“A man who wears a broken watch is a—” said the Filipina woman.
“Is a sentimental man,” answered Murat, finishing her sentence.
“Is an idle man,” she replied. She then read from her digital Casio. “It is twelve forty-two.” She wore a Mickey Mouse T-shirt with the word Orlando etched in an excited, looping script across the bottom. Murat thanked her and the two of them sat silent alongside one another, he in his Brooks Brothers suit and she in her Disney T-shirt, both of them having had a similar idea of how to dress in order to impress an American diplomatic official.
Murat resented the idea of having to impress anyone, particularly a government functionary—no matter the nationality—whose work happened out of a waiting room with linoleum floors and among a crowd who had to take numbers on tickets in order to be seen. That Murat was part of that crowd had no bearing on this prejudice. He had suggested on several occasions that Catherine handle this appointment. “William can, after all, only become American because of you,” he had told his wife. “If you came, we could skip waiting in line and just go straight to U.S. Citizen Services.”
Predictably, her refusal assumed the form of inaction and silence. Within days of adopting William, Catherine had fallen into a depression. Murat could not give her a child and he would not allow her to use a donor, which he likened to her having another man’s child, so they had chosen to adopt. Her son committed her to Murat and to the resulting fate of being left childless.
Murat recognized the root of this depression. How many conversations had they had about adopting? How many agencies, go-betweens and even traffickers had they spoken to? Only now, once a midwife had delivered the boy to a family in Esenler, a neighborhood they had always avoided, and from a mother whose name they would never know, only now did his wife finally reveal her true reservations. Murat understood Catherine’s crippling disappointment. Were he able, he would have given her a child in the normal way. But on assuming his father’s burdens, he had lost the ability to become a father himself. He of all people understood the psychic paralysis of wanting something too much, so much that you cannot even say what it is you want. Yes, he understood. But he had yet to forgive her for wanting something that he could not provide.
Murat glanced toward a cordoned-off section of the waiting area. Enclosed behind a soundproof glass wall and door were a dozen or so padded recliners and a table of refreshments—coffee, pastries, fresh juice in large glass carafes. Inside, a separate digital counter hung on the wall. The number displayed was far lower than the one in the waiting room for foreign nationals. It was set at 016. The few people inside the glass room lingered, watching a television that was not bolted to the wall, but rather stood on a console, and that played movies identical to those outside, comedies mostly, but with no subtitles. This was the waiting room for U.S. Citizen Services.
Murat glanced at the paper ticket in his hand. He tried to calculate how much longer this would all take. The soundproof door opened. A teenager with a cascade of floppy brown hair and a polo shirt tucked into his khakis departed, holding a new passport. A wake of noise trailed behind him. Murat could suddenly hear the movie in English and the voices of the few people ensconced behind the soundproof walls. All of them were laughing along.
* * *
Eventually his number came up. Built along the far wall of the waiting area were a half dozen interview booths, where on one side there was a counter and on the other side there was a consular officer perched on a high chair. The interviewee didn’t have a chair, but rather stood, presumably so that the interview didn’t last too long. A thick glass pane with a circle of pinkie-size holes drilled into its center like a shot-out target partitioned the booth so that the two parties could speak to, but not reach, one another. Beneath the glass was a slot to pass documents. The setup reminded Murat of the visiting station in a prison.
Murat had brought his leather attaché, which was a fine calfskin case Catherine had given him the year before, after his father’s death, when he had finally taken control of the company. She had thought the gift might boost his confidence as he assumed the role of chief executive, or so she had told him, and he now clutched the attaché in a double grip like a player about to toss a forward pass. As he hoisted it onto the counter, he felt uncertain about whether he had ever found that elusive confidence. From its satin interior, he removed a sheaf of documents. While he quickly sorted through them, the consular officer opposite him turned over her shoulder. Another officer stepped behind her, a young man with a side part in his blond hair wearing a Brooks Brothers suit similar in style to Murat’s own, except in the fit, which was more carefully tailored. He cupped his hand to his mouth and whispered something into his colleague’s ear. She then gathered her things while the young man installed himself across from Murat and asked vacantly, “Size nasıl yardım edebilirim?” He logged on to the desktop computer in front of him, hardly even glancing in Murat’s direction.
Murat continued to silently leaf through his documents. He didn’t want to answer the young man in Turkish as his English was impeccable, something he had worked at over many years. Reading the language had come far more easily to him than speaking it. When he and Catherine had first lived together, Murat would, with religious devotion, watch Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood each morning. The slow cadence of the show helped him to pick apart the spoken language. When he had an early class, Catherine would diligently record episodes for him, herself becoming engrossed in the show, finding appeal in the contained world it imagined. The two of them took to watching episodes together, making whole nights of it with popcorn. And his English gradually improved. When a guest of theirs once noticed the episodes on the DVR, Murat turned ashen. Without hesitation, Catherine said she was considering a degree in child psychology. She was watching for research, with an ambition to one day create her own children’s program. With no prompting at all she had come to her husband’s defense, understanding implicitly the importance of preserving his fragile dignity, at least back then, before he’d so damaged her own.
Standing in front of the consular officer, without his American wife, Murat felt the English he had struggled to master might now help his son, so he didn’t respond in Turkish, but waited for the consular officer to repeat himself, which he did. “And how may I help you?”
Murat placed his open attaché on the floor so it leaned against his leg. He slid his documents beneath the glass partition. “I’m here about my son.” He explained that he and his American wife had recently adopted William and that they wanted to submit the appropriate naturalization forms. “The N-400 I believe is correct,” said Murat, while the consular officer reviewed the sheaf of papers Murat had submitted: his own birth certificate, William’s adoption certificate from the Turkish Central Authority, a copy of Murat’s university degree, his Turkish marriage license, a few bank statements. Murat hadn’t collected the documents according to any criteria. He had made his own criteria: an assemblage of what he thought were the essential bits of paper that established his life.