No more empty spaces, p.10
No More Empty Spaces, page 10
They’d just boarded for the flight to Istanbul. Istanbul! Kevin had been reading about it. At one time, the city was called the Paris of the East, and the famous train, the Orient Express, connected it to the real Paris. The Ottoman sultans had ruled their empires from palaces all over the city. One of them, Topkapı Palace, was just steps away from where they were going to stay.
Before it was Istanbul, it was Constantinople, the capital of the Roman Empire for a thousand years. A thousand years! Before that, it was Byzantium. And before that—well, before that, it was just a fishing village. But people had been living on its shores since 1000 BC. Almost three thousand years ago!
Istanbul was where Europe and Asia met. Imagine a city that’s on two continents. Paula said they would take a boat ride up the Bosphorus Strait, which connected the Sea of Marmara to the Black Sea and separated that narrow tip of Europe from Asia Minor. The famous Golden Horn was the long, curved, and therefore well-protected harbor on the west side of the Bosphorus. It was the port that made the city a center of trade and travel.
Kevin unzipped his backpack under the seat, checking again that he had his camera. Paula sat across the aisle, twisted sideways trying to get his squirming sister belted into the window seat beside her. After she got Didi contained, she leaned forward and asked Rob and Timur to settle down. Kevin smiled at that. Paula had told Kevin about teaching her old dog the command “settle,” and he’d been working with Buddy on it. It was what it sounded like, and from the looks of it, Buddy had a better handle on it than Rob and Timur did. They were busy being Rob and Timur, and the seat in front of Paula was bouncing against her knees. Kevin was happy for his single seat on the opposite side of the plane from them.
Paula looked over and grinned at him. “Excited?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Me too.”
“Dad says you must be a little crazy. That you must like herding cats,” Kevin said.
“He’s right. I am a little crazy.” Pointing to the book in his lap with the colorful Turkish carpet design on its cover, she said, “You have the guidebook.”
“I’m trying to figure out what I want to see most. There’s a lot.”
“We’ll be busy. It’ll be. . . .”
Whatever she was saying got drowned out in a flood of sound filling the cabin when the engines started up.
Paula looked over Didi’s shoulder out their window, and they both waved. Dad was still there, outside the chain-link fence around the Elazığ airport where they’d waved to him as they got on the plane. This seemed uncharacteristically sentimental of him, and Kevin thought it was nice. Dad did have his moments. And he was letting them all go to Istanbul for their school break. Kevin hoped he wouldn’t be too busy at work to take care of Buddy, like he’d promised. He’d left his father with detailed instructions.
When the engines’ tone deepened and the plane began to roll forward, Kevin watched out his window as they taxied toward the runway. They’d be in Istanbul in a few hours. Istanbul!
* * *
Aromas washed over Kevin like a wave when he pushed one of the heavy wooden doors—twice his height, spanned with iron bands, and studded with nails the size of his fist—and entered Istanbul’s spice bazaar. Its name, Mısır Çarşısı, pronounced ma-sar char-sha-sa, didn’t exactly roll off the tongue, and he mentally stumbled over the words as he stepped into the hazy golden light. Inside, his senses were inundated with smells and colors and sounds, and he felt like he could taste the air swirling around him as the massive door closed behind him.
Nuts and beans rattled into bins. Cans and jars clinked against each other as they were stacked higher than Kevin would dare. Bakers placed cookies artfully, like edible mosaics. Candy sellers carefully built structures of their rolls of freshly made sweets that reminded Kevin of the Lincoln Logs he’d played with as a kid. The merchants seemed so casual, shaping their powders and pods into steep pyramids, and Kevin wondered how it didn’t all cascade over the rims of the bins and boxes. Red, ocher, black, green, and even deep purple spices filled stall after stall. Some were labeled with just the price. Others, more helpful to Kevin, named the spices on small placards, like curry, sumac, paprika, and chile (or chili or chilly—the spelling varied from stall to stall). Some had the names displayed in Turkish and English, so now he knew that cumin was kimyon, oregano was kekik, anise was anason, and cinnamon was tarçin.
