Letters to Oktay: Letter Five

Dear Oktay, 

So the smile. It happened when we played out a repeat of our second meeting: me walking in, him offering to move his stuff from the desk behind his, me saying, oh you don’t need to, seriously, I’m going to sit there –pointing at my usual workspace. I’m not sure if it was bashful or sympathetic, but it reeked of home. 

Smiles don’t come easily to the faces of Turks. Normally, the initial expressions you are met with on first meeting someone here is contempt or curiosity. Lonesome then, for the British practice to express amicability in generous quantities, I confess I may have been more moved by it than was warranted. And being moved thus, I may have given John Anal more thought than was warranted over the weekend. The fantasies played out as me Mata Harrying him into spilling occupational secrets and national intelligence of the most dangerous kind. But what happens on the weekend, stays in the weekend. 

Come Tuesday I stride into the broom closet with my novel on my mind and inspiration dogging at my heels, when slap bang, John Anal instigates an exchange. It involves him offering me the desk behind his AGAIN; the desk covered with his books and papers AS ALWAYS. Needless to say I am surprised. I’d never once expressed interest in that desk. Not to mention, the space between the two seats is so narrow, who in their right mind would choose to sit ass to ass with some dude, when there’s a roomier option? Was John Anal making excuses to speak to me? Maybe. So what did I do about it? I declined the offer of course. Politely. But did I stop there? No. I went further to explain that I liked to have a shelf behind me, which came out sounding barmy since there was no chance of elaborating my Feng-Shui inspired compulsion for having my back to a solid object; nor of explaining that being a creature of habit, once I’ve taken to a place, I will prefer it always. A most excellent start to the morning. 

One hour and a series of frustrations over the lack of opening-chapter-breakthroughs later, and John Anal coming and going and coming and going way too much for a man working on a thesis, there was a second exchange. A tragicomedy of epic proportions. Instigated by yours truly. It went like this: 

“You have tea!” says I, aching at this point for a cigarette or a cuppa or both. John Anal turns around in surprise. “I’m sorry… I mean… where did you-” indicating his mug. 

“Oh I get it from upstairs,” says he, by upstairs meaning the staff room. “Because I work here.” 

“Ah!” says I. He works here –a possibility I had not considered. 

“I’m sure you could have some if you asked,” says he while I’m still processing how his new identity as a member of staff fits in with my spy theory. And then his hand catches my eye. Lo and behold: a ring. On the ring finger. So much for the sneezy, sniffly, unkempt bachelor act with threadbare t-shirt under the same jumper every frikkin’ day. 

“Oh errr. Well. I… asked when I first came here… and they said I had to go out for refreshments,” manages I, my capacity for tenses spontaneously reduced to simple past, like some damn a kindergartener. Believe me Oktay, it was so laborious driving that one, fragmented sentence to its conclusion with my mind doing a double take on that ring, and my mongrel accent grating at my own ears with every bastard word that came out. “…So errr… probably not.” I was dying inside. 

“Oh. Sorry,” says he “Actually I probably shouldn’t be drinking down here, but no one has said anything so-” A sneaky, conspiratorial smile. My memory goes hazy at this juncture. I’m sure I wasn’t even listening any more. I do recall him apologising a few times and me saying there was really no need for an apology then in my mind, kicking myself in the head repeatedly for saying it, and him saying I could maybe still try asking for tea upstairs, and me thinking I don’t fucking care about the damn tea, you fool! while actually saying, with one final chocked effort to retain dignity: “Nah I won’t push it.” 

Dignity. Pish. Scrambling for an escape, I’d already sunk into my chair by the time that final sentence came out. So John Anal heard it from behind the divider between my desk and the one behind his. He probably thinks I’m some moody psycho. 

Idiot, says I to me in my mind. Bloody. Stupid. Idiot.

Letters to Oktay: Letter Four

Dear Oktay, 

I’m trying to imagine you. But try as I may, I can't reconcile the image inspired by your name with the image inspired by your choice of reading. Oktay. A hearty, Central Asian name in the tradition of those nomadic, tribal Turks, which like the native Americans, quite fancied their nature and war references. Oktay, from the word Ok -arrow. Who could shoot his backwards and sideways and upside down on a galloping horse. All hair and beard and six foot ten. A man who eats a whole lamb in one sitting; shish-kebabs a platoon of crusaders before noon, because they looked at his woman sideways; and expresses his meaning more eloquently in grunts and growls than all your smooth talkers of our modern age. When a man like that utters a statement comprising of more than just monosyllables, then you really know he'd bring down dynasties for you. 

Why this all of a sudden? I am labouring with the labour pains of bringing into this world my protagonist. I’m trying to imagine a Turk. Nay Ottoman. Nay Armenian Ottoman –that’s it, beautiful characters are made through complexity. An Armenian Ottoman in Istanbul in the year 1921 is an epic tragedy just waiting to happen. 

