She knocked twice, and when Jeff finally opened the carved wooden door, he looked jolted. Nazira realized only then that she was unprepared for the confrontation. He had changed. He seemed shorter than she remembered; his hair was thinner and cut to a reasonable length just above his ears. She had imagined she would faint or say something dangerously stupid, but suddenly she found herself confident, completely calm, facing the father of her child.
“Salamatsizbih,” she said.
“Salamachillik,” Jeff replied, recovering.
A ridiculous scruffy patch of beard clung to his chin. His shoulders were somewhat stooped, and lines of worry had collected at the corners of his eyes. The silence between them lasted an eternal few seconds. She tried to gauge in his expression his level of guilt at abandoning her, but saw none. Neither did she perceive the slightest smile nor sign of joy in his seeing her again. She thought of his concerned inquiries about her in the letter he had sent and, gathering her courage, broke the silence with a smile and the stock phrase “Ishter kondai, Jeff?” How are your works?
His eyes flashed in recognition of the ritual, and he answered correctly, in what seemed like a reflex. “Jakshii.”
“How is your health?”
“Jakshii.”
“Is my father with you?”
Jeff laughed and cleared his throat. “Nazira, why don’t you come in,” he told her in English, extending an arm, “and see for yourself.”
She removed her plastic sandals and stepped shyly into the hall and then the living room. There on the couch, facing the other way, hunched over an opal chessboard, was her father. He was playing against a brown-skinned man—a Kyrgyz, perhaps. Neither looked up, but she could tell from the way her father leaned into the game and stuck out his chest that he was winning. So this is what he had been doing, passing the time at games while the village suffered. She was furious.
“Shax,” he announced. Check.
“Anarbek,” Jeff called, “guess who’s arrived.”
“Bir minoot.” Anarbek held up his hand, then slammed it down on the corner of the board and let out a great roar of triumph. The young opponent sat staring at the pieces, shaking his head. In mock condolence her father patted him on the shoulder, and only then did he turn. He saw her and his smile vanished. He looked like a man guilty of some horrendous crime.
“Nazira! What are—”
“Ata.”
He stood. She could not read the emotions on his face as he stepped toward her. Fear that something had happened at home? Anger at her intrusion into his private life? Amazement that she had suddenly appeared—crossing half a continent to find him in this strange city? Once as a child she had carried an urgent message from her mother to him in the factory sauna, and he had rebuked her for the invasion. She suddenly had the same sense now, that her entrance violated sacred male ground. Her father did not embrace her but simply stood in place, passing uncomfortable glances between the other men.
Jeff spoke very loudly in English. “Nazira, such a surprise. We—we didn’t know you were in Istanbul.” He repeated this attempt at a joke in Russian for Anarbek, who did not smile. “It’s been so—but what are you doing here?”
“I have come for my father.”
The brown man on the couch examined her fiercely, and like the others he did not smile in greeting. He was intense and handsome—but lacking, she could see now, any warmth, and his unrelenting gaze made her shiver. He did not seem happy about the distraction from his game. Her arrival, it seemed, had upset them all. She turned to her father, then back to Jeff, unsure whom to confront first, and then she lost all nerve.
After a few minutes of restrained conversation in which Nazira explained her long journey, Jeff took her bag and led her to a room full of books, where a mattress had been set up on the floor.
“Your father’s crashing in here,” he said.
“Crashing?”
“Staying,” Jeff said. “The apartment—well, the apartment’s kind of crowded. Will there be enough room for both of you?” He hardly looked at her when he spoke.
“Yes, in my opinion it is enough.”
“It’s good to see you again, Nazira. I’ve thought of you lately. I was worried.”
“Thank you for worrying, but everything is fine. And I have thought of you too.” The words were all wrong. She flushed.
But Jeff was staring at his fingers and had not seen her embarrassment. He shifted on his feet. “Maybe you would like to wash up? I’ll get you some towels. We’re going to have some dinner up the street in a little bit, and you can come with us . . .” His voice trailed off.
“I am not hungry, thank you. But I would very much like to rest.”
“All right. I’ll find you something to sleep on.”
Anarbek accosted Jeff as he came back into the living room. “Did you invite her? What’s she doing here?”
“I have no idea. She’s your daughter. You tell me.”
Adam couldn’t understand them, but he was smiling and clicking his tongue. “What?” Jeff snapped.
“There enough of us for you?” Adam asked. “Better find another place before the next one comes. My aunt might be dropping by soon.”
“Keep talking, Adam. See how much longer before I change the locks.”
On the ferry to Europe the next morning Anarbek directed Nazira to a scratched wooden bench.
“And how much longer will you vacation in this city?” she asked, sitting down.
“You are all wrong, Nazira. There is no vacation. It’s all for a reason, kizim,” he said. He squeezed himself down beside her. “Jeff would not put up the money he offered.”
“I told you, you had no business asking him for that! You think you were doing us a favor, Ata. But do you know what is happening in Kyzyl Adyr-Kirovka since you left?” Nazira described the visit from Yuri, Baktigul’s flirtations, then her confrontation with Traktorbek.
