The Lovers

by Vendela Vida

  “Nothing to drink?” said the waiter. He must have been accustomed to making his money serving drinks to the Europeans who came to shore from their yachts.

  “Just coffee,” said Yvonne.

  “Nescafé,” said the waiter.

  “Sure,” said Yvonne. The boy ordered an orange Fanta.

  The boy: she didn’t know his name. She would have to ask him when the waiter left. Suddenly her curiosity was so great she felt aware of its presence on her tongue, under her nails. What was his name? What would it be?

  Seconds later the waiter returned with their drinks and a tray of small dishes, each covered with Saran wrap. Yvonne selected yogurt, spinach, dolmas, and eggplant. The boy picked out a few other vegetables Yvonne didn’t recognize. The waiter placed each dish on the table, and then, after removing the Saran wrap, rolled and compressed each piece of plastic into tiny, firm balls.

  “Enjoy,” the waiter said to Yvonne, and then spat a few quick words to the boy. The boy said nothing in return. The waiter stalked off.

  “What is your name?” she asked the boy.

  He looked at her, puzzled.

  “My name,” she said, pointing at herself, “is Yvonne.”

  The boy repeated it. She liked the way it sounded coming out of his mouth. Eve-on. He placed the accent on the wrong syllable, and, in his doing so, she heard her name anew.

  “And your name is…” said Yvonne.

  “Ahmet,” he said, pointing his thumb in the center of his boyish chest. Yvonne stared at his thumb’s placement, just below “Miami” and above “Catch a Fish.” It was as though he was saying everything about him centered in that spot, everything he was emanated from there.

  “Nice to meet you,” said Yvonne.

  “Nice to meet you,” Ahmet repeated.

  Yvonne couldn’t tell if he knew more English than he was letting on, or if he was simply imitating her. She tried in vain to fan herself with a laminated drinks menu that remained on the table.

  Ahmet was facing the ruins of Knidos, and his dark eyes traveled up to the top of the hill. Yvonne turned to see what had caught his attention: a man and a woman standing by a broken Ionic column, trying to wave to passengers on a boat down below them.

  “Have you been there?” she asked Ahmet.

  The boy shrugged.

  Yvonne repeated herself, speaking slower this time and pointing.

  The boy shook his head, now understanding.

  Yvonne didn’t want to give up his company. She didn’t want to spend the afternoon on the beach alone, reading her book by herself.

  “After lunch, you and me, we go?” she said, pointing to the two of them, and then the archaeological site.

  “Yes?” said the boy.

  “Yes.”

  The food was good, and Yvonne complimented Ahmet on his choices. They spent a good part of the meal looking at the couples being seated at adjacent tables, at the ocean, the sky.

  A moment after she placed her fork and knife together at an angle across her plate, the waiter brought her the bill.

  The boy said something to the waiter, and the waiter turned to Yvonne. His eyes narrowed in surprise. “So you are taking him to the ruins.”

  “He’s never been there,” Yvonne said.

  “You know, the Aphrodite statue used to be there.”

  “Really?” Yvonne said.

  “Some museums have copies of Aphrodite of Knidos. But no museum has the real one. It was destroyed by fire.”

  “That’s too bad,” Yvonne said.

  “Yes,” the waiter said. “I can see you would enjoy it.”

  Yvonne smiled, not knowing what to say. She didn’t like this man.

  “You’re here in Turkey by yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is something women in America do? They come to a faraway country alone?”

  Yvonne considered his question. She couldn’t think of any of her friends who had made such a journey. Other women she knew traveled with a husband or a friend or a tour group. “Sure,” she said.

  He stood over them for too long, as if deciding what to say. Finally he chose his words. “I’ve known people like you,” he said.

  “And I’ve known people like you,” Yvonne said, picturing the student who had written her the note about Cromwell. There had been such rage, such hatred contained inside his oblong Os. The waiter and Yvonne stared at each other until a fork dropped from a nearby table, and the waiter bent to retrieve it. With his dirty fork in hand, he scuttled off.

