Gardens of Water (4 page)

Nilüfer and
rem had stayed home to cook the food for the party tonight. If they had still lived in Ye
illi, Sinan’s aunts and uncles and cousins would have helped, and the whole family would have paraded
smail through the unpaved streets. Sinan kept the memories of his own
sünnet
celebration to himself; he didn’t want his son to know what he was missing. But the images had flashed in his mind throughout the day—his father hoisting him onto their best horse, his mother walking beside him, one hand resting on his knee, and the horse’s belly swaying against her own pregnant bulge. It was one of his last memories of her, and even though her face had been white and she wouldn’t smile, he hadn’t thought to tell his father to get her home. Three days later, his father would leave Sinan with his aunt while he drove his mother to the good hospital in Diyarbak
r. She was bleeding, his aunt told Sinan. The doctors would make her better and he would have a little sister or brother when they came home. Only his father came back.

Now the call to sunset prayer echoed from dozens of speakers, the amplified voices ricocheting off the cement walls of apartment buildings. Sinan was nervous, too, and a knot the size of an apricot had hardened inside his stomach. The walk home took them past the fishmonger’s, and Sinan gave
smail money to buy the fish heads and severed tails for the street cats. Eren Bey, the fish seller, wrapped the remains in paper and handed them to
smail.

“Wait,” Eren Bey said, holding up one bloody finger. From a fern-lined basket filled with his best
palamut,
he grabbed the largest fish, wrapped it up with a sprig of oregano, and dropped it into
smail’s hands. “Fish will make you a strong man.” He flexed his bicep and slapped the bump of muscle. “All the women in the world will kiss your feet.”

Eren winked and
smail smiled.

“Please,” Sinan said, “he’s just a boy.”

“
Efendim,
” the fish seller said, his hands held out as if he were mildly insulted, “just a joke.”

They stopped at the rotting wooden
konak
where the street cats lived, but the cats were not there.
smail threw the fish parts through the broken window anyway, a gift for their return. They took
maghrib
prayer at mosque, and Sinan listened as
smail stumbled through the Arabic. Afterward, they climbed the hill that led to their apartment, and the bright lights of the amusement park below spun against the darkening sky. Sinan promised, as always, to take
smail there someday for a ride on the Ferris wheel.

By the time they reached their apartment, the knot in Sinan’s stomach had grown to the size of a small apple. He massaged the spot with his fingertips and it rolled around inside his stomach. He wondered, briefly, if he could delay the ceremony one more year. But people were already coming, the
sünnetci
was already scheduled, and he would have to make his son suffer the pain tonight.

“Go on and see Ahmet,” Sinan said to
smail. He knew his brother-in-law would spoil the boy, treat him like a child one last time before
smail had to bear the burden of trying to be a man. “I’ll come and get you at the grocery later.”