The Bastard of Istanbul Read Online Free PDF
Author: Elif Shafak
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 allowed 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,
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 allowed 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,