Wei lights up when she catches sight of dolphins in the Bosporus. Look, she turns to Bo, dolphins again. Where? Bo lifts his gaze, casts it wide across the strait, where boats have been coming and going for millenniums. He was chewing on a line of ancient Chinese poetry that went, a thousand sails having gone past, none of them was. Was what? There! She shouts and points. He follows her gaze to find a fin, elegant, smooth, breaking out of water. Then another one, and yet, another, all southbound, none rushing, heading into the Sea of Marmara. They look with wonder, but not as much as the first time they saw a dolphin together, which was also the first time they saw each other. Nonetheless they go on to declare their sense of wonder to each other, until they could think of nothing more to say, and then they fall silent, each finding it slightly awkward, each vaguely hoping the other would tacitly find it pleasant, or at least tranquil.
Eventually the dolphins cease to appear. There are only so many dolphins after all. And when they retrieve their attention they find the couple that was happily grilling things with their kid a few steps away now fighting. Or so it appears. They rise from their foldable chairs. They point at each other. They speak with high-pitched voices reeking of disdain. The food on the grill rack now sends off a burnt smell, carried by the wind to Wei and Bo. It’s interesting to see people fighting in a foreign language, says Wei, cuz you don’t know what they’re doing, you can only see and understand so much. But look at the kid, says Bo, barely three or four years old. Wei nods, and then shakes her head. Why do people fight at all she says. They always do, he says, but why bother with kids. The kid now stands, naturally, by his mother, not crying as you’d expect, not even looking helpless. The dad turns away. He climbs up from the rocks to the pavement, and then crosses the road, not looking at the traffic lights, not looking back. The mom makes an attempt to go after him but then decides against it. The kid tries to hold on to her legs. She pushes him away. Then she starts to say angry-sounding things to him. Now he looks a little helpless. On the grill rack the meat has turned all black. Bo says he doesn’t want to watch this anymore so they get up and climb up to the pavement and walk away.
Cats run by. They’re said to be the heart and soul of Istanbul, its guardians, its prophets. One with a bright orange colour lingers around Bo’s feet, following his steps to no particular destination. He bends down and gently pats it. Why bother to have kids, he says, when you can just raise a cat. That’s a responsibility most people are so not qualified to take on. Why bother to have relationships, Wei says with a half-baked irony, when you can settle for a situationship. It’s true though, Bo turns to her, with all his childlike sincerity that makes her feel almost sorry for her irony. Most people, he goes on to say, are not qualified to make that promise too.
At night they go south, to the Sea of Marmara. So that we may see those dolphins again, Wei says. Of course it’s improbable, of course it’s very dark and all, but it wouldn’t hurt to try. By night the wind is gentle but salty, the weather moderate, a little chilly even, given that summer has already begun. More people are grilling things by the sea and this time they actually smell good. I’d imagine it’s like that in your hometown, says Wei. It is, says Bo. But I’ve never been, she says. It’s honestly very boring, he says, there’s nothing but the sea. But it’s the sea you grow up seeing and swimming in all the time, she says. True, he says, and of course I’m very fond of it, but that doesn’t make it any special I guess. I’d still want to go, she insists. Will you be there when I go? Maybe, he says, but you know, I’m barely going back home these days. She puts her arm around his neck and kisses it, gently caressing it with her lips, rubbing it wet. A tinge of saltiness on her lips, she says, go back for me one day, show me your sea. I’m showing you this, he makes a gesture forward, and this is better if I must say, and if not better with the view, better with all its history and glory. But it’s not yours, she says. No it’s not, he says. They went taciturn for a while before he says, okay, I’ll be there for you, this much I’ll promise. She leans her head on his shoulder and faintly mutters, thanks. Gusts of salty wind blow by. They’re both smiling now, not looking at each other.
