The Stone Woman

by Tariq Ali

  “The lover she had chosen for that particular night was dazzled by the sight of her. When she removed the shawl all was laid bare and as the fortunate man fell on his knees before her she would speak the same words that she had to many of his predecessors: ‘You may gorge yourself on this feast till you are sated. Enjoy it well, for you will never see or taste another. From paradise you will proceed straight to hell.’

  “The excited lover was by this time too agitated and overcome by desire to reflect on her warning. It was only after she had been pleasured that he began to show signs of nervousness, but by then it was too late. The eunuchs entered the chamber and escorted the unfortunate lover to a boat moored nearby. One of the eunuchs sang a lament for lost lovers, while the others gently circled the condemned man’s neck with a cord and strangled him to death. The delicate morsel of last night’s banquet was thrown into the Bosporus so that the fish could feed on him. The royal flesh of unmarried females was forbidden to a commoner. He who had enjoyed must be destroyed. He could not be allowed to live and tell the tale. The princess had made one exception to the rule.

  “‘If,’ she instructed the eunuchs, ‘any of them ever shouts his defiance of death and declares that a night in my arms is worth the sacrifice, spare his life. Such a spirit should be preserved, not suffocated.’

  “Every morning she would inquire anxiously, but none of them ever did. This made her sad, but she lived a long time and in her old age spent a great deal of time in tekkes, where ecstasy is not dependent on physical contact.”

  I was greatly moved by this story, Stone Woman, or so I thought. Now I think it was the story-teller who affected me.

  “Did the princess have a name?” I asked.

  “She was called Nilofer.”

  It was a warm night and, perhaps, the moon had touched us both, so that when Selim moved closer and stroked my cheeks, I did not resist. When he felt my breasts I made a half-hearted attempt to restrain his ardour, but I wished him to go further. I kissed his eyes and his lips and undressed him. After I had made love to him we washed ourselves in the sea. He was inexperienced, but it did not matter to me. I had not been intimate with a man for nearly a year and the warmth alone had comforted me.

  We did not speak for a long time. I stroked his hair as he rested his head in my lap. His first sentence was a whisper.

  “Will Petrossian take me out on a boat tonight and drown me?”

  I laughed as I hugged him.

  “No. In order to do that it would be necessary to castrate him first. Only eunuchs can carry out such an assignment.”

  “I thought he was a eunuch. It is said in the kitchen that your family has castrated him in spirit if not in flesh.”

  When I suggested that it was time for me to leave, Stone Woman, he held me in a tight embrace and aroused my passion. This time we did not wash because the night was almost over and there was no time to dry ourselves. Am I a lost woman, Stone Woman? What if he has left me with a child? Will the passion I felt for him lead to love?’

  My words froze on my lips as I heard the noise of rustling.

  “You have embarked on the road to unhappiness, my child.”

  “Who’s there?”

  My mother emerged from behind the stones. I wept as I screamed at her. “This is a sanctuary, Mother. You have defiled it by your presence. It was cruel of you to eavesdrop.”

  “I had come to speak to the Stone Woman myself, child, when I heard your voice. How could I walk away without hearing your story? When you were children, you would hide and listen to all of us. Now it is our turn. You must not complain. My reasons are not so different. You’re such a secretive girl. You never told me about the Greek teacher—and look where it has led you. I know that life with him has made you morose and you were always such a cheerful child. I am starved of information concerning your life, Nilofer. I’m glad I heard your story even though it was an accident. Come with me.”

  She put her arm around my shoulders and took me to her room. I sat on the floor so she could massage my head as she did when I was a child. Neither of us spoke for a long time. The reassuring sound of her hands rubbing my scalp had the soothing effect of a balm. As I began to recover my composure I realised, to my astonishment, that she was not in the least angry with me.

  “I always wanted you to be happy. When you ran away with the school teacher, I was sad only because I would have liked to celebrate the wedding of my only child. I missed the music and the feasting and the dancing. I would have liked to send you off to your husband in some style. That was a mother’s unrealised dream. Once I had recovered from my disappointment nothing else mattered except your happiness. If you were happy, what right did I have to be sad? But you weren’t happy, were you, Nilofer? That was the impression Halil brought back with him after his first meeting with you and that stick, Dmitri.”

  My mother wished to talk of the past. My thinking was concentrated on the present. I wanted to know exactly where Selim was at this moment. I wanted to know what he was thinking. I wondered whether he had told anyone about us. Was he regretting his audacity? As these thoughts raced through my head, my heartbeat quickened in unison, but the impatient expression on my mother’s face was beginning to disfigure her features. It could not be ignored any longer. She would not permit me to move on until I had satisfied her. Perhaps it was more than mere curiosity. Perhaps it was a concern for the children and for my future. Perhaps it had something to do with her own life and frustrated hopes.

  “Answer me, Nilofer. What went wrong?”

