The Fracture Zone Part 7

A visitor can stroll through all three courts today at will-although only the act of strolling through the sprawling garden of the outer court, the Court of the Janissaries, where there was a mint, a huge set of stables, and a kiosk where pet.i.tions might be presented, faithfully recreates the court as it always was-for anyone always could walk through the Court of Janissaries, even if one was foreign or a tourist. In those days one was halted only at the entrance to the second court-by janissary guards, or halberdiers-who would permit only the privileged or the cursed to pa.s.s beyond, and into the inner heart of the palace. (Much the same is true today: those who halt outsiders now do merely to take their tickets, obtained from a guichet guichet beside the seraglio post office.) beside the seraglio post office.) The entrance into the second court was by way of the Gate of Salutation, through which only the sultan could ride a horse, and only a chosen few could follow on foot. The kitchens were here-they could prepare food for twelve thousand diners at once-as were the entrances into the harem, with its hundreds of fresh-plucked and well-schooled odalisques,* and the sultan's private quarters. The grand vizier had his office here as well, and the sultan's private quarters. The grand vizier had his office here as well, and such pet.i.tioners as might have been allowed through by kindly or corrupt palace guards might present their papers here, and thus a.s.sure even more direct access to those with the power to help. When we arrived the court was filled with men erecting bleachers and putting up klieg lights: Each summer there is a performance of the Mozart opera and such pet.i.tioners as might have been allowed through by kindly or corrupt palace guards might present their papers here, and thus a.s.sure even more direct access to those with the power to help. When we arrived the court was filled with men erecting bleachers and putting up klieg lights: Each summer there is a performance of the Mozart opera The Abduction from the Seraglio, The Abduction from the Seraglio, staged in front of the very gate, beside the very harem, from which the abduction supposedly took place. staged in front of the very gate, beside the very harem, from which the abduction supposedly took place.

This gate, which leads into the sanctum sanctorum of the third court, was long known as the Bab-I-Aali, the High Gate. Now it is called, rather more prettily, Babi-Sa'adet, the Gate of Felicity. Beyond, guarded with sedulous care by the wily and protective eunuchs, black or white, are the private rooms-the audience chamber with the divan and the sofa at which foreign amba.s.sadors might kneel and where the dragoman might drone, and the treasury, the harem mosque, and the sultans' private libraries.

Here the occasional diplomats-who usually took the trouble to learn Turkish, though some sultans made an equal effort to learn French-came to kneel at the feet of the man who, throughout all Europe, was known by the initials as the one and only GS-the grand signor grand signor. They knelt, they said little, they then removed themselves by walking backwards-and if they had been fortunate they might have heard, or later claim to have heard, a single grunt of approval from the alcove in which the signor signor sat, silent and unmoving, but always listening, and all-powerful. "There is not one single thing," Rose declared late in the day, after we had wearied ourselves by wandering, entranced, from one hall to another, gazing at a thousand display cases, "that is not absolutely beautiful." sat, silent and unmoving, but always listening, and all-powerful. "There is not one single thing," Rose declared late in the day, after we had wearied ourselves by wandering, entranced, from one hall to another, gazing at a thousand display cases, "that is not absolutely beautiful."

Everything is still preserved and guarded today-little has been plundered, so powerful were the Ottomans against all comers who might take from them. In one hall, where there is a cloak from the Prophet Muhammad, and a piece of the sacred black stone from the Kaaba in Mecca, we found an imam in a small gla.s.s cage. He was reading in sonorous tones, and unremittingly, from an ancient copy of the Koran. He was there, a palace official explained, to remind all visitors that this was a holy place as well, and not just a serai serai devoted to centuries of silent administration and baccha.n.a.lian abandon. The sultan, it must be recalled, was the Ottoman caliph too-he was the religious as well as the civil ruler, a man not only bound up in the business of war and conquest and the issuance of devoted to centuries of silent administration and baccha.n.a.lian abandon. The sultan, it must be recalled, was the Ottoman caliph too-he was the religious as well as the civil ruler, a man not only bound up in the business of war and conquest and the issuance of firmans firmans and the acceptance of pleas but an interpreter of the words of the Prophet, and as a figure who might set an example to the faithful and the pious. and the acceptance of pleas but an interpreter of the words of the Prophet, and as a figure who might set an example to the faithful and the pious.

And then, finally, we came out onto the terrace overlooking the Bosporus, beside the privy gardens and above the Seraglio lighthouse, before which southbound Bosporus s.h.i.+ps turn either left, to dock in the Golden Horn by the Galata Bridge, or right, to go through the Sea of Marmara and the Dardanelles past Gallipoli, and through to the Mediterranean. We stood in rapture in the late afternoon breeze, watching as the sun began to slide down, turning the Gulf of Marmara into a vast field of liquid gold, through which the ferries slid, in slow and measured curves, like the fins of distant carp.

And then the cell phone rang. Some weeks before, while I was in Vienna, I had given the number to a scholar named Erwin Lucius, the head of the Austrian Cultural Center in Istanbul. Since I had seen what influence the Ottoman Turks had had on Viennese life-a cannonball in the cathedral tower, a taste for coffee, the croissant, and the infrequent possibility of viewing the preserved head of a long-dead grand vizier-I wondered if the Hapsburgs had had any lasting influence at all on the lives of the Turks of Constantinople. I imagined that Dr. Lucius would know.

