Now Ahmet put his entire body into his performance, raising his hands as if to shield himself, no, herself, from the imaginary Adad. “No—no, do not touch me! Do not put your hands on the woman you do not love.”
Ahmet began to laugh, as did Ramadan. “Oh, what a scene I know it was!” Ahmet’s breathless voice was his again. “What a great scene! You see, Ramadan?”
“It’s great!”
“And so now . . . now when you find Zahirah and give her back her letter, the old photograph of young love, she will give you something, too. She will give you what you want—your father. You see? What a story!”
“Yes!” Ramadan said. Ahmet had filled him with hope. “Yes! Let’s bring it to her. Let’s go!”
Ahmet’s eyes had wandered during his performance, but now he looked at Ramadan. “Go where?” he asked, still catching his breath. “To Suriye? You and me?”
“Yes!”
Ahmet sighed. “But, Ramadan, what I say—that is just the way I talk, the way I think. Like the movies. I don’t mean these things can really happen. What I say is not real. Is not real.”
In the moment of quiet frustration that followed, Ramadan felt the presence of the bullish little boy who used to tramp the length of Mama Joon’s house. His five-year-old self, his own private Buster Keaton, lunged at him from the wall of his anguish. And he recalled the last leap into Mama Joon’s arms. The day he knew he couldn’t pretend anymore. He wasn’t pretend; he was real. The day he became himself. Ahmet had just said, “Sometimes one day can change everything—who you are, what will happen, everything.” That was his day. And what he knew then, he knew now.
He reached out and pinched a corner of the photograph, which Ahmet was still holding, so that they were both in possession of it.
“But, Ahmet,” he said. “This is real. Za . . .”
“Zahirah.”
“Zahirah is real. Adad is real. My father is real . . .” He paused before saying it—“Because I am real!”
He saw himself reflected in Ahmet’s glassy green eyes, validating what he’d said—but also flickering there like one of Ahmet’s cinematic dreams.
Ahmet was about to speak, when his phone vibrated again on his desk. He handed the letter and the photograph to Ramadan. Then he picked up his phone and showed Ramadan the screen: NEDIM.
Answering, Ahmet spoke mostly in Turkish, although mingled into one of the sentences were two words Ramadan understood: Harley-Davidson. Then Ahmet’s side of the conversation shifted into the diminishing tones of a goodbye. He was about to hang up, when he brought the phone back to his ear and shouted, “Nedim!”
Ramadan heard Nedim’s tinny grunt of a reply.
“One more thing,” Ahmet said in English. His eyes shot to Ramadan, who knew Ahmet was speaking to him now. “I decide—I decide to leave tonight.”
* * *
RAMADAN STOOD BEHIND Ahmet at his desk, watching him scribble on a sheet of notebook paper. “What are you gonna tell him?”
“The truth. We go to find your father in Halep. We will return before Bayram.”
“Bayram?”
“Same as Eid. Sunday.”
“Will we really be back?”
“Yes. One day to go there. One day visit. One day to come home. Then”—and here Ahmet threw up his hands in mock celebration—“Eid Mubarak!”
“Huh?”
“The end of Ramadan.”
“What about your film?”
“Baba no need to know about that. He just need to know you are safe. That you and me, we did not go to fight in a war.” He signed his name and said, “Finish.”
Ramadan picked up the pen. “Can I write something, too?”
“Okay. Baba will like that. Mehmet will read it to him.”
Under Ahmet’s name he wrote, “Thank you for everything, Mr. Emir. Mehmet, maybe I will see you for overtime! Ramadan.”
“What does this mean?”
“Mehmet will know.”
Ahmet folded the note in half. “Now, we go to Nedim.”
Ahmet grabbed his backpack and motioned for Ramadan to do the same. They were about to leave, when Ahmet said, “No, wait!”
He squeezed past Ramadan, reached up to the top shelf of the left bookcase, and took down a small leather case. Ramadan watched him put it inside his backpack. Ahmet looked at Ramadan’s curious face and said, “My camera.”
“That little thing?”
“Hey, man,” Ahmet said. “This is not Disney!”
* * *
TO RAMADAN, THOUGH, everything did begin to feel like a movie—if not one with the lofty production values of a fabled studio, then with the raw appeal of Ahmet Adem’s work, outtakes from The Sultan of Silence, scene after scene, spiriting them along.