  After Yvonne had settled the bill—she left a large tip meant to confound—she and Ahmet walked to the archaeological site. Near the entrance, a man and a woman sold tickets from a parked trailer, and Yvonne purchased two and handed them both to the boy. The tickets had pictures of the Knidos amphitheater, and Ahmet looked first at the pictures, then at the amphitheater behind the fence, and then back at the tickets. He seemed more excited about the pictures of the ruins than their physical presence.

  “You can have them. They’re for you,” Yvonne said. Ahmet looked down at the tickets again before placing them in the pocket of his surf shorts. He walked carefully for a few steps, as though he didn’t want to wrinkle them, and, after a minute, seemed to forget about them completely.

  They paused in front of a large sign, written in Turkish on the left side and translated into English on the right.

  Yvonne skimmed the sign. Knidos was established on terraces that slope down to the sea…In the sixth century B.C. Knidos became a rich city…Knidos enjoyed its most brilliant time in the Hellenistic period (330–31 B.C.)…In the seventh century A.D., as in the case of other coastal cities in Anatolia, Knidos fell prey to Arab raids from the sea. Evidence for this can be found in the Arabic inscriptions carved into the floor of one of the churches.

  Yvonne had not lately been interested in the distant past. Even the thought of ruins bored her. When she was done reading about Knidos, she looked at Ahmet to see if he was ready to ascend the hill of ruins. But he was still focused on the sign. When he was through, he looked at her and nodded.

  They climbed the dusty path bordered on each side by white stone. Halfway up the hill, Ahmet picked up a foot-long cylindrical object that could have once been part of a column, or not—it was difficult to tell. He held it in his arms as if he was carrying a log.

  “English what?” Ahmet said, lowering his chin to the stone.

  “Ruins,” said Yvonne, looking around. There were no guards here.

  Ahmet tried to repeat the word back to her. He gestured at the hill around them, at the little that was left of what had once been a city.

  “Rans,” he said.

  “History,” she said, correcting herself. That would be an easier word to pronounce.

  “History,” said Ahmet with impressive ease.

  “Good,” she said instinctively.

  Pride illuminated his face.

  They reached the top terrace and Yvonne paused to catch her breath. There was no shade, but the breeze, when it came, brought with it the scent of a flower Yvonne didn’t recognize. It had a sweet, doughy smell, like bread rising. She could see clearly down into the harbor. The masts of the ships looked taller from here, their white vertical lines segmenting the sky, like arms raised in toast. Hear, hear! Well done!

  On the edge of the hill, she saw a stone structure that looked promising. Anything that had a shape, that hadn’t been destroyed, had potential. “Let’s look over there,” she said, and pointed.

  Another sign explained that the stone object had once been a sundial. The boy read the description, his mouth moving silently. He turned to Yvonne and tapped his own wrist, where a watch would be if he’d been wearing one. Then he tapped the side of what remained of the sundial, as though trying to make it function once again. He said something and she understood him well enough to know he was saying broken. They both laughed, he at his own joke, and she at him, and then he appeared to laugh with joy because she understood him, un
derstood he was amusing and smart. He skipped ahead of her on the path, and then veered away from it.

  She had to hurry to catch up. She found him standing on one of the roofless and remaining walls of what could have once been a house, or a temple—the site was not marked. They weren’t supposed to be here. As Yvonne came closer she saw that beneath and between the walls lay enormous pits.

  “Careful,” she said, and no more than a second had passed before Ahmet smiled and dropped into one.

  Yvonne screamed.

  A moment later, he reemerged intact—he had only jumped to a ledge a few feet down. He was a prankster.

  “Okay, that’s enough,” Yvonne said. He had successfully scared her, changed her mood. “Let’s start heading down.”

  There was no shade to be found and the chirping of the insects in the bushes—the sound of heat itself—was making the walk unpleasant. Ahmet followed her, and then passed in front of her, leading the way. Yvonne had to be careful walking down the hill in her sandals—there were few stairs and the steep dirt paths provided little traction. But the boy in his plastic Roosters ran down the path with ease, small clouds of dust rising up in his wake.

