In a dark cavernous room on the third floor of an Istanbul walk-up, Adam Ayten sits alone against a window. One hand grips a smoldering cigarette, the other rests atop a calculator.
Carpets cover the floor and coat the high walls.
There are literally thousands of carpets, folded and stacked into towers across the floor or rolled up into rows of plush pylons. But amid the color and richness, Ayten's fleshy face looks dour. But believe me, my father would kill me. Whether handed down from father to son or learned in the medinas of Istanbul, carpet selling rivals carpet weaving as Turkey's most popular art form. But these once proud purveyors of objects d'Ottoman opulence are now widely distrusted, and each carpet salesman seems to have his own scapegoat.