The Gaze

by Elif Shafak

  After Hoyrat Aruzyak, it was the turn of the snake-charmer. Every evening the snake charmer behaved as if he’d had to do something somewhere else first, and had come running at the last moment. As soon as he appeared on stage, the audience was invigorated to see the silver amulet on his biceps, the hoop on his ear and the silver belt round his waist. Even the scrawniest and most timid of them dreamt of rushing out into the streets and bellowing savagely. As the men daydreamed, the snake-charmer proceeded to the middle of the stage, frowned distractedly, bowed his head in salute, and lifted the lid of the basket. The snake emerged from the basket, slithered towards the edge of the stage, and stared with its emerald-green eyes. As it stared and stared, the audience began to see.

  In the snake’s eyes, the world was reflected in reverse.

  In the mirror of its eyes, widows were virgins and slaves were masters. The soil was playful; it tickled the souls lying beneath it. As long as hail flowered on tree branches, the cheeks of the birds with raindrops trembling on their feathers became redder with each glass, and copper coins were gems, and sack-cloth was satin. Rays of light that pierced the clouds tenderly embraced the old and the young, the rich and the poor alike. They were everywhere. They left a faint glitter on all they touched; they could use this faint glitter to weave golden crowns for their uncombed, unwashed heads. There was beauty even in the name of the most wicked man on earth, and a piece of heaven even in the most ravaged land. A startled silence echoes at the heart of every tumult. In the heart of all troubles a timid quietness echoes, at the end of every tunnel there’s an unexpected breath of freedom. Life begins as it ends; sometimes falling into the sky; sometimes rising up to the ground, stopping to catch its breath, warming itself in its own ashes. And when it was warm enough, it moved forward again; trudging on like a complex puzzle that did not like its own answer. As it remained, the people could continue to live. It didn’t matter whether the stay was long or short, because time wasn’t the issue.

  This was a portrait of heaven; not of an afterlife but of the heaven at the heart of life.

  At this point in the show, all of the men who had seen the reversed world in the eyes of the snake began sobbing; they wept more than they’d ever wept before, and in a way they’d never wept before. Most of them fell to their knees in remorse. The cool smell of cistern water filled the room. It was as if all evil would end, and all would be well. Even if for the briefest moment, all of the men in the tent felt they had the unique chance to be absolved of all their sins, and in order to demonstrate the sincerity of their desire for purification, they threw all of their money onto the stage. Then, the mirror closed just as it had opened. The snake-charmer bowed with a slight smile, deliberately picked up the money that had been thrown onto the stage and put it into his basket, and then, in contrast to his slowness of a moment before, rushed off the stage as if he was fleeing. The snake slithered after its master like a whistled melody.

  After the snake-handler, Betri Han1m came on with her puppets. She had ten small puppets on her ten fingers. She would represent the natural world through them. She would become rain, and rain down blessings; become a rainbow and open a passage for the impossible; become a dew droplet and stroke the cheek of the grass, become a breeze and thrill the foot of the mountains, become herbs and restore to health; become snow and spread consolation in large flakes; become sun and cause swan-necked flowers to open; become fog and lower silvery curtains of mystery; become climate and have all of its conditions loved, become water and increase life. There was no favour that nature could not bestow on man.

  After this pleasant show, a deep silence filled the tent. Now it was time for La Belle Annabelle to appear.

  When it was time for La Belle Annabelle to appear, all of the men were as thrilled as if they’d been tempted by the devil. They were thrilled by the sense that they would now see beauty beyond all of the beauty they’d already seen. If there was something beyond heaven, who would want to linger in heaven? La Belle Annabelle made death meaningless, unwittingly and unintentionally. At the point where death was rendered meaningless, life was unravelled stitch by stitch. And life loved to be amazed. There was a moment when even the most talkative would fall silent; when even the bravest would shake with fear. A moment when someone posing at a joyful celebration feels heart pains at just the second the photographer pressed the button… As if a burnt photograph was deliberately trying to darken the moment of happiness it witnessed… A moment when even the most fainthearted would find courage, when even the most eloquent stammered, when even the most insensitive felt the cry of terror within them… The name of that moment was a word even the most ancient languages under the sun had forgotten to embrace; unwritten and unspoken. For this reason it didn’t exist until it approached; and by the time it approached it was too late. Because La Belle Annabelle was on the stage.

