The road to absolution

by Anabel Kutay (United Kingdom (Great Britain))

I didn't expect to find Turkey

The sliding glass doors shudder and jolt to open. A great steaming fug of cigarette smoke hits me in the face like a torrid wave. It takes my breathe. Meat kebab and armpit and Holidays. It is familiar and I like it, although I am ashamed that I like it. Through the night time smog he emerges, heralded by a chorus of crickets. ‘Creeping Jesus’ my mother used to call him. He skulks forward, a cigarette drooping from his thin lips. His once Auburn hair is an unfortunate shock of rose gold and his skin is gaunt beneath handsome cheekbones. He hugs me tight and I can feel his bones. He smells the same as always. Tobacco and Orange peel. We drive with the windows down in an old jeep. It is not his. It is hers. I remember. The hot night blasts my face. I try not to cry. “How will we do this Dad?” His lips go to move. The fag droops in preparation. I tense in anticipation of the profound wisdom to come. A perceptive instruction perhaps? A mollifying word to extinguish the anguish? He murmurs and readjusts the cigarette. The words are swallowed. Drowned like a wasp in chlorinated depths. The fag ash flits and oscillates in his muted exhalation and settles despondently on the gearstick. We journey for hours in languid hebetude, pausing only for squeezed orange juice at a rickety roadside stall. Dad pulls out a wad of cash bound by an elastic band. He expertly flicks the band to release a crisp note and places it on the juicy formica counter. We perch on faded plastic chairs talking in English, whilst tanned children in grubby Disney T-shirts stare out from a blackened doorway. The juice is startling. Sweet, tangy and acrid. My mouth floods with Saliva and I crave for more. I am a child again. I feel a tsunami of grief rising in my throat. It strangles my senses and the taste evaporates leaving only nostalgia in its wake. We are getting close now. The Jeep sways recklessly as we make our ascent, dodging potholes and skimming the edges of plunging crevices. Dusty donkeys elude on the roadside, peeping mournfully from beneath batting lashes. We skid into the drive, camouflaged by a cartoonish cloud of terracotta earth. The cloud settles, but I do not. A hot rage swamps my soul. My heart slams violently against my ribs screaming murder. Murder. I squint to survey the overgrown gardens, once manicured, once cared for. The outline of the squat central villa and various outbuildings shrouded in greenery, like a dark curse from which they will never be free. The swimming pool glows turquoise. A precious gem, once filled with promise of family and friends and good times. Fairy lights boast from carved pumpkin carcasses and a lackadaisical palm tree musses my hair as I trail the sun scorched flagstone path. The crickets are louder here. They scream in the darkness like ghosts of the past. Stray cats join the nightmare chorus, mewing as they line up on a crumbling dry stone wall. An expectant audience. A strange child emerges from the darkness. My heart lurches. But this is MY home. MINE. A home and a battlefield, where the great fight for my father was fought and lost. The victor lurks in the botanical shelter of the overgrown path. Her scent drifts on a tentative breeze. Raw onions and sumak, clammy skin. And fear. Yes fear. I am ignited by a rush of adrenalin. My veins pulsate, blue in the moonlight, straining for escape like a rabid animal. I lift my chin and stare down at her with formidable defiance. She tentatively extends a hand in peace. I take it and squeeze, too tight. Tears roll down her cheeks and although I do not pity her, I pull her closer into a pythons coil of something that may look like forgiveness. Over her shoulder I see the face of my father and it is as though I am seeing him for the first time. A face of sorrow and regret, pain and pride and I know that he will be my father once again.