I AM CALLED BLACK
百度搜索 My Name is Red 天涯 或 My Name is Red 天涯在线书库 即可找到本书最新章节.
I wondered whether Shekure’s father was aware of the letters we exged. If I were to sider her tone, which bespoke a timid maiden quite afraid of her father, I’d have to clude that not a single word about me had passed between them. Yet, I sehat this was not the case. The slyness iher’s l<s>?</s>ooks, Shekure’s enting appeara the window, the decisiveness with which my Enishte seo his illustrators and his despair when he ordered me to e this m—all of it made me quite uneasy.In the m, as soon as my Enishte asked me to sit before him, he began to describe the portraits he saw in Venice. As the ambassador of Our Sultan, Refuge of the World, he’d visited quite a number of palazzos, churches and the houses of prosperous men. Over a period of days, he stood before thousands of portraits. He saw thousands of framed faces depicted on stretched vas or wood or painted directly onto walls. “Eae was different from the . They were distinctive, unique human faces!” he said. He was intoxicated by their variety, their colors, the pleasantness—even severity—of the soft light that seemed to fall on them and the meaning emanating from their eyes.
“As if a virulent plague had struck, everyone was having his portrait made,” he said. “In all of Venice, rid iial men waheir portraits painted as a symbol, a memento of their lives and a sign of their riches, power and influence—so they might always be there, standing before us, announg their existenay, their individuality and distin.”
His words were belittling, as if he were speaking out of jealousy, ambitireed. Though, at times, as he talked about the portraits he’d seen in Venice, his face would abruptly light up like a child’s, invigorated.
Portraiture had bee such a tagion among affluent men, princes and great families who were patrons of art that evehey issioned frescoes of biblical ses and religious legends for church walls, these infidels would insist that their own images appear somewhere in the work. For instance, in a painting of the burial of St. Stephan, you’d suddenly see, ah yes, present among the tearful graveside mourners, the very prince who was giving you the tour—in a state of pure enthusiasm, exhilaration and ceit—of the paintings hanging on his palazzo walls. , in the er of a fresco depig St. Peter g the sick with his shadow, you’d realize with an odd sense of disillusiohat the unfortunate one writhing there in pain was, in fact, the strong-as-an-ox brother of your polite host. The following day, this time in a piece depig the Resurre of the Dead, you’d discover the guest who’d stuffed himself beside you at lunch.
“Some have gone so far, just to be included in a painting,” said my Enishte, fearfully as though he were talking about the temptations of Satan, “that they’re willing to be portrayed as a servant filling goblets in the crowd, or a merciless man stoning an adulteress, or a murderer, his hands drenched in blood.”
Pretending not to uand, I said, “Exactly the way we see Shah Ismail asding the throne in those illustrated books that ret a Persian legends. Or when we e across a depi of Tamerlane, who actually ruled long afterward, iory of Hüsrev and Shirin.”
Was there a noise somewhere in the house?
“It’s as if the Veian paintings were made thten us,” said my Enishte later. “And it isn’t enough that we be in awe of the authority and money of these men who ission the works, they also want us to know that simply existing in this world is a very special, very mysterious event. They’re attempting to terrify us with their unique faces, eyes, bearing and with their clothing whose every fold is defined by shadow. They’re attempting to terrify us by being creatures of mystery.”
He explained how once he’d gotten lost in the exquisite portrait gallery of a lunatic collector whose opulee erched on the shores of Lake o; the proprietor had collected the portraits of all the great personages in Frankish history from kings to cardinals, and from soldiers to poets: “When my hospitable host left me aloo roam as I wished throughout his palazzo, which he’d proudly giveour of, I saw that these supposedly important infidels—most of whom appeared to be real and some of whom looked me straight in the eye—had attaiheir importan this world solely on at of having their portraits made. Their likenesses had imbued them with such magic, had so distinguished them, that for a moment among the paintings I felt flawed and impotent. Had I beeed in this fashion, it seemed, I’d better uand why I existed in this world.”
