The Gaze

by Elif Shafak

  ‘Do you like my new glasses? My wife chose them.’

  The young doctor put on his new glasses and smiled. The glasses were square, with dark glass and a bone frame. When he put them on you couldn’t see his blue eyes. The child hung her face. It was bad not to be able to see the doctor’s eyes when he looked at her. She didn’t want to talk to eyes she couldn’t see. She didn’t say anything.

  She never said anything again.

  The stomach is a mythical land. It is a land of eternal bliss where the finest food is served on golden platters in banquets that last for forty days and forty nights, where holy wine runs in the rivers, where the elixir of immortality cascades down waterfalls, where healing honey flows on top of the mountains. No one knew what hunger was in this land of plenty and of fullness. And in order to understand how pleasant this is it’s enough to see the happiness of a healthy baby who smiles with each spoonful of food.

  The stomach is a mythical land. At the end of every fortieth day the dragon emerges from the fortieth gate and breathes fire that burns to ashes every grain of wheat and leaves; not a drop of water in the cisterns; an endlessly cursed land where the harvest is dried up by seven year droughts and in whose dark forests evil-hearted witches brew cauldron after cauldron of catastrophe. A land of gnawing hunger where no one knew what it was to be full. And to understand how terrible it was, it was sufficient to see the suffering of a sick old man vomiting what he has eaten on his deathbed.

  The stomach is a mythical land.

  And like every mythical land, it has secrets in its back garden.

  ‘It’s been weeks since you’ve told me anything. You used to tell fairy tales, but you don’t even do that any more. I…perhaps it’s my inexperience…I don’t know…Perhaps a more experienced physician…I mean after this…’

  After that day the child and the young doctor didn’t see each other any more.

  The back garden of childhood has the sour taste of cherries.

  Remembering leaves stains on holiday clothes.

  In any event it’s possible to forget everything. It’s good to forget, it cleans the eyes. When a person forgets and is forgotten, they behave like a cat who covers up its own faults. It’s enough for the memory to grow cold. Sometimes in winter, when despite the white it could be called black because of the misery, it’s necessary to go down to the coal bin for fuel. The kindling, the wood and the coal in the coal bin are composed of memories. Kindling can easily set memory afire; when it burns, who knows when and where blood will flow in its petrified veins. The acrid smoke of the kindling makes the eyes water, but it’s good to cry. The pupils are cleaned by crying, are purified. With crying, the lime, tar and clay; sticks and twigs, bugs and dusty earth are washed out. It purifies the night. And night is such a big consolation, so very beautiful. It engraves its beauty on the darkness, just like a lover of glitter pulling her silver threads.

  The back garden of childhood has the sour taste of cherries.

  Those who taste it will have their teeth set on edge.

  So it’s not possible to forget everything. What we call the eyes may succeed in forgetting all of what they’ve seen in life, but it’s impossible to stop thinking about having been seen. If there are no witnesses a person can forget the past.

  If there are witnesses everything changes. Their every look is an accusation, their existence an obstacle to forgetfulness.

  After all, this was why she couldn’t count from one to three. ‘One’ was put aside in a corner, ‘Two’ in another corner. She was constantly staggering between the two; she diminished because she couldn’t reach their sum.

  Istanbul — 1999

  pencere (window): According to the 18th century philosopher Leibnitz, the monad, the smallest indivisible particle, has no window through which to look out. For this reason no monad can be influenced by any other monad. Monads can resemble each other, but can never be identical. Indeed nothing in the universe is identical to anything else.

  He wasn’t even aware.

  I looked into B-C’s eyes with pity.

  perde (curtain): For years he sold curtains in Beyoslu. He liked the heavy, velvet curtains best, and wanted to sell those. These weren’t much in demand among housewives; frilly lace curtains were in fashion. And Venetian blinds had recently come out. He had all of these in his shop. The only curtains he refused to sell were the new transparent shower curtains.

