One of the great things about Istanbul is that it’s always changing.

And I don’t mean just things like the new metro lines, or the completion of the third Bosphorus bridge, or the third international airport. Or the influx of Syrian refugees over the past few years. Those are big things. I mean, the little stuff, the subtle changes. Those are the things you really notice. The shops, the cafes and bars, the tenement houses. I can stay away from a certain area or neighborhood for a few months, come back, and something is different.

On this particular morning, I decided to revisit one of my oldest haunts in the city, the Aram Cafe …

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There was nothing about the Aram Cafe from its facade that made it special. Hundreds of its kind can be found along the waterfront, from Beyoglu to Bebek, from Uskudar to Kadikoy. A small, family owned establishment, serving tea, coffee and other non-alcoholic refreshments. The interior was small, dark, intimate. In the back, a sort of patio offered tables and retreat for smokers, and at the far end sat a fireplace with freshly cut wood stacked beside it for wintertime.

How I came to make Aram Cafe my regular haunt I can’t recall. Most likely I just drifted in one day, as I did many places when I first arrived in Istanbul. I’d never before lived in such a vast city. The scale of it, combined with the apocalyptic traffic jams, the endless jumble of people and sounds and buildings, is “a bit of a mind-fuck,” as one of my British friends says, if you try to wrap your head around it.

So the thing to do, I discovered, was to carve out a small piece of the city, and make it your own. I was living in Kadikoy, sharing a flat with other internationals – teachers, students mostly. There was my local bakkal, where I bought beer and cigarettes, and the market nearby for food. Down the street was the kuafor, where the barber knew my name and was always ready to offer tea after the haircut. If you got restless, there was always the Bosphorus. You could walk along the waterfront, the seagulls spread out against the sky, and watch the ferryboats arriving and departing, and the romantic couples walking, holding hands and taking pictures.

In this Istanbul – my Istanbul – I had everything that one could possibly need. The Aram was my reading and writing cafe, especially in the wintertime. With the cold winds blowing in from the sea, the streets wet or snow-covered, people hurrying to and fro in heavy frock coats, boots, clutching umbrellas, you could always duck into the reliable old Aram, tucked as it was on one of the back streets. You could imagine yourself a spy or fugitive in an old black-and-white movie, and nobody could ever find you there, except your girl. The proprietor (he was your confidante) always greeted visitors with the same easy-going smile. He was perpetually rough-shaven, a bit tired looking, with sad, dark Turkish eyes. His wife would also work occasionally (How do I know that, Raymond Carver? I just know, OK?), and she’d appear from the tiny kitchen, wiping freshly washed hands on her apron, and bring the tea to the table.

I’d sit at a table near the fireplace (it was usually deserted in the early afternoons), warm up with the tea and fire, then break out the notebook. Unfailingly, I could get something going in that whispered, wood-crackling locale, the sound of classical music drifting from the speakers overhead.

In those days, as I said, I was still trying to make sense of the chaotic city, and so into the notebook went lots of things – impressions, images, sketches, even bits of poetry … miniatures. It was there, at Cafe Aram, that I was first struck with this notion of the city as a vast composite of miniatures, like a mosaic. It was hardly an original observation, but I didn’t realize that until later. In fact, I even contemplated a book that I would call “Istanbul Miniatures,” featuring little vignettes. Eventually it became “The Trumpet Fisherman and Other Istanbul Sketches,” my first book of stories about the city.

So usually the writing went well, and when it didn’t, you could always read. The cafe was especially conducive to re-reading old classics, or the Turkish writers I’d recently discovered, Orhan Kemal, Elif Shafak, Nazim Hikmet.

The menu at Aram was modest, like the rest of the set-up. You could order an omelet, with toast, and the proprietor would touch his lip for a moment in consternation, then nod approval. He’d disappear into the kitchen for a second, then run out the door, down to the nearest market where he would purchase the eggs, bread, cheese, tomatoes, olives, whatever was needed. You knew you could have saved yourself (and him) the trouble and expense by purchasing these same items yourself and cooking them at home, but that was immaterial. It was an arrangement, an understanding, of sorts. In return for the inspiration the cafe provided, you ordered something.

The odd thing was whatever you ordered, you could be sure that next time, it would be a little different – depending on whatever mood the proprietor was in or what was available down the street that day. Maybe you liked the omelet you had last time, the one with the black olives and feta cheese. But the next time you got sliced cucumbers, no olives and yellow cheese. Forget about it. No matter what was served, you ate it, and thanked the gods for every steaming cup of fresh tea that was brought your way.

Afterward, the plates taken, you’d settle back, light a cigarette and look up at the cats that often crept in from the rooftop of the cafe, stealthily climbed down the trees and twitched their tails near the fireplace to get warm. They’d flirt indifferently, the way cats do, hoping to get a scrap or two either from you or from the kitchen. The proprietor would return and hiss at them, waving his arms, and they’d scurry up the tree, back up to the roof. You followed their retreat, just long enough to see them disappear back up to the rooftop.

As the years passed, I frequented the Aram less and less. I became more familiar with the city and found other places to write. It’s important to change your setting from time to time. When I first met my wife, Ozge, I took her there one morning for breakfast. We brought newspapers, had the famous omelets (I explained to Ozge about the omelets beforehand, so she understood the deal), and I introduced her to the proprietors, who greeted her in Turkish and with the same tired, pleasant smiles. “So this is your secret place, then?” Ozge asked, and I said yes, yes it was.

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It was gone.

The bakkal was still there, where they used to run down to get the breakfast supplies. Next door was the inevitable bar among bars. All up and down the street were the many places. But the Aram was gone. It was now a pile of rubble, like a lot of rubble you see, just so much rubble, and surrounded by a metal fence.

Gone.

I wondered if business had been bad, or if it was the ever-climbing rent prices, or if the proprietors had had some tax troubles or gone away or died. Well, at any rate, the Aram had been swallowed up, like so many things, by the swift currents of change in the ever-changing city. It would have been nice to have said good-bye, and to give thanks for being my secret hideaway, especially during that first winter.

I gazed at it, what was gone, and I looked at what was left.

Then I walked up to Barlar Sokak, where you can find a table on the terrace under the shade of trees. I ordered a tea, and with the quiet of the street below, began to write.

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James Tressler, a former Lost Coast resident, is a writer and teacher living in Istanbul.