第 4 章

I could infer that Shekure was continually watching me because I’d been listening to the sounds coming from within the house and to the creaking of its wood boards. At one point, I was absolutely certain she was with her children in the next room, which opened onto the wide hallway-cum-anteroom; I could hear the children pushing, shoving and sparring with each other while their mother, perhaps, tried to quiet them with gestures, threatening glances and knit brows. Once in a while I heard them whispering quite unnaturally, not as one would whisper to avoid disturbing someone’s ritual prayers, but affectedly, as one would before erupting in a fit of laughter.

Another time, as their grandfather was explaining to me the wonders of light and shadow, Shevket and Orhan entered the room, and with careful gestures obviously rehearsed beforehand, proffered a tray and served us coffee. This ceremony, which should’ve been Hayriye’s concern, was arranged by Shekure so they could observe the man who might soon become their father. And so, I paid a compliment to Shevket: “What nice eyes you have.” Then, I immediately turned to his younger brother, Orhan—sensing that he might grow jealous—and added, “Yours are as well.” Next, I placed a faded red carnation petal, which I’d fast produced from the folds of my robe, onto the tray and kissed each boy on the cheeks. Later still, I heard laughter and giggling from within.

Frequently, I grew curious to know from which hole in the walls, the closed doors, or perhaps, the ceiling, and from which angle, her eye was peering at me. Staring at a crack, knot or what I took to be a hole, I’d imagine Shekure situated just behind it. Suddenly, suspecting another black spot, and to determine whether I was justified in my suspicion—even at the risk of being insolent toward my Enishte as he continued his endless recital—I’d stand up. Affecting all the while the demeanor of an attentive disciple, quite enthralled and quite lost in thought, in order to demonstrate how intent I was upon my Enishte’s story, I’d begin pacing in the room with a preoccupied air, before approaching that suspicious black spot on the wall.

When I failed to find Shekure’s eye nesting in what I had taken to be a peephole, I’d be overcome by disappointment, and then by a strange feeling of loneliness, by the impatience of a man uncertain where to turn next.

Now and then, I’d experience such an abrupt and intense feeling that Shekure was watching me, I’d be so absolutely convinced I was within her gaze, that I’d start posing like a man trying to show he was wiser, stronger and more capable than he really was so as to impress the woman he loved. Later, I’d fantasize that Shekure and her boys were comparing me with her husband—the boys’ missing father—before my mind would focus again upon whichever variety of famous Venetian illustrator about whose painting techniques my Enishte was waxing philosophic at the moment. I longed to be like these newly famed painters solely because Shekure had heard so much about them from her father; illustrators who had earned their renown—not through suffering martyrdom in cells like saints, or through severing the heads of enemy soldiers with a mighty arm and a sharp scimitar, as that absent husband had done—but on account of a manuscript they’d transcribed or a page they’d illuminated. I tried very hard to imagine the magnificent pictures created by these celebrated illustrators, who were, as my Enishte explained, inspired by the power of the world’s mystery and its visible blackness. I tried so hard to visualize them—those masterpieces my Enishte had seen and was now attempting to describe to one who had never laid eyes on them—that, finally, when my imagination failed me, I felt only more dejected and demeaned.

I looked up to discover that Shevket was before me again. He approached me decisively, and I assumed—as was customary for the oldest male child among certain Arab tribes in Transoxiana and among Circassian tribes in the Caucasus mountains—that he would not only kiss a guest’s hand at the beginning of a visit, but also when that guest left. Caught off guard, I presented my hand for him to kiss. At that moment, from somewhere not too far away, I heard her laughter. Was she laughing at me? I became flustered and to remedy the situation, I grabbed Shevket and kissed him on both cheeks as though this were what was really expected of me. Then I smiled at my Enishte as though to apologize for interrupting him and to assure him that I meant no disrespect, while carefully drawing the child near to check whether he bore his mother’s scent. By the time I understood that the boy had placed a crumpled scrap of paper into my hand, he’d long since turned his back and walked some distance toward the door.

I clutched the scrap of paper in my fist like a jewel. And when I understood that this was a note from Shekure, out of elation I could scarcely keep from grinning stupidly at my Enishte. Wasn’t this proof enough that Shekure passionately desired me? Suddenly, I imagined us engaged in a mad frenzy of lovemaking. So profoundly convinced was I that this incredible event I’d conjured was imminent that my manhood inappropriately began to rise—there in the presence of my Enishte. Had Shekure witnessed this? I focused intently on what my Enishte was explaining in order to redirect my concentration.

Much later, while my Enishte came near to show me another illustrated plate from his book, I discreetly unfolded the note, which smelled of honeysuckle, only to discover that she’d left it completely blank. I couldn’t believe my eyes and senselessly turned the paper over and over, examining it.

“A window,” said my Enishte. “Using perspectival techniques is like regarding the world from a window—what is that you are holding?”

“It’s nothing, Enishte Effendi,” I said. When he looked away, I brought the crumpled paper to my nose and deeply inhaled its scent.

After an afternoon meal, as I did not want to use my Enishte’s chamber pot, I excused myself and went to the outhouse in the yard. It was bitter cold. I had quickly seen to my concern without freezing my buttocks too much when I saw that Shevket had slyly and silently appeared before me, blocking my way like a brigand. In his hands he held his grandfather’s full and steaming chamber pot. He entered the outhouse after me and emptied the pot. He exited and fixed his pretty eyes on mine as he puffed out his plump cheeks, still holding the empty pot.

“Have you ever seen a dead cat?” he asked. His nose was exactly like his mother’s. Was she watching us? I looked around. The shutters were closed on the enchanted second-floor window in which I’d first seen Shekure after so many years.

“Nay.”

“Shall I show you the dead cat in the house of the Hanged Jew?”

He went out to the street without waiting for my response. I followed him. We walked forty or fifty paces along the muddy and icy path before entering an unkempt garden. Here, it smelled of wet and rotting leaves, and faintly of mold. With the confidence of a child who knew the place well, taking firm, rhythmic steps, he entered through the door of a yellow house, which stood before us almost hidden behind somber fig and almond trees.

The house was completely empty, but it was dry and warm, as if somebody were living there.

I nodded indicating neither “yes” nor “no.” “How do you know that your father is dead?”

“My mother said so yesterday. He won’t be returning. She saw him in her dream.”

If presented with the opportunity, we would choose to do in the name of a greater goal whatever awful thing we’ve already prepared to do for the sake of our own miserable gains, for the lust that burns within us or for the love that breaks our hearts; and so, I resolved once more to become the father of these forsaken children, and, when I returned to the house, I listened more intently to Shevket’s grandfather as he described the book whose text and illustrations I had to complete.

Let me begin with the illustrations that my Enishte had shown me, the horse for example. On this page there were no human figures and the area around the horse was empty; even so, I couldn’t say it was simply and exclusively the painting of a horse. Yes, the horse was there, yet it was apparent that the rider had stepped off to the side, or who knows, perhaps he was on the verge of emerging from behind the bush drawn in the Kazvin style. This was immediately apparent from the saddle upon the horse, which bore the marks and embellishments of nobility: Maybe, a man with his sword at the ready was about to appear beside the steed.

It was obvious that Enishte commissioned this horse from a master illustrator whom he’d secretly summoned from the workshop. Because the illustrator, arriving at night, could draw a horse—ingrained in his mind like a stencil—only if it were the extension of a story, that’s exactly how he’d begin: by rote. As he was drawing the horse, which he’d seen thousands of times in scenes of love and war, my Enishte, inspired by the methods of the Venetian masters, had probably instructed the illustrator; for example, he might have said, “Forget about the rider, draw a tree there. But draw it in the background, on a smaller scale.”

The illustrator, who came at night, would sit before his work desk together with my Enishte, eagerly drawing by candlelight an odd, unconventional picture that didn’t resemble any of the usual scenes to which he was accustomed and had memorized. Of course, my Enishte paid him handsomely for each drawing, but frankly, this peculiar method of drawing also had its charms. However, as with my Enishte, after a while, the illustrator could no longer determine which story the illustration was intended to enhance and complete. What my Enishte expected of me was that I examine these illustrations made in half-Venetian, half-Persian mode and write a story suitable to accompany them on the opposite page. If I hoped to get Shekure, I absolutely had to write these stories, but all that came to mind were the stories the storyteller told at the coffeehouse.

I WILL BE CALLED A MURDERER

Ticking away, my windup clock told me it was evening. The prayers had yet to be called, but long before, I’d lit the candle resting beside my folding worktable. I quickly completed drawing an opium addict from memory, having dipped my reed pen into black Hasan Pasha ink and skated it over well-burnished and beautifully sized paper, when I heard that voice calling me out to the street as it did every night. I resisted. I was so determined not to go, but to stay at home and work, I even tried nailing my door shut for a time.

This book I was hastily completing was commissioned by an Armenian who’d come all the way from Galata, knocking on my door this morning before anyone had risen. The man, an interpreter and guide, though he stuttered, hunted me down whenever a Frank or Venetian traveler wanted a ‘book of costumes’ and engaged me in a bout of vicious bargaining. Having agreed that morning upon a lesser-quality book of costumes for a price of twenty silver pieces, I proceeded to illustrate a dozen Istanbulites in a single sitting around the time of the evening prayer, paying particular attention to the detail of their outfits. I drew a Sheikhulislam, a palace porter, a preacher, a Janissary, a dervish, a cavalryman, a judge, a liver seller, an executioner—executioners in the act of torture sold quite well—a beggar, a woman bound for the hamam, and an opium addict. I’d done so many of these books just to earn a few extra silver pieces that I began to invent games for myself to fight off boredom while I drew; for example, I forced myself to draw the judge without lifting my pen off the page or to draw the beggar with my eyes closed.

All brigands, poets and men of constant sorrow know that when the evening prayer is called the jinns and demons within them will grow agitated and rebellious, urging in unision: “Out! Outside!” This restless inner voice demands, “Seek the company of others, seek blackness, misery and disgrace.” I’ve spent my time appeasing these jinns and demons. I’ve painted pictures, which many regard as miracles that have issued from my hands, with the help of these evil spirits. But for seven days now after dusk, since I murdered that disgrace, I’m no longer able to control the jinns and demons within me. They rage with such violence that I tell myself they might calm down if I go out for a while.

After saying so, as always without knowing how, I found myself roaming through the night. I walked briskly, advancing through snowy streets, muddy passages, icy slopes and deserted sidewalks as if I would never stop. As I walked, descending into the dark of night, into the most remote and abandoned parts of the city, I’d ever so gradually leave my soul behind, and walking along the narrow streets, my footsteps echoing off the walls of stone inns, schools and mosques, my fears would subside.

Of their own accord, my feet brought me to the abandoned streets of this neighborhood on the outskirts of the city, where I came each night and where even specters and jinns would shudder to roam. I heard tell that half the men in this neighborhood had perished in the wars with Persia and that the rest had fled, declaring it ill-omened, but I don’t believe such superstition. The only tragedy that has befallen this good quarter on account of the Safavid wars was the closing of the Kalenderi dervish house forty years ago because it was suspected of harboring the enemy.

I meandered behind the mulberry bushes and the bay-leaf trees, which had a pleasant aroma even in the coldest weather, and with my usual fastidiousness, I straightened up the wall boards between the collapsed chimney and the window with its dilapidated shutters. I entered and drew the lingering scent of one-hundred-year-old incense and mold deep into my lungs. It made me so blissful to be here, I thought tears would fall from my eyes.

