“I AM CALLED “OLIVE”
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After the midday prayers, I was ever so swiftly yet pleasurably drawing the darling faces of boys when I heard a knock at the door. My hand jerked in surprise. I put down my brush. I carefully placed the work-board that was on my knees off to the side. Rushing like the wind, I said a prayer before opening the door. I won’t withhold anything from you, because you, who hear me from within this book, are muearer to Allah than we in this filthy and miserable world of ours. Akbar Khan, the Emperor of Hindustan and the world’s richest shah, is preparing what will one day bee a legendary book. To plete his project, he sent word to the four ers of Islamdom inviting the world’s greatest artists to join him. The men he’d sent to Istanbul visited me yesterday, invitio Hindustan. This time, I opehe door to find, in their place, my childhood acquaintance Black, about whom I’d fotteirely. Back then he wasn’t able to keep our pany, he was jealous of us. “Yes?”He said he’d e to verse, to pay a friendly visit, to have a look at my illustrations. I weled him so he might see it all. I learned he’d just today visited Head Illuminator Master Osman and kissed his hand. The great master, he explained, had given him wise words to ponder: “A painter’s quality bees evident in his discussions of blindness and memory,” he’d said. So let it be evident:
Blindness and MemoryBefore the art of illumination there was blaess and afterward there will also be blaess. Through our colors, paints, art and love, we remember that Allah had anded us to “See”! To know is to remember that you’ve seen. To see is to know without remembering. Thus, painting is remembering the blaess. The great masters, who shared a love of painting and perceived that color and sight arose from darkness, loo return to Allah’s blaess by means of color. Artists without memory her remember Allah nor his blaess. All great masters, in their work, seek that profound void within color and outside time. Let me explain to you what it means to remember this darkness, which was revealed i by the great masters of old.
Three Stories on Blindness and MemoryALIFIn Lami’i Chelebi’s Turkish translation of the Persia Jami’s Gifts of Intimacy, which addresses the stories of the saints, it is written that in the bookmaker’s workshop of Jihan Shah, the ruler of the Blacksheep nation, the renowned master Sheikh Ali Tabrizi had illustrated a magnifit version of Hüsrev and Shirin. Acc to what I’ve heard, in this legendary manuscript, which took eleven years to plete, the master of master miniaturists, Sheikh Ali, displayed such talent and skill and painted such wonderful pictures that only the greatest of the old masters, Bihzad, could have matched him. Even before the illuminated manuscript was half finished, Jihan Shah khat he would soon possess a spectacular book without equal in all the world. He thus lived in fear and jealousy of young Tall Hasan, the ruler of the Whitesheep nation, and declared him his aremy. Moreover, Jihan Shah quickly sehat though his prestige would grow immensely after the book was pleted, an eveer version of the manuscript could be made for Tall Hasan. Being one of those truly jealous men who poisoned his own te with the thought “What if others e to know such bliss?” Jihan Shah se ohat if the virtuoso miniaturist made another copy, or even a better version, it would be for his aremy Tall Hasan. Thus, in order to prevent anyone besides himself from owning this magnifit book, Jihan Shah decided to have the master miniaturist Sheikh Ali killed after he’d pleted the book. But a good-hearted Circassiay in his harem advised him that blinding the master miniaturist would suffice. Jihan Shah forthwith adopted this clever idea, which he passed on to his circle of sycophants, until it ultimately reached the ears of Sheikh Ali. Even so, Sheikh Ali didn’t leave the book half finished and flee Tabriz as other, mediocre illustrators might’ve done. He didn’t resort to games like slowing down the progress of the manuscript or making inferior illustrations so it wouldn’t be “perfect” and thereby forestalling his immi blinding. Indeed, he worked with even more ardor and vi. In the house where he lived alone, he’d begin w after the m prayers and tinue illustrating the same horses, cypresses, lovers, dragons and handsome princes by dlelight in the middle of the night again and again until bitter tears streamed from his eyes. Much of the time, he’d gaze for days at an illustration by one of the great old masters of Herat as he made a copy on another sheet. In the end, he pleted the book for Jihan Shah the Blacksheep, and as the master miniaturist had expected, he was at first praised and showered with gold pieces, before being blinded with a sharp plume needle used to affix turban plumes. Before his pain had even subsided, Sheikh Ali left Herat ao join Tall Hasan the Whitesheep. “Yes, indeed, I am blind,” he explaio Tall Hasan, “yet I remember each of the splendors of the manuscript I’ve illuminated for the last eleven years, down to each mark of the pen and each stroke of the brush, and my hand draw it again from memory. My Excellency, I could illustrate the greatest manuscript of all time for you. Since my eyes will no longer be distracted by the filth of this world, I’ll be able to depict all the glories of Allah from memory, in their purest form.” Tall Hasan believed the great master miniaturist; and the master miniaturist, keeping his promise, illustrated from memory the most magnifit of books for the></a> ruler of the Whitesheep. Everyone khe spiritual power provided by the new book was what lay behind Tall Hasan’s subseque of the Blacksheep and the victorious Khan’s execution of Jihan Shah during a raid near Bing?l. This magnifit book, along with the one Sheikh Ali Tabrizi made for
the late Jihan Shah, entered Our Sultan’s treasury in Istanbul when the ever-victorious Tall Hasan was defeated at the Battle of Otlukbeli by Sulta Khan the queror, may he rest in peace. Those who truly see, know.
BASihe Denizen of Paradise, Sultan Süleyman Khan the Lawgiver, favored calligraphers over illustrators, unfortunate miniaturists of the day would ret the present story as an example of how illustrating surpasses calligraphy. However, as anyone who pays close attention will realize, this tale is actually about blindness and memory. After the death of Tamerlane, Ruler of the World, his sons and grandchildreo attag and mercilessly battling one another. In the event that one of them succeeded in quering another’s city, his first a was to mint his own s and have a sermon read at the mosque. His sed act as victor was to pull apart the books that had e into his possession; a new dedication would be written, boasting of the queror as the new “ruler of the world,” a new colophon added, and it would all be bound together again so that those who laid eyes on the queror’s book would believe that he truly was a world ruler. When Abdüllatif, the son of Tamerlane’s grandson Ulu? Bey, captured Herat, he mobilized his miniaturists, calligraphers and binders with such haste, and so pressured them to make a book in honor of his father, a oisseur of book arts, that as volumes were in the midst of being unbound and the scripted pages destroyed and burhe corresponding pictures became mixed up. Si did not befit the honor of Ulu? Bey for his son te and bind albums without a care for which picture beloo which story, he assembled all the miniaturists i and requested that they ret the stories so as to put the illustrations in proper order. From each miniaturist’s mouth, however, came a different at, and so the correct order of the plates was fused all the more. Thereupon, the oldest surviving head miniaturist was sought out. He was a man who’d extinguished the light of his eyes in painstaking labor on the books of all the shahs and princes who’d ruled over Herat for the last fifty- four years. A great otion ensued when the men realized that the old master now peering at the pictures was indeed blind. Some laughed. The elderly master requested that an intelligent boy, who had not yet reached the age of seven and who couldn’t read or write, be brought forward. Such a child was found and taken to him. The old miniaturist placed a number of illustrations before him. “Describe what you see,” he instructed. As the boy described the pictures, the old miniaturist, raising his blind eyes to the sky, listened carefully and responded: “Alexander cradling the dying Darius from Firdusi’s Book of Kings… the at of the teacher who falls in love with his handsome student from Sadi’s Rosegarden …the test of doctors from Nizami’s Treasury of Secrets…” The other miniaturists, vexed by their elderly and blind colleague, said, “We could’ve told you that as well. These are the best-known ses from the most famous stories.” In turn, the aged and blind miniaturist placed the most difficult illustrations before the child and again listened ily. “Hürmüz poisoning the calligraphers one by one from Firdusi’s Book of Kings,” he said, again fag the sky. “A cheap rendition of the terrible at of the cuckold who catches his wife and her lover in a pear tree, from Rumi’s Masnawi,” he said. In this fashion, relying on the boy’s descriptions, he identified all of the pictures, none of which he could see, and thereby succeeded in having the books properly bound together again. When Ulu? Bey entered Herat with his army, he asked the old miniaturist by what secret he, a blind man, could identify those stories that other master illustrators couldn’t determine even by looking at them. “It isn’t, as one might assume, that my memory pensates for my
blindness,” replied the old illustrator. “I have never fotten that stories are recollected not only through images, but through words as well.” Ulu? Bey respohat his own miniaturists khose words and stories, but still couldn’t order the pictures. “Because,” said the old miniaturist, “they think quite well when it es to painting, which is their skill or their art, but they don’t prehend that the old masters made these pictures out of the memories of Allah Himself.” Ulu? Bey asked how a child could know such things. “The child doesn’t know,” said the old miniaturist. “But I, an elderly and blind miniaturist, know that Allah created this worldly realm the way an intelligent seven-year-old boy would want to see it; what’s more, Allah created this earthly realm so that, above all, it might be seen. Afterward, He provided us with words so we might share and discuss with one another what we’ve seen. We mistakenly assumed that these stories arose out of words and that illustrations were painted in service of these stories. Quite to the trary, painting is the act of seeking out Allah’s memories and seeing the world as He sees the world.”
