Black Milk by Elif Shafak Read Free Book Online Page A

on you have to watch how you behave. You cannot run around or skip rope. You cannot talk loudly or giggle. You are a woman now.”
    When? Why? How did she switch from girlhood to womanhood? She had always thought becoming a woman was like walking a long, winding road with trees on each side, learning your way step by step. Why had no one told her that it was, in fact, a trapdoor you stepped on and tumbled into without knowing it was there?
    Firuze feels dirty and guilty, not due to something she has done, but due to what she is . Her grandmother tells her not to touch the Qur’an until her bleeding has stopped and she has thoroughly cleansed herself. It seems even God doesn’t want her anymore.
    Firuze feels hurt. The color goes from her face, the smile from her eyes. That carefree girl whose laughter echoed in the house like a dozen tinkling bells is now replaced by a woman whose body weighs down on her. Her head bent low, her face clouded by thoughts, Firuze is in a foreign land even as she sits by the brazier with Reality.
    The elders of the family do not take their eyes off her, whispering among themselves about possible suitors. Matchmakers come and go, bearing lokum wrapped in silk handkerchiefs. As her parents haggle for her bridal price, it becomes ever more important that Firuze be modest. But no matter how strictly they supervise her, they can’t stop her from running up to the second floor and pressing her nose into the latticed windows. She stays there until the holes leave marks on her face like chicken pox, inhaling the smell of the wild herbs carried by the wind from the valleys afar.
    If only she could walk out of the house and find a caravan that would take her beyond the city of Karbala to the ends of the world. She wants to go to school like her brother Fuzuli, and study theology, tafsir 4 , astronomy and alchemy. If only she could walk along the streets proudly carrying books and brick-thick dictionaries under her arms. If only her parents would say, “Well done, Firuze. May you become a great poet like your brother, God willing!”
    Firuze has a secret she won’t reveal to anyone: For years now she has been writing poems. In the beginning she used to scribble down whatever was weighing on her heart, without any expectations, as if talking to herself. Before long she realized that this, to her, was more than a pastime. It was a passion.
    Her writing progresses like an illness that has infected and invaded her body and soul. More often than not, inspiration comes at dawn. She rises before the morning breaks, puts a shawl on her thin shoulders and starts to write. Those who hear the soft tinkering from her room think she has risen to pray. They don’t know that in a way she has. Poetry to her is true prayer, rising from the depths of her soul, addressed to a force far higher and mightier. If there were no poetry, Firuze believes, God would be too lonely.
    She reads the works of other poets, especially the Iranian Hafiz and the Turkish Nesimi. She also adores her brother’s poems, one of which she came across today and instantly memorized:
    All that is in the world is love
And knowledge is nothing but gossip
    Though she loved the poem she couldn’t help thinking that only a man who had been well educated and versed in grammar and language could make such a statement. For Firuze, and all who had been excluded from school, knowledge was surely much more than gossip.
    It was burning thirst.
     
    There is an aged concubine, a woman with skin darker than ebony, who has been taking care of Firuze since the day she was born. When she walks she glides across the room as silent as silk; when she talks, she does so in whispers. One morning while crocheting a lace bedspread together, Firuze turns to her nanny and says, “I want to go to the madrassa 5 and be a famous poet.”
    “Is that so?” The nanny chuckles, her large breasts jiggling.
    “Why are you laughing?” says Firuze, sounding hurt.
    “Allow me