Hello Ester (Early Evening, Day 9)

The sun was still up when I entered the shop in the Avrupa Pasajı arcade. The light reflecting off the glass ceiling of this arcade, an equal in beauty of which one could find only in a European city, had lost its lustre but was still strong enough to keep the darkness away and the gas lamps unlit. Finding the only carpet shop in the arcade was not hard. Inside was seated a dark – very dark – gentleman with a pockmarked face, probably the man that had come to the hotel the other day to bring that message. When I greeted him and walked in, his dark, bloodshot eyes bored into me.

‘I'm looking for Mehmed Bey’, I said casually. ‘Mehmed Esad. Is he around?’

He just stared at me and then raised a finger. I didn't know what he was trying to say so I asked him again.

‘Mehmed Esad… Is he around?’

Again, there was no reaction or response, except for the waving of the finger. I was beginning to think I had come to the wrong place when my friend's voice came through from the upper floors.

‘Şehsuvar… Is that you? Come upstairs.’

There was a wooden staircase behind the handmade curtains. As I walked up, I was hit by the heavy, musty smell of rugs and carpets. When I reached the upper floor, Mehmed Esad was standing there waiting for me.

‘Finally! You've finally made it to our little store, my brother. We were about to close the file on you for good.’

I wasn't really paying much attention but I shook his outstretched hand and asked, ‘Who's the surly fellow downstairs? Doesn't he speak Turkish? He didn't even have the decency to answer me when I asked after you.’

He glanced at the stairs and then back at me.

‘You mean Ruşeym? Sorry about that, old chap, but the poor fellow can't speak. He was a member of a pro-Ottoman tribe out in Egypt. The English cut his tongue out. We came back together from the Suez. He worked as a courier for me during the war. He's such a good man and so loyal and what have you that I couldn't let him go so I brought him here with me.’