Free The Gaze by Elif Shafak Page B

Faces and sounds became confused. He’d fainted. He’d become ill. In the following days, the military governor brought all of the physicians of the city to the cabin. Yet none of the physicians could put a name to the Sable-Boy’s sickness, or find a cure. In the end the military governor, seeing the patient wasting away day-by-day and being seized by a mind-shaking panic, finally sought the help of the shamans in the cells. Of all the shamans, only one had a sable as a soul-mate, and agreed to look after him.
    The Sable-Boy’s condition improved somewhat, but the military governor became frightened that something might happen to him and his source of money would dry up completely. So as not to leave things to chance, he had to get some offspring from this strange creature. They would have to be half-human and half-animal just like himself.
    Before long, they put the Sable-Boy in the arms of a prostitute. The Sable-Boy first sniffed the bed, then the prostitute, then, lying in the bed with the prostitute, sniffed himself. From among the smells of sweat and urine, faeces and drink, smoke and exile, he picked out and lay aside, as if he were plucking the finest of hairs, his favourite smell in the world, the only smell he loved; the smell of the cold! While he filled himself with the smell he loved, he gave the prostitute no trouble. He was as obedient as always.
    Months later, early for humans and late for animals, the prostitute gave birth to twins. The first born had nothing strange about it. The military governor, who had refused to wait outside and was pacing back and forth next to the bed, scowled as he looked at the baby. His nerves were shot. Just then the second baby came. Its head emerged first; it was a human head. And then, finally, below the waist, a puny, wet tail appeared. The lower half of its body was sable. Screaming with delight, the military governor picked up the sable-baby and threw it into the air. He squeezed some gold coins into the prostitute’s hand. Leaving her and the first-born baby there, he set off for home with his new treasure in his arms.
    For centuries, all sable-children were born as twins. Each time, one of the twins was human and one was a sable-person. The sable-babies were sometimes boys and sometimes girls. The human twins had little chance of surviving, and no one knew what became of them. Those that were born half-human and half-animal would survive, and continue to provide an ever-increasing fortune for the military governor, and later for his children and his grandchildren and the grandchildren of his grandchildren.
    And so, the destinies of the two families were intertwined like two vigorous vines that had met by coincidence. For centuries, the descendants of the military governor and the descendants of the Sable-Boy were always together. In every generation, those carrying the military governor’s surname were the ones who displayed; those who inherited the Sable-Boy’s condition were the displayed. And perhaps these two lineages might have remained linked forever. That is if one of the military governor’s grandchildren’s grandchildren hadn’t loosened the last link in this very long chain.
    The truth of the matter was that this man, one of the military governor’s grandchildren’s grandchildren, wasn’t very enthusiastic about the business he had inherited from his father. Although the Sable-Girl in his possession was among the ugliest of her lineage, so he could earn much more money, this wasn’t what the military governor’s great great grandson wanted. Instead of carrying on the profession of his forefathers in the land of his origins, he wanted to move to a new continent that everyone said was enchanting and attempt what had not yet been attempted. He was passionate about this dream, but somehow couldn’t rid himself of the Sable-Girl or of the profession he had inherited.
    Then, one day, a messenger knocked on the military governor’s great great