CLUBBING IT OUT IN ISTANBUL

Joe Szostak

HAD I KNOWN the consequences of accepting Ahmet's offer, I would have walked away, I would have run,

galloped like a race horse and never looked back.

The night had been beautiful, exotic and full of promise. I was in one of the oldest and grandest cities of

the world, Istanbul, a place of marvels like the Haghia Sophia, the Topkapi Palace, the Blue Mosque and the

Grand Bazaar.

I was a Canadian and a first-time traveller in Turkey. The day had been exhilarating, but that evening,

walking along the Ordu Caddesi near the Haghia Sophia, I'd been accosted by self-proclaimed businessman, in

town for a businessman’s convention. After a congenial conversation, I'd accepted his offer to join him for a

drink and was taken for an endless cab ride into an unknown part of the city, for what turned out to be a good

time with a deadly twist.

MY TRIP TO TURKEY was initiated by a phone call from my daughter in Berlin. “We’re going to a resort on

the Turkish Rivera for Alex’s birthday. Turkey is where Germans go to get sea and sun. The kids can play and

we can relax. We want to invite you and Deborah.”

The lead time was too short for my wife Deborah, but I leapt at the chance. The Rivera meant sun, and I

was starved for sun. I live in a port town in a northern country; Halifax is fogged-over in summer and clouded-

over in winter, a place where clouds drift off the continent, and upon meeting the cold air of the Atlantic, dump

their cargo of rain upon an already mildewy citizenry. It was a chance to see my little grandchildren who I see

too little of, and my daughter and her husband Alex, who were in Berlin to assist Alex’s ailing mother. And

then there was Istanbul. As a writer and photographer, I knew that Istanbul offered both visual and sensual

splendor and a history rivaled by few cities in the world.

For over a thousand years, it had been been Constantinople, capital of the Holy Roman Empire. In the

15th century, it was conquered by Mehmet the Conqueror, head of the Ottoman Turks, who transformed it into

the capital of the Ottoman Empire. The city had been built in layers, first the magnificent monasteries, basilicas

and churches, crowned by the Haghia Sofia, when it was the centre of Christianity, and then mosques, palace

and bazaars of the Ottomans, and finally the skyscrapers, bridges, banks and nightclubs of modernity. In this

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place, east meets west literally, in the geography of the land. The city straddles two continents, its western

portion lies in Europe, its eastern in Asia.

So in early November, I boarded a flight for Turkey. The Rivera was fascinating in some ways, but also

disappointing. The end of summer had come early. On our first day at the resort, we were met by wind,

lightning, thunder and rain. The hotels along the three mile sand beach were all winding down. Everyday the

food in the buffet dining room dwindled, fewer and fewer people came to meals, rows of beach chairs

disappeared from the shore, volley nets came down, the long sandy beaches became deserted and the even sun

made infrequent appearances, as if engaged in important business elsewhere.

While my daughter and son-in-law’s return flight took them directly to Berlin, I arranged mine with a

48-hour stop over in Istanbul.

I arrived on a Friday and checked into the Hotel Niles in Sultanahmet, the old city section. The Hotel

was plain, simple and cheap, a Priceline bargain for bargain travelers like myself, but it was centrally located

and boasted a sumptuous roof garden cafe that provided a panoramic view of the surrounding area. I climbed

the long flights of stairs to the roof. The sun shone in a cloudless cerulean sky illuminating the city with the

crisp, radiance of early winter light. I looked out over the red tiled roof, flocked by pigeons looking content and

prosperous, onto Sea of Marmara, one of the three bodies of water that surround Turkey. In the afternoon light,

the Sea glistened a pale marine blue, it's horizon merging seamlessly with the smog filled sky, but it was spotted

with blotches of color—pale reds, greens, blues, and blacks. The splashes of color were tankers, boats and

barges, all pointed toward the Golden Horn, the history-ladened harbor that has sheltered ships for thousands of

years. Istanbul has always been a trading city, a key point on the world's oldest trading routes and a playground

for the dance of commerce. During the early Middle Ages, it was the largest city in the world; today, nearly ten

million people call it home.

Looking away from the Sea, the domes of the Beyazit Mosque rose in the distance, and directly down

from the balcony, narrow cobblestone streets filled with little shops twisted along, nearly empty of any traffic.

Along one, men sat at a small, wooden table, drinking tea, smoking cigarets and talking, talking, talking.