DJIMTwo hundred fifty years ago, Arab miniaturists were in the of staring at the western horizon at daybreak to alleviate the uandable aernal aies about going blind shared by all miniaturists; likewise, a tury later in Shiraz, many illustrators would eat walnuts mashed with rose petals on ay stoma the ms. Again, in the same era, the elder miniaturists of Isfahan who believed sunlight was responsible for the blio which they succumbed one by one, as if to the plague, would work in a half-dark er of the room, and most often by dlelight, to prevent direct sunlight from striking their worktables. At day’s end, in the workshops of the Uzbek artists of Bukhara, master miniaturists would wash their eyes with water blessed by sheikhs. But of all of these precautions, the purest approach to blindness was discovered i by the miniaturist Seyyit Mirek, mentor to the great master Bihzad. Acc to master miniaturist Mirek, blindness wasn’t a sce, but rather the ing reward bestowed by Allah upon the illuminator who had devoted aire life to His glories; for illustrating was the miniaturist’s search for Allah’s vision of the earthly realm, and this unique perspective could only be attaihrough recolle after blindness desded,bbr>.</abbr> only after a lifetime of hard work and only after the miniaturist’s eyes tired and he had expended himself. Thus, Allah’s vision of His world only bees mahrough the memory of blind miniaturists. When this image es to the aging miniaturist, that is, when he sees the world as Allah sees it through the darkness of memory and blindness, the illustrator will have spent his lifetime training his hand so it might trahis splendid revelation to the page. Acc to the historian Mirza Muhammet Haydar Duglat, who wrote extensively about the legends of Herat miniaturists, the master Seyyit Mirek, in his explication of the aforementioned notion of painting, used the example of the illustrator who wao draw a horse. He reasohat even the most ued painter—one whose head is empty like those of today’s Veian painters—who draws the picture of a horse while looking at a horse will still make the image from memory; because, you see, it is impossible, at one and the same time, to look at the horse and at the page upon which the horse’s image appears. First, the illustrator looks at the horse, then he quickly transfers whatever rests in his mind to the page. Ierim, even if only a wink in time, what the artist represents on the page is not the horse he sees, but the memory of the horse he has just seen. Proof that for even the most miserable illustrator, a picture is possible only through memory. The logical extension of this cept, which regards the active worklife of a miniaturist as but preparation for both
the resulting bliss of blindness and blind memory, is that the masters of Herat regarded the illustrations they made for bibliophile shahs and princes as training for the hand—as an exercise. They accepted the work, the endless drawing and staring at pages by dlelight for days without break, as the pleasurable labor that delivered the miniaturist to blindness. Throughout his whole life, the master miniaturist Mirek stantly sought out the most appropriate moment for this most glorious of approag eventualities, either by purposely hurrying blihrough the painstakiion of trees and all their leaves on fingernails, grains of rid even on strands of hair, or by cautiously delaying the immi darkness by the effortless drawing of pleasant, sun-filled gardens. When he was seventy, in order to reward this great master, Sultan Hüseyin Baykara allowed him to ehe treasury taining thousands of manuscript plates that the Sultan had collected and secured under lod key. There, ireasury that also tained ons, gold and bolt upon bolt of silk a cloth, by the dlelight of golden delabra, Master Mirek stared at the magnifit leaves of those books, each a legend in its ht, made by the old masters of Herat. And after three days and nights of tinuous scrutiny, the great master went blind. He accepted his dition with maturity and resignation, the way one might greet the Angels of Allah, and he never spoke or painted again. Mirza Muhammet Haydar Duglat, the author of the History of Rashid, ascribed this turn of events as follows: “A miniaturist united with the vision and landscape of Allah’s immortal time ever return to the manuscript pages meant for ordinary mortals”; and he adds, “Wherever the blind miniaturist’s memories reach Allah there reigns an absolute silence, a blessed darkness and the infinity of a blank page.”
Certainly it was less out of desire to hear my ao Master Osman’s question on blindness and memory than to put himself at ease that Black asked me the question while he pored over my possessions, my room and my pictures. Yet again, I leased to see that the stories I reted affected him. “Blindness is a realm of bliss from which the Devil and guilt are barred,” I said to him.
“In Tabriz,” said Black, “under Master Mirek’s influence, some of the miniaturists of the old style still look upon blindness as the greatest virtue of Allah’s grace, and they’re embarrassed about growing old but not blind. Even today, fearing that others will sider this proof of a lack of talent and skill, they pretend to be blind. As a result of this moral vi which bears the influence of Jemalettin of Kazvin, some of them sit for weeks in the darkness amid mirrors, in the dim light of an oil lamp, without eating or drinking and stare at illustrated pages painted by the old masters of Herat in order to learn how to perceive the world like a blind mae not truly being blind.”
Somebody knocked. I opehe door to find a handsome apprentice from the workshop whose lovely almond eyes were opened wide. He said that the body of our brother, the gilder Elegant Effendi, had been discovered in an abandoned well and that his funeral procession would e the Mihrimah Mosque during the afternoon prayer. He then ran off to deliver the o others. Allah, may you protect us all.
I AM ESTHERTell me then, does love make one a fool or do only fools fall in love? I’ve been a clothes peddler and
matchmaker for years, and I don’t have the slightest clue. How it’d thrill me to bee acquainted with men—or couples—who grew more intelligent and became more ing and devious as they fell deeper in love. I do know this much though: If a mas to wiles, guile ay deceptions, it means he’s nowhere near being in love. As for Black Effendi, it’s obvious that he’s already lost his posure—when he even talks about Shekure he loses all self-trol.
At the bazaar, I fed him by rote all the well-rehearsed refrains that I tell everyone: Shekure is always thinking of him, she asked me about his respoo her letter, I’d never seen her like this and so on. He gave me such a look that I pitied him. He told me to take the letter to Shekure straightaway. Every idiot assumes there’s a pressing circumstance about his love that ates particular haste, and thereby lays bare the iy of his love, unwittingly putting a on into the hands of his beloved. If his lover is smart, she’ll postpohe ahe moral: Haste delays the fruits of love.
Had lovesick Blaown that I first took a detour while carrying the letter he’d charged me to deliver “posthaste,” he’d thank me. In the market square, I nearly froze to death waiting for him. After he left, I thought I’d visit one of my “daughters” to warm up. I call the maidens whose letters I’ve delivered, the ones I’ve married off through the sweat of my brow, my “daughters.” This ugly maiden of mine was so thankful and beholden to me that at my every visit, beyond waiting on me hand and foot, flitting about like a moth, she’d press a few silver s into my palm. Now she regnant and in good humor. She put liea on the boil. I savored each sip. When she left me alone, I ted the s Black Effendi had givewenty silver pieces.
I set out on my way again. I passed through side streets and through ominous alleyways that were frozen, muddy and nearly impassable. As I was knog on the door, mirth took hold of me and I began to shout.
“The clothier is here! Clothierrr!” I said. “e ahe best of my ruffled muslin fit for a sultan. e get my stunning shawls from Kashmir, my Bursa velvet sash cloth, my superb silk-edged Egyptian shirt cloth, my embroidered muslin tablecloths, my mattress and bedsheets, and my colorful handkerchiefs. Clothierrr!”