He was calling to say he would be happy to see us the following morning, if that was convenient. It was, and I blessed the efficiency of the loaf-haired secretary back in Austria, who had remembered the date of our arrival here rather more accurately than I had. And so Rose and I left for a taxi back across the Golden Horn and to the Pera Palas Hotel-where we discovered two things: that the hotel was much costlier and considerably seedier than when I had been there twenty years before; and the famous elevator, the first ever made, was now not working. But that night there was a dance of Turkish schoolchildren in the main dining room, and had it been working they would no doubt be playing around in its cage of fretted ironwork and keeping the guests-including the two of us, weary now that we were so close to journey's end-from sleeping.

On the way home, as we walked back through the squares and gardens and mosques and museums and the Hippodrome of Sultanahmet, I stopped before one place of pilgrimage-a high marble gate that was topped with a curving fan-shaped porte cochere. It was an undistinguished-looking gate now, merely an entranceway to some obscure departments of the Istanbul city government, a place where trams would stop, and where policemen would lounge and smoke their richly aromatic cigarettes.

But until 1923, when the last sultan abdicated, left by the Orient Express, and went to live and die in Switzerland (and be buried in Damascus), this was the gate that had taken over the name Bab-I-Aali, the High Gate, from the one that separated the first from the second court of Topkapi. This was the gate that led into the main offices of the Ottoman grand vizier-the gate through which pa.s.sed all the official administrative business of the empire. For three centuries this gate was known to all by the name that came to stand for the entirety and grandeur of the Ottoman Empire itself-the Sublime Porte. Whatever business was done by the king or doge or mameluke or czar or Hapsburg emperor and even, in later years, by the American president, was conducted with the Porte. the Porte. That was all that needed to be said. The Porte That was all that needed to be said. The Porte was was the Empire, as one might later say the White House was the United States, the Elysee France, or, more prosaically, that Downing Street was Great Britain. the Empire, as one might later say the White House was the United States, the Elysee France, or, more prosaically, that Downing Street was Great Britain.

And a prosaic comparison is perhaps not inappropriate. For no one who pa.s.ses sees this gateway now as anything much more than an entrance to a series of buildings where a citizen of Istanbul might get his driving license or his library card. As the greatest indignity of all, these days it has a blue-and-white enamel plate attached to it, bearing a number. It has and is, of all things, an address: The Sublime Porte is now 15, Alemdar Caddesi, Istanbul. The mighty here have fallen quickly, and they have fallen far.

Once the tide of empire had visibly begun to ebb-once the siege of Vienna had been overwhelmed, and the Ottomans started to be chased back to their lairs-so the Austrians themselves began to cast a covetous eye on the possibility of spoils. Within three years of the failure of the siege, the Austrians had taken Budapest (or Buda as it was then) and two years later, Belgrade (though in a sick convulsion the Ottomans recovered it half a century later). Back in Constantinople people began to fear that a Christian army would suddenly appear at the gates. House prices fell. There was a ma.s.s migration across the Bosporus to Asia. There were veiled mutterings against the indifference and pomposity of the sultan and his court, the luxury and abandon, the absurdities of his ram fights and of camel wrestling, and of the cruel caprices of the courtiers' whims.

At its zenith the empire was truly vast-Morocco to Mesopotamia, Poland to Yemen-and when it began to totter, Russia and Austria discussed dividing it between them. In Moscow, especially, there was a move to reestablish Byzantium in Constantinople, and with a Russian prince to rule as emperor. In 1908 the Austrians formally annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina, still then technically Ottoman territory. The whole of the tottering Empire was then available for plunder, and the Austrians above all wanted to have the larger share for themselves. But it was not to be: Their own follies saw to it that it was the Russians who gained the ascendancy, and took the greater part of the Ottomans' northern dominions. Vienna was left with almost nothing.

The Russians were eventually to turn the Black Sea from a Turkish lake into a Russian, to possess the old Ottoman lands from the Crimea to the Caucasus. The Hapsburgs were on the other hand fated to retreat themselves, to withdraw from the northern Balkans just as fast as the Ottomans were withdrawing from the southern. And today, after all of that defeat and humiliation and withdrawal, all that the Austrians have left is Austria-and in the Istanbul that had caused them so much vexation and anxiety, one impressive yali, yali, a mighty waterfront house beside the Bosporus. a mighty waterfront house beside the Bosporus.

