Siro by David Ignatius (short books to read txt) 📕

midnight by the time Taylor collected George at his hotel, and Istiklal Avenue had filled with its nighttime population of pimps, street vendors, shoeshine boys, drag queens and political pamphleteers. Most of these night dwellers had the dark, intense features that marked them as Kurds: eyes so black they gave off no reflection; hair so black it seemed like animal fur. Istiklal was a narrow street, crowning the top of a ridge, and the hawkers and merchants clung to the gaudy strip of asphalt as if they feared they might fall off the edge of the world if they strayed too far.

What those Kurdish vendors found on Istiklal Avenue was a piece of the First World. It was like Hamra Street in Beirut or Connaught Road in Hong Kong, a place where the fashions and accents and ideas were foreign and liberating, rather than native and limiting. It had been the same a century ago, when the district was known as Pera, and all the wealth and arrogance of Europe was compressed into those few city blocks atop the ridge. It was more “Turkish” now; you were more likely to hear Bulent Ersoy in the cafés than Brahms, but the mystique was the same. If you were a poor Kurd from Erzurum in the East, any little bit of the West that rubbed off was a blessing. You might never drive a Mercedes car down the grand boulevard, but you could at least stand on the sidewalk at midnight and smoke a Marlboro.

“First stop, Giraffe Street,” said Taylor when he greeted George.

“What’s that?”

“You’ll see,” Taylor said, smiling. He noticed that George was still carrying his little bag of tools. “You won’t need those on Giraffe Street,” he said.

“Never travel without them,” answered George. Taylor rolled his eyes.

The driver deposited them at Galata Tower, an ancient monument built by Genoese traders which in recent years had marked the edge of the red-light district. From there, they walked down a steep hill until they came to an iron gate manned by two scruffy-looking policemen. Through the gate was a narrow alley thronged with Turkish men of various ages and growths of mustache. The street sign said: “Zurafa Cadessi.”

“Giraffe Street,” said Taylor, smiling at the policemen and pushing George through the gate.

“Why do they call it that?” asked George as they walked down a slight hill toward the first cluster of men. As they neared the crowd, the answer became obvious. There stood several dozen Turkish gentlemen, craning their necks to look through the window of a small establishment at the bodies of two semi-clothed women.

“Let’s look!” said George.

“All right,” said Taylor, pushing his friend toward the front of the crowd. “You asked for it.”

Before them was a shop, perhaps fifteen feet across, lit by a bright fluorescent light. And under this garish light were two of the most surpassingly ugly women Taylor had ever seen, posing for the assembled throng. One was tall and thin, wearing black panties and a cutoff T-shirt that revealed the bottoms of her droopy tits. The other was short and very fat, dressed only in a pair of pink panties. She had turned away from the window to give the crowd a view of her ass. What an extraordinary sight it was! Taylor studied the way the arc of pink fabric spread across the puckering flesh of her backside. It was a vast distance and the material was stretched so tight that the threads at the edges were beginning to fray.

“That’s your gal,” said Taylor, pointing to the fat one. “For a mere two dollars. Plus tips. Plus sheets.”

The lady in pink was winking at George. He was smiling back, and for a moment Taylor thought he might actually open the door and engage her services.

“A little friendly advice,” said Taylor. “Don’t let her get on top.”

“She’s definitely my type,” said George, “but I think we should keep looking.”

A few yards down the cobbled street they came to the next establishment, as brightly lit as the first. This was an altogether better spot. The women were younger and prettier, but their breasts were covered, which somewhat reduced the crowd of gawkers outside. “Our Turkish friends tend to be lookers, not buyers,” explained Taylor as he pushed toward the window. “A lot of them are just here for a free tit show.”

When they reached the front, they could see two women posed against a cheap tile mosaic of a Mediterranean beach scene. One was dressed in a yellow leotard, cut low on the sides to reveal a bit of flesh; she looked as if she might have escaped from a Turkish aerobics class. The other was a young girl, no more than sixteen or seventeen, seated on a stool. She gazed out at the crowd in icy splendor—not moving a muscle as the dozens of eyes stared at her face and body. It was, thought Taylor, a triumph of self-possession and self-disgust.

“Let’s go in and do a little bargaining,” he said.

“Mmmmm,” agreed George.

As Taylor opened the glass door, the resident pimp emerged from behind the stairs. He was a short fat man, dressed in a sleeveless undershirt, with a stubby cigarette dangling from his lips.

“Hello, my brother,” said Taylor in Turkish. “These are lovely girls, as fresh as flowers.” The girl in the yellow leotard smiled and tittered. She was surprised to hear a Westerner speak Turkish.

“Thank you, abi,” said the pimp. “They are clean, thanks be to Allah.”

“Perhaps I could talk to them?”

“As you like, abi.” He was looking at Taylor more and more suspiciously. In truth, other than rowdy sailors from the Sixth Fleet, few Westerners wandered down Giraffe Street.

Taylor looked back through the window and saw that the crowd had grown. Looking at the anonymous faces pressed against the window, wide-eyed and horny, he wished he could free these little Turkish birds from their cage.

“I like the yellow one,” said George.

“Smart fellow,” replied Taylor, steering George toward the girl in the leotard, who was by