The Bastard of Istanbul

On the first Friday of July, Zeliha Kazanci is rushing to the gynecologist’s office. She struggles through pouring rain, traffic, and broken cobblestones. Contrary to the old adage that warns against cursing things that come from the sky, Zeliha curses the rain that falls “from her dark curls onto her broad shoulders” (3). 

The streets are crowded. Men stare lustfully at Zeliha’s body and look “disapprovingly at her shiny nose ring” (3). A taxi driver sexually harasses her in the context of offering a ride. Zeliha refuses, then her right heel gets stuck under yet another loose cobblestone and breaks off. The taxi pulls away, leaving her holding “the broken heel of her shoe as tenderly and despondently as if she were carrying a dead bird” (7). 

Zeliha hurries along, going through the Grand Bazaar. She remembers that one of her three sisters asked her that morning to buy cinnamon. Obediently, Zeliha buys some sticks. She then purchases a glass tea set to add to the collection of about 30 that already exist back at the Kazanci home. 

Twenty minutes later, she arrives at “a chic office in one of the most well-off quarters of the city” (9).