  The waiter was watching them from below, like a king surveying his small fiefdom. The boy had run past him, to the beach. But the waiter approached Yvonne as she reached the bottom of the path. “You two laugh and play like lovers,” he said.

  Yvonne stared at him. She didn’t know why she had to explain herself. She had befriended a boy; the boy had befriended her. She continued walking toward the beach, where Ahmet stood, waiting for her. She waved enthusiastically, as though they hadn’t seen each other in years.

  In the late afternoon, after saying good-bye to Ahmet—they shook hands like business associates—Yvonne drove back to Datça, passing the hotel owned by Ahmet’s grandmother. She wondered, for the first time, how Ahmet got from the hotel to the beach and back every day. Tomorrow she would offer him a ride. Tomorrow she would think of other activities for the two of them to do together. Simple things.

  She turned the radio on, expecting the comedy show and its laugh track, but instead she found only Western pop music. She turned the radio off and opened all the windows.

  Ahead of her, on the side of the road, she saw two figures swinging a third in a sheet. As in a gangster movie, they were going to throw the body off the cliff, dispose of it in the ocean below.

  Yvonne stopped and put the car into reverse so she could see them better, and, more important, so they knew she was watching. The two men swinging the sheet placed it on the ground. A little girl emerged, laughing hysterically.

  You old fool, Yvonne said to herself. She smiled and shrugged apologetically, then started the car and drove off.

  Back in Datça, Yvonne parked, unlocked the gate, and climbed the stairs to the house. The door was open.

  She stepped inside and saw a shape quickly swooping toward her. She ducked, and the shape passed. Yvonne had for gotten about the owl. With its wings spread the bird was enormous, much bigger than she would have imagined. It was circling the first floor. Suddenly it darted toward her and she ducked again, covering her hair with her hands, as it flew down the stairs to the basement, bumping into the wall and guardrail along the way.

  Yvonne collapsed on a chair and pressed a hand to her heart, trying to stop its galloping.

  She circled around the kitchen and living room. A roll of paper towels and a small clock had been knocked to the ground. There were small brown pellets on the coffee table. She cleaned them off with a rag, which she discarded in the trash can.

  The doorbell rang. Yvonne had left the door open, and before she reached it Özlem poked her head inside.

  “Hi,” Yvonne said. “I must look a mess. I—”

  “You look good,” Özlem said. “What is the word? Exuberant?”

  “I don’t think that’s the word,” Yvonne said, though she hoped it was.

  “May I…?”

  “Sure,” Yvonne said. “I’m sorry.” She stepped away from the threshold with a theatrical curtsy, as though this could make up for her initial inhospitality. “I just got distracted. There was an owl here this morning when I woke up. It’s still here.”

  “An owl? The bird?” Özlem asked.

  “Yes.”

  “In the house or outside?”

  “In the kitchen. I left the door open all morning, but he just went to the basement.”

  “It’s still here?” Özlem confirmed.

  Yvonne nodded.

  Özlem was silent for a moment. “I think I know,” she said cryptically.

  “Did you just see it?” said Yvonne, looking toward the stairway that led down below.

  “No, but I saw it yesterday…or I saw its mate.”

  Yvonne looked at her.

  “I didn’t want to tell you yesterday because of the car.”

  Yvonne nodded.

  “But yesterday I saw some children with…not a bow and arrow…” She gestured.

  “A slingshot,” Yvonne said, gesturing back.

  “Yes, that. And I saw the animal fall from the tree.”

  “And then it came inside the house looking for shelter.”

  “No,” Özlem said. “I’m sure it died. I know it died.”

  “How?”

  “The kids went over and made sure it was dead. One of them took a feather and the other kids, they ran off screaming that he was dead.”

  “Maybe he was resting and came inside my house late last night.”

  “You don’t know much about owls, do you?” Özlem said.

  Yvonne had never thought much about owls before hearing their cries the first day in Datça as she walked on the promenade. Before then, she had thought they were exclusively nocturnal. She closed the door as though one might fly in as they spoke.