  The moment Keramet Mumî Keşke Memiş Efendi saw Annabelle he knew he’d found what he’d been seeking for the eastward-facing section of the cherry-coloured tent. He decided to act at once, and began thinking of how to convince the owner of the troupe. However, he would not have to go to too much trouble. It happened that the peevish little old man, who had come here with dreams of earning a fortune, had run into debt soon after reaching the East, and was in need of money. Moreover, Annabelle had been a disappointment to him, because she could not learn even the shortest parts, could not dance properly and was unable to sing. In short, the owner of the French troupe was eager to get rid of Annabelle, who he’d once thought would bring him luck.

  When La Belle Annabelle arrived, she was as silent as mud drying in the sun. She met Keramet Mumî Keşke Memiş Efendi’s offer with a surprising silence, as if what’s called living was something to be scattered randomly. The rest was easy. A little money was pressed into the troupe owner’s hand, and the next day Annabelle took her place in the cherry-coloured tent. In the early days, she wandered around idly, and didn’t make any effort to learn the language. The words spoken around her hit her randomly, and some of them stuck to her. In this way, without even wanting to, she learned how to speak this new language. But she never spoke.

  To tell the truth, no one really expected her to speak. Keramet Mumî Keşke Memiş Efendi didn’t want her to dance or sing either. He wanted nothing more than for her to be on the stage, to stand on the stage; more accurately, it was enough simply for her to be seen. She also held a tambourine; but would anyone have noticed whether or not the cymbals jingled or the tassels moved? No one paid attention to anything except La Belle Annabelle’s face.

  Her face had forty rooms and forty doors like the mansion in which she was born. Forty different visitors were welcomed through forty separate doors. Each visitor, thinking himself the only one, could wander through the magnificent gardens and the cold store-rooms, under the ornamented ceilings, through the cobwebbed attics, and the glittering salons, and the velvet-covered corridors and among mirrors that reflected each other endlessly, without meeting any of the others.

  When she was on the stage, each man heard a faint voice whisper in his ear. ‘Open your eyes!’ And everyone in the audience opened their eyes wide.

  La Belle Annabelle’s face was a frontier without borders, in the days when the West didn’t take its eyes of the East, and still no one could make out where the East ended and the West began. Her face belonged to neither West nor East. For this reason, any man who looked at her felt himself both at home and abroad. There was something very familiar about this face…as familiar as the sweet smell of childhood. Everyone wanted to rush to embrace her. But when they took their first step, they’d feel they were approaching something strange and unfamiliar. This face both repelled and attracted; it repelled without permitting retreat. The face of La Belle Annabelle was as briskly fluid as the river she had left behind. As it flowed past wildly, its expression and condition altered from moment to moment. But whatever happened, she continued to be the most beautiful jinn of the poisonous yew forest.

 
All the men gathered in that tent wished that the ever-moving jinn face would regain her breath for a moment; put her head on their shoulders. It was a dream; everybody saw the love they had been longing for secretly on the face of the most beautiful La Belle Annabelle.

  Everybody suddenly became a master artist in order to paint her likeness. As their daydreams darted back and forth, each man trembled with the desire to have the honour of being La Belle Annabelle’s only love, even if just for the briefest moment. Then the moment ended, and La Belle Annabelle bowed and left the stage. The audience applauded her absence until their palms were red. But despite their insistence, La Belle Annabelle did not return to the stage.

  Every night the show ended in the same way. Each night when the eastward-facing door was thrown open, all of the men who had entered separately now rushed out together, pushing and shoving.

