Gardens of Water (44 page)

Chapter 36

L
ATER THAT EVENING, AS SINAN RODE THE BUS PAST THE
crowded Kadiköy market, through the traffic and past the people standing in front of the fish stalls, their faces lit up by the exposed electric lights, he thought, for a brief moment, he saw
rem walking down a dark alley away from the brightly lit stalls, her arm around a man’s waist. A storm had just blown through and the cobblestone was wet and shiny and the man held her close to him. But then the bus passed by the gray walls of the Orthodox Church and turned onto the long ramp to the TEM freeway and he was gone, the bus swerving into the evening traffic, the shoulders of the tired passengers bumping together like corpses forced to sit up straight.

After taxes, they needed nearly 140 million lira to escape. He’d written the exact number on a piece of paper he folded into his coat pocket and now, before the sun set over the Marmara, he unfolded the paper and read the number again.
Insallah,
he could have it in three weeks. Twenty-one mornings, and on the twenty-second they would see the sun rise on Kurdistan.

Chapter 37

“
T
HIS IS THAT BOY’S,” NILÜFER SAID, HOLDING THE CD PLAYER
out to him. “I found it under her sleeping bag.”

Nilüfer attacked him as soon as he got home from Kadiköy, after he had sat for hours in traffic, sweating in the wet heat and brown exhaust. Now she held the device in her hand as though it were a murder weapon.

rem sat in the corner of the tent with her arms crossed over her body. Her face was flushed and she scowled so that through her parted lips he saw her white teeth.
smail was rubbing his sister’s back, trying to calm her.

“It’s not his,”
rem yelled. She shrugged off her brother’s touch and the boy went and huddled on his sleeping bag.

“Keep your voice down,” Nilüfer said. “People are already saying enough. You lied to me and you’re still lying to me!”

“He gave it to me,”
rem said with a smug smile. “It’s mine now.

Baba knows about it.”

Nilüfer faced him, her head cocked to the side, her pupils narrowing for an attack.

“You knew about this?”

“It’s just music,” he said.

Nilüfer smashed the CD player to the ground, the top to the device cracking off and rocketing across the tent.

“There,” she said. “There’s
your
music player.”

“
Anne!
”
rem cried, diving across the sleeping bags to pick up the broken machine. “You ruined it! You ruined it, Anne. What will he do?” Her anguish was shocking.

“Yours, huh?” Nilüfer said. She stood over
rem and spoke down at her. “I will not have you ruin our name! Do you know what people are saying, Sinan?”

She turned to face him, her arm extended toward her daughter. “Do you know what people are saying I was at the laundry today and they’re saying terrible things, right in front of me. They saw them get on the ferry together. No one spoke to me, but they said things so I could hear.”

“I don’t care what they’re saying,”
rem said.

“Are they true?” Nilüfer said, pulling
rem to her feet with one swift jerk of her arm. “And where’d you get this,” she said, tugging on a black bracelet hanging from
rem’s wrist.

“Enough,” Sinan said. He jumped between them, but they argued through him as though he were not there.

“Which rumors, Anne?”
rem said, looking directly into her mother’s eyes. “You tell me which ones and I’ll tell you if they’re true.”

Nilüfer stared at
rem a moment before she seemed to lose her will and turned away. She spun around again, though, pointed a finger at
rem, and whispered through her teeth. “I will not have you ruin our name,
rem!” She stabbed her finger in the air as though it were a weapon. “You will not ruin our name. You selfish child!”