Gardens of Water

Chapter 1

In the rush of bodies to board the ferry leaving İstanbul for Gölcük, Sinan lost his son.

Five minutes earlier İsmail had been tugging Sinan in the opposite direction, back toward the city, deep into the labyrinth of arcades and electronics stores of the Sirkeci neighborhood. Sinan suspected it was for the exact purpose of missing the ferry home and delaying the pain of the circumcision ceremony that evening. The boy stomped across the bricks in his white circumcision costume, one hand squeezing Sinan’s fingers and the other hoisting his tasseled staff in the air like a pasha leading a parade. Sinan let himself be pulled for a while, but the horn had already sounded, and, even though he, too, wanted to delay the ceremony, they couldn’t miss that ferry.

When they had reached Reşadiye Avenue, Sinan pulled İsmail into the street just as the traffic broke, Sinan’s shoulders rocking back and forth in an awkward dance on his bad foot. He finally pushed İsmail through the metal gate to the ferry dock just in time for them to join the throng of men and women leaving work for the day. They ran from the shade of the dock back out into the searing summer sun, Sinan leading İsmail this time through a sea of elbows, shoulders, and damp backs. They climbed the thin plank of wood used as a bridge from dock to boat, the green water beneath them churning with translucent jellyfish, and they entered the smoky cabin, where İsmail dropped his staff. He let go of Sinan’s hand, and before Sinan could grab his son’s arm, the boy disappeared, swallowed by the wave of bodies.

Now Sinan shoved through the crowd to get to the boy, but his foot made it difficult. He pushed against the stomachs of men smoking cigarettes, turning sideways to make himself thinner. "Affedersiniz, he said to each person he touched, in a voice barely concealing his rising panic. Excuse me." But the more he struggled forward, the more he was shoved backward by the jostling mob, and soon he was forced all the way to the other side of the ferry, his back leaning against a rusty chain that kept him from tumbling into the Bosporus.

Allah, Allah, he said out loud. A man standing next to him glanced in his direction.

Too many men, the man said. He lit a cigarette, the smoke flying away from his face. Too many men, not enough city.

My boy’s lost, Sinan said.

The man turned around. He was taller than Sinan and he was able to see over the heads of the crowd.

Where? the man said.

At the entrance.

The man stood on his toes and yelled across the cabin in a voice so powerful it silenced the crowd.

"Erkek çocuk nerede?"

That started a chorus of echoes. Where’s the boy? strangers called, their voices rising above the sound of the engine straining to pull away from the dock. Where’s the boy? Where’s the boy? they yelled into the wind, as the ferry nosed its white hull out into the blue water. "İsmail! Sinan called, joining his voice to the chorus. The men yelled İsmail" too, and a pandemonium of concern radiated out through the cabin.

Then thirty feet away, rising above the heads of hundreds of people, came his son. At first İsmail seemed to be floating under his own power, a princely ghost taken flight in the sea-whipped wind, but as he drew nearer, Sinan saw the shoulders on which İsmail rested. The man elbowed through the parting crowd, a cigarette burning in his mouth, his large, hairy hands wrapped around the boy’s stomach. İsmail’s white teeth gleamed against his skin and his black eyes shone in the afternoon light. The staff was clasped in his fist, and for a moment he seemed to be a king raised high above the people of İstanbul.

"Teşekkür ederim," Sinan said when the stranger handed him his son.

"Birşey değil."

When the ferry docked in their suburb of Gölcük three hours later, İsmail wouldn’t let go of the railing. Sinan touched the top of İsmail’s head, and reminded him of the gifts he would receive after the ceremony. He tickled İsmail’s armpits and tugged on his earlobe, which didn’t earn him the usual dimpled smile, much less a loosening of the boy’s white-knuckled grip. A few women, shuffling toward the exit, smiled in sympathy. The man who had carried İsmail on his shoulders slid a one-million-lira note into the pocket of the boy’s white satin vest.

What’s your name? the man said.

"İsmail."

"İsmail what?" the man said.

"İsmail Başioğlu."

That’s a fine name. A strong man’s name. The man winked at Sinan. Can’t stay a boy forever, he said.

