Gardens of Water (79 page)

“No,”
smail said. “That’s not what I mean. Where
is
she?”

Sinan felt his throat tighten.

“Is she in Heaven?”

“I hope so, my son. I hope so.”

Chapter 59

T
HE NEXT DAY AND THE ONE AFTER THAT,
SMAIL WAS SILENT
again. He nodded or shook his head in response to questions. He drew pictures in his book, sitting in the darkest corner of the tent, the pad propped up on his knees. They let him play soccer again with the boys, but even after returning he sat in the tent, his jaw clamped tight, and refused to eat. Marcus sent a doctor to the tent, but Sinan wouldn’t let him inside. The man stood outside for a few minutes, his shadow falling across the tent, appealing to Sinan in broken Turkish to let him see the boy, but Sinan wouldn’t allow it. Nilüfer, if it bothered her, said nothing, even after the man had gone.

smail coughed in his sleep and tossed and turned until his mother pinned him in one place with an exhausted arm. But he never seemed to sleep, his breath never became steady and low, he never snored the small, child snores that calmed Sinan into his own sleep. So, by the third day Sinan was exhausted. All day he moved products and stacked them on shelves. All day he unloaded trucks and smiled at customers when they asked him for garden hoses or beach towels or California wine that cost as much as one ticket to Diyarbak
r. And all day he wanted to sleep, but he knew he wouldn’t. He would lay awake worrying again tonight, listening to the erratic rhythms of his son, hoping
smail would go to sleep and wake up in the morning the child he had been just a few months before.

When he left Carrefour, an early evening fog had gathered over the sea, engulfed the evening sun, and spread to swallow the coast. By the time Sinan had crossed the bridge above the highway and reached the field where three plane trees poked into the sky, the clouds blew in shards across the treetops, pressing the sky downward upon his head.

In the gray, he noticed a group of men standing in a circle near the trees, and as he got closer he saw a skinned goat hanging from the limb of the largest tree. The head alone had its skin, and blood dripped from its extended tongue and made a thick puddle in the dirt. Its body was pink and sinewy with exposed muscle and marbled fat. In the middle of the circle of men stood a half-dozen more goats, their bleating and wailing being carried away on the wind; Sinan could see their mouths moving, a silent pantomime of terror. Standing away from the goats as though he were scared of the beasts was the mayor. Three other men dressed in suits stood near him and they directed two butchers to kill another animal.

One man took the hind legs and the other pulled the goat’s head close to his belly. Before Sinan even noticed the knife, the man slit the goat’s neck and blood streamed onto the ground and quickly faded to a trickle that ran down the animal’s limp neck. They hoisted the goat from the next tree with a rope, cut the hide around the neck, and with gloved hands yanked the skin over the shoulders and down the back and soon the animal was stripped of its coat and no longer bore a resemblance to a living thing.

“These are for your families,” the mayor said. “Share the meat with your neighbors, too. Remember
zakat,
my brothers. Remember charity.”

The mayor came to him and handed him a piece of paper.

“The meat’s a gift from the party, Sinan Bey,” the mayor said. Sinan was surprised he knew his name. “You don’t have to take their food anymore.”

He looked at the paper in his hands. He couldn’t read the Turkish, but “Allah” was written in Arabic and it was superimposed over the image of the Turkish flag.

“I’m very sorry about your daughter.” The mayor patted Sinan on the shoulder. “It’s a shame, a waste. But you must go on. You have a son to raise, a wife to take care of. A man’s work is never done on earth, but his struggle is rewarded.” He kissed Sinan on both cheeks. “I’ll have some boys bring you the hindquarters, if we can get them past the gendarmes.”

“Soldiers?”

“Yes, they showed up this morning. They wouldn’t let me through earlier.”

When Sinan reached the camp, a soldier stopped him and asked him his tent number. Sinan gave it to him and the soldier let him through. He passed the soup kitchen where two more soldiers stood on either side of the canopy, guns dangling from holsters. At the tent he was surprised to find Nilüfer alone.

“Where’s
smail?” he said.

“He finally spoke today,” Nilüfer said. She touched him on his forearms. Relief flooded her eyes. “He ate, too. Not enough, but he ate some cheese and bread.”

He was excited by the news and it seemed that a pall was lifting. The boy would be all right. He would go on and live, and, because of that, so too would Sinan and his wife—a family again, though a lesser one than before.

“Where is he?” he said. “I want to see him.”

“Playing soccer.”

Sinan took off for the soccer field. The sky was purple now, blown by a wet wind, and a circle of boys skipped around the field throwing up brown dust that mingled with the clouds. The ball escaped the circle and
smail burst forward. He caught the ball, dribbled it into his control, and set off for the goal. It was beautiful to see, his son so alive with speed, his skinny legs throwing up dust as though he had real weight in the world.

smail had one last boy to beat. The boy tried to slide-tackle him, but
smail, with amazing grace, kicked the ball over the defender’s feet while flying into the air to avoid the tackle. He caught the ball again, made a fancy move to throw off the goalkeeper and took his shot.

“Goooaaall!” the boys yelled as though they were television announcers.

They tackled
smail, one tall pile of legs and arms singing the Galatasaray fight song, and Sinan thought
smail might get crushed.