No more empty spaces, p.2
No More Empty Spaces, page 2
“Tesh-a-cure-edearim.” Will struggled with the Turkish for “thank you.”
“Evet.” She bobbed her head, another smile playing on her face. “Çok teşekkür ederim.”
He returned the smile and sank his teeth into the bread. Even the bread here tasted of adventure, unlike the packaged fluff on the supermarket shelves of Moorestown, the New Jersey suburb that had been home for the past five years.
* * *
Will slid into his jacket at the entrance to DECCO’s office. The company logo spanned the width of the door; drawn in bold block letters, it increased in size from left to right, ending with the O in the shape of a globe. Under DECCO, in smaller print, it read WE BUILD THE WORLD.
Some four hundred miles east-southeast, DECCO was building Kayakale Dam. It would rank among the ten largest dams in the world. It would double the electricity Turkey could generate. It would provide water for industry and irrigation for crops. It was progress.
Or it will be, he thought. If we can get it built.
Will straightened his tie, pulled his shoulders back, took a deep breath, and stepped in. He’d rehearsed “good morning” in Turkish for the last few blocks of the walk, günaydın . . . günaydın, but there was no one in the reception area to greet. Across the room were two office doors topped with panes of frosted glass, both closed. A shadow was visible through the pane of the door with the nameplate reading Gus Browning, the man Will was here to see. The other office appeared to be unoccupied, and Will didn’t recognize the name on it from any of the DECCO reports he’d seen so far.
A utilitarian metal desk sat along the left wall. Four brown vinyl chairs lined the right. Framed photographs—ground views and an aerial shot—and plans, maps, and cross sections of the Kayakale site hung on the walls. Since he was early, Will began at the far left and scanned the displays, searching for a hint of the story they told. Interpreting landscapes was what Will did, and studying maps and photos, particularly aerial shots, was a good start to the process.
From the time he took Geology 101, Will had been translating what he observed, mapped, and drilled in the field into words and drawings. As a professional engineering geologist, he’d been doing that primarily for engineers designing dams and water supply systems, and, most recently, the new port structure in Philadelphia. Because he could draw what he saw in the field, he could reverse the exercise. By studying a drawing or photograph, he could conceive the third dimension in his mind.
He examined the one aerial photo, squinting as he projected what he saw in the picture underground. He pulled out the notepad and pen he kept handy in his shirt pocket, and made a crude sketch, noting areas to investigate in the field.
He checked his watch again, then knocked on Gus Browning’s door.
“Yeah.”
Will entered the office, reaching his right hand forward. “I’m Will Ross. I’m here to. . . .”
“I know who you are,” Browning said, interrupting before Will could finish. His beefy hand covered the receiver of his phone. “It’ll be a minute,” Browning said, and jerked his head toward the door.
Will stepped back to the outer office and pulled the door shut. He scowled at his watch, then shoved his hands into his pockets. He’d been staring at a photograph as the seconds ticked away before he realized he wasn’t seeing it. He shook his head, refocused. There were seven men in the photo, two he recognized. John Heatley, Will’s new boss from DECCO’s New York office, was front and center. He was shaking hands with a man Will presumed to be Heatley’s counterpart with DSI, Turkey’s Directorate of State Hydraulic Works and DECCO’s client on the project. Browning was second from the right in the photo and towered over the others. He probably played football back in the day.
The group was posed in front of a huge ’dozer. They all smiled widely at the camera. Must’ve been the groundbreaking.
But now the ground is breaking the project, Will thought.
The door latch clicked. “Come in,” Browning barked.
Will strode in, extending his right hand again.
“Sit,” Browning commanded, ignoring Will’s outstretched hand. He cocked his chin at a low chair.
Will saw his résumé on the desk. Browning balanced a pair of squared-off, black-rimmed reading glasses above a bump on his nose that looked like a remnant of the football days Will had imagined. He picked up the résumé and began reading. The thick muscles of his arms and shoulders strained the fabric of his starched white shirt. His brown hair was sprinkled with gray and was buzz cut, military-style. After several minutes, he laid the pages down, placed his hands flat on the desk on either side of them, and leaned forward.