The yalis yalis of Constantinople, for many still stand down by the sea near the Dolmabahce Palace and by the hotel that was once the Ciragan, offer some remembrance of what was once called "the Ottoman way." Their setting, for a start, was magnificent. The light down by the strait was always so intense, the water of the seaway was so vividly blue, the wooden walls of the of Constantinople, for many still stand down by the sea near the Dolmabahce Palace and by the hotel that was once the Ciragan, offer some remembrance of what was once called "the Ottoman way." Their setting, for a start, was magnificent. The light down by the strait was always so intense, the water of the seaway was so vividly blue, the wooden walls of the yalis yalis were so high, and the houses and gardens within so magnificent and so lush-everything on the coast spoke of luxury and indolence, wealth and disdain. There were marble cascades and fountains and highly colored oil paintings; there were kiosks and cupolas; lattices of carved marble, jewels, and fragrant olive-wood; and jungles of roses, jasmine, and honeysuckle. were so high, and the houses and gardens within so magnificent and so lush-everything on the coast spoke of luxury and indolence, wealth and disdain. There were marble cascades and fountains and highly colored oil paintings; there were kiosks and cupolas; lattices of carved marble, jewels, and fragrant olive-wood; and jungles of roses, jasmine, and honeysuckle.

This was where the sultans' obsession with tulips began. More than eight hundred varieties were listed in an Ottoman flower book, and one grand vizier who bred the flowers created forty-four new varieties. This is where the house cooks made dishes of eccentric specificity-stuffed fish in which not single lesion could appear on even a single scale, and confections that used only the left legs of animals, the sultanly chefs believing that since the animals invariably favored use of the right, these limbs would prove indelicately tougher, the left ones tenderer.

On the terrace of a yali yali you could sit and watch the boats go by, or the young giggling children diving endlessly into the cool and deep waters, and while doing so you could sip tamarind juice, or dip your fingers in grape treacle, and one tale had it that you could order a particular red jam containing, along with the rose petals and Circa.s.sian strawberries and cherries from Giresun, you could sit and watch the boats go by, or the young giggling children diving endlessly into the cool and deep waters, and while doing so you could sip tamarind juice, or dip your fingers in grape treacle, and one tale had it that you could order a particular red jam containing, along with the rose petals and Circa.s.sian strawberries and cherries from Giresun,* tiny amounts of finely crushed rubies. tiny amounts of finely crushed rubies.

It is in such a wooden house, on the fas.h.i.+onable spur of Yenikoy, that Dr. Lucius now has his office, and from where he can ruminate on past events, if he cares to, and in an atmosphere of great imagined charm. The mansion, white and cool and sprawling in a broad seaside meadow, was built for an Armenian banker and then handed in 1884 as a personal gift to the old boiled-beef eater, Franz Josef, by the Sultan Abdulham[image]d II. (It cannot be demolished: The few wooden yali yali left in today's Istanbul are preserved by government fiat, and can only be moved, never torn down.) left in today's Istanbul are preserved by government fiat, and can only be moved, never torn down.) When I first met Dr. Lucius I was struck by the odd symmetry of the occasion: It was droll, I thought, that at the end of the journey I would be meeting an Austrian with tweeds and spectacles and a dryly sardonic academic manner and who was in interests and demeanor just like Dr. Duriegl, the director of the Historical Museum of the City of Vienna, where I had begun this journey. And like Dr. Duriegl, he too was fascinated by the tale of Kara Mustafa Pasha, the grand vizier at the time of Sultan Mehmet IV. When I mentioned the name he drew in a rapid breath. "Ah, yes-that difficult old devil!"

The diplomatic fuss over the remains of Kara Mustafa continues. The head is in Vienna, the body in a village called Merzifon, northeast of Ankara, close to the southern sh.o.r.e of the Black Sea. Dr. Lucius had only that morning been helping to organize a symposium, due to be staged in Merzifon itself, on the life and times of Kara Mustafa, and he was helping to arrange for Austrian speakers to come and talk about the strategy behind the unhappy siege. No doubt, he said, given the pa.s.sions felt by so many Turks, the incoming Austrian academics would have a trying time. No doubt there would once again be pleas, demands, perhaps even diplomatic insistence, that the head be sent back, to be buried next to the body to which it belonged. (Or was thought thought to belong. When I suggested DNA testing of the two sets of remains, to see if a match was likely, all the scholars involved in the debate showed themselves to be happily detached from reality by confessing they had never even considered the idea. "It would certainly end all the confusion," said one of them, chortling.) to belong. When I suggested DNA testing of the two sets of remains, to see if a match was likely, all the scholars involved in the debate showed themselves to be happily detached from reality by confessing they had never even considered the idea. "It would certainly end all the confusion," said one of them, chortling.) But there were many happier and less controversial links between Vienna and Istanbul, Dr. Lucius added. The first medical school in Constantinople had been opened by an Austrian. A Viennese doctor-a man named Hammerschmidt, who had his name changed to Abdullah Bey-had inaugurated the Turkish Red Crescent. The greatest of all the many histories of the Ottomans is that known familiarly as The Hammer The Hammer-written by the Austrian imperial emba.s.sy's late-eighteenth-century dragoman Josef von Hammer-Purgstall, who dressed in Ottoman style and toured for years through every corner of the Empire. In more modern times Austrian foresters helped set up the Turkish reforestation schemes; Austrian pharmacists helped establish the chemical industry; Austrian generals trained the modern Turkish army; Austrian architects designed the Turkish parliament in Ankara, as well as several of the capital's ministries and the current President's house; and the first monument erected in the memory of the maker of modern Turkey, Kemal Ataturk, was sculpted in 1926, by an Austrian.

"Is that enough, perhaps?" asked Dr. Lucius, "to show how much better matters are today, than when Kara Mustafa was just outside the Ringstra.s.se?"

