The Lovers

by Vendela Vida

  On the walls, dozens of framed photos showed another couple: a handsome, white-haired man next to a dark-haired beauty. The boy’s grandparents, Yvonne assumed.

  “Is your grandmother here?” Yvonne asked Ahmet. She pointed to the woman in the picture.

  He nodded, and she followed him to another room, an office. Inside, a woman was seated at a tidy desk with a glass of what looked like Scotch. The office seemed remarkably uncluttered, and it occurred to Yvonne that business at the chateau was probably not good.

  The woman stood when Ahmet entered but she did not hug him, nor did he run to her. The medicinal smell of hard liquor hung in the room above them and between them.

  “Hello,” the grandmother said to Yvonne. She looked decades older than she had in the photos, though it was possible only a few years had passed. In her hand she held a pen with a large fake red flower on its cap. The glass before her, a finger of Scotch left, had been kissed many times—little lipstick was left on the grandmother’s mouth.

  Yvonne introduced herself.

  “You are the one,” the woman said. She had a thick accent.

  “Excuse me?” said Yvonne.

  “His good friend,” said the grandmother.

  “Yes,” Yvonne said. She finally caught on that the woman did not seem to like her. “What has he said about me?” Yvonne was suddenly suspicious.

  “Not him,” the grandmother said, the flower on the pen shaking in her unsteady hand. “He says nothing. The waiter,” the grandmother said. “In Knidos.”

  “Oh, I see,” said Yvonne.

  She wanted to leave. This was not the encounter she’d been expecting with Ahmet’s grandmother. She had hoped they would exchange smiles over a cup of coffee, talk about the boy, how affable and enterprising he was. Instead, Yvonne now understood why he left the hotel each day for Knidos. The chateau was like a museum devoted to another, happier time. There was nothing here but sour regret.

  “Well, it’s lovely to meet you,” Yvonne said. “I gave Ahmet a ride home, and I thought I’d say hello.”

  “And now you have,” said the woman.

  “Yes,” said Yvonne. She wondered if it was the woman’s unfamiliarity with English that was causing a tonal problem. It wasn’t, she decided, looking at the woman’s unsmiling face.

  “I’m a teacher back home,” Yvonne said. “I have two children. They’re coming this week.”

  “And before they get here you pretend he is your son.”

  Yvonne stood in silence. She forced a brief smile, said good-bye, and turned to the door. The grandmother said nothing.

  Ahmet followed Yvonne down the stairs, a pleading look on his face. Don’t leave me here, his eyes seemed to say. Take me with you.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, as cheerfully as she could.

  The rain had lightened to a drizzle. Still, Yvonne drove back to Datça, with her body leaning close to the windshield, as though she were navigating her way through a torrential storm.

  A woman was sitting on the covered patio of the Datça house, picking at a bug bite on her leg. It took Yvonne a moment to realize who it was.

  “Özlem?” Yvonne said.

  Özlem sat up, and instantly reconfigured her face into its usual presentable form. She seemed to exist as a beautiful creature only when viewed by someone else.

  “How long have you been waiting out here?” Yvonne asked, hearing the sound of rain hitting the patio roof.

  She looked at the ambivalent gray sky and shrugged.

  Yvonne unlocked the front door.

  “Come in,” she said. “Let’s get you dry.”

  Özlem stepped inside, tentatively, and then gave up any air of hesitance and walked to the red spiral stairway. “Are her clothes still here?” she asked.

  It took Yvonne a moment to understand.

  “I think so,” Yvonne said. “But you can borrow something of mine if you need to change.” Now that they were inside, Yvonne saw Özlem’s thin blouse was transparent with rain. She was shivering. “Let me help you. I’ll bring you a towel. Do you want tea?”

  “I need to see her things.” Özlem placed her hand on the red railing and started up the stairs with a surge of energy that surprised Yvonne. She skipped a stair with each step.

  When Yvonne caught up, Özlem was standing in front of the closet in the master bedroom. She had quickly figured out which side of the closet was Yvonne’s and which side was the mistress’s, and was examining each item of clothing before tugging it off the hanger, dropping it to the floor.

