This is the story of a guy I can now call a friend. It is a story that began for a work purpose, which led me to encounter a reality, a social class, a modus vivendi and human types that today I have got used to interact with in my beloved Turkey. Here I will describe the chiaroscuro of a character that could sum up many characteristics of a certain social stratum of the country, which I have learnt to know and filter despite the criticalities that any Western woman may initially have to face when travelling alone, for business, in a country where the local female labour participation still hovers around 34% according to ILO data. Through the narration of my meeting with the leading character, I will describe the potlaҫ, a form of ceremonious ‘welcoming’ that often happens in these parts of the world. What happened next? Well, I believe that in addition to the ‘dark sides’, I later on came to know the ‘light sides’ of a human being who not only belongs to a privileged and powerful class in this country, but also possesses a big heart, the most common weaknesses, and the desire to return to simplicity while searching true emotional ties. But that is another story, perhaps, of cinnamomo.
Istanbul Airport 15.30
‘I didn’t even pick up Mr X (Authority in the Coffee World) at the airport either’.
That’s the welcome from Othman*(pseudonym for convenience), 37, wealthy scion of a Turkish holding of construction, energy, tourism services and national security, founded by one of Ataturk’s first members of parliament. He also deals in his spare time with his own personal toy, i.e. a company in the beverage business with which it seems there may be some scope for cooperation. He declares he wants to ‘help me’. ‘Help me?’ Fantastic assumptions. I got to know him through cross-contacts, and after a deafening phone call, we arranged a meeting in Turkey, thus began a new, delirious adventure.
Getting into his car, the guy was keen to point out to me that it was the first time he was paying for a parking space instead of his driver. ‘I don’t know how to use this automatic cash machine,’ he clarified. ‘It has that classic Levantine, cloying scent,’ I think, before he plays a customised playlist so that “I can relax and feel comfortable with the conversation in the car”. The guy likes himself a lot, he feels he has to reassure me. I inform him that I am a generally relaxed person… I think it’s going to be a long day.
We arrive at a massive estate in who knows what part of metropolitan Istanbul. ‘This is where I grew up, it’s all ours, the forest, the lake, we built everything here, that’s Ozil’s house, do you know him? He’s a good friend, a true Muslim, a bit too Islamic, but a great friend of Erdogan. The president of Fenerbahçe called me to ask to rent him the flat, you know my uncle is vice-president of the club. My mum then insisted and I had to give in, although indirectly I did my asshole father a favour. My father is also one of the reasons why out of spite I support Galatasaray.’ ‘Do you also follow volleyball? Do you know Paola Egonu?’ I ask. ‘Ah sure, the black girl! She’s a lesbian! I am a former volleyball player, in the summer I play beach volleyball in Bodrum with Calhanoglu, by the way, do you know that the whole marina in Cesme and Marmaris was built by us? What does your boyfriend do?’ he asks, threading a rambling series of questions. ‘He’s an architect.’ ‘You should come together to Cesme!’ How many years have you been together? Four? And why don’t you get married? Well, you see, the important thing is that you have children, it’s the most beautiful thing in the world’. And she shows me photos of her five-month-old twins. ‘UNBELIEVABLE experience having children’! Unbelievable would have been a slightly overused word in the course of the day.
I am greeted by bodyguards at the entrance to the venue. They seat me in front of a fireplace ‘lit especially for you Claudia’, although it is 20 degrees outside.
The lobby is undoubtedly very nice, the whole building was designed by a well-known Italian architect whose name I cannot remember, and embellished with sophisticated design objects. Before we begin to deal with the merits of our meeting, I am clearly offered…the çay. At that moment, ‘he wants to meet me, since I am Italian,’ Engineer Y, with a fake, off-white Donald Trump smile. The man is vice-president of the holding company, educated in California (‘ah, in those years I enjoyed life…’), then returned to Turkey for business and became known in the Turkish star system for his affair with his ex-wife, a Serbian starlet. He is more or less a Turkish Flavio Briatore, who after describing to me his memorable experiences on Lake Como and at the Italian racetracks, when he used to test-drive his freshly bought Ferraris and Lamborghinis, actually questioned me about my profession with care and kindness. We go on and on about my education, he pretends to be interested in my diplomacy path and wants to know how it works in detail. ‘You know, I worked closely with Berlusconi through Astaldi..but that’s another story. It was a different Turkey, not the one traumatised by twenty years of corrupt and illiterate government. Othman where are you taking this lovely lady tonight?’ Othman: ‘To the Mandarin Oriental of course, it’s the most luxurious restaurant in Istanbul, you know that’.
