Hawn had the impression that the hotel was far from full. In the lobby the few guests to be seen were either plump, prosperous-looking Turks or ageing foreigners of distinguished and academic appearance, like old-fashioned archaeologists.
The room was spacious, heavily-draped, with wide windows overlooking the steep sprawl down to the Bosporus, with the minarets sticking up like sharpened pencils. The bathroom was enormous, tiled in marble, with elaborate plumbing which might have been part of an ancient steam engine.
At four o’clock, downstairs, the tarbouched retainers were moving discreetly among the tables, serving tea and tiny cups of muddy black coffee. Hawn gave his usual quick glance round to see if there was anyone to arouse his suspicion. Then they went outside.
They had been warned that it was almost impossible to get a taxi, so they walked. The streets were not imposing — grey, grubby, deafening, the pavements moving with dogged, silent crowds, their button-black eyes registering no expression. Seen close to, even the mosques lost their magic: huge hunks of Oriental Gothic which reminded Hawn of Victorian railway stations in London. There were many money changers and souvenir shops bristling with hideous over-priced artefacts of bogus pedigree.
After half-an-hour, their eyes stinging with dust and fumes, they returned to the melancholy charm of the Pera Palace.
Here they asked Reception if they could arrange for a chauffeur driven car. A more than usually alert man at the desk said it would be done at once. The result was a brand-new Mercedes with no meter and a driver who smiled a lot and was obviously keen to show off his English, which was rapid and colloquial, with an American accent. Hawn told him that they wanted to go across to the Kumkapi District.
The driver said, ‘Kumkapi no good. Full of bad men. Dirty, it smells. You must go to Suleymaniye Mosque. And the Mosque of Rustum Pasa. You have already seen the Topkapi and the Blue Mosque?’
It took Hawn several minutes to convince him that they were determined to go to Kumkapi. Hawn’s final explanation seemed a ludicrous one, especially with Anna sitting beside him. ‘We are interested in wrestling. Do you understand, “wrestling”?’
The man turned and showed his white teeth. ‘Very good sport. Football, wrestling. Very good!’ Then he shook his head, as they narrowly missed the car in front. ‘But you see no wrestling in Kumkapi.’
‘No? But many wrestlers come from there? There are many bars and cafes where wrestlers go? Yes?’
‘They are not good places. The good wrestlers do not go there. Only the older ones, the bums.’ He laughed and repeated, ‘Bums!’ — with a sideways glance in his driving mirror at Anna.
‘Take us to one of those cafes,’ Hawn said. ‘We’ll give you a bonus.’
It took them almost an hour to get back across the river, into an area of shabby crooked streets full of tiny wooden shops like cupboards, and the occasional covered bazaar. They came to a small square with a brick mosque and seedy shops, most of them selling meat. On the steps of the mosque sat a row of long-haired European youths and their girls, their faces pinched and vacant.
The driver stopped, pointed ahead; he seemed disappointed and did not smile. ‘There is wrestlers’ cafe. But not a good place.’
After a long haggle, they agreed on a price for him to wait.
The square smelt of charcoal, coffee and charred meat; the shops were hung with bulbous lumps of greasy white goat’s meat. There was only the one cafe, full of grim-looking men sitting over empty cups. Hawn and Anna went inside and ordered coffee.
It was now that they encountered the most awkward and obtrusive aspect of Turkish life. They had only been there for a couple of minutes when two glasses of a yellowish liquid appeared on their table. A man of savage aspect, sitting at the next table, and dressed in boots and a khaki vest, shouted at them: ‘Akadash!’
Hawn had taken the precaution of bringing an elementary English-Turkish dictionary. The man shouted at them again — ‘Akadash!’ — and made a gesture as though drinking.
Hawn smiled politely at him and, presuming it was some kind of white wine, swigged the glass in front of him and nearly choked, his throat burned raw.
‘Raki!’ the man shouted.
Hawn smiled again, bitterly, and took another sip. Then he consulted his dictionary. ‘Akadash’ meant ‘Good friend’. He repeated it back to the man, offering him a tentative toast.
He and Anna finished the two drinks and called the waiter — a stout man in a dirty white apron — and ordered one raki, gesturing to their host. The man at the next table howled something, obviously furious. A moment later two more rakis appeared in front of them both.
‘American?’ the Turk demanded.
‘English,’ Hawn said.
‘Ah, English.’ He turned and bawled at some men at another table. One of them came across. He was stout and bow-legged, very unshaven, wearing a blue tracksuit. Without being invited, he sat down at their table.
‘I speak very good English,’ he said, and called to the waiter for more raki.
Hawn was beginning to find this aggressive hospitality both tiresome and a little disquieting. He was thinking more of Anna than himself, and how they were going to get away without fuss; but so far none of the men appeared to have taken any interest in her at all.
‘How long you in
