Gardens of Water (66 page)

Chapter 50

W
HEN SHE WOKE—TWO HOURS, THREE HOURS LATER
?—the city looked like an overexposed picture, as though a flash had just gone off and blew white holes out of the center of buildings, leaving only the sharpened silver water and the black bridge arching above. Whatever blurry beauty there was in the lights the night before was replaced now with a sickening flatness of light that penetrated her stomach with nausea.

And there was blood, not a lot, but it was there, a blossom on her skirt and marks like cabbage stains on her fingertips where she had, apparently, held herself in her sleep. It was real, it had happened, and after she cried silently so as not to wake up Dylan, she pried his fingers from her skirt and pushed away his hand. Somehow she hadn’t thought there would be blood, as though it were a myth told by conservative mothers to scare their daughters, a fantasy to excite boys. Yet the truth was here, and, also, the finality of it, and no regret would turn back the clock and make her say, with confidence, “No.”

Dylan’s shirt was off and his chest looked pale, almost like translucent salamander skin against the ugly scarring of his tattoos. His hair was caught in his mouth, his pants turned sideways on his skinny hips, and she couldn’t find any beauty in him now. He looked like a stranger, like some man passed out in the morning in front of a
meyhane,
the pores of his skin reeking of cheap
rak
.

She pulled the edges of her blouse together, and that’s when she realized she had lost a button. She panicked and dropped to the patio and searched for the circle of plastic. She patted the ground beneath the chaise lounge and ran her fingers through the grass and checked the grooves between bricks. She plunged her hands into the pool, but the water was blue and the button was blue and the sun shot blinding sparkles across the surface. She couldn’t catch her breath and she slapped the ground even where she could see it wasn’t there. She needed that button. She had to have it. She would sew it back on her blouse, and she would wash the skirt—even though the blood had already dried and no cold water would wash it away now—and she would wash her mother’s clothes and fold her father’s shirts and she would kiss
smail with all the love of a mother. If she did everything exactly as it was supposed to be done, she could turn back the clock, erase one day and one night from existence.

Chapter 51

I
T WAS A COLD NIGHT, A FIST OF AUTUMN AIR PRESSING DOWN.
Wrapped in wool blankets the Americans gave them, they ate in silence in the tent, hiding from the eyes of the people of the camp. Even
smail joined the silence. He solemnly ate his bowl of chicken soup and stared at the ground. Silence, though, couldn’t hide the shame and anger passing between Sinan and Nilüfer. It was as though they were live wires just waiting to be touched.

Shortly after they turned out the light for the night, the door to the tent ripped open and
rem came stumbling in.

“Anne, Anne,” she said. She sounded out of breath and panicked.

Sinan turned on the lantern and the tent lit a brilliant white until his eyes adjusted to the light.
rem stumbled across the tent, tripping over
smail’s legs, and tried to find her mother’s arms. Nilüfer, though, had already turned her back; she did it so quickly that it seemed she had practiced for this moment. She sat like stone, her head up, staring at the canvas of the tent.

“Anne,”
rem said. “Please, Anne.”

But Nilüfer did not move.

“Anne, please,”
rem said. “I’m sorry, Anne!”

rem pulled at her mother’s blouse, stretching the fabric to reveal Nilüfer’s shoulder. She grabbed at her mother’s arms, trying to lift them, trying to get them to hold her, but Nilüfer would not move.

rem stopped then and a sound, like the wind being sucked out of a pipe, escaped her mouth.

“Baba, please. Please listen to me,” she said crawling to him. She stared into his eyes and her teeth chattered. Streaks of tears ran down her face, but these were not the tears of juvenile frustration, these were a different kind of tears, the kind Sinan never wanted to see his daughter cry. And he never would have if she had only obeyed him.

Without hesitation he took her in his arms and held her.

“Oh, Baba.”

He could feel her ribs expand against his arms as she gasped for air. Her heart beat against his chest and he could feel how alive she was with pain, so full of it like a terrible disease lodged in her muscle tissue.

“
Can
m,
” he said. “Calm down.”

“She can’t stay here,” Nilüfer said.

“Close your mouth,” Sinan said to Nilüfer.

“
Can
m,
” he said, stroking
rem’s head now, feeling the fibers of her hair beneath the rough cotton head scarf. “
Can
m,
calm down.”