by Alan Drew
“And that I want you to live a good life, a moral one.”
“Baba, I can’t be unhappy and be moral, too. I cannot be like mother—unhappy, stuck cooking food all day long, cleaning floors that are dirty again by the end of the day. I can’t keep my mouth shut like I have no thoughts, like I have no brain.”
“Your mother is a good woman, she’s happy with her life. And I don’t treat her like she has no brain.”
rem said nothing in response to that. Sinan tried to see the expression on her face through the darkness, but he only saw the indefinite oval shape and the slope of her nose catching the light of the moon.
“I don’t want to be like mother. Dylan told me women do whatever they want in America, they can be anything, they don’t even have to act like women.”
“You don’t understand what you’re doing, rem. It’s dangerous.”
“Do you know how long it’s been since I felt good, Baba? I didn’t know what feeling good was like. Always cleaning smail’s clothes, feeding him lunch, stirring sugar into your tea, doing all the jobs mother doesn’t want to do—mopping the floor, scrubbing the toilet, hanging out the windows to wash the grime off the glass. It’s like being born a slave. Is that what daughters are for?”
“What do you expect from life, rem? Life is hard. Life is a test. Do you think I’m any less a slave at work each day?”
“I expect to wake up in the morning and think that something”—she shook her head—“just one thing will make me happy that day. I listened to his music through the ceiling, saw him in the halls, but I didn’t know he was that one thing.”
Sinan was confused, his head spinning with anger and sadness and understanding and resentment and, most of all, fear. He was going to lose her.
“That boy does not care about you, rem.”
“He loves me.”
“A kiss is not love. It may feel like it, but it’s not.”
“He said he’d kill that woman for me, the one who threw the rock, if we knew who she was. Would you do that?”
“That’s an easy thing to say,” Sinan said. How could he argue he would It was the argument of a hypocrite. He had left her, he had loved her less than smail, but he didn’t want to be a hypocrite in her eyes, too. “He cares about nothing, believes nothing. A man who believes in nothing cannot love anything. I love you, canm, but he doesn’t.”
“You used to talk to me, Baba,” she said. “You used to take walks with me.”
He took a deep, tired breath. He did, it was true, but she was trying to change the subject. “You will not see him again.”
“Baba, don’t you understand?”
“It doesn’t matter what I understand. It matters what’s right. You won’t see him again, rem. If you do”—he hesitated—“then you’re no longer my daughter.”
He could not see her face but he could tell she was staring at him, shocked.
“I won’t let you throw your life away.” That’s love, he wanted to say to her. Love was doing the painful things because they were right. “If you see him again, you no longer have a family.”
She buckled at her waist and he could see that her face was in her hands. Tears pooled in his eyes and he was glad for the darkness. He tried to keep his voice calm, tried to make sure it did not waver. “Do you understand me?”
She began rocking back and forth.
“Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she said, stifling her words with the palms of her hands.
Remembering the bracelet, he pulled up the sleeve of her blouse and found the leather still there, tied around her wrist. He tried to untie it, her arm hanging limp in his hand, but the knot was too tight. Holding her arm steady, he yanked at the loop and ripped it loose. It was then that she began to sob.
When he returned to the tent, dragging rem by the arm through the camp, he handed her to Nilüfer. “You’re right,” he said. “She stays here.”
Nilüfer grabbed rem by the arm, but rem threw herself down on her sleeping bag and buried her face in the fabric. smail woke on the bag next to her and rubbed his hand across her back, his face gazing up at the two of them in confusion. For a moment, it felt to Sinan as if his children were conspiring against him, as if he were the enemy.
“One who does not slap his children will slap his knees, Sinan.”
“Yes, yes,” he said, hearing the doubt in her voice when he needed to hear her certainty.
YILMAZ BEY SHOOK HIS HEAD. “It’s policy,” he said. “I cannot give you the money before payday.”
Sinan had left the tent and run to the store before closing time, catching the manager just as he was loosening his tie in his office.
