Anatolia and Other Stories by Anis Shivani

Author:Anis Shivani
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Anatolia and Other Stories
ISBN: 9781937854683
Publisher: Dzanc Books
Published: 2009-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Neslihan Hanim despised her brothers, each of whom she felt in turn was a bigger idiot than the others. They only had to open their mouths to depress her with their dullness.

The several younger ones were content with teasing her for her lonely ways; the last of them was now permanently out of the women’s haremlik, thank God, and asserting his dubious credentials in the men’s selamlik. The oldest brother, Selim, had married a cow, and was actually content with her. The woman kept growing out of all her clothes every six months. The family compound had thankfully swollen big enough that Neslihan didn’t have to see her smug sisters-in-law too often. Selim, when he was a boy, loved to hide Neslihan’s books, echoing one of the stupid local mufti’s fetvas that printed books were a heretical innovation, bid’at against the practice of the Prophet. “But did they have printing presses in the time of the Prophet?” she would ask, only for Selim, at a hefty twelve, to retort: “No man will keep you his wife if you have that attitude.”

The second oldest brother, Süleiman, had allowed as to how the Osmanlis had something to learn from Europe about science and industry, particularly the acquisition of new weapons and arms, ships and cannon, only to fight the infidel better. And perhaps there was something to be said for the ruthless efficiency with which the Frenks seemed to discipline their fighting men, whereas the Osmanli Janissaries were out of control, putting a damper on the free movements and actions of farmers and manufacturers and traders. But beyond that? Europe was a cesspool. Hadn’t Neslihan read the accounts of the Padişah’s newest emissaries to London and Paris and Vienna? Women there acted like whores—yes, there was no other word for it—openly seducing their men in public, acting for all the world as if they were no different in body and mind from men. This, in the end, would be the downfall of Europe, even if Europe’s star shone bright for the moment. And there Süleiman wanted to stop all discussion.

The newspapers—another recent innovation about which the local mufti was up in arms—published for the first time in Istanbul, and brought over two weeks after publication to Alanya, were full of opinions the likes of which Selim and Süleiman could gladly endorse. Even resilient Neslihan would have grown dejected had it not been for the cheerfulness of some of the people in her life—like Noah ibn Nehmias, the stellar character whom her father was blessed to have as his friend. Noah was to appear before the kadi the next morning, with the village elders ganged up against him, but all one would hear from him today would be cheerful songs in French and quotations from the great European essayists. For Noah the eve of the millennium, when the secrets of the world would be broken open, and the messiah would reside in each of us, was now, today and every day.

As Neslihan put

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.