Gardens of Water (57 page)

“I didn’t mean go
there.
” Dilek smiled a knowing smile. “Allah, Allah,” she said. “He’s so cute. I like his eyes. They have those flecks of brown in them.”

“They’re nice, aren’t they?” She leaned into Dilek and Dilek wrapped her arms around her.

“You’re so lucky,” Dilek said. “I’m jealous. My mother’s driving me so crazy, I think I’d run off with him if he wanted me to.”

“Your mother wouldn’t hate him. Your mother would be happy for you; she’d help you plan the wedding.”

They were silent a moment.
rem knew she would have to make a decision tonight, and she didn’t know what that decision would be.

“These two women came to our tent yesterday,” Dilek said. “One of them was beautiful,
rem, and she wore this amazing diamond ring. I couldn’t stop looking at it.” Dilek showed her with her own bare finger. “Little ones all the way around and then one big one in the middle.”

“What’d they want?”
rem said. She watched her father press the tip of his nose against his face and she laughed silently.

“We just talked about stupid stuff, mostly. I asked the beautiful woman about her house in Texas and she told me that it had a pond in the backyard and a barn for horses. She has four kids, she said, and my mother asked her how she stayed so skinny.”

“How?”
rem really wanted to know. Turkish women had kids and their hips grew three sizes overnight, like a flower blossoming in the moonlight.

“She works out at a gym, she said. But I bet she had someone have the kids for her.”

rem laughed.

“It’s true. I heard something about it on television.”

“Shut up.”

“No, the rich women don’t want to get ugly for their husbands so they hire someone to give birth,” Dilek said. “They use test tubes or something.”

“Dilek,”
rem said. “I love you but sometimes I think you’re crazy.”

“It’s different in America. The husbands let you do what you want, but you have to stay pretty for them. If you’re not pretty, they divorce you for a younger, prettier woman.”

“Sounds like a dumb conversation.”

“You’re pretty,
rem. You could be like that woman. You might even get to skip all that pain of childbirth and still have the kids.”

“Shut up, Dilek,” but she playfully shoved her friend, enjoying her fantasy and weighing the possibilities.

“Well, they were nice. At least the pretty woman was. The ugly one handed my mother something on a piece of paper and when my mother read it she crumpled it up in her fist. They left after that. The other woman was mad, but the pretty one just smiled and wished us well.”

“My father wouldn’t have even let them in the tent.”

“Yeah, well, your parents are backward,
rem.”

rem looked at her, surprised to hear her friend say it openly. It was understood between them that her parents were the “village parents,” but Dilek had never been so rude as to say it out loud.

“I’m sorry,
rem. I love you, but you know it’s true.”

Chapter 43

REM WAS NOT AT THE TENT WHEN HE DROPPED OFF
SMAIL.
It made him angry, but he was thinking about his son now.

“Find
rem,” Nilüfer said, as he walked back out into the night. “And tell her to come home before I swat her behind.”

“I will,” he said, but a man can worry about many things at once—his body stiff with concern, his head cramped with ache from it—and he can only take care of one thing at a time.

Now he stood outside Marcus’s tent, a faint yellow light glowing through the skin of the material, and tried to keep himself calm. He was about to invite himself rudely into the man’s tent at a late hour. He was about to accuse the people who had helped them. He called to Marcus. He heard a shuffling of papers, scratching of feet across the floor, and then the American pulled back the tent flap. He wore wire-rimmed glasses that magnified the blue eyes behind the lenses.

“Why are they preaching to my son?” Sinan said, losing control of his mouth.

Marcus removed the glasses from the bridge of his nose and rubbed his eyes. He looked like he had been sleeping or studying very seriously.

“Sinan,” he said. “Come in.” He held open the door flap to the tent and Sinan entered into the weak light within. Next to a turned-down sleeping bag, a large black book with gold-leafed pages lay open. A propane lamp hissed light over the book, and in the harsh white glow Sinan could see handwritten notes scrawled in blue across the pages.

“I’m sorry for disturbing you,” Sinan said, suddenly feeling self-conscious as he entered the man’s living space.

“No problem,” Marcus said.

Marcus sat on the sleeping bag, placed a ribbon in the crease between pages, and closed the black book. He set his glasses aside and grabbed another pair, these causing his eyes to recede back into his face. Through the lenses and in the sharp tent light, his eyes looked like two blue crystals. Sinan was reminded of Atatürk and the power of blue eyes.

