Gardens of Water (25 page)

Nilüfer looked at him, a question in her eyes that was working its way down to her lips.

“Yes,” he said. “I saw it today.” He pushed the plate of bones away toward his daughter. She stood and carried it to the stinking bucket they were using as a sink. “It’s not done yet.”

“We should go,” Nilüfer said.

“It’s not finished,” he said, his voice beginning to crack with frustration.

Nilüfer dropped her head and bit at her nails.

“
rem,” he said. “Come here.”

She knelt in front of him. He took her head in his hands and began to adjust the scarf. She would not look at him, but instead turned her eyes away and watched the cars on the freeway. She had his eyes; they were dark and furious and he knew he was going to have real trouble with her.

“I know this is difficult, but what’s demanded of us doesn’t change.”

She blew air out of her nose and her shoulders slumped. He folded the curls of her hair beneath the fabric; even he was a little sad to cover it up—it was so beautiful, black and rich with streaks of red.

“We must still be who we are,” he said.

She looked at him, water in her eyes. “Are you finished?” She said it softly enough to hide the challenge.

“Yes,” he said.

In the growing darkness he sat and drank cold tea, but Nilüfer’s eyes shamed him and he spun away from their tent and walked into the field, looking at the grass at his feet and trying to calm himself. A blast of light lit the field below and he watched the Americans crisscross the dirt, bathed in the bleaching white of floodlights. They looked like shadows walking on scissor legs. From this distance they seemed to have the efficiency of a machine, a hundred moving parts setting tent after tent in rows, each one casting a triangle across the ground. Just a few meters away from the camp, separated by a low hill, Gölcük was lost in darkness, like a bombed-out village—all collapsed roofs and walls that sheltered nothing except the haunting reminder that life once attached itself to this plot of land.

Sinan needed to do something, he knew—everything was gone, everything had changed—but he couldn’t bring himself to take his family into that camp.

At his feet, ants moved among the dried blades of grass like black rivulets of water. Some turned circles in the ground, some climbed over the slow-moving bodies of others, and still others climbed upon his shoes and up over his ankles. He walked over to the ewe’s carcass and lifted the blanket. The ants were already upon it.

Chapter 17

“
Y
ES, YES, MY BROTHER,” KEMAL BEY SAID. “I HAVE A COUSIN
who can help you out.”

For two days Sinan had been searching for a job—at the open market in Gebze, in the clothing bazaar in Yalova, even at the hot springs in the hills—but there were none to be had; at least none to be had by a Kurdish “terrorist dog,” as one butcher near Baghdad Street called him, pulling from his wallet—as Sinan backed out of the shop—an army portrait of a son killed fighting the PKK. He had even tried to sell tissues along with the barefoot boys at the Yalova ferry landing, but there were few cars and fewer buyers and he found himself stuck with a pocketful of tissues he did not need and would not sell. On the third day, today, he ran into Kemal in front of the bulldozed ground that used to be Kemal’s shop.

Kemal produced a cell phone from his pants pocket.

“Can you believe this?” he said, pointing with one hand at the flattened spot that used to be his store as he dialed a number with the other. While he held the phone to his ear, he said, “Life is an angry mistress. You want her, but she’ll rip your balls off.”

Sinan knew Kemal Aras from the grocery. Before the quake Kemal owned a small electronics shop, but he always came in to the grocery to buy lightbulbs for his store. Ahmet teased him about it, but it had been a good business arrangement: Kemal regularly bought their bulbs—a slow-moving commodity—and sold them, just two blocks away in the light-store district, at inflated prices for a small profit. Although Sinan was not particularly fond of the man—his conversation was always interrupted by cell phone calls and they had to listen to him yell at suppliers in front of their customers—he admired the man’s business savvy; he had his own truck with the name of his store painted on the side; a summer before he had installed at his store a beautiful red awning that could be seen from a block away.

“Merhaba, abi!”

And now even, while Kemal spoke to his cousin, he yelled into the phone.

“No,
abi
!”

He paced in front of Sinan, the phone to his ear, his head bowed to the dirt. His right cheek was covered in a large bandage, and streaks of blood stained the gauze.

“Good man, yes.” He spun a circle in the dirt and threw his hand in the air. “No! He’s a friend. At least two hundred.”

He nodded and smiled at Sinan.

