Stefano Conti - I Am The Emperor

A never-ending hour goes by, locked up in that room: I don’t know what could happen to me. Suddenly I hear the sound of heels approaching from afar, it stops, undefined voices can be heard, and the heels keep coming closer…

«Good morning, my name is Francesco Speri» I say standing up.

A girl around 35 comes in, short, with long hair: «Good morning, my name is Chiara Rigoni, I am the interpreter from the embassy».

I shake her hand a long time, as if I wanted to grasp onto it as to a lifeline: «I don’t understand what happened! They have been talking a lot between themselves, I don’t know about what, and then they locked me up here and…»

The officer, who is now bending on the door side in a nonchalant way, interrupts me talking in Turkish to the newcomer.

«They clarify that you weren’t locked up; you were here waiting for me. In any case I’m going to talk to lieutenant Karim» says this girl, Chiara, going out.

Is she Italian or Turkish? Her pale skin and blond hair, even if not completely natural, do not let you opt for the Turkish option, but her ways, too formal, have nothing to do with the Italians. Anyways, black moustache is a lieutenant!

In the meanwhile, the officer got back to standing in the middle of the way: they might have not lock me up, but I still feel like suffocating. A sudden doubt: «Excuse-me, you understand Italian, then?»

He denies a monotonous way, hence confirming my suspect. I stood up to ask him that question, but with a despotic gesture he “suggests” going back to my place; I don’t see the point in arguing, so I crouch back down.

The long wait, afraid of what might happen if I stand up, gives me a sudden image of one of the many Sundays spent looking at the match from the bench of my team when I was a kid: I wanted but feared at the same time, the moment I would be called in.

I never was strong as a football player and in a country like Italy, I must admit, it is almost heresy: a man, as such, must be able to play. I tried as a forward, since anyone who plays soccer only has one purpose: strike a goal. I soon realised that I rarely achieved it and sooner than me the coach, who put me in midfield. With the new coach (bleachers are not only volatile in first league) I was immediately moved to defence, where I learnt one only move: throw myself into a slide to the floor when the forward came; generally, I missed the ball and, luckily, also the opponent’s legs. It was the only thing I could do, so that they moved me even more to the back: goalkeeper. I could not go further, unless I became a ball boy: humiliation from which I escaped, leaving the team beforehand. But for at least one year I got to be goalkeeper, or better, assistant goalkeeper. Nowadays in first league goal posts you find many youngsters, surrounded by top-models, but at the time nobody wanted to take that place (you could not score from there) and only the “goofiest” of the team was sent there. Well, lucky me, I was his assistant!

I stand up from the Turkish customs “bleachers” only when I hear the stamping of the heels again…

«Everything’s fine: I will accompany you now to request a temporary document for your stay here. You will get your passport back on Monday» says the interpreter.

«What’s wrong?»

«Just a background check» she tries to calm me, making me more anxious. «Lieutenant Karim needs to wait permission to release form the Ministry, which will only open on Monday. In the meanwhile, we must speed to the embassy: they close in an hour.»

I follow her grey striped suit outside that terrible place. Taxis in Turkey are yellow, as in most parts of the world, but this one is of an unexpected pastel pink colour. The girl is nice but distant; while she distractedly looks outside the window, I get her to be on first name terms with me for the rest of the trip. In few words she tells me her parents are Italian, but she was born and raised in Turkey: she learned Italian from them. They own an ice-cream parlour in a small village near Ankara, but never adapted to speaking Turkish.

«I’d like to visit Italy: Venice, Padua, Iesolo, Oderzo…»

We might have some other nice cities, in Tuscany and the rest of the peninsula, but I sense that her parents are Venetians and I won’t argue. In Germany too all ice-cream parlours belong to Venetians: that region seems to be for the cone, what Campania is for the pizza.

At the embassy they give me a piece of paper. It should grant me to circulate freely, but seeing how the trip started…

«I don’t think I will go very far with this document. I’m not here on holiday, but to take back to Italy the corpse of my professor, alias ex-boss…»

«Is he buried in Ankara?» she asks, not fully understanding.

«Luigi Barbarino, that’s his name, died one week ago, while digging an archaeological site: Tarsus. I need to go there to get the corpse back…»

«A friend of mine lives in Tarsus… actually, an ex-friend: he can help you. He’s an engineer in a petrochemical plant. I’ll give you the address» she says tearing a page off her agenda and scribbling on it.

I would not take too much advantage, but: «Thanks, but how do I do with the language?»

«He speaks Italian well» she says almost angry. «I taught him.»

«Could you give me his mobile phone number, so I can give him a call from here?»

«Actually, I deleted it, but if you go to this address you’ll find him for sure. Say that Chiara sent you.»

She treats me like a child: she takes me to the bus station, gets a ticket on my name and puts me on a coach. Her perfume is a blend of Oriental mysteries. I go away, but not before having written on a paper my phone number.

From outside the bus to Tarsus looks nice, in its 60’s style and as soon as I get on, I understand it really is still in that years. Moreover, everyone smokes: the air is unbreathable. Luckily in the sixties you could still open the windows: I spend the six hours journey with my head outside, just like dogs do (who knows why!). With my head out like that, I can see Ankara, until now I just knew its sad looking offices. The buildings remind me of the endless stretch of grey London houses, with one difference: here they are crumbling! For a moment I erase homes and mosque’s domes and try in vain to see the column that the city of Ancyra (Ankara in roman times) built to honour the emperor Flavius Claudius Iulianus .

Dear Julian!

I’ve really been obsessing over the last pagan emperor of the roman era for ages now: when I worked at the University, I wrote several articles and a couple of books about him. His conversion from Christianity to paganism caused him to be named the Apostate and for all his short life he tried to attract new worshippers, reforming the traditional religion: his utopia was to get the whole empire, now unavoidably Christian, back to its pagan roots. The whole reason of his charm to me is here: Emperor Julian wanted to change the world, without realising that the world had changed already, but in a different direction and there was no going back. While I was still on the plane, I promised myself that the philosopher emperor’s column would be the first thing I’d see in Ankara, but with all that bureaucratic mess…

It is actually Julian the reason I came to Turkey: the official mission is to get back the remainders of poor Barbarino, but I’m here mostly to see the dear emperor’s tomb, never found until now, and that the professor, shortly before his death, told me in a letter he had finally discovered!

The bus is proceeding at a high speed on an endless desert plain. I fall asleep imagining to be in one of those American movies where the protagonist travels the States coast to coast.

Meanwhile in Ankara, lieutenant Karim, the one from that never ending afternoon at the customs, gets back home where his two sons are waiting for him; their mother left years ago.