“That man is bluffing. He’s bluffing.” Her father thought for a second. “It’s all a game, just to frighten us.”
Beneath them the boat engines groaned and the floorboards vibrated. “We must get back as soon as possible,” she said. “He’s threatened to steal Baktigul. He’s going to marry your daughter. Is that clear to you?”
“Quiet now. It is you Traktorbek wants, not Baktigul. He’s never gotten over it. If I come back with nothing to offer Bolot, it won’t make any difference who Baktigul marries. We’ll all be ruined. We’ll lose what little we have. You see, I’m worried only about our future. How will we live after that?” He explained their options as he understood them: a return home, with nothing to appease Bolot, or another week or so in Istanbul, with the possibility of making lucrative connections.
“Another week will be too late!” she warned, in her urgency switching from Russian to Kyrgyz. “Lola is watching Manas. I can’t leave her with the two boys alone so long.”
“Nonsense. We must return to the village with a plan. Something to sell.” He patted his jacket pocket. “I have a plan. You’ll see! Lola will understand.”
“Your plans! I remember your plans. Erotic films for the cows! An American in the village! This ridiculous trip! Where have your plans gotten us? I can see it. You’ve been fooled by this city, by all this”—she waved her arms at the skyline—“this foreign biznes. Your dreams will ruin us. You were never like this when Ama was alive.”
The ferry had pulled out and was picking up speed across the silver waters. Her father’s eyebrows clenched, but he ignored the rebuke, reached inside his jacket, then handed her a brochure. “Look at this,” he said. The brochure was written in Turkish and English. She began to read it:
ANTIK LEATHER LTD.
We offer low costs and high quality for shearling garments. Antik Leather is one of the oldest and biggest producers in Turkish Leather Industry. Antik Leather has been specialized at processing shearling garments. We have been established in 1982 and now have two factories. One is tannery, and the other is Shearling
Ready Made Garment Factory. Our tannery which is shown above photo is been located at Turkey’s Leather Processing Center: Yeditepe Leather Industry Region. Today at our two factories, we reached 350 employees, about 9500 sqm closed factory space and US 20.000.000 turning-over yearly. Our production capacities is about 38,000 pieces of ready made garments and 500,000 pieces of processed leather.
Nazira studied the photograph of the tannery at the top of the brochure—a long one-story structure, not unlike the Lenin School, with a red brick roof and no windows. A Turkish flag flapped from a pole beside the front entrance. The grounds were surrounded by green cypresses, and a large sun hung low in the sky above the building. She turned over the brochure.
Shearling is Nature’s finest insulator for cold. And it is 100% NATURAL. It will keep you warm and cozy although there is subzero weather. Please do not be shocked by our lowest prices and high quality. Also we have important news for small entrepreneurs . . .
Her father’s large, hopeful eyes were fixed on her, awaiting a reaction.
Beneath this paragraph was a picture of a thin woman, with a tight masculine haircut and an overly serious look, modeling a long black leather jacket. One of her hands she pressed to her chin, the other she rested on the shoulder of a man, equally serious, seated beside her. He wore a brown suede jacket, and his hands were folded in his lap. At the bottom of the brochure was the company’s address.
Nazira pointed to it. “Is this where you’re taking me, then?” she asked, shaking her head.
“No, I’m taking you to their store in the Grand Bazaar, not the actual factory.”
She held out the brochure. “And what makes you think you can do business with this Antik Leather company?”
“No, no, you misunderstand, Nazira.” He pulled the brochure from her hands. “Antik produces the jackets and sells them. But they get their skins from another company. In Turkey the business is conducted between family members. This is how it is—how business is run in the world today. You must work with people you trust. This man at Antik buys the leather from his uncle, Hakan.” Anarbek reached into his left jacket pocket and removed a second glossy brochure. “It is the uncle who imports the sheepskins. Look, he gave me this, but it’s only in English. Read it for me.”
“I’ve seen enough.”
“Read it!”
She unfolded it.
HAKAN PAZARLAMA LTD.
Importing and Marketing Raw Lamb/Sheep Skins Founded 1992, in Istanbul Yeditepe Organised Leather Industry Zone, and operates now in an area of 12,000 sqm, it includes a refrigerated warehouse of 750 sqm. Which is the first and only one in the sector in Istanbul.
Products: Lamb and Sheep skins for Double Face, Lamb and Sheep skins for Nappa, Sheepskins for shoe manufacturing.
Import from: England, Spain, Australia, Norway, America, South Africa, Switzerland, Sweden, Ukraine.
Objective: Meet the customer’s requirements in a professional manner by keeping quality standard high in the sector and providing effective quick service. The company importing raw-skins the most in terms of turnover in Turkey. Hakan Pazarlama having a refrigerated warehouse in the FreeZone provide the best condition for preservation of skin from decomposition and hairslips which are highly important for such an organic material—
Nazira stopped. This technical information was too much for her to process, never mind translate. The ferry had nearly arrived at Eminönü, and as it began its U-turn along the Galata Bridge, preparing to dock, the stone palaces perched on the hills above the port loomed larger.
“Have you met with the uncle, Hakan, then?” she asked, clicking her tongue and returning the beloved documents to her father.
