Maggie Gee - Virginia Woolf in Manhattan

‘And you,’ I said. ‘Are you sure you aren’t married, Ahmet?’

‘Not yet,’ he said, almost scandalised. ‘Too young,’ he added, with a merry smile. ‘Later I will marry. Many times, often!’

We laughed together. I definitely liked him.

Then he said, ‘Of course, I am joking, I marry one time, and love her always.’

So then, naturally, I liked him more.

He asked me about my parents, my family. I told him about Thoby catching cholera in Greece. ‘Very dirty country,’ he said, with vigour. ‘I am so sorry about your brother. If only he visit Turkey instead!’

One of his sisters had five children. I told him that I had no children. (‘Too late now?’ ‘Yes, of course’) — but my sister had two. ‘You see, we were artists. Maybe that mattered to us more than life. I was a writer, actually.’ Of course I could not tell him that I had been ill, the doctors’ edicts, the whole messy saga.

He was a little afraid, I saw it in his eyes, when I said that I was a writer. What man on earth wanted a clever woman? Only my darling. Only Leonard . But Ahmet did not need to like me as a writer. ‘I stopped writing long ago.’

The words expanded in my head.

‘Because you make enough money?’ he asked.

‘No, because … that time is over.’

Virginia, you will write no more .

Somehow, it was enough to be here.

I said, ‘I expect you’re too busy to read?’ I knew modern people rarely read.

‘I have a degree in Tourism,’ he said, ‘from Istanbul University.’ He said it as if it were a private joke, something faintly absurd and yet delicious, he said it with charm and irony — or else, he said it as a simple boast, but because I liked him, I saw what I wanted. I needed him to be lovable because there was love in me, longing to alight. I told him, ‘You’re better educated than me.’

‘You did not go to university?’

‘Alas, no.’

‘It is OK, do not be afraid!’ He was all smiles, all kindness. ‘More wine?’ he said, and filled my glass.

‘You are a Muslim, Ahmet? But you drink wine.’

At once his face became solemn. ‘No, never, except tonight.’

‘I don’t believe you!’

‘Honestly!’ But the smile with which he looked up from his wine glass was so full of laughter that the lie didn’t matter.

Leonard always watched my intake of wine. Like everything else, talking, walking, seeing our friends, going to parties, drink made me excited, only more so. When I talked too fast, or laughed too much, he got worried. ‘Time for a rest, my love.’ I was his love. It was because he loved me, and yet there were rules, and I was unruly.

Ahmet did not try to stop me drinking. Ahmet actively encouraged it. But I did not find myself talking too much. Actually, there was not much to say. We were gazing at each other, content together, savouring the food, which we shared with each other — he fed me morsels delicately, neatly, on a fork (tiny plump roast birds in garlicky butter, saffron rice, buttery spinach the glossy dark green of laurel leaves, tiny grilled tomatoes like ripe soft rubies: I chose a steak, because I rarely ate it, but it was too big for me to finish it, and he speared the remains and devoured them, boldly, though his eyes were on me, still fixed on me, and his strong white teeth and sweet mouth were waiting, his eyes declared they were waiting for me.)

Both of us knew that something would happen. But where? Much too soon, we were back in the street. The night had come down. Now the street felt chilly. We stood undecided. Ahmet cleared his throat. Once, twice, and then he spoke, as a small cream cat shot across the street, lit up briefly in the glare of some headlights: ‘Would you please like to visit my home, Ginny?’

A second’s silence, and then another. By the third, my hand was in his warm hand, and we turned towards each other, still on a slope so his face was slightly lower than mine, and the kiss, when it came, was not quite conclusive, my lips brushed the salt of his upper lip and almost bumped the tip of his nose, and then he took over, and our mouths met, hot, and two small warm animals licked and burrowed.

I don’t really know if I liked it at first, but certainly he was different from Leonard, different from Clive. More like Nessa! Tender and wet.

I was a maelstrom, a storm of feelings. There were strange tingles underneath my dress. The cobbles seemed harder, the slope steeper as we walked uphill towards his home. He was walking faster than before, as if he had pressing reasons to hurry, and I did too, so I tried to keep pace, though I also wanted to savour each moment: stars through the branches of lemon trees, two pretty girls Ahmet barely glanced at. The thin soles of my shoes meant my feet felt unprotected, yet the heels clutched at my aching tendons. Soon discomfort progressed to pain.

‘We are here,’ said Ahmet. He pulled me closer. The house was set back, in a snaggle of doors. I tripped on something — a dog, a cat? — and cried out. Instantly he hushed me. There was a sharp, animal smell. The only light came from the street. I realised I was a little afraid. He was searching for something — must be his keys — but his other hand was upon my breast, which he’d suddenly found underneath my blouse, pushing in boldly between the buttons. ‘Very nice,’ he said, as the keyhole yielded. ‘Very nice breast. Very nice … nipple.’ He said it ‘nip-lay’. His accent made the word beautiful. My breasts felt strange, full and hard, like fruit.

(Fruit and flowers on a balcony, yes. Once when Leonard and I were young we were driving through France on our way to Spain and we stopped at an inn in the Pyrenees. Next day was hot, we decided to stay while a fault with the carburetor was fixed. We walked, as usual; had wine at lunch; read a little, then both felt sleepy. The balcony had an arbour of vines which made it like a nest, underneath: white stars of light pierced the greenness; when we got used to the dark, we saw the grapes, great purple clusters with a bloom of sweet dust. Leonard picked some; the bench was inside but the maid had left its striped seat to air, beside a dry pot of geraniums, and a ray of sun found the silk of one flower, a brilliant purple, bruisable. We sat down together, like children in a tent. We started eating. We were hazed by the sun from our morning walk. More sunlight found us; it was circling south. Suddenly I felt my breasts were aching. Thinking, unthinking, I told Leonard. He bent and kissed them, fed me a grape, felt my nipple, and it swelled in the heat underneath his fingers, and without planning it, we tried it again, the thing that had not gone well for us.)

The hall light went on. It was harsh on Ahmet. He looked a little like a plump schoolboy. Inside, his house was surprisingly respectable; big stuffed sofas, antimacassars, a general air of fancy dress. But the light died almost instantly, he lit a large candle, we were back in mystery, there was fire in his eyes, two perfect flames, and I looked more closely, and saw myself, tiny, the reflection of a full, unfamiliar face.

‘So beautiful,’ repeated Ahmet. He pressed very close. That smell I loved, of vanilla and lemons. ‘Would you like Turkish tea? Would you like lie-down?’

But I did not intend to lie about it. ‘I like you, Ahmet.’ It was so easy! ‘I like you a lot. I want — to kiss you.’

And then we were kissing in the flickering light. New odours: candle-wax, musk, cinnamon. Noises from the street: barking, engines, faintly the goat-bell sound of the tram, the melancholy call of cool mountains in Europe, but I was warm, here in Istanbul, there was not a scintilla of doubt in my body, and I, or the wine, swam in the moment, smelled it, savoured it, vowed to remember.