I remember every crooked doorway and flagstone of this street; the way the shopkeepers would sometimes leave their ‘antique’ rugs in the road so that the cars rolling over would help to age them; I remember every one-eyed street cat yowling from the junkyard as I walked past with my dog, the man who carried water for a living but could have been a model, the sometimes rancid smell of the hamam, the view right down to Galata — some days the tower seemed closer than it should be. I remember the teyzes who would sit outside their apartments most afternoons on too-small stools, gossiping and munching on biscuits, shaking the tin at me if they caught me looking over — “ister misin?”, do you want one? They told me in Turkey you should never say no.