And what other Balkan harmonies might there be, I wondered, here beside the Golden Horn? I knew from Anja, the young woman with whom we had spent time back in Sarajevo, that there was a sizable Serbian community in Istanbul. Most of them were Muslims from the Sanjak of Novi Pazar, that fingerlike extension of Ottoman rule that intruded between southwestern Serbia, Kosovo, and Montenegro. They huddle close together in the old part of the city, off the Divan Yolu, close to the sprawling covered market. There are Sanjak communities in Izmir and Erzerum, all tucked away in the inner cities, all doing deals, involved at the shadier end of the economic spectrum. In Istanbul they have gathered in the shadow of a small hotel, the Balkan, which is always full of newcomers, usually migrants who have wearied of the fighting or the troubles they all foresee.

It was easy to find Anja's old boyfriend, Daut. Everyone from the Sanjak in Istanbul seems to know everyone else. There is a hugger-mugger camaraderie among the traders and businessmen and otherwise amiable rogues who lurk in the tiny stalls and bas.e.m.e.nt rooms cl.u.s.tered around the hotel. Daut was at the family jewelry shop; he had a dozen thin gold chains suspended from the fingers of one hand and a bottle of beer in the other hand, and he was idly watching a soccer match on television. He jumped with delight at his girlfriend's name, and within minutes became positively sentimental about Sarajevo. He had been there for much of the war, dealing, making money, involved in goodness knows what.

And when we told him we had been in Kosovo, he called all his friends from the street, and we soon had an excited audience, eager for news of the bombing and of the situation that day. They knew that NATO had bombed towns in Novi Pazar; I told them that I only wished we had been able to get there-but technically the Sanjak was Serbia still, and the Yugoslav authorities had cracked down hard and wouldn't let anyone in.

"This is why we're here," said Daut, and his friends nodded approvingly. "There's no freedom in the Sanjak-the VJ and the MUP are giving us trouble all the time. The difference is-we're better dealers, better traders than the Kosovo Albanians, or the Bosniaks. The Serbs need us-we make their system work."

Daut did not suppose there would be trouble in the Sanjak-he did not expect the Belgrade government to order a program of repression of the Muslims there, as they had, to their cost, in Kosovo. "The next trouble won't be in the Sanjak-it will be in Montenegro, there's no doubt about it," he said. "And as we and Montenegro have a common border-I guess we could feel the effects. But Milosevic, or whoever succeeds him there, is going to crack a few heads in Montenegro. You mark my words. There'll be a lot more of us here in Turkey before this business is done with."

They liked the Turks, and the cosmopolitan character of a city which has been a crossroads for all of its existence. Daut spoke a formidable array of languages-Russian, Bulgarian, Turkish, Polish, Italian, English-and of course Serbian. He could get along perfectly well and might stay for years.

"But of course what we all really want to do is to go home. We have so much in common with the Serbs, apart from our religion of course-we get on with them. And the Serbs need us-we are their Jews, their Chinese. We're nothing for the Serbs to feel afraid of. We'll make money, they'll make money, everyone will get along.

"But for now-it is too dangerous. And besides, business is too slow. We can make more money down here. It's just that I-we, all of us-miss the old place. I telephone, when the circuits are working, and I hear their voices, and I feel so sad. The people of the Sanjak are the best there are. We sing, we dance, we drink. We are the very heart of the Balkan people. So what are we doing in Turkey?"

A small indication of Daut's att.i.tude-and the att.i.tude of the Sanjak people more generally-came later in the evening. We had gone to a bar, to hear a gusla gusla player singing sentimental songs that made the Sanjak boys look soulful, homesick. The television was burbling away in the corner, when pictures came on the screen of Abdullah Ocalan, the Kurdish leader who was on trial on a tiny prison-island in the Sea of Marmara. Daut called for quiet and had the volume turned up. Ocalan had been found guilty, the announcer said. He would be sentenced in two weeks' time. player singing sentimental songs that made the Sanjak boys look soulful, homesick. The television was burbling away in the corner, when pictures came on the screen of Abdullah Ocalan, the Kurdish leader who was on trial on a tiny prison-island in the Sea of Marmara. Daut called for quiet and had the volume turned up. Ocalan had been found guilty, the announcer said. He would be sentenced in two weeks' time.

Daut cheered loudly. "That b.a.s.t.a.r.d, Ocalan. Of course he's guilty. Compared with him, Milosevic is an angel. An angel. I tell you, Ocalan has killed fifty thousand people, at the very least. He's guilty all right-and he should hang for it. And people should know that, compared with him, Milosevic is really not all that bad. There are worse men in the world. And far worse people than the Serbs."

I had one final mission in Istanbul, a task that also involved looking back along this journey, toward the Balkans. Specifically I had one question left-about the fate of poor old Montenegro, where there had been the argument-one that will be bound to a.s.sume greater importance if, as the Sanjak boys were warning, there is trouble brewing-between the two old Orthodox patriarchs. Which of the pair, I had been wondering ever since, was in the right?

