I AM CALLED BLACK
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When I returned home that night, ably evading my landlady—who was beginning to act like my mother—I sequestered myself in my room and lay on my mattress, giving myself over to visions of Shekure.Allow me the amusement of describing the sounds I’d heard in Enishte’s house. On my sed visit
after twelve years, she didn’t show herself. She did succeed, however, in so magically endowih her presehat I was certain of being, somehow, tinually under her watch, while she sized me up as a future husband, amusing herself all the while as if playing a game of logiowing this, I also imagined I was tinually able to see her. Thus was I better able to uand Ibn Arabi’s notion that love is the ability to make the invisible visible and the desire always to feel the invisible in one’s midst.
I could ihat Shekure was tinually watg me because I’d been listening to the sounds ing from within the house and to the creaking of its wood boards. At one point, I was absolutely certain she was with her children in the room, which opened onto the wide hallway-cum-anteroom; I could hear the children pushing, shoving and sparring with each other while their mother, perhaps, tried to quiet them with gestures, threatening glances and knit brows. On a while I heard them whispering quite unnaturally, not as one would whisper to avoid disturbing someone’s ritual prayers, but affectedly, as one would before erupting in a fit of laughter.
Aime, as their grandfather was explaining to me the wonders of light and shadow, Shevket and Orhaered the room, and with careful gestures obviously rehearsed beforehand, proffered a tray and served us coffee. This ceremony, which should’ve been Hayriye’s , was arranged by Shekure so they could observe the man who might soon bee their father. And so, I paid a pliment to Shevket: “What nice eyes you have.” Then, I immediately turo his younger brother, Orhan—sensing that he might grow jealous—and added, “Yours are as well.” , I placed a faded red atioal, which I’d fast produced from the folds of my robe, onto the tray and kissed each boy on the cheeks. Later still, I heard laughter and giggling from within.
Frequently, I grew curious to know from which hole in the walls, the closed doors, or perhaps, the ceiling, and from whigle, her eye eering at me. Staring at a crack, knot or what I took to be a hole, I’d imagine Shekure situated just behind it. Suddenly, suspeg another black spot, and to determine whether I was justified in my suspi—even at the risk of being ioward my Enishte as he tinued his endless recital—I’d stand up. Affeg all the while the demeanor of an attentive disciple, quite enthralled and quite lost in thought, in order to demonstrate how i I on my Enishte’s story, I’d begin pag in the room with a preoccupied air, before approag that suspicious black spot on the wall.
When I failed to find Shekure’s eye ing in what I had taken to be a peephole, I’d be overe by disappoi, and then by a strange feeling of loneliness, by the impatience of a man uaio tur.
Now and then, I’d experience su abrupt and intense feeling that Shekure was watg me, I’d be so absolutely vinced I was within her gaze, that I’d start posing like a man trying to show he was wiser, stronger and more capable than he really was so as to impress the woman he loved. Later, I’d fantasize that Shekure and her boys were parih her husband—the boys’ missing father—before my mind would focus again upon whichever variety of famous Veian illustrator about whose painting teiques my Enishte was waxing philosophic at the moment. I loo be like these newly
famed painters solely because Shekure had heard so much about them from her father; illustrators who had earheir renown—not through suffering martyrdom in cells like saints, or through severing the heads of enemy soldiers with a mighty arm and a sharp scimitar, as that absent husband had do on at of a manuscript they’d transcribed or a page they’d illuminated. I tried very hard to imagihe magnifit pictures created by these celebrated illustrators, who were, as my Enishte explained, inspired by the power of the world’s mystery and its visible blaess. I tried so hard to visualize them—those masterpieces my Enishte had seen and was now attempting to describe to one who had never laid eyes ohat, finally, when my imagination failed me, I felt only more dejected and demeaned.
I looked up to discover that Shevket was before me again. He approached me decisively, and I assumed—as was ary for the oldest male child amoain Arab tribes in Transoxiana and among Circassian tribes in the Caucasus mountains—that he would not only kiss a guest’s hand at the beginning of a visit, but also when that guest left. Caught off guard, I presented my hand for him to kiss. At that moment, from somewhere not too far away, I heard her laughter. Was she laughing at me? I became flustered and to remedy the situation, I grabbed Shevket and kissed him on both cheeks as though this were what was really expected of me. Then I smiled at my Enishte as though to apologize for interrupting him and to assure him that I meant no disrespect, while carefully drawing the child o check whether he bore his m<s></s>other’s st. By the time I uood that the boy had placed a crumpled scrap of paper into my hand, he’d long siurned his bad walked some distaoward the door.
I clutched the scrap of paper in my fist like a jewel. And when I uood that this was a note from Shekure, out of elation I could scarcely keep from grinning stupidly at my Enishte. Wasn’t this proof enough that Shekure passionately desired me? Suddenly, I imagined us engaged in a mad frenzy of lovemaking. So profoundly vinced was I that this incredible event I’d jured was immihat my manhood inappropriately began to rise—there in the preseny Enishte. Had Shekure withis? I focused ily on what my Enishte was explaining in order to redirect my tration.