I sipped on a glass of cool fresh-squeezed orange juice and felt invigorated and ready to venture into the

city. I had so little time to see as much as I could. Fortunately, one finds the city’s most famous sites collected

on the peninsula of Sultanahmet. Foremost is the Hagia Sofia or 'the church of holy wisdom', a 1,400 years old

architectural marvel that was first a church, then a mosque, and today a National Monument. Nearby is The

Blue Mosque, Istanbul's most famous landmark, considered a sacrilege when first built because its splendor

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rivaled that of Mecca itself. Further down the avenue stands the opulent Topkapi Palace, Turkey's biggest

tourist attraction and for centuries home to the Ottoman sultans, the subject to more colorful stories than most of

the world's royal residences put together. I’d start with The Grand Bazaar, which was only a few blocks from

the hotel.

Stepping onto the cobblestone street, I tried to orient myself. I didn't want to get hopelessly lost, like

Herman Melville had, visiting Istanbul as a sailor in the 1850s. “A perfect labyrinth,” he complained, “just like

getting lost in the woods. No names, no numbers, no plan, no anything.” The streets around the hotel merged in

all sorts of crazy angles and were filled with little clothing, jewelry, and purse and shoes shops, but the traffic

here, both pedestrian and motor, was sparse and the streets hushed. Here and there a pair of friends or a small

group of children strolled, giving the neighborhood the air of a small town or village, but walking up the hill

and stepping onto the Ordu Caddesi, the main drag where the tram runs, was like stepping through a vortex and

being transported to a modern metropolis with its din and bustle and its throbbing sea of humanity. Here the

sidewalks and street were stuffed with shops, restaurants, people, automobiles, taxies, buses and trams, all in

slow but determined motion. I was swept along in a crowd that was both chaotic and orderly, stopping at traffic

lights and crossing signals, moving briskly, but also somehow leisurely. The autos, buses and cabs also flowing

slowly but steadily, not jammed by livestock, roosters or other visages of village life.

I was sitting on a low wall in Beyazit Square, a large open space across the street from the Istanbul

University, munching through a bag of roasted chestnuts I’d bought from a grimy street vendor, and leafing

through an Istanbul guide book I had checked out from my hometown library, when a Turkish man carrying a

stack of books approached me. He looked neither young nor old, was dressed in a well-worn business suit, his

white shirt open at the neck showing a gold chain.

“And where are you from?” he asked, the hawkers universal opening gamut. Pointing vaguely off into

the distance, he explained that for the past 14 years, he has owned a bookshop.

“In the Bazaar?” I asked. “It's so big.”

“Big yes, more than 4,000 shops. Gold, jewelry, carpets, silver, leather, ceramics, copper and brass,

hand-woven textiles, everything you could wish.” And even though I held my Istanbul guide book in my hands

as we spoke, he convinced me I needed another one at his special price.

THE GRAND BAZAAR was everything one dreamed an oriental market could be, although not every visitor

appreciates it. Simone de Beauvoir, landing in Istanbul in the 1960's with her companion, Jean Paul Sartre,

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disdained both the City and the Bazaar. The City was too noisy, too ugly, too misanthropic and too hostile. The

Bazaar was “bathed in a flat gray light, it made me think of a vast hardware store; everything about the markets

in the dusty streets was ugly—the utensils, the stuffs and the cheap pictures...It felt as though we were on the

fringe of a disinherited country, and of some dismal Middle Ages.”

Melville was more generous, “A wilderness of traffic. Furniture, arms, silks, confectionery, shoes,

saddles –everything. Covered overhead with stone arches, with side openings. Immense crowds. Georgians.

Armenians, Greeks, Jews & Turks are the Merchants. Magnificent embroidered silks & gilt sabers & caparisons

for horses. You lose yourself & are bewildered & confounded with the labyrinth, the din, the barbaric confusion

of the whole.”

To me the Bazaar, with its several miles of vaulted ceilings and tiled floors, exuded exotic color and

perverse mercantile charm. I entered through a open courtyard filled with book vendors, their tables piled high

with manuscripts, scholarly looking men in black clothing holding volumes and turning pages, cooled by a slim

breeze in the warm air. I felt overcome by a book-lovers nostalgia. Once inside the Bazaar proper, I was

prepared to push my way through an international crowd of drifters and shoppers and pick-pockets, but with

winter approaching the crowds were light. The shops and archways were brightly lit by fierce halogen lights.

Each narrow shop was a cornucopia, a heap of artifacts, a riot of colour, a profusion of articles overflowing onto

the walkways, a stuffy delight to the senses. I found myself in a shop filled with chessboards and chessmen of

every imaginable substance and style, figures made of glass, steel, stone, crystal, pewter, wood and plasticine,

in the shapes of soldiers, mullas, dancing girls, geometric abstractions and even skyscrapers.

