by Elif Shafak
*
Elias had first noticed that a teenager was following him when he was in his local Indian shop, buying mango pickles. Spicy and tasty, they went well with various dishes, and he was planning to serve them with marinated rabbit. He had no sooner grabbed a jar than he felt an odd discomfort, sensing someone’s gaze on him. Instinctively, he turned his head, and the boy was there, outside the shop window, staring at him over a pile of cans and boxes. There was animosity in his face, but also something akin to curiosity. A flicker of interest flashed in his eyes, like a spark that leaped from burning coals.
Elias left the shop, glancing left and right, determined to talk to the boy should he find him waiting out there. But when he stepped on to the pavement there was no one. He must have been looking for someone else, he assumed. No need to become paranoid. Elias chose to believe this, even though he had recognized the boy: he had approached Elias for a light in the cinema and he bore a striking resemblance to Pembe. Two days later he spotted him again, smoking in front of Cleo’s. When he walked out of the restaurant later that night, prepared for the worst, the boy had once again vanished into thin air.
And so it went. Over the next few weeks the boy followed Elias at different hours of the day, appearing and vanishing, like a phantasm that had lost its way. Not once did he try to hide himself, though he kept enough of a distance to take to his heels if necessary. Elias never mentioned these encounters to Pembe, which, he now realized, was a big mistake.
*
Several times Elias was tempted to go to the hospital nearest Pembe’s house or the morgue, but his worry about the scene that might erupt should he come across her relatives or neighbours stopped him cold. He wished to have a private talk with her daughter again, but even if he could find the right words, he didn’t expect to be welcomed. The girl had made that very clear. He thought about going to the police but believed he had nothing to tell them.
He spent the next days mostly in his kitchen, wearing the same clothes, his hair unwashed and lifeless. He prepared sauces and soups, bright red, rich orange and creamy white, none of which would be served to anyone. Inside him the rage, the self-reproach and the sorrow made a concoction of their own. It was his fault that things had reached this point; it was all his doing. How could he have failed to see it coming? How could he have been so naive?
The papers said that Iskender Toprak, the prime suspect, was on the loose. Elias waited for him to appear at his door, ready to face him. Instead of Iskender, however, Scotland Yard appeared. They asked him too many questions. Took pictures of his house, gathered detailed information about his work, quizzed him endlessly about his relationship with the deceased.
When they finally left, Elias drew the curtains and lit a candle, which he watched burn until it was but a stub. Meanwhile he put on a record by Fairuz, her powerful voice penetrating into every crevice of the flat, changing the air like a gust of wind. When she started singing ‘Sakan al-Layl’, he collapsed, crying.
The night is calm, and in the cloak of calmness are hidden dreams . . .
All these years, he had deluded himself into thinking that he could not spend a day away from Cleo’s; his answer to the exhaustion brought on by working hard had been to work even harder. But for the next three weeks he confined himself to his home, barely going out. His staff kept ringing him, asking when he was coming back. When they sensed the depth of his pain, though not exactly the cause, they insisted that he take some time off. A month later Elias put his second chef in charge of the restaurant. Having relieved himself of his duties, he slipped into a dreamlike state in which he was surprised to find that even the most urgent tasks were not that urgent any more.
Early in 1979, after testifying in court and having nothing else to do, prove or confess, he did something he never thought he would do. He packed two suitcases and distributed the rest of his belongings among his employees. The ageing, Persian cat he gave to Annabel, who was delighted to have her back. Then he bought a ticket, one-way, and returned to Montreal.
The Watch
Abu Dhabi, March 1982
One morning, just after dawn, Adem walked to the construction site where he worked. The night guard – a hefty Pakistani with big, black eyes – was surprised to see him, but also content to have some company.
‘You’re early,’ the guard said.
‘I couldn’t sleep.’
The man smiled knowingly, and said, ‘You must have missed your wife. Send her some money. When wife is happy, you are happy.’
