In this moment, one of the many things I realize is that this is a turning point in my life, a sharp one. While I veer fast, I don't know what awaits me around the corner.
"May the Body rot and may the Brain glow. May the ink flow through my pen like oceans to nourish the novels that shall grow within."
I repeat this oath three times. When it is over, I feel numb inside, almost anesthetized. Perhaps it is because of the cold. Perhaps the gravity of what I have just uttered has started to sink in.
A Mystery Called Brain
Before two weeks have passed my body starts to show signs of change. First my hair, then the skin on my face and hands, dries out. I lose weight. My stomach flattens. Then, one day, I realize I have stopped menstruating. I don't get my flow the next month, or the one after that. At first I don't pay any attention to it — in fact, I am even relieved to be rid of womanhood. Wouldn't it be liberating to free myself of femininity and sexuality, and become a walking brain? I feel like a crazy scientist who is experimenting with all kinds of unknown substances in his murky laboratory — except I am experimenting on myself. Not that I seem to be turning into a green, giant, humanoid monster. But I am transforming into an antisocial, asexual, introverted novelist, who, perhaps, is no less scary than the Incredible Hulk.
In late May, I am perusing the magazines in the waiting room of the Women's Health Center while waiting for the kind, lanky gynecologist who has done all sorts of hormonal tests on me. Finally, the nurse calls me in.
"Here is an interesting case," says the doctor as I walk into his office. "Feeling any better?"
"The same," I say.
"Well, well, let's see what we have here. . " says the doctor, inspecting the test results from behind his glasses. "Your hormone levels have come back fine, and so have the thyroid tests."
"You are normal," says the nurse next to him, as if she could not quite believe this.
"But, then, why don't I menstruate anymore?"
"Under these circumstances there is only one answer," the doctor responds. "Your brain has given your body the command not to."
"Is that possible?" I ask incredulously.
"Oh, yes, it is very possible," announces the doctor, squinting slightly, as if he were trying to peer into my soul. "You have to discuss this with your brain. I would, but I don't know its language."
"It'll take us some time to learn Turkish," says the nurse with a wink.
They chuckle in perfect synchronization — in the way that only people who have worked closely together for many years can manage. I, in the meantime, wait silently, unsure what to say.
"Could you tell me what you do for a living?" asks the doctor.
"I am a writer."
"Ah, I see," he says with brightened interest. "What kind of books do you write?"
This is a question I'd rather avoid. I don't know exactly how to categorize my books, and I am not sure I even want to. In fact, this happens to be a thorny question for almost any writer who doesn't produce within established genres, such as "romance" or "crime." Fortunately, the doctor is less interested in my answer than in an idea that has just occurred to him.
"Think of your brain as a riveting, suspenseful detective novel," he says.
"Okay," I say.
Then he lowers his voice as if revealing a terrible secret. "Your brain has kidnapped your body. . "
"Really?"
"Yeah. Now all you need to do is to tell it to stop. You can do this, believe me."
"I am sorry, I lost the thread here. Is my brain a detective novel or the detective himself or the villain?"
He leans back, and heaves a deep, deep sigh. That's when I realize, as nice a person as he is, the doctor is not good with metaphors. He tried to clarify things with a figure of speech, and ended up only complicating them more.
I don't go looking for other doctors. Neither do I tell anyone about the strange diagnosis I have received. But I visit the Brain Tree regularly, searching for stoic serenity it cannot grant me. Caressing the sturdy, old roots that rise out of the ground, observing the leaves on its infinite branches, I renew my vow and watch my womanhood perish day by day.
Every morning I go to the library with Miss Highbrowed Cynic. We are as thick as thieves now. Everything progresses the way she and Milady Ambitious Chekhovian had planned. I'm always reading, always researching. Many a night I stay until the wee hours, hunched over books in an area flanked by two collections: English political philosophy and Russian literature. Whenever my eyelids droop, I take a nap on the brown leather couch that is situated between the two long rows of bookcases.
In my spare time I go to panels, which are plentiful in a place such as this: "The Plight of Women in the Third World," "Feminism and Hip-Hop Culture," "Female Characters in Walt Disney: Does Mickey Mouse Oppress Minnie?" and so on. I attend all of them.
In the evenings, I sit in front of the computer and write down notes and compose journal entries far into the night. I don't socialize anymore, I don't go to parties and I avoid brown-bag lunches, as strong as the urge is sometimes. I don't allow anything outside of writing and books to enter my life.
Mama Rice Pudding watches me from a distance with eyes that cannot hide their hurt. Whenever I try to communicate with her, she turns her head and stares into space, sitting as still as a marble statue. Some nights, in bed, I hear her crying.
One day a major Turkish newspaper does an interview with me about my life in America. I speak to the journalist on the phone for about forty minutes. As we are about to hang up he asks me about marriage and motherhood.
I tell him that I am miles away from both right now. It is a huge responsibility to bring children into this world, I say. But when I am old enough, that is, after many more novels, I could see myself becoming a foster mom or perhaps raising someone else's children, helping their education and so forth.
That weekend when the interview comes out, its title is as catchy as it can be: "I am Raring to Become a Stepmom!"
Next to the revelation, there is a picture of me taken in Istanbul standing in front of the Topkapi Palace. I am dressed head to toe in black, my hair a cuckoo's nest due to a strong wind, my face etched with a grave expression. When my image is juxtaposed with the words, I look like a black spider about to jump on any divorced man with kids.
I decide not to give any more interviews for a while.
Approximately at the same time, as if a muse has fallen from the sky onto my head, I begin to write a new novel. It is called The Saint of Incipient Insanities. The story has sorrow cloaked in humor and humor cloaked in sorrow. It is about a group of foreigners in America coming from very different cultural backgrounds and struggling, not always successfully, with an ongoing sense of estrangement. I write about "insiders" and "outsiders," about belonging and not belonging, feeling like a tree that is turned upside down and has its roots up in the air.
PART FOUR Never Say Never
Sweet Love
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 pronunciation and correcting my mistakes. She also teaches me new words every day, blushing 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.