10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World

by Elif Shafak

  ‘They chased me so hard,’ D/Ali was saying, unaware of her thoughts. ‘I could have run faster if I hadn’t been carrying this.’

  Leila eyed the bag. ‘What’s in it?’

  He showed her. Inside the bag there were hundreds, if not thousands, of flyers. She pulled one out and studied it. A drawing covered half the page. Factory workers in blue smocks under a patch of light streaming from the ceiling. Men and women, side by side. They looked confident and otherworldly, almost angelic. She grabbed another flyer: coal miners with bright blue overalls, their features etched with soot, their eyes big and wise under their helmets. Quickly, she sifted through the other flyers. The people in them all had set jaws and strong muscles; they were not pale and weary like the workers she saw every day at the furniture workshop. In D/Ali’s communist world, everyone was sturdy and muscular and bursting with health. She thought of her brother and her heart twisted in her chest.

  ‘You don’t like the pictures?’ he said, observing her.

  ‘I do. Did you draw them?’

  He nodded. A flash of pride lit his features. His paintings, printed on an underground press, were distributed all over the city.

  ‘We leave them everywhere – cafes, restaurants, bookstores, cinemas … But now I’m a bit worried. If the fascists catch me with the flyers, they’ll beat the hell out of me.’

  ‘Why don’t you leave the bag here?’ Leila said. ‘I’ll hide it under the bed.’

  ‘I can’t, it might put you in danger.’

  She laughed softly. ‘Who is going to search this place, darling? Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on the revolution for you.’

  That night, after the doors of the brothel were locked, and the whole place was plunged into silence, Leila took out the flyers. Most of the prostitutes went to their homes to sleep; they had elderly parents to look after or children to take care of, but a few stayed in the building. Somewhere down the corridor a woman was snoring loudly, while another was talking in her sleep, her voice pleading and frail, although it was hard to make out what she said. Leila sat back in bed and began to read: Comrades Be Vigilant. US Get Out of Vietnam Now! The Revolution Has Begun. The Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

  She studied the words, frustrated at how their full power, their true meaning, kept eluding her. She remembered Auntie’s silent panic each time she looked at a piece of writing. A stab of regret went through her. Why had it never occurred to her, when she was young, to teach her mother how to read and write?

  ‘I’ve been meaning to ask you something,’ Leila said the next day, when D/Ali was back. ‘Will there be any prostitution after the revolution?’

  He gave her a blank look. ‘Where did that come from?’

  ‘I’ve been wondering what will happen to us if you guys win.’

  ‘Nothing bad will happen to you – or to your friends. Look, none of this is your fault. It’s capitalism that’s to blame. The inhuman system that creates profits for the moribund imperialist bourgeoisie and their conspirators by abusing the weak and exploiting the working class. The revolution will defend your rights. You are a proletarian too, a member of the working class, don’t forget.’

  ‘But are you going to close this place or keep it open? What about Bitter Ma?’

  ‘The madam is nothing more than an exploitative capitalist, no better than a champagne-swilling plutocrat.’

  Leila said nothing.

  ‘Look, that woman makes a profit from your body. Yours and many others. After the revolution she will have to be punished – fairly, of course. But we will shut down all the brothels and clean up the red-light districts. They’ll become factories. Prostitutes and streetwalkers will all be factory workers – or peasants.’

  ‘Oh, some of my friends might not like that,’ said Leila, her eyes narrowing, as if squinting into a future in which Nostalgia Nalan were running away in a skimpy dress and heels from whatever cornfield she had been forced to work in.

  D/Ali seemed to be thinking the same thing. He had met Nalan several times and was impressed by her willpower. He didn’t know what Marx would have made of people like her. Or Trotsky, for that matter. He didn’t remember reading anything, in all the books he’d studied, about transvestites who no longer wished to be peasants. ‘I’m sure we’ll find the right work for your friends.’

  Leila smiled, secretly enjoying listening to his passionate speech, but the words that came out of her mouth did not reflect that. ‘How can you believe in all this? It sounds like a fantasy to me.’

