Three Daughters of Eve

by Elif Shafak

And thankfully Fate – that well-preserved tablet upon which was engraved everything that happened, and was going to happen – had, for the most part, spared her from wrongdoing. All these years she had led a decent life. She had not inflicted harm on a fellow human being, at least not deliberately, at least not lately, except for engaging in an occasional bit of gossip or bad-mouthing, which shouldn’t count. After all, everyone did it – and if it was such

monumental sin, the pits of hell would be full to the brim. If she had caused anguish to anyone at all, it was God, and God, though easily displeased and famously capricious, was never hurt. To hurt and to be hurt – that was a human trait.

There was always some important event to attend or an urgent social responsibility to fulfil as if the culture, like a child scared of loneliness, made sure everyone was at all times in the company of others.

Women stared. They scanned, scrutinized and searched, hunting for the flaws in the other women, both manifest and camouflaged. Overdue manicures, newly gained pounds, sagging bellies, Botoxed lips, varicose veins, cellulite still visible after liposuction, hair roots in need of dyeing, a pimple or a wrinkle hidden under layers of powder … There was nothing that their penetrating gazes could not detect and decipher.

How women could be expected to keep their heads down and simultaneously have their eyes open in all directions was beyond Peri.

God was a maze without a map, a circle without a centre; the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that never seemed to fit together. If only she could solve this mystery, she could bring meaning to senselessness, reason to madness, order to chaos, and perhaps, too, she could learn to be happy.

Nationalism assured him that he had been born into a superior nation, a worthier race, and was destined to do great things, not for himself but for his people. Clad with this identity, he felt strong, principled, invincible. Observing her brother’s transformation, Peri would come to understand that nothing swells the ego quite like a cause motivated by the delusion of pure selflessness.

Yes, she had tried. But there was always a gap between her and the ways of the religion printed on her pink ID card. Whose idea was it to have a religion box on ID cards anyway? Who decided whether a newborn baby was Muslim or Christian or Jewish? Certainly not the baby itself.

Muslims had seen no harm in mingling with liberal drinkers. They would politely raise their glasses of water in a toast, joining in the gesture. Religion, in this part of the world, had been a collage of sorts.

Nowadays the society was divided into invisible ghettoes. Istanbul resembled less a metropolis than an urban patchwork of segregated communities.

People were either ‘staunchly religious’ or ‘staunchly secularist’; and those who had somehow kept a foot in both camps, negotiating with the Almighty and the times with equal fervour, had either disappeared or become eerily quiet.

Why roots were rated so highly compared with branches or leaves, Peri had never understood. Trees had multiple shoots and filaments extending in every direction, under and above the ancient soils of the earth. If even roots refused to stay put, why expect the impossible from human beings?

in Turkey, as in all countries haunted by questions of identity, you were, primarily, what you rejected.

In Europe, the public is educated. Democracy cannot harm. The Middle East is a different story! Granting an equal vote to the ignorant is like handing matches to a toddler. The house could burn down!’

‘Sure, but it didn’t stop me. If I, with my headscarf, don’t challenge stereotypes, who’s going to do it for me? I want to shake things up. People look at me as if I’m a passive, obedient victim of male power. Well, I’m not. I have a mind of my own. My hijab has never got in the way of my independence.’

When confronted with others’ exuberance and unable to keep up, she always shrank, a hedgehog rolling herself into a ball – self-protection from joy.

If I ever fall in love, she promised herself, it’ll be with someone’s brain. I won’t care about his looks or status or age, only his intellect.

Peri’s face turned white as she watched him stalk away. How easy it was to switch from liking to loathing. In the kingdom of the East, the male heart, like the orb at the end of a pendulum, swung from one extreme to the other. Oscillating between overplayed adoration to overplayed contempt, dangling over the emotional detritus that just the day before had been passion, men loved too much, raged too much, hated too much, always too much.

Was religion an empowering force for women who otherwise had limited power in a society designed for and by men, or was it yet another tool for

‘The prevailing question whether God exists elicits one of the most tedious, unproductive and ill-advised disputations in which otherwise intelligent people have been engaged. We have seen, all too often, that neither theists nor atheists are ready to abandon the Hegemony of Certainty. Their seeming disagreement is a circle of refrains.

Men have more brain tissue than women.

But really there’s nothing to discuss. Religion fuels intolerance and that leads to hatred and that leads to violence. End of story.’

By the time Peri left the library, the sky had turned deep blue-black, except for the ghostly reflection of the street lights, and it seemed so close she could have reached up and pulled it over her shoulders like an indigo shawl.

outside the house, especially outside their circle, he found her unrefined, unbecoming even; he watched her every move and listened to her every comment with an arched eyebrow. Better if she stayed at home.

The businessman nodded heartily. ‘That only proves my theory: capitalism is the only cure to our problems. The antidote to those jihadi freaks is the free market. If only capitalism could run its course without intervention, it’d win over even the most resolute minds.’

even the brightest scholars were certain that by the twenty-first century religion would have vanished from the face of the earth. Instead religion made a spectacular comeback in the late 1970s, like a diva returning to the stage, and ever since it has been here to stay, its voice louder with each passing year.

Azur smiled as if he were expecting these answers and said, ‘The Malady of Certainty.’ Certainty was to curiosity what the sun was to the wings of Icarus. Where one shone forcefully, the other couldn’t survive. With certainty came arrogance; with arrogance, blindness; with blindness, darkness; and with darkness, more certainty. This he called, the converse nature of convictions. During these lectures they were not going to be sure of anything, not even the seminar syllabus, which was, like everything else, subject to change. They were fishermen casting wide nets into the ocean of knowledge. Ultimately, they might catch a swordfish; or they might return empty-handed.

She had noticed, to her bewilderment, some wives felt uncomfortable with her sitting next to their husbands. Gradually, she abandoned her small rebellion – yet another sacrifice on the altar of convention.

As you know better than I do, Bach is a theological minefield.

It’s true, his music is seen as the sublime instrument of the voice of God. But the more you listen, the less God appears necessary to its creation. You’ll come to understand his works as simply the highest expression of the human spirit. Bach could make you a believer – or a true sceptic.’

‘I’ve never understood people who’re proud to be American, Arab or Russian … Christian, Jewish or Muslim. Why should I feel satisfaction with something I had no role in choosing? It’s like saying I’m proud of being five foot nine. Or congratulating myself on my hooked nose. Genetic lottery!’

She put so much effort into being normal that often she had no energy left to be anything else, leaving her with feelings of worthlessness.