A Mile Down

by David Vann

  I awoke slowly, heavy with jet lag, and was whisked off to a magnificent garden with tables set beneath the trees. Seref’s family was gathered at the bar, chatting with friends, and when we arrived, Seref’s wife greeted me first. She was beautiful, with bright eyes and a genuine laugh.

  “Welcome back to Bodrum,” she said. “The lucky owner of a beautiful new boat.”

  “Thank you,” I said, then turned to greet the next and the next, all very friendly and kissing me on both cheeks. They really were a wonderful group of people, Seref’s family and friends.

  We sat at a long table for twelve and, without ordering, several large plates of mezes (appetizers) were passed around.

  “I can’t wait to run the charters,” I said to Seref but really to the group. “All of the delicious mezes and other Turkish dishes.”

  “The cook, Muhsin, is very good,” Seref said. “You will meet him tomorrow.”

  “I can’t wait,” I said. There were fifteen or twenty men working on the boat. One of them, Ercan, I recognized as one of my crew members. I had met him in April. The other two had signed on since then.

  “I must give a toast,” Seref said. He picked up his wine glass and we all picked up ours. “To David, who is very special to me, with him I am building not only a beautiful boat but also a lasting friendship.”

  Seref’s charm was hard to resist. I thanked him and we all clinked and drank. I began talking then with Nazim, Seref’s best friend, sitting beside me. He spoke very good English and was a pleasant man. He had long curly hair and round glasses, like a rock star. He was the Camel cigarette distributor for the Bodrum area and smoked like a fiend.

  “Your boat,” he said. “People are talking about it. They say it will be worth a million dollars when it is finished.”

  Despite what I had originally hoped, there was no universe in which the boat was worth a million, especially here in Turkey. Still, I didn’t want to sound nasty. “Well,” I said. “It isn’t finished yet.”

  “Yes, I know, but it will be finished. Seref is building this boat for you like it is his own boat. He goes to it every day since the winter, and he is trying to make everything perfect.”

  I studied Nazim. He seemed genuine. He seemed to believe what he was saying, and it really was possible he did believe. It was even possible that Seref believed he was building the boat as if it were his own. This was what frustrated me about doing business in Turkey. I couldn’t know what to believe. Had Seref purposely ignored many of my requests and allowed shoddy work because he knew he could get away with it, because my time and finances were limited and I would have no legal recourse here in Turkey? Had he lied to me from the first about the cost of the boat, and was he putting the screws to me now because I was trapped and he thought I could raise more money?

  I knew the original purchase of the hull and engines had been a bargain, but I couldn’t be certain of anything that had happened since.

  “I know Seref is doing everything he can for the boat,” I said. “And I’m grateful. But I’m still worried we won’t be ready on time.”

  “Have faith, my friend. I have known Seref a very long time. He will come through with what he has promised.”

  I decided this man just didn’t know. He probably did believe Seref was doing his best. Or he was planted next to me at this dinner table to brainwash me. It didn’t change anything, either way. “Let’s drink to that,” I said.

  After dinner, I walked down to the harbor, which is magical at night. Hundreds of wooden masts and carved sterns, the peninsula on the southern side with its maze of restaurants, shops, and clubs. The castle, its walls lit, defending the entrance and the bay. A true medieval castle, intact with its towers from the crusades, one for the French, one for the English, one for the Germans, etc.; each of the European nations warring in the name of Christianity stayed here and kept building. No major battles, except among themselves. At one point some treachery in which dozens were killed by their own and buried in a common grave. When the castle at Rhodes finally fell, they scampered away without a fight. The only bombardment came in World War I from a French ship. Then it became a prison. Now it’s a museum, specializing in underwater archaeology, and flies a Turkish flag. We live in better times than most.

  The phones lined up near the base of this castle rarely work. I went down the line of them inserting my card and found a working one on the fifth try. I called Amber first. She was running the business from our new, cheap office space in Menlo Park, California, and would have messages and bills and problems for me. Because of the travel, it had been two days since I had checked in.

  As it turned out, though, Amber did not have the list of bills together. She promised she would put it together in an e-mail and I’d have it the next morning. She didn’t have any new clients, no trips sold. She hadn’t been doing any call-backs, either. She was somewhat busy with her own life, it seemed, and not at all apologetic about it. She also hadn’t updated the website with any of the new course information or itineraries for our winter offerings in Mexico.

  “So any news from any potential lenders?” I asked.

  “I talked with John. He’s still going to give us the loan.”

  I only had to make it until October, four months away, when John, who was one of my lenders and Amber’s former fiancé, would inherit half of his seven million from his father on his twenty-fifth birthday and give me a loan for $150,000, which would bail me out.

  I called Nancy next, a much more pleasant call. Though I had been gone for only two days, I already missed her. We had been together for a year, and I was used to seeing her every day. It was possible we might marry, so I couldn’t help but wonder if it was her future now, too, that might be collapsing.

  BEING A FOREIGNER reshapes you. You feel born again into the world. I was no longer a teacher at Stanford, a California resident, a local. I was the captain and owner of a ninety-foot yacht being built by the Turks on the shores of the Aegean. This, combined with the fact that I was on the edge of ruin and under extreme time pressure, was an interesting feeling.