  “Please stop,” said Yvonne.

  But Özlem continued to pull down all the clothes until there was nothing left on the mistress’s side. Then she collapsed onto the floor, sobbing.

  “I told him I was leaving,” she said. “And he doesn’t care. He almost seemed pleased. ‘Now I can be with Manon,’ he said.”

  “Manon?” Yvonne said.

  Özlem sobbed again, as though the word Manon was the insult. “The French slut. Do you see her ugly prostitute clothes?”

  Yvonne hadn’t noticed anything unusual about the clothes in the closet. They appeared to be tasteful items in muted colors. If anything, they were the antithesis of the see-through blouses and short dresses Özlem preferred.

  “Liar—he is a liar,” Özlem said. “It’s because she’s French that he loves her, you know that, right?”

  “I know nothing,” Yvonne said. The truth of this statement hit her a moment after she’d said it.

  “He makes fun of the French, but his whole life he has been secretly embarrassed to be Turkish. He wants to be European. He would deny it but—”

  “Why don’t we go downstairs?” Yvonne said. She wanted Özlem back on the ground floor. On the couch or the porch. Not here.

  “I want to see the rest of the house,” Özlem said. Her face was swollen, her mouth pouting. She looked like a little girl recovering from a tantrum.

  Yvonne led the way, walking into the hallway. When she didn’t hear footsteps behind her, she turned. Özlem was at the foot of the bed in the master bedroom, staring up at the ceiling. The hook. She was shaking her head, disgusted.

  “Come on, Özlem,” Yvonne said. “Why don’t I draw you a bath? It will warm you, calm you down.”

  Özlem was still staring at the hook. She was sputtering words in Turkish.

  “I’m going to get a bath ready for you,” Yvonne said again. She wanted Özlem contained.

  She moved into the bathroom and was adjusting the water’s temperature when Özlem came in. Her eyes were intense, focused. “Have you seen anything hanging from the ceiling in there?” asked Özlem.

  Yvonne looked her in the eye, and said, “No.”

  “No?”

  “You mean like a plant?”

  Özlem shook her head, and a moment later she looked relieved. “Never mind. Do not regard what I say. I’m very fatigued.”

  Yvonne searched the cabinet beneath the sink and discovered liquid bath soap, which she poured into the tub. As she put the top back on, she held the bottle out to Özlem. “Look, it’s Dove!”

  Özlem’s mouth was still for a moment. Then she burst into grateful laughter.

  While Özlem bathed, Yvonne checked her e-mail downstairs. She cocked her head to listen for sounds that Özlem was done with her bath. If Özlem were to find the swing, or any of the photos, Yvonne didn’t know what sort of state she might devolve into.

  There was an e-mail from Aurelia. The subject header asked, “Where are you?”

  Yvonne hesitated before clicking. She read the note from Aurelia the way she had grown accustomed to reading every correspondence from her: with one eye turned away, in fear of what she might learn.

  Hi Mom,

  I hope you’re enjoying your time alone. I was thinking that you might be lonely. I am. Henry and I broke up (long story, I’ll tell you later but believe it or not I am OKAY!). I’m not on the boat from Greece with the others. I thought I’d feel too alone witho
ut you OR Henry there. So I was thinking I’d spend a couple days before we all meet in Datça with you instead. I’ll come to wherever you are. But where, exactly, are you? Let me know as soon as possible. My flight leaves on Tuesday and I changed it so I’ll fly into Istanbul and will spend the night there. But I need to make plans for afterward. Does your cell phone really not work there?

  xoA

  Yvonne tried to figure out what day it was. Saturday? Despite Aurelia’s assurance that she was fine, Yvonne didn’t believe it. At best, the okay stage would last a day or two. She pictured Aurelia’s face—her eyes, her mouth. No one had prepared her for this pull, strong as an undertow, between mother and daughter. It didn’t matter what Aurelia had done or was going through—there was never a time when Yvonne didn’t want to see her daughter, didn’t want to lie next to her, whispering and wondering aloud.

