Free The Flea Palace by Elif Shafak Page A

the feathers and the eyes in turn were adorned with thin, puny lines resembling eyelashes. Contrary to the feathers, one heading to the sky and the other four in four separate directions, the head of the peacock was bent down. At the spot on the tip of its feet, which it looked towards, embroidered within an oval frame and barely visible from the street were the first letters of the names of the husband and wife.
    ‘What will you name it?’ he asked when he showed her the apartment building with pride. A jasmine-scented offshore breeze sweetly blew in between them and gave voice to things Pavel Pavlovich Antipov could not express: ‘Agripina, here is your baby with eyes the colour of ashes. She’ll always love you very much but will not expect in return more love than you are capable of giving. She’ll solely and completely be yours but will not demand dedication from you. Never will she fuss, cry, get sick or die. Nor will she ever grow up. She’ll not abandon you as long as you do not leave her. She’ll be referred to as whatever you say. What name will you give your baby?’
    Agripina Fyodorovna Antipova listened with excitement to what the offshore breeze murmured. She remained pensive for a moment and then, with a spark in her eyes exclaimed: ‘Bonbon!’
    Pavel Pavlovich Antipov stared at his wife puzzled. Then he must have concluded that she had not understood what they were talking about for he repeated the question, this time adding in a few suggestions himself. She could choose names that alluded to their motherland; or a word that would remind them of the Istanbul of the 1920s, as a tribute to those days. Or, even better, she could select names that could demonstrate how very different their second arrival in the city had been from the first. ‘Triumph’ would be highly befitting, for instance, as would ‘Pride’, ‘Blessed’, ‘Zenith’, ‘Memory’, ‘Escapade’, or ‘Saga’. It could just as well be the ‘Forget Me Not’ apartment. ‘The Reuniting’, ‘The Placatory’ or ‘The Appeasing.’ There were hundreds of meaningful names with which they could crowntheir success, and should indeed do so, since there was so much effort, suffering and also money behind it. Agripina Fyodorovna Antipova listened to her husband’s soliloquy with a docile smile. But each time her response remained the same.
    When Pavel Pavlovich Antipov and Agripina Fyodorovna Antipova moved into Flat Number 10 of Bonbon Palace on September 1st 1966, the entire sky was filled with plump, lead-coloured clouds. The whole world had assumed the same insipid tone as if God had run out of bonbons with coloured wrappers. After giving the flat a cursory look over, Agripina, trailed by her Algerian maid and the sullen Alsatian companion, headed directly to the balcony. She opened the double-panelled door and stepped out. The city was spread out right in front of her. It had changed…and how… She looked at Istanbul with the malicious pleasure of a woman who years later encounters the rival whose beauty she once secretly envied, now aged, decrepit and shrivelled. Then a strong northeast wind blew, her own image confusedly crossed her mind and her eyes became misty but she still continued to smile. At that moment, Pavel Pavlovich Antipov watched from afar with pleasure the smile that had settled on his wife’s face. She looked so content! There, it had been worth it, worth returning to this city after all this time. Men, especially those like Pavel Pavlovich Antipov who expect life’s uncertainties to confirm their truths, relish in the satisfaction of their women as proof of their own success. Looking at his wife that Istanbul night, as a strong northeast wind replaced the jasmine-scented offshore breeze of the past few days, Pavel Pavlovich Antipov too felt proud of himself.
    Time proved Pavel Pavlovich Antipov right. His wife diedbefore him. The Alsatian companion and the Algerian maid returned to France soon