The door opened. I entered. As always, the house smelled of bedding, sleep, frying oil and humidity, that terrible smell peculiar to aging bachelors.
“Old hag,” he said. “Why are you shouting?”
I silently removed the letter and ha to him. In the half-lit room, he stealthily and quietly approached me and snatched it from my hand. He passed into the room where an oil lamp always burned. I waited at the threshold.
“Isn’t your dear father home?”
He didn’t answer. He’d lost himself iter. I left him alone so he could read. He stood behind the lamp, and I couldn’t see his face. After finishing the letter, he read it anew.
“Yes,” I said, “and what has he written?”
Hasan read:
My Dearest Shekure, as I too have for years now sustained myself through my dreams of one single person, I respectfully uand your waiting for your husband without sidering another. What else could one expect from a woman of your stature besides hoy and virtue? [Hasan cackled!] My ing to visit your father for the sake of painting, however, does not amount to harassing you. This would never even y mind. I make no claim at having received a sign from you or any other encement. When your face appeared to me at the window like divine light, I sidered it nothing but an act of God’s grace. The pleasure of seeing your face is all I need. [“He took that from Nizami,” Hasan interrupted, annoyed.] But you ask me to keep my distaell me then, are you an ahat approag you should be so terrifying? Listen to what I have to say, listen: I used to try to sleep watg the moonlight fall onto the naked mountains from remote and godforsaken caravansaries where nobody but a desperate han keeper and a few thugs fleeing the gallows lodged, and there, in the middle of the night, listening to the howling of wolves even lonelier and more unfortuhan myself, I used to think that one day you would suddenly appear to me, just as you did at the window. Read closely: Now that I’ve returo your father for the sake of the book, you’ve sent back the picture I made in my childhood. I know this is not a sign of your death but a sign that I’ve found you again. I saw one of your children, Orhan. That poor fatherless boy. One day I will bee his father!
“God protect him, he’s written well,” I said, “this one has bee quite the poet.”
“”Are you an ahat approag you should be so terrifying?“” he repeated. “He stole that line from Ibn Zerhani. I could do better.” He took his ower out of his pocket. “Take this and deliver it to Shekure.”
For the first time, accepting money along with the letters disturbed me. I felt something like disgust toward this man and his mad obsession, his ued love. Hasan, as if to firm my hunch, for the first time in a long while set aside his good etiquette and said quite rudely:
“Tell her that if we so desire, we’ll force her back here under pressure of the judge.”
“You really wao say that?”
Silence. “Nay,” he said. The light from the oil lamp illuminated his face, allowio see him lower his head like a guilty child. It’s because I know this side of Hasan’s character as well that I have some respect for his feelings and deliver his letters. It’s not only for the money, as you might think.
I was leaving the house, aopped me at the door.
“Do you let Shekure know how much I love her?” he asked me excitedly and foolishly.
“Don’t you tell her so in your letters?”
“Tell me how I might vince her and her father? How might I persuade them?”
“By being a good person,” I said and walked to the door.
“At this age, it’s too late…” he said with sincere anguish.
“You’ve begun to earn a lot of money, s Officer Hasan. This makes one a good person…” I said and fled.
The house was so dark and melancholy that the air outside seemed warmer. The sunlight hit my face. I wished for Shekure’s happiness. But I also felt something for that poor man in that damp, chilly and dark house. On a whim, I turned into the Spice Market in Laleli thinking the smells of amon, saffron and pepper would restore my spirits. I was mistaken.
At Shekure’s house, after she took up the letters, she immediately asked after Black. I told her that the fire of love had mercilessly engulfed his entire being. This news pleased her.
“Even lonely spinsters busy with their knitting are discussing why Elegant Effendi might’ve been killed,” I said later, ging the subject.
“Hayriye, make some halva as a present of dolend take it over to Kalbiye, poor Elegant Effendi’s widow,” said Shekure.
“All the Erzurumis and quite a crowd of others will be attending his funeral service,” I said. “His relatives swear they’ll avenge his spilt blood.”
Shekure had already begun to read Black’s letter. I looked into her fatently and angrily. This woman robably such a fox that she could trol how her passions were reflected in her face. As she read I sehat my silence pleased her, that she regarded it as my approval of the special import she gave to Black’s letter. Shekure fihe letter and smiled at me; to meet with her satisfa, I felt forced to ask, “What has he written?”
“Just as in his childhood…He’s in love with me.”
“What are your thoughts?”
“I’m a married woman. I’m waiting for my husband.”
trary to your expectations, the fact that she’d lie to me after askio get involved in her affairs didn’t anger me. Actually, this ent relieved me. If more of the young maidens and women I’ve carried letters for and advised in the ways of the world atteo details the way Shekure did, they would’ve lessehe work for us both by half. More importantly, they would’ve ended up ier marriages.
“What does the other one write?” I asked anyway.
“I don’t io read Hasan’s letter right now,” she answered. “Does Hasan know that Black’s returo Istanbul?”
“He doesn’t even know he exists.”
“Do you speak with Hasan?” she asked, opening wide her beautiful black eyes.
“As you’ve requested.”
“Yes?”
“He’s in agony. He’s deeply in love with you. Even if your heart belongs to another, it’ll be difficult ever to be free of him now. By accepting his letters you’ve greatly enced him. Be wary of him, however. For not only does he want to make you return there, but by establishing that his older brother has died, he’s preparing t<var></var>o marry you.” I smiled to soften the weight of these words and so as not to be reduced to being that maltent’s mouthpiece.
“What’s the other one say, then?” she asked, but did she herself know whom she was inquiring after?
“The miniaturist?”
“My mind’s all ajumble,” she said suddenly, perhaps afraid of her own thoughts. “It seems that matters will bee even more fused. My father’s growing older. What’ll bee of us, of these fatherless children? I sense an evil approag, that the Devil is preparing some mischief for us. Esther, tell me something that will hearten me.”
“Don’t you fret in the slightest, my dearest Shekure,” I said as emotion welled up within me. “You’re truly intelligent, you’re very beautiful. One day you’ll sleep in the same bed with your handsome husband, you’ll cuddle with him, and having fotten all your worries, you’ll be happy. I read this in your eyes.”
Such affe rose withihat my eyes filled with tears.
“Fine, but whie will bey husband?”
“Isn’t that wise heart of yiving you an answer?”
“It’s because I don’t uand what my heart is saying that I’m dispirited.”
For a moment it occurred to me that Shekure didn’t trust me at all, that she was masterfully cealing her distrust in order to learn what I khat she was trying to arouse my pity. When I saw she wouldn’t be writing a respoo the letters at present, I grabbed my sack, ehe courtyard and slipped away—but not before saying something I told all my maids, even those who were cross-eyed:
“Fear not, my dear, if you keep those beautiful eyes of yours peeled, no misfortune, no misfortu all will befall you.”
I, SHEKUREIf truth be told, it used to be that each time Esther the clothier paid a visit, I’d fantasize that a man stri with love would finally be roused to write a letter that could stir the heart of an intelligent woman like myself—beautiful, well-bred and widowed, yet with her honor still intad set it pounding. And to discover that the letter was from one of the usual suitors, would, at the very least, fortify my resolve and forbearao await my husband’s return. But these days, every time Esther leaves, I bee fused and feel all the more wretched.
I listeo the sounds of my world. From the kit came the bubbling sound of boiling water and the smell of lemons and onions. Hayriye was boiling zui. Shevket and Orhan were frolig and playing “swordsman” in the courtyard beh the pomegraree, I heard their shouts. My father was sitting silently in the room. I opened and read Hasan’s letter and was reassured that there was no cause for alarm. Still, I grew a little more frightened of him, and gratulated myself for withstanding his efforts to make love to me when we shared the same house. , I read Black’s letter, holding it gently as if it were some delicate aive bird, and my thoughts became muddled. I didn’t read the letters again. The sun broke through the clouds and it occurred to me that if I’d entered Hasan’s bedchamber one night and made love with him, no one, except Allah, would’ve been the wiser. He did resemble my missing husband; it’d be the same thing. Sometimes a strahought like this entered my head. As the sun quickly warmed me, I could feel my body: my skin, my neck, even my nipples. Orhan slipped inside as the sunlight struck me through the open door.
