Diplomacy, Deductions and a Turkish Detour

My first trip abroad was a tax deduction. I was getting an MSW at Hunter College and found out that, if I attended an international social welfare conference in The Hague, I could deduct my first week of travel and my entire airfare to and from Europe. Convincing two colleagues to join me, I sprang.

In Amsterdam, one of my friends met a young Turkish diplomat. He was a nondescript character: medium height, pegged pants and an Elvis haircut. Let’s call him “Ahmet.” His father, some kind of eminence, had gotten him his job.

Ahmet had misbehaved in some way and had just been demoted to a post in Bulgaria. Beginning in medieval times, when they were overrun by the Turks, the Bulgarians became their sworn enemies. Also, the food was bad. So Ahmet was very depressed.

Listen to Balkan chants and you will hear hair-raising stories of bravery and betrayal from this period, most involving resistance against Turkish invaders.

My friend’s stated goal was a very simple one: she wanted to {deleted for reasons of propriety} a guy from every nation in the world. Since she was my friend and I am loyal to friends, I withheld judgment.

Ahmet impulsively showed us a snapshot of his wife, a young dark-haired woman posing in front of rose trees, then snatched it back.

We then separated, one of us staying in Holland, the other traveling to who knows where with Ahmet, and I going south to Italy. I spent the second half of my trip in Milan, Venice, Florence and Rome. Milan was my paternal grandmother’s birthplace, but I never got as far south as Naples, which is where my grandfather was from.

I remember staying in a “hookers’ hotel” in Rome, a pensione recommended by Frommer’s, in which I had to salt the bread. The hotel manager used to eat breakfast with a woman who wore more makeup than Tammy Faye Bakker or Dolly Parton, but I chalked this up to a guess that she was an “entertainer.”

When I got back to New York, I asked my friend how her week with Ahmet had gone. She merely shrugged her shoulders.