He never knew there were so many colors of pepper—white, green, red, and black. Mild, medium, and hot too. Then there was “Mother-In-Law Chilly,” which the vendor said was extra hot, for unhappy brides to mix into their husband’s mother’s dinner.
Kevin wondered if his mother ever did that to Gran. Gran would tell Mom her pie crusts were tough, her fried chicken soggy, and her cookies burnt. If there was an American version of Mother-In-Law Chilly, Gran probably deserved a helping of it, even if her fried chicken was way better than Mom’s.
Kevin wandered up and down the narrow aisles, the burnished ceiling arching high overhead. He ducked under braided strands of garlic bulbs and clusters of gold and red and burgundy peppers. Shoppers trickled into the market, and Kevin tested his Turkish trying to understand their transactions, but they all talked so fast, he could barely catch more than a word or two.
There were teas and more teas. Fruit teas, like apple and orange. Flowery teas, like lavender, rose, and jasmine. And teas with a purpose, like relax tea, slimming tea, and love tea. There was Turkish coffee, and he thought he should get some for Paula, a little gift for taking them all to Istanbul and for letting him go out on his own this morning.
He passed stalls of dried fruits of every kind. Apricots, of course, and strawberries, apples, dates, and figs. And exotic ones, like papaya and mango, in colorful, leathery slices. Even a fruit he’d never heard of, called pomelo, its slices a bright light green. There were bins of nuts of all kinds, shelled and not, and barrels of beans in shapes and sizes he’d never seen.
Kevin glanced at his watch and realized he’d lost track of time. He’d promised Paula he would be back by ten o’clock, and it was twenty after nine. The market was only a few minutes’ walk from their hotel, but he wanted to buy a treat for the crew before he left.
He hurried up the aisles on his way toward the doors, which were now propped open with people streaming in. He was watching the time, while trying to decide what the crew would like, when he nearly passed a Turkish delight vendor. Everyone liked Turkish delight. He stopped short and considered the display with every color and shape of the candy there could be, from small cubes coated with powdered sugar to bricks with nuts embedded within the sweet chewiness. The sign read 20 TL (which he knew meant Turkish lira) for a kilo. Kevin had shopped a bit in Kayakale village, and he knew a kilo was a lot of candy. But a half kilo would be about right, and he could afford ten lira.
He approached the booth. “Günaydın,” he said.
The merchant was the first plump Turk Kevin recalled seeing in the months since they’d arrived. The buttons on the man’s blue-and-white striped shirt strained against their buttonholes. He had ruddy cheeks and a friendly smile beneath a thick mane of salt-and-pepper hair.
“Merhaba! Bunu dene,” he said, picking up a piece of light pink candy and holding it out to Kevin. Try this.
Kevin popped it into his mouth and chewed. It was sweet and kind of flowery, tasting like roses smell, and he couldn’t help wrinkling his nose. “Bu ne?” he asked. What is it?
“Gül suyu,” the vendor said. Rosewater.
“Afedersiniz, sevmiyorum,” Kevin said. I’m sorry, I don’t like it.
“Tamam,” the man replied. Okay. He swept his hand around the display, asking Kevin to choose.
He took a minute. “Çilek severim.” I like strawberry.
“Çok iyi.” Very good. He gave Kevin a brighter pink piece of the confection.
“Lezzetli!” Kevin said. Delicious!
The man smiled.
It was delicious, plus Kevin was pleased with himself because he’d only learned that word a few days before.
He bought 125 grams each of çilek, antep fıstık, tarçin, and kahve (strawberry, pistachio, cinnamon, and coffee) candies. The kahve was meant especially for Paula.
After he made his selections, while the man measured out his purchases, Kevin asked if he could take a picture of his stall, and him.
“Evet, evet,” the vendor said and smiled wide for the camera.
By the time Kevin paid, he really needed to hurry.
I’m coming back tomorrow, he thought. With color film.
* * *
Kevin liked the Bosphorus Family Hotel in Istanbul’s old city. True to its name, they were in a suite with enough beds for the whole lot of them. Kevin found it old-fashioned, but with more personality than the fancy new hotel where they had stayed in Ankara back in July.