“Willard Ross, Philadelphia Port builder. What the hell good you can do us at Kayakale is beyond me, but Heatley didn’t check with me before he slapped you onto my bottom line. Your kids too.”
“It’s Will, if you don’t mind, Gus.”
“Call me Mr. Browning. And I mind plenty.”
“You won’t when I figure out where to pump the grout so it’ll take,” Will said, also leaning forward.
“Don’t fuck with me, Ross. We’re not idiots here.”
“You’re not geologists either,” Will said. “And you need one to find out what’s going on in the foundation.”
“That might be someone’s opinion.” He pulled his glasses off and glared at Will. “Doesn’t happen to be mine.”
“It happens to be our boss’s opinion. I can help you here.”
“My boss. I’m your boss.”
“That wasn’t what I understood,” Will said.
“Then you understood wrong.” Browning tapped his glasses on the desk.
Will’s right hand wandered up to his shirt pocket, the old habit of looking for a cigarette, though he hadn’t smoked in years. He was stalling, figuring out what to say. A younger, rasher Will would’ve pushed the point, and he had, too many times. He’d learned that sometimes saying what you think doesn’t get you what you want. He took a measured breath.
“Well, your boss hired me, so you’re probably stuck with me. And I know I can help with your problem,” Will said.
Browning slammed his meaty hands on his desk. “You’re my problem, Ross. This is my damn project, and I don’t know who those assholes in New York think they are, going around me.”
No stalling this time, Will pushed forward in his chair and said, “If I’m your only problem, Mr. Browning, that ‘Swiss Cheese Rock’ article we all read in the Engineering News Record must be the first fiction they’ve ever published.”
Browning’s face flushed, and a vein in his forehead pulsed. The sound of a door opening and closing broke the charged silence. Both men turned toward the adjacent office.
“Look, you’re here, and I’ll be in Kayakale. Out of your way. Give me a chance to figure out what’s going on. Six months. If I haven’t got answers by then, I’ll leave.”
“You won’t be leaving on your own if you don’t have answers in six months.”
“Where do I pick up my vehicle, and who do I check in with at the site? I’ll be on the road to Kayakale before dawn tomorrow. I have a meeting this afternoon with Mehmet Alkumru.”
“What?” Browning roared, standing and slamming his hands on the desk again.
“John, I mean Mr. Heatley, wanted me to meet him before I left Ankara. He had Belinda make the appointment.”
“No fucking way, Ross,” he yelled. “I’m DECCO’s point man with DSI, period.”
“Okay, okay.” Will raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. He’d let Browning win this one. “Like I said, Mr. Heatley set it up, not me. Look, you saw my résumé. I’ve worked overseas, and I get it. Headquarters doesn’t really know what’s going on in-country. Could you just call and tell the DSI folks you’re sending me directly to the site?”
Browning stood a moment longer before sinking back into his chair. He picked up his glasses, working the hinges open and closed. Then he tossed the glasses onto the desk, yanked a drawer open, and fumbled around in it. He flung a set of keys at Will, a little out of easy reach.
Will half rose to catch them. “Thank you.”
“It’s parked around back. The Land Cruiser. Report to Erdem Borkan on-site.”
“Right.”
“Check in next door. Accounting. There’re papers to sign.”
Will nodded, stood, and turned. Only then did he allow himself a hint of a smile as he left Browning’s office at a deliberate pace.
THREE
Kevin glanced at his watch when the call to morning prayer echoed through the streets from every direction, louder than the rattling of the Land Cruiser over the uneven pavement. Twenty till six. He remembered learning to tell time by those calls when he was a kid in Pakistan. He looked up to find sunrise tracing a line of light along the horizon. Low-angle light was best for shooting, and Kevin tried to capture the dawning day on film. Clouds feathered across the sky like they were painted on a glowing orange backdrop.
“High winds aloft,” Dad said.
Kevin was more entranced with the shapes than what made them. When the sun burst over the clouds and flooded the car with light, Kevin lowered his camera and rolled up his window to quiet the wind.