After a few hours I stumbled out of the Bazaar and into the courtyard of the Beyazit Mosque. Here the

bustle of the Bazaar Quarter was silenced. Pigeons fluttered through the courtyard and perched on the minarets,

while men washed their feet and took absolution at a central stone fountain. The Mosque had four minarets.

Melville thought the edifice of Mosques was borrowed from tents, with the minarets replacing the stakes and the

structure being grand enough to serve as a noble’s ballroom. He also approved of the custom of taking off one’s

shoes when entering a place of worship, “... more sensible than taking off a hat. Muddy shoes; but never muddy

heads.”

THE NEXT DAY, I was woken at dawn by the first call to prayer, the Ezan, broadcast through loudspeakers

from mosques throughout the city. The call translates to something like: “God is most great. I testify that there

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is no God but God. I testify that Mohammed is the Prophet of God. Come to prayer. Come to salvation. God is

most great. There is no God but God”

During the day, I photographed in the Hagia Sofia and the Blue Mosque and walked down to the Golden Horn

into a flood of commerce and people. I walked between the sacred to the profane until my feet were sore.

After dinner, guidebook in hand, I strolled again down the Ordu Caddesi. This is where my real adventure

began. I can still see it clearly. It is only 8-pm, but already the street is dark, lit by globed street-lights on ornate iron

poles. As I saunter along, a Turkish man walking beside me turns and asks for directions in English. He is middle-

aged and plumb, dressed in a suit and a shirt unbuttoned at the collar, gold chains there too. I explain I've just arrived

in the city and we both laugh at the irony of a Turk asking a tourist for directions.

"But you look Turkish," he says by way of explanation, and we chat as we walk nearly shoulder to

shoulder down the crowded sidewalk. His name is Ahmet, he says, and he is from Ankara, Turkey’s capital. He

is in town for a trade fair where he can network and make deals. He's in the shoe business, a family enterprise

that his father started and that he is expanding to include purses and handbags, with distribution expanding to

the unfortunate countries of eastern Europe. "Oh yes," he says, "I am well travelled. I have been to Slovenia,

Belarus, Latvia, Estonia, even Greece, because I love the Greeks. These disputes over nationalities make no

sense to me. We’re all human beings aren’t we?"

We come upon the Haghia Sophia, blazing in light. “The men who designed the church of holy wisdom

intended it to be an earthly mirror of the heavens,” says Ahmet.

“Yes, I spent the morning photographing it,” I say. It is one of the most impressive sites in the city. For a

1000 years it was the largest cathedral in the world, covering over four acres and wider than a football field is

long. But what makes the church world famous is its dome, which rises to the height of a 15 story building and

is encircled by an arcade of 40 arched windows that bring light in, and give it a sense of hovering in space.

Sacred space, and streaming into it, sacred light, a photographers dream. “It is like walking into a field that

contains the last rays of sunset, under a dome that is a reflection of the sky...” is how Mary Lee Settle, a writer

in love with Turkey, described it. But Ahmet tells me something I didn’t know.

“Mehmet the Conqueror’s first act upon taking the City was to enter St. Sophia,” he says. “Mehnet

ordered the blood of the slain washed from the floors and the walls, and had himself proclaimed as Sultan. He

had the instruments of superstition removed, the crosses thrown down and the walls, which were covered with

Christian images and mosaics, washed and purified and restored to a state of naked simplicity. He transformed

the heart of the Eastern Church into the Grand Mosque of Islam.”

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“He must have balls,” I say. Ahmet is amused; he insists we must drink together, “A Turkish beer, or a

raki. Do you like raki? I know a place not far from here in the old tea market, it's only a three minute cab ride.”

I waffle.

“There is no problem,” he persists. “I will be your arkadaş.”

“What’s that?”

“It is the most beautiful word in the Turkish language. It means ‘friend’, it means ‘friendship.’ Arkadaş

is the basis of everything in my country, come, you will see.”

Our cab takes us past the Topkapi Place. “Have you seen the Topkapi Palace yet?” Ahmet asks

excitedly.

“No, I'm probably not going to have time to go there,” I say.

“But you must. You cannot miss it; I go there whenever I am in Istanbul.”

“It must be very beautiful.”

“Beautiful yes, but beauty with a story, many stories.”

“I like stories,” I confide.

“I go to the Harem section. You have heard of the magnificent Grand Seraglio?”

“Not really. Maybe I've read something, sometime.”

