A handsome thirty-something customer took a seat at the next table. He set his mobile phone, a pack of Winston cigarettes, and a Turkish copy of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman on the grubby bamboo placemat and ordered two plates of the day’s special: schnitzel and salad. When a beautiful girl in a revealing tank top approached, bent over to kiss the man, and sat down, Fanis growled, “Bastard.” He hated the envy that had been boiling in him for the past decade, and he hated his failing exterior even more.
Fanis heard a French conversation at a neighboring table. He was surprised he understood after not having used the language in years. A tour guide was telling a Parisian couple that most of the City’s residents had no awareness of Istanbul’s Hellenic past. Fanis knew that the guide was referring to Byzantium rather than to the history of his own lifetime, but he felt that his existence had been confirmed. He stole a glance at the French woman: her backpack rested on her lap as if she were impatient to leave. Fanis wanted to say to her, “I am one of them. One of the last Byzantines.” As he practiced his French in silence, a van with an enormous picture of the prime minister drove by, blasting a campaign theme song—“One More Time”—on a loudspeaker. But Fanis wondered: would this be just one more term for the prime minister, or was he becoming a permanent fixture? By the time he had recovered from the interruption, the French tourists and their guide were almost out of sight.
The waitress in red pants collected Fanis’s plates and delivered a tumbler of lemon juice and a tiny glass of tea. That was what Fanis liked about the place: they remembered that he always finished his meal with lemon juice for good digestion, and that he chased the lemon juice with tea. The brakes of cars and trucks coming down Sıraselviler Avenue squeaked as he stirred two sugar cubes into the tulip glass. He wasn’t bothered by the car noise: it was mitigated by his deteriorating sense of hearing. What he really hated was the exhaust. It was too bad one couldn’t choose which senses and abilities one lost. Had anyone bothered to ask Fanis, he would have chosen to forgo olfaction and retain erection.
After lunch Fanis went straight to Neighbor’s House, where he hoped to chance upon Julien reading a newspaper or perhaps chatting up some unfortunate young lady. After finding his friend people-watching at a street-side table, Fanis ordered tea for both and pulled up a chair. The first oddball of the evening was a religious type with a black beard dyed red at the tips. He wore a long coat and a black hat wrapped in a green turban, the ends of which hung down his back as the symbol of a completed pilgrimage to Mecca. Was the great work of Atatürk, who had banned religious dress of any kind, unraveling? No. Fanis’s vision was going. Visual impairment was, after all, a classic symptom of cerebral arteriosclerosis. Then the young secularists sitting nearby shook their heads and made clucking sounds of disapproval with their tongues. Fanis felt a measure of relief. His eyes were just fine.
When one of the handsome waiters delivered the teas and a complimentary plate of sesame rings made for the anniversary of the Prophet’s Ascent to Heaven, Julien asked the young man to keep an eye out for a dark beauty. “You’ll spot her immediately,” he said. “If I have to step away for a moment, send her to my table.”
Disregarding his friend’s little show, Fanis looked across the street toward one of the old Rum houses confiscated by the government in the sixties. It had since been painted an obnoxious mauve, and air-conditioners had been installed in its oriels. On the first floor was a business sign that read, in edgy purple letters on a black background, “Coiffeur.” When the proprietress opened her windows and leaned out with a cigarette, Julien shouted, “When are you coming down, my pretty one?”
“Later, later!” she returned.
“She has nice tits,” Julien whispered.
“Not bad,” said Fanis, “but too much of a peasant for my taste.”
A fat boy of twelve pedaled his bicycle in their direction. Julien bellowed, “Yusuf!” The boy waved and pedaled past them. Julien called again, “Yusuf! When are you going to bring me what I need? The ladies are asking!”
“Who’s he?” asked Fanis.
“The pharmacist’s son.”
“Is his father good? Accommodating, I mean. I need to get some medication—”
“I thought you were in perfect health.”
“I am. That’s why I asked the doctor for Viagra.”
“I thought they were too good for that at the German Hospital. He gave it to you?”
“Well, no. Which leads me to my next question. Do you know a pharmacist who will sell it without a prescription?”
Julien grinned. “Plenty. But go to Serkan Sözbir on Yeni Yuva Street. Yusuf’s father. Tell him you’re a friend of mine and he’ll set you up.”
“Do you . . . ?”
Julien folded his hands behind his head and leaned back in the canvas chair. “Never needed it, friend.”
Fanis took a miniature pen and pad from his breast pocket and noted the name. “Thanks for the tip. Not that I need it either, but just for the odd occasion when one is feeling out of sorts.”
Ten minutes later Yusuf walked into the tea garden smirking like a fellow twice his age. He tossed a box of condoms into Julien’s lap and strutted back up the street.
“Dirty old man,” said Fanis. “Look at you, corrupting children.”
“Educating children, sir! At least Yusuf won’t knock up his girlfriend at fifteen, all because I set a good example.” Julien shouted his thanks and stuffed the package into one of his Velcro pockets. “I’ll have to buy him some candy.”
“I suppose,”
