Wrought-Iron Fire Poker / Okan Üstünkök

 

WROUGHT-IRON  FIRE  POKER    

"If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging above the fireplace,

that rifle absolutely must go off latest by the final chapter.  

If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there."   Chekov

 

                                                  

Karşıyaka, İzmir. Monday, 10:25 a.m.

Archaeologist James Ellmaart, who had swiftly attained significant reknown through his excavations in Turkey,  did not pay much attention to the features of the suburban house in Karşıyaka as he went inside with the owner after a very enjoyable breakfast in the garden. He had little interest in the present day architecture. To him, the house was a stucco building with stone jambs and quoins, that was all. Since  most of the windows and metal shutters were tightly closed, the interior was dim and cool. The room Ellmaart and  his elderly host entered from the central hall was apparently not in frequent use.  Its furniture consisted only of an old desk, a worn-out office chair, a stained carpet,  and a dresser with oversized drawers. In front of the simple, utilitarian fireplace stood a set of wrought-iron tools: a pair of tongs, a short-handled shovel, and a heavy, crudely made fire poker.

 

Ankara. The evening before, 7:17 p.m.

Ellmaart arrived at the train station in a taxi far ahead of the scheduled departure time. He was going to İzmir on the night train to attend an archaeological  convention.  The lofty,  almost exaggerated  ceiling height of the marble-clad, spacious main hall of the station dwarfed the ticket windows tucked into the  side walls, he always felt. Having purchased his ticket days before, he walked directly towards the clean little restaurant next to the heavy double swinging doors opening onto the platforms. He knew from his previous journeys that the place did not offer a rich menu but the service was  far better than that on the train. Ellmaart entered and, with nobody else dining, was immediately shown a table by the window. He was pleased to see  the usual starched table clothes and clean, white napkins. A  well-groomed waiter quickly came and  took  his order of soup, salad, and toasts. As his food was brought to the table, a good-looking young woman also came into the restaurant and sat down. Ellmaart ate fairly quickly, paid,  and left. There was still plenty of time to departure but he was not one to  loiter along the concourse and there was no point in sitting idly  in the restaurant.  He proceeded to the platform through the dimly lit underpass. The train was ready for boarding.

The young conductor of the sleeper car ushered  Ellmaart in and led him to his compartment. The ticket price for sleeper compartments on Turkish railroads being rather steep, Ellmaart knew that people preferred the cheaper pullman seats and that there would hardly be anybody else in the sleeper coach at this time of the year. Indeed, what with the summer gone and schools started, travel had already pretty much dwindled.

As Ellmaart thanked  the conductor and was about to enter his compartment he saw the woman at the restaurant coming from the far end of the narrow corridor. Apparently she was going to be a fellow passenger. The conductor tipped his hat and moved on to assist her. Ellmaart went in, shut the compartment’s door, took off his jacket and sat down. He had recently closed the season’s work in what was already shown to be  one of the oldest known human settlements in the world. This year’s  results were again astounding and he was eager to resume work in the spring.

It was too early to sleep. Several minutes later the archaeologist got up, put his jacket back on and,  with his notebook in his hand, walked towards the diner to have a nightcap before turning in. The tables have already been readied but there was nobody in sight. After he sat down,  a waiter appeared from the kitchen at the back. Ellmaart asked for coffee. Before the waiter went away the door opened and the woman whom he already saw twice this evening looked in.  Ellmaart felt that she would have gone away if there was nobody else. Seeing him, however, she came in and sat at the next table. When she leaned over to rest her obviously expensive purse on the far side of the table, Ellmaart noticed her bracelet. It was an ivory and gold job with a highly unique design. It was clearly old, very old, and had features that were oddly alien to the archaeologist. At this point he had grown so curious that, at the risk of being abrupt, if not downright impolite, he had to find out:

-“I am awfully sorry Madam, I don’t mean to intrude  but may I ask where you bought that interesting bracelet?

Since he has been working in the country for some years now, Ellmaart had acquired a somewhat workable knowledge of the language but the woman responded in English.

-“I did not buy it anywhere. This is a piece from our family heirloom.”

-“Oh, I see that you have a good command of English. Do I understand that you have  more pieces like this, then?”

-“Indeed we do.”

-“Really? Where do you keep them? In a safe vault, I hope.”

-“Not really. They are in my father’s house, in Karşıyaka, which is safe enough.’’

-‘’Dear lady, I apologize for my forwardness but, you see, I am an archaeologist and, naturally, such things are of professional interest to me. I must admit I have never seen anything like your bracelet before. It looks very very old and I would love to see the rest of the pieces if at all possible.’’

-‘’Well, perhaps I can arrange something. Do you live in İzmir?’’

-‘’No, I don’t. I am only going there for a convention.’’

-‘’Well, if you tell me which hotel you’d be staying at, I can contact you after I consult my father.’’

-‘’I have another idea. I don’t have to check in my hotel  immediately and the conference will not start until the next day. I have time. If it is all the same to you,  I can get off at Karşıyaka and come with you to be there when you talk to your father, just to put his mind at rest, should he have any reservations. Needless to say, I would not want him to say no. I am sure you’d understand.’’