He was frightened because he suddenly uood—and perhaps desired—that Islamic artistry, perfected and securely established by the old masters of Herat, w<var></var>ould meet its end on at of the appeal of portraiture. “However, it was as if I too wao feel extraordinary, different and unique,” he said. As if prodded by the Devil, he felt himself strongly drawn to what he feared. “How should I say it? It’s as if this were a sin of desire, like growing arrogant befod, like sidering oneself of utmost importance, like situating oneself at the ter of the world.”
Thereafter, this idea dawned on him: These methods which the Frankish artists made use of as if playing a prideful child’s game, could be more than simply magic associated with Our Exalted Sultan—but could in fact bee a force meant to serve ion, bringing us sway all who beheld it.
I learhat the idea of preparing an illuminated manuscript had arisen then: my Enishte, who’d returo Istanbul from Venice, suggested it would be excellent indeed for Our Sultan to be the subject of a portrait in the Frankish style. But after His Excellency took exception, a book taining pictures of Our Sultan and the objects that represented Him was agreed upon.
“It is the story that’s essential,” our wisest and most Glorious Sultan had said. “A beautiful illustratioly pletes the story. An illustration that does not plement a story, in the end, will bee but a false idol. Since we ot possibly believe in an absent story, we will naturally begin believing in the picture itself. This would be no different than the worship of idols in the Kaaba that went on before
Our Prophet, pead blessings be upon him, had destroyed them. If not as part of a story, how would you propose to depict this red ation, for example, or that i dwarf over there?”
“By exposing the ation’s beauty and uniqueness.”
“In the arra of your se, then, would you situate the flower at the precise ter of the page?”
“I was afraid,” my Enishte said. “I panicked momentarily when I realized where Our Sultan’s thoughts were taking me.”
What filled my Enishte with fear was the notion of situating at the ter of the page—and thereby, the world—something other than what God had intended.
“Thereafter,” Our Sultan had said, “you’ll want to exhibit a picture in whose ter you’ve situated a dwarf.” It was as I had assumed. “But this picture could never be displayed: after a while, we’d begin to worship a picture we’ve hung on a wall, regardless of the inal iions. If I believed, heaven forbid, the way these infidels do, that the Prophet Jesus was also the Lod himself, then I’d also hold that God could be observed in this world, and even, that He could ma in human form; only then might I accept the depi of mankind in full detail and exhibit such images. You do uand that, eventually, we would unthinkingly begin worshiping any picture that is hung on a wall, don’t you?”
My Enishte said: “I uood it quite well, and because I did, I was afraid of what we both were thinking.”
“For this reason,” Our Sultan remarked, “I could never allow my portrait to be displayed.”
“Though this is exactly what he wanted,” whispered my Enishte, with a devilish titter.
It was my <samp></samp>turn to be frightened now.
“heless, it is my desire that my portrait be made iyle of the Frankish masters,” Our Sulta on. “Such a portrait will, of course, have to be cealed within the pages of a book. Whatever that book might be, you shall be the oo tell me.”
“In an instant of surprise and awe, I sidered his statement,” said my Enishte, then grinning more devilishly than before, he seemed, suddenly, to bee someone else.
“His Excellency Our Sultan ordered me to start w on His book posthaste. My head spun with joy. He added that it ought to be prepared as a present for the Veian Doge, whom I was to visit once again. Ohe book was pleted, it would bee a symbol of the vanquishing power of the Islamic Caliph Our Exalted Sultan, ihousandth year of the Hegira. He requested that I prepare the
illuminated manuscript in utmost secrecy, primarily to ceal its purpose as an olive braeo the Veians, but also to avoid aggravating workshop jealousies. And in a state of great elation and sworn to secrecy, I embarked upon this venture.”
I AM YOUR BELOVED UNd so it was on that Friday m, I began to describe the book that would tain Our Sultan’s portrait painted in the Veian style. I broached the topic to Black by reting how I’d brought it up with Our Sultan and how I’d persuaded him to fund the book. My hidden purpose was to have Black write the stories—which I hadn’t even begun—that were meant to apany the illustrations.
