She swung her legs off the platform, taking deep gulps of the warm air. Clutching her suit top and the dry towel left there for her, she grabbed her purse from the nearby corner where the attendant had placed it and hurried out of the steaming room.
In the hallway, the cool air blasted like an open freezer. She headed for her cubicle and dried off, then briskly rubbed her hair with the towel and ran a comb through it. She glanced down at her stomach and thighs, now tingling and blotched red from the vigorous scrubbing. She remembered the unexpected wave of pleasure she’d felt under the attendant’s massaging hands, as though she were lit up from inside.
The earlier lure of the hammam, she began to realize, was more than simply a desire for an exotic experience or getting back at Richard for having deserted her; it was a primal need for human touch and warmth, a yearning to reconnect both with that neglected part of herself and, surprisingly, with Richard.
21
It was past four when she reached the Pensione, the bath having taken nearly two hours. Without waiting for the elevator, she hurried up the stairs to the second floor and knocked at Richard’s door. There was no answer.
She continued up more stairs to her own room where she phoned the front desk, hoping to find a message from him, but she was told she hadn’t received any messages.
She lay on her bed and picked up the Roxelana book to distract herself; then, sleepy from the bath, she closed her eyes. She thought she heard Richard’s knocking at the door and sat up, wondering how much time had passed. It was only five, however, and no one was at the door. She rang Richard’s room again, but there was still no answer. Where the hell is he? she wondered.
She searched in her purse for his cell phone number. They’d converted only his phone, thinking they wouldn’t need to use more than one since they’d be together most of the time. She found the number and dialed it from the room telephone. It went directly to his voicemail. She left a brief message for him to call her.
Downstairs, the evening concierge was the same blonde woman as earlier in the afternoon. Her green eyes squinted slightly when Joy told her that Richard, the man she was traveling with, had gone off with two strangers around noon to see some carpets and hadn’t yet returned.
“Did he go to the bazaar?” the concierge asked.
“No. To a warehouse somewhere.”
“There are many carpet shops,” the woman said casually.
“They weren’t going to a shop. They were going to a place where they store their rugs.”
“Yes, the hans, the warehouses, near the bazaar. Don’t worry.”
“But he told me he would call, and he hasn’t,” Joy explained.
The concierge nodded. “Don’t be afraid.”
Joy paused, baffled by her nonchalance. Don’t be afraid? It’s what Richard had insinuated before. What was wrong with everybody?
“I’m not afraid,” Joy said, making an effort to sound calm. “I’m simply concerned. He left six hours ago with complete strangers.” She tried to slow down. “You remember him? Mr. Amis? My husband.”
“Your husband?”
“He used to be,” Joy said. “We’re divorced.”
The young woman’s eyes clouded with confusion. “One moment,” she said and went into the room behind the reception desk.
She returned with a smartly dressed man who appeared to be even younger than she. He looked Mongolian, with almond-shaped eyes and high cheekbones. The two exchanged words in Turkish before the young man turned to Joy. “Your husband is missing?”
The woman had apparently missed the distinction that Richard was her former husband.
“He’s been gone all afternoon,” Joy said. “I want to call the police.”
The man’s mouth tugged into a puzzled grin. “The police?”
Joy’s throat contracted. She couldn’t help feeling that everyone was conspiring not only against her, but against a universal code of common sense.
“You said he went to buy carpets,” the man said.
“Yes.”
“Madam, that takes time.”
“Six hours to look at a few carpets in a warehouse?”
The young man smiled, swirling his hand in a sequence of circles. “Seven, eight hours. A whole day. He must bargain.”
“But he was only going to look,” Joy insisted.
She asked to use the concierge’s telephone and dialed Richard’s cell phone again. Again, he didn’t pick up. This time she didn’t bother to leave a message.
Both concierges now looked unsettled, although Joy wondered if it was more because they were unsure how to handle an upset tourist than because they suspected foul play on the part of their countrymen. They exchanged a few more words, and the man looked at Joy.
“Please have some tea, madam,” he said politely, gesturing toward a sofa. “I will call the police for you.”
He went into the back room, and the woman concierge called a porter, who quickly disappeared down the hallway toward the dining room. The boy returned moments later carrying a silver tray with a glass of steaming tea and a plate of cookies.
Joy thanked him and took the small, gold-rimmed glass and sipped. Apparently, to Turks, tea was the precursor and facilitator to problem-solving. The brew was strong and consoling, its murkiness seeming to hold the secret not only to where Richard was but to why she was suddenly so fearful for him. She bit into the cookie, comforted by the way it softly dissolved in her mouth.
She stared out of the hotel’s glass doors at the people strolling by: tight-jeaned young women with bright makeup, conservatively robed matrons, teenage boys chatting on cell phones, family men carrying toddlers as their wives held the hands of older children. The women were particularly alluring, the intricately wrapped fabric of their scarves against their faces enriching the milk-white pallor of some while highlighting the dark eyes of others. All reflected the myriad ethnicities of this country: Central Asian, Greek, Russian, Arab.
The male concierge came up to Joy. “The police are coming.”
She sighed, grateful. “Thank you.”
