by Alan Drew
“He’s okay,” her father whispered in her mother’s ear. “He’s all right, thank God, His mercifulness.”
Sinan looked at her over her mother’s shoulder. His eyes were red-rimmed and sunken and she wished she hadn’t noticed because she felt a pang of sorrow for him. He looked more exhausted than she had ever seen him, and this was a man who was always tired.
“He’s alive?” Nilüfer said, pushing his shoulders away from her to look into his eyes.
“Yes. Yes, Nilüfer.”
Her mother shook uncontrollably and let out a half cry, half laugh. It sounded to rem as though she had finally broken apart and she wouldn’t have been surprised if her mother had fallen to the ground in pieces.
“He’s at the German hospital,” Sinan said. “A miracle of God’s graciousness.”
rem started to cry then, too, but mixed with the relief she felt something ugly rise inside of her, something that made her want to bite off her tongue. Her father took her in his arms. He reeked of sweat and blood and antiseptic and she struggled in his arms, as though her body was trying to shake loose everything she’d had to bear in the last four days. She hit him once in the stomach, and a pop of air escaped from his mouth. And then she let herself be held, just fell into his arms, and he held her up, even after her legs gave out.
Chapter 12
IT WAS THE NINTH MORNING AFTER THE QUAKE, AND ONCE again Sinan had not slept. The sun had not yet struck the sea and the water lay in the distance like a pool of oil. In the early morning blue light, he could see the police boats, assisted by fishermen, working the shoreline, pulling the remaining bodies from the water. After leaving the hospital, he had been told to keep his family away from the water for fear of disease. Ruptured gas lines spewed invisible clouds and it smelled as if the sky would explode. The buildings that remained in town teetered on the edges of their broken foundations, and a scientist from Bosporus University kept speaking on the radio, warning about another quake coming, one larger than the aftershocks that kept splintering the ground. So the safest place was here, up the hill from the sea, in the small grassy center of the highway on-ramp. The buildings up here—the huge Carrefour store, a Fiat car dealership, a couple of gas stations—had not collapsed, and nothing but empty sky towered above them.
He sat beneath the makeshift tent he had constructed three nights before, his hand wrapped in gauze, and watched with amazement—because he wouldn’t have been shocked if the sun never rose again—as blue spilled across the sky until, like a hole punched through a screen, the sun struck the world. The peaks of the hills sparked like matchsticks set aflame and soon the whole coastal range was saturated with color, etching ridges and valleys out of shadow. Deer grazed in those hills, wild cats hunted alone, and endangered African birds roosted in the trees until the end of summer. Lakes lay hidden behind the ridges, and meadows of grass fed grazing sheep. There was a whole wilderness just meters away, and the beauty of it this morning felt like a mocking.
Three other families were camped at this spot, along with a man who sat in the burned grass drinking bottles of beer he had looted from a destroyed liquor store. They were camped embarrassingly close to one another, and it was difficult not to notice the intimate routines of life—a woman brushing her teeth, a man relieving himself behind a tree trunk, a husband’s arm wrapped around his wife’s waist in sleep. He tried to shield Nilüfer and rem from the others, tried to help them retain their modesty, but the cardboard he had tied together flapped in the wind and in the afternoon light it was easy to see through the white bedsheets he had hung as walls. Last night, rem had tried to use a washcloth to clean herself, exposing her arms for a few moments, revealing the calves of her legs, and the man with the beer had stared at her skin—sleepy, drunken eyes enjoying the opportunity. Sinan lost his temper and knocked the beer out of the man’s hands. The other families watched the scene and he could only hope they understood what he was trying to protect.