If I haven’t already said so, I’d like to say that I fear nothing but Allah and the punishment meted out in this world has no import whatsoever in my opinion. What I fear are the various torments that murderers like myself will have to endure on Judgment Day, as is clearly described in the Glorious Koran, in the ‘Criterion’ chapter, for example. In the ancient books, that I quite rarely lay hold of, whenever I see this punishment in all its colors and violence, recalling the simple, childish, yet terrifying scenes of Hell illustrated on calfskin by the old Arab miniaturists, or, for whatever reason, the torments of demons depicted by Chinese and Mongol master artists, I can’t keep myself from drawing this analogy and heeding its logic: What does ‘The Night Journey’ chapter state in its thirty-third verse? Is it not written that one should not, without justification, take the life of another whose murder God forbids? All right then: The miscreant I’ve sent to Hell was not a believer, whose murder God had forbidden; and besides, I had excellent justification for shattering his skull.

This man had slandered those of us who’d worked on that book Our Sultan had secretly commissioned. If I hadn’t silenced him, he would’ve denounced as unbelievers Enishte Effendi, all the miniaturists and even Master Osman, letting the rabid followers of the Hoja of Erzurum have their way with them. If someone succeeded in announcing that the miniaturists were committing blasphemy, these followers of Ezurumi—who are looking for any excuse to exercise their strength—wouldn’t just be satisfied with doing away with the master miniaturists, they’d destroy the entire workshop and Our Sultan would be helpless to do anything but watch without a peep.

As I did every time I came here, I cleaned up with the broom and some rags I kept hidden in a corner. As I cleaned, I was heartened and felt like a dutiful servant of Allah again. So that He wouldn’t deprive me of this blessed feeling, I prayed for a long time. The cold, which was enough to make a fox shit copper, drove into my bones. I began to feel that sinister ache at the back of my throat. I stepped outside.

Soon afterward, again in the same strange state of mind, I found myself in a completely different neighborhood. I don’t know what had happened, what I’d thought between the deserted neighborhood of the dervish house and here. I didn’t know how I’d arrived on these roads lined with cypress trees.

However much I walked, a pestering thought wouldn’t leave me be, and it ate at me like a worm. Maybe if I tell you it’ll ease the burden: Call him a ‘vile slanderer’ or ‘poor Elegant Effendi’—either way it’s the same thing—a short time before the dearly departed gilder had left this world, he was making vehement accusations against our Enishte, but when he saw that I wasn’t that affected by his declaration that Enishte Effendi made use of the perspectival techniques of the infidels, that beast divulged the following: “There’s one final picture. In that picture Enishte desecrates everything we believe in. What he’s doing is no longer an insult to religion, it’s pure blasphemy.” Furthermore, three weeks after this accusation by that scoundrel, Enishte Effendi had actually asked me to illustrate a number of unrelated things, such as a horse, a coin and Death, in various random spots on a page and in shockingly inconsistent scales; indeed, it was what one would expect of a Frankish painting. Enishte always took the trouble to cover large portions of the ruled section of the page he wanted me to illustrate as well as the places ill-fated Elegant Effendi had guilded, as though he wanted to conceal something from me and the other miniaturists.

I want to ask Enishte what he’s illustrating in this large, final painting, but there’s much holding me back. If I ask him, he’ll of course suspect that I murdered Elegant Effendi and make his suspicions known to all. But there’s something else that unsettles me as well. If I ask him, Enishte might declare that Elegant Effendi was in fact justified in his beliefs. Occasionally, I tell myself I should ask him, pretending as if this suspicion hadn’t passed to me from Elegant Effendi, but had simply occurred to me. In the end, it’s no comfort either way.

My legs, which have always been quicker than my head, had taken me of their own accord to Enishte Effendi’s street. I crouched in a secluded spot, and for a long time observed the house as best I could in the blackness. I watched for a long time: Nestled among trees was the large and odd-looking two-story house of a rich man! I couldn’t tell on which side Shekure’s room was located. As is the case in some of the pictures made in Tabriz during the reign of Shah Tahmasp, I imagined the house in cross-section—as if it were cut in half with a knife—and I tried to illustrate in my mind’s eye where I would find my Shekure, behind which shutter.

I was watching the rise and fall of Black’s shoulders, his head and his neck—the incredibly annoying way that he walked, as though his every step were a gift to the world—with a profound hatred that coiled cozily around my heart. Men like Black, free from pangs of conscience and with promising futures before them, assume that the entire world is their home; they open every door like a sultan entering his personal stable and immediately belittle those of us crouched inside. The urge to grab a stone and run up behind him was almost too great to resist.

We were two men in love with the same woman; he was in front of me and completely unaware of my presence as we walked through the turning and twisting streets of Istanbul, climbing and descending, we traveled like brethren through deserted streets given over to battling packs of stray dogs, passed burnt ruins where jinns loitered, mosque courtyards where angels reclined on domes to sleep, beside cypress trees murmuring to the souls of the dead, beyond the edges of snow-covered cemeteries crowded with ghosts, just out of sight of brigands strangling their victims, passed endless shops, stables, dervish houses, candle works, leather works and stone walls; and as we made ground, I felt I wasn’t following him at all, but rather, that I was imitating him.

I AM DEATH

I am Death, as you can plainly see, but you needn’t be afraid, I’m just an illustration. Be that as it may, I read terror in your eyes. Though you know very well that I’m not real—like children who give themselves over to a game—you’re still seized by horror, as if you’d actually met Death himself. This pleases me. As you look at me, you sense that you’ll soil yourselves out of fear when that unavoidable last moment is upon you. This is no joke. When faced with Death, people lose control of their bodily functions—particularly the majority of those men who are known to be brave-hearted. For this reason, the corpse-strewn battlefields that you’ve depicted thousands of times reek not of blood, gunpowder and heated armor as is assumed, but of shit and rotting flesh.

I know this is the first time you’ve seen a depiction of Death.

One year ago, a tall, thin and mysterious old man invited to his house the young master miniaturist who would soon enough illustrate me. In the half-dark workroom of the two-story house, the old man served an exquisite cup of silky, amber-scented coffee to the young master, which cleared the youth’s mind. Next, in that shadowy room with the blue door, the old man excited the master miniaturist by flaunting the best paper from Hindustan, brushes made of squirrel hair, varieties of gold leaf, all manner of reed pens and coral-handled penknives, indicating that he would be able to pay handsomely.

“Now then, draw Death for me,” the old man said.

“I cannot draw a picture of Death without ever, not once in my entire life, having seen a picture of Death,” said the miraculously sure-handed miniaturist, who would shortly, in fact, end up doing the drawing.

“Venetians die like Venetians,” said the illustrator who would soon draw me.

“All our deaths resemble one another,” said the old man.

“Legends and paintings recount how men are distinct from one another, not how everybody resembles one another,” said the wise illustrator. “The master miniaturist earns his mastery by depicting unique legends as if we were already familiar with them.”

In this manner, the conversation turned to the differences between the deaths of Venetians and Ottomans, to the Angel of Death and the other angels of Allah, and how they could never be appropriated by the artistry of the infidels. The young master who is presently staring at me with his beautiful eyes in our dear coffeehouse was disturbed by these weighty words, his hands grew impatient, he longed to depict me, yet he had no idea what kind of entity I was.

The sly and calculating old man who wanted to beguile the young master caught the scent of the young man’s eagerness. In the shadowy room, the old man bore his eyes, which glowed in the light of the idly burning oil lamp, into the miracle-handed young master.

“Death, whom the Venetians depict in human form, is to us an angel like Azrael,” he said. “Yes, in the form of a man. Just like Gabriel, who appeared as a person when he delivered the Sacred Word to Our Prophet. You do understand, don’t you?”

I realized that the young master, whom Allah had endowed with astonishing talent, was impatient and wanted to illustrate me, because the devilish old man had succeeded in arousing him with this devilish idea: What we essentially want is to draw something unknown to us in all its shadowiness, not something we know in all its illumination.

“I am not, in the least, familiar with Death,” said the miniaturist.

“We all know Death,” said the old man.

“We fear it, but we don’t know it.”

“Then it falls to you to draw that fear,” said the old man.

He was about to create me just then. The great master miniaturist’s nape was tingling; his arm muscles were tensing up and his fingers yearned for a reed pen. Yet, because he was the most genuine of great masters, he restrained himself, knowing that this tension would further deepen the love of painting in his soul.

The wily old man understood what was happening, and aiming to inspire the youth in his rendition of me, which he was certain would be completed before long, he began to read passages about me from the books before him: El-Jevziyye’s Book of the Soul, Gazzali’s Book of the Apocalypse and Suyuti.

And so, as the master miniaturist with the miracle touch was making this portrait, which you now so fearfully behold, he listened to how the Angel of Death had thousands of wings which spanned Heaven and Earth, from the farthest point in the East to the farthest point in the West. He heard how these wings would be a great comfort to the truly faithful yet for sinners and rebels as painful as a spike through the flesh. Since a majority of you miniaturists are bound for Hell, he depicted me laden with spikes. He listened to how the angel sent to you by Allah to take your lives would carry a ledger wherein all your names appeared and how, some of your names would be circled in black. Only Allah has knowledge of the exact moment of death: When this moment arrives, a leaf falls from the tree located beneath His throne and whoever lays hold of this leaf can read for whom Death has come. For all these reasons, the miniaturist depicted me as a terrifying being, but thoughtful, too, like one who understands accounts. The mad old man continued to read: when the Angel of Death, who appeared in human form, extended his hand and took the soul of the person whose time on Earth had ended, an all-encompassing light reminiscent of the light of the sun shone, and thus, the wise miniaturist depicted me bathed in light, for he also knew that this light wouldn’t be visible to those who had gathered beside the deceased. The impassioned old man read from the Book of the Soul about ancient grave robbers who had witnessed, in place of bodies riddled with spikes, only flames and skulls filled with molten lead. Hence, the wondrous illustrator, listening intently to such accounts, depicted me in a manner that would terrify whoever laid eyes on me.

Later, he regretted what he’d done. Not due to the terror with which he’d imbued his picture, but because he dared to make the illustration at all. As for me, I feel like someone whose father regards him with embarrassment and regret. Why did the miniaturist with the gifted hands regret having illustrated me?

1. Because I, the picture of Death, had not been drawn with enough mastery. As you can see, I am not as perfect as what the great Venetian masters or the old masters of Herat drew. I, too, am embarrassed by my wretchedness. The great master has not depicted me in a style befitting the dignity of Death.

Without laughing, I watched his hand reach hopefully for the stone he thought was a coin. Ignoring his curses, I headed toward one of my ‘daughters,’ whom I’d married off to a good husband.

That sweet ‘daughter’ of mine served me a piece of spinach pie, a leftover, but still crisp. For the afternoon meal she was preparing lamb stew in a sauce heavy with beaten eggs and spiced with sour plum, just the way I like it. So as not to disappoint her, I waited and ate two full ladles with fresh bread. She’d also made a nice compote of stewed grapes. Without any hesitation, I requested some rose-petal jam, a spoonful of which I stirred into the compote before topping off my meal. Afterward, I went on to deliver the letters to my melancholy Shekure.

I, SHEKURE

I was in the midst of folding and putting away the clothes that had been washed and hung out to dry yesterday when Hayriye announced Esther had come. . .or, this was what I planned to tell you. But why should I lie? All right then, when Esther arrived, I was spying on my father and Black through the closet peephole, impatiently waiting for the letters from Black and Hasan, and thus, my mind was preoccupied with her. Just as I sensed that my father’s fears of death were justified, I also knew Black’s interest in me wasn’t eternal. He was in love insofar as he wanted to be married, and because he wanted to be married, he easily fell in love. If not me, he’d love. If not me, he’d marry another, taking care to fall in love with her beforehand.

In the kitchen, Hayriye sat Esther in a corner and handed her a glass of rosewater sherbet, as she gave me a guilty look. I realized that since Hayriye had become my father’s mistress, she might be reporting to him everything she sees. I’m afraid that this may indeed be the case.