Perhaps from worry, she was suddenly hungry and remembered she hadn’t eaten anything substantial since breakfast. The cookie had merely whetted her appetite. She thought of buying a pastry from one of the stalls near the hotel, but she didn’t want to miss the police.
She should have reported Richard’s absence hours ago, she told herself, or at least she should have insisted that he not go. She wanted to ask the concierges about the police again, but a cluster of hotel guests had just gathered around the front desk.
Frustrated, Joy pushed through the hotel doors to the street, wondering why it seemed to be her fate to set out on reconnaissance expeditions in strange cities at night in search of Richard.
She gazed in the direction of the bazaar that she and Richard had passed in the taxi that morning and wondered which way the carpet warehouses were. The female concierge had said the warehouses were near the bazaar, and so she assumed that, if she kept walking in that direction, she might find them. She might even run right into Richard returning with a rolled-up carpet on his shoulder like the street peddlers.
After crossing several intersections, she reached the sign for the Kapali Carsi, the Covered Bazaar. It was getting dark now, and the glaring street lights had come on. She decided against venturing farther to look for the warehouses and instead entered the bazaar’s brightly lit main gate.
The vaulted arcade was still crowded with shoppers carrying bags. She walked past the elaborate window displays of jewelry shops stacked with gold bracelets and necklaces and artisans’ kiosks with colorful ceramic pottery and tiles.
A shopkeeper called out, “Hello, madam! Merhaba! Welcome, if you please.”
A window offered gold-printed manuscripts and exquisite miniature paintings of lush gardens and leaping gazelles. She stared at them, marveling at their intricate perfection.
“Would you like to see Ottoman miniatures?” the proprietor asked h
opefully, offering her a glittering piece of golden Arabic calligraphy surrounded by tiny painted musicians and smiling girls. Although she would have liked nothing more than to leaf through the stacked pile of delicate sheets, she forced her eyes away from them and asked the man for directions to the carpet shops. The vendor pointed her toward an arcade farther down.
Someone else called out as she passed, “Please, lady, come and see!”
She kept walking.
“It costs nothing to smile,” another shopkeeper chided.
Ignoring the remark, she forged ahead, reaching yet another vaulted hallway where carpets hung in full view in the windows. Irrationally, her eyes darted to the displayed rugs—large, room-size ones, smaller silk ones with pastel animals, and even smaller prayer rugs—for a sign of Richard.
He was obviously not there. She escaped down the hallway, glaring up at the cupolas on the ceiling of the hall, angry tears welling in her eyes. Damn it, Richard, she fumed. I’m in the middle of the frigging Grand Bazaar and can’t enjoy a thing. If you’re trying to seduce me, you’re doing a rotten job of it!
She returned in the direction of the main entrance. Some shops were closing up, metal shutters being pulled down and locked shut for the night. She glanced around for a sign for the main gallery from which she’d entered, the name of which she’d already forgotten. She wanted to give up and cry, let the tears drown out her exasperation and fear, but she could only come up with a numb sigh.
She thought to call Richard again, but then remembered her cell phone had no service. Why on earth hadn’t she converted it in case they needed to contact each other in an emergency? He had told her they wouldn’t have a need for more than one phone, and she had foolishly gone along.
She caught sight of an extraordinary purple in her peripheral vision, and as she turned, her fear and anger gave way before a knee-length purple jacket, boldly embroidered in gold filigree and glimmering under the display lights. It was similar to the red robe they’d seen in the Topkapi museum that had purportedly belonged to Roxelana. She peered closer. It was velvet, painstakingly worked with shiny golden thread around the neck and sleeves in flowering swirls. Tiny gold buttons streamed down the front. She imagined Roxelana wearing it. She’d read that this very bazaar had been a bustling gathering place even in Suleyman’s day, and it was said to have been frequented by the heavily escorted women of his harem.
“You like it?” the shopkeeper asked, stepping out of his store and lighting a cigarette.
She turned to him, unable to resist. “How much?”
“For you,” he said, his voice as smooth as the velvet, “nine hundred dollars.”
She turned away.
“Eight hundred fifty!” he called after her.
It was nearly eight o’clock when she reached the hotel. She was about to go to the concierge’s desk and demand to know where the police were, when a shiny green Mercedes pulled up to the curb in front of her. A tall figure emerged from the passenger’s seat.
She stared a moment, wondering whether it was really him or whether, out of desperation, she’d conjured him up. “Rich?”
He spun around.
She felt herself surge helplessly toward him. “For God’s sake, where have you been?”
“Hey, Joy,” he said, looking somewhat dazed. “It took longer than I expected.”
Richard and the large-headed young man of this morning hauled out several bulky bundles from the trunk. Richard shook hands with the man, who smiled and bowed heartily to both him and Joy before leaving.
As she watched Richard and the hotel porter carry the bundles through the front doors, she realized she had to tell the concierges that her husband had returned, so there was no longer a need for the police.
This time she referred to Richard simply as “my husband.”
“No problem,” the young woman said, looking relieved.
