Red Dress in Black and White by Elliot Ackerman

Author:Elliot Ackerman [Ackerman, Elliot]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2020-05-26T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

The street was empty and Peter hiked along its center. The mist had slickened the cobblestones and asphalt. The grade was steep. He lost his footing once or twice. The wind smelled like the sea. The birds that circled the ships in the strait also circled the treetops, some of which were beneath him. The leaves on the trees were full and green and the birds landed inside them. In places the leaves rustled and Peter could not tell if the rustling was from the wind or from the many invisible birds jockeying for space within the crowded branches.

The air became still again. Peter watched the moving trees and thought they must be very full of birds. The higher he climbed, the more the sound of the leaves mixed with the sounds from up the hill, from inside Gezi Park. He could hear the murmur of the chanting crowd, whose voices rose and rose as he approached, until they were dispersed by the pneumatic pops of discharging tear-gas canisters. He had begun to sweat as he climbed, and he could feel the residual tear gas seeding its menthol tinge into his pores and the corners of his eyes when he blinked.

He felt very awake.

The alley he had climbed emptied onto Sıraselviler Caddesi, an avenue in the European quarter of the city. The shuttered café façades gave off an early-morning atmosphere, as if at any moment the owners would sweep the sidewalks, set out their tables and scour the streets for customers. Adjacent to one of these cafés was the German Hospital, a relic that had long ago been turned over to local administration. Four men and a doctor stood at the front gate. They had gathered around a green, military-style stretcher. A woman was sitting up on the stretcher. She wore a red dress and carried a white canvas tote bag. Her hair was black and she was bleeding from behind her ear. The blood had traveled down her neck and mixed invisibly into the left strap of her red dress. Her arms were crossed over her knees. She looked confused.

All four of the men argued with the doctor. They had carried the woman down from Gezi Park and the doctor didn’t want her in his hospital, lest there be trouble with the authorities. The men were muscular, athletic types. Their shoulders were rounded, their waists were trim and their arms hung low at their sides, their knuckles practically brushing at their knees as if they were perpetually carrying a stretcher.

Peter thought that the woman had been lucky. Four physically fit men had been nearby in the crowd and ready to help her when she was struck. Peter then realized that this was no accident. Someone had decided that these four men should be stretcher-bearers—the protesters had begun to organize.

While the argument around her continued, the woman stood and began to walk back up Sıraselviler Caddesi, toward Gezi Park. She wore a pair of heels and as she stepped on the cobblestones she wobbled a bit.

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