We move to the meeting room, more çay arrives. First we go through all the holding company’s awards and recognitions over the years, Saudi, Bosnian commemorative plaques, and whatnot. OK, we can sit down. The first half hour is necessary to listen to Othman, he is quivering with eagerness to tell me how he thinks he has sorted out the players of our industry in Turkey. I pretend to be interested and amazed, though partly through my local contacts I am already aware of some of the happenings. After all, the narrative is peppered with a certain heroism, especially when he tells me about a masterful visit to Amsterdam, in the lair of Turkish cocaine traffickers, which Othman would epically succeed in defying…whatever. ‘You can’t understand, after Amsterdam I hosted everyone here, right where you’re sitting, Mr X and his staff, they were stunned, I solved the whole thing! Behind this door there were five guards ready to intervene.’ I, meanwhile, continue to laugh under my moustache.
Well, I can start my presentation and I immediately realise that it has to be quick. Othman is the classic spoilt child who can’t sit still for a second and has to press on with constant questions. We don’t manage to finish, he decides to take me to a supermarket to show me ‘how it works’ in Turkey. I’m afraid we won’t get much content. But be that as it may, after buying himself some bars for his post-workout (he does pilates and martial arts), he takes me back to the office to open the subject of prices and brag about various other things about his family. After listening to a series of chaotic and improbable statements, I ask candidly: ‘Othman, why are you interested in working with us?’ ‘How can I say…(that’s his frequent interjection with macaronic pronunciation), you know Claudia, when you fall in love, when you lose your head and have unforgettable moments…in every sense of the word heheh…and then the story ends? That’s it, I must have a range of solutions if I stop with the current supplier. Plus..if I had known earlier that you were such a kind and beautiful lady I would have wanted to meet you much earlier’. With that sentence we are ready to head for dinner, it’s 8.30 pm, I manage to explain to him that I have no intention of going to change at the hotel in Beyoglu for dinner. (‘you are a woman and you need to rest and get ready in the hotel’, he states).
Hell no. I come out simply saying that it’s getting late and recommend going straight to Arnavutkoy, first because I’m hungry, second because I’m not going to get stuck in traffic in the European part of Istanbul. Thirdly, should I even dress up for this gentleman? I think my business suit is enough.
We change to the third car of the day and get into a private transfer with driver, armoured door and dark windows. I take note of the number plate. I call Italy to give the feeling that I am not completely at the mercy of this exalted man. The little prince stops at home and comes out all dressed up ready for the evening. ‘Sorry, I had a word with my wife, that pain in the ass. I got her a range rover and a flat in her name and it’s still not enough, she always has to scold me for the parties I throw.’ ‘Ah.’(my reply).
At the restaurant
‘She doesn’t know who I am!’ Othman was not happy with the table entrusted to us. He was standing near the passage, in front of the cash register clattering a remix of old Ottoman music, very catchy I must say. He explained to the waitress that he was the nephew of the deputy of the MHP, a Turkish nationalist party in government coalition with Erdogan’s AKP, and we promptly changed seats. ‘You know, sometimes I use my family name, at least I have some use for it..even my asshole father! You don’t know how many times he beat me up when I was a kid’ “(Well, I must say it didn’t help, I think to myself..)”, “I grew up with a real hatred towards him, as well as the complex of having to prove that I could get things done not just because of him”. I ‘I see..shall we order?’ ‘Oh yes Claudia, order what you think, for me just order some fried oysters and white wine from Thrace, for the rest you choose. I didn’t bring Mr X’s team here either, although it has to be said that I paid the sluts to them, so I don’t feel indebted.’