“Mama, what are you reading?” he said.
All right then, remember how I said that I didn’t reread the letters Esther had just delivered? I lied. I was in the midst of reading them again. This time, I truly did fold them up and tuck them away in my blouse.
“e here, you, onto my lap,” I said to Orhan. He did so. “Oh my, you’re so heavy. May God protect you, you’ve gotten quite big,” I said and kissed him. “You’re as cold as ice…”
“You’re so warm, Mama,” he interrupted, leaning bato my bosom.
We were leaning tight against each other, enjoying sitting that way in silence. I smelled the nape of his ned kissed him. I hugged him even more tightly. We were still.
“I’m feeling ticklish,” he said later.
“Tell me then,” I said in my serious voice. “If the Sultan of the Jinns came and said he’d grant you a wish, what would you want most of all?”
“I’d want Shevket to go away.”
“What besides? Would you want to have a father?”
“No, when I grow up I’m going to marry you myself.”
It wasn’t aging, losing one’s beauty or even bei of husband and mohat was the worst of all calamities, what was truly horrible was not having ao be jealous of you. I lowered Orhan’s warming body from my lap. Thinking that a wicked woman like myself ought to wed someoh a good soul, I went up to see my father.
“His Excellency Our Sultan will reward you after seeing for Himself that His book has been pleted,” I said. “You’ll go to Venice again.”
“I ot be certain,” said my father. “This murder has distressed me. Our enemies are apparently quite powerful.”?
“I know, as well, that my own situation has emboldehem, giving rise to misuandings and unfounded hopes.”
“How do you mean?”
“I ought to be wed as soon as possible.”
“What?” said my father. “To whom? But you are married. Where did this notion e from?” he asked. “Who’s asked for your hand? Even if we were to find a reasonable and appealing prospect,” said my reasoher, “I doubt we’d be able to take him, not like that, you uand.” He summed up my
unfortuuation as follows: “You’re aware that there are weighty and plicated matters we must settle before you marry again.” After a protracted silence, he added, “Is it that you want to leave me, my dear daughter?”
“Last night I dreamed that my husband had died,” I said. I didn’t cry the way a woman who’d actually seen such a dream would have.
“Like those who know how to read a picture, one should know how to read a dream.”
“Would you sider it appropriate for me to describe my dream?”
There ause: We smiled at each other, quickly inferring—as intelligent people do—all possible clusions from the matter at hand.
“By interpreting your dream, I might be vinced of his death, yet your father-in-law, your brother-in-law and the judge, who is obligated to listen to them, will demand more proof.”
“Two years have passed since I returned here with the children and my in-laws haven’t been able to force me back…”
“Because they very well realize that they have their own misdeeds to answer for,” said my father. “This doesn’t mean that they’ll be willing to let you petition for a divorce.”
“If we were followers of the Maliki or the Hanbeli sects,” I said, “the judge, aowledging that four years have passed, would grant me a divor addition to seg a support allowane. But since we are, many thanks to Allah, Hanefis, this option is not open to us.”
“Don’t mention the üsküdar judge’s Shafüte stand-in to me. That’s not a souure.”
“All the women of Istanbul whose husbands are missing at the front go to him with their wito get divorced. Since he’s a Shafüte, he simply asks, ”Is your husband missing?“ ”How long has he been missing?“ ”Are you having trouble making ends meet?“ ”Are these your witnesses?“ and immediately grants the divorce.”
“My dear Shekure, who’s planted such schemes in your head?” he said. “Who’s stripped you of your reason?”
“After I’m divorced ond for all, if there is a man who truly strip me of my reason, you will, of course, tell me who that might be and I shall never question your decision about my husband.”
My shrewd father, realizing that his daughter was as shrewd as he, began to blink. My father would
blink rapidly like this for three reasons: 1. because he was in a tight spot and his mind was rag to find a clever way out; 2. because he was on the verge of tears of hopelessness and sorrow; 3. because he was in a tight spot, ingly bining reasons 1 and 2 to give the impression that he might soon cry out of sorrow.
“Are you taking the children and abandoning your old father? Do you realize that on at of our book”—yes, he said “our book”—“I was afraid of being murdered, but now that you want to take the children and leave, I wele death.”
“My dear father, wasn’t it you who always said that only a divorce could save me from that good-for-nothing brother-in-law?”
“I don’t want you to abandon me. One day your husband might return. Even if he doesn’t, there’s no harm in your being married—so long as you live in this house with your father.”
“I want nothing more than to live in this house with you.”
“Darling, weren’t you just now saying that you wao get married as soon as possible?”
This is the dead end you reach by arguing with your father: In due course, you too will be vihat you’re in the wrong.
“I was,” I said, gazing at the ground in front of me. Then, holding back my tears and enced by the truth of what came to mind, I said:
“All right then, shall I never be married again?”
“There’s a special pla my heart for the son-in-laon’t take you far from me. Who is your suitor, would he be willing to live here with us in this house?”
I fell silent. We both knew, of course, that my father would never respect a son-in-law willing to live here together with us, and would gradually demean and stifle him. And as Father’s underhanded and expert belittling of the man who’d moved in with his bride’s family proceeded I would soon want to be that wife no more.
“Without a father’s approval, in your situation, you know that getting married is practically impossible, don’t you? I don’t want you to get married, and I refuse to grant you permission to do so—”
“I don’t want to get married, I want a divorce.”
“—because some thoughtless beast of a man who cares about nothing but his own s might hurt
you. You know how much I love you, don’t you, my dear Shekure? Besides, we must finish this book.”
I said nothing. For if I were to speak—prompted by the Devil, who was aware of my anger—I would tell my father right to his face that I knew he slept with Hayriye at night. But would it befit a woman like me to admit that she khat her elderly father slept with a slave girl?
“Who is it that wants to marry you?”
I gazed at the ground before me and was quiet, not out of embarrassment, but out of anger. And reizing the extent of my anger, but not being able to respond in some manner made me even more furious. At that juncture, I imagined my father and Hayriye in bed in that ridiculous and disgusting position. I was on the verge of tears when I said:
“There’s zui oove, I don’t want it to burn.”
I crossed to the room beside the staircase, the oh the always-closed window that looked out onto the well. In the dark, quickly log the roll-up mattress with my hands, I spread it open and lay down: Ah, what a wonderful feeling, to lie down and fall asleep in a fit of tears like a child who’s been wrongly chastised! And what agony it is to know that I’m the only person in the world who likes me. As I cry in my solitude, only you, who hear my sobs and moans, e to my aid.
A while later, I found that Orhan had stretched out upon my bed. He placed his head between my breasts. I saw that he was sighing, and g too. Pulling him close to me, I held him.
“Don’t cry, Mother,” he said later. “Father will return from the war.”
“How do you know?”
He didn’t answer. I loved him so, and pressed him to my bosom so that I fot my own worries entirely. Before I cuddle up with my fine-boned, delicate Orhan and fall asleep, let me fess my only pressing : I regret having just now told you, out of spite, about the matter between my father and Hayriye. No, I wasn’t lying, but I’m still so embarrassed that it would be best if you fot about it. Pretend I never mentioned anything, as if my father and Hayriye weren’t thus involved, please?
I AM YOUR BELOVED UNCLEAlas, it’s difficult having a daughter, difficult. As she wept in the room, I could hear her sobs, but I could do nothing but look at the pages of the book I held in my hands. On a page of the volume I was trying to read, the Book of the Apocalypse, it was written that three days after death, one’s soul, receiving permission from Allah, visited the body it formerly inhabited. Upon beholding the piteous state of its body, bloodied, deposing and oozing, as it rested in the grave, the soul would sorrowfully, tearfully and mournfully grieve, “Lo, my miserable mortal coil, my dear wretched old
body.” At once, I thought of Elegant Effendi’s bitter end at the bottom of the well, and how upset his soul naturally must have been upon visiting, and finding his body not at his grave, but in the well.
