There Are Rivers in the Sky

by Elif Shafak

How unusual it is for a tree to contort itself in this way, as if it is having a heart-to-heart with the Thames. What could they be gossiping about? The thought makes her smile.

Arthur has never left London, but he has read a bit about other lands, distant shores, and it occurs to him now that this is what it must sound like when you hold a seashell to your ear and hear the ocean roar.

Water is the consummate immigrant, trapped in transit, never able to settle.

‘Words are like birds,’ says Mr Bradbury. ‘When you publish books, you are setting caged birds free. They can go wherever they please. They can fly over the highest walls and across vast distances, settling in the mansions of the gentry, in farmsteads and labourers’ cottages alike. You never know whom those words will reach, whose hearts will succumb to their sweet songs.’

More and more, he comes to realize that people fall into three camps: those who hardly, if ever, see beauty, even when it strikes them between the eyes; those who recognize it only when it is made apparent to them; and those rare souls who find beauty everywhere they turn, even in the most unexpected places.

Reading is a feast he can never have enough of, and he tucks into each page with relish.

or the milling pedestrians on Fleet Street, known as the ‘Street of Ink’, as it has become the heart of the newspaper publishing industry, and conjure up their likenesses on paper with vigour and finesse, but he cannot read a tale and come up with sketches that exceed the writer’s imagination.

The ensuing silence is brief. The man asks, slowly, ‘Do you know who I am?’ ‘Yes, sir. You are the author – Mr Charles Dickens.’

Equally, if you wake up from a nightmare in the middle of the night, turn on the tap and tell it to the water. It will soothe your pounding heart, wash away your fears.

‘What happens after catastrophes? Those who survive nurse their broken hearts and start all over again, as one always does, as one always must.’

‘Cousins, friends, books, songs, poems, trees … anything that brings meaning into our lives counts.’

‘It’s really special,’ says Nen. ‘Once you wake up on a houseboat to a rainy morning or watch the sunset over the river, you’ll probably never want to go back to dry land.’ ‘You think so?’ ‘Yes! So, yeah, welcome to the water tribe.’