the last book I ever read (The Anthropologists by Aysegül Savas, excerpt nine)

from The Anthropologists by Aysegül Savas:

On the phone, I told my mother that we were assembling a portfolio for a loan application.

I can’t believe it, my mother said. I would never have expected it of the two of you.

Our families had a foundational myth of me and Mama that was different from our own. My mother believed that our love for each other had something to do with the way that we tolerated each other’s mess and procrastination, even enabled it. For my father it was the fact that we lived so modestly, with a great tolerance for discomfort. He couldn’t understand why our couch was so narrow, our bathroom so cramped, our meals so meager. For Manu’s parents, we were united in our love of old things. The first time they visited us in the city, soon after we’d moved into our apartment—which we’d furnished with a farm table, a chest of drawers, a wardrobe, and a record player—they said that the place was like the village homes of a century ago. It wasn’t a compliment. To them, old things did not have the charm they did for us. Aged objects pointed to hardship, to ways of life they did not need to romanticize, because they had experienced them firsthand. Their own home resembled the lobby of a three-star hotel.

the last book I ever read (The Anthropologists by Aysegül Savas, excerpt eight)

from The Anthropologists by Aysegül Savas:

When Ravi arrived, he greeted Lena briefly, before joining another conversation. Lena came up to me.

You’re such a good housewife, she said.

It was the sort of comment she and I would have laughed about, but I didn’t find it funny after a day of cooking. In fact, I was finding it harder to laugh with Lena. She could probably sense this because she was all the more sarcastic.

the last book I ever read (The Anthropologists by Aysegül Savas, excerpt seven)

from The Anthropologists by Aysegül Savas:

The apartment was old, but more charming than decrepit. Wooden beams crossed the living room ceiling; there was a tiled fireplace in the bedroom, though is was out of use. Still, we could fill the hearth with candles. I had already made a mental arrangement: many white ones of different sizes. I could suddenly see us there with our own couch and dishes and towels. I wondered whether this was how some women felt about the prospect of having a child: that they could easily imagine a space for it.

the last book I ever read (The Anthropologists by Aysegül Savas, excerpt six)

from The Anthropologists by Aysegül Savas:

I’d planned to go home once my grandmother was out of the hospital, but then I realized that I couldn’t leave the city: our residency permits had expired and our new ones still had not arrived.

Don’t worry about it, my mother said, each time I apologized for not being there. We have everything sorted out.

That made me even sadder, as if my arrival had never been expected and they’d never really counted on me to help.

the last book I ever read (The Anthropologists by Aysegül Savas, excerpt five)

from The Anthropologists by Aysegül Savas:

The sun had set by the time we got on our bikes. We took the scenic route back, the wind biting our cheeks. It started to rain softly and the lights of lampposts blurred in front of us. We passed many neighborhoods, a tour of our various years in the city: the year we moved, the year we had no friends and went to every museum, the year we met Ravi and ate out with him almost daily.

That night, when we’d changed for bed and Manu set on the floor rolling a joint, I could barely recall anything from the brunch.

Did you have a good day? I asked.

Great, he said. I loved our ride back.

It might go on my list—the scenic bike ride. But I didn’t know whether it was sturdy enough to stand its ground, the two of us biking around a foreign city.

the last book I ever read (The Anthropologists by Aysegül Savas, excerpt four)

from The Anthropologists by Aysegül Savas:

Tereza called to ask whether we would like to come with her to a concert; she had extra tickets from a charity she had been a member of for years. The program was Brahms and Dvořák and Paganini, she said, none of which sounded very interesting to us. We told her we’d be happy to go.

the last book I ever read (The Anthropologists by Aysegül Savas, excerpt three)

from The Anthropologists by Aysegül Savas:

The following morning when Sara woke up, Manu and I were already in the living room, drinking coffee. It pleased me that Sara felt comfortable enough to sleep in. Somehow this seemed like a sign that our lives were real.