Gardens of Water (67 page)

She took in a deep breath and shook letting it out.

He stroked her cheeks, smoothed the water away with his thumbs, and pinched the drops that hung from her earlobes.

“We’ll take a walk,
can
m,
” he said. “Okay?”

She sucked in another breath and nodded.

He put on his coat and wrapped his wool blanket around her shoulders.

Outside, people were burning fires—a bonfire in front of the soup kitchen where the Americans gathered, fires in metal trash cans where the men smoked, and smaller fires in propane grills where the women huddled.
rem leaned against him as they walked past the tents. He wrapped his arm around her thin shoulders, feeling the bone beneath the skin. People stared at them as they passed in the street. A family pressed together around a propane stove, blue flames lighting their cheeks and reflecting in their eyes. Sinan stared back at them, trying to stab them with his eyes, trying to get them to look away, but they wouldn’t.

He took her to the beach, the spot where the sand ended and the hill that separated the camp from the ruined town rose into the dark sky. They sat together near the water,
rem still clinging to his chest, holding fistfuls of his shirt. “I loved him, Baba,” she said.

He was afraid to ask what happened, because he thought he already knew the answer, but it was important to be sure.

“What did he do?”

The flames reflected in the small waves as though fires burned beneath the surface.

“I wanted him to touch me.” She looked at him, her chin pressed into his stomach. Her eyes were as black as soil, beautiful and glowing with water, fantastically her own, his daughter’s. It was unbelievable to him that someone with his blood running through her could be so beautiful. “I’m sorry, Baba, but I did. I wanted him to touch me, but I didn’t want him to do that. I swear I didn’t. I didn’t know he would do that!”

She buried her head in his stomach, the wet bleeding through his shirt, her sobs echoing off the hillside with amplified intensity. The firelight caught the edge of her neck, the skin exposed where it led to her chin, and he could see her larynx jump as she cried. Understanding what she meant, he looked up at the sky and saw a faint star, just one dim point of light through the orange smoke and fire reflections. She was ruined. She had tempted the boy and he had ruined her. The pain caught in his throat and he thought he was choking. She had ruined him, his name, everything. What is a man who cannot control his own daughter? What is such a man? Nothing.

He shoved her away and his hands grew minds of their own—his fingers desired to choke her, his knuckles were desperate to break her nose. She had soiled
smail’s name, too, and the only way he could make it clean again was to destroy her. She had forced him to this, given him no choice, and for that reason alone he wanted to rip the life out of her.

She tried to grab on to his legs but he kicked her away.

“You’re not my daughter,” he said.

She was on her knees, her arms outstretched to him.

“Please, Baba! I thought I wanted to leave you. I thought he would make me happier, but I was wrong.”

He needed to rip her hair out, had to knock her teeth down her throat. He wanted to kiss her, rock her to sleep, lay a blanket over her tired body and let her rest.

“I love you,” she said. “I want to be with you and Anne.”

“You’re not my daughter.” It was the most horrible thing he could say, so horrible yet he still spat the words at her.

She lunged at him, but he slapped her to the sand.

“Leave,” he said, his voice shaking. “I will
not
see you again.”

“I can’t,” she said, getting to her feet again.

He reached into his pocket and held the knife in his hand. “Leave,” he said, his voice growing weaker. “You
won’t
go back with me.”

She glanced at his hand in the pocket.

“Baba,” she said, her voice as soft and as distant as though she were falling off to sleep. “Baba. You wouldn’t.”

He stared at her, grinding his teeth to stay strong, the handle of the knife gripped firmly in his palm.

She looked him up and down, as though he were a stranger just presented to her, and then she turned her back and stumbled through her first step. Recovering her balance, she walked down the beach, past the orange smudges of fire smoke, until very slowly, like a person becoming a ghost, she disappeared.

Chapter 52

B
EACH PEBBLES ROLLED BENEATH HER FEET BEFORE WAVES
sucked them out to sea. She watched the wet line where it met the dry beach, watched as the sea froth touched the outline of the previous wave and created a new line, one farther up the beach, one that crawled higher up her ankle with each swell. Water in her eyes blurred the dock lights and stars, but she didn’t cry anymore. She was surprised by her silence, intrigued by her lack of pain—it was exactly like something had snapped inside her, some sinuous connection between mind and heart.

Behind her she heard footsteps, the quick landslide of rocks shoved aside by feet. She didn’t turn around and she didn’t speed up; she didn’t even feel her shoulders rise, waiting for the blow to her head, and she smiled to herself with the recognition of this strange new freedom.

The feet drew closer, a splash followed by another.

“
rem.”

A kicking of pebbles.

“
rem,” and she recognized her brother’s voice.

When she turned around, he was nearly to her, a full-out sprint as though he were chasing a ball passed behind a defender.

She bent to her knees and he flew into her like he was trying to tackle her.

“Come back,” he said. He held on to her forearms as though bracing to tug her back to the tent.

“No,” she said.

“Baba’s crying,” he said.

“I know.”

“He’ll forgive you,”
smail said. “He’s just mad right now.”

She touched his forehead, the way she used to when he was a baby to check his temperature. For a moment she imagined him years younger—the line of snot coming to a bubbling rest on his top lip, his hot head resting against her bare arm, his little boy fingers holding on to her pinky.

She wanted to tell him what was in their father’s pocket, but he was a child and she wanted him to remain so as long as possible.

“They love you,
smail,” is all she said.

She kissed him on the forehead. His eyes were huge, two round planets hovering between eyelids.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m just going for a walk.”