Gardens of Water (50 page)

THE MOSQUE WAS PACKED
with people for the
janazah
prayer. In the back, behind the scrim separating the females’ section from the males’, women cried quietly, trying not to disrupt the men’s prayers. Near the mihrab, just in front of his son’s wrapped body and the
mam saying prayers over it, Derin Anbar’s father stood with his hands cupped around his ears. He wore the deep Kurdish skullcap Sinan had not seen since Ye
illi. Instinctively, Sinan glanced around the room, expecting a soldier to rip it off his head, but there were no soldiers at the service—just the people of the camp, their faces drawn and tired, their skin ashen in the evening light.

“O Allah!”
mam Ali said. “Make him a cause of recompense for us and make him a treasure for us on the day of Resurrection and an intercessor and the one whose intercession is accepted.”

The father swooned backward after the
takbir
and the man next to him, his brother, Sinan guessed, steadied him with a palm to his back.
smail, who was standing next to Sinan, leaned to see into the space left by the swaying father to where the boy’s small body lay wrapped like a cocoon on a collapsible table. Sinan laid his hand on
smail’s shoulder and gently pushed him back, the boy pressing against his hand to get a last glance before the father was righted again. He should have been angry with
smail, but the brief force of his resistance reminded Sinan how close he came to losing his son and he was grateful for that little push of curiosity.

Outside the mosque a group of Americans waited. Sinan had seen them when he and
smail arrived for the funeral. Standing to the side of the dirt path leading to the water trucks, some of the women wore head scarves and all the men wore pants, and Sinan was relieved to see them covered. Marcus was among them, and Sinan had nodded to him as they passed into the mosque. They seemed respectful—not trying to enter the mosque, keeping their distance, covering themselves, but displaying their pain over the loss.

After the ceremony, the father and his family left first, filing out as quietly as they should, the mother covering her wet face in her shawl so as not to embarrass anyone. The mourners waited silently as they passed, the quiet enveloping the mosque as though death itself was settling into the carpet. Sinan had just taken
smail’s hand when an eruption of voices in front of the mosque shattered the cold calm. Through the crowd, Sinan saw the awkward jostling of middle-aged men pushing against one another—a broad back falling into an unsuspecting woman, thick hands shoving away a bulging belly, and the interlocking arms of men holding back the father.

“Stay away from my family!” the father was yelling. “Get away from here!”

As they passed, Sinan shielded
smail from the barrage of limbs and the boy held on to his coat with both fists. Sinan could see the boy’s father’s face now—his eyes bulging with anger, his cheeks red from struggling against the men that held him—and the person his anger was directed toward. The young American held his hands in the air as if to calm the father, and in one outstretched fist he clutched a small black book. Marcus and a woman tried to pull the young man from the crowd and as they did he stumbled, dropping the book to the ground. He lunged to pick it up, but the father surged forward, pulling the men that held him nearly five feet until their rushing feet stomped the book into the dirt. Sinan, letting go of
smail’s hand, jumped in to help. He placed his hand on the man’s stomach and felt the muscles working to rip loose from their restraints.

“It’s time to honor your son,” Sinan said in Kurdish. The man’s eyes suddenly focused and a bit of the rage receded. “Will you send your son to Paradise soaked in anger?”

Then the man broke down; he simply dropped into his brother’s arms as though he had turned to water.

Sinan found
smail. The boy’s eyes were wide, his mouth hanging open in fear, and Sinan picked up his son and carried him away from the crowd. As they walked down the hill, Kemal caught up with them and took Sinan by the elbow.