  When I walked into the Borda office, Seref at his desk in the back was freshly showered and his hair neatly combed. He wore a polo shirt, shorts, boat mocs, an expensive watch, and sunglasses tucked into the front of his shirt. He was always like this, no matter how busy things were. I always felt like an American slob, and I also felt genuine affection for him. I liked this man. I think he liked me, too, despite the difficulties. I was hoping today would be better than yesterday.

  “Good morning, my friend,” he said.

  “Gun ayden,” I said. Turkish is a completely foreign language, with no cognates. Gun means day, not good.

  “Have you had breakfast?” He pointed to an opened white paper package of my favorite Turkish breakfast treat, pastry dough in many layers filled with potatoes cooked in some delicious sauce similar to curry.

  “I love these,” I said.

  “You are welcome, my friend. Have what you like, and then we will talk.”

  Turks and Europeans and maybe all other people in the world are better than Americans about not polluting every moment with business. They take pauses, no matter what’s going on. In the States, I would have been chewing and talking at the same time, being efficient, but I appreciated that here I could take a few minutes to enjoy my breakfast.

  The other people in Seref’s office were friendly. The travel arrangements for my guests would be arranged by Ugur, who introduced himself. His name was difficult for me to pronounce, like ooh-er but with something else going on with the g. He was in his mid-thirties, balding, and cheery.

  “How’s business this summer?” I asked him while I ate my breakfast, breaking the rule without even thinking.

  “It’s terrible,” he said. “Really terrible. This Ocalan problem is a big problem for Turkey.”

  “It’s been going on since 1984 or 1985, right?”

  “Yes, many years, but now they catch him. Your government and
Israel government help. I am Kurdish, but I would like to kill this man. He end all business. This summer finished.”

  I didn’t know what to say. It was a sensitive subject, and I didn’t know much about it. I had done some research online, since the capture of Ocalan was screwing up sales for my charters and people were asking me about him, and from everything I could find, it seemed he was a butcher and a criminal, not a political leader deserving any sympathy. It was true the Turks had been barbaric to the Kurds, but Ocalan wasn’t just leading his people out of this oppression. He was trafficking in arms and drugs, and he was slaughtering a lot of innocent people, including Kurds. He had murdered Kurdish teachers in eastern Turkey, for instance, because they were teaching Turkish to Kurdish children. A desire to preserve his language and culture was laudable, but murdering teachers made me think he should swing. The best option, of course, was what the Turkish government was doing, which was to keep him behind bars and never kill him, so they had a hostage to help prevent further terrorism by Ocalan’s organization. I wasn’t going to say any of this out loud in Turkey, however, because it was possible I was wrong, and it might not matter whether I was wrong or right. Someone might take offense regardless. “Huh,” I finally said. That seemed noncommittal enough. Just another American who didn’t read the news.

  “Really I would like to kill him,” Ugur said.

  I wiped my hands on a napkin and nodded to Seref. “Well, it’s nice meeting you,” I said to Ugur.

  “Nice to meet you,” he said.

  I sat down opposite Seref, and he opened a folder that had printouts of e-mails from me, faxed plans for the electrical system, receipts, etc.

  “Now, we need another transfer,” Seref said. “I make these men wait, because I can. I know them many years. But they need to have their money now. Also, we need much equipment. We need tiles for the bathrooms, sinks, some marble for the galley, all the cushions need to be made now. The cushions we make with a good friend of mine, he say he begins right away, but still is necessary two or three weeks. This boat take a lot of cushions. Seventeen beds, one sitting area inside, five big sitting areas outside.” Seref puffed his cheeks a bit. “This is many things. And many other things, too. Everything for the galley, we need to buy this. I know a place here in Bodrum. And the floors. We have to decide wood or carpet.”

  “I want wood,” I said. “Carpet gets wet and mildews.”

  “But what type of wood? Wood is expensive, it takes time.”

  “I know,” I said. “But I really don’t want carpet, as I said before, when we talked last summer.”

  “Okay.” He nodded his head.

  We went through many other items, from pots and pans to blankets and anchors. A boat is made up of literally thousands of items, most of them special-purpose or oddly shaped. We still had pumps to get, plumbing and electrical decisions to make, the layout of the main salon to design. It was truly overwhelming. If I’d had more money and hadn’t had any charters scheduled for that summer, it wouldn’t have been difficult. But on a tight budget and time schedule, it was.

  “We go,” Seref finally said, and we drove out to Icmeler, to the boat. This would become our daily routine. I’d meet Seref in his office for breakfast and talk about finances and construction plans, then we’d drive out to the boat to discuss issues and oversee the work, then we’d run errands around town, trying to buy the various things we needed, then back to the boat to deal with more problems. In the evening, I’d go to the phones and Internet cafés to get loans and sell trips and try to hold my business together.