  “They are…how do you say that they never leave their spouse? How do you say that they are what I am not?”

  Yvonne turned back to Özlem, half expecting to see a smirk on her face. But the look on Özlem’s face was one of utter devastation, of someone who was on the precipice of making a decision that she knew would ruin her. Yvonne had seen this expression on Aurelia’s face too.

  She stared at Özlem.

  “Monotonous?” said Özlem.

  “Monogamous?” Yvonne offered, slowly.

  “Yes. Owls are that. And so I think what happened here is that the owl in your house came back looking for the owl that died—the mate.”

  Yvonne felt sick. “Do you want to sit down?” she said, needing to rest herself. She gestured toward a chair at the dining room table. She wanted to sit somewhere else for a change.

  “The sun is there,” said Özlem. “Let’s sit on the couch. It was Ali’s grandmother’s, you know. I never wanted it in my house, but now I cannot see why I protest.”

  “I’ll be right there,” Yvonne said. “I need to wash my hands.” She could smell the animal on her fingers. She scrubbed her hands, digging under her nails, and dried them thoroughly. Then she sat down on the armless chair across from the couch.

  Özlem looked at Yvonne as if she had news to share.

  “So you made your decision,” Yvonne said.

  “Yes,” Özlem said. “I’m leaving Ali and going to live with my friend, who will leave his wife.”

  A gasp escaped Yvonne’s lips. “I didn’t know he was married.”

  “Yes, he has three children.”

  “Oh, Özlem!”

  “But he doesn’t love them.”

  “I see,” said Yvonne, now more confused. Three children and he loved none of them.

  “What do you think I must do?”

  Yvonne paused. Her years of parenting, teaching, and friendship had taught her not to offer advice. She had learned that those who claimed they wanted it listened to it the least, and later resented her for giving it.

  Özlem looked desperate. Even her hair seemed to have unleashed itself during their conversation. “Please, you must
tell me. I cannot speak to anyone else about this. Please, what is your opinion?”

  Yvonne spoke cautiously at first, but then the words came out in a rush. “I just don’t know if you want to be that woman, do you?”

  “What woman?”

  “The kind of woman who does that.” As Yvonne said this, she realized perhaps this was precisely the kind of woman that Özlem, with her high heels and sequined blouses and femme fatale demeanor, wanted to be.

  Özlem shrugged. “It happened to me, it happens to her. Maybe she will do it to someone else.”

  “What do you think Ali will do when he finds out?” said Yvonne.

  Özlem smiled. How impressed she seemed with herself.

  “Oh, Özlem,” Yvonne said. Her own voice sounded exasperated to her ears, but Özlem took her outburst as a sound of sympathy.

  “I’ll be okay. Don’t worry,” said Özlem.

  “It’s not that, it’s just…you’re breaking up a family.”

  “Ahhh,” Özlem said, and the skin around the bridge of her nose seemed to tighten. “You are one of them. I forgot. Happy marriage. Yes, it makes sense.”

  “Whether I think you should go around breaking up other marriages has nothing to do with whether or not I had a happy marriage.”

  “It doesn’t?” Özlem said.

  Yvonne shook her head, suddenly unsure.

  “You are all the same. You are so worried about your own marriages being broken up, you happy couples,” said Özlem.

  Yvonne wanted Özlem to leave. She was tired of young, self-centered women. Aurelia and Özlem, though different, shared a narcissism common to women in their twenties.

  “But you’re also selfish,” Özlem said.

  “I’m selfish?” Yvonne said. “How’s that?”

  “You think I can’t have the chance to have what you have had. The opportunity. I am unhappy in my marriage and so is my lover. And you were happy with your…your Peter, but you don’t want anyone else to have what you had.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Yes, it is,” Özlem said. Instead of standing the way Aurelia did when challenging her mother, Özlem was relaxing into the couch. She was clearly enjoying herself. “You don’t think others can find it if they don’t find it the first time. It is only true love for you. Everything else is less important. You don’t even want that for yourself again.”