Adem cast around for a reply that would be in agreement with the remark but not disrespectful of Pembe’s soul. All he came up with was a curt nod. He watched the guard’s eyes shine like dark jewels, wondering if it was true that putting a few drops of lemon in your eyes made them brighter.
Adem placed a cigarette between his lips and offered one to the guard. For a while they smoked in silence, each of them lost in his own thoughts. Adem dredged up a time when he – as a young man in Istanbul – would gather cigarette butts from the streets to eke out one final drag. Once he had found half a cigarette with a lipstick mark on the pavement. He was doubly mystified by the discovery: amazed that someone would dispose of a fag that was only partly finished, and amazed that a woman could smoke on the street.
When he arrived in London, he had grown used to the sight of women puffing away in public, and the first time Roxana shared a cigarette with him he had been elated by the intimacy of the moment.
‘Here, take it,’ he said, holding out the almost-full pack.
‘You are giving it to me?’ the man asked.
‘Yes, a present for my brother.’
The night guard beamed, displaying a set of milk-white teeth. Could that be lemon juice too, Adem thought. Pity he had never tried that. The English had rather poor teeth. He should have told them about lemon juice.
Suddenly overhead came the noise of hundreds of wings, as a flock of migratory birds passed above them as if they were a single body. They might have flown all the way down from Istanbul. Or perhaps they had come from London and been spotted by one of his children – Esma leaving a bookshop with newly bought books, or Yunus writing graffiti on the walls with those punk friends of his, or Iskender, in prison, looking out of a prison window, watching the drizzle hit the courtyard – but no, he still found it painful to think about his eldest son and the terrible place where he had ended up. Adem blamed himself. He held himself responsible less for the things he had done than for those he hadn’t been able to. He thought, with a dawning comprehension, that he had always played truant in life, always been absent, always fearful of being swallowed by the earth.
Catching the Pakistani’s eye, Adem smiled ruefully. There was a rare innocence in the night guard’s face – a quality he had not come across in a long while – and he felt close to this man, as if they shared a common loss. Had they met at a different time, he would have asked him what his story was. He would have liked to see the pictures of his wife and children, for the man had given Adem the impression of being the sort of person who would carry his family’s photos with him everywhere, even into the makeshift hut where he watched the night alone.
Perhaps Adem, too, would have shown the night guard a photo of his children – Iskender and Esma holding baby Yunus in their arms, half proud half perplexed, still in their early years in England, their clothes slightly tatty but their expressions already adjusting to their new country. Adem also had a photo of Pembe taken on the day they had left Istanbul, but he wouldn’t allow anyone to see it, not even himself.
Rising to his feet, he pointed at the site, and said, ‘If you don’t mind, I’ve some thinking to do in there.’
The night guard shrugged. ‘Fine, but don’t mull over too much,’ he said and tapped his head. ‘No good for the brain.’
Adem trudged along, his feet crunching upon the gravel path. Just as he was about to enter the bui
lding, which looked almost spectral in the metallic blue of morning light, the guard came running after him, waving a yellow object in his hand.
‘Hey, wait. You forgot to put on a helmet.’
‘Oh, yes, the helmet. Thanks, brother.’
He put it on, gave a mock soldier’s salute and walked in.
*
When Adem was eight years old – or was it nine, he could never be sure – his mother had taken him for a stroll, just the two of them. He felt privileged, as it was he – and not any of his brothers – who had been specially chosen to accompany her.
They walked hand in hand. It was a radiant autumn day, but it felt like spring. They took a dolmush to the train station. The boy was mesmerized by the sight of the trains – their smells, their sounds, their grandeur. There was a man waiting for them, smoking behind a pillar, half hidden. He had waxed back his dark hair, making his wide forehead and bushy eyebrows stand out, and was smoking a cigarette. How long had he been standing there? What was his name? How did he know his mother? He never would learn the answers.
When the man saw the woman approach, a slow, confident smile etched its way across his face – until he noticed the boy.
‘The child . . .’ he said.
‘I couldn’t leave him behind,’ she said. ‘Please.’
‘We’ve talked about this, Aisha. I told you.’
