The Sudden Appearance of Hope

Chapter 33

Pickpocketing on the Istanbul metro. Find a crowded train, bounce, body to body, the rattle of people, motion keeping your mark preoccupied. I stank, my eyes were bruised, I wanted to sleep and couldn’t believe sleep would ever come, that my mind would ever stop.

I counted supporters of Fenerbahce and Besiktas, of Barcelona and Madrid, Munich and Manchester. I saw one lone supporter of Sheffield United, and wondered if he had picked up the shirt because he liked the pattern.

I counted patent-leather shoes and flip flops.

Gold bracelets and plastic bangles.

I counted until there was only the world, the numbers, the breath, and I, my aching mind and my burned body, didn’t exist. I was only eyes, counting, only fingers, reaching, only the slight pressure against the stranger’s arm as I bumped against him, lifting the wallet from his pocket as he turned away. I counted buckles on bags as I pulled the mother’s purse; counted the studs in a student’s ears as I pilfered his phone and ID; I counted coins as I rode the funicular to Karakoy. The wallets themselves I threw away — no use to me. The face of the student on his ID tumbled into the bin. The mother’s library card fell into the dark. The lawyer’s credit cards vanished into the remnants of a sticky lamb kebab at the bottom of the trash can. They would be angry. They would feel violated. They would waste time and money restoring the things I had stolen. They would tell their friends that they no longer felt safe on the metro.

I didn’t care.

I would live.

On Siraselviler I bought a bowl of spiced yoghurt and lamb served with scalding rice and ate it in great shovelling mouthfuls. From an ice-cream house, the walls decked out with pictures of cartoon characters with ice-cream cones grafted into the frame — Princess Jasmine and Aladdin sharing a couple of cones on their magic carpet, the Pink Panther licking his lips with satisfaction, a half-devoured strawberry cone in one hand — I ordered lemon and honey with extra sprinkles, and ate until my belly hurt.

From one of the dozens of mobile phone outlets that lined the street, I bought a cheap handset with a cheaper SIM card, and accessed my email.

Parker hadn’t replied.

As the sun set, the lights brightened on Siraselviler, and a patter of light rain began to fall. I stood a while, letting it wet my hair, run into my skin, enjoying it like the sleep I hadn’t yet had, before wandering into the nearest universal-brand of universal-store that sold the same universal-clothes that you could buy anywhere, and dressing myself like a tourist.