Sinan thought the man was scolding him for İsmail’s age—nine, at least a year too old for the sünnet—but the man’s smile betrayed nothing but generosity.

When the deck was cleared of people, Sinan touched his son’s hand and felt the boy’s fingers stiffen. We have to go, he said.

Behind İsmail, the sun collapsed in red bands along the horizon.

Sinan knelt beside İsmail and put his hands on the boy’s shoulders. "It will hurt, but that pain will pass and God will know you’re willing to endure pain for him. A man has to endure pain, İsmail. But it will pass."

İsmail looked at the ground, his long eyelashes pressed against his cheeks.

Baklava soaked in honey afterward? Two, maybe?

Finally, the boy smiled.

They had left home that morning, just as sunlight broke above the bay, and took the three ferries the length of the Gulf of İzmit into İstanbul. Sinan hadn’t been to İstanbul since they had first arrived in the city from Yeşilli, their village in the Southeast, seven years ago, but it had been İsmail’s special request to be paraded around the city on the day of his circumcision. Sinan hated İstanbul—too many people, too much cement, too little sky—but İsmail was fascinated by it. Even after a full day of stomping around the city that caused Sinan’s foot to ache, his son’s fascination rubbed off on Sinan.

People had been kinder than he had expected. A woman in a pastry shop had offered the boy a slice of chocolate cake laced with pistachio nuts, a bite of which İsmail promptly dropped on the white satin of his pasha’s costume, soiling the garment that had cost Sinan a week’s earnings. A taxi driver gave them a free ride up to Topkapi Palace, where, like sultans of another age, they gazed out over the shimmering waters of the Bosporus. They marveled at Boğaziçi Bridge, standing like a huge metal suture between the hills of Asia and Europe. They counted the boats crisscrossing the Sea of Marmara—massive tankers that shoved the water aside, lumbering car ferries leaning into the current, driftwood-sized fishing spits—and settled on the number forty-six. As they passed the fish houses in Kumkapı neighborhood, the musicians at one of the tourist restaurants left their table and followed İsmail down the street, blowing their reed flutes to announce his passing.

Nilüfer and İrem had stayed home to cook the food for the party tonight. If they had still lived in Yeşilli, Sinan’s aunts and uncles and cousins would have helped, and the whole family would have paraded İsmail through the unpaved streets. Sinan kept the memories of his own sünnet celebration to himself; he didn’t want his son to know what he was missing. But the images had flashed in his mind throughout the day—his father hoisting him onto their best horse, his mother walking beside him, one hand resting on his knee, and the horse’s belly swaying against her own pregnant bulge. It was one of his last memories of her, and even though her face had been white and she wouldn’t smile, he hadn’t thought to tell his father to get her home. Three days later, his father would leave Sinan with his aunt while he drove his mother to the good hospital in Diyarbakır. She was bleeding, his aunt told Sinan. The doctors would make her better and he would have a little sister or brother when they came home. Only his father came back.

Now the call to sunset prayer echoed from dozens of speakers, the amplified voices ricocheting off the cement walls of apartment buildings. Sinan was nervous, too, and a knot the size of an apricot had hardened inside his stomach. The walk home took them past the fishmonger’s, and Sinan gave İsmail money to buy the fish heads and severed tails for the street cats. Eren Bey, the fish seller, wrapped the remains in paper and handed them to İsmail.

Wait, Eren Bey said, holding up one bloody finger. From a fernlined basket filled with his best palamut, he grabbed the largest fish, wrapped it up with a sprig of oregano, and dropped it into İsmail’s hands. Fish will make you a strong man. He flexed his bicep and slapped the bump of muscle. All the women in the world will kiss your feet.

Eren winked and İsmail smiled.

Please, Sinan said, he’s just a boy.

"Efendim, the fish seller said, his hands held out as if he were mildly insulted, just a joke."

They stopped at the rotting wooden konak where the street cats lived, but the cats were not there. İsmail threw the fish parts through the broken window anyway, a gift for their return. They took maghrib prayer at mosque, and Sinan listened as İsmail stumbled through the Arabic. Afterward, they climbed the hill that led to their apartment, and the bright lights of the amusement park below spun against the darkening sky. Sinan promised, as always, to take İsmail there someday for a ride on the Ferris wheel.

