Gardens of Water (28 page)

Chapter 21

“
P
ULL UP YOUR PANT LEG,” ASLAN BEY SAID.

Sinan stood just in front of the table in the man’s tiny shop. Aslan rested his burning cigarette in a tin ashtray, took a last sip of his morning tea, and came around the table to inspect.

“Is there a problem?” Sinan said. He knew there was no use, but he stalled anyway.

“Let me see that leg of yours.”

Sinan rolled the bottom of his pants to just above the ankle. Aslan was unsatisfied and he tugged the pant leg up to Sinan’s knee. He blew air out of his mouth when he saw.

“You lied to me,” he said.

“I didn’t lie. You did not ask, sir.”

Aslan smiled without revealing his teeth. He was an older man, with strings of gray hair he stretched across a balding head. “I had to find out from my warehouse boy.” He let go of the pant leg. “Cover that up,” he said, waving his hand at the offending leg.

“He’s good to look after you,” Sinan said. “But it seems unnecessary. I moved thirty-three televisions yesterday and thirty-five the day before.”

“I have boys moving forty-three, forty-eight even.”

“It shouldn’t concern you,” Sinan said. “I earn what I move. You’re not out anything.”

A young boy appeared with a fresh glass of tea balanced on a silver tray. He set the glass on the table in front of the boss and disappeared.

“Do not make the mistake,” Aslan said, “that you can tell me how to run my business.”

He was a soft man, his belly stretching the fabric at the buttons of his shirt, his arms like two slabs of fatty goat meat. Even with Sinan’s bad foot, he knew he could beat this man down, knock him to the floor with his fists.

“Of course, you’re right,” Sinan said.

Aslan touched his hand to his hair, pulling in place a strand that had fallen over his forehead. He then rolled the ashes loose from his cigarette before lifting it to his lips.

“Aslan Bey,” Sinan said. “I have a family. We lost our home.”

The boss held up his hand and nodded. Blowing smoke, he crushed the butt in the ashtray.

“Thirty-eight today,” he said, apparently feeling charitable now. “At least.”

Sinan’s foot throbbed even before he carried the first load. It was market day. The streets of Sirkeci were packed with street sellers, some illegal and others legitimate, and Sinan had to force his way through the crowd. He had never seen anything like this street market until he came to
stanbul. The legal sellers sold clothes from wooden tables that, when unused, sat stacked against the walls of nearby buildings until the next week. The illegal merchants hawked their wares—copied disks that played foreign music and movies, cassette tapes of popular folksingers, special programs for computers—from collapsible wooden stands that could be dismantled with a kick of a foot and carried away when the police arrived.

The police would start at the far end of the market to give the illegal merchants a chance to close up shop and run away. The law was the law, but people needed to make a living. He had seen the police make a show of stopping to speak with merchants, slow down to light a cigarette, bend over to retie a shoe that was already tied, and like a wave swelling before their progress, men came running, their collapsible cases tucked under their arms. Within minutes, half the market would escape into the surrounding streets and the police would let them. The merchants that didn’t run—the stupid or arrogant ones—were rounded up by the police and this made it seem that they were doing their job.

It was Sinan’s third trip of the day. He was one block from the electronics store where he was to drop off the load. On the corner near the new mosque, a
döner
stand had just opened, and the owner had recently thrown water across the bricks, sweeping the water and the dirt that accumulated overnight into the gutter. Sinan’s foot hurt, but he had found that if he stepped on the outside of the shoe the pain lessened and he could manage the load with little problem. The street was packed with jostling people and Sinan bounced from shoulder to shoulder in the flowing crowd.

He knew what was coming when he heard the men yell, “
Polis,
” but the packed crowd bunched at the corner with the
döner
stand and he was sandwiched in the middle. Suddenly the people behind him were thrust against the television boxes. The crowd lunged forward, pushing him into the people ahead. Some people yelled and a group of merchants came wading through the crowd toward Sinan, their cases held above their heads. Something ahead of him broke loose and the pressure of the crowd burst like a dam giving way. He was knocked forward onto the wet bricks where his left foot slipped and twisted. His foot buckled with pain and he fell across the curb, the bungee cords snapping and tossing the televisions into the street.