He was so exhausted last night that he thought he might sleep, but then the drunken man returned with another bottle of Efes, ensconcing himself in the place he had been before. A car exited the freeway, apparently arriving from a place not destroyed in the quake. Its headlights swept across Sinan’s face, and he felt as though he had been caught in some illegal act, and then, when it got quiet and his family and the others were asleep, the questions about what to do assailed him. They had not eaten more than a few pieces of bread and some rotten apples in three days. He had five million lira in his back pocket and that wouldn’t even get them to stanbul. Since returning from the German hospital, he had watched for ambulances or military trucks bringing supplies, but none came. Yesterday when he returned to the apartment to scavenge whatever possessions he could, he stopped with others to listen to a man’s battery-powered radio. The government report said the roads between Gölcük and stanbul had collapsed. Cars still passed on the freeway, though, admittedly, there were far fewer than on a normal morning. People in town said the government would take care of them and when the government didn’t they said the military would and now that the military hadn’t arrived no one spoke anymore about being cared for.
In the distance now, in some other town where the mosque had not been destroyed, he heard the remaining notes of the call to prayer echo across the water like a forgotten memory. He still prayed—even though he could not wash—on the hillside, prostrating himself. Nilüfer coughed in her sleep and he stopped praying to watch her. She lay with her arms wrapped around smail’s chest. Her right hand grasped rem’s blouse, the girl having pulled away from her mother’s embrace sometime in the night.
Theirs was an arranged marriage. Nilüfer was practically a sister to him. Having been raised just two homes away in Yeilli, she and Sinan played together as children. He knew from the day he was eleven years old that he would marry her, and she did, too. It could have been resignation to a fate out of your control or the comfort that comes with the securing of your future, but he was prepared to love her years before they were married at sixteen. Even so, this is not what he had promised her. Nothing in their life together was what he’d promised her—the escape from the only home they’d known, the stuffy apartment surrounded by cement, two children instead of the half-dozen they talked about when they were young, and he couldn’t help feeling responsible in some way for the earthquake, for the fact that they were homeless.
He watched the sun glance across his wife’s face—the wrinkles around her eyes, the wisps of black hair showing at her temples, the mole caught in the fold of her bottom lip. He softly pulled her head scarf back to see splotches of scalp where she had ripped her hair out, and he replaced the scarf to cover up that pain. He could still see the child in her face, lost there behind a layer of concern that remained even in sleep. He wanted to lie in her arms, feel the softness of her chest pushing against his back, feel her breath along the ridge of his neck. He was tired and he wanted to give up, and he thought Nilüfer would understand; he thought she would allow him that weakness if he would allow it himself.
He glanced around the circle of grass. The man who had been drinking beer was splayed out on his back. Two other families had not stirred, and the loose fabric of their tents flapped lonely in the morning breeze. A woman poked at a fire in the third camp, and he smelled boiling tea, but her back was turned to him. Satisfied that there were no prying eyes, he laid his hand on his wife’s cheek and kissed her lips.
But a man yelling in the distance interrupted the kiss. When Sinan stood he saw a flock of sheep coming across the highway. A few cars stopped to let the animals pass, something that would never have happened in the normal morning rush. The animals huddled together, a mass of dirty woolen shoulders pushing against one another, their black hooves clicking against the pavement, the tin bell on the leading sheep flatly tinkling. Some of the sheep balked at crossing the road, others bent their heads to the pavement in hopes of finding grass, but the shepherd quickly tapped these animals on the rear end with hi
s staff and herded them back into the flock. Sinan thought he recognized the man, but couldn’t remember his name. A wool cap hung low over his eyes and he wore a dark vest over a white long-sleeve shirt. Each Kurban Bayram, the man brought his sheep out of the hills and into town to be sold into slaughter for the holiday feasts, but Sinan had never seen him at any other time of the year. The sheep should be high in the hills now, pasturing the summer away to fatness.
As the flock passed between the tents, Sinan smelled the pungent mildew of wool, and his stomach twisted with hunger. He watched the eyes of the passing animals—big, black, stupid eyes—and could only think of the meat clinging to their bones. The shepherd tipped his hat as he passed. His face was an intersection of bones, the sunburned skin pulled taut across their ridges—the face of a man subject to nature, rather than the stagnant air of the city. It was a calm face, despite the wear, a face that accepted the role of killer of the animals under his protection.