Once Ahmet zipped his backpack, they were off in a montage of motion.
Ramadan’s ordinary senses captured some of it. But his others—his sense of wonder, his sense of anticipation—these sixth and seventh alternative senses recorded the rest:
Ahmet slowly opening his parents’ bedroom door, Ramadan looking over his shoulder, breathing into his ear this time;
Ahmet propping the goodbye note on a table near the door;
The two of them descending the dark stairwell, backpacks in tow, casting twinned Quasimodo shadows; coupled also on Ahmet’s well-traveled silver Yamaha motorcycle, which they mount outside;
Then winding and bumping on a zippy twenty-minute ride, most of it, once they’ve left the narrow streets of the Adem neighborhood, along the Golden Horn down toward the Atatürk Bridge, which Ahmet takes to cross into Beyoglu;
Ramadan, arms wrapped tight around Ahmet’s waist, pressing his head into the rough canvas of Ahmet’s backpack, opening his eyes to that medieval tower near where he, Mehmet, and Ibrahim teased one another about who was or wasn’t a boy;
“Ah!”
“You okay?” Eliciting a rub from Ramadan, whose shoulders shudder, and who can’t be sure if the tears splashing from his eyes and whisked away by the breeze have in fact been caused by the wind or by a surge of nostalgia, the emotions of the day;
Ahmet swerving the motorcycle around the perimeter of a sleepy Taksim Square, passing only a few yellow taxis idling there and slowing down to avoid a smattering of touristy-looking pedestrians staggering their way out of Istiklal Caddesi;
Ahmet speeding up and veering the motorcycle down a dark little alley, the headlight spookily splotching the distressed walls rising up around them;
An arm waving up ahead—Nedim, who with his other hand is squeezing the nub of the cigarette he has been smoking while waiting, then plucking it away in a splatter of sparks on the sidewalk;
Ahmet screeching the bike to a dramatic halt at the curb;
Nedim rolling a shiny black-and-red Harley out of the tiny storage room at the back of his shop and into the alley;
Ahmet and Nedim huddling in the doorway, about to exchange keys and money, but pausing, an argument ensuing;
Ramadan appearing, reaching into his pocket—“How much?”;
Nedim peeling two hundred American dollars from Ramadan’s hand—smiling, telling him, “Wait right here,” ducking into his storeroom and returning to present Ramadan with a gleaming silver-and-blue helmet;
Handshakes. Goodbyes.
Ahmet mounting the new motorcycle;
Ramadan, helmeted up, following suit;
Ahmet looking back, asking, “Ready?”;
Ramadan answering with a tap to Ahmet’s shoulder;
Ahmet, accepting that as a yes, replying, “Okay . . .”; revving the Harley, announcing their departure to the Istanbul night;
Vroooooooom!
Part IV
The Other Side of the World
15
Get Your Motor Runnin’
Ramadan had slept almost all the way from New Orleans to Istanbul. Even during the changeover in Atlanta, escorted by an attendant, he’d been a virtual somnambulist. The numbing airplane groove had detached him
from the distance he was traveling. So maybe it was the motorcycle—being this close to the ground and actually feeling his conveyance—that was firing his excitement. And, too, there was the anticipation of what he was moving toward, instead of relief from what he’d left behind. Fleeing the locus of his terror and plunging into an endless blue sky, a pale, magnetic nothingness, had felt like an unraveling, a coming undone. He’d had to vanish into all that emptiness, and trust there was salvation on the other side. Letting go of himself had been exhausting—no wonder he’d slept and slept and slept. But this torpedoing into the night, this rumbling charge from the edge of Europe into the Middle East, was an adrenal jolt. The back wheel was fanning swift circles at his ankles, and the axle facilitating its propulsive turns seemed to be pinning into him, too, pedaling him forward, making him feel, meter by meter, rewound. Well, who could sleep through that?
Holding on to Ahmet balanced him physically, of course, but emotionally as well; it felt like his arms were wrapped around his quest. Beneath the roar of the motorcycle, he tapped a private, percussive Morse code of desire against the back of his throat, a four-syllabic, close-mouthed cough: I want to find—
So no, he couldn’t sleep now, not yet, not so early in this mad dash to do away with the dash.