By the time they reached their apartment, the knot in Sinan’s stomach had grown to the size of a small apple. He massaged the spot with his fingertips and it rolled around inside his stomach. He wondered, briefly, if he could delay the ceremony one more year. But people were already coming, the sünnetci was already scheduled, and he would have to make his son suffer the pain tonight.

Go on and see Ahmet, Sinan said to İsmail. He knew his brother-in-law would spoil the boy, treat him like a child one last time before İsmail had to bear the burden of trying to be a man. I’ll come and get you at the grocery later.

Sinan climbed the curving staircase of his apartment building. American music blasted down the stairwell and rattled the metal railing. He hated their apartment. From the outside it looked nice: the cement walls were painted yellow and the stairway to the front door was made of mediocre marble that shined when the apartment manager bothered to polish it. But inside you could hear a man whisper through the plywood doors, the plaster walls were chipped, and on stormy afternoons, when the rain rolled across the bay as though the sea had stood up and formed a wall, the wind slipped through the cracks in the mortar and deposited saltwater and cement dust in the corners of the living room.

In the kitchen, Nilüfer was covered in sweat and a dusting of flour. Little balls of dough stuck to her fingertips.

Sinan. She smiled. "Canim," she said, and purposely pressed her doughy hands to his face.

Stop that, Nilüfer, he said, but he let her smear the dough across his cheeks.

She kissed him once on each doughy cheek. Sinan tucked a stray strand of hair beneath her head scarf.

How long has this been going on? he asked, motioning with his head toward the music blasting through the ceiling.

She shrugged. Forty-five minutes? She looked behind Sinan. "Where’s İsmail?"

With Ahmet.

Well, go get him. I need to get him ready. She squeezed loaves of bread he had brought from the grocery that morning. This bread is too hard. You need a new bread man, she said. She walked into the kitchen. "The yogurt is runny. This heat is ruining it all. The börek won’t rise, the peppers are like rubber."

Nilüfer, it will be fine, he said. I’ll go to the store and get more bread. Stop worrying.

She leaned a fist on a hip and blew air through her teeth. As though you don’t worry.

He touched his stomach and made a face.

She waved her hand at him. See.

He laughed. All right, all right.

He looked around the corner to where his daughter sat watching television and made sure İrem could not see them before touching Nilüfer’s hips and kissing her on the lips—a long kiss, the kind he usually gave her only in their bedroom.

Quit with that, she said, but her hands rested on his chest. She slapped him on the shoulder and whispered, We don’t need any more children.

What’s this? Sinan said. Some sort of pastry sat in a circular tray on the kitchen table. It wasn’t a Turkish dish.

Pecan pie, Nilüfer said with an astonished lifting of her eyebrows. Sarah Hanim brought it down for the party. She glanced toward the ceiling.

The American’s wife? he said. Pecans?

An American family occupied the sixth floor, the one directly above them. They spent only the summers here, just sitting around, drinking wine on the terrace, and listening to jazz music, as far as Sinan could tell.

Her name’s Sarah, Nilüfer said, glaring at him. Sarah Roberts, and she’s nice.

Maybe, then, she could teach her son some manners. He pointed to the throbbing ceiling.

We should have invited them. I feel bad.

You should be helping your mother, Sinan said to his daughter, sticking his head around the corner into the living room.

Baba, I’ve been working all day. She didn’t look at him when she spoke. He didn’t know what it was about fifteen-year-old girls, but he had never known a child so rude to her parents.

He glanced at the television. It was an American show dubbed in Turkish, and the actors’ mouths stopped moving before the lines were finished being said. A scantily dressed blond girl killed monsters with a stake.

He watched the show for a minute, enough to determine that it dealt with the devil and sex.

I don’t want you watching this. It’s not moral.

Baba, Buffy kills the vampires, the evil ones. What’s more moral than that?

He snapped off the television.

Baba!

Get yourself ready for tonight, he said. It’s your brother’s special night.

