Black Milk

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by Elif Shafak


  Moon Woman

  In 1862, Leo Tolstoy married a woman sixteen years his junior: Sophia Andreevna Bers. Although the marriage was to become known as one of the unhappiest in literary history, there may have been much love and passion between them-at least in the early years. There was a time when they laughed together, he like a wild horse galloping at full speed, she like a mare cantering across the paddock, timid but excited. Thirteen children came of this union (nineteen, according to some). Five of them died during childhood. Sophia raised the remaining eight (or fourteen). She spent a large portion of her life as a young woman either pregnant or breast-feeding.

  She was like the moon in its phases, glowing against the starry skies. Her body changed every minute of the day, every week, and every month, filling out, rounding up to fullness, and then slimming down only to fill out again. Sophia was a moon woman.

  While Tolstoy was in his room, writing by the light of an oil lamp, Sonya-the Russian diminutive for Sophia-distracted the children lest they disturb their father. Her diaries bear witness to her dedication. When Tolstoy asked Sophia not to nag him for not writing, she was so surprised she wrote down in her diary, “But how can I nag? What right do I have?” Night after night, year after year, she worked hard to make the process of writing easier for him. And in the hours that were not consumed by her kids, she acted as her husband’s secretary. Not only did she keep the notes for War and Peace, she rewrote the entire manuscript seven times over. Once when she suffered a miscarriage and fell gravely ill, she was worried that because of her illness he would not be able to write. She inspired, indulged and assisted him-a fact that is hard to remember when one sees the depth of the hatred that cropped up between them later in life.

  Then he wrote the marvelous Anna Karenina-the novel that begins with one of the most quoted lines in world literature: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” One question literary historians and biographers are fond of bringing up is to what extent Tolstoy’s real life influenced the subject matter of the novel. How many of Tolstoy’s own fears, with regard to his wife and his marriage, found their way into Anna Karenina? Perhaps the famous writer, then forty-four, steered his story into the stormy waters of adultery as a warning to Sophia, who was then only twenty-eight. Perhaps by writing about the disastrous consequences that a high-society lady could suffer through infidelity, he was simply cautioning his wife.

  As if a married woman’s debauchery isn’t sinful enough, when lovers live not in the high mountains in isolation but in the heart of the civilized world, it is a sin far worse. The first time Alexey Alexandrovitch has a serious talk with his wife, he makes this very clear: “I want to warn you that through thoughtlessness and lack of caution you may cause yourself to be talked about in society.” Things get out of hand not when a woman has feelings for a man other than her husband but when the knowledge of this becomes public.

  It is also probable that through his novel, Tolstoy wasn’t only sending his wife a message but was also teaching his daughters of varying ages a lesson in morality. Strangely enough, the novel ended up having more impact on him than on his wife or daughters. He went through a moral torment, the first of many, which would end up paving the way for a very different sort of existential crisis-one that would strike at the very essence of his marriage.

  No matter how we interpret the events that followed, this much is true: Sophia never saw Anna as a role model, positive or negative. The fictional character who wore dark lilac, who wished to be like a happy heroine in an English novel, who worked on a children’s book and who smoked opium-although similar in some ways to Sophia-was clearly not her. Despite the concerns her husband harbored, she never abandoned him or loved another man. On the contrary, she remained attached-perhaps too attached-to her husband and to her family, until it drove her over the edge. Every year a new baby came, and with every child Sophia turned a bit more irritable and their marriage took another blow.

  A day would not pass without an argument erupting within the house, the husband’s and wife’s energies drained by petty squabbles no bigger than a speck of dust. In this way, the Tolstoys waded through the thick fog of marriage for several more years. Sexuality was still a way of reconnecting, but when that, too, was gone-more for him than for her-and the fog began to dissolve, Tolstoy couldn’t bear to see what it had been hiding all that time.

