Sıvas

I take me seat at the Internet cafe on the maınstreet of Sıvas, my third tıme ın this particular place. As he has done on my other vısıts, the i-aged proprietor clicks on the ıcon bar on the bottom of the screen and pulls up a window for the 'Porn Block' applicatıon. I don't know whether he does for all the client or whether this ıs special for me, the foreigner.

Odd if it is special for me, because porn is what I was surprised by upon my return to my hotel room last night. I flicked on the TV and there was porn of the grossest kind (probably produced in 'the Valley,' the porn industry capital in the Los Angeles suburbs). The hotel is recommended by my guide book, and indeed the staff has been exceedingly helpful, but, as the guidebook explains, the hotel is used primarily by businessmen.

Boys will be boys, but don't let me give you the wrong impression, Sivas feels very wholesome.

The Seljuk buildings I've come to see are in a long park bordering the main boulevard. They both flow down a gentle hill, crested by a fountain. Four or five cafes inhabit the park. In each, the waiter fills a tray with a dozen cups of chai and walks from table to table distributing the tea and later collecting the lira for each. The customers are all men. Here's what I remember from a few minutes ago--

At the table in front, two men play backgammon. One is young, clean shaven, with thick locks of well-groomed, shiny black hair. He wears a sweater. His partner is much older, perhaps his father, hair cut short, military style. He wears the neat, trimmed mustache Turkish men of his age often favor, and he wears a suit. Behind me I hear the clackıng of backgammon pieces as another pair play.

A man comes passing between the tables, about a hundred leather belts slung over one shoulder, and in the other hand is a box of about as many leather wallets. He's dressed in loose pants and a flannel shirt and a dark sport coat, and the lines is face call out the effects of a hard life. But his calls of belts and wallets for sale go unheeded.

Just outside the cafe, five shoe shiners had set out their elaborate boxes. They fan open like my wife's sewing basket, squat brass 'v's. One, taking a gamble, calls out hello to me in English, and I stop because my black hiking shoes are covered in beige smudge from the mud and rain of a few days back. I sit, and he motions for me to put my shoe on the stand. He rolls up the cuff of my pants and with a brush sweeps off the loose dirt. He's probably thirty-five, a handsome face, deeply yellowed teeth. He loosens the shoe laces. This is his life. Looking up, he asks, 'English?' By this time, he is smearing black paste on my shoe. He is careful to get every bit of the surface.

'Amerıcan,' I say. He nods with a little surprise. In Sivas, I am exotic.

After the black paste comes something white, and then some wax. He brushes the shoes, buffs them out. They look superb. He hesitates just a moment when I ask him how much because he must realize that I would not know if one dollar or five is fair in Sivas. He goes high. And I pay. What the hell. I can walk away.