İrem ran down the hallway. "İsmail, İsmail, İsmail, she said, always İsmail." She slammed the door to the room she shared with her brother and the music upstairs stopped.

Sinan let out a frustrated breath of air. How are we raising our children? he called toward the kitchen.

You could say hello to her first, Nilüfer said, popping her head around the corner of the kitchen.

So she could ignore me and stare at this stupid box?

Sinan, it’s only a television show. He heard the oven door squeak open. She’s been working hard since this morning. Be nice.

He switched on the television again and watched for a minute, turning his head to the side to consider it. There was killing and there was kissing, enough for him. He shut it off.

I’m going to invite them, Nilüfer said, standing in the hallway now.

No. It was bad enough they lived above him, but he didn’t want the Americans inside his house, especially on this day.

Sinan, Nilüfer said. It’s wrong. They’re our neighbors.

He shook his head, but she was already coming toward him with a smile on her face.

Chapter 2

İrem slammed the door and the music stopped. His room was directly above hers, just a few feet away. If she stood on her bed, she could touch the ceiling and feel the beat of his music running through her fingers and down her arm. It was wrong, she knew, but she did so sometimes when İsmail wasn’t around, and she discovered that she only felt guilty for a few minutes afterward. Once, when she heard the muffled strains of his voice talking on the phone, she stood on her dresser and pressed her ear against the ceiling. She imagined he was talking to someone in New York City or Los Angeles. She couldn’t understand what he said, but she imagined he was whispering in her ear, and that night she had dreams about him, embarrassing dreams she would never tell anyone, not even her friend Dilek.

She heard his footsteps creaking across the ceiling, the squeaking of his window opening, and she knew he was waiting for her. She had been cleaning all day, though, and she smelled of disinfectant. Her face was smeared with flour and she didn’t want him to see her like this.

A cloud of smoke blew across her windowpane, followed by a tapping on the outside wall of the apartment.

She was wearing rags, her blouse was frayed at the cuffs, and her head scarf was the worst thing you could imagine—green-and-orange-paisley swirls with bleach spots in places. She only wore it inside, when no one but her family would see her. She pressed her nose to her armpits and was embarrassed by her own smell.

Another cloud of smoke blew across the windowpane, followed by a cluster of bubbles floating in the air like orbs of oil-swirled color.

She laughed, forgot her appearance, and scrambled across her bed toward the window.

What are you doing? she whispered, sticking her head out the window.

A stream of bubbles splattered in her face, stinging her eyes.

Stop, she said. Allah, Allah. She ducked back inside to rub the soap out of her eyes and remembered that she was unpresentable. She leaned against the windowsill but wouldn’t put her head outside again. I’ve been cleaning all day. I look terrible.

I won’t look, he said. Here.

His hand suddenly appeared at the top of the window frame, a cigarette burning between his long fingers.

When she leaned out the window to grab the cigarette, his chest hung over the ledge but his head was turned away. She laughed, took the cigarette from his fingers, and admired the tattoos etched over the veins of his forearms. She put the cigarette to her lips and tasted the wetness on the filter. She didn’t inhale—she didn’t really like to smoke, even after a month of these window-to-window visits—but she simply held it there, her tongue picking up the flavor of nicotine and boy.

More bubbles floated down, lazy, breeze-blown.

What are you doing?

I’m bored, he said. There’s nothing to do out here. Shit, how can you stand it?

She cringed at the curse word, but he was American, and it wasn’t as rude for them as it was for a Turk.

I can’t stand it, she wanted to say, but instead she held the cigarette to her mouth and inhaled this time.

She sometimes passed him in the stairwell or watched him walking on the street, his legs moving to the beat of a song on his headphones, but in those places she had to ignore him. There were too many neighbors watching, eyes looking through peepholes, faces behind lacy curtains.

"I miss İstanbul, he said. Beyoğlu, especially. The action’s there."

She listened to him and tried to imagine Beyoğlu. She had seen it on television—the three-story clubs, the women dressed in tank tops with their bra straps showing, the men with their black hair slicked back and shining. It was only three hours by ferry to İstanbul, but it seemed as far away as America.

I miss my friends from school, he said.

