by Elif Shafak
On the way, they stopped at the traffic lights beside an Ottoman mosque famed for being built on the sea. Seagulls were settled around the circumference of the dome, like a string of pearls.
‘Baba, how come you were never religious?’ Peri asked, staring at the mosque.
‘Heard too many bogus sermons, seen too many fake gurus.’
‘What about God? I mean, do you still believe He exists?’
‘Sure I do,’ Mensur said a tad half-heartedly. ‘That doesn’t mean I understand what He is up to.’
A tourist couple – Europeans by the look of them – were taking pictures in the courtyard of the mosque. The woman had covered her head with one of the long scarves provided at the entrance. Someone – perhaps a passer-by – must have warned her that her dress was too short; she had tied another scarf around her waist to cover her legs above the knee. The man, by contrast, had sandals and Bermuda shorts apparently no one had seen as a problem.
Pointing at the couple, Mensur remarked, ‘If I were a woman, I’d be twice as critical of religion.’
‘Why?’ Peri asked, even though she guessed the answer.
‘Because God is a man … They’ve made us believe so, all those godly people.’
A car pulled up next to them, playing a song by Santana at full blast.
‘You see, my soul,’ Mensur continued. ‘I’m fond of the Bektashi or Mawlawi or Melami Sufi traditions with their humanism and humour. The Rind were free of all kinds of prejudice and intolerance – how many people remember them today? That ancient philosophy has disappeared in this country. Not only here. Everywhere across the Muslim world. Suppressed, silenced, erased. What for? In the name of religion they are killing God. For the sake of discipline and authority, they forget love.’
The light turned green. Seconds earlier – not after – the cars behind them had begun honking their horns. Mensur slammed his foot on the accelerator and murmured to himself: ‘How did these idiots wait in their mothers’ wombs!’
‘Baba, doesn’t religion give you a sense of security – like a protective glove?’
‘Maybe, but I don’t want an extra skin. I touch the flame, I burn; I hold ice, I’m cold. The world is what it is. We’ll all die. What’s the point of safety in crowds? We are born alone, we die alone.’
Peri leaned forward, about to say something, but her father’s voice carried on. ‘When you were little you asked me if I was scared of hell.’
‘And you told me you’d tunnel your way out of it.’
Mensur’s face broke into a grin. ‘You know why I’m not that keen on heaven?’
‘Tell me.’
‘I look at the people who’ll go there, those who pray and fast and seem to do everything they’re supposed to do. So many of them are full of pretension! I say to myself, if these chaps are headed for heaven, do I really want to be there? I’d rather burn peacefully in my own hell. Hot it is, but at least there’s no hypocrisy.’
‘Oh, Baba, I hope you won’t speak like this around others. You’re going to get yourself in trouble.’
‘Don’t worry, my tongue loosens only when I’m next to you. Or after I’ve had a few. Those fanatics will never sit with me at a raqı table. I’m safe.’ He chuckled.
In a little while they reached the Dolmabahçe Palace, with its triumphal arches and clock tower. Mensur asked, ‘Do you know the story of the black fish?’
He said it was not far from here that Sultan Murad IV had one stormy night sat down to read Arrows of Misfortune – a collection of satirical poems by the great Nefi. Barely had he begun when lightning struck a chestnut tree in the palace gardens – an omen, for sure. Deeply agitated, the Sultan not only threw the book into the sea, but also signed a letter granting Nefi’s enemies permission to chasten him any way they chose. A few days later, the poet, strangled with a noose, was plunged into the very same waters in which his poetry had disintegrated, verse by verse.
‘You see, what a toxic cocktail is ignorance and power. The world has suffered more in the hands of the religious than in the hands of people like me – whatever funny word you call my kind!’
Peri looked out of the window towards the silver-tipped waves shimmering in the afternoon sun, hoping to catch sight of a fish or two dimpling the surface. She knew, now that she had learned about the poet’s fate, that she would never forget this story. She took on the sorrows of others as though they were her own and hung them around her neck, just like the pine-needle necklaces she used to make as a child. They would prick her skin and hurt, but she would refuse to take them off until they dried and crumbled into particles fine as dust.