“My black-eyed girl, my dark-fortuned beauty, my stunning beauty of beauties, I was delayed because Nesim, my pig of a husband, kept me occupied with all sorts of nonsense,” said Esther. “You have no husband senselessly haranguing you, and I hope you know the value of this.”

She took out the letters; I snatched them from her hand. Hayriye withdrew to a corner where she wouldn’t be in the way, but could still hear everything that passed between us. So Esther wouldn’t be able to see my expression, I turned my back on her and read Black’s letter first. When I thought about the house of the Hanged Jew, I shuddered for a moment. “Don’t be afraid, Shekure, you can manage in any situation,” I said to myself and began reading Hasan’s letter. He was on the verge of madness:

Shekure, I’m burning with desire, yet I know you’re not in the least concerned. In my dreams, I see myself chasing you over deserted hilltops. Every time you leave one of my letters—that I know you read—unanswered, a three-feathered arrow pierces my heart. I’m writing in hopes that you’ll respond this time. The word is out, everyone’s spreading the news, even your children are saying it: You’ve dreamed that your husband has died, and now you claim that you’re free. I cannot say whether or not it’s true. What I do know is that you’re still married to my older brother and bound to this household. Now that my father finds me justified, we’re both going to the judge to have you returned here. We’ll be coming with a group of men we’ve assembled; so let your father be forewarned. Collect your things, you’re to come back to this house. Send your response with Esther immediately.

Leaning on the wall, for a long while I stood still in the blackness. I thought of myself, of what I should do, of the fear that was growing within me. All the while I could hear Shevket and Orhan chattering upstairs.

“And you’re as timid as a girl,” said Shevket. “You only attack from behind.”

“My tooth is loose,” said Orhan.

At the same time, another part of my mind was concentrating on what was transpiring between my father and Black.

The blue door of the workshop was open, and I could easily hear them: “After beholding the portraits of the Venetian masters, we realize with horror,” said my father, “that, in painting, eyes can no longer simply be holes in a face, always the same, but must be just like our own eyes, which reflect light like a mirror and absorb it like a well. Lips can no longer be a crack in the middle of faces flat as paper, but must be nodes of expression—each a different shade of red—fully expressing our joys, sorrows and spirits with their slightest contraction or relaxation. Our noses can no longer be a kind of wall that divides our faces, but rather, living and curious instruments with a form unique to each of us.”

Was Black as surprised as I was that my father referred to those infidel gentlemen who had their pictures made as “we”? When I looked through the peephole, I found Black’s face to be so pale that I was momentarily alarmed. My dark beloved, my troubled hero, were you unable to sleep for thinking of me the whole night? Is that why the blush has left your face?

Perhaps you aren’t aware that Black is a tall, thin and handsome man. He has a broad forehead, almond-shaped eyes and a strong, straight, elegant nose. As in his childhood, his hands are long and thin and his fingers are jittery and agile. He’s wiry, and stands straight and tall, with shoulders on the broad side, but not as broad as those of a water carrier. When he was younger, his body and his face hadn’t yet settled. Twelve years later, when I first laid eyes on him from this dark refuge of mine, I immediately saw that he’d attained a kind of perfection.

Now, when I bring my eye right up to the hole, I see on his face the worry that plagues him. I felt at once guilty and proud that he’d suffered so on my account. Black listened to what my father said, gazing upon an illustration made for the book, with a look completely innocent and childlike. Just then, when I saw that he’d opened his pink mouth as a child would have, I unexpectedly felt, yes, like putting my breast into it. With my fingers on his nape and tangled in his hair, Black would place his head between my breasts, and as my own children used to do, he’d roll his eyes back into his head with pleasure as he sucked on my nipple: After understanding that only through my compassion would he find peace, he’d become completely bound to me.

“No.”

“All right then, let’s see you go, my pretty and smart Orhan,” I said. “If not, watch out, I’ll be really angry. . .And if you cry, I’ll get even angrier.”

I folded my letter several times, then stuck it into his small hand now stretched out in hopelessness and resignation. Allah, come to my aid so that these fatherless children aren’t left to fend for themselves. I escorted him to the door, holding his hand. At the threshold he looked at me fearfully one last time.

I watched him through the peephole as he took his uncertain steps toward the sofa, approached my father and Black, stopped, and momentarily hesitated—unsure what to do. He glanced back at the peephole looking for me. He began to cry. But with one final effort he succeeded in surrendering himself to Black’s lap. Black, clever enough to have earned the right to be father to my children, didn’t panic to find Orhan crying unaccountably on his lap and he checked to see if there was anything in the boy’s hands.

Orhan returned beneath the startled gaze of my father, and I ran to meet him and took him onto my lap, kissing him at length. I brought him downstairs to the kitchen, and filled his mouth with the raisins he liked so much.

“Hayriye, take the boys to Galleon Harbor and buy some gray mullet suitable for soup from Kosta’s place. Take these silver coins and with the change from the fish, buy Orhan some dried yellow figs and cherries on the way back. Buy Shevket roasted chickpeas and sweetmeat sausage with walnuts. Walk them around to wherever they want to go until the evening prayers are called, but be careful they don’t catch cold.”

After they’d bundled up and left, the quiet in the house pleased me. I went upstairs and took out the little mirror that my father-in-law had made and my husband had given me as a gift. I kept it hidden away between pillowcases that smelled of lavender. I hung it up. If I looked at myself in the mirror from a distance, and moved oh so delicately, I could see my whole body. My vest of red broadcloth suited me, but I also wanted to don my mother’s purple blouse which had been part of her trousseau. I took out the long pistachio-colored robe my grandmother had embroidered with flowers, and tried it on, but it didn’t please me. As I was trying it on under the purple blouse, I felt a chill; I shuddered, and the candle flame trembled with me. Over it all, of course, I was going to wear my fox fur–lined street robe, but at the last minute I changed my mind, and silently crossing the hall, I removed the very long and loose azure-colored woolen robe that my mother had given me and put it on. Just then I heard a noise at the door and fell into a panic: Black was leaving! I quickly removed my mother’s old robe and put on the fur-lined red one: It was tight around the bustline, but I liked it. I then donned the softest and whitest veil, lowering it over my face.

Black Effendi hadn’t left yet, of course; I’d let my apprehension deceive me. If I go out now, I can tell my father that I went to buy fish with the children. I padded down the stairs like a cat.

Let me describe for you how our embrace might’ve been depicted by the master miniaturists of Herat, if this tragic story of mine were one day recorded in a book. There are certain amazing illustrations that my father has shown me wherein the thrill of the script’s flow matches the swaying of the leaves, the wall ornamentation is echoed in the design of the border gilding and the joy of the swallow’s matchless wings piercing the picture’s border suggests the elation of the lovers. Exchanging glances from afar and tormenting each other with suggestive phrases, the lovers would be depicted so small, so far in the distance, that for a moment it’d seem like the story wasn’t about them at all, but had to do with the starry night, the dark trees, the exquisite palace where they met, its courtyard and its wonderful garden whose every leaf was lovingly and particularly rendered. If, however, one paid very close attention to the secret symmetry of the colors, which the miniaturist could only convey with total resignation to his art, and to the mysterious light infusing the entire painting, the careful observer would immediately see that the secret behind these illustrations is that they’re created by love itself. It’s as if a light were emanating from the lovers, from the very depths of the illustration. And when Black and I embraced, well-being flooded the world in the very same manner.

Thank God I’ve seen enough of life to know that such well-being never lasts for long. Black sweetly took my large breasts into his hands. This felt good and, forgetting all, I longed for him to suck on my nipples. But he couldn’t quite manage it, because he wasn’t all that sure of what he was doing, though his uncertainty didn’t prevent him from wanting more. Gradually, fear and embarrassment came between us the longer we embraced. But when he grabbed my thighs to pull me close, pressing his large hardened manliness against my stomach, I liked it at first; I was curious. I wasn’t embarrassed. I told myself that an embrace such as we’d had would naturally lead to another such as this. And though I turned my head away, I couldn’t take my widening eyes off its size.

Later still, when he abruptly tried to force me to perform that vulgar act that even Kipchak women and concubines who tell stories at the public baths wouldn’t do, I froze in astonishment and indecision.

“Don’t furrow your brow, my dear,” he begged.

I stood up, pushed him away and began shouting at him without paying the slightest mind to his disappointment.

I AM CALLED BLACK

Within the darkness of the house of the Hanged Jew, Shekure furrowed her brow and began raving that I might easily stick the monstrosity I held in my hands into the mouths of Circassian girls I’d met in Tiflis, Kipchak harlots, poor brides sold at inns, Turkmen and Persian widows, common prostitutes whose numbers were increasing in Istanbul, lecherous Mingerians, coquettish Abkhazians, Armenian shrews, Genoese and Syrian hags, thespians passing as women and insatiable boys, but it would not go into hers. She angrily accused me of having lost all sense of decorum and self-control by sleeping with all manner of cheap, pathetic riffraff—from Persia to Baghdad and from the alleyways of small hot Arabian towns to the shores of the Caspian—and of having forgotten that some women still took pains to maintain their honor. All my words of love, she charged, were insincere.

I respectfully listened to my beloved’s outburst, which caused the guilty member in my hand to fade, and though I was thoroughly embarrassed by the situation and the rejection I was suffering, two things pleased me: 1. that I refrained from lowering myself to match Shekure’s wrath with a response of similar hue, as I often had reacted viciously to other women in similar situations, and 2. that I discovered Shekure’s particular awareness of my travels, proof that she’d thought of me much more than I’d assumed.

Seeing how downcast I’d become at being unable to carry out my desires, she’d already begun to pity me.

“If you truly loved me, passionately and obsessively,” she said as if trying to excuse herself, “you’d try to control yourself like a gentleman. You wouldn’t try to offend the honor of the woman toward whom you entertained serious intentions. You’re not the only man who’s making motions to marry me. Did anyone see you on your way here?”

“Nay.”

As if she heard someone walking in the dark and snow-covered garden, she turned her sweet face, which for twelve years I hadn’t been able to recall, toward the door and gave me the pleasure of seeing her profile. When we heard a momentary clattering, we both waited in silence, but nobody entered. I recalled how even when she was only twelve, Shekure had aroused in me an odd feeling because she knew more than I did.

“The ghost of the Hanged Jew haunts this place,” she said.

“Do you ever come here?”

“Jinns, phantoms, the living dead. . .they come with the wind, possess objects and make sounds out of silence. Everything speaks. I don’t have to come all the way here. I can hear them.”

“Shevket brought me here to show me the dead cat, but it was gone.”

I couldn’t bring myself to ask why Shekure’s late husband, a man who’d emerged victorious from so many battles and had become the proprietor of a fief, saw fit to have his wife live together with his brother in a two-room house. Timidly and hesitantly, I asked my childhood beloved the following question: “Why did you see fit to marry him?”

“I was, of course, certain to be married off to someone,” she said. This was true, and it succinctly and cleverly explained her marriage in a way that avoided praising her husband and upsetting me. “You’d left, perhaps never to return. Disappearing in a sulk might be a symptom of love, yet a sulking lover is also tiresome and holds no promise of a future.” This was true as well, but it wasn’t cause enough to marry that rogue. It wasn’t too difficult to deduce from her coy expression alone that a short time after I’d abandoned Istanbul, Shekure had forgotten about me, like everyone else had. She’d told me this blatant lie to mend my broken heart, if only a little, and I considered it a sign of her good intentions, which demanded my gratitude. I began to explain how during my travels I couldn’t get her out of my thoughts, how at night her image haunted me like a specter. This was the most secret, most profound agony I’d suffered and I assumed I’d never be able to share it with another; the agony was quite real, but as I realized with surprise at that instant, it wasn’t the least bit sincere.