“To read is OK, but to see and to feel is supreme. The Grand Seraglio was the greatest harem the world

has ever known. Thousands of women were fucked in those rooms. Beautiful women, the most beautiful

women of Asia and Africa, and even of Europe. Oh yes, my friend. The Empire once stretched from the

Caucasus Mountains to the Persian Gulf and from the Danube to the Nile. Walking through the Harem you can

almost smell the oder of perfume and hear the sound of feet flying along the stairways, the rustling of silk, the

whispering of secrets in boudoirs, the running of water into baths--fountains of water, and echos everywhere.

And overwhelming beauty, so much beauty you are smothered in it, like swimming in a golden lake with no

sight of shore. Swimming until you drown. Oh yes my friend, the Topkapi Palace is the greatest monument to

fucking the world has every known. It makes me hard to just talk of it.”

“The Sultan must have been a busy guy.”

“No, not just the Sultan, not at all. Succession meant butchery in the early days of the empire. Eighteen

sons of Sultan Murad III were slaughtered so their eldest brother could succeed to became Sultan unchallenged.

Princes were strangled, infants were torn from their mother’s breasts and put to death. Succession meant

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calamity for these families. But the later Sultans got smart, they locked up the princes in the harem for life. I

would not have complained, would you?”

“I’m not so sure, you can only fuck for so long. What did they do the rest of the time, day after day,

those men and women, locked up in their luxurious prison?”

“No one knows.” says Ahmet. “It's a mystery.”

OUR CAB CROSSES over the Gallatin Bridge into Beyoğlu, on the European side of the Borohphorus, famous for

its nightlife. Beyoğlu contrasts sharply with the old city, it feels like we are in the jaws of modernity: wide avenues,

skyscrapers, office towers, swank hotels, neon and dazzling bright lights. The three minute cab ride seems to take

forever.

At last we arrive at our destination, a discrete blue neon sign and a set of concrete stairs leading

downward, in the middle of an undistinguished city block. We descend into a cellar bar illuminated by blue

neon. The ceiling is low, but the dimly-lit room hovers spacious, hyper-modern and conspicuously empty,

except for a flock of young women, all attractively dressed, who stand when we enter and saunter to an elevated

copper dance floor in the centre of the room. I follow Ahmet pass black circular tables, to a booth at the back

where we take seats on a sofa built into the wall. We order drinks and talk about nothing. Meanwhile the girls,

ten of them at least, who run the gamut from plain to disturbingly beautiful, sway on the dance floor. They are

not dancing, not interacting with one another in any way, they are just up there swaying. I take this in, but think

nothing more of it.

Ahmet and I talk for what seems a long time. I notice the girls are still undulating on the stage. Ahmet,

who has been folding a napkin, suddenly hands me a beautifully formed paper rose, causing me immediate

concern. Obviously Ahmet is gay.

“What's this,” I ask timidly.

"Take it and give it to any girl you want to be with," he says.

"For what?" I ask.

"For talk, for fuck, for whatever you want."

I'm still digesting this information when two of the girls, a dark-haired beauty and a chubby blond, step

off the dance floor and approach us. They lean against the railing that separates the sitting area from the dance

floor. "I am E’laine and this is Roshanna,” says the dark-haired one. “You will buy for us drinks?" And before

[ 7 ]

either of us can reply, they have slid through an opening and arranged themselves beside us on the cushioned

bench, the blond going to Ahmet, the other coming to me. Instantly, a weasel of a young man in a black tux and

a white shirt, emitting a strained and unnatural formality, appears at our table. He holds an ice bucket filled with

several small bottles and glasses. He puts a miniscule Champaign glass down in front of each girl and looks to

Ahmet and me for permission to pour. We nod our affirmation enthusiastically and strike up a conversation.

The bar's blue neon gives the girls an eerie, unnatural glow that is none the less beguiling. It makes E’laine’s red

lipstick shimmer. I sip on my vodka and orange juice feeling not unlike James Bond, man of the world, on a

secret mission in Istanbul.

"Are you married," they ask.

"Not when I'm in Istanbul," laughs Ahmet as he holds up his left hand to show an empty ring finger.

Everyone chuckles. I hold my ring finger up to say I'm married at home and in Istanbul and happy for it.

I follow E'laine to the dance floor, Ahmet and his blond join us. We are the only people on the floor, in

fact, Ahmet and I are still the only patrons in the entire bar. The other girls are now paired up at tables watching

us. I'm feeling loose and easy and congratulate myself for being so comfortable in a new and strange situation.

Unlike Ahmet, who's working hard at having a good time, I’m not looking to get anything out of this. A couple

of drinks, an interesting new experience, and I'm out of here.