  ‘Is such a thing possible?’ he said to his assistant. ‘Can a curtain be transparent? If it’s transparent, is it still a curtain?’

  I looked into his eyes in pain: His eyes that didn’t give away what they were feeling, that collected material from every possible source about seeing and being seen, that were interested in the invisible rather than in the visible, that looked more deeply into the visible solely in order to see the invisible; instead of avoiding the eyes of others he concerned himself with eyes, and displayed himself out of stubbornness even in the knowledge that it would subject him to the abuse of other eyes, who liked to fool people by changing his appearance, who has a issue with eyes, and doesn’t like the way time is structured and, in fact, his eyes don’t accept anything at face value… I looked into his bitter-chocolate eyes that see the people through their stories, and stories through the people in them, that see everything connected to everything else, that see every disunity in its own wholeness and every wholeness in its own disunity, that is, that can see me in a way no one else can see… I looked at these two thin slits of eyes that have sworn not to express what they feel… I looked with pain.

  pervane (propeller): The propeller sacrificed itself in order to get a closer look at fire.

  There were some things in B-C’s eyes that I wasn’t used to seeing. And it was because he saw the world through these eyes that his whole being was so peculiar, and that he was so bewildering with all his being. Until now, the only person whose glances didn’t make me uneasy was B-C, and he was the only person I couldn’t take my eyes off. He was the only person I wanted to be seen by, who I wanted to see even more of me.

  If you’re as fat as I am, it’s difficult to stay out of sight. You can’t stay out of people’s sight even for a moment. Wherever you go and whatever you do, you immediately attract attention. People like me are directional signs for other people’s eyes. Let’s say, someone wants to point someone out in a crowded place…well, in situations like this the best way is to use people like me as a reference point. ‘You see that fat woman over there, the woman just across from her.’ That’s how it is. There’s nothing I can do about it. I think there must be other people in this situation; for instance, someone as ugly and strange as a freak, or as beautiful and as extraordinary as a jinn must face the same problem. Whatever. The strange thing about it, though, is that if you’re as fat as I am, people don’t see you. They’ll look and they’ll watch; they’ll point you out and talk about you to each other. In their view, you’re material for observation. It doesn’t even cross their minds that the way they look at me makes me uncomfortable. They always watch. But they never see. Looking at my body gives them an excuse not to look into my eyes. They never see within.

  portre (portrait): Generally a painting that shows a person from the waist up. (Research Mehmet the Conqueror’s portrait!)

  B-C wasn’t like that. His eyes didn’t look at me that way. The singularity of his eyes struck me even the first time we met, I mean that day…the day we met.

  prizma (prism): a transparent substance that bends and fragments light.

  The day I met B-C, I was coming back from the other side of the Bosphorus by ferry. I’d set out early in the morning to take a look at an aerobics centre whose advertisement in the newspaper promised that customers would become two sizes thinner or get their money back. I met a number of plump women there, but as far as I could see I was the fattest one among them. Then the skinny little aerobics instructor arrived and shouted, ‘Ladies! We’re going to melt away those flabby tummies. Are you ready?’ And in uniso
n we cheerfully cried, ‘We’re ready!’ I decided to give it a try, and I registered. To tell the truth, it was really quite far from my house, but I thought this would force me to move more. On the way back I decided to take the ferry.

  I was sitting in the top section of the ferry with a sahlep in one hand and a simit in the other. Because it was terribly windy, there was no one but me in this section of the ferry. I was pleased with myself. Even on the first day, the people at the aerobics centre had thrust a strict dieting list into my hands. Suddenly I heard that mechanical voice. I didn’t turn around and look at once. If I pretended I didn’t notice, perhaps he would go away; go back where he’d come from. But the voice challenged my indifference step by step. Behind me, right behind me, someone was taking a photograph. Someone was taking my photograph.

