Hotel Bosphorus (23 page)

 

Selim was going to the Hilton Hotel in Gendarmenmarkt, an area that was once on the East Berlin border and which, after the Berlin Wall came down, attracted a lot of investment and became a place where yuppies went to enjoy themselves.

We walked towards the line of taxis in front of Tegel Airport, that ugly sprawl beyond the outer suburbs of the city. Selim said, “I'll drop you off first and then go to my hotel.”

“I'm going straight to the hospital,” I said.

“What will you do with your suitcase?”

I've never been able to travel light so I was used to my luggage being a problem.

“I'll take it with me to the hospital,” I said.

We'd reached the front of the taxi queue. Seeing our luggage, the taxi driver ran round to open up the car boot.

“Where are you going to stay?” asked Selim.

“I'll stay at my mother's house, but I have to get the key and I want to speak to my mother's doctors as soon as possible. So, I must go to the hospital first,” I said.

The driver quickly loaded up the car boot and got into the driving seat.

“First to Urban Hospital, and then on to somewhere else,” I said.

“I could take your suitcase to my hotel and you could come and collect it when you're finished,” said Selim.

I coughed as if I had something stuck in my throat.

“Is it far from the hospital to the hotel?”

“No,” I said. Any woman of my age who doesn't have a lover learns to read the signs of male behaviour. Selim had just made two proposals within five minutes, from which I inferred that his interest in me was at least equal to my interest in him. Men, unlike women, never act completely altruistically. They always have an agenda. That meant there were two possibilities. Either Selim was taking my suitcase and me from place to place because he fancied me, or he was sticking to me because he didn't know the city well and didn't want to be there on his own.

I decided to ignore my negative thoughts for now and enjoy the moment. In any case, I had to put these thoughts aside and concentrate on my mother lying in hospital.

 

“Fractures mend slowly in old people,” said my mother. She had placed her purple-veined hands, which seemed smaller every time I saw her, side by side on the white hospital bedcover.

“It's time you had a manicure,” I said, touching her left hand and wanting to change the subject. We had been talking about illnesses and hospitals continuously for about an hour.

“Phh,” she said.

Ever since she'd been too unwell to go to the hairdresser, that is for the last four years, a woman had been coming once a fortnight to give her a manicure, and once a month to dye her hair.

“I can't be bothered with manicures any more,” she said, but she didn't take her eyes off her hands.
I resolved to send a manicurist to the hospital the very next day.

“I don't want that sort of thing here,” she said, as if reading my thoughts. “I mean it,” she added. “If you really want to do something, bring me a proper cup of coffee tomorrow. What they give us here is like dishwater. Why have I been paying for private health insurance all these years if I can't get a decent cup of coffee? I have a room to myself, that's all. I suppose I have to be grateful for that. If I'd been in a two-bed room with a Turk lying next to me, you'd have had to take me out in a coffin. Sometimes it's difficult to tell whether this is a hospital or a picnic spot. All you need is one of them staying in hospital for a hundred visitors to turn up. And…” – she straightened up slightly, indicating that she wanted me to rearrange her pillows – “and they don't know German. I said to the Turkish nurse, ‘The Turks in Turkey speak better German than you do.' She didn't react at all. Phh. So much for integration. And now, they're using our money to set up integration courses for the Turks. To be paid for by Mrs Hirschel.” She put her hand on her heart.

She pointed to the shelves by her bedside. “Give me that newspaper.” She turned over the pages and waved the paper in front of my face. “Look, read this.”

“I'll get a paper on my way out, Mother. I'm going to go and talk to your doctor. You need to calm down, otherwise your blood pressure will go up.”

“Oh yes, up goes my blood pressure. I mustn't get worked up,” she said. I kissed her on her dimples, now lost among the brownish marks on her face. “I'm going,” I said.

“First call that Turkish nurse for me.”

“Tell me what you want.”

“No, call the nurse.”

I left as the nurse came through the door.

 

Ignoring the taxis that were waiting outside the hospital, I walked for a while in order to clear my head. The duty doctor had said my mother could be discharged from hospital whenever I wanted. The only problem was finding a care home for her.

“There are some excellent care homes that I can recommend,” the doctor had said. However, first I had to persuade my mother to stay in a care home, and this didn't seem at all possible to me.

I continued walking quickly. I was talking to myself, trying to find words that would sound reasonable to my mother. “You'd be better looked after there, Mother, and you'd have lots of friends,” I was saying. “It's difficult for old people to live in big cities… We could find a care home wherever you wanted. There's even a place in Mallorca where Germans stay. And the people who work there are German. Or there's the Black Forest…”

 

When I arrived in front of Selim's hotel it was still twilight. I went through the revolving door, approached the friendliest-looking of the girls at reception and smiled. I was about to open my mouth when I realized I didn't know Selim's surname.

“Can I help you?” said the receptionist, looking at my still-open mouth.

“I was supposed to be meeting someone who's staying at your hotel, but I don't know his surname,” I said. “He's Turkish and he arrived earlier this evening. His name is Selim.” I blushed uncomfortably.

“Actually, we're not allowed to give out the numbers of our clients' rooms, but…” She looked around and said, “Just for once, I'll make an exception.” She laughed. “How do you write the name?” I spelt out the name for her. The girl gazed at the computer in front of her and said nothing for a while. I listened to the rapid clatter of her fingers on the keyboard.

“I've found it. Öztürk,” she said, and the clattering stopped. “That's probably a Turkish surname, isn't it?”

Smiling, I nodded in agreement.

“Room 532. You can telephone from here.”

She dialled through on the telephone in front of her and handed me the receiver.

