Gardens of Water - Hardcover

Alan Drew was born and raised in Southern California and has traveled throughout Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. He taught English literature for three years at a private high school in Istanbul, arriving just four days before the devastating 1999 Marmara earthquake. In 2004 he completed a master of fine arts degree at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he was awarded a Teaching/Writing Fellowship. He lives with his wife and son in Cincinnati.

Chapter 1

In the rush of bodies to board the ferry leaving Istanbul for Gölcük, Sinan lost his son.
Five minutes earlier ˙Ismail 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 Re¸sadiye Avenue, Sinan pulled ˙Ismail
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
Ismail 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 Ismail 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 Ismail
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. “˙Ismail!” Sinan called, joining his voice to the chorus. The
men yelled “˙Ismail” 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 ˙Ismail 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 ˙Ismail rested. The
man elbowed through the parting crowd, a cigarette burning in his
mouth, his large, hairy hands wrapped around the boy’s stomach.
Ismail’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 ˙Istanbul.
“Te¸sekkür ederim,” Sinan said when the stranger handed him his
son.
“Bir ¸sey de˘gil.”
When the ferry docked in their suburb of Gölcük three hours
later, Ismail wouldn’t let go of the railing. Sinan touched the top of
Ismail’s head, and reminded him of the gifts he would receive after
the ceremony. He tickled ˙Ismail’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 ˙Ismail 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.
“˙Ismail.”
“˙Ismail what?” the man said.
“˙Ismail Ba¸sio˘glu.”
“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 ˙Ismail’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 ˙Ismail, the sun collapsed in red bands along the horizon.
Sinan knelt beside ˙Ismail 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, ˙Ismail. But
it will pass.”
Ismail 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 ˙Izmit into
Istanbul. Sinan hadn’t been to ˙Istanbul since they had first arrived in
the city from Ye¸silli, their village in the Southeast, seven years ago,
but it had been ˙Ismail’s special request to be paraded around the city
on the day of his circumcision. Sinan hated ˙Istanbul–too many people,
too much cement, too little sky–but ˙Ismail 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 ˙Ismail 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 Topkapý
Palace, where, like sultans of another age, they gazed out over the
shimmering waters of the Bosporus. They marveled at Bo˘gaziçi 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 Kumkapý
neighborhood, the musicians at one of the tourist restaurants left their
table and followed ˙Ismail down the street, blowing their reed flutes to
announce his passing.
Nilüfer and ˙Irem had stayed home to cook the food for the party
tonight. If they had still lived in Ye¸silli, Sinan’s aunts and uncles and
cousins would have helped, and the whole family would have paraded
Ismail 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 Diyarbakýr. 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 ˙Ismail 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 ˙Ismail.
“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 ˙Ismail’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 ˙Ismail smiled.
“Please,” Sinan said, “he’s just a boy.”
“Efendim,” the fish seller said, his hands held out as if he were