* * *
AT DAWN, AHMET, who in Ramadan’s opinion had steered the motorcycle all night with greater agility than Emir exhibited driving his cab through Istanbul, exited the highway. They dipped into a town twinkling with lights, and Ramadan squinted at the eastern horizon over Ahmet’s shoulder, which was adorned by an orange swath of sunlight, like the stripe of an epaulet. Ahmet drove straight to a gas station for their second refill of the tank so far. At the first stop, remembering the money issue with Nedim, Ramadan had insisted upon paying, and he did so again now. Inside the convenience store, they stocked up on snacks, stuffing their backpacks with sandwiches, knickknacks, and bottles of water, and then went back out and settled onto the Harley.
They were about to speed away and merge back onto the highway when Ahmet did a double take at something to the right and veered in that direction, riding all the way into a wide pasture behind the store. He parked the bike, and they dismounted. Offering Ramadan only a sly smile, Ahmet dug into his backpack.
“We check the camera . . . and the cameraman.” He handed the camera to Ramadan and gestured for him to film him riding through the open space. Ramadan fumbled with the camera at first, and Ahmet said, “I show you. It is easy.”
He thought of Miss Bea. It’s so easy. He had come all the way to Turkey alone, just on the faith that he could do it. Now he was on his way to Aleppo with Ahmet. Of course he could operate a camcorder! And he started laughing.
“What is funny?” Ahmet asked.
“This. How easy everything is.”
“Really?” Ahmet pointed to a strip of crape myrtle trees heavy with white blossoms at the back of the field. “Aim the camera, boy. I show you easy. Action!”
He got on the bike and sped off toward the trees, as Ramadan lifted the camera and set him within its sights. At first, he recorded a few seconds of jittery motion, almost as if the camera were attached to the motorcycle and capturing its bumpy ride over uneven terrain. Then he bit his lip and steadied his hands as he followed the bike’s movements. About ten feet before reaching the trees, Ahmet slowed down and made a wide sweeping turn, placing him in profile. As he came back toward the trees, he sped up, spraying a comet’s tail of dust behind him.
“Ah!” Ramadan said. For a second, he wondered if his voice would ruin the take, but then he remembered that Ahmet was making a silent movie.
Before Ahmet passed the trees, he reared the Harley up to a near vertical position, doing a wheelie in front of the crape myrtles.
“Ah!” he said again, panning with Ahmet’s motorized movement against the backdrop of pastoral beauty.
Having completed one track to the right, Ahmet retraced his path. A summer breeze blew counter to his advance now, and as Ramadan shot the scene, shards of snowflake-like blossoms cascaded behind Ahmet like an August blizzard. He finished his second pass and dropped the bike’s front wheel. Then he rolled back to Ramadan, who kept recording.
“You still say everything is so easy?”
“Well, you made it look easy.”
Ramadan lowered the camera, but Ahmet said, “No, do not stop.”
Ramadan pointed the camera at Ahmet, who said, “This is the thing, Ramadan—in film and in life—make it look easy.” Then he winked and said, “Okay. Finis.”
Ramadan handed the camera to Ahmet, who rewound and played the footage. They stared at the little screen, watching Ahmet glide across the yard.
“Good work, Ramadan. Very good.”
“I told you I could do it,” Ramadan said. “And see—you make riding like that look easy.”
“Whaaaah!” Ahmet’s yelp startled Ramadan.
Then, to his surprise, Ahmet started laughing and waving the camera above his head like a trophy or a flag. Puzzled, Ramadan took a step back and watched the spectacle of the full-size, live Ahmet swinging the camera back and forth in the air, its screen still lit with the miniature, motorcycle-riding Ahmet.
“Easy Rider!” he shouted through his laughter. “Easy Rider!”
“What’s so funny?” Ramadan asked.
“Peter Fonda . . . Dennis Hopper . . .”
“Who?”
“They make the movie Easy Rider.”
A movie, Ramadan thought—of course. Ahmet was as in love with film as Mehmet was with basketball. He didn’t think he was that passionate about anything at all. Not yet anyway. But the Adem brothers sure made him want to be. “Okay . . . ,” he said. But are they better than Buster Keaton?”
Ahmet, having composed himself, grew reflective. “Well, they are different. But they make a great film.”
“So it’s a comedy?”
“Oh, no.”
“Then why did you laugh?” Ramadan asked.