She stared at his hand and forearm, but the rest of him was cut off from her vision by the metal window frame and the cinder-block walls. She stared at the ceiling and imagined his feet, his legs, his whole body just on the other side of that cement and wood.

Hey, he said. Don’t get greedy. His hand dangled outside the window again.

She took one last drag, leaned out to hand it to him, and was startled when she found him staring down at her.

Gotcha, he said.

She dove back through the window, embarrassed and shocked, but she could never get really mad at him.

You don’t look so bad, he said.

Shut up.

No, no, he said. I mean it. He laughed. I’m sorry. It’s kind of nice seeing you, like, normal, you know? When I see you outside it’s like you’re not you.

Not me?

I don’t know, he said. "It’s like you’re too formal or something, too perfect and proper. Right now you seem like—you seem like you. She heard him blow out a breath. I don’t know, he said. Forget it. You just look nice is what I’m trying to say."

She stuck her head out the window and tried to watch him without being seen. His hand disappeared, followed by a puff of smoke, and then it returned. There were long blue veins running up his forearms and they made the muscles look strong.

I saw your brother this afternoon, he said.

She looked away, up toward the square of blue sky between apartment rooftops. A flock of birds, a large gray cloud of them, flew out toward the hills.

He gets treated like a sultan, she said, biting her thumbnail now and looking at the floor. Money, clothes, this dinner.

"Guy deserves a few gifts if they’re going to do that, he said. That’s gotta hurt."

She felt her face go red. She had thought about that part of a man’s body before, but it was never talked about, and her excitement suddenly mixed with a strange distaste.

Aren’t they supposed to do that in a hospital now? he said.

It’s expensive.

Man, you can put metal rods through my ears, stab bamboo shoots under my nails, but don’t mess around with—wait. He flicked the cigarette butt into the air and disappeared.

She jumped back from the window and sat down on her bed, her heart thumping against her ribs. She heard his footsteps above mix with other footsteps, heard a quiet voice and his louder reply. It was silent then for a few moments, and she waited, holding her breath as long as she could before becoming dizzy.

The ceiling creaked softly.

"İrem," he whispered down.

She sat still and listened to the hallway outside her own door, suddenly aware that her parents, too, could walk in and discover them.

"İrem," he said, louder this time.

Shh, she said, her head out the window now. Quiet. My father would kill you if he discovered this.

He smiled his crooked smile.

No. I mean it.

We’ve been invited down to your apartment, he said.

What? Tonight?

Uh-huh.

Allah, Allah! she whispered to herself.

Hah, he laughed sarcastically. I can’t wait to meet you.

Chapter 3

Sinan headed down the stairs to collect İsmail and to borrow more groceries from his own store’s inventory. Nilüfer needed fresh bread, not the day-old stuff he had brought this morning, bulgur wheat, and dried mint. Not only did he have the pain in his stomach, but his chest hurt now. The cost of the food would break him. It was too hot out. People wouldn’t come and the night would be a failure. Nilüfer would cry about her baby becoming a man.

He passed the Gypsy camp on the way to his bakkal, where a filthy boy and his little sister unloaded a donkey cart of cardboard they had scavenged from the trash that morning. Sinan and his family were lucky, he reminded himself. As hard as life was for a Kurd, it was harder on a Roma. If he didn’t say anything, no one bothered him about being Kurdish. But everyone hated the Gypsies. They were rootless people—from Romania or Egypt or India; no one knew. Even Sinan, who had good reason to identify with their itinerant life, fought his disdain for people who made homes out of his garbage.

On Flower Street, a woman lowered a basket from the fifth-floor window of her kitchen, and left it dangling a few inches above the street. A boy from Sunrise Grocery, one of Sinan’s competitors, took the money out of the basket and filled it with pide, cheese, and a container of honey. The woman tugged on the rope and the container rose like a spider on a single thread. This apartment was closer to Sinan’s bakkal than it was to Sunrise, and he made a mental note to have a sale next week to keep the street’s business.

He found İsmail and Ahmet sitting on wooden crates in front of the grocery, both of them chewing on large chunks of sweet helva. When they saw him coming, İsmail and Ahmet pretended to hide the candy behind their backs. Sinan laughed, and immediately the tightness in his chest eased.

