“I was prepared to do battle. I reared up on my indignation. He was such a cheapskate. He thought he could just waltz in on my coattails.
“But I hadn’t had to say another word. I saw his face. Realization tapped in. He stood still for a second, uncomprehending, and then he realized I just didn’t want him there. He was stung. You could hear the big waves pounding the shore on the beach across the street, behind the East Deck Motel. He just turned and walked down the pebbled driveway to his car. Aggravated, I ran after him. He didn’t stop. He just carefully put his stuff in the trunk of his blue Duster.
“‘Listen, Michael,’ I explained, still annoyed but realizing he was leaving. ‘You just don’t get it.’
“‘So tell me,’ he said, rearranging his seven extra oil canisters he kept in there to keep the car going. ‘Get it all out.’
“‘You can’t just show up out of nowhere and expect to join in! Michael, listen to me.’
“‘I heard you, Claire.’ He removed my hand from his arm. ‘Don’t worry. You’re clear as a bell. I get it. I’m leaving.’
“Ashamed that I’d gone too far, I grumbled, ‘You don’t have to leave right away, for God’s sake. You just got here.’
“He turned and looked me square in the eye. ‘There isn’t a thing on this earth that could get me to stay,’ he said.
“‘Michael,’ I said.
“He got in the car and he drove off, after five hours there, now five hours back. That’s how he was. He wouldn’t try to horn in on my territory ever again, you see. He died four days later. Killed in a filthy hallway. He was trying to get the knife away from a junkie. He just walked up to him, you know? He thought the guy was just a little kid. See, he was just a rookie. And he was so used to little kids. He thought—” I stopped, unable to go on.
Beneath the gold-crusted dome, a guide loudly commenced the history of the mosque in French to a bevy of Arabs, returning me to the here and now. I turned away, pretending dutifully to understand every word.
Blacky could have said anything and I would have stood there. We stood there for a long time. And then, unexpectedly, a robe of eroticism swept over me. I could feel the short hairs on my neck nearest him stand up. Like a plume of smoke my scent mushroomed into the air. My skin felt lewd and exposed. I guess it was everything all coming together at once. Tupelo’s teasing, his gentle closeness, the emotion of my confession, the life force asserting itself after glimpsing death.
The tour guide kept on speaking. We stood there close enough to touch but not touching. It was so dark. Just being near to him, I found I was breathing heavily. It never occurred to me that he might be aroused as well. I only thought that he must feel my desire, so loud the throbbing of my heart and intense the heat seemed to me. And something else. I’d been so afraid my feelings for Tupelo would confine me to that side of eroticism forever. It wasn’t that I regretted but I wondered if it eliminated me from enjoying the opposite sex. Now I knew it did not. There was my happy libido, intact as ever. Gratefulness welled up inside me and I thought I was going to cry again from the sheer relief of it. But then I remembered Tupelo and Vladimir taking off like that back at the Pudding Shop and it occurred to me Blacky might be simply using me to pay her back. Of course. What an idiot I was! Standing here telling him about my private miseries. I grew cool right away. I adjusted my spine. But when I lowered my gaze to step away from him, the light touched him and I saw from the straining outline of his jeans that he, too, was aroused.
He jerked backward, though. He’d sensed my dismissal. “I’ve had enough,” he said and turned and walked away. Eagerly I followed him out. We sat together on the step and put on our shoes. “You have excellent feet,” he observed appreciatively. “High instep. You’re lucky, you know. A lot of people can’t keep up.”
I thrilled to these words. Tupelo had stubby little feet for her size, and flat. She wasn’t a walker. I was more suited to him that way. He got up, brushed himself off, and started to walk away. “Do you know what I’d love to do?”
“What?” I tripped along after him, holding my hat.
“I’d like to take a Turkish bath.” Then he seemed unsure. He said, “We’ll only be here for a day or two. We’ll never have the chance again.”
“You don’t have to convince me,” I said.
He seemed to know where he was going and I followed, up the cobblers’ hill and through backyards of grapevines to Sultan Ahmed. The wailing voice of Om Kalsoum penetrated the air. We walked for a long time. We went down hidden alleys and came to an Arcadian series of ledges. Blacky knocked at one of the ancient doors. “Is your heart beating the way mine is?” he asked, searching my eyes.
This can’t be happening, I thought. “Yes,” I admitted.
“Good God, that coffee was strong! We’ll be up all night!”
“Oh.” I saw what he meant. Actually, now that he mentioned it, I realized my heart was indeed hammering away from the caffeine. “I thought it was you,” I said.
That got me a hearty laugh. But I’d meant it. Wait a minute. Had I only imagined his arousal? Now I was unsure.
