Chapter 2: The Tutor

As I’ve said, I never saw that girl again, nor did I see any other one like her, nothing ever reminded me of her when my father took me with him on his visits to the Bey, but of course I did not need to be reminded, and I did not need to be at the Bey’s palace to think of her, I thought of her all the time. To the Bey, obviously, she had just been an idea, a fancy, something to be tried out once, to be savored for a moment, to be dismissed, to be followed by the next idea, the next fancy, and yes, in his gardens, at his palace, over the years, I did see some of those, who meant not more nor less to him than she had done. To me, they meant nothing — they were part of the scenery, they lived, they suffered, they died, under eagerly watchful eyes or alone and forgotten — but she, she, she had become my obsession. I learned to stay still. To take off my clothes, to recline on a not too uncomfortable piece of furniture, in a not too uncomfortable but revealing pose, to keep my eyes open, and to stay still. There was no one to reveal myself to, there was no one into whose eyes to lock my gaze, I looked into emptiness, into a corner of my large room with its sparse furniture, high ceiling, large windows, bare walls onto which the sun drew its patterns, shadows of the huge old trees outside, but I defied the temptation to look at the patterns as they moved, as the wind blew through the leaves and branches, as the sun moved slowly across the sky — I looked into nothingness, as I stayed still, as I looked into her eyes, into her dark eyes, and into her crystal ones. Sometimes, though it scared me, I settled down opposite the big mirror and, for hours, looked into my own eyes. I never sewed my lips or my labia, but, occasionally, to prove to myself that I could, I pierced them with sewing needles. I had my two arms, but I learned to get through whole days pretending they were gone, not using them, keeping them tucked away behind my back, though sometimes I cheated. I had my eyes, real ones, not crystal ones, but sometimes I kept them closed, for a whole day, and I cheated only rarely. I did not shave my head, but for my sessions of staying still I hid my long dark-blonde not quite golden hair underneath a plain white scarf, and when the hair on my body began to grow, between my legs and underneath my arms, I regularly removed it, with the wax from molten candles. The most important thing to me, though, the essence of my being her, was to be absolutely still, for hours. When I had gotten through a particularly demanding self-imposed task without cheating, I rewarded myself by touching myself between my thighs. Sometimes, though not always, I did it in front of the mirror.

I had time for these games, I was alone most of the time. My mother had died not long after my birth, I have no memory of her. Her tomb is in a hidden corner of our garden. There is a whispered rumor that her voice had been heard from the tomb for many days after my father had buried her there. The tomb is built of granite, only half immersed into the earth, with small ventilation holes in its padlocked heavy and now rusted iron door, so she might have been heard had she still lived, but I have never met anyone who whispered that they had heard her themselves, only that they had heard the tale. I have always shunned that part of the garden, but then, I mostly stayed inside the house anyway, where it was cool, and safe, and quiet, and where I had my privacy. My father was gone most of the time, on his voyages, trading, or on one of his missions for the Bey. We only had a small staff of four — three women and a man, none of them of any interest to me — for the large garden and the house, which was big and old and not in the best repair and gave them enough work to do, so they were happy enough to disobey my father’s orders and obey mine instead, which were to keep me alone as much as possible, and never, ever, intrude on me without warning and outside our prearranged times and locations. It helped that I knew, and they knew that I knew, that they were lazy and kept long breaks when my father was away, and (as I soon found out) regularly cheated with grocery and maintenance bills. It really was an arrangement to both their and my own benefit. Food they were to leave in an anteroom of my quarters — the staff lived in an outbuilding, and the house was large enough, with my father and me as the sole occupants, for me to have my own suite of rooms. From time to time I let them in to clean my rooms. They always praised me for how tidy I kept them, and how I always carefully put away all my toys. I had many toys, my father was quite generous in this regard, from every journey he brought me pretty dolls in garments of precious fabrics, and doll houses, and carved animals, and wooden ships, and carts with real wheels, and castles complete with warriors, handmaids, artisans, court-jesters, princesses, princes, towers, turrets, balconies, draw-bridges, dungeons, and moats. It was little effort for me to keep all my toys neatly stowed away, for I never played with them and never took them out.

When my father decided it was time for me to have a tutor I was worried, but I soon found out that I had nothing to fear from him. He was a young priest, looking even younger than what his years must have been, lean, tall, dark-haired, mild-voiced, mild-mannered, mild-faced, and dressed in a black cassock. A castrato, as fit his profession, but, except for his melodious soprano voice, showing nothing of the physical features, softness, flabbiness, obesity, that are generally believed to go with the loss of the male sexual organs — and he had lost them completely, by his own hands, and proud of it, penis and testicles, as I later had ample opportunity to see. I was happy to find out, almost on the first day, that he was as uncomfortable with the idea of our spending eight hours a day together, six days a week, for the benefit of my education, as I was. The agreement that we soon reached was that we had one meeting Monday morning, where he told me the syllabus for the week, and a second meeting Saturday evening where he satisfied himself, mostly by trusting my assertions, that I had mastered it. What he did in the time between I neither knew nor cared about, but what I did, unencumbered by annoying watchful or helpful eyes, but with full access to my father’s huge library, was to read and to learn. When I was through with my week’s curriculum (usually by Monday afternoon), I grabbed whatever books attracted my fancy, and eagerly absorbed whatever they had to offer me. I spent less time now sitting absolutely still and staring at empty corners, or into my own eyes in the mirror, though I still did it, but many more hours I now spent sitting still and staring into books. Still naked, of course. I could not sit absolutely still, for my eyes had to move as I read, and I could not pretend not to have arms and hands as I needed them to hold the books and turn their pages, but I pretended they were not part of my body, they were purely some ingenious mechanical devices for book-reading, and I could not use them for anything else, like, for scratching myself when some spot on my skin itched, or for holding a glass of water to my mouth when I got thirsty — violations of sitting still that were not allowed anyway, but being without my arms made it easier to resist the temptation. And as before, to that other temptation, when I had been good at keeping my own rules, I often gave in, with almost as little motion, and with the same solemnity, and patience.