He looked fed up, and in a hurry. His eyes darted from the woman’s face to the train, and from the train to the big, round clock.
‘He’s my youngest,’ she said, deadpan. ‘He needs a mother.’
The man tossed his cigarette on to the floor and stepped on it, as if he were squashing a cockroach. Then he raised his head and stared into the woman’s eyes. ‘I told you already, I’m not going to bring up another man’s child. Leave him with his father. That’s better for everyone.’
Gently, she put her hand on her son’s shoulder. ‘Darling, go and ask someone what time it is.’
‘What? But . . .’
‘I said go and ask,’ Aisha repeated.
When the boy came back – having learned that it was twenty past eleven – he found the man fulminating and his mother gazing at her feet, saying nothing.
‘We won’t be able to take the next train,’ the man remarked. ‘There’s another one at three o’clock. Come back then. Alone.’
On the way out they held hands again, he and his mother. They whisked out of the station into the drizzle, which was so light they didn’t need to seek shelter. Buying two simits* from a vendor near by, they sat there on the stairs. The child fed half of his simit to the pigeons, while his mother watched with unseeing eyes.
‘Who was that man, Mama?’
‘Just a friend.’
‘I didn’t like him,’ he said, his lip quivering. He hadn’t yet decided whether to start crying.
Aisha pulled him to her and ruffled his hair. ‘I don’t like him much either,’ she said.
Despite the relief he felt on hearing this, the boy knew something was wrong. It was so wrong that even when he ran in circles to scare away the pigeons, sweating inside his thick jacket, his mother did not scold him. Even when he stepped in the muddy puddles, his shoes making a squeaky sound as water seeped into them and his toes began to freeze, his mother remained silent.
‘I want to come with you.’
‘Oh, do you?’ she asked.
‘Yes, Mama. I want you to take me with you. Promise?’
Suddenly Aisha was serious. ‘Yes, my little love,’ she said.
‘No,’ the boy corrected. ‘You have to say my big love.’
*
Adem entered the freight lift and pressed the top button: twenty-two. After that he had to take the stairs to the twenty-seventh floor. From there you could not go any further, as there was barely a construction frame, just a skeleton of iron bars. When complete, it was going to be one of the tallest buildings in Abu Dhabi.
When he reached the top, he pulled a bag of cement close to the edge and sat on it, his mouth dry, his hands shaking in the way they always seemed to these days. But the view was perfect, flooded with light. Better than the view that the rich had from their penthouse apartments and smart offices. Diagonally across from him was a famous hotel with ornate balconies and an elaborate façade. For a second he imagined that someone was watching him – a feeling that left as quickly as it had come.
As he sat there observing the clouds drift by, his legs dangling over the frame, he tried to guess the first time their baba had heard the gossip about their mother. Odd though it was, he couldn’t recall any scenes from his childhood in which it was clear that his dad actually knew. Nor could he think of anyone who might have besmirched Aisha’s name, though he reckoned that quite a few had. Was it a neighbour? Was it the halal butcher around the corner – letting it slip while he was preparing the lamb chops? Or was it a complete stranger sitting next to him in the tea house, pretending to be a friend while his mouth spewed spite and slander? Innuendo travelled faster than light. What a thing to do to a good man like you, they would say, offering fake solace, thriving on other people’s unhappiness.
The story had repeated itself through years, through generations. Recently, a Turkish worker had arrived who knew of Iskender’s crime and the reason behind it. If the man had a loose tongue, which Adem was sure he had, the rumour would spread here as well. He would see in the eyes of his co-workers the sinister gleam he had come to recognize – pity, derision, curiosity. But it didn’t matter. As of this moment, Adem decided, nothing mattered any more. He was a shadow of the man he had once been, and no one could possibly hurt a shadow.
Far in the distance the horizon was covered in an orange-crimson streak of light, vivid and dazzling. Under this hazed glow the world seemed strangely still and strangely wise. Adem sat there admiring the daybreak, the distant buildings aflame against the placid landscape. It was as if the sky had slit open to reveal another universe, and everyone and everything was painted with God’s brush.
