The Dragonfly Sea

by Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor

  Ayaana got up at once, dropping a toothpick. Nehir continued, “Isn’t this a bee-yootiful evening? How lovely is our moon—so white, so fecund, so pure this night—and, see, our dear Emirhan returned to us most unexpectedly. So much to be grateful for.”

  No sooner had the door closed behind the two women than the quarreling started. Nehir hurried Ayaana down the corridor, and her lips were thin. “In a house like ours, Ayaana,” she said, clamping on her arm, “you select one stream with which to move your life, then stay the course. After all, there is only one destination, isn’t there? Now, child, do not worry about the noise. Quite normal.” A half-smile.

  They paused in silence.

  Nehir spoke. “My husband has offered me a new hotel to design. We girls shall select colors for its décor.” Ayaana deflated. She had intended to lure Koray with a ferry trip along the strait. Nehir continued: “It shall be our adventure. I want to invoke the spirit of Marrakech in this new work, in your honor, my dear. Lots of pinks and salt-white.” She turned to Ayaana. “We must take what we are given and make it work for us. Do you understand?”

  Ayaana looked at Nehir and said, “No.”

  Surprised by the challenge in the girl’s direct answer, Nehir glanced away before taking a breath. “Oh, you will.” She let go of Ayaana’s arm. “The things a woman despises she learns to bury in her heart…Now go to our little library. Find the music of Latif Bolat. He is good for the churning soul. Good night. Tomorrow we shall discuss what his music means to us.”

  Nehir turned left, leaving Ayaana standing there.

  The sense of disquiet in the house was now a slow-breathing presence. Inside the small library, Ayaana not only picked out the music of Latif Bolat, from duty, but also sought the Preisner Emirhan had played earlier. Later, in her room, she logged in on her phone to find translations for the lyrics. “Lacrimosa”—Weeping. It was Christian and old, from a ritual reserved for the dead. Ayaana imbibed the English words:

  Ah! That day of tears and mourning

  From the dust of earth returning

  Man for judgment must prepare him

  Spare, O God, in mercy spare him…

  Ayaana pored over the phrases, her heart pounding. Entanglement. To what had she come? A few more days, she thought, and then she would make up an excuse to leave.

  * * *

  —

  Knock on her door. Ayaana jerked awake. Expecting Nehir, she was surprised when she saw Koray there. “I…” he started. “I…Look, sorry…”

  Instinctively, she said, “It’s okay.”

  He stumbled in. She closed the door. He tumbled into her arms, sobbing. He clung. She wrapped her arms around him, thinking of the lyrics she had read and their music in her head. She was silent as Koray wept. His tears stained her dress. He shuddered and exhaled, then wiped his face. He cupped Ayaana’s face and kissed her full on the lips. “Thank you.” He kissed her again and left the room.

  Ayaana touched her mouth and stared at nothing. She returned to the edge of her bed and sat, unmoving. The undertows. Muhidin’s warning words during ocean lessons: “There is a reptilian tinge to particular rip currents, a sense of deliberate intent. There is a mean streak in the subtle nudge that eases luckless people beyond safe water zones long before they realize that they are at the mercy of all the unrestrained forces of life.” Ayaana turned to her phone, keyed in “Latif Bolat,” and picked a random song. It played while her mind roamed inside the spare lyrics of the “Lacrimosa.” Ayaana did not sleep. She spent the night studying Nehir’s pure, fecund white moon.

  [ 71 ]

  “When I say Marrakech, what do you see?”

  Nothing, thought Ayaana. “Sand?” she offered. She sighed at all the fabric samples laid out, covering every space available in the living room.

  Nehir exclaimed, “Sand and purples! The Koubba el-Badiyin. Camels—filthy creatures, but we must think of desert constancy. Stark simplicity, yet elegant. Bee-yootiful. Sand is beautiful. Clever girl…Microscopic sand is simply bee-yooo-tiful. Each room consecrated to a grain of sand.” She bared even teeth at Ayaana. “I am happy with you.” She shrugged gracefully, and her Kathak-dancer eyes curved upward.