“Oh, I laugh because in the movie Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper, they ride the motorcycle, like we do now.” He slapped his hand hard on the black leather seat in front of them. “And they go all the way from California . . . to your city!”
“New Orleans?”
“Yes. This is what I am telling you! You see? Funny.”
“I guess so.” For a second he wondered if Ahmet was making this story up. Just as he had done with Zahirah’s letter and the fantasy ending he had spontaneously created for the road trip they were now actually on. “So what happens when they get to New Orleans?” he asked.
“Uh—a Mardi Gras parade . . . and then something with a gun.”
Now it was Ramadan’s turn for a quick laugh at irony. “Well, that can happen back at home,” he said, with no inclination to say more.
“It can happen anywhere.”
He turned back to Ahmet. “Is it a true story?”
“No, it’s just a movie.” Ahmet climbed on the bike. “Come on. Let’s go.”
Ramadan hopped on and settled in behind Ahmet, whose stomach he felt vibrate with more laughter. As they sped up the on-ramp and merged back onto the highway, he heard Ahmet shout above the motorcycle’s thunder, “Ea-sy ri-der!”
* * *
SEVERAL HOURS LATER, when they reached the outskirts of a quaint port city on the northeastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, Ramadan was finally growing weary. Maybe it was because Ahmet had brought up New Orleans earlier, but he felt the sensation of home. At this point in his journey, so far from his city, any town thrust as prominently as this one against a flashy body of water might have touched his New Orleans–bred, comfort-seeking heart. He twitched with homesickness as Ahmet motored them along the coastline. After almost twelve exhausting hours of riding, this quiver of nostalgia threatened to drain him of what little waking energy he had left. He forced his drooping eyelids open. The liquid beauty of the blue bay tickled his Mississippi River–loving core, the navel of his nature. How that
river, ever pulsing but a dozen blocks from Mama Joon’s, had beguiled him. Its curvaceous will had shaped the entire city’s being, its character, so why not his? Slithery and serpentine, it had even predicted the cunning with which its enigmatic essence, from the first time he saw it, would insinuate itself into him. So fluidity had always set him reeling, left him wanting to dive back into whatever and wherever—there were no words for it—he had been before he was. No words for it, yet language had quietly written the rules of his infatuation. A river, a lake, a sea—“a body” of water. Of course—a body. Being near one never failed to force him out of his.
Entranced but fatigued, he kept bobbing his head to stay awake. “How far now? Where are we?” His shouts sounded more like whining.
“Iskenderun. We are very, very close. Only maybe two more hours.”
Ramadan’s drowsiness persisted, and his helmet bumped into Ahmet’s shoulder.
“Huh?” Ahmet looked back and saw Ramadan’s head sliding down the length of his arm. Elbowing him, he said, “Wake up, wake up!”
Ramadan didn’t open his eyes but said, “I am awake . . .”
Ahmet pointed to a park up ahead. “Look there. We stop. We rest. Okay?”
“Okay . . .”
Ahmet guided the motorcycle onto a secluded patch of grass and parked in the shade of a lush palm. Out toward the bay, the verdant ground thinned in color, as green gave way to a carpet of sandy beach. Ahmet hopped off the bike, dumped his backpack, and ran toward the water. Ramadan watched him shrink into the sunlit terrain, disrobing along the way, as he dissolved into the blue.
Removing his helmet, Ramadan was assaulted by a breeze. The sweat coating his scalp and glistening his forehead helped stroke him down to a surprisingly cool temperature. For an instant, August was April. Another gust swept under the legs of his jeans, aerating his shins and thighs, rising up to his tacky briefs. Overwhelmed, he dropped his helmet. The wind and the expectation of more tactile pleasure made him raise his arms out at his sides, as if his body were craving an ascension. Earthbound but ecstatic, he began spinning around and around, a whirling weather vane of a boy. He had no frame of reference for this atmospheric change, other than the momentous passing of one season into another. Time travel, it was suddenly clear to him, was possible—no, probable. Yes! He was convinced. You could move minutes, months, centuries ahead, or backwards! He was sure of it. Its certainty was borne upon the winds of the Mediterranean, rising from his ankles to his crotch, flowing through his curls, caressing his skull. He trusted the message scrawling itself upon his skin. August was April. Summer was spring. No, Iskenderun was not New Orleans, and the Mediterranean was not the Mississippi. But now was forever!
Ramadan Ramsey Page 27