The American expression, uttered so naturally by a Turk, sounded funny. It dawned on Joy that the police had possibly never been notified. Perhaps both concierges had decided between themselves that it wasn’t necessary. Everyone in Istanbul but her, it seemed, understood that buying a carpet was a time-worn tradition that required many hours, and to assume otherwise was ludicrous.
Richard beckoned to her, and she halfheartedly followed him and the porter into the elevator.
Once inside his room—the porter gone—Richard turned to her, jubilant.
“You should have come with me, Joy. I had a blast!”
Her initial elation at seeing him safe was fading, and she now felt utterly foolish for having been so distressed.
“Joy, those guys took me to their warehouse and unfolded more than fifty carpets,” he went on. “More styles, sizes, and colors than you’ve seen in your life. They poured me about ten glasses of tea and had kebabs and raki brought in. They’re brothers from Konya. They insisted we stay at their house if we go to see the whirling dervishes.”
She looked at him in disbelief. She’d been scared to death all afternoon, fearing the worst, while he, oblivious, was being happily wined and dined.
“When I finally chose the ones I wanted and bargained down the price—”
She interrupted. “How could you even know what a fair price was when you haven’t seen any others?”
He grinned. “I know. I know. The guys probably made out like bandits, but I got them down pretty low.”
“Why so many? How on earth are we going to lug them around with us?”
He yanked at the twine around one bundle to loosen it. “I’m shipping them all home tomorrow. And that one I bought for a friend who asked me to get her one.”
A friend? She was surprised by what he’d blurted out, but equally surprised by her dismay at the mention of his shopping for someone else.
Obviously unaware that he’d spoken out of line, Richard proceeded to enthusiastically unroll a blue-and-beige carpet. “This is a kilim,” he said. “Do you like it?”
The delicate designs on both sides of the handwoven carpet swirled before her. She wasn’t sure what to think of this unexpected news of his shopping for another woman. What about last night? And this morning? She was starting to feel like an idiot.
He pulled off the twine securing the smallest bundle. “Look what I found for you.”
“Me?” She was even more irritated now. “Why did you get me . . . ?”
He looked up at her. “Honey, I wanted to.”
Honey? She stared at him coldly. What gave him the right to call her that after just mentioning another woman? Just how many “honeys” did he have?
He tore open the brown wrapping paper, and then shook out the garment.
She brought her hand to her mouth.
It was a burgundy-colored velvet robe with gold embroidered arabesque motifs and tiny gold buttons down the front, like the purple one she’d just seen in the bazaar. Only this one was even more like Roxelana’s in the Topkapi museum.
“It took a hell of a long time to bargain them down on this,” he said.
She continued to stare at the plush fabric, holding her breath at the richness of the gold against the deep red, resisting the impulse to reach out and caress it. “Rich, that must have cost a fortune.”
He smiled.
“I mean, I know how much it costs,” she said. “It’s way too much.”
“Nothing’s too much for you.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why not?” He tilted his head. “And all of these rugs are for us.”
“What do you mean, for us?”
He ignored her question. “And the little rug is for Maureen, at the bank,” he added, as if he’d been aware all along of her earlier aggravation.
“Maureen?” She remembered Maureen, one of Richard’s secretaries, a woman her mother’s age.
Feeling even more foolish now for having jumped to conclusions, she slowly walked over to him and hugged him, too ashamed to say anything.
He turned his head toward her
, and this time she let him catch her, welcoming the warm feel of his lips, soft and full and smelling vaguely of raki.
He kissed her again, and she reached up to his face, tracing his eyebrows and cheeks with her fingertips as though deciphering Braille. Her eyes welled up. “Rich, I thought I’d never see you again.”
He pulled away slightly. “Honey, why?”
“Why? You drove off with those strangers—and you never called. What was I supposed to think?”
He kissed her tears. “I’m sorry. I had no idea you’d be worried. I just figured I’d get more value from a warehouse than the bazaar. I thought I’d only be gone an hour, but obviously no such thing when buying a carpet here. Time just flew by.”
They held each other in silence, and she felt an aching release, realizing for the first time since the start of their trip how dismal it would be to truly lose him.
He inhaled. “You smell wonderful.”
“I just had a Turkish bath.”
“Mmm,” he mumbled, cupping her face in his hands and once more kissing her, long and passionately on her lips. The lingering scent of cologne on his neck sweetly curled around her.
He gently unbuttoned her blouse and slid it off her shoulders, softly kissing her neck, then her breasts through her bra. She closed her eyes, surrendering to his touch as she had earlier in the warm hammam under the hypnotic kneading of the attendant. At each of his strokes, a new sensation bubbled up, and she sensed a coming alive again on some forgotten visceral level, no longer caring about anything but folding into him the way she used to.
22
It had been a long time since she’d felt his caresses, felt him inside her. Her body conformed to his again, as if the memory of his shape has been secretly stored in her cells all this time.
It felt strange and scary, bittersweet and fragile, this coming together again; a tender reconciliation that took her back to those early years when meshing their bodies seemed so miraculous. The comfort of this small bed in this hotel room miles from home, her arms around him and his scent filling her, was more reassuring and wonderful than anything she’d experienced in a long time.
A Marriage in Four Seasons Page 17