Sulemaniye Avlu

by Marian Szczepanski

In Turkish, it's son cemaat yeri, the place of last assembly, where devotees too late to squeeze inside spread their rugs, knees and faces turned kble, toward Mecca. We stand on the steps of that stone platform, bending and reaching, searching for the shoes we'd shed to enter the Sulemaniye, the fourth sultan¹s magnificent mosque. On the dirty carpet square, tired sandals and city-soiled loafers lie, jumbled with my daughters' Nikes. Beneath long minaret-shadows, we stand, tourists and Turks alike, outside in the avlu, great columned courtyard, uncovering and covering our feet, covering and uncovering our heads, the workaday bustle of worship here. I loosen the scarf I'd bought for this new habit and watch my youngest. Six years old, hair like pale hay, she hops from step to step, sneaker flapping in each hand. A game to her, going about in socks outside in October, and she plays it to the hilt, dodging my cautious hands, ignoring my hushed insistence to stop, sit, quiet, tie. Remember, I'd whispered when we'd entered, people are praying here. How to convey that now, as I stand, a stranger wanting to do The Right Thing outside in the avluas my child shouts and bounces down the stairs through the assembled? I motion to my husband who is busy with the other two, still foraging for shoes, and he turns as a small man parts the throng. Wrinkled as an old, brown apple, frayed white skullcap, dusty jacket -- these I notice less than his purposeful approach toward my daughter. She sees, too, runs to me with her shoes. We stand, my husband, her sisters, and I, outside in the avlu as the stranger lays his hands on my silent child's hair, as his capped head bows over hers, as he chants in the language that infuses every pillar of this long-sacred space. He stands with us to bless my noisy daughter, wary now as she watches me, her speechless mother, for a cue. Then he lifts his hands and smiles at her, at me, at my husband and her sisters in this miracle-moment, reminding me of Jesus and the children, reminding me that there is more than just one way to pray.

Marian Szczepanski, a Houston writer, is working on her second novel.