Istanbul in the Rain
Istanbul in the rain moved him. Istanbul in any light moved him, but especially rain. It made the older parts of the city - Suleymaniye, the old tombstones of Cihangir, the empty fountains behind the mosques, the Golden Horn itself - solemn, monochromatic, as if lifted from a turn of the century photograph of fishermen returning to port. Smoke and stone, water like steel.
This drabness served to illuminate the new colors - the neon lights of the kokorec joints in Taksim, the meyhanes blinking their eyes in the late night hours, the concupiscent mounds of fruit, oranges and bruised apples and pomegranates. The rain on the alleyways reflected these colors, a kind of opalescent slipstream; an oil painting, coursing down the cobblestones.
Low clouds wrapped the distant minarets on the Halic, and slunk like stray cats through the narrowed streets of Kasimpasa. The only sound the sluice of tires on water. It was Sunday, market day. He walked alone through the damp susurrus, the moisture like a kind of cocoon.
The market steamed and sweated; the windows of the surrounding shops had gone opaque. Rain prattled loudly on the canvas wings, flooding the middle of the street.
He’d been told, since arriving, about the huzun of winter; about how the city’s character changed in the cold, rainy months. Like a burlesque dancer after a show, Istanbul pulled its overcoat tight, the harsh lights of backstage exposing the cracks in its make-up, its wrinkles and faded skin.
He didn’t mind the weather, though. He didn’t mind the melancholy. It seemed a mirror, a companion. Mostly, it was good to get out.
He’d gone to work the Monday after Thanksgiving feeling pretty good. Twenty people had showed up for dinner. He made two stuffed chickens, two turkey legs, five kilos of mashed potatoes, and two apple pies from scratch. There was something pleasing about cooking; it appealed to his sense of order. It was easy to become absorbed in the minutiae of each task, but preparing a large meal required a sort of magic, a pace and structure that, when done right, fulfilled his desire for symmetry.
There was a moment, late in the evening, before anyone arrived, that stayed with him. One of those luminous, burning moments that makes traveling so addictive. Moments that stasis - that the long thread of personal narrative - can’t usually deliver.
He was sitting on the balcony. A garbage can was between his legs, a cigarette burning itself out in an ash tray. Beyond, the day was dying splendidly in a swath of violets and vermilions, the bellies of the roiled, autumn clouds holding onto the already sunken sun. It was not warm or cold, and a soft breeze came off the water. Gulls wheeled in the wind, like separate atoms forming their own clouds.
He was peeling potatoes. It had always been his task growing up. He, his brother, and his sister would peel potatoes in the kitchen sink, the three of them laughing, a fire burning in the next room, the Philadelphia suburbs flat and grey out the big window.
And there he was peeling them in Istanbul. Alone. The thread of his personal history broken, begun anew. It was this lack of history that made traveling so appealing, that made such bright, ephemeral moments possible. What traveling offered was re-invention. Resurrection. To show up in a place completely empty, and then to control and shape how the narrative unfolded. To be the person he’d wanted to be his whole life, but had been too tethered to the past to be. It was the easiest solution: un-tether yourself, drift away into the vast ocean of the world.
The potatoes were knobby and filthy. The mud and grime worked under his nails. The spuds grew slick in his hands, the peeler occasionally slipping and slivering the tips of his fingers. Blood, water, and mud coursing down the tendons of his wrist. The minarets around the city came alive with the azhan; soon, he was surrounded by a cacophony of song.
The smell of roasting chickens was beginning to fill the apartment. In three hours, it would be full of twenty people drinking wine, eating food, laughing. Looking back at the months, the years of loneliness and devastation - at the broken threads, the gutted relationships - it was impossible not to feel like all of them had led to this very moment. Istanbul singing. His hands working methodically. A party looming.
Sitting there, he thought he wouldn’t trade any of those despairing nights, those hours when he felt cast adrift. They were worth this, he thought. They were worth the satisfaction of this story.
When he walked into the office after that weekend, Hasan was waiting again, conferring with Huseyin. It was rare for Huseyin to come down from the seventh floor, where he had his office.
“David-bey, there’s someone here who would like a word with you,” Huseyin said.
“Who?”
The two Turks looked at one another; Hasan lowered his head.
“He’s in my office,” Huseyin said. “Come on.”
They rode the elevator in silence, David’s heart racing. Outside his office, Huseyin stopped, put a hand on David’s shoulder. “Just remember that we’ve always tried to help you, David-bey.” Then he opened the door. David stepped in, but Huseyin didn’t follow.
A tall, husky man was standing at the window. He turned when he heard the door, and smiled. His head was shaved, but he had a large, well groomed moustache. Solid black. His eyes were a shade lighter, and very big. He had a comfortable paunch to him, a sheen to his head.
“Mr. Calvin,” he said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is Fikrit Sarkl. I’m with… well, my position doesn’t really matter. I’m just here to talk a bit. Please, have a seat.” He motioned to two chairs, facing one another, next to the window. “Would you like some tea?”
“Sure,” David said, trying to keep his voice from cracking. His throat felt vacuum sealed.
Fikrit called downstairs, ordered two big teas, and a helping of baklava. He smiled conspiratorially while ordering.
“It’s early, but I missed breakfast. I prefer something sweet to start my day,” he said, hanging up the phone, smoothing out his tie, sitting down across from David. He crossed his legs, leaned back. “I already said this, but it really is a pleasure meeting you. I’ve really enjoyed reading your articles, especially the ones in Zaman. The piece you wrote about Philadelphia and Istanbul, comparing the murder rates - that was great writing, Mr. Calvin. I shared it with many friends.”
“Thank you.”
“I was less favorably inclined to your most recent piece, however. About the dershanes.”
He paused for effect. David chose to stay silent.
“Mr. Calvin, it’s a complicated issue. I don’t dispute this. It’s one that has a lot of people’s temperatures running pretty high right now.”
“So I’m told.”
“I’m just curious why a foreigner would insert himself so vocally into an issue that, if you’ll excuse me, is very Turkish. Our politics are difficult to understand, even for someone like myself, who’s spent his whole life here. For an outsider to come in, and express an opinion, especially such a strong one… it just strikes me as strange.”
