Foreign Affairs

by Jacqueline George

  Mark took his student Tulin as an example. She had various matters of great importance to discuss with him. In a Western country, he might have invited her to a cafe and discussed them over a cup of coffee, but here, the tea-shops (coffee was far too expensive) catered only for men. Anyway, it would have been impossible for any female to sit unchaperoned with a man from outside the family. Just recently, he had heard of a man shot to death while on a picnic just below the old city walls. His offence was that he had kissed the woman he had been sitting with. The woman had been his wife[e4] .

  The telephone had helped communication between the sexes. Mark often had long conversations by the international telephone operators when he tried to call home. He guessed these conversations were the equivalent of a heavy date for the girls. An Egyptian colleague had even talked one operator into a meeting, if he could call it that. He had sat by appointment on the raised patio outside a certain ice cream shop, and his ladylove had walked by in the street below, unacknowledged by both sides. Such loose behaviour must have overloaded his emotions, and he returned to Cairo shortly afterwards to marry a girl of his parents' choice.

  Mark found the whole process unrewarding. He needed someone he could grapple with at close quarters, and Diyarbakir did not provide anything like that. His standards of acceptable feminine company were slipping by the day, but no comfort was in sight.

  His students made his frustration worse. They came to the University from all parts of Turkey, and some of them were intelligent and quite well educated. Teaching them English could be frustrating, but they had a strong desire to learn. English was useful and desirable. They wanted to understand foreign films, and maybe even sample the lifestyles they saw in them. Their endless questioning of him in the University restaurant helped to improve their English, and also satisfied their curiosity about life in the West.

  In the limited environment of the canteen, he could socialise with his female students—in groups of course—and it was a relief to talk to pretty women as an alternative to the normal moustachioed males. He found the girls open to conversation, but rigidly old fashioned. It felt as if he had been whisked back to the London of the end of the nineteenth century, when women had become aware of their chains but had not yet realised that the chains were illusions of their own making. He encouraged the girls to talk together in English, helping with a word or phrase here and there, stamping out any relapse to their own language. Often he was on the fringes of two or three groups at once, men and women separately, and he felt these restaurant sessions were the most productive teaching he did.

  After half of his one-year assignment, he knew his students quite well. It was, he assumed, a common practice to buy a place at the University. No other explanation could account for some of the hopeless dummies in his class. All male, of course. A family might subsidise the academic shortcomings of a son, but were very unlikely to do the same for a daughter. Daughters, after all, were going to get married and had no need of an education. So his girls, as he liked to think of them, had managed to get to this hopelessly unprestigious, provincial university on merit alone, and it showed.

  Tulin was one of the brightest students, and also by far the prettiest. Her straight black hair, cut collar-length, curled about and framed a sensitive face. Its swinging as she talked seemed to emphasise her conversation. He often caught himself wondering what it would be like if only....

  Then the day came when she really surprised him, and he had disgraced himself into the bargain. He had been keeping half an ear open to the discussions on either side of him, thinking about nothing in particular. He certainly had no opinion about the morals of a certain Italian singer whose dancing had been condemned as lewd by the Pope, and was consequently an object of admiration around the world. The girls had labelled her thoroughly bad, and were tearing her apart and chewing over her deficiencies. Dull stuff, and he paid no attention. Then Tulin brought him back to earth with a jolt.

  “I'm sorry?” He had missed the question.

  “I said, would you ever think about marrying a girl who was not a virgin?”

  He answered without thinking. “My dear, I would absolutely insist that she wasn't.”

  The conversation around the table was extinguished like a snuffed candle. He immediately regretted his rudeness, but there was nothing more he could say. The girls gathered up their books, made their excuses, and left. He had just risen with a sigh and was about to follow when Tulin darted back alone. To satisfy conventions, she made a show of looking for a mislaid item on the table and then said in a low voice, “I telephone you tonight, OK?” and hurried away.

  Mark had been offered a shared apartment on campus but chose instead to live in town. Not that it was a great improvement. The town had not been built for foreigners and he had to live just as everyone else did. In a dark, jerry-built apartment piled up with numerous others, in one of the gimcrack seven-storey blocks that made up the modern part of town. It might have been possible to make something of the apartment if only he could find decent furniture, light fittings, and curtains. Instead, the shops sold only their local equivalents, poorly designed, badly made and liable to fall to pieces.

  He could not avoid contact with the many other denizens of the block. Each apartment seemed to contain several families, and the lift just outside his door was constantly occupied. Using it was a risk anyway, as power cuts happened almost daily. He walked up the dark stairway, painfully lit with fifteen-watt light bulbs on each floor. The lights had timed switches to give him just enough time to hurry to the next switch before he was plunged into complete darkness.

  Rubbish disposal was by putting polythene bags outside the apartment doors for collection by the kapici. If he got there first. As a foreigner, Mark's rubbish was considered likely to have items with some retained usefulness, and it was usually raided and spread over his doorstep. Mark would have to clean up or live with the mess. Once a week the kapici and his grandson cleaned the stairs. This was done by running a hose to the top of the building and flushing an evil-smelling black tide all the way down to the basement. It was better not to move in or out at that time.