“He has promised to arrange a meeting soon. I will ask again today.” He waved the brochures, snapping them in the air. “I have great hope, Nazira. This would be big. Big for our entire village.”
“It will take equipment, transportation. Where will you get that?”
“We have our whole factory going unused in the village. Trucks that have not made delivery in years.”
“I don’t know, Ata.”
Anarbek had offered to bring her along on his business rounds, hoping she would share some of his excitement, but she had agreed to come only to convince him to leave Turkey. As they exited the ferry and climbed a pedestrian bridge over the busy shoreline road, he told her how, in his earlier search for a business plan, he had spent time near the Grand Bazaar. He had popped into shops to drink chai with the merchants and followed families to see what they bought, comparing prices and profit margins. Searching for the secret of effective salesmanship, he had even committed to memory the greetings of hawkers (“How can I help you spend your money?”). He wanted her to see this bustling world of commerce—the sparkling jewelers’ row, the textured carpets hanging in windows, the handmade purses dangling on lines above the shops. Only then would she understand what had delayed him.
They hurried up the Street of the Market Gate to the bazaar’s entrance, an archway outlined in colored marble and inscribed in blue Arabic calligraphy. Inside, the crenelated arches continued; the ceiling vaulted in red and white mosaics over the stores. Her father led Nazira by the arm through the crowds to a quieter section of the market, where jackets hung in dark swaths of brown and black over the cramped shops. He was taking her to meet Faruk, the leather merchant from Antik whom he had befriended. Her father warned her that Faruk had only one arm—his left—so she should try not to stare; and this warning only embittered her more.
“You have a daughter!” the squat, oily-haired man said in rough Russian as they entered his store. “She’s your daughter?”
“Yes,” Anarbek said, “my daughter.”
Her father, she saw, had never even mentioned his family.
The merchant squinted at her as they shook hands. He had a nervous manner—twitching lips and a bobbing Adam’s apple. He sat them down on wooden stools, and a boy brought chai. Faruk handed the glass to Nazira himself, saying, in English, “You are a princess.”
“Thank you,” Nazira said, blushing.
“And she speaks English, Anarbek! You should take a lesson or two from your daughter. She is smarter than you!”
Her father pretended to laugh.
Looking around, she discovered why, of over four thousand shops in the bazaar, Anarbek had chosen this one. On a column in the center of the store hung a poster-size photograph of Hillary Clinton. She seemed to be purchasing a leather jacket. The one-armed merchant, following her gaze, told Nazira how the previous fall Mrs. Clinton had come to the bazaar. Faruk had spotted her and complimented her beautiful hair, and she had bought jackets, from this very store, for Bill, Chelsea, and herself. Nazira wondered if this could be true. But photographs did not lie: there she was in color, shaking Faruk’s left hand in an awkward gesture, the famous First Lady with a strikingly white grin, the owner laughing at some joke it looked like he had not understood.
Her father elbowed her and raised his chin. “What a businessman Faruk must be! No? To have sold merchandise to such people!” He turned to the shop owner. “How much did the wife of the president of the United States pay for her jacket?”
“It is between me and the First Lady,” Faruk said.
“Of course! Of course!” Anarbek gazed at the man in dreamy admiration.
They discussed details of their potential partnership. From Kyzyl Adyr-Kirovka Anarbek would ship high-quality skins of Kyrgyz sheep to Hakan Pazarlama—the factory owned by Faruk’s uncle—which Faruk would then buy for his tannery and use in the production of leather jackets. Nazira could see they were having difficulty communicating and agreeing on general prices, and Anarbek had yet to visit the factory—sixty kilometers outside the city, on the northern shore of the sea.
After discussing business, they chatted awhile, slurping the strong tea. Nazira did not drink hers. She wanted to leave; she wanted only to ask when her father could visit the uncle’s factory and get it over with. She knew her father
was stalling, enjoying Faruk’s company, safe from her questioning. At last the dealer looked at her and said, “I have an idea!” He pronounced the words slowly, the same plastic smile on his face that Nazira had noticed in the photograph. “Why wait for Kyrgyzstan? We can start the dealing now. You can see how well our jackets sell, Nazira. The quality. Quality!” The last word he spoke at her ear, leaning close, with breath that smelled like rotten cabbage.
“Come!” Faruk said, and led them from the store out of the bazaar, across Yeniçeriler Caddesi and into the swirling heart of the Laleli trading quarter. Cars plied the congested streets, people rushed in and out of tiny shops, boxes were taped and hauled off on hand carts, and arguments in ten languages poured from dimly lit alleyways. They followed Faruk to a corner where a tall, blond, heavily made-up woman stood, holding a black leather jacket by a coat hanger. Her painted eyes darted left at the inching traffic on the road, then right at the passing pedestrians. If someone on the street made eye contact, she lifted the jacket and took a suggestive step in his or her direction, a movement that seemed to Nazira some kind of secret signal.
Faruk stopped in front of her, felt the tough leather between his fingers, and said, “Kak dyela sevodnya, Sashenka?”
This Is Not Civilization Page 22