when a woman becomes a mermaid, slipping out of a mother-of-pearl oyster shell silvered by the light of the moon, casting off all her other roles. Then she is only female, surrendering naturally in a soft light. For the most part these moments unfold far from the prying eyes of others, in quiet corners, in bedrooms with the curtains drawn; but some women can surrender in broad daylight, oblivious to the crowds, and with just a glance, a smile, a word; it is a miraculous moment of pure intimacy, a moment of unforgettable joy. These are moments made by God.
Earthly moments that belong to the natural world and to God.
Innocent. Pure. Untainted.
In those moments you enter a world of sin but wearing all your innocence. I have never felt as happy or as innocent any other time. Then I feel the strength of being a man and the complete absence of power that comes with surrendering to another human being. This was such a moment.
Those words changed the direction of our relationship.
We would have a secret life together, in a secret organisation: dangerous and exciting.
We both knew it. There was nothing for us to say. That moment had come and gone, changing us and the world.
Her love for another man had melted in the heat of the moment and I was only saddened by the thought of her leaving that evening.
Suddenly I felt so terribly alone.
Loneliness. God and I know the feeling all too well. It’s like he’s trying to teach me the feeling, choosing to teach the emotion to select individuals, and using horrific coincidences to make his point. How could someone’s mother, father and wife all die in different traffic accidents? You couldn’t get away with that in a book. Only God can. I know because I have seen his work with my own eyes. Did he simply want to instil in me a fear of driving? Well, then he got it wrong. I’m afraid of people.
Sometimes I feel like I’m standing at a dangerous crossroad, and I fear that anyone standing next to me could be hit by a car.
Loneliness has taught me this.
But it’s really not so bad.
You get used to it. You even start to like it.
It’s a luxury to be free from all concerns, living like a turtle. Your home on your back. No worries in the world. Sometimes I think that our desire for possessions has to do with our bond with other people. In the end we have no choice but to leave all these things with someone. I never wanted to own more than I could carry on my back. I never wanted more than that. But I could have more. It’s strange to think that I’m rich. Another coincidence. I didn’t earn any of my fortune: I inherited it. I simply can’t work for money. I like to spend it but I don’t like to work for it.
I suppose if I hadn’t come into money I’d be a beggar or a con man. You see, writing is a mix of the two: you fool people with your lies, take their money and then beg for their admiration. Sadly I was never very successful. I wasn’t able to deceive anyone. I won no adoring fans.
Zuhal was my first and only fan.
My head was spinning with conflicting emotions. I was on a fast-moving swing: soaring forward, I felt grateful and I wanted to keep her for ever; then swinging back, I felt nothing but disdain and I wanted to belittle her. She wasn’t interested in literature, and I knew that I shouldn’t take her opinion seriously, but she was the only person I knew who actually liked my books.
As we walked arm in arm through the back streets of town, bright yellow light bounced off the walls along the narrow streets. Some were no more than two metres wide. Women sat on throw rugs they’d spread out on the doorsteps in the shade.
These were houses from another time, with tall, carved wooden doors, and red geraniums bursting out of oriel windows.
Almost everything in the town seemed from another time. We walked in and out of a little square with an enormous tree and a fountain in the middle, children racing about in all directions. Miracles sometimes happen between a woman and a man, and as we walked together I felt us growing closer, as if with every step we knew more about each other, and without even speaking.
Was it real? It didn’t matter. I could feel it and that was what was important. An emotion strong enough to make its own reality.
We were both willing to walk those streets together, lingering in each other’s company, confessing something, forging a strong and lasting bond.
I suppose that was the day I discovered that this was love: wandering through the streets with someone, side by side. In one of the little squares we sat on stools at a shaded coffeehouse.
‘Aren’t you afraid of him?’ I asked.
‘Sometimes. But not the way I fear others. His heartlessness scares me … He’s playing with me. And there’s nothing I can do about it except try to make him angry. Sometimes at night I ask God to save me from him. With all my heart. You know, it’s really strange. It’s like wishing for death … It’s like I need to love him to keep on living. I’m pathetic.’
These confessions didn’t make me angry any more. Just the opposite: the more she told me about her love for this man, the closer I felt to her; every word she said about him brought us closer. As she talked it seemed any fear she might have had of being close to me was slipping away. ‘Actually I’m afraid of you too,’ she said. ‘Maybe even more than I am of him. I read your book. You’re heartless too. Somehow I just know it. But I don’t know how.’
She paused for a moment, a puzzled look on her face.
‘Is it that I only fall for heartless men? I can’t be that pathetic.’
Before I could come up with an answer the proprietor arrived with Turkish coffee in the handle-less cups you see in miniature paintings, and Zuhal was fascinated by them. She turned to the man and asked where he’d got the cups. They seemed like old friends. He said he’d bought them from a woman in the street market.
And then she started bargaining for them, and having a great time with it. I can’t remember now, but in the end she bought the cups for a ridiculously low price, far lower than the proprietor ever would have expected. Then she stood up and walked over to a woman sitting on her doorstep. They exchanged a few words and then she was back at our little table with a gift box and wrapping paper.
After wrapping up the cups, she said, ‘All right, let’s go. I don’t want to be late.’
She left that evening.
Towards midnight, I got a message from her. Just three words.
‘I miss you.’
VII
Sometimes I listen solely to my instincts, like an animal.
After that night we corresponded almost every night on the internet, an infinite universe beyond reality, where everything is possible – fantasies forever unfolding – and there is nothing to stop you or ever slow you down.
Every day and every night you are born again online to live a completely different life. Hurtling through endless space, far from the rules of the world, its standards and routines. Seeds sprout faster there, relationships develop more quickly.
I was new to this world but I soon discovered the possibilities. Although we became more intimate day by day, I never suggested that we should see each other in person.
My instincts told me that we should first spend time in ‘space’ before we met again in the real world.
So I led a double life.
At night it was a life with a woman I never saw and never touched, sharing secrets, nourishing an intimacy – a life that was ours alone.
I spent my days in the coffeehouse next to Remzi’s restaurant. It was the heart of the town, absorbing stories and then pumping them back out.
The proprietor of the coffeehouse had a limp and wore a perpetual frown. They’d given him the nickname