Gardens of Water (23 page)

He started back to the tent, but changed his mind. He would have to thank the American director personally; it was, unfortunately, the right thing to do.

His foot was beginning to ache, but he walked in the direction of the trucks, through the settling dust in their wake. The sun was brutally hot and his hunger and lack of sleep made him feel as though he were wading through water. In the field that used to be the prison yard, Mustard grass rose knee-high and poked through metal carcasses of fifties-era Chevrolets once used as taxis. A rusted chain-link fence surrounded the field and still bore government signs warning against trespassing. There had been too many riots here, Sinan had heard, and the government finally had closed the prison down, and moved it to a deserted part of Anatolia where the guards could better deal with uprisings without being bothered by human rights activists. On the far end of the grounds the remnants of masonry stood crumbled atop a cracked foundation—the last of the prison itself.

By the time Sinan reached the Americans, they were already at work. They were unloading bags of rice and stacking them in the grass, unwrapping rolls of canvas, and hammering poles into the ground. Their energy was amazing to see—there was hope in it, a sense that they had things under control, and Sinan stood on the edge of the field, watching. Townspeople surrounded him, watching with awe, but unwilling or unsure about entering the field to help. The American director yelled instructions, waved his hands, and directed the traffic of young people all dressed in light blue T-shirts emblazoned with white fish designs. Like a blue army, they unfolded canvas to be stretched atop the poles, and soon a large tent began to take shape, casting a house-sized shadow across the ground.

Sinan laid the sheep on the ground and walked into the field toward the American man. No one seemed to notice at first, but as he reached the group a few of the relief workers turned to stare at him. The frightened look on their faces reminded him that he was covered with blood. He wiped his hands on his pants, but the blood was dry, and before he could change his mind the American had already seen him.

“Please,” Sinan said. “I’m sorry. A moment, please.”

“You’re welcome here,” the man said in clear Turkish.

“Please, a moment.”

Sinan found the water truck and ran his hands beneath the leaky valve. The blood ran off into the grass but little crescents remained beneath his nails. When he finished, the man was already at his side. Some of the young Americans went on working, but many of them were watching and Sinan became self-conscious. The American held out his hand, but Sinan politely refused. His hands were still unclean.

“Forgive my appearance,” Sinan said.

“There’s nothing to forgive,” the man said.

“I must thank you for my son, Marcus Bey.”

“Just Marcus, please. Is he all right?”

“Tired, the boy is tired.”

“Where is your family?”

Sinan didn’t answer. He looked around the camp. Some of the young people had begun working again, but others still stood and stared. Marcus gestured with his hand to a place behind one of the trucks.

“It’s a terrible time for us all,” Marcus said.

“I’m very sorry about your wife,” Sinan said. “I owe you much gratitude.” He should have told him the details of his wife’s sacrifice; he wanted to, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He was ashamed because of it, but this shame would be better than the shame of betraying his father. “She was a good woman.”

“Yes, she was. Better than I.” Marcus clenched his jaw and looked to the sky for a moment, just long enough, it seemed, to keep himself under control. He sniffed and ran his hand over his goateed mouth. The American was a good husband; Sinan could see that. At least he was good at mourning his wife, and that alone was to be admired. Sinan knew men who wouldn’t mourn the death of their wife any more than that of the family goat.

“You owe me nothing,” Marcus said, shaking his head. “That was God’s work. But if you want to thank me, you can bring your family here.”

“Thank you, we’re fine.”

“There’s food, tents, and people who’ll take care of you.”

“Marcus Bey,” Sinan said. “You have tents here, we have a tent there. We’re fine. I’ll care for my family.”

“‘A man’s pride shall bring him low,’ Sinan, ‘but honor shall uphold the humble in spirit.’”

“‘No one eats better food than that earned by his own hands,’” Sinan said.

Marcus nodded and smiled.

“You’ll have to forgive me, Sinan Bey,” Marcus said, enclosing Sinan’s hand in both of his despite the blood that remained, “but I will come tomorrow and the next day and the day after that until you reconsider.”

Chapter 15

REM LEFT DILEK AND RAN TOWARD THE MINIBUSES, WHICH
had disappeared behind the remains of the town mosque. She took a shortcut past the police barricade and ran toward the open field that used to be the prison. When she got there, she found the field packed with foreigners pitching tents and unloading bags from produce trucks. She stopped, a bit shocked by the scene, and watched them raise one canvas tent after another in perfect white rows. She started through the field until she saw her father carrying a goat on his shoulders, the whole left side of his body slathered in blood. Instinctively, she crouched among the weeds and watched him lay the animal in the dirt. Then she saw Dylan’s father coming toward her father, and her heart jumped, not because she was about to be caught, but because she knew she wasn’t going to let them stop her from finding Dylan. She scanned the crowd of workers, looking for his shape, until she found him sitting in one of the white buses, gazing out the window.