  When Tolstoy peered into the soul of his wife, he saw youth, desire and ambition, and was displeased with what he found. When Sophia peered into the soul of her husband, she saw self-centeredness mixed with the seeds of altruism, and never sensed how much this would affect their lives in the future. He stared at her and wondered how she, as comfortable and well brought up as she was, could still have worldly aspirations. She stared at him and wondered how he, as pampered and respected as he was, could love anything, be it his writing or God, more than he loved her.

  Like Dr. Frankenstein, who struggled to rid himself of the creature he had designed and crafted, Tolstoy made an unhappy, argumentative wife out of the young girl he had married years earlier.

  For a while he tried to put up with her, but his patience rapidly ran out. In a letter written to his daughter Alexandra Lvovna, he complained of Sophia’s “perpetual spying, eavesdropping, incessant complaining, ordering him about, as her fancy takes her…” In the same breath, he said he wanted freedom from her. He suddenly, abrasively and irreversibly distanced himself from his wife and from everything that was associated with her.

  Then one day, he simply took off.

  That afternoon, for the first time in a long while, he felt freedom by his side, not as an abstract concept or an idea to defend, but as a presence, so close, solid and tangible. He walked. He skipped and jumped. At the top of his voice, he sang songs that no one had heard before. The peasants working in the nearby fields solemnly watched the most respected novelist in Russia doing one crazy thing after another, and they spoke about it to no one. As if in return for their silent support, that same evening, Tolstoy decided to give away his possessions to the poor. The man who came from an aristocratic background, who had been sheltered all his life, was now determined to shed all the privileges of his station.

  When Sophia, the matriarch, heard about this, she went berserk. Only a fool would squander his wealth like that, she was certain-only a fool with no wife or children to care for. Before long, and much to her chagrin, Tolstoy publicly declared that he had wiped his hands clean of the material world. He gave away all of his money, all of his land. Abandoning the banquets he was so fond of, he swore off eating meat, hunting and drinking, and put himself to work like a village craftsman.

  Sophia watched his transformation in absolute horror. The nobleman she married, the writer she adored and the husband for whom she bore children was gone, replaced by a badly dressed, flea-ridden peasant. It was an insult that drove straight into her heart.

  She called Tolstoy’s new habits “the Dark Ones,” as if speaking of a fatal illness, like a plague that had tainted their household. Her lips chapped from biting them, her mouth contorted in unhappiness and her face that of a woman older than her age, she suffered one nervous breakdown after another. One day her son Lev asked Sophia if she was happy. It took her a while to answer a question as simple and challenging as this. Finally she said yes, she was happy. Her son asked, “So why do you look like a martyress?”

  The love between husband and wife, as strong as it might once have been, could not accommodate the woman and man they had grown into, generating mutual rage and resentment, like a wound bleeding inwardly.

  Finally, in the fall of 1910, a few months after secretly taking his wife out of his will, and giving the publishing rights of his novels to his editor, Tolstoy fell sick with pneumonia. Fading in and out of consciousness, the way he had faded in and out of his wife’s life for decades, he died in a train station where he had fled to after yet another argument at home. It is symbolic that the writer, who had starte
d his literary walk by claiming that true happiness lies within family life, ended his life by walking away from his family, away from her.

  For a long time Sophia was seen as solely a mother and wife. Her great contribution to Tolstoy’s literary legacy was either ignored or belittled. It is only recently that we are beginning to see her in a different light-as a diarist, intellectual and businesswoman-and can appreciate her as a talented, selfless woman with many abilities and unrealized dreams.

  PART TWO. Winds of Change

  What the Fishermen Know

  Two months later, I am walking by the seaside at six o’clock in the morning on a Sunday. I am an early riser, not because I don’t like sleep-which I don’t, really-but because waking up after the sun comes out leaves me feeling slightly irritated, as if the whole world has been whooping it up, and I am catching only the end of the party.

