The Forty Rules of Love: A Novel of Rumi by Elif Shafak

Author:Elif Shafak
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
ISBN: 0670021458
Publisher: Viking Adult
Published: 2010-02-18T00:00:00+00:00

Ella

NORTHAMPTON, JUNE 9, 2008

Being one who had never enjoyed solitude, Ella found she preferred it lately. Immersed in putting the final touches to her editorial report on Sweet Blasphemy, she had asked Michelle for another week to turn it in. She could have finished earlier, but she did not want to. The task gave her an excuse to retreat into her mind and shun family duties and long-awaited marital confrontations. This week, for the first time, she skipped the Fusion Cooking Club, unwilling to cook and chat with fifteen women who had similar lives at a time when she wasn’t sure what to do with hers. She called in sick at the last minute.

Ella treated her communication with Aziz as a secret, of which suddenly she had way too many. Aziz didn’t know she was not only reading his novel but also writing a report on it; the literary agency didn’t know she was secretly flirting with the author of the book she was assigned to report on; and her children and husband did not know anything regarding what the novel was about, the author, or the flirtation. In the span of a few weeks, she had converted from a woman whose life was as transparent as the skin of a newborn baby into a woman wallowing in secrets and lies. What surprised her even more than this change was seeing that it did not disturb her in the least. It was as if she were waiting, confidently and patiently, for something momentous to happen. This irrational expectation was part of the charm of her new mood, for despite all the secrets, charming it was.

By this time e-mails weren’t enough. It was Ella who first called Aziz. Now, despite the five-hour time difference, they talked on the phone almost every day. Aziz had told her that her voice was soft and fragile. When she laughed, her laughter came in ripples, punctuated by short gasps, as if she weren’t sure how much more to laugh. It was the laughter of a woman who had never learned not to pay too much attention to the judgments of others.

“Just go with the flow,” he said. “Let go!”

But the flow around her was unsteady and disruptive as several things were happening in her house at this time. Avi had started taking private classes in mathematics, and Orly was now seeing a counselor for her eating disorder. This morning she had eaten half an omelet—her first substantial food in months—and though she had instantly inquired how many calories there were in it, it was a small miracle that she hadn’t felt guilty and punished herself by throwing up afterward. Meanwhile Jeannette had set off a bombshell by announcing her breakup with Scott. She had offered no explanation other than the fact that they both needed space. Ella wondered if “space” was a code for a new love, given that neither Jeannette nor Scott had lost any time in finding someone new.

The speed with which human

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