Gardens of Water by Alan Drew Read Free Book Online

said, “do not let go of your mother. Do you understand me?”
    “Don’t leave me,”rem said.
    “Do not let go of her, and stay here.”
    She nodded, but pleaded, “Don’t leave me, Baba.”
    But he was already running back to the pile in front of his apartment.
    Now sprinkles of water fell through the air, mixed with the floating dust, and dropped to the ground as mud. The strobe light illuminated the front of the now-teetering apartment building; it looked like a great hulking monster, the ripped innards of insulation hanging from the walls, the sockets of empty rooms, the limbs of electrical wires. Beneath the looming building, he saw people digging in the debris, but his vision was blurry at the edges, prismed through the pain in his head, and he didn’t recognize anybody.
    He didn’t know where to begin, so he started at his feet, digging his hands into a space between slabs and pulling at the first chunk of concrete he could wrap his hands around. He dislodged it and it tumbled onto his foot. Kicking the chunk away, he slipped his fingers down into the rubble again, throwing pieces aside, between his legs. His palms ripped on metal sheeting and shards of glass stabbed his wrists. The cement crumbled under his nails and turned to sand in his fists.
    His heart slammed against his ribs and his lungs seemed to shred. His hands worked faster than he thought possible, his arms lifting impossibly large blocks of cement. Digging in again, deeper this time, all the way to his shoulder: he felt something soft. His fingertips met fingertips. Then he felt a ring on the finger, and he knew it was notsmail. Pulling himself up to where the body lay, he saw the caved-in face of a man. His scalp was cleaved open and it might have been Ahmet, but in the flashing light he couldn’t tell.
    “
Allah rahmet eylesin,
” he said to the body, and he kept going.
    He dug for what seemed like hours before coming to a long slab of unbroken cement he couldn’t break through. He climbed out of the hole and tried digging in another area, but he met the same impenetrable wall.
    He ran around the corner to Ali Sünbay’s hardware store, with the idea that he would get a metal pick and break the slab into smaller pieces, then he could move them with his hands, but the whole street was gone. Three buildings had toppled sideways, the floors strewn across the road like extended accordion bags. Another building had simply jumped fifteen feet to the side, completely intact save the first floor, which was left broken on its foundation. A woman stumbled down the street with a young man in her arms, his head tilted back, his feet scraping the ground. He was too old to be carried, and the woman’s legs buckled beneath her. She stood again, holding the man to her breast, carrying him away from the collapsed buildings. Sinan should have helped her, but he was shocked by the vision, and as she got closer he ran the other way.
    He was panicked now, running on his twisted foot, the reality of it all expanding in his chest. He was helpless. Everyone was helpless. There wasn’t one thing he could do to help his son. When that thought exploded in his head, he dropped to his knees in the dirt, turned his palms toward the sky, and prayed.

Chapter 9
    O NLY THE PRAYER AND THE TERRIBLE VISION OF HIS SON falling filled his mind. He had a vague memory of sunlight and darkness followed by sunlight again. Perhaps another night passed, but he didn’t know. His head hurt, a throbbing pain as though a hot balloon had expanded inside his skull, and the world outside his head sounded muffled and fluid, like screams drowned underwater. And within this muffled space, he heard his daughter’s voice.
    “Baba,” he heardrem say, as if from across some great flooded cavern. “Baba, I need your help.
Anne
is saying crazy things.”
    But he had to pray; he couldn’t break this prayer.
    “She’s pulling out her hair. I can’t make her stop.”
    His words of prayer were