“But I’ve worked. I’ve earned the money and I need it.”
“I’m sorry,” Yilmaz Bey said. “It’s Carrefour’s policy not to give advances.”
“It’s not an advance. I only want what I’ve already worked for.”
The manager looked at the clock above Sinan’s head and blew out a frustrated breath. Sinan knew the man had a family he wanted to get home to. “It doesn’t matter, Sinan. Payroll is handled by the central office in Levent and they don’t pay anyone until payday. They have to wait for the Paris office to give them the okay. I can’t even get an advance. It’s only a little more than a week away.”
“It’s almost two weeks away.”
Yilmaz Bey shrugged, told Sinan he was sorry again, and walked into the bathroom to wash himself before leaving for the night. That was it; Sinan was supposed to leave now, but he stayed standing in the office until the manager returned. It was a shameful thing to do, and Sinan was embarrassed when Yilmaz Bey plopped himself down in his swivel chair.
“It’s been hard for many people since the quake, I know,” the manager said, pulling his coat from a hanger above his desk. He lifted a wallet from the coat pocket, and pulled a ten-million-lira note from a ribbon of bills.
“Here, Sinan,” the man said. “I wish I could do more.”
Sinan stared at the bill hanging limply from the manager’s palm, the stern face of Atatürk staring back at him.
“Please,” the manager said. “A gift. You’re a good worker, Sinan.”
Shame rose inside Sinan like an unfurling red flag, but he grabbed the bill and folded it into his shirt pocket. He was so disgusted with himself that it wasn’t until later, as he passed through the shining foreign cars of the parking lot and down into the broken streets, that he realized he hadn’t thanked the man. Then before he reached the tent he was angry again, spitting silent obscenities at the manager, cursing him and the money he could give away so easily.
Chapter 38
THE NEXT DAY, WHEN HER FATHER WAS AT WORK, HER MOTHER wouldn’t let her out of her sight. She kept rem inside the tent washing glasses that were already clean. She made her pull the sleeping bags out of the tent and beat them clean with a stick. She forced her to sweep the tent floor and use a broom to wipe away the spiders’ webs spread like lace in the corners of the tent. And when rem was done, her mother decided it was not clean enough and made her do it again.
“Stupid girl,” she said, while rem dragged the sleeping bags out of the tent again.
“Look,” she said to rem.
She held the bag in one hand and took the stick and hit it with amazing violence. “You will not hurt the bag. Hit it,” she said, and gave it back to rem.
“Stupid girl,” her mother said again, standing in the sun watching her. “The rumors better not be true.”
rem slapped the stick against the bag that was already clean.
“Harder,” her mother said.
The bag was heavy and her arm began to hurt, but she slapped the stick against the material as hard as she could, imagining she was hitting her mother.
The next day they did the laundry, hauling all their clothes to the wash bins near the bathrooms. Her mother handed her each article of clothing and made her do the hard work of rubbing them over the ribbed metal washer.
Tw
o women were hanging clothes on a line and they watched Nilüfer and rem.
“See,” her mother said. “See what you’ve caused.”
rem ran one of her father’s shirts over the metal washer and stared back at the women until they looked away.
“It doesn’t matter if the rumors are true,” her mother said. “Once they start they never go away.”
She drowned the shirt in the rinse-water bin, wrung the water out, and dropped it in the dry bucket.
“I didn’t do anything,” rem said.
“Didn’t do anything, pah! It doesn’t matter, anyway,” her mother said. “Everyone thinks you have.”
Nilüfer handed her a blouse. It was her mother’s and rem ground this one extra hard against the metal, so hard she stripped skin from her knuckles.
“That’s why it’s better to stay in the house and say nothing to the men.”
She couldn’t make the fabric rip and her arms were getting tired and there was a whole bucket of clothes left.
“But that’s wrong, Anne.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s how the world is.”
“It’s wrong.”
