My grandma stashed away empty plastic bottles for the coldest nights. Sometimes as many as ten empty bottles in a kitchen cabinet, along with a reliable single-burner portable butane stove and a box of matches.
She tucked me in under so many layers that I could barely move only to scurry to the kitchen and return moments later with the bottles, scalding hot from the boiling water she’d filled them with. She set one at my feet and two on either side of the bed. Never before had I thought a two-litre Coca Cola bottle would ever save my life.
She got into bed beside me, kissed my forehead and stroked my hair.
The year prior, my parents had thrown a New Year’s Eve extravaganza with fireworks and live music. It was the talk of the neighborhood, topped off by the gift my father presented me: a red bicycle with silver tassels on the handlebars—my first without training wheels.
“This is a special bike,” he said. “It’s not one of those Turkish knockoffs your friends have. It’s from Italy. Came here on a ferry just for you.”
Working in the embassy, he always managed to find the most interesting gifts, even though I would’ve been happy just the same. I spent the entire summer riding that red bicycle up and down the neighborhood and, when the summer was over, I was forced to move into the mountains to live with my grandma. And the fond summer memories quickly blurred into one-another, whereas the miserable ones—my grandma and I curled in bed, the water bottled at our feet, ushering in 1997 together—jutted out in my mind like crooked nails against an otherwise smooth surface.
That year, there were no presents, no guests, no fireworks.
When the crackling whip-like sounds came in the small hours of the night, I shot out of bed to catch a glimpse of the lights, only to feel a jerk pull me back.
“Stop squirming, you’re letting the heat out” my grandmother scolded.
“But I want to see the fireworks.”
“They’re not fireworks. Just ignore them and try to sleep.”
I lay back, shutting my eyes and hearing the distant crackle as I imagined the rainbow of colors sizzling in the night sky. I imagined watching the spectacle from the balcony, with my dad’s arm around me, with the laughter and music in the background. Yet, when I woke up the next morning, the sounds persisted. Just as loud as the night before. They persisted almost every couple of nights since. On and off. Sometimes in long intervals, rapid exchanges of deafening snaps, beginning and ending at all hours of the day and the night.
When I protested living with my grandmother, my mom claimed it’d be safer that way. Her house was removed from the main city. It had a cobbled entryway lined with a row of citrus trees that began at the property’s iron gate and ended at the steps of the villa itself. Barbed wires were gnarled atop the property walls which gave the entire property a dreary feel.
On the nights when the fireworks popped and crackled the loudest, grandma insisted we slept in the living room, near the fireplace and away from the bedroom windows. She made a game of it.
“But there’s no bed.”
“We can fix that,” she said, laying down blankets and pillows. “It’ll be fun. Like we’ve gone camping.”
“I want to talk to Mom and Dad,” I said.
“Oh it’s too late tonight,” she said, “but maybe tomorrow we can call.”
My grandmother never raised her voice, never swore, never lashed out. Dad said it was akin to killing you with cotton, a quality Mom undoubtedly had adopted.
“I know you’re tired hon, but the city’s a mess now and it’s safer with your grandma,” my mother said when I asked to come home. “Less racket where you are,” she said, although I heard the shots in the night here as loudly and as often as I had in the city.
That winter wasn’t all bad. Grandma and I played board games in the afternoon before her nap and card games in the evening. One day, we even fashioned our own wooden swords with a couple sticks and masking tape, and duelled together. As the winter snow was replaced with spring rains, my grandmother allowed me to venture off as far as the inner courtyard allowed, by the citrus trees but never beyond the iron gate that separated our house from the outside world. Even though I sometimes heard neighborhood kids playing outside, she forbade it.
She slipped a clove of garlic in my pocket and kissed me on the forehead.
“Keep it in your pocket,” she said. “It’ll keep you safe.”
I rolled my eyes at the silly superstitions of old people, but made no fuss. The days when I was allowed to play outdoors were the most exciting ones. It was on a morning like this one that I heard the iron gate rattle with a sturdy knock. I froze in place, eyes fixed on the gate. When I heard another series of knocks, I ran as fast as my legs could carry me indoors.
