Wingmen by Quentin Poulsen
(Published on www.istanbulstories.com)
So I sat alone at the Cadde Bar, off the Beyoglu end of Istiklal, watching the rain come down, turning the dust to mud. Brad had brought me here my first night in from Barcelona. Only, then it had been summer and we had sat outside, feeling the heat slowly recede with the daylight, til the night-breezes wafted up from the Golden Horn and blew through the alley. The beer was cheap at the Cadde, four lira now, three lira then. It had been one lira when Brad had first come to the city, he said, though back then they had called it ‘a milyon.’ Yasemine had been with us that first night too.
They'd seemed so happy in those times, an American and a Turk, performing with a drummer named Cengiz at whatever bars they could up and down Istiklal. They were good, but the locals only wanted to hear covers of the tunes they knew, not Western music, and certainly not grunge. Sometimes they stuck around, craning their necks, like it was some kind of puzzle they had to figure out. More often they dwindled away, til it was just me, Corbin and Ray left, applauding light-heartedly, chatting with the band even as they played to no one but us.
Brad and I had taught together in Bangkok. Then he’d had a Thai girl. Now it was Yasemine, slim and beautiful, dark as a Persian but with the wide brow, large eyes and narrow jaw of a Slav. The three of us hung out. Sometimes Corbin and Ray would be along. Others too on occasions. Weeknights chatting at the Cadde. Weekends moving onto the clubs, to dance, drink and trip til the daylight. They were good times.
It was at the Cadde that I met Meltem, friend of Yasemine. Meltem was no beauty, but her dark eyes and high cheekbones were exotic to me. She came home with me. Next day she took me to Heybeliada island, her favorite retreat from the intensity of Istanbul. It was a two lira ferry ride, an hour and a half’s duration, and it took us to an entirely new world out there in the Marmara Sea. No crowds, no cars, no pollution, it´s tranquility blemished only by the squabbling gulls and the acidic reek of horseshit. The horses pulled antique buggies and rickety carts. The dogs were countless; tawny, lumbering beasts from the eastern country; and cats as many, here and there a Van cat; white with one eye blue, one eye green. We hiked around the island, past the naval academy and the Byzantine monastery, to a secluded little cove between the two peaks. Far to the south, beyond the turquoise sea, the Anatolian plateau stood clearly visible. It was a romantic spot. I lifted Meltem in my arms. She kissed me full on the lips.
Her English was not good; my Turkish almost non-existent. But we got by to an extent. I learned she was some kind of secretary. She worked ten hours a day, sometimes more. She was twenty-seven, lived with her family, and smoked a pack and a half of cigarettes a day. Back at the port we had lunch. The restaurant offered a view of the Asian side, with its high rises, and its mosques with their minarets, like strange, giant crabs, or elephant skulls with long, vertical tusks. We ordered doner kebabs and drank salty yogurt-milk drink. The boat was even more overcrowded for the return sailing. We managed to find a spot in the cafeteria close to the windows. Outside gulls swooped for hunks of bread tossed by the passengers on deck. Near the mouth of the Bosporus, where Europe meets Asia and the Marmara leads to the Black Sea, we caught sight of a school of porpoise skipping along among the busy shipping traffic, sleek and brown, shimmering in the evening sun. When we parted at Eminonu Meltem kissed me again. Her mouth tasted of tobacco. I stood and watched her go. This was not what I wanted.
During Ramadan I saw her only a few times, for coffee or just a walk. I took advantage of the ensuing holiday to fly down to Izmir and make a visa run to Khios. It was from Khios that I e-mailed Meltem and called it off. Her reply was surprisingly emotional, as though it had been years, not just a month or so.
“Man, she was hot for you,” Brad chided me back at the Cadde. “You threw it away.”
“It wasn’t right. I wasn’t getting that boom-boom factor.”
“Might a come, dude. Should a given it time.”
I suppose I knew. I had pushed her away.
Brad texted me late one night, around eleven.
‘U at Cadde?’
‘Not 4 much longer. Work 2moro.’
‘C u in 5.’
Twenty minutes later Brad walked into the bar, a rangy, crew-cut figure in a leather jacket, jeans and pointed boots. His face was taut as he sat down. I waited for him to speak.
“Man, the bitch flipped right out! It was her birthday. I wanted to take her somewhere. But she gets so darned depressed. She don’t wanna do anything.”
“Depression is anger.”
“I know that.” Brad scowled at me. “But it ain’t my fault, dude. She got issues from her past. All I did was offer to take her out for her birthday. She didn’t wanna go. So I cooked for her and she threw it against the wall. I tell ya, man, I can’t put up with this shit much longer.”
I listened in silence as he ranted on. I knew I could say nothing he wanted to hear. And a sense of sadness came over me. I hadn’t suspected this between them. All my life I had been surrounded by people who could not get on. Was there no happiness in the world? I sat with him another hour, by the end of which he was drunk on beer and raki. He pleaded with me to stay longer. But I had class in the morning.
Sometimes they came out together and seemed happy. More often they came out together and fought. The three of us, at the Cadde, I listening to them arguing.
“I tried to make you happy.”
“You hate me. You confuse me with your father.”
“Why do you say such horrible things?”
“You blame me for what he did to you.”
“That doesn’t need to be discussed here.”
“Well, maybe we should break up.”
“Maybe we should.”
Increasingly Brad showed up alone, bitching about her, drinking like there were no tomorrow. I counselled my friend to the best of my ability.
“Try livin’ apart for a while, man. Get that appreciation factor back. And if it doesn’t come then, at least it’ll be easier to break up when the time comes.”
“She can’t afford to live alone on her wages. You know they pay crap here. I been carrying her for two years.”
I knew it was over when he went home with the barmaid. Short, buxom, bleached blond. She wasn’t a patch on Yasemine. But Brad was rebelling, driving in the wedge. More girls followed. Then Brad finally called it off.
"The bitch beat me, man! I just wanted to kill myself. I never want a relationship like that again. Six months lovin,’ two years a hell!”
“Istanbul is full of beautiful women.”
“I know it. There is a sexual revolution goin’ on in this city, dude. They pour across from the Asian side and learn a whole new way a thinkin.’”
All those bars and clubs up and down Istiklal, in and out of the side-streets and alleyways, we searched for girls, we approached them, we chatted with them. We spoke mostly in English for they knew how better than Brad even had learnt Turkish. We danced, we drank, we got high, we stayed out all night and then we staggered home along Istiklal, deserted in the predawn gloom, but for the cops in their booths, automatic rifles at hand, and the pimps in their suits emerging from the alleyways. Oftentimes Brad had a girl with him. My strike rate was considerably lower.
In a crowded little bar named Angora we met two girls; Kara and Sevgi. The latter was the more attractive, but I was not disappointed to find myself sitting beside the former. Short, slim, henna-red, she had a pixie face and perky manner that amused me. We got up to dance, and I soon had her in my arms. Too easy! So for once Brad and I both had a girl as we made our way down Istiklal at the end of the night. Next morning I took Kara to a nearby cafe for Turkish coffee and something to eat. From there she made her own way home. Later that day she texted me, and that was just the start of it. Night after night she continued to text me. I liked to receive her messages. It made me feel good, like a guy with a girl. But I didn’t want her to be my girlfriend.
“Don’t keep replying,” Brad warned me. “You’ll make it seem like you’re eager.”
He was right. I couldn’t get rid of her. I decided to take her out for dinner and break the news. We met at Taksim Square and walked down Istiklal, working our way through the mass of humanity. She suggested a place in the Nevizade, an entire block of seafood restaurants and terraces, its streets more packed even than Istiklal, so that we could barely move half the time. Everywhere the smell of fish, cooked and uncooked. The chefs and the filleters were evidently hard at work. Kara chose a good place, with large tables and low prices. The moment we were seated she became as chatty as she had been that first night at Angora. She worked as an au-pair, shared an apartment with Sevgi and wanted to travel to Spain one day. I told her I had spent a few years teaching there. I knew all the best clubs in Barcelona. But no questions came. She wanted only to visit a family whose child she had taken care of while they had been in Turkey a few years before. I couldn’t end it that day. But she seemed to know. I had been putting her off all week, and I did not try to get her home that night. I walked her back to the metro. We kissed before parting, and she drew back quickly, a strange look in her eyes, then hurried down the steps. No text came the following night as I sat drinking with Brad in the Cadde.
“Man, you let another one go,” he said, shaking his head in wonder. “You had her. I was there. You push everyone away.”
Then we lost Ray. I had just returned from my second visa run, to Bulgaria, during the Kurban religious holiday. His stag night began at the Cadde, naturally. Ray’s brother had flown in from Belfast for the occasion; a stocky redhead, the image of Ray himself, he wore a ‘Superman’ T-shirt with the words ‘TRUTH, JUSTICE & the AMERICAN WAY’ emblazoned across it. He was holding court as I joined them.
“It’s not a question of whether he’s dead or not, but whether he actually existed, per se. Maybe he was just a kid plucked out of modelling school or sometin,’ given a good American stage-name, and taught to lip-sync for the TV cameras.”
Brad laughed. “He gave live performances til the end of his career, dude.”
“Go to any yourself, did ya?”
Corbin puffed on his cigarette. “Aw, come on, pal. So whose voice was it then?”
“I don’t know. Maybe the Bopper guy. Same voice.”
