Mark

A Moroccan Cigarette Case

November 1915 Australia

Flame against the stones of a hearth, in the ruin of a house, in a paddock of almost ripe wheat, at the edge of a drying lake, the crust like a pie, its salty edges shimmer through the warmth.

A whiff of mallee smoke and a dray in the distance, the driver, the owner of the ruin leaves the kid alone. This scene suits Lawrence’s daydream of a more a more Arcadian, or maybe more urbane, life, sparely imagined from flickering movies or mail order encyclopedias.

Lawrence the cuckoo is lightened, and mildly ashamed, of his fantasies of an ancient, distant world, spawned by boredom and a hunger for experience. He peddles home weaving along a gravel sand track in low scrub by the railroad. Each turn promises something new, but yields only the familiar uninhabited spots where he and his brothers made hammocks in the snotty gobble vines, or tried to derail the train.

After tea he walks and says goodbye to the humbling dazzle of night sky and the rustle of eucalypts. Then in the morning the crow’s call, not like a rooster, starting loud then fading, like it wished it had never started, ah, ah ah.

He leaves the others to work in the clay rusted vehicles, with their smelly tang of agricultural, of oil, gasoline, jute, clay, grain, baked on to metal, cutting through the spotless air.

December 1915 Istanbul

In Istanbul Lawrence spends a night at the Pera Palace Hotel, in respectable Beyoğlu its fading glamour at the crux of hemispheres, a Christmas gift to himself before billeting. French, Germans, Italians and Greeks have not all yet departed and the Armenians, Christian Turks and Jews are still present despite of the purges of the new republic.

He buys chocolate profiteroles from Inci, as the porter recommends, and catches the Istiklâl Caddesi tram, dinging unnecessarily for Taksim square. Wandering down to Galata he watches people hop on and off the ferries, as they come in, bump the doc before reversing their motors and heading back for the brief, low, ride across the Bosphorous. Proudly blasé about this odd act, they try to catch one of the better ferries, the dingy ones wait a little longer, and try a little harder.

Back at Taksim Laurence circles the streets looking for something familiar, somewhere he can enter and take in Istanbul. Avoiding other uniformed men, and in a side street, he spots the Cağaloğlu Hammam, Istanbul’s oldest public bath, also recommended by the hotel porter, perhaps mischievously, and not to all young soldiers.

The Cağaloğlu still answering the need for public bathing, also houses a café and barbershop. Lawrence resists and walks on, but the Cağaloğlu’s magnet of clean masculinity draws him back, and he figures that half an hour in a barbershop, although a strange one to him, could satisfactorily punctuate the day, experiences since leaving Australia having emboldened him.
“Merhaba”
“Merhaba sir”

He indicates a short cut, to satisfy the military and knowingly accepts the foreigner price, which quietly amuses the other patrons. This doesn’t create the camiaderie Lawrence would like, more distain for his lack of guts. Easing into to the chair, he is attended to, unsubmissively, by the most senior barber but with the deference of someone attending to an unknown, and possibly dangerously official, entity.

“Where from?”
“Australia”
“Ah, little America”

Half accepting, but intimidated by the presence of a foreigner, the shop settles into its quiet heat and snip snip snip, a calm glassy pool open to, but an oasis from, the street outside. Along the row Lawrence sees a handsome man, a sheik a Valentino. This confident, agelessly good looking young man, passes for twenty five, but maybe ten years older, snaps a smoke from a Moroccan cigarette case, seeming to take Lawrence in, and flicking his hair, to slightly acknowledge this, and his satisfaction at his own reflection. Occasional exchanges with the barbers suggest that he knows them, or maybe they now know each other against an alien presence. They show deference to the handsome man, but maintain a seniority, or is it? to him that comes with their age. A well-off young man, a smartly dressed gigolo, a poor young man on the way up by virtue of a refined nose, and the appearance of intelligence? Laurence can’t decide.

Encouraged by the relative ease of the barbershop Lawrence decides to try the Hamam.

A church with steam, white marble worn by three hundred years of naked flesh, soft contours and warm, almost flesh itself. A whitewashed dome with blue glass chips drips with audible tinkles into the steamy quietness.

Seasoned with heat, massaged, and as near to a man as he has been, scrubbed to peeling, a final soap and Lawrence dons the robe provided. He makes his way back to the bed cubicle, provided for relaxing, but not for too long, before dressing and returning to the street. In the courtyard, The Valentino sheik, sits, sipping his coffee, seeing him, but not seeing him, as Lawrence makes his way around the upper gallery. Lying down he is restless, and feels watched by the attendant behind the frosted glass, worth keeping an eye on. English speakers don’t usually make their way, here, sticking to the attractions of Santa Sofia and the Arabesque Cabaret. As Lawrence surfaces from the effects of the soaking, he sees the sheik through the glass, walk slowly, seemingly towards him, then gone to the marble steam church.

Dressed, Lawrence steps into the gallery, the attendant not in his seat and the sheik’s cubicle left ajar, Lawrence spies the Moroccan cigarette case, put deliberately? on the sheets of the nun’s bed. He steps in and pockets it, before making his way into the glare and dust of the crowded streets, the hard world, a relief, though demanding, return to life.
August 1920 Australia

The young man Lawrence lies in the grass, fragrant, by the fire, in the two walled stone house with no roof. A warm winter’s day, years away from the old world and death. From his pocket he takes the Moroccan cigarette case, turning it slowly, burnished, in his hand.