Hotel Bosphorus (2 page)

Of course, it isn't easy to keep up to date with every item of gossip in a city as huge as Istanbul. That's why Turks are forever talking on their mobiles, whether it's in the street, when they're out for dinner with their sweethearts, or even in theatres and cinemas. I think
Alexander Graham Bell must have had Turkish genes. If not, how come Turks are so infatuated with this contraption?

Once again, I arrived home in the evening feeling completely wrung out. I hate days like that. Dealing with customers, the constant ringing of the telephone, people coming, people going… It was bedlam. I'd barely had the strength to turn the key when it came to locking up the shop. I also paid the price for having gone to work by car. In Istanbul a car is nothing but trouble; it doesn't make life easier at all. It's an ancient city where the roads are very narrow, especially where my shop is in Kuledibi, an area that dates back to Genoese times.

Sometimes I think that everyone must spend their whole time out in the streets and that none of the city's ten million or so people ever goes home, day or night. The streets are constantly teeming with people and cars. Ten million people – it's easy to say, but it's the size of a nation.

 

In the end, parking difficulties and traffic congestion in Istanbul play havoc with your nerves. But I'm lazy. It takes thirty minutes to get from home to the shop, on foot or by car. I go by car.

Work was so busy that day that I didn't have time to revel in the fact that Petra had called. But the moment I got home, I went straight to the telephone like any normal Istanbul citizen, or
Ä°stanbullu
as we say, and called Lale. She knew about Petra; we had been to the film festival together to see her film and I'd offered to translate some of Petra's magazine interviews, but Lale wasn't interested. She can be irritating like that. Still, what can I do? She's my best friend.

After Lale, I wanted to phone Fofo, but I couldn't because I didn't know his number. I sat and smoked three cigarettes in fifteen minutes, then called Lale again. Her phone was engaged. I went for a shower to pass the time and tried again. Still engaged. I considered jumping into the car and going to her house, but couldn't be bothered. I pressed the redial button; it was still busy. As consolation, I called my ex, whom I keep dangling and mostly ignore. You might as well know that. Yes, that telephone was engaged too. I cried myself to sleep from nervous exhaustion. I dreamed I was trying to crush Alexander Graham Bell's head with the telephone handset, and Madame Curie was shouting, “Murder! Murder!” I woke up in a sweat.

 

The next day was Saturday, the best day of the week, followed by the second best day, Sunday. Many seriousminded or acquisitive citizens sit at their desks on the first of these happy days. I am definitely not in either of those categories. On Saturdays, the closed sign hangs firmly on the door of the shop, unless Fofo is depressed and decides to do some cleaning.

On Saturdays, I join my neighbour and dear friend Yılmaz at the local café, where we lie in wait to pounce on passers-by. Yılmaz is in his fifties; he's a short, fat, bald man who works in advertising. A real stereotype. He knows everyone; he tells me all the gossip and then tells everyone all about me… However, I decided long ago that I didn't care, and I count Yılmaz as one of my buddies.

So, on Saturday mornings, Yılmaz and I buy our pastries from the bakery, our newspapers from the
corner shop, and settle ourselves in the café. This happens at about ten o'clock. All Cihangir society walks past us. Some we entice to our table, while those who know better merely wave and walk on. When we tire of gossiping, Yılmaz and I go to the cinema together if there is a good film, or if not we go home…

We have a mutual understanding that Yılmaz buys the newspapers and I buy the goodies from the bakery. Actually, I don't read newspapers during the week, so this is something different for me on Saturdays. And change is good, isn't it?

It's become a habit. Yılmaz always arrives before me, exactly on time. He never passes up an opportunity to berate me for my lack of punctuality, especially as I'm German. I retaliate by saying that Turks always assume Germans are punctual, hard-working cold fish, and then insult Yılmaz by saying he's no exception. As you might guess, the worst insult for Yılmaz is to be told that he's just like everybody else.

I can't let this pass without mentioning some strange prejudices that Turks have about Germans. For instance, Turks are amazed to see a smiling, cheerful German. They love it when I laugh, because they think I've become really integrated into the community. I haven't yet convinced anyone that I used to laugh when I lived in Germany, even if only occasionally, and that it didn't mean I was excommunicated from society. I even know people who think the reason I came to live in Istanbul was that I couldn't remain in Germany because I was too cheerful.

The fact that my name is Kati seems to suggest to Turks that I'm a different kind of German. You might not believe this, but I've actually met Turks who think
there are only two German names: Hans for males, and Helga for females. Why? I have no idea.

 

I had been in the café for fifteen minutes and Yılmaz still hadn't made any jibes about punctuality and being German. He was probably too preoccupied with his work. The advertising company where Yılmaz worked was in the midst of a financial crisis, like many companies in Turkey. People were apparently going to be laid off. I suggested that if this happened to him, he could take the job that Fofo was probably going to give up. He looked at me as if I was joking. So what? Was I supposed to feel bad if I couldn't pay him a monthly salary of ten thousand dollars?

 

Petra had said she would call me again when her dates were confirmed, that is to say when the Turkish Cultural Ministry and the producers had completed their paperwork. Two weeks passed while I waited for Petra to let me know when she was coming. Naturally, I wasn't idle during that time. I found Fofo and told him in no uncertain terms that I would replace him if he didn't come back to the shop. I had no intention of working myself into the ground. Actually, there aren't that many people who want to work in a crime-fiction bookshop, but I expected to find someone eventually.

