In the Land of Lions

“Oh, look, look, the bright colors; carpets, pillowcases, gold thread…. Let’s take a closer look, we might get a few more great things to take home,” said Dora in her strongly accented English. She turned her radiant face towards Michael, happy to be there, alone with him, in the “Stanboul’s” Great Bazaar. Quite pretty, she looked much younger than her forty-one years. Everybody who met her thought she was in her twenties. Her page cut thick black hair shining under a bright red angora beret framed to perfection the expressive face highlighting her flawless, tanned complexion, rosy cheeks and big, intelligent black eyes.

“I thought you had enough of carpet and fabric shops, and especially of gold embroidered pillowcases,” Michael replied. He looked down towards her through his rimless glasses, smiling under his moustache a warm, amused smile. Although she was quite tall, at six foot two he was half a foot taller. He stood close to her and struggled with himself not to grab her in his arms. He felt a strong urge to hold her tight to his chest and kiss her, bite passionately her red, full lips… He moved farther a few inches, and turned away from her. He felt an excruciating pain to be so close, and yet so far from her. She sensed it and it pained her too...

They were both married, unfortunately not to each other, and had small children. For several months already they worked on the same project, in the same office in New York City. With each passing day their close working relationship was made more difficult by their growing attraction to each other. It was a painful, combustive situation for both, but so full of delights and imagined possibilities…

Experienced professional engineers, Dora – mechanical, and Michael – electrical, they were co-project managers for the Turkish project at Advanced Power Systems Engineering (APSE), an important, well known engineering consulting firm. Their firm had been recently awarded the contract to manage the complete design and construction of a major coal burning power plant in Eastern Turkey. Now Dora and Michael were for the first time together in Turkey, to meet the management of the client firm and start the collaboration with the Turkish engineering teams in both Ankara and Istanbul.

Dora had come to Istanbul the night before from business meetings she had in Frankfurt. Michael waited her at the airport with a small bunch of yellow mimosas. “Hi, she said, quite happy to see him, I am getting the star treatment I see.”

“It is only fitting,” he replied smiling, slightly embarrassed, his face getting flushed. “It is normal; you come here for the first time as an important person, a full-fledged project manager on a vital project for this country.”

“If you put it this way, I forgive you for bringing me flowers,” she joked smiling back and looking intently at him. “As long as they are not for my beautiful eyes…” Her voice trailed away. She felt happy and a little confused with this new intimacy.

Michael Valenski was thirty-nine, a little younger than Dora. He came to Istanbul directly from New York three days ahead of her. He had already met a few Turkish managers on the team of the Eastern Turkey Power Authority (ETPA), the Turkish company owner of the future power plant.

Both Dora and Michael were elated to have a free weekend together. They looked forward to sightsee in this fabled city, talk project and meetings strategy, dine together by candlelight in their luxurious hotel and most important be alone with each other over the weekend, for two whole days. For both, that was the priceless reward of the trip.

Saturday morning announced itself as a very beautiful winter day. When Dora came to the breakfast room of their hotel, the Istanbul Hilton, Michael was already there by the huge windows overlooking the Bosphorus straights.

“What a wonderful view,” said Dora, getting close to him. “We are so lucky with this nice weather.”

“Yes indeed, good morning, did you sleep well?” replied Michael looking intently at her.

“Of course, the room was excellent, and I was so tired after those meetings in Germany.”

“I guess you saw many beautiful days like this when you were here in ’74?”

“Yes, of course, I did and enjoyed all of them, except then I was a poor emigrant full of worries and doubts, living in the basement of a second rate hotel, not “an important person” as you called me last night, musing about the weather in the luxurious Hilton,” Dora replied smiling.

“That’s true,” he said. “Life circumstances can make a lot of difference in everything.”

Yeah, like in our relationship, she bitterly thought, but said nothing.

They sat for breakfast at a small table close to the windows. They could see the suspended bridge over the Bosphorus, uniting Europe with Asia, gracefully spanning the shiny dark waters of the narrow straights.

