After seeing Red, Black, Green, and Blue all in one day Ela had almost no contact with anyone for a week.  Each day she alternated between doing yoga or pilates.  She memorized another poem for when she saw Blue again.  Her method for memorizing poetry was to post the poem in the bathroom and then repeat it each time she was in there.  Most of her time was spent painting.  Her current project was a depiction of the tiny garden behind her home.  She knew she’d been working on this painting for too long and she ought to move to something else, but she could be a perfectionist when it came to her art.  The garden itself was nothing much, Ela made sure it was presentable looking but she couldn’t be bothered to spend much effort on it.  It was walled in and the claustrophobic nature of it made it a good subject for a composition.

When she was in high school Ela wanted to be a painter when she grew up.  Her parents were relentless in their message that painting was not a realistic career path; they were unequivocal that they would not pay for art school.  Studying graphic design was a compromise that would give her a chance to be artistic while placing her within a commercially viable field.  She was able to take one painting class in college and that was the extent of her training.

When a week had passed she set out to meet Red at the same restaurant, Fatih Pide & Kebap.  There were probably a dozen places in town named Fatih, not that there was any connection between them.  Though she had only told him that she might meet him, there had been little doubt in her mind that she would.  From the moment he said his name she knew she would see him again.  Her life seemed to be centered around men with colors for names.

Sure enough he was standing outside Fatih waiting for her.  “You came.”  Red said, with only a slight hint of surprise.

“I did.”  Confirmed Ela.  “So where should we go to find some magic?”

Red gave a broad grin.  “That is a question for the ages.  If I could give a simple answer to that question I’d probably be a rich man.”

“Only probably?”

Red gave a shrug “Use of the magic could come at a heavy price.  It’s hard to know how finding it would turn out since so little has ever been found.”

“Ok, so where should we start our quest then?”

“You seem to have rubbed up against magic at some point.  I was hoping you could show me what you might do on a typical day out.”

“Let’s see… I suppose I might go to Forum Bornova.”

“Forum Bornova.  Great, let’s go.”  So they did.  From the restaurant it would take almost half an hour to walk there, but the weather was nice and neither one of them was in a hurry.

“So what do you do in your quest for magic?” Ela asked.  She half asked it because she thought it was so funny that he would take such a silly question seriously, but she was also curious to hear his answer.

“I spend a lot of time reading.  I try to make myself knowledgeable about a wide range of topics.”

“Reading?  I thought you spent most of your time looking under rocks for magic.”

“I do that too.”  Red responded, either not noticing or not rising to her jibe.  “However it’s important to have wisdom if you’re going to find magic.  Otherwise you could walk right past it without knowing it.  These days everyone knows more about less.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“We’re very specialized.  In classical times you didn’t have specialists in any area, you just had intellectual men.  Aristotle is remembered today as a philosopher, yet only to view him as someone who sat around thinking about the nature of knowledge would be a terrible misunderstanding.  To the Greeks the term ‘philosopher’ meant someone who seeks truth and loves knowledge, all knowledge.  Aristotle created a biological system for classifying animals that was used for thousands of years.  His book Poetics is still used in screen writing courses.  He wrote about physics, government, ethics… the list goes on and on.  While he was one of the most famous examples, this type of work across fields was common.” 

“You think that we should be like Aristotle then and be knowledgeable about all of these things?”

“Well, it’s impossible today.  We’ve accumulated too much information to become an expert in everything.  Being an intellectual eventually diverged into being an artist or a scientist.  Being a scientist next diverged into being a biologist, an astronomer, a physicist and so on.  If we follow the thread of becoming a physicist you then have to decide if you are to be theoretical or experimental, and then choose to specialize as a nuclear, matter, atomic, or astrophysicist.  Probably some more subfields after that.  Everyone knows more about their given field and less about the whole.”

“However you aim to at least have some familiarity with all subjects across the board.”

“I’m not even sure if that’s possible, but I at least want to avoid being locked into seeing the world through one paradigm.”

“What have you learned in your studies today?”

“According to Hippocrates a nose bleed is a good thing when the menstrual period is suppressed.”

Ela stopped walking.  “Is that right?”

“No.”

Ela burst out into laughter.  “What could possibly be the benefit of learning something like that?”