In a bag full of the things he brought back from their apartment, Sinan found a knife. He stood and followed the last of the sheep through the grass, across the on-ramp, and down the hill into the destroyed flatlands of town. He kept the blade of the knife cupped in his palm. He didn’t join the man—there was a solitary nature about the shepherd that was important not to disturb—but rather Sinan followed close behind and a little to his left so that he could see the man’s face. The shepherd didn’t acknowledge him or seem disturbed by the sight of collapsed buildings, and he whistled as he walked—an old song, a türkü about the love for a village girl. The sheep clambered over broken bricks and debris as if climbing the rocky slopes of mountaintops, oblivious to the consequences of the world. Women washing clothes in a bucket turned to watch the flock pass. A few men smoking cigarettes at a card table snuffed out their butts, got up, and followed.
The shepherd reached a field just off Atatürk Street that was surrounded by hothouses for tomatoes, and here he stopped to let the animals graze in the dry grass. What tomatoes were left beneath the plastic domes were rotten and smelled of organic decay, yet there was enough of a hint to the fresh fruit, ripe and full of juice and seed, that it touched the hunger in Sinan. He and the other men stopped in the middle of the field, surrounded by the soft mastications of grazing sheep.
“They’re not fattened,” the shepherd said to the men. “But they’re yours to take.”
“Thank you, brother,” Sinan said.
He was embarrassed to take advantage of the man’s offer, but he had little other choice. He tried to find the weakest animal—a generous offer requires generosity in the taking. Near the edge of a hothouse where the weeds were high, he discovered an old ewe, her movements slow and weak as though her joints were stiffened with arthritis.
He pulled out his knife and took her by the chin. She raised her head as though expecting to be petted. He straddled the ewe’s haunches, turned her body toward Mecca, lifted her throat, and made a quick incision that severed the ligaments and windpipe. She kicked her rear hooves, stepping on his toes and cutting his shins through his pants. He held her head to his chest to keep her still and watched her black eye, bulged and blaming, grow soft and flat until it was nothing but a stone.
“God is great,” he whispered.
That’s when he heard the trucks, their heavy gears downshifting, the engines revving and winding down to a crawl. With the dead sheep’s head in his lap, he paused to watch the line of produce trucks bounce violently over potholes and pavement cracks. They were painted red with hand-stenciled flowers and gaudy calligraphy, and their brightness was shocking against the cement gray and burned-out yellow summer landscape.
Every Tuesday in the center of town, an open market was held. At five A.M., men wedged metal poles into the pavement, fastened canvas sheets atop the poles, and hung the fabric across the street to shade rows of wooden tables. For ten whole blocks, fruits and vegetables, fresh spices, nuts, even cheeses and olives overflowed the tables. Sinan’s stomach constricted with the memory, and he was filled with a momentary hope that produce was the cargo of this caravan.
But as the trucks approached, he saw that the truck beds were not filled with fresh produce but instead with stacked canvas bags. The first truck passed, blowing an exhaust-filled wind into his face. Imprinted on the canvas bags were American flags and next to that in black spray paint were little crosses and a name in English that he could not read. Three more trucks passed, all of them loaded with food and other supplies. The last vehicle wasn’t a produce truck, but a water truck, the valve in the rear leaking a trail of wet on the cement.
Following the trucks was a line of white minibuses filled with Europeans or Americans—he couldn’t tell which. Elbows out the windows, their T-shirt sleeves blowing in the wind. Fancy black sunglasses, the bill of a sports cap. A few of the people smiled as they passed, as though on vacation—tourists come down to see the damage. He had heard about this. Some entrepreneurial travel agents from stanbul had arranged tours to see the towns destroyed by the earthquake, for which “adventure” tourists were said to be paying incredible prices.
He was about to curse them, when through the windshield of the last bus he saw the American director in the passenger seat waving an arm at the driver. The truck downshifted—the sound like metal shearing metal—but did not stop. The American smiled and held his hand out the window in a prolonged wave. As they passed, Sinan caught a glimpse of the man’s son, his earphones stuck in his ears, his face grave and drawn-looking.