Which of the churches of Montenegro deserved the loyalty of the people? Was it the Serbian Orthodox Church, which from its ancient monastery and been offering spiritual leaders.h.i.+p for centuries, and most decidedly since the end of the Montenegrin royal family after the end of the Great War? Or should the people now rightly turn, as good and patriotic Montenegrins, to this new Montenegrin Church, which was being run by the Metropolitan Mihailo from its small suburban house on the outskirts of that tiny capital in the mountains, Cetinje? It would be in Istanbul, I suspected, that I would be able to find the answer.

Because Istanbul was far more than what it appeared to be today-this bustling, polyglot, polytheistic crossroads city that stands on the cusps of both Europe and Asia and is eagerly planning a future for itself as a world capital enjoying the benefits of both the continents on which it lies. And it was much more than its predecessor Constantinople had been, too-far more than the exotic headquarters for the mighty but always dreamily expiring empire of the Ottomans. It had long also been Byzantium-ever since the schism that had split the Roman church in two it had been the spiritual center of the Orthodox Church.

For a thousand years, from the three hundreds until the Ottomans stormed the Hagia Sofia church in 1453, Byzantium had been the anchor to a Christian empire that stretched from Ravenna in the west to Mesopotamia in the east, from the Sava River in the north to Tripolitania in North Africa. The emperors ruled in Greek, as Christians; they employed Roman law and the basked in and spread the best of h.e.l.lenistic culture. The nearly ninety Byzantine emperors, from Zeno to Constantine XI, at their best ran a tolerant, prosperous, and enlightened empire. The most powerful architect of its fortunes, the great Emperor Justinian, who ruled for thirty-eight years in the sixth century, was born near what is now the great railway-junction city of Nis, in Yugoslavia. When NATO planes were bombing Nis, their pilots likely thought they were exerting enormous power over the land. Probably most were unaware that one of the very greatest forces ever to have shaped Balkan history came from directly below, deep within their target zone.

The rules of the Orthodox Church, worldwide, give all of the member churches-the Russians, the Greeks, the Serbs, the Cypriots-total autonomy and authority. Except in one small sense, a somewhat indistinct sense of external authority that hovers somewhere between sentiment and tradition, and that is vested in a figure known as the ec.u.menical patriarch, and who always lives in Istanbul. (Or Constantinople, as his business card defiantly proclaims.) The patriarch-officially addressed as "Your Beat.i.tude"-is always drawn from Istanbul's dwindling Greek community and is regarded officially by the government as simply the Greek patriarch. To the church worldwide, however, he is its still center-a symbol, not of authority, but of, let us say, Orthodox good manners. He will raise an eyebrow or look askance-and a whole canon of behavior in a distant patriarchate will subtly change. He is not there to order or to be obeyed: He is there to counsel, and to warn.

The current ec.u.menical patriarch, Bartholomew, was appointed in 1991, and like his predecessors for two thousand years, lives in the district of old Istanbul called the Fener, from the word Phanar, Phanar, the Greek word for the lighthouse that once stood there to warn of a shoal in the Golden Horn. His achdeacon, a supreme authority on ecclesiastical questions, is an American named Peter Anton from San Antonio, Texas, and whose formal priestly name is Archdeacon Tarasios. He is a learned, fussy, bustling man, who when he had our audience was constantly on the telephone, handing out books and press releases and his E-mail address, all the time shooing in and out of his study supplicants and mendicants and aspirant priests, and those new members of the church who wished to be blessed by a brief audience with the patriarch himself. the Greek word for the lighthouse that once stood there to warn of a shoal in the Golden Horn. His achdeacon, a supreme authority on ecclesiastical questions, is an American named Peter Anton from San Antonio, Texas, and whose formal priestly name is Archdeacon Tarasios. He is a learned, fussy, bustling man, who when he had our audience was constantly on the telephone, handing out books and press releases and his E-mail address, all the time shooing in and out of his study supplicants and mendicants and aspirant priests, and those new members of the church who wished to be blessed by a brief audience with the patriarch himself.

His papers and utterances contain all manner of words utterly unfamiliar to the layman, suggesting Orthodoxy to be a most complicated faith: I saw on his desk, or noted him to have used the words autocephalous, vicariate, exarch, pharmakolytria, eparchial, patristic, autocephalous, vicariate, exarch, pharmakolytria, eparchial, patristic, and and stauropegial. stauropegial. Not surprisingly, given such a vocabulary, it was difficult to pin him down to so simple a matter as whether the Montenegrin Church had the proper authority, or whether the people of Cetinje and Podgorica and Kotor should regard the priests of the Serbian Church as their spiritual leaders Not surprisingly, given such a vocabulary, it was difficult to pin him down to so simple a matter as whether the Montenegrin Church had the proper authority, or whether the people of Cetinje and Podgorica and Kotor should regard the priests of the Serbian Church as their spiritual leaders But eventually he did offer an answer, though he did not wish to be quoted formally as saying anything at all. In ecclesiastical matters, it appeared, the Office of the Ec.u.menical Patriarchate of Constantinople holds the line. It has no direct power over the churches, except for a very small number of the less well known branches. But in matters of doctrine and discipline and one might say, taste, the patriarch attempts to exert what influence he can, and in a subtle, gentle manner. It might have been recently noticed, for instance, that the patriarch of Serbia made a sermon in Belgrade that was critical of Mr. Milosevic? Well, it was no secret that Bartholomew had spoken with him some while before-privately, quietly, and about what was not known. But a conversation had been held. A statement had been made. An American might say simply: Do the math.

