The Templar Salvation

Chapter 53

KONYA, TURKEY

A few precocious stars were ushering out the setting sun as a taxi dropped Reilly and Tess off in the heart of one of the oldest settlements on the planet.

Every stone in the city was soaked in history. Legend had it that it was the first town to emerge from the great flood, and archaeological evidence showed people living there continuously since Neolithic tribes settled in the area more than ten thousand years ago. St. Paul was said to have preached there three times from as early as A.D. 53, setting the city onto a stellar path that reached its peak when it became the capital of the Seljuk Sultanate in the thirteenth century—the same time that it was home to Rumi and his brotherhood of dervishes. The city had declined precipitously since its glory days under the sultans, but it was still home to the second-most visited attraction in Turkey, with more than two million visitors streaming in every year to pay homage to the great mystic. His mausoleum, the Yesil Turbe—the “Green Tomb”—was the spiritual epicenter of the Sufi faith.

It was also where Tess decided they’d start their search.

She knew it wouldn’t be easy. Sufism was still banned in Turkey. There were no lodges to poke around in, no elders to ask. At least, not out in the open. Sufi spiritual gatherings were only conducted in strict privacy, away from uninvited eyes. The threat of prison sentences still loomed large for potential offenders.

Sufism had been outlawed in 1925, soon after the father of modern Turkey, Kemal Ataturk, founded his republic out of the ashes of the religion-driven Ottoman Empire. Desperate to demonstrate how Westernized his new country would be, he strove to ensure that his new state was strictly secular and put up an impermeable wall between religion and government. The Sufis, whose lodges wielded influence at the highest levels of Ottoman society and government, had to go. The lodges were all shut down, with most turned into mosques. Public rituals, which were perceived by Ataturk and his government as too backward and a drag on the Western-inspired modernity they aspired to, were banned, as was any teaching of the tradition. In fact, the only visible manifestation of Sufism in the country left today was in the folkloric dance performances of the sema, the whirling prayer ceremony of Rumi’s followers that had, ironically, now become one of the main touristic emblems of the country. And that was only after they had been grudgingly re-allowed in the 1950s, following an inquiry by the curious wife of a visiting American diplomat who was keen to actually see one. And so the bighearted faith ended up being banned by both the fundamentalist regimes farther east in countries like Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, for being heretically liberal, and by the progressive Turks, for the opposite reason.

From the sea of austere beards and tight head scarves all around them, it was clear that Konya was a very pious and conservative place. Contrastingly, Westerners in casual summer clothing were also out in abundance, both groups mingling and mixing casually. Tess and Reilly joined the flow of pilgrims, dozens of men and women, young and old, from all corners of the globe, heading toward the shrine. It loomed up ahead, unmissable with its squat, pointed, turquoise-tiled tower. The big, gray medieval building had been Rumi’s tekke, the lodge where he and his followers lived and meditated. The lodge was now a museum built around his tomb and those of his father and other Sufi saints.

They followed the procession through the large arched portal and into the heart of the mausoleum. Dioramas of mannequins in traditional Sufi settings filled most of the rooms, lifeless re-creations of now-outlawed practices, an eerie reminder of a not-so-distant tradition that had been stopped in its tracks.

Tess found a stall with pamphlets in various languages and picked up an English one, then perused it as they meandered past the various displays. Something in it made her nod to herself, which Reilly caught.

“What?” he asked.

“Rumi’s writings. Listen to this. ‘I searched for God among the Christians and on the Cross and therein I found Him not. I went into the ancient temples of idolatry; no trace of Him was there. I entered the mountain cave of Hira and then went very far but God I found not. Then I directed my search to the Kaaba, the resort of old and young; God was not there. Finally, I looked into my own heart and there I saw Him; He was nowhere else.‘”

“Brave guy,” Reilly commented. “I’m amazed they didn’t lop his head off.”

“The Seljuk Sultan actually invited him to live here. He didn’t have a problem with Rumi’s ideas, just like he didn’t have a problem with the Christians in Cappadocia.”

“I miss those Seljuks.”

Tess nodded, her mind floating across the imagined landscapes of alternate worlds. “You know, the more I think about it, the more I see how much common ground there was between what the Sufis believed and what I think the Templars were going for. They both saw religion as something that should bring us all closer together, not a divisive force.”

“At least these guys didn’t get burned at the stake.”

Tess shrugged. “They didn’t have a king lusting after the gold in their coffers.”