“You’re nothing now,” her mother said. “You understand?” Her mother handed her another shirt. “They don’t care. You make fun of all these women. You make fun of me!”
“I don’t,” rem said. “I just want to be happy.”
“Happy, happy!” She took rem by the arm. “You think you cannot be happy like me? You think because I cover my hair and take care of the house that I cannot be happy.”
Her mother’s eyes bounced back and forth, her teeth bit off the words. It scared rem and she looked away.
“Look at me,” Nilüfer said. “Do you think my life is nothing?”
rem wanted to say yes, if for no other reason than to hurt her, but she couldn’t do it.
Nilüfer let go of her arm.
“Wash,” she said. “Wash, wash, wash!” She pushed rem out of the way. “Like this,” she said, taking the shirt out of her hands and pressing it to the metal washer. “Can’t even wash a shirt!”
On the third day there was nothing left to clean and that was worse, because her mother wouldn’t let her leave the tent at all. They sat together all morning in the tent, smail coming and going as he pleased. When he was there, her mother smiled and touched his hair and played games with him, but when he was gone, she was silent, morose, and occasionally let into her.
“Stupid girl. You think men love loose women? They leave such women in the streets and come home to the ones that cook their meals.”
Clouds pressed low to the ground and the tent was dark and rem was beginning to think her mother would never stop. She was beginning to think she would never see Dylan again, never see sunlight again except to hang laundry and buy vegetables.
“Such women end up in the whorehouses in Beyolu, or worse.”
Dilek came by the tent and Nilüfer wouldn’t let rem see her.
“She’s sleeping,” she heard her mother say, and rem almost yelled out to her friend but she knew that would make it worse and she didn’t know if she could handle worse in this tiny space. When her mother came back in she complained about atheists and rem’s secular friends that made her act this way.
After three days her mother’s words were sinking in. She was nothing. Her father didn’t love her. Her mother hated her now. She was stained with rumors because of a kiss. But it wasn’t a stupid kiss; it was everything; it was what she wanted most, the only thing that made her happy. And the walls of the tent were crowding in and her mother wouldn’t shut up and she thought she would explode.
“I need to go to the W.C.,” she said.
And her mother, just as she had for three days, walked with her to the toilets and stood outside and waited. But this time rem didn’t need to go. This time, she pulled the triangle of glass she kept hidden in her skirt pocket. She pulled her blouse sleeves up so that her wrists were exposed. She grasped the glass with her right fist and ran it across her left wrist. She slashed enough to bleed, but not enough to cut the veins there, just enough to feel the pain, to see her blood rise to the surface; just enough to keep her mind from spilling over the edge.
“rem,” her mother said. “What’s taking so long?”
She slashed again and she felt the sting and her head started to clear and she felt strong again.
“rem? Are you okay?” Her mother tapped on the door, but rem had engaged the latch and she couldn’t get in.
She dabbed away the blood with toilet paper and buttoned up the cuffs of her blouse. She thought, now, she could endure another three days of her mother’s brutality.
Chapter 39
MARCUS BEY SHOWED UP AT CARREFOUR TEN MINUTES before Sinan’s break.
“Can I buy you tea?”
The American’s shoulders stooped as though something had been broken in him. The bags beneath his eyes were coal black.
“I won’t change my mind,” Sinan said. “My daughter won’t see your son.”
Marcus smiled wearily and rubbed his forehead. “I’ve kept my word on that,” Marcus said. “But it seems we hold similar sway over our children. There’s something else I want to talk with you about.”
Marcus read a magazine off the racks while Sinan finished his shift, and afterward they sat at a patio table at Divan, the expensive pastanesi Sinan had never thought of drinking at. Marcus sat down, but his shoulders still sloped and he stared at the ground.
“A boy died,” Marcus said. “Yesterday, in Row B. Although we didn’t find out until this morning.”
“Who?”
Marcus took a very small sip and then held the cup in the palm of his hand. The cup shook and a little tea spilled out.