On their way back home they come across an empty playground in the middle of a park. Wei gets all excited in a sudden. ‘The swing!’ she exclaims. ‘And look, the slide! And there, a see-saw too!’ Before Bo says anything she already sets herself running. Bo keeps his stroll, lagging behind, looking at her from afar. She sits on the swing, her legs, way too long for it, dangling awkwardly back and forth. But how joyful she looks, Bo says to himself, how joyfully innocent, like a child, like humans before the fall, playing in the garden of Eden. And yet isn’t she also undeniably amongst the fallen, and one of the most sinned at that – isn’t she an irresistible seducer too? As he walks towards her he recalls their kiss earlier that day, down at the basement of a vintage clothes store, hidden behind the lines and dust of old garments, a kiss long and moist, long enough for her to touch him all over beneath his clothes, and he hers. And then, their sex earlier that evening, when they were so tired that they decided to go try out a Turkish hamam. After it’d been all finished there was no one else, and they went back to the locker room to change, just the two of them. Wei noticed that there was a lock on the door, and locked it right away. She approached him slowly, looking at him, her eyes welling up with desire. They took off their towels. Bo entered her from behind. He knocked the wall lightly and found it thin. She picked up the blow dryer sitting by the lockers and handed it to him. Dry my hair, she said. He started to make love to her while gently blowing her hair dry. Her moaning was inundated by the sound of the dryer.
Bo refocuses himself on her, now calling to him to come play the see-saw with her. He speeds up and strides to her. His problem with desire is that he finds it corruptive of our idyllic innocence. His problem with the fall is that he finds desire such an indispensably beautiful thing. His problem with her is that she embodies two beautiful things at the same time, in contradiction. His problem with contradiction is that it enchants.
When they go to Istanbul Modern the next day they lose each other for a while. Bo takes a long look at a Kafkaesque painting with a lot of obscure words on it. Wei is not so interested in words as in forms of expression that are not words, so she walks on. When Bo finishes reading the painting he turns back. Wei is nowhere in sight. Bo goes on to look at the paintings at a slightly quicker pace, hoping to catch up to her. He makes several turns and she’s still nowhere to be found. Baffled, he walks quickly to the end of the exhibition, and then all the way back to its start. The exhibition is fully linear with no branches but still he doesn’t see her. Eventually he gives up and texts her. Hey naughty, he says, where are you hiding.
Wei texts him back immediately. Then he finds the little dark room, a rather inconspicuous branch, tucked at a corner by the window. There plays a film about a lighthouse keeper, in the film, the sound of people walking steadily upstairs, and that of waves rhythmically washing ashore. She sits alone at the back of the room. She says oh you’re here. He says, I’m here. She says you know as I was sitting here I thought maybe fate should lead you to me, just as it led us to see the dolphin in River Thames. What do you mean he asks, knowing quite well what she means. And if you don’t find me, she goes on to say, I thought, I’d take it as a warning by fate. If you don’t find me, maybe we’re not meant to be together – as in, in whatever form of relationship or situationship we’re in right now – and I should just leave. You see? What I’d do, is that I’d leave this museum sneakily, and grab a taxi back to the hotel. As you have the keys I’d ask the owner to open the door for me. I’d pack up my things and head to the airport and book a flight and leave. I’d go back to London and delete your numbers and never see you again. That’s what I’d do. Maybe I won’t do it but in any case if I were to write a story that’s what my protagonist would do. Bo feels a current of déjà vu flowing underneath when she says all this. Very well, he says, write it down then, and let her do it. You know a famous novelist once said, the characters in my novels are all my unrealised possibilities. Wei says, but I’ve already lost the chance to realise that possibility myself haven’t I. Bo puts his arm around her waist and says, no, totally, you’re not going anywhere now but beside me. Immediately he regrets a little bit for saying this much. Wei says, with a chuckle, maybe I should be more spontaneous after all. Maybe. Bo repeats.
On their way out of the museum she asks him whether he would hate her had she actually done that. He sits on the question for a while, and finally decides, no, he wouldn’t hate her for that. But why? She asks. Because I wouldn’t want to, he answers quickly this time. Now they’re sitting under the shades of a Turkish hazel, the twigs swaying gently to and fro in the summer wind. Maybe, he adds, maybe I’d be sad. Of course I’d be sad. But I wouldn’t hate you. After all, you should do whatever you want, and why would I want to hate you for that.