  As the morning wore on, Ayaana understood that her primary role was to applaud Nehir’s choices. Nehir, pleased with her seeming acquiescence, said, “Will you and my son announce your engagement?”

  “Engagement?” she squeaked.

  Nehir ignored her.

  Ayaana groaned inside her soul.

  Nehir paused. “Africa had never occurred to me before. I confess I was gravely concerned. One hears such terrible things. I insisted that he bring you here.” Nehir beamed at Ayaana’s red dress. “I can see why you make sense. I, like my son, am besotted.” Nehir squeezed Ayaana’s hand. “The shimmering purple fabric, with the silver thread—do you see it as a curtain?” Ayaana opened her mouth. Nehir supplied the answer. “Bee-yootiful.”

  * * *

  —

  Koray was nowhere in sight. Ayaana could not take up the meaning of “engagement” with him. She was looking up bed-and-breakfasts to which she might move. Yet she was also seduced by what she was experiencing. She looked glamorous in her new getup. She felt that she was close to the sort of put-together-ness that she had yearned for, like all the sophisticated females she had idolized in the films she and Muhidin used to watch. She suspended the search and decided to immerse herself in Han Song’s novel The High Speed Railway, which she had carried with her.

  * * *

  Ayaana took to waking up at 4:30 a.m. to wander into the garden amid the flowers of dawn. It was time that was hers alone. At that time, whenever she walked out, a thin man—a pale, English-speaking man with red-rimmed eyes who accompanied Koray’s father—would walk in as if he had been waiting for the door to open, as if he had been waiting awhile and had been afraid to make his arrival known. At first Ayaana’s morning appearance had startled him, and he had flinched as if expecting some kind of retribution. But after the fourth morning, he had ventured a tiny smile in return to her Arabic greeting. The man carried two briefcases. He kept his gaze low, his demeanor humble. He kept glancing sideways, as if expecting something to accost him from there. He had a red-and-beige weal on his forehead in the shape of a triangle. He may have been over forty. He was one of the nine or ten new constants that would hurry down the Terzioğlu corridors, and who entered through previously barred doors.

  * * *

  —

  A semblance of an old order returned in the evenings, when a civilized dinner followed by drinks proceeded. Ayaana sat brooding next to Koray when he was there. He asked her the same question: “Did you have a good day?”

  “Almost,” she always answered, loading the phrase with sarcasm.

  “Good,” Koray answered.

  One evening, as everyone got up to retreat to the drawing room, Ayaana tugged at Koray’s sleeve. “Koray, with less than two weeks left, I want to visit İzmit…or Konya.”

  “Konya! A damn Rumi adherent?” he mocked.

  Ayaana added, “I also wish to see the mouth of the Bosporus in Beykoz.”

  Koray rubbed his hair. “None of us expected Emirhan to return so soon and…and…with such news.”

  “What news?”

  Koray made a dismissive gesture.

  “Then I will visit these places alone.” Her voice was firm.

  Koray took her arm and spoke with low intensity. “No, you will not. Things are…The situation is…dicey.” He closed his eyes. “Our family…has enemies. Dangerous beings who will hurt anyone connected with us…That, unfortunately, now includes you. You will have been seen with us. Makes you a target.”

  Ayaana exhaled. “I want my passport, Koray. I’ll return to China. I’m safe there.”

  Koray cupped her chin. “I think not.” Amusement in his eyes.
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  Footsteps. Then, “Ooooooh,” cooed Nehir, “to be young and bee-yoo-tiful. Hurry, children, get married. Bring me my grandchildren from two…no…three worlds.”

  Ayaana stiffened. She scowled at Koray. “Did you tell her we are engaged?”

  “Not quite that way,” Koray whispered. “Listen, güzelim, tomorrow…I visit one of our ships…”

  “May I visit with you?”

  “I’ll return in the afternoon. İzmit together?”

  “Your father…”

  “…will survive a few days without me.”

  Yet Koray frowned.

