Scotch and Holy Water TUMPANE Tales from Turkey 1958-68 Scotch And
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TUMPANE Scotch and Holy Water Scotch and Tales from Turkey 1958-68 “THIS BOOK IS A DELIGHT, a surprise, a rare nd....I shared Tumpane’s astonishment and delight as he discovered each Holy Water new archeological site and stood upon the actual spot where once stood Alexander the Great, or Homer, or Helen of Troy. I got the feeling for the rst time that those people once actually lived and breathed.” WATER and HOLY SCOTCH Joe Cottonwood, San Francisco Chronicle “YOU’LL HAVE TO LAUGH with Tumpane as you read about his adventures in Turkey....There is great substance in Scotch and Holy Water, a worthwhile reading experience.” Elizabeth Fiore, New Haven Register “[TUMPANE’S] INSIGHTS into the life of a Turkish bar girl [“Selma”] make up the nest chapter of the book, lled with humor and pathos. The woman comes alive in all her sorrow and mystery, as his nal encounter with her in a bar in Izmir reveals....That’s the kind of scene that makes for good writing.” Norbert Blei, The Milwaukee Journal Fluent in French and Turkish and conversant in ve other languages, John D. Tumpane lived and worked in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Iran for 20 years. In 1976 Tumpane returned to the U.S., where he wrote Scotch and Holy Water. ISBN 9780578485881 90000 > JOHN D. TUMPANE http://tesl-ej.org 9 780578 485881 BERKELEY · KYOTO Second Edition Scotch and Holy Water Tales from Turkey 1958-68 Scotch and Holy Water Tales from Turkey 1958-68 John D. Tumpane TESL-EJ Publications Berkeley, California & Kyoto, Japan Front cover: This Hittite sun disc, with a sacred deer in the center, was dis- covered at Hattusas, the capital of the Hittite Kingdom, about 175 miles east of Ankara. The Hittites were a race of Indo-Europeans who ruled Anatolia from 2000 to 1200 B.C. The sun disc, approximately 12 inches in diameter and made of bronze, was mounted on a standard and carried in ceremonial proces- sions. The original can be seen in the Hittite Museum in Ankara. The sun disc was adopted as the official logo of Ankara in the early 1960s. Large sculptures of it were installed in public spaces. In the 1970s, Islamists fiercely opposed these sculptures as representing Turkey’s capital or defin- ing “Turkishness.” As the Islamists increased their political influence in the 1990s and 2000s, the sculptures were removed. All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechani- cal, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing. Previously published in 1981 by St. Giles Press, Lafayette, CA. TESL-EJ edition © 2019 by Scott Alkire. All rights reserved. Managing Editor: Dr. Maggie Sokolik Drawings: Mary Jean Lachowicz Production editing: Hunter Greer Proofreading: Mark Handy Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tumpane, John D., 1922–1997 Scotch and Holy Water: Tales from Turkey 1958–68 (TESL-EJ edition) Library of Congress Control Number: [forthcoming] ISBN 978-0-578-48588-1 I. Tumpane, John D. II. Title. Appendix documents and photographs courtesy of Keith Lachowicz TESL-EJ Publications Berkeley, California & Kyoto, Japan 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Contents Editor’s Preface 11 Acknowledgments 19 Part 1 Diyarbakir The Mouse 23 The Fortune Teller 27 The Driver’s License 36 The Camel 48 The Landlord 49 Hiring and Firing Turks 54 The Van Adventure 61 The Icon 83 Thirty Below Zero 90 Christmas in Chaldea 98 That Rascal Ibrahim 103 Making Babies —Turkish Style 122 Mr. Isn’t-It 129 Selma 134 Genghis Khan Rides Again 156 Smitty and the Sergeant 163 Theresa’s Mountain 179 Part 2 Izmir Jimmy 197 “May I Have Your Eyes?” 210 Nuri 212 Scotch and Holy Water 222 The City Under the Sea 232 Honeymoon in Didyma 240 Crash MacKenzie 260 The Russians 274 Part 3 Ankara The Circumcision Party 289 Bert Organizing the Olive-Pickers of Nicea 296 That Midnight Ride 306 Trauma in Termessos 321 The Amphora 334 The Curse of Troy 347 My Favorite Ruin 374 Appendix A Letter to Readers 384 Sand and Siddiqqi, chapter 1 386 Dear John, You Send Me Plenty Of (poem) 389 The Baby Bottle 391 The Telephone Operator 395 About the Author 398 To Anne Editor’s Preface ≈ DRINKING AND HOLY WATER are two things you might not asso- ciate with Turkey, but you can’t miss them in John D. Tum- pane’s 1960s memoir of the country—particularly the drink- ing. Scotch and Holy Water—Tumpane’s account of his years living in Diyarbakir, Izmir, and Ankara—describes plenty of imbibing. It also describes expeditions to ruins, hijinks in