Mensur followed her gaze. ‘That’s why the fish in this part of the Bosphorus are black. They’ve swallowed too much ink. Poor things, they still search for words from poems and flesh from poets … the same thing, when you think about it.’
Peri loved her father’s tales. She had grown up with them. Yet the melancholy with which they were infused pierced her soul, like a splinter under her skin that had become an organic part of her. Sometimes she imagined she had splinters all over – both in her body and in the recesses of her mind.
‘Why am I even talking about these things?’ said Mensur with a new intensity. ‘Aren’t you excited about Oxford?’
They had applied to several universities in Europe, the US and Canada. Places with names so strange that no tongue could pronounce them. But it was Oxford that Mensur kept raving about.
‘It’s not certain I’m going.’
‘Oh, you are,’ declared Mensur. ‘Your English is the best. You’ve worked hard to get it right. You’ve passed the exams, done the interview and now you’ve got an offer.’
‘Baba, how are we going to afford it …’ said Peri. Her voice tailed off.
‘Stop worrying, I’ve taken care of that.’
He was selling their car as well as the only investment they’d ever had – a field not far from the Aegean Sea, where he had planned to grow olive trees someday. It weighed heavily on Peri’s conscience that her father was giving up his dreams for her. Still, when their eyes met in shared understanding, she smiled. Although she tried not to talk about it, the truth was that she could not wait to go to England.
‘Baba, are you sure Mother will be okay with this? I mean, have you spoken with her?’
‘Not yet,’ Mensur said. ‘I will at some point. How can she not want her daughter to go to the best university in the world? She’ll be thrilled!’
Peri nodded, even though she knew he was lying. Neither of them would tell Selma her daughter was leaving, not until the last possible minute.
The Last Supper
Istanbul, 2016
Upon walking into the spacious dining room, Peri found everyone settled at the table, clustered in separate conversations. Adnan was chatting with a family friend, the CEO of a global investment bank. By the looks on their faces they were either talking about politics or football – the two subjects where men freely displayed their emotions in the presence of others. At each end of the table sat one of the hosts. To those around him the businessman was recounting a holiday anecdote with the suave confidence of a man accustomed to being listened to, while his wife watched indifferently from a distance. Peri took a step forward, knowing that, in a flash, all heads would turn towards her. For a second she considered tiptoeing sideways until she reached the oak door entryway, where she could make her escape.
‘Darling, why are you standing there?’ The businessman’s wife had spotted her. ‘Come and join us.’
Peri forced a smile as she slid into the empty chair reserved for her. While she had been in the bathroom, most, if not all, the guests had heard about the accident. Now everyone was staring at her with sympathetic curiosity, eager to hear the story.
‘Are you all right?’ asked a woman who ran a PR agency. Her hair was coiffured into an elaborate pompadour held in place by a large rhinestone hairpin that made Peri think of a kebab skewer. It gave the woman a dangerous look. �
�We were worried for you.’
‘Yes, what happened to you, dear?’ added the CEO.
Peri caught Adnan’s eyes, detecting a trace of concern in her husband’s generally affectionate gaze. In front of him were an empty soup bowl and a tumbler of water. He was a teetotaller – both for health and religious reasons. Adnan was a believer.
‘Nothing worth mentioning at such a lovely table,’ Peri said, turning to the CEO. ‘I’m more interested in what you were talking about so passionately.’
‘Oh, bribery and corruption in the premier league,’ said the CEO. ‘Well, some teams seem bent on losing their matches. If I didn’t know better, I’d say they were being paid to do it.’ He threw a puckish glance at his host.
‘Bullshit,’ the businessman said. ‘If you’re trying to run down my team, I can assure you, my friend, we’ll win by the sweat of our brows.’
Peri sat back, relieved at having turned the conversation away from herself, though for how long she couldn’t tell.