  ‘This is not a fantasy. Nor a dream. It is the flow of history.’ He sulked, looking hurt. ‘Can you make a river run the other way? You can’t. History is moving, inexorably and logically, towards communism. Sooner or later, it’ll come, that big day.’

  Seeing him get upset so easily, Leila felt a rush of affection for him. Her hand landed gently on his shoulder, settling in there like a nesting sparrow.

  ‘But I do have a dream, if you are wondering.’ D/Ali squeezed his eyes tight shut, not wanting to see her face when she heard what he was about to say. ‘It’s about you, actually.’

  ‘Oh yeah? What is it?’

  ‘I want you to marry me.’

  The silence that followed was so deep that Leila, keeping her gaze steadily on D/Ali, could hear the low murmur of the waves in the harbour, and the sound of a fishing boat’s engine in the slap of water. She drew in a breath but somehow it felt like the air didn’t reach her lungs, her chest was so full. Then the alarm clock went off, making them both flinch. Bitter Ma had recently placed a clock in every room, so that when their hour was over, no customer would overstay.

  Leila straightened up. ‘Do me a favour, please. Don’t say such things to me again.’

  D/Ali opened his eyes. ‘Are you angry? Don’t be.’

  ‘Look, there are things you should never say in this place. Even if you mean well, and I have no doubt that you mean well. But I need to make it clear: I don’t like this kind of talk. I find it very … disturbing.’

  For a moment he looked lost. ‘I’m just surprised that you haven’t noticed it yet.’

  ‘Noticed what?’ Leila pulled her hand away as though from fire.

  ‘That I love you,’ he said. ‘Ever since I saw you for the first time … on the stairs … the day the Sixth Fleet came … remember?’

  Leila felt her cheeks go red. Her face was burning. She wanted him to leave, without another word, and never come back. Sweet though it might have been for years, it was apparent to her now that this relationship would hurt them.

  After he had gone, she walked to the window and, despite Bitter Ma’s strict orders, opened the curtains. She flattened her cheek against the pane, through which she could see the lonely birch tree and the furniture workshop, smoke spewing from its heating vent. She imagined D/Ali striding towards the harbour, his gait fast and urgent as usual, and in her mind she watched him loyally, lovingly, until he disappeared into a dark alley under a cascade of fireworks.

  That whole week, galvanized by the upbeat mood, gazinos and nightclubs were full to bursting. On Friday, after the evening prayer, Bitter Ma sent Leila to a stag party at a konak by the Bosphorus. All night long, thinking about D/Ali and what he had said to her, she was assailed by a gloom she couldn’t overcome, unable to pretend and play along, her whole manner painfully slow, sluggish, as if dredged from a lake. She sensed the hosts were unhappy with her performance and would later complain to the madam. Clowns and prostitutes, she thought bitterly, who wants them around when they are sad?

  On the way back, she trudged wearily, her feet throbbing from standing in high heels for hours on end. She was starving, not having eaten since lunch the day before. No one thought about offering her food on such nights, and she never asked.

  The sun was rising over the red-tiled rooftops and lead-covered domes. The air had a fresh feel, the scent of a promise. She passed by apartment buildings still asleep. A few paces ahead she noticed a basket, tied to a rope that was hanging
from a window on an upper floor. Inside were what looked like potatoes and onions. Someone must have ordered them from the grocer’s nearby and forgotten to haul the basket up.

  A sound made her stop in her tracks. She grew still, straining to hear. A few seconds later, she caught a whimper so feeble that at first she thought she might have imagined it, courtesy of her sleep-deprived brain. Then she glimpsed a shapeless silhouette on the pavement, a heap of flesh and fur. A wounded cat.

  Simultaneously, someone else had seen the animal and was approaching from the opposite side of the road. A woman. With her soft brown eyes that crinkled at the corners, pointy nose and stout frame, she resembled a bird – a bird that a child might have drawn, bubbly and round.

  ‘Is the cat okay?’ the woman asked.

  They both leaned forward and saw it in the same instant: its intestines spilled out, its breathing slow and laboured, the animal was horribly injured.

  Leila took off her scarf and wrapped it around the cat. Gently, she lifted it, cradling it in one arm. ‘We need to find a vet.’

