Through the Smoke, Under the Sycamore, Sharp Eyes for a Deal

ISTANBUL It's impossible to say which is the lighter sound in the Cinaralti Nargile Cafe at 1:33 p.m. on a Friday. The skittering of tiny dice across the lacquered wood of a backgammon board? Or the banter of the players seated over it?

"How's the life?"

"Very bad."

"Why?"

" No mone y. No money, no honey ."

Poor Man, rhyming in English, wears wire-frame glasses about 15 degrees off plumb, a charcoal suit chalked in pinstripes and a black wool scarf that seems to have been selected not for warmth, even on this coolish spring day, but for the elegant way its ends lie flat on each lapel.

No money, but a searching eye that finds a middle-age man with a gray ponytail and a black camera bag. Has to be a tourist.

"Maybe you want to see something?" Poor Man asks hopefully. The tourist just looks at him.

This is an indoor-outdoor establishment. Under the roof are tables, a bar and a stack of water pipes, waiting for customers wanting the relaxation of a smoke. Through the door is a garden of sorts, with beanbag chairs scattered under the towering tree that gives the refuge its name: "beneath the sycamore."

By 2 o'clock, the waiters are hurrying back from Friday prayers, men in burgundy sweaters moving with the vigor of worshipers emerging from weekly services. "It was a good one today," the one named Gulbeg says of the imam's sermon. "He said to help people not only for your own gain but just to help."

It could go either way at the Cinaralti. The cafe stands midway in a row of water-pipe cafes in Istanbul's Tophane district, a pedestrian strip between the Bosporus and a freshly sodded city park that is pure destination, convenient to nothing, but good for an hour of repose. The waiters double as touts, presuming on the intentions of passersby with elaborate sweeps of the arm and relentless attempts at eye contact.

"Welcome, my friend. Sit down."