A Mile Down

by David Vann

  Our anchorage was magnificent. Steep mountains on either side, two small islands at the narrow entrance, and a low saddle beyond the inside shore, leading to another lovely bay. No habitations, no other boats, just this beautiful place all to ourselves. We dropped anchor in the center and I backed within about thirty feet of a white cliff, then Baresh jumped into the water with our stern line tied around his waist. He climbed to an outcropping, tied us off, and dove back in. It all went very smoothly.

  Because of Kevin’s good company, the ease of running a charter for one guest, and the spectacular coves and ruins, this charter was almost entirely a pleasure. There were some problems developing with the boat, however. The caulking on deck was coming loose, for instance. Within a week, there was one section on the starboard side, near the boarding ladder, that I could actually pull out for almost a foot.

  Grendel’s deck caulking had been twenty years old and showed no signs of this. One afternoon Ercan and I inspected the deck thoroughly and found loose seams from the bow all the way back to the poop deck on the stern. It was all coming up.

  I waited until Nancy and Kevin went for a paddle in the kayaks and called Seref on Ercan’s cell phone.

  Seref didn’t want to believe it. “This cannot be true,” he said. “There is some other problem. The Cekomastik does not come up like this.”

  I asked Seref to replace the seams in Gocek, between charters, and this became a daily fight over the phone, without progress. He had the advantage of time. If he delayed long enough on anything he didn’t want to do or didn’t want to do my way, I’d have to accept his solution in the end, because I had these charters to run and then I was leaving for Mexico.

  We arrived in Gocek at the end of our first charter, said goodbye to Kevin, and greeted Seref and the construction crew. They had brought a lot of materials and equipment with them, including the AC units, the roller-furling and sail, and the marine plywood and mahogany, but they hadn’t brought anything to recaulk the deck.

  I pulled Seref aside to walk down the dock while the men unloaded everything. The waterfront in Gocek is lovely, the small town tucked into the head of a large bay with dozens of forested islands and a mountain rising directly behind it. The late morning was sunny and hot.

  “You must understand, David,” Seref said. “I don’t make any money on this boat. I take nothing. When it is all finished, you give me some commission, what you think is right. But I don’t take any money now. All is for the boat.”

  I listened to this and knew it was crap. He was getting a commission every time I bought a nail or a piece of wood.

  “I don’t make any money on this boat,” he said. “I build it like it is my boat. I try to do everything right.”

  “I appreciate your efforts,” I said. “But the deck caulking should last at least twenty years. This deck caulking lasted about a week. So it has to be replaced. And I’m not going to pay. I already paid for caulking the deck.”

  “David, really you push too much. I cannot do this. Where do I get the money for this?”

  “I don’t care,” I said. “Just do it.”

  We walked on without speaking for a while, then Seref said, “You do not know me.”

  I didn’t respond. I actually liked Seref, and this was difficult for me. I didn’t like to push, but I had to answer to my lenders. It didn’t make sense to pay for the deck twice on a new boat. Seref was going to have to fix it.

  Talvi, the poet who would be teaching the writing workshop during this charter, arrived in the evening, followed by Steve, a friend I had invited on the trip for free. As long as the trips were nearly empty and still had to be run, I could easily invite a friend.

  The two of them were thrilled to be in Turkey. They had dinner with Nancy while I kept working on the boat.

  In the morning, we had just enough time to clean up from the construction projects, unload all of the workmen and their tools, and finish provisioning. We had only two paying guests: a friend of mine named Cristal and her friend Jen. Both were getting discounts, so there were no guests paying full fare.

  Just before we left, I called Amber in California. I was actually pulling in some new loans despite everything, but I wasn’t keeping up with my bills. The loans were only $10,000 to $20,000 at a time now. It was a week into August, and so far I had accumulated about $450,000 in private loans, far more than I had thought I would need for the entire project. That didn’t count the $125,000 I owed on just my one Stanford American Express card, which would soon shut down because even with a 120-day grace period and juggling my three other AmEx cards, I wouldn’t be able to pay enough of the balance.