So, a tall and slim build? No, let’s have average height. Built by hard labour and war feats. Gruff. With bad teeth. Which reminds me: 50 Lira says you are fat. Am I right? Of course I am. After all, you, Oktay, are a far cry from those Oktays of old. It's the standard issue frame working against you, you see. The big boned, stout build that could reach such magnificent proportions but which you simply lack the capacity for. What's happened then, is that all that Oktay potential has been stunted to collect at the gut. 

To your further detriment, Oktay, you have no talent for facial topiary. Being clean shaven exposes your round, moon mug as a perfect target for bitch slaps. But you don't see any of this, do you? Nay, raised by a doting, moron who probably bore you to flaunt you, you suffer from a severe case of self-importance. The word deluded, doesn't cut it. You literally see Brad Pitt when you look in the mirror, and you haven't even the sense to see a more contemporary heart-throb. What's more, you pride yourself on your modern sensibilities, which require that your wife works to supplement the domestic budget, while also housekeeping, rearing children, and looking fabulous simultaneously. But I ask you, Oktay, what need does a woman have for such a man, if she can indeed accomplish all of that on her own? 

I diverge. So let us assume all of this to be true. Neil Gaiman's 'Graveyard Book.' What gives? I'm not always right, I must admit, though most of the time I think I am. It's the crazy. See a woman who is loved has the benefit of a man to drive crazy. But a woman who is single, only has herself to drive crazy. This isn't a bad thing. On good days it's an absolute rave in my mind, I promise you. But I can see that it might get tiring for others when I get carried away. In any case, Neil Gaiman means: a) You wear black and have, or have had at some point in your life, an asymmetrical haircut. b) You were bullied as a child and sought consolation in the heroics of misfits and freaks, which in turn nurtured a love of nerd culture. c) In a wasted effort to improve your English through reading, you picked out Neil Gaiman from the young readers section of the bookshop at the airport. Option ‘c’ I think. Fat and predictable is what you are. I’m bored of talking about you. So bored I’d rather stare at the blank screen of my opening chapter. 

On a more positive note: John Anal gave us a smile today. I think it might have been the best thing I saw in over a month.

Letters to Oktay: Letter Three

Dear Oktay,

Why do I come here? Holed up in this freezing broom-closet of a reading room, with John Anal sniffling at his desk beneath the window. Flying into a sneezing fit every half hour or so, with me having to stifle my Bless Yous because John Anal is likely to take offence. I contemplated giving him a packet of tissues. Thanks to no change and an expectant beggar-aunty outside the dentist’s last Thursday when I had my upper-right wisdom tooth gouged out, I had more packets of tissue than I knew what to do with. Then I thought better of it. Again, John Anal would definitely take offence. 

John is anal because the second time we met he got into such a fluster fit trying to gather his things, spread out across two desks –his and the one behind him. When I tried to tell him, in English, there was no need, I’d take the desk behind the one behind him, he said nothing. Just went ahead tidying like he didn’t understand my meaning. So when it happened that I had to speak to him again, I was momentarily at a loss for words with his impatient ‘yes?’ look pinned on my person after the initial ‘excuse me.’ So “Errr,” says I “do you speak English?” “Yes” says he, like his race invented the English language, and with such a stink-eye and so many daggers in that stink-eye. “Do you know where the staff go at this time? There’s no one at the front desk.” I needed a copy. But did his answer, in that most British of British accents matter at all? The man looked like he despised the essence from whence my mould was made. So it was decided. There’d be no goodmornings for John Anal, no bless yous, no packets of tissue. He could sneeze out his nasal cavity for all I cared.

To answer my own question, on this dark day for a writer with disorganised research coming out of her ears and little self-worth: I come here, to the British Institute of Archaeology at Ankara (BIAA) to read about the British Mandate years in Istanbul and pour over giant books on the architecture of Ottoman houses. I also come here to write to you about the novel I’m meant to be writing, because every day that passes with me having spent hours staring at a blank screen, is another brick in the ever-rising wall of failure that casts its looming shadow over my inhibited scribblings, arms crossed, booming: ‘No pressure. No pressure at all.’ So I write. To you. Something. Anything to get the words out. And when I pause to stretch I cast my gaze on the back of John Anal’s skinny neck and stifle my sympathy. Doubtless the man’s a spy. What else would a Brit be doing here, in brain-dead Ankara of all places, in this political climate? He receives post at the library, don’t you know. A package came for him the other day, and “John” says the librarian. “Efendim?” says John, and the rest of the exchange takes place in fluent Turkish.

Definitely a spy. Ordinary Brits after all are so bad at second languages. I know this because I still bear the trauma of Begginer’s Japanese from my University years, when I was still bright-eyed and stupid. For four terms, an entire classroom of nerdy Japanophiles couldn’t articulate one Watashiwa Sumisu desu. Dochira desu ka? without sounding like retards. It’s a matter of palate you see. White people are unaccustomed to engaging the back the mouth. But John Anal! Oh he spoke to that Aras Kargo delivery guy with enough mouth capacity to articulate the crudest Japanese insults in a gruff, jaw-full of ultra-masculine Yakuza-speak. Albeit, he’s a little soft of voice. Still timid among the Turks maybe. I don’t blame him.