brings everyone together: ohababa!

There was a man from Erzurum who used to come and go to the office of "Dadaş Film". They called him "Sergeant"... He would bring tea and run errands. He had nothing to do with Dadaş Film. He just had a small room on the same floor. He actually used to break promissory notes. We knew this, but he would not say, "I am breaking it," he would say, "I have acquaintances, I can have them break it if you want." Then he would take the bills and take them away, then call somewhere and ask, "He is giving 600 liras for 1,000 liras, what do you think?" He thought he was fooling us, but of course this was not true. There was also a banker named Ferdinand Manukyan in Tepebaşı. He was the brother of Matild Manukyan, the once tax champion and the queen of brothels... Ferdinand was an official banker. He had an office. He worked with invoices and receipts and was very serious and solid. When you took the promissory notes you wanted to have broken to him, he would be very meticulous. He would carefully check whether the promissory notes were sound or not. If they were sound, he would break them, if they were not, he would return them immediately. Because he was the man who knew best in Turkey whose promissory notes were sound and whose notes were not. He would make payments once a week. He would always break them for a lower price than the price you would get them broken at other places or at the bank. If the banks were getting 7 percent, Ferdinand would do the job for 5-5.5 percent. The Turkish cinema market would always work with him. Its producers, directors and actors would always knock on Ferdinand's door. In fact, all of Yeşilçam was dependent on Ferdinand. So if you were going to do something in Yeşilçam, you would first go and ask Ferdinand Manukyan. If Ferdinand said, "Yes, this is a solid man," you would do the job, otherwise you wouldn't. He was someone with very little margin for error. Interesting events also took place while Ferdinand was having the promissory note cut. One day, producer Nami Dilbaz went to Ferdinand to get the promissory note money. But when Ferdinand said, "There's no money for you this week," he pretended to faint in the middle of the street, saying, "Hold me, I'm dying." Of course, everyone was in a panic. Nami Dilbaz opened his eyes a little later and asked, "What happened to me? Where's the money?" They were afraid something would happen to him and paid the money right away. Nami Dilbaz and I went to the doctor two days later. After a long examination and all the checks, the doctor said, "You don't have a heart, I think you put people to sleep." After leaving the doctor's, Nami Dilbaz turned to me and said; "Abdurrahman, don't you dare tell anyone this. I get by on the pretense of having a heart. I'll be devastated if the truth is known," he said. Of course, I didn't tell anyone either. He later had a bypass. He died of a heart attack in Germany in 1986.