The young woman said ‘’ well,  I guess we can do that’’ with a faint smile of something like satisfaction on her face.  Ellmaart did not notice that.

Meanwhile, the train had pushed off and was already gathering speed. As a child, the rhythmic rattle of the rails always had a peculiar, pacifying effect on Ellmaart, not unlike that of a mother’s heartbeat for a baby. The railroads in his home country were quiter now but  not yet here. He remembered the trains of his childhood as he went on sipping his coffee.

-‘’How long did you say you would stay in İzmir?’’

The young woman’s question took Ellmaart away from his childhood rememberances.

-‘’The convention is scheduled for three days but there are usually additional meetings and such stuff afterwards. I’ll see.’’

-‘’Don’t you have a return ticket?’'

-‘’I thought I could easily buy it in İzmir once I know the details of the post-convention engagements.’’

-‘’Fine, in that case maybe you can afford to stay with us for some time.’’

-‘’Maybe. Thanks. I wouldn’t want to impose but that’s  very kind of you, I must say.’’

They did not talk much afterwards. The young woman buried herself in her book while Ellmaart reviewed his notes. Yet, he could not help but occasionally take a glance sideways at the bracelet. He sensed that the young woman was also looking at him from time to time but he did not read much into that.  As an ageing, balding scholar  he was mature enough to know that a young,  attractive, and apparently wealthy woman would not necessarily be interested in him.

In the full hour that it took to reach the provincial town of Polatlı, nobody came to the diner except two shy and self-conscious  adolescent girls asking for bottled water.

Ellmaart had been to Polatlı before. It was the site of the ancient city of Gordium where Alexander the Great had reputedly sliced through the famous knot with his sword. Archaeological excavations were carried out by a team from the United States.  They had their base camp in the modern-day village of Yassıhöyük, named after the adjacent mound which was the burial place of a Phrygian king. The team had excavated their way to  the burial chamber deep within the artificial mound a few years prior to Ellmaart’s visit to the area. Since then the chamber was kept open to visitors with the end result that  the huge wooden beams used in its construction thus remained exposed to the dry air of the Anatolian heartland.  In a very short time the natural moisture evaporated out  of the enclosure and the drying timbers   had quickly shrunk and shrivelled. Elmaart was seriously concerned that the weakened structure could collapse under the weight of the mound above and  felt  fortunate that there were no  such serious conservation issues in his own work-site.

The young conductor of the sleeper coach came in and announced a prolonged wait due to a  slow freight train negoatiating the single-track stretch of the railroad between Polatlı and the next town. ‘’I have opened up your berths so you may retire anytime you wish but the diner will close up shortly’’ he pointed out. The woman and the archaeologist took the conductor’s polite hint and stood up to leave. As the young woman  was entering her compartment, two doors down, she turned  back to say ‘’good night. I’ll ask the conductor to wake us up before we reach Karşıyaka tomorrow. See you in the morning.’’

-‘’Oh dear! We could have told the man when he was already  in the diner.’’

-‘’Not to worry. I have something for him and he’ll come by later anyway.’’ 

-‘’Very well then. Good night and thanks.’’

                                                                             

Karşıyaka Train Station. Monday  9:15 a.m.

Ellmaart and the young woman got off the train together when it came to a slow halt at Karşıyaka’s historic train station. As they were about to enter the building the woman turned and waved at the young conductor and the young man  smiled back.

In front of the station building there were hackneys, locally referred to as phaetons, waiting. The young woman led Ellmaart to the head of the line. They climbed in and sat on the cheap-looking faux leather seats. The driver pulled the reins and, to prompt the drowsy horses, made a sound through his teeth, a sound which clearly did not exist in the alphabet, any alphabet. As they moved away, the stable–like  smell of the cab stop  was left behind and Ellmaart started paying attention to the click-clacking of horseshoes on the well-paved road.

It was a beautiful, fresh autumn day. The archaeologist had not seen these parts of İzmir before. The carriage crossed over the railroad tracks and continued to the section called Dedebaşı. Then it turned into a side street at the corner of a school building where uniformed boys and girls were just beginning to gather for the morning classes. The houses on the street were all single storeyed and had nice, well-kept gardens. The woman asked the driver to stop in front of number 127.  As they stepped down an old man with a gentle face came out to the gate. He was obviously the young woman’s father. Somehow he showed no sign of surprise that his daughter brought home a stranger. Ellmaart briefly introduced himself in Turkish but the old man, like his daughter, bested him with his fluent, flawless English to welcome him to his house.

Breakfast was ready under the arbor. The cool shade of the garden was filled with the faint aroma of the  freshly brewed tea, fused with that of the sesame seeds of local bagels, the Turkish simit which were commonly referred to as gevrek in Izmir. Ellmaart felt good after the not-so-comfortable night journey. As they sat down and began sipping their tea, the young woman mentioned the archaeologist’s interest in the bracelet. Ellmaart had the impression that the old man looked unaffected, indifferent. In fact he almost  appeared to be expecting it. He only smiled a little and left the table to wobble towards the kettle to top up his cup. He also picked up a plate of cheese from the service tray and brought it to the table.

