It is late here. And quiet. The calls to prayer throughout the day have also been quiet. At first, I thought that was because the city was loud, but they are just muted, almost demure. Maybe in the more-religious countryside, it's as blaring as in other places I've been. Here, I'm enjoying it's almost ambient contribution. I like that a person calls people to pray. As opposed to bells. Bells are beautiful, but they're job-killers!
My diet has also been muted. The early breakfasts of a few vegetables, some olives, and some cheese are sustaining me. I skipped dinner last night, preferring to sleep instead. When I popped down to the studio to tell Joyce, she understood. There was an amusing scene with a battered lamp on her desk.
Not one to skip dinner, Zouad was down there as well. We smiled at one another. The battered lamp flickered, which drew our attention. Joyce shook it until the bulb shone again.
Zouad said, "This is beautiful lamp. What is kind of it?" Joyce said it was a "strada." Zouad said, "I have not heard this brand."
"Strada means 'street,'" said Joyce. "We find it in street. This is why it does not work so well." It went out again when she said this.
I flickered and went out as well. Long sleep with deep dreams. Woke up, took a shower. The new boiler works! Photographed some cats on the way to breakfast. It was too early for the places to be open, so I wandered around some back streets. An old woman in a plastic chair bid me good morning. Probably. I touched my hand to my heart and moved on. But she kept calling after me in a language I could not understand.
I was heading into a dead end, so I turned around, and when I got back to her, she touched her own heart sarcastically and let loose an angry stream of talk that I can only assume was like, "I told you there was nothing that way, I told you to turn around, but no, you know best. I guess you know Istanbul better than a woman who has lived here for ninety-seven years."
Old Mother Nobs kept it up long after I was out of sight (but not ear-shot). If only her job had been taken by a bell.
Leisurely breakfast of cucumbers, string cheese, and bread with butter and honey. I wanted an omelet, but you get what you get at this tiny place with the wooden tables. I read about fifty pages of the Huxley novel and sipped my tea. The server kept bringing more and saying, "Gift for you, gift."
I was witness to an early morning street-court. Two mini vans faced one another on a one-lane street, the drivers determined not to be the one who had to back up.
Mother Nobs and her jury came out to adjudicate, and one of the men reluctantly reversed to a place where he could turn off. It was very interesting to see people come from nowhere to give their opinion on who had the right of way.
Long wander eastward over broken sidewalks and past fascinating coffee places in the middle of otherwise abandoned buildings. In Budapest, they call such places "Ruin Cafes," and the name applied. I was quite in love with the aesthetic, people making community and comfort in trashed-out warehouses. It was right on the line between reclamation and gentrification. I wished I was hungry and unfull of gift-tea.
These places were like the cats; I wanted to spend time with each one. But there were too many.
The sidewalk was very thin in places, and a highway and river were to my left. I moved slowly and carefully, and I was always happy to be the trucker who lost the street-trial when someone approached from the opposite direction. I passed many furniture-restoration shoppes. Clever stools and charming chairs.
At some point, I found myself in a pedestrian underpass lined with kiosks selling thick rolls of adhesive "stone," the plastic stuff you attach to a wall to make it look like brick. There was a wide variety of styles and several competitive sellers. It seemed an unusual place for this, and I was fascinated by how it started. How did this area under a bridge become Istanbul's Stick-On Brick District.
(One of Joyce's paintings. Inspired, no doubt, by Francis Bacon)
Ended up in a more-obvious market with endless scarves and plastic toys and knock-off designer purses. It was a sort of Canal Street with pomegranates. There were more signs of urban civilization in this area, bus stops and restaurants, news stands.
Back home, the top story was the "accidental" bombing by the Turks of an area in Syria where American troops were stationed. Someone could get hurt that way!
The Turkish headlines were more of the same I had seen from yesterday. Sex-wet fighter jets next to headlines like "Terrorists Retreat Before Turkish Might!" No mention of possible "friendly fire" on a NATO ally. Lots of soccer scores, though.
I am, of course, worried some sort of incident in the next two days will neutralize my visa. I leave for Almaty on Monday. If they can just keep the collateral damage to a minimum til then, it will really help out my vacation.
