Black Milk - Elif Shafak [61]
“What is this?” I ask.
Miss Highbrowed Cynic delivers the answer: “I discovered this tree when we first arrived here. On sunny days, it’s a perfect place to read. I would have much preferred to show it to you in the daylight, but I need to do it now. Pay attention to the tree trunk. What does it look like?”
Oddly enough, a mammoth balloonlike lump bulges out of the tree’s thick trunk. It looks like a giant shriveled-up prune or a huge wrinkled walnut with ridges. Or else—
Miss Highbrowed Cynic gives me a sidelong glance. “Tell me, what does that mass resemble from afar?”
“Well, I don’t know. . . . It’s almost like . . . like a brain. . . .” I say.
“Bingo! It is a Brain Tree,” says Miss Highbrowed Cynic.
“So tonight we have all gathered under the Brain Tree,” Milady Ambitious Chekhovian says, launching into a speech. She has climbed onto a branch, where she pouts like a dictator assessing his people’s intelligence before starting to lecture them.
“This is a historic moment,” she bellows. “The time is ripe to make a choice once and for all.” She points an accusing finger at Mama Rice Pudding. “Do you want to be like her? A forlorn housewife? Or would you rather live your life like a majestic arboreal brain?”
I can’t take my eyes from the tree. In the velvety dark of the night, surrounded by all this snow, the tree looks fearsome and impressive.
“Please don’t listen to them,” whispers Mama Rice Pudding as she clings to my legs. Tears have formed in her eyes. So fragile she is. So little I know about her. I’ve seen her only twice while the others have been with me for years.
“We can make a great team, you and I,” says Mama Rice Pudding.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
A strong wind blows in fitful gusts, swirling the flakes. I feel like I’m on the set of Doctor Zhivago. This is not Russia and there isn’t the slightest possibility of a Bolshevik revolution on this campus, but there are still profound emotional changes under way.
Finally, I muster the courage to answer. “If I have to make a choice, I’ll certainly choose the Brain Tree.”
“But you made me a promise!” Mama Rice Pudding bursts forth.
“I’m sorry,” I say again, unable to meet her eyes.
Milady Ambitious Chekhovian jumps down from her branch and Miss Highbrowed Cynic grins at her, shouting, “Give me five!”
Partners in crime. They do such a complicated high five, with their arms and fingers passing through each other’s, that we all watch with awe.
When the show is over Dame Dervish sighs heavily, Little Miss Practical takes off her glasses and cleans them nervously, Mama Rice Pudding cries silently.
“Now you have to repeat after me,” says Milady Ambitious Chekhovian. “I’ve traveled wide, I’ve traveled far—”
I do. On the snow-covered Mount Holyoke campus, under that breathtaking Brain Tree, I swear these words to myself:
“I’ve traveled wide, I’ve traveled far, and I’ve placed writing at the center of my life. At last I’ve reached a decision between Body and Brain. From now on I want to be only, and only, Brain. No longer will the Body hold sway over me. I have no want for womanhood, housework, wife work, maternal instincts or giving birth. I want to be a writer, and that is all I want to pursue.”
In this moment, one of the many things I realize is that this is a turning point in my life, a sharp one. While I veer fast, I don’t know what awaits me around the corner.
“May the Body rot and may the Brain glow. May the ink flow through my pen like oceans to nourish the novels that shall grow within.”
I repeat this oath three times. When it is over, I feel numb inside, almost anesthetized. Perhaps it is because of the cold. Perhaps the gravity of what I have just uttered has started to sink in.
A Mystery Called Brain
Before two weeks have passed my body starts to show signs of change. First my hair, then the skin on my face and hands, dries out. I lose weight. My stomach flattens. Then, one day, I realize I have stopped menstruating. I don’t get my flow the next month, or