Black Milk - Elif Shafak [14]
“Do you have a similar writing space you deem sacred?” Ms. Agaoglu asks.
“No, not really, but I have a laptop,” I reply, knowing it sounds pathetic but saying it anyhow.
She gazes at me with eyes of wonder but then lets the subject drop. “Let’s have tea now, shall we?”
I smile with relief. “Yes, please, thank you.”
Back in the sitting room, as I wait for my host to return, a fact I have always known but never really faced plants itself in front of me: I have always clung, or maybe I wanted to cling, to bits and pieces of existence here and there, with no coherence, no center, no continuity in my life. There is a shorter way of saying this: I am a mess.
I see, in that precise moment, that however settled Ms. Agaoglu is, I am peripatetic to the same degree. However disciplined she is, I am disordered to the same extent. However hard I try to attach myself to an object, a home, an address or a relationship, the glue I use is never strong enough, and yet, odd though it is, such displacement has been both a curse and a blessing.
In a little while, Ms. Agaoglu reappears with a tray topped with porcelain teacups and plates. On my plate are pastries, the salty biscuits on the left, the sweet cookies on the right, all lined up in perfect symmetry and in equal number.
During the next half hour she tells me how it was for women writers in the past and, in her view, what has changed today. I listen, enjoying the conversation. There is no rush. No appointments to keep or tasks to accomplish. We speak of art and literature, of writers who have come and gone, and then of being a female writer in a patriarchal society.
Just then, out of the blue, Ms. Agaoglu catches me off guard by broaching a new topic. “I think at some point in their lives, women writers feel like they have to make a choice,” she says. “At least that is what happened to me. I decided not to have children in order to dedicate myself to writing.”
She tells me, in a voice calm but firm, that to be able to stand on her feet as a woman novelist and to write freely and copiously, she chose not to have any children of her own.
“I was lucky,” she says, “because my husband backed me in this difficult decision. There is no way I could have done it without his support.”
My stomach clenches. Please don’t ask me. But she does.
“How about you? Is motherhood something you are considering?” The manifesto I penned on the steamboat flashes in front of my eyes in gaudy capital letters. This might be the right time to recite some parts of it. But before I get a chance, the Choir of Discordant Voices begins to sing, as if an on button has been pressed.
“Shhh, be quiet,” I whisper into my collar. “Shut up, girls, for God’s sake.”
“Did you say something?” Ms. Agaoglu asks.
“No, no . . . I mean, yes, but I was just murmuring to myself. . . . It’s nothing really. . . .” I say, feeling the color rush to my face.
“And what were you murmuring to yourself?” Ms. Agaoglu asks, not letting me off the hook.
I swallow so hard that we both hear the gulp go down my throat. I dare not say: “I was just reprimanding the four women inside me. You see, they hold opposing views on motherhood, as with all the important topics in my life.”
I dare not say: “There is a mini harem deep down in my soul. A gang of females who constantly fight for nothing and bicker, looking for an opportunity to trip one another up. They are teeny-tiny creatures, each no taller than Thumbelina. Around four to five inches in height, ten to fourteen ounces in weight, that is how big they are. They make my life miserable and yet I don’t know how to live without them. They can come out or stay put as they like. Each has declared a different corner of my soul her residence. I cannot mention them to anyone. If I did they would have me institutionalized for schizophrenia. But