Sweets before dinner? Sinan said. Your mother won’t be happy.

Don’t tell your mother, Ahmet said, winking at İsmail.

İsmail laughed and took another bite of the candy.

Sinan hugged his brother-in-law and kissed him on each cheek, and he could smell the alcohol on Ahmet’s breath.

"Just a little raki, he would say on the days Sinan reproached him for it. If I’m going to spend my life in this grocery, I’m going to live a little doing it. God understands."

God is disappointed, Sinan would say, and leave it at that because, despite himself, he loved the man.

Sinan owed Ahmet his life. When things got bad in the village, when men were being taken away by the Turkish paramilitaries and it seemed only a matter of time before he, too, disappeared, it was Ahmet who sent them the bus tickets to Gölcük, Ahmet who gave them money for the first month’s rent on the apartment. He also made Sinan a partner in the grocery, changing the bakkal’s name from Ahmet’s Grocery to Brothers’ Grocery. There was, he knew, room enough in God’s Paradise for such goodness.

"Teşekkürler, Ahmet," Sinan said.

No problem, my brother. Ahmet took Sinan by the arm. You’re limping. You need ice on that foot.

I’m fine.

You’ll be dancing tonight.

Sinan just looked at him and raised an eyebrow. Ahmet put one hand in the air and rolled around on his ankles. He laughed and slapped Sinan on the back.

Your wife says to bring bread with you.

I know.

She called earlier, Ahmet said. She wasn’t happy. Better do what my sister says, my brother.

I will, Sinan laughed. But the house is filled with food.

I’ve seen it! Ahmet said. "Börek to the ceiling. A river of olive oil down your hallway."

With a pat on the rear end, Sinan sent İsmail home to get cleaned up. "Finish that helva before you get there."

Together he and Ahmet entered the grocery, a one-room, concrete-floor shop lined with shelves of canned tomato puree, canned fruit, canned beans, and canned soda. Ahmet reached behind the counter and held up the front page of the Milliyet.

They locked Öcalan up on Dog Island today, he said.

I saw, Sinan said. If all the buildings were gone, and they had a clear sight to the sea, they would be able to see the island on which the prison was built. In Ottoman times, the island was where they took the rabid street dogs to let them rip one another to pieces. That’s what Öcalan was to the nationalist Turks, a Kurdish separatist dog. He’ll rot there until everyone forgets and then they’ll hang him.

Ahmet lit a cigarette. They say the war is over.

That’s what they say.

Ahmet looked at Sinan, blew smoke to the ceiling, and picked a strand of tobacco from between his teeth. Sinan said nothing and avoided his eyes while he gathered Nilüfer’s groceries. He always said he’d return to Kurdistan if the civil war was finished, but now he didn’t know. He always thought they’d win and the Kurds would have their own country. A man can accept a life of poverty if it’s in his own country, if it’s his own doing, but not if it’s caused by others.

Ahmet folded up the newspaper and tossed it aside. Check the receipts, he said. I can’t do the math. Without you I’d run this place into the ground.

Slow day? Sinan asked, sorting through the strips of paper.

You’re our best customer, Ahmet said, taking a sip from his coffee cup. Too hot to shop, he said. Tomorrow will be better.

The motor to the cooler hummed loudly and Sinan slapped the casing to quiet it. Behind the fogged glass, the goat’s cheese and garlic sausage lay sweating in the heat.

"Inşallah," Sinan said, fingering the few bills in the drawer beneath the calculator.

God willing, they’ll shut down the Carrefour, Ahmet said. The French superstore had been built on the other side of the highway in what used to be an empty lot dotted with grazing goats. Their grocery had been losing business ever since. Fatmah Hanim told me they sell Florida oranges there, he said, turning up his lips in disgust. They make them without seeds.

Must taste like piss, Sinan said. Fruit without seeds!

It was as close to cursing as Sinan got, and the stunned look on Ahmet’s face gave way to laughter.

Like a man without testicles, Ahmet said. Fruit without seeds! Allah, Allah. He reached beneath the counter and took a very large drink from the