I told him I’d pleted most of the book’s illustrations and that the last picture was nearly finished. “There’s a depi of Death,” I said, “and I had the most clever of miniaturists, Stork, illustrate the tree representing the peacefulness of Our Sultan’s worldly realm. There’s a picture of Satan and a horse meant to spirit us far far away. There’s a dog, always ing and wily, and also a gold …I had the master miniaturists depict these things with such beauty,” I told Black, “that if you saw them but once, you’d know straightaway what the correspondi ought to be. Poetry and painting, words and color, these things are brothers to each other, as you well know.”
For a while, I pondered whether I should tell him I might marry off my daughter to him. Would he live together with us in this house? I told myself not to be taken in by his rapt attention and his childlike expression. I knew he was scheming to elope with my Shekure. Still, I could rely on nobody else to finish my book.
Returning together from the Friday prayers, we discussed “shadow,” the greatest of innovations ma in the paintings of the Veian masters. “If,” I said, “we io make our paintings from the perspective of pedestrians exging pleasantries and regarding their world; that is, if we io illustrate from the street, we ought to learn how to at for—as the Franks do—what is, in fact, most prevalent there: shadows.”
“How does o shadow?” asked Black.
From time to time, as my nephew listened, I perceived impatien him. He’d begin to fiddle with the Mongol inkpot he’d given me as a present. At times, he’d take up the iron poker and stoke the fire iove. Now and then I imagihat he wao lower that poker onto my head and kill me because I dared to move the art of illustrating away from Allah’s perspective; because I would betray the dreams of the masters of Herat and their eradition of painting; because I’d duped Our Sultan into already doing so. Occasionally, Black would sit dead still for long stretches and fix his eyes deeply into mine. I could imagine what he was thinking: “I’ll be your slave until I have your daughter.” Once, as I would do when he was a child, I took him out into the yard and tried to explain to him, as a father might, about the trees, about the light falling onto the leaves, about the melting snow and why the houses seemed to shrink as we moved away from them. But this was a mistake: It proved only that our former
filial relationship had long since collapsed. Now patient sufferance of the rantings of a demented old man had taken the place of Black’s childhood curiosity and passion for knowledge. I was just an old man whose daughter was the object of Black’s love. The influend experience of the tries and cities that my nephew had traveled through for a dozen years had been fully absorbed by his soul. He was tired of me, and I pitied him. And he was angry, I assumed, not only because I hadn’t allowed him to marry Shekure twelve years ago—after all, there was no other choice then—but because I dreamed of paintings whose style transgressed the precepts of the masters of Herat. Furthermore, because I raved about this nonseh such vi, I imagined my death at his hands.
I was not, however, afraid of him; on the trary, I tried thten him. For I believed that fear ropriate to the writing I’d requested of him. “As in those pictures,” I said, “one ought to be able to situate oneself at the ter of the world. One of my illustrators brilliantly depicted Death for me. Behold.”
Thus I began to show him the paintings I’d secretly issioned from the master miniaturists over the last year. At first, he was a tad shy, even frightened. When he uood that the depi of Death was inspired by familiar ses that could be found in many Book of Kings volumes—from the se of Afrasiyab’s decapitation of Siyavush, for example, or Rüstem’s murder of Suhrab without realizing this was his son—he quickly became ied in the subject. Among the pictures that depicted the funeral of the late Sultan Süleyman was one I’d made with bold but sad colors, bining a positional sensibility inspired by the Franks with my own attempt at shading—which I’d added later. I pointed out the diabolic depth evoked by the interplay of cloud and horizon. I reminded him that Death was unique, just like the portraits of infidels I had seen hanging iian palazzos; all of them desperately yearo be rendered distinctly. “They want to be so distind different, and they want this with such passion that,” I said, “look, look into the eyes of Death. See how men do not fear Death, but rather the violence implicit in the desire to be one-of-a-kind, unique and exceptional. Look at this illustration and write an at of it. Give voice to Death. Here’s paper and pen. I shall give what you write to the calligrapher straightaway.”