“No.” He nodded again. “Of course, of course.”

Then he took the phone from his ear and hung up.

“Okay, my friend.” He slapped Sinan on the back. “You have a job. I’d take it myself if my back wasn’t so bad.” He shook his head. “Allah, Allah, one day a businessman, the next day a mule.”

The next morning, Sinan took the two-and-a-half-hour ferry ride to
stanbul, and by nine found himself descending the stairs into a Byzantine cistern in the Bazaar Quarter of the city. He was amazed that the cistern had not collapsed in the quake, but nothing in the center of the city seemed to have been damaged. Above him a small exposed bulb dangled from the brick ceiling and cast the only light on the steps. The cavern was eight hundred years old, musty, with green moss clinging to the cracks in the mortar, but where water was once stored, Sony televisions now stood stacked ten high from floor to arches. A leather harness tugged against his shoulders, and a kind of saddle, with a twelve-inch shelf nailed to the base, lay across his back. His job was to strap two televisions onto his back—three, if he could manage it—and carry them from the back streets of the Bazaar Quarter down to the electronic stores of Sirkeci—a good kilometer walk downhill. Then, do it over and over again until the end of the business day.

When he met the owner of the operation, a man known as Aslan, Sinan hid his foot behind a table so the man wouldn’t notice. With a cigarette burning in the corner of his mouth, Aslan Bey felt the muscles in Sinan’s arms, slapped his back, and even rubbed his hands along his spine, but he never checked Sinan’s legs. Sinan would work on commission, one hundred fifty thousand lira per television.

“I was told two hundred,” Sinan said.

Aslan sucked on his cigarette, pulled it from his lips, and exhaled before answering. “One hundred fifty.”

Sinan thought of accusing the man of cheating him, but thought better of it out of respect for Kemal.

“One-fifty,” he said, nodding.

Now at the bottom of the stairs, Sinan spun around and a man positioned the first television on his back. One television was no problem, just a little pinch in his kidneys, two was heavy, but three sent a sharp pain down his left side that exploded in his foot. The man tried to convince Sinan to take only two, but Sinan insisted. The three boxes were fastened together with bungee cords, and he struggled up the stairs, out into the alleyway, and down the hill toward the ferry landings. He dodged shoppers—women lugging bags full of lingerie, men being fitted for Levi’s jeans, tourists carrying neatly wrapped boxes of dried-out spices. He sidestepped carts of shaving razors and others full of pirated American DVDs. Once he got hung up on clotheslines from which cheap sweatpants dangled for sale. He leaned for a moment like a tower slowly toppling, before two men working a kebab stand jumped behind him and righted the teetering boxes. It was the steepest part of the hill, cracked brick stairs and splashing gutters, and one of the men helped him down to the flats, offering his hand as he descended the stairs. Even so, he kept twisting his ankles in the sunken mortar between bricks.

“You’re better off than the people who buy these televisions,” his helper joked.

“Why’s that?” Sinan said.

“You get strong, while they sit on their asses getting fat.”

“Would you mind getting fat?” Sinan said.

“Truthfully,” he laughed, “not at all,
abi.
”

He wasn’t able to stop for midmorning prayer, but when the call went out in the afternoon, he was near the Rüstem Pa
a Camii. The mosque rose above the street, and a small passageway led from street level into a raised courtyard of marble stone and tiled walls. His televisions bumped the arched entrance to the passageway, so with the help of the knife seller next door, who was standing outside his shop smoking a cigarette, he left the televisions sitting on the street.

He washed his swollen foot in the ablutions fountain, the cool water soothing the cracked and burning skin. It was the most peace he had felt in days—the walls of the mosque glowing with delicate tiles, the sunlit stained-glass windows a rainbow of color, and the sound of men whispering suras from the Qur’an. He wanted to stay; the city just beyond the walls seemed so far away, the destruction of Gölcük even farther, but a temporary reprieve was all the world—and God, it seemed—allowed. When he was done, the knife seller helped him again with the televisions. The weight felt unbearable, but he knew it wasn’t if he kept his mind strong, and he bore that load and six more just like it before the day was over.

He earned 3,300,000 lira for the day. It seemed a fortune.

“Come back tomorrow,” Aslan said. “Seven-thirty.”