  So here I am, up and out for a walk. The only other life forms awake at this hour are the seagulls, the street cats and Istanbul’s amateur fishermen. Music on my iPod (Amy Winehouse), popcorn in my pockets (suffice it to say, I believe that in a better world, popcorn would make it onto the breakfast menu), I walk briskly, mulling over the life of Sophia Tolstoy.

  There is a crystalline quality to the air, and the sky hangs indigo above me, furrowed by rose-flushed clouds that move toward the hills far ahead. Istanbul looks rejuvenated and clean, like a young bride fresh out of the hamam. One can almost imagine that this is not the same city that drives its inhabitants crazy day after day. Now it looks picturesque and alluring, a city dipped in honey. I suspect Istanbul is at its prettiest when we Istanbulites aren’t around-yet another reason to wake up early.

  Along the coastline toward Bebek there are twenty to thirty fishermen-from teenage boys to grandfathers with canes-strung along in a perfect line, facing the sea. Like prayer beads on a thread, they stand side by side with their plastic buckets and jars of wriggling worms, their eyes fixed somewhere on the horizon and their fingers clutched around fishing rods. They do not talk or joke around. They simply, patiently wait for the fish to come and take the bait.

  Later in the hour, the sun is rising, but I notice it has company. The moon is still there-a day or two shy of fullness. My eyes are riveted on the sky. Doesn’t the moon know it is in the wrong place at the wrong time? As I watch its faint aura, I think about Sophia again.

  “If Sophia had been a novelist, would Leo Tolstoy have assisted her in the same way she assisted him?” I wonder. “Would he have made copies of his wife’s manuscripts over and over again? Would he have taken the children out for a walk, and met their every need, so that his wife could have more hours of peace and quiet to concentrate on her writing?”

  Laden with these questions, I walk toward the park in the midst of the neighborhood. The playground, which is packed with mothers, children and babies during the day, is empty now. I sit on a bench, watching a few pigeons waddle around, poking at the crumbs of bread stuck in the crevices.

  Suddenly, a scream pierces the air, pulling me out of my reverie. I rise to my feet, my heart pounding. “Who’s there?”

  In lieu of an answer comes another scream, shrill and loud, followed by a bang, like something being dropped, or someone being slapped. The sounds are coming from behind the mulberry bush a few feet ahead. More curious than cautious, I tread in that direction.

  “Heeelp!”

  I know this female voice from somewhere, but where, I cannot tell.

  “Oh, shut up! HELP ME INSTEAD!”

  This time it is a different person shouting. Are there two ladies being robbed?

  “Is there no one to save me from this shrew?” the first voice yells.

  Or are there two ladies robbing each other?

  “Huh, it’s you who is harassing me,” the other snaps. “I’m sick and tired of you standing in my way. Why don’t you take a vacation? Go to Disneyland.”

  “Why should I leave? You should go. I’ve had enough of you confusing Elif with your harebrained ideas!”

  Hearing my name, I freeze and strain my ears.

  “It’s because you want to influence Elif. But I will never let that happen. Over my dead body, you hear me?”

  That is enough eavesdropping. I part the bushes and there, standing on a tree trunk, their hands clutched around each other’s throats, I see the unmistakable profiles of two finger-women.

  “Hey, yo, Big Self. Wassup?” says one of them, forcing a smile.

  The second woman takes her hands off her adversary, and makes a sign of peace. “Good to see you, Sister.”

  I frown from one to the other. “Little Miss Practical! Miss Highbrowed Cynic! What are you doing here?”

  These two have been on a collision course for as long as I’ve known them. At first glance, they both seem to embrace reason and rationality. But that is as far as their similarities go. While Little Miss Practical wants to overcome every challenge in a pragmatic way, Miss Highbrowed Cynic isn’t interested in easy solutions. The former wants to solve things as quickly as possible while the latter opts for a detailed, complicated, philosophical approach. Where one prefers to be clear and concise, the other favors ambiguity and abstraction. One likes answers, the other prefers questions.

  Without a further word, I pick them up by the napes of their necks and place one on each of my shoulders. In this fashion, I walk back toward the Bosphorus. It doesn’t take long before another line of amateur fishermen appears before us.