One television tore through the top of its box and shattered glass into the street and he was sure the other two were broken inside. Lying on the ground, he watched the flashing of running legs, men dodging women carrying shopping bags, and soon two policemen appeared on the scene. One of the policemen noticed the crushed televisions and walked toward him. Sinan knew that nothing about this boded well for him, so when the crowd thickened once again, he managed to stand and disappear down a side street.

When he reached the ferry, he knew there was no going back to Aslan; going back meant losing the job and paying for the damages. There was little to do but escape and take the ferry back. There was little to do, period. He tried to remind himself that he was lucky—his family was alive. But a desperation was crowding in on him, as though strong hands were squeezing the air out of his chest, like the world was a fist grinding him to dust.

HE STOOD THERE AT
the top of the hill, resting his weight on his right foot, cars whipping by him in a rage of gear changes and revving engines; he stared at his tent in the circle of grass. It was only thirty meters away, but the distance seemed impossible to cross. Smoke floated above the tent and just beyond the tent, where the grass flattened out, he watched Marcus pass a soccer ball to
smail. His son tried to complete a fancy stop where he rolled the ball up his leg and kneed it into the air, but his feet got tangled. He rolled on the ground, laughing, and when Marcus took the boy’s hand to lift him from the ground Sinan felt his son was being taken away from him.

A step of pain shot stars in his vision. He bit his lip and stared at the ground and watched his right foot fall against the dirt again and braced himself for another jolt. It felt like the ground was made of knives, each sharpened blade of grass slicing through his shoe. He listed with the next stab of pain before he felt a hand under his shoulders, lifting and steadying him.

“Hold on to me, Sinan Bey,” Marcus said.

Marcus wrapped Sinan’s left arm around his shoulder and the American bore half his weight down the hill until they made it to the tent. There, Marcus eased him down on a set of pillows Nilüfer frantically propped against the wooden frame.

Nilüfer stood over him, holding her hand to her mouth as Marcus removed Sinan’s shoe. He didn’t want the man to see his misshapen foot, but he was too tired to protest and he lay back on the pillows, feeling his foot expand as it was pulled free of the leather shoe. Nilüfer looked away, her hand still held against her mouth. The American’s eyes were full of pity and Sinan wanted to slap it away.

But Marcus propped Sinan’s foot on a stack of pillows and went back to the camp to get ice packs to bring down the swelling.

“You can’t keep doing this,” Nilüfer said, stroking his hair against his scalp. “Let them help us.”

Marcus returned carrying a white briefcase with a red cross painted on the side. He had
rem bring him a bucket of water and a washcloth.
smail stroked Sinan’s hair.

“Tell me if this hurts,” Marcus said.

The American took Sinan’s stump in his hands and began to wash the cracked and bruised skin. Sinan looked away in embarrassment. For his whole life, since he was a boy and had to watch the other boys play soccer, he had hidden his foot from people, only letting his wife and children see the underdeveloped calf, and the square, misshapen fist that swallowed his toes.

“Not enough iron,” Sinan explained. “The doctor said it happens mostly in third-world countries.”

“Clubfoot is common,” Marcus said. “Doctors in Ankara could have corrected it when you were a child.” He poured alcohol onto a cotton swab. “Turkey is not third world.”

Sinan laughed. “You haven’t been to the Southeast.”

“I have,” Marcus said.

Sinan looked at the American, who was now holding the tip of his stump in his left hand and cleaning the ridges where his toes should have been. There was blood caked there and the swab grew scarlet.

“I worked in the refugee camps,” Marcus said, not looking up from his work. “In ’ninety-one.”

The Gulf War was raging then and Iraqi Kurds had streamed across the border into Turkey, afraid Saddam Hussein would launch gas attacks against them. Horrible things were said to have happened in the refugee camps—people starved, children died of diarrhea, and occasionally suspected Kurdistan Workers’ Party members were taken away by the Special Teams in the middle of the night, right in front of the U.N. soldiers. Turkey belonged to the United Nations, after all, and the Kurds belonged to nothing. People said American spies were working the camps, helping the Turkish government crack down on the PKK in exchange for the use of air bases in Turkey.

“Sinan Bey,” Marcus said. “You should come down to our camp. We have a tent ready for you, a real one that will keep the mosquitoes out at night. I know you’re a good man, but—”

“My friend,” Sinan said. “You know nothing about me at all. And I know nothing about you.”

That seemed to throw the American off a little. He blinked and stopped washing the stump.

rem brought a clean bucket of water.