by Elif Shafak
Not that Shams never comes to my room. He does. Each time he wants to visit me in the evening, he asks me beforehand if it is all right. And each time I give the same answer.
“Of course it is,” I say. “You are my husband.”
Then all day long I wait for him with bated breath, hoping and praying that this time our marriage will be consummated. But when he finally knocks on my door, all he wants to do is sit and talk. He also enjoys reading together. We have read Layla and Majnun, Farhad and Shirin, Yusuf and Zuleikha, The Rose and the Nightingale—stories of lovers who have loved each other against all odds. Despite the strength and determination of their main characters, I find these stories depressing. Perhaps it is because deep inside I know that I will never taste love of such proportions.
When not reading stories, Shams talks about the Forty Rules of the Itinerant Mystics of Islam—the basic principles of the religion of love. Once he put his head on my lap as he was explaining a rule. He slowly closed his eyes, and as his voice trailed off into a whisper, he fell asleep. My fingers combed through his long hair, and my lips kissed his forehead. It seemed an eternity before he opened his eyes. Pulling me down toward himself, he kissed me softly. It was the most blissful moment we ever had together. But that was it. To this day his body is an unknown continent to me, as is my body to him.
During these seven months, I, too, have been to his room several times. But each time I visit him unannounced, my heart constricts with anxiety as I can never tell how he will receive me. It is impossible to predict Shams’s moods. Sometimes he is so warm and loving that I forget all my sorrow, but then at other times he can be extremely grumpy. Once he slammed his door in my face, yelling that he wanted to be left alone. I have learned not to take any offense, just as I have learned not to bother him when he is in deep meditation.
For months on end after the wedding, I pretended to be content, perhaps less with others than with myself. I forced myself to see Shams not as a husband but as almost everything else: a friend, a soul mate, a master, a companion, even a son. Depending on the day, depending on his mood, I thought of him as one or the other, dressing him up in a different costume in my imagination.
And for a while it worked. Without expecting much, I began to look forward to our conversations. It pleased me immensely that he appreciated my thoughts and encouraged me to think more creatively. I learned so many things from him, and in time, I realized, I, too, could teach him a few things such as the joys of family life, which he had never tasted before. To this day I believe I can make him laugh as no one else could.
But it wasn’t enough. Whatever I did, I could not rid my mind of the thought that he didn’t love me. I had no doubt that he liked me and meant me well. But this wasn’t anything even close to love. So harrowing was this thought that it was eating me up inside, gnawing at my body and soul. I became detached from the people around me, friends and neighbors alike. I now preferred to stay in my room and talk with dead people. Unlike the living, the dead never judged.
Other than the dead, the only friend I had was Desert Rose.
United in a common need to stay out of society, we had become close friends. She is a Sufi now. She leads a solitary life, having left the brothel behind her. Once I told her I envied her courage and determination to start life anew.
She shook her head and said, “But I have not started life anew. The only thing I did was to die before death.”
Today I went to see Desert Rose for an entirely different reason. I had planned to maintain my composure and talk to her calmly, but as soon as I entered, I started choking back sobs.
“Kimya, are you all right?” she asked.
“I am not feeling well,” I confessed. “I think I need your help.”
“Certainly,” she said. “What can I do for you?”
“It is about Shams.… He doesn’t come near me … I mean, not in that way,” I stuttered halfway through but managed to finish my sentence. “I want to make myself attractive to him. I want you to teach me how.”
Desert Rose exhaled, almost a sigh. “I took an oath, Kimya,” she said, a weary note slipping into her voice. “I promised God to stay clean and pure and not even think anymore about the ways a woman could give pleasure to a man.”
“But you are not going to break your oath. You are just going to help me,” I pleaded. “I am the one who needs to learn how to make Shams happy.”
“Shams is an enlightened man,” Desert Rose said, lowering her voice a notch, as if afraid of being heard. “I don’t think this is the right way to approach him.”