There was a towering wooden door, studded with brass and turquoise. I took its picture, then one of Blacky before it. The door was creaked open by two old men, twins, one with a milk eye. Because I held my camera already cocked, I was able to take their picture before they realized it. What a shot! I congratulated myself. Blacky cleared his throat and proceeded to address them politely in first English, then German, then French, then Italian. None of these was understood. However, money was the key. They had a swift discussion without words: he held some out, they took it all. We entered a sort of tiled bank where our belongings were put in a locker. Then, together, they led the way down a dark and hollow-sounding corridor. I was placed in the hands of an old woman and carted off behind a lattice, through a door, and down a tunnel. I assumed this was the women’s division. She handed me over to another hobbling old woman, this one as good as naked and with no more than four or five teeth in her mouth. Now I was not only disappointed, but frightened. She was carrying what looked like a mild cat-and-iron scourging broom. She scurried me down another long, dank corridor; we seemed to be going underground. A door opened and suddenly we stood beneath a huge dome. Tiny stained glass windows here and there let in rays of light that pierced the thick steam.
Alabaster sewers emitted drizzles of water from copper spigots, like Greek aqueducts. The water tripped and danced along, then poured into the center of the room. I caught my breath in wonder. The women waiting to grab hold of me nodded in jabbering approval. There seemed to be no other customers so I got their full attention. I removed my clothing. “Naa naa,” the one wagged at me, implying that I must give her my underpants, too. Awful feeling. “No, no,” I said. There was a moment where I thought I could still run. But I thought of Blacky, going through the same procedure down the hall somewhere. I almost laughed. Still, I tried to stop them but they persisted, a little bit angry now at my ignorance. I was reassured by this outrage and finally surrendered. What the heck, I decided. This will never happen to me again. So off went the underpants and I lowered them over to her—she was all of three feet tall—gingerly. She snatched them up and I wondered if I would ever again see those tanga Triumph briefs that had cost a good eighteen marks. And if I did, what Asian strain of virus would they carry? They transported every strip of my clothing away. That startled me. I thought of stories of girls dropped down false-bottom rugs and kept as harem slaves. Steam weakened and softened me, though, and all the while these women with their broomy things swept away at my skin. It went on and on. Waxy balls of sugar were applied to my legs to remove any hair, their old sacks dangling and penduluming past my horrified nose. They didn’t care. They chattered and hummed—these were their working clothes. At one point they tried to do away with my rusty thatch of pubic hair and were surprised that I should want to retain it. When I was finally drunk with dampness and heat, they laid me down on a loose mat and began
to rub me. Shyly I tried to smile. “Aaahhh.” They liked that, rubbed harder with their loofah sponges. Embarrassingly, gray gobs of skin were coming off my body; layers, like from a filthy snake. I couldn’t believe it. Was that me? But another one of the women was at my top, cranking away at my head, loosening my neck. I remember lying there half asleep, half euphoric, a line of dribble falling out the side of my mouth and me not minding, my feet being wheedled and prodded and massaged on and on. In the distance I could hear the calls to Allah.
When it was over, I was given my belongings. My clothes had been cleaned and pressed. I remember being let out the great studded door and my wonder as I emerged from that place into the Turkish evening. It had felt like we’d been far away for a long, long time. Blacky and I beheld each other. Distractedly, he patted his cigarettes down into his shirt pocket. He had this way of smiling. I don’t know. It made you feel like you were part of something.
There was an alley that sloped to a cellar. It was all tiled like the inside of the baths but it was abandoned, probably for years. I leaned against the yellowed, grimy tiles.
“Look at you,” he said and came toward me.
We stood like that for a long while, then suddenly he seemed to come to himself. He sort of shook himself off and turned away. I followed. We began to walk up the crooked path and with every step I felt as though I were lifting, physically lifting, above myself. I said so to Blacky and he said, yes, he was experiencing the same sensation. I can only liken it to when as a child you’d stand in a doorway and press outward with your hands then step away and your hands raise themselves up into the air.
With wonder he said, “I can’t imagine ever forgetting this feeling, can you?”
“No.”
Our eyes locked in a bond of souvenir. That would have to be enough for me, I told myself. This wasn’t a man who slept around. Once he was committed, he would honorably restrain himself from frivolous dalliances. And, I realized now, that’s what I would have been. He didn’t belong to me.
It was warm outside, the evening upon us. We took our sweaters off and tied them around our waists. We came upon the port. Little boats bobbed in the sea. “Want to take one out?” he said.
“What, now?”
“Yeah.”
“What if something happens?”
“What could happen?”
“I don’t know.”
So we rented a rowboat and took turns pulling all the way out into the harbor. Huge fishing boats came and went around us, rolling us in their wake. The sun had grown huge in the west. We stopped rowing and lay there under and over the uncomfortable benches, bobbing lazily up and down, the green water sloshing against us as we basked in the sun’s last warmth. That was one thing Blacky and I had in common: we both loved that sun.
“So,” I said finally. “You’re engaged.”
He turned from me, pretending to admire the delicate minarets of Topkapi. “Claire,” he said finally, “there are things you don’t understand.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I get it. You have responsibilities to your family.”
He sat up. “It’s not that.”
“Oh. Well, if it’s not that then you’re right.” I threw my arms up. “I don’t understand. Oh. Look. Please don’t go lighting up another cigarette. Every time something is about to be said, you light up a darn cigarette and everything gets put off. And then nothing ever happens.”
He must have heard the real unhappiness in my voice because suddenly he leaned over with terrible clumsiness—as though despite himself—and covered my mouth with his. I remember that kiss. I can close my eyes and taste the salt on his full lips. Jesus, there are moments in life that are good.
