by Rachel Lawrence Godfrey
I look at the devastation that is my hotel room floor. I am tired and groggy. The Salat al-fajr dawn muazzin woke me, and I tossed and turned until it was real morning. I am still in-between time zones; not here long enough to be local but here long enough that I am off-kilter from home. I switched my watch to local but kept my phone on Washington time, able to confirm the time before I called and checked up on reality. I read somewhere that you need a day for each hour of time zone difference. At day five, I am exactly half-way there.
I need caffeine to jumpstart my brain before I face my room. I head down to the lobby to get some Turkish coffee. Its nickname here is Botz, which means mud, because of the sludge left in the bottom of the cup after drinking it. It is strong, hot, and deliciously sweet. After a second cup, I am ready to start packing. The room looks like it was bombed, my stuff strewn around as if I have been here for weeks or months instead of days.
I look at my wrist to check the time and realize my watch is not there. I love my watch. It was an instant adoration purchase. On a first-date a few months before, I noticed my knock-off Casio had stopped ticking. The mall jeweler said it would be more expensive to replace the battery than purchase a new watch. So the knock-off went to where watches go when they die, and I looked around the store, falling in love with a black and white bangle watch, with diagonally cuffed edges that, artistically, did not fully close. When we heard the price, Dennis bought me the watch, joking about the extravagance of the twenty-seven-dollar price tag as a gift for a woman on a first date. I loved the watch and quickly fell in love with the man as well.
I know I wore it last night to dinner at HaGavor restaurant in the Artesian Craft market just minutes away from the Shuk, as I had left my phone in the hotel to avoid distracting beeps and stay focused on the dinner. After three years of avoiding my parents, three years of heartache mixed with the bliss of no fighting, my five-years-younger brother, Jonah, had begged me to come home. He was finally coming out, and had begged my supportive presence as he spoke to our bigoted parents.
Although our mother wore her hair uncovered and dressed in pants, and our father only went to services on weekends, we were raised steeped in the flavors of our religion. Having gone to university out of the sphere of our parents’ control, I took further steps away from religion when I went to an American graduate school. Still unmarried at twenty-eight my parents constantly disparaged my life choices. Jonah, too scared of their wrath, followed their directives until he met Ethan and tumbled truly and helplessly into love. I had met Ethan on day two of my trip and spent the following two days with him and Johan, reveling in their happiness.
The dinner was as fraught as expected. I had arrived early and my parents started dissecting my life until poor Jonah showed up with Ethan and explained their love. The dinner turned loud and angry, full of incomprehension, denunciations, hurt, and tears. Jonah and Ethan left fifteen minutes after the screaming started. My parents stomped off soon after saying somehow it was my fault. My new Americanism had brought this upon them. My new Americanism was also left with the bill.
After dinner, I went from pub to pub, numbing the sorrow I felt for Jonah, Ethan, and myself, until I wandered back to the hotel, oblivious to the beauty of the cobblestone streets at night, the clear starred skies, and the quiet noise of the ocean as the waves hit the sandy beach.
I remember looking at my watch, checking to see if it was late enough to be early enough to call home. It was, and I called my lover whom I had not told anyone about. Not even Jonah. Love pounded through me as I thought of Dennis. But it was a love too young, too promising, and too hopeful to share. At least Ethan was Jewish. Dennis was not.
I turn the hotel room upside down as I search for my watch while simultaneously packing. The open windows let in the sun and the glorious smells of the ocean, contaminated with the stench of drying seaweed. The gulls screech over the sound of cars honking in the traffic. I stop my search and stand for a moment letting the beauty compensate for the previous night, before finishing my pack-and-search. I zipped the suitcase closed and place it next to my carry-on against the bedroom door. Then I start my watch search over again.
The seagulls continue to squawk as I sit on the bed and look around. There, under the bedside table, a flash of metal. Presumably, I knocked against it in my sleep and the bangle must have fallen off my wrist. I take the lamp off the tabletop and heft the heavy wooden table out of the way. I find my watch between mountains of dust and a candy bar wrapper and sacrifice one of my remaining antibacterial wipes to clean it. I check the time as I put in on, and after a last lingering look at the blue of the ocean, get ready to leave. My phone pings as if it somehow knows I was about to exit the Wi-Fi bubble and go into international roaming fees.
Somehow it will be okay with Jonah. Just you find a nice boy. Dad will forgive you, from my mother.
I hate them, from Jonah.
See you in 18 hours, my love, from my Dennis.
I ignore my mother.
Me too, I text Jonah. A quick look at my found watch shows I have five minutes before I really need to leave. I pick up my phone and call Dennis, while watching the gulls swoop over the sea and the tide playing against the sand.
Category: Featured, Fiction, SNHU Student