  ‘At this hour?’

  ‘Well, we don’t have much choice, do we?’

  They began to walk together.

  ‘My name is Leila, by the way. With an “i” in the middle, not a “y”. I’ve changed the spelling.’

  ‘I’m Humeyra. Spelled the normal way. I work in a gazino down by the wharf.’

  ‘What do you do there?’

  ‘Me and my band, we are on stage every night,’ she said, and added more forcefully, and not without a trace of pride, ‘I’m a singer.’

  ‘Oh, do you sing any Elvis?’

  ‘No. We do old songs, ballads, some new stuff too, mostly arabesque.’

  The vet, when they were able to find one, was irritated at being woken up at this hour, but thankfully he did not turn them away.

  ‘In all my years, I’ve never seen anything like this,’ the man said. ‘Broken ribs, a punctured lung, smashed pelvis, fractured skull, missing teeth … It must have been run over by a car or a truck. I’m sorry, I really doubt we can save this poor animal.’

  ‘But you doubt,’ said Leila slowly.

  The vet’s eyes became slits behind his glasses. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I mean you are not a hundred per cent sure, right? You doubt, which means there is a chance she could survive.’

  ‘Look, I understand you want to help, but, believe me, it’s better to put her to sleep. This animal has already suffered too much.’

  ‘We’ll find another vet then.’ Leila turned to Humeyra. ‘We will, right?’

  The other woman hesitated – only for a second. She nodded her support. ‘Right.’

  ‘Fine, if you’re that adamant, I’ll try to help,’ said the vet. ‘But I make no promises. And I must tell you, it’s not going to be cheap.’

  Three operations and months of painful treatment were to follow. Leila covered most of the costs, and Humeyra chipped in as best she could.

  In the end, time proved Leila right. The cat, with her cracked claws and missing teeth, clung to life with might and main. Given that her recovery was nothing short of a miracle, they called her Sekiz – ‘Eight’, for clearly a creature that could endure so much pain had to have nine lives, eight of which must have been spent.

  The two women took turns to look after her – gradually building a steady friendship.

  A few years later Sekiz, after a wild phase of nightly escapades, got pregnant. Ten weeks on, she gave birth to five kittens with highly distinct personalities. One of the kittens was black with a tiny patch of white, and he was stone deaf. Together, Leila and Humeyra named him Mr Chaplin.

  Hollywood Humeyra, the woman who knew by heart the most beautiful ballads of Mesopotamia, and whose life resembled somewhat the sad stories many of them told.

  Hollywood Humeyra, one of the five.

  Humeyra’s Story

  Humeyra was born in Mardin, not far from the Monastery of St Gabriel on the limestone plateaus of Mesopotamia. Serpentine streets, stone houses. Growing up in a land so ancient and troubled, she was surrounded on all sides by remnants of history. Ruins upon ruins. New graves inside old graves. Listening to the endless legends of heroism and tales of love had made her homesick for a place that no longer existed. Strange as it was, it seemed to her that the border – where Turkey came to an end and Syria began – was not a fixed dividing line, but a living, breathing thing, a nocturnal creature. It shifted while people on both sides were sound asleep. In the mornings, it adjusted itself again, ever so slightly, to the left or the right. Smugglers travelled across the border, back and forth, holding their breaths as they crossed fields full of landmines. Sometimes in the stillness an explosion would be heard and the villagers would pray that it was a mule torn to pieces, and not the smuggler it carried.

  The vast landscape stretched from the foot of Tur Abdin – ‘Mountain of the Servants of God’ – towards a flat land that turned a pale sandy fawn in summer. Yet the region’s inhabitants often behaved like islanders. They were different from the neighbouring tribes and they felt it in their bones. The past closed in over them like deep, dark waters, and they swam, not alone, never alone, but accompanied by the ghosts of their ancestors.