When Shekure’s sobs died down, I put aside the book oh. I donned ara woolen undershirt, wound my thick wool sash tightly around my waist so as to warm my midriff, pulled on my shalants lined with rabbit fur and, as I was leaving the house, turo discover Shevket in the doorway.
“Where are you going, Grandfather?”
“You get baside. To the funeral.”
I passed through snow-covered streets, between poor rotting houses leaning this way and that way, barely able to stand, and through fire-ravaged neighborhoods. I walked for a long time, taking the cautious steps of an aging man trying not to slip and fall on the ice. I passed through out-of-the-way neighborhoods and gardens and fields. I walked by shops that dealt in carriages and wheels and passed iron smiths, saddlers, harness makers and farriers on my way toward the walls of the city.
I’m not sure why they decided to start the funeral procession all the way at the Mihrimah Mosque he city’s Edire. At the mosque, I embraced the big-headed and bewildered brothers of the deceased, who looked angry and obstinate. We miniaturists and calligraphers embraced each other a. As I erf my prayers within a leaden fog that had suddenly desded and swallowed everything, my gaze fell on the coffiing atop the mosque’s stone funeral block, and I felt suger toward the mist who’d itted this crime, believe me, even the Allahümme Barik prayer became muddled in my mind.
After the prayers, while the gregation shouldered the coffin, I was still among all the miniaturists and calligraphers. Stork and I had fotten that on some nights, whe in the dim light of oil lamps w until m on my book, he’d tried to vince me of the inferiority of Elegant Effendi’s gilding work and of the lack of balan his use of colors—he colored everything navy blue so it would look richer! We’d both fotten that I’d actually given him credence, by allowing “But no one else is qualified to do this work,” and we embraced each other anyway, sobbing once more. Later, Olive gave me a friendly and respectful look before hugging me—a man who knows how to embrace is a good man—and these gestures so pleased me that I was reminded how of all the workshop artists, he was the one who most believed in my book.
Oairs of the courtyard gate I found myself beside Head Illuminator Master Osman. We were both at a loss for words, a strange and tense moment. One of the deceased’s brothers began to cry and sob, and someone pompously shouted, “God is great.”
“To which cemetery?” Master Osman asked me for the sake of asking something.
To respond “I don’t know” seemed hostile for some reason. Flustered, and without thinking, I asked the
same question of the man standio me oairs, “To which cemetery? The one by the Edire?”
“Eyüp,” said an ill-tempered, bearded and young dolt.
“Eyüp,” I said turning to the master, but he’d heard what the ill-tempered dolt had said anyway. Then, he looked at me as if to say, “I uand” in a way that let me know he didn’t want our enter to last a moment lohan it already had.
Without mentioning my influen Our Sultan’s growing i in Frankish styles of painting, Master Osman was of course ahat Our Sultan had ordered me to oversee the writing out, embellishment and illustration of the illuminated manuscript, which I’ve described as “secret.” On one occasion, the Sultan forced the great Master Osman to copy a portrait of His Highness, which had been issioned from a Veian. I know Master Osman holds me responsible for having to imitate that painter, for having to make that strange painting, which he did with disgust, referring to the experience as “torture.” His wrath was justified.
Standing in the middle of the staircase for a while, I looked at the sky. When I was vihat I’d bee quite behind, I tinued down the icy stairs. I’d barely desded—ever so slowly—two steps when a man took me by the arm and embraced me: Black.
“The air is freezing,” he said. “You must be cold.”
I hadn’t the slightest doubt that this was the one who’d muddled Shekure’s mind. The self-fideh which he took my arm roof enough. There was something in his demeanor that announced, “I’ve worked for twelve years and have truly grown up.” When we came to the bottom of the stairs, I told him that I’d expe at later of what he’d lear the workshop.
“You go ahead, my child,” I said. “Go ahead and catch up to the gregation.”
He was taken aback, but didn’t let on. The way he let go of my arm with reservation and walked ahead of me pleased me, even. If I gave Shekure to him, would he agree to live in the same house with us?
We’d left the city through the Edire. I saw the coffin on the verge of disappearing into the fog along with the crowd of illustrators, calligraphers and apprentices shouldering it as they quickly desded the hil<big></big>l toward the Golden Horn. They were walking so fast, they’d already traveled half of the muddy road that led down the snow-covered valley to Eyüp. In the silent fog, off to the left, the ey of the Han 1m Sultan Charity dleworks shop happily piped up its smoke. Uhe shadow of the walls, there were tanneries and the bustling slaughterhouses that served the Greek butchers of Eyüp. The smell of offal ing from these places had wafted over the valley, which exteo the vaguely disible domes of the Eyüp Mosque and its cypress-lined cemetery. After walking for a while longer, I heard from below the shouts of children at play ing from the new Jewish quarter in
Balat.
When we reached the plain where Eyüp was located, Butterfly approached me, and in his usual fiery manner, abruptly broached his subject:
“Olive and Stork are the ones behind this vulgarity,” he said. “Like everyone else, they knew I had a bad relationship with the deceased. They knew everyone was aware of this. There was jealousy between us, even open animosity and antagonism, over who would assume leadership of the workshop after Master Osman. Now they expect the guilt to fall on my shoulders, or at the least, that the Head Treasurer, and under his influence, Our Sultan, will distahemselves from me, nay, from us.”
“Who is this ”us’ of which you speak?““Those of us who believe that the old morality ought to persist at the workshop, that we should follow the path laid by the Persian masters, that an artist shouldn’t illustrate just any se for money alone. In place of ons, armies, slaves and quests, we believe that the old myths, legends and stories ought to be introduced anew into our books. We shouldn’t fo the old models. Genuine miniaturists shouldn’t loiter at the shops in the bazaar and paint any old thing, depis of indecy, for a few extra kurush from anybody who happens by. His Excellency Our Sultan would find us justified.”
“You’re incriminating yourself senselessly,” I said so he might be doh his ranting. “I’m vihat the atelier could not harbor anybody capable of itting such a crime. You’re all brethren. There’s no great harm in illustrating a few subjects that haven’t beeed previously, at least no harm so great as to be an occasion for enmity.”
As happened when I first heard the horrid news, I had an epiphany of sorts. Elegant Effendi’s murderer was one of the premier masters in the palace workshop and he was a member of the crowd before me, climbing the hill that led to the cemetery. I was also vihat the murderer would tih his devilry aion, that he was an enemy of the book I was making, and most probably, that he’d visited my house to pick up some work illustrating and painting. Had Butterfly, too, like most of the artists who frequented my house, fallen in love with Shekure? As he made his assertions, had he fotteimes when I’d requested that he paint pictures that were trary to his point of view, or was he just needlih expert skill?
Nay, I thought a little while later, he couldn’t be needling me. Butterfly, like the other master illustrators, obviously owed me a debt of gratitude: With money and gifts to miniaturists dwindling, due to the wars and lack of i on the part of Our Sultan, the sole signifit source of extra ine had for some time been what they earned w for me. I khey were jealous of one another over my attentions, and for this reason—but not only for this reason—I met with them individually at my house, hardly a basis for hostility toward me. All of my miniaturists were mature enough to behave intelligently, to sincerely find a reason to admire a man to whom they were obliged for their own profit.
To relieve the silend ehat the previous topic of versation wouldn’t be revisited, I said, “Oh, will His wonders never cease! They’re able to take the coffin up that hill as fast as they brought it down.”
Butterfly smiled sweetly showing all his teeth: “Due to the cold.”
Could this oually kill a man, I wondered, for example, out of envy? Might he kill me? He had the following excuse: This man was debasing my religion. Nay, but he’s a great master, a perfect embodiment of talent, why should he resort to murder? Age means not only straining oneself climbing hills, but also, I gather, not being so afraid of death. It means a lack of desire, entering into a slave girl’s bedchamber, not in a fit of excitement, but out of . In a burst of intuition, I told him to his face the decision I’d made:
“I’m not tinuing with the book any longer.”
“What?” said Butterfly as his expression ged.
“There’s some kind of ill-fortune in it. Our Sultan has cut off the funding. You’re to tell Olive and Stork, as well.”
