Black Milk: On Writing, Motherhood, and the Harem Within

by Elif Shafak

  Week 22

  I don’t know how Her Majesty the Queen found out that I had visited Miss Highbrowed Cynic, but she did. Contrary to my fear, she doesn’t throw a fit.

  “So you missed reading books,” she says with a sigh, as if the thought has tired her. Then she pulls out a box from inside her coat.

  “What is this?” I ask.

  “I bought you a present,” she answers. “I thought you might enjoy this.”

  When I open the package a book falls out: My Baby and Me. Apparently it has been read first by Mama Rice Pudding. Some sentences are underlined, some chapters are starred: “Preparing the Baby’s Room,” “Fabulous Mashed Food Recipes.” I thank her and put it down. I’ll read it sometime.

  My lack of enthusiasm doesn’t escape Mama Rice Pudding.

  “All right,” she concedes. “I might have overreacted when I banned your books and burned all the paper and pens in the house.”

  I remain silent.

  “You are someone who is used to expressing herself through writing. So I have a suggestion for you. Why don’t you write to your baby?”

  Smiling, I nod. That is the best advice I’ve ever gotten from Her Highness.

  Week 25

  Dear Baby (Since I don’t know your name yet, I hope you don’t mind me referring to you like this.),

  This is the first letter I am writing you. I once read that some

  traditional tribes sustain the belief that babies got to pick their

  parents. I had laughed at the idea, but now it seems plausible.

  I imagine you sitting in the sky with angels, skimming through a huge, leather-bound catalog that contains photographs of potential mothers. Under each photograph there is a short description. The angels turn the pages with utmost patience. You look at all the candidates with a buyer’s eye.

  “Not this one,” you say. “No, not this one either—”

  Doctors, engineers, housewives and businesswomen pass before your eyes. Even though there are many highly eligible candidates, women who do their jobs well and are very accomplished, you ignore them.

  Just then the angel turns another page and my picture pops up. It is not a very good photo of me, my hair is a mess—again—and my makeup is slapdash. I’m wearing my onion-clothes. Under my picture is a description: Head pickled, chaotic personality, prone to moments of irrationality, has yet to find herself, is actively searching for answers. Loves telling stories. Writer. Columnist. Litterateur.

  Pointing your tiny little finger at my face you remark, “This one could be fun. Let me take a closer look at her.”

  I don’t know why you ended up picking me out of all the potential mothers in the universe. Maybe you are a crazy kind of girl. You find the idea of a perfect mother boring. Or you already know me better than I know myself. Maybe you see the potential in me. Maybe you want to help me overcome my shortcomings. You can be my guide, my best teacher.

  Like I said, I don’t know why you chose me, but I want you to know that I am honored. I hope I will never make you regret your decision and say, “Of all the moms in the universe, why did I pick this one!”

  Your loving mom who looks forward to your arrival,

  Elif

  Week 28

  Mama Rice Pudding insists that I go to prenatal yoga. She says I have to learn breathing techniques.

  “I can breathe very well, don’t worry,” I say.

  But she is persistent. She wants the birth to be as natural and wholesome as the ones she thinks our great-great-grandmothers had in the past. I don’t point out that our ancestors were hardly poring over yoga sutras before going into labor.

  Week 29

  There are ten women in the yoga course. Nine of them have their bellies against their noses. Either they are close to the end of their term or this course makes you puff up like a hot-air balloon. Maybe in her attempt to teach us breathing techniques the instructor is filling us up with heated air.

  The only woman in the room who isn’t pregnant is our instructor: an athletic and joyful Brazilian with long, curly brunette hair. Her pearly-white smile greets me as she introduces me to the group.

  “Let us welcome Elif and her baby into our circle of love,” she says and closes her eyes, already drifting away.

  “Hello,” I say to the group, but their eyes, too, are shut.

  “First we shall cleanse our chakras. We shall fortify our personal energies. Then we will practice the Pranayama breathing techniques. We will feel the rise from the Sushumna toward our head and then unite with Sahashara.”

  Having no idea what we are supposed to do but copying the others all the same, I sit cross-legged on the floor, close my eyes and try to concentrate on this new language.

  “Now let us feel the aura that wraps our bodies like a warm glove,” says the teacher. “Can you feel how delicate it is, almost silken?”

  To my amazement, I can feel something, a new presence, except it doesn’t quite gently cloak my body but rather harshly pokes at my shoulder.

  “Let’s all say ‘nice to see you’ to this soft energy of ours,” continues the teacher.

  “Nice to see you,” I mumble.

  “Same here,” comes an immediate response that jolts me.

  The voice is strangely familiar. Suspicious, I open one eye to find Milady Ambitious Chekhovian standing on my left shoulder, staring at me.

  “What are you doing here?” I whisper fiercely.

  “Oh, nothing. We haven’t talked for a long time and I was curious as to what you were doing with your life.”

  “Well, here I am.”

  “You must have quite a bit of time on your hands to be bothering with this nonsense,” she says. “The last time I left you, you were writing novels. And now look at you.”

  I don’t know what to say to that and wait for her next sentence.

