Omer found himself all over social media ever since ABC beamed, “A Turkish engineer unearths rare Islamic mosaic in Brisbane”. The mad frenzy didn’t abate even after weeks. It happened on a typical day at Odyssey Constructions when Omer got ready to dig tunnels, drill pipes and drive machinery around the CBD site. The site to be cleared up to rise a fifty-storey building after demolishing a hundred year old house.
He rang Nate, the ABC journalist, who had by then become a friend. “Did you need to call me a ‘Turkish Engineer’? I feel like I have been in Australia forever”.
“Nah, Omer, I get it. But you know how it works.”
“Madness. Ever since I grabbed that crooked old stone plate out of a rusted old trunk. I hope it is worth something. Anyways, they snatched it from me. And you guys keep pestering me for more information. Madness”.
“Omer, there is something about the art work – the colour patterns you see in Turkish lamps. They are saying it must be a few centuries-old. But how did it travel all the way to Australia. Also, why was it buried under the backyard of this particular house. Do you know who lived there ? Back in the day, the grandfather of Mr. Rob Satter, the notorious Queensland MP who can’t shut up about immigration. Yeah, mate. the same Mr. Satter. And would he prefer any connection with a Mediterranean relic – he almost punched me last month when I gently probed him of his ancestry”.
“Is he Turkish?”
“Not sure, Omer. Well, he claims to be a 100% Aussie.”
“I am sure there is a Turkish connection. To the stone, I mean. I remember similar tiles with patterns from my childhood in my grandmother’s village. She told me stories – mostly she made up stories out of images painted in the tiles. Moral tiles. Moral tales, I mean. I miss her”.
“Wait. Maybe you can guess the story of this mosaic. I took a high resolution picture. It is broken of course, but you can see the painting clearly. A tall old man standing up, a cat stretching up in two legs, watching him, and several mice surrounding them. What does it mean, Omer?”
“Nate, mate. Im not a historian. I drill holes. You are the journalist. You said some researchers are onto it”. They chatted for a while.
Omer saw no point. He got back to his routine of drilling and draught beer. But his sleep was broken. The other night he felt he heard something. A tall man stood in the doorway, holding a crushed hat under his arm, combing his long, black hair. He took out something from a bag that appeared heavy for his hands. He carried it to Omer, walking with majesty. Grandfather?
No, this is not real. Omer reminded himself he had fought away those childhood nightmares. “Close your eyes and imagine walking into the cave I told you about, Omer”, his grandmother used to say. For a while he grew up around such imagined rivers and caves. And then she was gone one day, and he grew up to be a serious person.
When he woke up he saw a few missed calls from Nate.
“Omer, its gone mate. The mosaic was reported stolen yesterday. DIdn’t you say it was heavy?”
Nate went on without waiting for an answer. “It is as if the stone never existed. Mr. Satter should be relieved”.
That was a year ago. While Nate kept digging for a connection to Mr. Satter’s ancestors, Omer quietly returned to his family in Istanbul and joined a construction company.
Once in a while, the image of the mural would flash in his mind. Perhaps his grandmother would have cracked the puzzle. She would have weaved a nice story connecting the old man and the cat and mice. After all, isn’t that what grand mothers do?
Omer was surprised when Nate called.
“How did you get my number?”
“Omer, I found something!”
“The stone thingy, what you call that? Mural mosaic?”
“No, mate.”
“The connection to Mr. Satter’s ancestory?”
“Yeah, no. not yet. I’m close. One day, I will. “
“Oh. what did you find then?”
“The puzzle. The story in the painting. This might sound like what your grandmother would narrate. Yesterday I walked into this cafe in Eagle street, and this wooden sculpture greeted me. The exact same shape of the mural art work. The Indian guy who runs the cafe was intrigued by my curiosity. He said this depicts an ancient tale. The old man, eyes closed, is praying hard, the cat is mimicking and mocking the old man, the mice. And they are laughing at the cat which is no longer a threat. He then gave me a philosophy lesson too. That, life is a joke.
Omer chuckled to himself. Closed his eyes, said a quiet prayer, as if whispering to his long gone grandmother, and dissolved into an unbroken sleep.
Papers on his desk bristled in the morning gust. The long ray gleamed on the words of the first page of his manuscript. “Omer’s Odyssey”
“This is the story of Omer, the persecuted 18th century artist who belonged to the people of Istanbul, yet rebelled against kings and religious leaders and fanatical followers. Evicted from his village, imprisoned in a cave, he kept making art, fusing broken pebbles with lime, painting with his blood. He cried out a curse: The great river Bosporus will flood one day, flushing this mural out, the stone and the story will swim about for a while. It will lay buried in the depths, until one day, it will be discovered by a boy named Omer, and he will carry it to the far ends of the world. It will belong to the world, it will capture people’s hearts, only for it will be hidden and buried again, to be discovered again, only to be lost and hidden and buried again, and to be found again by boy named Omer…..”
RamGanapathy.com 