The Gaze by Elif Shafak Read Free Book Online

understand what she said. Just as she was about to disappear from sight around the corner, she stopped to rub her sprained foot. Keramet Mumî Keşke Memiş Efendi took this opportunity to ask another question.
    ‘Where can such sweets be found?’
    The woman had bent over while rubbing her ankle, and as she did so the wind teased her. Sometimes the wind came slyly from the front, plastering the woman’s scarf to her in such way as to show off her body; sometimes it played to the left or right, trying to loosen the woman’s hair; sometimes whistling from behind to grasp her hips. The woman let herself free for one moment; for one moment she revealed whatever had remained hidden. It all happened in the blink of an eye; it was all a deception of the eye. By the time the woman’s answer reached its destination, she had long since stepped off on her way.
    ‘In Pera! To Pera! Pera!’
    That was when Keramet Mumî Keşke Memiş Efendi understood that something had happened to the women of his country. Had they changed during his withdrawal into solitude, or had they been this way for a long time, and it was he who was late to see it? Was life really as it had been when he left it, or had things changed a great deal in his country while he was experiencing his crisis at home? In any event, he understood well on that day when he went out into the street and looked around in a different manner, that there were new things happening. Indeed anything new or European was very much in demand. It was clear that the trays of sweet walnut
baklava
paled in comparison to the deceptive attractions of the colourfully wrapped gelatine sweets.
Baklava
was served in large portions; sweets are served one by one.
Baklava
was to be eaten and finished; sweets were to be savoured. Sweets were to be enjoyed alone;
baklava
was what was served to neighbours and visitors. Sweets were unfamiliar;
baklava
was known. However you sliced it,
baklava
’s taste and essence was the same; but one understood even from the different coloured wrappers that the sweets were all different from one another. Once a person has become used to the taste of
baklava
, it becomes dull; when it comes to sweets, one is always in pursuit of taste without ever reaching it.
    One addressed the stomach first; the other the eyes.
    Keramet Mumî Keşke Memiş Efendi didn’t care that this was only one woman among many. How many more women would he have to meet in order to have met enough women? How many books did one have to read in order to be wise, how many lands did one have to see in order to be a traveller, how many defeats did one have to suffer in order to become discouraged? How much was too much and how much was too little? Since the mirror had been broken, one was enough for Keramet Mumî Keşke Memiş Efendi. One could be divided into a thousand; decreasing drastically through famine and drought, one can be multiplied by a thousand and become abundance and plenty. Indeed, he found the number One to be extraordinary,
    Wherever a person hurts, that’s where his heart beats. Keramet Mumî Keşke Memiş Efendi pressed his fingers on his eyes. To no avail. It didn’t stop. His heart beat in his eyes. And suddenly, the pieces were riveted together. He found a way to unite women’s suffering with his own suffering. Because everything was dependant on everything else.
    His inner thoughts took their proper shape just like dye poured onto water to make marbled paper. Just as his eyes were the sole reason he had been thought strange since childhood, from now on he would address only the eyes. However much he had lost because of his own eyes, he would gain even more from the eyes of others. And in order to succeed he would observe carefully the winds that were blowing in his country. He wouldn’t flee from the wind’s rage, nor run after it in order to kiss its hands and skirts, nor gather the pieces it had dropped and scattered. Keramet Mumî Keşke Memiş Efendi’s intention