The Flea Palace by Elif Shafak Read Free Book Online Page B

not get rid of this feeling of diminution and abandonment. Not one fleck of glitter remained on her face from that arrogant luminescence; her body had shrunk and withered as if pails of water had been drained from it. Only her breasts, they alone were still large and full. Now and then they leaked milk like blood oozing away from a bleeding lip. She ran home in theafternoons to breastfeed the baby only to encounter time and time again a cruelly poignant scene. She found her husband and the baby on top of the sofa by the window, either in play or fast asleep in each other’s embrace with infinite happiness and unmatched innocence under the daylight that sprayed golden glitter upon them, as if it was emanating not from the sun but from seventh heaven. Every time a pang of sadness seized her as she realized how the spirit she had once carried within and believed to be a part of had now excluded her.
    So, she thought, a roily river of muddy waters this city was. The very reason for her thrashing about all this time amidst the water was simply because she had been entrusted with delivering her baby from the bank of the river it was on to her husband on the other. That was precisely what pregnancy had been to her: sailing to the other shore within the body of a boat you were swollen into, to get the baby wrapped in an angelic bliss, and to then carry her safe and sound across to the other bank. Upon the occurrence of the birth and the deliverance of the baby to the other shore, she had all of a sudden become worthless, as if pushed back into the water and abandoned to the tide. It was useless to struggle. Far away from the bank she was kept by the waters she belonged to and the current she was caught in. It seemed as if even the baby was aware of this situation. The moment she was picked up from her father’s arms, she would turn bright red in a fit of fury; while being breastfed, she would crumple her face as if to prove she was doing this solely out of need and, as soon as she was full, would let go of the nipple and cry to be released also. The general would then take the baby in his arms and tenderly calm her down while Agripina Fyodorovna Antipova escaped from the house so as not to witness this scene that hurt her more every passing day.
    Back at work, she would have to endure, along with the emptiness swelling within, this other feeling of suffering a terrible injustice. Every day she hated her body even more. Her body lived for one cause only; every bite she took, everydrop she drank, every ray of sunlight she received, every particle of air she breathed; all were moulded and converted into milk for the baby. The more robust the baby grew, the more strength Agripina Fyodorovna Antipova lost, with every passing moment swaying further and further from the vim and vigour of life.
    Impossible as it might sound to those who believe that every woman is by nature maternal and that motherhood is as sacred and pure as the rivers in heaven, Agripina Fyodorovna Antipova did not love ‘the thing’ she had given birth to. Upon coming face to face with the child she had carried within her for so long, the child she had considered a part of her without knowing what it would look like or bring about, she became scared of this being that was so tiny in size but enormous in need. She became scared of the impossibility of reversing time to go back to being a young woman again, of being given no other choice than to love unconditionally. One thing she knew for sure, she wanted to get rid of the baby. Inconceivable as this might seem to those who believe every woman by nature maternal and motherhood as sacred and pure as the rivers in heaven, Agripina Fyodorovna Antipova was no exception. It is not only nationhoods that coin official histories of their own, so do motherhoods. Mothers often create a maternal historiography written retrospectively and gracefully, dating back to the very first day, picking out the weeds and furnishing the