Turkish Taksi
(to appear in the summer edition of http://kenagain.freeservers.com/PROSE.HTML )
I slid gratefully into the warm interior of the taxi and pulled the door closed with a muffled clump. It had taken ten minutes to flag one down. Normally they came in swarms, cutting each other off to get to you first. But on rainy days the tables were turned, and when it rained during Ramadan, you might be lucky to get one at all.
"Merhaba," I greeted the driver. "Taksim, lutfen. Karmashik Sokak."
The driver nodded in assent. He seemed a respectable sort, middle-aged with streaks of silver in his hair and crows-feet forming at his eyes. He was attired in a chequered sports jacket and dark green polo-neck. I relaxed a little in my seat. You never knew what you were going to get with these taxis. I had been fortunate with the vehicle too, a late-model Renault with smooth suspension and a barely audible engine. Hot air swirled around my damp legs as we waited at the traffic lights.
"So, my friend," the driver smiled at me, "Where are you from?"
"Denmark," I told him. "But it's okay. I can speak English."
The driver was visibly put out, having no doubt anticipated 'America' or 'Britain' as the response, and having some oft-used follow-up at the ready.
I stared out the window at the blurred forms of the office blocks. Suit-clad figures hurried back and forth. A cream Mercedes with tinted windows moved up beside us, tires swishing over the wet tar-seal.
"Earopean Onion, yes?" he enquired gruffly, finding his feet again. "And what do you think about Turkey entering to EU?"
"Why not?" I replied diplomatically.
He leaned toward me, smiling with his wizened eyes. "Turkish people very friendly, yes?"
Before I had chance to answer, the lights changed and, amid an orchestra of blaring horns, the Renault surged forth, dodging through the lanes, cutting off rivals and sending tardy pedestrians scrambling for cover. Eventually we emerged from the pack and raced along at breakneck speed. I glanced anxiously at the driver and tightened my seat-belt.
"Very friendly, yes?" he picked up where he had left off a few minutes before. "It is our culture. Hospitality - very important."
He lit a cigarette as we swerved around a bend. Even at this velocity we were overtaken by a dolmush, the big yellow taxi-van rounding the curve like a Ferrari. Another intersection and the lights changed from amber to red as we sped through it. The driver flashed his headlights at the encroaching cross-traffic, and they duly made way for him. That was something, I thought. Most places I knew they would have blasted their horns in anger. Here at least they all seemed to work together.
"You like cigarette?"
I declined the pack he thrust beneath my nose. The cab was already full enough of smoke, and I would have preferred him to concentrate on the driving. Even as he tucked the cigarettes back inside his chequered jacket he was forced to brake for an old woman in a shawl and headscarf. She was halfway across the road, a veritable mound of cloth with a cane, and showed no sign of hurrying to get out of his way.
Approaching Taksim the traffic got heavier and the rain fell harder. The driver worked his horn like it were a part of the machinery that made his vehicle run.
"Baaah! Taksim!" he exclaimed, throwing his arms up in the air. "Every time problem!"
I gazed ahead in silence as his ranting grew more vehement. A bus had got caught in the intersection and was impeding our progress, though the lights were green. The driver switched back to Turkish, possibly to avoid offending me, though more likely because he lacked a sufficient repertoire of English swear words for the purpose. Either way, his entire manner had become decidedly intimidating.
He threw himself about in his seat, peering out each of the windows in turn, a trapped animal in search of an escape route. Then abruptly he began to back the Renault up, and before I had time to protest we were hurtling down some narrow, bumpy side-street, forcing startled pedestrians to leap onto the sidewalk.
"No, no, no..." I muttered under my breath.
A Turkish taxi driver's detour invariably takes twice as long as the orthodox route, even allowing for the traffic. But it keeps the meter ticking over at a rate more to his liking, and my fare was about to be doubled.
On this occasion, however, we were in for further difficulty. The alternative road the driver had sought was cordoned off for reconstruction. A little beyond the orange cones was the bizarre spectacle of a beefy police officer screaming at the top of his lungs into the open window of another taxi which had evidently progressed too far, knocking one of the cones over. So fearsome was the cop's demeanour I half-expected the taxi driver to get out and rumble with him, knowing how ill-tempered some of these drivers were themselves. But the cop had a gun in his holster and the law on his side, and the driver did not emerge from his cab as the tongue-lashing continued.
