Chapter 13
When Hasim had mentioned visiting The Grand Bazaar, Francis envisioned an outdoor marketplace in the sunshine, which was now shining hot, and steadily getting hotter.
Francis used his white veil over his face to protect his poor cheeks and nose, as they made a short dash from tram to street. They crossed a small sized, open square lined with modest market stalls selling trinkets.
In the back of his mind, Francis had expected something…grander.
“Aha, I see,” Francis said, as they passed under the archway and inside.
As his eyes adjusted to the light, Francis was delighted to see a bustling underground street, its curved roof decorated with colourful mosaic tiles, walls lined with trinket shops and stalls, with plenty of customers happily browsing and bartering in Turkish.
The scent of spice was in the air, fragrant and tantalising.
Music trickled down the street, echoing and overlapping with the excited chatter of the people.
The atmosphere was simply buzzing, and it was blissfully cool inside, shielded from the sun and with a gentle breeze on the air.
Francis gratefully removed the veil from his face. “Hasim, this is incredible,” he said. “I’ve never seen an underground market.”
Beside him, Hasim grinned. “There are sixty-two streets,” he said. “Many, many shops. Four thousand shops.”
“Goodness,” Francis replied, excited to see them all. “Do you have a favourite?”
Hasim considered, then nodded. “This way.”
They passed by stalls with stacks of vibrantly coloured sweets and fragrant spices piled high, the vendors calling to them with smiles on their faces.
While they had a destination in mind, Hasim paused at one of the sweet stalls and bartered for a plate of samples to taste.
They had a quick back and forth, both men speaking firmly yet casually.
Turkish sounds a lot like German sometimes, Francis thought. One might assume the two men were arguing but it was simply the way people engaged here: direct.
Hasim finally presented Francis with a small plate bearing different confectionery squares, some powdered, some with nuts in.
“Oh, is this Turkish Delight?” he asked, taking the plate. “Don’t you want some?”
Hasim shook his head with a chuckle. “I do not like,” he answered. “I like the pastry. As you can see.” He patted his round belly affectionately, making Francis grin.
“Where are the pastry stalls?” he asked.
“This way. Come,” Hasim said, striding off.
Francis wondered how Hasim had paid for the sweets, glancing back at the vendor.
It was at this moment he recognised three of the women attendants from the hookah den, now wrapped in more modest cotton robes and shawls, their hair brushed and tied back neatly or hanging in loose waves.
One of them was handing over coins from a heavy purse to the vendor, and instructing him to fill a bag, it seemed.
The attendants must’ve ridden in the other tram car. Francis hadn’t even realised.
“Um,” he said, still holding his plate and hesitating as the trio of smiling women swarmed around him. “Don’t I need to give the plate back?”
They urged him forward. Hasim gestured to him from up ahead to come and see a stall selling clockwork toys made from, apparently, recycled metal. To Francis, they looked shiny and new, he never would’ve known the metal parts had been used before.
There was still so much more to see, and they passed by beautiful items: fine clothes and carpets, oil lamps, decorative plates, walls upon walls of blue glass eyes, so many that they looked like a peacock’s tail.
Hasim explained that it was the evil eye, a charm that protected the holder.
Francis had finished his samples of Turkish Delight by then, only to find his plate refilled with sticky dates and fig tarts from another sweet stall.
Francis couldn’t possibly eat any more, but he didn’t want to appear rude. He tried a date, then managed to pass the plate off to the ladies who were more than happy to finish the sweets. Francis caught up to Hasim while they were distracted and asked him quietly, “Do you often travel together?”
“Hm?” Hasim glanced back at the trio of women, then smiled at Francis. “They have my money,” he said, then strolled off.
That didn’t quite answer the question. Despite not wishing to pry, Francis couldn’t help himself from asking, “Are you…married? To any of them? Or to someone else?”
Hasim visibly hesitated, giving Francis side eye while he paused and pretended to look at a stall selling gold trimmed slippers.
“You are married,” Francis said, his heart already sinking.
“Yes, but we have…an understanding,” Hasim replied, not quite meeting Francis’s eye. “It was arranged by our families. We…care for one another, we have children, but we are not in love. We both…love other people.”
“Oh,” Francis said, unsure how to digest this new information.
“Come,” Hasim urged, clearly not wanting Francis to dwell. “This way, my favourite.”