Much later, while my Enishte came o show me another illustrated plate from his book, I discreetly unfolded the note, which smelled of honeysuckle, only to discover that she’d left it pletely blank. I couldn’t believe my eyes and senselessly turhe paper over and over, examining it.
“A window,” said my Enishte. “Using perspectival teiques is like regarding the world from a window—what is that you are holding?”
“It’s nothing, Enishte Effendi,” I said. When he looked away, I brought the crumpled paper to my nose and deeply is st.
After an afternoon meal, as I did not want to use my Enishte’s chamber pot, I excused myself ao the outhouse in the yard. It was bitter cold. I had quickly seen to my without freezing my buttocks too much when I saw that Shevket had slyly and silently appeared before me, blog my way like a brigand. In his hands he held his grandfather’s full and steaming chamber pot. He ehe
outhouse after me aied the pot. He exited and fixed his pretty eyes on mine as he puffed out his plump cheeks, still holding the empty pot.
“Have you ever seen a dead cat?” he asked. His nose was exactly like his mother’s. Was she watg us? I looked around. The shutters were closed on the ented sed-floor window in which I’d first seen Shekure after so many years.
“Nay.”
“Shall I show you the dead cat in the house of the Hanged Jew?”
He went out to the street without waiting for my response. I followed him. We walked forty or fifty paces along the muddy and icy path before entering an u garden. Here, it smelled of wet and rotting leaves, and faintly of mold. With the fidence of a child who khe place well, taking firm, rhythmic steps, he ehrough the door of a yellow house, which stood before us almost hidden behind s and almond trees.
The house was pletely empty, but it was dry and warm, as if somebody were living there.
“Whose house is this?” I asked.
“The Jews”. When the man died, his wife and kids went to the Jewish quarter over by the fruit-sellers’ quay. They’re haviher the clothier sell the house.“ He went into a er of the room aurned. ”The cat’s go’s disappeared,“ he said.
“Where would a dead cat go?”
“My grandfather says the dead wander.”
“Not the dead themselves,” I said. “Their spirits wander.”
“How do you know?” he said. He was holding the chamber pot tightly against his lap in all seriousness.
“I just know. Do you always e here?”
“My mother es here with Esther. The living dead, risen from the grave, e here at night, but I’m not afraid of this place. Have you ever killed a man?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“Not many. Two.”
“With a sword?”
“With a sword.”
“Do their souls wander?”
“I don’t know. Acc to what’s written in books, they must wander.”
“Uncle Hasan has a red sword. It’s so sharp it’ll cut you if you just touch it. And he has a dagger with a ruby-studded handle. Are you the one who killed my father?”
I nodded indig her “yes” nor “no.” “How do you know that your father is dead?”
“My mother said so yesterday. He won’t be returning. She saw him in her dream.”
If presented with the opportunity, we would choose to do in the name of a greater goal whatever awful thing we’ve already prepared to do for the sake of our own miserable gains, for the lust that burns within us or for the love that breaks our hearts; and so, I resolved once more to bee the father of these forsaken children, and, when I returo the house, I listened more ily to Shevket’s grandfather as he described the book whose text and illustrations I had to plete.
Let me begin with the illustrations that my Enishte had showhe horse for example. On this page there were no human figures and the area around the horse was empty; even so, I couldn’t say it was simply and exclusively the painting of a horse. Yes, the horse was there, yet it arent that the rider had stepped off to the side, or who knows, perhaps he was on the verge of emerging from behind the bush drawn in the Kazvin style. This was immediately apparent from the saddle upon the horse, which bore the marks and embellishments of nobility: Maybe, a man with his sword at the ready was about to appear beside the steed.
It was obvious that Enishte issiohis horse from a master illustrator whom he’d secretly summoned from the workshop. Because the illustrator, arriving at night, could draw a horse—ingrained in his mind like a stencil—only if it were the extension of a story, that’s exactly how he’d begin: by rote. As he was drawing the horse, which he’d seen thousands of times in ses of love and war, my Enishte, inspired by the methods of the Veian masters, had probably instructed the illustrator; for example, he might have said, “Fet about the rider, draw a tree there. But draw it in the background, on a smaller scale.”
The illustrator, who came at night, would sit before his work desk together with my Enishte, eagerly drawing by dlelight an odd, unventional picture that didn’t resemble any of the usual ses to
which he was aced and had memorized. Of course, my Enishte paid him handsomely for each drawing, but frankly, this peculiar method of drawing also had its charms. However, as with my Enishte, after a while, the illustrator could no longer determine which story the illustration was inteo enhand plete. What my Enishte expected of me was that I examihese illustrations made in half-Veian, half-Persian mode and write a story suitable to apany them on the opposite page. If I hoped to get Shekure, I absolutely had to write these stories, but all that came to mihe stories the storyteller told at the coffeehouse.