Fofo dithered and couldn't give me a straight answer. He was starting to get on my nerves so I interrupted, “In that case, I'll take on a temp for three months. You can use that time to decide what you want to do. Are you going to spend your whole life going after some boy or other, or are you going to learn to stand on your own two feet?!”

After this meaningful and important speech, I slammed the door and left. I don't think Fofo had ever heard anyone talk to him like that, or had a door slammed in his face. He was infatuated with Alfonso. However, I also had pride that had to be salvaged.

A few days later, I went to see my friend Candan, who has a large bookshop in Beyoğlu. I wanted to find someone who would be right for my shop. Candan was great at that sort of thing. Whenever I put a request to her, she would provide exactly what I was looking for. And it happened again. She called up four or five places on her mobile and, one hour later, a pleasant-looking girl was sitting opposite me: Pelin.

Pelin was a student at Istanbul University, studying English language and literature. She was from Ä°zmir and had come to Istanbul to attend university and get away from her family. For seven years, she had been both studying and working, which was why she had been at college for so long.

“I've no problem with that,” I said. In fact, this was a point in her favour. “I hate people who work too hard,” I added.

“Even though you're German?” asked Pelin.

 

We worked out a division of labour. It wasn't fair, but it was a division of labour of sorts. Pelin would open up the shop three days a week, thus allowing me to sleep until noon on those days. Having worked in a bookshop before, she quickly adapted to the job. Her comings and goings were observed reproachfully by
çaycı
Recai, who couldn't bear the fact that he knew nothing about her.

Fofo is my friend, so I don't like saying this, but Pelin worked at least five times harder than Fofo. When it was
her turn to open up the shop, it happened exactly on time. She would dust the books, tidy up, put flowers on the table, and there would always be fresh tea and coffee, providing she wasn't feeling depressed. She came right up to my German standards… Her only fault was that she didn't like thrillers. But I thought we'd overcome that in time. It didn't really bother me.

Pelin said she liked books and working in a bookshop, even if she didn't like thrillers, but she often hinted that she wanted more pay. Turks from good families don't talk openly about their financial aspirations, they just drop hints.

“Let's see, who knows what might happen?” I said, adopting her hinting technique.

I was thinking that, if Fofo didn't return within three months, I would sell my car so that I could employ Pelin. However, my dear friend Lale saved me from that financial problem. The moment she met Pelin, she started to tell her all about me and how, despite spending my first seven and last thirteen years in Istanbul, which is twenty years and almost half my life, I had still not shed the damaging effects of my awful German peasant background. She said I was a typically stingy German. I never turned on a light at home unless it was necessary; I didn't even fit halogen bulbs because of the expense, and only shame prevented me from spending my evenings in candlelight like other Germans. Once Lale started, she didn't know when to stop; she went on and on, saying that to save money I refused to take taxis, served used teabags to my guests, tried to get people to pay for their own meals in restaurants, and so forth. I can't let that one pass without comment. Whenever people pay separately, Turks call it “doing it the German
way”. They give me sidelong glances, then look at each other and snigger as if I single-handedly created the “German” way of paying bills.

Anyway, Lale spilled everything about me. I kept quiet because I didn't want to have to defend those intolerable Germans. And of course, it went in my favour, as you might expect. Pelin now thinks I am an oppressed migrant and feels more sympathy for me. I feel confident that if someone offered her three times her current salary, she wouldn't want to leave me.

It was May when Petra called for the second time.

The magical Istanbul spring was about to turn abruptly into summer. I would have liked Petra to see Istanbul in spring: to drink tea under the shade of ancient pine trees in the gardens of magnificent Ottoman palaces, to walk along mimosa-scented streets, to shiver in the dampness of the Byzantine underground reservoirs, to light a candle in one of the churches as the muezzin chants the call to prayer, to stretch out in the warm spring sunshine on grass damp with early morning dew looking at the Hippodrome and the Sultan Ahmet fountain, to eat artichokes prepared in olive oil at Hacı Halil Restaurant…

“They've only just got the filming permit,” Petra was saying. Turkish bureaucracy, like German bureaucracy, is famous for its cumbersome paperwork, so I wasn't at all surprised by this delay. The filming had been planned to start at the end of April, but now could not start until the beginning of June.

“You've missed the spring,” I said to myself.

I told her that I would meet her at the airport. Her hotel was near my house so there would be no problem about seeing each other.

I spent one of the longest hours of my life in a smokefilled café at Atatürk Airport, which had recently been expanded in an attempt to compete with Athens. Anyone who thinks the number of cigarettes people smoke increases with the excitement of seeing off or greeting loved ones should know that Turks never need an excuse to smoke. It was therefore quite normal to sit in a café where clouds of smoke burned my eyes and made it almost impossible to breathe.

I had no option but to join the overwhelming majority of smokers.

Was I excited that I was soon to see Petra? Had I missed her? I tried to visualize her face and the effects the years would have had on her. What a life she had led – and what had I done? I had just stopped myself from going deeper into a misplaced, mistimed evaluation of my life when the airport Tannoy system announced that Petra's plane had landed.

Going to meet Petra at the airport was a complete waste of time. The place was full of journalists trying to get a glimpse of the film crew arriving in Istanbul. But it was soon over. A team of minders moved into place to get Petra away from the crowd. However, she noticed me waving and jumping about trying to catch her attention, and yelled at the men to let me through. A few seconds later, we found ourselves next to each other, surrounded by a wall of beefy men who were steering us towards the exit.