TE16 Turkish Delight

Altay Öktem hewasn’t actually reading, but rather looking directlyat thecenter of the same page. In the meantime, an older man was actually reading the newspaper from the two next stools, visibly trying to be stealthy about it. He even seemed to be done and he waited for the young man to turn the page. Quite an interesting scene… I had barely taken two sips of my tea, then I saw the picture on the back page. It was the same picture that I came across in the newspaper I bought from the airport in Munich! Maria and I, at the train station…My arms around her, awarmsmile on her face. I tilted my head and tried to see the rest of the piece on, apparently, us, but the young man folded the paper, tucked it in his jacket pocket and got up. The older man was disappointed. Neither of them noticed it, but I was left with the greatest curiosity. I couldn’t grasp why on earth we’d become a topic. We weren’t actors or rock stars. I could see why the picture was published in Germany where it was taken, but in the most improbable of places, in Turkey, why would the papers have written about us? Who even knew us here, let alone internationally, and what part of us was considered newsworthy? Why would the young man and the older man sipping tea at a sidewalk café in Eminönü care at all about a Swedish academic and a Spanish model seen together at the Munich train station? I dropped some coins on the tiny table and rushed to the nearest kiosk. Since I couldn’t figure out which newspaper it was, I checked the backs of each bundle. I found the one. It wasn’t a

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