nightclubs, and wacky interactions with Turks, Kurds, and expatriots. Although entertaining and well written, the book was never picked up by a publisher. Tumpane self-published Scotch and Holy Water in 1981 but, without national dis- tribution and marketing, the book went largely unnoticed. The casual reader today, when perusing the 1981 edition, might mistake the book for just another collection of expat anecdotes. The judgment would be off the mark. After moving to Diyarbakir in 1958 to work for a U.S. military contractor (The Tumpane Company, founded by John’s older brother Jim and their uncle), John plunges intrepidly into his ad- opted country. Rich adventures—and misadventures—flood his days. John rejects free accommodations on the U.S. air base, signs a lease for an apartment in town, and fully fur- nishes it—only to lose it when the building is sold six weeks later. At work he struggles to manage multinational em- ployees who unwittingly insult each other. On his first long car trip, he attempts to climb a snowy pass without chains. All of these trials—and there are many—John relates in funny, astute, and at times touching prose. Collected from 11 12 / SCOTCH AND HOLY WATER ten years of living in Turkey, the stories have a rare ethos. John deepens his experience in Turkey by exploring ru- ins at every opportunity. He evocatively describes the sites he visits. His impression of Miletus, the greatest Greek city in the east prior to 500 B.C., reveals his skill at the offhand sketch: We arrived at Miletus at two o’clock. Miletus was once on the sea, at the mouth of the Meander River, but the river had silted up. Now there was only a stagnant inlet in front of the magnificent marble stairs leading up out of the green slime. It was easy to imagine the Emperor Hadrian arriving in his burnished barges, or St. Paul in a rowboat with Timothy pulling the oars. Everything at Miletus was in shambles except for the theater. Unlike most ancient theaters, which were built on the side of a hill, this one was free-standing, next to the sea, with its own special harbor where you could anchor your barge to see a play by Euripides or Aristophanes. For a theater that had had no reconstruction, it was in marvelous condition. There was a huge vaulted semi- circular tunnel underneath with inside stairways leading up to the highest tiers. The theater held 25,000 spectators. When not reimagining the past through the sites he vis- its, Tumpane lives very much in the present. He renders hilariously his adjustments to Turkish daily life. He jousts with Turkish civil servants over absurd regulations, slyly rescues and restores neglected artifacts, and enjoys the pleasures of Turkish nightclubs. Occasionally he makes po- litically incorrect statements. Early in the book he takes on Inshallah (literally, “if Allah wills it,” but more easily under- stood in English as “hopefully”): I wasn’t the only one who learned to loathe the word Inshallah. I’ve seen many Americans grab a Turk by the throat and say, “Don’t give me that Inshallah shit!” But to the Turk it was quite logical. You make an appointment for a Turk to come to your house for an important meeting 13 / SCOTCH AND HOLY WATER at five o’clock sharp, and he says, “Inshallah” knowing full well he has an airline ticket in his pocket to take his dy- ing grandmother to a hospital in Ankara that very same afternoon. But maybe the weather would be bad, and the plane wouldn’t fly; then he would cheerfully come to your house on time. While reading the Koran one night, I was humbled by a footnote. It seems that Mohammed was asked a sly question by some of his skeptical followers, and he said, “I’ll have the answer for you tomorrow.” That night he got no revelations from Allah. Nor the next night, nor the following night. Mohammed was very embarrassed and confused. Finally Allah spoke to him and gave him the answer, then said: “But the next time you promise to give an answer ‘tomorrow,’ say ‘Inshallah.’ ” Tumpane’s clear, matter-of-fact writing saves his mem- oir from the annoying insider attitude that typify many ex- pat accounts. Tumpane aims to entertain us, not impress us. Yet impress us he does, through unselfconscious enthu- siasm, irony, and just the right amount of cultural and lin- guistic explanation to serve his stories, not his ego. Some readers may find Tumpane’s stories lacking in depth. To be fair, Tumpane is more interested in describing his adventures than in self-reflection, cultural analysis, or the lives of others (a wise move: most of his fellow expats spend their time partying or whining).