More: A Novel by Hakan Günday Page A

you liked a handful of the fabric, you had to buy the whole thing. Just like in the textile industry. Or, to be more accurate, the spiderweb industry … As it came to show, everything had to do with fabrics. From the blindfold of Justitia, goddess of justice, to the flag, everything was a matter of fabrics. The few native Amazonians who had managed to stay naked owed the tranquility in their expressions to their lack of fabrics. The lack of tranquility in mine as I spoke to my father, on the other hand, I owed to being cut from the same fabric as him …
    “But if we had a camera … I could just put the monitor in the shed and keep track of things there. If something were to come up, I could go take care of it or, I don’t know, come tell you. Of course when you have the camera, you’d also need a light. Three fluorescent lights would be enough. See, I wrote down all the prices. Also I was thinking we can maybe put in a little partition. You know, instead of that curtain we make them put up. Plaster would do the trick. They get into a lot of fights over the toilet too. Some guy was staring at this one, staring at that one, that sort of stuff … I took the measurements and looked into the costs of that as well. Matter of fact I say we make a partition for the toilet, then this other partition. Say we put a ring on the wall of that one. You know how sometimes one of them freaks out, we stick him in there and chain him to the wall … We don’t need to hire anyone, either. I can take care of it all. And a fan. Because it stinks to high heaven in there. Which wouldn’t be a problem, but then someone passes out and you have to deal with that, it’s a waste of time! I think the less we have to do with the drugstore, the better. Look, here’s the cost for the fan. You can get floor fans. Three is enough. The trick is to avoid getting them sick … If I could just figure out a solution to the toilet issue too! I mean some sort of sewage link … but that’s too much work. No matter, we can keep doing that the old way … Now look, we’d need just about this much money to enlarge the reservoir. But see, all this adds up to just this. I say we don’t need to stick out our necks that much at all. It’d be enough to get these … What do you say?”
    He wasn’t saying anything. Yes, I had prepared well for my presentation, but there was never any knowing what Ahad would do. He was even apt to say, “Is this what you’ve been wasting time on when you could’ve been studying!” and land one right in my face, even though he didn’t care a bit about my school situation. But for the moment, he was content to just stare at me. It was as if he were seeing my face for the first time in his life. Maybe he was. He was seeing me for the first time. He stared … stared … and spoke:
    “Well done, kid!”
    I expelled my breath in part from each nostril so he couldn’t tell how much I’d been holding in. And of course, my heart started beating again. And it was then that a miracle happened and he placed his hand on my shoulder.
    “Are you sure you’ll be able to handle it all?”
    “I will! Don’t you worry. When’s the next shipment coming in?”
    “In two weeks.”
    I was reduced to a gibbering fool by his easy assent to my proposal. And this was proof:
    “In two weeks I’ll turn that reservoir into a paradise, I will!”
    He laughed. I laughed too. That his fourteen-year-old son was so enthusiastic, or even passionate it could be said, about the family business, must have moved some cells somewhere inside him. Perhaps for the first time since I was born, he was proud of me. He didn’t say that, naturally, but it was exactly that kind of moment. I would be happy to be proud of myself even if he wasn’t. After all, Ahad had already begun peeling bills from the sheaf he’d brought out of his pocket. Then all of a sudden he stopped and asked:
    “How’s school?”
    I was so taken aback that I babbled.
    “It’s