  I had to survive until the middle of October, two months away, for John’s loan. On my last round of bill-paying the week before, I’d had long phone conversations with AmEx reps, explaining the situation regarding the balance on my Stanford AmEx card. I was running trips for Stanford Continuing Studies, and yes, I would be able to repay the amounts, but no, I didn’t have the funds yet. I was running this whole travel program, and I needed to have the cash to keep the trips going. What I told them was true, but I also didn’t emphasize that I was on my own in this business—that if things went bad, Stanford wasn’t going to bail me out. These were my own losses I was taking, not Stanford’s.

  In addition to being behind on AmEx bills and behind on money for construction, I was also running short on cash for operating the charters. I needed more diesel, but I didn’t have the money. I would probably run out before the end of this charter, so I needed to come up with a solution soon.

  We motored into the bay and anchored at Cleopatra’s Baths. It was sunny and bright, pine trees reaching down to where ruins lay submerged in about ten feet of water. We snorkeled and swam around the ruins. I enjoyed it but felt preoccupied.

  I found some solace hanging out with my friend Steve. He played harmonica and had interesting tales from his few days in Turkey. He had been told by a taxi driver, for instance, that the current tomato glut was Monica Lewinsky’s fault. “I know, I know,” he said. “It sounds strange. But here’s how it works.” He was doing these exaggerated gestures with his hands, cutting them up and down through the air, clearing the way for a story, holding his harmonica in one hand. It was late in the day, before dinner, and we had the forward deck to ourselves. “Clinton’s embarrassed about the whole Monica Lewinsky thing, so to divert attention, he flies to Kosovo. This makes Americans think more about Kosovo, so they decide not to travel to places like Turkey, so no one is eating in the tourist restaurants, and the restaurants stop buying tomatoes. So now there’s a giant tomato glut and the price has fallen and farmers are going out of business. It’s all Monica’s fault.”

  I also found solace with Nancy. We went kayaking in the evenings.

  “I could ask my dad,” she said. “He might give you a loan.”

  “No,” I said. “It would be better to avoid that, don’t you think?”

  “I’ll just ask,” she said. “It can’t hurt.”

  I thought it was a terrible idea, but I didn’t say no again. I was that desperate. I had to at least consider any possibility.

  Our next stop was Fethiye, where we toured local ruins. We climbed two hundred stone steps to a Lycian cliff tomb overlooking the harbor, and as we stood in the shade of this ancient monument, our guide told us that Alexander the Great had wanted to take this town but couldn’t. Something about the narrow harbor or the prowess of the local militia. So one of Alexander’s generals, Amyntas, sent a bunch of soldiers into town disguised as musicians, their weapons hidden in their instruments. Once inside, the soldiers played a memorable little ditty and opened the city to Alexander, who left Amyntas behind to govern.

  I liked these tales. It was always hard to know how much was truth and how much was local myth, fabricated over time, like the stories Seref was telling me, but they were certainly entertaining.

  We drove in a minivan through town and then along a highway through a great valley, chatting
and enjoying the landscape. We crossed into another valley and climbed, finally, into foothills and stopped at Tlos, which became my favorite site that summer.

  Tlos sits on a rocky bluff rising from the Xanthos valley. It has Lycian tombs carved on its lower faces, including one with Bellerophon riding Pegasus, probably a tomb for royalty, some of whom claimed descent from Bellerophon. Above these are house tombs cut deep into the rock and a few sarcophagi standing on the more level area. The acropolis at the top of the bluff is mostly Ottoman, from as late as the nineteenth century. The view from here is idyllic. High mountains behind, snowcapped even in summer, forested foothills, and a broad, fertile valley leading to the sea, holding the ruins of Xanthos, Patara, and Letoon. Truly one of the most beautiful places any of us had ever seen.

  Behind the bluff that contains the tombs is a great field, now growing corn, which was once the agora, or marketplace. There are still a lot of significant structures scattered up the hill, including a large stadium, aqueducts, and our favorite, the baths. We had seen a lot of Roman baths, but these were on a cliff overlooking the valley, the arches still intact; we could sit under them and gaze out on much the same view the ancients enjoyed, with the same warm breezes coming up from the valley.

