by Elif Shafak
The PR woman saw an opportunity. ‘How about her past?’
‘But no … It’s just not her thing,’ the man said, holding his gaze on Peri and offering his hand to her. ‘It was nice to meet you, though.’
Peri extended her left hand, almost reflexively. Instead of shaking it, he grabbed her wrist, not letting go. Something passed from him to her, a tingling sensation, a flash of warmth.
Still holding her hand, he said, ‘Distrust charlatans, but not a real psychic.’
‘Oh, he’s the best, nothing like the others,’ confirmed the businesswoman.
‘Maybe another day,’ said Peri, pulling back.
No sooner had she taken a step than the psychic’s voice caught up with her. ‘You miss someone.’
Peri glanced over her shoulder at him. ‘What did you say?’
He came closer. ‘Someone you loved. You lost him.’
Peri quickly composed herself. ‘You could say the same thing to half the women – and men – in the world.’
He laughed, a false brightness in his voice. ‘This is different.’
Involuntarily, she folded her arms over her chest, determined not to have any further contact.
‘I can see the first letter of his name,’ he said with a confidential tone that was still loud enough for all the women to hear. ‘It’s an A.’
‘Most male names start with A,’ Peri said without thinking. ‘My husband’s, for instance.’
‘You know what, I won’t embarrass you in front of everyone. I’ll put it on a napkin.’
‘Kizim,’ yelled the businesswoman in a twitter. ‘Bring us a pen, hurry up!’
The PR woman said mischievously, ‘If it’s an old story, why not share it?’
‘Who said it was old?’ added the psychic. ‘It’s alive, breathing.’
Peri managed to remain calm while a tempest brewed inside. She just wanted him to leave her alone. Not only him, but all these women and all these men, and this city with its endless chaos.
The waitress appeared with the requested item, so fast it was almost as if she had been waiting for this moment. The psychic made a show of writing so the others couldn’t see, folding the napkin – each move painfully slow and ceremonious.
‘It’s my gift for you,’ he said as he gave it to Peri.
‘Right, thanks.’
She walked away from the women, passed by the men, stepped out on to the terrace. The fishing boat was gone, the water stretched out ahead, darker than the deepest regrets. A car tore down the street with its engine roaring and loud music – a romantic song in English – blasting from its open windows. Peri squinted her eyes, trying to imagine the man – always a man – who would play such music at these decibels and at this hour.
Gingerly, she unclenched her left fist – the hand she used for writing, the hand that was her strongest. There, on the surface of a crumpled napkin, the psychic had drawn three female figures – like the three wise monkeys. The three of them.
Under the first one was written: ‘She Saw Evil.’ Under the second: ‘She Heard Evil.’ And under the third were these words: ‘She Did Evil.’
Part Four
* * *
The Seed
Oxford, 2001
On New Year’s Eve, Peri was too excited to do even half the things she wanted to do. In the morning she went out running, but could not keep up her rhythm and the cramp in her calf was so bad that she had to finish early. When she sat down at her desk to read, she found herself unable to concentrate, the words crawling like hungry ants across the white paper. She felt just as famished. With a tendency to episodes of ‘comfort eating’, she feared that in her agitated state, if she had one bite, she might not be able to stop. So she nibbled apples instead. And she listened to the radio. That helped, the steady sound soothing her nerves. She tuned in to the world news, the local news, political debates and a BBC documentary on the Aztec Empire. But a documentary – even one on the mighty Aztecs – could only last so long. No matter how hard she tried to put the evening out of her mind, it loomed large in her thoughts. In the end it came as a relief when it was time to get ready. No dinner with Professor Azur could be worse than its anticipation.
Peri applied mascara, black eyeliner and lip gloss, and left it at that. She examined her face in the mirror, finding the nose she had inherited from her mother too plump. If there was a way, with the right cosmetics, to make it look thinner, she hadn’t a clue. Had Shirin been here, Peri might have asked her advice. Then again, had Shirin been here, Peri would probably not be going to Azur’s. You should not be alone on New Year’s Eve, the professor had said. He hadn’t invited her out of pity, she hoped.