Again, David thought it better to remain silent.
“You’re aware that your company falls under the umbrella of Fethullah Gulen’s operation, right?”
“Sure. Of course.”
“You’re also aware, then, that Mr. Gulen - hocaefendi, if you will - was one of the parties responsible for the protests this past summer. Now, was hocaefendi himself behind the violence? Of course not. But what you probably don’t realize, is that a great deal of the national police force, and judiciary, is under the influence of Mr. Gulen. He has people everywhere. And unlike hocaefendi himself, these people aren’t afraid to get into the mud, if you will. You may not believe this, but the police commander who gave the order to launch tear gas - the very first order - was a Gulen-man. Just as the protesters that destroyed so much property were working on orders from Gulen’s sympathizers. I know you took part in the protests yourself, quite enthusiastically. You saw the damage the protesters caused. When you look at it from this perspective, can you wonder why the prime minister is so wary of hocaefendi’s influence? He’s disturbing the peace. He’s undermining the State.”
“And what’s the proof of this?”
Fikrit laughed; just then, a waiter arrived with their tea, a plate of baklava and two forks. After he left, Fikrit sipped his tea.
“Look, I realize you’re not going to believe me. You’ve been under the influence of Cemaat for ten months now. But you’re a foreigner. Not just that, an American. You’re valuable to them. They need people like you to legitimize themselves. Of course you’ve only seen the good things. Of course you’re only encountering the side that’s friendly to the west.”
He took a fork and methodically peeled the top layer from the baklava, dipping it in his tea.
“Let me ask you: have you read hocaefendi’s early addresses? From the early 70s and 80s?”
David made a gesture of uncertainty.
“Gulen’s an Islamist, Mr. Calvin. Plain and simple. The people bankrolling him are Islamists. They’re people sending weapons to the al Nusra front in Syria as we speak, people trying to undermine the State by saying we’re behind such activities.”
“How are they getting them across the border?”
“Again: Gulen has many sympathizers. Especially in the police and military. There are people working who will do whatever they can to make the prime minister look bad. To destabilize the State so that they can then control the State.”
Fikrit finished his baklava, and slid the plate towards David.
“Please,” he said, “help yourself.”
“I had breakfast.”
Fikrit smiled.
“Look, Mr. Calvin. I don’t believe you wrote that article about the dershanes. Or, I don’t believe you wrote it of your own accord. And that’s fine. You’re a stranger in a strange land, under the influence of people who show you a great deal of kindness. But they’re using you as a cog in the machinery, Mr. Calvin. You’re a figurehead for their cause, a western face to advance their Islamist beliefs. It’s understandable you’ve been taken in by them. We know that you experienced some serious personal problems back in Philadelphia. That you’ve been looking for a community, a family to replace what you’ve lost. This is what they do. They take in strays. I just don’t believe that an impartial foreigner like yourself would have the knowledge to write such an article of his own accord. As talented as you might be. And as a fan of yours, I must acknowledge that you’ve got a great deal of talent. I’d just hate to see such talent be used for, how shall we put it? Less than noble causes.”
“It’s not clear to me what you want.”
“I don’t want anything. I just wanted to have a conversation with you. To better understand the man behind the art.”
David laughed.
“What brought you to Istanbul, Mr. Calvin?”
“Chance, mostly.”
“No such thing, in my book. Everything can be traced to some origin. Maybe we don’t understand it at the time, but it becomes clear later. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying this from a religious perspective. I’m not terribly devout. I enjoy raki, after all.” Fikrit smiled. “I’m just saying sometimes the reasons for things are hidden from us until we’re ready to see them. You were in Rome last winter?”
“Yes. I was.”
“Doing what?”
“Painting houses, mostly. Writing a bit, for some journals back in the States. Drifting. I haven’t really settled down since I left Philadelphia five years ago.”
“Why’d you leave Philadelphia?”
“Personal reasons.”
“Family?”
“Sure.”
“I know how hard it is to lose a sibling. My sister died when I was a teenager. A domestic dispute. So, like your brother, it came as a shock. It shook my family to the core. My mother blamed my father. My sister’s husband was a friend of my father’s family. They’d assured us he was a good man. Pious.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I left home to escape the sorrow, which I’m sure you can understand. I threw myself into my studies. But you can’t run forever. We have responsibilities to our families,” Fikrit said, finishing his tea. “The man who killed my sister was let off. He claimed she’d been meeting another man. The judge - this was in far east Turkey, a very conservative place, sympathetic to certain groups - decided he was justified.
“So I went home. I became a lawyer in the hopes of being a judge. I did what I could to mend my family. As sons, we have these responsibilities, right?”
“Sure.”
“We can’t escape the ties of blood, Mr. Calvin. It follows us wherever we go. It’s inside us.”
“Look, whatever information you have obviously hasn’t told you that there’s no family to go back to. Mom’s living with some guy in New Orleans, working on a riverboat casino. Dad’s joined some end of days cult, driving around the Midwest in some shitty old van trying to convert people. Excuse the language.”
Fikrit waved a hand dismissively. “I’m not terribly devout. As I said.” He smiled, and ate David’s piece of baklava. “Your sister is still in Philadelphia, no?” he said, chewing.
“She is.”
“With a daughter. And another on the way?”
“She was born. Two months ago. Alexandra. After my brother‘s wife.”
Fikrit smiled, and stood up. He put on his coat, meticulously tied his scarf. Then, with a hand on David’s shoulder, he delivered the message he’d come to express:
“Maybe it’s a good time to pay them a visit. To get back in touch, hm?”
Hasan waited downstairs, pallid. “You should probably lay low for a few days. I’ll call you by the end of the week, OK?”
David gathered his things and went home. He spent the rest of the week in his room, looking at flights to Philadelphia, looking at flights to Beirut, looking at flights anywhere. Flight. The very word seemed stuck in his throat, like a small fish bone. Some kind of promise gone rancid, a relationship run its course. He felt like the road he was on had suddenly been swallowed by sand, by some enormous, shifting dune, wiping out the path ahead and behind.
