Reflections on the Road: The Oreo that Led to a Night in a Turkish Hospital (Part 2)

To begin at Part One, click HERE

Eighteen hours later, through the fog of a powerful drug, I awoke to what at first I genuinely thought was hell.  I saw blood on my bed sheets and blue jeans.  Even worse, I saw the dozen other folks with me in the dingy room.  They were indigent drug addicts, and each looked precariously balanced between life and death.  I reached for my wallet.  It was gone.  So was everything else I had with me when I first shook hands with Abdel, save for a broken watch and my clothes.

Stunned to look at my watch and discover it was Saturday morning, I stumbled out of bed, trailing an IV, and found a nurse.  In slurred English I pleaded for a phone but was told in Turkish to return to bed.  I refused to leave her desk, however, which prompted her to send for a (very muscular) male orderly.  And so it came to pass that, in a rather sudden maneuver, the orderly scooped the drugged American right off the floor.  As if to further illustrate Turkish strength, he then flung the American over his right shoulder and carried him back to bed.

But not only did the orderly carry me back to bed; helpless, I looked on as the man picked up rope and tied my wrists to the posts.  The knot, however, was not tight, and when no one was looking I wriggled myself free.  Increasingly desperate and believing I absolutely had to escape -- the night before I was supposed to have met a co-worker for a 8:00 p.m. flight to Egypt, and I could only imagine his distress at my disappearance -- I unhooked the IV and ran.  If you can only reach the exit door, I told myself, you will be free!  But I had a problem: my body was still coursing with Abdel's Oreo.  While my mind commanded my body to move, my limbs revolted, performing a series of wide s-curves all through the corridor.  Unable to run a straight line, I was easy prey for the orderlies striding my way.  Caught, I was carted back to bed.  This time I looked on as all four limbs were strapped -- tightly -- to the posts.

I fell back asleep, but the arrival of a representative from the American consulate woke me.  Released into his care, my stumbling steps were guided to a waiting car which then took me to the consulate.  Here I canceled credit cards, called home, and requested money from mom and dad to pay both for the $22 hospital bill and for a new passport.  Next, I was taken to a police station to identify a suspect.  It may very well have been him -- not too many people in Istanbul are 6'4" -- but both because the suspect's face was swollen (he had been beaten) and because I still needed help even to stand, I couldn't make a positive identification.  From the station the consulate official took me to a photography store, where I stared blurry-eyed into a lens that would capture one of the worst passport pictures of all time.

Around mid-afternoon, I was dropped off at my hotel, where I promptly fell asleep again.  Twelve hours later I sat up to a mind and body that finally felt normal.  Without the disorienting affect of the drug, however, all my faculties could now focus on what I had lost, how I had been taken advantage of.  I regretted walking with Abdel.  I regretted not yelling after swallowing the foul-tasting cookie.  I regretted no longer possessing my dearest travel companions, the passport and journal.  And I hated that now I was the only one in a room with 20 beds.  The room felt so empty, and I missed my students terribly.

I would've stayed mired in this miserable state had it not been for the note I found at the front desk.  An American employed at the consulate had heard about my mugging, and she knew I would be stuck in Istanbul for at least two days while I waited for the new passport.  Figuring I must be miserable, especially with Christmas only days away, she tracked down the name of my hotel and called.  The receptionist took down a message since I was asleep.

Though this message simply told me to call her back, it was no small thing, for it implied something else as well:  I was not merely an anonymous traveler whose unconscious body the police had retrieved from a park on a cold Friday night; I was one being sought after and cared for, even by a complete stranger who surely could've done other things with her time.  I dialed the number and after a few rings the woman -- her name was Susan -- picked up.

"Hello," she said.  (This alone was a pleasant sound.)

"I'm Joel.  You left a message while I was asleep.  Thank you."

After sharing a few encouraging words, Susan invited me to a Ramadan breaking-the-fast party, which she was hosting for several of her Turkish friends.  "I can't imagine how bad you must be feeling, especially being alone and with Christmas just around the corner," she said.  "I'd love for you to join us."

I thanked her for the invitation and told her I'd be there.  For the first time all weekend I found myself smiling, thankful for what I already knew:  that not all strangers were like Abdel.

Susan's heart was huge, and her apartment, built on a hillside overlooking the Bosphorus Straits, wasn't half bad either.  Her balcony commanded one of the best views in the city, and I used it to peer down on ships bound for ports around the world.  When I was't ship-gazing, I was taking in the cathartic company of Susan and her friends.

Several hours later it came time to leave, and Susan asked how I planned to return to the hotel.  I told her I would go back the same way I had come: by walking the ninety minutes between our two places.  Susan, however, disapproved.  "It's too dark now," she said.  "I'd feel more comfortable if you took a bus."  Her opinion was seconded by the two other people who hadn't yet left the party -- a woman from Japan and a woman from Turkey.  "We're walking in the direction of the bus stop," one of the ladies said.  "We'll take you there."

I can't remember now if it was the Turk or the Japanese, but this detail is unimportant.  What is important is that on the way to the bus stop, as we neared a dark corner where several thug-like characters and prostitutes were loitering, one of the women reached for my hand.  Taking it into hers, she smiled and said, "This way no one will bother you.  They will think you are with me."  I didn't mind at all.  Several minutes later at the bus stop, as we prepared to say goodbye, the women reached out to me again, this time in the form of a kiss which they placed gingerly on each cheek.  My face was too bruised to feel their kisses well, but it wasn't too bruised to smile in response.

* * *

There is a gift, I believe, that only a stranger can give, and which my experience in Istanbul this Christmas season (2000) illustrated well.  I'm speaking of the realization that, at our best, we are all brothers and sisters and friends, even if we have never met before.  To live with this in mind is to have joy, to expect joy, to create joy.  It is to believe that, even though some of our encounters with strangers will be painful, most will illuminate an aspect of the human spirit that will make us smile -- and will hopefully make others smile, too.

At least this is what I thought as my bus pulled away from the stop and picked up speed.  Still smiling, I looked through the window at a city -- no, at an entire world -- that was beautiful.

This is my journal in Istanbul in December 2004, four years after I had been drugged and mugged.  I never would be reunited with the journal I had lost in 2000, but with time the pain of that loss, which was so great at first, vanished. 

____________

		Joel Carillet, Gather Travel Correspondent
	Joel's column, "Reflections on the Road," is published every other Thursday to Gather Essentials: Travel. His articles, based on extensive travels in Asia and the Middle East, seek to shed light on humanity, both our own and that of others.   They aim not merely to entertain and inform but also to develop a sense of connection between the reader and the world. Joel's writing and photography have appeared in several magazines and newspapers, including the Kansas City Star and Christian Science Monitor.  Currently he is seeking an agent for a book manuscript entitled Sixty-One Weeks: A Journey across Asia. When not on the road, he happily calls Tennessee home. Keep up with Joel's article series by joining his network, or subscribing to his content.