Out of My Depth in Turkey
By Cynthia Marshall Shore
It’s hard to say whether or not Kubilay and I would have been gotten together if I hadn’t yelled at him the first time we met. But at that point, I had had more than enough of Turkey. I’d had enough of the heat, the constant nasal buzz of music played on every bus, and most of all, I’d had enough of being ceaselessly approached at parks, restaurants, the beach—everywhere. People were friendly, but I was the lone American traveling with three Brits, and as soon as that was discovered, they wanted to talk, with outrage, about Ronald Reagan and American politics. I was 25, it was 1984, and throughout months of travel, I had defended my country despite loathing Reagan myself. I was tired, grouchy, and defensive.
That day, we had arrived around noon in the fishing village of Kaş on the Aegean Sea and had checked into a small hotel, spending the afternoon reading in the shade of our hotel porch. It was as we were leaving for dinner that I got into a spat with Kubilay and the hotel clerk about our passports. Somehow, these had not been checked earlier. We knew it was the law that travelers had to hand them over at every hotel, but so far, most hotels had just taken our passport numbers. Hungry and fed up, I lost my temper and yelled that they’d had all afternoon to ask and they’d have to wait. We were going to dinner. Now.
Appalled, Kubilay tried to calm me. Fortunately, he hadn’t understood most of what I’d said. I assumed he worked at the hotel and, as he stumbled along in broken English, it became clear that after dinner would be fine so we stalked away. But, he told me later, his Islamic code of hospitality required him to make amends for insulting me. My friends and I weren’t helpful. We rejected his suggestions for dinner. We waved him off as he tried to make sure our meal check was correct. I ignored him when he tried to bring us after-dinner wine at the hotel. I brazenly took the wine but went back to writing in my journal. My better-behaved friend did have a chat and learned that Kubilay was staying at our hotel, he was a naval lieutenant on vacation, and he had been asked by the clerk, who spoke little English, to approach us about the passports.
Kubilay gave it another try the next day as we sunbathed on the harbor rocks. Bearing a plate piled with fat slices of watermelon, he bounced over to us grinning, with a white smudge of suntan lotion on his nose and a porkpie hat perched on his head. Maybe it was the hat, maybe the fruit, but I softened and took his peace offering. When he asked me out to dinner, I said yes.
The author finishing lunch on the beach in Kiskalesi, Turkey in 1984.
That night, in a conversation that can only be described as a starry-eyed, linguistic obstacle course, I learned that Kubilay been a professional soccer player until he’d sustained a career-ruining ankle injury. In search of a new vocation, he had taken a test to become a soccer instructor at the national naval academy and, with his bull-headed spirit of competition, had gotten first place, not realizing until later that he wasn’t really cut out to be a military man. He was talented, interesting, and melancholy—an irresistible combination. Charmed, I succumbed completely and things heated up between us fast.
Ten days later we met up again in Istanbul. Kubilay took time off to guide me through the beautiful, ancient city, which distracted me from any misgivings I was having about being involved with a foreign naval officer. This inner détente worked until he invited me to the academy’s graduation ceremony. Located on the Heybeliada Islands in the Sea of Marmara, the academy planned the ceremony on the anniversary of Turkey’s independence from the Allied occupation after World War 1. I arrived clad in my only skirt and the least-wrinkled shirt I could extract from my backpack and was startled to find myself in an enormous stadium with both the president and prime minister of Turkey in attendance.
Although the navy frowned upon foreign wives, and presumably foreign girlfriends, Kubilay took my arm and strutted peacock-like in his sparkling dress whites through the base. I quickly learned about the spatial requirements of a military uniform. When I leaned toward him to hear what he was saying, my head knocked his hat askew. When I crossed my legs, he fussed about the dust mark my foot left on his creased pants. At our stadium seats, I took my sweater off and my normally extremely chivalrous Turk took it, carefully folded it, and sat on it himself.
Amid waving flags and marching bands, the cadets took the field. A group of 16 separated themselves out as the crowd roared. After making Kubilay clarify several times, I grasped that the group was Libyan cadets, trained by the Turkish government. I felt a dawning and vast unease. Libya’s ruler, Muammar-al-Qaddafi, was an outright enemy of the US, and here I sat attending a foreign display of military might and cooperation. Although the US and Turkey were NATO allies, I realized how I’d traveled through this country like a child paddling at the edge of a river. I’d thought that because the eddies were gentle along the bank, I could easily swim the full current. I looked at the delirious crowd, the ramrod-proud Libyans, and felt the weight of huge powers beyond my control.
The ceremony drew to a close. As if on cue, an enormous flock of storks suddenly appeared overhead and brought the entire stadium to silence. The big birds circled lazily over the field three times and then floated away over the Marmara like a cloud.
The silence broke. Kubilay sprang up grinning and gave me back my sweater. I looked at my happy lover and followed him down the steps. It was time to meet his captain, and drink gin and tonics at the post-ceremony reception overlooking the sea.
Cynthia Marshall Shore is an editor, poet and award-winning writer who specializes in education-related web content, development and grant writing. She was bitten by the travel bug after living with her family in Malaysia as a young child, and has kept moving ever since. To find more information, visit her profile at LinkedIn. She lives in Santa Fe, NM, with her two daughters.
Cover image by Mücahit Yıldız from Pixabay
