ABSTRACT
MEN ARE calling chayl chayl and in the lounge most seats are taken, nobody wanting to be topside in this weather. Most ferries on the Bosphorus, unlike those on the Golden Horn, hug one shore or the other until they come to the chain of buoys below the entrance to the Black Sea. Then they turn around and take the same route back to Stamboul. Our ferry picks and chooses, crisscrossing the strait from Europe to Asia. This way, we see more for our money. The white-jacketed steward brings us our tea in glasses, sugar for me, lemon for her. Gonul is almost forty but slim and trim and hopes to keep it like that. To Turks this makes her uncomely, and the male eyes that look her over slide away without interest. She can live without this interest. On the upholstered bench that backs against ours, the young Turkish man and the girl from Down Under have struck up an acquaintance. He is all pomander, Levantine to the tips of his mustache. If she looks into his eyes for five minutes, he says, she will likely find herself pregnant. 163
