Black Milk Part 11

There is a short, round Mexican cleaning lady, Rosario, who every morning at seven o'clock vacuums the northwest section of the library where I usually work all night. I can still dip into Spanish, albeit clumsily. Rosario loves hearing my funny p.r.o.nunciation and correcting my mistakes. She also teaches me new words every day, blus.h.i.+ng and giggling as I repeat them, because some of them are pretty lewd.

When I fall asleep on the leather couch only a few feet away from the John Stuart Mill collection, it is Rosario who wakes me up. She brings me coffee that is so heavy and black my heart pounds for about three minutes after I take a sip. Yet I never tell her to make it a bit weaker. I guess I like her.

"Why are you working so hard?" she asks me one day, pointing to my laptop and a stack of books.

"You work hard, too," I say, pointing to her vacuum cleaner and duster.

She nods. She knows I am right. Then she takes out her necklace and shows it to me. There are four rings on her silver pendant. When I ask her what they mean, she says, smiling from ear to ear, "One ring for each child."

She is a mother of four. That's why she works so hard. She wants them to have a better life than the one she has had.

"How about your husband?" I ask. "Tu marido?"

"Marido . . . puff," she says, as if she is talking about gunpowder. I cannot figure out whether he has died or run away with someone else or never was. Oblivious to my confusion, Rosario smiles again and elbows me. "Children are a blessing," she says.

"I am happy for you."

She pats my shoulder with a touch so genuine and friendly, I drink two more cups of coffee with her, my heart racing.

"You are a good girl," she says to me.

"Some of me are," I say, thinking of my finger-women.

She finds that hilarious and laughs so hard she almost loses her balance. When she manages to get hold of herself, she says, "When you finish your book you don't need to send it to a publisher. There is an easier way."

"Really?" I ask, inching closer to her.

"Yup," she says, nodding. "Send it to Oprah. If she puts her stamp on your book you won't have to work so hard anymore."

"In America they stamp books?" I ask.

"Si, claro mujer!" She rolls her eyes as if to add, "You don't know how crazy these Americans can get."

I thank her for the advice. Then I go back to my novel and she goes back to her work, walking her slow gait, dragging her vacuum cleaner and rolling a bucket of detergents and soaps beside her. She disappears among the aisles of hardcover books. Puff!

In the summer I visit Istanbul for a short while. I am here to pick up a few bits and pieces from my old apartment, to see my friends and my mother, to do some book readings and signings in the city and to seal a contract with my Turkish publisher for The Saint of Incipient Insanities, which I have just finished. Then in ten days, I will return to the States.

However, life is a naughty child who sneaks up from behind us while we draw our plans, making funny faces at us.

On my first evening back in Istanbul friends invite me to have a drink in Yakup, a well-known tavern that journalists, painters and writers have long frequented. Jet-lagged and slightly grumpy, I nevertheless agree to meet them.

When I enter the place, the sound of laughter and chattering greets me, along with a thick cloud of smoke. Either there is a chimney inside the tavern or everyone is puffing on at least two Havana cigars at the same time. It is quite a change of scenery after my sterile life at Mount Holyoke.

I walk up to my friends' table, where I know everyone-except a young man with dark, wavy hair and a dimpled smile sitting at the end. He introduces himself as Eyup. It doesn't occur to me that it happens to be the name of the prophet Job, of whom I have said not just a few critical things in the past. Once again in my life, the angels are pointing their milky-white fingers at me, giggling among themselves. Again, I am failing to foresee the irony.

I watch him throughout the evening, cautiously at first, then with growing curiosity. The more I listen to him the more I am convinced that he is the embodiment of everything I have excluded and pushed away from my life. Pure patience, pure balance, pure rationality, pure calmness, pure harmony. He is a natural-born fisherman.

I don't even think I like him. I simply and swiftly fall head over heels in love with him. But I am determined not to let anyone at the table, especially him, see that. In order to hide my feelings, I swing to the other extreme, constantly challenging him and frowning at his every comment.

Hours later, as always happens in Istanbul when a group of women and men consume more than a carafe of wine and twice as much of rak, people start to talk about matters of the heart. Someone suggests that we take turns quoting the best maxims about love that we know.

One of my girlfriends volunteers to go first: "This one is from Shakespeare," she says with a touch of pride. "'Love all, trust a few.'"

The quote is well received. Everyone toasts.

"This one is from Albert Einstein," says someone else. "'Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.'"

We toast again.

His eyes sparkling, Eyup joins the game after a few rounds. "This one is from Mark Twain," he says. "'When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain.'"

Everyone applauds. I frown. But I join the toast all the same.

Ten minutes later everyone at the table is looking at me, waiting for me to utter my quote. By now I have drunk more than my usual, and my head is swirling. I put my gla.s.s on the table with a kind of borrowed confidence and a bit more forcefully than I intended. I wag my finger in the air and say: "'Have you ever been in love? Horrible, isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means someone can get inside you and mess you up.' How stupid!"