“JP Richardson died in fifty-nine,” Brad scoffed. “Man, you know nothin’ about music!”
“See his dead body yourself, did ya?”
“They were on tour; the Big Bopper, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens. The plane went down and they all died.”
Ray's brother winked at him. “Maybe. Or maybe they spent the next two decades producing music for the chosen face of American rock ‘n’ roll.”
“That crash was widely covered by the media,” said Corbin.
“Believe everytin' you read in the papers, do ya?”
“Listen pal, I work for the papers. You got no idea what you’re talkin’ about.”
Ray raised his beer. “Ah, well, who knows, lads? Anytin’s possible.”
We were intruded upon at this point by the gynaecologist and the physiotherapist. The first of these raucous, raspberry-blowing leviathans proceeded to help himself to our tanks of beer, swiping them up, downing them in one go, slamming them empty onto the table, belching contentedly as he did so. The other, meanwhile, engaged Corbin in a coaster battle, which soon escalated into all out war.
Ray drew me aside. “We’re goin’ to a club. But first we need to lose these guys. How much you owe?”
I gave him six lira and he quietly settled the bill at the bar. Then we all moved out quickly, before the Turk duo had time to call for theirs. Halfway up Istiklal we heard them in the distance behind us, yelling and singing like a pair of lunatics. We broke right down Galatasaray, away from the hordes, laughing as we went. A veritable labyrinth of dark little streets brought us by some miracle to the James Dean. We had no women with us, the standard requirement for male patrons, but Brad played there from time to time and managed to get us in.
Corbin grinned up at me as we entered. “Hey, you couldn’t buy me a beer, could ya? I’m flat broke.”
I knew prices were steep in this place, and it wasn’t the first time he had pulled this stunt. But it was only a beer and I’d rather buy the guy a beer than seem like a miser.
We took a table and it was beside Andy, middleaged colleague of Ray’s, that I found myself sitting.
“Gotta girl yet, son?”
“Nope.” I had to shout to be heard above the music.
Andy’s forehead dissolved into lines. “It’s easy ‘ere. They don’t like the local men. ‘Magandas,’ they call ‘em. Tell you wot though, they’re ga-ga for Englishmen. I got several on the go.”
I gazed at this bald, tattooed, talking beer-barrel in wonder. He further aroused my curiosity by taking out his billfold and producing a photo of a fetching blonde, no more than thirty.
“This one’s Russian,” he said. “In’t she something, eh!”
My mind leapt to the ‘Natashas’ who worked the alleyways off Istiklal. “Where’d you meet her?”
“Net. There’s loads of ‘em. Mostly Turks, but Russians, Ukrainians, Moldavians as well. This one wants to marry me. He! he! ‘Ere, I’ll write down the address of the site, if you want. Course, it’d ‘elp if you were English.”
“Sounds like I’m the wrong nationality.” I slapped him on the back. “My huntin’ ground’s clubs like this here, man!”
Right on cue, Brad ducked over. “Dude, you up for wingman?”
“Sure.” I picked up my beer and followed him.
Detecting a presence at my shoulder, I glanced around to find Corbin. He must have overheard. Still, he was in his forties and greying at the temples. She wouldn’t be interested in him. We came to a table occupied by two attractive young women, heavily dolled-up, mid-twenties at most. Brad introduced me to his ex-pupil, and even as he was doing so Corbin slipped around and seated himself beside the other.
Brad laughed. “Oh, and meet Corbin!”
Corbin, in his nasal New Jersey accent, hastened to add he was ‘international correspondent for the American Times.’ That was it. I remained at the table another ten or fifteen minutes without receiving any opportunity to talk to the girl. His back partly turned on the rest of us, Corbin drew her into conversation from which, by dint of not being able to hear it, we were naturally excluded.
Brad leaned over to me. “’International correspondent for the American Times.’ Dude, you can’t compete with that.”
“Well, if she falls for that ol’ dog he’s welcome to her.”
Andy laughed when I told him what had happened. “That’s Corbin for you, son. Complete arsehole when it comes to women. Who were the girls?”
“Ex-student a Brad’s and a friend.”
He gulped his beer and winked mischievously at me. “Tell you wot, there’s some foxy little wenches where I’m working.”
“You teach at a high-school, man.”
“Yeah, I know. One of the little darlings put ‘er ‘and on my knee the other day as I was marking 'er test. He! he! I just gave ‘er an ‘A’!”
“You unethical bastard!” I thumped him on the back.
At the end of the night Ray said his farewells. He assured us he was doing the right thing, that it was the only way he could be with the woman he loved, that he wasn’t worried about the death threats, and that we’d be seeing him around the ‘good ol’ Cadde’ just as often as always. We told him take care, and that was the last we saw of him for many months.
“We’re goin’ a Transdinistria, dude!” Brad’s first words when he arrived at the Cadde.
“You’re goin’ where?”
Corbin had walked in behind him, crew-cut, dressed the same; black jacket, jeans, leather boots, only his boots were platforms. “Transdinistria. Breakaway region of Moldavia and last bastion of communism in Europe,” he filled me in.
“We’re doin’ a story for the American Times,” said Brad. “Corbin set it up. He’ll be doin’ the text and I’ll be doin’ the photos.”
“Really? And when is all this taking place?”
Brad looked to Corbin, who, speaking out of one side of his mouth while holding a cigarette in the other, squinted pensively. “Still waitin’ for them to get back to me with the dates. When I know, you’ll know.”
Two sumptuous young women entered the bar, dark-skinned, bleached blond, fine Slavic faces. We ogled them shamelessly as they passed by our table.
“Check it out!” Brad murmured.
Corbin leaned forward to stare after them. “Figures. They’re sittin’ down with some guys.”
“Good ones are always taken,” I groaned.
Brad turned his gaze back on me. “No, they’re out there. You just gotta make more of an effort to meet ‘em.”
“Look, no offense,” said Corbin. “But it doesn’t get any easier than Istiklal.”
“I’m not talkin’ about one-night-stands,” I told him. “I wanna girl like ‘that.’”
Corbin frowned. “Well, that’s probably not gonna happen, pal.”
“What he’s lookin’ for is perfection,” said Brad. “Dude, perfection does not exist. Life ain’t no story book.”
“Gotta take what you can get,” Corbin added.
Brad called for another round but Corbin opted out.
“Guys, I gotta go home and eat. I’ll meet up with you later.”
Brad got busy texting while we drank the beer. “Dude, you up for wingman tonight?”
“Any reason I wouldn’t be? What’s the deal?”
“Zuhal’s at the Den with a friend.”
“Good thing Corbin went home. I might get to speak to this one!”
Brad laughed and put away his phone. “Let’s finish these and head up there.”
Sure enough, we entered the Sultan’s Den to find Zuhal with another chick. I could scarcely take my eyes off her. Auburn hair, prominent cheekbones, green eyes; the friend was a stunner. Zeynep apologized for her poor English, and this gave me an idea. Perhaps she would be interested in a language exchange. We could meet in a cafe and speak an hour in English and an hour in Turkish. She gave me neither a clear ‘yes’ nor a clear ‘no.’ The best I could manage was to leave her with my mobile phone number.
Corbin called Brad and was duly informed we were at the Den with a couple of girls. I cringed as I listened, but at least I’d had my chance, and it would take him twenty minutes to walk here from his apartment.
He appeared in about five minutes. Black jacket, jeans, the platform boots that raised him to almost average height; he reminded me of Henry Winkler playing ‘The Phonse’ when he had grown too old for the part. There was a check in his stride when he spotted Zeynep, and his eyes bulged like a cat's. I noted, with some degree of smugness, that there was no way he could cut in. Zeynep was by the wall with me beside her, and Zuhal and Brad were opposite. The only available seat was at the end of the table. I watched his grin give way to a frown.
“Hey, man, think you could buy me a beer?” He put a hand on the back of my chair. “I’m broke.”
I glanced at his hand. “Sorry, I’m low on cash myself right now.”
“What?” He winced. “You can’t buy me a beer?”
“Don’t look at me,” said Brad. “End a the month, dude!”
Corbin wasn’t looking at him. He slumped down at the end of the table, turning his back on us, and proceeded to moan bitterly about the fact he had no money and might as well go home if no one was going to buy him a beer. I hoped he would go home. Naturally he didn’t.
The big television screen across the bar brought up news of a terrorist attack on the Mediterranean coast. We all stopped talking to watch. An Irish tourist had been killed.
“That’s terrible,” said Zuhal. “This person comes to our country for a holiday and that happens.”
“They are crazy,” added Zeynep.
Brad blinked wearily at her. “It’s a symptom of a bigger problem.”
“Oh, and you would say that about the two towers?”
A quiver of anger crossed Brad’s face. “You’re comparing an unprovoked attack by an international terrorist network to the extremist element of a people’s struggle for a homeland and basic human rights.”
Zeynep shook her head irritably. “Americans are stupid!”
Even before Corbin had revolved completely around in his chair and fixed his gaze on her, I saw what was coming.
“Hey,” he leapt in, leaning over me, the face of the aggrieved, seizing his opportunity, “We are not stupid. What did you mean by that?”
“You talk about basic rights. You would say that about black people in America?”
“What about them? Have you ever been to America? What would you know?”
“What do you know about my country?”
“I been here six years. I know plenny. For instance, I know this country refuses to acknowledge what happened to the Armenians a century ago.”
