The throng of people physically moves around Turkey. He can always feel them shifting about, but there is something uniquely delicious—concrete—about a market where he can feel humans pressed against his skin on the outside, rather than on the inside. They smile, especially the shopkeepers with their squinting eyes and big bellies, and maneuver around him. Sadiq walks slowly down the streets, lazily examining all of the towers of lentils, the bowls full of Indian saffron. He’s learned not to feel bad about his pace, although some women in a hurry shove him around. He finds it in himself to forgive them in their haste. The atmosphere is not ruined by a few crabby people: especially not when Sadiq can smell ekmek baking in a nearby oven.

He brings people to his market sometimes to walk through the receptive streets and to sample the olives (which Greece has even admitted as being nearly as delicious as his own) or purchase the coffee richly advertised in some storefronts. Egypt particularly enjoys the shopping, especially in Istanbul where they can stroll together and then visit the Blue Mosque. But Turkey enjoys being alone in his small towns with their open bazaars and people bustling along during the day, completely focused on their own, tiny universe. Sometimes Sadiq wishes that he could feel the same, be a nameless citizen in the crowd, only stopping for a drink, for a carpet, for a friendly conversation.

He travels around, never staying in one town for too long, in order to pretend. To make sure no one recognizes him as he ambles down past stalls, past inns, and past people that he would love to see everyday. And in that way, Turkey keeps up his ruse, makes himself believe that he is only a man named Sadiq who walks, everyday, through bazaars to buy things that he desperately wants, although his homes are full to their roofs with items that he doesn’t need.