  At the boat that day, I met the crew. Ercan (pronounced Air-John) I had met before. He was strong, about my height, same age (thirty-two), his head nearly shaved. He had a reputation for being a hard worker and a competent captain. The cook, Muhsin, was in his forties. He was a big guy who wore overalls and a baseball cap and smoked even more than the others, if that was possible. He spoke English fairly well and would be my interpreter for the other two crew. The sailor was Baresh, only seventeen years old. He was a kid. Small and wiry, handsome. He was friendly but didn’t speak any English. Seref said he was taking the kid on as a favor to his mother, a family friend, but he thought Baresh would be good crew.

  There were at least a dozen other men working on the boat at all times, mostly on carpentry but also painters, electricians, and the mechanic, Ecrem. It felt odd to be the owner, the client, walking around the boat inspecting, checking the work of sometimes up to twenty-five men. I felt like a boss, but that was only for a few moments. Mostly I felt helpless, because I kept finding new problems and there wasn’t time or money to fix them.

  The environment inside the boat was smoke and sawdust and the whine of saws and other power tools. Everyone puffing away as they worked. I was especially interested in the head carpenter, a thin, homely guy who had a quick smile and was very traditional. He was one of only two or three who followed the call to prayer during the work day, spreading out a small, rough carpet inside whatever stateroom he was working on and doing his prostrations and prayers. He was not a good carpenter at all by American standards, but he seemed like a good and honest man, full of jokes and songs and obviously liked by the other men. I liked his songs especially, when I could hear them over the table saws and drills. Traditional songs, his voice wavering up high, full of melancholy. The others quiet in their work when he sang. The sound of tools, but no talking. Occasionally one or two would join in. His songs were of a world I had never inhabited. Listening to him, I could forget, for a few minutes at least, all my worry. I was in a foreign land, with all that is rich and good about that.

  The men took an afternoon break for tea at about four o’clock. They would gather out in the pilothouse and a boy came from one of the shipyard kitchens with the traditional pot and small glasses. The men put sugar cubes in and stirred with tiny spoons. They relaxed and chatted, the carpenter frequently telling jokes. I couldn’t understand anything they were saying, but I liked the atmosphere. They were laborers and poor, but they seemed more European than third-world. They looked aft to the sea and one of the islands, lovely in late afternoon, and they were part of an older culture. Constantinople had been the height of western civilization for five hundred years, and that fact had not been forgotten.

  I visited many small vendors and shops with Seref, some right up from the beach, next to the boat. The teak lattice for the bowsprit was being made in a shop a hundred yards away.

  Next door was the shop for stainless steel, which the Turks call Inox. The man here was young and skilled, making all custom fittings. I explained and sketched the various pieces I would need for the rigging, including many items he had never seen before. Winches mounted on stainless bands around the masts so that no screws went into the wood. Angled mounts for rope-clutches so that a single winch could manage four lines.

  Most of the shops Seref and I visited were in Bodrum. The carpenter’s shop was high up on a hill above town, and we went there many times, sometimes early in the morning to pick up the crew of carpenters and lumber. The place was more like a den. We had to walk down from the dirt road into a basement, where the shop stretched through four or five large, dark rooms. Enormous tools for milling. They were making everything from scratch out of logs Seref had purchased.

  As Seref talked with the carpenters I saw boards planed and sawed, grooves cut, plugs drilled. The one thing I did not see was a lot of sanding. Everything was rough cut and then delivered to the boat, where it was installed. The lack of sanding was beginning to annoy me. They had already varnished some parts of the boat that hadn’t been thoroughly sanded. I could see chattermarks and valleys in what should have been smooth, hard, level surfaces. Seref’s response was always “All will be fixed. All will be ready when the boat is finished. I will take care of all,” so I wasn’t prevailing. It was hard to ask for rushed construction and careful construction at the same time.

  My favorite place was the marble yard. When we first visited, it looked li
ke a new, fresh, unfinished graveyard, with slabs of marble propped up everywhere but not engraved. As we walked to the office we passed an open-air shop with only a roof and three walls. Two men were cutting marble, and I was startled by them. They came up to shake Seref’s hand and then mine, and they looked identical. They were entirely white from the dust, from their shoes up to their curly hair and beautiful faces. They were brothers—twins, I finally realized. They had perfect Mediterranean features, with full lips and sculpted noses and brows. Their curly hair must have been dark but was now white, pure white from the dust of marble, which is unlike any other dust. They looked like statues. Twin brothers metamorphosed into marble after running from something—a terrible father, perhaps. They were worthy of myth. I stared. I couldn’t help it. They were perhaps the most wonderful and strange vision I had ever seen.

  Seref pulled me away into the office, where we sat with a grimy old man who fought over price, but my mind was still back with the mythic brothers. I found it hard to care about the price or the thickness of the counter or the diameter of the two rounded sinks.

  In the evenings, when I left Seref and the boat and all the shops and oddities, I stood again under the minaret and Bodrum castle making my calls, and I tried to express some of what I had seen to Nancy. Our calls were too short, because the cost was too high, but I wanted to share some of this experience. I was falling in love with Turkey, despite the frustrations and fears. No matter how the boat turned out, this was a magical place and I was grateful for my time here, to be seeing this.