Francis assumed he meant favourite shop in the Bazaar, but he also wondered if there was a world in which he might be Hasim’s favourite.
How would it work?
Francis had too many questions and no words to voice them, but he let Hasim lead him to a new shop off a side street, tucked away behind walls of blue and white glass ornaments and giant evil eye pendants.
There, Francis was shown the glass blowers of The Grand Bazaar, and had the honour of watching them work, stoking the kilns and moulding hot blobs of molten glass on long poles into intricate vases.
Some of them blew into the poles to shape the glass, and some used a more unusual contraption connected to pipes on the wall.
“Is that old or new?” Francis asked Hasim, pointing to the pipes.
“More new,” Hasim said. “It is a, uh, coming from the wind tunnels. They can choose wind powered, or themselves to blow the glass.”
Francis nodded, thinking of those marvellous wind capturing towers in the city. It made him think of the solar energy powering the trams, and of Granny.
When Hasim asked Francis which glass vase he wanted as a gift, he thought of Granny’s face if he went home and presented her with a vase and nothing else. He should really try to drum up something better than that.
Driven by the new knowledge that Hasim was married, and this…whatever this was between them may not last all that long, Francis decided to press him on the matter of solar energy once more.
“Hasim, may I make a request?” he asked. “I would very much like to see how the sun is made into energy. Is there a way I can see it?”
Hasim looked somewhat surprised. “Now?”
“Yes, ideally,” Francis replied, forcing himself to be blunt. “I’m unsure how much more time I’ll have to myself.” God only knew how Archie was fairing in the contest for the king’s affections. “I can’t say for certain if I’ll be free tomorrow, or the day after that.”
Francis hated to see the crestfallen look on Hasim’s handsome face, but to his credit the other man acquiesced without a fuss. After insisting Francis pick a gift of blown glass first, so Francis chose a blue eye pendant bigger than his hand to hang on the wall at home.
Granny would probably clock him with it if he didn’t produce something more worthwhile from this little trip.
They quickly made their way out of the Bazaar, escaping out of a side street and spilling out into the sunshine. Francis covered his face with the veil once more. The sun, the source of his problems in summer, and apparently the solution to unlimited energy, if Hasim was to be believed.
They picked up a tram, the two of them riding in one car, and the trio of women attendants, all carrying little bags of gifts from the Bazaar, riding in another, chatting among themselves.
Francis still had a lot of questions. Were any of these women Hasim’s lovers? Friends? Aides? And what about the male belly dancer, or any of the men in the bath house?
Was Francis being petty and jealous imagining that Hasim had this many lovers? Yes, he was, because he felt lost and hurt, and unsure how to right it.
Not only lovers—he assumed—and a wife, Hasim also had children. Which was fine, Francis thought, but it was a lot to take in. He wished he’d kept quiet and not asked anything, and he wouldn’t have ruined his own bliss.
But reality would’ve crept in at some point. It always did. He was supposed to be here wooing a king, a sultan. Not whoever Hasim was.
Sullen, Francis gazed out at the passing city streets, feeling adrift. If he could at the very least bring home some information to Granny about solar energy, maybe it wasn’t all a lost cause.
Hasim seemed to sense Francis was in a mood and didn’t speak much.
The tram rattled more noisily over the streets anyway, so they would’ve had to raise their voices to speak.
People got on and off whenever the tram stopped, wrapped up in their own business.
Francis watched one older gentleman standing in the car, holding onto a rail with his left hand while the right hung by his side, holding a set of polished beads.
His thumb racked the beads around and around, until he got off at the next stop.
Soon, the tram left the bustling centre of Istanbul, and the noise reduced. Francis now heard the voices of their female companions in the next car, talking at a rate of knots. Hasim still hadn’t said anything, and now Francis felt bad for the silence between them.
Delicately, he cleared his throat. “How much farther?” he asked politely.
“Two stops,” Hasim said. “But some walk after.”
Francis nodded. He was excited to see whatever it was they were going to see.
* * * *
Their tram crested a small hill, and Hasim pointed out to Francis how some of the buildings below glittered in the sun.
“This is a solar farm,” he said.
Francis didn’t understand how that worked. How would shiny rooftops collect the sun?
When they got off at their stop, it was in a wide street taken up by a factory.