“We need to use a phone,” said Deniz.
The detective glanced inside the cell, where the other officers brandished their canisters of pepper spray or clutched their batons by both ends, like rolling pins, as they efficiently restored order. The officer who had been rough with Peter carefully helped him along the corridor with another officer, who had also come to his side. This left Deniz alone with the detective. He asked again about the phone call.
“We’ll handle all of that,” said the detective. “But your friend doesn’t listen.”
“He didn’t do anything,” said Deniz. “They sprayed him for no reason.”
“That’s not what I meant,” said the detective. “I told him to be careful when I first met him. He didn’t listen.”
Deniz silently followed the detective. The rubber soles of his black boots squeaked down the corridor as they walked toward the harsh lights and linoleum floors of the infirmary. Behind them the cell had returned to silence and it seemed, finally, that everyone had chosen to go to sleep.
“He’s an American?” asked the detective, glancing in the direction Peter had been taken.
Deniz nodded.
“It’s always good to have an American who owes you a favor,” continued the detective. “But I imagine you know that.”
Two-thirty on that afternoon
Their cab stops right as the rain starts. Catherine has made a plan with Peter and she needs to keep to it. So she wanders into the park. She stands with William beneath a row of elms. The air has measurably cooled and William clutches the white, nameless terrier’s warm body to his own. The occasional raindrop navigates through the weave of overhead branches with their broad flat leaves and finds its way onto William’s exposed neck, or into the dog’s gray eyes. Across the grass is a vast playground, and as the rain picks up, heavier drops hit the hollow plastic slides and the sound is like a drumroll, as if some incredible stunt were about to be performed.
The more rain that falls on Catherine, the more her expression sets with determination. Peter’s plan to meet here, outdoors, hadn’t been a good one and she needs somewhere else to go.
Behind the playground is a parking lot with a small tollbooth that houses an attendant. The lot is empty, so the booth is likely empty as well. Catherine removes her black jacket and hangs it from one of the low, bare branches that jut like pegs from the side of the tree. “We’re going to run over there,” she says to William, pointing across a muddy field with puddles to the booth. “Hop up on my shoulders to keep your feet dry.” She grasps William under his arms, as if to hoist him in a single thrust above her head. Murat often carried William in this way, lifting him in a clean jerk, his technique as perfect as that of any weight lifter. When Catherine bends to try, she realizes that she isn’t quite strong enough. William then sets his dog on the wet earth and shimmies up the side of the tree, high enough to dangle by his arms from one of the limbs. Catherine tucks her head between his legs. The nameless dog nervously runs figure eights around her feet while she regains her balance.
“Hold my blazer over your head,” she says, her voice choked with the effort.
William asks about the dog.
Catherine glances down, bends her knees slightly as if to pick him up, but stumbles. “Don’t worry,” says William. “He’ll follow us.”
“Ready?” she asks.
Before William can answer, she strides out into the rain.
Catherine runs quickly, but unsteadily. William holds her blazer above their heads; when it catches the breeze, it tugs upward like an insufficient wing. With his hands occupied, William’s balance is off and he totters on Catherine’s shoulders. She lurches from one side to the other with each of her uneven footfalls, nearly toppling into the mud as they chart their way out from under the trees, past the playground and then finally onto the parking lot. By this time the cadence of her steps has slowed. She falters through the deep puddles in the chipped and uneven macadam. She grips William by the ankles. Each of her fingers presses firmly into his skin, holding him more tightly the closer she comes to falling herself. “Too tight,” he protests. She apologizes under labored breath. Then, losing her balance, she clamps down once again.
They arrive at the tollbooth. Catherine collapses at the waist, nearly dropping William, who still holds the blazer above their heads. The two of them become tangled in it as they try to stand. She tugs on the shut door. When it unlatches, she releases a single expiring breath, which she quickly muffles with a confident “In you go” as she rests her hand on William’s shoulder and sweeps him inside.
William stops her when she reaches to pull the door closed.
The terrier saunters in their direction from across the parking lot, holding a steady pace, in no rush it seems, as if accepting that he cannot get any wetter than he already is. Catherine calls after him, yet he refuses to hurry. He processes with a great dignity, even stopping at one point to have a drink from one of the puddles, his spry tongue lapping up the fresh water. It is only when Catherine motions to shut the tollbooth’s door a second time that the small dog chooses to cover the last few meters between them.
Catherine places William on a three-legged stool, the only spot to sit in the booth. A single lightbulb radiates above them. Catherine glances at it, concerned—though for the moment she chooses to ignore the question of who left it on and whether they might return. Water trickles down the backs of William’s legs, pooling beneath his shoes. Catherine clamps her hair at the neck in a ponytail and wrings it out. Droplets speckle the dust on the plywood floor and form into puddles. Catherine unhinges a small panel window above a shelf and this allows the air to circulate. Spread across the shelf are a phone book, some tabloid glossies and a portable television the shape of a cinder block with a transistor receiver jutting from its top.
Catherine lifts William from the stool, sits herself down and then places him on her lap. She fiddles with the dial on the television, tuning through static and a few daytime talk shows, until she eventually finds some cartoons in black and white. She kisses the top of William’s head and smooths out his hair, which is mussed from the rain. “This isn’t so bad,” she offers, but she speaks as if convincing herself. William leans against her. The dog curls up in a dry corner beneath the shelf.
“How long are we going to stay here?” asks William.
“Until the storm passes.”
“Then we’ll go home?”
Catherine begins to thumb through one of the glossy magazines.
William asks again.
“Watch a little television,” she says, keeping her eyes fixed on the pages. “The rain will let up soon.” She has found one of William’s favorite shows, but he fidgets restlessly on her lap as he watches. Without color, the story no longer holds his attention.