I WILL BE CALLED A MURDERERTig away, my windup cloe it was evening. The prayers had yet to be called, but long before, I’d lit the dle resting beside my folding worktable. I quickly pleted drawing an opium addict from memory, having dipped my reed pen into black Hasan Pasha ink and skated it over well-burnished aifully sized paper, when I heard that voice calli to the street as it did every night. I resisted. I was so determined not to go, but to stay at home and work, I even tried nailing my door shut for a time.
This book I was hastily pleting was issioned by an Armenian who’d e all the way from Galata, knog on my door this m before anyone had risen. The man, an interpreter and guide, though he stuttered, hunted me down whenever a Frank or Veian traveler wanted a “book of es” and engaged me in a bout of vicious bargaining. Having agreed that m upon a lesser-quality book of es for a price of twenty silver pieces, I proceeded to illustrate a dozen Istanbulites in a siting around the time of the evening prayer, paying particular attention to the detail of their outfits. I drew a Sheikhulislam, a palace porter, a preacher, a Janissary, a dervish, a cavalryman, a judge, a liver seller, aioner—executioners i of torture sold quite well—a beggar, a woman bound for the hamam, and an opium addict. I’d done so many of these books just to earn a few extra silver pieces that I began to i games for myself to fight off boredom while I drew; for example, I forced myself to draw the judge without lifting my pen off the page or to draw the beggar with my eyes closed.
All brigands, poets and men of stant sorrow know that when the evening prayer is called the jinns and demons within them will grow agitated and rebellious, urging in unision: “Out! Outside!” This restless inner voice demands, “Seek the pany of others, seek blaess, misery and disgrace.” I’ve spent my time appeasing these jinns and demons. I’ve painted pictures, which many regard as miracles that have issued from my hands, with the help of these evil spirits. But for seven days now after dusk, since I murdered that disgrace, I’m no longer able to trol the jinns and demons withihey rage with such violehat I tell myself they might calm down if I go out for a while.
After saying so, as always without knowing how, I found myself roaming through the night. I walked briskly, advang through snowy streets, muddy passages, icy slopes aed sidewalks as if I would op. As I walked, desding into the dark of night, into the most remote and abandoned parts of the city, I’d ever so gradually leave my soul behind, and walking along the narrow streets, my
footsteps eg off the walls of stone inns, schools and mosques, my fears would subside.
Of their own accord, my feet brought me to the abareets of this neighborhood oskirts of the city, where I came eaight and where eveers and jinns would shudder to roam. I heard tell that half the men in this neighborhood had perished in the wars with Persia and that the rest had fled, declaring it ill-omened, but I don’t believe such superstition. The only tragedy that has befallen this good quarter on at of the Safavid wars was the closin<var></var>g of the Kalenderi dervish house forty years ago because it was suspected of harb the enemy.
I meandered behind the mulberry bushes and the bay-leaf trees, which had a pleasant aroma even in the coldest weather, and with my usual fastidiousness, I straightened up the wall boards between the collapsed ey and the window with its dilapidated shutters. I entered and drew the lingering st of one-hundred-year-old inse and mold deep into my lungs. It made me so blissful to be here, I thought tears would fall from my eyes.
If I haven’t already said so, I’d like to say that I fear nothing but Allah and the punishmeed out in this world has no import whatsoever in my opinion. What I fear are the various torments that murderers like myself will have to endure on Judgment Day, as is clearly described in the Glorious Koran, in the “Criterion” chapter, for example. In the a books, that I quite rarely lay hold of, whenever I see this punishment in all its colors and violence, recalling the simple, childish, yet terrifying ses of Hell illustrated on calfskin by the old Arab miniaturists, or, for whatever reason, the torments of demoed by ese and Mongol master artists, I ’t keep myself from drawing this analogy and heeding its logic: What does “The Night Journey” chapter state in its thirty-third verse? Is it not written that one should not, without justification, take the life of another whose murder God forbids? All right then: The mist I’ve sent to Hell was not a believer, whose murder God had forbidden; and besides, I had excellent justification for shattering his skull.
This man had slahose of us who’d worked on that book Our Sultan had secretly issioned. If I hadn’t silenced him, he would’ve denounced as unbelievers Enishte Effendi, all the miniaturists and even Master Osmaing the rabid followers of the Hoja of Erzurum have their way with them. If someone succeeded in announg that the miniaturists were itting blasphemy, these followers of Ezurumi—who are looking for any excuse to exercise their strength—wouldn’t just be satisfied with doing away with the master miniaturists, they’d destroy the entire workshop and Our Sultan would be helpless to do anything but watch without a peep.
As I did every time I came here, I ed up with the broom and ss I kept hidden in a er. As I ed, I was heartened a like a dutiful servant of Allah again. So that He wouldn’t deprive me of this blessed feeling, I prayed for a long time. The cold, which was enough to make a fox shit copper, drove into my bones. I began to feel that sinister ache at the bay throat. I stepped outside.
