The Secret Son by Jenny Ackland

Author:Jenny Ackland
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2015-07-27T04:00:00+00:00

Ferhat went to see if James was feeling any better and wanted tea while Lame Adar knocked on Meryem’s door.

Inside, the house was filled with women crowded up at the back window, looking out at the shed. They were there to help with making pastry, but none of them were doing anything other than look out the window. The women surrounded Adar, accosting him with their questions. He was invited for tea but declined, saying they were taking a pot to the foreigner. The women wanted to know if it was true the prisoner’s eyes were the colour of the sky, whether he was as tall as a tree. Was he from Adana?

‘He’s not a prisoner, he’s a guest of Ferhat,’ Lame Adar said. ‘He’s not from Adana, but it’s true that his eyes are the same blue as the little flowers you find beside the river.’ The women wanted to know how long he would be staying but Adar couldn’t say.

‘I’m leaving now.’ Adar moved to the door. ‘And Mr Haluk said to make sure the foreigner has enough pillows.’

Meryem tried to push the women out. She had cooking on the stove and the two boys were wrestling and running around the room. One was her son and the other her nephew and two years younger. His mother had died during his birth and some whispered that he had killed her. His father had gone to war with her husband, two of them brothers, off to adventure. Neither had come back, but instead of them, this man had. This foreign man with his stranger-blue eyes.

‘If he killed my father at the war, I will kill him back.’ It was the smaller boy, her nephew, six-year-old Ahmet, standing in front of her with fists clenched.

‘Oh, soos, Ahmet. You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Saliha, Meryem’s daughter who was helping at the stove. Saliha chased Ahmet to the divan, where she sat on him until he squealed.

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