Black Milk - Elif Shafak [9]
Their toys may assault, but the boys are introverted. They don’t even lift their heads to look at their mother. They are particularly careful not to come eye to eye with her. I suppose it is not easy for boys of their age to have a mother who is that attractive.
Convinced that neither the boys nor their mother can help me in my quest to find paper, I turn to the man on my left. He has metal-framed glasses, a serious expression, and though he must be forty at most, the top of his head is already balding. The man’s body language screams, “I AM A SALESMAN.” He is holding a leather bag, in which I’m certain there is paper somewhere. When I ask, he kindly offers me more than a few sheets, each sporting the letterhead SHOOTING STAR MARKETING LTD.
Thanking the man, I start to write, watching the ink dry as I move on. The letters pour forth as if of their own accord: THE MANIFESTO OF THE SINGLE GIRL.
I look at the paper in bewilderment. So this is what was on my mind.
The woman beside me edges closer, her head craned toward the paper on my lap. On Istanbul’s steamboats you get used to people reading newspapers over your shoulder, but this woman is openly reading my notes. Though my first instinct is to try to cover what I’ve written, I soon accept the futility of looking for privacy in such a small, confined space and let her read.
1. Saying that loneliness is reserved for God the Almighty, and thus expecting everyone to pair up for life is one of the biggest illusions invented by Man. Just because we embarked on Noah’s Ark in twos doesn’t mean we have to complete the entire trip in pairs.
I’m writing and the woman is reading. At one point she leans so far onto my right shoulder that her hair touches my face. I inhale the scent of her shampoo, tangy and fruity. She seems to be having problems deciphering my notes, and, given my handwriting, I don’t blame her. I make an effort to write more clearly.
2. How is it that in traditional societies, people who dedicated their lives to their faith and swore never to marry were revered by all, but in today’s culture being a “spinster” is almost a disgrace, a pitied condition?
3. How is it that, even though marriage needs a woman and a man, and being unmarried is a condition that applies to both sexes equally, the term spinster has different—and more negative—connotations than bachelor?
My neighbor pulls out a pack of trail mix from her bag, shares half of it with her sons and turns her attention back to my writing, munching as she reads. Amid salty peanuts, roasted yellow chickpeas and pumpkin seeds, I write and she looks on, happily entertained.
4. Women who have been “left on the shelf” should have their dignity returned and be applauded for daring to live without a man to watch over them.
5. Those who use the expression “the female bird builds the nest” don’t understand the bird. It is true that birds build nests, but with every new season they abandon the home they have made to erect a new one in a different place. There is no bird that stays in the same nest for the entirety of its life.
I notice the woman briefly shudder. The hair on her arms stands up as if the day were not pulsing with heat.
6. Change and changeability are life’s alphabet. The vow to stay together “till death do us part” is a fantasy that runs against the essence of life. Besides, we don’t die only once. It is worth remembering that human beings die many deaths before dying physically.
7. Therefore one can promise