What to wear was a challenge. Not that she was lost for choice. But with the few pieces she had, she put together multiple combinations, all of which she tried on, one by one. The denim black skirt with the loose blouse, the blouse with the jeans, the jeans with the green jacket … She didn’t want to look like a student, or, worse, to look as if she didn’t want to look like a student. At last, with a pile of clothes on the bed, she settled on a velvet skirt and a cerulean-blue jumper – its softness giving the impression of cashmere. She finished the outfit with a deep-blue necklace of evil-eye beads.
Though he had been clear about not bringing anything, she had learned from her mother never to go anywhere empty-handed. She bought eight small tarts from a delicatessen in Little Clarendon Street, which was silly of her as they cost more than a whole cake.
She walked to the bus stop and waited. In less than five minutes the bus arrived. She stood and watched as the bus doors opened and closed again. Then she watched the bus depart without her as she walked back to her place to change the skirt and the jumper. A long black dress and heavy boots. Better.
Azur lived just outside town, up the Woodstock Road, about twenty minutes by bus, in the village of Godstow. In spring it would be enfolded in the lush greenery of the English countryside, with clean views across Port Meadow to the dreaming spires of Oxford, though now darkness had fallen. By the time she got off the bus, it had begun to snow again – big fluffy flakes on her hair, on her coat. There were no other houses within direct sight, which didn’t surprise Peri. She had more than once suspected her tutor of being a secret misanthrope.
It was an imposing stone-clad, double-fronted house, though it was hard to tell its age, not unlike its owner. It looked like a place with a past – a house with stories. She walked towards it slowly, careful not to slip, on a winding path with leafless oaks on both sides. The wind cut through her coat. She shivered, as much from nerves as from the cold. She glanced back at the bus stop, as though worried that it might not still be there later that night. How would she get home? There had to be people at the party who lived in Oxford and one of them was bound to be able to give her a lift. It was typical of her to get overwrought about the end of an evening before it had even started.
Lights spilled from the ground-floor windows, warm and golden like honey. Clutching the box of pastries against her chest, Peri stood by the door, listening to the noise coming from inside – merry chatter, peals of laughter and, in the background, waves of music. The kind of music that none of her friends listened to, nor did she. The music, just like the light, was at once inviting and intimidating.
As Peri took a step forward she heard a hiss, like the swish of a distant car. But there was nothing on the road. No bus, no motorcycle, and surely no bikes in this weather. In the meantime, a different part of her brain, slower and wiser, warned her that the sound was much closer. She peered around. Her gaze fell on the high hedge to her right. She froze, her heart accelerating. Nothing moved, not even the wind, and yet she was now certain that something or someone was watching her.
Instinctively she called out, ‘Who’s there?’
In the murky blackness Peri thought she spotted a silhouette flitting behind the bushes. She took a step forward. ‘Troy! Is that you?’
The boy emerged, looking pale and embarrasse
d.
‘My God, you scared me,’ Peri said. ‘Are you following me?’
‘Not you, silly,’ Troy said, and nodded towards the house. ‘It’s the devil I’m after.’ He paused. ‘What are you doing here?’
Peri refused to answer. ‘You’re spying on the professor!’
‘Told you, I’m suing him. Need evidence in court.’
You are obsessed with him, Peri thought. Strange it was that among the many kinds of obsession, hatred and love were only shades apart, like adjacent hues on an artist’s palate.
A wave of laughter rose from the house. Troy darted back behind the hedgerow. ‘Please don’t tell them I’m here.’
Peri frowned. ‘You have no right to do this. I’ll go in and wait for ten minutes. Then I’ll come out and check. If you haven’t left by then, I’m telling Azur. If he doesn’t call the police, I will!’
‘Wow, calm down,’ said Troy, hands in the air. ‘Don’t shoot.’
