The casanovas of Istanbul

Badesh and Billy. Mumar and Mehmet. And the ladies of night.

ISTANBUL, Turkey —

“Have a light?” I was walking out of dinner, nursing a food coma from a generous plate of Turkish ravioli (w/yoghurt) when a man, whose name I later learned was Badesh, approached me for help igniting his cigarette. Despite being unequipped with a lighter, Badesh quickly lit into rapid-fire conversation with me as we walked up Istanbul’s buzzy promenade just yards from the historic Galata Tower. “You look Turkish.” “Traveling alone?” “Want to get a beer?” Fatigued from my week of travel, and unprepared for the conversational onslaught, I traipsed along with him, acquiescing to a drink with a stranger because it was more exciting than simply retreating to my hotel room alone. Badesh, 31, was from Cyprus but practiced some sort of business in the U.A.E. that now escapes me. But what brought him to Istanbul wasn’t business, but fun. He described himself as a “Casanova,” a single man who was out to hunt for ladies. Eastern European girls were prevalent here, he informed me. I didn’t offer that I wasn’t interested in women, as I assumed he suspected as a fellow solo traveler, but when we stepped down into a dimly lit nightclub that was tucked in an alleyway, the blast of loud music and the fleet of young girls standing at small tables hit me with a gust of sobriety. I was cutting my rendezvous with Badesh short. “Hey man, I’m gonna go.” “Huh?” He looked confused as he grabbed a seat in a booth. “Just one beer and we’ll go somewhere else,” he assured me. I muttered back that the scene wasn’t for me and hussled back up the stairs and onto Istanbul’s humming city streets to head back to my hotel.

With Doja Cat’s “Demons” popping in my earbuds, I was attempting to zone out the encounter in my 10-minute stroll back to my room when another man came up along side me. I still don’t know the initial question Mumar asked me, but, much like with Badesh, the pace of the conversation escalated quickly. “Where was I going?” “Did I smoke?” “Where was I from?” “Was I enjoying Istanbul?” Mumar was accompanied by his baby-faced cousin Mehmet, another Turkish native now living in Berlin who was more reserved. They carried big smiles of a boys night out on the town, seemed friendly and persuaded me to join them. Within minutes we were seated at an outdoor table at a ratty cocktail bar with sticky menus and uneven bar stools drinking ouzo, a distilled aperitif that resembled sambuca. Mumar loved ouzo and told me it was his drink of choice when he traveled to Istanbul. Mumar first described the purpose of this trip as business related. A barber from Antayla on the southern coast of Turkey, he planned to stock up on wholesale supplies at the Grand Bazaar. But as we sipped on ouzo and got more comfortable, he revealed his true intention: He was there to meet his girlfriend. Mumar, in his mid 30s, was married with two children, 5 and 11. He held his phone up to provide evidence of this family. But he told me that while family is “important,” he was also a “Casanova” — there was that word again — who loved women. He had to get away from the mundanity of marriage, just for a few weekends each year. He had a separate phone to communicate with his girlfriend that his wife would never find as he left it locked at his barbershop. This was the true work of a “Casanova.” As the ouzo began to hit my bloodstream and a round of gin and tonics arrived at the table, I played along, laughing with Mumar and Mehmet as they joked about their romantic conquests, sliding between Turkish and English. “You have girlfriend? Boyfriend?” I hesitated answering this for a moment, before revealing my interest was in men. Who was I fooling. “I know,” Mumar replied smiling, assuring me a level of comfort as he blew his cigarette into the crisp night air. “Being a barber, you learn people.”

