The Historian

“I followed her through the streets as she traced our way for us, the guidebook in her gloved hand, her small black purse over her arm. Bicycles darted past us, Ottoman robes mingled with Western dress, foreign cars and horse carts wove around one another. Everywhere I looked I saw men in dark vests and small crocheted caps, women in brightly printed blouses with ballooning trousers underneath, their heads wound in scarves. They carried shopping bags and baskets, cloth bundles, chickens in crates, bread, flowers. The streets were overflowing with life-as they had been, I thought, for sixteen hundred years. Along these streets the Roman Christian emperors had been carried by their entourages, flanked by priests, moving from palace to church to take the Holy Sacrament. They had been strong rulers, great patrons of the arts, engineers, theologians. And nasty, too, some of them-prone to cutting up their courtiers and blinding family members, in the tradition of Rome proper. This was where the original byzantine politics had played themselves out. Perhaps it wasn’t such an odd place for a vampire or two, after all.

“Helen had stopped in front of a towering, partly ruined stone compound. Shops huddled at its base and fig trees dug their roots into its flank; a cloudless sky was fading to copper above the battlements. ‘Look what remains of the walls of Constantinople,’ she said quietly. ‘You can see how enormous they were when they were intact. The book says the sea came to their feet in those days, so the emperor could embark by boat from the palace. And over there, that wall was part of the Hippodrome.’

“We stood gazing until I realized that I’d again forgotten Rossi for a whole ten minutes. ‘Let’s look for some di

“Near our pension we discovered a restaurant decorated inside with brass vases and fine tiles, with a table in the arched front window, an opening without glass where we could sit and watch people walking past on the street outside. As we waited for our di

“The waiter brought us chunks of bread, a dish of smooth yogurt studded with slices of cucumber, and a strong fragrant tea in glass vases. We ate heartily after the fatigue of the day and had just moved on to roasted chicken on wooden skewers when a man with a silver mustache and a mane of silver hair, wearing a neat gray suit, entered the restaurant and glanced around. He settled at a table near us and put a book down by his plate. He ordered his meal in quiet Turkish, then seemed to take in our pleasure in our di

“‘We certainly do,’ I answered, surprised. ‘It’s excellent.’

“‘Let me see,’ he continued, turning a handsome, mild face on me. ‘You are not from England. America?’

“‘Yes,’ I said. Helen was silent, cutting up her chicken and eyeing our companion warily.

“‘Ah, yes. How very nice. You are sightseeing in our beautiful city?’

“‘Yes, exactly,’ I concurred, wishing Helen would at least look friendly; hostility might appear suspicious somehow.

“‘Welcome to Istanbul,’ he said with a very pleasant smile, raising his glass beaker to toast us. I returned the compliment and he beamed. ‘Forgive the question from a stranger, but what do you love best here in your visit?’

“‘Well, it would be hard to choose.’ I liked his face; it was impossible not to answer him truthfully. ‘I’m most struck by the feeling of East and West blending in one city.’

“‘A wise observation, young man,’ he said soberly, patting his mustache with a big white napkin. ‘That blend is our treasure and our curse. I have colleagues who have spent a lifetime studying Istanbul, and they say they will never have time to explore all of it, although they are living here always. It is an amazing place.’

“‘What is your profession?’ I asked curiously, although I had the sense from Helen’s stillness that she would step on my foot under the table in another minute.

“‘I am a professor at Istanbul University,’ he said in the same dignified tone.

“‘Oh, how extremely lucky!’ I exclaimed. ‘We are -’ Just then Helen’s foot came down on mine. She wore pumps, like every woman in that era, and the heel was rather sharp. ‘We are very glad to meet you,’ I finished. ‘What do you teach?’

“‘My speciality is Shakespeare,’ said our new friend, helping himself carefully to the salad in front of him. ‘I teach English literature to the most advanced of our graduate students. They are valiant students, I must tell you.’

“‘How wonderful,’ I managed to say. ‘I am a graduate student myself, but in history, in the United States.’

“‘A very fine field,’ he said gravely. ‘You will find much to interest you in Istanbul. What is the name of your university?’

“I told him, while Helen sawed grimly away at her di

“‘An excellent university. I have heard of it,’ observed the professor. He sipped from his vase and tapped the book by his plate. ‘I say!’ he exclaimed finally. ‘Why don’t you come to see our university while you are in Istanbul? It is a venerable institution also, and I would be pleased to show you and your lovely wife around.’

“I registered a faint snort from Helen and hurried to cover for her. ‘My sister-my sister.’

“‘Oh, I beg your pardon.’ The Shakespeare scholar bowed to Helen over the table. ‘I am Dr. Turgut Bora, at your service.’ We introduced ourselves-or I introduced us, because Helen kept obstinately silent. I could tell she didn’t like my using my real name, so I quickly gave hers as Smith, a piece of dull-wittedness that drew an even deeper frown from her. We shook hands all around, and there was nothing for us to do but to invite him to join us at our table.

“He protested politely, but only for a moment, and then sat down with us, bringing along his salad and his glass vase, which he immediately raised on high. ‘A toast to you and welcome to our fair city,’ he intoned. ‘Cheerio!’ Even Helen smiled slightly, although she still said nothing. ‘You must forgive my lack of discretion,’ Turgut told her apologetically, as if sensing her wariness. ‘It is very rare that I have the opportunity to practice my English with native speakers.’ He had not yet noticed that she wasn’t a native speaker-although he might never notice that in Helen, I thought, because she might never utter a word to him.

“‘How did you come to specialize in Shakespeare?’ I asked him as we began to eat our di

“‘Ah!’ Turgut said softly. ‘That is a strange story. My mother was a very unusual woman-brilliant-a great lover of languages, as well as a diminutive engineer’-Distinguished?I wondered-‘and she studied at the University of Rome, where she met my father. He, the delectable man, was a scholar of the Italian Renaissance, with a particular lust for -’

“At this very interesting point, we were suddenly interrupted by the appearance of a young woman peering in the arched window from the street. Although I’d never seen one, except in pictures, I took her for a Gypsy; she was dark ski