  This was a question I had often asked myself over the last five years. My feelings poured out like a waterfall and almost overwhelmed my mother. I told her that what I had thought of as love had been nothing but the romantic fantasies of an immature mind. Dmitri had offered an escape from the closed world of our family and I had foolishly made the leap with him. I spoke of how I felt my mind beginning to atrophy in the house in Istanbul. I was imprisoned by its routines, stifled by its traditions, crushed by the weight of its history. I was overwhelmed by a desire to experience the real world. Our summer house and the sea represented freedom. Ever since I was three years old I had always loved being here. Dmitri just happened to pass by at the right time. It could have been anyone.

  I told her of how all this had become very clear to me even before I had become pregnant with Emineh. Her birth had marked a point of no return. After that I found him physically repulsive and intellectually unsatisfying. He began to resent what he called my superior ways and our relationship disintegrated. I thought perhaps that a period of absence might change my mind, but after a week here with Orhan I knew it was over. I could never go back to Konya and share his hideous bed.

  “And now, Mother, you have compelled me to invite him here for Orhan’s sake and so that we can see my Emineh. He kept her as a hostage, you know. To make sure I returned. Perhaps he will not come, but if he does he must return alone. My children will stay here with us.”

  “The boy is attached to him, Nilofer. He has been a good father to both his children. Poor man. I feel sorry for him. What a misfortune to have you as a wife. He needed someone submissive and a good cook. Like me, you are neither. Meanwhile you are satisfying your needs with the help of a young barber. If Iskander Pasha finds out he’ll have another stroke. First a teacher, now a barber. What next?”

  “Selim may be a barber by descent, Mother, but his intelligence transcends that of most of this family.”

  “Stop this at once. You used exactly the same words with exactly the same stubborn look on your face ten years ago, when you decided to elope with that school teacher. At least learn from your own mistakes, my child. Selim does not pose a serious problem. A handsome purse from one of your brothers might seal his mouth. I don’t want him boasting or mentioning your name in the coffee houses. He should be sent back immediately to Istanbul. And don’t you dare tell me that you will return with him. You have two children to think now.

  “I will not permi
t Selim to be insulted by you or anyone else in this family, Mother! The very idea of offering him money fills me with nausea.”

  “Really? Surely the nausea you feel is induced by a fear that he might accept our offer. Whichever it is, I would rather you were sick than sorry, Nilofer.”

  My anger was about to explode but I managed to contain myself. “I am not a child any longer. Ten years seems a lifetime away. I accept my head is in a whirl, but I am not about to do anything foolish or impulsive. Let us remain calm and think of the future.”

  “How strange that you should use that particular phrase. You sounded just like your grandmother Beatrice. She was always a great believer in remaining calm and imagining a prosperous future.”

  I looked over my mother’s shoulder and saw the familiar portrait of Grand-mother Beatrice on the mantelpiece. It had been painted the year after she married Grandfather and if her features had not been exaggerated by the painter, as was often the case in those days since painters always wanted to please in order to be employed again, she must have been a very striking woman, much more so than her own daughter, my mother Sara. The same Sara was looking at me intently as I thought of her past.

  Before this day, I had never found a chance to speak with my mother as an equal. Before I ran away with Dmitri we were hardly ever alone and, in any case, I had been too young to be taken seriously. I had heard vague rumours that my mother was unhappy when she first married Iskander Pasha, but Zeynep denied that this was so and told me not to believe anything I heard in the kitchen.

  Everything had changed since then, and as the mother of two children, my status had suddenly risen, at least as far as my mother was concerned. I asked her a question I had been saving for over ten years.

  “Were you forced to marry him?”

  To my surprise she hugged me and began to weep. Tears, which must have been stored there for many years, poured out in a torrent. It was my turn to hold her close and comfort her.

  “I told the Stone Woman everything all those years ago. Nobody told you?”

  I shook my head.

  “Perhaps I was really alone. There were no eavesdroppers that day.”

  “You don’t have to tell me now, Mother. There will be other occasions.”

  But she wanted to talk about herself. It was as if listening to me talking to the Stone Woman had unblocked something deep in her heart.

  ‘If only my father had not been a court physician, my whole life would have taken a different course. Because like his father and grandfather before him he attended the Sultan and the royal family, it was considered a mark of prestige for lesser nobles to employ him as well. I suppose he was also good at his work, though he often used to quote his grandfather returning from the palace and remarking that the task of a good physician was not just to heal the body, which was often difficult, but to comfort the mind, which was always possible. My father thought that this commonplace was very profound and he repeated it often when we had guests, so that Mother and I would look at each other when we saw it coming and silently mouth the words.

  Iskander Pasha, a great believer in maintaining traditions, had employed your grandfather as the family physician. Even so, had it not been for an accident of fate, my future might not have been determined so hastily. One day Iskander Pasha’s coachman collided with another coach. Your father was slightly hurt. I think a piece of wood grazed his forehead and he began to bleed. The frightened coachman drove straight to our house and asked for my father. He was out on a visit and my mother insisted that Iskander Pasha be brought into the house so that one of my father’s assistants could disinfect and dress the wound. This was not an uncommon occurrence in those days. I was with my mother when your father entered our house. After he had been bandaged my mother, aware of the fact that he had been recently appointed as the Sultan’s ambassador to Paris, offered him some refreshments. He was about to refuse when he caught sight of me. A woman can always tell when a man looks at her in that particular fashion. He stayed and broke bread with us. He was still there when my father returned an hour later and he was invited to stay to dinner. To our amazement he accepted the invitation. He was in a charming mood, breaking into French and German and impressing us with his knowledge of Paris and Berlin. My father, to be honest, was flattered that such an important dignitary from such a distinguished family had spent four hours in our house.