Perhaps he would have inquired further, but we found ourselves on the slopes of the graveyard amid tightly spaced t cypresses, high ferns and tombstones. As the great crowd encircled the grave site, my only clue that the body was at that very moment being lowered into the grave was the increasing iy of the weeping and sobbing and the exclamations of bismillahi and ala milleti Resulullah.
“Uncover his fapletely,” someone said.
They were removing the white shroud, and they must’ve beeo eye with the corpse if ihere was an eye remaining in that smashed head. I was in the bad I couldn’t see anything. I’d once gazed into the eyes of Death, not at a grave site, in airely different place…A memory: Thirty years ago, Our Sultan’s grandfather, Denizen of Paradise, decided ond for all to take Cyprus from the Veians. Sheikhulislam Ebussuut Effendi, recalling that this island was once designated a issariat for Mecd Medina, issued a fatwa which more or less stated that it was inappropriate for an island which had helped sustain holy sites to remain under Christian infidel trol. In turn, the difficult task of inf the Veians of this unforeseen decision, that they must surreheir island, fell to me. As a result, I was able to tour the cathedrals of Vehough I marveled at their bridges and palazzos, I was most ented by the pictures hanging iian homes. heless, in the midst of this bewilderment, trusting in the hospitality displayed by the Veians, I delivered the menag correspondence, inf them in a haughty, supercilious fashion that Our Sultan desired Cyprus. The Veians were so angry that in their gress, which had been hastily vened, it was decided that even to discuss such a letter was uable. Furious mobs had forced
me to fine myself to the Doge’s palazzo. And when sues mao get past the guards and doorkeepers and had set tliwo of the Doge’s personal musketeers succeeded in esc me out one of the secret passageways to a that opened onto the al. There, in a fog not uhis one, I thought for an instant that the tall and pale gondolier dressed in white, who’d taken me by the arm, was her thah. I caught sight of my refle in his eyes.
Longingly, I dreamed of finishing my book i aurning to Venice. I approached the grave, which had been carefully covered with dirt: At this moment, angels are interrogating him above, asking him whether he is male or female, his religion and whom he reizes as his prophet. The possibility of my owh came to mind.
A crow alighted beside me. I gazed lovingly into Black’s eyes and asked him to take my arm and apany me on the way back. I told him I expected him at the house early the m to tinue w on the book. I had indeed imagined my owh, and realized, once again, that the book must be pleted, whatever the cost.
I WILL BE CALLED A MURDERERThey threw cold, muddy earth onto the battered and disfigured corpse of ill-fated Elegant Effendi and I wept more than any of them. I shouted, “I want to die with him!” and “Let me share his grave!” and they held me by the waist so I wouldn’t fall in. I gasped for air and they pressed their palms to my forehead, drawing my head baight breathe. By the glances of the deceased’s relatives, I sensed I might have exaggerated my sobs and wailing; I pulled myself together. Based upon my excessive sorrow the workshop gossips might suppose that Elegant Effendi and I had been in love.
I hid behind a plaree until the funeral eo avoid drawing more attention to myself. A relative of the oaf I’d sent to Hell—an even bigger idiot than the deceased—discovered me behind the tree and stared deep into my eyes with a look he assumed was meaningful. He held me in his embrace for a while, then the ignoramus said the following: “Were you ”Saturday“ or ”Wednesday‘?““”Wednesday“ was the workshop name of the dearly departed for a time,” I said. He fell silent.
The story behind these workshop names, which bound us to one another like a secret pact, was simple: During our apprenticeships, when Osman the miniaturist had newly graduated from assistant master to the level of master, we all shared a great respect, admiration and love for him. He was a virtuoso aaught us everything, fod had blessed him with an enting artistic gift and the intellect of a jinn. Early each m, as was demanded of apprentices, one of us would go to the master’s home, and following respectfully behind him on the way to the workshop, carry his pen and brush box, his bag and his portfolio full of papers. So desperate were we to be near him that we’d argue and fight among ourselves to determine who would go that day.
Master Osman had a favorite. But if he were always to go, it would fan the flames of the never-ending
gossip and tasteless jokes that iably filled the workshop, and so the great master decided that each of us would be assured a specified day of the week. The great master worked on Fridays and stayed at home Saturdays. His son, whom he loved dearly—who later betrayed him and us by quitting the trade—would apany his father on Mondays like a on apprehere was also a tall thin brother of ours known as “Thursday,” a miniaturist mifted than any of us, who passed away at a young age, succumbing to the fever brought on by a mysterious illness. Elegant Effendi, may he rest in peace, would go on Wednesdays, and was therefore known as “Wednesday.” Later, reat master meaningfully and lovingly ged our names from “Tuesday” to “Olive,” from “Friday” to “Stork,” and from “Sunday” to “Butterfly,” renaming the dearly departed as “Elegant” in allusion to the finesse of his gilding work. The great master must have said, “Wele ”Wednesday,“ how are you this m?” to the late Elegant just as he used to greet all of us back then.
When I recalled how he would address me, I thought my eyes might fill with tears: Master Osman admired us, and his own eyes would tear when he beheld the beauty of our work; he’d kiss our hands and arms, ae the beatings, we felt as if we were in Heaven as apprentices; and so our talent blossomed with his love. Even jealousy, which cast its shadow over those happy years, had a different hue then.
Now I am pletely divided, just like those figures whose head and hands are draainted by one master while their bodies and clothes are depicted by another. When a God-fearing man like myself uedly bees a murderer, it takes time to adjust. I’ve adopted a sed voice, oing a murderer, so that I might still carry on as though my old life tinued. I am speaking now in this derisive and devious sed voice, which I keep out of my regular life. From time to time, of course, you’ll hear my familiar, regular voice, which would’ve remained my only voice had I not bee a murderer. But when I speak under my workshop name, I’ll never admit to being “a murderer.” Let no ory to associate these two voices, I have no individual style or flaws in artistry to betray my hidden persona. Indeed, I believe that style, or for that matter, anything that serves to distinguish oist from another, is a flaw—not individual character, as some arrogantly claim.
I do admit that in my own situation, this presents a problem. For though I might speak through my workshop name, lovingly given to me by Master Osman and used by Enishte Effendi, who also admired it, in no wise do I want you to figure out whether I am Butterfly, Olive or Stork. For if you do you won’t hesitate to turn me over to the torturers of the Sultan’s ander of the Imperial Guard.
And, I must mind what I think about and say. Actually, I know that you’re listening to me even when I’m mulling over matters in private. I ’t afford careless plation of my frustrations or the incriminatiails of my life. Even when reting the “Alif,” “Ba” and “Djim” stories. I was always mindful of yaze.
One side of the warriors, lovers, princes and legendary heroes that I’ve illustrated tens of thousands of times faces whatever is depicted there, in that mythical time—the ehey’re battling, for example, or the dragons they’re slaying, or the beautiful maidens over whom they weep. But another aspect, and
another side of their bodies, faces the book lover who happens to be gazing at the magnifit painting. If I do have style and character, it’s not only hidden in my artwork, but in my crime and in my words as well! Yes, try to discover who I am from the color of my words!
I, too, know that if you catch me, it’ll bring solation to unfortunate Elegant Effendi’s miserable soul. They’re shoveling dirt on him as I stand here beh trees, amid chirping birds, watg the gilded waters of the Golden Horn and the leaden domes of Istanbul, and disc aneonderful it is to be alive. Pathetic Elegant Effendi, soon after he joihe circle of that fierce-browed preacher from Erzurum, he stopped liking me pletely; yet, iwenty-five years that we illustrated books for Our Sultan, there were times when we felt very close to each other. Twenty years ago, we became friends while w on a royal history in verse for the late father of our present sultan. But we were never closer than when w on the eight illustrated plates that were to apany a colle of Fuzuli poems. One summer evening back then, as a cession to his uandable but illogical desires—apparently a miniaturist ought to feel in his soul the text he’s illustrating—I came here and patiently listeo him pretentiously recite lines from Fuzuli’s collected works as flocks of swallows fluttered above us in a frenzy. I still recall a lied that evening: “I am not me but eternally thee.” I’ve always wondered how one might illustrate this line.
