Black Milk - Elif Shafak [25]
“Miss Ambitious Chekhovian, will you please help me,” I say. “You heard what Ms. Agaoglu asked. What is your answer?”
“How can you even ask?” She frowns at me with her thinly plucked eyebrows. “Obviously, I am against you having a baby. With all that we have to do ahead of us, it is hardly time for children!”
I look at her with puppy eyes.
“But I was next to Dame Dervish a minute ago and she said that there is no point in running amok in life.”
“Forget that crazy finger-woman. What does she know? What does she understand of worldly desires?” she says offhandedly. “She has lost her mind somewhere inside those prayer beads of hers.”
She pops a biscuit into her mouth, then a vitamin pill, and takes a sip of juice to wash it all down. “Listen, dear, let me summarize again my philosophy of life: Did we ask to be brought into this world? Nope. No one asked our opinion on the matter. We just fell into our mothers’ wombs, went through arduous births and voilà, here we are. Since we came along in such an accidental manner, is there anything more sublime than our desire to leave something worthy and lasting behind when we depart the world?”
I find myself nodding heartily, though the more she speaks, the more lost I am becoming.
“Unfortunately too many lives are crushed in a monotonous routine. Such a pity! One must actually aim to be special. We have to become immortal while we are still alive. You have to write better novels and develop your skill. ‘You need to work continually day and night, to read ceaselessly, to study, to exercise your will. . . . Each hour is precious.’”
“Was that Chekhov again?” I ask suspiciously.
“It was Anton Pavlovich Chekhov,” she says with a frown, and to hammer home the point, she repeats his name in Russian. “АHTOH Павлович Чехов.”
“Right.” I sigh.
“Look, I made a calculation: If you write a new novel every year for the next ten years, give a lecture every month, attend all the major literary festivals in Europe and tour the world, then in eight years and two months you’ll have reached new heights in your career.”
“Oh, give me a break, will you?” I say, exasperated. “Do you think literature is a horse race? Do you think I am a machine?”
“What is wrong with that?” she says nonchalantly. “Better to be a machine than a vegetable! Instead of living like a sprig of parsley, passionless and lifeless, better to live with the dash and zest of a working machine.”
“And what about motherhood?”
“Motherhood . . . motherhood . . .” she says, glowering, as if the word has left a bad taste in her mouth. “Better leave motherhood to women who are born to be mothers. We both know you are not like that. Motherhood would upset all of my future plans. Promise me. Say you won’t do it!”
I look into the horizon, longing to be somewhere else. In the ensuing silence Miss Ambitious Chekhovian slowly gets up, walks to her bag and fishes out a piece of paper.
“What is this?” I ask when she holds it out to me.
“It is an address,” says Miss Ambitious Chekhovian. “The address of an excellent gynecologist. Guess what! I already got you an appointment. The doctor is expecting you at six-thirty on Tuesday.”
“But, why?”
Miss Ambitious Chekhovian’s eyes light up as her voice gets an eerie softness: “Because we want to solve this problem once and for all. This operation will do away with all of the existential questions that have been messing with your mind. I’ve decided to have you sterilized.”
“What am I, a stray cat!?” I say, flushing scarlet with rage.
Dissatisfied, she shrugs and turns around. “It is up to you.”
I know I should mind my temper but I can’t. Still grumbling, I leave her to her veterinary campaign and head up north.
There, behind an ornamented iron door, in a city as bustling with ideas as New York, lives Miss Highbrowed Cynic. Her windows are covered with burgundy velvet curtains and flimsy cobwebs, her walls with posters of Che Guevara and Marlon Brando.
She wears slovenly hippie dresses that reach the floor and mirror-threaded