“What’s the plan for today?” asked Dora. “Did you have a chance to arrange something?”

“Of course, I am no project manager for nothing,” replied jokingly Michael. “The limo will come to pick us up in a half hour, and I trust you will be the most able guide to choose where we go, what to see, and in which order.”

“You are right. God knows I spent enough time in this town to know well its history and what is worth seeing. We will start with the Old Town, Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque, then Topkapi and the ruins of the wall of Constantinople, and in the end the Grand Bazaar. This, I think, will be plenty for one day. We will be very tired and hungry by the end of the day.”

They took the waiting limo and headed down the hill, over the Golden Horn Bridge, towards the Old Town, to see the museum of Hagia Sophia - the Church of the Holy Wisdom, and the other major historic sights. Their driver, Ismail, understood English rudimentary, but he hardly could speak it. He knew what tourists wanted to see, and some of the best vantage points to take them to admire the fabulous beauty of the city. He could not explain much to them, but Dora was an experienced guide.

“The town looks great, but does it still have some of the treasures of the past in good shape?” asked Michael.

“You will see; some of the buildings and walls are still there, but much was pillaged and destroyed by the many wars and invasions that took place over more than 1600 years”.

It was a gorgeous, sunny and mild winter day. The Bosphorus shimmered in the clear morning light. Its steely blue waters were crowded with many ships of all types, sizes and nationalities, going busily back and fro, blowing anxiously their horns to prevent imminent collision. The Bosphorus, a narrow strait, running almost North-South, and connecting the Black Sea, to the North, with the Sea of Marmara, to the South, was a very important body of water providing exit to the Mediterranean Sea and farther away to the Atlantic Ocean for all the countries around the Black Sea. It split the hilly, picturesque city of Istanbul in two distinct halves: to the west, the European boroughs and to the east, the Asian, Middle-Eastern ones. The famous palace of Topkapi, the sultans’ palace and the historic seat of Ottoman power, the Hagia Sophia, the most famous mosques, and the other main historic sites were all in the Old Town, on the European side.

Dora had lived in Istanbul for four months in the fall of 1973 and winter of 1974, when at twenty-five she was lucky enough to escape to the free world from communist Romania. She decided to immigrate to the United States, and had to wait several months in Istanbul for her immigration papers. She had some small financial help from the United Nations Refugee Program, but she also was lucky to find good people to help her. Through them she found work at the reception desk of a small hotel in the central part of the city, for room, board and a bit of pocket money. Although she did not know any Turkish, she could communicate with foreign tourists in English and French, languages she knew quite well. It was her job to know the main tourist attractions of the city, their schedules and locations, and recommend to hotel guests what to see, when and how, and also make reservations for them.

She had told Michael briefly about this when they started to work together, so he was aware that she spent time in Istanbul. Once in the limo he said: “I hope you’ll enlighten me as much as possible about what’s most interesting in this town.”

“Of course, gladly.” She sat next to him in the limo, as far away as she could, afraid to touch his body or hand. They never were so close together before, and she wanted to hide the best she could her feelings for him.

As a dutiful guide, she started a brief history of Istanbul: “Well, Constantinople was first chosen and developed as the capital of Byzantium, the Eastern Roman Empire, in the fourth century C.E., by Emperor Constantine, the first Christian Roman emperor, when Rome was about to fall to the barbarian invaders. Constantine also started the construction of the famous Hagia Sophia, or Saint Sophia, the biggest Christian basilica of its time and for many centuries to come. After a major fire in the middle of the sixth century, the emperor Justinian and his wife, the famous Theodora, reconstructed and beautified the basilica with magnificent domes, huge semi-precious stone columns taken from pagan Greek and Roman temples, priceless golden Byzantine mosaics and other gold and silver treasures. In the times of the Byzantine emperors, it is said that the decoration of the basilica was so rich, its icons and mosaics so full of gold and precious stones, that anybody visiting it for the first time could not believe his or her eyes.”

