London-Istanbul

Just found some scribbles from last year's trip to Istanbul, from London, by rail.

"All journeys should start in Paris," she declared and gave a sly smile.

They clinked champagne glasses conspiratorially.

Later that evening, lying straight and silent in the top bunk of a six-berth cabin she felt the darkness of the German landscape, felt her body - cloaked in a white sheet - being rushed sideways towards Munich at 160km/hour.

The train was some kind of living organism - groaning, squealing, sighing. No longer the chugging or click-clacking of the TV trains but an altogether smoother, faster beast. It took in passengers at intervals, stopping beneath the bright yellow station lights. She heard the clang of metal on metal and functional calls of foreign voices as carriages were coupled or decoupled, sent off on their separate journeys.

All life seemed to be feeding and tending this willful, unswerving animal that cut through the night, pausing to swallow human morsels before racing through the towns on its restless path.

She stretched out until her feet touched the cool plastic at the foot of the bed, breathed deeply of the warm, stale exhalations from her fellow passengers and, pulling her knees up, rolled onto her right side, thrust her arm under the pillow, buried her head into the cotton and finally - with the sounds of the railway in her ears - resolved to sleep.

Expressions of Istanbul

Sounds as much as sights - the call to prayer
Mirrored from mosque to mosque - the call to buy
Repeated in interrupted interactions
Some humourous - "Come! Buy something you don't need."
Some desperate - "Please mister, a little brush, your shoes, please."

Workmen hammer at gutted houses
A curious few notes of a tram prepared to leave
The cries of gulls, fighting for fish scraps
The yowls of cats
The resolute tread of a vegetable vendor
His cart clattering on the cobbles
Car horns toot in monosyllabic conversation
Youths shout, a sporting rally of words in play

Elsewhere, lawnmowers trek back and forth in noisy zig zags
While inside, a vacuum cleaner sucks dust east to west

Silence is a mosque courtyard at prayer time
Sunlight resting tentatively on cold, light-grey stone

All at once on a rooftop
The setting sun (red as the hottest kiln)
Sinks against a ragged skyline
The call to prayer rings out by the sea of Marmara

Ay eh ay ay eh ay ay

It's joined from the Blue Mosque - as it fades
Another rises near the grand bazar
A fifth, perhaps a sixth voice
Joins the cacophony
And we?
Stand on the conductor's balcony
Assailed on all sides
By soloists oblivious to the chorus of their making.

Jessica Smith
April 2009