When I returned home that night, ably evading my landlady—who was beginning to act like my mother—I sequestered myself in my room and lay on my mattress, giving myself over to visions of Shekure.
Allow me the amusement of describing the sounds I』d heard in Enishte』s house. On my sed visit
after twelve years, she didn』t show herself. She did succeed, however, in so magically endowih her presehat I was certain of being, somehow, tinually under her watch, while she sized me up as a future husband, amusing herself all the while as if playing a game of logiowing this, I also imagined I was tinually able to see her. Thus was I better able to uand Ibn Arabi』s notion that love is the ability to make the invisible visible and the desire always to feel the invisible in one』s midst.
I could ihat Shekure was tinually watg me because I』d been listening to the sounds ing from within the house and to the creaking of its wood boards. At one point, I was absolutely certain she was with her children in the room, which opened onto the wide hallway-cum-anteroom; I could hear the children pushing, shoving and sparring with each other while their mother, perhaps, tried to quiet them with gestures, threatening glances and knit brows. On a while I heard them whispering quite unnaturally, not as one would whisper to avoid disturbing someone』s ritual prayers, but affectedly, as one would before erupting in a fit of laughter.
Aime, as their grandfather was explaining to me the wonders of light and shadow, Shevket and Orhaered the room, and with careful gestures obviously rehearsed beforehand, proffered a tray and served us coffee. This ceremony, which should』ve been Hayriye』s , was arranged by Shekure so they could observe the man who might soon bee their father. And so, I paid a pliment to Shevket: 「What nice eyes you have.」 Then, I immediately turo his younger brother, Orhan—sensing that he might grow jealous—and added, 「Yours are as well.」 , I placed a faded red atioal, which I』d fast produced from the folds of my robe, onto the tray and kissed each boy on the cheeks. Later still, I heard laughter and giggling from within.
Frequently, I grew curious to know from which hole in the walls, the closed doors, or perhaps, the ceiling, and from whigle, her eye eering at me. Staring at a crack, knot or what I took to be a hole, I』d imagine Shekure situated just behind it. Suddenly, suspeg another black spot, and to determine whether I was justified in my suspi—even at the risk of being ioward my Enishte as he tinued his endless recital—I』d stand up. Affeg all the while the demeanor of an attentive disciple, quite enthralled and quite lost in thought, in order to demonstrate how i I on my Enishte』s story, I』d begin pag in the room with a preoccupied air, before approag that suspicious black spot on the wall.
When I failed to find Shekure』s eye ing in what I had taken to be a peephole, I』d be overe by disappoi, and then by a strange feeling of loneliness, by the impatience of a man uaio tur.
Now and then, I』d experience su abrupt and intense feeling that Shekure was watg me, I』d be so absolutely vinced I was within her gaze, that I』d start posing like a man trying to show he was wiser, stronger and more capable than he really was so as to impress the woman he loved. Later, I』d fantasize that Shekure and her boys were parih her husband—the boys』 missing father—before my mind would focus again upon whichever variety of famous