From the hotel, they could walk to the rambling and ornate Topkapı Palace, the Blue Mosque, Aya Sofya, the archaeology museum, the Grand Bazaar, the Süleymaniye Mosque overlooking the Golden Horn, and the spice bazaar that Kevin discovered on his first morning walk.
Istanbul’s architecture was full of curves and layers, its scents swarmed from those of the salty Bosphorus to the overwhelming mix of the spice bazaar’s, and its silhouettes transported Kevin’s imagination to the time when the Ottomans ruled lands from the northern Adriatic Sea to the southern tip of the Red Sea.
Back from his walk on their second morning in the city, he opened the suite door to find Paula in the sitting room drinking Nescafé. None of the others were up and around.
“Where’s Didi?” Kevin asked. She was usually awake and bothering everyone, first thing.
“I think we wore her out yesterday. I let her stay up with you guys last night, way later than her usual bedtime. Do you drink coffee?” she asked, holding up her cup.
“No, but I like the smell of it. I made it for Mom every morning when we stayed at the house.”
“Want to try some?”
Kevin nodded.
“There’s enough water.” Paula pointed at the electric kettle on the counter. “Just plug it back in. Put a heaping spoonful of Nescafé in the cup. That was nice that you made coffee for your mom.”
“Dad got a Mr. Coffee as soon as they came out. They both thought it was so neat. Mom kept it in the divorce. Dad had to get another one for his place.”
“Mr. Coffee didn’t go back and forth every two weeks?” Paula said, grinning.
“Ha ha.” Kevin smirked.
“Divorce is hard on kids,” Paula said.
“So is living with parents who fight all the time.”
“Good point. What happened with them? Do you know? Or did they always fight like that?”
“I guess they really didn’t fight so much. Mom did, and Dad didn’t, and that made her even madder. But I remember them being happy when I was little. I’d sneak onto the stairs and watch their parties in Pakistan. They were always laughing and dancing together.”
“I’ve heard you and your dad mention it before. Why were you in Pakistan?”
“Dad was working on the Indus Basin Project. It was really a bunch of projects—dams and big water well fields, stuff like that. I don’t remember going over; I was two when we got there.”
“So your first memories are from there?”
Kevin nodded. “We lived there six years. Then at Christmas, when I was eight, Dad told us we were moving back home, not coming back after the holidays. He quit his job to go to graduate school. I think that’s when things got bad between them.”
“Do you know why?”
“Mom loved the house in Lahore. We all did. Dad says that she got too used to being treated like a princess, having servants and a cook, and an ayah for us. He said that in Pakistan she was a lady who lunched, and she didn’t like it when she had to make lunches and clean up after them again. I remember her asking him, ‘How many degrees does one person need?’ Mom always talked about how much she loved high school. She was all excited for me to go last year. But the way she talked about it, it wasn’t because of school, it was because of being a cheerleader and her boyfriend and being popular—stuff like that. I don’t think she got why Dad wanted to go back to school again, after he’d been to college and had a job. And then when we moved to New Jersey, Dad said she should go to college. And she really got mad about that.”
Kevin unplugged the kettle and poured the boiling water into his cup. He stirred it and swirled the spoon to make little designs in the gold foam on the coffee’s surface. When he turned around with his cup in his hand, Paula was looking at him intently.
“It doesn’t make sense to me, but Mom said that Dad thought she was stupid,” he continued. “That she needed to go to college to get smart. But I think he thought she was smart enough to go to college. I guess he thought she liked doing what he did . . . like school. But I don’t think they really liked to do any of the same things. Not by then, anyway.”
Kevin sat on the edge of the chair across from Paula, who was leaning back on the couch, her legs crossed, her top foot bouncing up and down. He blew into the cup, then took a sip. He made a face. Coffee didn’t taste as good as it smelled. He glanced up and saw Paula smiling at him.
“Bitter? The sugar bowl’s on the counter,” she said. “And there’s milk in the little fridge. I bet you’ll like it better if you add some of each. Then tell me all about where you went this morning.”