  When I turned my head, I came nose to nose with a camera. Behind the camera was the smallest person I’d ever seen in my life. He’d climbed onto the bench. He was turning a giant lens, trying to adjust the view, lifting his head from time to time to look with his naked eye. He was completely relaxed. To look at him, you’d think it was customary for passengers on this city’s ferry lines to be photographed by dwarfs.

  ‘Please! I don’t like having my picture taken.’

  rasathane (observatory): In the observatory founded in Tophane in 1587 by Takiyeddin, chief astrologer of the Ottoman Sultan, there were all types of astronomical instruments arranged side-by-side, as well as an extensive library of books about astronomy. The dome of the observatory was covered in lead. Astronomers and assistants worked on a huge table day and night. There were hour-glasses, set-squares, celestial globes, terrestrial globes, compasses, rolls of paper, ink pots, rulers and astronomical instruments on the table.

  First, the Sheik ul-Islam Kadizade Ahmed Şemseddin Efendi issued a pronouncement that observing the skies brought bad luck. Admiral Kiliç Ali Pasa, acting on Sultan Murat Ill’s imperial decree, levelled the observatory, with all its books and instruments, in one night.

  If only I hadn’t said it that way. I regretted it as soon as the words were out of my mouth. To say I don’t like having my picture taken is to say that I don’t like pictures of me; to say I don’t like pictures of me is to say I don’t like how I look. If I had been thin, like a feather trembling in the wind, I could grudgingly have considered the taking of my picture as a joke. I smiled and let it pass. Fat people can smile and let things pass, as long as they remain thick-skinned. For my part, I could succeed neither in losing weight nor in being thick-skinned.

  renk körü (colour blindness): A disorder of sight that obstructs the ability to distinguish all or some colours.

  He insisted. He sat on the bench he’d climbed onto a little earlier and took the camera onto his lap. When he sat he looked very small. His legs were tiny, his feet were tiny; his shoulders were narrow and his ears were minuscule. But his hands were large. His hands were too big for a dwarf. I’d never seen a dwarf before. Who knew how many dwarves there were in the city, I thought, but I never saw them. Dwarves don’t watch passers-by in the street, or go shopping at supermarkets, or wander around in public. I could imagine a dwarf sitting at home or putting on a show, but not wandering about in public, a packet of sunflower seeds in his hand, cracking the seeds idly between his teeth. Dwarves are trapped in a state of invisibility; just like many people who are put on display. They don’t want other people’s eyes to see them.

  Suddenly I shuddered. People who exist without existing, who are not seen in public because they are put on display; dwarves, cripples, fat people…all people who are strange to look at… Those who hide from outside eyes, who embrace the privacy of their homes, who like to keep their existence private…I was one of them. Somehow unable to be comfortable outside, day by day becoming more closed within myself; as I become more closed within myself, I become somehow unable to be comfortable outside. I chose this isolation, but it’s impossible to know how much I preferred it.

  The dwarf across from me looked as comfortable as could be. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I who was always made uncomfortable by the glances of others, found pleasure in watching someone for the first time in my life. As I watched, I began to worry that he might get up and go, that he would become offended and withdraw from me. Indeed, perhaps, from the moment I saw B-C, I feared never seeing him again.

  ‘I didn’t mean to be rude… I’m not very good at these things.’

  röntgen (x-ray): An instrument that lifts the curtain of flesh and reveals a person’s insides.

  He raised his head and looked straight into my eyes. That’s the first time I really saw his eyes; when he smiled warmly at me. His eyes were two short, thin little lines drawn with Chinese ink; his eyes had the black colour of bitter chocolate. When he smiled they became even smaller and thinner. My heart was in my mouth. It was as if he continued smiling this way, his eyes would be erased completely.

