This is one of two anecdotes that I was trying to decide between, to read aloud at a “Writers’ Reading” event, that took place Thursday, November 13, 2014. I posted it here to get some input from my web visitors as to which one I should pick. This is the reading that achieved the most votes, and got read. Although the other reading, “Wet Work” was not picked, I have left both online for your entertainment..
Introduction – to be read at the event
In October, 2011, my wife and I went on a Mediterranean cruise, which visited such famous Biblical sites as Corinth, Athens, Ephesus, and Rome. You might expect an Anglican priest to tell you about those places from a perspective of faith, but I’m not going to do that. Instead I’d like to tell you about what happened when we were in the Turkish port city of Kusadasi.
This essay, which is an excerpt from a longer piece, is entitled “Turkish Delight.”
Turkish Delight
This has been a great day. We’ve been on a tour of the ruins of Ephesus and seen much of the Turkish countryside, but the best thing of the day was not history, or ruins, or touring, or our magnificent cruise ship... it was... (are you ready?) ... shopping.
Shopping!? Tony Harwood-Jones hates shopping! What’s going on!?
Let me explain.
Not satisfied that millions of tourists each year come to their country and wander about old ruins, the government of Turkey has arranged that all tour busses must stop at certain emporia that will explain, and display, Turkey’s most famous commodity: the fabled Turkish carpet.
Oh yes, and they also sell them.
When you are on a tour bus, you pretty much have to go with the flow... so when we were deposited at the entrance of Barok Carpet, we dutifully filed in and were ushered upstairs to a room full of magnificent carpets. A young woman was seated on the floor in the centre of the room with a small demonstration loom in front of her, and while our official hosts explained the process, she quietly and wordlessly weaved silk into place, knot after knot.
We were also served Turkish coffee and some sweets. Turkish delight, no doubt.
Well we learned something of the long history of Turkish carpets, and were shown details of their intricate design. We were informed about the rural women who might spend as much as a year patiently weaving a single carpet, and we learned that the making of carpets provided a social bond where many women would visit and chat while doing the endless repetitive tasks of tying knots and tightening… tying knots and tightening…. We were told that Turkish carpets became something of a status symbol throughout Europe beginning in the 15th Century and continuing almost to this day.
History....
Cultural studies....
I love it.
I have no idea how the next bit happened, but with the educational session over, the tourists began filing out of the place, yet somehow many of them were subtly manoeuvered into what can only be called “deal closing rooms.” There each person – alone now – was encouraged to examine carpets at leisure, with their own personal expert who would gladly show them anything in which they might be interested. This expert, or consultant – we wouldn’t want to say “salesman” – had a number of helpers who kept bringing specific carpets in and laying them out for the admiration of the victim... I mean, the “prospective client.”
I was heading out with the crowd when I noticed that Heather was no longer behind me.
I found her in one of the deal closing rooms.
A consultant had already learned her name and where she was from (as I came into the room I think I heard him say, “My wife is from Scotland. Her name is Heather, too!” I don’t know about the wife, but his English was so good it was entirely possible that he speaks it at home). Assistants came in and out under his instruction, unrolling carpets with a flourish for Heather to admire.
One look at her and I knew that she was hooked.
Heather loves beautiful things. She admires them in and of themselves, but if she has a chance to buy one, she likes that too.
This salesman was very very good at what he does. It was as if he could read Heather’s mind. He sensed that she liked something, and would call for more of the same, and with just the slightest clues from her, he’d get a darker hue, or a variation in pattern, and with each carpet unrolled before her, he got closer and closer to the type and style that she might like so much she could – just possibly – buy it.
A large and exquisite rug hit the floor, and she gasped at its beauty. But it cost about $10,000. Her delight was manifest, but her rejection of the price was so clear that he called for a smaller one of comparable pattern. Again she liked it, and her rejection of the price was not quite so strong.
“We ship it to your door, fully insured,” he said, “with all customs paperwork and duties taken care of. You need only open the package and put this beautiful carpet in the place of honour in your home!”
I know my wife pretty well. I didn’t think that she would pay such sums, no matter how skilled the salesman. But as his samples got below $5,000, something subtly shifted in her. I began to wonder if she might actually buy one. The salesman saw it too, and intensified his presentation. We were down to prayer-rug size now, and with me in the room the conversation did divert rather nicely to a discussion of Islam. But he drew Heather back into the circle by showing how the pattern for an official Muslim prayer rug differed from the ones that he thought that she liked.
Ohh and did she like them! My poor, wonderful, sweet wife was almost quivering with desire for the latest one that he put before her. But she shook herself, as if trying to shake off a dream, and said, “I just can’t. I just can’t spend $2,000 on a rug, as beautiful as it is.” And I knew that while her heart was almost breaking, she meant it. This wasn’t negotiation on her part. As much as she wanted that carpet, she considered such extravagance and self-indulgence to be inappropriate. She was going to walk away. And I fell in love with her again for the thousandth time.
There was but one thing to do.
“I’ll give you $1,500 for this carpet,” I said, indicating the one she so clearly wanted.
The salesman stopped, and looked at me, calculating. Heather’s eyes were popping out of her head. “Tony! You’re not serious!”
“I am. I want to give you a present that I know you’ll really like.” She was struck dumb. There was electricity in the room. And a long silence, while I looked at Mister Married-to-a-Scottish-woman-named-Heather.
He said, “I can’t ship it to Canada for that price....” More silence. “But it is small enough that we can pack it up for you so that you could carry it in your luggage.”
“Could you?” said Heather.
The salesman and I sealed the deal.
The carpet was folded up and compressed so that it fit into a smart little handbag that appeared as if from nowhere. They have done this before.
As we walked back to the ship, shopkeepers that we passed would start to invite us in to see their wares, until their eyes fell on Heather’s special new handbag. Several said, “You have already purchased a carpet! May you enjoy it!”
Heather, tightly clutching her prize, said to me, “I’m worried that you might have paid too much.”
“Well, I’m not worried, so you shouldn’t be either. Think of it this way: instead of saying to your friends, ‘It was such a bargain!’ all you need to say is, ‘My husband bought this for me,’ and your status among women will be maintained. Anyway, it was so much fun to watch you in there, that I had to get it for you.
... Pleasing you this way gives me enormous pleasure.”
For the rest of the day, Heather remained completely blown away by what I had done. She could not believe that I would so joyously throw a large sum of money at a gift for her. And she not only appreciates the expression of affection, she absolutely loves that carpet, in and of itself. Indeed, at one point she said, “This is something that I would insist upon taking into a nursing home with me, when that day comes.”
(Not that she’s planning to go into personal care any time soon – but recently having put her mother into care she is very conscious of how a whole life eventually boils down to very few things in one very small room.)
....and evidently, for Heather, when that day comes, this rug will be one of those very few things.
I logged on to FaceBook in the evening and posted a short account of our day, saying, among other things, that I had, “...bought a present for Heather in a Turkish market. She really likes it... ”
....
And not long afterward, one of my FaceBook friends commented: “It must have been Turkish delight.”
Which wasn’t far wrong.
This narrative takes ten minutes and twenty-five seconds to read aloud.
Click
here to see “
Wet Work,” the other reading that I was thinking of using.
To
continue reading where this story leaves off, click
here.
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