For one stunned moment n.o.body says a word. A few people cough as if they have something stuck in their throats and some others force a polite smile, but no one toasts.

"This one is from Neil Gaiman," I say, by way of explanation.

Again silence.

"The Sandman . . . Stardust . . . The Graveyard Book . . ." I add quickly. "You know, Neil Gaiman."

I lean back against the chair, take a deep breath and finish the quote: "'You build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life.' . . . How stupid!"

Everyone is looking at me with something akin to scorn on their faces. I have spoiled the fun and changed the mood from one of drunken merriment to somber seriousness. We can always go back to buoyant love quotes but it won't be the same. Everyone at the table seems slightly confused and annoyed-except one person who regards me with an infinitely warm smile and winks at me like we share a secret.

Madame Onion In my dream, I am walking in an opulent, vast garden. There are all sorts of flowers, plants and birds around, but I know I am not here for them. I keep walking, with a cane in my hand, until I reach a humongous tree. Its trunk is made of crystal, and leafy silver branches spring from its sides like Christmas ornaments. There are squirrels nibbling walnuts inside every hole in the tree. One of the holes resembles a cavernous mouth.

"You look so beautiful," I say, pleasantly surprised. "I thought it was winter. How did you manage to keep all your leaves?"

"Winter is over now," says the Brain Tree. "You can leave me be."

"But I took an oath, remember? I said my body should shrivel up so that my brain could blossom. If I don't keep my promise, G.o.d will be angry."

"No, He won't," says the Brain Tree. "You don't know Him."

"Do you? Have you seen Him?" I ask. "What does He look like?"

But the tree ignores my questions and says, "Everything expires. So has your oath. Even I am about to perish in a little while."

As if in response to his last words, the winds pick up speed and pound with invisible fists on the Brain Tree. That is when I realize that its branches are made of the thinnest gla.s.s. In front of my eyes, they shatter into hundreds of minuscule pieces.

"It doesn't hurt, don't worry!" the Brain Tree yells over the noise.

Trying not to cut myself on the shattered gla.s.s covering the ground, I walk and cry, although I know I am not sad. I just can't help it. In this state I walk away from the Brain Tree.

When I turn back to look at it one more time, I am surprised to see that the mammoth tree has shrunk to the size of a bonsai.

This is the dream I have the first night I spend with Eyup.

Once the Brain Tree releases me, my body and I start mending fences. Again, I feel a speedy change commencing within-this time in the opposite direction. My skin becomes softer, my hair s.h.i.+nier. Now that I am in love, I decide to treat my body as best as I can. I begin frequenting The Body Shop, purchasing creams, powders and lotions I have never used before.

Then one afternoon, just as I am placing the products I've bought on a shelf in Eyup's bathroom, I notice something moving there. Aware of my stare, she quickly hides behind ajar of facial cream. In shock, I move the jar aside.

Approximately six inches in height, twenty ounces in weight, it is a finger-woman-though she resembles none of the others. Her honey-blond hair is loose and hangs down to her waist in waves. She has penciled a mole above her mouth and painted her lips such a bright red that it reminds me of a Chinese lantern on fire. Her arms are encased in skin-tight black gloves that reach up to her elbows. She is wearing solitaire rings of various colors over her gloved fingers and has squeezed into a crimson stretchy evening dress. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s are popping out of the decolletage neckline, and her right leg-all the way to her hip-is exposed by a long slit in her dress. On her feet are pointy red stilettos with heels so high I wonder how she manages to walk in them.

Without sparing me so much as a glance, she picks up a cigarette holder. With practiced ennui, she attaches a cigarette to its tip. Then, fluttering her mascara-drenched lashes, she turns to me.

"Do you have a light, darling?" she asks.

My blood freezes. Who is this woman?

"No, I don't," I say, determined to keep communication with her to a minimum.

"That's okay, darling," she says. "Thanks anyway."

Opening her handbag, which looks like a tiny mother-of-pearl pillbox, she takes out a lighter and proceeds to light her cigarette. Then, pursing her lips, she starts to make perfect smoke rings and sends them, one after another, my way.

With my mouth agape, I watch this strange creature.

"You don't recognize me, right?" she says in a half-velvety, half-naughty voice, like Rita Hayworth in Gilda. "Of course, that is very normal. When did you ever recognize me?"

She leans forward, exposing the deep cleavage of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. I avert my gaze, feeling uneasy. Has this woman no shame?

"But, darling, I am not a stranger. I am you. I'm a member of the Choir of Discordant Voices. You expressed the wish to make peace with your body and I gladly took that as an invitation. So here I am."

"But who exactly are you?" It is all I can come up with.

"My name is Blue Belle Bovary."

"That sounds so-" I say, looking for a word that won't offend her.

"Poetic?" she offers.

"Well, yeah. It alliterates, sort of," I say.

"Thank you, darling," she says with a wink. "My name is a tribute to Emma Bovary, the woman who did everything in her power to escape the ba.n.a.lity and monotony of provincial life."

