Improvement by Joan Silber

Author:Joan Silber
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Publisher: Counterpoint
Published: 2017-11-04T04:00:00+00:00

6

When Dieter and Bruno and Steffi left the farmhouse on the edge of Cappadocia, they were all getting along well, for a change. Dieter was doing the driving, and despite the glare of the noonday sun bouncing off the windshield, he was in an excellent mood. They’d been dealing with Turks for two months, but they didn’t often get inside their houses. How amazing that rough hearth had been, with its blocks of stone and its pit of ash. Dieter felt he would remember that after he forgot everything else. “That was the real Turkey, right there,” Bruno said. Dieter was still amazed by the American girl, keeping house with that granny in the middle of nowhere. If they’d stayed longer, he could’ve gotten her to come with them. He was sure of it.

“Could you be more conceited?” Steffi said.

“She has a husband, this Kiki,” Bruno said. “Some people want to stay married forever.”

Bruno was unlikely to be such a person—he cheated on anyone he was with, including Steffi, who’d had to wait two days when he disappeared in Istanbul with a very pretty underage Italian. Steffi was not necessarily the patient type either. Lately she’d been giving Dieter the eye. The American girl was lucky she wasn’t walking into this.

The drive to Ankara took the rest of the afternoon. Steffi was eager to get near the archaeological digs in that part of Turkey. “You know those workers walk off with bits of loot fresh from the digs,” Steffi said. “Everybody wants a few extra lire. They’re waiting for us.”

Steffi was the best bargainer of them all. She could start so low the seller gasped in shock, she could tease and flirt and get huffy and walk away. Much handshaking and fellowship at the end. The real joy of the trip for her was in those moments. Her face was hardly ever like that, shining.

They got into Ankara a little late for any bargaining in shops. Still, they tried. Near what seemed to be a market square, they went into any stores they found that had old brass bowls in the window or dusty prayer beads. Anything older in the back? No one said yes. No one knew anyone else who might help. Shrugs and headshakes. Bruno’s jokes were not getting laughs. A lot of people spoke nothing but Turkish. Maybe you needed names here, maybe you had to know someone.

Too bad they didn’t have the American girl with them. She could have figured out what was going on. She could have asked the right questions, with her fast Turkish and her knowing eyes.

The three of them stayed overnight in a faded but endearing hotel near the citadel, with nice old furniture and erratic plumbing. All through dinner, at a café nearby, Dieter was watching to see if Kiki was coming. At least two women on the street could’ve been her but weren’t. He knew it was unlikely she’d get to Ankara so soon, if she decided to come at all, but he was waiting, nonetheless.

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