“Grandpa,” Elif cried. “Keep him away, Grandpa!”
“I can’t stand to see you this way,” Grandpa told us one evening. We had all gathered on the terrace to eat couscous for dinner. As of the last few days Elif’s nausea had gone away completely, but she still retained the old paleness.
“I can’t help it,” she said, and started crying. This time I didn’t even reach to hold her. I felt entirely helpless. I knew of nothing I could do to make her feel better.
Night after night I dreamed bad dreams and awoke each morning more fatigued, more anxious. Dry, cool winds gusted through the streets of the village. Their wailing oppressed me and I caught myself missing the noise of the storks, which had once bothered me so much. Watching the wind turbines filled me with anger. Why weren’t the blades spinning? All this rushing, fighting to build them and now they stood unmovable in the wind. What were these people waiting for exactly? Turn on the switch already. Generate. Energize. Harness. The power of the ever-gusting. Of the invisible, plentiful spirits.
Saint Kosta pestered me, like a dog seeking attention, always in my way, no doubt just to annoy me. The way Grandpa smacked his lips when he drank rakia got on my nerves. The way he scratched his neck.
Our time was running out, I knew that much. We had to do something and do it quickly. Run away from Klisura, away from all that haunted Elif, away from ourselves. Become new people and remain together. Or remain the same people and fall apart, each in his own orbit.
“Please don’t cry so much,” I’d tell Elif softly. “It’s not good for you or the baby.”
“I know it’s not good,” she said. “That’s why I’m crying.”
That night she had another nightmare. The black storks flying. She was convinced Saint Kosta was lurking outside to take away the baby. She was convinced her father had sent him. The heat of her forehead stung me when I kissed her.
“She’s burning,” I told Grandpa, and we measured her fever.
“God Almighty, boy,” Grandpa said in the kitchen. He soaked a kerchief in vinegar. “God Almighty.”
All night Elif tossed and turned. I, on the other hand, lay frozen. Couldn’t sleep, couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe even. A total paralysis of the body. A complete shutdown of the mind. I must have dozed off at last, with the sky growing lighter.
I was in America, back in my apartment, in my bed. The tree outside my window was heavy with black storks. The storks watched me.
“Don’t let them take it from us, amerikanche,” Elif said in English beside me. “Don’t let them fly away.” Then the storks began to beat their wings and the world around us to rattle. They rose up, a black veil. Nothing I could do would stop them.
“I’m sorry,” I told Elif.
Her face was as hot as the fire. She rested it on my chest and we lay like this in my dream together and we watched the black storks flying.
FIVE
THE ULTRASOUND let out a low hum. The gray screen — a constant whistle, which could not be denied. Flat and high-pitched, it could cross mountains, seas, whole worlds.
“I’m very sorry,” the doctor told us. She was the best in town, a specialist. Grandpa’s old student had sent us to her once before and we were due for a checkup soon. But here we were now, urgently. A big line snaked outside her office, but she worked us right in.
“This is the sack,” the doctor said and showed us. “This is the fetus. Can you see it?”
We could see it. There was no heartbeat. And the doctor said the fetus measured eight or nine weeks old, that it had not developed past that. But it had taken Elif’s body time to react, in stages. First her morning sickness had gone. Now all this.
“When did the spotting first start?” the doctor asked, and Elif told her. She had not told me. She had kept it a secret for two whole days. She’d hoped it would go away, that she’d feel better. Then we woke up to bright-red blood on the white sheet.
I panicked. I cried out, “We need to see the doctor.”
Elif seemed calmer. “I’ll lie still,” she said. “I’ll get better.” But lying still was out of the question. Her back was hurting and the blood wasn’t stopping. I knew she wouldn’t want me to discuss it with Grandpa, but I discussed it. “There is no bus until tomorrow. Can we wait that long?”
He threw away his cigarette. “We can’t wait.” Then he was out the gate, down the road. I heard Elif calling. Saint Kosta had snuck inside, perched on the chair to watch her.
“Get him out,” she cried, and I did. He resisted. He beat his wings; his talons scratched the wood floor. By the time I’d managed to shoo him into the yard, the military jeep was pulling over. The imam was driving.
I was afraid Elif would throw a fit when she saw her father, but she said nothing. We spread a blanket on the backseat and laid her down on the blanket. I rested her head on my lap, petted her cheeks and her forehead. I dabbed the sweat away with a kerchief. I could tell she was in pain, by her eyes, by how hard her teeth were clenching, but she made no sound. Up front Grandpa and the imam too kept quiet. Only in town did they speak — Grandpa was giving directions to the doctor’s office.
Now we were inside the office, cool, dark, like the mosque. An AC unit blew overhead and the drawn blinds buzzed when the air hit them. The ultrasound buzzed. The screen whistled.
The doctor was talking. “This happens to many women. You’ll grieve some, then you’ll feel better. And your body — no damage to it. You’re young. Healthy. You’ll be pregnant again before you know it.”
Then the doctor gave us an option. She could remove the fetus. Or we could wait until Elif expelled it. I thought she ought to remove it. But Elif shook her head lightly. Her face shone awash so bright with screen light — silver, perfectly calm, tender. I couldn’t bear to see it. I couldn’t bear to see the gray screen. I stood up. The doctor was talking. When we went home there would be more blood. Back pain. Contractions. Then Elif would start to expel blood clots, pieces of the placenta. At last she’d expel the fetus. It could be tomorrow, or in a few days. It could be next week. All in all, it could take up to six weeks.
Six weeks, I thought. Carrying the baby like this for six weeks.
SIX
THERE WAS MORE BLOOD that night. There was back pain. Elif lay in bed, under a wool blanket, and her teeth chattered. She was freezing. Grandpa brought her tea, but she wouldn’t look up. She kept her eyes on her hands and her hands stiff on her belly. Every now and then, when the pain got sharper, her hands made fists and her knuckles turned to snowdrops. From time to time I left my chair to open the window, to let the breeze freshen up the air. The entire mountain had sunk into silence. I’d never heard a night so quiet. No wind, no movement. Complete absence.
I must have dozed off in the chair, until Elif’s sobbing woke me. I put my hand on her stomach, but she pushed me away. It wasn’t for her sake I wanted to touch her.
Her voice was hoarse, distant.
“I feel so empty,” she said. “No spite. No venom. No hatred.” She began to sob again and only then did she allow me to sit at the edge of the bed and kiss her forehead. “I’m so clean,” she said. “So new.”
“Then why are you crying?”
She took my hands and pressed her cheek against them. “Don’t you understand?” she said. “It’s all been emptied out. Nothing’s left. Nothing.”
“But I still love you,” I said. She leaned her face on my chest and I held her.
SEVEN
WE COULDN’T LET THE EARTH SWALLOW IT, those black jaws. We couldn’t let the fire. So we climbed the stork tree. We pulled the black towel out of the nest and unwrapped it.