a moment or two later, the Mayor and the Chief of Police took their stand by the temporary road, bowing and raising their hats to each newly released vehicle as it passed.
`Good morning, gentlemen,' said the Mayor with smiling effrontery when it was our turn. `It is all as I said, you see. All our arrangements have gone smoothly, and you will be in our beautiful city of Smyrna in good time for youi lunch.'
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