Tribes with Flags: Adventure and Kidnap in Greater Syria. Charles Glass
colourful stone, whether carved into statues or broken into pieces for the mosaics, depicted a joyous, rapturous existence of gods, goddesses, heroes and nymphs in a lush, fertile land, the religion of the Hellenes taken over by the Roman conquerors. On wall after wall were depictions of Dionysus, in a chariot drawn triumphantly by two lions, drunkenly supporting himself on the shoulder of a handsome boy, even more drunkenly asleep or at the height of his powers chasing the luscious Ariadne. There were pictures of Zeus threatening with his axe in one hand and his lightning-bolts in the other, Zeus the eagle carrying off the beautiful Ganymede as his mother and father watched helplessly, Zeus the father of all. Perseus was freeing Andromeda, Echo was in love with Narcissus, who preferred his own reflection, and Apollo was seeking the ingenuous wood-nymph Daphne. Most of the mosaics came from the woodland retreat named for Daphne at Harbiye, a few miles outside Antioch. It was in Harbiye that Daphne was metamorphosed into a laurel tree while on her flight from Apollo’s attentions. The mosaics had come to the museum, but the laurels grew there still.
In one room of the museum, where Agamemnon was sacrificing his daughter Iphigenia to Artemis and satyrs were struggling with hermaphrodites, a class of ten-year-old children listened attentively to their teacher, taking notes as she spoke in Turkish. The children wore black smocks, the boys’ down to their waists and the girls’ to the knees, over tattered jeans and cords. They were quiet when the teacher lectured, but, when she left them to inspect the works of art on their own, they frolicked playfully among the statuary of Greek heroes and the mosaics of forgotten deities.
Outside the museum, I heard the strains of a marching band similar to the triumphal music which had been playing outside the hotel on my first morning in Alexandretta. When I went out to look, the steps of the museum were crowded with people, as were the other corners of the square in front of the post office, the cinema and the grand Ottoman municipality building. The whole square was “stuffed” with people, as though it were one great outdoor dolma. Of Antioch’s total population of 100,000, less than its number in antiquity, at least ten per cent were there in the heat of the afternoon sun, talking, laughing or humming along with the music. At a command, everyone in the crowd suddenly stopped and stood to attention. After a few seconds’ quiet, the orchestra began to play the national anthem. It was a solemn moment, thousands of people standing motionless and silent. The anthem ended, and they began talking and relaxing again.
In the centre of the square, next to the large statue of Atatürk astride a horse, its forelegs high in the air as the father of the nation galloped into their lives, a platform had been erected. Both platform and statue were decorated with wreaths and flags. A nine-year-old boy ascended the dais and, to the applause of the crowd, recited a poem. He was followed by another young boy, who delivered a fiery speech. The only words I could understand in his soliloquy, which sounded at least as portentous as Mark Antony’s funeral oration for Julius Caesar, were place names – Türkiye, Antakya, Alanya. It was stirring stuff, and from the appreciation of the crowd it was clear that rhetoric had not died in the city where rival sophists of the fourth century had perfected the art of argument. The boy’s seemed to be the words which made men march to war.
Pressed against the door of the museum by the crowd, I asked a woman what was happening. She looked at me dismissively and said, “Turizm Bayram.” So, Tourism Week had begun. How were the thousands of Turks gathered at the feet of Atatürk to know I was the only tourist in their midst? Did it matter?
AD MEMORIAM “II” BASILII NOVARIENSIS ORD. MINOR CAP. MISSIONARII APOSTOLICI/Ob Zelum Dilatande Fidei ANTIOCHIAE Missionem Fundavit ANNO MDCCCXLVI/Ideoque Ibidem In Odium Fidei Catholicae Maridie Cultura Jugulutus est Anno Dni MDCCLI–IV Idus Maii AEtatis suae XLVII/Prope ha Sanctuarium exuviae ejus sepultae sunt.
The marble tombstone lay for nearly a century over the grave of Father Basilio Novariensio, until the Christian cemetery had been destroyed. It had been moved from church to church, and its latest resting place was the wall in Father Ferrari’s kitchen. In the small vaulted room, with its old stove and chopping-block, Father Ferrari was preparing dinner. I leaned against a counter-top, hoping to be invited to eat, and read the inscription on the tombstone. I asked the priest what had happened to his 19th-century predecessor.
“Padre Novariensio received some Orthodox young men into the Catholic Church,” he said, chopping celery and onions as he spoke. “One night, some Turks came to the old church and found the sister in the kitchen. They asked her if they could see the church building. She found Padre Novariensio, who took them into the church.”
“And then?”
Father Ferrari began slicing tomatoes. “Then, when he was standing with his back to them, they took a knife and slit his throat.” He passed the knife across his own throat as he said it, then put the knife down next to the sliced tomatoes. “They left the knife on a window-ledge, and Padre Novariensio bled to death. When the nun found him, he was already dead.”
“Who killed him?”
“No one was ever caught,” he said. “It was believed at that time and now that the Orthodox families paid the murderers. Povero Padre Novariensio.”
Father Ferrari boiled water and began pouring the vegetables into the pot. “You like zuppa?” he asked.
Without my having noticed, Sister Barbara had come in and set an extra place at the table for me. Neither of them said anything about it. There was no sign of the old woman.
“Where is Nasra?” I asked.
“She has gone to the Orthodox church,” Father Ferrari said, smiling mischievously.
“Is that funny?” I asked him.
“She’s a Catholic. All the Catholics who think our church is too poor for them go to the Orthodox church. The new Christianity.”
“Do any of the more humble Orthodox come to you?”
“Some of the younger ones,” Barbara said. “The Orthodox say the Mass in Arabic, and many of the youngsters come here because they know only Turkish.”
Earlier in the evening I had attended Mass, which Father Ferrari said in Turkish for a tiny congregation. The words of his sermon were Turkish, but his gestures were unmistakably Italian.
He poured us glasses of red wine and took slices of prosciutto from the refrigerator. “Presents from Italy,” he explained. He laid the slices out on a plate, then prepared a salad and grilled pieces of chicken, all the while talking as though he were doing nothing at all. He clearly enjoyed cooking.
“Do you always cook?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “I’m not always here. My parish is very large, all over Hatay.”
“Usually, Nasra and I are alone,” Barbara said.
“Nasra is out tonight, and I like cooking. So, I cook.”
As we sat down to eat, the lights went out. The kitchen was suddenly dark, save for a hint of moonlight through the garden window. “Oh,” Barbara said, “the electricity has gone again.”
“Your electricity?”
“Antioch’s electricity,” she said. “It usually goes for only a few hours.”
She and Father Ferrari began searching for candles. “Good thing we’re in a church,” I said, when they returned with nearly a dozen long wax candles which they placed in different corners of the kitchen and at the centre of the table. When all the candles were lit, the room seemed almost magical. The faces of the old priest and the young novice were transformed, deep shadows emphasising every feature, their hairlines, their eye-sockets, their mouths and noses all in contrasting shadows and the rich oranges of the candle light. Father Ferrari allowed me the honour of saying grace.
“Bless us, O Lord,” I recited, “and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive, from Thy bounty through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
“I brought some of the candles,” Barbara said, “from the front of the statues in the church. The little children in this quarter are afraid of the statues.”
“Why?”