I’d been there for only two days when it happened.
I had decided to take some holidays and, to be original, to do something I hadn’t done before: I’d decided to not go to a real country where people have fun, but to Turkey. Furthermore, I’d decided not to go see the deserts, the mountains or the sea, but Istanbul. Go figure.
The first two days were rather uneventful. First, I dropped my luggage at the hotel after paying X million for a taxi from the airport. I am not used to dealing with the mumbo-jumbo of exchange rates and so I don’t know if paying one million for anything is outrageous or really cheap. Maths has never been my forte. In any case, I definitely paid more than just a million for the taxi. After checking-in, I immediately went out, armed with my tourist guide, and crossed the water to visit things that apparently had to be visited for some reason or another.
My first impressions were that everybody looked the same and that there were millions of clones roaming the streets. On top of that, those same streets were haunted by armies of cats and the skies blackened by ravens. And the smell was a combination of dog piss, cat piss and stinky kebabs. The glory of the Ottoman empire. How could they have ever conquered half of the world? Then again, look at the Italians and the Greeks nowadays. They don’t fare much better. Although they, at least, are in the EU.
On my second day, I again found myself on the boat, sitting on a bench, looking at the natives. From where I’m from, dark-skinned people are to be avoided unless you want your pockets picked. And so everyone looked dodgy, especially the older teenagers who were walking fast, looking down, their faces lost in their hoodies, as if running from the law or something just as shady. I had to constantly remind myself that these were natives and that a city of 15 million pickpockets was rather unlikely. Not impossible, but unlikely. To drown out the tea and simit sellers, I put my headphones on and started listening to classical music. Not sure this was the best idea: All of a sudden, I felt as if I were in a film and all the people around me looked like refugees. Especially the older women with their headscarves and sorrowful eyes, surrounded by five or six children who looked as if they belonged to the streets of Calcutta. I smiled to myself, amused by my witticism and looked out the window, at a city that might collapse at any moment, living on borrowed time.
The boat arrived where it was supposed to, or so I supposed, since it all looked the same to me, and what I was already calling ‘the off-boat diaspora’ happened: everyone rushing out of the ship as if their very lives depended on it. I felt conspicuous with my light skin and blond hair, but I also felt strangely superior, because, well: why not?
On the docks were some stands and one place actually smelled pretty good. I decided to have a bite of something local. The sign said Büfe and I’m guessing it meant ‘Food’ in Turkish (maybe from the French “bouffe” or the order “Bouffez!” or maybe it just meant 'buffet.' But it didn’t look like any buffet I’d ever seen). In any case, I pointed at something or other, paid the man and ate it. It tasted a little strange, but not altogether unpleasant. I couldn’t tell if it was sardines, lamb, or vegetables.
Walking, I passed a hairdresser and on the spur of the moment decided to get a haircut. I’ve always thought that you can judge a country by its hair salons. My friends find it strange, but there you go. I have strange friends.
I entered the place and it was of course filled with dark men. They paused sipping their teas or dragging on their cigarettes to look at me. I felt like a bad guy in a western, entering the town’s saloon. Saloon. Salon. Close enough. Ah, me and my inextinguishable wit.
I felt silly explaining why I was there. After all, I hadn’t dropped in for a game of cards, nor to see what condition my condition was in. I obviously wanted a haircut. I think one guy who was less dim than the others understood me, because he pointed at a chair, which was an old-fashioned barber chair, and that was pretty cool. I also noticed ashtrays next to every chair and that was even better. Though how you can smoke when someone messes with your hair is beyond me.
Anyway, I sat down and a half-dwarf (not meaning a guy half the size of a dwarf, but someone who was tall enough to not be called a midget but short enough to render his labeling tricky) walked to me with a small glass of lukewarm tea. The obsession these people have with tea is beyond me, but I accepted and smiled at the freak after taking a few sips of it. Then, a tall skinny guy with long hair and what looked like a tiny shoulder bag walked up to me. He put a rolled up towel on the counter in front of me, right in front of the sink and pointed at it. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do. Put the towel on my head? Or maybe he wanted me to check that the towel was white and spotless? So, I nodded and smiled and gave him the thumbs up. He didn’t look amused. He talked louder and turned the taps on and pointed at the towel again, as if I were a misbehaving dog. I shrugged and smiled, realizing that everyone was looking at me and I suddenly thought of Billy Hayes.
He finally reached over, grabbed my shoulders and forced me to bend down. I thought he wanted to smash my brain on the counter, but no: he just wanted me to put my chest on the towel and my head under the running water.