I ran to his house as soon as I learhat his body had been found. There, the diminutive garden where we o aed poetry, now covered in snow, seemed diminished, just like any garden revisited after a period of years. His house was that way, too. From the room, I could hear the wails of women, and their exaggerated exclamations, mounting as if they were peting with each other. When his eldest brother spoke, I listened ily: The face of our forlorn brother Elegant ractically destroyed, and his head was smashed. After he was removed from the bottom of the well where he’d lain for four days, his brothers scarcely knew him, and his poor wife, Kalbiye, whom they’d brought from the house, was forced to identify the unreizable body in the dark of night by its torn and tattered clothing. I was reminded of a depi of the Midian merts pulling Joseph from the pit into which he’d been cast by his jealous brothers. I quite enjoy painting this se from the romance of Joseph and Zuleyha, for it reminds us that envy is the prime emotion in life.
There was a sudden lull. I seheir eyes upon me. Should I cry? I caught Black’s eye. That vile sdrel, he’s peering at us, like someone who’s bee here by Enishte Effendi to uhe truth.
“Who could’ve perpetrated such a horrendous crime?” cried the oldest brother. “What kind of heartless beast could’ve slaughtered our brother, our brother who wouldn’t dare harm an ant?”
He answered this question with his own tears, and I joined him, feigning grief while I sought my own answer: Who were Elegant’s enemies? If it hadn’t been me, who else could’ve murdered him? I recalled that some time ago—I believe it was when the Book of Skills was being prepared—he would get involved in arguments with certain artists ined to dismiss the teiques of the old masters and ruin the pages we illustrators had labored extensively over; thus they would spoil the borders with the horrid colors used to embellish more cheaply and quickly. Who were they? Later, however, rumors began to
spread that the enmity had arisen not for this reason, but out of petition for the affes of a handsome binder’s apprentice who worked on the ground floor; but this was an old story. And there were those who were annoyed by Elegant’s dignity, his refi and his erudite feminine demeanor, but this had to do with another matter entirely: Elegant was slavishly bound to the old style, a fanatic about the coordination of color between gilding and illustration, and in the presenaster Osman, he would, for instance, point out the ent faults of other miniaturists—mine in particular—with gentle ceit. His last quarrel had to do with an issue about which Master Osman had, in past years, grown quite sensitive: royal miniaturists who moonlighted, secretly accepting trivial issions outside the auspices of the palace. I years, after Our Sultan’s i had begun to wane and, along with it, the money ing from the Head Treasurer, all the miniaturists started paying visits to the two-story houses of the crass young pashas—and the best of the artists would go late at night to visit Enishte.
I wasn’t at all bothered by Enishte’s decision to stop w on his—on our—book or his excuse that it was ill-omened. He had, of course, guessed that the murderer who did away with brainless Elegant Effendi was one of us who were embellishing his book. Put yourself in his shoes: Would you invite a murderer to your house each fht to work on illustrations after dark? Wouldn’t you first determihe identities of the murderer and the best illustrator? I have no doubt that he’ll quickly deduce which of the miniaturists was the most talented and the most skilled in color sele, gilding, page ruling, illustration, face drawing and page position; and having done so, he’ll tinue w with me alone. I ’t imagine he’ll be so petty as to think of me as a urderer rather than a gealented miniaturist.
Out of the er of my eye I am watg that fool Black Effendi whom Enishte brought with him. Whewo broke away from the cemetery crowd presently dispersing, and walked down to the Eyüp quay, I followed them. They boarded a four-oared longboat, and afterward, I got into a six-oar along with a few young apprentices who’d fotten about the deceased and the funeral and were making merry. Within sight of the Phanar Gate, our boats momentarily came so near each other that they were about to lock oars, and I could see clearly that Black was early whispering to Enishte. I thereupon thought how easy it was to end a life. My dear God, you’ve given each of us this unbelievable power, but you’ve also made us afraid to exercise it.
Still, if a man but once overes this fear and acts, he straightaway bees airely different person. There was a time when I was terrified not only of the Devil, but of the slightest trace of evil within me. Now, however, I have the sehat evil be endured, and moreover, that it’s indispensable to an artist. After I killed that miserable excuse of a man, disting the trembling in my hands which lasted only a few days, I drew better, I made use hter and bolder colors, and most important, realized that I could jure up wonders in my imagination. But, this begs the question how many men in Istanbul truly appreciate the magnifiy illustrations?
Off the waterfront near Jibali, from all the way in the middle of the Golden Horn, I gazed spitefully at Istanbul. The snoed domes shone bright in the sunlight that broke abruptly through the clouds. The larger and more colorful a city is, the more places there are to hide one’s guilt and sin; the more
crowded it is, the more people there are to hide behind. A city’s intellect ought to be measured not by its scholars, libraries, miniaturists, calligraphers and schools, but by the number of crimes insidiously itted on its dark streets over thousands of years. By this logic, doubtless, Istanbul is the world’s most intelligent city.
At the Unkapan 1 quay, I left my longboat a little after Blad his Enishte had left theirs. I was behind them as they leaned on one another and mouhe hill. At the site of a ret fire in the shadow of the Sulta Mosque, they stopped and exged parting words. Enishte Effendi was alone, and he appeared for an instant like a helpless old man. I was tempted to run to him and tell him what that barbarian, from whose funeral we were returning, had slanderously fided in me; I was going to fess what I’d doo protect us, and to ask him: “Is it true what Elegant Effendi had claimed? Are we abusing Our Sultan’s trust through the illustrations we’ve made? Are our painting teiques traitorous and an affront to ion? And have you fihat last large painting?”
I stood in the middle of the snowy street as evening fell and gazed down the dark road which had been abandoned along with me to jinns, fairies, brigands, thieves, to the grief of fathers and childreurning home and to the sorrow of snow-covered trees. At the end of the street, inside Enishte Effendi’s grandiose two-story house, beh the roof, which I ow see through the bare branches of the chestnut trees, there lives the most beautiful woman in the world. But, no, why should I drive myself mad?
I AM A GOLD Behold! I am a twenty-two-carat Ottoman Sultani gold and I bear the glorious insignia of His Excellency Our Sultan, Refuge of the World. Here, in the middle of the night in this fine coffeehouse overe with funereal melancholy, Stork, one of Our Sultan’s great masters, has just finished drawing my picture, though he hasn’t yet been able to embellish me with gold wash—I’ll leave that to your imagination. My image is here before you, yet I myself be found in the money purse of your dear brother, Stork, that illustrious miniaturist. He’s rising now, removing me from his purse and showing me off to each of you. Hello, hello, greetings to all the master artists and assorted guests. Your eyes widen as you behold my glimmer, you thrill as I shimmer in the light of the oil lamp, and finally, you bristle with envy at my owner, Master Stork. You’re justified in behaving so, for there’s er measure of an illustrator’s talent than I.
In the past three months, Master Stork has early forty-seven gold pieces like myself. We’re all in this money-purse and Master Stork, see for yourself, isn’t hiding us from anyone; he knows there’s none among the miniaturists of Istanbul who earns more than he does. I take pride in being reized as a measure of talent among artists and in putting ao unnecessary disagreements. In the past, before we got used to coffee and our minds sharpehese dim-witted miniaturists weren’t satisfied with spending their evenings arguing about who was the most talented or who had the best sense of color, who could draw the best tree or who was most expert in the depi of clouds; no, they’d also e to blows over such issues, knog out each other’s teeth in the process. Now that my judgment
decides everything, there’s a sweet harmony in the workshop, and what’s more, an air that would suit the old masters of Herat.
In addition to noting the harmony and ambience brought about by my judgment, let me list for you the various things I might be exged for: the foot of a young aiful slave girl, which amounts to about one-fiftieth of her person; a good-quality walnut-handled barber’s mirror, edges inlaid with bone; a well-painted chest of drawers decorated with sunburst designs and silver leaf worth y silver pieces; 120 fresh loaves of bread; a grave site and coffins for three; a silver armband; oh of a horse; the legs of an old and fat e; one buffalo calf; two high-quality pieces of a; the monthly wage of Persian miniaturist Mehmet the Dervish of Tabriz and the majority of those of his like who work in Our Sultan’s workshop; one good hunting fal with cage; ten jugs of Panayot’s wine; a heavenly hour with Mahmut, one of those young boys world-renowned for his beauty, and many other opportuoo numerous to specify.