So that my feelings and desires might be rightfully understood, I must presently lay bare the meaning of this distinction between truth and sincerity that I’ve come to know for the first time: How expressing one’s reality in words, as truthful as they might be, goads one to insincerity. Perhaps, the best example might be made of us miniaturists, who’ve grown edgy of late due to the murderer in our midst. Consider a perfect painting—the image of a horse, for instance—no matter how well it represents a real horse, the horse meticulously conceived by Allah or the horses of the great master miniaturists, it might still fail to match the sincerity of the talented miniaturist who drew it. The sincerity of the miniaturist, or of us humble servants of Allah, doesn’t emerge in moments of talent and perfection; on the contrary, it emerges through slips of the tongue, mistakes, fatigue and frustration. I say this for the sake of those young ladies who will become disillusioned when they see that there was no difference between the strong desire I felt for Shekure at that moment—as she too could tell—and, say, the dizzying lust I’d felt for a delicately featured, copper-complexioned, burgundy-mouthed Kazvin beauty during my travels. With her profound God-given savvy and jinnlike intuition, Shekure understood both my being able to withstand twelve years of pure torture for love’s sake as well as my behaving like a miserable thrall of lust who thought of nothing but the quick satisfaction of his dark desires the first time we were alone. Nizami had compared the mouth of that beauty of beauties, Shirin, to an inkwell filled with pearls.

When the eager dogs began barking with renewed fervor, a restless Shekure said, “I ought to go now.” It was at that moment we both realized that the house of the Jew’s ghost had indeed become quite dark, although there was still time before nightfall. My body sprung up of its own volition, to hug her once again, but like a wounded sparrow, she quickly hopped away.

“Am I still beautiful? Answer me quickly.”

I told her. How beautifully she listened to me, believing and agreeing with what I said.

“And my clothes?”

I told her.

“I don’t know,” she said, minding the rules of ‘love chess.’ Walking through the old garden, she left delicate footprints in the snow—certain to be erased by the whiteness—and disappeared quietly.

I WILL BE CALLED A MURDERER

Doubtless, you too have experienced what I’m about to describe: At times, while walking through the infinite and winding streets of Istanbul, while spooning a bite of vegetable stew into my mouth at a public kitchen or squinting with fixed attention on the curved design of a reed-style border illumination, I feel I’m living the present as if it were the past. That is, when I’m walking down a street whitewashed with snow, I’ll have the urge to say that I was walking down it.

The extraordinary events I will relate occurred at once in the present and in the past. It was evening, the twilight gave way to blackness and a very faint snow fell as I walked down the street where Enishte Effendi lived.

Unlike other evenings, I’d come here knowing precisely what I wanted. On other evenings, my legs would take me here as I absentmindedly thought about other things: how I’d told my mother I earned seven hundred silver pieces for a single book, about the covers of Herat volumes with ungilded ornamental rosettes dating from the time of Tamerlane, about the continued shock of learning that others still painted under my name or about my tomfoolery and transgressions. This time, however, I’d come here with forethought and intent.

The large courtyard gate—that I feared no one would open for me—opened on its own when I went to knock, reassuring me that Allah was with me. The shiny stone-paved portion of the courtyard that I walked through on those nights when I came to add new illustrations to Enishte Effendi’s magnificent book was empty. To the right beside the well rested the bucket, and perched on it a sparrow apparently oblivious to the cold; a bit farther on sat the open-air stone stove, which for some reason wasn’t lit even at this late hour; and to the left, the stable for visitors’ horses which made up part of the house’s ground floor. Everything was as I expected it to be. I entered through the unlocked door beside the stable, and as an uninvited guest might do to avoid happening upon an inappropriate scene, I stamped my feet and coughed as I climbed the wooden staircase to the living quarters.

My coughing elicited no response. Nor did the noise of stamping my muddy shoes, which I removed and left next to those lined up at the entrance of the wide hall which was also used as an anteroom. As had become my custom whenever I visited, I searched for what I assumed to be Shekure’s elegant green pair among the others, but for naught, and the possibility that no one was home crossed my mind.

I walked to the right into the room—there was one in each corner of the second floor—where I imagined Shekure slept cuddled with her children. I groped for beds and mattresses, and opened a chest in the corner and a tall armoire with a very light door. While I thought the delicate almond scent in the room must be the scent of Shekure’s skin, a pillow, which had been stuffed into the cabinet, fell onto my dim-witted head and then onto a copper pitcher and cups. You hear a noise and suddenly realize the room is dark; well, I realized it was cold.

It had grown quite dark by now. Enough light entered through the narrow beeswax-dipped cloth windowpane—which, when removed in springtime, revealed a pomegranate and plane tree—to distinguish the outlines of objects within the room, enough light to please a humble Chinese illustrator. I could not fully see Enishte Effendi’s face as he sat, as usual, before a low, folding reading desk, so that the light fell to his left side. I tried desperately to recapture the intimacy between us when we’d painted miniatures together, gently and quietly discussing them all night by candlelight amid these burnishing stones, reed pens, inkwells and brushes. I’m not sure if it was out of this sense of alienation or out of embarrassment, but I was ashamed and held back from openly confessing my misgivings; at that moment, I decided to explain myself through a story.

Perhaps you’ve also heard of the artist Sheikh Muhammad of Isfahan? There was no painter who could surpass him in choice of color, in his sense of symmetry, in depicting human figures, animals and faces, in painting with an effusiveness bespeaking poetry, and in the application of an arcane logic reserved for geometry. After achieving the status of master painter at a young age, this virtuoso with a divine touch spent a full thirty years in pursuit of the most fearless innovation of subject matter, composition and style. Working in the Chinese black-ink style—brought to us by the Mongols—with skill and an elegant sense of symmetry, he was the one who introduced the terrifying demons, horned jinns, horses with large testicles, half-human monsters and giants into the devilishly subtle and sensitive Herat style of painting; he was the first to take an interest in and be influenced by the portraiture that had come by Western ships from Portugal and Flanders; he reintroduced forgotten techniques dating back to the time of Genghis Khan and hidden in decaying old volumes; before anybody else, he dared to paint cock-raising scenes like Alexander’s peeping at naked beauties swimming on the island of women and Shirin bathing by moonlight; he depicted Our Glorious Prophet ascending on the back of his winged steed Burak, shahs scratching themselves, dogs copulating and sheikhs drunk with wine and made them acceptable to the entire community of book lovers. He’d done it, at times secretly, at times openly, drinking large quantities of wine and taking opium, with an enthusiasm that lasted for thirty years. Later, in his old age, he became the disciple of a pious sheikh, and within a short time, changed completely. Coming to the conclusion that every painting he’d made over the previous thirty years was profane and ungodly, he rejected them all. What’s more, he devoted the remaining thirty years of his life to going from palace to palace, from city to city, searching through the libraries and the treasuries of sultans and kings, in order to find and destroy the manuscripts he’d illuminated. In whichever shah’s, prince’s or nobleman’s library he found a painting he’d made in previous years, he’d stop at nothing to destroy it; gaining access by flattery or by ruse, and precisely when no one was paying attention, he’d either tear out the page on which his illustration appeared, or, seizing an opportunity, he’d spill water on the piece, ruining it. I recounted this tale as an example of how a miniaturist could suffer great agony for unwittingly forsaking his faith under the spell of his art. This was why I mentioned how Sheikh Muhammad had burned down Prince Ismail Mirza’s immense library containing hundreds of books that the sheikh himself had illustrated; so many books that he couldn’t cull his own from the others. With great exaggeration, as if I’d experienced it myself, I told how the painter, in profound sorrow and regret, had burned to death in that terrible conflagration.

“Are you afraid, my child?” said Enishte Effendi compassionately, “of the paintings we’ve made?”

The room was black now, I couldn’t see for myself, but I sensed that he’d said this with a smile.

“Our book is no longer a secret,” I answered. “Perhaps this isn’t important. But rumors are spreading. They say we’ve underhandedly committed blasphemy. They say that, here, we’ve made a book—not as Our Sultan had commissioned and hoped for—but one meant to entertain our own whims; one that ridicules even Our Prophet and mimics infidel masters. There are those who believe it even depicts Satan as amiable. They say we’ve committed an unforgivable sin by daring to draw, from the perspective of a mangy street dog, a horsefly and a mosque as if they were the same size—with the excuse that the mosque was in the background—thereby mocking the faithful who attend prayers. I cannot sleep for thinking about such things.”

“We made the illustrations together,” said Enishte Effendi. “Could we have even considered such ideas, let alone committed such an offense?”

“Not at all,” I said expansively. “But they’ve heard about it somehow. They say there’s one final painting in which, according to the gossip, there’s open defiance of our religion and what we hold sacred.”

“You yourself have seen the final painting.”

Unable to rein in the awe stirring within me and to control my desire to please Enishte Effendi, I fell before his knees. As I kissed his hand, my eyes filled with tears and I felt I had relinquished to him the place in my soul that had always been reserved for Master Osman.

“A miniaturist,” said Enishte Effendi in the tone of a self-satisfied man, “creates his art by heeding his conscience and by obeying the principles in which he believes, fearing nothing. He pays no attention to what his enemies, the zealots and those who envy him have to say.”

But it occurred to me that Enishte Effendi wasn’t even a miniaturist as I kissed his aged and mottled hand through my tears. I was embarrassed by my thought. It was as if another had forced this devilish, shameless notion into my head. Even so, you too know how true this statement is.

“I’m not afraid of them,” Enishte said, “because I’m not afraid of death.”

Who were ‘they’? I nodded as if I understood. Yet annoyance began to mount within me. I noticed that the old volume immediately beside Enishte was El-Jevziyye’s Book of the Soul. All dotards who seek death share a love for this book that recounts the adventures that await the soul. Since I’d been here last, I saw only one new item among the objects collected in trays, resting on the chest, among the pen cases, penknives, nib-cutting boards, inkwells and brushes: a bronze inkpot.

“Let’s establish, once and for all, that we do not fear them,” I said boldly. “Take out the last illustration. Let’s show it to them.”

“But wouldn’t this prove that we minded their slander, at least enough to take it seriously? We’ve done nothing of which we ought to be afraid. What could justify your being so frightened?”

He stroked my hair like a father. I was afraid that I might burst into tears again; I embraced him.

He didn’t have enough courage to murder me, so he wanted me to enrage him. “Nay, you’re not lying but you’re not acknowledging what you feel either.”

“I acknowledge very well what I feel. I’m suffering the torments of the grave without having died. Unawares, we’ve sunk to our necks in sin because of you, and now you’re preaching ‘more courage.’ You’re the one who’s made me a murderer. Nusret Hoja’s rabid henchmen will kill us all.”

The less confident he became, the more he raised his voice and the more fiercely he gripped the inkpot. Would somebody passing down the snowy street hear his shouting and enter the house?

“How did you kill him?” I asked, more to buy time than out of curiosity. “How did you chance to meet at the mouth of that well?”

“The night Elegant Effendi left your house, he came to me,” he said, with an unexpected desire to confess. “He said he’d seen the final double-leaf painting. I tried at length to dissuade him from making an issue out of it. I got him to walk over to the area ravaged by the fire. I told him I had money buried near the well. When he heard that, he believed me. . . What better proof that an illustrator is motivated by greed alone? That’s another reason I’m not sorry. He was a talented, but mediocre artist. The greedy oaf was ready to dig into the frozen earth with his fingernails. You see, if I truly had gold pieces buried beside that well, I wouldn’t have had to do away with him. Yes, you hired yourself quite a miserable wretch to do your gilding. The dearly departed had finesse, but his choice of color and application was ordinary, and his illuminations were uninspired. I didn’t leave a trace. . .Tell me, then, what is the essence of ‘style’? Today, both the Franks and the Chinese talk about the character of a painter’s talent, what they call ‘style.’ Should style distinguish a good artist from others or not?”