  * * *

  —

  Father and son were arguing again. It had started in the living room, where Nehir was tinkling with the piano keys. She ignored everything. Father and son walked out to continue their battle out of view.

  “Good night,” dared Ayaana, fed up with the tensions.

  There were unspoken rules about who left the room first—the elder before the younger. “Ayaana,” said Nehir, still playing random scales, “hear them…” Raised voices. “What you have provoked?”

  “I…”

  “Shhhhh…” said Nehir. “It is necessary. Such fierce passions. They need this airing. They deal with difficult things.” She looked at Ayaana. “They are alike, you know. This is our sea, our passageway. These are the winds that blow. Those are the creatures it forms. The ones who are afraid drown, or get served as meals.” An arpeggio. “Do you like my son?”

  Ayaana lowered her head. “Right now I don’t.”

  Nehir smiled. “Enough to become his wife?”

  Ayaana gaped at Nehir.

  “Wife!” A squawk.

  Nehir stopped playing. She got up and ambled over. “What a wild look. I am not entirely sure you like me much, either. It doesn’t matter. I like you.” She laughed. “Stay with us; we shall confuse you, and you will amuse us…and your children—three would be just right—will help us forget the things we must.” She stroked Ayaana’s face with a finger. “Stay with us.” Nehir stroked Ayaana’s head. Nehir then headed for the door. She looked over her shoulder. “Koray…will ask you to marry him. Please say yes. We shall have fun.” She laughed. “I will teach you what questions to ask. Moreover, if you still want a ship to navigate—so your Chinese education does not go to waste”—Nehir laughed—“Koray can offer you one.” She winked. “Tell him it would delight me.”

  By the time Nehir closed the door, Ayaana was kneeling on the carpet, hugging herself. She could feel the tickle that heralded an asthma attack. She did not have her inhaler—she had not needed one for so long. Her chest began to tighten; her heartbeat quickened. She was breathing too fast. Breathe, she commanded herself. Breathe one, breathe two, breathe…

  [ 72 ]

  His gaze was always lowered. Today she followed its trajectory and noticed his brown, shining shoes. Creased, laced, overused. Uneven soles. Spontaneously, she exclaimed, “How far have those shoes walked?” He looked at her then, and his eyes widened. He stuttered something she did not understand. She gazed at his face, at the fear that had left its marks there, at its scarred beauty. She stepped closer to see and at once thought of the Christian God, the naked, scarred, bleeding, broken one struggling on a cross.

  And the man smiled into her heart.

  “Hello, who are you?” she whispered.

  He turned away.

  She fled into the garden.

  * * *

  —

  The next day, he answered her first question to him: “Infinite distances; they have walked past eternity.”

  She listened to the musicality of his voice. Ayaana asked, “What is your name?”

  He murmured, “I haven’t decided.” He looked at her with dark eyes—today they were almost violet. He breathed, “Be careful.” He waited until he believed she understood him. “Be careful here,” he breathed out.

  Because he had whispered the warning, by the end of the day Ayaana thought she had only imagined the words.

  * * *

  —

  The next day, he spoke first: “Where are you from?”

  She answered, “Kenya.”

  “Can’t be too far,” he joked, “sounds like Konya.”

  She laughed because she needed to.

  “I am from Damascus,” he told her.

  Damascus. Roses and blood. A visual litany of world fiascos; she read the harrowed face. The silence. His aloneness. Within her, a need to annihilate such desolation, in order to repair existence. Topography: the contours of life are edged with horror. She would try to banish these lest they follow her home, as his face and voice had done. She touched his forearm.

  He focused on her hand on his arm. He knew there should be burn marks where an unexpected dawn creature had touched his arm in caring. “Be careful,” he breathed. “Please, excuse me. I must go in.” He stumbled near the door.

  * * *

  —

  At dawn the next day, Ayaana opened the door and bumped into that man. He stopped her rush with both hands, dropping the briefcases. Electric sensation.

  “Sorry,” she murmured.

  “No,” he said. His hands were on either side of her waist. Deep-reaching eyes. “When do you leave?” he asked.

