Elif Shafak - Writing Amidst the Ruins

 

So, years ago, I used to live in Istanbul on a street called Kazancı. I was writing my new novel here, writing and sulking. I was walking a thin line between creating a book and destroying myself. The street was quite narrow and so steep that whenever it rained more than three inches, all the water that would accumulate up the hill would come down in a crazy gush. On such days, it was a river more than a street. And we, the residents, were like passengers on a boat. I could not help, but think that one could not settle down here for too long, but only sojourn for a while. 

 

Interestingly, the history of the street seemed to confirm this. Once this place had been a cosmopolitan hub of cultures and religions. Jews, Greeks, Armenians, Levantines and Muslims of every sect had lived here side by side. Over the years, not feeling at home anymore, most of the non-Muslim population had left, but a few of them had stayed. And then, in the early 1970s, an entirely different cluster of people had moved in, transsexuals and also prostitutes. They had built a life here until they were driven out by the local authorities. But a few of them had remained. This is where I was in the summer of 1999, writing a novel called The Gaze. 

 

The story was so different than anything I had imagined before and far more surreal. But all of a sudden, I had hit a snag with the plot. And the characters had rebelled against me. Even the side characters were now not taking me seriously anymore. [audience laughter] Naturally, I was depressed. The novel was sucking me in little by little. And from then on, I had only two choices in front of me. I would either put the book aside and take refuge in the real world, or I would put the real world aside and plunge deeper into the story and write everything all over again. I chose the latter. I decided neither to leave my flat nor to let anyone in until I had finished the first draft. 

 

Now, my flat was very tiny. It had one bedroom and a kitchen with ceilings so low that if you were to make pancakes, for instance, you could not possibly toss them up in the air. [audience laughter] The bathroom was so narrow that when you took a shower, the steam would turn into a fog that wouldn't dissolve for hours. However, in one corner of the living room, if you put a stool in front of the window and you stepped on it and you craned your head in the right direction, on a bright, sunny day, you could see the sea, you could see the boats sailing across the Bosphorus. So, it was a flat with a view, [audience laughter] as this real estate agent had once told me. [audience laughter] This is where I decided to quarantine myself for an indeterminate period. 

 

Now, at this stage, I should probably tell you that I'm a rather restless person. Even when we go to a restaurant, I need to change seats a few times during the course of the dinner. I don't like silence. I usually write my books outside in noisy, crowded cafes, train stations, airports. Always on the move. So, for me, the decision to confine myself in this little space was a big decision and totally, totally out of character. 

 

Nonetheless, I was determined. I called my mother, my close friends and my boyfriend, and I told them, as calmly and as confidently as I could manage, that I would not be reachable for the next days, weeks, perhaps months. They asked me if I had lost my mind, and I said, "Look, everything is okay, but I need to make this sacrifice for my art." I told them not to call me unless I called them first. My mother started to cry and she told me to get married and have kids [audience laughter] and live a normal life. I said, "I didn't have time for that. I had a book to finish, for God's sake. [audience laughter] 

 

Now, to their credit, they all respected my decision and agreed not to call, not to come, not to even send a postcard. Thus satisfied, I unplugged the phone, pulled the curtains and turned the radio up. That summer, my favorite rock station used to play Santana at least 10 times a day, particularly the song Corazón Espinado (Pierced Heart) and that became my personal anthem in this sublime endeavor. But I wasn't totally alone. I had a smoky gray cat that was named Smoky. [audience laughter] She curled up on my desk and watched me carefully, eyes narrowed to slits, as if she knew things that I wasn't even aware of. And in this state, I began to write the book from the very beginning. 

