TE16 Turkish Delight

Zeynep Çolakğlu to study its baroque style, New Mosque with its emphasis on height, St. Antoine Church to see its neo-gothic architecture and Fener Greek Patriarchate to especially study its library. My friend took photographs and notes at length at every stop. Just as I was thinking that his list was completed, he insistently said that we had to go to Basilica Cistern, that he wished to see Medusa, for it had an important place according to the cult he believed in, and that he couldn’t leave this city without touching her. Everyday hundreds of tourists came to Istanbul, touched Medusa and took photos with her. I didn’t understand what the point was in rendering it that mystical. But that day, I saw a wild desire ablaze in those wet, blue eyes that would warm me inside and were the symbol of innocence. As I was discussing the absurdity of this, as if he had read my mind, he said, “Me touching it is different than all the others,” and didn’t talk about this subject ever again. Yet, during his visit we couldn’t spare time and go there. During his stay, every night he got drunk with a special liquor he had brought that he called Ambrosia 1 , and stripping me naked in the dark, he watched me under the moonlight. He was saying that he was feeling an incredible pleasure in watching the dance of the moonlight on my body and comparing my long, wavy hair to snakes curling up on my body. The melancholy in his eyes had affected me deeply. We had found a room close by the Galata Tower. It was dark and isolated enough for us and camouflaged in a way that the moment we stepped outside we would blend into the crowd. Shopkeepers around were accepting our requests with a smile as if they were enjoying our strangeness, and asking a 1. Ambrosia: God’s liquor that bestows immortality on to the one who drinks it in Ancient Greece. 248