She left him and turned towards the front door, which had a panel of stained glass: amber, olive and crimson. She quickly rang the bell. A birdlike tone pierced the air. Not a sweet canary or a nightingale, but more like a squawking parrot, laughing at the hapless visitor. The sounds from inside ceased for a moment and just as quickly resumed. On the other side of the coloured glass a shadow appeared. She could hear approaching footsteps. She had not renewed her lip gloss, but it was too late.
The door opened.
A woman stood blocking the entrance. A tall blonde, toned, lithe and good-looking. She examined Peri up and down, her mouth fixed in a smile that could have been friendly were it not for its imperiousness. She knew she was sexy; the midnight-blue strapless dress that clung to her body revealed an hourglass figure. Definitely not a professor, thought Peri. She was glad she had changed her jumper. She wanted nothing in common with this woman. Not even a shade of blue.
Azur had said that his dog, Spinoza, was his family now, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have a girlfriend. Or even a wife. He didn’t wear a wedding ring, but not every husband felt bound to display one. Why had it not occurred to her that he had someone in his life? Of course he did. At his age everyone did.
‘Hello there, pretty young face,’ said the woman, as she grabbed the box from Peri’s hand. ‘You must be the Turkish girl.’
Just then, to the sound of hasty footsteps, Azur appeared, holding an unopened bottle of wine directed towards them like a miniature ship’s cannon. He wore a gun-metal grey turtleneck sweater and a burgundy wool-and-cashmere jacket.
‘Peri, you came!’ the professor exclaimed, his forehead glistening in the light. ‘Don’t stand there in the cold. Come in, come in!’
She followed him – them – into the drawing room. Along the corridor the walls were covered in framed photographs. Portraits of people from different parts of the world stared at her, aloof and self-absorbed, as though they already knew something she was yet to discover.
‘Fascinating photographs. Who took them?’ asked Peri.
Azur answered with a wink. ‘I did.’
‘Oh, really? You must have travelled a lot.’
‘Just a bit. You know I’ve been to Turkey.’
‘To Istanbul?’
He shook his head. Not Istanbul, where everybody went or felt like they had to someday. No, Azur had been to other places – Mount Nemrut, with its giant statues of ancient deities; the Byzantine Monastery of Sumela, nestled upon a steep cliff; and Mount Ararat, where Noah’s Ark had come to rest. Peri swallowed, worried that he might ask her about these sites, none of which she had visited.
In the living room, there were full-height bookcases lining two opposite walls. Between them stood an elegant group of people, chatting heartily, holding champagne flutes and wine glasses.
Turning towards the assembled guests, Azur called out to a young man, ‘Darren, come over here. I want you to meet one of my best students,’ and as soon as he saw him coming, he disappeared.
Darren turned out to be a graduate student in Physics. He brought a glass of champagne to Peri, his manners polite and polished. He complimented her on her ‘exotic’ accent, an accolade it seemed she had earned. He asked her about her background, but was more eager to talk about himself, speaking as if he were racing against the clock. Yes, he was intelligent, ambitious – and desperate for affection. He tried to make her laugh, cracking jokes, one after another, having probably read somewhere that women fell for men with a great sense of humour. He rolled his eyes each time, as if even he didn’t find his delivery funny. Nice guy, though. The kind of man who would love and respect his girlfriend, not compete with her, Peri thought.
But she knew there would never be more than a flitting spark between them. Why did it have to be this way? Why did she not feel attracted to this boy, who was kind and personable, close to her in age and probably good for her? Instead it was the professor for whom she secretly yearned – a man not only old, unknown and unavailable, but also wrong. It puzzled her endlessly that she was not, and had never really been, interested in happiness – that magic word that was the subject of so many books, workshops and TV shows. She did not want to be unhappy. Of course, she didn’t. It just did not occur to her to seek happiness as a worthwhile goal in life. How otherwise could she allow herself to carry a torch for a man like Azur?