Soon afterward, again in the same straate of mind, I found myself in a pletely different neighborhood. I don’t know what had happened, what I’d thought between the deserted neighborhood of
the dervish house and here. I didn’t know how I’d arrived on these roads lined with cypress trees.
However much I walked, a pestering thought wouldn’t leave me be, and it ate at me like a worm. Maybe if I tell you it’ll ease the burden: Call him a “vile slanderer” or “poor Elegant Effendi”—either way it’s the same thing—a short time before the dearly departed gilder had left this world, he was making vehement accusations against our Enishte, but when he saw that I wasn’t that affected by his declaration that Enishte Effendi made use of the perspectival teiques of the infidels, that beast divulged the following: “There’s one final picture. In that picture Enishte desecrates everything we believe in. What he’s doing is no longer an insult tion, it’s pure blasphemy.” Furthermore, three weeks after this accusation by that sdrel, Enishte Effendi had actually asked me to illustrate a number of ued things, such as a horse, a ah, in various random spots on a page and in shogly insistent scales; indeed, it was what one would expect of a Frankish painting. Enishte always took the trouble to cover large portions of the ruled se of the page he wanted me to illustrate as well as the places ill-fated Elegant Effendi had guilded, as though he wao ceal something from me and the other miniaturists.
I want to ask Enishte what he’s illustrating in this large, final painting, but there’s much holding me back. If I ask him, he’ll of course suspect that I murdered Elegant Effendi and make his suspis known to all. But there’s something else that ules me as well. If I ask him, Enishte might declare that Elegant Effendi was in fact justified in his beliefs. Occasionally, I tell myself I should ask him, pretending as if this suspi hadn’t passed to me from Elegant Effendi, but had simply occurred to me. In the end, it’s no fort either way.
My legs, which have always been quicker than my head, had taken me of their own accord to Enishte Effendi’s street. I crouched in a secluded spot, and for a long time observed the house as best I could in the blaess. I watched for a long time: led among trees was the large and odd-looking two-story house of a rich man! I couldn’t tell on which side Shekure’s room was located. As is the case in some of the pictures made in Tabriz during the reign of Shah Tahmasp, I imagihe house in cross-se—as if it were cut in half with a knife—and I tried to illustrate in my mind’s eye where I would find my Shekure, behind which shutter.
The door opened. I saw Black leaving the house in the darkness. Enishte gazed at him with affe from behind the courtyard gate for a moment before closing it.
Even my mind, which had given itself over to idiotitasies, quickly, and painfully, drew three clusions based on what I had seen:
One: Since Black was cheaper and less dangerous, Enishte Effendi would have him plete our book.
Two: The beautiful Shekure would marry Black.
Three: What the unfortunate Elegant Effendi had said was true, and so, I’d killed him for naught.
In situations such as this, as soon as our merciless intellects draw the bitter clusion that our hearts refuse, the entire body rebels against the mind. At first, half my mind violently opposed the third clusion, whidicated that I was nothing but the vilest of murderers. My legs, once again, ag quicker and more rationally than my head, had already put me in pursuit of Black Effendi.
We’d passed down a few side streets when I thought how very easy it would be to murder him, so tentedly and self-assuredly walking before me, and how such a crime would save me from having to front the first two vexing clusioablished by my mind. Furthermore, I wouldn’t have cracked Elegant Effendi’s skull for no reason at all. Now, if I run ahead eight or ten paces, catch up to Blad land a blow onto his head with all my might, everything will go on as usual. Enishte Effendi will invite me to finish our book. But meanwhile my more ho (what was hoy if not fear?) and prudent side tio tell me that the monster I’d murdered and tossed into a well was truly a slanderer. And if this were the case, I hadn’t killed him for naught, and Enishte, who no longer had anything to hide with respect to the book he was making, would most certainly invite me back to his home.
As I watched Black walking before me, however, I knew with utmost certainty that none of this would happen. It was all illusion. Black Effendi was more real than I. It happens to us all: Iion to being overly logical we’ll feed fantasies for weeks and years on end, and one day we’ll see something, a face, an outfit, a happy person, and suddenly realize that our dreams will never e true; thus, we e to uand that a particular maiden won’t be permitted to marry us or that we’ll never reach sud-such a station in life.
I was watg the rise and fall of Black’s shoulders, his head and his he incredibly annoying way that he walked, as though his every step were a gift to the world—with a profound hatred that coiled cozily around my heart. Men like Black, free from pangs of sd with promising futures before them, assume that the entire world is their home; they open every door like a sultaering his personal stable and immediately belittle those of us crouched ihe urge to grab a stone and run up behind him was almost too great to resist.
