Tour

One thing I was glad. I had taken a hotel with no other westerners, that I could detect. So I was safe there. Ignorance is bliss.

"Where do you think you are ?" It was now an official-trip. I had been a hired-hand. It had been an agreement between lawyers. I was a soldier again. She would not be my marrying-maiden. But I got to be her back-street boy for an afternoon. Somehow I found my way to the address, a second-floor affair with a view of the Bosporus, that she said belonged a-friend of hers. They were concerned about my looks. They thought I would be arrested. They pleaded with me to cut my hair and beard. So she could not be-seen with me. This - right-here was takin' a chance. I payed no attention. I had decided that I was going to be me, the-me I wanted to look-like and decided - well-hell with them. So when I left there in the dusty sun-slant afternoon, I knew it would be the last-time I would ever see her.

After crossing the border from Bulgaria we stopped for breakfast at a restaurant in the morning in Turkey. She had to wear a head-scarf she said. The place was all men and not a single women, about thirty-in all - very narrow and noisy. From the second we walked-in, men began shouting. Every table was taken. There began a scramble. Men stood and were standing in the back, yelling something at others toward the front. Commotions began. Men began to scatter. She said they were vacating a table for us. Someone had to move, and right-quick. Who was it to be ? Everyone wanted to volunteer. We got a table. The place quieted down. She was pretending to be an English tourist.

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