“But he is a man, isn’t he?” I reasoned. “Aren’t all men the sons of Adam and bound by the flesh? Enlightened or not, we all have been given a body. Even Shams has a body, doesn’t he?”
“Yes, but … ” Desert Rose grabbed her tasbih and started to finger the beads one at a time, her head tilted in contemplation.
“Oh, please,” I begged. “You are the only one I can confide in. It has been seven months. Every morning I wake up with the same heaviness in my chest, every night I go to sleep in tears. It can’t go on like this. I need to seduce my husband!”
Desert Rose said nothing. I took off my scarf, grabbed her head, and forced her to look at me. I said, “Tell me the truth. Am I so ugly?”
“Of course not, Kimya. You are a beautiful young woman.”
“Then help me. Teach me the way to a man’s heart,” I insisted.
“The way to a man’s heart can sometimes take a woman far away from herself, my dear,” Desert Rose said ominously.
“I don’t care,” I said. “I am ready to go as far as it takes.”
Desert Rose
KONYA, DECEMBER 1247
Bursting into tears, she kept begging me to help, her face swollen, her chest heaving harder and faster, until I finally told her I would lend a hand. Even as I comforted her, deep inside I knew it was hopeless, I knew I should never have yielded to her demands. Still, I wonder how could I not have seen this tragedy coming? Torn with guilt, I keep asking myself again and again, how could I have been so naïve and not seen that things would take such a terrible turn?
But the day she came to me crying for help, there was no way I could turn her down.
“Teach me, please,” she begged me, her hands demurely folded in her lap, like the good girl she was raised to be. Hers was a voice that no longer had a reason to hope yet was hopeful all the same.
What harm could there be in this? I thought as my heart lurched in compassion. It was her husband she wanted to seduce, for God’s sake. Not a stranger! She had only one motive: love. How could this lead to anything incorrect? Her passion might be too strong, but it was halal, wasn’t it? A halal passion!
Something inside me sensed a trap, but since it was God who set it, I saw no harm in walking right in. This is how I decided to help Kimya, this village girl whose only notion of beauty was applying henna to her hands.
I taught her how to make herself more attractive and good-looking. She was an avid student, eager to learn. I showed her how to take long perfumed baths, soften her skin with scented oils and ointments, and apply masks of milk and honey. I gave her amber beads to braid in her hair so that her head would have a sweet, lasting smell. Lavender, chamomile, rosemary, thyme, lily, marjoram, and olive oil—I told her how to apply each and which incenses to burn at night. Then I showed her how to whiten her teeth, paint her nails and toes with henna, apply kohl on her eyes and eyebrows, redden her lips and cheeks, how to make her hair look lush and silky and her breasts bigger and rounder. Together we went to a store in the bazaar I knew too well from the past. There we bought her silk robes and silk undergarments, the likes of which she had never seen or touched before.
Then I taught her how to dance in front of a man, how to use this body God had given her. After two weeks of preparation, she was ready.
That afternoon I prepared Kimya for Shams of Tabriz, the way a shepherd prepares a sacrificial lamb. First she took a warm ba
th, scrubbing her skin with soapy cloths and anointing her hair with oils. Then I helped her to get dressed in clothes that a woman could wear only for her husband, and even for him only once or twice in a lifetime. I had chosen a cherry-colored sheath and a pink robe gilded with hyacinths, of the sort that would reveal the shape of her breasts. Lastly we applied lots and lots of paint on her face. With a string of pearls across her forehead added as a final touch, she looked so pretty that I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
When we were done, Kimya didn’t look like an inexperienced, timid girl anymore, but a woman burning with love and passion. A woman ready to make a bold move for the man she loved and, if necessary, to pay a price. As I stood inspecting her, I remembered the verse of Joseph and Zuleikha in the Holy Qur’an.