“Fear not,” I said, “a new style doesn’t spring from a miniaturist’s own desire. A prince dies, a shah loses a battle, a seemingly never-ending era ends, a workshop is closed and its members disband, searching for other homes and other bibliophiles to become their patrons. One day, a compassionate sultan will assemble these exiles, these bewildered but talented refugee miniaturists and calligraphers, in his own tent or palace and begin to establish his own book-arts workshop. Even if these artists, unaccustomed to one another, continue at first in their respective painting styles, over time, as with children who gradually become friends by roughhousing on the street, they’ll quarrel, bond, struggle and compromise. The birth of a new style is the result of years of disagreements, jealousies, rivalries and studies in color and painting. Generally, it’ll be the most gifted member of the workshop who fathers this form. Let’s also call him the most fortunate. To the rest of the miniaturists falls the singular duty of perfecting and refining this style through perpetual imitation.”

Unable to look me straight in the eye, he assumed an unexpected gentle manner, and begging my compassion as much as my honesty, he asked me, trembling like a maiden:

“Do I have a style of my own?”

I thought tears would flow from my eyes. With all the gentleness, sympathy and kindness I could muster, I hastened to tell him what I believed to be the truth:

“You are the most talented, divinely inspired artist with the most enchanted touch and eye for detail that I’ve seen in all my sixty years. If you put a painting before me which had seen the combined work of a thousand miniaturists, I’d still be able to recognize instantly the God-given magnificence of your pen.”

“Agreed, but I know you’re not wise enough to appreciate the mystery of my skill,” he said. “You’re lying, now, because you’re afraid of me. Describe, once again, the character of my methods.”

“Your pen selects the right line seemingly of its own accord, as if without your touch. What your pen draws is neither truthful nor frivolous! When you portray a crowded gathering, the tension emerging from the glances between figures, their positioning on the page and the meaning of the text metamorphose into an elegant eternal whisper. I return to your paintings again and again to hear that whisper, and each time, I realize with a smile that the meaning has changed, and how shall I put it, I begin to read the painting anew. When these layers of meaning are taken together, a depth emerges that surpasses even the perspectivism of the European masters.”

“Fine and well. Forget about the European masters. Start from the beginning.”

“You have such a truly magnificent and forceful line, that the observer believes in what you’ve painted rather than in reality itself. And just as your talent could create a picture that would force the most devout man to renounce his faith, it could also bring the most hopeless, unrepentant unbeliever to Allah’s path.”

“True, but I’m not sure that amounts to praise. Try again.”

“There’s no miniaturist who knows the consistency of paint and its secrets as well as you do. You always prepare and apply the glossiest, most vibrant, most genuine colors.”

“Yes, and what else?”

“You know you’re the greatest of painters after Bihzad and Mir Seyyid Ali.”

“Yes, I’m aware of this. If you are too, why are you making the book with that model of mediocrity Black Effendi?”

“First, the work he does doesn’t require a miniaturist’s skill,” I said. “Second, unlike yourself, he’s not a murderer.”

He smiled sweetly under the influence of my joke. With this, I thought I might be able to escape this nightmare thanks to a new expression—this word ‘style.’ Upon my broaching the subject, we began a pleasant discussion concerning the bronze Mongol inkpot he held, not like father and son, but like two curious and experienced old men. The weight of the bronze, the balance of the inkpot, the depth of its neck, the length of old calligraphy reed pens and the mysteries of red ink, whose consistency he could feel as he gently swung the inkpot before me. . . We agreed that if the Mongols hadn’t brought the secrets of red paint—which they’d learned from Chinese masters—to Khorasan, Bukhara and Herat, we in Istanbul couldn’t make these paintings at all. As we talked, the consistency of time, like that of the paint, seemed to change, to flow ever more quickly. In a corner of my mind I was wondering why no one had yet returned home. If only he’d put down that weighty object.

With our customary workaday ease, he asked me, “When your book is finished, will those who see my work appreciate my skill?”

“If we can, God willing, finish this book without interference, Our Sultan will look it over, of course, checking first to see whether we used enough gold leaf in the appropriate places. Then, as if reading a description of Himself, as any sultan would, He’ll stare at his own portrait, struck by His own likeness rather than by our magnificent illustrations; thereafter, if He takes the time to examine the spectacle we’ve painstakingly and devotedly created at the expense of the light of our eyes, so much the better. You know, as well as I, that barring a miracle, He’ll lock the book away in His treasury without even asking who made the frame or the gilded illuminations, who painted this man or that horse—and like all skillful artisans, we’ll go back to painting, ever hopeful that one day a miracle of acknowledgment will find us.”

We were silent for a while, as if patiently waiting for something.

“When will that miracle happen?” he asked. “When will all those paintings we’ve worked on until we could no longer see straight truly be appreciated? When will they give me, give us, the respect we deserve?”

“Never!”

“How so?”

“They’ll never give you what you want,” I said. “In the future, you’ll be even less appreciated.”

“Books last for centuries,” he said proudly but without confidence.

“Believe me, none of the Venetian masters have your poetic sensibility, your conviction, your sensitivity, the purity and brightness of your colors, yet their paintings are more compelling because they more closely resemble life itself. They don’t paint the world as seen from the balcony of a minaret, ignoring what they call perspective; they depict what’s seen at street level, or from the inside of a prince’s room, taking in his bed, quilt, desk, mirror, his tiger, his daughter and his coins. They include it all, as you know. I’m not persuaded by everything they do. Attempting to imitate the world directly through painting seems dishonorable to me. I resent it. But there’s an undeniable allure to the paintings they make by those new methods. They depict what the eye sees just as the eye sees it. Indeed, they paint what they see, whereas we paint what we look at. Beholding their work, one comes to realize that the only way to have one’s face immortalized is through the Frankish style. And it’s not only the inhabitants of Venice who are captured by this notion, but all the tailors, butchers, soldiers, priests and grocers in all the Frankish lands. . . They all have their portraits made this way. Just a glance at those paintings and you too would want to see yourself this way, you’d want to believe that you’re different from all others, a unique, special and particular human being. Painting people, not as they are perceived by the mind, but as they are actually seen by the naked eye, painting in the new method, allows for this possibility. One day everyone will paint as they do. When ‘painting’ is mentioned, the world will think of their work! Even a poor foolish tailor who understands nothing of illustrating will want such a portrait so he might be convinced, upon seeing the unique curve of his nose, that he’s not an ordinary simpleton, but an extraordinary man.”

“So? We can make that portrait, as well,” quipped the witty assassin.

“We won’t!” I replied. “Haven’t you learned from your victim, the late Elegant Effendi, how afraid we are of being labeled imitators of the Franks? Even if we venture bravely to paint like them, it’ll amount to the same thing. In the end, our methods will die out, our colors will fade. No one will care about our books and our paintings, and those who do express interest will ask with a sneer, with no understanding whatsoever, why there’s no perspective—or else they won’t be able to find the manuscripts at all. Indifference, time and disaster will destroy our art. The Arabian glue used in the bindings contains fish, honey and bone, and the pages are sized and polished with a finish made from egg white and starch. Greedy, shameless mice will nibble these pages away; termites, worms and a thousand varieties of insect will gnaw our manuscripts out of existence. Bindings will fall apart and pages will drop out. Women lighting their stoves, thieves, indifferent servants and children will thoughtlessly tear out the pages and pictures. Child princes will scrawl over the illustrations with toy pens. They’ll blacken people’s eyes, wipe their runny noses on the pages, doodle in the margins with black ink. And religious censors will blacken out whatever is left. They’ll tear and cut up our paintings, perhaps use them to make other pictures or for games and such entertainment. While mothers destroy the illustrations they consider obscene, fathers and older brothers will jack off onto the pictures of women and the pages will stick together, not only because of this, but also due to being smeared with mud, water, bad glue, spit and all manner of filth and food. Stains of mold and dirt will blossom like flowers where the pages have stuck together. Rain, leaky roofs, floods and dirt will ruin our books. Of course, together with the tattered, faded and unreadable pages, which water, humidity, bugs and neglect will have reduced to pulp, the one last volume to emerge intact, like a miracle, from the bottom of a bone-dry chest will also one day disappear, swallowed up in the flames of a merciless fire. Is there a neighborhood in Istanbul that hasn’t been burned to the ground at least once every twenty years that we might expect such a book to survive? In this city, where every three years more books and libraries disappear than those the Mongols burned and plundered in Baghdad, what painter could possibly imagine that his masterpiece might last more than a century, or that one day his pictures might be seen, and he revered like Bihzad? Not only our own art, but every single work made in this world over the years will vanish in fires, be destroyed by worms or be lost out of neglect: Shirin proudly watching Hüsrev from a window; Hüsrev delightfully spying on Shirin as she bathes by moonlight; lovers gazing at each other with grace and subtlety; Rüstem’s wrestling a white demon to death at the bottom of a well; the anguished state of a lovelorn Mejnun befriending a white tiger and a mountain goat in the desert; the capture and hanging of a deceitful shepherd dog who presents a sheep from his flock to the she-wolf he mates with each night; the flower, angel, leafy twig, bird and teardrop border illuminations; the lute players that embellish Hafiz’s enigmatic poems; the wall ornamentations that have ruined the eyes of thousands, nay tens of thousands of miniaturist apprentices; the small plaques hung above doors and on walls; the couplets secretly written between the embedded borders of illustrations; the humble signatures hidden at the bases of walls, in corners, in facade embellishments, under the soles of feet, beneath shrubbery and between rocks; the flower-covered quilts covering lovers; the severed infidel heads patiently awaiting Our Sultan’s late grandfather as he victoriously marches upon an enemy fortress; the cannon, guns and tents that even in your youth you helped illustrate and that appeared in the background as the ambassador of the infidels kissed the feet of Our Sultan’s great-grandfather; the devils, with and without horns, with and without tails, with pointed teeth and with pointed nails; the thousands of varieties of birds including Solomon’s wise hoopoe, the jumping swallow, the dodo and the singing nightingale; the serene cats and restless dogs; fast-moving clouds; the small charming blades of grass reproduced in thousands of pictures; the amateurish shadows falling across rocks and tens of thousands of cypress, plane and pomegranate trees whose leaves were drawn one after another with the patience of Job; the palaces—and their hundreds of thousands of bricks—which were modeled on palaces from the time of Tamerlane or Shah Tahmasp but accompanied stories from much earlier eras; the tens of thousands of melancholy princes listening to music played by beautiful women and boys sitting on magnificent carpets in fields of flowers and beneath flowering trees; the extraordinary pictures of ceramics and carpets that owe their perfection to the thousands of apprentice illustrators from Samarkand to Islambol beaten to the point of tears over the last one hundred fifty years; the sublime gardens and the soaring black kites that you still depict with your old enthusiasm, your astounding scenes of death and war, your graceful hunting sultans, and with the same finesse, your startled fleeing gazelles, your dying shahs, your prisoners of war, your infidel galleons and your rival cities, your shiny dark nights that glimmer as if night itself had flowed from your pen, your stars, your ghostlike cypresses, your red-tinted pictures of love and death, yours and all the rest, all of it will vanish. . .”

Raising the inkpot, he struck me on the head with all his strength.

I tottered forward under the force of the blow. I felt a horrible pain that I could never even hope to describe. The entire world was wrapped in my pain and faded to yellow. A large portion of my mind assumed that this attack was intentional; yet, along with the blow—or perhaps because of it—another, faltering part of my mind, in a sad show of goodwill, wanted to say to the madman who aspired to be my murderer: “Have mercy, you’ve attacked me in error.”

He raised the inkpot again and brought it down upon my head.

This time, even the faltering part of my mind understood that this was no mistake, but madness and wrath that might very well end in my death. I was so terrified by this state of affairs that I began to raise my voice, howling with all my strength and suffering. The color of this howl would be verdigris, and in the blackness of evening on the empty streets, no one would be able to hear its hue; I knew I was all alone.

