Istanbul Noir - Mustafa Ziyalan [81]
Suddenly I get my wish; I look behind me and it’s no longer there. Relieved, I continue along my way. I greet the guy selling glasses, and then pick up some sunflower seeds at the snack store, savoring the normalcy of a cliché exchange with the greasy-bearded guy at the counter. I try to reassure myself that everything’s all right. But still, I can’t shake that feeling.
Pounding the sidewalk, I start to get the shivers. There’s something strange going on. It’s like certain things are out of place on the street. Like certain things are missing. Like everybody’s so distracted by details they fail to notice that the huge building at the plaza has been removed, and because they can’t see it, I’m afraid of noticing it too. It feels weird, and creepy. I look around and notice that there don’t seem to be many women. I take a second look and realize that there are in fact no women. But I was just here yesterday and there were plenty of women; hailing cabs, returning from weddings with their husbands, sitting with their boyfriends in hamburger joints, whispering gossip and laughing boisterously. Girls revealing tattoos to one another, replicating vapid Hollywood banter, cursing their fathers. Of course, not all of them were lookers, but at least they were there, where they were supposed to be. I glance up at the apartment buildings, but there isn’t a single woman dangling a basket to the downstairs grocer. Could this whole thing be a curse? I prefer to blame the rakı. But I’m just not convinced.
The more I walk, the drier my lips get. I pass a crowd waiting for the bus. The crowd reeks, almost of death, and I turn the other way to avoid the smell. A huge, frowning eyebrow of hairy bodies. Just yesterday, this place was totally different. How can this be? I’m searching for a woman who’s looking to go somewhere. With me, without me, it doesn’t matter anymore. I’m growing tired, starting to feel strangled. It’s like the oxygen’s being sucked out of the air.
I want to go home, to run into some girl, any girl, from my neighborhood. With a tram full of guys, I go up to Beyazıt Plaza. The Istanbul University dorms are up here. There must be some female students around. Some of them must be out getting a bite to eat, cramming with friends at a café, preparing for the next day’s exam.
Walking along the plaza, my disappointment only grows. There isn’t a single female student. It’s like I’m on a film set. Like this is Candid Camera, and somebody somewhere is watching me and laughing his ass off. But this is too much. Nobody deserves this. I continue along my way, like a radar beam, beneath the harsh lights of shops selling meatballs, grilled sandwiches, and döner. I swiftly pass the hole in the wall that sells tripe soup—slim chance of seeing a woman in there—and try to find the girl who works in the next shop, selling colorful jewelry and posters of landscapes. She looks you in the face when she talks, makes you happy you’re alive. Every time I stop by her shop, I do my best to charm her. My speech becomes more refined, my laughter takes on a different tone. Not because I expect anything from her. But because she gives me the energy to make it through the rest of the day.
But when I reach the shop, what I find hits me with the force of a fist to the face. The girl has been replaced by a beady-eyed brute who’s clearly let the place go to seed. He’s removed all those bright pictures of Istanbul, which the girl had taken such great pains to display, and carelessly stacked them behind his chair, turning the charming little store into an ugly warehouse. Disgusted, I turn and leave, the memory of the bead girl trailing after me, morphing into a hundred other men unable to forget her smile, suffocating their longing in cigarette smoke.
I’m looking for a woman, any woman. I couldn’t care less about sex. I just want to pass a woman on the street. Sevim Teyze’s café comes to mind. I think of going there, to chat with Sevim Teyze, to relax and have some tasty pastries and coffee. But what I really need is to hear the sound of her sweet, soothing