 

Now, the first day went very well. I was quite productive and elated. The second day, not bad. Though by the end of the third day, I was having migraines and panic attacks, and the need to go out for a walk was overwhelming. By the end of the first week, I had finished 75 pages, as well as all the food in the fridge, which wasn't a lot to begin with. And now, I was feeding on salty pretzels and sunflower seeds, which I was okay with, really. As long as I had water and coffee, I was fine. But being a fussier creature, my cat was starving. [audience chuckle] 

 

Across from the house, there was a little grocery store. The owner was a grumpy man who never talked to marginals and refused to sell alcohol, or any newspapers or magazines that he suspected of being even slightly, slightly liberal. Every day when he went to mosque, he would put a huge sign on his door, as if he wanted the whole world to see where he was. So, unlike his wife, who seemed privately spiritual to me, this man was publicly religious. Now, as I said, there was no food left in the kitchen. My cat was desperate. But I had made an oath, and also by now I had the psychology of a vampire. I dreaded daylight. I had not taken a bath in like 10 days. [audience chuckle] My hair had changed color. It was all oily and all tangled. But most importantly, I didn't want to break my promise just to go to the conservative grocery across the street. 

 

So, nowadays, of course, it's so easy. We have the internet and everything. We can do shopping without going anywhere. But back then, the people of Istanbul had found other techniques for this purpose. As those of you who might have been in the city would have realized, there are lots of apartment blocks there that have little shops at the entrance level. So, what happens is, the people living on upper floors, they usually take a basket, tie a string to it and lower it down. The shopkeeper puts the required items inside, then you just pull it up. So, a lot of shopping, a substantial amount of shopping in the city, is done in this way. 

 

The problem was, my grocer's grocery store wasn't situated at the entrance of my building. It was across the street. So, here's what I did. I asked help from the old lady, from my Greek neighbor across the street. She was in the opposite building. And together, we extended a laundry line between our windows. [audience chuckle] I sent her a basket, which she then lowered down. And through this complicated mechanism, I was able to reach the grumpy grocer with a note that said, "Bread, brown, please. Cheese, feta, please. Cat food with tuna, please. And a pack of beer, please." 

 

It worked seamlessly. The basket came back to me. Everything was in it, except the beer. No problem. My spirits raised. I renewed my oath never to go out until I had finished my book. That night, at 3 o'clock in the morning, I woke up and the whole world was shaking. The walls, the ceiling and the floor. Having no experience before with earthquakes, I was caught totally unprepared, like millions of others. I grabbed my manuscript, my cat, in that order and I ran out of the building. 

 

That night, my Greek neighbor, the conservative grocer and his head-scarfed wife, me and Smoky, we spent the night together. My cat was extremely nervous, as if she knew that more than 8,000 people had lost their lives. Later on, as we listened to the radio together and realized the magnitude of the tragedy, I looked at the manuscript in my hands. All of a sudden it seemed so small, so trivial, what difference did it make whether I finished this chapter, whether I found the twist in the plot? Tonight, in the face of death, we were all temporary brothers and temporary sisters. But tomorrow, everybody would go their own way, and the old same prejudices would re-emerge.

 

I was sure that Kazancı Street would be back to normal. But I wasn't that sure that I could go back to my novel. It wasn't a writer's block exactly. It was something like a loss of faith, which I had never known before and which was deeper, darker and more sinister. To me, to this day, this is one of the toughest dilemmas in my work, to have the faith, to have the belief that stories matter, that words make a difference and connect us across the boundaries, and the sneaky suspicion that all art is in vain in the face of larger, darker world events. Between this optimism and pessimism, my heart is a pendulum. It goes back and forth, back and forth. 

 

In the weeks ahead, I joined the volunteers who were helping earthquake survivors by collecting blankets and food and so on. By the end of the summer, I was back in my flat again, writing again. Suddenly through the open window I heard a thud. Someone had sent a basket to me across the laundry line. And in it, there were two cans of beer. [audience chuckle] I glanced at the opposite building to thank my Greek neighbor, thinking it was her. But to my surprise, it was not. It was the conservative grocer who had sent them. He waved at me, a tired smile on his face. I waved back. I understood that of the experience we had shared, something had remained. And perhaps, at the end of the day, this is what we writers want to achieve with our stories, something to remain, a spontaneous bonding, a speck of empathy and also the possibility of change. Thank you.