He was startled by my wail and hesitated. We momentarily came eye to eye. I could tell from his pupils that, despite his horror and embarrassment, he’d resigned himself to what he was doing. He was no longer the master miniaturist I knew, but an unfamiliar and ill-willed stranger who didn’t speak my language, and this sensation protracted my momentary isolation for centuries. I wanted to hold his hand, as if to embrace this world; it was of no use. I begged, or thought I did: “My child, my dear child, please do not end my life.” As if in a dream, he seemed not to hear.

He lowered the inkpot onto my head again.

My thoughts, what I saw, my memories, my eyes, all of it, merging together, became fear. I could see no one color and realized that all colors had become red. What I thought was my blood was red ink; what I thought was ink on his hands was my flowing blood.

How unjust, cruel, and merciless I found it to be dying at that instant. Yet, this was the conclusion that my aged and bloody head was slowly coming to. Then I saw it. My recollections were stark white, like the snow outside. My heart ached as it throbbed as if within my mouth.

I shall now describe my death. Perhaps you’ve understood this long ago: Death is not the end, this is certain. However, as it is written everywhere in books, death is something painful beyond comprehension. It was as if not only my shattered skull and brain but every part of me, merging together, was burning and racked with torment. Withstanding this boundless suffering was so difficult that a portion of my mind reacted—as if this were its only option—by forgetting the agony and seeking a gentle sleep.

Before I died, I remembered the Assyrian legend that I heard as an adolescent. An old man, living alone, rises from his bed in the middle of the night and drinks a glass of water. He places the glass upon the end table to discover the candle that had been there is missing. Where had it gone? A fine thread of light is filtering from within. He follows the light, retracing his steps back to his bedroom to find that somebody is lying in his bed holding the candle. “Who might you be?” he asks. “I am Death,” says the stranger. The old man is overcome by a mysterious silence. Then he says, “So, you’ve come.” “Yes,” responds Death haughtily. “No,” the old man says firmly, “you’re but an unfinished dream of mine.” The old man abruptly blows out the candle in the stranger’s hand and everything vanishes in blackness. The old man enters his own empty bed, goes to sleep and lives for another twenty years.

I knew this was not to be my fate. He brought the inkpot down onto my head once again. I was in such a state of profound torment that I could only vaguely discern the impact. He, the inkpot and the room illuminated faintly by the candle had already begun to fade.

Yet, I was still alive. My desire to cling to this world, to run away and escape him, the flailing of my hands and arms in an attempt to protect my face and bloody head, the way, I believe, I bit his wrist at one time, and the inkpot striking my face made me aware of this.

We struggled for a while, if you can call it that. He was very strong and very agitated. He laid me out flat on my back. Pressing his knees onto my shoulders, he practically nailed me to the ground while he raved on in a very disrespectful tone, accosting me, a dying old man. Perhaps because I could neither understand nor listen to him, perhaps because I took no pleasure in looking into his bloodshot eyes, he struck my head once more. His face and his entire body had become bright red from the ink splattering out of the inkpot, and I suppose, from the blood splattering out of me.

Saddened that the last thing I’d ever see in this world was this man who would be my enemy, I closed my eyes. Thereupon, I saw a soft, gentle light. The light was as sweet and enticing as the sleep I thought would straightaway ease all my pains. I saw a figure within the light and as a child might, I asked, “Who are you?”

“It is I, Azrael, the Angel of Death,” he said. “I am the one who ends man’s journey in this world. I am the one who separates children from their mothers, wives from their husbands, lovers from each other and fathers from their daughters. No mortal in this world avoids meeting me.”

When I knew death was unavoidable, I wept.

My tears made me profoundly thirsty. On the one hand there was the stupefying agony of my face and eyes drenched in blood; on the other hand there was the place where frenzy and cruelty ceased, yet that place was strange and terrifying. I knew it to be that illumined realm, the Land of the Dead, to which Azrael beckoned me, and I was frightened. Even so, I knew I couldn’t long remain in this world that caused me to writhe and howl in agony. In this land of frightful pain and torment, there was no place for me to take solace. To stay, I’d have to resign myself to this unbearable torment and this was impossible in my elderly condition.

Just before I died, I actually longed for my death, and at the same time, I understood the answer to the question that I’d spent my entire life pondering, the answer I couldn’t find in books: How was it that everybody, without exception, succeeded in dying? It was precisely through this simple desire to pass on. I also understood that death would make me a wiser man.

Nonetheless, I was overcome with the indecision of a man about to take a long journey and unable to refrain from taking one last glance at his room, at his belongings and his home. In a panic I wished to see my daughter one last time. I wanted this so badly I was prepared to grit my teeth for a while longer and endure the pain and my increasing thirst, to wait for Shekure’s return.

And thus, the deathly and gentle light before me faded somewhat, and my mind opened itself up to the sounds and noises of the world in which I lay dying. I could hear my murderer roaming around the room, opening the cabinet, rifling through my papers and searching intently for the last picture. When he came up empty-handed, I heard him pry open my paint set and kick the chests, boxes, inkpots and folding worktable. I sensed that I was groaning now and then and making odd twitching gestures with my old arms and tired legs. And I waited.

Meanwhile, as I was approached by the illuminated angel whom I’d just seen, Satan vanished. Part of me knew that this glowing angel who had caused Satan to flee was Azrael. But another rebellious part of my mind remembered that in the Book of the Apocalypse it was written that Azrael was an angel with one thousand wings spanning East and West and that he held the whole world in his hands.

As I grew more confused, the angel bathed in light approached as if coming to my aid, and yes, just as Gazzali had stated in Pearls of Magnificence, he sweetly said:

“Open your mouth so that your soul might leave.”

“Nothing but the besmele prayer ever leaves my mouth,” I answered him.

This was just one last excuse however. I knew I could no longer resist, that my time had now come. For a moment I was embarrassed at having to leave my bloodied and ugly body in this miserable condition for my daughter, whom I’d never see again. But I wanted to leave this world, shedding it like some tight-fitting garment that pinched.

I opened my mouth and abruptly all was color just as in the pictures of Our Prophet’s Miraj journey, during which he visited Heaven. Everything was flooded in exquisite brightness as if generously painted with gold wash. Painful tears flowed from my eyes. A strained exhalation passed from my lungs through my mouth. All was subsumed in wondrous silence.

I could see now that my soul had left my body and that I was cupped in Azrael’s hand. My soul, the size of a bee, was bathed in light, and it shuddered as it left my body and continued to tremble like mercury in Azrael’s palm. My thoughts were not of this, however, but of the unfamiliar new world I’d just been born into.

After so much suffering, a calm overcame me. Death did not cause me the pain I’d feared; on the contrary, I relaxed, quickly realizing that my present situation was a permanent one, whereas the constraints I’d felt in life were only temporary. This was how it would be from now on, for century upon century, until the end of the universe. This neither upset nor gladdened me. Events I’d once endured briskly and sequentially were now spread over infinite space and existed simultaneously. As in one of those large double-leaf paintings wherein a witty miniaturist has painted a number of unrelated things in each corner—many things were happening all at once.

I, SHEKURE

It was snowing so hard that snowflakes occasionally passed right through my veil into my eyes. I picked my way through the garden covered in rotting grass, mud and broken branches, then quickened my pace once I’d exited onto the street. I know you’re all wondering what I’m thinking. How much do I trust Black? Let me be frank with you, then. I myself don’t know what to think. You do understand, don’t you? I’m confused. This much, however, I do know: As always, I’ll fall into the routine of meals, children, my father and errands, and before long my heart, without even having to be asked, will whisper the truth to me of its own accord. Tomorrow, before noon, I’ll know whom I am to marry.

I want to share something with you before I arrive home. No! Come off it, now, it’s not about the size of that monstrosity Black showed me. If you want we can talk about that later. What I was going to discuss was Black’s haste. It’s not that he seems to think only of satisfying his lust. To be honest, it’d make no difference if he did. What surprises me is his stupidity! I suppose it never crossed his mind that he could frighten and abduct me, play with my honor and put me off, or open the door to even more dangerous outcomes. I can tell from his innocent expression how much he loves and desires me. But after waiting twelve years, why can’t he play the game according to the rules and wait another twelve days?

Do you know I have the sinking feeling I’ve fallen in love with his incompetence and his melancholy childlike glances? At a time when it would’ve been more appropriate to be irate with him, instead, I pitied him. “Oh, my poor child,” a voice inside me said, “you suffer such torment and are still so utterly incompetent.” I felt so protective of him that I might’ve even made a mistake, I might’ve actually given myself to that spoiled little boy.

Yes, I returned home in the evening to discover that someone had killed my father. Yes, I tore out my hair. Yes, as I would do in my childhood, I hugged him with all my might and smelled his skin. Yes, I trembled and I couldn’t breathe. Yes, I begged Allah to raise him up and have him sit silently in his corner among his books as he always did. Get up, Father, get up, don’t die. His bloodied head was crushed. More than the torn papers and books, more than the breaking and tossing about of the end tables, paint sets and inkpots, more than the wild destruction of cushions, worktables and writing boards, and the ransacking of everything, more even than the anger that had killed my father, I feared the hatred that had destroyed the room and everything within it. I was no longer crying. A couple passed down the street outside, laughing and talking in the blackness; meanwhile, I could hear the infinite silence of the world in my mind; with my hands I wiped my running nose and the tears off my cheeks. For a long long time I thought about the children and our lives.

I listened to the silence. I ran, I grabbed my father by the ankles and dragged him into the hallway. For whatever reason, he felt heavier out there, but without paying any mind to this, I began to pull him down the stairs. Halfway down, my strength gave out and I sat on a step. I was on the verge of tears again when I heard a noise that made me assume that Hayriye and the children had returned. I grabbed my father by the ankles, and pressing them into my armpits, I continued to descend, faster this time. My dear father’s head had been so crushed and was so soaked in blood that it made the sound of a wrung-out mop as it struck each step. At the base of the stairs, I turned his body, which now seemed to have grown lighter, and with one great effort, dragging him across the stone floor, I took him into the summer painting room. In order to see within the pitch-black room, I hastened back out to the stove in the kitchen. When I returned with a candle I saw how thoroughly the room where I’d dragged my father had been pillaged. I was dumbstruck.

Who is it, my God, which one of them?

My mind was churning. Closing the door tightly, I left my father in the demolished room. I grabbed a bucket from the kitchen, and filled it with water from the well. I climbed the stairs, and by the light of an oil lamp, I quickly wiped away the blood in the hallway, on the staircase and everywhere else. I went back upstairs to my room, removed my bloodied clothes and put on clean clothes. Carrying the bucket and rag, I was about to enter the room with the blue door when I heard the courtyard gate swing open. The evening call to prayer had begun. I mustered all my strength, and holding the oil lamp in my hand, I waited for them at the top of the stairs.

“Mother, we’re back,” Orhan said.

“Hayriye! Where have you been!” I said forcefully, but as if I were whispering, not shouting.

“But Mother, we didn’t stay out past the evening call to prayer. . .” Shevket had begun to say.

“Quiet! Your grandfather is ill, he’s sleeping.”

“Liar,” said Orhan. “Shevket opened the door and I told him not to leave.” He began to cry.

“If you don’t sit up here quietly, I’ll kill both of you.”

“Mama, don’t go,” Orhan said.

Downstairs, I bound Hayriye’s finger, stopping the bleeding. When I told her that my father hadn’t died a natural death, she grew frightened and recited some prayers asking for Allah’s protection. She stared at her injured finger and began crying. Was her affection for my father great enough to unleash such a fit of crying? She wanted to go upstairs and see him.

“He’s not upstairs,” I said. “He’s in the back room.”