“Do you acknowledge what happened to Muslims at same time? Or what happened to Indians in America? They want to say Turkey is killer because not want in Earopean Onion.”
Brad laughed raucously. “Man, she’s totally nationalist! She don’t know anything. She can’t even speak English!”
Corbin kept his gaze on Zeynep. For her part, she appeared unperturbed, even smiling a little.
“Look, you’re not using the correct terms,” Corbin told her, softening his tone. “We don’t say ‘blacks’ and ‘Indians.’ That’s considered racist. We say ‘African-Americans’ and ‘Native Americans.’”
“Is same.”
“No, it’s not. These are very sensitive issues, which you don’t understand because you’ve never been to America.”
Zeynep paused and smiled at me. “Why not speak?”
Before I had chance to, Corbin leaned across me again. “He teaches English to kids. Talk to me. I’m an international journalist. I’ve covered wars in Iraq, Bosnia, Rwanda. And for the past six years I’ve been the American Times' correspondent in Turkey.”
I stared at the big screen. Civilian carnage in the Middle East. The news-site I had read that morning had referred to ‘battles with militants.’ But all I was seeing were dead women and children. The anger bubbled to the surface, irrepressible:
“I teach English to ‘kids,’ do I? An international journalist would at least get his facts straight. I teach business English to adults.”
Corbin frowned back at me. “Listen, pal, are you implying I’m not what I say I am?”
“I’m not sure what to believe, man. Just don’t lie to people about ‘me.’”
He got slowly to his feet, striking a tragic pose, a far-away look in his eyes, the mortally wounded. A trembling forefinger rose in the air, but then, as though deciding it had all become too much for him, he turned and swept out of the bar.
Brad laughed so hard he nearly fell out of his chair.
Zeynep looked worried. “Oh, did he go because me?”
“No, no,” I assured her. "He left because of ‘me.’ But he had it comin.’ He’s got no right to trample over other people’s views.”
“But he’s international journalist.”
“He’s no expert. He think’s the world’s a TV show.”
Even as I spoke, Corbin himself stalked back into the bar, shoulders hunched, a menacing glare directed at me. “Just don’t ever do that again, pal!”
I extended my hand with a grin. Zeynep was still beside me, and I didn’t want friction with a friend. Corbin refused to shake, however; just stormed out again.
“Don’t worry,” said Brad. “He’ll be back.”
Indeed, Corbin did return, and it was he who extended his hand. The hostility was over. Though by that time Zeynep had gone, the note with my number left behind on the table.
Next morning I took the ferry out to Heybeliada. I needed to get away from the city, if only for a day. I tried to read but found myself going over and over the same passages without absorbing a thing. Finally I put the book aside. In a sense I was pleased I had stood up to Corbin. In another I was unnerved by the conflict. I was going to have to fake it with him from now on. He had been just a little too cheerful on his return to the bar. His mood had changed just a little too quickly. It had been as if he were actually quite satisfied with what he had achieved. The boat was half-empty, in stark contrast to the crammed conditions of that sailing six months ago, when Meltem had brought me here. The window beside my table was a battle scene of angry grey waves. It was a chilly day in the islands, with light rain falling intermittently. The streets were deserted but for a few tawny dogs and a pair of chestnut horses tied up with feed-bags. Stern-faced guards watched me through the fence of the naval academy, automatic rifles at the ready. I hiked up the slope, past them and the old Byzantine monastery, to the top of the first hill. I gained no view of the Anatolian plateau. The Marmara Sea was engulfed in cloud. Even the neighbouring islands of Buyukada and Burgazada were not fully visible. Down in the stony cove I picked my way through broken bottles and bits of debris. A foul stench reached my nostrils, and my attention was drawn to some large thing floating in the surf, back and forth with the tide. It was the carcass of a dead horse; its tan hide scrubbed bare, its belly bloated with seawater, its head twisted back in an odious grin, like a vision from a nightmare. It filled me with an unsettling premonition.
Brad was tapping away at his mobile phone when I arrived at the Cadde that evening. “Deleting numbers,” he chuckled.
“Too many chicks to keep track of?”
“Dude, they all want me to be their boyfriend. You know I had to ditch one the other day. Now she’s sending me abusive messages. Hell, that kind a thing’s why I got out of a relationship.”
“Neslihan? She was crazy about you.”
“Well, I’m not ready for another girlfriend. Besides, you ain’t seen the messages!”
Brad finished his tank, ordered another, and resumed deleting contacts.
“Think I’ll let Seda go.”
“The medical student? Nice girl.”
“Too serious, man. I prefer chicks like Bone Structure. Don’t hang around the mornin’ after. Don’t care who else I shag. She even asked me to shag her room-mate. Ha!”
He took a swig of beer. “Hell, this is my seventh or eighth. Come on, man. You got some catchin’ up to do.”
Brad found a new bass guitarist for his band and set up a gig at the James Dean. It was to be a regular thing, Saturday nights. They played from nine til eleven, then the stage would be cleared and transformed into a dance-floor. The discos were popular and ensured a reasonable crowd, if only toward the end of the gigs.
Meanwhile I made my third visa run, to Egypt. I had a week’s leave, nine days with the weekends, but scheduled my trip for just six days, so keen was I not to miss a single Saturday night at the Dean. Many hours I spent sitting in an outdoor tea parlour in Cairo, contemplating my good fortune. My closest friend was a musician, so we had a lot of fun, and I had a cushy twenty-five hour a week job that paid well enough for me to live like this. Egypt was warm, the people friendly, the prices unbelievably low. But my thoughts remained in Istanbul.
I returned on a rainy Saturday morning. The airport bus took almost two hours to work its way through the traffic to Taksim. I strolled down Istiklal with a pleasant feeling inside me. The odours from the kebab shops, the soft music wafting out of the DVD stores, the Green Mosque, Galatasaray, the cops with their automatic rifles, greasy-haired men, women in headscarves, the beautiful girls, cripples peddling tissues, the Kurdish shoeshine boys who grinned when they recognized me. It had all been so alien to me nine months before. Now it was as familiar as home.
In the evening I went to watch Brad play. It was as always, the bar filling up during the latter part of the show. He got talking with a couple of dark-haired beauties afterwards. I shot a glance at Corbin, who was occupied at the bar, and hastened across to join them. They were sisters from Izmir, up for a few days’ holiday. Hayat, the elder, was a belly-dancer. I was then introduced to the other, Pinar. She, however, stared back at me with such a ghastly expression that I backed off as hastily as I had come.
I put it down to the age factor. Brad was a few years my junior and these girls would have been close to a decade younger than him. It had to have been the age.
Even as I consoled myself with that thought, Corbin made a B-line from the bar to Brad and the girls and promptly attached himself to Pinar, like a leach. I waited for him to receive the brush-off. I did so in vain. They were together til closing time, and then the four of them, Brad, Corbin and the sisters, headed back to Brad’s apartment.
Neither Brad nor Corbin showed up at the Cadde the following night. That could only have meant one thing, and I knew better than to disturb Brad with text messages when he was shagging. Monday, however, they both came. The sisters were with them. It was their last night in town.
“Man,” Corbin rolled his eyes at me when the girls were in the bathroom, “that Pinar is beautiful. You wanna see her with her clothes off!”
Brad was making short work of his first tank. “I don’t want ‘em over at my house again tonight though, dude. I’m kind a tired of this Hayat chick.”
“What?” Corbin winced. “I can’t take ‘em both back to my place. My room-mate’s got someone stayin’ on the couch as it is.”
“I just don’t want Hayat comin’ home with me is all. She’ll have to book a hotel.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “She can crash on my couch, seeing as it’s only one night.”
Brad leaned forward and knocked his tank against mine. “Hey, cheers, dude. I owe ya one.”
This arrangement was duly conveyed to the sisters when they returned. Brad told Hayat his ex-girlfriend had called to say she would be over to collect some things. Since she still had a key, that might be any time. “She’s a little psycho,” he warned her.
Hayat looked put out, understandably, but accepted both the explanation and my offer.
“That’s nice of you,” she thanked me. “You know something, I have a friend you should meet. She’s from Izmir but her family came to Istanbul. She’s very pretty, but very shy.”
It sounded too good to be true, and I was hardly surprised when the friend declined to join us that evening. Her brother was home from military service. Hayat left me with her number and encouraged me to contact her later in the week. This I did, and to my astonishment she agreed to go out for dinner with me. We had to describe ourselves so as to recognise each other when we met. I told her I was tall, blond and dopey-looking; distinctive enough in these parts. She replied that she was very short and very fat, and my spirits plummeted again.
Naturally that was what I looked for the evening I went to meet her; a short fat chick. I could barely believe my eyes when a perfectly attractive, dark-haired girl in a pink jacket and tight blue jeans stepped up and introduced herself as Fatime. Her eyes were like black marbles, her smile a row of small white teeth. She was a tad short, though not overly, and had a delightful figure. We drank coffee and got to know each other. Fatime lived with her parents, though she would have been close to thirty, worked ten-to-twelve hours a day in an office, and wanted to learn English for her career. It was a familiar story. For her part, she asked few questions, aside from the standard, “Have you got a house?” to which I replied I was an English teacher, not a rich man.
