“She had refused many offers of marriage, from some of the richest families in Istanbul. She told her friends that she could never be satisfied with one man. She could not commit herself to live the life of a housebound wife. The choice was celibacy or freedom to choose her men. If she saw a man she wanted, she would summon him and lift her veil. Since she was extremely attractive, most men succumbed to her charms. They were conducted by the eunuchs to her private chamber in the palace. Here she lay on a divan awaiting them, only the most flimsy of shawls covering her naked body.
“The lover she had chosen for that particular night was dazzled by the sight of her. When she removed the shawl all was laid bare and as the fortunate man fell on his knees before her she would speak the same words that she had to many of his predecessors: ‘You may gorge yourself on this feast till you are sated. Enjoy it well, for you will never see or taste another. From paradise you will proceed straight to hell.’
“The excited lover was by this time too agitated and overcome by desire to reflect on her warning. It was only after she had been pleasured that he began to show signs of nervousness, but by then it was too late. The eunuchs entered the chamber and escorted the unfortunate lover to a boat moored nearby. One of the eunuchs sang a lament for lost lovers, while the others gently circled the condemned man’s neck with a cord and strangled him to death. The delicate morsel of last night’s banquet was thrown into the Bosporus so that the fish could feed on him. The royal flesh of unmarried females was forbidden to a commoner. He who had enjoyed must be destroyed. He could not be allowed to live and tell the tale. The princess had made one exception to the rule.
“‘If,’ she instructed the eunuchs, ‘any of them ever shouts his defiance of death and declares that a night in my arms is worth the sacrifice, spare his life. Such a spirit should be preserved, not suffocated.’
“Every morning she would inquire anxiously, but none of them ever did. This made her sad, but she lived a long time and in her old age spent a great deal of time in tekkes, where ecstasy is not dependent on physical contact.”
I was greatly moved by this story, Stone Woman, or so I thought. Now I think it was the story-teller who affected me.
“Did the princess have a name?” I asked.
“She was called Nilofer.”
It was a warm night and, perhaps, the moon had touched us both, so that when Selim moved closer and stroked my cheeks, I did not resist. When he felt my breasts I made a half-hearted attempt to restrain his ardour, but I wished him to go further. I kissed his eyes and his lips and undressed him. After I had made love to him we washed ourselves in the sea. He was inexperienced, but it did not matter to me. I had not been intimate with a man for nearly a year and the warmth alone had comforted me.
We did not speak for a long time. I stroked his hair as he rested his head in my lap. His first sentence was a whisper.
“Will Petrossian take me out on a boat tonight and drown me?”
I laughed as I hugged him.
“No. In order to do that it would be necessary to castrate him first. Only eunuchs can carry out such an assignment.”
“I thought he was a eunuch. It is said in the kitchen that your family has castrated him in spirit if not in flesh.”
When I suggested that it was time for me to leave, Stone Woman, he held me in a tight embrace and aroused my passion. This time we did not wash because the night was almost over and there was no time to dry ourselves. Am I a lost woman, Stone Woman? What if he has left me with a child? Will the passion I felt for him lead to love?’
My words froze on my lips as I heard the noise of rustling.
“You have embarked on the road to unhappiness, my child.”
“Who’s there?”
My mother emerged from behind the stones. I wept as I screamed at her. “This is a sanctuary, Mother. You have defiled it by your presence. It was cruel of you to eavesdrop.”
“I had come to speak to the Stone Woman myself, child, when I heard your voice. How could I walk away without hearing your story? When you were children, you would hide and listen to all of us. Now it is our turn. You must not complain. My reasons are not so different. You’re such a secretive girl. You never told me about the Greek teacher — and look where it has led you. I know that life with him has made you morose and you were always such a cheerful child. I am starved of information concerning your life, Nilofer. I’m glad I heard your story even though it was an accident. Come with me.”
She put her arm around my shoulders and took me to her room. I sat on the floor so she could massage my head as she did when I was a child. Neither of us spoke for a long time. The reassuring sound of her hands rubbing my scalp had the soothing effect of a balm. As I began to recover my composure I realised, to my astonishment, that she was not in the least angry with me.
“I always wanted you to be happy. When you ran away with the school teacher, I was sad only because I would have liked to celebrate the wedding of my only child. I missed the music and the feasting and the dancing. I would have liked to send you off to your husband in some style. That was a mother’s unrealised dream. Once I had recovered from my disappointment nothing else mattered except your happiness. If you were happy, what right did I have to be sad? But you weren’t happy, were you, Nilofer? That was the impression Halil brought back with him after his first meeting with you and that stick, Dmitri.”
My mother wished to talk of the past. My thinking was concentrated on the present. I wanted to know exactly where Selim was at this moment. I wanted to know what he was thinking. I wondered whether he had told anyone about us. Was he regretting his audacity? As these thoughts raced through my head, my heartbeat quickened in unison, but the impatient expression on my mother’s face was beginning to disfigure her features. It could not be ignored any longer. She would not permit me to move on until I had satisfied her. Perhaps it was more than mere curiosity. Perhaps it was a concern for the children and for my future. Perhaps it had something to do with her own life and frustrated hopes.
“Answer me, Nilofer. What went wrong?”
This was a question I had often asked myself over the last five years. My feelings poured out like a waterfall and almost overwhelmed my mother. I told her that what I had thought of as love had been nothing but the romantic fantasies of an immature mind. Dmitri had offered an escape from the closed world of our family and I had foolishly made the leap with him. I spoke of how I felt my mind beginning to atrophy in the house in Istanbul. I was imprisoned by its routines, stifled by its traditions, crushed by the weight of its history. I was overwhelmed by a desire to experience the real world. Our summer house and the sea represented freedom. Ever since I was three years old I had always loved being here. Dmitri just happened to pass by at the right time. It could have been anyone.
I told her of how all this had become very clear to me even before I had become pregnant with Emineh. Her birth had marked a point of no return. After that I found him physically repulsive and intellectually unsatisfying. He began to resent what he called my superior ways and our relationship disintegrated. I thought perhaps that a period of absence might change my mind, but after a week here with Orhan I knew it was over. I could never go back to Konya and share his hideous bed.
“And now, Mother, you have compelled me to invite him here for Orhan’s sake and so that we can see my Emineh. He kept her as a hostage, you know. To make sure I returned. Perhaps he will not come, but if he does he must return alone. My children will stay here with us.”