Chapter 18

I
N THE EVENING RUSH, IT TOOK HIM NEARLY THREE HOURS
by ferry to get back to Gölcük. By the time he arrived at the tent his foot was swollen inside his shoe, but he stopped limping when he saw the American there.

“I wanted to speak to your son,” Marcus said.

There were purple bags underneath the American’s eyes, as though he hadn’t slept in weeks. Sinan didn’t know what to say to the man. It would have been easier if he’d never had to see him again.

The American boy stood behind his father. Those earphones were wrapped around his neck, the wires running down his chest and into the pocket of his pants, as though the boy was plugged into a hidden battery. He stared at the ground, a length of blond hair falling over his eyes.

“Yes, yes,” Sinan said. “Of course. A moment, please.”

Sinan ducked inside to make sure his family was decent. Nilüfer immediately grabbed him by the sleeve and whispered in his ear.

“I offered him tea, but he refused,” she said. “He’s been standing out there for twenty minutes.”

“Good,” he said.

Nilüfer set out a few pillows they had scavenged from the house, and Sinan invited the Americans in. Once inside, Sinan told
rem to bring tea.
smail joined Sinan on one of the pillows, sitting on his lap and rubbing his palms over Sinan’s knees. Nilüfer and
rem worked silently at the propane stove while he and Marcus spoke idly of weighty things—the university professor who was forecasting bigger quakes, the bridge that collapsed near Adapazar
, the shortage of water, the possibility of spreading disease, the recent rash of people jumping off the Bosporus Bridge—until the tea arrived in plastic cups and without saucers.

“I apologize, Marcus Bey,” he said, gesturing toward the cups. “The glass is broken.”

“Please,” Marcus said. “Don’t apologize.”

“Could I get some sugar?” the American’s son said.

The American gave his son a disappointed look, a small admonishment for being rude, Sinan thought.

“Yes, no problem,” Sinan said.

Nilüfer took the boy’s cup, but
rem returned it, after she dropped two cubes of sugar inside. Her fingers brushed against the boy’s as he took the cup from her hands. Sinan decided it was an accident.

“I’m sorry. This is my son—Dylan.”

Sinan shook Dylan’s hand. The boy’s grip was solid, but he didn’t look Sinan in the eye.

“Nice to meet you,” Sinan said.

“Yeah,” the boy said, and brushed a wave of hair out of his eyes, only to have it fall back in place. “Nice to meet you, Sinan Bey.” His Turkish was perfect, but his tone was rude.

The American looked at his son for a moment, the muscles of his jaw working, his brow narrowed.

“Forgive him,” he said to Sinan while he still looked at his son. “It’s a hard time for Dylan.” Marcus patted his son’s knee as though he were afraid to touch him but obligated to do so.

“The tea is wonderful, Nilüfer Han
m,” Dylan said, his politeness interrupted by the sideways glance he shot his father. The boy took one more sip and set the tea aside.

“Sinan Bey,” Marcus said, ignoring his son. “I wanted to ask
smail what happened after the quake.”

“No. I’m sorry, but it’s painful for the boy.”

“I understand,” Marcus said. “But it’s painful for us also.”

“Please, Marcus Bey. I have much to thank you for, and I’m sorry for your loss, but you need to understand—”

“Sinan Bey,” Marcus said. His voice remained polite but forceful. His head shook a little. “I don’t mean to disrespect your wishes, especially in front of your family, and I don’t mean to hurt your son—believe me about that—but you must understand what it means to us.”

Dylan turned his head away and looked at the blanketed wall flapping in the wind.

Marcus massaged his eyes with his thumb and index fingers. “You see—as a man I’m sure you’ll understand this—there are things I didn’t say, things I hadn’t said for a long time.”

Sinan did understand. The night of the quake, Nilüfer had been so tired she went straight to bed and he hadn’t said that he loved her or that she had done a good job with the party or even given her a glancing smile before she slept. If Nilüfer had died in the quake, he would have known that they loved each other, but some confirmation, some last note of love spoken between them would have settled his heart in her absence.

“I need to know what she said, what was on her mind those last few hours. If she was in pain.”

“She wasn’t hurting, sir,”
smail said.

“You don’t have to talk about it,
smail.” “It’s okay, Baba.”

Sinan didn’t want the man to know about the water, that
smail was alive only because of his wife’s sacrifice, but how could he stop the boy if he was willing?