Just like Kimya, Zuleikha, too, had been consumed by a desire for a man who did not respond to her overtures. When the ladies in the city had maliciously gossiped about her, Zuleikha had invited them all to a banquet. She gave each of them a knife: and she said (to Joseph), “Come out before them.” When they saw him, they did extol him, and (in their amazement) cut their hands: they said, “God preserve us! No mortal is this! This is none other than a noble angel.”
Who could blame Zuleikha for desiring Joseph so much?
“How do I look?” Kimya asked anxiously before she put on her veil, ready to step out the door and onto the street.
“You look exquisite,” I said. “Your husband will not only make love to you tonight, he’ll come back tomorrow asking for more.”
Kimya blushed so hard her cheeks turned rosy red. I laughed, and after a brief pause she joined me, her laughter warming me like sunshine.
I meant what I’d said, as I felt confident that she would be able to attract Shams, the way a flower rich with nectar attracts a bee. And yet when our eyes met just before she opened the door, I saw that a trace of doubt had crept into her gaze. Suddenly I had a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach, almost a premonition that something terrible was going to happen.
But I didn’t stop her. I should have known better. I should have seen it coming. For as long as I live, I will never forgive myself.
Kimya
KONYA, DECEMBER 1247
Bold, boisterous, and intelligent, Shams of Tabriz knows a great deal about love. But there is one thing he doesn’t know anything about: the pain of unrequited love.
The evening Desert Rose dressed me, I was full of excitement and an audacity I didn’t know I had in me. The soft rustle of the silk dress against my body, the scent of my perfume, the taste of rose petals on my tongue—it all made me feel awkward, but also unusually brave. Back at home I caught my reflection on a pane of glass. My body was neither rotund nor milky, and my bosom not as ample as I would have liked, but I still thought I looked pretty.
I waited until I was sure everyone in the house had gone to sleep. Then I wrapped myself in a long, thick shawl and tiptoed to Shams’s room.
“Kimya, I wasn’t expecting you,” he said as soon as he opened his door.
“I had to see you,” I said and stepped inside without waiting for him to invite me in. “Could you please close the door?”
Shams looked puzzled, but he did as told.
When we were alone in the room, it took me a few seconds to muster my courage. I turned my back to him, took a deep breath, and then, in one quick move, removed my shawl and slid my robe off. Almost instantly I felt the weight of my husband’s surprised eyes on my back, from my neck down to my feet. Wherever his gaze touched felt warm. But that warmth, whether it was real or imagined in my excitement, was quickly replaced by the coldness of the silence that descended upon the room. My chest rising and falling with apprehension, I stood in front of Shams as naked and inviting as the houris in paradise are said to be.
In the pregnant silence, we stood listening to the wind outside, howling, raging, and wailing through the city.
“What do you think you are doing?” he asked coldly.
It was quite an effort to find my voice, but I managed to say, “I want you.”
Shams of Tabriz walked a half circle around me and stood right in front of me, forcing me to look him in the eye. My knees buckled beneath me, but I didn’t budge. Instead I took a step toward him and pressed my body against his, squirming ever so slightly, offering him my warmth, the way Desert Rose had taught me. I caressed his chest and whispered soft words of love. I drank in his fragrance as I moved my fingers up and down his muscular back.
As if he had touched a burning stove, Shams jerked away. “You think you want me, you think you do, but all you want is to pamper your bruised ego.”
I put my arms around his neck and kissed him, ever so hard. I pushed my tongue into his mouth and began flicking it back and forth, as I remembered what Desert Rose had told me: “Men love to suck their wives’ tongues, Kimya. They all do.”
His lips tasted like blackberries, sweet and sour, but just as quickly as I thought a swirl of pleasure pulled us together, Shams stopped me and pushed me away.
“I am disappointed in you, Kimya,” Shams said. “Now, could you please get out of my room?”
As harsh as his words sounded, not a trace of feeling grazed his face. No anger. Not even the slightest irritation. And I couldn’t tell which hurt me the most: the sharpness of his words or the blankness on his face.