  As the coffee was served, Father was about to enlighten Iskander Pasha on the task of a good physician, when to our delight and surprise, Iskander Pasha stole the moment from him. He had heard the story before. My father was crestfallen till Iskander Pasha confided that it was the Sultan who had first relayed to him this immortal saying. A smile took over my father’s face. It was so ingratiating and so servile and eager to please that I really felt my stomach turn. I had no choice but to leave the table. I rushed to the bathroom and vomited everything. Strong premonitions can have that effect on one’s body.

  When I returned, my face pale and drained, Iskander Pasha had made his farewells and left. I was relieved, for during the meal he had kept looking at me in a fashion that made me nervous and fearful. I was not in the least interested in him and I remember that night when I was in bed I kept repeating to myself: “Treat him like a closed door which must never be opened. If you push it even a tiny bit in order to peep through the crack you will sink into oblivion.” This was not difficult to achieve, since he had not succeeded in arousing my curiosity to the slightest degree. Remember that I was not yet twenty and your father, twice my age and more, already appeared to me like an old man...’

  At this stage I interrupted her. I was irritated that she was exhibiting such complete apathy towards my father. After all, he was neither stupid nor ugly and I did love him, despite his many imperfections. I was in a hurry to reach the root of the problem.

  “Before you continue to explain your indifference to my father, let me ask you something. Were you in love with another man at the time?”

  “Yes,” she replied with a fierceness that took me aback, “I was in love with Suleman. He was my own age. We shared each other’s emotions, desires and dreams. There was a harmony between us, which went so deep, so deep, that it felt like the wellspring that is the source of life. Do you want to hear about him, Nilofer, or will you feel disloyal to your poor, crippled father, lying speechless next door? Be honest.”

  I was touched by the depth of her emotions and even more so by the fact that she could still feel all this after thirty years in this household. My feelings seemed so transient when compared to what she must have suffered. I was overcome by love for her and I leaned over and kissed her face, wiping away the single, salty tear that was crawling down her left cheek.

  “I want to hear everything, Mother. Everything.”

  ‘Suleman was a distant cousin of my mother. His family, like ours, had moved to Istanbul from Cordoba in the fifteenth century, when we were expelled by the Catholics. My father came from a family of physicians who claimed kinship with Maimonides. My mother’s family were merchants and traders. They were made welcome here. The Ottomans gave us refuge and employment. Suleman’s forebears moved away and settled in Damascus, but without ever losing contact with the family in Istanbul. Since they were traders they travelled a great deal and, as a consequence, contact was never broken. The marriage of my parents, which was a happy one, had been arranged through the exchange of letters.

  Suleman wanted to be a physician. He was tired of Damascus. He found it far too provincial and he wanted to be close to Europe. His father wrote to mine and, naturally, Suleman was invited to stay with us indefinitely. My father had agreed to procure his entry into the medical school in Istanbul. I was eighteen years of age at the time. He was a year older. It was as if the sun had entered our house.

  All my friends had brothers and sisters and I had always felt odd that I was an only child. Mother could not conceive again after my birth, which had been difficult. She said that if Father had not been presen
t, the midwife would have been incapable of stemming the flow of blood and she would have died. Strange that I, too, have only produced a single flower, which has fruited so beautifully. I was truly relieved when you produced Orhan and Emineh. I felt the old curse had been broken.

  Suleman was like the older brother I never had and certainly my parents treated him like a son. There were no restrictions. I took him everywhere, both in the coach and on foot. I showed him the hidden delights of our city. Visitors from the West look at Sinan’s mosques and sigh with admiration. They are bewitched by the palaces and they marvel at the rituals of the Court, but few of them ever penetrate the inner life of our city. The loves we share with a city are always secret, adolescent day-dreams, especially if that city is wide open like Istanbul, but I felt like keeping nothing secret from Suleman even though I had known him for less than two weeks. The affinities between us were deep, but there were also differences. I was wilful and headstrong. He was emotional and tender-hearted, but also insecure in many ways.

  We would often dress like Westerners and take tea in a hotel and speak in French to the waiters. It was only when we heard them wondering in Turkish whether we were brother and sister or a newly married couple on their honeymoon that I replied in pure Stambouline, just to observe their amazed expressions. They were the happiest days of my life, Nilofer. The innocence that precedes true love can never be repeated. When it vanishes, it has gone for ever.

  Everything seemed magical when Suleman and I were together. We would sit in a café sipping coffee in Europe as we observed the sunset drowning Asia across the Golden Horn. We could speak with each other about everything and anything. There were no taboos. Nothing was sacred. It was not simply that we exchanged reminiscences or discussed the more peculiar episodes in the history of our respective families. From the very beginning there was something much more intimate. It was as if we had never been without each other. And we laughed, Nilofer. I have never laughed so much in my life before or since that time.