Rob and Didi were asleep in the back seat, and Kevin could hear his brother’s soft snores. He fidgeted in the seat, uncomfortable, both on the cushion that felt like its springs would pop out and having seen all the stuff in the back of the Land Cruiser when they’d loaded up. He could quiet the wind but not his mind. It looked like way too much. He wanted to ask, but he knew when his father had a plan, that was the plan, so why bother asking.
He studied the familiar and intense features of Dad’s face like he’d studied the clouds moments before. His nose was long and straight, its tip angled back to his nostrils like an arrowhead. His chin and jaw were also chiseled. There the sharp symmetry ended. Though he couldn’t see it, Kevin knew Dad’s left eyebrow tilted lower than the right and the right side of his mouth drooped subtly. Kevin remembered being a kid, watching Dad shave, how he navigated the razor around the uneven lines of his lips. Kevin smelled his Old Spice aftershave. His father’s hair was trimmed short and parted on the right side like always, but until just now Kevin hadn’t realized how gray it was. Silvery strands shone in the sun. He added twenty-three to fifteen. Thirty-eight. Pretty old. Almost forty.
Squinting at him, trying to get him in better focus, Kevin couldn’t believe Dad hadn’t told him before Saturday that they were going all the way to Turkey. The man with the plan had to have known, at least a few days ahead. His father used to tell him things, important things, like about the divorce last year. He’d talked to Kevin before they all sat down for their family meeting. Kevin hated family meetings.
It was true that he used to tell Dad stuff too—about school and track and his dream of being a National Geographic photographer. But since the day he saw Alfred Stieglitz’s photographs of his wife, Georgia O’Keeffe, which led Kevin to her paintings on a school trip to the Philadelphia Art Museum, he’d kept it to himself that he might want to be an artist instead. And that art was his favorite subject now, not science or math, like his father thought. Of course, he hadn’t told Dad about Mom’s drinking either. Or her boyfriends.
Kevin couldn’t see Dad’s sometimes-luminous, sometimes-piercing eyes, so he couldn’t gauge his mood. But he seemed excited about everything here—the project, the food, learning Turkish words, everything. Life could be fun when his father was excited, like when they flew in his plane, or when he and Rob and Dad went fishing. Even the quiet hours developing film together in their darkroom had their magic.
Kevin lifted his camera and framed his father’s face in the viewfinder. He liked how the landscape made a blurred background for the shot. Dad’s beloved landscape. Kevin slid the focus ring in, then out a little. He clicked the shutter.
“What is it?” his father asked, turning to look at Kevin looking at him.
“Nuthin’.”
“Don’t mumble,” Dad said.
Asshole, Kevin thought.
* * *
Will floored the accelerator to pass an overloaded semi on the narrow two-lane highway. He checked the rearview mirror, then glanced over his right shoulder before pulling back into his lane. With that small sweep of his head, he caught a glimpse of each of his sleeping children. Kevin was in the passenger seat beside him. The boy was thin and rangy, having sprouted three or four inches in the past year. He stayed impossibly skinny no matter how many Rossano’s pepperoni pizzas he devoured—his favorite. Last night, Kev ordered the Turkish equivalent for dinner, a long oval flatbread topped with spiced ground lamb—lahmacun, pronounced la-ma-joon. They all had a piece and agreed it was delicious. Will figured they could learn to make it. It’d be fun.
Kevin’s sandy-brown bangs hung over his forehead and eyes as his head bounced with the vibration of the old Land Cruiser. The Nikkormat FTn camera, which Will had given him three years ago for his twelfth birthday, was about to slide off his lap. Will reached over and tucked the camera next to Kevin’s narrow hip. He patted his son’s knee ever so lightly, while moving his hand back to the armrest between them. Kevin stirred, but didn’t wake.
The sun was high overhead. The Kızılırmak River valley was off to the right, and the city of Sivas lay ahead.
Will allowed himself another look at Rob and Didi in the rearview mirror. He could just see the outline of Didi’s little figure curled up beside her twelve-year-old brother. Rob’s sun-bleached hair, so like his mother’s, ruffled in the wind from Will’s half-open window.