We are seated at the adjacent table were some members of the Armani staff, who in full patriotic spirit had invited me to join them for dinner. I had casually exchanged a few words with them in the hallway, they seemed like curious and polite types, ‘would you like to join us as our guest?’ After informing Othman, so as to make my presence at his table look like a concession to him, I politely declined their invitation and began to enjoy the view at last… we were in a flush annexe on the Bosphorus, the sea was very calm, the liquidity of the waves was blending in the opaque and mysterious Istanbul sky, devoured by the night.
‘Come on Claudia! Don’t you want to have a tequila, let’s go to one of my clubs you’ll like it so I can show you how we work’. I didn’t want to go at all because I was tired. He asks me a couple more times and I give in out of exhaustion. We are still in Arnavutkoy, Othman scolds me for being a tourist and for having booked the hotel in Beyoglu, instead of in the area that counts near Beşiktas, where the Jews stay. ‘The Jews are my friends, although when we go out I always have to pay, otherwise they just order a coffee. They are masters of half of Istanbul, but so obsessed by money!’.
We are at the gates of this glamorous club in Ulus, at the entrance there are some little men who let us through once we say the password. To relieve myself of the burden of “my friend”, who is starting to be a bit too friendly, I start a random conversation with a Russian woman, she says she loves Italy and doesn’t care about the war, she hopes our countries remain friends. I go to the bar because Othman doesn’t let me breathe, I check the barman’s moves carefully and make sure that what goes into my shot comes directly and only out of the tequila bottle. We toast with the first round. At that moment I meet two nice guys, Othman introduces them to me. One of them is the International Manager of a chain of 2000 supermarkets in Turkey. It is 1.30am and I am having my first serious business conversation of the day.
Then, he tells me how they are fearing Big Ben earthquake in the City after the tragedy in south-east Turkey. The last big one in 1999 had battered Istanbul, let alone the damage it would cause now. ‘We live for the day Claudia. This city is not what it used to be anyway. You should have come here in 2010, going out at night was fun, everything was freer, more carefree. Now there are police everywhere, as you can see, even just to have an Efes on a Wednesday night I only have to go to places that have an alcohol licence and can sell after 10pm, and as luck would have it, these places are guarded by cops at the entrance. This is not the Istanbul I was born in, I’m a quiet citizen and almost in work burnout, I beg for mercy’ “Hey man, you are always talking bad about your city, Erdogan will win anyway the election next May, you’ll see how you’ll tell me I was right, it’s the Americans who want him in government” says Othman.
He starts to get tipsy, coincidentally he happens to lean on my hip. He offers the second tequila, then an espresso tonic, I pretend to drink both because I don’t understand where they came from. Through it all, the Turkish tobacco hood is asphyxiating me mercilessly. ‘Ah Claudia, if only I had known how funny you are, I would have cancelled my trip to Bulgaria tomorrow’ I: “We’d better go if you have to leave early”, I say. ’No way! People like me can get to the airport at the last minute, cause we can access the runway directly’ (the next day he would send me the photo to prove this procedure). I lose my patience:‘So sorry Othman, thank you for the dinner and drink, I have to work tomorrow, if you don’t mind I’ll order a taxi’ ’A taxi what? I’ll take you to Beyoglu!’he shouts.
We get into the van, and after telling me that he is more handsome than Can Yaman and that he has ‘got to know Demet Ozdemir’s scars up close’, he demands that I return to Istanbul the following month, at least for three days, to introduce me to his grandmother in the yali on the Bosphorus, at çay time, when he reads the Times, or to let me board the family yacht, to book me a stay at the Swiss Hotel and not at a tourist place like the Pera Hills Hotel in the neighbourhood ‘now enslaved by Saudi ninja Arabs..and blabla… ’I will burn your mind! You will forget everything about your work and family!‘’UN-BE-LIE-VA-BLE things!!!‘’Othman, you come to Italy to the company by the end of the month, order the first container, and then I will come back to Istanbul, if we start working together’.
Two weeks later, Othman would send me the Istanbul-Venice flight tickets, the rest would remain to be written. I had set foot in Istanbul hotel room, it felt like the coziest shell in the world, I had ended my day unscathed in the middle of the Ottoman kingdom once again, my stomach wrecked by tequila and my hair smeared with smoke, how disgusting. Well, all in all, it had been lots of fun. Good night.’