I smile at E'laine and she smiles back. Raising her hands to frame her face, she moves her body gently,

undulating in a vertical plane while her head and eyes slide to the opposite direction in a lovely evocation of

classical Indian dance; I am mesmerized, she is truly beautiful, her black hair flowing over her white shoulders,

her body moving in a sumptuous rhythm, her white feet caressing the dance floor. Next to us, Ahmet gyrates in

an obscene bump and grind, as his partner sways in languorous indifference. To raise the ante, he cocks his hips

and pumps an arm high into the air, in a gruesome disco imitation of John Trevolta, a la Saturday Night Fever.

E'laine and I grin, but then I catch a glimpse of myself in a floor length mirror and am shocked to see how old

and plump I appear next to this young woman. My shape is embarrassingly pear like, dark rings have attached

themselves under my eyes, my hair is thinning and in disarray, my clothes fit badly. When did all this happen?

“Let's sit down,” I say. Ahmet and his partner join us, and no sooner are we seated than the waiter

appears again with his ice bucket and bottles, and pours the girls another round.

E'laine is from the Ukraine and Roshanna is from Russia. There is no work for her in the Ukraine, says

E’laine, so she comes for work to Istanbul. Soon her visa will expire and she will return to her family in the

Ukraine, wait three months and then return to Istanbul with another visa and another 6 months of work, at this

[ 8 ]

same club. She's been doing this for six years. Since ancient times, Istanbul has brought together migrants from

all over Europe, Asia, and Africa, and this seemed no less true for the Club.

I tell her about my vacation, my daughter, my family, explain why me wife is not with me. The

conversation alternates with the dance floor. All the while, the little waiter is pouring the girls drinks. The

glasses are tiny and he fills them only by half, so it does not take long for them to be emptied again. Somewhere

along the line he has stopped asking permission.

After an accident with my drink, I excuse myself and trudge to the bathroom. Stepping through the

door, I encounter an ancient hag dressed in black, sitting on a bar stool in one corner, surrounding by mops and

brooms, her skin crumpled and leathery like one of the three witches in Macbeth's forest. I relieve myself as

best I can and turn to make my escape, but she is next to me, moaning and gesticulating. I reach in my pocket

and pull out a few coins to drop into her hand. She appraises my offering with disdain, and stabs the index

finger of one hand into the palm of the other, demanding more. I turn and lunge out of this bizarre dream of a

men's room, only to be engulfed by the blue neon and eerie emptiness of the bar. It feels vacant yet poised for

action, like a Broadway show no one has bothered to attend.

To this point, my only thought of money has been a dim hope that Ahmet, as host and as my arkadas,

will graciously pick up the tab. It is possible, I think. None-the-less, it seems time to go. I suggest to Ahmet that

we wrap it up. Sure, he says, we can go somewhere else, anything you like. The waiter pours the girls another

round and Ahmet says, “last one”, but somehow the conversations go on and the glasses keep getting refilled,

until I am awakened from my deep conversation with E'laine by a tap on the shoulder.

“What is it?” I ask Ahmet.

“It's the manager. He says he wants to see our bank or credit cards.”

“What for?”

"Something about customers sometimes not understanding the costs and not having enough cash to pay

their bill."

I nonchalantly hand over my credit card. The waiter pours the girls another round as the manager

disappears.

"What is the cost of a drink?" I ask E'laine.

"How should I know," she replies and looks away.

"Let's get our bill now," I tell Ahmet. When the bill arrives, he stares at it for a long time before looking

up and exclaiming, "This can't be right. It's 4000 lira.”

[ 9 ]

I do a quick calculation. At the airport I got a hundred lira for a hundred Canadian dollars, that would

make our bill $4000 in either currency.

"You girls are very expensive," I say to E'laine, who scowls and says something unintelligible.

WITHOUT KNOWING how I got there, I find myself with Ahmet in the Manager’s office. It’s not really an

office, rather an enclosure somewhere in the Club, created by black curtains. The Manager stands behind a short

bar while our waiter waits silently in a corner. The Manager is a middle-aged, well-built, square-chinned Turk,

clean-shaven, dressed in a business suit with a brown shirt open at the neck and gold chains, a rugged but

debonair, Tony Soprano. The fists of his hands lie on the counter like two rocks, as he stares at me and Ahmet

with cold, hard eyes. The bill lies between us like a poisonous snake. I stare at it in disbelief as the full extent of

the calamity begins to sink in. My part of the bill alone will nearly double the cost of my budget vacation.

"This is ridiculous,” I protest, my voice so high pitched I barely recognize it.

“It's not ridiculous at all,” says the manager, calmly, judiciously. “This is quite simply your bill and it's

very clear.” He points to a huge white placard sitting upright and clearly visible on one corner of this back room

bar. “Here is our drink menu and our prices. Champaign by the glass, 290 liras per glass. Each girl had 7

glasses, that makes 14 glasses."

