The Lovers Read Online Free Page B

doubts.
    “I’ll check in,” Mr. Çelik said as he started for the door. Was it her imagination or, now that he had his money, was he no longer looking at her?
    “Oh,” he said, turning around.
    “Yes?”
    He gave her body the cursory glance people gave to the shapes of the elderly. She no longer had a body or a figure; she had a shape.
    “What days are good for the maid?”
    “Maid?” She had never used a maid at home.
    “Yes, it’s included in the rental. Two maid visits during your stay.”
    “Wednesday?” She wasn’t sure what day it was. “And Saturday.”
    “Good,” he said. “I will tell her. And not too early. I know you like to sleep.”
    Yvonne smiled and stood with one hand on the door as he stepped outside. They nodded at each other and then he turned. She watched his calves as he walked down the stairs.
    She was suddenly ravenous. She opened the refrigerator again, as though something inside might have materialized with the arrival of morning. Nothing but cherries, now looking worse than they had the night before. She would walk to town, eat, buy groceries, and take a stroll along the beach. She hid half of her remaining euros in the pocket of a woman’s raincoat she found hanging in the master bedroom closet. Then she gathered her things—straw hat, purse, the ring of house keys, which included a heavy charm in the shape of a boat.
    Outside, the sun was so strong she imagined she could see its rays, thin and sharp as blades. Yvonne turned left at the first street that sloped downhill, looking for a street sign to help her find her way back, but there wasn’t even a lamppost in sight. Nor were there sidewalks. She kept to the edge of the road and passed chickens and a family of turkeys. Turkeys in Turkey , she said to herself, and was briefly amused until the animals strutted closer and she saw they were scrawny, filthy creatures. She would remember them at Thanksgiving.
    Yellow houses, both crumbling and remodeled, stood clustered together, their red-tiled roofs industrial and depressing. The windows of vacant-looking buildings bore signs that said SATILIK in red, with a phone number, while the windowsills of visibly occupied houses were lined withunflowering plants potted in large yogurt containers. Between the houses sat acres of desiccated land that had not yet been developed save for failed attempts to grow grapes. The rows of vines had shriveled, leaving only wooden posts.
    From somewhere below came the call to prayer. The sound was fuzzy, as though being broadcast through a megaphone on a parade float.
    When she and Peter had first arrived in Turkey they spent a night in Istanbul at a hotel with a view of the Blue Mosque. At four in the morning, Yvonne was awoken by what sounded like a man singing beneath their window. “Can you ask him to keep it down?” she had mumbled to Peter, and he, jet-lagged, had obliged. Through half-closed eyes she saw his gray shape move to the window, and then she heard him laugh.
    “It’s the call to prayer,” he said. He crawled back into bed and, unable to fall back to sleep given their proximity to the mosque, they made love, their limbs beating at the tangle of the comforter and sheets, like swimmers struggling not to drown.
    She had not remembered this until now. Good , she thought. It was happening. After Peter’s death, she had cocooned herself in a mood, both woolly and ethereal, that had separated her from her kids, her students, from the rest of the world. But it was good to remember these things. Already the sky and the ocean felt closer, their colors brighter. She realized she had stopped walking. You can remember and move at the same time , she said to herself. Careful not toslip in her sandals, she continued down the crooked blocks until she reached the main street. Swerving mopeds and small honking cars crowded the road. The sidewalks were narrow and filled with tables where shirtless old men played checkers. Outside Internet cafés,