Joy glanced at some women at a nearby table who were modestly dressed in Islamic scarves and long coats. “I’m not sure he was so successful in his westernizing,” she quipped.
“Well, the rest of the Middle East still hasn’t recovered from the Crusades. By allying himself with Europe after World War I, Turkey benefited.”
She tilted her head. It still amazed her that Richard reached these verdicts so easily. Life for him seemed to always be black or white, neatly boxed and labeled for expediency rather than bubbling with the myriad possibilities that constantly swam before her.
“You sound smug when you say these things, Rich. Aren’t we all basically the same, just looking for some peace and joy in our lives? Why keep judging others by our own arbitrary standards?”
He shrugged. “I’m just saying it was time for Turkey to leave the old empire behind, and Ataturk was the man to do that. It was time to move on to something that worked, and the West was leading the way.”
He rose abruptly as if to avoid a clash with her unspoken thoughts. “Come on. They’re calling us for the tour.”
She swallowed the last of her raki and followed him, grateful, herself, to be sidetracked.
Their guide stood before a set of tall iron doors.
“Welcome to the forbidden harem.” He produced a chunky ring of keys. The group included two German couples and a Japanese woman and her daughter.
“We men today are lucky,” the guide said, unlocking the doors and bolting them shut behind them like a jailer. “Once, any man who entered here other than the sultan or eunuchs was killed.” As he said this, he made a swift gesture toward his pelvic region as if to indicate the emasculation of the eunuchs.
Joy drew back at the image of chopping off testicles.
“This was the dormitory of the special African eunuchs,” the guide said, leading them down a hallway. “They slept in shifts so that the sultan’s women were guarded at all times. There were often more than four hundred women living together in Topkapi.”
Joy glanced at the ominous palace walls. A massive women’s prison! She couldn’t help thinking this, despite the fact that she’d just criticized Richard for being judgmental of this culture’s past. There was a pulsing quality about the rooms, as if the occupants had left the stone floors and faded walls only hours ago rather than over a hundred years earlier. A dizzy feeling of despair locked into her, brought on by these silent pathways and corridors.
“The luckiest ladies were led down this hall at night to Sultan’s bedchamber,” the guide added with a knowing smile.
Luckiest ladies? She could think of better words to describe those women: wretched, even terrified. To all but a few, their master was mostly a stranger, after all.
The guide drew their attention to the next two rooms, which had been occupied, he said, by the first and second of the sultan’s favorite concubines who had borne him sons.
“These favored kadins were especially fortunate,” the guide asserted. “One of their sons might be the future sultan.”
Again, Joy marveled at the arrangement that those “fortunate” women were made to live under. Rival concubines in adjoining bedrooms, sharing the only man they were allowed to love, if they did love him, their lives constantly at risk from jealous competitors. They must have developed cores of steel, she thought.
One of the German women asked what Joy had been wondering: “What happened to the women who didn’t bear the sultan children?”
The guide shrugged. “They were not important.”
Joy flinched. Women existed to produce heirs. Boys. Women who lost their babies or who couldn’t conceive were expendable.
They exited through the gate to the outermost palace courtyard, where a fresh breeze welcomed them.
“Is it possible to find something so awful and yet be absolutely fascinated by it?” she said.
Richard shrugged. “These women seemed to live pretty darn well.”
“They weren’t here by choice. And those poor eunuchs.”
He shrugged. “They were slaves. Finding favor with the sultan was their best assurance for staying alive.”
“But they also had feelings. Humans haven’t changed that much over the years. Those women were sex slaves.”
He raised his eyebrows in mock horror. “Now who’s being smug?”
“Okay. But that’s what they were.” She gestured at their surroundings. “At the same time, look at all that was created, all the art, the gorgeous buildings . . . people without feelings and sensitivity couldn’t have done this.”
“They had feelings, but their values were different from ours.”
He drew her attention to a man carrying a small boy dressed in a blue satin cape and a pointed hat trimmed with white fuzz who looked like a first-grader at a Halloween party. In the cape and hat, the boy resembled a miniature prince, contentedly sucking on an oversized lollypop.
“That kid has just been circumcised.”
She stared at the child. “How do you know?”
“I read about it. Those are special outfits. Parents bring them to the Topkapi afterwards as a reward. They purposely put it off until the kid’s older, so he can remember the experience and celebrate it. It’s not likely to get them into the European Union.”
She glanced at him. “Come on. Circumcision is holding Turkey back from joining the EU?”
“You know what I mean.”
“I don’t think that has to do with the politics of joining the EU.”
“They want to be European, but they’re Asian to the core, celebrating manhood like that. They could do it at birth.”
Although Joy didn’t like the idea of performing this procedure on an older child, she found it equally absurd to attribute the European Union’s not accepting Turkey into the fold because of the timing of boys’ circumcisions.
“Maybe European prejudice is keeping them out,” she suggested.
“Their old ideas are keeping them out.”