We were two men in love with the same woman; he was in front of me and pletely unaware of my presence as we walked through the turning and twisting streets of Istanbul, climbing and desding, we traveled like brethren through deserted streets giveo battling packs of stray dogs, passed burnt ruins where jinns loitered, mosque courtyards where angels reed on domes to sleep, beside cypress trees murmuring to the souls of the dead, beyond the edges of snow-covered cemeteries crowded with ghosts, just out of sight ands strangling their victims, passed endless shops, stables, dervish houses, dle works, leather works and stone walls; and as we made ground, I felt I wasn’t following him at all, but rather, that I was imitating him.
I AM DEATHI am Death, as you plainly see, but you be afraid, I’m just an illustratiohat as it may, I read terror in your eyes. Though you know very well that I’m not real—like children who give
themselves over to a game—you’re still seized by horror, as if you’d actually met Death himself. This pleases me. As you look at me, you sehat you’ll soil yourselves out of fear when that unavoidable last moment is upon you. This is no joke. When faced with Death, people lose trol of their bodily funs—particularly the majority of those men who are known to be brave-hearted. For this reason, the corpse-strewn battlefields that you’ve depicted thousands of times reek not of blood, gunpowder aed armor as is assumed, but of shit and rotting flesh.
I know this is the first time you’ve seen a depi of Death.
One year ago, a tall, thin and mysterious old man io his house the young master miniaturist who would soon enough illustrate me. In the half-dark workroom of the two-story house, the old man served an exquisite cup of silky, amber-sted coffee to the young master, which cleared the youth’s mind. , in that shadowy room with the blue door, the old maed the master miniaturist by flaunting the best paper from Hindustan, brushes made of squirrel hair, varieties of gold leaf, all manner of reed pens and coral-handled penknives, indig that he would be able to pay handsomely.
“Now then, draw Death for me,” the old man said.
“I ot draicture of Death without ever, not on my entire life, having seen a picture of Death,” said the miraculously sure-handed miniaturist, who would shortly, in fact, end up doing the drawing.
“You do not always o have seen an illustration of something in order to depict that thing,” objected the refined ahusiastian.
“Yes, perhaps not,” said the master illustrator. “Yet, if the picture is to be perfect, the way the masters of old would’ve made it, it ought to be drawn at least a thousand times before I attempt it. No matter how masterful a miniaturist might be, when he paints an object for the first time, he’ll re as an apprentice would, and I could never do that. I ot put my mastery aside while illustratih; this would be equivalent to dying myself.”
“Such a death might put you in touch with the subject matter,” quipped the old man.
“It’s not experience of subject matter that makes us masters, it’s never having experie that makes us masters.”
“Such mastery ought to be acquainted with Death then.”
In this mahey entered into aed versation with double entendre, allusions, puns, obscure references and innuendos, as befit miniaturists who respected both the old masters as well as their own talent. Si was my existehat was being discussed, I listened ily to the versation, the ey of which, I know, would bore the distinguished miniaturists among us in this good coffeehouse.
Let me just say that there came a point when the discussion touched upon the following:
“Is the measure of a miniaturist’s talent the ability to depict everything with the same perfe as the great masters or the ability to introduto the picture subject matter whio one else see?” said the sure-handed, stunning-eyed, brilliant illustrator, and although he himself khe ao this question, he remained quite reserved.
“The Veians measure a miniaturist’s prowess by his ability to discover novel subject matter and teiques that have never before been used,” insisted the old man arrogantly.
“Veians die like Veians,” said the illustrator who would soon draw me.
“All our deaths resemble one another,” said the old man.
“Legends and paintings ret how men are distinct from one another, not how everybody resembles one another,” said the wise illustrator. “The master miniaturist earns his mastery by depig unique legends as if we were already familiar with them.”
In this mahe versation turo the differences between the deaths of Veians and Ottomans, to the Angel of Death and the els of Allah, and how they could never be appropriated by the artistry of the infidels. The young master who is presently staring at me with his beautiful eyes in our dear coffeehouse was disturbed by these weighty words, his hands grew impatient, he loo depict me, yet he had no idea what kind of entity I was.
The sly and calculating old man who wao beguile the young master caught the st of the young man’s eagerness. In the shadowy room, the old man bore his eyes, which glowed in the light of the idly burning oil lamp, into the miracle-handed young master.
“Death, whom the Veia in human form, is to us an angel like Azrael,” he said. “Yes, in the form of a man. Just like Gabriel, eared as a person when he delivered the Sacred Word to Our Prophet. You do uand, don’t you?”
I realized that the young master, whom Allah had endowed with astonishing talent, was impatient and wao illustrate me, because the devilish old man had succeeded in arousing him with this devilish idea: What we essentially want is to draw something unknown to us in all its shadowiness, not something we know in all its illumination.
“I am not, in the least, familiar with Death,” said the miniaturist.
“We all know Death,” said the old man.
“We fear it, but we don’t know it.”
“Then it falls to you to draw that fear,” said the old man.