They talk again of possibilities later that day when they are sitting by the Golden Horn, bathing in the dusk, all exhausted from an afternoon walking in the hilly Cihangir. A boat comes into the harbour. First it anchors its head, then rotates its body until the flank almost touches the shore. It’s so close, Bo says, like we could just take a leap and get on board. He sticks out his arms to measure the distance. What do we do if we get on board? Wei asks. We drift, Bo says. We take a tour around the Golden Horn and the Bosporus and see the sunset and end up wherever we end up. And where would that be? Wei says. Bo shrugs. How would I know, he says.
Get on then, she says. Get on the boat and take your tour. You see, it’s going around in a circle: from here, up north to Karaköy and Kabataş, and to the east, Harem and Kadiköy, and then back here. Take your tour and go back and see whether I’ll still be here by then. Maybe I will, maybe I’ll wait for you. Or maybe I won’t be here at all, I’ll leave, and in that case you know you’ll never find me again. Either way, I don’t know how it will turn out, but fate will decide. How does that sound?
Don’t tempt fate, he says.
I’m merely tempting you, she says.
People are still swarming ashore. Bo is still looking at the boat intently across that tempting distance. Tempted, yet he doesn’t move, for reasons that are as transparent to him as they are obscure. Eventually the boat pulls out, almost empty, and swims upstream to the setting sun, followed by Bo’s gaze, probably Wei’s too. It is then that Bo finds the explanation for the sense of déjà vu he’s been feeling all this time. He recalls a story he once read, in which a couple was travelling in a foreign city (like them). One morning, when they were sitting together on a bench, the woman stood up and walked towards the sea. She stood next to the sea for a long while and then she decided to circle around to a different area where the man couldn’t see her. After an even longer while, she turned and returned to the place where she left the man sitting – he was gone. Somehow this, she felt, was entirely expected. She began to wander alone in the city, believing that if she didn’t meet him again by chance in this port city by the end of the day, she would never see him again (like her).
As he retraces through the contours of the story, to his surprise he finds himself unable to recount any of the details. Usually it’s the details rather than the plots that strike him the most. Which city is it, and what is it like? What do the couple say to each other? How long have they been there? What is the particular hue of the sea? (Right now it’s turquoise, glittered with gold.) He tries hard but fails to find an answer to any of these. Wei looks at him, deep in his thoughts, as if she can easily penetrate them.
The next day, they take that boat together across the Bosporus to Kadiköy, the Asian side of Istanbul. Upon their arrival Wei solemnly declares that she wants a flower. That she needs one. Just now on that boat I felt something was missing, she says. It’s a flower and I don’t know what flower it is yet. Plus you’ve never given me a flower anyway. No I didn’t, Bo says, I thought you wouldn’t like it anyway. Maybe, she says, but now I do. Alright, he says, let’s go find it.
At the nearest flower stall they find themselves talking to an old lady who knows no English. Of course, as they’re dimly aware, it’s Turkey and you shouldn’t really expect anyone to speak English to you anyway, but every time they run into someone that genuinely knows no English at all it still comes as a surprise and a challenge. Wei ponders for a while and decides that a sunflower is what she needs. She points to the pot of sunflowers. The lady says something in Turkish and then takes the whole bunch from the pot and tries to hand it to Wei. She shakes her head and picks out one of them. One, she says, forcing her mouth round and wide, as if that helps to convey the meaning, or at least the finality of her decision. The lady, disappointed, drops the rest of the bunch back to the pot. She then says something else in Turkish that ends with ‘lira’. How many lira? They ask. She takes out a note of 50 lira and shows it in front of them. No, that’s too expensive, Bo says, knowing full well it’s in vain. He takes out two notes of 20 lira and tries to hand it to her. She shakes her head fiercely and once again stretches her 50 lira note, making a flapping sound with it. Alright then, he says, and, a little unwillingly, fetches his own 50 lira note.
