Basilica Cistern - built in Byzantine times by the Emperor Justinian: Mireille recommended this to me, and I’m so glad she did. If you ever go to Istanbul, don’t miss it. The entrance is in the square outside Aya Sofya, in a nondescript little brick building that I mistook for a public lavatory until some locals, guessing what I was looking for, told me that this was the way in.

You pay a few Euros, go down some stairs, and emerge into an immense cavern, at least as big as a couple of cathedrals, filled with columns supporting a vaulted ceiling far above your head. The columns stand in shallow water, in which grey carp swim, the only inhabitants of this strange place. The darkness is lit by red lamps, and the red-tinged reflection of pillars and ceiling fades off into blackness where it lies in the water, seemingly going down to a deeper world. It was constructed using columns, capitals and plinths from ruined buildings. You go around a walkway, which takes eventually you past two columns, out of the water, with medusa’s heads on their plinths - one sideways and one upside down.

Of the monuments i saw in Istanbul, this was my hands-down favourite.

I had planned to go into Aya Sofya next, but it was already 4:30 and the upper gallery was closed. I was so late because, between the Grand Bazaar and the Cistern, I’d been waylaid by an extremely handsome young man - or boy; he looked about 16 - who approached me with the standard line about wanting to offer me tea and ‘Turkish Hospitality’.
‘And what kind of shop will this hospitality take place in?’ I asked a little wearily.
Handsome boy looks thoughtful: ‘An art gallery.’
Do I have ‘I’m a sucker for art galleries’ written on my forehead? Is he telepathic? I buy it, and agree to have a look.
We arrive.
‘Here it is.’
‘It’s a carpet shop.’
‘Well, carpets are a kind of art, aren’t they?’
I tell him, gently but firmly, that he’s wasting his time. He’s welcome to give me tea, but I really don’t want any carpets. I truly don’t want to waste his time, but he insists, and as I’d quite like a glass of tea and a place to sit down, I let him go ahead.

What he tells me about carpets is interesting. Village girls make them and present them to their husbands when they get married, as dowry - so it’s still the girl’s property. As the carpet gets older it increases in value. If a woman hangs onto a carpet for a long time, she can sell it for quite a bit. HB says the girls weave into the carpets whatever they’re feeling and thinking about, and all the motifs on the carpets have meanings. One is a spider, signifying protection, because of a legend in which a spider wove a web across a cave where the Prophet Muhammed was hiding. A pattern of five squares signifies the five Muslim prayer times, indicating that the girl is religious - or was feeling religious when she made the carpet. A pattern of interlocking triangles means tents, referring to nomadic ancestry. A pattern like repeated ‘S’ shapes means love.
‘Village girls are very shy,’ says HB. ‘They can’t say “I love you”, so they put it in a carpet.’
I wonder at the different meanings of love. It’s too bad that English only has one word for it - really surprising, in a language with such a huge lexicon. They still have arranged marriages in these villages - one method of arrangement being for the old ladies to go around looking at girls’ carpets and choose a girl for their boy based on her work. I didn’t think to ask HB if the boy has to do anything to indicate his own quality. Anyway, I wonder what the meaning of this ‘S’ love is: A willingness to be a working partnership? The hope for a protective, kind husband? An earnest wish for a complete studmuffin who’ll dance the night away? Presumably not sexual attraction, if she hasn’t met the guy before - but then, it may signify attraction to *someone*, real or imaginary.I’d like to really quiz HB about this, but he’s moving on to the sales pitch. He does a great job of pretending not to understand why I don’t want any carpets. ‘If you see water, don’t you want to drink?’ His dark eyes plead. ‘If you see food, don’t you want to eat?’
‘Not if I’m not thirsty or hungry.’ He can’t possibly know what I’ve been through at the hands of Moroccan carpet salesmen, or that I simply don’t like being sold things. I like to find objects of interest unexpectedly, or else hunt them down. But when they’re laid out in front of me with a salesperson extolling their merits, they lose whatever mystery or suprise they might have held for me if I’d been left alone with them.
In any case, I really don’t want a carpet. HB looks as melancholy as Hamlet, but shakes my hand gravely and bids me a courteous farewell. I find myself hoping that he locates someone who does want to buy a carpet before the day is done.