“I'll be down right away. Let's go out and eat,” said Selim, as soon as he heard my voice.

Actually, what I really wanted was to take a shower and stretch out in front of a B-grade film, rather than go out for dinner. The last thing I wanted was to have to drag my suitcase over to my mother's house. I sat down to wait in one of the lobby armchairs where I could see the lift.

Selim came out of the lift after a couple of minutes. My stomach lurched, he was so handsome. Still sitting in the chair, I studied his physique as he walked towards me, and his face as he stood next to me. He bent towards me and took my hand to help me to my feet. He wasn't much taller than me. I looked into his eyes… His eyes were different shades of green with flecks of brown. He held my hand between his palms, pulled me towards him and pressed his cheek against mine. His cheek was smooth and without a trace of aftershave. I breathed in his human smell, his masculine smell. I refrained from whispering in his ear, “Forget dinner, let's go upstairs.”

“Where are we going to eat?” I asked.

“There's a good kebab place nearby,” he said. His face was serious.

Just then, I understood why I hated Germans who always drink beer and Turks who always eat kebabs.

“Or do you want to take your suitcase and get back to your mother's house?” he said. He was looking at me teasingly.

“I thought lawyers didn't make jokes,” I said.

“It's not good to have prejudices,” he said. I laughed. In the distance, the girl at reception raised her head and looked over at me.

We were still standing in the lobby holding hands. I took my hand away and picked my bag up from the chair. As he walked ahead to open the door for me, I took a good look at his backside. Not bad at all. Especially for his age.

We walked for a while in silence. When we reached the German Cathedral, I again asked, “Where are we going?”

“Here,” he said, pointing to a place just ahead of us. “It's a place called Borchardt, nothing amazing. I find it an interesting place not because of the food but because you can find yourself eating next to a German government minister at a restaurant which is cheap even by Istanbul standards. The last time I came here, a minister was sitting at the table right next to us. She didn't even have a bodyguard.”

I felt an urge to reach out and stroke his hair. Do good Turks like this really deserve those Turkish politicians, for God's sake?

Borchardt was quiet, as I expected on a Sunday evening. Nevertheless, they sat us at one of the tables near the
door, in case any of their regular clients happened to turn up, even at that time.

Selim sat down, and immediately spread his napkin over his knees.

“I really wanted to drink something before we ate, but I'm very hungry. Have an aperitif if you like,” he said.

“No, I'll have a glass of wine with you.”

The waiter threw some menus on the table and dashed off.

“The service here is totally unreasonable. They wouldn't let men like that be waiters anywhere except Germany,” Selim said, watching the waiter move away.

“The waiters at this restaurant are probably professionals, but those who work in the cafés are all university students. That's why the service is bad,” I said.

“Fine, but it doesn't matter to customers who's doing the work. Whether it's a student or a bricklayer, I want good service.”

“You're right,” I said.

We both ordered schnitzels, and red wine.

He ordered in German, and very good German it was too.

“Where did you learn German?” I asked, as soon as the waiter went away.

“I studied in Switzerland,” he said.

“What did you study?”

“Law, of course.”

“Of course,” I said.

“You don't like lawyers very much,” he said.

“Actually, I wouldn't say I don't like them,” I said. “Anyway, my father was a lawyer.”

“You said your family lived in Turkey when you were a child, didn't you? Was it because of your father's work?”

“Not really. He and my mother escaped from the war, or rather Fascism. My father was Jewish, a law professor. We lived in Istanbul until 1965, and then returned to Germany. If it had been up to my father, we'd have stayed, but my mother wanted to come back. My brother and I were both born in Istanbul.”

“So, when did you return to Istanbul?”

“In '88. My decision to settle in Istanbul is a long story. I went there for a week to visit a friend, and I've been there for thirteen years.”

“OK, but didn't you have problems getting a residency permit or work permit?”

“Ah, you lawyers! What strange things you ask about,” I said.

He shrugged his shoulders.

“My father took Turkish citizenship in the 1950s. He was one of the few refugees in Turkey to do so at that time, and he kept it until he died. As you know, if the father or mother is Turkish, then the children are too.”

He nodded thoughtfully. He looked upset.

“What's the matter?” I asked.

“I was thinking how memories of the war still remain fresh.”

“It's only fifty years… Of course they're fresh. Just think, some survivors of the concentration camps are still living. I sometimes find it difficult to believe that there was such deep suffering in our recent history.”

“Yes,” he said. “Yes. It was so…” He couldn't find the words.

Just then, the waiter put a plate in front of me that was almost completely covered with an enormous schnitzel. From the first mouthful, I realized that, despite its size, I would have no difficulty eating the whole thing.

“How do you feel about yourself?”

“What do you mean, how do I feel?”

“Which culture do you feel closest to?”

“I'm an
Ä°stanbullu
,” I said. “The only place in the world where I feel at home is Istanbul. Maybe that's because Istanbul is the only place that has no objection to me being myself… After a while, people don't distinguish between which experiences they have selected for themselves and which have been dished out to them. I have a
bona fide
Turkish passport, yet in Turkey I'm a German. A German who speaks good Turkish. And when I'm in Germany, despite having a German passport and the fact that my mother's a Roman Catholic, I'm a Jew.”

 

After dinner, we returned to the hotel where the girl at reception was still sitting where we'd left her. She smiled at us.

“Do you want to come up, or shall I bring your suitcase downstairs?” asked Selim.

“If you don't mind fetching it, I won't come up,” I said. “I'm so tired I'm ready to drop.”

He hurried towards the lift, turned and called out, “I'll be right back.” To pass the time, I looked at the shop-window displays in the lobby. What strange things they were selling.