Honor (9781101606148) Read Free Page B

the air like buzzing bees.
    The second venue was far more modest but just as popular. It showed films of varying quality, thanks to the tastes of its owner, who preferred adventures to political tirades and paid smugglers large commissions to bring him new films, along with tobacco, tea and other contraband. Thus the people of Urfa had seen a number of John Wayne Westerns,
The Man from the Alamo
and
Julius Caesar
, as well as
The Gold Rush
and other films involving the funny little man with the dark moustache.
    On this day there was a black-and-white Turkish film, which Pembe watched from the beginning to the end with her mouth slightly agape. The heroine was a poor, pretty girl in love with a boy who was very rich, very spoiled. But he changed. Such was the magic of love. While everyone – starting with the boy’s parents – disparaged the young lovers and connived to separate them, they would meet secretly under a willow tree on the banks of a river. There they would hold hands and sing songs as sad as a sigh.
    Pembe loved everything about the cinema – the ornate foyer, the heavy, draped curtains, the thick, welcoming darkness. She couldn’t wait to tell Jamila about this new wonder. On the bus back home, she sang the film’s theme song over and over.
    Your name is carved on my destiny,
    Your love flows in my veins
    If you ever smile at someone else
    I’d kill myself or grief would kill me first
    As Pembe swayed her hips and fluttered her hands, the other passengers clapped and cheered. When finally she fell silent, more out of weariness than out of any sense of propriety, Berzo laughed, his eyes creasing around the edges.
    â€˜My talented girl,’ he said, with a touch of pride in his voice.
    Pembe buried her face in her father’s broad chest, inhaling the lavender oil that perfumed his moustache. She didn’t know it, but this would be one of the happiest moments of her life.
    *
    When they returned home, they found Jamila in a dreadful state – eyes swollen, face puffed up. All day she had waited by the window, fidgeting with her hair, chewing her bottom lip. Then, suddenly and without reason, she had unleashed a terrible cry. No matter how hard her mother and sisters tried to calm her down, she hadn’t stopped wailing.
    â€˜When Jamila started to weep, what time was it?’ Pembe queried.
    Naze gave this some thought. ‘Sometime in the afternoon, I suppose. Why are you asking?’
    Pembe offered no answer. She had learned what she wanted to know. She and her twin, though miles apart, had cried out simultaneously at the moment of the injection. People said twins were two bodies with one soul. But they were more than that. They were one body, one soul. Destiny and Enough. When one closed her eyes, the other one went blind. If one hurt, the other bled. And when one of them had nightmares, it was the other’s heart that pounded inside her chest.
    That same evening, Pembe showed Jamila the dance steps she had seen in the film. Taking turns to mimic the heroine, they twirled, kissed and hugged like a couple in love, giggling.
    â€˜What’s all this noise?’
    It was Naze, her voice stiff with disdain. She had been winnowing rice on a flat tray.
    Pembe’s eyes widened with resentment. ‘We were just dancing.’
    â€˜And why would you do that?’ Naze retorted. ‘Unless you two have decided to turn yourselves into harlots.’
    Pembe didn’t know what a harlot was but dared not ask. She felt a surge of resentment course through her – why couldn’t her mother enjoy the songs as the passengers on the bus had done? Why were perfect strangers more tolerant than one’s closest kin? She was still contemplating this question when she heard Jamila take a step forward, as if to own up to the guilt, and murmur, ‘We’re sorry, Mama. We won’t do it again.’
    Pembe glared at her twin, feeling