More: A Novel (5 page)

Father had had the reservoir installed two years ago. Due to the security necessities of the chaining method—that was dependent on the steps prior and subsequent to the delivery, which could end up being delayed—he’d decided the shed was no longer suitable. So he’d called in constructors from Barnak, a village two hundred kilometers away, and told them, “I want a water reservoir.” He’d even drawn a water pipe from the main grid to the reservoir so they wouldn’t get suspicious. Although the men had pointed out that the reservoir should be nearer the house for the stability of the water pipes, they hadn’t been too insistent since my father was paying their wages. When he said he wanted a cast iron door, they hadn’t made a peep, since it was much more costly than a simple iron door. It wasn’t their problem if some nut wanted to seal off his water reservoir like it was a manhole!

When the lid was installed, further confirming my status as a sewage worker, we had at our disposal a hell pit large enough for two hundred people to fit in, provided they sucked in their bellies and stayed close to one another. A perpetually warm tomb where the tropical maps on the damp concrete walls and the ponds accumulating on the floor constantly shifted places and shapes. A cell lit by the diffused shadows of spiderwebs rather than by the bulb I had to replace two or three times a week. A cellar we used to age people in …

Yet the immigrants, who’d traveled who knows how many thousands of kilometers to get here, never paid attention to the décor and immediately lined up to sit on the wet floor like they came here every day, resting their heads between their palms and taking up their pose of the waiting. The perfect waiters! They could wait days, weeks, months without tiring. Once they rested their heads on their palms, they disengaged like space shuttles and sank into a strange sleep until they were woken up again. A kind of standby mode that wasn’t quite like sleep … auto-anesthesia!

Since experience had taught me that sitting on that wet floor eventually gave them diarrhea and left me with longer sawdust-sweeping duty, I handed out pieces of newspaper and Styrofoam. Then, for obvious reasons, I’d put buckets in front of them. One per family. One per set of friends. I’d ask the lone ones, “Who would you like to shit with?” They wouldn’t understand, of course. I couldn’t be bothered to explain.

Just as I was headed to the six wooden steps leading up from the reservoir to the shed, one of them would step forward and ask. They usually had a spokesman. Someone who could string together about four words in English or who’d had the right mind to learn useful words in the languages of the countries he’d be traversing. Someone clever … I’d know what he was asking, of course. But I’d pretend I didn’t. “When?” he’d say. In all the languages he knew. He’d ask when they’d be setting out again. I’d tell him to forget about it and concentrate instead on the more pressing issue of what the hell they were going to do when they had to use the buckets in a few hours. He’d make nothing of this long reply and repeat his question. I’d ignore this again, of course, and walk out. I’d return with a clothesline for them to stretch from the hooks on the walls and an old sheet to hang over it, and hand these to the spokesman who’d be in my face again. As he stared dumbly at me, unaware that he’d just been given the materials to partition their home measuring twelve by six meters in perimeter and twelve meters in height, and fashion a toilet for themselves, however primitive, I’d already be up in the shed, pulling the lid down. They’d very well figure out the curtain thing by themselves. I’d never encountered anyone who hadn’t. Leave people with no resources and they’ll make a rocket out of innards!

Depending on the situation, they’d stay in the reservoir half a day or two weeks, and then be on their way. Dordor and Harmin were the ones who determined this. With respect to the course of the pattycake they played with the coast guard, they’d decide on a date for the departure of the boat and call to give my father the code for the place and time of their meeting. And one night the lid would open, a route ranging from fifty to two hundred kilometers would be traveled, and they’d jump on a boat on one of those coasts of the Aegean that looked like it had been gnawed on by wolves and vanish into the darkness …

That was the whole job. It wasn’t much … But on that morning … There was more. That morning, there was more than more! My awakening was more. The way I got out of bed, the way I walked, it was more. The way I washed my face and walked some more, again; more. I was immersed in something similar to happiness. My hands, my eyes, and what I saw were more. There was something about me that made me forget about my life … something more … It was love.