There goes your first attempt at bargaining in Istanbul, Wei says, grinning. She plays with the sunflower for a while and then hands it back to Bo. I’m not good at that anyway, Bo says, a sullen sunflower in his hand. And we can’t communicate anyway. And the lady must be poor so maybe it’s better to let her have the money anyway. It’s ok, she says, I’m not blaming you. I know, he says, I’m mostly making the defence to myself. They’re now on the way back to the shore, as Wei decides that she wants to see the Bosporus shining on a sunny afternoon, and Bo says, well, it’d be good for the sunflower to see the sea too, my guess is that it’d never seen it before. How do you know, she says. Just a hunch, he says, it looks local. That might be racist she says. He laughs and pats the flower and says to it, no, you’re beautiful, you’re the best among them all. Now all that tenderness, she says. She doesn’t finish the sentence and doesn’t need to. The Bosporus now comes into view, shining, as it shined centuries and millenniums ago, under the scorching afternoon sun.
By the water Bo continues his conversation, or rather his monologue, with the sunflower. You are beautiful he says, despite that you’re now withering, or maybe precisely because of that? Look at you, you may die any minute – or maybe, for you, dying is a slow process. Maybe for us humans too, we die, bit by bit, a little each time. I don’t know, I’ll never know. You see, maybe some water would be good for you, but most certainly not water from the sea, that wouldn’t go well with you. But now you’re looking at the water from my bottle – maybe you want that? But what would we drink if I give it to you? Alright, alright, I’ll share some with you, you poor thing. Here it is. He pours some water into his used coffee cup and puts the flower in. If you love it so much maybe you should name it, Wei says. No, never, Bo says, naming is too dangerous, haven’t you heard, to name is to bestow a fate. And what am I? I’m not God, why do I get to name things. But look, you’re good now. What do you want to do? Maybe look at the sun? As you should, as you should. He turns the flower to face the sun. But you’ll die anyway. It’s ok, you know, we all die, sooner or later. You must’ve lived a good life. Do you have any unrealised dreams? Maybe you want to see Europe, maybe you’ve never been. You’re a local sunflower. Look, that’s Europe, just that close, just across the water. We’ll take you there, before you die, before you wither and all. Now you’ve got your water you should be good. Hold on to it, you hear? We’ll take you there very soon…
Now, all that tenderness. She says again. He doesn’t hear, it seems.
As they plan their way back there’s still light. It’s summertime after all. The sunflower is still alive though you can’t exactly call it flourishing. If you die before we reach Europe, at least we’ll bury you there, Bo says. How encouraging, Wei says. Well it’ll need to face this grim reality sooner or later, he says. They made several attempts at finding the metro station before deciding that the Google Maps location is entirely misplaced. It’s not the first time, you see, Bo complains, visibly frustrated. It’s like the relationship between Google Maps and Istanbul is a bit off. Could it be that Google map fabled a metro line for us? Wei grins. See, Google Maps says it’s there but it’s not. Which one’s more real? Google Maps, or reality? He frowns, and says, what do we do when we can’t rely on maps? We drift, she says, with a barely detectable irony. Bo doesn’t detect it, of course. Or, he says, we return to the old-fashioned way. We ask people on the street.
The sunflower makes it to Europe. It sees the metro, endlessly descending stairs, busy streets on a Sunday evening. It sees crowded trams, hilly roads going down to the Sea of Marmara, a tiny messy hotel room. It’s still alive, Bo says, but that might well be the last scene in its life so we’d better make it pleasant. They resolve to tidy up the bed but halfway through they begin to kiss and touch each other. After that, of course, they make love. Would that be good for the kid to see? Wei says, smiling, out of breath. No it’s not a kid Bo says. It’s just vulnerable. But it must’ve seen things.
They leave it at the corner of their room and head off for drinks. It’s their last night in Istanbul. Each with a bottle of Turkish beer they propose to recount all the experiences they’ve had in Istanbul. So that we don’t forget, Wei says. So that we’ll keep them in our mind for a little longer, Bo says, until, eventually, we’ll forget. Eventually, Wei says, we all die. That’s true, Bo says. Shall we start, she says, from the dolphin then. Why not, he says, everything starts from there. Alright, she says. It was the golden hour on this autumn day, post-Wong-Kar-Wai, we were on the Waterloo bridge, you were telling me the story of your tattoo, a dolphin and a crown. And then we see a fin, breaking out of the muddy water in River Thames…
If you’re going to start from there we won’t get any sleep tonight. Bo says, smiling.