They stepped through a doorway that led into the grand room where Mawlana Jelaluddin Rumi, the mevlana himself—the master—was buried. The cavernous space around them was breathtaking, its walls masterpieces of ornate gold calligraphy carvings, its ceilings dazzling kaleidoscopes of arabesques. At its center was his tomb. It was oversized and stately, swathed by a huge, gold-embroidered cloth and topped by an enormous turban.

They stood back and watched as teary-eyed pilgrims rubbed their foreheads on a silver step at the base of the tomb before kissing it. Others stood around the room, reading the poet’s words to themselves or sharing them in small groups, their faces alive with felicity. A great hush suffused the space, and the mood in the shrine was gently reverent, more akin to fans visiting the tomb of a great poet than to any kind of fervent religious pilgrimage. Which was what Tess had feared. There was nothing there that looked like it was going to help her locate her elusive family of drapers, assuming they’d ever existed at all. She needed to ask around but didn’t know who to ask.

They left the shrine and wandered down a broad boulevard that led deep into the old city. Shops, cafes, and restaurants teemed with locals and visitors, while kids played freely on grassy knolls. The city exuded a tranquility that Tess and Reilly had both sorely missed.

“Maybe we can find a town hall,” Tess said, her gait slow and ponderous, her arms folded with frustration. “Someplace where they keep civic records.”

“Maybe there’s a drapers section in their yellow pages?” Reilly added.

Tess wasn’t in the mood.

“What? I’m serious.” He gave her an empathetic grin, then said, “Problem is, we’ve got a slight language barrier here.”

“The only dervishes around seem to be the ones doing the big shows for the tourists. They deal with foreigners. We should be able to find someone who understands us there. Maybe we can convince one of them to introduce us to a Sufi elder.”

Reilly pointed a finger down the road. “Let’s ask them.”

Tess turned. A sign announced “Iconium Tours,” and below, in smaller letters, “Travel Agency.”

“I CAN GET YOU IN to see a sema tonight,” the owner of the agency, a gregarious man in his early fifties by the name of Levant, told them with infectious enthusiasm. “It’s a wonderful show, you’ll love it. You like Rumi’s poetry, yes?”

“Very much.” Tess smiled uncomfortably. “But would this be a real prayer ceremony or a more …”—she wavered—”touristic show?”

Levant gave her a curious look. He seemed slightly offended. “Any sema is a real prayer ceremony. The dervishes who will be whirling there take what they do very seriously.”

Tess flashed him a disarming smile. “Of course, that’s not what I meant.” She took a deep breath, looking for the right words. “It’s just … see, I’m an archaeologist, and I’m trying to understand something I found. An old book. And it talks about a draper, this is going back quite some time, a few centuries ago.” She paused, hastily pulling out a crumpled piece of paper from her pocket. “A kazzaz, or a bezzaz, or a derzi, or a cukaci,” she said, stumbling over the different ways of referring to a cloth maker that the taxi driver had given her. She wasn’t sure how to pronounce that last one and showed the agent what the driver had written down for her—in letters she could read, since another of Ataturk’s momentous reforms was to abandon the Arabic alphabet and make Latin letters the norm for writing in Turkish. “A draper who was a dervish here in Konya. Probably a senior one, an elder, that kind of thing. I know it’s a bit tricky to talk about it, but … you don’t know anyone who might know a lot about that, an expert on your local dervish history?”

Levant pulled back slightly, and his expression retreated into more guarded territory.

“Look, I’m not here in any kind of official capacity,” Tess added by way of comforting him. “This is just a personal quest. I’m just trying to understand something about an old book I found, that’s all.”

The travel agent massaged his mouth and his chin with his hand, then ran it up his face and all the way across his balding pate. He glanced at Reilly, studying him too. Reilly said nothing and just stood there, trying to appear as sheepish and unthreatening as he could. The bald man’s eyes settled back on Tess, then he leaned in and his expression went all conspiratorial.

“I can take you to a private dhikr this evening,” he told them, referring to a Sufi remembrance ceremony. “It’s a very private affair, you understand. Informal. Just friends getting together to,” he paused, “celebrate life.” He held her gaze, waiting to see if she got his gist.

She nodded. “And you think there’ll be someone there who can help me?”

Levant shrugged, like, Maybe. But his “maybe” was definitely skewed positive.

Tess smiled. “When?”

THE ELDER WASN’T MUCH HELP.

