Gardens of Water (55 page)

“If I was God, I would have given you a perfect foot.”

“Son, look at my face.” The boy did. “Look at my nose. It’s crooked, but it can still smell the salt in the air. My teeth are brown, but they still chew my food. I may need glasses, but I have two eyes and they can see you—even if you are a little blurry.” He smiled and
smail smiled back. He reached down and pulled off his shoe and his sock. “This foot,
smail, is part of God’s world just like everything else. It’s part of me, and without it I wouldn’t be Sinan Ba
io
lu. You remember the Gypsy girl who sang so beautifully, the blind one?”

“Yes, Baba.”

“God didn’t give her the gift of sight, but he gave her a beautiful voice. That’s her gift and it makes up for what she lacks. No man is made perfect,
smail. Some have weak lungs, some have weak eyes, and some have weak hearts. I have this. If we were perfect, we wouldn’t need God. He understood that when he made us, so he made us imperfect because he wants to keep us close to him.”

“So what did God give you to make up for your foot?”

The question caught him off guard for just a second, before he jumped to tickle
smail. “You, my son. You!” The boy laughed and giggled and squirmed out of his grasp.

Sinan sat back down and drew
smail close to him.

“You can’t change what God has given you. If a man has one good eye, he doesn’t curse God for not giving him two. He thanks him for sight.” Sinan held the boy’s cheeks and kissed him on the forehead. “It’s all a gift. All of life is a gift.”

The two of them sat silent for a while and watched the boys chase the soccer ball around the field. Sinan could feel his son working on another question and he waited quietly for him to ask it.

“Baba?”

“Yes.”

“What’s Heaven like?”

“It’s hard to explain,
smail.” How could he explain this to the boy? “The Qur’an says that Heaven includes what no eye has ever seen, no ear has ever heard of, and no human mind has ever thought of.”

“Is it beautiful? Do you hurt in Heaven?”

“You
do not
hurt in Heaven,” Sinan said. “No, there’s no pain. And it’s more beautiful than I can imagine, so I can’t tell you what it looks like. God will reveal that on Judgment Day.”

“How do you know it’s beautiful if you can’t imagine it?”

“Because the Qur’an says so and the Qur’an is the word of God and I trust God.”

smail stared at the ground and ran his tongue over his lips in concentration. Sinan wished he could see inside his son, wished he could understand every turbulent thing that was happening inside his body and calm it.

“If you’re a good Muslim, do you live forever? Because someone told me that if you’re a Christian you’ll live forever and ever.”

“Who told you that?”

“Someone.”

Sinan thought about forcing the name out of him, but it was the wrong time.

“Your spirit will live forever,
smail, but not your body. Your body must die first, but your spirit will live in Heaven with God.”

“But why do Christians live forever?”

“That’s not what it means. A Christian has to die, too.”

“That’s not what he said.”

“It’s the same,
smail. We all die, but our spirits live on.”