In the specific matter of Montenegro, the matter was abundantly clear. The new Montenegrin Church was a wholly spurious invention. The man who calls himself Father Mihailo had held a post in Rome and was no longer doing so. It was not within the authority of the ec.u.menical patriarch to say why. But the properly const.i.tuted ecclesiastical authority in Montenegro is the Serbian Orthodox Church-and while that may not always be the case, it is very much the case now. The new one was merely spurious.

So that was it. The boys from the Sanjak had prophesied trouble in Montenegro. The people whom we had encountered while we were there had all warned of trouble in Montenegro. And now here was yet another reason, one might suppose, for why in time some Montenegrin people at least might have cause to feel slighted, or dismayed, or angry.

I felt gloomily apprehensive as we left the dusty confines of the Fener, with the chanting of monks echoing faintly from an upstairs room. It was remarkable, I thought, that here in old Istanbul, even now, there was a residual power and a relict influence that could manage still to stir the Balkan pot, to fan the Balkan flames, and to be the ultimate cause of distant havoc yet to come, in the lands that these people, Byzantine and Ottomans both, had each directed for so long.

We went down to Sultanahmet for our last dinner and sat outside at the Rumeli Cafe, drinking good Turkish beer and Anatolian red wine, and eating lamb and eggplant and almond lok.u.m lok.u.m and coffee. We argued gently, as to whether what we had seen in the hundreds of miles that lay behind us had been anyone's and coffee. We argued gently, as to whether what we had seen in the hundreds of miles that lay behind us had been anyone's fault fault-whether any one person, or place, or cultural or religious influence, could have been said to have led directly to the kind of troubles that we had seen and read about today and yesterday and for so very long before. Had it been the Turks, for instance-had it been their brutality, their corruption, the savage complications of their administrative formulae-that left such a residue of bitterness and hatred that only vengeance could a.s.suage.

I was still haunted by George Higgins Moses, and the words in that old copy I had of a once-wise magazine. "It is at Constantinople," he wrote, and it seems well worth repeating, that the problems of the Near East have always centered in their acutest form. There, where teeming thousands throng the Bridge of Galata; where twenty races meet and clash with differences of blood and faith never yet cloaked beneath even a pretense of friendliness; where fanaticism and intrigue play constantly beneath the surface of oriental phlegmatism and sporadically break forth in eddies of barbaric reaction; where all the Great Powers of Europe have for generations practiced the art of a devious diplomacy-there, I say, has always been found the real storm-center of the danger zone of Europe.

So could we perhaps agree with the old Serb proverb: "Gra.s.s never grows where the Turkish hoof has trod"? Did those Serbs who butchered Albanians in the weeks and months before ever look into their victims' eyes and say to themselves, This, you know-this is for the Turks?

Or do we think quite otherwise-and blame the Serbs as a race? Or do we find fault with the southern Slavs as a people? Or with the Illyrians, who claim so much of the now-Slavic Balkans as their own? Or does the heart of the Eastern Question, as it was known, lie within the Great Schism? Or is the fault with those dignified and duplicitous Viennese in general, or with that master mechanician and geopolitical cynic, Prince Metternich, in particular? Was it all the result of the meddlesome dealings of the Great Powers, the Triple Alliance of then, the United States today?

Or is it all to do with Islam-or is it the fault of all the G.o.ds, conjoining Allah with the pantheons of Orthodoxy and the Church of Rome as well? Or is it, more fundamentally, the geology, or the tectonics-for this is a place of earthquakes still, even here in Istanbul-and earthquakes produce, do they not, an unstable and fractious people?

Or perhaps do we blame no one and just shrug our shoulders and relegate the region to the backwaters as somewhere incomprehensible, intractable, and, one is tempted to splutter with exasperation, impossible?

But then it was a little before eight o'clock, and the sun had set over the Sea of Marmara, and unseen, from one of the slender minarets above the Blue Mosque, a muezzin muezzin began to call. His voice, amplified by electronics, echoed and boomed around the square, and for a moment all at the cafe tables, and all the people pa.s.sing by outside, were stilled, enchanted and respectful of this ancient and poetic cry. I picked up my telephone as quietly as I could, and dialed the number of a woman I knew (and had once loved) in New York, where it was still the middle of the afternoon. She answered, and I held the telephone up into the soft air, and let her listen to a sound she knew well, and that I knew well that she would like to hear. began to call. His voice, amplified by electronics, echoed and boomed around the square, and for a moment all at the cafe tables, and all the people pa.s.sing by outside, were stilled, enchanted and respectful of this ancient and poetic cry. I picked up my telephone as quietly as I could, and dialed the number of a woman I knew (and had once loved) in New York, where it was still the middle of the afternoon. She answered, and I held the telephone up into the soft air, and let her listen to a sound she knew well, and that I knew well that she would like to hear.