My driver, meanwhile, backed up again and resumed ranting. "Taksim! Taksim! Her kes Taksim'e gidiyor!"
I understood enough to know he was angry with me for wanting to go to Taksim. Ludicrous as that was, I kept quiet. Arguing the point would have antagonised him more.
We drove around the side-streets for a while, the driver pausing from his tirade only to light another cigarette. He reached a crescendo when we turned a corner and found ourselves behind a hand-drawn junk-cart. It was several minutes before he was able to negotiate his way past it.
When finally we emerged back onto the main road we had been on earlier, we were a mere two blocks on, but with an extra three-and-a-half lira on the meter. A crowded bus which had been behind us was now waiting at an intersection a hundred metres or so ahead. Once through that, I observed, it would be into free-flowing traffic. I shook my head in disbelief.
But worse was to come. The driver now decided this predicament was not to his liking either and began to back up again.
"No! Hayir!" I shouted. "Just stay on this road."
"Allahallah!" he growled, and continued reversing. "Taksim! Taksim! Her zaman chok trafik!"
"Hayir! Stay on this road or let me out now." I gripped the door handle to ensure he understood my intentions.
At this he slammed on the brakes and thrust out his hand. "Eight lira!" he demanded, though the meter showed 7:10.
"I'm not paying. You haven't taken me where I want to go."
His dark eyes bulged menacingly. "Polis!"
It was almost comical. Having broken at least half a dozen traffic rules on the journey thus far, he was now threatening ME with the law.
"Oh, Polis?" I scoffed.
He glowered back at me with the self-righteous indignation of a head-mistress. "Polis!" he thundered, as though expecting the word to reduce me to a quivering mound of jelly.
"Yes! Police!" I nodded animatedly. "Chok iyi. Take me to polis."
Seeing that he had no intention of doing so, I opened the door to get out. In the process I was dealt a heavy blow to the back, right between the shoulder blades. I spun around and swore at him in Danish. Though even in my anger I felt a twinge of apprehension as his own door clicked open. He was a burly fellow and evidently volatile. I had no intention of backing down, when I was in the right, but neither did I fancy the prospect of it coming to blows. It was to my relief, therefore, that he appeared to think better of it, slammed his door closed again, and roared off down the side-street.
I stood there on the crowded sidewalk shaking, and not just from the cold. The rain poured down with increased intensity. The noise of the traffic was a river swishing slowly by. The rancid exhaust fumes formed visible clouds in the frigid air. There was not a vacant taxi in sight.
Then it seemed I was in luck. An occupied taxi had stopped up ahead to unload its passengers. I hurried over and waited beside it while they paid the driver and got out.
"Taksim," I said, clambering into the back seat. "Karmashik Sokak, lutfen."
The driver's eyes fixed me in the rear vision mirror. "Hayir, Taksim'e deyil," he said, shaking his head gravely. "Chok trafik. Prob-lem."
My heart sank as I observed the finality in his tone. Was I going to get to Taksim at all? I climbed back out and blinked disconsolately around in the rain. What to do? Take a bus? That would only get me to Taksim Square, half the remaining distance. But it would get me through the worst of the traffic, and I ought then to be able to complete the journey by taxi.
The first bus that came along was so packed I thought I'd have no chance of getting on. But in the event I was able to gain the boarding steps, and there I remained when the door hissed closed behind me. Twenty minutes later I stepped gingerly out at Taksim Square. Even in this weather the place was a hive of activity; crowds swarming in and out of the metro in their raincoats and shapkas, a veritable sea of umbrellas progressing up and down Istiklal, blue-uniformed policemen milling about their armoured trucks and patrol cars, shoe-shiners huddling beneath the overhanging roofs of the flower stalls. And amid the teeming traffic it was not difficult to locate a vacant taxi, albeit an old Toyota with various dings and scrapes on its panels.
I got in beside the driver, a bent old man with white whiskers and a crescent of white hair around his bald pate. He looked too frail to be working these chaotic streets, and should have been enjoying his retirement somewhere on the Mediterranean coast, I thought. Only the tips of his nicotine-stained fingers protruded from the sleeves of the tattered coat he wore. Drowsy Turkish folk music crackled out of the radio.