"Right . . . but as you may know, she is also a rather problematic character. I mean, if you consider cheating on your husband, telling endless lies and dying in agony by swallowing a.r.s.enic a problem."

"Don't worry," she says. "Better to live with pa.s.sion than to die of boredom."

She opens her bag again, takes out a compact and deftly powders the tip of her nose. Then she throws a piercing glance in my direction. "I like wearing sensual perfumes, silk clothing, s.e.xy underwear and satin nightgowns. Enchante, darling."

I can feel my face grow hot. "Could you please stop calling me 'darling'?" I say, my voice quivering. "I don't and could never have an inner voice like you. There must be a mistake."

"Oh dear, you are doing that again! You want to cast me back down into the dark abyss of negligence," she says after taking a drag from her cigarette. "I scare the h.e.l.l out of you, don't I?"

"Why would I be scared of you?" I ask.

"Otherwise why do you always pose like you do in photos? In every interview you give, you appear guarded and serious. Your face scrunched, your gaze dreamy and distant. The contemplative-writer pose. Ugh!"

"Hey, wait a minute," I say.

Yet even as I try to object, I remember an adept a.n.a.lysis once made by Erica Jong. She said it was not that hard today for women writers to finish or publish their works. The real difficulty for us was to be taken seriously. Jong believed that the biased att.i.tude toward female writers became even more visible in literary reviews. "I have never seen a review of a woman writer in which her s.e.x was not mentioned in some way." I knew this to be true. In Turkey, a female writer can publish as many books as she wants, and yet it always requires a long struggle and much more work for a woman to be taken seriously by the conventional literary establishment.

"Why not wear fire-red lipstick, flowery dresses, and show a bit of skin? Would your writing career decline? Would you be less a woman of letters? You're terrified of being a Body-Woman. Tell me, why are you so afraid of me, darling?"

Words desert me.

"Unlike you, I am a great fan of everything bodily and sensual. I adore the sweet pleasures bestowed on us mere mortals. After all, I am a Scorpio. Hedonism is my motto in life. I enjoy my womanhood," she raves on. "But because of those boorish Thumbelinas, I have been censored, silenced, suppressed!"

A wave of the purest panic rolls over me. I break into a sweat.

"Of course you're sweating," she says, as she c.o.c.ks her head to one side. "You always dress up like Madame Onion, layer upon layer of clothing. If you wore something light and skimpy, you'd feel so much better."

Could she be right, I wonder. Maybe I did somehow turn myself into Madame Onion. A woman who refuses to draw attention to her Body because she wants to be respected for her Brain, who dresses up in layers when she goes out in public. I always hide myself behind clothes, using them like armor. And whenever I pose for an interview, I make sure I don't smile too much, in order to not be taken lightly in a male-dominated environment. I try to look d.a.m.n serious, and, often, older than I am.

"Now, those novels of yours . . ." mutters Blue Belle Bovary as she smoothes on a papaya hand cream-like an odalisque in an Orientalist painting.

"What's with my novels?"

"Oh, nothing, it's just that sometimes I get the impression that you female writers can't write about s.e.xuality as freely as male writers do. Your s.e.x scenes are always short, almost nonexistent. You know how, in the old movies, when a couple was about to make love, the camera would drift off to the side? Well, that is precisely how you women write about s.e.xuality. Your pens drift off the page when you run into a s.e.x scene!"

"That's so not true," I protest. "There are plenty of women writers who write lavishly about eroticism and s.e.xuality!"

"Yes, darling, but I'm not talking about romantic or erotic novels," she says. "Just because I said I like satin and desire doesn't mean I'm ignorant. Obviously I'm aware that most of the writers in these genres are women. But that is hardly the topic. I'm not talking about those kinds of books."

Standing up, she flicks her hair with a quick toss of her head. "I'm talking about highbrow literature here. No offense, darling, but the number of women novelists who can write bluntly about s.e.xuality is slim to none."

"There must be a way," I say, still not fully convinced.

"Oh, there is," she says with an impish smile. "Female novelists can write freely about s.e.x only under three conditions."

"Which are?"

"The first condition is lesbianism. If the woman writer is lesbian and open about it, what does she have to fear? Lesbian writers tend to be better at writing about the body than your lot."

While Blue Belle Bovary continues with her monologue, I find myself growing increasingly captive to her silky voice and exaggerated gestures. It is too late to wonder where this conversation is going. Instead I ask, "And why do you think that is?"

"Probably because since they are already stigmatized, they can speak about sensitive subjects without fear of stigma. This makes them more interesting and sincere."

Of this I know a good example. The American writer Rita Mae Brown's groundbreaking novel Rubyfruit Jungle came out in the 1970s and challenged the mainstream society's approach to not only s.e.x and s.e.xuality but also lesbianism. Another example is Tipping the Velvet by the British novelist Sarah Waters, who calls her books "lesbo historical romps."

"The second condition, darling, is age. When you are an 'old woman writer' in the eyes of society, you are free to write about s.e.x as much as you want. Old women are thought to be above nature. They can talk about s.e.xuality to their heart's content and it will be called wisdom."