I had never felt so humiliated in my life. I bent down to take my robe, but my hands were trembling so hard I couldn’t hold the slippery, delicate fabric. Instead I grabbed my shawl and wrapped it around myself. Sobbing, gasping, and still half naked, I ran out of the room and away from him, away from this love that I now understood existed only in my imagination.
I never saw Shams again. After that day I never left my room. I spent all my time lying on my bed, lacking not so much the energy as the will to go out. A week passed, then another, and then I stopped counting the days. All strength was drained from my body, ebbing away bit by bit. Only my palms felt alive. They remembered the feel of Shams’s hands and the warmth of his skin.
I never knew that death had a smell. A strong odor, like pickled ginger and broken pine needles, pungent and bitter, but not necessarily bad. I came to know it only when it started to waft around my room, enveloping me like thick, wet fog. I started running a high fever, slipping into delirium. People came to see me. Neighbors and friends. Kerra waited by one side of my bed, her eyes swollen, her face ashen. Gevher stood on the other side, smiling her soft, dimpled smile.
“Goddamn that heretic,” said Safiya. “This poor girl has fallen sick of heartbreak. All because of him!”
I tried to force a sound, but it didn’t make it past my throat.
“How can you say such things? Is he God?” Kerra said, trying to help. “How can you attribute such powers to a mortal man?”
But they didn’t listen to Kerra, and I was in no state to convince anyone of anything. In any case, I soon realized that whatever I said or didn’t say, the outcome would be much the same. People who didn’t like Shams had found another reason in my illness to hate him, whereas I could not dislike him even if I wanted to.
Before long I drifted into a state of nothingness, where all colors melted into white and all sounds dissolved into a perpetual drone. I could not distinguish people’s faces anymore and could not hear spoken words beyond a distant hum in the background.
I don’t know if Shams of Tabriz ever came to my room to see me. Perhaps he never did. Perhaps he wanted to see me but the women in the room would not let him in. Or perhaps he did come after all, and sat by my bed, played me the ney for hours, held my hand, and prayed for my soul. I’d like to believe that.
Nonetheless, one way or the other, it didn’t matter anymore. I was neither angry nor cross with him. How could I be, when I was flowing in a stream of pure awareness?
There was so much kindness and compassion in God and an explanation for everything. A perfect system of love behind it all. Ten days after I visited Shams’s room clad in silk a
nd perfumed tulles, ten days after I fell ill, I plunged into a river of pure nonexistence. There I swam to my heart’s content, finally sensing that this must be what the deepest reading of the Qur’an feels like—a drop in infinity!
And it was flowing waters that carried me from life to death.
Ella
BOSTON, JULY 3, 2008
Boston had never been this colorful and vibrant, Ella thought. Had she been blind to the city’s beauty all this time? Aziz spent five days in Boston. Every day Ella drove from Northampton to Boston to see him. They had tasty, modest lunches in Little Italy, visited the Museum of Fine Arts, took long walks on Boston Common and the Waterfront, watched the whales in the aquarium, and had coffee after coffee in the busy, small cafés of Harvard Square. They talked endlessly on subjects as diverse as the curiosities of local cuisines, different meditation techniques, aboriginal art, gothic novels, bird-watching, gardening, growing perfect tomatoes, and the interpretation of dreams, constantly interrupting and completing each other’s sentences. Ella didn’t remember ever talking so much with anyone.
When they were outside on the street, they took care not to touch each other, but that proved to get increasingly difficult. Small peccadilloes became exciting, and Ella started looking forward to a brush of their hands. Goaded by a strange courage she never knew she had in her, in restaurants and on the streets Ella held Aziz’s hand, kissed his lips. Not only did she not mind being seen, it felt as if a part of her longed to be seen. Several times they returned to the hotel together, and on each occasion they came very close to making love, but they never did.