Istanbul, 2008
There are times when I am reminded of the power of music. I was at a house party recently, set up to play in the living room. An elderly man was next to me, hunched up on the sofa with a blanket over his shoulders. It was clear, from his vacant, faraway look, he had quite advanced dementia. The other guests were outside on the apartment’s terrace enjoying the warm summer evening with an ear and an eye to the room. I smiled at my audience of one. He stared back at me blankly. I began to play. Then, something happened. He stirred. A glint appeared in his eye. His posture changed. The life was seeping back into him. With each song he recognised in the depths of his addled mind, he became more animated. Members of his family drifted in from the terrace in wonder, taking it in turns to dance with him. It was as if a magical portal had temporarily opened to his younger self, and we were all suspended within this beautiful moment. He smiled at his family in recognition and they smiled at him with love and tears in their eyes. It had a profound effect on me, I was deeply humbled.
Eleven years earlier, I had been busking my way from West to East overland with my then-girlfriend (and now dear friend), Jeanne. We had stopped in Istanbul for a few weeks before we were to venture into Iran. I had been playing a lot on Caddesi Istiklal, an insanely busy shopping street, stretching for miles through the European side of the city. I’d had a wonderful response from passers-by, crowds gathering, applauding, tipping generously. I loved this city. But, I was constantly being hassled by the police.
One day, after playing, I noticed a young man trailing me through the market that flanked the rather impressive mosque at Eminonu. He was ducking in and out of stalls so as not to be detected, but seemed almost comic in his method. I had good reason to be paranoid. Only a couple of days beforehand I’d been bundled into a police van while I was minding my own business, and driven into a shadowy alley. They had tried to take my guitar but I’d held onto it with all my might. Eventually, they relented, throwing me out onto the street with a punch to the shoulder.
I decided to confront my stalker. I turned abruptly, taking him by surprise. He seemed vulnerable, and sad. He was obviously not the police.
And so it was that I found myself in a taxi headed to the far outskirts of one of the biggest cities in the world, to a residential suburb of utilitarian grey apartment blocks. Osman, my stalker, paid the driver and asked him to wait. I removed my gear from the boot.
“So, you will wait for my signal? I will be over there on the corner of the street,” he said, excitedly.
I promised him I would and set up my gear next to the barred-window of a ground floor flat.
I looked over at the opposing building. 5th floor, he’d said. I looked up to the balconies. They were all vacant. I caught Osman in my peripheral vision, signalling me. I began to play.
He had asked for a romantic song. As I played a young woman appeared, a light blue headscarf framing her pretty face. An older woman arrived alongside her as the neighbouring balconies started to fill. I thought I was in for a lynching. To my surprise, my audience seemed to regard me with a fond bemusement rather than any anger. A gentle tap on my shoulder shook me. I turned to see a trembling hand reaching through the bars of the window, proffering a single coin, and a wide, toothless grin. I hadn’t realised that I had set up directly outside a bedbound, elderly man’s room.
The plan had worked though. I had won Osman back his girl with my song, and inadvertently stirred something deep within this old man. Looking down at the coin in my hand, smiling, I got back into the taxi and returned to the city alone a far richer man.
We would see Osman and his girlfriend later that evening, happy and together again. Osman’s family had a sweet stall among the many temporary stalls that had been erected n the grounds of the Blue Mosque for Ramazan. We were their guests. It was a wonderfully electric atmosphere, people picnicking in the twilit gardens, breaking fast, the gentle hun of chatter, beneath the ever-watchful gaze of the mosque’s illuminated dome.
The song I sang that day was a song I had only just finished writing, You Keep Me Young. Here it is;
<a href=”http://nigelashcroft.bandcamp.com/track/you-keep-me-young”>You Keep Me Young by Nigel Ashcroft</a>
52 Silent Songs 