He seemed to be staring directly at her, but his face was empty, his eyes glazed, as though he were looking into some deep emptiness encased in the glass window. She watched her father be led into the shadow between two trucks, and when his back was turned, she ran across the field toward the bus.

Dylan threw open the window as soon as he saw her, and hung his torso out of the frame. She jumped into his arms, and she dangled there awkwardly against the hot metal of the bus, her feet two inches above ground. She laughed and couldn’t stop laughing, and he began laughing too until he lost his grip and she fell back to the ground.

“I was afraid you were dead,” she said. “Or in America and never coming back.”

“I couldn’t find you.” He grabbed her hand and kissed it and electricity shot all the way down to her toes.

“Hold on,” she said. “My father.” She crouched down, sneaked over to the front of the bus, and peered around the bumper; she could see her father shaking Marcus Bey’s hand. “My father’s over there.” She motioned with her head in their direction. “Talking to your father.”

“Shit,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. “You’ve got guts.” He pointed to the back of the bus. “Come here.”

He ran down the aisle of the bus, and she followed him on the ground to where he tugged open another window.

“There,” he said, gesturing to the tires at her feet. “They won’t see your legs now.”

“My dad thinks I’m going to kill myself or something,” he said. “Because of my mother. So he keeps looking over here to make sure I haven’t slit my wrists.”

“Are you?” For some reason she thought he could do such a thing. He was dangerous enough.

“Not now.”

She smiled and she could feel her face flush.

“But I miss her,” he said, his voice breaking a little.

She took his hand, and let her fingers stroke his knuckles.

“I’m sorry,” she said. There was a gash beneath his right eye and the socket was bruised. She briefly imagined dressing the wound, his face pressed against her blouse, the intimacy of a wife caring for her husband.

“You’re hurt,”
rem said.

“Just a bruise,” he said.

“I’ve been going crazy.”

“Me, too,” he said.

“Dilek said you went back to America.”

“We did,” he said, looking at the ground now. “We buried her and got back on a plane. Right after the wake.”

She watched the bump in his neck rise and fall as he swallowed down gathering tears.

“You’re staying?” she asked.

“We’re staying.”

He looked at her now, his eyes soft but lit with excitement, and she felt herself getting lost in them.

“Even at the funeral I kept thinking about you,” he said.

“No,” she said, letting go of his hand. He shouldn’t have been thinking about her on a day of mourning; it was disrespectful toward his mother.

“I swear,” he said. “Thinking of you kept me from losing it.”

He stared at her and she stared back until his blue eyes embarrassed her and she looked away.

“Damn,” he said. “Here comes my dad.”

She fell to her knees and looked around the tires beneath the chassis of the bus. She saw the bare legs of Dylan’s father striding toward them, and beyond him she could see that her father was already gone.

SHE KNEW HER FATHER
would take Atatürk Street back to the tent, so she had to cut through what was left of the Gypsy camp. It reeked of feces and rot, and three filthy children sitting in the dirt watched her as she passed. Somebody screamed behind her and a child cried, but she didn’t dare look to see what was happening. A street dog followed beside her, his nose low to the ground, his body swaying from side to side, and as she got closer to their tent, she ran through a field to the street even though she knew she’d be caught and have to suffer her father’s anger. He had told her not to leave the tent. He wouldn’t even let her walk around outside, unless she and her mother were going to the toilet of a restaurant half-collapsed and stinking of backed-up waste, just because some stupid drunk supposedly tried to watch her wash her legs.

But her father wasn’t on the road. She knew, then, that he was already at the tent, and she resigned herself to at least a verbal lashing.

When she arrived, she found her mother and father leaning over
smail. He was curled pathetically in a blanket, despite the fact that the day was already so hot she could feel the scorched dirt through the soles of her shoes.

“Look at that!” her mother said, stroking near the raised, pink skin of the cut above
smail’s right eye. Her father turned
smail’s face toward a streak of sunlight filtering through the rips in the blanketed rooftop.

“
rem,” her mother said, grabbing her hand. “Look at that.”

“That cut’s been there since the quake,”
rem said, frustrated, but she knew what her mother was scared about. The skin was black in the middle and blossomed in folds of pink.

“It’s infected,” her father said.

smail’s eyes were big and sad and
rem wanted to tell him to stop playing. “You need to wash it,” her father said. “What do I wash it with?” Nilüfer said. “We have no soap.” “Use the water, Nilüfer.”