Pardon me, she would instantly apologize and then repeat again and again because whenever you apologized to Allah you had to do it thrice: Pardon me, pardon me, pardon me.
It was wrong, she knew. Allah could not and should not be personified. Allah did not have fingers, or blood for that matter. One had to refrain from attributing human qualities to him-that's to say, Him-which was not easy since every one of his that's to say, His-ninety-nine names happened to be qualities also pertinent to human beings. He could see it all but had no eyes; He could hear it all but had no ears; He could reach out everywhere but had no hands…. Out of all this information an eight-year-old Zeliha had drawn the conclusion that Allah could resemble us, but we could not resemble Him. Or was it vice versa? Anyway, one had to learn to think about him-that's to say, Him-without thinking of Him as him.
The chances are she would not have minded this as much if one afternoon she had not spotted a bloody bandage around her elder sister Feride's index finger. It looked like the Kurdish girl made her a blood-sister too. Zeliha felt betrayed. Only then it dawned on her that her real objection to Allah was not his-that's to say, His-not having any blood but rather having too many blood-sisters, too many to care for so as to end up not caring for anyone.
The episode of friendship had not lasted long after that. The konak being so big and dilapidated and Mom being so grumpy and mulish, the cleaning lady quit after a while, taking her daughter away. Having been left without a best friend, whose friendship, indeed, had been rather dubious, Zeliha felt a subtle resentment, but she hadn't quite known toward whom-to the cleaning lady for quitting, to her mom for making her quit, to her best friend for playing two sides, to her elder sister for stealing her blood-sister, or to Allah. The others being utterly out of her reach, she chose Allah to be resentful toward. Having felt like an infidel at such an early age, she saw no reason why she shouldn't do so as an adult.
Another call to prayer from another mosque joined in. The prayers multiplied in echoes, as if drawing circles within circles. Oddly enough, at this moment in the doctor's office, she worried about being late for dinner. She wondered what would be served at the table this evening, and which one of her three sisters had done the cooking. Each of her sisters was good with a particular recipe, so depending on the cook of the day she could pray for a different dish. She craved stuffed green peppers-a particularly tricky dish since every one of her sisters made it so differently. Stuffed… green… peppers… Her breathing slowed while the spider started to descend. Still trying to stare at the ceiling, Zeliha felt as if she and the people in the room were not occupying the same space. She stepped into the kingdom of Morpheus.
It was too bright here, almost glossy. Slowly and cautiously, she walked along a bridge teeming with cars and pedestrians, and motionless fishermen with worms wiggling at the ends of their spinning rods. As she navigated among them, every cobblestone she stepped on turned out to be loose, and to her awe, there was only void underneath. Soon she'd realize in horror that what was below was also above, and it was raining cobblestones from the blue skies. When a cobblestone fell from the sky, a cobblestone lessened from the pavement below. Above the sky and under the ground, there was the same thing: VO-ID.
As cobblestones rained from above, enlarging further the cavity underneath, she panicked, afraid of being swallowed by the hungry abyss. "Stop!" she cried out as the stones kept rolling under her feet. "Stop!" she commanded the vehicles speeding toward her and then running her over. "Stop!" she begged the pedestrians shouldering her aside.
"Please stop!"
When Zeliha woke up she was alone, nauseous, and in an unfamiliar room. How on earth she could have walked here was a puzzle she had no desire to solve. She felt nothing, neither pain nor sorrow. So, she concluded, in the end the indifference must have won the race. It wasn't only her baby but her senses too that had been aborted on that pure white table in the next room. Perhaps there was a silver lining somewhere. Perhaps now she could go fishing, and finally manage to stand still for hours on end without feeling frustrated or left behind, as if life were a swift hare she could only watch from a distance but never possibly catch.
"There you are, finally back!" The receptionist was standing by the door, arms akimbo. "Goodness gracious! What a fright! How you scared us! Do you have any idea how you shrieked? It was so awful! "
Zeliha laid still, without blinking.
"The pedestrians on the street must have thought we were slaughtering you or something…. I only wonder why the police did not show up at our door!"
Because it is the Istanbul police you are talking about, not some brawny cop in an American movie, Zeliha thought to herself as she finally al
lowed herself a blink. Still not quite understanding why she had,annoyed the receptionist but seeing no point in annoying her any further, she offered the first excuse that came to her mind: "Maybe I screamed because it hurt…."
But that excuse, no matter how compelling, was instantly crushed: "It could not possibly, miss, for the doctor… has not performed the operation. We have not even laid a hand on you!"
"What do you mean…?" Zeliha faltered, trying less to find out the answer than to comprehend the weight of her own question. "You mean… you have not…"
"No, we haven't." The receptionist sighed, holding her head as if at the onset of a migraine. "There was absolutely no way the doctor could do anything with you screaming at the top of your voice. You did not pass out, woman, no way; first you were blathering, and then you started yelling and cursing. I've never seen anything like it in fifteen years. It must have taken the morphine twice as long to take effect on you."
Zeliha suspected some exaggeration behind this statement but did not feel like arguing. Two hours into her visit to the gynecologist she had come to realize that herein a patient was expected to talk only when asked to.
"And when you finally blacked out it was so hard to believe that you wouldn't start shrieking again, the doctor said, let's wait till her mind is clear. If she wants to have this abortion for sure, she can still go for it afterward. We brought you here and let you sleep. And sleep indeed you did!"
"You mean there was no. ." The word she had so daringly uttered in front of strangers just this afternoon felt unutterable now. Zeliha touched her belly while her eyes appealed for a consolation the receptionist was the last person on earth to grant. "So she is still here…."
"Well, you do not know yet if it is a she!" the receptionist said, her voice matter-of-fact.
But Zeliha knew. She simply did.
Once on the street, despite the gathering darkness, it felt like early morning. The rain had ceased and life looked beautiful, almost manageable. Though the traffic was still a mess and the streets full of sludge, the crisp smell of the after-rain gave the whole city a sacred air. Here and there children stomped in mud puddles, taking delight in committing simple sins. If there ever was a right time to sin, it must have been at this fleeting instant. One of those rare moments when it felt like Allah not only watched over us but also cared for us; one of those moments when He felt close.