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On my
arrival in Istanbul, I joined my eldest brother, Halis. Ten
years older than myself, he had left Tatvan with his wife
(since 8 years) to look
for professional opportunities in a bigger city. He had been
looking for regular work for eight years, like the ten thousands
of natives of villages and hamlets in the hinterlands of Turkey
who come to the major cities every year. Istanbul, Ankara
and Izmir were magnets to the hopeful and often the theatre
of their great disappointment. I
found my brother at his place of work, a café in the dreary
suburb of Topkapi, were he had
a part-time job and, after hours, he took me home. We took
the tram to the suburb of Tozkoparan,
past low-cost state-financed apartment
buildings, but my brother did not live here.
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