She suggested a restaurant in Sariyer, a short taxi-ride away. In fact, it was twenty minutes and a fifteen lira fare. The place itself was right on the Bosporus, its large windows offering a view of the lights of the Asian side. Throughout the meal we were attended by a veritable swarm of waiters in tuxedos, who brought us our food dish by dish, together with the two bottles of white wine we ordered. I braced myself when the bill came, and it was worse than I feared. I did not even have enough cash on me to cover it. Fortunately I did have my Spanish credit card. We took a taxi home. Before it dropped her off, Fatime agreed to see me again. I could think of nothing else.
The following weekend she accompanied me to the James Dean to see Brad play. I was proud to have her beside me. The guys all told me how beautiful she was. Of the regulars, only Corbin was absent - on ‘confidential assignment’ in eastern Turkey, apparently. After the show I walked Fatime to the taxi stand. She squeezed me playfully as we kissed each other on the cheeks. Was it possible then, that this gorgeous young woman from Izmir was actually interested in ‘me’?
I played it cool, contacting her only when she contacted me first, which she did almost daily, sending text messages and e-mails. We met for coffee on Wednesday and made a lunch-date for Sunday in Ortakoy.
Saturday Corbin was back at the James Dean, full of stories of his adventures in Van. When the band went up on stage for sound-check he turned and asked me, “So, how’d it go last week? I miss anything?”
“Boys played well, as usual. Fatime came along.”
“Who? Oh, that girl you were set up with.”
“Man, I lucked out. She’s beautiful!”
Corbin drew on his cigarette, squinting. “Wait a minute, I gotta get a second opinion on that.” He proceeded to ask a few of the regulars, and with each reply another line seemed to form on his brow. He was still frowning when Brad’s guitar squealed to life and the show began.
The bar filled up later on, and Corbin was off doing the rounds. But not me. I couldn’t do that to Fatime. I guessed she wasn’t my girl yet. We hadn’t even kissed. But surely it was headed in that direction. All those texts and e-mails. The embraces when we said goodbye. Besides, none of the girls in the Dean were a patch on her for me right then.
I never slept in! Even on weekends when I’d been out all night, I would be up by nine-thirty or ten at the latest. So how was it possible that I had slept til one in the afternoon? Then I remembered the raki. How many rounds had I bought? I must have spent a fortune. I couldn’t even remember coming home. Not for the first time, I vowed never to mix speed and raki again. I stared at my watch. Sunday, one o’clock. My lunch-date with Fatime was for one o’clock! Scrambling around my room, I realized I was still partially drunk. It was a disaster.
No sooner did I switch on my phone than Fatime called: “Where are you?”
“Just woke up. So sorry. I’ll get a taxi and be there in half an hour.”
“Okay. Don’t hurry. I am waiting for you.”
It was raining outside. Normally there would have been taxis queued up at the tramway terminal on Istiklal, but this afternoon there were none. I ran about frantically, cursing my ill-fortune. Poor Fatime, waiting for me in the rain. How could I have screwed this up? Finally I got a taxi. I texted Fatime to tell her I was fifteen minutes away. Fifteen minutes later, however, we were stuck in traffic less than halfway there. I texted her again and she replied with the same words: ‘Don’t hurry. I am waiting.’
It was past two before we got to Ortakoy. I dodged across the main street and hastened through the market place, past the mosque and out onto the pier. As I spun around in search of Fatime, she emerged onto the pier behind me, holding a red umbrella. I rushed over and embraced her, and she smiled up at me with her small white teeth as if to say everything was alright. I wanted to kiss her then, but I knew to be patient.
She took me to a cafe with a view of the bridge. It was enormous at such close range, looming high above the town and extending off into the distance of the Asian side. Fatime was smartly dressed as always. I had thrown on the same grey hooded sweater and faded jeans I’d been wearing the previous night. I felt a twinge of embarrassment, but surely she would not judge me by my clothes. When the rain eased we took a walk around the busy market, then out onto the main street where Fatime pointed out the synagogue, the church and the Turkish bath-house. It had been a very cosmopolitan city in Ottoman times, she explained.
Later we went into a pastry shop for coffee and something sweet. Getting out her digital camera, she proceeded to show me her family. Her parents were celebrating their fortieth anniversary this year.
“I envy you,” I said. “My parents were divorced when I was nine.”
“That’s sad,” she replied. “We have saying: ‘No love, no life.’”
I looked at the happy, weathered faces in the picture. Her father was swarthy and bore a thick black moustache. Her mother had Fatime’s eyes and wore a headscarf. I wondered if I could ever be part of that family, and found myself doubting it.
The waiter came by and I suggested we ask him to take our photo. I put my arm around her as he did. She did not object. After, I pecked her on the cheek. Again she did not object, though neither did she kiss me back; just giggled.
“Oh, Fatime, do you like me?”
Her brow furrowed. “Yes, but as friend.”
It was an unexpected blow that knocked all the joy out of me. I was unable to respond for a moment. “And . . . in the future?”
Her lashes came down over her large black eyes. “I not want boyfriend. I mean, yes, I want boyfriend. But other man.”
Poor Fatime. She had not even managed to put it delicately. For fully fifteen minutes I sat there and said nothing. Many emotions passed through me, many dark thoughts and realizations, and at last I understood what it all meant. I had been used, and, far worse, I had failed when it had meant the most to me.
I took the mini-bus from Ortakoy to Taksim and headed straight for the Cadde, texting Brad along the way. He showed up around seven with Bone Structure.
“Hey, man,” I chuckled. “American Times confirm your Transdinistria dates yet?”
He blinked down at me wearily. “Hell, how long you been here?”
“Long enough to have made a decision. I’m movin’ on come July. Rio maybe.”
Brad called for a round of drinks and the two of them sat down. “You’ve given up, dude. That’s the way it looks to me.”
“I was crazy about her.”
“You made it too easy, man. Chicks wanna challenge. Tell ‘em you don’t wanna girlfriend and you can guarantee they’ll try to become one.”
“Nah. I played it right with Fatime. She was only in it for the English practise.”
“She was lookin’ for a rich yabanci and you weren’t rich enough. So forget her. Dude, you’re disillusioned right now, but hang in there.”
I nodded. But inside I was wondering how long it was going to take before I could trust somebody again.
Brad called the waitress back; the same one he’d shagged before breaking up with Yasemine, and who was well used to seeing him with different chicks all the time by now. “Uc tane raki.”
Not even he could catch me in the beer count that night, and how many rounds of raki we ordered was anybody’s guess. Bone Structure chirped away in her high-pitched, sing-song tone. She had little English and I understood only fragments of what she said in Turkish. At one stage Brad translated:
“Ha! She wants me to get a tat. What a you think, dude?”
Bone Structure herself had tattoos on her neck and hands.
“I think you’ll end up like Andy!” I laughed.
Closing time was upon us suddenly, catching us in a drunken daze. Getting unsteadily to my feet, I immediately realized I could hardly walk. Yet somehow I found myself at the bottom of Istiklal, parting ways with Brad and Bone Structure. Next I was staggering off down the dark alleyway to my apartment. Entering the building I fumbled around for the light switch in the darkness. I thought I hit it but no light came. A woman in a headscarf emerged from the ground floor apartment and began shouting at me. From the light of her doorway I could see the switch I had pressed was her doorbell. She was practically shrieking at me now.
“Alright! Alright!” I yelled back. “Don’t give yourself a heart attack!”
As I turned to make my way upstairs I glimpsed out of the corner of my eye a shadowy figure charging out of the apartment. A blow to my back sent me reeling toward the concrete steps.
The director of the academy was standing over me when I awoke. Tall, overweight, immaculately attired, Ahmet Bey had the drooping eyelids of an Ottoman sultan, and there were streaks of silver in his wavy black hair. His boyish smile seemed a permanent fixture. I had a splitting headache and there was a painful throbbing beneath my right shoulder blade.
“Where am I?” I gazed around at the bare lime-green walls.
“You are at the medical center. Do you remember what happened?”
“The guy on the ground floor jumped me. That’s about all.”
“You have a knife wound in your back and a minor fracture in your skull.”
A “‘knife wound?!’”
“’Don’t worry. The doctor says it is not serious. You were lucky. It was also fortunate your landlady called me first. She says you forced your way into the ground floor apartment and threatened the occupants. They thought you were an intruder.''
It took me a moment to figure it out. "She's lying. She doesn't want the police involved."
"Neither do we. Besides, if it went to court it would be your word against hers, and you were drunk."
On my way out of the medical center I was presented with a bill for six hundred lira. They had taken x-rays and put stitches in my back. Ahmet Bey told me not to worry. He knew the people and would get it reduced. There was one other problem, however. The landlady wanted me out by the end of the week.
I was excused from work that evening and put in an early appearance at the Cadde. I still had the headache and the pain in my back, but I dearly hoped to see Brad, to talk it all out. He did not reply to my text, so I knew he was with a girl. I sat alone by the window, watching the rain fall outside, reflecting on what had come to pass. Just a few weeks earlier I had sat in an outdoor tea parlour in Cairo, warm, content, and anxious to get back to Istanbul. Had I bought some kind of curse back with me? Rejected, stabbed, evicted, half my savings gone on medical expenses! It all seemed so unfair. Perhaps, then, Brad was right about me. My expectations of life were unrealistic. I was looking for perfection and unwilling to accept anything less. I wanted a story-book life; truth, justice, a happy ending.
My mind's eye recalled the dead horse at Heybeliada, floating in and out with the tide, head twisted back, teeth locked in an eternal grimace. Such a beautiful island. Such a grotesque sight to find.
