A Cup Full of Humble Fragrance

East and West

         "Bosphorus--in Istanbul, Turkey--is a seventeen nautical-miles-long strait between Asia and Europe, connecting the Marmara Sea with the Black Sea. Its widest point is 3300 meters and its narrowest point is 660 meters.

         Two bridges were built across the strait in the recent decades. Before that people used to cross from the European Side to the Asian side in ferryboats. To this day ferryboats and motorboat-taxies carry passengers across from one continent to the other in order to ease the traffic on the bridges.

         There's not only the traffic up and down and across the Bosphorus but also ferries and fishing boats. Since ships, most notably tankers, became bigger several accidents have occurred.

         Bosphorus always was extremely important, whether controlled by the Romans, Byzantines, Ottomans or Turks." 
                                         From my Travel Notes
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                 The motor vibrated with an abrupt roar. All five of us clutched at the sides of the boat as a sudden wave swept over us. The man with the huge black mustache and bushy eyebrows, the one I thought of as the skipper, announced.

                 “The engine’s croaked.”

                 Everyone glanced at each other with concern. I looked down. I was the one to insist that we take this boat, although when we had started off the engine was already sputtering.

                 In my excitement as the bride visiting her husband’s family for the first time, I was eager to taste and try everything in this magical city. I wanted us to drive through every major road. I wanted to step into every small alley. I wanted to taste every morsel of the Turkish cuisine. I wanted to touch every mosaic, to look at every tile, to see whatever is possible to see, and to experience whatever is possible to experience. I knew no fear. I had even enjoyed the day I had gotten lost inside the Grand Bazaar, but more than anything, I had felt an incontrollable rapture when I first saw Bosphorus. If I could walk on water, I would walk on these waters alongside the ferryboats sailing back and forth like ballet dancers.

                   We had already taken a sightseeing cruise, the sights of which had left me with goose bumps. I had imagined myself as the sultan queen with sprinkles of seawater on her embroidered harem gown sauntering around the majestic, highly decorative palaces by the water. I was so enamored by this strait that each time we had to cross it, I made it almost obligatory for those with me to do it by water.

                   That afternoon, we had just missed the ferry and the next ferry would come probably two hours later. While we were dejectedly crossing the ferry docks, a burly Turk directed our attention to the small barges by the side that taxied passengers from the European to the Asian coast, suggesting we use his water-taxi service, which would take us across in no time at all. When I looked toward the direction his forefinger was pointing at, the small barge with bright red rim and blue body hypnotized me.

                 “Yes, yes, yes,” I bubbled with excitement, skipping towards it.

                   “Will this be safe?” My husband raised his eyebrows tentatively but didn’t oppose too much.

                   Now, here we were in the middle of the sea inside this small vessel that had unexpectedly given up on life. There were two other passengers besides us, a man of about forty years and his teenage son who remained unusually calm even though we had just gotten stranded in the middle of the sea with all that traffic bustling around a tiny boat. ‘Turkish people endure anything’ I thought.

                 The mate and the skipper stood up. “We’ll get help,” the mate said, glancing toward me under the visor of his rumpled cap with a sheepish smile. He turned toward the shore and waved crisscrossing his arms over his head. Minutes later, we saw a larger boat take off from the docks.

                 I glimpsed at my mother-in law whom I called Anneh, meaning mother. A thin strand of white hair had escaped through her tightly bound headscarf. She stirred nervously inside the long summer coat that meant to cover her from the eyes of the opposite gender but instead was imprisoning her. She avoided my eyes. “She’s mad at me,” I thought. If so, I knew she was right. I was the one who was grabbing at every choice, while it was her who quietly arranged the house, cooked the meals and did all she could without a peep of a complaint. Never once had I heard the words, “I want...” from her lips.

                 She was taught like a command soldier that women had to be obedient and accepting, never too loud and demanding, while attending to the necessities of the livelihood of their families. I recalled that one morning while clearing up the breakfast table, I was throwing a piece of toast into the trash bin that had fallen off the table. She had yanked the bread off my hand, kissed it and touched it to her forehead and then she had put it in the trash. “If you respect the bread, you’ll never lack it,” she had informed me.

                 According to the stories my husband and his brother had told me, her life was patterned with rules and regulations. She was highly critical of any disruptive behavior. She didn’t approve of loud talkers, people who were too insistent, and even women crossing their legs when they sat down. She had forbidden her boys to stretch on the sofa if there was another person in the room. She never tolerated disrespect of any kind especially toward the elders. I had caught her refer to the pretentious girls of Istanbul’s jet set, as “those girls on the street”.

                 Yet, she was a person with irrational ways who believed in superstitions. To start with, she had a phobia of graveyards and death. Right that morning, she had made the driver to take the longer route in order to avoid the sight of a cemetery.

                   A white larger boat neared ours with its engine idling. Two men from that boat stretched a thick wooden plank as a ramp. The mate of our boat held one end tightly while we were ushered up onto the side, over the plank, and into the other boat.

                   My husband ventured first and turned around to stretch his hand to Anneh. She stepped onto the plank. Just then an ominous horn sounded behind me and both boats bobbed up and down on the waves. A big Russian tanker was passing through creating waves. I held Anneh in an embrace from her back. We swayed together on the plank in between the two boats. What miracle kept that plank in place and which divine being was watching over us, I’ll never know.

                 As the waves subsided and I lifted my head, my eyes caught the sight of one of the long bridges connecting Europe to Asia. “We should have taken a taxi,” my husband said.

                   That evening when we sat down for supper, though I felt I deserved a reproach, I realized that Anneh had taken the whole incident in stride and had not said anything. While we were doing the dishes later, I apologized for having put her through that ordeal.

                   “Don’t worry,” she smiled. “At one time long ago, I too was young and I loved those boats. Don’t you think I once wanted to live and do as I wished?”

                 Then she waved her dishtowel towards the living room where the men were sitting.

                 “Don’t let them get to you. Don’t let them stop you, EVER!”