  While we took these tours, my Turkish crew was working hard on the varnish and other tasks, doing a great job. I wasn’t making any progress with the deck seams, however. And in Kas, farther down the coast, I ran into some new difficulties.

  Kas is a beautiful little town. The harbor area has narrow cobblestone lanes closed to vehicle traffic. Up a hill is a large Lycian sarcophagus right in the middle of the street. The shops cater mostly to tourists but are small enough to be cute.

  I needed to renew my tourist visa, so while my guests enjoyed the town on the morning of our arrival, I went to the ferry, planning to hop over to the Greek island that was only a few miles away. The roundtrip, including paperwork, would take about two hours. But after I had bought my ticket and boarded, I was called off the ferry because my personal visa was linked to my boat. I couldn’t be cleared out of the country unless my boat was also cleared out.

  I had discussed this issue explicitly with Seref when he was doing my charter paperwork in Bodrum. It was supposed to have been arranged so I wasn’t chained to the boat. I had paid for various licenses and permits and had even paid a $6,000 bed tax for running charters: it had been expensive, and I had expected it to be done right.

  I called Seref, who told me there was nothing he could do. I would have to take the boat with me to the Greek island and back.

  “But what about my guests?” I asked him. “And it’s Saturday. What if I can’t clear out today?”

  “I am sorry, David. But Kas is good place. Your guests will like. And Saturday is no problem.”

  So I collected my boat papers to clear out of customs and immigration. Then I’d clear in and out of Greece and back into Turkey.

  When I found the customs office, though, it was locked. The hours posted on the door showed that they should have been open right now, but they weren’t.

  I asked in the restaurant next door if they knew when the customs officers would be back.

  “He’s never there,” a pretty young woman told me. Then her parents, apparently the owners of the restaurant, told me the customs inspector always took time off for his own business and let people wait here for days. He was not responsible, they said, and I should report his absence to the police station.

  I didn’t want to become involved in local politics, but hours later, after I had called the number posted on the door and asked around and was still waiting, I finally went to the police, with Muhsin as a translator. I found the port authority section and asked if they could just clear me out.

  My request was too complicated for the guys at the front desk, so I was ushered into the office of an inspector who said he’d be happy to help. I would only have to fill out a statement saying I had been unable to find the customs inspector. Then he could clear me.

  So I filled out the statement and waited. The clearance didn’t come, so I asked again, through Muhsin, and was told that I would still need the customs inspector. And he wouldn’t be in on Sunday, so I would have to wait until Monday morning.

  “But I just filled out the statement so that I wouldn’t need to see him,” I said.

  “I’m sorry, but you must come back Monday morning,” the police inspector told me in English. “And we keep your passports. We give back to you on Monday.”

  I managed to remain calm, because I couldn’t afford trouble with the police, but really this was a bit unbelievable. Muhsin tried talking with the inspector again, as politely as possible, to discover other options, but there didn’t seem to be any.

  Everyone was annoyed by the delay, but especially Cristal’s friend Jen. She was upset to be trapped somewhere on her vacation. A few hours before, the town had seemed lovely. Now it was a prison. I arranged for a tour to Saklikent, which would fill the entire next day, but we were spending too much time parked in one port. We were supposed to keep moving and seeing new places.

  Saklikent is a deep canyon near Tlos, a narrow gap in the face of steep mountains lining the eastern side of the Xanthos valley. The river is cold and silty, rushing out of the canyon to twist along gravel spits to the ocean. Restaurants line either side where it pours out, with platforms for tables built over the water. Fifty feet up from the restaurants, at the entrance of the canyon, a walkway built along the rock wall leads to another restaurant tucked inside. From here, the water was low enough to cross at the fork of the river’s two sources, just inside the canyon walls, and hike up the drier source, the most spectacular part of the canyon. The walls were marble, polished by the river in winter. As we continued up, we passed beneath natural cathedrals, the marble colored red and pink and even a bluish tint.