“This price is obscene,” I protest.

“But as you can clearly see, this is the price.”

“This price wasn't posted anywhere in the bar.”

“My friend, who buys something without knowing the price? You could have asked.”

“I asked E'laine and she said she didn't know.”

“Of course she didn't know, she's not the waiter.”

“Well no, she's not the waiter, but...”

“Listen, this bill is too much,” protests Ahmet. “What can you do for us? You must be able to do

something for us.”

The Manager mumbles, purses his lips, stares at the ceiling. “All right, here is what I can do for you and

your friend, what I can do it 1700 lire each. That's best I can do."

“Look at this stain on my pants,” I say, referring to an incident that happened in the early part of the

evening. “Your waiter here spilled an entire glass of vodka on them. That’s at least worth at least 700 lire off

the bill at the rates you’re talking about.”

[ 10 ]

“He hit my hand,” says the diminutive waiter.

The Manager smiles, amused at my little attempt at bargaining. “All right, we’ll give you a hundred lira

for your pants. Now your bill is only 1600 lire.”

"I'm not paying this bill," I say.

The Manager gives me a disappointed, exasperated look and walks around the bar till we're nearly

touching shoulders. “Let's change places,” he commands, “you go stand behind the counter.”

I look warily at the floor behind the bar, I believe I see something. "There's no trap door," he assures me,

as if reading my mind. I don't budge. “All right" he says, "we'll do it from here. You be the manager and I'll be

the customer: I don't want to pay my bill. What do you do?"

I don't want to play this game, but now that I’m in the role of manager, my brain takes over in spite of

myself. “I would pull out a club from behind the counter and whack you over the head. Of course you have to

pay you idiot. People have to pay their bills, it's as simple as that, otherwise the whole world as we know it falls

apart. If I have to beat it out of you it's for the good of the whole. There's no way I'm going to let you out of

here before you pay, you half-baked retard.”

Of course I don't say anything, but I can tell from the look on his face he sees I'm getting his point.

Whatever composure I may have still retained is gone. My mind races, my perceptions are jagged and sporadic.

I search for a way out as if seeking the solution to an impossible chess problem. I feel powerless, like an

accident victim or a trapped animal, and stupid, so stupid, the trap so obvious now, and I so caught up in it.

Ahmet, who has been mostly been grim and silent, speaks up and addresses me. "We have to pay, what

else can we do?" he says. This lack of outrage and defiance suddenly strikes me as suspect and revealing.

Another piece falls into place. We are the only customers in the bar and I don't look anything like a Turk. It was

a come-on, this chance encounter on the street, a lure, a charade, a set-up, with Ahmet's job to bring the sucker

in. I’m surrounded by a den of thieves. After we pay, Ahmet will get his cut, they'll all have a good laugh, and

he'll head out into the night again looking for another hick.

I stare at Ahmet, "You said you knew this place, you said you'd been here before. I trusted that you

knew what you were doing."

He takes a step back, "I was here once before, but we just had a couple of drinks, we watched a belly

dancer, we didn't buy girls any drinks. I didn't know. But listen, I will pay a part of your bill if it will help us

get out of here.”

[ 11 ]

“Fuck you Ahmet, you said you knew this place. Why don't you do this, you pay both our bills and write

it off as a business expense.”

"It's not a business expense,” he hisses back. “What's the matter with you, I'm trying to help.”

“You've helped enough.”

“Listen, how much can you pay?” the Manager asks me. What I can pay is what I have in my wallet in

cash, some 60 Euros or so, but I am so enmeshed in this new world that it doesn't even occur to me to offer that;

certainly if I were the manager I would find it laughable; instead I try to imagine the lowest amount he might

accept. The guidebooks say, start my offering half. “One thousand liras is the best I can possibly do,” I propose.

“All right,” he says, like a helpful used car salesman who won’t refuse any reasonable offer, “there is a

bank machine up the street. I will take each one of you there separately and you will withdraw the cash and pay

your bills. Who will go first?”

IT'S STILL EARLY EVENING, street lights and shop windows illuminate the street. People walk by, but the

traffic is sparse. We stand before the bank machine reverently as if before an alter. The Manager moves to a

respectable distance behind me, far enough away not to be able to discern my secret pass code, establishing

himself as the trustworthy, honest man that he is. I feel my heart thumping and wonder how many times a night

he stands out here like this.

“You know I only have a credit card,” I say to him over my shoulder, “I don't have a bank card, and I

don't think a credit card is going to work.”

“It will work,” he assures me.