Before I arrived here, I spent ten days in the dirty sock of a poor shoemaker’s apprentice. Eaight the unfortunate man would fall asleep in his bed, naming the ehings he could buy with me. The lines of this epi, sweet as a lullaby, proved to me that there was no pla Earth a couldn’t go.
Which reminds me. If I recited all that happeo me before I came here, it’d fill volumes. There are ners among us, we’re all friends; as long as you promise not to tell anyone, and as long as Stork Effendi won’t take offense, I’ll tell you a secret. Do you swear not to tell?
All right then, I fess. I’m not a gewenty-two-carat Ottoman Sultani gold i the Chemberlitash Mint. I’m terfeit. They made me in Venice using adulterated gold and brought me here, passing me off as twenty-two-carat Ottoman gold. Your sympathy and uanding are much obliged.
Based on what I could gather from being in the mint in Vehis business has been going on for years. Until retly, the debased gold pieces that the Veian infidels brought to the East and spent were Veian ducats which they minted in that same mint. We Ottomans, forever respectful of whatever is written, paid o the amount of gold in each ducat—so long as the inscription remaihe same—and these fake Veian gold pieces flooded Istanbul. Later, noting that s with less gold and more copper were harder, we began to distinguish the s by biting them. For example, you’re burning with love; you go running to Mahmut, that youth of unsurpassed beauty, beloved by all; first, he takes into his soft mouth the —not the other thing—and biting it, declares it terfeit. As a sequence, he’ll take you to Heaven for only half an hour instead of one full hour. The Veian infidels, realizing that their terfeit s presented such disadvantages, decided that they might as well terfeit Ottoman s, reasoning that the Ottomans would be fooled again.
Now, let me draw your attention to something quite bizarre: When these Veian infidels paint, it’s as if they’re not making a painting but actually creating the object they’re painting. When it es to money, however, rather than making the real thing, they make its terfeit.
We were loaded into iros, hauled onto ships and pitg to and fro traveled from Veo Istanbul. I found myself in a money ger’s shop, in the garlicky mouth of its proprietor. We waited for a while, and a simple-minded peasaered, hoping to exge some gold. The master money ger, who was a gerickster, declared that he o bite the gold piece to see if it was terfeit. So he took the peasant’s and tossed it into his mouth.
Whe inside his mouth, I realized that the peasant’s was a geoman Sultani. He saw me within that stench of garlid said, “You’re nothing but a terfeit.” He was right, but his arrogant manner offended my pride and I lied to him: “Actually, my brother, you’re the one who’s terfeit.”
Meanwhile, the peasant roudly insisting, “How could my gold possibly be terfeit? I buried it in the ground twenty years ago, did a vice like terfeiti back then?”
I was w what the oute would be when the money ger took me out of his mouth instead of the peasant’s gold . “Take yold , I don’t want any vile Veian infidel’s fake money,” he said, “have you no shame?” The peasant responded with some biting words of his own, then took me with him out the door. After hearing the same pronou from other money gers, the peasant’s spirit broke and he exged me as a debased for only y silver pieces. This is how my seven-year saga of endless wandering from hand to hand began.
Allow me to admit proudly that I’ve spent most of my time in Istanbul wandering from purse to purse, and from sash to pocket, as befits an intelligent . My worst nightmare is to be stored in a jug and languish for years beh a rock, buried in some garden; not that it hasn’t happeo me, but for whatever reason, these periods have never lasted long. Many of the people who hold me want to be rid of me as soon as possible, especially if they discover I’m fake. heless, I have yet to e across someone who’ll warn an unsuspeg buyer that I’m terfeit. A broker, nnizing that I’m terfeit, who has ted out 120 silver s in exge for me, will berate himself in fits of anger, sorrow and impatience as soon as he learns he’s beeed, and these fits won’t subside until he rids himself of me by cheating another. During this crisis, even as he attempts to repeatedly swihers, failing each time on at of his haste and anger, he’ll tinue all the while to curse the “immoral” person who had inally ed him.
Over the last seven years in Istanbul, I’ve ged hands 560 times, and there’s not a house, shop, market, bazaar, mosque, church or synagogue I haveered. As I’ve roamed about, I’ve learhat much mossip has been spread, many more legends told and lies spun in my han I’d ever suspected. I’ve stantly had my nose rubbed in it: Nothing’s sidered valuable anymore besides me, I’m merciless, I’m blind, I myself am even enamored of mohe unfortunate world revolves around, not God, but me, and there’s nothing I ’t buy—all this is to say nothing of my dirty, vulgar and base nature. And those who know that I’m fake are given to even harsher judgments. As my actual value drops, however, my metaphorical value increases—proof that poetry is solation to life’s miseries. But despite all such heartless parison and thoughtless slander, I’ve realized that a large majority do
sincerely love me. In this age of hatred, such heartfelt—even impassioned—affe ought to gladden us all.
I’ve seen every square inch of Istanbul, street by street and district by district; I’ve known all hands from Jews to Abkhazians and from Arabs to Mingerians. I once left Istanbul in the purse of a preacher from Edirne who was going to Manisa. On the way, eo be attacked by thieves. One of them shouted, “Your money or your life!” Panig, the miserable preacher hid us in his asshole. This spot, which he assumed was the safest, smelled worse than the mouth of the garlic lover and was much less fortable. But the situation quickly grew worse when instead of “Your money or your life!” the thieves began to shout “Your honor or your life!” Lining up, they took him by turns. I don’t dare describe the agony we suffered in that cramped hole. It’s for this reason that I dislike leaving Istanbul.
I’ve been well received in Istanbul. Young girls kiss me as if I were the husband of their dreams; they hide me beh their pillows, between their huge breasts, and in their underwear; they even fondle me in their sleep to make certain I’m still there. I’ve been stored o the furna a public bath, in a boot, at the bottom of a small bottle in a wonderful-smelling musk seller’s shop and in the secret pocket sewn into a chef’s lentil sack. I’ve wahrough Istanbul is made of camel leather, jacket linings made from checkered Egyptian cloth, ihick fabric of shoe lining and in the hidden ers of multicolored shalwars. The master watchmaker Petro hid me in a secret partment of a grandfather clock, and a Greek grocer stuck me directly into a wheel of kashari cheese. I hid together with jewelry, seals and keys ed in pieces of thick cloth stowed away in eys, in stoves, beh windowsills, inside cushions stuffed with rough straw, in underground chambers and in the hidden partments of chests. I’ve known fathers who frequently stood up from the diable to check whether I was still where I was supposed to be, women who sucked on me like dy for no reason, children who s me as they stuck me up their noses and old people with one foot in the grave who couldn’t relax uhey removed me from their sheepskin purses at least seven times a day. There was a meticulous Circassian woman who, after spending the whole day ing the house, took us s out of her purse and scrubbed us with a coarse brush. I remember the one-eyed money ger who stantly stacked us up into towers; the porter who smelled of m glories and who, along with his family, watched us as if looking out over a stunning landscape; and the gilder, no longer among us—o name names—who spent his evenings arranging us into various designs. I’ve traveled in mahogany skiffs; I’ve visited the Sultan’s palace; I’ve hidden withi-made bindings, in the heels of rose-sted shoes and in the covers of packsaddles. I’ve known hundreds of hands: dirty, hairy, plump, oily, trembling and old. I’ve been redolent of opium dens, dle-makers’ shops, dried mackerel and the sweat of all of Istanbul. After experieng such excitement and otion, a base thief who had slit his victim’s throat in the blaess of night and tossed me into his purse, once ba his accursed house, spat in my fad grunted, “Damn you, it’s all because of you.” I was so offended, so hurt, that I wanted nothing more than to disappear.
If I did, however, no one would be able to distinguish a good artist from a bad one, and this would lead to ong the miniaturists; they’d all be at each other’s throats. So I haven’t vanished. I’ve ehe purse of the most talented and intelligent of miniaturists and made my way here.
If you think you’re better than Stork, then by all means, get hold of me.
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