“Grandma,” I whispered. “Someone’s at the front door.”
She stared at me for a moment and put her hand on my cheek. “In the bedroom you go. Quickly.”
I did as I had been instructed, scurrying into the bedroom and shuffling under the bed. Grandma had said to keep still and not come out unless she called my name and, as her footsteps receded toward the front gate, I felt a terror loom over me, a gnawing at my gut, a thumping against my chest. The few moments that followed felt like hours until, at last, I saw the silhouette of a figure in the doorway.
“Get up,” my grandmother’s familiar voice said. “It was just Ivor.”
Ivor was the son of one of my grandmother’s friends and she sometimes sent him off on errands to pick up groceries from the market. Later that night, she sat me down and taught me Ivor’s secret knock—three quick taps followed by two long ones. “When you hear that,” she said, “come get me.” I felt so stupid for having been so terrified; like a little kid.
Grandma claimed Ivor was a friend, but I was never allowed to answer the door for the deliveries. Some days, it felt as though she were trying to hide me. To pretend I was invisible.
By April of that year, the sounds of the fireworks had begun going off more frequently. Not only in the night but in the morning and daytime as well. Grandma stopped letting me play in the courtyard. I could see the worried look on her face and knew something was wrong.
“It’ll be okay,” I told her.
She held me in her arms and stroked my hair. I thought of my friends in the city. Of my school and my parents’ extravagant dinner parties. How my whole world had shrunken all of a sudden to the size of my grandmother’s meagre estate in the mountains.
“You want to call your mom?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said.
Over the phone, Mom sounded weary. There was static and shuffling on the line, I could barely hear her.
“What’s going on over there?” I asked, but she did not answer.
“Listen,” she said. “Tomorrow we’re coming to get you. So pack whatever you have tonight and be ready. Now pass me your grandma. I need to talk to her.”
Grandma helped me pack a small bag but I saw sorrow wash over her. A heaviness in her movements. Neither of us seemed to manage much sleep that night. The following morning, as if by a miracle, my parents were there, standing in the courtyard. Dad ruffled my hair and Mom hugged me.
“Hurry up,” she said, “go and pack up your things. We’re going away for a little while.”
A black sedan sat idle outside the gate, engine purring. The chauffeur leaned against the door, savouring the deep drags of his cigarette, inhaling until his lungs fully expanded and blowing out puffs of smoke into the air. From his suit, I figured he worked with Dad at the embassy but I didn’t recognize him.
At the sight of us, he flicked the cigarette away. Dad did his utmost to hold back tears as he hugged Grandma, his cheeks reddening. Mom embraced her, too, whispering a solemn, “Thank you,” in her ear.
Grandma leaned forward and brushed aside the loose strands of my hair. “It may be some years until I see you again,” she said, kissing my forehead and wiping the kiss away with her thumb. “Be a good boy.”
Up close, the hard lines in her face accentuated, she seemed wearier. Weathered. A hopeless expression was on her face; the skin drooped, the bags underneath her eyes darkened, her hair wisps of white and gray. Hunched over her own weight, she wrapped a woollen blanket around her shoulders and stood in the dirt road like a guard on patrol. I stared at her through the sedan’s tinted windows as the car rumbled to life, recalling her features. Drinking in the full sight of her, down to the droplets of muck spattered on her blue plastic slippers. She stood there after we accelerated and drove off into the distance until, at last, we turned a corner and she was gone.
We drove for eight straight hours without stopping for so much as a bathroom break, and only when we crossed the border did my father’s shoulders slump, a relieved smile on his face.
“You must be hungry,” he said. “We can stop to eat something.”
Once at the hotel, my mother sat me down to explain. “People may dress differently here,” she said, “and they speak a different language.”
“He’ll pick it up,” Dad offered. “The important part is we’ll all be together and we’ll be safe here. Now go shower so we can get some food.”
Unzipping my suitcase, I noticed a small clove of garlic sitting atop my folded clothes. Grandma had slipped it in. I rolled my eyes at her superstitions and presented the clove of garlic to my mother, explaining to her how Grandma had insisted I travel with it at all times. How she said it would keep me safe.
Mom began to laugh, then cry.