I stick my credit card into the machine. I know from past experiences it's not going to work. I punch in

my numbers, nothing happens. But I am nervous enough to have made a mistake, so I cancel the transaction and

try again. This happens several time. Finally a voice from behind me says, "You have to push the Enter key." I

look back towards the Manager, who is still a respectable distance from me, looking away, and down the street.

I punch in the numbers again and hit the enter key, and behold, to my amazement the code cranks the

machine and I am facing the next screen asking for an amount. I think, if I withdraw this money, my goose is

cooked, I will have lost a thousand dollars. In one night I will have lost as much money as my last two weeks

cost me. I can't do it. I hit the CANCEL button and turn to the Manager, "It's not going to work," I say.

Disappointment draws over his face and he motions me to follow him back. Outside the club, he stops,

takes out a cigarette, and leans across a railing.

[ 12 ]

"What would they do in your country in a situation like this?" he asks, taking a long drag.

The smell of the cigarette mixes with the smells of the street, and enters my lungs. "This kind of situation

would never happen in my country," I reply indignantly.

He looks at me with scorn.

"Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, there are clubs like this in every city in the would. You know how

much it would cost you if we were in Tokyo? It would make this look cheap. If you come into a place like this,

you have to know how the game is played, otherwise you don't come in. What's the matter with you?"

I was hopelessly naive, I admit. But still, it doesn't seem fair.

“Fair?” he says. “Do you know know how much it world cost me to get in to your country, into Canada?

Forty thousand dollars. Forty fuckin’ thousand dollars, you think that's fair?”

No I do not, I say, it’s a fuckin’ crime, and then, trying to get back to the main point, "I guess in my

country if I didn't pay my bill they’d call the police."

"What will calling the police do for me? Are the police going to come and pay your bill?"

No, not likely, I admit.

He takes a long look at me, as if for the first time. “I imagine when you get home your wife is going to

be pretty upset with you.”

“I imagine she will,” I say.

"Listen, I'm not a bad guy,” smoke comes out of his nostrils. “But if I don't get your money, my boss will be

upset with me."

We stand there in silence, as if we are both in the same boat. The cloud of smoke grows pale and fades away

into the air. Finally I say, "You're the manager here, you can do whatever you like. It's like you're a fisherman out on

the pier. You've got your rod and your hook and your bait, and you catch me, I'm like a little white fish wiggling on

your hook. You could take me off the hook and throw me back into the sea, a fisherman could do that."

"I'm not a fisherman and you're not a fish," he says, not amused by my analogy. “I'm not even a

manager. I'm more like just another waiter. Maybe the head waiter, but one whose boss expects him to get your

money.”

“So if it weren't for you boss, you would let me go?” I ask.

“Look, it's like this,” he says, “at the time of the Empire, all the merchants and the craftsmen, all the

professions were organized into guilds. Do you know which Guild was most feared and respected?”

I do not.

[ 13 ]

“It was the executioners.”

“The executioners had a Guild?”

“Of course. And do you know what their emblem said?”

I do not.

“It said, 'If it was not the Sultan's command, the executioner would commit no cruelty.’”

“That's sweet,” I observe. “So your boss is like the sultan and you're like a head waiter executioner?”

“Something like that.”

“Just how many executioners did the sultan need?”

“The Guild had a hundred and fifty members, but it was exclusive, an honoured profession. The

executioner's duty was to prepare those condemned to death, to comfort them, to direct their faces towards the

Mecca, to fix the head of the man about to be killed with one hand, then to take the sword in both hands and

sever the head from the body, to read a fatihah, and to admonish all those present to take warning from the

culprit.”

“Is this supposed to scare me?”

“The greatest executioner was Kara Ali,” continues the Manager. “He carried a jewelled sword and wore

in his girdle all the instruments of torture—nails, borers, matches, razors for scorching, steel-plated, different

powders for blinding, clubs for breaking the hands and feet, hatchets, and spoons. In processions he would be

followed by his servants who carried the rest of the seventy-seven instruments of torture.”

“Your fucking with my head, aren't you?”

“I'm not fucking with your head,” says the Manager, “I'm just trying to explain our traditions.”

“But I've committed no crime,” I protest.

“You won't pay.”

“Can't pay,” I correct, “and what about arkadaş?”

The manager/executioner/head waiter throws his cigarette to the ground and stomps it. “Let's go inside

and see my boss.”