  For all that, the apartment was home and once the door was locked and the curtains closed against prying eyes from other blocks, the negative side of his existence could be shut out. He had learned to ignore the crying children below and the multitude of people upstairs who spent their lives dragging heavy metal furniture across uncarpeted floors. He could even ignore the wailing of the local mosque. He would put on some music or a video and curl up with a glass of whisky and a good book, enjoying the ordered privacy of a bachelor existence.

  The telephone rang. It was Tulin, having difficulty saying what she wanted to say.

  “Where are you, Tulin?”

  “I am in the Post Office. I am by myself for some minutes. Mr. Mark, will you be my friend?”

  “Of course I'll be your friend. I'm your friend already.”

  “No, I mean my special friend, for talking secretly. Will you be my friend like that?”

  Her plea was pathetic, impossible to refuse. “Tulin, I like you. If you want me to be your special friend, I'll be very happy.”

  “But you must not speak to anyone about me. If they think we are special friends, it will be a big problem, and I must go back to my family. Probably you will lose your job also.”

  As if that would break my heart, he thought. “Don't worry—your secret's safe with me.”

  “Do you like me, Mr. Mark?”

  “I like you very much, Tulin. But if we are special friends, you must call me just Mark. Mr. Mark is for other people.”

  “Ah, Kerima is coming. She is my friend. Do you know Kerima?”

  “Sure I know Kerima.” Kerima was a good natured, quiet and rather mousey student.

  “Good. I must stop now or she will hear me. Be careful Mr. Mark— I am sorry, I mean Mark—be careful Mark. Do not show anyone we are friends. Goodbye.”

  When the phone went dead,
Mark sat stunned for a while. He could not help grinning in delight. The thought that the prettiest girl in town had picked on him for her confidences was very flattering. He poured another whisky and sat back to savour the idea. Suddenly, he felt very light-hearted and youthful. Good grief, he thought, I haven't felt like this since I was at school.

  He laughed at himself for a fool and turned back to his book. Don't be ridiculous, he told himself. For all that, he had a disturbed night and dreamt that he was pursuing a very fleet-footed Tulin along a railway line, in and out of the tunnels until he found himself lost and alone in the mountains.

  He studiously ignored her in class the next day, although he wished she would just wink or nod her head at him. She telephoned again that night, but only had time to say she would call again on Saturday morning before the unavoidable Kerima intervened.

  Mark admitted that being wanted as a special friend gave life a special zest. Being wanted at all was a pleasant thing in his lonely existence, and he looked forward to Saturday with increasing impatience.

  He rose early that day. It was wickedly cold outside, and the coal smoke from the neighbouring blocks blotted out the wintry sun. He took his breakfast to the front room so he could sit near the telephone. It rang as he was starting his second cup of coffee, and he picked it up immediately. “Hello Mr.—hello Mark, how are you?”

  “Tulin, where are you? Are you cold?”

  “I am in the Post Office again. No one understands English here so I can talk, and it is not too cold. Kerima is trying to post a letter. She will be a long time.”

  “Good. When can you come and visit me? I'd like to sit and talk with you.”

  “Come to your apartment? Mark, I cannot do this! I will be sent home if anyone sees me.”

  His disappointment must have travelled down the line to her because she started to think out loud. “It is possible I can do it. But Kerima must come too.”

  “Won't she tell anyone?”

  “Of course not. She would be sent home, too! She has an uncle who lives in the same block as you, upstairs. If we visit him, we could come to you on the way back down, if nobody is looking. You will take care for us? Keep the curtains closed and speak softly?”

  “Of course. But come and have coffee with me.”

  “Very good. This is what I will do. First I talk quietly with Kerima, and if she will come, we will visit her uncle at about five o'clock. We must be at the dormitory by eight o'clock, so at seven o'clock we will leave her uncle. You must leave your door unlocked and the lights off. If there is no one to see when we pass your door, we will come inside for coffee. There, that is good?”

  “That's very good. You're very clever. I hope you can talk Kerima around. Maybe she won't want to come.”

  “She will come,” laughed Tulin happily. “She likes you also. All of the girls like you. They want to be your friend.”

  “Oh, no. Oh, no. One special friend is enough.”

  Tulin sounded delighted. “And that is me?”

  “Of course. You told me you would be my special friend.”

  A sigh wafted down the line. “Mark, you are very good. Definitely I will come today, maybe.”

  “How many times have I told you that you can't say ‘definitely maybe?’”

  “Would you like me instead to say ‘definitely insh’Allah?’”

  “You've caught me. I'm not going to say anything against the will of Allah. Anyway, do your best to come, and we can talk for as long as you can stay. Is that good?”

  “Mark, do you like me?”

  “I like you very much.”

  “How much?”

  A vision of Tulin's slim figure danced through his brain. “Enough to eat you.”

  A shriek of laughter burst in his ear. “Oh Mark, maybe it is too dangerous to come for coffee.”

  “Don't worry, I'll eat you very carefully.”

  “Oh! Kerima is paying for her letter now. We will come for talking, yes? No eating.”