It rained most of the week; he only went out for beer and cigarettes. Ar came over with a bottle of whiskey, which they grimly drank on the balcony, chain smoking and listening to the rain.
“You should call Elif,” Ar suggested. “Wouldn’t hurt to say good bye.”
“I’m not thinking that way. Not yet.”
“If I were you, I’d already be gone.”
“Well, you’re not me.”
Ar smiled. “You Americans have too much trust. You’re wonderful, naïve people. You believe in institutions, don’t you? In laws.”
David laughed.
“Well, at the very least, it wouldn’t hurt to get laid, would it?”
That part was true. Along with smoking cigarettes and checking plane tickets, David had spent most of his time masturbating. There was nothing to exacerbate self pity, to really truly wallow in it, like a good porn binge. To plumb the depths of the internet, to see what was out there, what perverse shit others found arousing. David’s own tastes were relatively staid. He preferred, mostly, women undressing, women espied in states of undress, women inviting him (and thousands of other anonymous men) to pleasure themselves while they undressed. It was hardly staid, of course - it debased women more than he would ever debase a real, flesh and blood woman - but seemed staid compared to what else was out there. The rape porn, the scat porn, the porn where one woman sucked three dicks, all of which, enormous, resembled some kind of medieval weapon.
“I think that ship has sailed,” David said, taking a big sip of whiskey. They watched the stream of traffic careen endlessly up Tarlabasi Boulevard, the lights reflected and racing on the pavement. Trannies marched up and down the sidewalk beneath translucent umbrellas, smoke curling around the edges, the taxi drivers stopping, rolling their windows down.
“What do you think?” David said, leaning over the balcony. “You ever paid?”
“For sex? Or a tranny?”
“Either.”
“No. Not my style.”
“Me either.”
“They’re very popular. The trannies. One of those unspoken things men don’t talk about. Sometimes, guys just fuck trannies. It’s not gay, it’s not cheating. Just a guy fulfilling his needs. That’s how most guys here feel. It is what it is.”
A white Mercedes pulled over to talk with two of the girls. They were tall, not terribly elegant, huddled under one umbrella.
“Did I tell you about my summer at a slaughterhouse?” Ar asked.
“I don’t think so,” David said, wondering what it would feel like to plunge to the pavement, eight stories down; wondering how long that fall would feel, what images his mind would have time to grasp.
“It was a shit job. A true shit job. Some Halal slaughterhouse where we killed cows and chickens. Carcasses hanging by their legs, coming past you.” He yanked his hand viciously across his throat. “One quick cut. The blood was so warm. It smelled terrible. I never got used to the smell.” He smiled. “The guys there liked the trannies. The butchers. Big, ugly dudes. Hairy everywhere but on their heads. Carpets on their arms and backs. Hair coming out their ears and their nostrils.”
Down below, the trannies started shouting at the Mercedes. One of them kicked the door with an enormous heel. The car peeled away, kicking up a tail of grime and water.
“I don’t think normal hookers would take them. I don’t think you could pay a self respecting woman enough money to sleep with a man like that. Hairy, fat, pale men who smelled like death.” He laughed to himself, remembering those days. David smiled and remember the summer he paved roads in central Pennsylvania. He was nineteen; the men were all ex-cons or recovering addicts. They were grandiosely corpulent, their saggy arms latticed in faded tattoos, their chests scarred from open heart surgery. They smoked cigarettes and chewed with their mouths open, spittle flying everywhere. They took David in for a summer, made him feel at home, despite how obvious it was that he was only temporary. They told him stories about the women they’d loved and lost (through their addictions or their rampant infidelity). They showed him photos of sons in little league uniforms. They told him about the hookers they fucked. At least once a summer he’d think about them, imagine them out there in the verdant hills of Appalachia, sweating on some forgotten patch of road, smoking cigarettes and laughing about some girl whose face one of them had cum on. He suspected most of them were still there; there was no place else for them to go, no other narratives for them to right. They were playing out the thread, enlivening it with what flourishes they could.
“Those guys loved the trannies,” Ar said. “They’d talk about them all the time. Calling them queers, faggots. I wanted to say: what the fuck are you guys then? But they didn’t think like that. We worked six days a week and had Sundays off. They’d all go out Saturday nights, to the brothels off Istiklal, all six of them bursting in their like bulls set loose. Stinking and fucking and calling the girls faggots. Doing whatever they wanted to them. Hitting them, spitting on them. And coming in Monday hung over, butchering the cows whose throats I was slitting.”
The Mercedes came back, screeching to the curb. The trannies immediately scrambled, one picking up a bottle, the other a brick. Eight men clambered out of the car, pointing and shouting. One of them, it appeared to David, had a knife.
“They got reinforcements,” David said.
“Typical Turkishness,” Ar said. “Call them faggots, but they’re too afraid to fight until they outnumber them four to one. Every Turkish man thinks he’s a warrior at heart. We aren’t.”
On Saturday morning, very early, shortly after David had fallen asleep, Hasan called.
“Did I wake you?”
“Not really.”
“Can we meet tomorrow? I’ll come over your way. Does Suleymaniye work for you?”
“Sure.”
“Ok. Let’s say after the noon prayer.”
The next day, after going to the market, David caught a bus across the Golden Horn, past hundreds of men fishing on the bridge, despite the cold. Out on the water, the ships moved stealthily below the clouds, snarled in mist. He met Hasan outside Suleymaniye. The courtyard was mostly empty, its lawn clotted with wet, fallen leaves.
They walked through the soaked streets of Fatih. Laundry dangled limply between the homes, many of which peeled in the rain, chips of paint and plaster liquefying and flooding the street with color. Most of the streets were torn apart, broken stone or bare dirt, which had turned to mud. Soggy dogs roamed sadly. Smoke escaped steamy windows, or slunk beneath cracked doors. Stony-faced women peered out of open shudders, glowering, their damp hair dangling freely beneath their scarves.
The tea houses were crowded with dour men in heavy greys and browns, their cigarettes clouding the unadorned rooms, their breath fogging the large front windows. In a few empty lots, men braved the weather, chopping apart wet wood, fires crackling and hissing. Doors opened onto basements where men and women used screwdrivers to pry open and crack mussels from the Bosphorous, their reedy, murky smell seeping malodorously into the streets.