The last time he’d seen Kat’s hair flashed through his mind; the tangled mess had hidden her face. He shook his head to dispel that morning’s image. What happened to the pretty girl he’d loved? That girl got giggly after one drink, the lipstick smudges on the side of her glass matching the Pink Lady cocktails she favored when they met.
He checked his watch and subtracted eight hours to calculate the time in New Jersey. Three in the morning by the kids’ body clocks; no wonder they were tired. But Will felt fully awake. In all his years of international travel, right from the first when he’d landed in Korea in the fifties as a newly trained combat medic, Will’s internal clock adjusted to wherever he was in the world. Both mornings in Ankara, he woke before his alarm, excited to launch into the unknown. That’s what made life the adventure it was meant to be, a conclusion he’d reached at sixteen when he’d enlisted, not much older than Kevin was now.
He remembered that long-ago afternoon, strutting into the house in Payson, Arizona, announcing to his mother, “School’s boring. I joined the Marines.”
She’d looked up from the onions she was chopping and smiled at him.
He’d been surprised. He’d expected a fight, like usual.
“But I’m too young. You’ll have to sign that it’s okay, Mom.” Will placed the page down on the table, pointed to the line on the form, and held out a pen.
She’d wiped her hands on her apron, taken the pen, and signed in her jerky, sprawling hand, not bothering to read the form.
“There ya go,” she’d said. “You be proud to serve your country, sonny. You know, I served. Built them Victory ships in World War II. They called us Rosies. Rosie the Riveter.”
Make that one ship, he’d thought. She’d hated the drippy Northern California weather and quit the shipyard after a couple of months, found her third husband, and hauled Will to the next town and his fourth school that year. But that had been seven years and two husbands before Will enlisted, and by that time, he’d gotten over expecting stability from his mother, or his life—or even wanting it.
Two sets of railroad tracks, one from the north and one from the southwest, merged just west of Sivas and paralleled the road into the city. When they passed a petrol station, Will checked the gas gauge and the kids. A third of a tank remained, and they were all soundly asleep. Their faces were so peaceful. What a contrast from three days earlier when Will told them they were leaving the States that very afternoon. Gathered around him on the Toll House Lane lawn, he could read their feelings on their faces—worry on Kevin, anger on Rob, and delight on Didi.
“No!” Rob had yelled. “I have a game today. I’m not going!”
“Sorry, son, you are. It’ll give the benchwarmers a chance to play.”
“But, Dad. . . .” Rob’s chin had quivered.
“No buts. We’ll call Coach Mazza from the station.”
“You can’t make me go!” Rob’s voice had cracked. He’d pulled his mitt off and flung it onto the ground, hurled his backpack across the yard, and run. “I won’t go!” he’d hollered and disappeared around the house.
“Rob, get back here.” Will had started after him.
“Dad! Don’t! I know where he’ll go. You won’t find it,” Kevin had said. “I can get him.”
And Kevin had. He’d known where to find his brother and how to coax him out of the woods and into the car.
Sitting behind Will as they sped to the Trenton Transit Center that day, Rob had wiped his nose with the back of his hand, his eyes puffy and red-rimmed. But the boy hadn’t cried in front of, or rather in back of, Will. And Will was proud of him for that, though he’d have been prouder if Rob hadn’t cried at all.
It was true that Rob was probably leaving the Moorestown Little League MVP award behind. He was the league’s star shortstop, gliding over the infield with a grace that defied his short, sturdy build. Good hitter too.
Will pushed against the steering wheel, flexing his arms and shoulders. He stretched his neck from side to side, then settled back into the Land Cruiser’s lumpy seat. He took a long breath of the hot, dry air.
Just a few more hours and they’d be in Kayakale—their new home. Tonight, Will would tell the kids this was more than a vacation. They would be happy here. Rob would settle down. Kevin would help with that. And Didi would be easy. He remembered how she’d skipped across the grass when he told them they were going. “A ’benture! Turkey! Gobble, gobble, gobble!”
