The Lovers (22 page)

“It was like that for you?” Aylin said.

“Yes,” Yvonne said. She was lying. That day had not come yet but she hoped that it was not far off.

When they finished their coffee, Aylin had to go. Yvonne said she would stay in the café a little longer. Aylin reached for her purse to pay, but Yvonne stopped her.

“You know the path back?” Aylin asked.

“I’m fine,” Yvonne said. “I know the way.”

They parted with kisses on each cheek. Aylin smelled like Yvonne’s daughter: a simple scent, like dried flowers. Yvonne inhaled it, filling her lungs before they parted. From the balcony, she watched as Aylin appeared on the path below and made her way to the road, to her small car parked at the trailhead, near a stand where a young girl was selling fruit.

Yvonne paid the boy for the coffee and went out to the
path once again. She hadn’t decided whether to walk back to the hotel yet. She wound her way between the stone towers, touching them, looking for people in their hidden windows. She wondered idly if they had always lived here, if the mothers and sons and fathers and daughters watched from within as their homes were scoured by the swirling gusts of wind. She touched the walls, felt the scars of the years, the centuries.

As she wandered, the breeze picked up, making a whistling sound as it wove around the rocks. The air grew coarse with sand. She lost the path in front of her. It happened quickly. Yvonne’s vision blurred. She rubbed her eyes. She was in the middle of a sandstorm and could not see more than a few feet in front of her. She tried to walk back in the direction of the café, but saw nothing of the way she’d come. The squall spun itself into frenzies.

She ran to the base of a fairy chimney and sunk to the ground. She would wait out the storm. She breathed into the cavity created between her lap and her knees. Whenever she lifted her head, she saw only dust. What in god’s name had happened to her? She could not be trusted to walk alone in a landscape like this. It occurred to her that even if she were to stand and run, she would not know which way to go. She sat for an hour or more, the storm unrelenting. Would she die here? She could be swallowed in this place, she realized. She could be lost here because she thought she knew the way back—that she, always the teacher, always the mother, could never need the help of an
other. This had been her way for too long. She could not listen. It had been so long since she listened, since she allowed those close to her to show her anything new. Everything had been written long ago. Her children! She had treated them as facts, as figures in an unchangeable story—a lesson she knew and could teach.

Finally, the whistling stopped. The wind died. When she raised her head, the dust caked her face, covering her tears. She needed to find someone who would help guide her to shelter. But who would she find? Who would help her, and how? She was alone here, and would remain alone. She opened her eyes. Sand stuck to her lips. In the distance she saw a figure walking toward her. She was unsure, at first, whether it was someone coming to help or someone who also had been caught in the storm. She stood and tried to breathe. Was it a man or a woman? A boy or a girl? The figure came closer. It was a woman. Her shape was familiar. Yvonne recognized her walk. It was a woman who had come to rescue her. She knew this woman. She had made this woman.

“Mom,” Aurelia said, her arms outstretched. “Oh, Mom.”

Books make their way to publication through the vast generosity of dozens of people, from editors to production staff to friends who agree to read the manuscript in its earliest and most awkward stages.

I had many friends willing to gaze upon, and suggest improvements to, this novel in its early and inelegant forms: Ann Cummins, Nancy Johnson, Andrew Leland, Lisa Michaels, Cornelia Nixon, Ron Nyren, Ann Packer, Ed Park, Angela Pneuman, Michelle Quint, Sarah Stone, Ayelet Waldman, Amanda Eyre Ward, and Sally Willcox. Thanks also to Jenny Moore and Soumeya Bendimerad.

While I was in Turkey, I had wonderful companions, Linda Saetre and Heidi Julavits, who traveled with me on boats and buses and in cars, and put up with my many detours.

Thanks also to Rabih Alameddine, Alev Lytle Croutier,
Sevim Karabiyik, and the friends I made in Turkey, all of whom answered questions technical and cultural.

I’m grateful to my agent, Mary Evans; and to all at Ecco: Dan Halpern, Virginia Smith, Allison Saltzman, and everyone else at this serious and vigorous house. Thank you also to my UK editor, Karen Duffy.

My family was patient and supportive during the years of research and writing that this novel required. Thank you especially to my husband, Dave; my sister, Vanessa; and my parents, Paul and Inger Vida.

Jacket design by Misa Erder

Jacket photographs by De Agostini Picture Library/Getty Images (carpet) and Betsie Van Der Meer/GalleryStock (boy in sea)