Black Milk - Elif Shafak [23]
“But money is a material problem,” I object, my voice cracking. For a brief moment neither of us says a word, mutually frowning and sulking.
“Besides, even if I had the money,” I say, “I still couldn’t do what you suggest. It goes against my sense of equality and freedom. I can’t have all those people working for me, as if I were a raja or something.”
“Now you’re talking nonsense,” snaps Little Miss Practical. “Don’t you know that every successful female writer is a raja?”
“How can you say that?”
“How can you deny that?” she asks back. “Remember that wolf woman you adore so much.”
Just when I am about to ask what wolf woman she is talking about, it dawns on me that she is referring to Virginia Woolf.
“Do you think that lady of yours had only a room of her own? No way. She also had a cook of her own, a maid of her own and a gardener of her own, not to mention a butler of her own! Her diaries are full of complaints about her many servants.”
Laden with curiosity I ask, “Since when do you read about the lives of novelists?”
Little Miss Practical’s readings are based solely on two key criteria: efficiency and functionality. How to Win Friends and Hearts, The Key to Unwavering Success, Ten Steps to Power, The Art of Knowing People, Awaken the Millionaire Inside, The Secret to Good Life . . . She gobbles up self-help books like popcorn, but never reads novels. Fiction, in her eyes, has no function.
“If it’s useful, I’ll read it,” she says defensively.
“And what is the use of the wolf woman?”
She turns a disparaging dark gaze on me. “That lady of yours used to write orders to her servants on scraps of paper. What chores needed to be done, what dishes needed to be prepared, which dresses needed washing . . . She would write them down. Can you imagine? They lived under the same roofbut instead of talking to them, she wrote to them. . . .”
“Well, we don’t know her side of the story,” I say meekly.
“Everything was her side of the story. She was the writer, Sis!”
I don’t feel like quarreling. With a ruler in her hand, a calculator in her pocket and plans in her head, Little Miss Practical is used to measuring, calculating and planning everything. I take the list she has prepared for me and leave in a hurry, still feeling uneasy.
I spin the wheel again. It stops at letter E. This time, I walk east.
There, in a city as spiritual as Mount Athos, beyond a wooden door, sits Dame Dervish—her head bowed in contemplation, her fingers moving the amber prayer beads. On the tray in front of her there is a bowl of lentil soup and a slice of bread. Her thimble is full of water. She always makes do with little. On her head is a loosely tied turban that comes together in the front with a large stone. Patches of hair show from beneath the turban. She wears a jade dress that reaches the floor, a dark green vest and khaki slippers.
Seeing she is in the midst of a prayer, I sneak in and listen.
“God, Pure Love and Beauty, may we be of those who chant Your name and find restoration in You. Don’t let us spend our time on Earth with eyes veiled, ears deafened and hearts sealed to love.”
I smile at these words and I am still smiling when I hear her next words.
“Please open Elif’s third eye to Love and broaden her capacity to grasp the Truth. Connections are the essence of Your universe; please don’t deprive her of Your loving connection.”
“Amen to that,” I say.
She flinches as she surfaces from her thoughts. When she sees me standing there she breaks into a smile, lifting her hand to her left breast in greeting.
“I need your help,” I say. “Have you heard the question Ms. Agaoglu asked me? I don’t know how to answer it.”
“I heard it indeed and I don’t know why you panic so. God says He sometimes puts us through a ‘beautiful test.’ That is what He calls the many quandaries we face in this life. A beautiful test. There is no need to rush for ‘the answer’ because all answers are relative. What is right for one person may be wrong for another. Instead of asking general