pointing at a canyon among the mountains.
I look down and I understand: it is the “Cilician Gates”, the only passage since ancient times from internal Anatoly and the coast. Crossed by Alexander the Great: a role leader for many, including Julian.
«Gülek Boğazi» I repeat, while the precipice makes me hang even tighter to the driver.
Going down is, as usual, worse than going up: the moped’s breaks seem out of control and at each bend, instead of admiring the landscape, I think about the possibility of falling when right before the cliff it turns and we proceed.
When we arrive at Tarsus’ hospital I am so pale, that they almost take me in as a patient. Fatih asks information to a nurse passing by: I follow my adventure mate, dragging my feet in the long underground corridors until we reach a big ice-cold room.
The anatomopathologist almost invisibly turns up his hooked nose when I show my embassy document. He still lets me sign a series of papers, probably looking forward to getting rid of the corpse. He gets up, gives me two copies of the medical report, then shakes my hand, my arm and then my hand again. Weird way of greeting.
«These documents you give to customs to take body to Italy» translates Fatih, then he adds: «Coffin is outside in the car and with that you go back in Ankara».
I thank him for the translation and all the help, hugging him: I got used to it due to the moped; I try to slip 100 euros in his pocket.
The engineer gets offended: «No… my pleasure, say hi to Chiara, no better, tell her she calls me if she wants. I don’t disturb, but if she… this my number».
«I really don’t know how to thank you, for everything. Greetings to your… mother, as well.»
Outside I find an ambulance: I guess the corpse is in there. I almost got in, when two highly suspicious and huge guys come closer. I try to get away. They follow me and, saying incomprehensible things, push me in front of a shabby white pickup: that’s the designated means of transportation. In open backside I can see the coffin. The two bullies, literally lifting me up, put me there, next to it, while they sit in the front.
The horrible trip of the night before was a joke compared to this one: that one was full of smokers and I had to put my head out, here I am out completely alone with a dead body as company! The coffin, roughly tide with small laces, seems to be jumping out at every hole; I remain holed up on the opposite side: I don’t dare approaching it. I have an absurd fear of finding myself face to face with the corpse: after I left, reluctantly, my job at the University, I never wanted to see again the professor alive, imagine once dead!
I think about the day that’s passed and the one that awaits: the only thought of going back to customs gives me goosebumps, but the task I was assigned from the Literature faculty director is to get back the corpse to Italy. I repeat this mantra to charge myself up along the way, while the wind hits me harsh on the face.
Sunday 18 July
It is around 3 in the morning when the van stops. I’m afraid they want to leave me there, in the middle of nothing.
The two get off and talk to me in an unknown language. The smallest, or to better say the least big, repeats the same sentence doing wide movements with his hands: I understand I have to get off. I follow them until a crumbling shack: it is some sort of motorway restaurant, half family half down at heel business. I run to the toilet. That’s what they call Turkish toilets: a filthy stinking loo without the WC.
Then I enter what, euphemistically speaking, should be the bar: a fatty lady is preparing a weird drink, while the two travel companions are sitting at a table smoking and drinking a huge beer. I take the chance to have breakfast, trying to avoid thinking about the driver drinking in the early morning. I slowly sip the umpteenth boiling long coffee, accompanied by a focaccia stuffed with an odd-coloured salami: it’s not the best taste, but I’m very hungry having skipped dinner due to the sudden departure from Tarsus.
It takes at least half an hour before the two finish another beer and decide to get back on the van. The less drunk offers me an old blanket: the air was hot when we left, now it is that biting one of the early hours of the day. It is the first kind act towards me: left alone in the backside of the van I felt like a spare wheel.
At sunrise we arrive in Ankara; I’m still stunned by the wind and the road, when they heavily unload the coffin from the van, giving it to a group of custom officers. Lieutenant Karim orders me to leave it there and go back the following day to pick it up with the embassy documents: I really don’t like this guy! I thank the two carriers with a lavish tip, that they do not refuse, while I say goodbye to Barbarino, who lays now in a sort of garage in the custom’s undergrounds.
I am exhausted. In front of the airport several hotels shine in the light of the beginning day. I choose the only one with four stars in its panel: Esenboga Airport Hotel. I don’t care if it’s expensive: the University director promised me to refund all expenses if I had taken our eminent colleague back to the mother land.
After two nights spent travelling, I “pass out” on the bed as soon as I enter the room. The sound of my phone ringing wakes me up: it’s six o’ clock! Who could ever call me at this time?
«Hi, this is Chiara Rigoni. Customs told me that you came back with the corpse: there is a series of things to do that I need to explain to you.»
I realise from the light that filtrates through the curtains that it is six, yes, PM. I try to recover: «Why don’t we talk about it later, maybe over something to eat?»
«That’s fine» says Chiara, after hesitating a bit.
«There’s a restaurant in the centre: see you there at 9.30. The address is Izmir Caddesi 3/17.»
«Pardon?» I say still a bit dazed.
«I-Z-M-I-R-C-A-D-D-E-S-I 3/17» she spells it.
«Ok, noted. At what time?»
«21.30-22, dinner time» she repeats.
They have special timings in Turkey; anyways, after breakfast at 3am and waiting for a nightly dinner, I immediately shove down a pack of peanuts and a juice from the minibar. Once I get my strength back, I take out from my man bag the tracing I did on mount Taurus; I carefully unfold it and start sight translating from Greek:
Julian, after leaving river Tigris, of the wild flows, here laid:
kind emperor and valiant warrior he was.
“Laid”, “laid”. This past tense, instead of the usual present, only implies one thing: already at the moment of the inscription, the corpse, or what remained of it, wasn’t there anymore!
Then the epigraph was on a cenotaph: a monument built to remind of an eminent man’s burial, but whose remains are elsewhere. But where?
To get away from this thought too, I decide visiting the famous illustrated column built in the Apostate’s city. I dress up quickly, get out of the hotel and call the first taxi: «Can you drive me to the place of Julian’s column?»
«Uhm, err…» answers with a wild look the young taxi driver. The square should be famous for Julian’s column, the only roman one still in situ. I start gesturing, borderline to the obscene, to indicate a column: somehow the guy understands
