Gardens of Water (15 page)

Sinan tried not to, but he burst out laughing.

“It’s not funny, Baba. It hurts! Bad!”

“I know,” Sinan said, trying to control his relief. “I remember. But in a couple of days it will all be over.”

At that moment the nurse wheeled in another body and pushed it against the wall. After she left, a blue arm slipped from beneath the sheet and hung in the air.

“I’m sorry,” Sinan said. “You shouldn’t see this. You’re too young.”

“It’s all right, Baba,”
smail said. “Sarah Han
m died and it wasn’t bad.”

Sinan flashed on an image of the American’s wife’s fingers clutching on to his son. The rest of her body had been limp, lifeless.

“She just went to sleep,”
smail said. “Then she got heavy. It wasn’t bad. Just quiet.”

The boy’s eyebrows furrowed and his lips downturned in what seemed to be the beginnings of a shuddering cry. Sinan walked over to the body and hesitated before lifting the arm by the wrist. The skin was cold, stiff, and rough-feeling, like the fibrous paper bags he wrapped produce in at the grocery.

“Is that her?”
smail said.

“No, my son. I don’t know where she is.”

He tucked the arm away again and held it there a moment to be sure it wouldn’t spring back to life.

“It’s nothing to be scared of,
smail,” Sinan said. “They’re at peace now.”

“I’m not scared,”
smail said. “I thought I was going to die and it was okay, just like getting too tired.”

Hearing his son speak like this sent a shiver along Sinan’s spine.

“Sarah Han
m kissed me before she died,”
smail said. His eyes had not left the body.

“It’s okay,
smail,” Sinan said. “Rest now.”

“When I woke up after falling,”
smail continued as though the words were spilling out, “she was holding me. She told me Mother loved me and that it would be okay. She said I would see
Anne
again, but I didn’t believe her. Her voice was so sad.” He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hands, and then stared at the ground.

Sinan touched
smail’s back and felt the boy’s heart beating through his ribs. “Water sprayed on us and made me cold but then it stopped and it got really quiet. She kept reaching behind me and then she’d drip water into my mouth. It tasted real bad, but I was thirsty.”

This is what saved him, Sinan thought. May God, His mercifulness, bless her soul.

“She kept talking about a dog in the snow, but her voice was quiet and it was hard to hear her. The dog ran through the trees and pushed his nose into the snow, but then she started speaking English and I couldn’t understand her. Her breath tickled my ear and I couldn’t scratch it because she was on my arm. It tickled for a long time and I wanted to scratch it so bad, Baba.”

“Shh,
smail.” He wanted to cry with thankfulness.