There was a party of twenty-four in the reservoir. As Dordor would say, a parade! They’d been there for two days. Among them the one who’d dipped me into that something more, the world’s most beautiful girl … She must have been around my age. Or maybe a year older. Maybe two. She had black hair. Black eyes … I didn’t know where she was from, but I wanted to ask. Her name, age, what she liked, what she wanted to be when she grew up … I couldn’t get her out of my mind ever since I’d seen her passing from the eighteen-wheeler into our truck. I couldn’t sleep. I held my breath without realizing it, leaving myself breathless, then chortled to myself like Ender used to do. I didn’t know how to fall in love but felt it must be something like this: planning like I was preparing for a robbery … chasing the right moves, the right places, the right moments … It wasn’t that much different from hunting. In fact, the man who’d made the first leopard print must have thought the same thing. Love had to do with hunting. What woman would want to look like an animal otherwise?

Time was running out. Dordor and Harmin might send word any minute, and the most beautiful girl in the world would disappear in a matter of hours. I was waiting for father to leave the house, but he just wouldn’t. It was like he was nailed down! So I decided to ignore him. This was a big decision. Very big! I’d take my only chance that day and place a bet to the possibility of my father not going down to the reservoir. I was a born gambler. A million to one odds was enough for me. That, and I was counting on the fact that Father woke around noon, came around in the afternoon, started drinking before nightfall, and made me do everything shed- or reservoir-related. So I might not have been that big a gambler. I’ve always felt more like a gambling ticket anyway. I was even willing to put in my will that my bones be made into gambling tickets. That wouldn’t be halfway bad. At least, it wouldn’t be against my nature!

All I’d thought about the last two days was how to make the world’s most beautiful girl happy. Obviously I didn’t have much to offer her. I had a necklace of my mother’s. A gold chain with an angel on the end. I could give her that. But what use would it be to her, given the situation she was in? I needed something more real. That’s when it occurred to me that all they’d been eating was the sandwiches I gave out. I made them. Tomato-and-cheese sandwiches. That and I gave them water. For free, even! So that the world’s most beautiful girl would see what a thoughtful person I was. I couldn’t tell if she noticed, though. It didn’t seem that way. She didn’t even look at me, even though I did everything I could to prolong my time in the reservoir. Still, she was having the worst days of her life. For now …

Anyway … I’d made up my mind. My present to her would be a nice meal, one that left its taste in her mouth for the rest of her journey and reminded her of me. But what was a good meal? For me, it was meat … would she like that too? Also, was it romantic to give food to someone? Maybe that, and to let her out of the reservoir so she could breathe for a while … without Father knowing. That was the most knightly I could be in my current circumstances. I didn’t know how much more dangerous you could get with the one you love. Because it couldn’t get more dangerous than that for me.

I was up early that morning. I’d dressed quietly and left the house because I was sure my father was still sleeping. Yet when I shut the door and looked out at Dust Street, I saw something that upset all my plans. On a chair at the beginning of the dirt road was Father, just sitting there. There were about forty meters between us and his back was to me. He seemed to be waiting for someone to come from the direction of the main road. Yet he was so still I thought for a second he might be dead. Maybe that was a wish, I can’t say for sure. With every step I took in his direction, I tried to think up a lie so I could go into town. I’d just come up to him silently when I saw that his chin was practically on his chest. He was sleeping! He’d fallen asleep on that chair. He’d probably drunk till morning and passed out. I had no idea why he was seated to face Dust Street. Why ever he had been drinking
there
when he had the whole yard to get drunk in? I didn’t care a bit. All I cared about was that he was passed out … I passed him discreetly and took off running when I was a good distance away. Sadly, I arrived in town to realize it was still too early. Upon which I paced the pavement in front of the three restaurants on Kandalı’s main street until they opened up shop.

One was a kebab joint, the other fish. The last one made casseroles. When noon came I started going back and forth between them. A waiter, thinking I had no money and was too embarrassed to say so, said, “Come, let me give you some soup.”

“No,” I replied, “thanks.”