His story finished, their cups drained, Kevin rose and took them to the sink.
As he reached for Paula’s cup, she said, “Bir kahvenin kırk yıl hatırı vardır.”
He thought about that while rinsing the cups. “A cup of coffee will be remembered for forty years?” he asked over his shoulder. “Do you mean I’ll always remember my first cup of coffee?”
“That’s the literal translation, but it’s a proverb. To share a cup of coffee—and they really mean Turkish coffee, not Nescafé, but we’ll do that another day—means we’ll share a forty-year friendship.”
That was a long time, longer than Kevin could really imagine, but he hoped they would.
* * *
Paula was surprised by each of the children in some way in Istanbul. Out of the shadow of their father’s considerable expectations, they each shone in a different light than she’d seen them before—especially Rob.
She hardly recognized the sweet boy with the beaming smile who showed up on the trip. He and Timur were inseparable, seemingly delighted in everything they did, from fishing off the Galata Bridge, to making faces back at the masks in the archaeology museum, to pitching pistachios into each other’s mouths. Each night, the whispering and laughing from their corner of the suite would wake her. She felt like the chaperone at a week-long pajama party.
One day, she remarked on how much fun they had together. Timur, who was also more animated than she’d seen before, smiled wide and his dark eyes glowed when he said, “Rob is like the brother I did not have.”
“Timur too,” Rob said, draping his arm across his friend’s shoulder.
“You have a brother, goofball,” Timur said, pointing at Kevin and laughing. “That’s a good name for you. Thank you for teaching it to me.”
“Oh, yeah,” Rob said. “Sorry, Kev.”
Kevin played along. “Timur’s probably like the brother Rob really wanted.”
They quipped back and forth like that all week. They even included Didi sometimes, which Paula thought was unusual, and nice, for boys their age.
As for Dee, who at home was always glancing at Will for attention and approval, she was downright mischievous in Istanbul. “Mischievous” was putting it mildly since her impromptu game of hide-and-seek left the rest of them scrambling to find her in the Kapalı Çarşı.
The Grand Bazaar spanned something like fifty city blocks in area and had thousands of shops, selling everything from clothes to carpets, foodstuffs to shoes, and linens, and toys, and curios galore. The place was overwhelming. One minute, Paula was measuring a pretty little embroidered vest against Didi’s narrow shoulders, and the next, Didi was gone. All Paula did was turn to ask the vendor how much it was, and poof—it was like the child vanished into thin air.
They did find her. Well, Kevin did. Paula had seen him do this before—catch his sister from falling just as she tripped on the top step of their porch or grab her foot when it slipped off a boulder she was climbing on. That day, it seemed he had a sixth sense of the path she had taken through the sprawling market. He found her tucked behind a counter, peering through a kaleidoscope, in a shop several twists and turns from where she had started. Paula knew she should have punished Didi for running off, but she was so relieved to see her little hand firmly in Kevin’s that Paula just hugged her hard.
“Don’t ever do that again,” Paula said into Didi’s hair.
“What?” Dee asked.
“Run off!” Paula said, holding the child at arm’s length.
“I didn’t run off. I don’t like clothes; I just wanted to find something funner.”
“More fun,” Paula said.
“Okay.” Didi smiled up at her. “More fun.”
Then Didi’s brows had pulled together. “Are you mad at me, Paula? I didn’t mean to make you mad.”
“I’m not mad, sweetie. I was scared that you were lost.”
“I was right here; that’s not lost.”
“Will you promise to stay with me or Kevin or Rob or Timur the rest of the trip? It would make me feel better. Then I won’t be scared.”
Didi leaned in and hugged Paula. “I’m sorry I scared you.”
How could Paula be angry? But she did keep a closer eye on Didi the rest of the time in the city.
And then there was Kevin—dear, sensitive Kevin. They shared coffee and conversation before the others woke each morning. In his quiet, thoughtful way, he revealed his story to her, his take on the Ross family’s travels and troubles. His trust was a gift Paula did not take for granted.