The others had already finished their soup, and a maid appeared with a bowl for Peri – beetroot-and-carrot broth with a dollop of goat’s cheese. Someone filled her glass without asking. Napa Valley, red. Before taking it to her lips, she sent a silent salute to the soul of her father.
Peri glanced around the room as she slowly began to eat. Italian furniture, English chandeliers, French curtains, Persian carpets, and a plethora of ornaments and cushions with Ottoman motifs; it was a house – though more sumptuous than the average – decorated in the same style as so many other Istanbul homes, half Oriental, half European. On the walls were paintings by well-known and upcoming Middle Eastern artists, many of which Peri guessed would have been under- or overpriced, as the region’s art scene, perhaps not unlike its politics, was still in a state of flux.
In the past, Peri had been to more dinner parties than she could count where conservative Muslims had seen no harm in mingling with liberal drinkers. They would politely raise their glasses of water in a toast, joining in the gesture. Religion, in this part of the world, had been a collage of sorts. It had not been that uncommon to consume alcohol all year round and repent on the Night of Qadr, when one’s sins – so long as one was genuinely remorseful – were erased wholesale. There were plenty of people who fasted during Ramadan both to renew faith and to lose weight. The sacred dovetailed with the profane. In a culture of hybridity, even the most rational gave credence to the jinn and kept nearby a blue glass charm – esteemed throughout the land as a protector against the evil eye. Meanwhile, even the most devout had enjoyed entering the New Year watching TV, clapping to the rhythm of a belly dancer. A bit of this, a bit of that. Muslimus modernus.
But things had changed dramatically over the last years. Colours congealed into blacks-and-whites. There were increasingly fewer marriages in which – like that of her mother and father – one spouse was devout and the other not. Nowadays the society was divided into invisible ghettoes. Istanbul resembled less a metropolis than an urban patchwork of segregated communities. People were either ‘staunchly religious’ or ‘staunchly secularist’; and those who had somehow kept a foot in both camps, negotiating with the Almighty and the times with equal fervour, had either disappeared or become eerily quiet.
Tonight’s gathering, therefore, was unusual in that it brought together people from opposite camps. Grand and palatial, Peri likened the setting to a Renaissance painting. Had she been the artist, she would have called it The Last Supper of the Turkish Bourgeoisie. She counted the people around the table. Sure enough, there were thirteen, including herself.
‘Oh, she is not even listening,’ said the PR woman.
Realizing they were talking about her, Peri smiled. ‘What were you saying?’
‘Your daughter told me you went to Oxford.’
Peri’s face closed. Her eyes searched for Deniz, but she was eating with her friend in the next room.
‘Really, darling, you are so tight-lipped!’ said the businessman’s wife. ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’
Peri said, ‘Maybe because I didn’t graduate …’
‘Who cares?’ quipped the journalist. ‘You’re still entitled to show off.’
‘My brother does!’ said the PR woman. ‘ “When I was at Oxford …” That’s the first thing he tells people.’ She turned to Peri. ‘Which years were you there?’
‘Around 2001.’
‘Oh, same as my brother!’
Peri felt a sinking sense of unease, which deepened when she heard her husband join in: ‘Deniz mentioned you had a photo; why don’t you show them?’
He was doing it deliberately, Peri understood, prodding and provoking her in front of others. It hurt him to learn that she still carried that Polaroid. He knew, of course. Not everything, but most of the story. It was he, after all, who had picked up the pieces after she’d left Oxford.
‘Come on, show us!’ someone enthused.
Hard as Peri tried to change the subject, it didn’t work. Not this time. They were determined to see how she looked in her university years – and how much she had changed since then.
She pulled the Polaroid out of her bag and placed it on the table. In the candlelight four figures could be discerned, smiling faces from a discarded past, standing in the snow-covered Old Schools Quadrangle of the Bodleian Library; icicles dangled from the cornices of the entrance tower behind them. Each guest took a good look at the snap and passed it on to the next, but not before making a comment.
