# Sular Çekilince

*Nedim Aksoy*

> Translated from Turkish into English.


## CH01 — Bir — Taşlar

When the waters drew back, the stones under the jetty showed themselves. As a child I used to count them; every year one was missing, every year the sea took one more.

My father called it getting used to it. I called it losing. We were both right, but he was quieter about it than I was.

"How many this year?" he asked, his back to me, mending the net.

"Seventeen."

His hands stopped. The mesh hung suspended between his fingers. Then he carried on, as though he had heard nothing at all.

That summer the harbour was dredged. They were going to deepen it so the big boats could come in. Nobody talked about what came up.

But I saw it. Early in the morning, while everyone slept, I stood at the end of the jetty and looked: there in the mud, the thing the years had kept hidden under the water was not hidden any more.

My father found me there that morning. He asked nothing. He only took my hand and walked me home — and for forty years neither of us spoke of that morning again.


## CH02 — İki — Dönüş

By the time I came back to the harbour forty years had passed, and the pier was still there.

It was shorter. Or I had grown.

"Demir's boy," someone said behind me. I did not turn around.

The waters had drawn back again. I did not count the stones.

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