“I grew up here, you know” Hasan said at one point. To their left, inside the ruins of a mosque, two geese and a goat scavenged in the tall grass.
“I didn’t know.”
Hasan smiled. He was wearing a grey scarf, a black pea coat. His hair flopped across his forehead beneath a hand-knit wool cap. “My parents came here from the Balkans, before I was born, to escape the failed socialism there. They weren’t religious, at all. My mother would sometimes pray, but my father didn’t even know the prayers. I struggled a lot as a kid, feeling lost, wondering why there was so much cruelty in the world, and especially here in Turkey. The 70s were a scary time to be a kid. A scary time to be a Turk. My father was a welder. He paid dues to both right wing and left wing terrorists. They’d come by and shake him down at gun point, sometimes with me or my brothers there. They didn’t care at all about kids. They would have killed him if he hadn’t paid them. I don’t doubt that.
“That was around the time I discovered hocaefendi. It was a little after that, I suppose. In the 80s, during University, after the coup. I remember hearing him preach where we met, at Suleymaniye. My favorite mosque in Istanbul. The most beautiful mosque in Turkey,” he said. “I guess preach is the wrong word; that’s the Western word.” He smiled when he said this, put his hand on David’s back. They were moving west, following the track of the old aqueduct, past the mosque dedicated to Suleymaniye’s son. Headed towards Edirnekapi, and the old city walls. Passing layers of history, just spilled out on the streets like garbage. Byzantine bricks crumbled upon Roman roads; Ottoman homes built upon Byzantine foundations. Hidden mosques that were once hidden churches, the eyes of their mosaics - Christ, the apostles, the Virgin - gouged out and traded somewhere in Arabia. A fresco of the conception plastered over, replaced by the looping scrawl of Arabic recounting the Prophet’s ascension. Myth covering myth.
“There’s such a gentleness to him in person, David. It’s more than humility. His kindness touches everything around him. Not like Erdogan. Not like most Turkish men, really. He’s not afraid to cry. He’s not afraid to step back, to be weak. He doesn’t view kindness or peace as weakness. He views it as strength. And that’s what he talked about when I saw him. The need to respect all life. The need to engage with your enemies. The need for a larger human community.
“Listening to him, I thought, ‘This is what I’ve been looking for. This is the man I want to follow.’ That’s how all this started. The magazine, the publisher. The thousands of schools. It started because people like me heard this man, this great man, talking about love instead of vengeance. About unity instead of division. Erdogan, everyone, they think that the way to end the movement is through money. But that’s not understanding what we’re about. We’re not about money. We’re not about politics. Erdogan was once a good man, I believe that. He changed this country for the better. He changed this city for the better. He was once devout himself, a man of the people, humble. This is what hocaefendi has always said: the State, it changes people. The State is somehow bigger than anyone, even though Erdogan himself is the State. This is why the movement has never wanted to form a political party. Parties are corrupted by the State because their power comes from it. Our power comes from being outside the State. Our power isn’t about money, it isn’t about power. It’s because we’re a movement - I hate calling it that, but I don’t know what else to call it - of people who believe the same things. Who believe in dignity and dialogue and peace and education.
“Erdogan can close the schools. He can cut off the funds of the businesses that are sympathetic to hocaefendi. It doesn’t matter. This goes beyond those things. And he should understand that. It’s how he built power in the 90s. The State closed Welfare, they closed Virtue. But Erdogan and his friends built relationships. They built a community. And now, he’s assumed the power he fought so hard against.”
“What’s happening with me?” David asked.
“They’re cracking down on everything associated with hocaefendi. The schools were just the first step. I’m sure you’ve been reading the news.”
“So what happens with me?” David repeated.
“I don’t know.”
“Well what are the options?”
“I mean, anything.”
“What does that mean?” David asked.
“It’s possible it blows over. It’s possible something new comes along, or you just lay low for a while, and everyone forgets all about it.”
“Or?”
They’d come to a promontory overlooking the water. They could see the low clouds breaking over the far end of the Golden Horn, the minarets of Aya Sofia, its ancient dome reasserting itself. In the other direction, across the water, beyond Kasimpasa, the skyscrapers of Sisli and Mecideyekoy rose like solemn totems of dirty ice.
“It’s possible they arrest you.”
David felt the color bleed from his face.
“Look, I know that sounds terrible. And it’s not good, obviously. But you’re an American. They don’t want too much trouble. You’d be treated well enough. They might hold you for a while, but we’d get in touch with the embassy, and then they’d just put you on a plane back to the States. Enough people know you’re here that you can’t just disappear.”
What he didn’t say - what he didn’t need to say - was, “And of course you’ll be banned from the country.” Exiled by choice, and then exiled by chance.
“What do I do?” David asked.
“Well, you should avoid the office for a while. Have they been by your flat?”
“No. My old address is on my residence permit. There’s no record I’m at my new place.”
Hasan smiled at that, patted David on the back. Then he laughed, shook his head.
“Stay there then. But pack your things. If they come by again, I don’t think they’ll come just to talk. If they come by again, I’ll call you. You’d have enough time to leave for the airport.”
“So that’s it? The end?”
“Maybe, maybe not. Trust that God has a plan. He always does.”
It was David‘s turn to laugh. He’d never told Hasan about his brother. He’d never told anyone about his brother.
“It’s like what the Prophet, peace be upon him, said,” Hasan continued. “God saves his most severe tests for those of us who are strongest. Like Prophet Abraham. He tests us because he knows we can handle it.”
The call to prayer resounded behind them, then across from them. It came from all over the city, swirling in the mists around them. Clouds of prayer. It came earlier and earlier everyday, marking time - the dying of the shortening days; the season‘s ritual march to its sepulchral heart. David remembered something from long ago, the basement of some long ago church. A graveyard outside, snow on the headstones, barren northeastern trees like skeletons dancing in the December wind. A woman rising from her chair to address those gathered and braced against the solstice cold.