  “Look at those fishermen,” says Little Miss Practical, craning her head from where she sits on my left shoulder. “They’re wack. How many fish do they think they’ll catch like that? They stand there for hours, and go back home with a couple of sad rockfish in their buckets. In the time they spend here, they could work and earn real cheddar. They could buy a huge salmon!”

  “What do you know?” Miss Highbrowed Cynic says, with a snort, from my right shoulder. “What can any pragmatist know about philosophy, art and literature, and the things that make life worth living?”

  “What have fishermen got to do with that?” asks Little Miss Practical.

  “Fishing’s got to do with that,” comes the answer. “It is the perfect way to contemplate the endless mysteries of the universe.”

  I nod in agreement, but the truth is, I don’t understand the fishermen either. How does it feel, and what kind of state of mind does it require, not to rush, not to push? What level of humility does it take to be satisfied with what you have, and be happy to go home with two flimsy fish in a plastic bucket at the end of a long day?

  Of all the prophets, it is Job who, on some level, I cannot empathize with-Job who, according to the Qur’an, is the symbol of patience, humbleness and peaceful surrender. I have never understood how he doesn’t get angry, not even upset, in the face of the ordeals God puts him through, and remains ever thankful, ever accepting.

  Unaware of my thoughts, Miss Highbrowed Cynic continues her dissertation. “Many books have fishermen as their central characters.”

  “What books?” asks Little Miss Practical. There is nothing about awakening the fisherman within in her enormous self-help collection.

  “Scire tuum nihil est, nisi te scire hoc sciat alter!”

  “What the hell was that?”

  Miss Highbrowed Cynic raises her voice over the incipient hum of the city. “I said: Your knowledge is nothing when no one else knows that you know.”

  “Poser!” hisses Little Miss Practical.

  “My point is, how can you follow Melville’s adventures of Ishmael and Captain Ahab, and not contemplate our tiny little place in this universe? What about Hemingway’s epic battle of wills between the old fisherman and the giant fish he longs to catch? And take Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Fisherman of the Inland Sea-you will be thinking twice as hard as you ever have about the roles of good and evil. You see how fishing is intertwined with philosophy?”

  “All right, all right, I get the point. While you’re at it, you might want to tell the phil
osophers over there something about efficiency,” says Little Miss Practical. “There must be, what, thirty of them. Why don’t they, say, rent a fishing boat together? Then, when they go out to sea and cast their nets, their output would increase tenfold.”

  Miss Highbrowed Cynic heaves a sigh. “Fishing has depth. It has wisdom. You will never understand if your only concern is productivity. Why am I wasting my breath? No philosophy or art will ever come from the shallow waters you swim in.”

  “You’re all big talk! You always talk about depth,” grumbles Little Miss Practical. “What are you, a scuba diver?”

  “Ladies, ladies, please,” I interject. I know I need to handle this as delicately as I can. “Let’s not argue on this beautiful morning.”

  “What is wrong with arguing?” objects Miss Highbrowed Cynic. “The German philosopher Ernst Bloch used the concept noch nicht-not yet what things could be. Instead of trying to be complete, we should embrace the idea of being without a beginning and an end, a state of continuous regeneration. That is why questions should not be answered. They should be deepened with more questions.”

  “That is the craziest thing I’ve heard in a long while!” comes a grumpy voice from around the corner.

  We turn our heads and see Miss Ambitious Chekhovian ahead of us, standing amid the feet of the fishermen. I am scared out of my wits that someone will accidentally step on her, but she doesn’t seem the least bit concerned.

  “Deepen dilemmas with more questions? What next? Do you know how much time this stupid Sunday morning walk has already cost our career? Elif, you should be writing right now. Not wasting your time like this!”

  I shoot a glance left and right. The fishermen are busy staring at the water. I wonder if there is anyone other than me who can see Miss Ambitious Chekhovian.

 

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