  Yvonne walked upstairs toward the bathroom door, which was ajar. The tub was empty. She entered the master bedroom, and then the closet—she expected she would see Özlem there, rummaging through the lover’s clothes once more. But the clothes were on the floor, in the same disarray she had left them.

  “Özlem,” she said. The house was darkening earlier than usual. Through the windows the rain was diagonal, a thousand silver arrows.

  Özlem wasn’t in the bedrooms or bathrooms, and she couldn’t have come downstairs without Yvonne noticing. There was only one other place—the third floor. Yvonne climbed the spiral staircase.

  Özlem was sitting with her arms around her knees. The towel that had been wrapped around her was now unfastened so one breast was revealed. She was seated before the open trunk, staring. The sex swing.

  “Do you want me to bring you some clothes?” Yvonne said, pretending she didn’t know what was inside. These were two of her strengths: changing the subject and feigning ignorance.

  “I’m going to leave Ali,” Özlem said.

  Yvonne nodded. She thought Özlem had already made this decision, but now, seeing her like this and hearing her say it in that tone, she understood that Özlem had not meant it before.

  “I’m going to get my things tomorrow,” Özlem said. “Do you think I could pass the night here?”

  “Of course,” Yvonne said.

  Özlem pulled the towel around her torso and stood. With her bare foot, her painted toes, she closed the lid to the trunk.

  They ate dinner and Yvonne tried to distract her. “My daughter is coming to visit,” she said. She heard excitement in her own voice. “It’s too bad you’ll miss her.”

  “Yes, too bad,” Özlem said, convincingly.

  “She’s flying to Istanbul and then coming here. Is there something I should tell her to see when she’s there?”

  “Give her my number in Istanbul,” Özlem said. “She can call me.” She wrote down the number and made Yvonne promise to give it to Aurelia.

  There was the question of which room Özlem would sleep in—she didn’t want the master bedroom below the hook. She settled on the room with the twin beds, and Yvonne didn’t admit that this was the room in which she herself had been sleeping.

  After Özlem had gone to bed, Yvonne sat on the master bed with her laptop. She wrote Aurelia. “Yes, please come,” she typed, and gave her the address and phone number to the house, and Özlem’s phone number in Istanbul. “Call her if you need something,” Yvonne wrote. “She’s a good friend.” She began writing something about how sad she was about the breakup with Henry and then deleted what she had written.

  She turned off the lights and got under the covers. I am the mother of whatever household I enter, she thought. It was her role tonight, as Özlem slept in the twin bed, and it would be her role again in a few days’ time when Aurelia would arrive, fresh from heartache and whatever else.

  The next morning, the sun, looking pale, reappeared. Yvonne went to the kitchen and started the coffeemaker. She listened for Özlem, but heard nothing. After an hour, she knocked on the door to the room where Özlem had slept, and when she received no answer, she slowly opened it. Özlem was gone.

  Yvonne pulled on her swimsuit and the turquoise sundress, packed her bag, and removed the euros she had hidden in the raincoat pocket on her first day. It was windy out, the sun not yet hot. She needed to see Ahmet. She worried he was upset with her. She needed him to know she would pay him the commission she had promised.

  She descended into the bay at Knidos and parked. No sign of the boy. She walked toward the beach, passing a family of four, Turkish tourists on their way back to the road. The young girl was naked and covered in sand. The parents were bickering, perhaps about how she had gotten that way.

  Yvonne looked up and saw him. Ahmet was on the beach, wearing a different set of swim trunks today. Red. He was squatting by the edge of the water, making some sort of structure out of the small sticks and debris that had been deposited by the waves.

  She was so happy to see him she jogged to him, and almost hugged him hello. She composed herself.

  “What are you building?” she asked him.

  He looked up to her, and as though he had been waiting for her and for this very question, he began trampling over his construction, kicking the small branches and rocks in all directions. When he was finished, Ahmet looked up at the archaeological site on the hill, and then back down to his feet. “History,” he said, smiling and pointing.

