nothing but the horizon, they had somehow gotten stuck in the handful of water that was the Aegean. Perhaps they’d dropped by in passing and, having come by the opportunity for easy money, wasted years of their lives between Greece and Turkey, all the while saying, “One last time, then we’re done!” I had the best times of my life on the Dordor and Harmin when their day off coincided with one on which my father wanted to get rid of me. Yes, the boats had been named after their captains. Obviously these were monikers. They’d each picked a noise made by their boats and put them into words. Dordor was named Dordor because his boat made a “dordor-ing” noise! Maybe it was because I never learned their real names that they reminded me so much of the seamen in the books.
Especially during the months of spring, they’d come in the mornings and whisk me away, take me on either the Dordor or the Harmin, and bring me back to my father only after dark. Both liked to read. They always kept books on their boats. Both smoked constantly. Not that I had any inkling at that age that what they were smoking wasn’t tobacco. From morning till night they inhaled a mix of ashen marijuana smoke and cloudy sea air and were either completely quiet or talked as much as if they’d lived a thousand lives. They were the ones who taught me to swim. They taught me to dive, to use the spear gun, everything about the sea’s underside and surface. They were a year apart. Dordor was older. Their families were in Istanbul. In Heybeliada. But they never saw them. Perhaps because they’d run away from home years ago. Over some hard feelings or other … if Dordor brought it up, Harmin would wave it off. If one asked, “I wonder how Mother’s doing?” the other would snap, “Like Father, I bet!” and that would be that.
They read Jack London. But not the Jack Londons I used to read. Theirs were different. They preferred the novels of Jack London that I was to discover years later, in which every White Fang rotted and fell out one by one … I wished night would never fall. That it would never get dark and they’d never have to take me back. That we could stay at sea forever! Drop anchor anywhere we liked, fall into the water wherever we pleased! Neither had ever gotten married. No woman could have shared that watery life. They were no older than thirty. Two overgrown juvenile delinquents. Two overgrown water plants … flowers, after Felat’s fashion.
They were the only ones I could ever tell … the only ones … what one of the immigrants did to me back when there was no reservoir and the immigrants were being held in the shed … or, to be more accurate, what he did while the others watched and did nothing …
It wasn’t just the innocents that left the countries of their birth. It wasn’t just those fleeing from bad men … The bad men themselves also fled! Our shed also accommodated criminals who were wanted in their own countries and set to serve sentences of who knows how many years. Thieves, murderers, rapists, and child molesters … and I had to be alone with them …
I was ten. The age when I’d had the idea of selling the water. I held out my hand for the money. He held my hand and pulled me toward him. The other laughed. They all got lumps in one cheek. As if they were holding eggs inside their mouths. I thought they must be ill. Turns out it was khat . Khat , that Yemeni shit. Shit that also had a Latin name: catha edulis . A type of amphetamine. The kind that one can’t stop chewing on all day … I tried to run. I tried to get away, to shout, to bite, to hurt him. I couldn’t. I tried to disappear. Like a magical kid. I tried to be blind and deaf. I tried not to understand what was happening to me. I couldn’t. There were red rivers in his eyes. He pulled up my pants and zipped them. He buttoned the button and put the money in my pocket. I tried to think of other things. I couldn’t. I tried to cry, to run off
Especially during the months of spring, they’d come in the mornings and whisk me away, take me on either the Dordor or the Harmin, and bring me back to my father only after dark. Both liked to read. They always kept books on their boats. Both smoked constantly. Not that I had any inkling at that age that what they were smoking wasn’t tobacco. From morning till night they inhaled a mix of ashen marijuana smoke and cloudy sea air and were either completely quiet or talked as much as if they’d lived a thousand lives. They were the ones who taught me to swim. They taught me to dive, to use the spear gun, everything about the sea’s underside and surface. They were a year apart. Dordor was older. Their families were in Istanbul. In Heybeliada. But they never saw them. Perhaps because they’d run away from home years ago. Over some hard feelings or other … if Dordor brought it up, Harmin would wave it off. If one asked, “I wonder how Mother’s doing?” the other would snap, “Like Father, I bet!” and that would be that.
They read Jack London. But not the Jack Londons I used to read. Theirs were different. They preferred the novels of Jack London that I was to discover years later, in which every White Fang rotted and fell out one by one … I wished night would never fall. That it would never get dark and they’d never have to take me back. That we could stay at sea forever! Drop anchor anywhere we liked, fall into the water wherever we pleased! Neither had ever gotten married. No woman could have shared that watery life. They were no older than thirty. Two overgrown juvenile delinquents. Two overgrown water plants … flowers, after Felat’s fashion.
They were the only ones I could ever tell … the only ones … what one of the immigrants did to me back when there was no reservoir and the immigrants were being held in the shed … or, to be more accurate, what he did while the others watched and did nothing …
It wasn’t just the innocents that left the countries of their birth. It wasn’t just those fleeing from bad men … The bad men themselves also fled! Our shed also accommodated criminals who were wanted in their own countries and set to serve sentences of who knows how many years. Thieves, murderers, rapists, and child molesters … and I had to be alone with them …
I was ten. The age when I’d had the idea of selling the water. I held out my hand for the money. He held my hand and pulled me toward him. The other laughed. They all got lumps in one cheek. As if they were holding eggs inside their mouths. I thought they must be ill. Turns out it was khat . Khat , that Yemeni shit. Shit that also had a Latin name: catha edulis . A type of amphetamine. The kind that one can’t stop chewing on all day … I tried to run. I tried to get away, to shout, to bite, to hurt him. I couldn’t. I tried to disappear. Like a magical kid. I tried to be blind and deaf. I tried not to understand what was happening to me. I couldn’t. There were red rivers in his eyes. He pulled up my pants and zipped them. He buttoned the button and put the money in my pocket. I tried to think of other things. I couldn’t. I tried to cry, to run off
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