Universal Belief System

The heat of Medina had seeped between the bricks. The sun had set, the evening call to prayer had risen from the mosque's minaret, but the air of the courtyard was still heavy and burning. Elîn knelt by the trough carved from a palm trunk in her master's courtyard, rubbing a piece of cloth. Her fingers were calloused, her knuckles cracked; but her hands no longer trembled. She had long learned trembling — and long forgotten it.

The master of the house was a merchant; his voice was remembered more than his name. Most evenings he was away with caravans or at the market. He had bought Elîn from a slave market: "She'll look after the children," he said. That day Elîn was sixteen. Now she was nineteen. But she had long since stopped counting her age.

The true owner of the house was Selmâ Hanım. Past thirty, a woman who carried her beauty like a weapon, her tongue sharp. When her husband was away, her word was law, her gaze was judgment. The slaves called her "Hanım"; Elîn did too.

That evening, when Selmâ Hanım stepped into the courtyard, she was wearing a dark silk cloak. She folded her arms and looked at Elîn — not with anger, not with mercy; just as one examines an object.

"Yâ Elîn," she said. "A guest is coming tonight."

Elîn lifted her head. She tried to hide her face behind the cloth, but Selmâ Hanım noticed. She noticed everything.
"A merchant your master brought from the market," she continued. "We will host him. And tonight, you will enter his room."

Elîn's hands sank into the water. The water in the trough, in the last light of evening, was the color of dark copper. She paused for a moment. Then she wrung the cloth again.
"My lady," she said, her voice low, flat, tired. "I... I mean..."

Selmâ Hanım came closer. She bent down and touched Elîn's neck. Her hand was warm, her nails well-kept.
"It is not a sin for you," she said, her voice soft. Such a masterful softness that it concealed the weight of what she was saying. "The teacher said so too. A slave does not sin when given with her master's permission. Your master entrusted you to me; and I am offering you to the guest. It is like drinking water. Do not trouble yourself."

Elîn wrung the cloth. Water trickled between her fingers. Copper-colored water.

Selmâ Hanım waited for a moment. She wasn't expecting an answer, really; she was simply allowing the silence. Then she straightened, her cloak rustled, and she left the courtyard.

Elîn remained on her knees. The call to prayer had ended. The neighborhood had grown quiet, but life continued everywhere: a woman calling to her child in the distance, a goat bleating, the creak of a door closing far away. The world was turning, she knew this. And sometimes this knowledge was the only thing that kept her alive — the world turning, independent of her knowing.

When night fell, the guest arrived. Elîn saw him in the courtyard: a large man, his shadow covering the sky, dressed as a merchant, his voice deep. Selmâ Hanım greeted him with a smile, welcomed him in her master's name, offered him the dates and milk Elîn had prepared. Then her eyes signaled to Elîn.

Elîn stood up. The corridor was dark; olive oil lamps flickered on either side. She opened the door to the room. Inside, a bed was laid out, the walls completely bare. There was no window, but through a small hole in the ceiling, a thin ray of starlight seeped in.

Elîn stood under that light. For a moment, she looked at the sky. The stars were teeming, countless. She knew they too were alive.

The man came from behind. He closed the door.

After that, Elîn remembered nothing. Her body was there, but a part of her — that old part she called "herself," the one from her childhood, from those mornings when she went freely to the water with her mother — had withdrawn, retreated to the side, sheltered under the starlight from the roof. From there, she watched. From afar. In silence.

When the man fell asleep, Elîn rose. Her movements were slow, deliberate. She gathered her clothes, passed through the corridor. Most of the lamps had gone out; a few still held on. She stepped into the courtyard. The air had cooled; for the first time that day, she felt the coolness.

The palm-trunk trough was still there, its water diminished, a piece of cloth drying at its edge. Elîn sat down there. The stars were still visible through the hole in the roof.

She thought of Selmâ Hanım's words: "It is not a sin for you. Like drinking water."
Then she thought of her mother — not her face, but her voice: a distant morning, "Get up, my daughter," she had said. Remembering that voice pierced her like a knife.

She thought: If I am like water, then I am not water. Water is drunk and it ends. She did not want to end. But she did not want to continue either. She could not find the path between the two; because no master had drawn that path, no teacher had shown it.

Those who said "It is not a sin for you" had not said "it is lawful." They had only said she had no sin. That is, she had no sin. That is, she had no "self" to which sin could belong.

This thought stripped Elîn bare for a moment. Then it brought a strange, cold peace.

Dawn was near. The rooster hadn't crowed, the call to prayer hadn't sounded. The neighborhood was in its deepest sleep. Elîn rose from beside the wooden trough. She made her decision in that moment; silently, without telling anyone. There was no anger in her, no drama — only that cold peace.

At dawn, they found Elîn by her trough. The water was still the color of copper; her face was turned toward the sky, her eyes closed, as if she were sleeping. But she was not breathing.

When Selmâ Hanım stepped into the courtyard, she paused. She stood there for a moment. Then she whispered:

No one answered. The morning wind blew through the courtyard. The water in the palm trough rippled gently. From afar, the morning call to prayer rose from the mosque.

The world, in a silence Elîn had never known, continued to turn.

Those who came after soon forgot Elîn's name. Because she had taken her own life; her death was met with silence. She was buried quietly at the edge of the cemetery, a step away from the other graves; she was not mentioned at Friday prayers, no prayer was recited for her. The witnesses — neighbor women, those who gossiped at the well, the men who dug graves — shook their heads:
"She killed herself."

And this word stuck to her like a brand.

Sinner. She was a corpse for whom there was no pity in life and no shelter after death; for in their tongues, the one who returns the life given by God is the greatest traitor. No one asked to whom that life had been given first. No one wanted to remember how that life had been taken into a room the night before. Sin was recorded only for the last one, not for those who came before.