  “Maybe I'll eat you next time.”

  From time to time during the day, Mark saw himself as completely ridiculous. Like a youngster waiting for his first date, everything was coloured by the great event that was about to happen. He cleaned and tidied the apartment as if spring had already come. He rushed to the shop to buy sticky baklava, and when that did not look quite enough, he rushed out again to buy fruit and biscuits as well. And then he sat and waited, the afternoon ticking by.

  Daylight faded, and the evening smog blanketed the town. Far too early he unlatched the front door and turned off his hall lights. Thankfully the only other apartment on this level was used as an office, so nobody would peer through the door peep-hole at his visitors. The loudspeakers of the neighbouring mosque bellowed out the late call to prayers, completely drowning the jazz on Mark's stereo. Soon she would be coming. He turned off the stereo and strained his ears for the sound of movement on the stairs.

  They came silently. When he leapt to his feet, they were already inside and closing the door noiselessly behind them. Tulin held a warning finger to her lips and crept into the front room. She gestured to the music. She wanted to drown the sound of their voices.

  With a tenor sax mellowing the room, Mark helped the two girls off with their heavy coats. They had both dressed in jeans and boots against the winter weather. Tulin immediately seized him in the traditional Turkish embrace, normal between men but reserved by girls for other women or family members. She felt good, firm and alive, but she did not wait long before pushing him to Kerima for the same treatment.

  Tulin was in sparkling form. Helped along by Irish coffee—just the thing to drive away the cold and really not very alcoholic—the girls sat on the sofa and chattered without a break. When he went to the kitchen to refill their glasses, she followed him. He pulled her to him, but she held him off, allowing him no more than her hand. “You must be good to Kerima, and she will let me come again.”

  “Good to her?”

  “Yes. Hold her hand also.”

  “You don't mind?”

  “No, I do not mind. As long as she is not your special friend.”

  Mark took the slim hand and brought it to his lips. Watched by her curious dark eyes, he planted a kiss on her palm and then wrapped it up with her fingers. She smiled at him and, keeping her fist closed, reached up and gave his mouth a fleeting kiss before hurrying back to Kerima.

  The Irish coffee had made Kerima giggly. “You are a bad man, Mr. Mark,” she chortled, “You make me drunk.”

  “Go on—it's good for you. It'll keep out the cold.”

  “I know you are a bad man after what you told us about your wife.”

  “My wife? I'm not married.”

  Tulin butted in. “She means when you said you would not marry a virgin. Why did you say that? It is important that a girl is pure when she marries.”

  Now they had him at their mercy. What could a man say? “I don't think a girl grows into a woman until she has been completely in love with someone, and I'd rather marry a woman than a girl, that's all.”

  “A virgin can be completely in love, no?”

  He hesitated. “A virgin can be in love, sure. But if she's completely in love, why would she want to stay a virgin? Being completely, absolutely in love means you have no reservations. You want to give everything and receive everything. Anyway, a man should take a wife that he loves, a woman whose personality is right for him. Virginity is a very unimportant thing by itself. Who cares?”

  “It is different for us,” said Tulin thoughtfully. “I have an aunt who is not married and is not a virgin. She had a friend, a doctor, a man doctor, and she was going to become married with him. She went with him in his car and they made sex together. That was bad, and she is very ashamed. But the man was very religious, and he was also very ashamed. He did not want to marry her anymore. He told her father it was because she had told him she was not a virgin.

  “That was a very bad time. Our family was very sad at my aunt when s
he told them that the man did not want to marry her anymore, but she did not tell them why. But her father and her brothers knew why. The man had told them she was not a virgin anymore. They were very angry at her and wanted her to tell which man had made her like that. She would not tell them, but she did not understand how they knew she was not a virgin anymore. When they told her what the man had said, she cried very much, and then she told them what had happened.

  “At first her brothers wanted to kill the man, but we are not primitive like some of the Arab countries, so her father decided that they would take the man to the court. In the court, it was very bad for my aunt. She must to stand in front of the judge and the men of the court and tell them what had happened. But the judge decided that any woman who go into a car with a man must be a very bad woman, and that she went in the car to make the man crazy for sex. No man can say no to a woman like that, so the judge said it was not his fault.

  “It was a very, very bad time for my aunt. Her father and her brothers hated her because of the shame she gave to the family. Every person in the town knew she was not a virgin. No man would marry her because she was a bad woman. She did not marry and now she is too old —more than forty years. I am very sorry for her.”

  None of then had an answer. They just sat and thought. After a few minutes, Kerima stood up. “I will come back quickly, so do not be bad together.”

  As she went in search of the toilet, Mark moved onto the sofa to take her place beside Tulin. Seizing the stolen moment, she came to him and pressed her mouth awkwardly against his. She was tense and inexperienced but responded to his lead, opening her mouth and letting his tongue enter. Without thinking, his free hand crept up to her breast and cupped it through her sweater. This, too, she accepted. “Oh, you're so beautiful, Tulin. So sexy.” She stopped his mouth with kisses, and they clung together until the sound of Kerima returning tore them apart.