Eventually, the market became enclosed by a high, arching roof, and I was hemmed in by spices, metal lamps, and backgammon boards. As you may imagine, I entertained buying one of the lamps for Joyce to replace her genuine Strada.
The salespeople all said the same things in English:
"Hello again!"
"Excuse me, one minute and I give you something."
"Gift! Gift!"
The "again" is a thing of genius. It draws attention more than a simple hello would have done. Again? Oh, I must know this person. I must have seen them before.
I responded to the psychology of it. It felt like something they would teach in a sales-training session for street vendors.
I did not buy any gummi worms or jasmine balls.
There were fish sandwiches and thin pizza-crepes and endless doner kebabs. I was almost angry with myself for not being hungry. I escaped the enclosed area and entered a kind of art-supply district where I bought a nice turquoise marker-pen. On Saturdays at home, I sketch on napkins with Sara and Milo, and I want to keep up the tradition.
So I went to a coffee shop.
I had a latte and sketched and read. There was an amusing bit about a digestive aid called a Perpetual Pill, which was a little metal ball folks used to swallow. It acted as a laxative, and you would wash it off after passing it. And swallow it again. That was the perpetual part. Apparently, they were also passed on as heirlooms to family members. "Here, Mom used this to shit with, like, hundreds of times. It's your turn."
I also liked a bit where some nuns are claiming to be possessed and they say a way to prove it is for people to put fingers in their mouths. They say if they're not possessed, any fingers in their mouths will be safe, but if they ARE possessed, the devil will bite the fingers of anyone who tries. No one is brave enough to try.
The cafe was suddenly possessed by fifty or so schoolgirls in headscarves. They completely dominated the place, taking selfies and posing for one another and getting wasted on espresso and laughing. It was very sweet to see them having so much fun. It was impossible to read anymore, though, so I was the trucker who reversed once more.
More street markets. Capitalism rules here. I bought some bottled water. A big, handwritten sign at one scarfery read: WE HAVE SHAHTOOSH!
I said "gesundheit " to the sign and cracked myself up.
Looked it up later, a shahtoosh is a kind of shawl made from the fur of a Tibetan antelope. They're apparently illegal, since said antelope is endangered. Forbidden Shawl is on the growing list of band names.
There was a long stretch of tables selling only scales and adding machines. Past them, a man sold wrist-shavers. He kept grabbing "volunteers" and proving the efficacy of the device. Hello again! Gift! Beauty is pain.
I gave him a wide berth, though I do suffer from unsightly wrist hair curling out past my cuffs.
Amusingly, the word salon was often spelled "saloon." Lots of places to get your hair cut and your nails done were mistaken, by me, for cowboy hangouts.
In a leafy park, a man sold mussels on a tray. It was surprising. No ice, just a pile of black shells he was happy to pry open for you. A few lemon wedges.
Men sat and smoked. Not a lot of conversation and no chess. They sat silently, perhaps communicating in ways I couldn't perceive. The uniform was slacks, thin mock turtleneck, and a tight sport jacket. Friar Tuck hair.
I had gone far, so I headed back. Stopped at one of the thin-pizza places to see what they were all about. I just pointed at pictures to get what I wanted. I ended up with a side of rice pudding and a parsley salad for some reason. All very interesting.
I needed a fork, so I made a kind of "dig in" gesture. I was offered a spoon, so I made my fingers into a trident and dug in once more. A fork was produced.
Happy exhausting trek back, walking along a wide avenue. Many women wore thin, flowing chadors and designer sunglasses. The further I got from Balat, the less secular things seemed to be. Schoolboys wore some sort of ceremonial hats and clustered around Dumpsters to tease one another.
Around a corner, I interrupted a group of teen boys experimenting with a perfume sampler. One was brushing it on another's wrist while a third awaited his turn. They may have passed the same market as I did; their wrists were smooth and hairless.
There was some attempt to hide what they were doing when I surprised them, but I gave an inoffensive smile and never stopped walking, so they went back to their sandlewood party.
Around the next corner, much younger boys were squeezing tiny containers of yogurt into their mouths. They were unembarrassed.
A very fine day in the "real" Istanbul. I slept through dinner once more. Maybe I'll be hungry in Kazakhstan.
No comments:
Post a Comment