river, due to the many industrial petrol waste discharges from the area, I assume. I ring the bell at number 60, a sort of stilt house: an old hunchbacked lady opens the door.
«I am looking for Fatih Persin…» I ask, a little distracted, in my own language.
«Italian, come in Italian» the old lady smiles, showing her few remaining teeth and inviting me in with her hand. She then runs away up the stairs.
This house is weird looking: half laying on the river, it is almost empty of any objects or furniture, but very original in its style. I make myself comfortable on a red wooden chair, the seat made of woven straw. The smell of meat sauce slowly cooking has filled the whole dwelling.
From the unstable step ladder that comes out of an opening in the ceiling, a man in his forties comes down, tall and thin, very tall and too thin: «Good morning, I am Fatih» he shakes my hand and says something in Turkish to the lady.
«I am Francesco Speri, Chiara gave me your address… Chiara…» I forgot her family name.
«Rigoni» he finishes a bit surprised. «What I do for you?» The engineer has some trouble with Italian, but we manage to communicate; while he sits, his mother, or at least I think, comes in with a tray and two big cups of coffee. The look is not very tempting: something is floating in it and the smell is sour, yes sour, not bitter.
I perform a thanking gesture, while picking up the enormous cup. «Chiara said I could ask you for help: I need to follow the road along the river to get to mount Taurus. Somewhere there my archaeology professor was digging, when…»
«Italian coffee better, right? It’s lemon inside» Fatih explains seeing my suspicious face. He smiles: «No problem, today is Saturday: I go there with you with motorbike».
I accept his help, not before gulping down this sort of hot lemonade that tastes like coffee.
We leave immediately, no helmets on. The motorbike is actually a moped: it doesn’t go faster than 30 km per hour, but even in these conditions, not being the one who drives, makes me feel like on a plane! The road is long and bumpy: I hug tighter the poor driver at every turn; it makes me a little embarrassed, but the fear of being thrown out is bigger. This rough path seems endless, but suddenly Fatih stops: he noticed some panels indicating men at work. We leave the moped and carry on on foot until a sloping height: it is the archaeological site dug by the professor.
Poor Julian: buried in a lonely and forgotten mountain moor, away from the fabulous world he used to reign. Actually, it was not his choice: in sign of spite towards the inhabitants of Antiochia, from where he left on his Persian expedition, he promised himself he would have camped in Tarsus at his return, rather than see the Antiochians again. He didn’t come back alive from that war. His officers, as an extreme form of respect, decided to bury him where he decided to camp that winter: a long, never ending, winter.
The access to the pit is forbidden, it was trenched with a basic barbed wire. A man approaches, he is busy with his hand keeping a huge straw hat on his head. He seems sceptical, but as soon as I mention Luigi Barbarino he lets us in, introducing himself as the professor’s assistant. The sun shines merciless. He shows us to follow him into a sort of warehouse: I can see fragments of ancient vases and animal bones bundled up, but also pots and dirty clothes. In this aluminium roofed and very dusty warehouse, this queer guy, apart from working, also seems to be sleeping and eating.
I would like some information about the incredible finding of the Apostate. With a contrite look on my face, I ask first, with the help of Fatih, news about the professor.
The face of my “interpreter” becomes worried and then grim, after all I did not had the time to tell him about the passing of the “brightest”: «He says that he find dead professor other Saturday, next to… how do you say big descent?»
The assistant claims that last Friday, before leaving, he saw the eminent archaeologist performing land surveys in the pit and that the next morning he found him a little more down that slope, laying on the ground. He had a heart attack and then fell lifeless down the escarpment. The Turkish guy does not seem particularly sad about it, probably because working with the professor left him with the same disgusting sensation as I was. The assistant, a short guy with a fast pace, precedes us on the tragedy site: he really wants us to see the exact place of the finding.
«And that up there, what is it? A tomb?» I ask.
«Yes, he took pictures there. Very important: he found rock with writing on, when it happened» translates Fatih.
Panting I get up the small hill, followed by the other two. I see, crumbled to the floor, what could be the ruins of a funeral building. I cannot see though the epigraph that was supposed to be at the entrance. Only the engraved stone, found by the professor last week (about which he told me via email), could confirm that here lies Julian.
«What about the material you found here?» I ask with fake nonchalance.
«For short time still in the hangar where we were, then comes government officer and takes away everything» Fatih tells me in his uncertain Italian.
I must accelerate.
«I should go to the toilet» I say touching my stomach.
«Only in the warehouse.»
«I know the way, you can stay here, thank you.»
I run to the warehouse and start looking frantically among a pile of crates: I try to move some, they’re heavy. On each one there is a note written with a fading blue marker: these should indicate time and digging sector of the findings.
Which day was it when the professor told me about finding the tomb? I check the crate from 9 July: only pieces of plaster and common pottery. Of course: the discovery must be from the day before, since he sent me the email on the morning of the 9 and died that same evening.
I pull out the crate from 8 July and, I can’t believe it, I find the epigraph!
A marmorean fragment, less than one meter long, with Greeks carvings: I’m in a hurry, but it is hard to understand the letters badly preserved; I take some quick pictures with my inseparable Nikon.
With a flimsy paper that was left on a table and a pencil I improvise a tracing: it is a rudimentary but very efficient technique, learnt during my master in Germany. Rubbing the pencil on the paper put against the epigraph, the holes of the engraved letters leave a blank: all the paper looks grey, apart from the spaces left blank, outlining the shape of the letters.
I’ve lost too much time, I run back to the gloomy cliff: «Sorry… probably the curves of the trip or maybe the violent tale of the professor’s death… well I felt unwell, but I’m better now. So, is the professor here?»
The two look at me confused.
«Well, the corpse: can I take it? I am in charge of taking it back to Italy and…»
«No. It is in the public obituary. I know where it is, I can take there if wants» offers kindly Fatih.
We thank the assistant, who keeps looking at us while going away.
We get back on the moped.
«Gülek Boğazi» screams Fatih short after our departure.
Between the noise of the moped and my fear I can’t understand