  They went back down the hill so dazzled by the beauty they’d been able to witness that they didn’t know where they were or what they were doing. At the fountain halfway down the hill they washed their faces with ice-cold water. The water didn’t help a bit. When they reached home, their faces darkened involuntarily because the women who would spend the night in their arms were not La Belle Annabelle. Some of them felt remorse for thinking this. They tried to behave more tenderly than ever to their wives. Then they wanted to go to sleep at once. Anyway, as Keramet Mumî Keşke Memiş Efendi often said: whenever men want to be free of borrowed dreams, they take refuge in the regularity of sleep.

  As they slept, their wives walked anxiously through the house. The image of the Sable-Girl did not leave their eyes. Those who were pregnant didn’t dare sleep. They were afraid of seeing that they’d given birth to sable-children in their dreams, and of not being able to find the right interpretation of their dreams when they woke.

  Then, the night closed over them. The night was as hungry for consolation as a broken promise; needed renewal as much as a snake trying to shed its skin. Night was the only time in this world of spectacle that no one could see.

  Istanbul — 1999

  gölge (shadow): Once upon a time, an elderly ship-builder lived in a fishing village where the houses were white and the women wore black. Everyone recognised the elderly ship-builder who had no shadow, but no one knew him.

  Many years ago, when he was still very young, he used to dive into the sea all the time, and in order to see what lay beneath the depths, he dove even deeper. One day he dove so deep he knew he’d never reach the surface again. Then the sea granted him a chance out of pity for his youth. He could trade his shadow for his life. From that day to this, the elderly ship-builder has lived without a shadow. He never told anyone his secret.

  Anyway no one had a shadow in the fishing village where the houses were white and the women wore black, and everyone had been swallowed by the sea. But because no one noticed the absence of shadows, no one was aware of the situation. Everyone kept their secret to themselves, even though everyone had the same secret and therefore it was not a secret.

  ‘Take these away from me!’ I said to B-C.

  In front of me there were three slices of börek, three cheese and three ground meat. They looked good. On top of that they must have just come out of the oven. Every day of the week, without fail, the neighbour-ladies in the Hayalifener Apartments all went to visit one or another of their number in turn. Every day without fail, cakes and pastries were being baked in one of the apartments, and a wonderful smell filled the building. We regularly got our share of these delicacies. These neighbour-ladies not only put something aside for us on the regular days when they baked for guests, but also when they baked on holidays and special occasions. According to B-C, it had been this way since he moved into the building. The first to see him the day he moved in was the irritable woman from next door. She examined B-C from head to toe, and, on learning he was a bachelor, asked how he was going to look after himself. Within half an hour, all of the neighbour-ladies in the building had come bearing welcome gifts of food. From that day on, the women were constantly bringing him food or sending their children to bring it to him. B-C laughed and said, ‘I suppose they think that if I eat more I’ll grow bigger.’

  According to him, during one period only, the week I moved in with him, did the food sent to him by the neighbour-ladies diminish. But later, after seeing me coming and going to work and labelling me a ‘working woman’, and after noticing that I didn’t cook at home on weekends, and also perhaps thinking that because I was so fat I must have a large appetite, they started to send even more food than they had before. On top of that, the portions were three times larger.

  Today’s potato börek had been sent to us by our downstairs neighbour. I thought she was the best cook of all the ladies in the Hayalifener Apartments. But this time I didn’t even taste her börek. I was on a diet.

  gölge oyunu (shadow play): In many cultures, the existing shadow plays are divided into two parts called ‘the shadow’s plays’ and ‘the play’s shadows’. Which part is to be seen depends upon the spectator.

  In Java, those who go to see the wayang kulit shadow plays at the king’s palace divide themselves into two groups. Men would sit facing the east and women would sit facing the west. The border between them was called Pringgitan, and this was where the curtain was drawn.

