Free The Stone Woman by Tariq Ali Page B

life. I often felt that my mother had sacrificed too much for the sake of a comfortable existence. She had allowed her own personality to be dwarfed by the family of Iskander Pasha. If she had married someone else her biography would have taken a different course. She had spoken once to me, in a slightly embarrassed way, of another man. She had liked him a great deal, but he was poor and when her father had rejected the suit he had emigrated to New York, where he became a very successful painter. She often wished she knew what it was that he painted. I mused over whether her true and intimate feeling for my father was one of disgust, but my thoughts were interrupted.
    The two men resumed their conversation. Strange, I thought, that my presence never seems to bother them. They trust me. Perhaps they imagine that like them I, too, am unconventional. Whatever their reasons, I am flattered by their confidence.
    “I sometimes get the impression, Memed, that despite our knowledge of each other, you doubt my intelligence.”
    “Intimacy can breed doubt and contempt in equal portions, Baron.”
    “So, in other words, you had no doubts regarding my intellectual superiority when I was your tutor in Istanbul.”
    “None whatsoever, but surely you could not have forgotten that it was also the period of our courtship, which was very intense. You taught me a great deal. Your language, German poetry and philosophy and a love of books. I can still remember the words of the first poem by Heine that you recited and your pleasure when I told you I had understood every word. We talked often of god and religion and the elasticity of so many dogmas. You showed me Berlin and Paris. You compared the growth of learned societies in German towns with the lack of any intellectual movement in provincial France. It was only after I had fully penetrated that world that I could permit you to penetrate me.”
    Both men burst out laughing.

SEVEN
Nilofer tells the Stone Woman that Selim has stroked her breasts in the moonlight and she is falling in love with him; she is shocked to discover that her mother has been eavesdropping
    ‘I DON’T KNOW WHERE to begin, Stone Woman. It happened suddenly, without warning, and now I may be in worse trouble than ever before. It happened yesterday in the light of the moon. I wanted to go and count the stars on the beach and I wanted to be completely alone. So I took the tiny path that leads from the cliffs to the entrance of the cave overlooking the sea. When we were children we used to believe that it was our little secret and we were convinced that no adult knew of the path. Even if they did they would find it difficult to follow us because the track was truly little.
    As I heard the gentle noise of the water caressing the sand I felt at peace with myself. When I look at the sea glistening in the moonlight and then gaze upwards to catch the stars it somehow puts everything in a different perspective. My own problems shrink into nothingness. Compared to nature, we are but tiny specks in the sand. I was in deep meditation when a familiar voice came from the dark.
    “Forgive me, hanim effendi , but I thought I should make my presence known just in case you were overcome by a burning desire to bathe in the silken waters of this sea.”
    It was Selim, the grandson of Hasan Baba. I had spoken to him on a number of occasions since the circumcision. He had come to inspect Orhan’s wound and make sure it was healing properly. Orhan had grown to like this young man and I, too, had to admit I found his company pleasing. I liked the fact that he never averted his eyes when I addressed him. His eyes were melancholy for so young a person, but when he laughed they shone like diamonds. I was pleased by his presence.
    I know what you’re thinking, Stone Woman. You have seen so much over the centuries and you think I had willed him to be present, but I swear by everything I hold dear that I had not thought of him at all. The