Tomorrow, we gain a little more light.
Not yet, David thought.
“Come on,” Hasan said, bringing his hand to David’s cheek, pulling him close, as a father might a wayward son. “Pray with me?”
This drabness served to illuminate the new colors - the neon lights of the kokorec joints in Taksim, the meyhanes blinking their eyes in the late night hours, the concupiscent mounds of fruit, oranges and bruised apples and pomegranates. The rain on the alleyways reflected these colors, a kind of opalescent slipstream; an oil painting, coursing down the cobblestones.
Low clouds wrapped the distant minarets on the Halic, and slunk like stray cats through the narrowed streets of Kasimpasa. The only sound the sluice of tires on water. It was Sunday, market day. He walked alone through the damp susurrus, the moisture like a kind of cocoon.
The market steamed and sweated; the windows of the surrounding shops had gone opaque. Rain prattled loudly on the canvas wings, flooding the middle of the street.
He’d been told, since arriving, about the huzun of winter; about how the city’s character changed in the cold, rainy months. Like a burlesque dancer after a show, Istanbul pulled its overcoat tight, the harsh lights of backstage exposing the cracks in its make-up, its wrinkles and faded skin.
He didn’t mind the weather, though. He didn’t mind the melancholy. It seemed a mirror, a companion. Mostly, it was good to get out.
He’d gone to work the Monday after Thanksgiving feeling pretty good. Twenty people had showed up for dinner. He made two stuffed chickens, two turkey legs, five kilos of mashed potatoes, and two apple pies from scratch. There was something pleasing about cooking; it appealed to his sense of order. It was easy to become absorbed in the minutiae of each task, but preparing a large meal required a sort of magic, a pace and structure that, when done right, fulfilled his desire for symmetry.
There was a moment, late in the evening, before anyone arrived, that stayed with him. One of those luminous, burning moments that makes traveling so addictive. Moments that stasis - that the long thread of personal narrative - can’t usually deliver.
He was sitting on the balcony. A garbage can was between his legs, a cigarette burning itself out in an ash tray. Beyond, the day was dying splendidly in a swath of violets and vermilions, the bellies of the roiled, autumn clouds holding onto the already sunken sun. It was not warm or cold, and a soft breeze came off the water. Gulls wheeled in the wind, like separate atoms forming their own clouds.
He was peeling potatoes. It had always been his task growing up. He, his brother, and his sister would peel potatoes in the kitchen sink, the three of them laughing, a fire burning in the next room, the Philadelphia suburbs flat and grey out the big window.
And there he was peeling them in Istanbul. Alone. The thread of his personal history broken, begun anew. It was this lack of history that made traveling so appealing, that made such bright, ephemeral moments possible. What traveling offered was re-invention. Resurrection. To show up in a place completely empty, and then to control and shape how the narrative unfolded. To be the person he’d wanted to be his whole life, but had been too tethered to the past to be. It was the easiest solution: un-tether yourself, drift away into the vast ocean of the world.
The potatoes were knobby and filthy. The mud and grime worked under his nails. The spuds grew slick in his hands, the peeler occasionally slipping and slivering the tips of his fingers. Blood, water, and mud coursing down the tendons of his wrist. The minarets around the city came alive with the azhan; soon, he was surrounded by a cacophony of song.
The smell of roasting chickens was beginning to fill the apartment. In three hours, it would be full of twenty people drinking wine, eating food, laughing. Looking back at the months, the years of loneliness and devastation - at the broken threads, the gutted relationships - it was impossible not to feel like all of them had led to this very moment. Istanbul singing. His hands working methodically. A party looming.
Sitting there, he thought he wouldn’t trade any of those despairing nights, those hours when he felt cast adrift. They were worth this, he thought. They were worth the satisfaction of this story.
When he walked into the office after that weekend, Hasan was waiting again, conferring with Huseyin. It was rare for Huseyin to come down from the seventh floor, where he had his office.
“David-bey, there’s someone here who would like a word with you,” Huseyin said.
“Who?”
The two Turks looked at one another; Hasan lowered his head.
“He’s in my office,” Huseyin said. “Come on.”
They rode the elevator in silence, David’s heart racing. Outside his office, Huseyin stopped, put a hand on David’s shoulder. “Just remember that we’ve always tried to help you, David-bey.” Then he opened the door. David stepped in, but Huseyin didn’t follow.
A tall, husky man was standing at the window. He turned when he heard the door, and smiled. His head was shaved, but he had a large, well groomed moustache. Solid black. His eyes were a shade lighter, and very big. He had a comfortable paunch to him, a sheen to his head.
“Mr. Calvin,” he said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is Fikrit Sarkl. I’m with… well, my position doesn’t really matter. I’m just here to talk a bit. Please, have a seat.” He motioned to two chairs, facing one another, next to the window. “Would you like some tea?”
“Sure,” David said, trying to keep his voice from cracking. His throat felt vacuum sealed.
Fikrit called downstairs, ordered two big teas, and a helping of baklava. He smiled conspiratorially while ordering.
“It’s early, but I missed breakfast. I prefer something sweet to start my day,” he said, hanging up the phone, smoothing out his tie, sitting down across from David. He crossed his legs, leaned back. “I already said this, but it really is a pleasure meeting you. I’ve really enjoyed reading your articles, especially the ones in Zaman. The piece you wrote about Philadelphia and Istanbul, comparing the murder rates - that was great writing, Mr. Calvin. I shared it with many friends.”
“Thank you.”
“I was less favorably inclined to your most recent piece, however. About the dershanes.”
He paused for effect. David chose to stay silent.
“Mr. Calvin, it’s a complicated issue. I don’t dispute this. It’s one that has a lot of people’s temperatures running pretty high right now.”
“So I’m told.”
“I’m just curious why a foreigner would insert himself so vocally into an issue that, if you’ll excuse me, is very Turkish. Our politics are difficult to understand, even for someone like myself, who’s spent his whole life here. For an outsider to come in, and express an opinion, especially such a strong one… it just strikes me as strange.”
Again, David thought it better to remain silent.
“You’re aware that your company falls under the umbrella of Fethullah Gulen’s operation, right?”