“Something quite interesting,” she added, “I read that in the Russian chronicles is written that in the early 10th century, the Grand Prince Vladimir of Novgorod, dissatisfied with his pagan faith, sent agents to investigate the four principal faiths of that time - Islam, Judaism, Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox Christianity. His agents were so impressed with the Byzantine Orthodox rites in Hagia Sophia, and the beauty and richness of the basilica, which they reported back to the prince Vladimir, that they recommended this faith. The prince ordered his people christened immediately, using force if necessary, and adopted Orthodox Christianity.”

“Funny way to choose a religion,” said Michael, “but, I guess as well as any.”

“Indeed,” replied Dora.

They sat in silence in the car for a while, both confused and full of desire, not daring to look at each other, admiring the passing sights of the town around them.

Back in Istanbul for the first time after sixteen years, powerful, conflicting feelings swirled in Dora’s soul and mind. She could not stop comparing the days of fear and incertitude she lived in ’74, when she had no idea what will happen to her in America, with her new reality as a professional engineer at the top of her career, with an important managerial position. After many years of grueling hard work, night classes in graduate school, and lots of exams, she was now respected and recognized for what she was, a very capable engineer and manager. She traveled for business on liberal expense accounts, in luxurious conditions; she was an American citizen, a married woman, and she had an adorable little girl. She could consider herself a very successful and lucky woman indeed.

Now I have new problems, different ones, more complicated and harder to solve. I love this man, I love Michael. How much I wish I could be his wife. My body aches with desire when I think of him, am close to him. The tragedy is, both of us are “happily married, with children”, she thought in despair.

Life was never easy or simple; she knew that very well. All the time you had to overcome new challenges, you had to suffer for one reason or another, struggle, and compromise in order to survive.

She shook her head to will away those unsettling thoughts. She did not want to think about this now. She was determined to enjoy to the fullest the resplendent day, and the moments she had alone with Michael in this magic city and not worry about anything else.

“You seem far away, deep in your thoughts,” she heard Michael saying like from very far away. “Is something wrong?” he added worried.

“No, nothing; I guess it is only normal to think about my old days here now that I am back, and the road travelled since then.” She looked out of the window. They were approaching Hagia Sophia, so she continued in her role as a tour guide:

“So, let’s continue my lecture,” she said looking at Michael. “In 1453 the Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople, after fierce battles with the soldiers and people leaving in this famous city. They sacked it, and made the rich, thriving city the capital of their empire for almost five hundred years. Hagia Sophia, stripped of its riches during the conquest, became a mosque, and a model for all the magnificent mosques constructed by the Ottomans in the following centuries. Its priceless golden religious mosaics were, wisely and luckily, plastered over by the Ottomans and not destroyed. In 1922 the city was renamed Istanbul, after the fall of the Ottoman Empire during WWI, when Turkey became a republic; in 1936, Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish Republic and its first president, had the enlightened idea to designate the basilica a museum.”

Dora continued: “since then it is open to the public, but it is in a continuous process of renovation and rediscovery of its hidden treasures. Over the years some of the Byzantine mosaics had been found and painstakingly given new life by being cleaned of the thick plaster that covered them for hundreds of years. I can’t wait to see all they discovered and rehabilitated in the years I was not here. The specialists say they are many more rediscovered and more beautiful than ever.”

“How come you know all this?” wondered Michael.

“I read National Geographic, travel guides and history books, you know,” she replied smiling.

In 1974 she often prayed in the ancient and magnificent Hagia Sophia. As an infant in Romania she was baptized in the Eastern Orthodox rite, and for her the Hagia Sophia was still a most sacred place. She very much liked to pray there, thinking of Justinian and Theodora, of all the other Byzantine emperors and empresses, and the multitudes of people who prayed there during more than a thousand years and were so brutally vanquished by the invading Turks in the 15th century. She prayed for fortitude and God’s help in the new, unknown immigrant’s life she was about to begin in the United States. Now, sixteen years later, she couldn’t wait to be back at the basilica, to give thanks for all the good things that had happened in her life since then.

