Gardens of Water (70 page)

Chapter 56

T
HE SHROUD WAS GREEN, THE COLOR OF HEAVEN, BUT IT
didn’t matter—
rem would not go to Paradise.
Whoever purposely throws himself from a mountain and kills himself will be in the Fire falling down into it and abiding therein perpetually forever.
This phrase, locked in his brain for years—some learning in Arabic he had kept secreted away from his childhood education at the madrassa—repeated in his head. Since he pulled her from the water, all through the paperwork he had to sign at the morgue, as he held Nilüfer while she choked on her own disbelief, and now, as they lowered
rem’s pine casket into the hole in the ground, this phrase would not leave him.

The men scrambled on either side of the box, releasing the ropes through gloved palms to lower the casket.
God is great,
read the gold lettering on the shroud.
God is great.
And terrible. And unforgiving. The box was so tiny, so incredibly thin, like a jewel case, really, like something you hid wedding gifts in.

The box settled into the hole and the men pulled their ropes loose and coiled them around their shoulders before picking up the shovels. He seemed to be watching this through a dirty pane of glass—a nightmare from which he might awake. But he felt
smail’s hot hand holding his. He heard Nilüfer’s wailings, a sound like someone pulling her lungs through her mouth. He wanted to tell her to shut up, wanted to tell her she had no right to give up her daughter one minute and mourn her the next. But it is one thing to give up a child who lives and another to lose a child to death. In death she becomes more your child, more a limb of your own body, and her death is also your own.

Nothing made sense. The sky was a brilliant blue, gorgeous in its depth and absolute perfection of color. The birds sang in the trees. Roses, a garden of them, bloomed from the center of sarcophagi, and he imagined their roots grabbing the rib cages of the dead, their thin fingers shooting up through soil and blooming red to laugh at mourners, as if to say, “Look what’s become of your loved ones.” The sky should have been raging with clouds and rain, the flowers should have been nothing but knotted thorns.

Nothing made sense in this world—Nilüfer’s crying, the numbness in his chest. He should have felt more. He had no heart, yet he could hear it beating in his head.

“Oh, it’s the worst thing,” he heard someone say. “The worst.”

He killed her; that was certain. She jumped, but, really, he pushed her off. It would have been better had she died in the quake. It would have been better—though he would not have been able to live with himself—if he
had
killed her. She would enter Paradise then, but not this way, not now.

In love you try to kill a daughter to save her.

It didn’t make sense. None of this.

The Americans, the ones who caused this, bought the tombstone, laid huge wreaths of flowers across the casket. They stood on the edge of the gathered crowd, dabbing their eyes with tissue, the women covering their heads as though they were Muslim.

The people of the camp stood with their heads bowed, mourning the death of a girl whose name they would not utter, today or ever again. Never speak the name of a suicide; treat them as though they never existed yet cry for them.

The sky above him began to spin and Nilüfer’s screams became distant and he felt himself falling. The treetops toppled in on him and the world became a small circle surrounded by darkness until the circle disappeared and he could only hear the people around him gasping. Hands pushed into his back and propped up his shoulders, and in the darkness he felt himself lean against men’s chests.

“Careful, careful,” a voice said. “
Abi,
Sinan, can you hear me?”

He could, but he didn’t want to. He wanted the darkness to overtake his ears.

“Sinan.”

Leave me alone.

“Get some water.”

Please. Leave me alone.

But the light came back into his eyes and all the shapes of the world filled his mind, and when he looked up at the faces looking back at him, there was the strangest thing of all, the thing that made the least sense: Marcus Bey bent toward him, pouring the coolness of water upon his lips.

FOR FIVE DAYS AFTER
the funeral, people delivered food to the tent. And for five days the food sat in the tent rotting, filling up the space with a sickening smell, until Nilüfer finally carried each plate away to the trash. A line of people came to offer their condolences, not one of them mentioning
rem’s name, simply saying sorry for your loss and leaving.

Sometime during the five days, two policemen came to question him, their hats in their hands. The younger policeman with a mustache that hung over his top lip asked the questions, and the older one, the one with the wrinkled shirt, ate from the plate of pastry that had been sitting in the corner gathering flies for days.

“Was there anything upsetting her?”

“She was sad because of the earthquake.”

“People say she was with an American boy?”

“No.”

“People say he was a Satanist? Ran around Kadiköy and Taksim in the bars and tattoo parlors. Someone said a half-dozen cats were found with their necks slit? They say—pardon me,
abi
—they say she might have been pregnant?”

Sinan looked at the man a long time and the man, embarrassed by his own question, looked at the ground.

“She was sad about the earthquake,” he said. “She was scared another one would come.”

The policeman nodded solemnly. “We all are.”

On the sixth day, after everyone else had made their appearances, just when Sinan thought he wouldn’t have to shake another hand or thank another person for their words, Marcus came to the tent carrying a loaf of bread. Sinan didn’t have the energy to refuse him, and as soon as he entered, Nilüfer left, taking
smail by the hand, and glancing daggers Sinan’s way. “I imagine you’re not hungry,” Marcus said, setting aside the bread.

Sinan said nothing. Marcus sat down and looked at the floor as though he were in great pain.

“I’m so sorry about
rem.”

Sinan was thankful to hear someone utter her name, and, for a moment, it lightened him. He almost thanked the American.

“I want to help you,” Marcus said. “We believe in the same God, but the way we think about Him matters.” He wrung his hands together and bit at a thumbnail. “She was a child, Sinan. She didn’t understand what she was giving up.”

“Where’s your son?”

Marcus lifted his hand and ran his fingers through his hair.

“New Hampshire. I sent him to his aunt’s.”

Sinan remembered the snow, the American wife’s dream of going back for a dog.

“I know what the Qur’an says about suicide, Sinan. Christ was a man, too, so he understands a man’s suffering. That’s the difference. He’ll forgive
rem.”

“Your son raped my daughter.”

“No, no,” Marcus said, throwing his head and shoulders back, assuming the posture of certainty. “He wouldn’t do that.”

“He raped
rem and that’s why she jumped. Does your Jesus forgive such things?”