End
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So I sat alone at the Cadde Bar, off the Beyoglu end of Istiklal, watching the rain come down, turning the dust to mud. Brad had brought me here my first night in from Barcelona. Only, then it had been summer and we had sat outside, feeling the heat slowly recede with the daylight, til the night-breezes wafted up from the Golden Horn and blew through the alley. The beer was cheap at the Cadde, four lira now, three lira then. It had been one lira when Brad had first come to the city, he said, though back then they had called it ‘a milyon.’ Yasemine had been with us that first night too.
They'd seemed so happy in those times, an American and a Turk, performing with a drummer named Cengiz at whatever bars they could up and down Istiklal. They were good, but the locals only wanted to hear covers of the tunes they knew, not Western music, and certainly not grunge. Sometimes they stuck around, craning their necks, like it was some kind of puzzle they had to figure out. More often they dwindled away, til it was just me, Corbin and Ray left, applauding light-heartedly, chatting with the band even as they played to no one but us.
Brad and I had taught together in Bangkok. Then he’d had a Thai girl. Now it was Yasemine, slim and beautiful, dark as a Persian but with the wide brow, large eyes and narrow jaw of a Slav. The three of us hung out. Sometimes Corbin and Ray would be along. Others too on occasions. Weeknights chatting at the Cadde. Weekends moving onto the clubs, to dance, drink and trip til the daylight. They were good times.
It was at the Cadde that I met Meltem, friend of Yasemine. Meltem was no beauty, but her dark eyes and high cheekbones were exotic to me. She came home with me. Next day she took me to Heybeliada island, her favorite retreat from the intensity of Istanbul. It was a two lira ferry ride, an hour and a half’s duration, and it took us to an entirely new world out there in the Marmara Sea. No crowds, no cars, no pollution, it´s tranquility blemished only by the squabbling gulls and the acidic reek of horseshit. The horses pulled antique buggies and rickety carts. The dogs were countless; tawny, lumbering beasts from the eastern country; and cats as many, here and there a Van cat; white with one eye blue, one eye green. We hiked around the island, past the naval academy and the Byzantine monastery, to a secluded little cove between the two peaks. Far to the south, beyond the turquoise sea, the Anatolian plateau stood clearly visible. It was a romantic spot. I lifted Meltem in my arms. She kissed me full on the lips.
Her English was not good; my Turkish almost non-existent. But we got by to an extent. I learned she was some kind of secretary. She worked ten hours a day, sometimes more. She was twenty-seven, lived with her family, and smoked a pack and a half of cigarettes a day. Back at the port we had lunch. The restaurant offered a view of the Asian side, with its high rises, and its mosques with their minarets, like strange, giant crabs, or elephant skulls with long, vertical tusks. We ordered doner kebabs and drank salty yogurt-milk drink. The boat was even more overcrowded for the return sailing. We managed to find a spot in the cafeteria close to the windows. Outside gulls swooped for hunks of bread tossed by the passengers on deck. Near the mouth of the Bosporus, where Europe meets Asia and the Marmara leads to the Black Sea, we caught sight of a school of porpoise skipping along among the busy shipping traffic, sleek and brown, shimmering in the evening sun. When we parted at Eminonu Meltem kissed me again. Her mouth tasted of tobacco. I stood and watched her go. This was not what I wanted.
During Ramadan I saw her only a few times, for coffee or just a walk. I took advantage of the ensuing holiday to fly down to Izmir and make a visa run to Khios. It was from Khios that I e-mailed Meltem and called it off. Her reply was surprisingly emotional, as though it had been years, not just a month or so.
“Man, she was hot for you,” Brad chided me back at the Cadde. “You threw it away.”
“It wasn’t right. I wasn’t getting that boom-boom factor.”
“Might a come, dude. Should a given it time.”
I suppose I knew. I had pushed her away.
Brad texted me late one night, around eleven.
‘U at Cadde?’
‘Not 4 much longer. Work 2moro.’
‘C u in 5.’
Twenty minutes later Brad walked into the bar, a rangy, crew-cut figure in a leather jacket, jeans and pointed boots. His face was taut as he sat down. I waited for him to speak.
“Man, the bitch flipped right out! It was her birthday. I wanted to take her somewhere. But she gets so darned depressed. She don’t wanna do anything.”
“Depression is anger.”
“I know that.” Brad scowled at me. “But it ain’t my fault, dude. She got issues from her past. All I did was offer to take her out for her birthday. She didn’t wanna go. So I cooked for her and she threw it against the wall. I tell ya, man, I can’t put up with this shit much longer.”
I listened in silence as he ranted on. I knew I could say nothing he wanted to hear. And a sense of sadness came over me. I hadn’t suspected this between them. All my life I had been surrounded by people who could not get on. Was there no happiness in the world? I sat with him another hour, by the end of which he was drunk on beer and raki. He pleaded with me to stay longer. But I had class in the morning.
Sometimes they came out together and seemed happy. More often they came out together and fought. The three of us, at the Cadde, I listening to them arguing.
“I tried to make you happy.”
“You hate me. You confuse me with your father.”
“Why do you say such horrible things?”
“You blame me for what he did to you.”
“That doesn’t need to be discussed here.”
“Well, maybe we should break up.”
“Maybe we should.”
Increasingly Brad showed up alone, bitching about her, drinking like there were no tomorrow. I counselled my friend to the best of my ability.
“Try livin’ apart for a while, man. Get that appreciation factor back. And if it doesn’t come then, at least it’ll be easier to break up when the time comes.”
“She can’t afford to live alone on her wages. You know they pay crap here. I been carrying her for two years.”
I knew it was over when he went home with the barmaid. Short, buxom, bleached blond. She wasn’t a patch on Yasemine. But Brad was rebelling, driving in the wedge. More girls followed. Then Brad finally called it off.
"The bitch beat me, man! I just wanted to kill myself. I never want a relationship like that again. Six months lovin,’ two years a hell!”
“Istanbul is full of beautiful women.”
“I know it. There is a sexual revolution goin’ on in this city, dude. They pour across from the Asian side and learn a whole new way a thinkin.’”
All those bars and clubs up and down Istiklal, in and out of the side-streets and alleyways, we searched for girls, we approached them, we chatted with them. We spoke mostly in English for they knew how better than Brad even had learnt Turkish. We danced, we drank, we got high, we stayed out all night and then we staggered home along Istiklal, deserted in the predawn gloom, but for the cops in their booths, automatic rifles at hand, and the pimps in their suits emerging from the alleyways. Oftentimes Brad had a girl with him. My strike rate was considerably lower.
In a crowded little bar named Angora we met two girls; Kara and Sevgi. The latter was the more attractive, but I was not disappointed to find myself sitting beside the former. Short, slim, henna-red, she had a pixie face and perky manner that amused me. We got up to dance, and I soon had her in my arms. Too easy! So for once Brad and I both had a girl as we made our way down Istiklal at the end of the night. Next morning I took Kara to a nearby cafe for Turkish coffee and something to eat. From there she made her own way home. Later that day she texted me, and that was just the start of it. Night after night she continued to text me. I liked to receive her messages. It made me feel good, like a guy with a girl. But I didn’t want her to be my girlfriend.
“Don’t keep replying,” Brad warned me. “You’ll make it seem like you’re eager.”
He was right. I couldn’t get rid of her. I decided to take her out for dinner and break the news. We met at Taksim Square and walked down Istiklal, working our way through the mass of humanity. She suggested a place in the Nevizade, an entire block of seafood restaurants and terraces, its streets more packed even than Istiklal, so that we could barely move half the time. Everywhere the smell of fish, cooked and uncooked. The chefs and the filleters were evidently hard at work. Kara chose a good place, with large tables and low prices. The moment we were seated she became as chatty as she had been that first night at Angora. She worked as an au-pair, shared an apartment with Sevgi and wanted to travel to Spain one day. I told her I had spent a few years teaching there. I knew all the best clubs in Barcelona. But no questions came. She wanted only to visit a family whose child she had taken care of while they had been in Turkey a few years before. I couldn’t end it that day. But she seemed to know. I had been putting her off all week, and I did not try to get her home that night. I walked her back to the metro. We kissed before parting, and she drew back quickly, a strange look in her eyes, then hurried down the steps. No text came the following night as I sat drinking with Brad in the Cadde.
“Man, you let another one go,” he said, shaking his head in wonder. “You had her. I was there. You push everyone away.”
Then we lost Ray. I had just returned from my second visa run, to Bulgaria, during the Kurban religious holiday. His stag night began at the Cadde, naturally. Ray’s brother had flown in from Belfast for the occasion; a stocky redhead, the image of Ray himself, he wore a ‘Superman’ T-shirt with the words ‘TRUTH, JUSTICE & the AMERICAN WAY’ emblazoned across it. He was holding court as I joined them.
“It’s not a question of whether he’s dead or not, but whether he actually existed, per se. Maybe he was just a kid plucked out of modelling school or sometin,’ given a good American stage-name, and taught to lip-sync for the TV cameras.”
Brad laughed. “He gave live performances til the end of his career, dude.”
“Go to any yourself, did ya?”
Corbin puffed on his cigarette. “Aw, come on, pal. So whose voice was it then?”
“I don’t know. Maybe the Bopper guy. Same voice.”
“JP Richardson died in fifty-nine,” Brad scoffed. “Man, you know nothin’ about music!”