  “Come on, you should be writing fiction right now. Stories, ideas, plots, the world of imagination . . . They are all waiting for you. What are you doing here opening chakras, mumbling Indian words you can’t even pronounce? Oh, I wish you had listened to me when I asked you to get your tubes tied.”

  Meanwhile, the teacher says zealously: “Yoga means ‘to unite’ in the Sanskrit language. Our aim is to ensure the unity of the body, the mind and the soul.”

  Milady Ambitious Chekhovian snorts. “How about the unity of the finger-women? We are suffering under the worst monarchy.”

  “Oh, please, give me a break,” I say. “Your military regime was even worse.”

  “And now we are going to enter the realm within, where we will meditate on our heartbeat,” says the teacher, “and become One with the universe.”

  “I’m leaving,” says Milady Ambitious Chekhovian. “You stay and become One with whomever you want for 250 lira a session.”

  Oblivious to my attempts to say something, she jumps on the window ledge, gives a commander’s salute and leaves. I close my eyes and sit still but it’s no use. I can’t give myself over to the class anymore. Perhaps Milady Ambitious Chekhovian is right. Let alone uniting with the universe, I cannot even unite with the Thumbelinas inside.

  Week 32

  I go out shopping with Mama Rice Pudding and spend hours in maternity stores. I never knew there was an entire fashion industry for babies, with hip and trendy clothes lines. They’re so cute and so expensive, especially when you realize that every designer item will be worn for only about a few weeks, not to mention constantly puked, drooled and peed on.

  I wonder how many of these baby products we really need. Plastic ducks that quack in the tub, tummy warmers made of organic merino wool, eco-friendly bathrobes for the summer, eco-friendly bathrobes for the winter, special chimes to attach to strollers, nontoxic brushes to clean the ducks in the tub, dinosaur-shaped door stoppers to keep the doors from slamming shut, glow-in-the-dark stickers in the shapes of planets and stars for the ceiling of the nursery—

  All this endless bric-a-brac attracts Mama Rice Pudding like a magnet. S
he runs from one store to another with my credit card in her hand, determined to spend every cent I have on pink, cutesy baby things. She’s so lost in the hysteria of shopping I want to run away from her. But where to? Can a pregnant woman steer clear of her maternal side?

  Week 34

  This week I learn what a huge topic a baby’s intelligence is for an impending mother. Your Highness is obsessed with the matter. Omega-3 pills, fish oil capsules and some type of liquid that emits the vilest smell . . . She has been pushing all of these into my mouth with the belief that if I consume enough of them, the baby will be born with a high IQ.

  “Caviar is the best,” she says. “If a pregnant woman eats two spoonfuls of black caviar every day, chances are the baby will be born a genius.”

  “According to your theory the people around the Caspian Sea must be fricking brilliant,” I say.

  She waves off my sarcasm as if shooing a nagging fly. “You just do what I say,” she orders.

  I don’t understand the obsession with IQ. And it is not only Mama Rice Pudding. In the doctors’ waiting rooms, on TV programs, in blogs and Web sites, in the newspapers, everywhere and all the time, pregnant women are looking for ways to increase their babies’ intelligence score.

  “Let’s assume for a moment that this IQ-caviar theory is true,” I venture.

  “All right,” Mama Rice Pudding says.

  “Let’s say that Turkish mothers have created this ‘superintelligent baby.’ What then? The child is born, and when he is old enough to walk and talk it is clear that he is supergifted. Good at music, painting, sculpture, art or mathematics. He loves to read, too, devouring the classics at the age of five.”

  “What are you trying to say?” Mama Rice Pudding asks suspiciously.

  “My point is, what will happen to these fish-egg babies in an environment that does not reward individual differences and unusual talents ? What kind of irony is it to desire a clever baby, but not be able to acknowledge a creative child?”

  Mama Rice Pudding bangs her scepter furiously.

  “Enough! I know where all of this whining and bellyaching is coming from,” she says. “You’ve been talking to Miss Highbrowed Cynic, haven’t you? You are meeting with her behind my back, aren’t you?”

  Blushing up to my ears, I stop and say no more.

  Week 36

  It’s true. I have been continuing my visits with Miss Highbrowed Cynic on the sly. We draw the curtains, lock the doors and talk about books—just like we used to do in the good old days. Like proper intellectuals we grumble and grouse about everyone else, holding our heads high, feeling like the brightest bulbs in the crystal chandelier of society. I double over with laughter when Miss Highbrowed Cynic throws a bedsheet over her shoulders and takes up a green bean for a scepter; she does a fantastic imitation.

  One day, out of the blue, she says, “Did you ever wonder why mothers use the pronoun we when addressing their kids?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Check it out. They have this funny way of talking. ‘Did we get dirty?’ they say. ‘Did we get thirsty?’ ‘Did we pee in our pants?’”

  I crane my neck forward and listen carefully.

  “If the child falls down, the mother starts, ‘Oh, honey, did we fall down? Nothing happened, it doesn’t hurt!’ How does she know if it hurts or not? It isn’t she who fell down, it’s the kid!”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” I say.

  “The child has a separate body from his mother’s, and as such, he is a different ontological being. Many mothers simply cannot accept this.”