“Derin Anbar.”
A Kurdish name, though Sinan didn’t know the child or his family.
“He was a friend of smail’s,” Marcus said. “One of the boys he played soccer with. Did smail say anything to you?”
“No,” Sinan said. smail was quiet last night, he remembered, but nothing out of the ordinary. “He cried in his sleep.”
“I thought you should know. I think he’s upset, but he won’t talk about it.”
Sinan was again moved by this American’s care for his child.
“The boy was sick, but they wouldn’t let us see him,” Marcus continued. “Diarrhea. He was one of those kids who jumped in the puddle after the storm.” He took another sip and grimaced as though the tea tasted terrible.
“Are you all right?” Sinan asked.
“My stomach is bothering me.” He shook his head with frustration. “We should have pushed into that tent anyway.”
“God’s will,” Sinan said. “It was his time.”
Marcus looked at him for the first time, recognizing, Sinan thought, his own logic about the loss of his wife being used against him. It didn’t seem to comfort him.
“I knew a boy,” Marcus said. “Not much older than smail. In the camp near Güzelsu.” He stopped and sipped his tea again. He made a face as he swallowed.
“In ’ninety-one?”
“Yes,” he said. “I used to buy these soccer jerseys to give to the boys. They loved them. Such a silly thing as an Arsenal jersey but they made them happy.” He paused as though he had not told this story before, as though it was very painful. “This boy, Haluk, and I became friends. His parents were still in Iraq and his uncle had gotten him across the border. Someone brought a beach ball to the camp, so we’d kick it around between the tents. He always wanted to know about America, wanted to know if I knew Michael Jordan.” He smiled as though remembering. “You know who Michael Jordan is?”
“Everyone knows Michael Jordan.”
“I left for stanbul to take care of school business and when I was there I bought a bunch of jerseys in a store in Beyolu. I don’t know why I didn’t think to buy a Bulls jersey, but I didn’t. When I got back to the camp, I gave Haluk an FC Barcelona jersey. Red and blue with yellow trim.”
“Blue,” Marcus said, nodding his head. “I know the Kurdish colors, Sinan, it wasn’t green. I swear it wasn’t green.” He sipped his tea and then added more sugar. “Haluk put that jersey on and paraded around the camp like he had won the lottery.” He laughed. “I’d never seen him smile like that. The other boys came around and touched the fabric and pulled on the numbers. They asked me if I had any more. I did, but I lied because I wanted Haluk to feel special, at least for one day.
“The next morning his uncle found me at my tent, and asked if Haluk was with me. He wasn’t and we searched the camp all morning. We asked the U.N. workers if they’d seen him but they hadn’t. We asked everyone, I think, on every single row of that camp—and it was huge at that point, a small city of war refugees—and no one had seen him. He just disappeared.”
“The paramilitary?” Sinan asked, although he knew the answer already.
“How do they do that? Right under the U.N.’s nose and no one sees them?”
Sinan thought about telling Marcus who trained the Special Teams, but this story was not what he expected from the American.
“The next day, when we knew Haluk was gone, his uncle screamed at me. How could you let him wear that shirt? he yelled. Didn’t I know? he said. Didn’t I know those colors were illegal I did, I told him, but the shirt was blue, not the forbidden green.”
“It was blue,” Marcus said, looking at Sinan now. “I swear it. FC Barcelona’s colors are red, yellow, and blue. Not green.”
“It’s too close,” Sinan said. “It’s close enough.”
“He was a boy, Sinan. A twelve-year-old boy, not a terrorist.”
“He knew he shouldn’t wear those colors, Marcus Bey. Every twelve-year-old boy in Kurdistan knows not to wear the Kurdish colors. Or anything close to them.”
“It was blue, Sinan,” Marcus said. “Not green.”
“I know, but it doesn’t matter.”
They were silent again and Sinan watched Marcus stare out the opening of the tent where the sun cast shadows across the dirt.