Atatürk Airport was like New York except some of the signs were not in English.
I remembered Istanbul was enormous.
I remembered Mum telling me that. ‘It goes on forever. You’d love it there. The whole world is in Istanbul, Gerda. One day, I’ll take you.’
Yes, but she didn’t. And I hadn’t got a visa. I got to ‘Immigration’ and was sent straight back. A kind Dutch teacher saw what happened and showed me where to buy my visa.
‘Tourist?’ asked the officer, serious-faced, getting ready to put a stamp on my passport. I had the £10 in my hand, no problem, but a little devil made me say something else. ‘No, I’ve come for the conference.’
‘Conference? What conference?’ He frowned crossly. His stamp hovered in mid-air. ‘You are tourist, yes?’
‘The International Conference.’ Surely he would know. Then I could ask him where I had to go. But he’d lost interest, his stamp came down, he took my money and the queue moved forward.
As soon as I got into an internet café, I googled ‘Istanbul’ and ‘international conference’. Fuck, there were thirty-one million hits.
‘The whole world is in Istanbul, Gerda.’
How, in a whole new world, would I find her?