“See his dead body yourself, did ya?”
“They were on tour; the Big Bopper, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens. The plane went down and they all died.”
Ray's brother winked at him. “Maybe. Or maybe they spent the next two decades producing music for the chosen face of American rock ‘n’ roll.”
“That crash was widely covered by the media,” said Corbin.
“Believe everytin' you read in the papers, do ya?”
“Listen pal, I work for the papers. You got no idea what you’re talkin’ about.”
Ray raised his beer. “Ah, well, who knows, lads? Anytin’s possible.”
We were intruded upon at this point by the gynaecologist and the physiotherapist. The first of these raucous, raspberry-blowing leviathans proceeded to help himself to our tanks of beer, swiping them up, downing them in one go, slamming them empty onto the table, belching contentedly as he did so. The other, meanwhile, engaged Corbin in a coaster battle, which soon escalated into all out war.
Ray drew me aside. “We’re goin’ to a club. But first we need to lose these guys. How much you owe?”
I gave him six lira and he quietly settled the bill at the bar. Then we all moved out quickly, before the Turk duo had time to call for theirs. Halfway up Istiklal we heard them in the distance behind us, yelling and singing like a pair of lunatics. We broke right down Galatasaray, away from the hordes, laughing as we went. A veritable labyrinth of dark little streets brought us by some miracle to the James Dean. We had no women with us, the standard requirement for male patrons, but Brad played there from time to time and managed to get us in.
Corbin grinned up at me as we entered. “Hey, you couldn’t buy me a beer, could ya? I’m flat broke.”
I knew prices were steep in this place, and it wasn’t the first time he had pulled this stunt. But it was only a beer and I’d rather buy the guy a beer than seem like a miser.
We took a table and it was beside Andy, middleaged colleague of Ray’s, that I found myself sitting.
“Gotta girl yet, son?”
“Nope.” I had to shout to be heard above the music.
Andy’s forehead dissolved into lines. “It’s easy ‘ere. They don’t like the local men. ‘Magandas,’ they call ‘em. Tell you wot though, they’re ga-ga for Englishmen. I got several on the go.”
I gazed at this bald, tattooed, talking beer-barrel in wonder. He further aroused my curiosity by taking out his billfold and producing a photo of a fetching blonde, no more than thirty.
“This one’s Russian,” he said. “In’t she something, eh!”
My mind leapt to the ‘Natashas’ who worked the alleyways off Istiklal. “Where’d you meet her?”
“Net. There’s loads of ‘em. Mostly Turks, but Russians, Ukrainians, Moldavians as well. This one wants to marry me. He! he! ‘Ere, I’ll write down the address of the site, if you want. Course, it’d ‘elp if you were English.”
“Sounds like I’m the wrong nationality.” I slapped him on the back. “My huntin’ ground’s clubs like this here, man!”
Right on cue, Brad ducked over. “Dude, you up for wingman?”
“Sure.” I picked up my beer and followed him.
Detecting a presence at my shoulder, I glanced around to find Corbin. He must have overheard. Still, he was in his forties and greying at the temples. She wouldn’t be interested in him. We came to a table occupied by two attractive young women, heavily dolled-up, mid-twenties at most. Brad introduced me to his ex-pupil, and even as he was doing so Corbin slipped around and seated himself beside the other.
Brad laughed. “Oh, and meet Corbin!”
Corbin, in his nasal New Jersey accent, hastened to add he was ‘international correspondent for the American Times.’ That was it. I remained at the table another ten or fifteen minutes without receiving any opportunity to talk to the girl. His back partly turned on the rest of us, Corbin drew her into conversation from which, by dint of not being able to hear it, we were naturally excluded.
Brad leaned over to me. “’International correspondent for the American Times.’ Dude, you can’t compete with that.”
“Well, if she falls for that ol’ dog he’s welcome to her.”
Andy laughed when I told him what had happened. “That’s Corbin for you, son. Complete arsehole when it comes to women. Who were the girls?”
“Ex-student a Brad’s and a friend.”
He gulped his beer and winked mischievously at me. “Tell you wot, there’s some foxy little wenches where I’m working.”
“You teach at a high-school, man.”
“Yeah, I know. One of the little darlings put ‘er ‘and on my knee the other day as I was marking 'er test. He! he! I just gave ‘er an ‘A’!”
“You unethical bastard!” I thumped him on the back.
At the end of the night Ray said his farewells. He assured us he was doing the right thing, that it was the only way he could be with the woman he loved, that he wasn’t worried about the death threats, and that we’d be seeing him around the ‘good ol’ Cadde’ just as often as always. We told him take care, and that was the last we saw of him for many months.
“We’re goin’ a Transdinistria, dude!” Brad’s first words when he arrived at the Cadde.
“You’re goin’ where?”
Corbin had walked in behind him, crew-cut, dressed the same; black jacket, jeans, leather boots, only his boots were platforms. “Transdinistria. Breakaway region of Moldavia and last bastion of communism in Europe,” he filled me in.
“We’re doin’ a story for the American Times,” said Brad. “Corbin set it up. He’ll be doin’ the text and I’ll be doin’ the photos.”
“Really? And when is all this taking place?”
Brad looked to Corbin, who, speaking out of one side of his mouth while holding a cigarette in the other, squinted pensively. “Still waitin’ for them to get back to me with the dates. When I know, you’ll know.”
Two sumptuous young women entered the bar, dark-skinned, bleached blond, fine Slavic faces. We ogled them shamelessly as they passed by our table.
“Check it out!” Brad murmured.
Corbin leaned forward to stare after them. “Figures. They’re sittin’ down with some guys.”
“Good ones are always taken,” I groaned.
Brad turned his gaze back on me. “No, they’re out there. You just gotta make more of an effort to meet ‘em.”
“Look, no offense,” said Corbin. “But it doesn’t get any easier than Istiklal.”
“I’m not talkin’ about one-night-stands,” I told him. “I wanna girl like ‘that.’”
Corbin frowned. “Well, that’s probably not gonna happen, pal.”
“What he’s lookin’ for is perfection,” said Brad. “Dude, perfection does not exist. Life ain’t no story book.”
“Gotta take what you can get,” Corbin added.
Brad called for another round but Corbin opted out.
“Guys, I gotta go home and eat. I’ll meet up with you later.”
Brad got busy texting while we drank the beer. “Dude, you up for wingman tonight?”
“Any reason I wouldn’t be? What’s the deal?”
“Zuhal’s at the Den with a friend.”
“Good thing Corbin went home. I might get to speak to this one!”
Brad laughed and put away his phone. “Let’s finish these and head up there.”
Sure enough, we entered the Sultan’s Den to find Zuhal with another chick. I could scarcely take my eyes off her. Auburn hair, prominent cheekbones, green eyes; the friend was a stunner. Zeynep apologized for her poor English, and this gave me an idea. Perhaps she would be interested in a language exchange. We could meet in a cafe and speak an hour in English and an hour in Turkish. She gave me neither a clear ‘yes’ nor a clear ‘no.’ The best I could manage was to leave her with my mobile phone number.
Corbin called Brad and was duly informed we were at the Den with a couple of girls. I cringed as I listened, but at least I’d had my chance, and it would take him twenty minutes to walk here from his apartment.
He appeared in about five minutes. Black jacket, jeans, the platform boots that raised him to almost average height; he reminded me of Henry Winkler playing ‘The Phonse’ when he had grown too old for the part. There was a check in his stride when he spotted Zeynep, and his eyes bulged like a cat's. I noted, with some degree of smugness, that there was no way he could cut in. Zeynep was by the wall with me beside her, and Zuhal and Brad were opposite. The only available seat was at the end of the table. I watched his grin give way to a frown.
“Hey, man, think you could buy me a beer?” He put a hand on the back of my chair. “I’m broke.”
I glanced at his hand. “Sorry, I’m low on cash myself right now.”
“What?” He winced. “You can’t buy me a beer?”
“Don’t look at me,” said Brad. “End a the month, dude!”
Corbin wasn’t looking at him. He slumped down at the end of the table, turning his back on us, and proceeded to moan bitterly about the fact he had no money and might as well go home if no one was going to buy him a beer. I hoped he would go home. Naturally he didn’t.
The big television screen across the bar brought up news of a terrorist attack on the Mediterranean coast. We all stopped talking to watch. An Irish tourist had been killed.
“That’s terrible,” said Zuhal. “This person comes to our country for a holiday and that happens.”
“They are crazy,” added Zeynep.
Brad blinked wearily at her. “It’s a symptom of a bigger problem.”
“Oh, and you would say that about the two towers?”
A quiver of anger crossed Brad’s face. “You’re comparing an unprovoked attack by an international terrorist network to the extremist element of a people’s struggle for a homeland and basic human rights.”
Zeynep shook her head irritably. “Americans are stupid!”
Even before Corbin had revolved completely around in his chair and fixed his gaze on her, I saw what was coming.
“Hey,” he leapt in, leaning over me, the face of the aggrieved, seizing his opportunity, “We are not stupid. What did you mean by that?”
“You talk about basic rights. You would say that about black people in America?”
“What about them? Have you ever been to America? What would you know?”
“What do you know about my country?”
“I been here six years. I know plenny. For instance, I know this country refuses to acknowledge what happened to the Armenians a century ago.”
“Do you acknowledge what happened to Muslims at same time? Or what happened to Indians in America? They want to say Turkey is killer because not want in Earopean Onion.”