He was about to create me just then. The great master miniaturist’s nape was tingling; his arm muscles were tensing up and his fingers yearned for a reed pe, because he was the most genuine of great masters, he restrained himself, knowing that this tension would further deepen the love of painting in his soul.
The wily old man uood what was happening, and aiming to inspire the youth in his rendition of me, which he was certain would be pleted before long, he began to read passages about me from the books before him: El-Jevziyye’s Book of the Soul, Gazzali’s Book of the Apocalypse and Suyuti.
And so, as the master miniaturist with the miracle touch was making this portrait, which you now so fearfully behold, he listeo how the Angel of Death had thousands of wings which spanned Heaven ah, from the farthest point in the East to the farthest point in the West. He heard how these wings would be a great fort to the truly faithful yet for sinners and rebels as painful as a spike through the flesh. Since a majority of you miniaturists are bound for Hell, he depicted me laden with spikes. He listeo how the angel sent to you by Allah to take your lives would carry a ledger wherein all your names appeared and how, some of your names would be circled in black. Only Allah has knowledge of the exaent of death: When this moment arrives, a leaf falls from the tree located beh His throne and whoever lays hold of this leaf read for whom Death has e. For all these reasons, the miniaturist depicted me as a terrifying being, but thoughtful, too, like one who uands ats. The mad old man tio read: when the Angel of Death, eared in human form, extended his hand and took the soul of the person whose time oh had ended, an all-enpassing light remi of the light of the sun shone, and thus, the wise miniaturist depicted me bathed in light, for he also khat this light wouldn’t be visible to those who had gathered beside the deceased. The impassioned old man read from the Book of the Soul about a grave robbers who had witnessed, in place of bodies riddled with spikes, only flames and skulls filled with molten lead. Hehe wondrous illustrator, listening ily to such ats, depicted me in a mahat would terrify whoever laid eyes on me.
Later, he regretted what he’d done. Not due to the terror with which he’d imbued his picture, but because he dared to make the illustration at all. As for me, I feel like someone whose father regards him with embarrassment a. Why did the miniaturist with the gifted hands regret having illustrated me?
1. Because I, the picture of Death, had not been drawn with enough mastery. As you see, I am not as perfect as what the great Veian masters or the old masters of Herat drew. I, too, am embarrassed by my wretess. The great master has not depicted me in a style befitting the dignity of Death.
2. Upon being ingly duped by the old man, the master illustrator who drew me found himself, suddenly and unwittingly, imitating the methods and perspectives of the Frankish virtuosos. It disturbed
his soul because he felt he was being disrespectful and, he sensed for the first time, oddly dishonorable toward the old masters.
3. It must’ve even dawned on him, as it does now on some of the imbeciles who have tired of me and are smiling: Death is no laughing matter.
The master miniaturist who made me now roams the streets endlessly eaight in fits ret; like certain ese masters, he believes he’s bee what he has drawn.
I AM ESTHERLadies from the neighborhoods of Redmi and Blackcat had ordered purple and red quilting from the town of Bilejik; so, early in the m, I loaded up my makeshift satchel—the large cloth that I’d fill up and tie into a bundle. I removed the green ese silk that had retly arrived by way of the Puese trader but wasn’t selling, substituting the more alluring blue. And given the persistent snows of this endless winter, I carefully folded plenty of colorful socks, thick sashes and heavy vests, all of wool, arranging them in the ter of the bundle: When I spread open my bla a bouquet of color would bloom to make even the most indifferent woman’s heart leap. , I packed some lightweight, but expensive, silk handkerchiefs, money purses and embroidered washcloths especially for those ladies who called for me not to make a purchase but to gossip. I lifted the tote. My goodness, this is much too heavy, it’ll break my back. I put it down and ope. As I stared at it, trying to determine what to leave out, I heard knog at the door. Nesim ope and called to me.
It was that e Hayriye, all flushed and blushing. She held a letter in her hand.
“Shekure sent it,” she hissed. This slave was so flustered that you’d think she was the one who’d fallen in love and wao get married.
With dead seriousness, I grabbed the letter. I warhe idiot to return home without being seen by anyone and she left. Nesim cast a questioning eye at me. I took up the larger, yet lighter decoy satchel I carried whenever I was out delivering my letters.
“Shekure, the daughter of Master Enishte, is burning with love,” I said. “She’s gone clear out of her mind, the pirl.”
I cackled and stepped outside, but then was gripped by pangs of embarrassment. If truth be told, I loo shed a tear for Shekure’s sorrows instead of making light of her dalliances. How beautiful she is, that dark-eyed melancholy girl of mine!
I ever so quickly strode past the run-down homes of our Jewish neighborhood, which looked even more deserted and pitiful in the m cold. Much later, when I caught sight of that blind beggar who always took up his spot on the er of Hasan’s street, I shouted as loud as I could, “Clothierrr!”
“Fat witch,” he said. “Even if you hadn’t shouted I would’ve reized you by your footsteps.”