She breathed in. A boldness she never thought would come her way began to engulf her, like a heady perfume. Could other people, too, sense she was changing inside? Beyond all the gracious words and forced smiles of social life was a frontier that separated responsible individuals from misfits seeking confrontation and buccaneers seeking adventures. A borderline as thin as a whisper, which kept modest Turkish girls away from all kinds of trouble and sin. What would it be like to inch close to that divide, drawing so close as to feel the end of the hard earth under her feet and the beginning of the void beyond, and, suddenly, letting herself fall, light and listless?
Though she was neither brave nor eccentric, a seed of unorthodoxy had been sown in her heart somewhere along the journey of her youth, germinating unnoticed, waiting to burst through the topsoil. Nazperi Nalbantoğlu, always proper and careful and balanced, yearned to transgress, yearned to err.
‘Dinner time,’ said Azur, with an enticing grin from across the room, brandishing a large serving fork as if it were a spear intended for an unsuspecting guest.
The Night
Oxford, 2001/2
Peri followed everyone over to a large oak refectory dining table that might have been a prop in a medieval play. She could see it, in her mind’s eye, surrounded by lords and knights, laden with spit-roasted meats, stuffed peacocks and gleaming jellies. Except this one had no silver platters and golden goblets, only plain crockery.
Behind the table was a fireplace with majolica tiles running up both sides of the mantelpiece and a framed black-and-white photograph hanging above it. Peri approached the blazing fire, drawn to the dancing flames. Each of the tiles seemed to depict a different character – mostly men, but also a few women; their clothes from another era, their expressions grave. They were images of prophets, messengers and saints. On some of the tiles their names were inscribed: King Solomon, St Francis, Abraham, Buddha, St Teresa, Ramananda … The figures were carrying water, writing on parchment, talking to their disciples or walking alone in a desert landscape. They seemed to be arranged in no particular order. Seeing them all side by side, as if they were attending a banquet of their own, felt awkward. It was easier to imagine these sacred figures separately. Peri’s gaze searched for the Prophet Mohammed, wondering if he, too, had been included. There he was, ascending on a steed up to heaven, his face veiled, his head surrounded by flames, as in the Persian and Turkish miniatures in days past. There too was the Virgin Mary with the Christ Child, her skin pale as the snow outside, escorted by winged angels. She saw Moses pointing at a rod on the ground, half of which had been turned into a snake.
Why on earth had Azur placed these images around his firep
lace? If it wasn’t a matter of aesthetics, was it a manifestation of his belief system – and, if so, what exactly did he believe? She had read several of his books by now, but he still remained an enigma. Unable to answer the questions plaguing her mind, she focused instead on the photograph above the fireplace.
It was a shot of the house, clearly taken some years earlier. The oak tree she had seen, walking from the bus stop, was there, as well as the winding path. In the photo too was a thickly planted flower garden and dense, heavy white clouds so close they seemed to be touching the roof. The house looked different, smaller; perhaps there had been additions over the years. While the picture showed spring and nature at its best, to Peri it felt like a lost Arcadia, a time of light-hearted joy never to be regained.
By now all the guests had circled the table, glasses in their hands, waiting patiently to be guided to their seats.
‘Azur, how would you like us to sit?’ asked a thin, lantern-jawed man, who, Peri later learned, was an eminent professor in quantum physics.
‘As if he’d be so prescriptive! Seating is a matter of personal choice in this house,’ said another man of some considerable girth. A professor in the Faculty of Theology and Religion, he was an old friend of Azur and one of the people who knew him best. To emphasize his point, he pulled out a chair and sat down.
Taking their cue from him, the other guests, one by one, placed themselves around the table. As soon as Peri found a seat, Darren took the place beside her. The beautiful blonde sat on the opposite side, next to Azur.
The theology professor leaned back, taking in the music still playing in the background. After a moment, he raised his glass. ‘I’d like us to toast our generous host. We thank him for bringing us together – we forsaken and forlorn souls in Oxford, consumed by the frosty night.’
Looking over an iron candelabrum with three lit candles, which threw overlapping shadows on the walls, Azur returned the compliment with a smile.