  As in all of Turkey, no safety measures had been taken. Every time I walked that canyon, rocks came down to shatter against nearby stone or splash into the water, and we all ducked, too late, then grinned sheepishly at one another.

  After hiking the canyon, we sat on cushions in one of the restaurants, the water rushing beneath, and ordered Turkish bread that was fried and filled with honey or cheese. Then I rented inner tubes for everyone, along with a guide, and we waded into the ice-cold water under an extremely hot sun, perfect conditions for tubing. Real squeals as we hit standing waves and took frigid water down our backs or fronts, but also enough heat from the sun to warm us back up.

  I loved the view, the mountains a spinning panorama. It was a great outing, diminished only by the fact of returning to Kas and knowing we weren’t leaving the next day until I had cleared out, in, out, and in.

  By 7:30 A.M., I was waiting at the door of the customs office, but again it was deserted. I tried calling and asking around, but no luck. He finally showed up at about ten-thirty. I went in and politely asked for a clearance, showing him my papers, but he had already heard about the weekend’s events.

  “You file a complaint against me,” he said. “Why you do this?”

  “I didn’t mean to file a complaint,” I said. “I thought I was filling out paperwork to get a clearance from the police.”

  “Ah,” he said. He was smoking, as all Turks do, especially in closed spaces. He was a young, handsome man, obviously taken with himself as an inspector and insulted by my complaint. “So you make a mistake?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Yes, yes, you certainly make a mistake,” he said. “You make a mistake with me.” He smoked some more and looked at the various walls with nothing on them. Behind him was a large portrait of Ataturk, which seemed to be the only portrait of anyone hanging in any office in Turkey. Modern Turkey was basically his idea, so this was appropriate. “You go to the police and take back this complaint, then you come see me again.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’m sorry.” There was no point in fighting. This man had the power to keep me in port for months if he felt l
ike it.

  I went to the police station and retracted my complaint. Curiously, they weren’t disappointed to lose it. The other day they had expressed annoyance with the customs inspector, but now they talked of him as their great friend and colleague. I had clearly been made a pawn in some kind of local power struggle. My side had lost, and now no one else was on my side.

  They sent me and my passport back to the customs inspector under police escort, as if I couldn’t be trusted not to attempt escape.

  Then the customs inspector called in the immigration inspector, and they discussed at length the various difficulties of my noxious passport. When they finally stamped it, they charged me over $100 for a clearance out, which is supposed to be free. Then they lectured me a bit, blew smoke in my face, and sent me back to the police. The police made me wait for a while, then finally cleared me and charged another $40 just for fun.

  It was almost 1 P.M. before I was back on board. I cast off with only Muhsin as crew, since Ercan and Baresh didn’t have the required visas, and we motored for about half an hour to cross the channel.

  The harbor on this Greek island was picturesque and completely different from Kas, the architecture and layout and feel of the town much more European. There was more money here, and greater order, and a general sense of drowsiness. No one moving very quickly.

  The Greek customs officer, in his middle years, was sitting outside his office, on a chair against the wall. “You are English?” he asked.

  “No,” I said. “Just the flag. I’m American.”

  “And you?” he asked Muhsin. “Turkish?”

  “Yes,” Muhsin nodded.

  The customs officer made some sour faces, letting us know how he felt about Americans and Turks. His lips pinched closed but his tongue moved around in his mouth, wanting to break free. This was 1999. The Greeks were supporters of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party and Ocalan and resented U.S. and Israeli cooperation with the Turkish government in his capture. They were Christian, but not nearly as closely allied to the U.S. as Muslim Turkey was. And they had Cyprus and all the coastal islands as sore spots with the Turks. Just a few years before, the two countries had almost gone to war over possession of a few small, uninhabited pieces of rock sticking up along the coast. So this customs officer was ruminating a bit, and he was making us ruminate, too. But finally he stood up, walked into his office, and gave us our entry and clearance.