Gardens of Water (46 page)

“Do you know how long it’s been since I felt good, Baba? I didn’t know what feeling good was like. Always cleaning
smail’s clothes, feeding him lunch, stirring sugar into your tea, doing all the jobs mother doesn’t want to do—mopping the floor, scrubbing the toilet, hanging out the windows to wash the grime off the glass. It’s like being born a slave. Is that what daughters are for?”

“What do you expect from life,
rem? Life is hard. Life is a test. Do you think I’m any less a slave at work each day?”

“I expect to wake up in the morning and think that something”—she shook her head—“just one thing will make me happy that day. I listened to his music through the ceiling, saw him in the halls, but I didn’t know he was that one thing.”

Sinan was confused, his head spinning with anger and sadness and understanding and resentment and, most of all, fear. He was going to lose her.

“That boy does
not
care about you,
rem.”

“He loves me.”

“A kiss is not love. It may feel like it, but it’s not.”

“He said he’d kill that woman for me, the one who threw the rock, if we knew who she was. Would you do that?”

“That’s an easy thing to say,” Sinan said. How could he argue he would It was the argument of a hypocrite. He had left her, he had loved her less than
smail, but he didn’t want to be a hypocrite in her eyes, too. “He cares about nothing, believes nothing. A man who believes in nothing cannot love anything. I love you,
can
m,
but he doesn’t.”

“You used to talk to me, Baba,” she said. “You used to take walks with me.”

He took a deep, tired breath. He did, it was true, but she was trying to change the subject. “You will not see him again.”

“Baba, don’t you understand?”

“It doesn’t matter what I understand. It matters what’s right. You won’t see him again,
rem. If you do”—he hesitated—“then you’re no longer my daughter.”

He could not see her face but he could tell she was staring at him, shocked.

“I won’t let you throw your life away.” That’s love, he wanted to say to her. Love was doing the painful things because they were right. “If you see him again, you no longer have a family.”

She buckled at her waist and he could see that her face was in her hands. Tears pooled in his eyes and he was glad for the darkness. He tried to keep his voice calm, tried to make sure it did not waver. “Do you understand me?”

She began rocking back and forth.

“Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she said, stifling her words with the palms of her hands.

Remembering the bracelet, he pulled up the sleeve of her blouse and found the leather still there, tied around her wrist. He tried to untie it, her arm hanging limp in his hand, but the knot was too tight. Holding her arm steady, he yanked at the loop and ripped it loose. It was then that she began to sob.

When he returned to the tent, dragging
rem by the arm through the camp, he handed her to Nilüfer. “You’re right,” he said. “She stays here.”

Nilüfer grabbed
rem by the arm, but
rem threw herself down on her sleeping bag and buried her face in the fabric.
smail woke on the bag next to her and rubbed his hand across her back, his face gazing up at the two of them in confusion. For a moment, it felt to Sinan as if his children were conspiring against him, as if he were the enemy.

“One who does not slap his children will slap his knees, Sinan.”

“Yes, yes,” he said, hearing the doubt in her voice when he needed to hear her certainty.

YILMAZ BEY SHOOK HIS HEAD.
“It’s policy,” he said. “I cannot give you the money before payday.”

Sinan had left the tent and run to the store before closing time, catching the manager just as he was loosening his tie in his office.

“But I’ve worked. I’ve earned the money and I need it.”

“I’m sorry,” Yilmaz Bey said. “It’s Carrefour’s policy not to give advances.”

“It’s not an advance. I only want what I’ve already worked for.”

The manager looked at the clock above Sinan’s head and blew out a frustrated breath. Sinan knew the man had a family he wanted to get home to. “It doesn’t matter, Sinan. Payroll is handled by the central office in Levent and they don’t pay anyone until payday. They have to wait for the Paris office to give them the okay. I can’t even get an advance. It’s only a little more than a week away.”