Gardens of Water (61 page)

“It’s too big,” she said.

“Don’t worry.”

What she had known was her neighborhood—Dr. Özferendenci Sokak, Atatürk Caddesi,
mam Ali Sokak, Deniz Caddesi—and the walls of her apartment. “It’s so big. You won’t leave me?”

“No,” he said and he pulled her closer, his hand wrapped around her waist now, her shoulder pushing up against his chest, the smell of his cologne, the pressure of his fingers against her hip bone.

The sun dropped into the haze and spread like butter in a pan. Lights began to come up on the city—millions and billions of lights in millions and billions of windows—and the city, for the first time, replaced the sky with its own brightness. Towering antennas sparkled on a hill, their red lights twinkling in the bruised sky. The road curved and dropped into a path between hills and in the distance she saw the gray towers of the bridge and the cascading wires that held the road in midair. A wonderful fear shuddered across her skin: she was
in
the world! Right now, she was in the world, a part of it, not watching it from behind a dirty windowpane or on the tiny square face of the television.

The traffic was heavy at the bridge and after a few minutes of idling in one place, the bus driver got out and disappeared on foot into the jammed traffic. Two police cars whipped past the bus, their blue lights reflecting off the glass windows. A few moments later the driver returned, lit a cigarette while standing on the roadway, and climbed back onto the bus as the traffic began to inch forward again.

They crossed the bridge over the Bosporus, swerving around a police van and the two police cars blocking the right lane. Three policemen peered over the edge.

“Whoa,” Dylan said, twisting around in his seat to get a view. “Someone must have just jumped.”

But as he said it, the bus changed lanes into the far left and she was presented with a full view of the city: the last of the sunlight caught the water and set it alight, as though the streak of sea was made of gold. Edging the water, the lights of the city were brilliant jewels tossed across the hillsides. It took her breath away and she was angry such a place had been kept from her.

They passed beneath the second tower and followed the stream of red lights into the city. Dylan tapped her on the shoulder and pointed to a sign.

“Welcome to Europe.”

Beneath the bridge stood a palace lit up white like a wedding cake.

And something broke loose in her and she started to cry because it was too beautiful and she didn’t know it would be so and because her mother would never see it and because she and her father would never look at it together.

“Hey,” Dylan said. “Calm down, now. It’s just a city.”

Chapter 47

“
S
LICE AWAY THE CANCER.” TO HEAR SUCH A SUGGESTION
spoken out loud made bile rise in his throat. On the surface it seemed like evil—as though Kemal were Satan whispering in his ear—and because it was so disgusting it seemed entirely impossible. No one could ever think about killing his own child; it was a genetic impossibility, the very thing that set man apart from the lower beasts. Yet it happened. He himself had already had the thought. He hadn’t considered the act directly—that would be like stabbing yourself in the eye. But the thought came to him obliquely, rising from some dark recess of his mind that would have otherwise remained unchurned if
rem had not placed him in this position. No, he had not thought of actually killing
rem, my God! But why then would he remember the killing of the young adulterer in the village, a memory he had not had for years? Why then had he not killed Kemal for even making the suggestion?

“Your son needs washing,” Nilüfer said to him, taking his untouched cup of cold evening tea and leaving a towel and a bar of soap in its place.

At the solar showers, Sinan helped
smail undress.

“I can do it, Baba,” the boy said.

smail stripped off his shirt and pulled down his pants and left them crumpled in the dirt. His nakedness was not an offense since the boy had not yet hit puberty, but Sinan tried to shield him anyway with a small towel.

“Pick up your clothes,
smail.” The boy did and set them on the wooden bench.

He pulled the orange curtain closed so that Sinan could only see the boy’s calves and ankles and feet. The soapy water ran in little bubbles of froth over his toes and drained through a pipe into the grass nearby.

“Baba, will
rem come back?”

“She’ll come back,
smail.”

“She’s been doing bad things hasn’t she?”

“Wash between your toes.”

He lifted one foot and ran his fingers between the toes, a frothy knot of knuckles and joints.

She had kissed him, he realized, and the thought of the boy’s tongue searching around inside his daughter’s mouth stabbed him with pain. His heart flipped like a fish on land, fluttering then seizing for a moment before flipping again.

“She’s with Dylan Bey, right, Baba?”

“Clean behind your ears,
smail, and wash your mouth out, too.”

He heard
smail gurgling water.

“You don’t need to call him mister,” he said. “He’s just a boy.”

That boy was stealing his daughter away from him and he was letting it happen.

“
rem shouldn’t do those things, Baba.”
smail’s feet did a little dance on the wet cement floor as he turned to let the water fall on his back. “She makes you yell at Anne, and God won’t like it, either. She doesn’t want God to be mad at her.”

He couldn’t speak to what made God angry, but he knew what people would do. They would ruin his name, his father’s name, and his father’s father’s name. Did she get to dishonor the whole family? Did she get to dishonor
smail’s name and that of his children, simply because she wanted her own freedom?