She glanced at Richard’s profile as they crossed the gardens and headed toward the gate and the city outside. His proclamations were starting to get to her again. Although he did have a point about Turks clinging to archaic traditions, that was all he seemed to see.
“Some traditions serve a purpose, Rich, at least in this society. I’d rather concentrate on the amazing things here instead of seeing these people as less than we are.”
“I don’t see them as less than we are. I see them as refusing to evolve.”
They walked on in silence. Although a part of her regretted picking on him like this, and he did have some valid points, she could feel herself starting to withdraw from his overly pragmatic views.
After dinner, they took a cab to the Ciragan Palace Hotel to have coffee on its famed waterfront terrace.
The marble floor of this former Ottoman palace shimmered like a lake, and there was a respectful hush as if the grounds were still occupied by the royal family rather than elite paying guests.
“A cut above the folks staying at our place,” Richard joked.
“I’m glad we’re not staying here,” she said, appraising the smartly dressed clientele.
“Too rich for your blood?”
“Too many unhappy ghosts.” She gazed around at the opulent terrace. One deposed sultan was said to have been jailed here by his brother for twenty-eight years. Every single exquisite palace in Istanbul seemed to have doubled as a prison.
They ordered coffee and a slice of Turkish almond cake. She stared at the lights of the Uskudar district across the river, wondering how it must have felt for a royal prisoner to watch the bustling activity of ordinary free citizens just a short distance away. She’d felt imprisoned in her marriage once. She knew the feeling of wanting desperately to be free.
Richard turned and gazed at her. “Has it really been three years?”
She realized he was referring to their divorce.
“Sometimes I think it’s the craziest thing we ever did,” he continue
d. “Why did we do it?”
“Get married or get divorced?”
“Divorced. I know why we got married,” he said, roguishly raising his eyebrow.
She ignored his attempt at flirtation.
“We couldn’t get along,” she said simply.
“That’s not true.”
The waiter brought their coffee and cake.
“Well, I remember it differently,” she said, refraining from mentioning the small matter of his affair. She took a bite of the syrupy, grainy cake. “How do you like it?”
“I know we disagreed on some things,” he went on.
“It’s got nice texture. And the almonds make it moist.”
“We should have been more patient,” he said.
Now she looked straight at him. “What’s wrong with you, Rich? We had problems and your solution was to screw around!”
He looked as if he had just been punched. She’d been trying to keep things nice, but she couldn’t let this one go. He started to say something, but she shook her head.
“Like you said, we’re done with it.” She took a sip of coffee. “The coffee’s delicious.”
Richard slurped it the way he slurped anything hot. “They don’t roast the beans enough.”
She sighed. “Right there is how we’re different, Rich. You see the negative first. We just don’t seem to be seeing or tasting the same things. We’re on different wavelengths.”
“Because I like my beans dark?”
“Because you always grumble.”
“Come on, honey, not always,” he said with a half chuckle. “And I don’t see us being so different as you say. Never did. That’s why I wanted to come on this trip with you, Joy. To show you how much alike we are in our interests and to find out whether we can, you know, make a go of things again. Move on. Change things.”
She almost dropped her cup, spilling coffee onto her skirt, which she dabbed at irately with her napkin. She had no idea what would prompt him to say this.
“Well, that definitely isn’t part of the plan, Rich. This is supposed to be a friendly trip together to end our past on a good note. There was never any intention of getting back together. Not for me.”
He stared at her.
“At any rate,” she went on, “coming on this trip is showing us quite the opposite of what you claim. We’re really very different.”
He leaned back in his chair, his expression softening. “Everybody’s different in some ways, Joy. It’s called complementing each other.”
There it was, that warm glint in his gaze that she had always found so compelling. It was one of the things that had attracted her to him when they first met, how transparent his eyes were and how his feelings were laid bare in them; and their playful, seductive twinkle.
“Besides,” he added, “I like the way you’re different from me. I still don’t understand why it upsets you.”
She didn’t answer. He was clearly in denial.
“Speak to me, Joy.”
She sighed again, wondering when they had stopped really talking to each other, stopped listening. “You exhausted me, Rich.”
“But why couldn’t we have talked about it then, for Christ’s sake?”
“We always disagreed. Have you forgotten? It was such an effort just to find common ground. I couldn’t handle the arguments. And you changed so much.”
She took a breath, feeling the old anxiety creeping into her veins. Small fishing boats bobbed on the other shore of the river below streetlamps, safe from the tempest of her anger. She tried to push her emotions aside, told herself to just pull back and tolerate their differences for the moment, to just take it easy and spend a pleasant, or at least productive, evening talking things out like two adults, the way Richard seemed to want to do.
“It’s true, I have changed,” he pushed on. “You have, too. We all change. If things don’t change, they die.”
Now it was she who couldn’t help chuckling. “Since when did you become so Zen?” She sighed. “Okay. We’re not married anymore, so let’s try to get along. We have two more weeks. So far, we seem to be doing okay.”