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT is a blur. We walk into a dimly lit cavernous office, the ceiling oprressively low

ceiling. An old, squat, unshaven hulk of a Turk sits there in a short-sleeved shirt, his hands thick as ropes. He

looks like he could grab a car with those hands and haul it over a cliff. Some words are exchanged. The

Manager turns to me and asks how much money I have in my wallet. I spill its guts out on the desk, there’s a 50

[ 14 ]

Euro bill and a 20 Lire note. Out loud he calculates the 50 Euros to be worth 100 Turkish lire. He takes the 50

and hands me back the 20.

“Take your wallet,” he says. I put my wallet in my pocket and turn. “Don’t forget your book.” There on

a chair behind a desk is my Istanbul guidebook. I grab it and walk out of the office. I’m standing at the bottom

of a landing. Above me I see stairs leading to an open door to the outside. Beside me, Ahmet is arguing with

someone.

“You let him go and you want me to pay? No! That’s not fair! I’m not paying,” he shouts. Great, I think,

so now he's found his balls and he's going to pull me back into it. With freedom this close, I bound up the stairs,

feel the night air hit my face and dash down the street. In my mind, I’m confused as to whether I've been let go

or whether I’ve escaped. I look over my shoulder expecting to see waiter/executioners rushing after me, and I

stumble into the side of a taxi cab sitting at a light. I jump inside and motion to the driver to go, but the cab is

pointed in the wrong direction and I find myself being driven back towards the Club. In front, I see Ahmet

emerge and I tell the cabbie to stop. I open the door, Ahmet jumps in and we peel off. He looks shaken and out

of breath.

“Jesus,” he gasps, “Did you see that boss guy? He was a real monster.”

“Yes I did, but what just happened to you?”

“They took all my cash and let me go,” he says.

“That ain’t bad,” I say.

“No, that ain’t bad,” he agrees.

“Did you have a good time with Roshanna?” I ask.

“She was a fat pig,” says Ahmet, and we drive through the city in silence. As we approach his hotel, he

digs into his pocket and pulls out a gold wedding band and forces it on his finger.

The 20 lire the Manager let me keep is just enough to pay for the cab fare.

BACK IN MY HOTEL ROOM I am still shaking. It’s hot and sticky; I pull my shirt off. Around my neck is a

money pouch I had completely forgotten. Inside are my bank card, documents, and cash. I crash onto the bed,

stare at the naked ceiling bulb and consider my extraordinary escape. He let me go, the Manager let this fish off

the hook, and by doing that, he had to let the other fish off too, who had been willing to pay up. And there was

the unexpected kindness, the reminder about the book, the 20 liras that kept me from being stranded. This

couldn’t be good for business, couldn’t be good for his career as an executioner. Had he just given up or did he

[ 15 ]

make a decision that for this once he wasn’t going to be the bad guy? I didn't know. I still didn't know how the

game was played.

Lying awake, I considered how I'd tell this story to my friends and my wife. How I'd be tempted to

recount the brilliant repartee, swagger and cleverness that got me out of this jam. In reality, it was most likely

the opposite. Probably I appeared so stupid, scared and naive that he took pity on me. But perhaps it wasn’t

about me at all. It was about him, the Manager. I thought of going back, of trying to find him the next day,

before flying out, to thank him, to offer my help if he ever came up with the forty thousand dollars it took to get

into my country. But I didn’t even know the name of the club. The whole incident was like a dream. It could

take days to find again. And what would I really be willing to do? So I just left it at that. Later, it was suggested

to me I was suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, where the hostage feels adoration with his captor.

Months have passed, and I still think of the Manager from time to time. He comes up as a reminder

whenever I notice I’ve been lulled into ignoring the obvious. As I was running out of the office that night,

behind my back, I heard him say, Allahaismarlakik. I repeated the word to myself during the cab ride, so I

wouldn’t forget it. Stumbling into the Hotel Nile, I asked Durga, the helpful desk clerk, what it meant?

“It's a Turkish word for good-bye,” he said. “It means, ‘We are putting ourselves in the hands of God.’”

Amen, I thought then, and still do.

If I have one regret, it's this, that I don't have a photo, that I didn't bring a pocket camera and have one of the

girls come and snap us, me and E'laine, Ahmet and Roshanna holding our drinks high, smiling tooth-full idiotic

smiles, carefree as the night was young, before the shit hit the fan. Better yet, to have had the whole cast there, the

debonair manager and his diminutive waiter, the boss with his big hands on our shoulders, the bathroom madame and

all the girls crowding around and dropping their roles for a moment, just to be there for the camera, naked in all their

glory, as if we were taking a picture for our grandmothers or our grandchildren, one big happy, co-dependent family.

Then I could tell my grandkids, "You wouldn't believe it, but one night in beautiful Istanbul, all these remarkable

people gathered together just to put on a show for me."

- 3 0 -

[ 16 ]