The Sultan of Byzantium Read Free

would just chuckle when I became flustered over the number of errands he’d asked me to do. In the middle of his desk stood an antique French clock. I watched open-mouthed as the rainbow-colored mechanical bird in its gilded cage oscillated right to left with every second ticked off. Master Panayot’s heart stopped ticking five days after he gave me the watch left him by his father. He had no children; he was the last link in the chain of the Stilyanidis family, who had been watchmakers for four generations. After he died his widow sold their building to my mother and went home to Chios with the rest of her husband’s ancient clocks and watches.
     
    *
    When people asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I answered impatiently, ‘A watchmaker.’ When my grandmother inquired what subject I wanted to study I said, ‘Semiology,’ and paused. My ideal was to be Umberto Eco’s student at the University of Bologna. Haji Ulviye, discovering that semiology meant sign language, asked whether I was an idiot. Then, with my mother’s connivance, she made an offer: if I chose engineering or business she would underwrite my education in America. With Eugenio’s guidance – he’d taken a PhD from Berkeley – I applied to a dozen schools. At the insistence of Selçuk Altun I added Columbia to the list at the last minute. When the letter of acceptance from Columbia University Department of Economics arrived, I read it three times, at different hours of the day.
    It was only later when I was filling in the registration forms that I learned Columbia was in New York City. For my four undergraduate years I lived in an encyclopaedic city. I saw that actually it was only the rich and the daring poor who enjoyed New York; the rest of us had to be satisfied with philosophizing the ordinary.
    The years went by quickly, with no love stories and adventures and before I knew it I was flying home to Turkey with a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University. Was it me or my country that something had happened to? On boarding the plane to Istanbul from New York, I wondered what irritating headlines full of trivialities I would encounter on landing. A great many of my fellow citizens seemed to feel no worse about the constantly updated corruption than about a missed goal by their favorite football team. In truth, they didn’t even read the newspapers, just glued themselves passionately to the TV soap operas. I was prejudiced about the Parliament they’d elected, too.
    I took a job in the investment department of a big bank to appease my family. But I couldn’t endure my blockheaded colleagues or the clumsy management. Besides, I have to admit, I hated taking orders. At the end of my first month I resigned, certain my grandmother’s would declare: ‘Just like his grandfather.’
    I thought I might try an academic career in economics. Haji Ulviye liked serious titles like Governor/General/Professor. She agreed to finance my sojourns outside the country so long as the process ended in a professorship. My favorite Columbia professor was Assael Farhi, the son of an Istanbul Balat family, who used to teach on a doctoral program at the London School of Economics. I applied and was accepted for the winter term, which meant my current ‘holiday’ was extended for three months. I went to Italy for two weeks. There I dropped in on Elsa, who was running an art gallery in Venice. She shared her spooky mansion with a woman artist who smelled of paint thinner.
    ‘You look like one of those antique Mediterranean gentlemen,’ the artist said, ‘the type that women would just love to exterminate.’
    Over dinner at the mansion Elsa filled me in on Alberto. He had emigrated to Australia and was now teaching chemistry at a Sydney high school. His wife worked in the human resources department of a hospital and was six years older than he. I booked a ticket to Australia, excited to see Alberto again, but things did not go well. His wife did not miss a