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It was two years ago, I had left work early, back then I was working as a designer at a firm on my off days from school; it was around 5 o'clock if I'm not mistaken. I got on the tram at Merter Tekstil Kent stop, the tram and the stop were quiet as the rush hour hadn't yet begun. I sat on the aisle seat of the section separated with a glass partition at the entrance of the left door.
After staring vacantly around me for a few minutes, I took out of my bag the book I was nearly finished with and started reading. With the crowd getting on at Zeytinburnu stop, first the empty seats and then as per usual the area by the entrance of the door were filled with people.
I involuntarily raised my head hearing the question, "How can we go to Üsküdar?". Two hefty youth in their early 20s were asking an old man for directions. While the old man was telling the shorter one how to get there, I noticed the knives in both youngsters' back pockets, they had their back to me and the handles of the knives were sticking out of their pockets.
The image had struck me, but then I said never mind and went back to my reading. After a while, I raised my head again as someone rather loudly said "Don't block my view!". The youngster who had asked for the way had said this sentence while explaining to the other one what he had learned from the old man.
He was saying this while looking at three young girls whom I had not noticed in the crowd, they must have gotten on at the Zeytinburnu stop. Now, the other guy turned his gaze on the girls too and they started staring at the girls like cats locked on to a bird alight on the street. The girls had become uneasy due to that sentence and their constant stare.
I dropped my book and started to watch the two men, they were slowly moving towards the girls and closing the gap. The three girls drew closer to each other and were now stuck inside the triangle area of the glass partition separating the opposite door from the seats.
I put the book in my bag, rearranged the notebook upright beside the book so they covered more surface area inside the bag. I hung the bag not on my back but across my chest and stood between the girls and the men who were beginning to press against the girls, and I started to stare at their faces. (I always hang my bag across my chest when I get on the tram but this time my intention was to protect my body with the book and the notebook in case they drew out the knives. Suddenly I had fallen from Cortázar's magical realism to the City of God.)
I've seen many threatening looks in my life but I'd never encountered one like this before. They were looking at me like I was a creature that caused their prey to slip through their fingers, and if we were in a deserted alley or if the tram was less crowded those knives would immediately come out. I wasn't imagining things, they were revealing their intentions very clearly with the way they looked at me.
The nervous journey was continuing, along with the uninterrupted stares, it felt like the ride was taking forever. The girls got off the tram at Topkapı together with the crowd. Even though it was no longer crowded where we stood, we did not move and kept the same distance without losing eye contact. When we reached Fındıkzade I got off sliding between the two who were barricading me.
That day and the following couple of days, I thought about that weird trip. Throughout my life, I'd come across many incidents of vulgarism, vandalism, harassment, fighting, which have come to be acceptable parts of daily life, so why was this incident bugging my mind?
Two youngsters had come to a city they didn't know, but they had not come here as guests, for touristic or business purposes, they were not here to keep to themselves. They were seeing this new place as a space where they could readily harass the women they liked and readily stab anyone who stood in their way or whom they bickered with for any other reason.
Like those who consider themselves entitled to every place their bodies may happen to be... I had started seeing this new species for the last two or three years. When I was trying to understand why this is happening, I think I found the answer. I had to check the metalanguage again...
It was a year ago; this time the destination was Tophane. Over the years I had figured out which coach of the tram would be full at which station, so I got on the first coach. It was not very crowded and I headed towards the corridor behind the cab of the tram driver, which is usually the most quiet part of the tram. (Additional information: This is the coolest part of the tram. It is good in summer, but not recommended in winter.)
At Aksaray station, along with a few other people an Arab woman got on the tram, pushing a baby carriage. She positioned the carriage near the opposite door in a way that would not block anyone's entry or exit and stood next to it. She was a bit on the heavy side. All of a sudden, someone who was sitting on the seat in front of her, and whose face I could not see because his back was to me, began grumbling loudly: "They keep eating and screwing! They turned into pigs from all that screwing. They invaded everywhere and they are still reproducing."
I don't know if the woman sensed that the man was addressing her, but she looked at him. I also don't know if the man was disturbed or encouraged by her look, but he continued his grumblings full of swear words in a voice that was getting louder and louder: "You should fuck them so hard that they cannot come here again..."
Nobody said anything to the man, who was experiencing a surge of self-confidence and great sexual pleasure at the same time. They were listening in silence to the insults not directed at them as if they were listening to the sermon of an imam. Or they were keeping silent in order to stay out of trouble. I interrupted his lustful speech by saying, "Keep your opinions to yourself, stop broadcasting them live here!"
He turned around and looked at me with sparkles coming out of his eyes. I knew this look from the previous year. This time, I was not like a creature that made his prey run, but like a creature that did not let him play with the prey he had caught...
Then, a woman who was sitting at the other end of the corridor intervened by saying, "Yes, stop behaving rudely". With a number of other critical voices raised, the man stopped speaking. When getting off in Beyazıt, he again looked at me with the same feeling and I did the same...
It was a month ago; I got on the tram at Haseki station to go to school, it was very crowded. Seeing that I could not go any further than the middle part of the coach, I stood there. Two women who were speaking in Russian and had boarded the tram with me found themselves a place on my left; my face was turned towards them. A man, who had also boarded the tram with us, stood beside them.
His face was turned towards me. Though everyone was close to each other, it was not such a tight squeeze, that is, if somebody were touching another they would be suspected of bad intentions rather than absent-mindedness. All of a sudden, the woman, who was standing right next to the man and talking to the other woman, turned her head to the right, and looked down and then at the man who was standing next to her. He was looking at the screen in the tram with a blank face.
Then, I looked at the hand of the man. He was holding a half liter plastic bottle of water. I started to watch the movements of his hand. The moment he thought the tram oscillated in his favor, he was rubbing the leg of the woman with the upper part of his free hand, which he camouflaged with the bottle of water. The woman looked at him one more time, she either thought that he touched her by mistake because of the bottle of water in his hand or she could not say anything because she could not speak Turkish.
Seeing that the man was going to make the same move again, I looked at him in the eye and said, "Don't do that!" He answered, "What am I doing?" and looked blankly at me, with a touch of defiance at the same time.
"I know what you are doing, don't you ever do that again!"
That blank look in his eyes gave way to the look that I had seen two years ago; in his eyes, there was no shame or any feeling resembling an acceptance of having been caught red handed. He was again looking at me like I was a creature that caused his prey to slip through his fingers. And again, if we were in a deserted alley...
I got off at Cevizlibağ station. This time, I did not ponder over it too much.
Because, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way..."* (TY/ŞA/APA/SD/TK/IG)
* Images: Kemal Gökhan Gürses