Just kidding, Wei says. But you know, it’s not like London, this place will be open till 5am.
Emmm, it will. He says.
They restart the story from the dolphins, this time in the Bosporus. She’s already half-drunk. For her a bottle of beer will do. They help each other re-collect everything, big and small, significant and petty. And then, Bo says, finishing the story, and then we’re sitting here, recounting our story of the journey. That’s an interesting way to end the story she says. It’s like a story by this Argentine writer, he says, where one reads in a library which records all the things that have ever happened and will ever happen, and eventually he reaches the paragraph which describes him reading exactly that paragraph. Exactly like that she says. You always give shape to all those vague random whimsical feelings I have. That’s why I love you you see.
Bo hesitated, taciturn. It’s not the first time he hears words of love from her but the occasions were rare and all of them imbued with alcohol. Inexperienced at that, he still doesn’t know what to do with them until she says, helpfully modifying her own words, what I meant was, that is what I love about you. A little clumsily he says, all your vague random whimsical feelings, those of course are what I love about you. I see, she says, but after you leave London, what should I do with them. Someone else will do it, he says. I’m not that unique, as you might’ve thought. She lets out a bitter laugh. You’re not unique at all, she says, picking up another bottle.
On their way back home Wei is red all over her body and almost unable to walk in a straight line. She clings to him while she walks. Oh the breezy nights of Istanbul, I’ll miss you, he mumbles. Is this over now? She says, is this really already the last night?
The last morning they wake up early. By now they’re too exhausted to make love. Lying on the bed, breathing the morning breeze, Wei tells Bo her dream last night. I had a dream last night where I was beheaded. That’s how she begins. I don’t remember the reason now. But somehow my head was chopped off and I was still alive. I could feel that my being was split into two. It doesn’t just go with the head, as you might think. My hands reached out to search for my head. They wanted the head. Eventually they found it. They grabbed the head and put it on top of the neck and somehow managed to stitch them together. Now, voilà, I’m back in one. But then I could feel the pain, or rather itchiness, where the head rejoined the body.
I wish I could have a dream like that, Bo says. How limited is our imagination when we’re awake.
But listen, Wei goes on. Now I wake up. Now I’m not in a dream anymore. I’m not, right? But guess what, my neck hurts. It itches. The feeling’s real as can be, tangible as can be. It really does feel like I was beheaded and had my head stitched back. It really does. What does that mean?
I don’t know, Bo says. He turns to kiss her neck gently and wistfully, as if there he finds a wound where her head was really recently stitched to the body. At the time he thinks of a renowned novel where the protagonist kissed the fingers of his lover after she dreamt of him making love with another woman in front of her and, in that dream, jabbed needles under her fingernails to alleviate the pain in her heart. Maybe sometimes a dream is over, he then says, but what really matters remains.
They fall silent for a while, and then get up to pack their things. The sunflower is, to their surprise, still alive, but they can do nothing but leave it on the table. As Bo insists, on their way to the airport, they’re to make a last stop at the Museum of Innocence, a museum built by a Turkish writer based on his eponymous novel. Or maybe it’s the other way around and I can’t be sure, Bo says, as they’re walking steeply uphill with their full backpack. The first time they walk past it, a small, crimson building, looking no different from the residential buildings that surround it. The second time they find it, and find it closed. It’s a Monday after all. In dismay they peer through the only window left open to see the front hall. On the opposite wall they see a quote, not from the Turkish writer as they expect, but from Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Bo reads out loud:
If a man could pass thro’ Paradise in a Dream, and have a flower presented to him as a pledge that his Soul had really been there, and found that flower in his hand when he awoke – Aye? And then what?
Wei looks at him, and repeats the line once more. Aye? She says, gently. And then what?