over the course our lives, and that he watches to see which ones we choose to water. But then again, doesn’t he already know so much from the very beginning?
I watered the wrong seed.
Are you amused?
Are you suffering beside me? Steeped in the same fear? In the same overwhelming tide of helplessness?
But can you feel these emotions?
Or do you only know them by observing this mortal plight?
You created us so you could taste emotions that you would otherwise never know. To see and feel desperation, weakness and fear from your own creation.
So here is my description of helplessness, something I now know all too well: a human face pressed against a wall by a thousand hands, fixed in place, unable to breathe, no escape and no salvation.
But how can I convey these feelings to you? I am dying to do so but these are things you will never know.
I am God’s teacher but this pupil of mine will make me pay with my life.
He knows my suffering.
And my fear.
A fear that makes me cold, like a block of ice on my back. I am shivering from the cold.
But it was a magnificent journey that led me to this moment of abject terror. No one would have believed it. I never would have expected so much if not for that black speck of foreboding that took shape in my heart, laying there in the shadows, and I chose not to watch it grow.
Nobody wants to see the truth, so why should I?
But now I was face to face with it, and it was staring me in the eye.
God was revealing inescapable truths.
I saw the truth.
Horrified and full of fear, I saw the truth.
V
I rented a really nice place. It was fully furnished, and decorated like the home of a nineteenth-century aristocrat, with carved cabinets, large mirrors, velvet wingback chairs and beautiful carpets. But it didn’t feel overcrowded and the arrangement of furniture lent the place a peaceful air. A mountain breeze was always drifting in through large, bright windows, fluttering the curtains.
I always had breakfast on the veranda, between carved wooden columns, looking out over the sea, which was light green where it met the golden sand of the beach. It grew darker in the distance, occasionally flecked with white. The palm trees and the red oleanders and the station dome shimmered in the sunlight.
The caramel-coloured floor tiles helped keep the house cool. In the morning I would walk through the house barefoot, looking out every window, gazing at the olive groves, the mountains, the vineyards. I would look out over the town and the sea, taking in the palm trees and the oleanders, and then I would wander among the jasmine, the roses, the bougainvillea and the lemon trees in my garden; it was a paradise without an Eve.
Remzi and I became good friends and he rushed over whenever I needed help. He even found a woman to take care of the house. As Hamiyet fluttered about the house, cleaning and cooking, she wore a smile that was always changing but never absent, one of those smiles that I could never quite define, a smile that intimated a secret sin, never shared in either happiness or grief.
But she spoke to the furniture.
She would whisper to cabinets, tables, chairs, sharing her secrets with them. Once I caught her arguing with a broom. But when she wasn’t talking to the furniture she would give me all the gossip from town. More and more I started to feel like I had come to a den of sin, and as I got to know the people I could put faces to the stories.
Hamiyet was a tall, powerful, busty woman, and she wasn’t shy. She’d roll her skirt up over her calves when she mopped the floors; and when she leaned over to pick something up, her breasts sometimes slipped out of her blouse. She never seemed to mind.
I was full of energy when I woke that morning.
Hamiyet was prattling away with the plates and the tablecloth, and the eggs she had made for my breakfast. It had rained the day before but the sun was shining in a bright blue sky, and the scent of wet grass and dirt, the fruit trees and the flowers was in the air.
I’d told the woman to meet me if she liked my books but I was beginning to have regrets.
I hadn’t had a meal with a woman for such a long time. I was a lonely man. It seemed like no one in the world knew I still existed. And there wasn’t even a splash when I released a new book. I was unhappy and angry, but I did my best to stay in touch with people. I tried to make peace in the hope of driving away a grudge people didn’t even know I carried in my heart. But I had walled myself up in a monastery, and I was reluctant to venture outside. I had settled into a life of seclusion.
I was weak and fragile and this made me angry. I was full of anger and self-loathing, and I felt sorry for myself. Swinging back and forth between two very different states of mind, I either wallowed in defeat or I was drunk on the dream of an imminent victory, a commander setting out on one last adventure, rallying the troops, crying ‘I’ll show the world yet!’ But then I would suddenly find myself steeped in the sadness that comes with inevitable defeat.
‘If you like the books …’ I had said to her, because I wanted her to read them, someone to read them, someone to say something. I wanted to end this oppressive silence. A buried resentment drove me to say it.
Normally I’d never mention my books to a woman before the first date.
I was frustrated for having told her, but no one notices the anger that rages inside me, the ungrounded fear and loathing. The bravado of a beaten man.
It wasn’t easy facing these truths. I was on the verge of giving up and just not going.
But I was dying to see if she’d come.
I wanted her to like my books, and I missed those conversations you have on a first date, when every word is loaded, and anything can happen. I wanted to feel alive again, I wanted someone to admire me, someone who could lead me back to the world of people. I wanted to break down these walls built by arrogance and fragility. I needed someone, but I was afraid to admit it.
In her presence I knew that I’d become another man, whose confidence would rise with every sentence. A woman’s voice would change me. I would become a garden swirling with all the scents that come after rain. I knew that much.
If she came everything would change.
The hours dragged by. I followed Hamiyet around the house. I collected fruit in the garden, watched the doves build nests above the veranda and flicked snails off the trees.
I arrived early and sat down at one of the tables under the magnolia tree in the garden.
Slowly the place filled up with customers. Bigwigs in dark suits alighted at tables like black birds. They were both a frightening and comical sight to behold, with their dark suits and loosened ties and enormous bellies, sweating in the heat. From time to time they’d look over at me suspiciously, making me feel like an outsider. I felt like a zebra among lions.
Then everyone turned to the door. She was there, looking out over the garden.
The black birds were staring at her hungrily. But she didn’t seem to notice.
She greeted everyone in the garden as she came over to me, even exchanging a few words with some of the men, and for a moment it seemed their lust was compassion. They were calmed by her innocent expression, the coy and child-like look in her eye, her grace and the polite distance in her voice. They even seemed a little ashamed, and they wanted to protect her.
I felt the same compassion too, and the lust.
She had the power to tame these savage birds. In an instant. It was impressive to watch.
But I saw something else.
She wore