He stared at the picture in silence. “Who paihis?” he asked later.
“Butterfly. He’s the most talented of the lot. Master Osman had been in love with and awed by him for years.”
“I’ve seen rougher versions of this depi of a dog at the coffeehouse where the storyteller performs,” Black said.
“My illustrators, most of whom are spiritually bound to Master Osman and the workshop, take a dim view of the labors performed for my book. When they leave here at night I imagihey have their vulgar fuhese illustrations which they draw for money and ridicule me at the coffeehouse. And who among them will ever fet the time Our Sultan had the youian artist, whom He’d invited from the embassy at my behest, paint His portrait. Thereafter, He had Master Osman make a copy of that
oil painting. Forced to imitate the Veian painter, Master Osman held me responsible for this unseemly coer and the shameful portrait that came of it. He was justified.”
All day long, I showed him every picture—except the final illustration that I ot, for whatever reason, finish. I prodded him to write. I discussed the temperaments of the miniaturists, and I eed the sums of money I meted out to them. We discussed “perspective” and whether the diminutive objects in the background of Veian pictures were sacrilegious, and equally, we talked about the possibility that unfortunate Elegant Effendi had been murdered for excessive ambition and out of jealousy over his wealth.
As Black returned home that night, I was fident he’d e again the m as promised and that he’d once again listen to me ret the stories that would stitute my book. I listeo his footsteps fading beyond the open gate; there was something to the cold night that seemed to make my sleepless and troubled murderer stronger and more devilish than me and my book.
I closed the courtyard gate tightly behind him. I placed the old ceramic water basin that I used as a basil planter behind the gate as I did eaight. Before I reduced the stove to sm ashes ao bed, I glanced up to see Shekure in a white gown looking like a ghost in the blaess.
“Are you absolutely certain that you want to marry him?” I asked.
“No, dear Father. I’ve long since fotten about marriage. Besides, I am married.”
“If you still want to marry him, I’m willing to give you my blessing now.”
“I wish not to be wed to him.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s against your will. In all siy, I desire nobody that you do not want.”
I noticed, momentarily, the coals iove reflected in her eyes. Her eyes had aged, not out of unhappiness, but anger; yet there was no trace of offense in her voice.
“Black is in love with you,” I said as if divulging a secret.
“I know.”
“He listeo all I had to say today not out of his love of painting, but out of his love for you.”
“He will plete your book, this is what matters.”
“Your husband might return one day,” I said.
“I’m not certain why, perhaps it’s the silence, but tonight I’ve realized ond for all that my husband will never return. What I’ve dreamt seems to be the truth: They must’ve killed him. He’s long siuro dust.” She whispered the last statemehe sleeping children hear. And she said it with a peculiar tinge of anger.
“If they happen to kill me,” I said, “I want you to finish this book to which I’ve dedicated everything. Swear that you will.”
“I give my word. Who will be the oo plete your book?”
“Black! You ehat he does so.”
“You are already ensuring that he does so, dear Father,” she said. “You have no need for me.”
“Agreed, but he’s giving in to me because of you. If they kill me, he might be afraid to tinue on.”
“In that case, he won’t be able to marry me,” said my clever daughter, smiling.
Where did I e up with the detail about her smiling? During the entire versation, I notiothing except an occasional glimmer in her eyes. We were standing tensely fag one another in the middle of the room.
“Do you unicate with each other, exge signals?” I asked, uo tain myself.
“How could you even think such a thing?”
A long agonizing silence passed. A dog barked in the distance. I was slightly cold and shuddered. The room was so blaow that we could no longer see each other; we could ealy sehe other’s presence. tly embraced with all ht. She began to cry, and said that she missed her mother. I kissed and stroked her head, whideed smelled like her mother’s hair. I walked her to her bedchamber and put her to bed o the children who were sleeping side by side. And as I reflected back over the last two days, I was certain that Shekure had corresponded with Black.
百度搜索 My Name is Red 天涯 或 My Name is Red 天涯在线书库 即可找到本书最新章节.