  She nodded, understanding that he was using a word she had taught him. She laughed. He was a smart one. She pictured him a little older, and in her class. He would be the kind of student who would keep in touch after leaving Burlington High. For years she had kept a shelf in her office to display the accomplishments and correspondences of former students, but, save for a handful of postcards, a bound thesis about female knitters in literature, and a book about the Civil War written by a student who had transferred out of her class, it had remained disappointingly bare. She had recently placed three small cacti on the shelf instead.

  “I brought you something,” she said, and she removed the crisp new euros from her purse. “Your commission,” she said. She paid him more than she had planned, more than he could have expected. But he did not look surprised. Instead, he took the money solemnly, as though he now had an enormous task before him. She considered asking for some of the money back to ease his burden. She should have known he was the kind of boy who would live up to whatever expectation he felt was placed on him.

  He rolled the money like a cigarette and buried it beneath his towel. He looked around the beach to see if anyone was looking. Now that the sun had shown itself again, Knidos was filled with people. There was still a strong wind—the boats were rocking, their masts waving to and fro like errant compass arrows—but no one wanted to spend another day inside.

  “I look,” Ahmet said, and he walked into the ocean with his kickboard. Once he reached water that was deep enough, he scooted his stomach onto the board and set out, away from Yvonne. She watched him paddle with his small arms. He was exploring a different area today, closer to the rocks. To see him better, Yvonne walked down the beach, maybe fifteen feet further than she’d ventured before, and took a few steps into the water. She hadn’t wanted him to leave her so fast.

  The floor of the ocean was different here, more difficult to navigate with its sharp rocks and slippery weeds. The water was up to her calves, and she took a step in the direction of the boy. Her foot! A crab, a jellyfish. Or a piece of glass. The pain pinched and she leaped away from it and hobbled back to shore so she could examine her toe. She sat on the edge of the ocean, the tide making its sizzling sound before retracting, and cradled her foot in one hand.

  With her other hand she spread her toes to assess the damage. A twig had lodged itself in the delicate space between her fourth and fifth toes. She removed the wood, and a small red dot of blood spread into a wider circle. She applied pressure with her fingers, and then looked up and out into the water.

  She couldn’t see the boy. She nursed her foot for another minute,
and looked up again, this time fully expecting to see him paddling back to her. She stared at the dramatic rocking of the boats. The water was louder today. She looked toward the rocks. Surely his red swim trunks would stand out; surely she would be able to see them. Or at least his kickboard, which always remained on the surface even when he dove down below. But she saw nothing.

  She moved slowly at first and then quickly, leaping into the water. Her foot pulsed with pain. Then she stood still, waiting for him to reemerge. She counted to ten. She counted to twenty. She adjusted her gaze to see farther out and then closer to shore.

  He was playing a joke. He was demonstrating how long he could hold his breath. Or he had swum to a boat, and was hiding behind it.

  Already she wanted to yell at him for this prank. She knew she would find him and would want to grab his arm and tell him how hurtful such jokes were.

  Where was he?

  She dove into the water, her dress twisting itself around her legs. She stood on tiptoe where her feet could reach the bottom and pulled the dress off over her head, leaving it in the water to float or sink, and continued to swim out to where she had last seen the boy.

  She got to where he had last been, but she saw nothing. Treading water, she looked around, her legs beating beneath her. She tried to see below the surface. The water was as thick as marble. “Ahmet!” she screamed. “Ahmet!” The panic in her own voice was frightening her.

  “Ahmet,” she called again more casually, as though she were summoning him to the dinner table. “Ahmet.” The boats were to her left, the rocks to her right. She saw no sign of him in between.

  By this point others on the beach and on the boats had taken notice of Yvonne’s panic. A few men had jumped off boats in the harbor, one with a life preserver in hand. Some had left their chairs at the restaurant to come out to the dock. Yvonne appealed to all of them now instead of to Ahmet. “Help!” she screamed. “A boy! A boy!”

  She swam diagonally to the left and then to the right, plunging her head below the surface every few strokes. But underwater, she could only see a few feet in front of her. She kicked with her legs, hoping she would touch a foot, a finger.