“Sure. Of course.”
“You’re also aware, then, that Mr. Gulen - hocaefendi, if you will - was one of the parties responsible for the protests this past summer. Now, was hocaefendi himself behind the violence? Of course not. But what you probably don’t realize, is that a great deal of the national police force, and judiciary, is under the influence of Mr. Gulen. He has people everywhere. And unlike hocaefendi himself, these people aren’t afraid to get into the mud, if you will. You may not believe this, but the police commander who gave the order to launch tear gas - the very first order - was a Gulen-man. Just as the protesters that destroyed so much property were working on orders from Gulen’s sympathizers. I know you took part in the protests yourself, quite enthusiastically. You saw the damage the protesters caused. When you look at it from this perspective, can you wonder why the prime minister is so wary of hocaefendi’s influence? He’s disturbing the peace. He’s undermining the State.”
“And what’s the proof of this?”
Fikrit laughed; just then, a waiter arrived with their tea, a plate of baklava and two forks. After he left, Fikrit sipped his tea.
“Look, I realize you’re not going to believe me. You’ve been under the influence of Cemaat for ten months now. But you’re a foreigner. Not just that, an American. You’re valuable to them. They need people like you to legitimize themselves. Of course you’ve only seen the good things. Of course you’re only encountering the side that’s friendly to the west.”
He took a fork and methodically peeled the top layer from the baklava, dipping it in his tea.
“Let me ask you: have you read hocaefendi’s early addresses? From the early 70s and 80s?”
David made a gesture of uncertainty.
“Gulen’s an Islamist, Mr. Calvin. Plain and simple. The people bankrolling him are Islamists. They’re people sending weapons to the al Nusra front in Syria as we speak, people trying to undermine the State by saying we’re behind such activities.”
“How are they getting them across the border?”
“Again: Gulen has many sympathizers. Especially in the police and military. There are people working who will do whatever they can to make the prime minister look bad. To destabilize the State so that they can then control the State.”
Fikrit finished his baklava, and slid the plate towards David.
“Please,” he said, “help yourself.”
“I had breakfast.”
Fikrit smiled.
“Look, Mr. Calvin. I don’t believe you wrote that article about the dershanes. Or, I don’t believe you wrote it of your own accord. And that’s fine. You’re a stranger in a strange land, under the influence of people who show you a great deal of kindness. But they’re using you as a cog in the machinery, Mr. Calvin. You’re a figurehead for their cause, a western face to advance their Islamist beliefs. It’s understandable you’ve been taken in by them. We know that you experienced some serious personal problems back in Philadelphia. That you’ve been looking for a community, a family to replace what you’ve lost. This is what they do. They take in strays. I just don’t believe that an impartial foreigner like yourself would have the knowledge to write such an article of his own accord. As talented as you might be. And as a fan of yours, I must acknowledge that you’ve got a great deal of talent. I’d just hate to see such talent be used for, how shall we put it? Less than noble causes.”
“It’s not clear to me what you want.”
“I don’t want anything. I just wanted to have a conversation with you. To better understand the man behind the art.”
David laughed.
“What brought you to Istanbul, Mr. Calvin?”
“Chance, mostly.”
“No such thing, in my book. Everything can be traced to some origin. Maybe we don’t understand it at the time, but it becomes clear later. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not saying this from a religious perspective. I’m not terribly devout. I enjoy raki, after all.” Fikrit smiled. “I’m just saying sometimes the reasons for things are hidden from us until we’re ready to see them. You were in Rome last winter?”
“Yes. I was.”
“Doing what?”
“Painting houses, mostly. Writing a bit, for some journals back in the States. Drifting. I haven’t really settled down since I left Philadelphia five years ago.”
“Why’d you leave Philadelphia?”
“Personal reasons.”
“Family?”
“Sure.”
“I know how hard it is to lose a sibling. My sister died when I was a teenager. A domestic dispute. So, like your brother, it came as a shock. It shook my family to the core. My mother blamed my father. My sister’s husband was a friend of my father’s family. They’d assured us he was a good man. Pious.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I left home to escape the sorrow, which I’m sure you can understand. I threw myself into my studies. But you can’t run forever. We have responsibilities to our families,” Fikrit said, finishing his tea. “The man who killed my sister was let off. He claimed she’d been meeting another man. The judge - this was in far east Turkey, a very conservative place, sympathetic to certain groups - decided he was justified.
“So I went home. I became a lawyer in the hopes of being a judge. I did what I could to mend my family. As sons, we have these responsibilities, right?”
“Sure.”
“We can’t escape the ties of blood, Mr. Calvin. It follows us wherever we go. It’s inside us.”
“Look, whatever information you have obviously hasn’t told you that there’s no family to go back to. Mom’s living with some guy in New Orleans, working on a riverboat casino. Dad’s joined some end of days cult, driving around the Midwest in some shitty old van trying to convert people. Excuse the language.”
Fikrit waved a hand dismissively. “I’m not terribly devout. As I said.” He smiled, and ate David’s piece of baklava. “Your sister is still in Philadelphia, no?” he said, chewing.
“She is.”
“With a daughter. And another on the way?”
“She was born. Two months ago. Alexandra. After my brother‘s wife.”
Fikrit smiled, and stood up. He put on his coat, meticulously tied his scarf. Then, with a hand on David’s shoulder, he delivered the message he’d come to express:
“Maybe it’s a good time to pay them a visit. To get back in touch, hm?”
Hasan waited downstairs, pallid. “You should probably lay low for a few days. I’ll call you by the end of the week, OK?”
David gathered his things and went home. He spent the rest of the week in his room, looking at flights to Philadelphia, looking at flights to Beirut, looking at flights anywhere. Flight. The very word seemed stuck in his throat, like a small fish bone. Some kind of promise gone rancid, a relationship run its course. He felt like the road he was on had suddenly been swallowed by sand, by some enormous, shifting dune, wiping out the path ahead and behind.
It rained most of the week; he only went out for beer and cigarettes. Ar came over with a bottle of whiskey, which they grimly drank on the balcony, chain smoking and listening to the rain.
