II

In the south, on the Mediterranean coast, there’s a small fishing town, Anamur. In the summers it’s a hot spot for vacationing businessmen and their families. There are a handful of luxury hotels and gourmet restaurants, and a ferry that runs daily to Cyprus. All of these are owned by one very wealthy man, Emre Çağan.

Mr. Çağan had a son, named after himself. Young Emre led a very comfortable life, as you might imagine, growing up in a resort. Never wanting for anything, a new car each year, single but many girlfriends---you get the picture.

Tourism money doesn’t get to everybody in Anamur; some of the population still scrapes out a living on 30-year-old fishing trawlers. Those without boats work in the fields growing strawberries and taro, and those who can’t work in the fields, beg.

Sometimes when Emre emerged from his palatial home he had to step over a sleeping bum to get to his Porsche. Like young Siddhartha, the contrast disturbed him.

There was an old Kurd who used to wait by the bus station to panhandle tourists when they arrived. Everyone knew he was an alcoholic, but he had been loitering at that same station for so many years that he was considered a fixture of the neighborhood.

One night in June, not unlike any other except for an unseasonably chill sea breeze, the Kurd was sitting and rolling a cigarette. The last bus from Antalya had already arrived and departed to Adana. He thought to turn and ask the man behind him for a light, and as he did he felt a thin cord pulled around his neck with sudden violence.

After a brief, languid struggle the Kurd expired there on the cold concrete platform.