The Gaze by Elif Shafak

but very slowly. Both cats were eating the same food.
    Time passed differently on the top floor and the bottom floor. The people on the bottom floor kept their clocks by the people on the top floor, but they were always late. When they saw the cats, the inhabitants of the house began to believe that they could see time. On the top floor time was sleek and fat, and on the bottom floor time was weak and puny.
    Years passed in this manner. The cats grew older. The cat on the top floor soon became ungainly, the cat on the bottom floor aged slowly. Now time was proceeding backwards.
    The studio belonged to an artist who was approaching sixty and who spent all of his time and money making himself look more interesting. Except for Sundays, there were different groups of students who came at different hours and on different days. And every evening there was a different model.
    Monday was B-C’s day. Every Monday evening B-C, wearing a purple velvet cape that I don’t know where he found, would climb onto a stage about five hands high, sit on his stool, and commence not moving. While B-C posed, the students would draw his pose onto their canvasses. He got a ten minute break. Afterwards, B-C would climb on to the little stage one more time, sit on his stool, and throw off the purple velvet cape that I don’t know where he found. He’d be left completely naked. His whole body was exposed.
    I would have fallen through the floor in embarrassment.
    His stance on top of the stool was so precarious; it looked as if he could fall down at any moment. I think that by doing this he made the students’ work more difficult. Because it forced them to make ephemeral drawings rather than those that might last. His stance was not as lasting as a deeply rooted tree, or as a tick fastened with all its might to its victim, nor a fairytale that’s refreshed as it’s told. On the contrary, his stance was as aimless as water from a spring that could emerge from any fissure, as wayward as a pole star that wandered from one sky to another each night, as indifferent as moths who don’t know the secrets of the dreams of the corners where they flutter. It was as if, even though he was here at that moment, he could get up and leave at any moment. For this reason, the students were gripped by an unnecessary panic, and missed details in order to finish their drawings as soon as possible.
    But I think it was the strangeness of his eyes rather than the ephemeral nature of his stance that made the students’ work difficult. Sometimes, though not always, B-C’s eyes were reduced to two short, thin lines, and it was as if…as if they were closing. At times like these his eyes didn’t express anything, and you couldn’t put a finger on what he felt. I noticed something. When B-C’s eyes were closed, none of the students’ drawings resembled any of the others.
    I don’t think B-C was aware of this, because he didn’t see the drawings, or the students. He just looked around with an aimless stare; from here to somewhere else, and from there to the next place. At the same time, the owner was constantly burning heavy incense in the small studio with small windows. When I came home, I stank of oil paint and incense.
    Despite these things, I can’t keep myself from dropping by once in a while. Every time I go to the studio, I go off into the corner and watch him and the watching. The owner of the studio watches the students with furrowed eyebrows, the students watch B-C with meaningful smiles, and B-C looks aimlessly into the distance. As the studio owner looks at the students, and the students look at B-C, and B-C looks into the distance, I hate this studio more and more. But B-C used to tell me that I should do the same thing. Since I was already fat enough to attract the attention of anyone who saw me, and since I was already being watched, then I should go and display myself out of spite. While even the thought of standing there naked and motionless in