“I have no idea.”  Red admitted.  “But having no known benefit is not the same thing as having no benefit.”

They continued walking.  “A nose bleed is a good thing when the menstrual period is suppressed.”  Ela repeated with a chuckle.

Red and Ela passed by the Bornova metro station then cut through the Ege University campus to get to Forum Bornova.  Forum was a stylish outdoor mall; its flagship store was an Ikea.  When Red saw it he was surprised.

“An Ikea?”

“Do you think it’ll be a good place to look for magic?”

“Probably not.”  Red stated.  “I generally don’t consider shopping malls good places to look, malls are so… interchangeable.  I’ve never seen an Ikea before though.  And ease up on all the magic talk will you?  It’s not something that you can force to happen.”  Ela blushed a little.  Red had seemed impervious to her attempts to tease him but now he was clearly becoming annoyed. 

They went into Ikea.  After walking around the bedroom displays they ate at the Ikea restaurant, Red had the meatballs, Ela the salmon.  Red bought a towel and a couple of kitchen tools.  They walked around the rest of the mall, Ela bought a blouse, Red bought an English version of an Orhan Pamuk book against Ela’s advice.  As they left Forum Bornova Ela suggested he try a place for a drink.

They walked back across the Ege university campus and past the metro to a street with tightly packed bars and cafes.  “This is Küçük Park, it’s an area popular with university students.”  Explained Ela

“Little park?”  Responded Red.  “There’s not a hint of greenery here, why would this be called a park?”

“I don’t know,” Ela put a strong emphasis on the I. “That’s just the name.  Come on, I want you to try this place.”  Most of the cafes had red booths; they sat in the only one with orange booths.  After a glance at the menu, Red looked disappointed.

“When you said ‘go for a drink’ I assumed you meant alcohol.”

“You need to experience this; this place has the greatest hot chocolate in the world.”

“It’s August.”

“The sun is setting, it’s cooling off.  Besides, here is Turkey, we drink hot drinks no matter what the weather.”  It was a common occurrence to see people sitting in the sun, sweating and drinking hot tea.

The orange booth café had a range of hot chocolate drinks with different fruit and nut flavorings.  Red got a strawberry flavor, Ela got a caramel.  The hot chocolate might actually be better described as a soup than a drink since it was so thick and rich.  After one sip Red simply said “whoa.”

“It’s good right?”

“It’s amazing.”

“Would you say that it’s…magical?”

“That’s not a word I like to throw around lightly.”  Ela gave a little pout in response to this.   “However, yes, it’s magical.”  They drank their chocolate soup, which was delicious though not quite magical.  It was a kind of sweet liquid calmness.

And in that calm moment Ela’s mind recalled Green’s dark prediction.  

Ela frowned, but Red didn’t notice, as he was distracted.  “Why are they doing that?”  He indicated a restaurant across the street that was putting up a tarp in the front of their patio.

“They’re doing it so people can’t stand outside and watch the football match for free.  I think Fenerbahçe is playing tonight.

“What, people would just stand in the street all night rather than buying one beer so they could sit down?”

“Yes.  Look at that restaurant next door.”  The second restaurant had not put up any tarps, there were several loiters standing outside looking in to see the game for free.

“What an odd and wonderful country I’ve come to.”

“Yes, well I’m afraid you’ll have to continue enjoying on your own, I need to be going.” Ela informed him.

“Before you go,” Red put on his most charming face, “have I been behaving well enough to get your phone number?”

Ela smiled, “Give me yours.”  So he did.  They stepped outside.  “So where are you going now?”  Ela asked.

“Oh I think I’m going to take the metro back home.  I hope to see you again soon.”

“The metro?  Where do you live?”

“Karşıyaka.”  Red turned and started to walk away.

Karşıyaka literally meant ‘the other side’ as in the other side of the bay.  It was quite a ways from Bornova.  “If you live in Karşıyaka then what were you doing in that little restaurant out here in Bornova when we first met?”

“I was there to see you.”

“But you didn’t even know me!”

Red turned but continued to walk away, backwards, as he responded “Well obviously I didn’t know that’s why I was there at the time, but that’s the only reason I could have been there.”  He turned again and continued to walk towards the metro.