“You good-for-nothing blind man,” I said. “You ill-fated Tatar! Blind men like you are sces forsaken by Allah. May He give you the punishment you deserve.”
In the past, such exges wouldn’t have angered me. I wouldn’t have taken them seriously. Hasan’s father opehe door. He was an Abkhazian, a noble gentleman and polite.
“Let’s have a look, then, what have yht with you this time?” he said.
“Is that slothful son of yours still asleep?”
“How could he be sleeping? He’s waiting, expeg news from you.”
This house is so dark that each time I visit, I feel as if I’ve entered a tomb. Shekure never asks what they’re up to, but I always make a point of carping about the place so she won’t even sider returning to this crypt. It’s hard to imagihat lovely Shekure was once mistress of this house and that she lived here with her rascally boys. Within, it smelled of sleep ah. I ehe room, moving farther into the blaess.
You couldn’t see your hand before your face. I didn’t even have the ce to present the letter to Hasan. He appeared out of the darkness and snatched it from my hand. As I always did, I left him aloo read the letter and satisfy his curiosity. He soon raised his head from the page.
“Isn’t there anything else?” he said. He khere was nothing else. “This is a brief note,” he said and readBlack Effendi, you pay visits to our home, and spend your days here. Yet I’ve heard that you haven’t written even a single line of my father’s book. Don’t get your hopes up without first pleting that manuscript.
Letter in hand, he glared acgly into my eyes, as if all this was my fault. I’m not fond of these silences in this house.
“There’s no longer any word of her being married, of her husbaurning from the front,” he said. “Why?”
“How should I know why?” I said. “I’m not the one who writes the letters.”
“Sometimes I wonder even about that,” he said, handing back the letter along with fifteen silver.
“Some men grow stihe more they earn. You’re not that way,” I said.
There was su enting, intelligent side to this man that despite all his dark and evil traits, one could see why Shekure would still accept his letters.
“What is this book of Shekure’s father?”
“You know! Our Sultan is funding the whole project they say.”
“Miniaturists are murdering each other over the pictures in that book,” he said. “Is it for the money od forbid—because the book desecrates ion? They say one gla its pages is enough t on blindness.”
He said all this, smiling in such a way that I knew I shouldn’t take any of it seriously. Even if it were a matter to take to heart, at the very least, there was nothing for him to take seriously about me taking the matter seriously. Like many of the men who depended on my services as a letter courier aor, Hasan lashed out at me when his pride was hurt. I, as part of my job, preteo be upset to hearten him. Maidens, on the trary, hugged me and cried when their feelings were hurt.
“You’re an intelligent woman,” said Hasan in order to soothe my pride, which he believed he’d injured. “Deliver this posthaste. I’m curious about that fool’s response.”
For a moment, I felt like saying, “Black is not so foolish.” In such situations, making rival suitors jealous of each other will earher the matchmaker more money. But I was afraid he’d have a sudden tantrum.
“You know the Tatar beggar at the end of the street?” I said. “He’s very vulgar, that one.”
To avoid getting into it with the blind man, I walked dowher end of the street and thus happeo pass through the Chi Market early in the m. Why don’t Muslims eat the heads a of chis? Because they’re se! My grandmother, may she rest in peace, would tell me how chi feet were so inexpensive when her family arrived here from Pal that she’d boil them for food.
At Kemeraral 1k, I saw a woman on horseback with her slaves, sitting bolt upright like a man. She roud as proud could be, maybe the wife of a pasha or his rich daughter. I sighed. If Shekure’s father hadn’t been so absentmindedly devoted to books, if her husband had returned from the Safavid war with his plunder, Shekure might’ve lived like this haughty woman. More than anyone, she deserved it.
When I turned onto Black’s street, my heart quied. Did I want Shekure to marry this man? I’ve succeeded both in keeping Shekure involved with Hasan and, at the same time, in keeping them apart.
But what about this Black? He seems to have both feet on the ground in all respects except with regard to his love for Shekure.
“Clothierrrrr!”
There’s nothing I’d trade for the pleasure of deliveriers to lovers addled by loneliness or the lack of wife or husband. Even if they’re certain of receiving the worst news, when they’re about to read the letter, a shudder of hope overes them.
By not mentioning anything about her husband’s return, by tying her warning “Don’t get your hopes up” to one dition alone, Shekure had, of course, given Black more than just cause to be hopeful. With great pleasure, I watched him read the letter. He was so happy he was distraught, afraid even. Whehdrew to write his response, I, being a sensible clothes peddler, spread open my decoy “delivery” satchel and withdrew from it a dark money purse, which I attempted to sell to Black’s nosy landlady.
“This is made of the best Persia,” I said.
“My so war in Persia,” she said. “Whose letters do you deliver to Black?”
I could read from her face that she was making plans to set up her own wiry daughter, or who knows whose daughter, with lioed Black. “No one’s,” I said. “A poor relative of his who’s on his deathbed in the Bayrampasha sickhouse and needs money.”
