Black Milk - Elif Shafak [53]
That is what Miss Highbrowed Cynic doesn’t understand. Novelists write without thinking. It is afterward, when literary critics and scholars weigh writers’ every sentence that theories are applied. And then when people read those theories, they get the impression that novelists were purposefully creating their stories in such a way—which is not true.
“There’s something I don’t get,” Little Miss Practical says.
“Why am I not surprised?” scoffs Miss Highbrowed Cynic.
“You’re so into the theory of motherhood. All this semiotic, symbolic, bucolic . . . But when it comes to the practicalities, I am sure you’d fall flat on your face.”
“My knowledge would guide me,” says Miss Highbrowed Cynic.
“Whoa, come on, Sister, you couldn’t even change a diaper. I may not know anything about your theories, but I can get the hang of motherhood faster than Speedy Gonzalez runs.”
The shape of her eyebrows indicates that Miss Highbrowed Cynic doesn’t appreciate the remark. I leave them quarreling, and walk out of the library.
I wander around the campus. Being rid of the finger-women—if only for a short while—lightens my heart and my mood. Like a walking sponge, I soak up every detail I see, every sound I hear, every smell I sniff, and store it all away inside me. That is what happens when you are a foreigner; you collect details as if they were seashells on a shore.
In the cafeteria, I get in line and end up standing in front of a lesbian couple. One of the women is short and has spiky, carroty hair. The other is quite tall and heavily pregnant. We move forward, pushing our trays along inch by inch. Just when we reach the dessert display, the short woman chirps up.
“Ah, would you mind if we take that, since there is only one left?” There on top of a glass shelf, where the woman is pointing, is one lone piece of raspberry cake. I move back.
“Of course, go ahead.”
“Thank you, thank you! Shirley has been craving raspberries since this morning,” says the woman, giving me a wink.
“Oh,” I say. “You’re expecting a baby, how wonderful.”
“Yes,” says Shirley as she pats her belly. “Six feet one, chess and amateur tennis champion, professional artist, IQ over 160, interested in Buddhism and Far Eastern philosophy—”
“Excuse me?”
“The father,” she says. “We picked him out of thousands at the sperm bank. . . . He’s going to be a very special baby.”
There is something in all this meticulous advance planning that freaks me out. Perhaps it is not surprising that women would look for athletic, charismatic, wealthy and influential sperm donors. But as someone who has grown up without a father, I am thinking, what does that ultimately mean to a child who will never know his or her biological father? Besides, the things we lack in life—such as blue eyes, a muscular body or conversational eloquence—might help us to develop other qualities that are dormant inside. Many talents are born in the shadows, out of necessity. The search for perfect babies misses the surprising role of oddities, coincidences and absences in our personal development.
In the evening I return to my room. The place I am staying in is about 130 square feet. It has the tiniest kitchen counter and a shower so small you can wash only half of yourself at a time.
Before me, there was an Indian painter residing here—the walls still smell of her paints. And before her, a Zimbabwean sociologist. The room has seen dozens of women from all over the world. The Indian artist left behind paint stains and an intricately designed rolling pin. The Zimbabwean scholar left a scary mask on the wall, which casts a long and thin ebony shadow.
What will I leave to next year’s fellow? “Before me, there was a Turkish author staying here,” she will say. I can’t find anything but words to hand down to her. Perhaps I can leave