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I recently moved to Rumeli Hisarı, a very different section of Istanbul than Beşiktaş. My old neighborhood, its blacktop and concrete, its ugly rectangular buildings, is not the most aesthetically appealing one. Rumeli Hisarı is more like a village. Its narrow, irregular streets are lined with ivy-covered stone walls. Some of the streets are paved with flattish stones and are flanked by fig and pomegranate trees. Some mornings, as I walk to the bus stop, random people stop to offer me a ride up the steep and winding hill. I take their offers.

From the front garden of my building, I can see a small slice of the Bosphorus, the lights reflecting off the water in the evenings. There were two fig trees in the back yard, but the landlord in all his wisdom cut them down. Fig trees are quite hardy and these will probably grow back in the spring. When they mature, I hope they drop their rotted fruit down the back of my landlord’s neck to his shoes. There is a compost pile to the right of the steps leading from the back to a narrow side street. I am quite fond of the compost pile and regularly heap swept leaves and vegetable peels on it, happy in the thought that I am making rich, dark dirt.

I have an unusual neighbor. I can’t tell how old she is: she could be 40, she could be 70. Clearly, life has not been easy for her. She’s short, a little round and walks with a slight limp. Her clothes are old, worn and usually quite dirty. At one time, they were probably very colorful, but now are dull and gray. She wears them in layers, and they don’t always fit her well. Her hair, too, is lifeless and gray, the color of dirty snow with just a hint of yellow. In contrast to her appearance, however, she is incredibly lively. She energetically marches around the neighborhood at all hours of the day and evening. For teeth, she has two coffee-colored stumps. One is on the top left, and the other on the bottom right side of her mouth. Because of her lack of teeth, is difficult for me to understand her. I suppose many people wouldn’t bother to talk her because she is an odd, albeit regular part of the neighborhood landscape, but I have decided that she’s harmless. The first few times I talked to her, she looked at me suspiciously and spoke sharply. Maybe she was worried I would hurt her or steal from her. Later, she began to smile at me and ask questions – sometimes the same one three or four times. “Are you married? Where do you live? Do you work? How long have you lived here?” At least I think that’s what she asks me. Every time I speak to her, she shows surprise that I don’t understand her, and disbelief that I am a foreigner who doesn’t speak Turkish very well. Yesterday, I saw her near the Spice Bazaar, sitting on a low concrete ledge in the rain. She was selling tissues out of a vegetable box set on a plastic garbage bag. She looked at me blankly, then slowly, I think, she realized she knew me but didn’t know from where.

She lives in the house next to mine. In fact, her house looks a lot like her, built of ill-fitting, grubby layers. It’s made of bricks, odd bits of wood, and looks as if it’s held together with glue and chewing gum. My neighbor may be poor, but that doesn’t mean she has no projects, no dreams. At the front and the back of her house, she has piled great stacks of wood and other building materials. I often see her dragging chunks of wood, boxes or even clay roof tiles through the narrow streets to add to her piles. According to my other neighbor, she’s planning to build herself a new house.

I don’t know her story. I don’t know if she has a family, if she had a husband or children. I don’t know if she’s happy, or even if she’s really as crazy as my other neighbors think. I don’t know if I want to know.