And as I played the sound of the Ottoman call to her all those thousands of miles away I gazed up into the purple of the Turkish evening sky, and I watched the seagulls circling, illuminated by the floodlights like tiny ghosts, as they glided endlessly around the very tips of the four minarets, and over the huge dome under which, even now, scores of the faithful were kneeling to their G.o.d in Mecca. The force of Islam, unchanging and unchanged, seemed then of a power and majesty like no other.

Silence fell, suddenly and thunderously. I put the telephone back to my ear, and in the distance I could hear the thin siren of a police car making its way up Madison Avenue. The ancient and the modern, the eternal and the fleeting, briefly connected in a flicker of electronics.

"That was enchanting," said the voice at the distant end. And then, "So-you've finished?"

"Yes," I replied. "I've arrived."

Epilogue.

THREE DAYS LATER I was in Bulgaria again, buying an airline ticket for the journey back home. The airline office was almost empty but for the two ticket agents, both of whom were young women. I asked them where they were from. I was in Bulgaria again, buying an airline ticket for the journey back home. The airline office was almost empty but for the two ticket agents, both of whom were young women. I asked them where they were from.

One, it turned out, was an ethnic Turk from southern Bulgaria. The other had come down from Belgrade: She was a Serb. Her office had been closed because of the NATO bombing, and the company had temporarily transferred her to the office in Sofia.

I remarked with some surprise that this was rather unusual, having a Muslim and a member of the Serbian Orthodox Church working side by side. "Surely," I ventured, "and particularly now during the war, you must find working together very difficult indeed?

The women laughed, as if they had been asked this question once too often already.

"No, don't be absurd," one of them said. "We get along just fine."

And then they did something they had clearly rehea.r.s.ed before, and had rehea.r.s.ed well. Each of them raised her left arm and held it out straight, for me to see.

On each there was a gold wrist.w.a.tch, by Cartier.

And that, of course-that they had money, that they could buy things, that they could escape the rigors of Balkan poverty-was the reason. And maybe, in time, and for everyone, it would be the answer.

Glossary and Dramatis Personae AFOR Acronym for NATO's Albania-based security force. Acronym for NATO's Albania-based security force.

Aga Turkish tribal leader. Turkish tribal leader.

Albanians Non-Slavic Indo-European people, descendants of the ancient Illyrians, who inhabit Albania itself as well as much of the Serbian province of Kosovo and western Macedonia. Non-Slavic Indo-European people, descendants of the ancient Illyrians, who inhabit Albania itself as well as much of the Serbian province of Kosovo and western Macedonia.

Andric, Ivo 18921975. The n.o.bel Prize-winning author (1961) of 18921975. The n.o.bel Prize-winning author (1961) of The Bridge on the Drina The Bridge on the Drina and other works, Andric was a Croatian-born Yugoslavian diplomat and other works, Andric was a Croatian-born Yugoslavian diplomat Apache American attack helicopter, formally the McDonnell Douglas AH-64, designed for day or night all-weather combat. Its reputation suffered somewhat in 1999 after the Apache was deployed in Albania and proved to be somewhat less than invaluable. American attack helicopter, formally the McDonnell Douglas AH-64, designed for day or night all-weather combat. Its reputation suffered somewhat in 1999 after the Apache was deployed in Albania and proved to be somewhat less than invaluable.

Attar of roses A fragrant, volatile essence distilled from roses, used as a perfume base. A fragrant, volatile essence distilled from roses, used as a perfume base.

Bailey bridge Prefabricated steel lattice bridge, designed by the British engineer Sir Donald Bailey and meant for rapid a.s.sembly on battlefields. Prefabricated steel lattice bridge, designed by the British engineer Sir Donald Bailey and meant for rapid a.s.sembly on battlefields.

Balkans The word The word Balkans, Balkans, which comes from the Bulgarian word for mountain, loosely defines the peninsular region of southeastern Europe that is bounded by the Danube River, the Adriatic and Black Seas, and the border of Greece. But the word has also come to stand, in ways both sad and pejorative, for the intractability of the regions social and political problems and, more generally-and with the use of the words which comes from the Bulgarian word for mountain, loosely defines the peninsular region of southeastern Europe that is bounded by the Danube River, the Adriatic and Black Seas, and the border of Greece. But the word has also come to stand, in ways both sad and pejorative, for the intractability of the regions social and political problems and, more generally-and with the use of the words Balkanize Balkanize and and Balkanization Balkanization-for the numerous attempts, usually failing, to alleviate the problems of mutually warring states by redrawing their boundaries to make them ever smaller and more ethnically exclusive.

Baklava A Turkish dessert, made from pastry, honey, and nuts. A Turkish dessert, made from pastry, honey, and nuts.

Berlin, Treaty of An agreement among the European powers, forged during the summer of 1878, that essentially laid the foundations for the Balkan crises that have erupted with grim regularity ever since. An agreement among the European powers, forged during the summer of 1878, that essentially laid the foundations for the Balkan crises that have erupted with grim regularity ever since.

Bey Turkish prince or governor. Turkish prince or governor.

Bogomil A member of a heretical tenth-century Bulgarian dualist sect, believing that Satan and Christ were both sons of G.o.d. A member of a heretical tenth-century Bulgarian dualist sect, believing that Satan and Christ were both sons of G.o.d.