On the way to the Old Town, they admired from a distance the many picturesque sights, the fairytale like mosques with their many domes and slender minarets that dotted Istanbul’s hills on both sides of the Bosphorus. On the European side, the long and narrow Golden Horn inlet separated the older and the newer town boroughs, adding charm and mystery to the city. Dora noticed with pleasure the many new, tall apartment buildings, modern office buildings and highways constructed since she had been there last. The town, always bustling, seemed more dynamic and full of life than ever. A newer, svelte, second suspension highway bridge was now spanning the Bosphorus towards the North of the city, connecting Europe and Asia.

After visiting Hagia Sophia, marveling at the many treasures of the sultans’ palace of Topkapi, and taking lots of pictures all over town, they finally arrived around 3 PM at the Grand Bazaar. For Dora, the bazaar was some sort of a huge Ali Baba’s cave, an infinite source of wonderment and pleasure. She remembered well the colorful, narrow, twisting streets leading to the bazaar, full of merchant stalls and small stores of all sorts, noisy and crowded with people; the bazaar’s many entrances, and its long, vaulted, dark corridors, in which she liked to lose herself for hours at a time. The well lit shops, full of glittering gold and silver jewelry, colored precious stones and diamonds; the luxurious caftans of rich silks and damasks; the antiques, the carpet shops, the gorgeous craft objects and wonderful Izlik ceramics, all were for her years ago sources of great esthetic pleasure and desire. She used to come often to the bazaar to admire its opulence, life and beauty. Now, she couldn’t wait to be there again.

Big was her surprise to see a brightly painted, well-lit bazaar. All the mystery and menace of the old, barely lit corridors was gone. She guessed the prosperous tourist business of the past several years, coupled with concerns for safety, must have required this new, sanitized look. Anyway, the multitude of shops was still there, offering as always many beautiful surprises. Her desire to look at everything and buy a lot was intact. And now she had all the money she needed to get anything she wished… This was nice indeed, she thought. Christmas was approaching, so she had a very good excuse to buy many presents for the dear ones back home, small souvenirs for her colleagues at work, and of course, whatever she liked for herself.

Michael was for the first time in Istanbul. He had not traveled much outside the United States, except for some time in Vietnam during the war, so everything was very new to him and made a strong impression. Here, in Istanbul, Dora seemed so much at ease and in control. She owned it. He felt awkward, on his guard, and very much led by her. He had to trust her spirit of orientation, her judgment of what to see, what and where to buy, and her expert bargaining techniques. For that, he admired and desired her even more…

Around 5:00 PM they started to feel tired and hungry. They barely could carry their bags full of gifts. They were almost at the end of one of the principal corridors. Dora glanced towards the huge vaulted entrance and saw the darkness outside. She had instructed Ismail to wait for them in the limo around that time, at that particular entrance.

“Michael, could you please see if Ismail is somewhere outside with the limo?” she asked. “We should be going soon. I feel really hungry and tired,” she continued.

“Of course; may I take your bags, so you could shop some more in the carpet shop you so much admire?” Michael grinned broadly, looking lovingly at her.

“Sure, many thanks;” he is accustomed shopping with women, housebroken, she sadly thought.

She looked after him for a while, full of desire, admiring his graceful, athletic frame carrying all those bags and moving rapidly towards the entrance, away from her. She entered in the carpet shop to her left to look and perhaps select a few more of the gold embroidered silk and velvet pillowcases from the big piles stacked in the shop. She exchanged a smile and a hello with the shop owner and started looking in earnest for her choices. She knew she had to hurry; Michael will be back shortly to pick her up.

All of a sudden, she felt lifted from the ground by strong arms, and a powerful hand pressed hard a foul smelling cloth on her nose and mouth. She felt suffocating, and tried to scream, bite, fight and kick with her arms and legs, but the strong grip and pressure on her body was overwhelming. In a very short time she felt weak, defeated by the powerful drugs she was forced to inhale. Her body became limp, and everything turned dark.