Gardens of Water (35 page)

“Yes,
Anne,
” she said.

Her mother lay back down and turned her back. Her father didn’t move.
rem cried into the fabric of the bag, amazed that she could do it so silently.

Chapter 27

“
A
LLAHU AKBAR
!”
THE MUEZZIN CALLED IN A VOICE THAT WAS
like a knife splitting the morning silence. “I bear witness that there is no god but the One God.”

Nilüfer touched his hip and rested her hand there a minute, as though waiting.

His foot was healed and he could have gotten up to go to morning prayer, but he drew his head down into the sleeping bag and tried to ignore the wavering voice and his wife’s insistent fingers.

I bear witness that Muhammad is the messenger of God.

The sun was not up yet but the lightening sky was turning the inside of the tent blue.

Come fast to prayer.

Her hand remained on his hip, and now one of her fingers tapped against his bone.

Nilüfer had told him about the wooden mosque the Americans had built, at the request of Imam Ali, to replace the one destroyed in the quake, but he had not gone.

Come to success.

If it had been
smail’s fate to survive the quake, then God had known his fate all along and had planned his fate as such. If that outcome was predetermined, he wouldn’t have needed to leave his wife and daughter alone, unprotected for four terrible days. It seemed a cruel trick now, to keep
smail trapped in that hell—a test no man could pass.

Prayer is better than sleep.

Nilüfer’s finger stopped tapping. She pulled her hand away and turned her back to him.

God is the Greatest. There is no god but the One True God.

And then the call ended and silence filled the space left by the muezzin’s voice, but the echo seemed to linger in the air.

Later, Nilüfer brought him breakfast. Again, watery eggs and an oily garlic sausage that was burned on one side.

“Your foot is better?”

“Almost,” he said.

“I think it’s better,” she said.

“Is it your foot? Have you been dragging it around all your life?”

She set the eggs in front of him, but he was not hungry. He hadn’t been hungry for days.

“You should eat,” she said.

“I’m no child, Nilüfer.”

“Then stop acting like one!”

He sat up. Her eyes were brilliantly angry. He took a bite from the sausage and chewed while looking out through the tent opening at the yellow ground.

“We can’t stay here,” she said, her voice calm now.

“You begged me to come.”

“To get food, to get you better, to make sure
smail was not bleeding.” “What do you want me to do?” He pushed the plate of eggs away and she pushed them back.

“Eat!”

He bit off another piece of the sausage and rolled it around in his mouth.

“We can go into the city,” she said. “There are jobs there.”

“Jobs,” he said. “What do you know about jobs?”

“Yes, jobs,” she said, as though just saying the word would make it all happen.

“And stay where?” he said, shaking his head at her now. “We have ten million to our name.”

Her eyes widened as though she were surprised at how little it was, as though she had not thought of that.

“Don’t be stupid, Nilüfer.”

“This is the man I married?” she said, standing now. Her head hit the top of the tent and she tried to slap the fabric away with her hand. “You’ve never called me such things before. You were a good man, Sinan, but now you sit here like a stupid donkey. You still have a family.”

“Don’t tell me what I already know.” He hesitated, trying to calm himself down. “I’m only one man, Nilüfer.”

She clucked her tongue at him.

“If this is you, you’re not even that,” she said, and then she left the tent.

REM STAYED AROUND THE
tent that morning, serving Sinan tea and shaking out the sleeping bags. She asked him about his foot. It was getting better, he said. She asked him if he was tired, if he was sleeping well. I’m sorry if I disturbed you last night. He was sleeping fine. I love you, Baba. I love you, too.

That afternoon, after
rem and Nilüfer left to do the laundry, Sinan lay staring up at the ceiling when
smail burst into the tent with an envelope in his hand.

“Baba,”
smail said. “Baba, a letter for you.”

The boy handed the envelope to him. It was postmarked Diyarbak
r, but there was no return address—a trick, he knew, in case the government thought the letter was a coded message for terrorists.

“Where did you get this?”

“A postman came to the school carrying a big bag over his shoulder. He poured them out on the floor.”

He pulled the knife out of the breast pocket of his coat and cut open the envelope. It was from his aunt, written in awkward Kurdish.

Dear Sinan—

Oh, God, I hope you and your family are alive. The pictures on the television are horrible. May God, His mercifulness, keep you safe. If this finds you well, I want to tell you that the soldiers left last week. The PKK stopped fighting after Öcalan’s capture. The men have hung flags in their shop windows and no paramilitaries have come to take them away. The war is over, Sinan. We’ve built a house for you and your family. It’s a simple home, but it will keep the snow out and the chickens in! Come home. I want to see my brother’s son again.

Love—
Aunt Melike

He read the letter again to make sure he had not misunderstood it.
The war is over.
It was impossible to believe, but how he’d hoped for it.
Come home.
Hoped for it forever, it seemed.

“
smail,” he said. “Come here.”