I had other things on my mind and no one could possibly understand. I was looking for something that wouldn’t lose its taste when it got cold on the walk home. In the end I wasn’t able to decide. So I went into all the restaurants and ordered food. While I waited for them to prepare it, I watched the girls on the street. Their hair, clothes, shoes … so I’d get an idea … The world’s most beautiful girl sat in that hell of a reservoir in just a sweater. I should get her a T-shirt, I thought. I went into a shop and examined at least thirty T-shirts like I’d never seen one in my life. I’d never bought a girl a T-shirt before, after all. When they asked, “What size?” I was struck dumb, and bought two T-shirts emblazoned with an angel like the one on my mother’s necklace. In two different sizes. I was so flustered doing all this that my hands shook and I kept scattering change whenever I took money out of my pocket. I think I was also grinning like an idiot …

When I went back to the three restaurants and collected the bags, I realized just how over the top I’d gone. I’d bought food enough for five people. I didn’t get hung up on it. My only goal now was to make it to the reservoir before any of it got cold. I began running. I stopped twice on the way to put the bags down because I burned my hands. I thought at some point that my father might still be sitting in the same place. But then I thought that the sun was now so high up that it must even have woken up a drunk like Ahad, and I kept on running. When I got to Dust Street, neither the chair nor my father were there. They were gone …

So I was able to get into the reservoir without Ahad catching me. It occurred to me then that I hadn’t gotten anything to drink. There should at least be Coke to wash it down. There was a bottle of it in the house. On my way out of the reservoir, my father busted me. A gun in the hand of that other guy I didn’t know. I was accustomed to both. To strangers and to the guns in their belts. I didn’t get hung up on it. I only started praying internally, “Not now! Don’t let them leave now, please! Let them stay one more day!” because such strangers usually materialized before departure. Since I doubt the existence of a godly power in favor of illegal immigrants and those who transport them, I don’t know who I was praying to. As they walked to the arbor behind the house, Father turned and yelled:

“Where the hell have you been! Go, clean the trailer and throw down some sawdust!”

He referred to the enormous box behind the truck as the trailer. I preferred to call it a vault. It felt more logical. It was a vault! A vault we put humans into, saved humans in, always locked the doors of, and constantly emptied and filled up … Didn’t we do everything in our power to make sure it didn’t appear to be a vault? The huge A
HAD
L
OGISTICS
—F
RESH
F
RUIT AND
V
EGETABLE
T
RANSPORTATION
inscription on the outside, wasn’t that for this very reason? It was like a crap painting hung up on the wall to disguise the vault underneath …

“All right, Dad! I’m going!”

What or whoever it was I had prayed to must have heard me, because my father’s command was ordinary and quotidian. Not a command pertaining to departure. A command given for the sake of commanding. One of the commands that came to his mind when he saw me. A way of communicating with me because he had no way of saying, “Hi, son, how’s it going?”

As soon as my father and the stranger were out of sight behind the house, I doggedly dashed inside. I grabbed the bottle of Coke, a glass, a fork, and a knife within seconds. I left quickly and just as doggedly ran to the shed.

It was now time for the second phase of the plan: setting a table. The truck was parked in the middle of the shed and didn’t leave me much of a choice where to place the metal table that my father used for his carpentry. It was right next to the entrance of the reservoir. I collected the hammer, screwdriver, screws, and nails that were on it and put them on the floor. I wiped clean the tabletop with a dirt-blackened cloth. I knew there was a stool somewhere in the shed that took me at least ten minutes to locate. Just when I’d dragged it up to the table, I realized that it was wobbly. I considered finding a piece of cardboard to steady it, but abandoned the idea for the sake of time. I wouldn’t have minded sticking my foot under it so the world’s most beautiful girl wouldn’t wobble on it and be uncomfortable. Then I’d get to stand behind her as she ate and even put my hand on her shoulder. I took the food out of the bags and set it out on the table. I set out refreshment towels, packets of salt and pepper, napkins, fork, knife, glass, and Coke and took two steps back … Yes, it seems I had set a table. Or it seemed that way to me. All the stuff and I—we were ready. The T-shirts hidden under the truck I’d give her after the meal, in place of dessert.