"Iyi gunlar. Karmashik Sokak, lutfen."
He squinted at me with watery brown eyes in that expression of acquiescence peculiar to the Turks. Then, with startling alacrity, he swerved out into the traffic and put his foot to the floor. It was at this point I discovered my seat-belt did not work.
"No prob-lem. No prob-lem," he assured me with a toothless smile.
I stared back at him in horror. "Yes problem! Istanbul traffic crazy. Seat-belt very important."
He waved his hand dismissively. "Amerikalimisiniz?"
"Hayir. Danimarkaliyim."
"Danimarkali?" He raised his eyebrows in interest, then proceeded to ask me in Turkish the same questions his predecessor had asked me in English. Did I think Turkey would join the EU? Did I agree that Turkish people were very friendly?
The motor droned, the chassis shook and vibrated ceaselessly. Every bump seemed like a speed bar, every pothole a crater. The old driver refused to put the wipers on automatic, preferring instead to flick the switch himself every now and then, so that we spent more time peering through a rain-blurred windscreen than we did through a clear one.
Before I realised it we had passed my turn-off. I explained this to the driver with some irritation, and demanded he turn around at the next opportunity. But that did not occur for another half-a-kilometre or so.
Rather than driving back along the main road, however, the driver took us directly into the myriad of side-streets. He seemed to know what he was doing, so I left him to it as we bumped and rattled along the little alleyways. Then the driver stopped the car and stared wildly at me.
"Nerede?"
"You're asking ME where? You're the taxi driver! Don't you have a map?"
He gave an exaggerated shrug to show he did not understand me, and my best efforts to communicate with him in Turkish were greeted by the same gesture.
Another car swung into the alley and the old man was forced to back up to let it pass. Before it did so, he wound down his window and engaged its driver in discussion.
"Karmashik, Karmashik," he repeated several times while they spoke.
The middle-aged, mustachioed occupant of the other vehicle scratched his chin thoughtfully and babbled in a tone which was not entirely reassuring. The upshot was that we continued down the alley we were on, then turned left into a street literally swarming with cats. One of the ground-floor apartments was evidently the back of a fish market, for two middleaged men were gutting fish in the doorway and tossing the scraps to the mangy felines.
Another block on and the driver turned right, at which point we found ourselves on the edge of a busy market place, and no amount of animated horn-blasting on the part of the driver would open a path through the throng. But two things served to cheer me; firstly, the rain had eased considerably, and secondly, one of the minarets of the Green Mosque was visible beyond the buildings up ahead. I had my bearings and could walk it from here in ten minutes. When I told the driver my intentions he demanded the fare.
"I'm not paying. You haven't taken me where I wanted to go."
"Four lira and eighty-five," he repeated, this time in English. The frightened rabbit look in his watery eyes had given way to dogged resolution. Next thing he was shouting at me and thumping his dashboard. But I figured I was safe this time and would not be assaulted as I made my escape from the taxi.
No sooner had I got out than I was confronted by a broad-shouldered youth in a heavy black overcoat.
"Hey, Yabanci," he said, stepping into my path. "Why don't you pay my friend here?"
It irked to be addressed as a foreigner by this stranger and I told him to mind his own business.
He calmly reached inside his overcoat and, with a vague smile, produced a 'Polis' badge. "Pay!" he barked into my face, and pointed to the driver.
It tested the limits of my self-control to refrain from arguing with this fresh-faced cop, perhaps half my age. But, of course, I did as he ordered.
"Here," I snapped at the driver, handing him a twenty lira bill.
He glanced at the green note and shook his head firmly. "Bozuk para ver."
"You can't change a twenty?!" I stared at him in disbelief. "I don't have anything smaller."
The cop gestured at the market stalls. "They will break it for you."
So there I was, running around the crowded bazaar in the light rain, endeavouring to get a twenty lira note changed for a taxi driver who had not taken me where I wanted to go. An adolescent boy of Kurdish appearance worked busily at his shoe-shine stand. An old woman in a head-scarf hobbled about begging for coins. An overweight man stood on a stool in a shopping cart fixing the electric sign above his store as the masses bustled by.
Then the Call to Prayer burst out of the minarets of the nearby mosque in sonorous, warbling Arabic.
End