“You should call Elif,” Ar suggested. “Wouldn’t hurt to say good bye.”
“I’m not thinking that way. Not yet.”
“If I were you, I’d already be gone.”
“Well, you’re not me.”
Ar smiled. “You Americans have too much trust. You’re wonderful, naïve people. You believe in institutions, don’t you? In laws.”
David laughed.
“Well, at the very least, it wouldn’t hurt to get laid, would it?”
That part was true. Along with smoking cigarettes and checking plane tickets, David had spent most of his time masturbating. There was nothing to exacerbate self pity, to really truly wallow in it, like a good porn binge. To plumb the depths of the internet, to see what was out there, what perverse shit others found arousing. David’s own tastes were relatively staid. He preferred, mostly, women undressing, women espied in states of undress, women inviting him (and thousands of other anonymous men) to pleasure themselves while they undressed. It was hardly staid, of course - it debased women more than he would ever debase a real, flesh and blood woman - but seemed staid compared to what else was out there. The rape porn, the scat porn, the porn where one woman sucked three dicks, all of which, enormous, resembled some kind of medieval weapon.
“I think that ship has sailed,” David said, taking a big sip of whiskey. They watched the stream of traffic careen endlessly up Tarlabasi Boulevard, the lights reflected and racing on the pavement. Trannies marched up and down the sidewalk beneath translucent umbrellas, smoke curling around the edges, the taxi drivers stopping, rolling their windows down.
“What do you think?” David said, leaning over the balcony. “You ever paid?”
“For sex? Or a tranny?”
“Either.”
“No. Not my style.”
“Me either.”
“They’re very popular. The trannies. One of those unspoken things men don’t talk about. Sometimes, guys just fuck trannies. It’s not gay, it’s not cheating. Just a guy fulfilling his needs. That’s how most guys here feel. It is what it is.”
A white Mercedes pulled over to talk with two of the girls. They were tall, not terribly elegant, huddled under one umbrella.
“Did I tell you about my summer at a slaughterhouse?” Ar asked.
“I don’t think so,” David said, wondering what it would feel like to plunge to the pavement, eight stories down; wondering how long that fall would feel, what images his mind would have time to grasp.
“It was a shit job. A true shit job. Some Halal slaughterhouse where we killed cows and chickens. Carcasses hanging by their legs, coming past you.” He yanked his hand viciously across his throat. “One quick cut. The blood was so warm. It smelled terrible. I never got used to the smell.” He smiled. “The guys there liked the trannies. The butchers. Big, ugly dudes. Hairy everywhere but on their heads. Carpets on their arms and backs. Hair coming out their ears and their nostrils.”
Down below, the trannies started shouting at the Mercedes. One of them kicked the door with an enormous heel. The car peeled away, kicking up a tail of grime and water.
“I don’t think normal hookers would take them. I don’t think you could pay a self respecting woman enough money to sleep with a man like that. Hairy, fat, pale men who smelled like death.” He laughed to himself, remembering those days. David smiled and remember the summer he paved roads in central Pennsylvania. He was nineteen; the men were all ex-cons or recovering addicts. They were grandiosely corpulent, their saggy arms latticed in faded tattoos, their chests scarred from open heart surgery. They smoked cigarettes and chewed with their mouths open, spittle flying everywhere. They took David in for a summer, made him feel at home, despite how obvious it was that he was only temporary. They told him stories about the women they’d loved and lost (through their addictions or their rampant infidelity). They showed him photos of sons in little league uniforms. They told him about the hookers they fucked. At least once a summer he’d think about them, imagine them out there in the verdant hills of Appalachia, sweating on some forgotten patch of road, smoking cigarettes and laughing about some girl whose face one of them had cum on. He suspected most of them were still there; there was no place else for them to go, no other narratives for them to right. They were playing out the thread, enlivening it with what flourishes they could.
“Those guys loved the trannies,” Ar said. “They’d talk about them all the time. Calling them queers, faggots. I wanted to say: what the fuck are you guys then? But they didn’t think like that. We worked six days a week and had Sundays off. They’d all go out Saturday nights, to the brothels off Istiklal, all six of them bursting in their like bulls set loose. Stinking and fucking and calling the girls faggots. Doing whatever they wanted to them. Hitting them, spitting on them. And coming in Monday hung over, butchering the cows whose throats I was slitting.”
The Mercedes came back, screeching to the curb. The trannies immediately scrambled, one picking up a bottle, the other a brick. Eight men clambered out of the car, pointing and shouting. One of them, it appeared to David, had a knife.
“They got reinforcements,” David said.
“Typical Turkishness,” Ar said. “Call them faggots, but they’re too afraid to fight until they outnumber them four to one. Every Turkish man thinks he’s a warrior at heart. We aren’t.”
On Saturday morning, very early, shortly after David had fallen asleep, Hasan called.
“Did I wake you?”
“Not really.”
“Can we meet tomorrow? I’ll come over your way. Does Suleymaniye work for you?”
“Sure.”
“Ok. Let’s say after the noon prayer.”
The next day, after going to the market, David caught a bus across the Golden Horn, past hundreds of men fishing on the bridge, despite the cold. Out on the water, the ships moved stealthily below the clouds, snarled in mist. He met Hasan outside Suleymaniye. The courtyard was mostly empty, its lawn clotted with wet, fallen leaves.
They walked through the soaked streets of Fatih. Laundry dangled limply between the homes, many of which peeled in the rain, chips of paint and plaster liquefying and flooding the street with color. Most of the streets were torn apart, broken stone or bare dirt, which had turned to mud. Soggy dogs roamed sadly. Smoke escaped steamy windows, or slunk beneath cracked doors. Stony-faced women peered out of open shudders, glowering, their damp hair dangling freely beneath their scarves.
The tea houses were crowded with dour men in heavy greys and browns, their cigarettes clouding the unadorned rooms, their breath fogging the large front windows. In a few empty lots, men braved the weather, chopping apart wet wood, fires crackling and hissing. Doors opened onto basements where men and women used screwdrivers to pry open and crack mussels from the Bosphorous, their reedy, murky smell seeping malodorously into the streets.