Brad laughed raucously. “Man, she’s totally nationalist! She don’t know anything. She can’t even speak English!”
Corbin kept his gaze on Zeynep. For her part, she appeared unperturbed, even smiling a little.
“Look, you’re not using the correct terms,” Corbin told her, softening his tone. “We don’t say ‘blacks’ and ‘Indians.’ That’s considered racist. We say ‘African-Americans’ and ‘Native Americans.’”
“Is same.”
“No, it’s not. These are very sensitive issues, which you don’t understand because you’ve never been to America.”
Zeynep paused and smiled at me. “Why not speak?”
Before I had chance to, Corbin leaned across me again. “He teaches English to kids. Talk to me. I’m an international journalist. I’ve covered wars in Iraq, Bosnia, Rwanda. And for the past six years I’ve been the American Times' correspondent in Turkey.”
I stared at the big screen. Civilian carnage in the Middle East. The news-site I had read that morning had referred to ‘battles with militants.’ But all I was seeing were dead women and children. The anger bubbled to the surface, irrepressible:
“I teach English to ‘kids,’ do I? An international journalist would at least get his facts straight. I teach business English to adults.”
Corbin frowned back at me. “Listen, pal, are you implying I’m not what I say I am?”
“I’m not sure what to believe, man. Just don’t lie to people about ‘me.’”
He got slowly to his feet, striking a tragic pose, a far-away look in his eyes, the mortally wounded. A trembling forefinger rose in the air, but then, as though deciding it had all become too much for him, he turned and swept out of the bar.
Brad laughed so hard he nearly fell out of his chair.
Zeynep looked worried. “Oh, did he go because me?”
“No, no,” I assured her. "He left because of ‘me.’ But he had it comin.’ He’s got no right to trample over other people’s views.”
“But he’s international journalist.”
“He’s no expert. He think’s the world’s a TV show.”
Even as I spoke, Corbin himself stalked back into the bar, shoulders hunched, a menacing glare directed at me. “Just don’t ever do that again, pal!”
I extended my hand with a grin. Zeynep was still beside me, and I didn’t want friction with a friend. Corbin refused to shake, however; just stormed out again.
“Don’t worry,” said Brad. “He’ll be back.”
Indeed, Corbin did return, and it was he who extended his hand. The hostility was over. Though by that time Zeynep had gone, the note with my number left behind on the table.
Next morning I took the ferry out to Heybeliada. I needed to get away from the city, if only for a day. I tried to read but found myself going over and over the same passages without absorbing a thing. Finally I put the book aside. In a sense I was pleased I had stood up to Corbin. In another I was unnerved by the conflict. I was going to have to fake it with him from now on. He had been just a little too cheerful on his return to the bar. His mood had changed just a little too quickly. It had been as if he were actually quite satisfied with what he had achieved. The boat was half-empty, in stark contrast to the crammed conditions of that sailing six months ago, when Meltem had brought me here. The window beside my table was a battle scene of angry grey waves. It was a chilly day in the islands, with light rain falling intermittently. The streets were deserted but for a few tawny dogs and a pair of chestnut horses tied up with feed-bags. Stern-faced guards watched me through the fence of the naval academy, automatic rifles at the ready. I hiked up the slope, past them and the old Byzantine monastery, to the top of the first hill. I gained no view of the Anatolian plateau. The Marmara Sea was engulfed in cloud. Even the neighbouring islands of Buyukada and Burgazada were not fully visible. Down in the stony cove I picked my way through broken bottles and bits of debris. A foul stench reached my nostrils, and my attention was drawn to some large thing floating in the surf, back and forth with the tide. It was the carcass of a dead horse; its tan hide scrubbed bare, its belly bloated with seawater, its head twisted back in an odious grin, like a vision from a nightmare. It filled me with an unsettling premonition.
Brad was tapping away at his mobile phone when I arrived at the Cadde that evening. “Deleting numbers,” he chuckled.
“Too many chicks to keep track of?”
“Dude, they all want me to be their boyfriend. You know I had to ditch one the other day. Now she’s sending me abusive messages. Hell, that kind a thing’s why I got out of a relationship.”
“Neslihan? She was crazy about you.”
“Well, I’m not ready for another girlfriend. Besides, you ain’t seen the messages!”
Brad finished his tank, ordered another, and resumed deleting contacts.
“Think I’ll let Seda go.”
“The medical student? Nice girl.”
“Too serious, man. I prefer chicks like Bone Structure. Don’t hang around the mornin’ after. Don’t care who else I shag. She even asked me to shag her room-mate. Ha!”
He took a swig of beer. “Hell, this is my seventh or eighth. Come on, man. You got some catchin’ up to do.”
Brad found a new bass guitarist for his band and set up a gig at the James Dean. It was to be a regular thing, Saturday nights. They played from nine til eleven, then the stage would be cleared and transformed into a dance-floor. The discos were popular and ensured a reasonable crowd, if only toward the end of the gigs.
Meanwhile I made my third visa run, to Egypt. I had a week’s leave, nine days with the weekends, but scheduled my trip for just six days, so keen was I not to miss a single Saturday night at the Dean. Many hours I spent sitting in an outdoor tea parlour in Cairo, contemplating my good fortune. My closest friend was a musician, so we had a lot of fun, and I had a cushy twenty-five hour a week job that paid well enough for me to live like this. Egypt was warm, the people friendly, the prices unbelievably low. But my thoughts remained in Istanbul.
I returned on a rainy Saturday morning. The airport bus took almost two hours to work its way through the traffic to Taksim. I strolled down Istiklal with a pleasant feeling inside me. The odours from the kebab shops, the soft music wafting out of the DVD stores, the Green Mosque, Galatasaray, the cops with their automatic rifles, greasy-haired men, women in headscarves, the beautiful girls, cripples peddling tissues, the Kurdish shoeshine boys who grinned when they recognized me. It had all been so alien to me nine months before. Now it was as familiar as home.
In the evening I went to watch Brad play. It was as always, the bar filling up during the latter part of the show. He got talking with a couple of dark-haired beauties afterwards. I shot a glance at Corbin, who was occupied at the bar, and hastened across to join them. They were sisters from Izmir, up for a few days’ holiday. Hayat, the elder, was a belly-dancer. I was then introduced to the other, Pinar. She, however, stared back at me with such a ghastly expression that I backed off as hastily as I had come.
I put it down to the age factor. Brad was a few years my junior and these girls would have been close to a decade younger than him. It had to have been the age.
Even as I consoled myself with that thought, Corbin made a B-line from the bar to Brad and the girls and promptly attached himself to Pinar, like a leach. I waited for him to receive the brush-off. I did so in vain. They were together til closing time, and then the four of them, Brad, Corbin and the sisters, headed back to Brad’s apartment.
Neither Brad nor Corbin showed up at the Cadde the following night. That could only have meant one thing, and I knew better than to disturb Brad with text messages when he was shagging. Monday, however, they both came. The sisters were with them. It was their last night in town.
“Man,” Corbin rolled his eyes at me when the girls were in the bathroom, “that Pinar is beautiful. You wanna see her with her clothes off!”
Brad was making short work of his first tank. “I don’t want ‘em over at my house again tonight though, dude. I’m kind a tired of this Hayat chick.”
“What?” Corbin winced. “I can’t take ‘em both back to my place. My room-mate’s got someone stayin’ on the couch as it is.”
“I just don’t want Hayat comin’ home with me is all. She’ll have to book a hotel.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “She can crash on my couch, seeing as it’s only one night.”
Brad leaned forward and knocked his tank against mine. “Hey, cheers, dude. I owe ya one.”
This arrangement was duly conveyed to the sisters when they returned. Brad told Hayat his ex-girlfriend had called to say she would be over to collect some things. Since she still had a key, that might be any time. “She’s a little psycho,” he warned her.
Hayat looked put out, understandably, but accepted both the explanation and my offer.
“That’s nice of you,” she thanked me. “You know something, I have a friend you should meet. She’s from Izmir but her family came to Istanbul. She’s very pretty, but very shy.”
It sounded too good to be true, and I was hardly surprised when the friend declined to join us that evening. Her brother was home from military service. Hayat left me with her number and encouraged me to contact her later in the week. This I did, and to my astonishment she agreed to go out for dinner with me. We had to describe ourselves so as to recognise each other when we met. I told her I was tall, blond and dopey-looking; distinctive enough in these parts. She replied that she was very short and very fat, and my spirits plummeted again.
Naturally that was what I looked for the evening I went to meet her; a short fat chick. I could barely believe my eyes when a perfectly attractive, dark-haired girl in a pink jacket and tight blue jeans stepped up and introduced herself as Fatime. Her eyes were like black marbles, her smile a row of small white teeth. She was a tad short, though not overly, and had a delightful figure. We drank coffee and got to know each other. Fatime lived with her parents, though she would have been close to thirty, worked ten-to-twelve hours a day in an office, and wanted to learn English for her career. It was a familiar story. For her part, she asked few questions, aside from the standard, “Have you got a house?” to which I replied I was an English teacher, not a rich man.
She suggested a restaurant in Sariyer, a short taxi-ride away. In fact, it was twenty minutes and a fifteen lira fare. The place itself was right on the Bosporus, its large windows offering a view of the lights of the Asian side. Throughout the meal we were attended by a veritable swarm of waiters in tuxedos, who brought us our food dish by dish, together with the two bottles of white wine we ordered. I braced myself when the bill came, and it was worse than I feared. I did not even have enough cash on me to cover it. Fortunately I did have my Spanish credit card. We took a taxi home. Before it dropped her off, Fatime agreed to see me again. I could think of nothing else.