  Because everyone in Java knew that the sun rose in the east, both the puppets and the dalang who manipulated the puppets took their places in the men’s section. This way, while the men saw the puppets and the puppet-masters themselves, the women saw their shadows.

  Glaucon didn’t know this. He was listening carefully to the philosopher sitting across from him.

  ‘Imagine that a number of creatures are crossing a road, and a light is shining from behind them that projects their shadows onto the wall of the cave,’ said the philosopher, and then continued. ‘Well, my dear Glaucon, the world we see with our eyes is the wall of that cave, and it’s a wise man who can look at the light behind and see with reason rather than with the senses.’

  ‘This is why women, who cannot see anything except the shadows, will always think dreams are reality.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Glaucon. ‘Indeed this is why women can’t become philosophers.’

  ‘Of course,’ said the philosopher. ‘Indeed that’s why philosophers can’t become women.’

  ‘Is there a new dream?’ asked B-C as he took the börek away from me.

  He always wants me to relate my dreams. And I do relate them; sometimes as they were, and sometimes with changes. I didn’t open my eyes right away when I woke. I stayed a while halfway between sleep and waking, and tried to fix my freshest dream in my memory. I season what I’ve seen with herbs, sauces and spices; I fill in the gaps with my strong imagination, and plaster the cracks with lies. Of course, since I’d started my diet, the dream meals I described to B-C were obliged not only to address the eyes but also the stomach. Perhaps like most people who are trying to loose weight, I wanted to see those closest to me get fatter. Though B-C was one of those annoying people who stay the same no matter how much they eat. Neither my efforts nor those of the neighbour-ladies caused him to gain even a fraction of a kilo.

  In order for my dreams to be well-fried, I didn’t get out of bed even though I’d woken up, and on the weekends I went back to sleep. Then I would wake up forgetful, or thought I hadn’t dreamed at all. Then I would search for ready dreams; dreams that had been interpreted in books, or that I’d heard spoken of here and there. One can find them if one looks. I would change the labels, and present other people’s dreams as if they were a meal I had prepared myself. ‘Bravo!’ B-C would exclaim with a teasing smile. I would look anxiously at my hands. My chewed, shredded cuticles were swimming in the salt water of pain.

  He loved films as much as he loved dreams.

  Films and dreams provided material for the Dictionary of Gazes. Or perhaps I ought to put it this way: He loved dreams and films because they provided material for the Dictiona
ry of Gazes.

  gözbasi (legerdemain): To trick the eye by showing, with the aid of speed, something that isn’t there as if it actually is there is called legerdemain. If the same action is performed more slowly, the audience’s eyes will be opened, and they will see the trick. The magic will be broken and the mystery will be solved.

  Ageing causes one to slow down. When ageing conjurers perform their last tricks, they make their own selves disappear.

  B-C often used to fall asleep in front of the television. He’d start snoring in the middle of a film he’d wanted very much to see; from time to time, without opening his eyes, he would ask questions about the film, and then would wake suddenly from the deepest sleep, wearing a hurt expression as if he’d been forcibly thrown out of the house, and continue watching the film as if nothing had happened or could have happened during his absence. Perhaps he also thought he was the only one watching the film. As soon as he closed his eyes, he would take all of the actors aside and give them a cigarette break. When he opened his eyes the film would resume at the point where it had stopped.

  When B-C was asleep in front of the television, I would take the opportunity to watch him. I would watch the hands that were too big to belong to a dwarf, the toes that all looked as if they belonged to different feet, the tight black curls of his chest hair, his puffy nipples, at the red tongue in his open mouth, and the boldness of this red, the freckles on his face and how very tiny they were. Whenever he fell asleep, and I took off the glasses that were sliding off the end of his nose, I would always try them on before I put them aside. What did his little eyes see through this glass? He knew so many amazing things, so much about people’s stories, how did he see it all? Whatever I looked at through them, the lenses of these glasses didn’t solve the mystery.