January 2017 | 85
January 2017
Stage11
- EAnother blasted puncture
So , this is how it ends , I think to myself . Sprawled face down on a granite slab , rump in the air , being pulverised by a leathery female sumo wrestler with a troubling sadistic streak . It ' s not quite how I imagined it , I have to admit . I ' d probably prefer not to be completely starkers , for a start . Or surrounded by a group of equally starkers women , all eyeing me with wary curiosity .
I ' d probably also prefer if the women weren ' t quite so disconcertingly enormous , if I ' m honest . This is a little sizest of me , I know – but they truly are enormous . Not tubby . Not even fat . But unashamedly , lumpenly Leviathan ; a raw , fleshy orgy of contour and crevasse . They lord over me in the midst of my torment , voluminous and aloof , like a clique of imperial blancmanges .
Why on earth did I come here , I ponder as I ' m wrestled into one particularly undignified contortion . I arrived in the spa town of Haymana just an hour ago , following a week of frosty slogs across central Turkey , and rashly decided to give myself a treat . I opted against a massage – mindful of the fact that every one to date has ended in disaster , including an incident in Uzbekistan that almost certainly should have resulted in some kind of criminal prosecution – and instead went for the more innocuoussounding ' deep clean '. Having now been straddling Maud for nearly half a year , my feeling was that it was not before time .
It ' s a decision both I and the spa drainage system swiftly come to regret . As I ' m brutishly scoured and buffed , torrents of inky sludge pour into vast swamps on the white tiled floor like some kind of faecal magic porridge . Before a dozen pairs of increasingly alarmed eyes , I morph from brown to grey to red to pink , and lose about twothirds of my body mass . By the end I weigh barely four stone , lying weak and spindly on my stone plinth like a broiled baby langoustine .
Miraculously I survive the ordeal , however . And about an hour later , I ' m feeling great . I ' ve never felt so utterly violated and wonderfully clean in all my life . Unfortunately , my post-spa purity doesn ' t stand much of a chance against the £ 8 ' pension ' I ' ve booked , located in a dilapidated tower block with a filthy bathroom and impressive range of ornamental body hair – but I vow to enjoy it while it lasts .
I spend my one evening in Haymana with a twenty-year-old , Sydney-born Turk who recently moved home to enrol in Islamic studies at Istanbul University . He is keen to undo the ' bad habits ' of drinking and smoking he adopted in Australia , he tells me , and now prays five times a day . He shouldn ' t even be talking to me alone , apparently – the seductive , newly sterilised temptress that I am .
I tell A that I have a serious issue with women being seen as sacred sex objects to be avoided / protected / dominated , and he nods sagely . ' They are different from men , though ,' he says , after a pause . Different meaning inferior , I ask ? He hesitates again . ' Um . Possibly .'
We get on to religion and I am told that this life is just a test for the afterlife . There are seven levels of Heaven , and God tots up your sins when you die to decide which one ' s best for you . It ' s possible to hang out in Hell for a while until you qualify for the lowest rung of Heaven , apparently . Rich people have to wait 500 years , A says – though he ' s not clear on what ' rich ' constitutes , or what happens to nice rich people who work hard and give lots to charity .
A describes Heaven for me . Everything is ' amazing ', with constant sex , drugs and alcohol , and seven virgins to cater for every whim . They need to be virgins , he insists , because their vaginas are tighter . That ' s also why he wants a virgin as his wife .
I ' m beginning to wonder by this stage whether A is the unqualified Islamic authority I was hoping for . He certainly seems unusually preoccupied by vaginas , which crop up a few times during our chat , often without warning . He ' s on safer territory where ISIS is concerned . When Muhammad speaks about killing infidels , he means it as a last resort of self-defence , A tells me . ' The Koran is very clear that you cannot murder or convert someone by force .'
I ' m somewhat relieved to leave A and retire to my hovel for the night . I sleep badly , vacuum packed inside my sleeping bag , and am out by 8am the next day . It ' s now below freezing and my breath puffs thick and foggy in the glacial morning air . After just a few minutes , I find myself high in the clouds , carving my way through an anaemic ,
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