*
That afternoon, at three p.m., Adem’s mother did not go back to the train station. Instead, she grabbed her son’s hands and together they went to the outskirts of the city. They trekked up a hill, battling against the wind, ignoring the signposts along the way, all of which said NO TRESPASSING. It was forbidden to get this close to the dam, and yet they did. No one saw or stopped them. They sat on the embankment, the waters glistening mysteriously down below.
‘You see, I’m not leaving you,’ Aisha said. ‘Are you happy?’
The boy said he was, but his teeth were chattering and his lips had turned a pale blue, although it was not that cold. There was a handkerchief in his hand, which he twisted and twisted into a knot he then couldn’t untie.
‘Let’s go home,’ he heard himself plead, his breath wheezing. ‘I want to go.’
‘What’s at home?’ she snapped. Her voice, as thick as the humid air, was the voice of a stranger. Then, as if ashamed of her reaction, she put her finger to her lips and added, softly, ‘Quiet.’
As if prompted by her request, everything fell silent. The cicadas in the trees, the crickets in the field, the lorries on the road far away and even Istanbul with its perpetual hum and drone . . . The world came to a stop. Everyone and everything abided by her wish. It was a game they were playing. Adem felt special, grown-up. His mother was sharing a secret not with his brothers, but with him.
‘Mum . . .’
‘Hmmm?’
‘Where are we going?’
‘Sweetie, we talked about this before.’
‘I forgot.’
‘We’re going to a lovely place where there’re lots of toffee apples.’
‘But if I eat too many, my teeth will rot.’
‘Don’t worry. You may eat as many as you want.’
Adem attempted to show a flicker of j
oy, but his eyes remained confused, troubled. He didn’t like the change of tone. Mothers should fuss and scold, sweets should decay teeth or upset tummies. He had a feeling lately that nobody was doing their duty properly.
Aisha sighed, sensing her son’s unease in the way a barn owl perceives the slightest movement in the dark. She said, with her eyes cast down, ‘Where we’re going nobody gets sick. Your teeth will be just fine and my head won’t hurt any more. Isn’t that great?’
Then why are you crying? he wanted to ask but couldn’t. The thin, ticklish warmth of her embrace was both tender and painful. As he hugged her back, the boy could feel the heat of the sun on her body. There was in her breath – beneath her usual warm, sweet smell – a sour odour of something in decay. He touched a bruise on her right cheek, just under the eye, which had been barely noticeable when they left the house. But her make-up had washed off, causing the mark to stick out in its green-blue ugliness, darker towards the centre.
Gripped by a fear unlike any he had experienced before, Adem clutched his mother’s hand, his fingertips cold and pale against her skin. Together they approached the edge, dragging their shadows along. Her lips were moving non-stop, and he knew she was praying. Just as she was about to thrust her body forward, taking him with her, he panicked and, reflexively, jerked himself to one side. His hand slipped out of hers as swiftly as a dagger comes out of its sheath. This sudden move confused everything, causing her momentarily to lose her balance, if not her determination. Aisha fell, but instead of plummeting forward down into the waters below, she tumbled sideways, rolling down the slope. She dropped a few yards, the nettles and stones cutting her face; her bottom lip split open.
‘Mama, are you all right?’ he shouted from above.
She was fine, and yet not fine at all. They went back home and never said a word about this to anyone.
Two years later, unable to take it any longer, Aisha abandoned them. One morning she was gone, her coat no longer on the hanger, and a tattered suitcase missing from under the bed. Adem refused to believe she had left without taking him, and, in order to assure himself that this wasn’t the case, he opened her dressing-table drawer several times a day, checking for her silver hand mirror and hairbrush. As long as they were there, she would come back. When people gossiped – inside and outside the house – he listened to the ugly remarks they made, but he never mentioned to anyone, especially to Baba (the Drunk One) that she had tried to kill both herself and him. Nor did he disclose anything about the man he had seen at the station – the man, he now understood, with whom his mother had run away.