  She swallowed.

  He let go and touched the side of her face. Flushing, he stooped to pick up his briefcases. He had forgotten himself. They stood together.

  “Keep safe.”

  Ayaana hugged her coat close to her body and stepped sideways, heading to the garden. The man glanced back at her.

  * * *

  —

  The next day, when Istanbul’s muezzins had started their morning summons, Ayaana gave the man the box of chocolates Koray had given her. Inside the box she had inserted a piece of paper on which she had drawn the Basmallah. The following morning—she did not know she would never see him again—he was carrying a cardboard box upon which he had positioned two briefcases. Ayaana teased, “What are you trading in today?” He hesitated, fumbled. Two tear globules broke and slipped down his face. The morning light made them extra-large and blood-streaked. “We trade in doomed souls.”

  Ayaana did not understand.

  “Leave while you can,” she thought he said again.

  But when she did look at him, his eyes, though red-rimmed, were tender. He said, “The chocolates are nectar, their essence a song. They have bandaged, for a season, the holes in my soul. I cherish them as I do you.”

  Ayaana brushed fingers with him, and his hand ever so briefly curled around hers.

  “Tomorrow?” he murmured.

  She nodded.

  * * *

  —

  At around 2:00 a.m. that night, in between the sounds of thunder, a hideous, drawn-out human grunt eviscerated the night, followed by three definitive popping sounds. A gurgling existential scream followed, and then there was stillness. In her bed, dreading the unknown, Ayaana made a map of sounds, trying to create meaning. Muted voices. Footsteps. Thumps and whispers. Shuffling. Scrambling. Twenty minutes later, a car started up. It was driven out. Ayaana went to her window to look out. Thunder. Lightning. Odd. She had not imagined rain in Istanbul. Electric gates in shadow swung open. A black car passed through. She returned to bed, drenched in fear. I must leave. She covered her body. A fleeting thought: the Syrian. She slept fitfully and woke up to irate thunder.

  * * *

  —

  It was past 4:00 a.m. when a loud knock on her door forced her into wakefulness. “Koray,” said the voice on the other side.

  “Yes?” she said.

  “Open the door.”

  She stumbled out of bed to turn the key. Koray entered the room. A rancid tang followed him in. Ayaana returned to her warm bed, propping herself up on the pillows as Koray paced the breadth
of the room. She waited. He stopped by her bed. “You shall refrain from an overfamiliarity with the servants. Distance maintains balance. It is why the things you enjoy here run smoothly. Distortions have consequences.”

  Ayaana, heavy-headed from a restless night, sputtered, “What?”

  “You will postpone your morning wandering.”

  Ayaana rubbed her eyes. Had Koray discerned her morning intentions? “Why?” she demanded.

  Koray paused as if considering something. “Don’t leave the house today.”

  She flopped in her bed and covered her head. She uncovered her face, counted his receding footsteps, before saying, “Someone screamed in the night. Who was it?”

  Koray did an about-turn. His eyes glacial, he asked, in a monotone, “What…exactly are you referring to?” The pungent scent that had entered the room with him spread. It infused Ayaana’s bedclothes. She turned her head away from the smell as something awful throbbed between them.

  The warning.

  Be careful.

  Koray waited for her answer.

  “Thunder,” she said carefully.

  A chasm closed.

  Stillness. “Koray?” Ayaana whispered, suddenly afraid.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll return to Xiamen.”

  “Not without me.”

  Another tack: “Your mother has married us off.”

  Taut look.

  Ayaana added, “She said you ought to give me a ship.”

  Koray asked, “Do you want one?” He leaned over. “I’ll give it to you.”

  The season’s undercurrents, like the thunder outside, bore down on them.

  “I…don’t know you well enough,” she stuttered.

  “I’ll teach you me.” Koray bent over, lifting her out of the bed and into his arms. “We can be anything.” He was lying. “I am not such a terrible marriage prospect, you know.” She shook her head. “I want to settle down, Ayaana. I want a deep connection with one person. Wouldn’t you like children? Three, maybe?”