The prayer ceremony itself had been spellbinding. It was held in the grand living room of a large, old house. The dervishes, a dozen or so men and women, lost themselves in their trances and spun around endlessly, arms spread out, right hands opened upward to receive the blessings of Heaven, left hands pointing down to channel it to the earth, moving to the tender, mesmerizing music of a reed flute—Rumi’s beloved ney, the divine breath that bestows life on everything—and a drum. From a seated position, an old man, their master, accompanied them by reciting the name of God repeatedly, the part of the ceremony that was most strictly forbidden. But no one stormed the house and no one was arrested. The times were, it seemed, a-changing.

But the elder wasn’t much help—in fact, he wasn’t any help at all. With his grandson to translate, he told Tess he didn’t know of any drapers or cloth makers who had been notable dervishes, and didn’t know of any who were currently, either. Tess and Reilly thanked their hosts for their hospitality and wandered off in search of the hotel the travel agent had booked them into.

“I shouldn’t have let myself get carried away like that,” Tess grumbled, feeling exhausted and crestfallen. “There were plenty of lodges in Konya, even back then. The odds of stumbling onto the right one … it wasn’t likely, was it?” She sighed. “This could take a while.”

“We can’t stay here any longer,” Reilly said. “They want me back in New York. And we don’t even have a change of clothes or a toothbrush between us. Seriously. This is nuts. We don’t even know it’s here.”

“I’m not giving up. We just got here. I need to go to more of these ceremonies, talk to more elders.” She glanced at Reilly. “I’ve got to do this, Sean. We’re close. I can feel it. And I can’t walk away from it. I’ve got to see it through. You go. I’ll stay.”

Reilly shook his head. “It’s too dangerous. That son of a bitch is still out there somewhere. I’m not leaving you here alone.”

The comment soured Tess’s face. Reilly’s concern wasn’t unfounded.

“You’re right, I know,” she said, nodding slowly to herself, unsure about what to do.

Reilly put his arm around her. “Come on. Let’s find that hotel. I’m beat.”

They reached the bazaar district, where they asked for directions before cutting through a galleried market hall the size of an aircraft hangar. Despite the late hour, it was still buzzing. All kinds of smells accosted them from colorful piles of fruit and vegetables, bucket loads of freshly made dolmates salcasi tomato sauce, and huge sacks of sugar beet and spices of every color, the whole succulent tapestry manned by old men in patterned hats, old women in multicolored head scarves, and cay boys hawking syrupy-sweet tea. A pit stop of doner kebabs and minty yogurt drinks was hard to resist. They hadn’t eaten much all day.

“Can’t you stick around a couple of more days?” Tess pleaded, the idea of heading home and giving up the search sitting as heavily in her stomach as the thought of staying there alone.

“I doubt it.” He chucked his empty sandwich wrapper into an overflowing garbage bin and downed the last of his drink. “I still have a lot of explaining to do over Rome.”

“Rome,” Tess shrugged, her tone distant. It felt like a lifetime ago.

“They don’t even know we’re here. I need to call in and find out when we’re being picked up and see if they can pick us up from here. Besides, I want to get back. There isn’t much I can do from here. I need to be back at my desk to coordinate the intel and make sure all the alerts are properly in place so we don’t miss him the next time he pops up.” He put his hands on Tess’s shoulders and pulled her closer to him. “Look, it doesn’t mean you have to give up on this. We’ve got a contact here now, that travel agent. You can call him from New York. Let him do your legwork. He’s better placed to do it anyway. We can pay him for it, he seems like a helpful guy. And if he comes up with something, we’ll fly back.”

Tess didn’t answer him. Her expression had gone all curious and she was staring at something beyond him. Reilly eyed her for a beat, then turned and saw what she was staring at. It was a carpet shop. A bald, chubby man was carrying in an advertising sandwich board from the sidewalk. It looked like they were closing up for the night.

“You’ve gone into shopping mode now?” Reilly asked. “With everything else that’s going on?”

Tess shot him a reproachful grimace and pointed a sly finger at the sign above the shop. It read, “Kismet Carpets and Kilims,” and below that, “Traditional Handicraft Workshop.”

Reilly didn’t get it.

Tess pointed again and made a face like, Look again.

He looked again. Then he saw it.

In smaller letters, at the bottom of the sign. Next to shop’s phone number. A name. The name of the owner, presumably. Hakan Kazzazoglu.

Kazzaz-oglu.

Reilly recognized the first part of the word, but it didn’t gel with what he expected to see. There wasn’t a fabric in sight. “It’s a carpet shop,” he noted, his tone confused. “And what’s with the ‘oglu’?”

“It’s very common suffix in Turkish family names,” Tess replied. “It means ‘sons of,’ or ‘descendants of.’ “

She was already heading into the store.