  “That is so true,” I say agreeably.

  Suddenly her tone mellows. “Just be yourself,” she says. “Don’t let Mama Rice Pudding turn you into one of those snow globe moms.”

  “What is a snow globe mom?”

  “You know, those half-hysterical ones who speak to their kids in a high-pitched-toy-frog voice even when they are no longer babies? Who want to breast-feed until the child goes off to college? They’ve lost their minds with motherhood. They live in a vacuum. Their universe is a snow globe. Colorful and cute inside, no doubt, but overprotective and airless. Don’t you become one of—” She leaves the sentence hanging.

  “Who? Me? Never!” I say self-assuredly.

  “There is a thin line between motherhood and fascism,” she declares.

  “Trust me,” I say. “I won’t ever force food into my child’s mouth. If she doesn’t want to eat, she won’t eat. I’ll give her plenty of space and freedom from the start. You’ll see what a democratic mom I will be.”

  “Good,” exclaims Miss Highbrowed Cynic. “That’s my big Self.”

  Week 38

  This week I learned that a pregnant woman’s body belongs not to her but to all women.

  The other day when I was grocery shopping, an old lady I had never seen before came over and checked my shopping cart.

  “Oh, you are buying eggplants,” she said with a look of sympathetic horror on her face.

  “Yeah,” I said cautiously.

  “But there is nicotine in them,” she said, and turned to the apprentice, as if he were responsible for this terrible mistake. “How can you give her eggplants? Take them back.”

  The grocer’s apprentice nodded, accepting the lady’s authority. Without consulting me, he took the eggplants out of my cart.

  “Give her broccoli instead,” said the old lady.

  Again the apprentice did as he was told.

  “And some spinach. It is very healthy. Oh, don’t forget pepper. Whatever you cook, always put green pepper in it.”

  Into my cart went a package of spinach and half a pound of green peppers.

  “Are you done with my shopping? May I go now?” I asked.

  They both grinned at me.

  It is the same when I go to the neighborhood pool. All the women feel the need to say something, anything, to help me through another day of gestation.

  “Be careful. The floor is quite slippery,” says one.

  “Better stay in the shade,” cautions another woman.

  “Make sure you don’t dive belly first,” says the one next to her.

  “Don’t swallow chlorine,” adds someone else.

  On the street, in the bus, on the boat, in cafés and restaurants, complete strangers give me advice. If one of them happens to be eating something, she immediately offers half her food to me.

  No matter how many times I say “no, thank you,” they insist until I give in. So I walk around munching on other people’s sandwiches and cakes. It doesn’t matter that I’ve never met these women or that I’ll never see them again. Where there is pregnancy there is no formality. Where there is no formality there is no privacy.

  Week 39.5

  A wave of tranquillity has come over me. Currents of air gently stir the haze of clouds near the horizon and the tulips of Istanbul sway in full bloom, purple, red and yellow. Suddenly the world is an exquisite place and life is heavenly. I am smiling so much that the muscles around my mouth have slackened.

  As I pass by the electric pole today I realize the Converse trainers are no longer there. Someone must have taken them down. How great is that! How lovely the weather, how kind the people, how blue the sky. What a wonderful world!

  “It is called happiness hormone,” says Mama Rice Pudding. “It is released when a woman nears the time of birth.”

  For the first time in my life it dawns upon me how much power hormones have on us. I have always thought of myself as one thinking, choosing and creating individual. But how much of our lives and relationships, behaviors and choices, are guided by hormones? If they are capable of boosting up one’s morale, can they also do the opposite, propel one deep into gloom? But life is too beautiful to contemplate such unsettling matters, and I simply don’t.

  Week 41

  Panic! The time has come and I am terrified. Her Majesty the Queen is doing everything she can to calm me down, but it is no use. There’s only one finger-woman who
can help me right now. I need to speak to her.

  My belly at my chin, careful not to slip, I descend the stairway to the basement of my soul. There, in a city as spiritual as Mount Athos, beyond a wooden door, I find Dame Dervish, sitting cross-legged on a grape leaf. On her feet are cerulean sandals, around her neck a silver Hu.

  “Dame Dervish, may we talk?”

  “Of course,” she says. “Words are gifts from one human to another.”

  “Okay, do you remember the time I felt grateful for not being an elephant? Now I wish I were one.”

  Seeing the expression on her face, I decide to follow a different tack. “I’m not ready for this birth; I don’t know what to do. Nine months is too short.”

  “First, calm down,” she says tenderly.

  “But what am I going to do?”

  “Nothing,” she says.

  “Nothing?”

  “You are so used to doing something all the time, not to have to do anything terrifies you. But it is, in fact, calming to do nothing. Don’t worry, your body knows what to do, as do the baby and the universe. All you have to do is just surrender.”

  Surrender is not a great word with me, so I bite my lip and sigh.

  “Do you know that the Sufis believe the world is a mother’s womb?” she asks. “We are all babies in a womb. When the time comes we have to leave the world. We know this but we don’t want to leave. We fear that when we die we will cease to exist. But death is actually a birth. If we could only understand this we wouldn’t be scared of anything.”