Gardens of Water (83 page)

“It’s okay,” Sinan said. “They won’t hurt you.”

Sinan hoisted the laundry bag of clothes over his shoulder and Nilüfer carried
smail into the street. People ran in the street, some of them clutching packages of meat like bundles of wood to their chests, and the tents of the camp seemed to be on fire with the glow from the soup kitchen. As they walked out toward the freeway, three police cars sped by them, their blue and red lights flashing uselessly in the night.

They reached the highway and hopped on the first bus that stopped along the road. All the people inside stared out the window at the flames and when the three of them climbed the steps into the bus, people stared at them. The lights were bright inside and the glow of the fire out the window was partly obscured by the reflections of the passengers’ faces. From here the flames looked very small and insignificant—a shepherd’s campfire, an open barbecue on a beach, the dying embers of a Nowruz fire.

As the bus pulled onto the highway,
smail took his hand and Sinan noticed the blood still clinging to his nails.

“Is Marcus Bey okay, Baba?”
smail looked like he was afraid of the answer.

“He’s all right,” Sinan said.

smail looked closely at his father, looked deep into his eyes, and Sinan looked back at him. He grabbed the boy by the back of the neck and pulled his face close to him. “He
is
all right,” he said. “I promise you.”

smail smiled then, a small, sad smile, and looked out the window at the millions of lights that became the city.

Chapter 61

T
HE TRAIN LEFT AT MIDNIGHT. IT PASSED OUT OF HAYDARPA
A
station and rolled on a path of darkness through the lights of the city, millions of windows flashing back at Sinan, millions of people hidden away behind the concrete walls, all wondering if another quake would hit, all closing their eyes and hoping the walls of their apartments wouldn’t come crushing in on them in their sleep.

smail fell asleep on his mother’s lap and Nilüfer took Sinan’s hand in hers. She wrapped each one of her fingers through his and clasped his palm tightly, and he was amazed at the perfection of a hand, the simplicity of a woman’s hand held in his. Before the city disappeared, she fell asleep, her head jostling against his shoulder, and soon the lights faded away and the land became nothing but steady darkness and somewhere out there, somewhere back among those constellations of lights, lay his daughter’s grave.

Sometime in the night he slept and when he woke the train was coming through a mountain pass. The trees stood high and green and above the train granite peaks held freshly fallen snow. Then the train came through the mountains, and the earth opened up beneath them, wide and bright and as expansive as sight itself. It was the steppes of Anatolia and his heart flooded with gratitude for the land.

He woke
smail and sat him on his lap. The two of them pressed their noses against the window.

“Look at that,
smail,” Sinan said. “You don’t remember this land, but it’s ours. It’s Paradise on earth.”

He and
smail watched the land grow closer and the horizon shorten as the train descended, and when they reached the valley floor it seemed there was nothing but blue sky.

He had nothing except his son and his wife, and if anyone tried to take them away from him again—anyone—he would kill them for it. He could feel this strength growing in him, like a fist strangling the last of his weakness. He would let nothing threaten that strength again.

The train came into a village and it slowed to let a shepherd pass his goats across the tracks, the wheels squealing to a shuddering crawl.

“Look, Baba.”

smail pointed to an old man driving a donkey cart on a dirt road that ran beside the train tracks. The cart was loaded with apples and with each bump a few rolled out across the road.
smail laughed at the apples as they tumbled out and split open into white-fleshed halves. The donkey was old, its hip bones poking against its graying hide, but for a brief moment, just a few wonderful seconds, the man and his cart sped along faster than the train.