She gazed at me suspiciously. But when she realized I couldn’t bear another look at him, she was overcome by curiosity. She grabbed the lamp and left. She took four or five steps beyond the entrance of the kitchen, where I stood, and with respect and apprehension, she slowly pushed open the door of the room, and by the light of the lamp she was holding, looked inside. Unable at first to see my father, she raised the lamp even higher, trying to illuminate the corners of the large rectangular room.

“Aaah!” she screamed. She’d caught sight of my father where I’d left him just beside the door. Frozen, she gazed at him. The shadow she cast along the floor and stable wall was motionless. As she looked, I imagined what she was seeing. When she returned, she wasn’t crying. I was relieved to see that she still had her wits about her, enough to be able to register completely what I was prepared to tell her.

“Now listen to me, Hayriye,” I said. As I spoke, I waved the fish knife, which my hand had grabbed seemingly on its own. “The upstairs has been ransacked too; the same accursed demon has destroyed all, he’s made a shambles of everything. That’s where he crushed my father’s face and skull; that’s where he killed him. I brought him down here so the children wouldn’t see and so I might have a chance to caution you. After you three left, I also went out. Father was home by himself.”

She objected and started to cry, and I put my arms around her. We hugged each other tightly. I loved her then, momentarily pitying, not only myself and the children, but all of us. But even as we embraced, a worm of doubt was anxiously gnawing at me. You know where I was while my father was being murdered. To further my own designs, I’d cleared the house of Hayriye and the children. You know that leaving my father alone in the house was an unforeseen coincidence. . .But did Hayriye know? Did she comprehend what I’d explained to her, will she understand? Indeed, yes, she’d quickly understand and grow suspicious. I hugged her even tighter; but I knew that with her slave girl’s mind she’d assume I was doing this to cover up my wiles, and before long even I felt as if I were deceiving her. While my father was being murdered here, I was with Black engaged in an act of lovemaking. If it were only Hayriye who knew this, I wouldn’t feel as guilty, but I suspect that you might make something of it as well. So, admit it, you believe that I’m hiding something. Alas, poor woman! Could my fate be any darker? I began to cry, then Hayriye cried, and we embraced again.

I pretended to satisfy my hunger at the table we’d set upstairs. From time to time, with the excuse of “checking on Grandfather,” I would step into the other room and burst into tears. Later because the children were scared and agitated, they snuggled up tightly next to me in bed. For a long while they were unable to sleep for fear of jinns, and as they tossed and turned they kept asking, “I heard a noise, did you hear it?” To lull them to sleep, I promised to tell them a love story. You know how words take wing in the darkness.

“Mother, you’re not going to get married are you?” said Shevket.

“Listen to me,” I said. “There was a prince who, from afar, fell in love with a strikingly beautiful maiden. How did this happen? I’ll tell you how. Before laying eyes on the pretty maiden, he’d seen her portrait, that’s how.”

As I would often do when I was upset and troubled, I recounted the tale not from memory, but improvising according to how I felt at that time. And since I colored it using a palette of my own memories and worries, what I recounted became a kind of melancholy illustration to accompany all that had happened to me.

After both children fell asleep, I left the warm bed and, together with Hayriye, cleaned up what that vile demon had scattered about. We picked up ruined chests, books, cloth, ceramic cups, earthenware pots, plates and inkpots that had been thrown about and shattered; we cleared away a demolished folding worktable, paint boxes and papers that had been torn up with furious hatred; and while doing so one of us, periodically, would stop and break down crying. It was as though we were more distraught over the wreckage of the rooms and their furnishings and the savage violation of our privacy, than we were over my father’s death. I can tell you from experience, unfortunates who’ve lost loved ones are comforted by the unchanged presence of objects in the house; they’re lulled by the sameness of the curtains, blankets and daylight, which, in turn, allows them occasionally to forget that Azrael has carried away their beloved or kin. The house that my father looked after with patience and love, whose nooks and doors he had meticulously embellished, had been mercilessly vandalized; thus, we were not only devoid of comfort and pleasant memories but, reminded of the pitilessness of the culprit’s damned soul, we were terrified as well.

When, for example, at my insistence we went downstairs, drew fresh water from the well, performed our ablutions and were reciting from the “Family of Imran” chapter—which my dearly departed father said he loved so much because it mentioned hope and death—out of his most cherished Herat-bound Koran, we were under sway of this terror and alarmed that the courtyard gate had begun to creak. It was nothing. But, after we checked that the latch was locked, and barricaded the gate by moving with our combined strength the planter of sweet basil that my father would water on spring mornings with freshly drawn well water, we reentered the house in the dead of night, and it suddenly seemed that the elongated shadows we were casting by the light of the oil lamp belonged to others. Most frightening of all was the horror that overcame us like a silent act of piety, as we solemnly washed his bloodied face and changed his clothes so that I might deceive myself into believing that my father had died at his appointed time; “Hand me his sleeve from underneath,” Hayriye had whispered to me.

As we removed his bloody clothes and undergarments, what aroused our amazement and awe was the vitality and whitish color of my father’s skin illuminated by candlelight. Because there were many more threatening things to frighten us, neither of us was shy about looking at my father’s sprawling naked body covered with moles and wounds. When Hayriye went back upstairs to fetch clean undergarments and his green silk shirt, unable to restrain myself, I looked down there and was immediately quite ashamed at what I’d done. After I’d dressed my father in fresh clothes and carefully cleaned the blood off his neck, face and hair, I embraced him with all my strength, and burying my nose in his beard, I inhaled his scent and cried at length.

For those of you who would accuse me of lacking feeling, or even of being guilty, let me hasten to tell of two further instances when I broke down crying: 1. When I was tidying the upstairs room so the children wouldn’t discover what had happened and I brought a seashell he’d used as a paper burnisher to my ear, as I’d done as a child, only to discover that the sound of the sea had diminished. 2. When I saw that the red velvet cushion my father sat upon often over the last twenty years—so much so it’d become part of his rear end—had been torn apart.

When everything in the house, excluding the damage that was beyond repair, was put back in order, I mercilessly denied Hayriye’s request to spread her roll-up mattress out in our room. “I don’t want the children to get suspicious in the morning,” I explained to her. But, to be honest, I was as eager to be alone with my children as I was to punish her. I entered my bed but was unable to sleep for a long while, not because I was preoccupied with the horror of what had happened, but because I was considering all that yet lay in store.

I AM RED

I appeared in Ghazni when Book of Kings poet Firdusi completed the final line of a quatrain with the most intricate of rhymes, besting the court poets of Shah Mahmud, who ridiculed him as being nothing but a peasant. I was there on the quiver of Book of Kings hero Rüstem when he traveled far and wide in pursuit of his missing steed; I became the blood that spewed forth when he cut the notorious ogre in half with his wondrous sword; and I was in the folds of the quilt upon which he made furious love with the beautiful daughter of the king who’d received him as a guest. Verily and truly, I’ve been everywhere and am everywhere. I emerged as Tur traitorously decapitated his brother Iraj; as legendary armies, spectacular as a dream, clashed on the steppes; and as Alexander’s lifeblood shimmered brightly from his handsome nose after he suffered sunstroke. Yes, Shah Behram Gür spent every night of the week with a different beauty beneath domes of varying color from distant lands, listening to the story she recounted, and I was upon the outfit of the striking maiden he visited on a Tuesday, whose picture he’d fallen in love with, just as I appeared from the crown to the caftan of Hüsrev, who’d fallen in love with Shirin’s picture. Verily, I was visible upon the military banners of armies besieging fortresses, upon the tablecloths covering tables set for feasts, upon the velvet caftans of ambassadors kissing the feet of sultans, and wherever the sword, whose legends children loved, was depicted. Yes, handsome almond-eyed apprentices applied me with elegant brushes to thick paper from Hindustan and Bukhara; I embellished Ushak carpets, wall ornamentation, the combs of fighting cocks, pomegranates, the fruits of fabled lands, the mouth of Satan, the subtle accent lines within picture borders, the curled embroidery on tents, flowers barely visible to the naked eye made for the artist’s own pleasure, blouses worn by stunning women with outstretched necks watching the street through open shutters, the sour-cherry eyes of bird statues made of sugar, the stockings of shepherds, the dawns described in legends and the corpses and wounds of thousands, nay, tens of thousands of lovers, warriors and shahs. I love engaging in scenes of war where blood blooms like poppies; appearing on the caftan of the most proficient of bards listening to music on a countryside outing as pretty boys and poets partake of wine; I love illuminating the wings of angels, the lips of maidens, the death wounds of corpses and severed heads bespeckled with blood.

I hear the question upon your lips: What is it to be a color?

Color is the touch of the eye, music to the deaf, a word out of the darkness. Because I’ve listened to souls whispering—like the susurrus of the wind—from book to book and object to object for tens of thousands of years, allow me to say that my touch resembles the touch of angels. Part of me, the serious half, calls out to your vision while the mirthful half soars through the air with your glances.

I’m so fortunate to be red! I’m fiery. I’m strong. I know men take notice of me and that I cannot be resisted.

I do not conceal myself: For me, delicacy manifests itself neither in weakness nor in subtlety, but through determination and will. So, I draw attention to myself. I’m not afraid of other colors, shadows, crowds or even of loneliness. How wonderful it is to cover a surface that awaits me with my own victorious being! Wherever I’m spread, I see eyes shine, passions increase, eyebrows rise and heartbeats quicken. Behold how wonderful it is to live! Behold how wonderful to see. Behold: Living is seeing. I am everywhere. Life begins with and returns to me. Have faith in what I tell you.

Hush and listen to how I developed such a magnificent red tone. A master miniaturist, an expert in paints, furiously pounded the best variety of dried red beetle from the hottest climes of Hindustan into a fine powder using his mortar and pestle. He prepared five drachmas of the red powder, one drachma of soapwort and a half drachma of lotor. He boiled the soapwort in a pot containing three okkas of water. Next, he mixed thoroughly the lotor into the water. He let it boil for as long as it took to drink an excellent cup of coffee. As he enjoyed his coffee, I grew as impatient as a child about to be born. The coffee had cleared the master’s mind and given him the eyes of a jinn. He sprinkled the red powder into the kettle and carefully mixed the concoction with one of the thin, clean sticks reserved for this task. I was ready to become genuine red, but the issue of my consistency was of utmost importance: The liquid shouldn’t be permitted to just boil away. He drew the tip of his stirring stick across the nail of his thumb (any other finger was absolutely unacceptable). Oh, how exquisite it is to be red! I gracefully painted that thumbnail without running off the side in watery haste. In short, I was the right consistency, but I still contained sediment. He took the pot off the stove and strained me through a clean piece of cheesecloth, purifying me even further. Next, he heated me up again, bringing me to a frothy boil twice more. After adding a pinch of crushed alum, he left me to cool.

A few days passed and I sat there quietly in the pan. In the anticipation of being applied to pages, of being spread everywhere and onto everything, sitting still like that broke my heart and spirit. It was during this period of silence that I meditated upon what it meant to be red.

Once, in a Persian city, as I was being applied by the brush of an apprentice to the embroidery on the saddle cloth of a horse that a blind miniaturist had drawn by heart, I overheard two blind masters having an argument:

“Because we’ve spent our entire lives ardently and faithfully working as painters, naturally, we, who have now gone blind, know red and remember what kind of color and what kind of feeling it is,” said the one who’d made the horse drawing from memory. “But, what if we’d been born blind? How would we have been truly able to comprehend this red that our handsome apprentice is using?”

“An excellent issue,” the other said. “But do not forget that colors are not known, but felt.”

“My dear master, explain red to somebody who has never known red.”