Bosniak Current colloquial name for a Bosnian Muslim; in Turkey the term is used for any Yugoslavian Muslim-Serb or Montenegrin, too-who chose to emigrate. Current colloquial name for a Bosnian Muslim; in Turkey the term is used for any Yugoslavian Muslim-Serb or Montenegrin, too-who chose to emigrate.

Byzantium Former name of the city that was to become Constantinople and eventually modern Istanbul: the capital of the Eastern portion of the Roman Empire, which, with its h.e.l.lenistic religious traditions, survived for more than a thousand years after the collapse of Imperial Rome. Former name of the city that was to become Constantinople and eventually modern Istanbul: the capital of the Eastern portion of the Roman Empire, which, with its h.e.l.lenistic religious traditions, survived for more than a thousand years after the collapse of Imperial Rome.

Caftan A long, loose-flowing Turkish robe, favored briefly by young Westerners of indolent habits. A long, loose-flowing Turkish robe, favored briefly by young Westerners of indolent habits.

Caliph The chief civil and religious ruler in Muslim society. In the Ottoman Empire the sultan was also caliph, but when the sultanate and the caliphate were dissociated in 1922, the last ruler was reduced to being a caliph only. The chief civil and religious ruler in Muslim society. In the Ottoman Empire the sultan was also caliph, but when the sultanate and the caliphate were dissociated in 1922, the last ruler was reduced to being a caliph only.

Chetnik Serbian guerrilla fighter, often now used as a term of Muslim or Croat abuse. The word means "Yugoslav Army of the Fatherland." Serbian guerrilla fighter, often now used as a term of Muslim or Croat abuse. The word means "Yugoslav Army of the Fatherland." See also See also Partisans. Partisans.

Chinook Twin-rotor helicopter, the CH-47, made by Boeing and used for transporting troops (it can carry up to forty) and heavy materiel, including underslung vehicles. Twin-rotor helicopter, the CH-47, made by Boeing and used for transporting troops (it can carry up to forty) and heavy materiel, including underslung vehicles.

Chokidar Hindi word for "night watchman." Hindi word for "night watchman."

Constantinople Ottoman capital of Turkey, 14531923: formerly Byzantium, now Istanbul. The Orthodox Church headquarters still regards it as the city's proper name. Ottoman capital of Turkey, 14531923: formerly Byzantium, now Istanbul. The Orthodox Church headquarters still regards it as the city's proper name.

Convertible marks Currency now used in Bosnia, on a par with the deutsche mark. Currency now used in Bosnia, on a par with the deutsche mark.

Cook's Continental Former and now colloquial name for monthly European railway and ferry timetable published by Thos. Cook, carried by all seasoned travelers and homebound dreamers. The rest of the world is covered in Cook's equally legendary Former and now colloquial name for monthly European railway and ferry timetable published by Thos. Cook, carried by all seasoned travelers and homebound dreamers. The rest of the world is covered in Cook's equally legendary Overseas Timetable. Overseas Timetable.

Crna Gora The local name for Montenegro. The local name for Montenegro.

Czarigrad The name Russia planned to give to Constantinople in the event of their successful occupation of the city in 1878. The name Russia planned to give to Constantinople in the event of their successful occupation of the city in 1878.

Dayton Generally accepted name for Bosnian peace-and-part.i.tion agreement secured at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, in November 1995. Generally accepted name for Bosnian peace-and-part.i.tion agreement secured at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base near Dayton, Ohio, in November 1995.

Didicoi The Romany word for Gypsy, or Roma. The Romany word for Gypsy, or Roma.

Dinaric Alps Range of steep limestone mountains defining the Adriatic coast of the former Yugoslavia. Range of steep limestone mountains defining the Adriatic coast of the former Yugoslavia.

d.i.n.kel A wheatlike grain, grown in southern Europe, also known as spelt. A wheatlike grain, grown in southern Europe, also known as spelt.

Divan The Turkish council, which, under the chairmans.h.i.+p of the grand vizier, essentially ran the Ottoman Empire; also the long, low seat where audiences were held or judgments given. The Turkish council, which, under the chairmans.h.i.+p of the grand vizier, essentially ran the Ottoman Empire; also the long, low seat where audiences were held or judgments given.

Djukanovic, Milo The young (b. 1962) prime minister of the Yugoslav Federation's Republic of Montenegro. The young (b. 1962) prime minister of the Yugoslav Federation's Republic of Montenegro.

Doge The duke or chief magistrate of the Republics of Venice and Genoa. The duke or chief magistrate of the Republics of Venice and Genoa.

Dragoman A guide-interpreter in, generally, a Near Eastern or Islamic country. A guide-interpreter in, generally, a Near Eastern or Islamic country.

Eastern Question The former term, often used with a sense of weary exasperation, for the political problems of the Balkans and Southeastern Europe. The former term, often used with a sense of weary exasperation, for the political problems of the Balkans and Southeastern Europe.

Egnatian Way The Roman road connecting the Adriatic with the Bosporus, running from what is now Albania through Greece to Turkey. The Roman road connecting the Adriatic with the Bosporus, running from what is now Albania through Greece to Turkey.