Loading ...My dream is already slipping away: but I know that I was myself, and it was Constantinople at the height of the Ottoman Empire.
I was in a mosque - whether it was the Sülemaniye mosque or another, I don’t know - and I was hiding. Prayers and sermons were in full swing, it must have been Friday. The cleric spotted me; for some reason I was not welcome in the mosque: a sniper aimed at me, and I ran. Clambering up walls, across vaulted ceilings, perhaps scaling minarets and jumping off them: Constantinople splayed itself out before my eyes closed, a glittering conception of what the Ottoman capital might have been. Along narrow high walls, with slate slabs crumblings, I ran above staggered square houses of a thousand hues, with a thousand feet below.
The narrow wall led to a footbridge, which connected to a huge suspended circle: I have no other way of describing it: an arena of woven wood, high above Constantinople, coloured circles drawn inside. On this platform were a clutch of athletes, launching themselves into the air as they practised martial arts: and their feet would crash down in a kick, smashing through small constructions of colours, shaped indescribably.
I have never been in a city so huge and colourful: I could feel it spread around me, massive, the crux of humanity. But the rulers were hostile, and I wanted only to be a friend. Perhaps I was there in the final days of 1863.
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