Sinan was ashamed. He had never thanked the American. As soon as he had smail in his arms, nothing else had mattered and he had left the director alone with his dead wife—the woman who had saved smail’s life. Shameful.
Because his hands were full, he nodded and hoped it would be interpreted as thanks, but the bus had already passed.
Chapter 13
REM COULDN’T STAND IT ANYMORE. FOR FOUR DAYS NOW SHE had sat inside this tent wondering if Dylan was alive. Every hour, it seemed, of each of those four days her mother checked for strange marks on smail’s skin, watched for enlarged pupils, pressed her palm against his forehead, which was always too hot, too cold, or too sweaty. She tugged on his tongue. “That bump wasn’t there this morning. rem, was that bump there this morning?” smail was fine, at least as fine as anyone could be after the quake, but he willingly endured his ears being folded back, his eyelids tugged open, his lips yanked apart, and a prodding finger sliding around his gums.
So when she woke this morning, after yet another dream of her teeth falling out—each one plunk, plunk, plunking onto the tiled floor of their now-nonexistent bathroom—and found her father gone for the first time since they left the hospital, and her mother and smail still asleep, she sneaked out of the tent and ran down the hill into town.
rem found her best friend, Dilek, and her mother, Yasemin Han m, camped on the retaining wall that ran from the port along the sea to the destroyed amusement park. They were huddled together beneath a sagging blanket tied to two sticks wedged in cracks in the pavement.
“Both your mother and father are alive?” Dilek’s mother asked rem.
“Yes,” rem said.
“Good,” Yasemin Han m said. She had been a well-kept woman who favored Vakko blouses and tailored pants, her hair always pinned back with a gold broach, but now she wore a shirt ripped at the shoulder and her curly hair was wild and hung in her face. “Good,” she said again. “Your mother is lucky.”
Dilek stroked her mother’s shoulder, and told rem with amazing calm that her father had been killed in the quake, one of thirty men crushed in the k raathane down Atatürk Street. Behind them, the cars hovering above the water of the half-submerged Ferris wheel rocked in the morning wind, the metal joints creaking.
“I’m sorry for your loss, Yasemin Han m,” rem said. “May your pain pass quickly.”
“Always spending his time at the k raathane playing cards with the men,” she said. “What’s wrong with me?”
Dile
k removed her hand from her mother’s shoulder, and placed her arms across her chest as though hugging herself.
“Your father’s a good man,” Yasemin said to rem. “He’s always home with his family.”
“Anne,” Dilek said to her mother. “Please don’t speak poorly of father.”
“Do you know what it’s like?” she said, snapping her head toward Dilek. “Always gone to play cards, always gone on business, always gone into town.” She pushed her palms against her eye sockets. “He had a woman, I tell you.”
“He didn’t,” Dilek said. “Now stop it.”
“He did,” she said. “I know it. Always gone playing cards. Humph! If he’d been home,” she said, her face in her hands now. “He’d be here now.”
“I know, Anne,” Dilek said, stroking her shoulder again. “I know.”
They sat for a while, Dilek trying to calm her mother, and rem staring at the Ferris wheel cars still hanging above the water. The submerged cars, mirror images of the ones above, floated beneath the surface like huge, brightly colored beetles.
“rem and I are going for a walk.”
“Yes,” Dilek’s mother said. “Leave me here alone.”
“I’ll be back.”
“Yes, yes.”
Dilek took rem’s hand and held it to her cheek as they walked along the broken waterfront. The sun was up now and the morning breeze stirred the smell of rot and gasoline.
“She’s driving me crazy,” Dilek said. “She won’t even let me cry for him. She just says, ‘You wouldn’t be crying if he had been home.’”
Then Dilek cried and rem held her and pulled her head to her shoulder and watched buckets of ice cream float out from a half-submerged ice-cream shop. Some of the buckets had burst open and green swirls of pistachio glistened on the surface of the water. A moment later a bloated body floated through the swirls, its clothes bursting at the seams, its skin as white and pasty as bread dough.