My Young Turk (Chapter Six of Climbing St Friday)

( Chapter Six of Climbing St. Friday) My young Turk Debi’s friends were well-educated medical and dental students, and to my delight, most spoke excellent English. Her girlfriends, Gaye and Azade, were two of her closest buddies. Each had brothers who had friends as well, so our new social circle was to be sizable. Turkish men appeared taller and more dashing than the Greeks we’d left behind in Athens. With their dark hair, full mustaches, ankle-length coats, and long mufflers thrown haphazardly around their jaw lines, they appeared elegant and mysterious. Very few young Turkish women wore traditional Moslem garb in the ‘70s. Instead, they were fashionably dressed and used makeup to their advantage, showing off exotic eyes and lips. Our little gang met at tea houses in Ankara, where we would sit for hours in good-sized groups sipping Turkish tea from tall glasses, eating honey-laden, nut-filled sweets, and tearing off pieces of ekmek, a type of coarse bread dipped in chocolate. Transportation was by dolmushlar, a type of shuttle/taxi system comprised of a fleet of huge American cars from the 1960s. These taxis would make frequent stops, picking up people along the way in a particular direction. One would pay only for his or her part of the trip. How the drivers kept track of their fares escaped me, but the system served us well for getting around town. Debi had been seeing a Turkish boy before her arrival at Pierce, so this was a mini-reunion for them. Knowing a long-term pairing with a Moslem was out of the question, however, she kept him at bay. Before long, I began noticing a gorgeous tag-along during our teatime sojourns. His name was Kemal, a dead-ringer for Omar Sharif, with whom I had fallen hopelessly in love after seeing him in Dr. Zhivago. Kemal’s huge eyes, droopy dark mustache, and dazzling smile caused me to be obvious, staring in his direction every chance I could. Sensing my interest, Debi asked her friends about him. “He has a girlfriend,” Azade assured her. Once I learned this, I tried to stifle my interest. More than halfway into our visit, however, Debi’s girlfriends began to play interference on my behalf. One afternoon visit to a café found Azade making copious notes on the insides of gum wrappers and passing them to me every few minutes, as if we were in high school. “Kemal wants to get to know you, but he speaks almost no English,” she wrote. “He’s looking at you now,” I read and as I looked up, found she was spot on. “What about his girlfriend?” I queried. “He’s not that happy,” she countered. Soon our seating arrangement was changed so that Kemal and I could nod, smile, and have our communication translated a bit more easily. Everyone looked delighted that something new was in the air. When we rose to leave, Kemal walked me outside and asked if he could visit. Debi assured me he was welcome and it felt as if my heart suddenly became engulfed in my throat, pounding decisively. An Ankara sensation... Much to the chagrin of musical purists in both countries, American pop, folk, and rock music were big hits in both Greece and Turkey. Debi’s friends were very much in touch with all three musical genres, marveling when I sang some of their favorite songs and accompanied myself on the guitar. Kemal was downright mesmerized by it. The first time I performed for him was in the Larsens’ living room, where I somehow overcame my self-consciousness to croon songs like Peter, Paul and Mary’s Kisses Sweeter than Wine, Jimmy Webb’s Wichita Lineman, or the Carole King version of You’ve Got a Friend. With only about a week to get to know one another before I was to return to Athens, Kemal and I met privately only once, when he invited me up to his little apartment after a group gathering. He asked that I bring my guitar to give him a private concert, and after making some Turkish tea, he proceeded to record my singing. I was flattered anyone would want to memorialize my amateurish efforts. We talked of seeing one another in the summer (something my father would, of course, nix instantly) and of writing letters to one another so that Kemal could practice his English. A few days later, Debi’s friends informed us they were going to throw a goodbye party for us at an empty apartment that belonged to one of them. They asked that I sing my entire repertoire of songs for them that evening. When we arrived at the party a few nights before our departure, we found that Debi’s considerably large group of friends had ordered a huge heart-shaped wreath of flowers to commemorate our visit. I was both surprised and humbled by their gracious acceptance of me as Debi’s buddy from school. Large speakers boomed ‘70s American dance music; people drank and laughed, speaking in both English and Turkish. A while later, a hushed aura came over the room as the Beatles’ Long and Winding Road had couples glued to one another, rocking back and forth on the dance floor, including me and my dashing young Turk. When it ended, someone hauled a tall bar stool into the middle of the room, handed me my guitar case, and ushered me center stage. The lights were dimmed, couples paired up on the apartment floor, cradling one another, and I began playing and singing everything I could think of. Suddenly I became “Dena unplugged.” I felt unworthy but gave it my best. The idea that I could provide this kind of experience for such a large group with my singing and playing felt intimate yet electrifying all at once. From that lone experience I realized why people become entertainers. And although I never sang or played music professionally, my half-hour of mini-fame to this day stands out as one of my most singular experiences. I wondered how the Greeks and Turks could have been enemies for so many years now that I had experienced the generosity and warm spirit of these Turkish students