The following weekend she accompanied me to the James Dean to see Brad play. I was proud to have her beside me. The guys all told me how beautiful she was. Of the regulars, only Corbin was absent - on ‘confidential assignment’ in eastern Turkey, apparently. After the show I walked Fatime to the taxi stand. She squeezed me playfully as we kissed each other on the cheeks. Was it possible then, that this gorgeous young woman from Izmir was actually interested in ‘me’?
I played it cool, contacting her only when she contacted me first, which she did almost daily, sending text messages and e-mails. We met for coffee on Wednesday and made a lunch-date for Sunday in Ortakoy.
Saturday Corbin was back at the James Dean, full of stories of his adventures in Van. When the band went up on stage for sound-check he turned and asked me, “So, how’d it go last week? I miss anything?”
“Boys played well, as usual. Fatime came along.”
“Who? Oh, that girl you were set up with.”
“Man, I lucked out. She’s beautiful!”
Corbin drew on his cigarette, squinting. “Wait a minute, I gotta get a second opinion on that.” He proceeded to ask a few of the regulars, and with each reply another line seemed to form on his brow. He was still frowning when Brad’s guitar squealed to life and the show began.
The bar filled up later on, and Corbin was off doing the rounds. But not me. I couldn’t do that to Fatime. I guessed she wasn’t my girl yet. We hadn’t even kissed. But surely it was headed in that direction. All those texts and e-mails. The embraces when we said goodbye. Besides, none of the girls in the Dean were a patch on her for me right then.
I never slept in! Even on weekends when I’d been out all night, I would be up by nine-thirty or ten at the latest. So how was it possible that I had slept til one in the afternoon? Then I remembered the raki. How many rounds had I bought? I must have spent a fortune. I couldn’t even remember coming home. Not for the first time, I vowed never to mix speed and raki again. I stared at my watch. Sunday, one o’clock. My lunch-date with Fatime was for one o’clock! Scrambling around my room, I realized I was still partially drunk. It was a disaster.
No sooner did I switch on my phone than Fatime called: “Where are you?”
“Just woke up. So sorry. I’ll get a taxi and be there in half an hour.”
“Okay. Don’t hurry. I am waiting for you.”
It was raining outside. Normally there would have been taxis queued up at the tramway terminal on Istiklal, but this afternoon there were none. I ran about frantically, cursing my ill-fortune. Poor Fatime, waiting for me in the rain. How could I have screwed this up? Finally I got a taxi. I texted Fatime to tell her I was fifteen minutes away. Fifteen minutes later, however, we were stuck in traffic less than halfway there. I texted her again and she replied with the same words: ‘Don’t hurry. I am waiting.’
It was past two before we got to Ortakoy. I dodged across the main street and hastened through the market place, past the mosque and out onto the pier. As I spun around in search of Fatime, she emerged onto the pier behind me, holding a red umbrella. I rushed over and embraced her, and she smiled up at me with her small white teeth as if to say everything was alright. I wanted to kiss her then, but I knew to be patient.
She took me to a cafe with a view of the bridge. It was enormous at such close range, looming high above the town and extending off into the distance of the Asian side. Fatime was smartly dressed as always. I had thrown on the same grey hooded sweater and faded jeans I’d been wearing the previous night. I felt a twinge of embarrassment, but surely she would not judge me by my clothes. When the rain eased we took a walk around the busy market, then out onto the main street where Fatime pointed out the synagogue, the church and the Turkish bath-house. It had been a very cosmopolitan city in Ottoman times, she explained.
Later we went into a pastry shop for coffee and something sweet. Getting out her digital camera, she proceeded to show me her family. Her parents were celebrating their fortieth anniversary this year.
“I envy you,” I said. “My parents were divorced when I was nine.”
“That’s sad,” she replied. “We have saying: ‘No love, no life.’”
I looked at the happy, weathered faces in the picture. Her father was swarthy and bore a thick black moustache. Her mother had Fatime’s eyes and wore a headscarf. I wondered if I could ever be part of that family, and found myself doubting it.
The waiter came by and I suggested we ask him to take our photo. I put my arm around her as he did. She did not object. After, I pecked her on the cheek. Again she did not object, though neither did she kiss me back; just giggled.
“Oh, Fatime, do you like me?”
Her brow furrowed. “Yes, but as friend.”
It was an unexpected blow that knocked all the joy out of me. I was unable to respond for a moment. “And . . . in the future?”
Her lashes came down over her large black eyes. “I not want boyfriend. I mean, yes, I want boyfriend. But other man.”
Poor Fatime. She had not even managed to put it delicately. For fully fifteen minutes I sat there and said nothing. Many emotions passed through me, many dark thoughts and realizations, and at last I understood what it all meant. I had been used, and, far worse, I had failed when it had meant the most to me.
I took the mini-bus from Ortakoy to Taksim and headed straight for the Cadde, texting Brad along the way. He showed up around seven with Bone Structure.
“Hey, man,” I chuckled. “American Times confirm your Transdinistria dates yet?”
He blinked down at me wearily. “Hell, how long you been here?”
“Long enough to have made a decision. I’m movin’ on come July. Rio maybe.”
Brad called for a round of drinks and the two of them sat down. “You’ve given up, dude. That’s the way it looks to me.”
“I was crazy about her.”
“You made it too easy, man. Chicks wanna challenge. Tell ‘em you don’t wanna girlfriend and you can guarantee they’ll try to become one.”
“Nah. I played it right with Fatime. She was only in it for the English practise.”
“She was lookin’ for a rich yabanci and you weren’t rich enough. So forget her. Dude, you’re disillusioned right now, but hang in there.”
I nodded. But inside I was wondering how long it was going to take before I could trust somebody again.
Brad called the waitress back; the same one he’d shagged before breaking up with Yasemine, and who was well used to seeing him with different chicks all the time by now. “Uc tane raki.”
Not even he could catch me in the beer count that night, and how many rounds of raki we ordered was anybody’s guess. Bone Structure chirped away in her high-pitched, sing-song tone. She had little English and I understood only fragments of what she said in Turkish. At one stage Brad translated:
“Ha! She wants me to get a tat. What a you think, dude?”
Bone Structure herself had tattoos on her neck and hands.
“I think you’ll end up like Andy!” I laughed.
Closing time was upon us suddenly, catching us in a drunken daze. Getting unsteadily to my feet, I immediately realized I could hardly walk. Yet somehow I found myself at the bottom of Istiklal, parting ways with Brad and Bone Structure. Next I was staggering off down the dark alleyway to my apartment. Entering the building I fumbled around for the light switch in the darkness. I thought I hit it but no light came. A woman in a headscarf emerged from the ground floor apartment and began shouting at me. From the light of her doorway I could see the switch I had pressed was her doorbell. She was practically shrieking at me now.
“Alright! Alright!” I yelled back. “Don’t give yourself a heart attack!”
As I turned to make my way upstairs I glimpsed out of the corner of my eye a shadowy figure charging out of the apartment. A blow to my back sent me reeling toward the concrete steps.
The director of the academy was standing over me when I awoke. Tall, overweight, immaculately attired, Ahmet Bey had the drooping eyelids of an Ottoman sultan, and there were streaks of silver in his wavy black hair. His boyish smile seemed a permanent fixture. I had a splitting headache and there was a painful throbbing beneath my right shoulder blade.
“Where am I?” I gazed around at the bare lime-green walls.
“You are at the medical center. Do you remember what happened?”
“The guy on the ground floor jumped me. That’s about all.”
“You have a knife wound in your back and a minor fracture in your skull.”
A “‘knife wound?!’”
“’Don’t worry. The doctor says it is not serious. You were lucky. It was also fortunate your landlady called me first. She says you forced your way into the ground floor apartment and threatened the occupants. They thought you were an intruder.''
It took me a moment to figure it out. "She's lying. She doesn't want the police involved."
"Neither do we. Besides, if it went to court it would be your word against hers, and you were drunk."
On my way out of the medical center I was presented with a bill for six hundred lira. They had taken x-rays and put stitches in my back. Ahmet Bey told me not to worry. He knew the people and would get it reduced. There was one other problem, however. The landlady wanted me out by the end of the week.
I was excused from work that evening and put in an early appearance at the Cadde. I still had the headache and the pain in my back, but I dearly hoped to see Brad, to talk it all out. He did not reply to my text, so I knew he was with a girl. I sat alone by the window, watching the rain fall outside, reflecting on what had come to pass. Just a few weeks earlier I had sat in an outdoor tea parlour in Cairo, warm, content, and anxious to get back to Istanbul. Had I bought some kind of curse back with me? Rejected, stabbed, evicted, half my savings gone on medical expenses! It all seemed so unfair. Perhaps, then, Brad was right about me. My expectations of life were unrealistic. I was looking for perfection and unwilling to accept anything less. I wanted a story-book life; truth, justice, a happy ending.
My mind's eye recalled the dead horse at Heybeliada, floating in and out with the tide, head twisted back, teeth locked in an eternal grimace. Such a beautiful island. Such a grotesque sight to find.
End
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posted by Quentin Poulsen at 8:07 AM