It took us a long while to get back to shore. We sang as we rode: “Danny Boy,” the only song we both knew the words to—me from home and he from lonely boys in Vietnam. I sang out loud and clear. I felt the air turn cold, the tautness of the rope, the peeling green paint on the oars.
When we got to shore we strode along, peering in windows where ladies in kerchiefs prepared meals. We smelled the turmeric and cumin and the sauciness of lamb. I grew excited thinking of the scrumptious food and rich coffee that awaited us at the Pudding Shop. We walked more quickly through the dust and commotion of tooting vehicles.
“I’m hungry,” we both said at the same moment then laughed happily.
“Come on, then,” he said, taking my elbow. Looking over his shoulder, he said, “I wish I knew the state of my liver. So I could go on drinking or end it.”
By tens and then hundreds, the sky filled with stars. I couldn’t wait to get back and have them all see us together.
“It’s too dark to shoot,” I said, “just let me put my camera in the van,” and I headed across the street while he stood there and waited. I always told people I only shot in natural light because I liked the result but the truth was I hadn’t got the hang of the flash contraption yet. I was whistling as I crossed the street. The van had a tricky lock and it took me a while to get in. There was Chartreuse’s guitar case on the bed. I looked around. I knew immediately he’d gone through our things because even Harry’s neatly folded trousers were sticking out of the false-bottom backseat, caught by the hurry he must have been in when he’d snapped it shut. I remembered Chartreuse’s enthusiasm when he’d told me about that drawer. Unable to resist, I lifted it just a crack and peered in.
Why, the little monkey! A sheaf of kimdunkari, inlaid gems—special ones—lay there in a saddle of soft metal. The encrusted stones glimmered through years of filth. But though they were filmy with age and grime, they were very valuable; you could see that right away. He must have stuck it there when he came back from the bazaar, knowing no one would come across it.
I lay my camera under the bed. Then, uncomfortable, I picked it up. I’d keep it with me. I didn’t like the way it all felt. Where had he stolen that? I wondered. And why was I spending my young life with thieves? I didn’t have long to think about it, though, because once I crossed over the street I saw that Blacky’d gone in without me. I hurried in. He was already sitting at the table. And Tupelo, eyes glimmering with fun, sat rocking on his lap.
Why was it that in stories, when you found the one of your dreams, he was always one way or another, when in life, the hero might be all the things you’d ever want, but he’s also judgmental, parsimonious, jealous, and, most painful of all, flirtatious.
“Hullo, Claire!” Wolfgang waved to me from behind the camera. “Come! Join us!”
I must have stood there in the doorway, my feelings written all over my face. But Wolfgang had the camera pointed toward me. He was always looking at me with it. Chartreuse played me in, strumming some dramatic opening. If I hesitated it was only for a moment. I pretended to smile. If Blacky was going to act like nothing had happened then so could I. I was getting used to it. Still, it seemed a little ironic to me that after all that had happened, once again I was alone in the world with my jeans jacket and my camera, my six-inch espadrilles, and my floppy, here-I-am-again-the-bridesmaid hat.
chapter ten
The next morning, well before dawn, I spotted Chartreuse going into the van while we sat having our coffee in the Pudding Shop. I waited. A few moments later I saw him taking his guitar case back to his van. The side door was wide open and I saw the guitar there on the bed.
I’d taken to keeping away from Chartreuse while I puzzled out what exactly it was he’d done. Certainly I knew what he was capable of. Hadn’t I even excused his behavior from the start, judged his crimes purely mischief and misdemeanor?
I’ll fix him, I thought. When he was busy in the front looking over his map, I reached in and snatched his guitar in the case and brought it into Harry’s van. It was going to be a long ride. He would be driving and wouldn’t even realize it was missing.
When I got to Harry’s van I checked for the sheaf of gems. Sure enough, he’d moved them. The dickens! No doubt he’d stashed them in the case to carry them back.
A few hours later when we were well under way and had moved from coffee to tea and Harry was peeling himself a second banana, I was sitting in the copilot spot in his van, deliberating what to do. I even thought whether or not I should leave the caravan altogether. It occurred to me I might stick with them until the next big town and then take a flight to … where? Well. I could plan that out as I went. I’d been treated shabbily by both Blacky and Tupelo, that was clear. What reason was there to stay on, really? I’d thought Blacky’s kiss was an answer, a beginning. Apparently I’d only been a diversion. I couldn’t help thinking I’d asked for it.
“What’s with you?” Harry confronted my silence.
“I hate washing teacups in cold water. You never really get the grit out and the tea tastes funny.”
He glanced at me knowingly.
“I was just thinking of bailing out,” I admitted, sipping the last of my tea.
He was silent. Then he said, “If you go, Claire, remember this. The microcosm we’re just now living in is a reflection of the whole world. There will always be another disappointment to run away from.”
I looked at him. He kept his eyes on the road. I wondered just how much he knew. I wondered if I ought to confide in him.
“Would you mind keeping that guitar out of my line of vision, Claire? It really is annoying!”
“Would you mind putting your banana skin out the window?” I said. But I put the guitar to the other side.
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