Having covered the round of ouzo and gin, Mumar indicated he wanted to get another drink before heading to a club to cap off this evening. As I chatted with Mehmet and traded Instagram IDs and tales of his time in Berlin, the three of us walked up the same central promenade that bisects Karakoy, Istanbul. Again, I walked passed the potato shop, gelato store and rug shop that I had streamed by with Badesh. I was unaware of where we were going, but was genuinely enjoying my time with the two, chalking the experience up to the serendipity that accompanies solo travel. After a walk that was longer than I expected, I was again down a side alley, but this time walking up — not down — stairs to another sketchy joint called “The Golden Club.” I’m not sure why the surroundings didn’t trigger the same warning Badesh’s venture had. There were girls, leading men by hand to tables. Bad music. Little light. But Mehmet wanted me to try a gin and tonic with orange juice, so I was along for the ride. Mumar had already dispatched himself to a separate high top and was in deep conversation with a young woman. Then, another girl slid into the booth next to Mehmet. They got cozy. It was when an Asian girl slipped into the other side of the booth and inched close to me I knew I was cornered. Attempting to dissuade her of her obvious agenda, I quickly informed her I wasn’t interested in women and took my story even further to declare I had a boyfriend. She didn’t believe me, so I pulled out a photo of a guy I’ve been seeing for a few months. It was the truth, even if the exact label was an exaggeration. But it was foolish to believe that the details mattered in this circumstance. The girls, or perhaps Mumar? from a distance, began ordering bottles of champagne to the table. I told the Asian girl and Mehmet I was going to leave. This is now blurry. The fog of war. But as I made my way to the exit, a server placed his hand on the door to prevent my departure. Mehmet had walked over. We would split the bill by three. I refused to pay for the girls champagne and whatever other charges accompanied the females. Blood pressure rising, feeling stupid, I cursed myself to the voice in my head. “We split by three, it’s a good time.” Mehmet was now there, my friend turned … foe? Was this a set up? Or a misunderstanding? I leaned into the former. No, I wasn’t paying for the girls, I never agreed to this. I would pay for a third of the bottle of gin. “Why are you yelling?,” the server/manager scolded me at one point. The dispute went on for several minutes, Mehmet’s young face now flooded with distress; Mumar’s filled with agitation. The club would only accept cash, of which I was carrying very little. So the manager accompanied me to an ATM. I had owed 1300 Turkish lira ($45USD) for the overpriced bottle of gin. I was tipsy, angry and determined to project strength, so I ended up handing him around 1100 ($38USD), a bit less than I had agreed to pay, and walked the way, back down the promenade, furious at myself for being lured into the trap I had been warned about just a day prior. Was it a trap?

“You’re American?” The elderly man acted surprised. Yes, indeed I was. An American biding time before a morning tour of the Basilica Cistern in southern Istanbul, where the Romans used to store their water. The previous morning I was roaming the street nearby the basilica, looking, I’m sure, like a tourist. “Most Americans are many kilo. You not so,” the elderly man said, spreading his fingers apart to denote various body sizes. Americans he saw were fat, he was saying. I, happily, did not fit his stereotype. Though I must’ve fit every other depiction given his call-out to me on the street. Friendly with a smile I gauged as genuine, he ushered me into a rug store where he told me I must enjoy a Turkish coffee with his friend, the shop’s owner. Suddenly, I was sitting amid heaps of fabric across from Billy, who began his pitch slowly. “Had I been to Turkey before?” (No.) “What did I think of Istanbul?” (It’s huge.) Like an agile journalist, I turned the questions back at him. Have you visited America? (No. The visa process is too hard.) How is business? (Steady. Lots of tourists.) Aha. The coffee was strong, leavened by a smart amount of sugar. I glanced at my phone and communicated that I needed to meet my tour guide in a few minutes. “It’s just down the street.” “You can always catch the next hour.” Hmmm, this wasn’t my plan. Minutes later, probably seconds, Billy was unfurling carpets for me to touch. “What colors do you like?” “Feel this texture.” And then the reveal. “This one, a lovely gift, would be $642.” I politely told him I wasn’t in the market for a rug and that I needed to get on my way. “Well it was worth a shot,” he allowed. Yes, indeed. Here’s to what I thought was a whiff of hospitality turning into a well-oiled hussle. But as I left Billy imparted on me some advice. “Be careful here when you go out. They will try to lure you into clubs to pay for girls.” The warning made sense, but I didn’t take it seriously as I was too smart to be snookered into something like that. Or so I thought.

My last night in Istanbul, two nights after meeting the elderly rug salesman and 24 hours after my kerfuffle with Mumar and Mehmet, I was walking down the central promenade once again on my way to the metro to head north to see a DJ. And there in the corner of my eye, walking on the other side of the street in the opposite direction was Badesh. It was definitely him, the Casanova. He was with another man who was taller and blonde, walking briskly in the same direction we were 24 hours prior. They were talking, smiling. Was this Badesh’s game? To recruit tourists to a club stocked with escorts? If he was headed to the same club, that would be enough evidence for me. I was tempted to trail them, to see where Badesh and the man would end up. But it would be foolish to blow up my last night on an investigative pursuit. I looked back, but walked on, down into the metro, averting eyes with most strangers in the subway.