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Authors: Elif Shafak
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stopped at those times. Yet they would return with daylight. Walking from home to the campus, between classes or during lunchtime, Mustafa would catch himself thinking about Istanbul. How he wished he could remove his memory, restart the program, until all of the files were deleted and gone.
Arizona was to have spared Mustafa the bad omen that fell upon every man in the Kazancı family. But he didn’t believe in such things. Drifting away from all those superstitions, evil-eye beads, coffee-cup readings, and fortune-telling ceremonies in his family was less a conscious choice than an involuntary reflex. He thought they were all part of a dark and complicated world peculiar to women.
Women were a mystery anyway. Having grown up with so many women, it was odd that he had felt so estranged from them all of his life.
Mustafa had grown up as the only boy in a family where the men died too soon and too unexpectedly. He experienced growing sexual desires while surrounded by sisters who were taboo to a fantasy life. Nevertheless, he slipped into unspeakable thoughts about women. At first Mustafa fell for girls who rejected him. Terrified that he would be rejected, ridiculed, and reviled, he turned to yearning for the female body from a distance. This year he had looked angrily at the photos of top models in glossy American magazines, as if to absorb the excruciating fact that no woman this perfect would ever desire him.
Mustafa would never forget the fierce look on Zeliha’s face when she called him “a precious phallus.” The embarrassment of that moment still burned through him today. He knew Zeliha could see behind his forced masculinity to the real story of his upbringing. She recognized that he had been pampered and spoon-fed by an oppressed mother, intimidated and beaten by an oppressive father. “In the end you have become both narcissistic and insecure,” she had said. Could things have been different between Zeliha and him? Why did he feel so rejected and unloved with so many sisters around and a doting mother by his side?
Zeliha always mocked Mustafa and his mother always admired him. He wanted to be just an ordinary man, good and fallible at the same time. All he needed was compassion and a chance to be a better person. If only he had a woman who loved him, everything would be different. Mustafa knew he had to make it in America not because he wanted to attain a better future but because he had to dispose of his past.
“How you doin’?” The young woman at the cash register smiled at him.
That was one thing Mustafa still had not gotten used to. In America everyone asked everyone how they were doing, even complete strangers. He understood that it was a way of greeting more than a real question. But then he didn’t know how to greet back with the same graceless ease.
“I am fine, thank you,” he said. “How are you?”
The girl smiled. “Where are you from?”
One day, Mustafa thought, I will speak in such a way that no one will ask this rude question because they will not believe, even for a minute, that they are talking to a foreigner. He picked up his plastic bag and walked outside.
A Mexican American couple crossed the sidewalk, she pushing a baby in a stroller, he holding the hand of a toddler. They walked unhurriedly while Rose watched them with envy. Now that her marriage was over, every couple she saw seemed blissfully content.
“You know what? I wish your grandma-the-witch could have seen me flirting with that Turk. Can you imagine her horror? I cannot think of a worse nightmare for the proud Tchakhmakhchian family! Proud and puffed up . . . proud and . . .”
Rose didn’t finish her sentence because she was distracted by a most puckish thought. The light turned green, the cars that were lined up in front of her lurched forward, and the van behind her honked. But Rose remained motionless. The fantasy was so delicious she could not move. Her mind wallowed in many images, while her eyes
Arizona was to have spared Mustafa the bad omen that fell upon every man in the Kazancı family. But he didn’t believe in such things. Drifting away from all those superstitions, evil-eye beads, coffee-cup readings, and fortune-telling ceremonies in his family was less a conscious choice than an involuntary reflex. He thought they were all part of a dark and complicated world peculiar to women.
Women were a mystery anyway. Having grown up with so many women, it was odd that he had felt so estranged from them all of his life.
Mustafa had grown up as the only boy in a family where the men died too soon and too unexpectedly. He experienced growing sexual desires while surrounded by sisters who were taboo to a fantasy life. Nevertheless, he slipped into unspeakable thoughts about women. At first Mustafa fell for girls who rejected him. Terrified that he would be rejected, ridiculed, and reviled, he turned to yearning for the female body from a distance. This year he had looked angrily at the photos of top models in glossy American magazines, as if to absorb the excruciating fact that no woman this perfect would ever desire him.
Mustafa would never forget the fierce look on Zeliha’s face when she called him “a precious phallus.” The embarrassment of that moment still burned through him today. He knew Zeliha could see behind his forced masculinity to the real story of his upbringing. She recognized that he had been pampered and spoon-fed by an oppressed mother, intimidated and beaten by an oppressive father. “In the end you have become both narcissistic and insecure,” she had said. Could things have been different between Zeliha and him? Why did he feel so rejected and unloved with so many sisters around and a doting mother by his side?
Zeliha always mocked Mustafa and his mother always admired him. He wanted to be just an ordinary man, good and fallible at the same time. All he needed was compassion and a chance to be a better person. If only he had a woman who loved him, everything would be different. Mustafa knew he had to make it in America not because he wanted to attain a better future but because he had to dispose of his past.
“How you doin’?” The young woman at the cash register smiled at him.
That was one thing Mustafa still had not gotten used to. In America everyone asked everyone how they were doing, even complete strangers. He understood that it was a way of greeting more than a real question. But then he didn’t know how to greet back with the same graceless ease.
“I am fine, thank you,” he said. “How are you?”
The girl smiled. “Where are you from?”
One day, Mustafa thought, I will speak in such a way that no one will ask this rude question because they will not believe, even for a minute, that they are talking to a foreigner. He picked up his plastic bag and walked outside.
A Mexican American couple crossed the sidewalk, she pushing a baby in a stroller, he holding the hand of a toddler. They walked unhurriedly while Rose watched them with envy. Now that her marriage was over, every couple she saw seemed blissfully content.
“You know what? I wish your grandma-the-witch could have seen me flirting with that Turk. Can you imagine her horror? I cannot think of a worse nightmare for the proud Tchakhmakhchian family! Proud and puffed up . . . proud and . . .”
Rose didn’t finish her sentence because she was distracted by a most puckish thought. The light turned green, the cars that were lined up in front of her lurched forward, and the van behind her honked. But Rose remained motionless. The fantasy was so delicious she could not move. Her mind wallowed in many images, while her eyes
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