the Black Sea.”
I smiled and nodded. My mom would have loved Ahmet and his stories.
“Oh dear,” said my host. “I had almost forgotten why you were here. Julian’s talisman. Let me get that for you.” Ahmet stood up quickly and entered the house. He returned a few minutes later with a small square of folded paper and a little bundle of red silk. He handed both to me.
“Well, now that you have what you came for,” he said, “we should go to bed. Tomorrow we will get up early. Head back to Istanbul. I can take you to Ayasofya—Hagia Sophia—before we make our way to the airport. But you will have to promise me to return someday so I can show you the rest of my home.”
I agreed happily and reluctantly rose from my chair.
WHEN I GOT BACK into the room, I placed the small bundle on a little round table next to the bed. I sat on the edge of the bed for a minute before I picked up the parcel again. Slowly I unfolded the soft square of silk. There in the middle was a small brass coin. Well, not a coin exactly. It was a disk, about the size of a nickel. On one side was stamped a sun, its rays radiating from a raised circle. On the other side, a crescent moon. I put the coin on the table and picked up the piece of folded parchment. I opened it and placed it on my knees. I read:
The Power of Authenticity
The most important gift we can give ourselves is the commitment to living our authentic life. To be true to ourselves, however, is not an easy task. We must break free of the seductions of society and live life on our own terms, under our own values and aligned with our original dreams. We must tap our hidden selves; explore the deep-seated, unseen hopes, desires, strengths and weaknesses that make us who we are. We have to understand where we have been and know where we are going. Every decision we make, every step we take, must be informed by our commitment to living a life that is true and honest and authentic to ourselves and ourselves alone. And as we proceed, we are certain to experience fortune well beyond our highest imagination.
I went to my backpack, and from the bottom I dug out the journal that Julian had given me. Then I slipped the parchment between its covers and put the journal back inside. I picked up the talisman again and turned it back and forth in my hands. Then I took the little leather pouch from my pocket and slipped the disk inside before turning back the covers on the bed and crawling in.
I WOKE THE NEXT MORNING, realizing that I had not moved a muscle all night. It was the kind of deep sleep I enjoyed only on vacation. When I padded into the kitchen, the wonderful aroma of Turkish coffee, pungent and dark, filled my nostrils. Ahmet served rich yogurt and fruit with the coffee, and then hustled me out the door, back through the cobbled village streets and to the water once more.
After we climbed into the boat, Ahmet started the engine and carefully backed away from the dock. Once the boat was out in the open water, he accelerated. We were moving faster than we had the night before, but that wasn’t the only thing that was utterly changed.
Despite the early hour, the sun was blazing in the sky. The villages, the green hills, the water—everything seemed bright and clear, sharp and vibrant. It was stunning, but the myth and mysteries of the previous night had evaporated. “It all looks so different,” I said to Ahmet. “Beautiful, but different.”
“Yes,” said Ahmet thoughtfully. “I often find that myself. Night hides many things, but reveals others.”
“It happens in cities, too,” I said. “Some often look magical at night but humdrum during the day.”
“And yet both versions are equally real.” Ahmet paused, and then added, “I suppose that is why it is never a good idea to make quick judgments about things. It takes a long time to really get to know places, people, even ourselves.”
The boat was humming through the water as birds circled and swung above us. Up ahead I could see two men throw a net from a small fishing boat. A young boy broke away from a group of people gathered on a dock and waved vigorously at us. I felt for a moment that I had traveled along these shores before but was only noticing them for the first time.
“Yes,” I said to my new friend Ahmet. “Yes, I am beginning to see the truth in that.”
CHAPTER FOUR
THERE HAD BEEN MOMENTS WHEN, moving around Istanbul, I felt as if I were a character in a movie. As if I were seeing the world through a camera, as if every word that came out of my mouth had been written by someone else. It was disorienting, but at the same time refreshing, as if the world was full of possibility. The night I’d floated down the Bosphorus, with the moon above, the water below—I don’t think I’d felt that sense of wonder since I was a child. Julian had said that life was about “becoming.” I was beginning to feel that.
But here, sitting in the Atatürk airport, that Istanbul was slipping quickly into the rearview mirror. I had shut off my phone previous afternoon and, until now, had forgotten to turn it on. It hummed awake, producing an inbox stuffed with semi-hysterical subject lines: “Urgent shipping request”; “QC question”; “XD95 failure”; “Monthly account reports due!”; “Where the Hell R U?” I noticed several texts from Nawang, and I read through those first. It sounded as if the first quality control tests were going well. Then I tackled the ones from David. Just requests for reports I’d already given him, information I had already shared. How much of my time did I waste resending stuff, repeating myself, churning out documents and messages no one ever bothered to read (but were nevertheless due—and submitted—on time, each month, each week)? Forty minutes clicked by before I turned to the messages from Annisha and Adam. Annisha wanted to know if I had arrived in Istanbul safely. Damn. I should have let her know as soon as I had arrived. Adam wanted to tell me about his school play. I quickly typed replies and then called the office, hoping I could catch Nawang.
BY THE TIME I was herded into my seat on the plane, I was thoroughly back in my world. I couldn’t keep ignoring my work, my life, every time I landed in a new place. And if my inbox wasn’t full the next time I turned on my phone, what would that mean? It couldn’t be a good thing. I pulled a few items from my carry-on and then wrestled it into the overhead bin. I could hear the fellow behind me huffing and puffing. A baby was already wailing at the back of the plane. I gritted my teeth and sighed. As I struggled into the kindergarten-sized seats that pass as airline accommodation these days, I could feel the muscles in my neck tightening up. The leather pouch that Julian had given me for the talismans was on a long leather cord. I had put it around my neck, figuring I was less likely to lose it this way. But now I could feel the leather string digging into my skin. The pouch felt unnaturally heavy. Too heavy for the tiny amulet it contained. I clicked my seat belt in place, then took the pouch from under my shirt. I pulled out the little coin and turned it back and forth. The sun and the moon. Yin and yang. Heart and head. Heaven and Earth. Hidden and revealed. I put it in the pouch and dropped the leather bag back under my shirt.
Then I pulled the journal from my jacket pocket. Julian’s note about authenticity was inside. I hadn’t really thought about it since I first read it. In Istanbul, I felt as if I wasn’t really living my life. Or maybe it was more like standing outside my life, looking at it as a stranger might. Now I wondered if what I saw was real. What was my “authentic” self? Who was I, really? I remembered my conversation with Ahmet on the boat. I had told him I was an electrical engineer. A husband. A father. All those things were true, but they could apply to thousands of other men. How would I describe myself if I couldn’t rely on those three labels?
I
