Turkey: We Will All Marry Or Be Teachers (cont.)

“I will move back home,” Sibel thought out loud, “unless I find someone here—” she ended her thought with giggles. Duyduergu picked up where she left off.

“Yes, we will all marry or be teachers!” They all laughed.

“Really?” I smiled, unsure of whether to be envious of the certainty or disturbed by the limitations. I turned to face Duyduergu.

“Yes really,” Duyduergu took a slow drag of her cigarette before turning back to me. Her eyelashes were so long they caught a few light wisps of ash.

“Any prospects for you?” I asked.

“I am waiting for my knight in shining armor,” she batted her lashes and made a whimsical face.

“So what is taking him so long?” Sibel challenged her slyly, a twinkle danced innocently in her eye.

“His white horse broke a leg, and he is walking the rest of the way to me.” The table burst into laugher. Duyduergu kept a steady and empty gaze on the glass before her. She turned it slowly with her fingertips.

“That’s why I’m going to America. There is more opportunity for those who attend college.”

“Yes but you will attend four more years at University just to do the same thing you could be doing here next year.”

“No, I don’t have to be a teacher.” Buket was so sure of herself that her words rolled lazily off her tongue. She stared through the confederate flag that hung from the wall in front of her. “I just know there’s more for me there.” Duyduergu shrugged in concession.

“Ah, Elif!” Elif stood scanning the restaurant just in front of the glass doors. She was the only one of the lot that Duyduergu used the word ‘pretty’ to describe. She was slender, tall, and had smooth fair skin and iced blue eyes. Her hair, like Buket’s, was stripped of its full brown half way down and hung limp in a messy ponytail. She made her way to us with a slouched, slow gait.

“’Where is your knight in shining armor?” She hadn’t a chance to light her cigarette before Duyduergu put her on the spot. Elif scrunched her brows. We all laughed lightly but Duyduergu silenced us as she proceeded with her interrogation.

“Where is prince charming?”

“Ediz? He is coming. He will meet us here.” She motioned to a waiter.
Duyduergu slid closer to me.

“Her boyfriend is a business man, much older. He has a good job, and she thinks he will propose to her soon.” Her playful grin disappeared when she talked business. “Do you have a boyfriend?” The attention at the table suddenly redirected to me.

“No,” warmth rose in my face.

“Why not?” A stern disapproval clouded Duyduergu’s face. I fidgeted under the fixed, hot gaze of five sets of eyes.

“American guys my age are like little boys.” They all relaxed their stares a bit, nodding with vigorous understanding.

“Yes, it is the same here,” Duyduergu motioned towards a table of raucous males with disdain. “Little boys!” she muttered.

“Are American girls more—,” Sibel paused, pouring herself her third pint of beer, “per-mis-cu-us?” Mugel poked her in the side like a parent would a child who offends by telling the truth.

“I would say so, but only because American guys aren’t asking to marry them.” They all laughed.

“I understand that. Girls here who are promiscuous don’t get married. If you want a husband, you don’t sleep around.” Buket accessorized her sentences with colloquialisms.

“Yes if you want respect, you do not do that,” Duyduergu punctuated her maxim with resolution, “and you stay away from those monkeys!” She waved her cigarette in the general direction of a different group of guys.

“So you are into older men, huh?” I asked.

“Yes. They are smart and settled, and the parents are more likely to approve.”

“Do your parents have a big say in who you will marry?”

“Yes, we do not have arranged marriages, but the parents must approve. I know it is not the same in America.”
“No, you’re right.”

“But what is wrong with the parents? They love you and want you to be happy,” They were Elif’s first words, delivered from the farthest end of the table and stuck to the space between us like the backside of an echo. Sibel shrugged into her glass, taking another sip.

“Yes but sometimes they do not understand us. My mother does not understand why I wear clothes that cling to these,” Duyduergu cupped her hands around her small breasts, pushing them up “I do not have much so I must cling to what I have!” We laughed and she sighed, releasing her chest—they barely moved.

“So are you all Muslim?”

“Yes, but I am not so strict. I don’t pray five times every day, and I drink.”

“Yes, we drink!” Sibel raised her glass, and Mugel smiled shyly at her tipsy interjection.

“We believe in the—uh—”Sibel looked to the ceiling for the word.

“Principles.” Duyduergu loosed ashes from her cigarette.

“Yes! Principles!”

“But we do not follow all of them.”

A gentle nudge in my ribcage marked Ediz’s arrival. Duyduergu motioned towards a tall, barrel-chested man with dark settled hair. He wore a navy blue suit, which he adjusted as he surveyed the restaurant. Elif noticed him immediately and waved. Before he sat down, she whispered into his ear and pointed my way. He smiled at me politely and bowed his head. He proceeded to sit down next to Elif, remove his suit jacket and light a cigarette. She had ordered a pizza for him and had already cut in to pieces—serving him a slice as he spoke to her.

Duyduergu watched them through a wispy sheathe of smoke. Elif’s hand rested around Ediz’s neck and he lent a heavy arm on her thigh—his large, manicured hand cupping her knee. She accepted his weight graciously.

Ediz worked on his pizza, and someone asked for the bill.

I handed the waiter a camera, and he snapped a photo of all of us.

“Good. We will go.” Duyduergu tallied up the bill. It was a clamorous departure—a short symphony of clanging glass, wooden chairs dragged across wooden flooring, the delegation of who would go in what car. Sibel in a tipsy frenzy, dumped the contents of her handbag onto the table in search of her car keys. We said goodbye to Elif and Ediz, who hadn’t finished their meal.

“They will be happy that we have left.” Duyduergu thought aloud, slipping her arm through mine. “They want to be alone;” She turned to them, as I heaved the glass doors open, “the power we have over them is a secret between us and Allah.” She turned back to me, the faintest hint of a smile pulled at the corners of her lips. She led me out to the street where we walked arm and arm as sunset prayer ended and the reddish glow on the western horizon disappeared.

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