Free The Sultan of Byzantium by Selcuk Altun Page B

biological term that means, ‘the interaction between two different species as they live together.’ If you take this into consideration regarding GODOT, you can see that the words GOD and (idi)OT are intermingled. It may also be easily understood that the leading characters, Vladimir and Estragon, were acting out ‘God’ and ‘Idiot’ and exchanged roles according to their zig-zagging moods to create an eccentric harmony. Beckett generously provided secondary clues via the nicknames of Estragon (Gogo) and Vladimir (Didi). Hence GODOT would never come; Estragon and Vladimir were GODOT. They were not waiting for anyone. While they were joking ‘absurdly’ with each other they were also setting a trap for the sleepy audience.
    Suddenly a magpie landed on top of a nearby disused Ottoman fountain and crowed twice towards me, as if it was waiting for an answer. Perhaps it was my inner voice which said, ‘The symbiosis of a story and (hi)story is the most enigmatic.’ With this, the elegant bird crowed once more and flew off towards the Byzantine dungeons nearby.
    The Byzantine monuments, which I was sure I was seeing for the first and last time, existed in symbiosis with their environment. They took a step forward to today while their neighbors took a step backward to yesterday, both of them meeting at a central point in time, looking like they were all wearing the same pale, faded clothes. For the time being they enjoyed the pleasures of quietude, but they were waiting for a sign. The few cars passing through the crooked streets did not honk and no children’s cries echoed. On the faces of the oldsters walking hesitantly along was satisfaction, something between happiness and unhappiness. It was clear that they were well aware of the fragrance of fig trees emanating from the overgrown gardens, the small Ottoman cemeteries which suddenly sprang up at the end of streets that curved about like narrow streams, and the barely standing wooden houses incongruously harboring pharmacies.
    There were no traces of pretense in the stance of the buildings converted from churches to mosques. Were they more likeable with all those carpets on the floor and their new embellishments?
    In the back streets of the Süleymaniye neighborhood a mustachioed young man idling in front of a barber shop shouted at me, ‘Hey, are you a tourist or a terrorist?’ It was obvious that he resorted frequently to this kind of behavior. I strode toward him, growling, ‘It depends on the day of the week.’
    ‘I thought you were a tourist, Abi,’ he said and ran inside. In case he had advanced instead of retreating, my trust was in the guards that Nomo had assigned to shadow me. But did I really want to put that possibility to the test?
    I had a small surprise at the Fethiye Mosque as I stood outside listening to a lecture on the significance in art history of the ceiling frescoes inside. The mosque, lately turned into a museum, had been the seat of the Orthodox Patriarchate for part of the Ottoman period when it was still a church. Now the street in front of it was populated by women in black chadors, long-bearded men in flowing religious garb, and young men sporting turbans on their heads. A sign in a shop window said: ‘Our perfumes are alcohol-free.’ I felt like I’d suddenly stumbled onto the set of a film shoot in Afghanistan.
    Architecturally the most attractive of these converted churches is the Gül Mosque near the mouth of the Golden Horn. A group of old-timers from the Cibali neighborhood were holding down chairs across the street from the building and focusing their gazes upon it, apparently experiencing the pleasure of being hypnotized. I was surprised at the intense interest shown by tourists as I waited in line at the door to take off my shoes and go in. The mosque, as a church, was thought to have provided the last resting-place of Constantine XI. In front of me was a group of lively and aged American women. A female passer-by