“If we touched it with the tip of a finger, it would feel like something between iron and copper. If we took it into our palm, it would burn. If we tasted it, it would be full-bodied, like salted meat. If we took it between our lips, it would fill our mouths. If we smelled it, it’d have the scent of a horse. If it were a flower, it would smell like a daisy, not a red rose.”

One hundred and ten years ago Venetian artistry was not yet threat enough that our rulers would bother themselves about it, and the legendary masters believed in their own methods as fervently as they believed in Allah; therefore, they regarded the Venetian method of using a variety of red tones for every ordinary sword wound and even the most common sackcloth as a kind of disrespect and vulgarity hardly worth a chuckle. Only a weak and hesitant miniaturist would use a variety of red tones to depict the red of a caftan, they claimed—shadows were not an excuse. Besides, we believe in only one red.

“What is the meaning of red?” the blind miniaturist who’d drawn the horse from memory asked again.

“The meaning of color is that it is there before us and we see it,” said the other. “Red cannot be explained to he who cannot see.”

“To deny God’s existence, victims of Satan maintain that God is not visible to us,” said the blind miniaturist who’d rendered the horse.

“Yet, He appears to those who can see,” said the other master. “It is for this reason that the Koran states that the blind and the seeing are not equal.”

The handsome apprentice ever so delicately dabbed me onto the horse’s saddle cloth. What a wonderful sensation to fix my fullness, power and vigor to the black and white of a well-executed illustration: as the cat-hair brush spreads me onto the waiting page, I become delightfully ticklish. Thereby, as I bring my color to the page, it’s as if I command the world to “Be!” Yes, those who cannot see would deny it, but the truth is I can be found everywhere.

I, SHEKURE

Before the children awoke, I wrote Black a brief note telling him to hurry to the house of the Hanged Jew and pressed it into Hayriye’s hand so that she might rush to Esther. As Hayriye took the letter, she looked into my eyes with more fearlessness than usual despite worrying what was to become of us; and I, who no longer had a father to fear, returned her glare with newfound temerity. This exchange would determine the tone of our relationship in the future. Over the last two years, I suspected Hayriye might even have a child by my father, and forgetting her status as slave, maneuver to become lady of the house. I visited my unfortunate father, respectfully kissing his now stiffened hand, which, oddly, hadn’t lost its softness. I hid my father’s shoes, quilted turban and purple cloak, then explained to the children once they awoke that their grandfather had gotten better and had left for the Mustafa Pasha district early in the morning.

Hayriye returned from her morning errand. As she was laying out the low table for breakfast, and I was placing a portion of orange jam in the middle of it, I imagined how Esther was now calling at Black’s door. The snow had stopped and the sun had begun to shine.

In the garden of the Hanged Jew, I encountered a familiar scene. The icicles hanging from the eaves and window casings were quickly shrinking, and the garden that smelled of mold and rotting leaves was eagerly absorbing the sun. I found Black waiting in the spot where I’d first seen him last night—it seemed so long ago, as if weeks had passed. I raised my veil and said:

“You can be glad, if you feel the urge. My father’s objections and doubts will not come between us anymore. While you were craftily trying to lay your hands on me here last night, a devil-of-a-man broke into our empty house and murdered my father.”

Rather than wondering about Black’s reaction, you’re probably puzzling over why I spoke so coldly and somewhat insincerely. I don’t quite know the answer myself. Maybe I thought I’d cry otherwise, provoking Black to embrace me, and I’d become intimate with him sooner than I wanted.

“He destroyed our home with a thoroughness that clearly reveals anger and hatred. I don’t think his work is done either, I don’t expect this devil will calmly retire to some corner now. He stole the final picture. I’m calling on you to protect me—protect us—and keep my father’s book from him. Now tell me, under what arrangement and conditions will you see to our safety? This is what we have to resolve.”

He made an overture to speak, but I easily silenced him with a look—as though this were something I’d done countless times before.

“In the eyes of the judge, it is my husband and his family who succeed my father as my guardians. This was the case even before his death, for according to the judge my husband is still alive. It was only because Hasan tried to take advantage of me during his older brother’s absence, a failed assault that embarrassed my father-in-law, that I was allowed to return to my father’s home though not officially a widow. But now that my father is dead and I am without even a brother, there is no question that my only possible guardians are my husband’s brother and my father-in-law. They’ve already been scheming to have me returned to their home, coercing my father, and threatening me. Once they hear my father is dead, they won’t hesitate to take official action. My only hope to prevent this is to conceal my father’s death. Perhaps in vain, for they may be the ones behind the crime.”

At that very moment, a thin beam of light gracefully filtered through the broken shutters and fell between Black and me, illuminating the ancient dust inside the room.

“This isn’t the only reason I’m hiding my father’s death,” I said, fixing my gaze into Black’s eyes, in which I was gladdened to see attentiveness more than love. “I’m also afraid of being unable to prove my whereabouts at the time of my father’s murder. Though she’s a slave and her word might be discounted, I’m afraid that Hayriye is involved in these machinations, if not against me, then against my father’s book. And as long as I remain without a protector, the announcement of my father’s murder, while initially simplifying matters at home, might well, solely for the reasons I’ve enumerated, cause me great misfortune at her hand; for instance, what if Hayriye is aware that my father didn’t want me to marry you?”

Widowed, abandoned and aggrieved, my beloved Shekure fled with featherlike steps, and I stood as if stunned in the stillness of the house of the Hanged Jew, amid the aroma of almonds and dreams of marriage she’d left in her wake. I was bewildered, but my mind was churning so fast it almost hurt. Without even a chance to grieve properly over my Enishte’s death, I swiftly returned home. On the one hand, a worm of doubt was gnawing at me: Was Shekure using me as a pawn in a grand scheme, was she duping me? On the other hand, fantasies of a blissful marriage stubbornly played before my eyes.

After making conversation with my landlady who interrogated me at the front door as to where I’d gone and whence I was coming at this morning hour, I went to my room and removed the twenty-two Venetian gold pieces from the lining of the sash I’d hidden in my mattress, placing them in my money purse with trembling fingers. When I returned to the street, I knew immediately I’d see Shekure’s dark, teary, troubled eyes for the rest of the day.

I changed five of the Venetian Lions at a perpetually smiling Jewish money changer. Next, deep in thought, I entered the neighborhood whose name I’ve yet to mention because I’m not fond of it: Yakutlar, where my deceased Enishte and Shekure, along with her children, awaited me at their house. As I made my way along the streets almost running, a tall plane tree seemed to reproach me for being overjoyed by dreams and plans of marriage on the very day my Enishte had passed away. Next, as the ice had melted, a street fountain hissed into my ear: “Don’t take matters too seriously, see to your own affairs and your own happiness.” “That’s all fine and good,” objected an ill-omened black cat licking himself on the corner, “but everybody, yourself included, suspects you had a hand in your uncle’s murder.”

The cat left off licking himself as I suddenly caught sight of its bewitching eyes. I don’t have to tell you how brazen these Istanbul cats get when the locals spoil them.

I found the Imam Effendi, whose droopy eyelids and large black eyes gave him a perpetually sleepy look, not at his house, but in the courtyard of the neighborhood mosque, and there I asked him quite a trivial legal question: “When is one obligated to testify in court?” I raised my eyebrows as I listened to his haughty answer as if I were hearing this information for the first time. “Bearing witness is optional if other witnesses are present,” explained the Imam Effendi, “but, in situations where there was only one witness, it is the will of God that one bear witness.”

“That’s just the predicament I find myself in now,” I said, taking up the conversation. “In a situation everyone knows about, all the witnesses have shirked their responsibilities and avoided going to court with the excuse that ‘it’s only voluntary,’ and as a result the pressing concerns of those I’m trying to help are being completely disregarded.”

“Well,” said the Imam Effendi, “why don’t you loosen your purse-strings a little more?”

I took out my pouch and showed him the Venetian gold pieces huddled within: The broad space of the mosque courtyard, the face of the preacher, everything was suddenly illuminated by the glimmer of gold. He asked me what my dilemma was all about.

I explained who I was. “Enishte Effendi is ill,” I confided. “Before he dies, he wants his daughter’s widowhood certified and an alimony to be instituted.”

I didn’t even have to mention the proxy of the Üsküdar judge. The Imam Effendi understood at once and said the entire neighborhood had long been troubled over the fate of hapless Shekure, adding that the situation had already persisted too long. Instead of searching for a second witness required for a legal separation at the door of the Üsküdar judge, the Imam Effendi suggested his brother. Now, if I were to offer an additional gold piece to the brother, who lived in the neighborhood and was familiar with the predicament of Shekure and her darling children, I’d be doing a good pious turn. After all, for only two gold coins the Imam Effendi was giving me a deal on the second witness. We immediately agreed. The Imam Effendi went to fetch his brother.

The rest of our day rather resembled the “cat-and-mouse” stories that I’d watched storytellers in Aleppo coffeehouses act out. Because of all the adventure and trickery, such stories written up as narrative poems and bound were never taken seriously even if presented in fine calligraphy; that is, they were never illustrated. I, on the other hand, was quite pleased to divide our daylong adventure into four scenes, imagining each in the illustrated pages of my mind.

In the first scene, the miniaturist ought to depict us amid mustachioed and muscled oarsmen, forging our way across the blue Bosphorus toward Üsküdar in the four-oared red longboat we’d boarded in Unkapanı. The preacher and his skinny dark-complexioned brother, pleased with the surprise voyage, are engaging the oarsmen in friendly chatter. Meanwhile, amid blithe dreams of marriage that play ceaselessly before my eyes, I stare deep into the waters of the Bosphorus, flowing clearer than usual on this sunny winter morning, on guard for an ominous sign within its currents. I’m afraid, for example, that I might see the wreck of a pirate ship below. Thus, no matter how joyously the miniaturist colors the sea and clouds, he ought to include something equivalent to the darkness of my fears and as intense as my dreams of happiness—a terrifying-looking fish, for example—in the depths of the water so the reader of my adventure won’t assume all is rosy.

Our second picture ought to show the palaces of sultans, the meetings of the Divan Council of State, the reception of European ambassadors, and detailed and carefully composed crowded interiors of a subtlety worthy of Bihzad; that is, the picture ought to partake of playful tricks and irony. Thereby, while the Kadi Effendi apparently makes an open-handed ‘halt’ gesture indicating ‘never’ or ‘no’ to my bribe, with his other hand he ought to be shown obligingly pocketing my Venetian gold coins, and the ultimate result of this bribe should be depicted in the same picture: Shahap Effendi, the Shafü proxy presiding in place of the Üsküdar judge. The simultaneous depiction of sequential events could only be achieved through an intelligent miniaturist’s cunning facility in page composition. Thus, when the observer, who first sees me giving a bribe, notices elsewhere in the painting that the man sitting cross-legged on the judge’s cushion is the proxy, he’ll realize, even if he hasn’t read the story, that the honorable judge has temporarily given up his office so his proxy might grant Shekure a divorce.

The third illustration should show the same scene, but this time the wall ornamentation should be darker and rendered in the Chinese style, the curly branches being more intricate and dense, and colorful clouds should appear above the judge’s proxy so the chicanery in the story might be apparent. Though the Imam Effendi and his brother have actually testified separately before the judge’s proxy, in the illustration they are shown together explaining how the husband of anguished Shekure hasn’t returned from war for four years, how she is in a state of destitution without a husband to look after her, how her two fatherless children are perpetually in tears and hungry, how there is no prospect for remarriage because she’s still considered married, and how in this state she can’t even receive a loan without permission from her husband. They’re so convincing that even a man as deaf as a stone would grant her a divorce through a cascade of tears. The heartless proxy, however, having none of it, asks about Shekure’s legal guardian. After a moment of hesitation, I immediately interrupt, declaring that her esteemed father, who has served as herald and ambassador for Our Sultan, is still alive.

“Until he testifies in court, I’ll never grant her a divorce!” said the proxy.