The consular officer became lost in the confusion of documents, sorting through them with both hands as if he were tearing away tissue paper to find the prize at the bottom of a gift-wrapped box. He gave less than a second’s consideration to each, returning them facedown to their folder until he had cleared them from his desk.
He glanced up at Murat. “Do you have your wife’s passport?”
Murat reached into his suit jacket’s internal breast pocket, where he’d tucked her passport for safekeeping. He slid it under the glass. The consular officer flipped through the book. He swiped the bar code on its front flap through a scanner. A readout of data flashed up on his screen.
A pleasant gust of breeze landed against the back of Murat’s neck. He turned around. Above him a ceiling fan had begun to churn the waiting room’s stale air. The fan’s mechanism wobbled and it made a metronomic clicking sound. He watched the consular officer, while the rhythmic click, click, click of the fan kept the time.
The consular officer swiveled his computer screen toward Murat. “From what I gather, you and your wife have resided here the last three years. However, I don’t see an American marriage license. Do you have one?”
Murat bent over and searched his attaché case, as if perhaps the nonexistent document could be in there. He hadn’t known what the complicating factor would be for William, but he had felt certain one would present itself. His son had no greater claim to American citizenship than he did, despite the boy’s given name, despite who his adoptive mother was. Murat had, from the outset, thought there was something unnatural in him petitioning for this favor of citizenship and, when presented with this obstacle, Murat felt relief that his efforts might fail and that his son, like him, might remain with but one nationality, that the boy might remain pure in this way. But as he lifted his glance from the attaché, so his eyes met those of the consular officer, that sense of relief shamed him. How could he deny his son anything? He then shook his head, conceding that he did not have an American marriage license, but only a Turkish one.
“Both you and your son would need to establish residence in the U.S. for a period of two years before either of you could submit an N-400 naturalization form. That would then take another year to process. These cases are complicated, but usually that’s the protocol.” The consular officer gathered up Murat’s papers.
“I can’t do that, my business is here,” said Murat.
“I’m sorry then”—the officer glanced down at the top sheet, reminding himself of Murat’s name—“Mr. Yaşar, this isn’t something we can solve today, perhaps …” Then he did a double take down at his form. “What is your business?”
“Construction.”
“Are you that Yaşar?”
“Excuse me?”
“Are you part of the Yaşar family?”
He didn’t want to disabuse the young consular officer of the belief that there still was a Yaşar family and not just a collection of inherited real estate holdings that he could hardly afford to maintain, or manage to sell. He was like a vanquished noble—his suit, his calfskin attaché, his father’s broken Patek Philippe—and like any vanquished noble he clung to dreams of reestablishing a bygone order.
Murat nodded.
The consular officer meticulously returned the papers in the exact manner Murat had presented them. He then clutched the folder in both hands, holding it like a tablet of commandments. “Your case is obviously complex,” he said. Behind Murat the fan in the waiting room continued its wobbling rotations: click, click, click, click. This was the only sound between them as Murat waited for the officer to finish his thought. “Under such circumstances we could take a closer look at your case file … If you’d be willing, I’d like to schedule another interview with someone in my office in which we’d have more time to discuss the matter.” He glanced past Murat, into the waiting room. His gaze fell somewhere near the Filipina woman. “We can do it at a place and time that’s more convenient for you. That will afford a bit more discretion.”
Murat thanked him and agreed. He also couldn’t help himself and made mention of how inconvenient scheduling this appointment had been, to which the young officer readily apologized, happy to indulge Murat’s grievance if doing so would facilitate a next meeting. He copied down all of Murat’s contact information. He then handed back the file of documents as well as one of his business cards. Its seal was gold embossed. Murat read the consular officer’s name, but also the name of his office, which was listed right below: Cultural Affairs.
* * *
Murat went from the consulate to his office, where he put in a few hours’ work, before returning to a dark house. A window had been left open and a breeze passed through the foyer, making the crystal chandelier’s pendants tinkle and chime in weak celebration, like many gently toasting glasses. Murat stood very still, trying to hear where his family was. A few months before, he had taken out a sizable mortgage to finance the home. The furniture from their walk-up in Cihangir couldn’t fill the new house. The living room had a love seat instead of a sofa. The dining room had a small, round kitchen table. The walls were mostly bare. He had often thought how he might fill them, but less so in recent days.
He climbed the stairs. The door to his room was shut and Catherine was likely asleep on its other side. Further up the hallway, he could hear William cooing. Murat entered the vast nursery, which they had yet to carpet. The unpolished floorboards creaked as he approached his son, who rested on his stomach in a wicker bassinet beneath a window without curtains. It was a mostly empty room and there wasn’t a chair for Murat to sit in. He flipped William onto his back and then stroked the boy’s primitive whorl of black hair, allowing it to slip through his fingers like fine sand as he considered his son’s dark complexion. “Do you really want to be an American?” he whispered to the boy. Murat glanced up at the high ceiling. “Such a big, lonely room.”
William clasped his father’s pinkie and began to suck, searching, it seemed, for the breast he didn’t have. Murat reached for a nearly full bottle of formula tucked into the bassinet’s corner. He offered its rubber nipple to William, who refused it, preferring instead the nub of empty flesh. Murat continued to pet the boy’s head, allowing him to suck. When he pulled his hand away, William began to cry. Murat again offered William the pinkie, which he took. This silenced him.
Murat couldn’t leave now. He crouched over the bassinet, glancing around the room’s four corners for a toy, or anything that would occupy an infant. Murat found nothing, so he unclasped his watch. He dangled it from its band just above William’s nose. Outside was overcast and dim moonlight filtered through the clouds into the room and when that light caught the watch’s gold case it glinted softly. William reached at the air, making little fists as he clutched after the glinting light.