“Sit down, Sinan, please.”

But Sinan didn’t sit. “Who’s preaching to my son Is it you?”

“What are you talking about?” Marcus rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses. “Please, sit down, my friend.”

Sinan suddenly felt foolish standing bent over in the middle of the tent and sat at the foot of Marcus’s sleeping bag.

“I’m sorry we have no tea to offer.”

“I didn’t come for tea. I simply want an answer to my question.”

At that moment, Dylan bent through the opening to the tent. Marcus looked up at him and then glanced down at his wristwatch.

“Is this about that stupid young man at the funeral?” Marcus said.

“You tell me.”

Marcus said something to Dylan in English. The boy was wearing headphones, and even here, some five feet away, Sinan could hear the beating of drums and hissing sounds coming from those earpieces. Dylan held his hands in the air, palms up, and said something that seemed to indicate that he didn’t hear his father. He saw Sinan then and froze momentarily.

“
yi ak
amlar,
” Dylan said, an undisguised strain in his voice.

“Good evening.”

Marcus pointed at his wristwatch and spoke sharply in English. Sinan looked away until they were done, embarrassed to be present for the scolding. Dylan flopped down on his own sleeping bag, turned his back to the two of them, and flipped the pages of a magazine. Marcus slid his glasses off his nose and rubbed the lenses with the end of his shirt. “Explain to me what happened,” he said, looking at Sinan now.

Sinan told him about the drawings, Nilüfer’s concern, and the discussion at the soccer field.

“The boy simply misunderstood,” Marcus said. “Whoever it was meant no harm.”

Dylan laughed sarcastically. Marcus snapped his head in the direction of his son, but the boy continued turning the pages of his magazine.

“Children ask questions,” Marcus elaborated. “Maybe the answer was a little misguided, but I’m sure it was meant only to comfort
smail.”

“They’re trying to convert you, you know?” Dylan said suddenly, his voice sounding impatient, his back still turned. His Turkish was precise, better than his father’s.

“Dylan,” Marcus said, a violence in his voice Sinan had not heard before. Then to Sinan: “Dylan believes everything is a conspiracy.”

“They think you’re not good enough as you are,” the boy said, turning around now to face his father. “They think they’ve got the way to Heaven all figured out and if you don’t do it their way you’re out of luck.”

Marcus spoke very loudly and quickly in English to Dylan and Dylan spoke calmly and with authority back to his father. The boy turned around to face Sinan, but he stared at his father as he spoke.

“See, that’s what these people do,” Dylan said. “They come in after some bad shit happens, start feeding people and telling them they love them, and then they hit them over the head with the love of Christ and how
he’ll
save all the poor, misguided Muslims from judgment. You know—the millennium’s coming, Armageddon and all that. The earthquake is just the beginning, so get ready!”

“Dylan,” Marcus said. “Stop being rude.”

“Right,” he said. “Rude.” He laughed and his eyes lit up with bitterness. “The truth’s always rude. They want to win your soul for Christ, promise you white clouds to sit on, some lame harp music playing in the background. They can’t just let you be what you are. The whole fucking world has to be like them.”

“Dylan, stop.”

“You know, you trust the wrong damn people, Sinan Bey.”

Marcus reached across and grabbed his son’s wrist and said something in English. Dylan tried to pull away, but Marcus held his son’s arm tightly and didn’t let go. The boy tried to laugh it off, but his face was red.

Dylan quieted, looked at the ground, and said something in whispered English. Marcus let go of his hand and composed himself.

“Is this true?” Sinan said to Marcus.

Marcus spoke to Dylan in English. The boy snatched up his earphones and stomped out of the tent without looking back. Sinan wondered where
rem was.

“Forgive my son,” Marcus said. “He’s still angry, as you can see.”

“Is it true?”

Marcus blew air out of his nose and Sinan could see that he was very tired.

“Sinan, my son’s on medication. The doctors say he’s bipolar. They try this drug and then that drug and then three or four drugs together, but they never get it right. Sometimes he doesn’t know what he’s saying. It’s the medication talking, not him.” He paused. “And since the earthquake he’s been…” He shook his head. “He’s been worse.”

So the boy is crazy. He felt immensely sorry for Marcus, and secure that he had done the right thing by
rem.