  In any event, I had no cause for worry. I was to realise in time that no matter how much he smiled, he was never able to be happy enough to erase his eyes. There was a strange lack of lustre in his eyes that wasn’t immediately apparent at first glance, but which at certain times became quite evident. Indeed sometimes his face didn’t say anything; it remained completely without feeling or expression; as if they were somehow free of emotion, as if standing there, simply standing there in his transparent calm, he gazed at the world with indifference. At times like these it was as he was looking through frosted glass or a curtain of wax, and I couldn’t tell what he felt. But I didn’t understand all of this until much later. A long time after the day we met.

  rüya (dream): One night, in 16th century Istanbul, Şair Bâli Efendi sees his friend Piruza Ali, who had died at a young age, in a dream. Piruza Ali wraps some dirt in paper and gives it to him. Şair Bâli Efendi puts the twist of paper in a fold of his turban. The next day, while telling those around him about his dream, he reaches involuntarily for his turban. There he finds the twist of paper filled with dirt.

  He took the camera from around his neck and handed it to me. While he held the camera with one hand, he grasped my wrist with the other.

  ‘If that’s the case, try looking through here,’ he said. ‘You might like this. Take a look!’

  sahne (stage): When the actors are on the stage, the audience bury themselves in their seats and watch what it’s like to be watched.

  I looked, and more than once. I looked at everything I’d seen around me from behind a camera. Suddenly, I took a picture of him, and then another, and another. I took pictures of him without stop until the ferry was approaching the pier. He was looking straight at me in order not to miss anything; at me, the one who was looking at him. I enjoyed taking his picture so much that I didn’t want to let go of the camera. His bag was full of film; when it finished he put in more and he didn’t object at all to my efforts to catch every moment on film. At one point, while he was changing the film, I moved closer to him. I caught his smell. The strange thing was that it reminded me of something sweet to eat. His breath, his hair, his clothes…from head to toe he smelled like chocolate.

  ‘Sometimes it happens to me too. I want to take pictures of everything. Sometimes it does one good to put an intermediary between the one who’s seeing and the one who’s being seen,’ he said. ‘Do you know what the interesting thing about it is, we believe that God does the same thing. He always sees, and we’re always being seen, isn’t that so? And God puts an intermediary between himself and what he sees. Prophets, for instance, or angels…Azarael, for instance, or Gabriel… As for us, we’re afraid both of being seen and of what we can’t see. We wait for a sign so we can say it has appeared. That’s also why we give so much importance to miracles. We want to see miracles. Indeed, as I think to myself sometimes, it’s as if our entire existence, as well as our non-existence, is founded on seeing and being seen.’

  He fell silent. A faint smile remained on his lips. Then he brought his face close to mine and whispered as if he
were telling me a secret. ‘Do you know, sometimes we get our deepest wounds through our eyes.’

  I looked at him in surprise.

  saklambaç (hide-and-seek): By the time ‘it’ counts to three, one must be hidden somewhere he can’t see.

  That day we wandered around together the whole day.

  That day while we wandered around together all day, when we were seen together for the first and last time, I didn’t want to miss even a single memory of him. In order to remember the bow-legged manner in which he walked as he tried to match his pace to mine, his squat legs, his ill-proportioned hands, the way he found something to say about every subject, the thoughtfulness with which he spoke and explained, the way he squinted his eyes before he started a sentence, the way he used gestures to emphasise what he had said when he had finished a sentence, his indifference to children taller than himself who pointed him out to their mothers or indeed anyone who threw his being a dwarf in his face, the way he didn’t judge people’s coarseness, his loneliness, his insensitivity, the way he held his head high, his strangeness, the way he was on display in exactly the same way I was, and because I was on display like he was, I took pictures of him all day that day.

  samur (sable): zo. (martes zibellina) Slightly bigger than a house cat (approximately 50cm in height). Lives alone. It eats everything from squirrels to pine cones to insects. Because its fur, with its grey brown and black tones, is dense and silky, it is highly esteemed. They call it the ‘Golden Pelt’.

  Before the second half of the 17th century, the sable was the magnet that drew the Russians into Siberia. As a sable hunter of the same century said, ‘The sable prepares itself for death by lying on its side, raising its back legs, and covering its eyes with its front paws.’