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

Shams 
KONYA, MAY 1247
Beautiful bride, don’t you cry
Say bye to your mom, bye to dad
You will hear the birds sing tomorrow
Though it will never be the same.…
On our wedding night, I slipped out into the courtyard and sat there for a while, listening to an 
old Anatolian song pour from the house amid the many other sounds. Laughter, music, gossip. 
Female musicians played in the women’s section. I stood there thinking and chanting, shivering 
and feeling numb, all at the same time. I pondered the lyrics of the song. Why was it that women 
always sang sad songs on wedding nights? Sufis associated death with weddings and celebrated 
the day they died as their union with God. Women, too, associated weddings with death, though 
for entirely different reasons. Even when they were happily getting married, a wave of sadness 
descended upon them. In every wedding celebration, there was mourning for the virgin who was 
soon to become a wife and a mother. 
After the guests left, I returned to the house and meditated in a quiet corner. Then I went to the 
room where Kimya was waiting for me. I found her sitting on the bed, wearing a white robe 
adorned with golden threads, her hair braided into a multitude of plaits, each of which was 
ornamented with beads. It was impossible to see her expression, as her face was covered with 
thick, red tulle. Except for a candle that flickered by the window, the room was without light. 
The mirror on the wall had been covered by a velvet cloth, as it was deemed to be bad luck for a 
young bride to see her reflection on her wedding night. Beside our bed there was a pomegranate 
and a knife, so that we could eat the fruit and have as many children as the seeds inside. 
Kerra had told me all about the local customs, reminding me to give the bride a necklace with 
gold coins upon opening her veil. But I never had gold coins in my life and did not want to greet 
my bride with coins borrowed from someone else. So when I lifted Kimya’s veil, all I did was to 
give her a comb made of tortoiseshell and plant a small kiss on her lips. She smiled. And for a 
second I felt as shy as a lost little boy. 
“You are beautiful,” I said. 
She blushed. But then she squared her shoulders, doing her best to look more tranquil and mature 
than she could ever be. 

---

“I am your wife now,” she said. 
Then she pointed toward the beautiful carpet on the floor, which she had crafted on her own and 
with great care as part of her dowry. Exuberant colors, sharp contrasts. As soon as I saw it I 
knew that every knot and every pattern on the carpet was about me. Kimya had been weaving her 
dreams. 
I kissed her again. The warmth of her lips sent waves of desire across my entire body. She 
smelled of jasmine and wildflowers. Stretching out beside her, I inhaled her smell and touched 
her breasts, so small and firm. All I wanted was to enter her and get lost inside her. She offered 
herself to me the way a rosebud opens to the rain. 
I pulled away. “I’m sorry, Kimya. I can’t do this.” 
She looked at me, still and stunned, forgetting to breathe. The disappointment in her eyes was 
too much to bear. I jumped to my feet. 
“I need to go,” I said. 
“You cannot go now,” Kimya said in a voice that didn’t sound like her. “What will people say if 
you leave the room now? They will know that this marriage was not consummated. And they’ll 
think it was because of me.” 
“What do you mean?” I murmured, half to myself, because I knew what she was suggesting. 
Averting her eyes, she mumbled something incomprehensible, and then she said quietly, 
“They’ll think I wasn’t a virgin. I’ll have to live in shame.” 
It made my blood boil that society imposed such ridiculous rules on its individuals. These codes 
of honor had less to do with the harmony God created than with the order human beings wanted 
to sustain. 
“That’s nonsense. People should mind their own business,” I objected, but I knew that Kimya 
was right. 
With one quick move, I grabbed the knife beside the pomegranate. I glimpsed a trace of panic in 
Kimya’s face, slowly replaced by the expression of someone who recognized a sad situation and 
accepted it. Without hesitation I cut my left palm. My blood dripped on our bedsheet, leaving 
dark crimson stains. 
“Just give them this sheet. This will shut their mouths, and your name will remain pure and 
clean, the way it should be.” 
“Wait, please! Don’t go,” Kimya beseeched. She rose to her feet, but, not knowing what to do 
next, she repeated once again, “I am your wife now.” 

---

In that moment I understood what a terrible mistake I had made by marrying her. My head 
throbbing with pain, I walked out of the room into the night. A man like me should never have 
gotten married. I wasn’t designed to perform marital duties. I saw this clearly. What saddened 
me was the cost of this knowledge. 
I felt a strong need to run away from everything, not only from this house, this marriage, this 
town, but also from this body I had been given. Yet the thought of seeing Rumi the next morning 
held me anchored here. I couldn’t abandon him again. 
I was trapped.