So I complied and he washed my hair and I tried not to drown. For a moment, I had the vivid image of the sink filling with water and of him grabbing my hair and shoving my head under the water. But what happened was that he just grabbed my shoulders again and shoved me back in the seat. He opened his shoulder bag and I saw that it contained neatly-arranged haircutting paraphernalia. He was like a hair hit-man. The Al-Qaeda of curls. And so he started cutting and that’s only at that point that I realized he hadn’t asked me how I wanted my hair done. But I wouldn’t have been able to tell him anyway, so I just hoped for the best and guessed that at the end of the day, we’d see the end result. He seemed to be doing a good job in any case. At some point, he even lit a cigarette and kept it in the corner of his mouth as he kept on cutting, which explained the presence of the ashtrays. He was also able, somehow, to drink a tea and talk with his co-workers. I tried not to be paranoid, I tried not to imagine that they were talking about me. But it was hard to do.
Fifteen minutes later, it seemed over and he again pointed at the sink. This time I knew the drill and, like a good puppy, put my head under the tap and he rinsed my hair, which is something his peers don’t do back in the civilized world, unfortunately.
I then sat back, ready to leave, but a young guy approached me with a straight razor in his hands. I figured this was when they were going to cut my throat as if I were some sacrificial sheep. After all, such a holiday was drawing near, I’d heard. Maybe I had stumbled upon a tribe of cannibalistic Muslims. But no, he pointed at my stubble and then at his razor. I figured why not. I’d never had a barber shave, so I smiled and nodded.
As the blade ran across my throat, I reminded myself to not swallow, not breathe and not move whatsoever. I’ve never been in such a situation where I felt so defenseless. I remember hoping that they didn’t hate tourists too much and that they couldn’t read my mind. Something told me they wouldn’t appreciate my wit. Or my paranoia. Then again, even if they could have read my mind, they still wouldn’t have understood me since I think in English. But maybe mind readers see images, not words. Or maybe they were only pretending not to speak English. Or maybe I should have just stopped being so damn paranoid. In any case, after what seemed like an eternity, the shave was done. I smiled, stood up, and paid. To this day I have no idea if it was expensive or not, nor if I should have tipped or not. I didn’t really care either way, I just wanted to get out of there. Even the piss-laden air sounded good at this point.
It was only when the cold air hit me that I realized how sweaty I was. Fear will do that to you. I decided to stop at my hotel for a shower and a change of clothes before going to wherever people went for fun and booze.
As I was walking there, I felt the first symptoms: mild stomach cramps.
As I entered my room, thinking I’d only be a couple of minutes, I suddenly felt a wave of nausea come over me and I barely had time to make it to the toilet before puking my snack and what felt like all the food I’d ever eaten in my entire life.
I retched, I puked, I retched some more and then puked some more. The sound and the smell of the puking made me retch and the sound of my retching made me puke. Interesting vicious circle. Soon enough, I was only throwing up bile, but the retching seemed to be getting worse.
I think I was running a fever.
I stood to take a look at my face in the mirror, but as I was doing so, I also realized that the Büfe’s snack wasn’t done with me just yet, it was the gift that kept on giving. I’d heard of Montezuma’s revenge, but what was this? Sultan Mehmet’s Revenge? Atatürk’s wrath?
I just had time to get my pants and underwear down and plop down on the toilet before my ass started to puke whatever was in my intestines. I shat so much, I wonder how it was even possible. And then the cramps started and it felt like an invisible giant was punching me in the guts while some kind of alien was tearing at my innards from the inside.
‘Surely,’ I thought after ten minutes, ‘now it will stop.’
But no: it kept going and going, like a leaky fountain oozing chunky brown water.
I did all I could to not scream in pain and surprise and I had the clear thought that maybe I was dying. This was gonna be it. I was going to die in this hotel bathroom, in Istanbul of all places. Probably because of a tainted quay-side snack, or maybe because the tea at the hairdresser’s was poisoned. Or maybe--
I passed out.
When I came to, still perched on my procelain throne, my head against the wall, it felt like the worse was over. I wiped myself and walked to the sink, not putting my pants back up, just in case. I washed my hands, rinsed my mouth and put some cold water over my face. And that’s when I started retching again.
I kneeled in front of the toilet, and I started spraying the bowl with bile again. That’s also when I realized I’d forgotten to flush, which didn’t help the nausea much.
Outside, I heard the muezzin start his prayers and I couldn’t help thinking that while the faithful ones were on their rugs facing Mecca, I was on my knees facing the bowl.
My prayers were made of bile, my God was health, my altar made of porcelain.
As I started puking again, I realized that my intestines where not done either and I felt something warm flow down my thighs and knees. At this point I was too tired to care and as my head started to spin, knowing I was about to pass out again, I had time to hope I wasn’t going to fall head first into the brown water and bile and drown.
Was I going to die there?
Or worse still: was I going to live and have to stay there for the full 10 days of my stay?
Goddamn. 10 more days of this? Really?
All went black.