-‘’This is the famous helloumi cheese of Cyprus. If you’ve never tried it before, I would very much recommend that you do’’, he said, casually.

-‘’Are you from the island, then?’’

-‘’No, I am not. I was born here but my parents have emigrated from different  godforsaken places during one  war or another. The records do not go back far enough and what exists is not really reliable. The fact of the matter is that we hardly know who we are.’’

-‘’Yes, I think I understand. Wars, migrations, all that dismay, distress. Disasterous, isn’t it?’’

-‘’It is indeed, but people do not dwell on these much. When there is so much death in wars, those who manage to remain alive are usually considered fortunate, as if staying alive and becoming a migrant is an easy thing to do..’’

-‘’I am sorry if I have touched upon a sore spot there.’’

-‘’No, no, no, please don’t be. This is how things have happened in the past and one cannot alter history, no matter what.  Facts are facts. There is nothing to be done.   I am the one who should apologize for having painted  an unnecessarily  gruesome picture. I really did not mean to.

 On that note, if you’ve finished your tea let’s go in. I’ll show you the stuff you are here for.’’

-‘’I’ll very much appreciate that. Thank you.’’

 

10:26 a.m.

When they entered the house proper, the old man opened the door to one of the rooms. He did not open the windows or shutters but switched on the desk lamp instead. He then went to the dresser, pulled out the top drawer and brought it to the table. It was a sizeable drawer, chock full of jewellery and other artifacts, all of which were similar in style to the bracelet worn by the young woman. Ellmaart had never before seen the likes of these. They were not forgeries and they were thousands of years old, he could tell. In absolute awe, he sat himself on the chair and started examining them very carefully. He could immediately realize that if published, these would send a shockwave across the archaeological world. Ellmaart brought out his notebook and, in his excitement,  uttered a few mere words of cursory request for permission before he began sketching and making notes, almost oblivious to the presence of his kind and elderly host.  The man  was watching Ellmaart’s enthusiasm silently, with lines on his wrinkled face gradually turning  harsher.  In the pale light reflecting from the desk lamp, he did not anymore look as kind. He stayed motionless a little longer before starting to move slowly towards the fireplace. From his pocket he pulled out a pair of work gloves, put them on, and bent down to pick up the wrought-iron fire poker.  Then he turned and walked back to  the desk where Ellmaart was sitting at. The lamp threw sufficient light onto the drawer but the archeologist’s neck and thinning hair at the back of his head were in the shade. As the old man came close enough he lifted the  heavy poker above his shoulders, all calm and quiet as if he had done this many times before, and brought it down swiftly and with a great deal of force on Ellmaart’s exposed neck. Once, twice, three times… The archaeologist made a gurgling sound as he slid down to the floor and collapsed at the foot of the desk, a lifeless heap. 

The old man took the work gloves off, lifted up the drawer and slid it back into the dresser with ease. He then switched off the desk lamp before placing the poker in its stand in front of the fireplace and  walked out of the room to join his daughter in the garden. She was  enjoying a fresh cup of tea. The old man sat opposite her. 

-‘’This one went down in three strikes’’, he said almost joyfully. ‘’Not bad, really. The goofy antiques dealer who came with you last time had taxed me more. Pour me  some tea before I take this one down to the basement. Mind you, however, that there isn’t any more room there to bury anyone else. What would  you suggest?’’

-‘'How about aunt Elna’s house? We could use that, could we not?’’

-‘’Splendid idea! We’ll do that. Her basement is much larger and she hardly uses it. When is the next convention of these guys?’’

-‘’They said February. I’ll have to phone Ankara to get the exact dates. It would be nice if I  could run into the same conductor then, though.’’

-‘’Oh, I see you had a good time with him. That’s great. I am happy for you. You are like your mother. She used to  enjoy her little affairs on the night train, too.‘’

 

           -----------------------------------

There is indeed an archaeologist with a similar name who had attained considerable fame through his work and excavations in Turkey: James Mellaart (1925 -2012). Owing to mounting allegations of irregularities in Mellaart’s work sites Turkish authorities initiated a criminal investigation after an article he gave to the weekly Illustrated London News  about some gold and ivory figurines and jewelry pieces of undisclosed origin which were never officially reported.  During questioning Mellaart cited in his defense a chance encounter with a young woman he met on the night train to İzmir where, he claimed, he was shown unique archaeological material in the woman’s Karşıyaka house. His testimony was summarily dismissed as fabricated and fictitious and, at the end, his permit was revoked and his work in Turkey terminated. He was eventually declared persona non grata and deported. (For further details see Pearson, Kenneth and Patricia Connor, The Dorak Affair. London:  Michael Joseph Publishers, 1967) It should be added in passing that after his demise, a number of Mellaart’s archaeological  "discoveries" were proven to have been faked and forged, adding further blemish to his name, his academic status, and his fame.              

Needless to say, except for the passages on the Ankara  Railway Station building, the Phyrigian tomb in Yassıhöyük,  and the phaetons of İzmir, this story, too, is a total fabrication.  It bears  absolutely no real connection to James Mellaart who died of natural causes in London on 29 July 2012.

OÜ