Hippie

—

They didn’t ask what they’d been served—they only knew that there were tiny portions spread across many plates. They didn’t have the courage to drink the water, so they ordered soda—safer, though certainly much less interesting.

Paulo ventured the question that was burning him up, the question that could have ruined the night, but he couldn’t control himself any longer.

“You’re completely different. Have you found someone and fallen in love? You don’t need to answer, if you don’t want to.”

“I have found someone and I am in love, though he doesn’t know it.”

“Is that what happened today? Is that what you wanted to tell me?”

“Yes. When you’re done with your story. Or did you already finish?”

“No, but I need to tell it through to the end, because the story has yet to find its ending.”

“I’d like to hear the rest.”

There was no anger in her response to his question, and he tried concentrating on the food—no man likes to hear these things, especially from the woman with whom he’s dining. He always wants her to be entirely there, focused on the moment, on the candlelight dinner, the moonlight falling over the water and the city.

He began to try each dish—pasta stuffed with meat in the shape of ravioli, rice rolled up in

tiny cigars made from grape leaves, yogurt, unleavened bread fresh from the oven, beans, skewers of meat, several sorts of pizza in the shape of boats and stuffed with olives and spices. Their dinner would last an eternity. But, to their surprise, the food soon disappeared from the table—it was too delicious to leave there to grow cold and lose its flavor.

The waiter returned, cleared the plastic plates, and asked whether he could bring the main dish.

“No way! We’re much too full!”

“But we’re already making it, we can’t stop now.”

“We’ll happily pay for it, but please don’t bring anything else or we won’t be able to walk afterward.”

The waiter laughed. They laughed. A strange wind blew in, bringing unexpected things with it, filling everything around them with unfamiliar flavors and colors.

It had nothing to do with the food, the moon, the Bosphorus, or the bridge—but with the day both of them had had.

“Will you tell me the rest?” Karla asked, lighting two cigarettes and handing him one. “I’m dying to tell you about my day and how I found myself.”

By the look of it, she’d found her soul mate. In reality, Paulo no longer had any interest in his own story, but she’d asked him to tell her, and now he’d tell it to the end.

His mind returned to the green room with the paint peeling from the rafters and the broken windows that once must have been true works of art. The sun had already gone down, the room was filled with darkness, and it was time to go back to his hotel, but Paulo began to question the man without a name.

“But you, sir, must have had a teacher.”

“I had three—none of them related to Islam or familiar with the poetry of Rumi. As I learned, my heart asked the Lord: Am I on the right path? He responded: You are. But I insisted: Who is the Lord? He responded: You are.”

“Who were your three teachers?”

The man smiled, lit the blue hookah at his side, released a few puffs, offered it to Paulo, who did the same thing, and sat on the floor.

“The first was a thief. One time I was lost in the desert and only managed to make it home late into the night. I’d left my key with the neighbor, but I didn’t have the courage to wake him at that hour. Finally, I found a man, asked for help, and he opened the lock in the blink of an eye.

“I was quite impressed and begged him to teach me how to do it. He told me he’d spent his life robbing other people, but I was so grateful I invited him to sleep in my house.

“He spent a month in my home. Every night he would go out, saying: ‘I’m going to work; continue your meditation and make sure to pray.’ When he returned, I always asked whether he’d managed anything. Invariably, he responded: ‘Nothing tonight. But, God willing, I’ll try again tomorrow.’

“He was a happy man, and I never saw him looking desperate due to a lack of results. During a good part of my life, I didn’t succeed in talking to God, I meditated and meditated and nothing happened. I remembered the thief’s words—‘Nothing tonight. But, God willing, I’ll try again tomorrow.’ This gave me the strength to carry on.”

“And who was the second person?”