“I grew up here, you know” Hasan said at one point. To their left, inside the ruins of a mosque, two geese and a goat scavenged in the tall grass.
“I didn’t know.”
Hasan smiled. He was wearing a grey scarf, a black pea coat. His hair flopped across his forehead beneath a hand-knit wool cap. “My parents came here from the Balkans, before I was born, to escape the failed socialism there. They weren’t religious, at all. My mother would sometimes pray, but my father didn’t even know the prayers. I struggled a lot as a kid, feeling lost, wondering why there was so much cruelty in the world, and especially here in Turkey. The 70s were a scary time to be a kid. A scary time to be a Turk. My father was a welder. He paid dues to both right wing and left wing terrorists. They’d come by and shake him down at gun point, sometimes with me or my brothers there. They didn’t care at all about kids. They would have killed him if he hadn’t paid them. I don’t doubt that.
“That was around the time I discovered hocaefendi. It was a little after that, I suppose. In the 80s, during University, after the coup. I remember hearing him preach where we met, at Suleymaniye. My favorite mosque in Istanbul. The most beautiful mosque in Turkey,” he said. “I guess preach is the wrong word; that’s the Western word.” He smiled when he said this, put his hand on David’s back. They were moving west, following the track of the old aqueduct, past the mosque dedicated to Suleymaniye’s son. Headed towards Edirnekapi, and the old city walls. Passing layers of history, just spilled out on the streets like garbage. Byzantine bricks crumbled upon Roman roads; Ottoman homes built upon Byzantine foundations. Hidden mosques that were once hidden churches, the eyes of their mosaics - Christ, the apostles, the Virgin - gouged out and traded somewhere in Arabia. A fresco of the conception plastered over, replaced by the looping scrawl of Arabic recounting the Prophet’s ascension. Myth covering myth.
“There’s such a gentleness to him in person, David. It’s more than humility. His kindness touches everything around him. Not like Erdogan. Not like most Turkish men, really. He’s not afraid to cry. He’s not afraid to step back, to be weak. He doesn’t view kindness or peace as weakness. He views it as strength. And that’s what he talked about when I saw him. The need to respect all life. The need to engage with your enemies. The need for a larger human community.
“Listening to him, I thought, ‘This is what I’ve been looking for. This is the man I want to follow.’ That’s how all this started. The magazine, the publisher. The thousands of schools. It started because people like me heard this man, this great man, talking about love instead of vengeance. About unity instead of division. Erdogan, everyone, they think that the way to end the movement is through money. But that’s not understanding what we’re about. We’re not about money. We’re not about politics. Erdogan was once a good man, I believe that. He changed this country for the better. He changed this city for the better. He was once devout himself, a man of the people, humble. This is what hocaefendi has always said: the State, it changes people. The State is somehow bigger than anyone, even though Erdogan himself is the State. This is why the movement has never wanted to form a political party. Parties are corrupted by the State because their power comes from it. Our power comes from being outside the State. Our power isn’t about money, it isn’t about power. It’s because we’re a movement - I hate calling it that, but I don’t know what else to call it - of people who believe the same things. Who believe in dignity and dialogue and peace and education.
“Erdogan can close the schools. He can cut off the funds of the businesses that are sympathetic to hocaefendi. It doesn’t matter. This goes beyond those things. And he should understand that. It’s how he built power in the 90s. The State closed Welfare, they closed Virtue. But Erdogan and his friends built relationships. They built a community. And now, he’s assumed the power he fought so hard against.”
“What’s happening with me?” David asked.
“They’re cracking down on everything associated with hocaefendi. The schools were just the first step. I’m sure you’ve been reading the news.”
“So what happens with me?” David repeated.
“I don’t know.”
“Well what are the options?”
“I mean, anything.”
“What does that mean?” David asked.
“It’s possible it blows over. It’s possible something new comes along, or you just lay low for a while, and everyone forgets all about it.”
“Or?”
They’d come to a promontory overlooking the water. They could see the low clouds breaking over the far end of the Golden Horn, the minarets of Aya Sofia, its ancient dome reasserting itself. In the other direction, across the water, beyond Kasimpasa, the skyscrapers of Sisli and Mecideyekoy rose like solemn totems of dirty ice.
“It’s possible they arrest you.”
David felt the color bleed from his face.
“Look, I know that sounds terrible. And it’s not good, obviously. But you’re an American. They don’t want too much trouble. You’d be treated well enough. They might hold you for a while, but we’d get in touch with the embassy, and then they’d just put you on a plane back to the States. Enough people know you’re here that you can’t just disappear.”
What he didn’t say - what he didn’t need to say - was, “And of course you’ll be banned from the country.” Exiled by choice, and then exiled by chance.
“What do I do?” David asked.
“Well, you should avoid the office for a while. Have they been by your flat?”
“No. My old address is on my residence permit. There’s no record I’m at my new place.”
Hasan smiled at that, patted David on the back. Then he laughed, shook his head.
“Stay there then. But pack your things. If they come by again, I don’t think they’ll come just to talk. If they come by again, I’ll call you. You’d have enough time to leave for the airport.”
“So that’s it? The end?”
“Maybe, maybe not. Trust that God has a plan. He always does.”
It was David‘s turn to laugh. He’d never told Hasan about his brother. He’d never told anyone about his brother.
“It’s like what the Prophet, peace be upon him, said,” Hasan continued. “God saves his most severe tests for those of us who are strongest. Like Prophet Abraham. He tests us because he knows we can handle it.”
The call to prayer resounded behind them, then across from them. It came from all over the city, swirling in the mists around them. Clouds of prayer. It came earlier and earlier everyday, marking time - the dying of the shortening days; the season‘s ritual march to its sepulchral heart. David remembered something from long ago, the basement of some long ago church. A graveyard outside, snow on the headstones, barren northeastern trees like skeletons dancing in the December wind. A woman rising from her chair to address those gathered and braced against the solstice cold.
Tomorrow, we gain a little more light.
Not yet, David thought.
“Come on,” Hasan said, bringing his hand to David’s cheek, pulling him close, as a father might a wayward son. “Pray with me?”
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