Elif Shafak is one of Turkey’s most acclaimed and outspoken novelists

Ella 
NORTHAMPTON, MAY 21, 2008 
Braced for a quarrel, David came home early the next morning, only to find Ella asleep in bed 
with Sweet Blasphemy open on her lap and an empty glass of wine by her side. He took a step 
toward her to pull her blanket up a little and make sure she was snugly covered, but then he 
changed his mind. 
Ten minutes later, Ella woke up. She wasn’t surprised to hear him in the bathroom taking a 
shower. Her husband could flirt with other women, and apparently even spend the night with 
them, but he would rather not take his morning shower anywhere other than his own bathroom. 
When David finished and walked back through the room, Ella pretended to be asleep, thus 
saving him from having to explain his absence. 
Less than an hour later, both her husband and the kids had left, and Ella was in the kitchen alone. 
Life seemed to have resumed its regular course. She opened her favorite cookbook, Culinary 
Artistry Made Plain and Easy, and after considering several options chose a fairly demanding 
menu that would keep her busy all afternoon: 
Clam Chowder with Saffron, Coconut, and Oranges
Pasta Baked with Mushrooms, Fresh Herbs, and Five Cheeses
Rosemary-Infused Veal Spareribs with Vinegar and Roasted Garlic
Lime-Bathed Green Bean and Cauliflower Salad
Then she decided on a dessert: Warm Chocolate Soufflé. 
There were many reasons that Ella liked cooking. Creating a delicious meal out of ordinary 
ingredients was not only gratifying and fulfilling but also strangely sensual. But more than that, 
she enjoyed cooking because it was something she was really good at. Besides, it quieted her 
mind. The kitchen was the one place in her life where she could avoid the outside world 

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altogether and stop the flow of time within herself. For some people sex might have the same 
effect, she imagined, but that always required two, whereas to cook all one needed was time, 
care, and a bag of groceries. 
People who cooked on TV programs made it sound as if cooking was about inspiration, 
originality, and creativity. Their favorite word was “experimenting.” Ella disagreed. Why not 
leave experimenting to scientists and quirkiness to artists! Cooking was about learning the 
basics, following the instructions, and being respectful of the wisdom of ages. All you had to do 
was use time-honored traditions, not experiment with them. Cooking skills came from customs 
and conventions, and although it was clear that the modern age belittled such things, there was 
nothing wrong with being traditional in the kitchen. 
Ella also cherished her daily routines. Every morning, at roughly the same time, the family had 
breakfast; every weekend they went to the same mall; and on the first Sunday of every month 
they had a dinner party with their neighbors. Because David was a workaholic with little time on 
his hands, Ella was in charge of everything at home: managing the finances, caring for the house, 
reupholstering the furniture, running errands, arranging the kids’ schedules and helping them 
with their homework, and so on. On Thursdays she went to the Fusion Cooking Club, where the 
members merged the cuisines of different countries and freshened up age-old recipes with new 
spices and ingredients. Every Friday she spent hours at the farmers’ market, chatting with the 
farmers about their products, inspecting a jar of low-sugar organic peach jam, or explaining to 
another shopper how best to cook baby portabella mushrooms. Whatever she hadn’t been able to 
find, she picked up from the Whole Foods Market on the way home. 
Then, on Saturday evenings, David took Ella out to a restaurant (usually Thai or Japanese), and 
if they weren’t too tired or drunk or simply not in the mood when they came home, they would 
have sex. Brief kisses and tender moves that exuded less passion than compassion. Once their 
most reliable connection, sex had lost its allure quite a while ago. Sometimes they went for 
weeks without making love. Ella found it odd that sex had once been so important in her life, and 
now when it was gone, she felt relieved, almost liberated. By and large she was fine with the idea 
of a long-married couple gradually abandoning the plane of physical attraction for a more 
reliable and stable way of relating. 
The only problem was that David hadn’t abandoned sex as much as he had abandoned sex with 
his wife. She had never confronted him openly about his affairs, not even hinting of her 
suspicions. The fact that none of their close friends knew anything made it easier for her to feign 
ignorance. There were no scandals, no embarrassing coincidences, nothing to set tongues 
wagging. She didn’t know how he managed it, given the frequency of his couplings with other 
women, particularly with his young assistants, but her husband handled things deftly and quietly. 
However, infidelity had a smell. That much Ella knew. 
If there was a chain of events, Ella couldn’t tell which came first and which followed later. Had 
her loss of interest in sex been the cause of her husband’s cheating? Or was it the other way 
round? Had David cheated on her first, and then she’d neglected her body and lost her sexual 
desire? 

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Either way the outcome remained the same: The glow between them, the light that had helped 
them to navigate the uncharted waters of marriage, keeping their desire afloat, even after three 
kids and twenty years, was simply not there anymore. 
For the next three hours, her mind was filled with thoughts while her hands were restless. She 
chopped tomatoes, minced garlic, sautéed onions, simmered sauce, grated orange peels, and 
kneaded dough for a loaf of whole-wheat bread. That last was based on the golden advice 
David’s mother had given her when they got engaged. 
“Nothing reminds a man of home like the smell of freshly baked bread,” she had said. “Never 
buy your bread. Bake it yourself, honey. It will work wonders.” 
Working the entire afternoon, Ella set an exquisite table with matching napkins, scented candles, 
and a bouquet of yellow and orange flowers so bright and striking they looked almost artificial. 
For the final touch, she added sparkly napkin rings. When she was done, the dining table 
resembled those found in stylish home magazines. 
Tired but satisfied, she turned on the kitchen TV to the local news. A young therapist had been 
stabbed in her apartment, an electrical short had caused a fire in a hospital, and four high-school 
students had been arrested for vandalism. She watched the news, shaking her head at the endless 
dangers looming in the world. How could people like Aziz Z. Zahara find the desire and courage 
to travel the less-developed parts of the globe when even the suburbs in America weren’t safe 
anymore? 
Ella found it puzzling that an unpredictable and impenetrable world could drive people like her 
back into their houses but had almost the opposite effect on someone like Aziz, inspiring him to 
embark on adventures far off the beaten track. 
The Rubinsteins sat at a picture-perfect table at 7:30 P.M., the burning candles giving the dining 
room a sacred air. An outsider watching them might assume they were a perfect family, as 
graceful as the wisps of smoke slowly dissolving in the air. Even Jeannette’s absence didn’t 
tarnish the picture. They ate while Orly and Avi prattled on about the day’s events at school. For 
once Ella felt grateful to them for being so chatty and noisy and covering up the silence that 
would otherwise have rested heavily between her and her husband. 
Out of the corner of her eye, Ella watched David jab his fork into a cauliflower and chew slowly. 
Her gaze dropped to his thin, pale lips and pearl-white teeth—the mouth she knew so well and 
had kissed so many times. She visualized him kissing another woman. For some reason the rival 
who appeared in her mind’s eye was not David’s young secretary but a big-bosomed version of 
Susan Sarandon. Athletic and confident, she showed off her breasts in a tight dress and wore 
high-heeled, knee-high red leather boots, her face shiny, almost iridescent with too much 
makeup. Ella imagined David kissing this woman with haste and hunger, not at all the way he 
chewed his cauliflower at the family table. 

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It was then and there, while having her Culinary Artistry Made Plain and Easy dinner and 
imagining the woman her husband was having an affair with, that something inside Ella snapped. 
She understood with chilling clarity and calm that despite her inexperience and timidity, one day 
she would abandon it all: her kitchen, her dog, her children, her neighbors, her husband, her 
cookbooks and homemade-bread recipes.… She would simply walk out into the world where 
dangerous things happened all the time.