The Certainties

The fights among Gods and men have always delighted and interested me, firing my imagination. I imagine Mount Olympus as the scene of discussions and quarrels, and I often wondered how someone of that divine blood had sided at those skirmishes, as Homer tells us in the Iliad…

Now I was going to the very place where real blood had pored forth on the earth. Where thousands of men were killed where the only purpose was to save the honour of a king who had been robbed, who had lost his wife kidnapped by a poor shepherd.

When I was a girl, I was fascinated. As I got older, in addition to being fascinated by the epic, I started to wonder why history always looks for incredible reasons to chronicle real facts. And if a brilliant narrator recites those reasons and facts, then I need nothing more to fill my soul with emotion.

The way to Troy seemed to be a long way from Istanbul, after someone had told me it was quite close. Two hours and a half by ferry to Bandirma, two hours more by bus finally arriving at Channakale, and there, after trying to make myself understood by hand signs, I finally found the way to reach the place. The place I never thought that I would see, but indeed I had dreamt about visiting one day.

The communication by hand signs had not been detailed enough to let me know how long that trip would take and I managed to get a lift in a small bus. However, I didn’t mind… I was waiting for that moment, when all my excitement and eagerness would overcome me.

The van was full of local people, and it stopped at many different houses to gather a variety of objects which they had to carry between the seats. Huge pipes, casseroles, hens. It was like travelling in a mobile supermarket.
All of them were watching me… and I knew why! I was sure that no tourists had used this way to reach Troy, since the excursion coaches were more comfortable and they took them there more directly and much more quickly.
It was amongst the throng that I saw her. She was about 20 years old, maybe as young as 18… But her peculiar eyes were those of a baby, half surprised and half shy, and she was analysing detail by detail all that I did with furtive glances. My clothes.. my worn out little travelling bag…

I gave a sideway glance, because I did not want to make her feel uncomfortable, but I was really trying to discover what she was thinking about me.
As usual, my fertile imagination made me wonder how I would have felt, living in such a small town and then seeing an absolute stranger from a foreign land ……coming from who knows where … and I understood why she was watching me.

Suddenly I realized that the vehicle was continuing its way without stopping, I began to worry… I had previously planned to make the return journey on the other bus to arrive in time at the ferry port for my return to Istanbul…
Uffff… It seemed that to see Iliad I needed to live a small Odyssey, but Ulysses was Me, and I wasn’t able to return for many years….
I decided to ask how far away the city was, and of course, the one who was willing to communicate was the girl who was in front of me…
In English and with signs I tried to ask her about Troy, she repeated that shy gesture and lowered her eyes… then I remembered that it was something similar to Truva in Turkish, so I repeated that name.
At that moment, all changed. Her glance was not pensive, her face was enlightened by an amusing thought, almost triumphant… and with a condescending gesture, she lowered her hand a little as if to say to me: You need not worry, stay quiet…
I smiled. I was no longer that stranger bursting into her world. She knew something that I needed, and then she no longer had any type of fear. From there on, she went on observing me openly, and whenever she saw me looking at my watch (I was wondering how much time I would have to see the ruins and come back) she smiled.
Finally, I saw her standing. She looked at me for the last time and pointed down the road, as if saying: there is the city. The small vehicle stopped in order that she and others could alight. And when thanking her in Turkish, again that shy gesture returned, as if nothing had passed between us.
A few minutes later, the conductor also told me, and I got off the bus.

I paid the entrance fee and then I discovered that I had only 20 minutes to see Troy before the bus returned to pick me up and take me back.
I ran the 400 metres to where the ruins began… I was touched seeing the rest of that besieged city… and from there, far away, the sea, and the green fields where they had disembarked ready for fighting. I breathed there the smell of thousands of men and the spirit of the Gods of Mount Olympus, filling with discord the poor souls of those warriors…

I remained thinking and remembering that girl on the bus… the certainty of knowing something, that gives us that confidence that makes us lose any fear, or any shame… I imagined the Aequeus, the troops attacking, consulting the oracle or the fortune tellers, to have the certainty that they would win, made those interminable years of pain more bearable…

Moreover, I imagined Schliemann, the discoverer of Troy, with his innate certainty that he would find it, and I imagined him fighting against the mocking of his contemporaries, against the distrust of the Turkish government, losing fortunes to obtain his dream. He was also sure… he had the certainty that the city was there

My time had finished… I ran again towards the entrance, where the bus had arrived…
I had travelled for 6 hours and I had another 6 hours to return. The reward had been those glorious 20 minutes… When I had decided to make that excursion, I did not know if I would arrive on time, if I would be able to see it, if the money I had taken with me would be sufficient…but, in fact, and let me be “arrogant” in this instance… I had the certainty that I would succeed.