  Mor Gabriel was the oldest Syriac Orthodox monastery in the world. Like a hermit who sustains himself on water and meagre morsels of food, the monastery had managed to survive on faith and grains of grace. Throughout its long history it had seen bloodshed, genocide and persecution, the monks tyrannized by every invader who had traversed the region. While its fortified stone walls, light as milk, had survived, its spectacular library had not. Of the thousands of books and manuscripts it had once proudly housed, not a single page remained. Inside the crypt, hundreds of saints were buried – martyrs too. Outside, olive trees and orchards extended down the road, giving their distinctive scents to the air. A calm prevailed throughout that those who did not know history might easily mistake for peace.

  Humeyra, similar to many children in the region, had been raised with songs and ballads and lullabies in various languages: Turkish, Kurdish, Arabic, Persian, Armenian, Syriac-Aramaic. She had heard stories about the monastery and seen tourists, journalists, clergymen and clergywomen come and go. It was the nuns who intrigued her the most. Like them, she was determined never to marry. But the spring she turned fifteen she was abruptly pulled out of school and betrothed to a man her father had been doing business with. By the age of sixteen she was already a wife. Her husband was an unambitious man, taciturn and easily frightened. Humeyra, knowing he had not wanted this marriage, suspected he had a sweetheart somewhere whom he could not forget. Time and again, she caught him watching her with resentment, as though he blamed her for his own regrets.

  The first year together she tried, over and again, to understand him and his needs. Her own were unimportant. But he was never happy, the frown lines on his forehead reappearing fast, like a window that steamed over as soon as it was wiped. Soon after, his business hit hard times. They had to move to the house of his family.

  Living with her in-laws broke Humeyra’s spirit. Every day, all day, she was treated like a servant – a servant without a name. Bride, go and bring the tea. Bride, go and cook the rice. Bride, go and wash the sheets. Always being sent somewhere, never able to stay put, she had the bizarre feeling that they wanted her both to remain within reach and to disappear completely. Still, she might have endured it all if it hadn’t been for the beatings. Once her husband broke a wooden coat hanger on her back. Another time he hit her on the legs with a pair of iron tongs that left a claret-coloured mark on the side of her left knee.

  Going back to her parents’ house was out of the question. So was staying in this place of misery. One early morning, while everyone was asleep, she stole the golden bracelets her mother-in-law kept in a biscuit box on her bedside table. Her father-in-law’s dentures, soaking in a glass of water beside the box, smiled conspiratorially. She would not get much for the bracelets at the pawn
broker’s, but it would be enough to buy a bus ticket to Istanbul.

  In the city, she learned fast – how to walk in stilettos, how to iron her hair straight, how to apply make-up that looked dazzling under the neon lights. She changed her childhood name to Humeyra, got herself a fake ID. That she had a rich voice and knew hundreds of Anatolian songs by heart helped her to find a job in a nightclub. The first time on stage she shook like a leaf, but thankfully her voice held. She rented the cheapest room she could find in Karaköy, just off the street of brothels, and that’s where, one night after work, she met Leila.

  They supported each other with the kind of loyalty that only those with few to rely on could muster. Upon Leila’s advice, she dyed her hair blonde, put in turquoise contact lenses, and had a nose job and a total change of wardrobe. She did all these things and more, because she received word that her husband was in Istanbul, looking for her. Awake or asleep, Humeyra was terrified she might become a victim of an honour killing. She couldn’t help imagining the moment of her murder, each time envisioning a worse end. Women accused of indecency weren’t always killed, she knew; sometimes they were just persuaded to kill themselves. The number of forced suicides, particularly in small towns in south-east Anatolia, had escalated to such a degree that there were articles about it in the foreign press. In Batman, not far from where she was born, suicide was the leading cause of mortality for young women.

  But Leila always told Humeyra to set her mind at ease. She assured her friend that she was one of the lucky ones, the resilient ones, and, like the walls of the monastery she had grown up looking at, like the cat they had saved together that fortuitous night, she was, despite all the odds stacked against her, destined to survive.

  Ten Minutes Twenty Seconds

  In the final seconds before her brain completely shut down, Leila remembered a wedding cake – three tiered, all white, layered with buttercream icing. Neatly perched on top of it was a ball of red wool with tiny knitting needles at its side, all made in sugar. A nod to Bitter Ma. If the madam had not sanctioned it, Leila would never have been able to leave.