Gardens of Water (19 page)

As the flock passed between the tents, Sinan smelled the pungent mildew of wool, and his stomach twisted with hunger. He watched the eyes of the passing animals—big, black, stupid eyes—and could only think of the meat clinging to their bones. The shepherd tipped his hat as he passed. His face was an intersection of bones, the sunburned skin pulled taut across their ridges—the face of a man subject to nature, rather than the stagnant air of the city. It was a calm face, despite the wear, a face that accepted the role of killer of the animals under his protection.

In a bag full of the things he brought back from their apartment, Sinan found a knife. He stood and followed the last of the sheep through the grass, across the on-ramp, and down the hill into the destroyed flatlands of town. He kept the blade of the knife cupped in his palm. He didn’t join the man—there was a solitary nature about the shepherd that was important not to disturb—but rather Sinan followed close behind and a little to his left so that he could see the man’s face. The shepherd didn’t acknowledge him or seem disturbed by the sight of collapsed buildings, and he whistled as he walked—an old song, a
türkü
about the love for a village girl. The sheep clambered over broken bricks and debris as if climbing the rocky slopes of mountaintops, oblivious to the consequences of the world. Women washing clothes in a bucket turned to watch the flock pass. A few men smoking cigarettes at a card table snuffed out their butts, got up, and followed.

The shepherd reached a field just off Atatürk Street that was surrounded by hothouses for tomatoes, and here he stopped to let the animals graze in the dry grass. What tomatoes were left beneath the plastic domes were rotten and smelled of organic decay, yet there was enough of a hint to the fresh fruit, ripe and full of juice and seed, that it touched the hunger in Sinan. He and the other men stopped in the middle of the field, surrounded by the soft mastications of grazing sheep.

“They’re not fattened,” the shepherd said to the men. “But they’re yours to take.”

“Thank you, brother,” Sinan said.

He was embarrassed to take advantage of the man’s offer, but he had little other choice. He tried to find the weakest animal—a generous offer requires generosity in the taking. Near the edge of a hothouse where the weeds were high, he discovered an old ewe, her movements slow and weak as though her joints were stiffened with arthritis.

He pulled out his knife and took her by the chin. She raised her head as though expecting to be petted. He straddled the ewe’s haunches, turned her body toward Mecca, lifted her throat, and made a quick incision that severed the ligaments and windpipe. She kicked her rear hooves, stepping on his toes and cutting his shins through his pants. He held her head to his chest to keep her still and watched her black eye, bulged and blaming, grow soft and flat until it was nothing but a stone.

“God is great,” he whispered.

That’s when he heard the trucks, their heavy gears downshifting, the engines revving and winding down to a crawl. With the dead sheep’s head in his lap, he paused to watch the line of produce trucks bounce violently over potholes and pavement cracks. They were painted red with hand-stenciled flowers and gaudy calligraphy, and their brightness was shocking against the cement gray and burned-out yellow summer landscape.

Every Tuesday in the center of town, an open market was held. At five
A.M
., men wedged metal poles into the pavement, fastened canvas sheets atop the poles, and hung the fabric across the street to shade rows of wooden tables. For ten whole blocks, fruits and vegetables, fresh spices, nuts, even cheeses and olives overflowed the tables. Sinan’s stomach constricted with the memory, and he was filled with a momentary hope that produce was the cargo of this caravan.

But as the trucks approached, he saw that the truck beds were not filled with fresh produce but instead with stacked canvas bags. The first truck passed, blowing an exhaust-filled wind into his face. Imprinted on the canvas bags were American flags and next to that in black spray paint were little crosses and a name in English that he could not read. Three more trucks passed, all of them loaded with food and other supplies. The last vehicle wasn’t a produce truck, but a water truck, the valve in the rear leaking a trail of wet on the cement.

Following the trucks was a line of white minibuses filled with Europeans or Americans—he couldn’t tell which. Elbows out the windows, their T-shirt sleeves blowing in the wind. Fancy black sunglasses, the bill of a sports cap. A few of the people smiled as they passed, as though on vacation—tourists come down to see the damage. He had heard about this. Some entrepreneurial travel agents from
stanbul had arranged tours to see the towns destroyed by the earthquake, for which “adventure” tourists were said to be paying incredible prices.

He was about to curse them, when through the windshield of the last bus he saw the American director in the passenger seat waving an arm at the driver. The truck downshifted—the sound like metal shearing metal—but did not stop. The American smiled and held his hand out the window in a prolonged wave. As they passed, Sinan caught a glimpse of the man’s son, his earphones stuck in his ears, his face grave and drawn-looking.

Sinan was ashamed. He had never thanked the American. As soon as he had
smail in his arms, nothing else had mattered and he had left the director alone with his dead wife—the woman who had saved
smail’s life. Shameful.

Because his hands were full, he nodded and hoped it would be interpreted as thanks, but the bus had already passed.

Chapter 13

REM COULDN’T STAND IT ANYMORE. FOR FOUR DAYS NOW SHE
had sat inside this tent wondering if Dylan was alive. Every hour, it seemed, of each of those four days her mother checked for strange marks on
smail’s skin, watched for enlarged pupils, pressed her palm against his forehead, which was always too hot, too cold, or too sweaty. She tugged on his tongue. “That bump wasn’t there this morning.
rem, was that bump there this morning?”
smail was fine, at least as fine as anyone could be after the quake, but he willingly endured his ears being folded back, his eyelids tugged open, his lips yanked apart, and a prodding finger sliding around his gums.

So when she woke this morning, after yet another dream of her teeth falling out—each one
plunk, plunk, plunk
ing onto the tiled floor of their now-nonexistent bathroom—and found her father gone for the first time since they left the hospital, and her mother and
smail still asleep, she sneaked out of the tent and ran down the hill into town.

rem found her best friend, Dilek, and her mother, Yasemin Han
m, camped on the retaining wall that ran from the port along the sea to the destroyed amusement park. They were huddled together beneath a sagging blanket tied to two sticks wedged in cracks in the pavement.

“Both your mother and father are alive?” Dilek’s mother asked
rem.

“Yes,”
rem said.

“Good,” Yasemin Han
m said. She had been a well-kept woman who favored Vakko blouses and tailored pants, her hair always pinned back with a gold broach, but now she wore a shirt ripped at the shoulder and her curly hair was wild and hung in her face. “Good,” she said again. “Your mother is lucky.”

Dilek stroked her mother’s shoulder, and told
rem with amazing calm that her father had been killed in the quake, one of thirty men crushed in the
k
raathane
down Atatürk Street. Behind them, the cars hovering above the water of the half-submerged Ferris wheel rocked in the morning wind, the metal joints creaking.

“I’m sorry for your loss, Yasemin Han
m,”
rem said. “May your pain pass quickly.”