The Lovers Read Online Free PDF Page B

curiosity of a first-time visitor.
    “Thank you,” Özlem said as Yvonne placed the tray on the coffee table in front of her.
    “Tea and sugar,” Yvonne said, and smiled at her own joke, a joke Özlem did not get.
    “My husband told me about your husband,” Özlem said. “I am sorry.”
    “Thank you,” Yvonne said, and then felt foolish to have thanked her. But it was a relief to not have to tell the story again.
    “So you are alone here?”
    “Yes. And then I’ll meet my son in a week. My son and his fiancée. And my daughter and her boyfriend.”
    Özlem nodded, as though to dismiss her own question.
    “How long have you and Mister—how long have you and Ali been married?” Yvonne was testing Özlem, still deciding if she was a deluded ex-wife or a fibbing lover.
    “Well, we were married five years, and now I don’t know…do you mind if I smoke?”
    “Fine,” Yvonne said. Aurelia had started smoking when she’d stopped drinking the first time, at sixteen, and Yvonne had grown used to it.
    Özlem tried three times to get her cigarette to light, swearing in Turkish each time it didn’t. Finally successful, she inhaled deeply and threw back her head. She was a beautiful woman.
    “We were married for five years and then I decided I wanted a divorce.”
    Yvonne nodded. Teaching had taught her to be a good listener. She had learned not to say Yes or Excuse me ? or express any surprise. She had discovered people felt most free to say what was on their minds when Yvonne bobbed her chin up and down encouragingly.
    “And so he took a girlfriend,” Özlem said. “This is the girlfriend’s house.”
    Yvonne tried not to increase the range of her nodding. She kept it consistent, a metronome.
    Özlem took another drag of her cigarette. It was unclear whether she was going to speak again.
    “And what happened to the girlfriend?” Yvonne asked.
    “What do you mean?”
    “I mean where did she go? She’s not here,” Yvonne said, and gestured around the room with her eyes.
    “Her mother is ill. She returned to Paris for two months.”
    “And then you came back here?”
    “Ali thought it was a good time for us to see if we are able to work things out.”
    Yvonne nodded. Özlem’s story added up.
    “Ali bought her this house,” Özlem said, looking around with a mixture of distaste and awe.
    “Why did she need her own house?”
    “She didn’t. It was one of his grand gestures. He bought me a house when we met. And I can imagine she probably did not so much like being in that house. All my things are there. Even when I went back to Istanbul for a while, when I was considering a separation, I left everything in the house.”
    Yvonne watched Özlem’s cigarette. It was balanced on the ashtray, the ashes about to drop to the table.
    “Why did you want a separation?” Yvonne knew she was violating her own rule, but she was curious, and Özlem didn’t seem shy.
    Özlem took a drag of the cigarette and the ashes fell on her jeans. She brushed them off, annoyed. Then she looked Yvonne in the eye. “He hit me,” she said.
    “Oh dear,” Yvonne said, though something about the way Özlem said this disturbed Yvonne on another level. “Oh my dear. I’m so sorry.”
    Now it was Özlem who nodded, accepting the sympathy. “So I left,” she said. “I went to Istanbul and I tried to be a single again. I tried to pursue the career I had when Ali and I met.”
    “What was that?”
    “I was a face of Dove.”
    “Pardon?”
    “You know Dove?”
    “No.”
    “The soap?”
    “Oh, yes, the soap.”
    “I was one of the faces of Dove.”
    “That’s great,” Yvonne said. For the first time, she thought she saw Özlem smile a happy smile. “Have you always been a model?”
    “No. I studied at a hotel and restaurant management school in Switzerland. But I hated it. I went because it was the occasion to live abroad. But I knew I didn’t want to work in the travel industry.”
    “I can see that,” Yvonne