Having escaped the unwanted attention of the men in black, John and I found ourselves lost and hopeless by the side of a dusty lane. What happened next?
We trekked along the road for about fifteen minutes, not really knowing whether we were heading towards or away from home. By early afternoon, the heat was suffocating, relieved only by the dappled shade of an occasional pine tree. Our ankles throbbed – our fashionable flip-flops had long since lost their allure.
Suddenly, we heard rumble, rumble, crack, crack, vroom from behind us. A car was looming towards us at full speed, engine roaring, trailing a smoky flume. We screamed like girls and threw ourselves at the kerb, John stumbling into the baked-mud gutter and snapping the thong of his flip-flop.
I shouted across to John as the car sped past. ‘You okay?’
‘Yeah yeah, I’m fine. Wish I could say the same for these crappy flip-flops.’ He slotted the thong back into its socket.
Meanwhile, the car skidded to an abrupt halt just ahead, cloaking it – and us – in a cloud of petrol-smelling dust. Out leapt a slightly-built, middle-aged man in baggy suit and cloth cap, an unlit cigarette drooping from his mouth.
‘That’s it,’ said John. ‘We’re done for now. We’ll be kidnapped and sold into white slavery.’
‘John,’ I said. ‘This isn’t the Barbary Coast.’
The driver beckoned us and we took a few steps forward. ‘Where you go?’ he said.
I hesitated. ‘Turkuaz Villas.’
‘Come! Come!’ he said, masterfully. ‘We go.’
‘See, John. Nothing to worry about. Your taxi awaits,’ I said, giving an exaggerated sweep of the hand as we approached the car. We peered into the muddied old Fiat. It was rammed with a multi-generational clan – grandma in the front, three kids and mom clutching an infant in the back – all staring back at the curious yabancılar.
‘We go where, exactly?’ said John. ‘The glove compartment?’
‘What glove compartment?’ I said, looking at the twisted wires dangling from beneath the dashboard.
And that’s when poor grandma, dressed in traditional weaves – floral headscarf, crocheted cardigan, clashing pantaloons and socked clogs – was bundled out of the car. No dignity was spared.
‘So where’s she going?’ said John. ‘The roof rack?’
Grandma just smiled and squeezed into the back, the driver shoving her in from behind. Grunts and giggles ensued as the occupants resettled like loose vegetables in a shopping bag.
‘Come! Come!’ the driver said again pointing at the front passenger seat. We obeyed. John climbed in first. I followed.
‘Watch that gear stick,’ I said to John. ‘Don’t want to lose your virtue, eh?’
Tightly wedged against the door, legs plaited with John’s, I fumbled behind for a seat belt. There wasn’t one. Our cabbie jumped in, lit his cigarette, pressed his nose up to the soil-streaked windscreen, started the car and sped off, heading God knows where.
John kept his eyes firmly shut as we tore along the pot-holed road, flying over bumps and speeding into hard bends. It was like a scene from Wacky Races as our crazy driver swerved round a leisurely tractor, waving at the toothless farmhand at the wheel and barely missing a startled goat, which darted into the scrub with a pissed-off bleat. It was at that point I decided to take off my glasses; at least then I wouldn’t see the Grim Reaper coming. Meanwhile, our fellow passengers partied in the back, talking across one another and sniggering – at our expense, I suspected – along the lines of these stupid Eeenglish. I could see the joke. They’d found us stranded in the middle of nowhere frying under the midday sun in fancy flip-flops – Mad Dogs and Englishmen and all that, as famously penned by that grand old queen Noël Coward. Yep, stupid English was about right. Our driver threw himself enthusiastically into the jolly banter, looking back so many times and for so long, I nearly found Jesus.
A few minutes later we were deposited at Turkuaz Villas and rolled out, shaken and stirred but otherwise undamaged. I pulled out a wad of cash from the side pocket of my cargo shorts and examined the zillions of lira, placing my thumb over the last three zeros to get a vague sense of its worth. I held out some notes to our hero as payment for saving us (from ourselves). He just shrugged and brushed his fare aside. Then, with a parting wave, he leapt back into the car and motored off into the distance with grandma and four little faces waving back at us through the rear window.
That was the day I fell in love with Turkey.