He stared at her, obviously as aware as she that they were not “doing okay.” Yet he might have had a point about wanting to “change” things, as he had put it. She, too, wanted to leave behind their previous pain and move on as friends, but he still annoyed the heck out of her with his insularity. If she was going to change, he had to change, as well.
“Rich,” she said, suddenly serious, “what you’re suggesting about getting back together is absurd.”
To her surprise, he smiled good-naturedly. “Not at all. All I want is a chance, Joy.”
She looked away.
This time when he escorted her to her room, the hotel hallway was dark. As she reached inside her purse for her room key, he gently slid her purse strap down her arm and bent to kiss her neck.
Astonished, she pulled away. “Come on, Rich! We agreed. We’re friends.”
“Let’s go inside,” he whispered.
She was embarrassed by his sudden affectionate urging, and yet she also felt a rush of excitement. She drifted a moment, allowed his hands to gently sweep her hair off her neck. He used to do that a lot, mostly before they made love. He’d lift her hair, and then cover her neck with tiny kisses. It used to turn her on.
Her purse slipped to the floor.
“Remember that time on the sailing trip in Mexico?” he whispered. “Making love on that beach?”
She inhaled that memory, a stirring in her groin: the warm afternoon on the near-deserted island off Puerto Vallarta, the high dunes they hid behind for that delirious, instinctive moment when they’d strayed from their sailing companions to a remote part of the beach, yanked off their swimsuits and made quick tequila-fueled love. She smiled, remembering how the intoxicating excitement of doing something so risky, given the surroundings and company, had made it all the more thrilling.
“I remember,” she said, lightly pressing her lips to his ear. He gently pulled her to him.
She reached down to search in her purse for her key. Once in her room, she’d let whatever was going to happen, happen.
But an abrupt, cracking sound came from down the hall. Her gaze darted through the dark, but nobody was there.
“Let’s go inside,” Richard urged.
She glanced at him, her breath trapped in her throat.
“Come on, honey,” he coaxed.
There was a wilting inside her. “I’m—I’m not ready, Rich.”
“Joy, just for a minute,” he pleaded.
She pulled back slightly. “Let’s slow down. Let’s just have fun now, like we planned.”
“Honey, we can have fun any way we want,” he whispered, lightly stroking her cheek. “Let’s go inside.”
Something in her had cooled. “Rich, I don’t want to. Not now. Please.”
He stared at her, but whether with disappointment or love, she didn’t know.
“Don’t be upset,” she said, feeling compassion for his fumbling tenderness.
“Okay,” he said, pulling back.
“Are you angry?”
He shrugged. “Does it matter?”
“I’m just not ready.”
He sighed. “Fine.”
The boyish irritation in his voice made her smile. “Rich,” she said, somewhat lost.
He was already walking away.
“Rich,” she whispered, “sleep well.”
19
There was a loud crash above her.
“Rich?” She sprang upright in bed.
She heard the sound again. It wasn’t a crash, but a sharp rap at her door. She remembered that Richard wasn’t there. She was alone in a hotel room in Istanbul.
“Coming!” She grabbed her robe in case it was the housekeeper, who might barge in if she thought the room was vacant.
She opened the door to find Richard.
“It’s nine-thirty, kid,” he declared. “You don’t want to miss t
his.”
He went over to the window and slid open the drapes. Sunlight and pungent aftershave ripped into the room’s somber shadows.
Still groggy, she squinted at the burst of blue sky above the Hagia Sofia.
“I didn’t sleep well last night,” she protested, miffed by his boisterous sashaying into her last moments of peaceful dozing.
“No?” Richard was studying her as if it had been years rather than mere hours since he last saw her. She couldn’t tell whether or not he was pleased by what he saw, and she was self-conscious because she had not yet washed her face or brushed her teeth.
“I slept like a baby,” he said cheerfully. “It’s the Dolmabahce today, remember?”
She’d forgotten their plans to see the palace. What she was remembering right now was her father coming in to wake her in the mornings before school, smelling deliciously of aftershave as Richard did now. She savored this warm correlation with her dad, this sweet, dormant memory revived.
Despite hungering for another hour of sleep, she headed for the bathroom. “You go on to breakfast. I’ll get ready.”
Richard intercepted her, playfully reaching for her arm. “I miss waking up next to you.”
She halfheartedly tried to evade his touch, but he managed to slip his arm around her waist and draw her close. He softly kissed the top of her head, and they stood a minute, hesitant as teenagers.
“Let’s finish what we started last night,” he whispered.
“Rich,” she said, nudging him away.
“Joy, I’m trying to seduce you, for Christ’s sake.”
“Come on, Richard.”
He grinned. “Can I at least watch you get dressed?”
“No!” she said, turning toward the bathroom. “Go on. I’ll catch up with you downstairs.”
She could sense, even if she didn’t see, his disappointment. For a second, she almost turned back to him. What harm could a kiss do?
He’d already backed off, however, obviously heeding her wishes. She heard the door open and close behind him, heard his light steps clipping down the hall.
A Marriage in Four Seasons Page 15