‘Oh, you were so young!’
‘Wow, look at that hair. Was it permed?’
When the photo reached the PR woman, she put on her glasses. She studied it carefully. ‘Wait’ – she said, her eyebrows rising – ‘this man looks familiar.’
Peri tensed up.
‘I used to visit my brother every year. I’m sure he showed me this man’s photo … where was it …’
Peri’s expression froze.
‘Oh, yes, I remember now! It was in a newspaper. This man was a famous professor … he was disgraced … forced to resign from Oxford! Everyone was talking about him. There was a scandal.’ She directed her gaze at Peri. ‘Surely, you must have heard about it?’
Peri sat still, unable to fabricate a lie, unwilling to tell the truth. To her immense relief, the maids marched in just then carrying the starters. Appetizing smells filled the air. In the interruption as the dishes were served, Peri managed to retrieve the Polaroid. By the time she put it back in her bag, her hands were trembling so much she had to keep them under the table.
Part Two
* * *
The University
Oxford, 2000
The day Nazperi Nalbantoğlu, fresh out of school, arrived at Oxford she was accompanied by her anxious father and her even more anxious mother. Her parents’ plan was to spend the day together; after seeing their daughter settled in to her new life, they would board the train back to London in the evening. From there, the couple would take the plane to Istanbul, where they had spent most of their thirty-two years of firmly unstable married life, like an old staircase that, though rickety, still stood against the ravages of time. But things proved to be more complicated than expected. Twice Selma broke down sobbing, her mood swinging through cycles of perturbation, self-pity and pride. Every now and then, the woman grabbed an end of her headscarf, seemingly to wipe her face but in reality to dab away a tear. A part of her was delighted with her daughter’s achievement. No one in their extended family had won a place at any foreign university, let alone Oxford. The possibility had not even entered their minds, so far removed was ‘here’ from ‘there’.
Another part of her, however, found it impossible to accept that her youngest child, a girl at that, would be living a continent away, alone, in a place where everything was foreign. It hurt her profoundly that Peri had applied without her knowledge or approval. She sensed her husband’s shadow behind the fait accompli. The two of them had informed her only when everything was done, and all she could do wa
s murmur a feeble objection, lest she risk alienating her daughter, probably for the rest of their lives. She wished they had a relative, or a relative of a relative, anyone – as long as they were Muslim and Sunni and Turkish-speaking and God-fearing and Quran-reading and easy to reach by phone – in this strange city to whom she could entrust Peri. But she knew of no one who fitted the description.
Mensur, meanwhile, though he yearned to see his daughter excel academically, was no less despairing about letting go of her. Outwardly composed, he spoke in a halting, disconnected way, in the same tone he might have used to talk about a distant earthquake: accepting but with an undercurrent of pain. Peri understood, and to some extent shared, her parents’ uneasiness. Never before had they been separated; never before had she been away from her family, home and homeland.
‘See, how beautiful it is here,’ Peri said. Undeterred by the pressure building in her chest, she could not help feeling excited, ready for her life to soar.
The sun sent out shafts of warm light from between the clouds, giving the feeling that summer had returned despite the occasional flicks of chilly autumn wind. With its cobbled streets, crenellated towers, cloistered arcades, bay windows and carved porticoes, Oxford resembled a place out of a children’s picture book. Everything in the compass of their gaze was redolent of history – so much so that even the coffee shops and department stores felt part of this centuries-old endowment. In Istanbul, ancient though the city was, the past was treated like a visitor who had overstayed his welcome. Here in Oxford, it was clearly the guest of honour.
The Nalbantoğlus spent the rest of the morning sauntering, admiring the gardens tucked within the time-worn, ivy-clad walls of the quadrangles, their feet crunching tentatively on the gravel, unsure of whether they were allowed to enter these spaces and with no one to ask. Some parts of the town felt so empty that the flaking limestone walls lining the ancient lanes seemed to ache for human attention.