“Oh my,” she said, unvinced, “who is the unfortunate man?”
“How did your son die in the war?” I asked stubbornly.
We began to glare at each other with hostility. She was a widow and all alone. Her life must’ve been quite difficult. If you ever happen to bee a clothier-cum-messenger like Esther, you’ll soon learn that only wealth, might and legendary romair people’s curiosity. Everything else is but worry, separation, jealousy, loneliness, enmity, tears, gossip and never-ending poverty. Such things never ge, just like the objects that furnish a home: a faded old kilim, a ladle and small copper paing on ay baking sheet, tongs and an ash box resting beside the stove, two wors—one small, one large—a turban stand maintaio ceal the widow’s solitary life and an old sword to scare thieves off.
Black hastily returned with his money purse. “Clothier woman,” he said, making himself heard to the meddling landlady rather than myself. “Take this and bring it to our suffering patient. If he has any response for me, I’ll be waiting. You fi Master Enishte’s house, where I’ll spend the rest of the day.”
There’s no need for all of these games. No cause for a young brave-heart like Black to hide his amatory
maneuvers, the signals he receives, the handkerchiefs aers he sends in pursuit of a maiden. Or does he truly have his eye on his landlady’s daughter? At times, I didn’t trust Black at all and was afraid that he was deceiving Shekure terribly. How is it that, despite spending his entire day with Shekure in the same house, he’s incapable of giving her a sign?
Once I was outside, I opehe purse. It taiwelve silver s and a letter. I was so curious about the letter that I nearly ran to Hasaable-sellers had spread out cabbage, carrots and the rest in front of their shops. But I didn’t even have it io touch the plump leeks that were g out to me to fohem.
I turned onto the side street, and saw that the blind Tatar was there waiting to heckle me again. “Tuh,” I spat in his dire; that was all. Why doesn’t this biting cold freeze these vagrants to death?
As Hasan silently read the letter, I could barely maintain my patience. Finally, uo restrain myself, I suddenly said “Yes?” and he began reading aloud:
My Dearest Shekure, you’ve requested that I plete your father’s book. You be certain that I have no oal. I visit your house for this reason; not to pester you, as you’d earlier indicated. I’m quite aware that my love for you is my own . Yet, due to this love, I’m unable properly to take up my pen and write what your father—my dear Uncle—has requested for his book. Whenever I sense your presen the house, I seize up and am of no service to your father. I’ve mulled this over extensively and there be but one cause: After twelve years, I’ve seen your faly once, when you showed yourself at the window. Now, I quite fear losing that vision. If I could once more see you close-up, I’d have no fear of losing you, and I could easily finish your father’s book. Yesterday, Shevket brought me to the abandoned house of the Hanged Jew. No one will see us there. Today, at whatever time you see fit, I’ll go there and wait for you. Yesterday, Shevket mentiohat you dreamt your husband had died.
Hasahe letter mogly, in places raising his already high-pitched voice even higher like a woman’s, and in places, emulating the trembling supplication of a lover who’d lost all reason. He made light of Black’s having written his wish “to see you just once” in Persian. He added, “As soon as Black saw that Shekure had given him some hope, he quickly began to iate. Such haggling isn’t something a genuine lover would resort to.”
“He’s genuinely in love with Shekure,” I said naively.
“This ent proves that you’ve taken Black’s side,” he said. “If Shekure has written that she dreamt my older brother was dead, it means she accepts her husband’s death.”
“That was just a dream,” I said like an idiot.
“I know how smart and ing Shevket is. We lived together for many years! Without his mother’s permission and prodding, he’d never have taken Black to the house of the Hanged Jew. If Shekure thinks
she’s through with my older brother—with us—she’s terribly mistaken! My older brother is still alive and he’ll return from the war.”
Before he had a ce to clude, he went into the room where he inteo light a dle, but succeeded only in burning his hand. He let out a howl. All the while lig the burn, he finally lit the dle and placed it beside a folding worktable. He produced a reed pen from its case, dipped it into an inkwell and began furiously writing on a small piece of paper. I sensed his pleasure at my watg him, and to show that I wasn’t afraid, I smiled exaggeratedly.
“Who is this Hanged Jew, you must know?” he asked.
“Just beyond these houses there’s a yellow ohey say that Moshe Hamon, the beloved doctor of the previous Sultan and the wealthiest of men, had for years hidden his Jewish mistress from Amasya and her brother there. Years ago in Amasya, on the eve of Passover, when a Greek youth supposedly ”disappeared“ in the Jewish quarter, people claimed that he’d been strangled so unleavened bread could be made from his blood. When false witnesses were brought forward, aion of Jews began; however, the Sultan’s beloved doctor helped this beautiful woman and her brother escape, and hid them with the permission of the Sultan. After the Sultan died, His enemies couldn’t find the beautiful woman, but they hanged her brother, who’d been living alone.”
“If Shekure doesn’t wait for my brother to e back from the front, they’ll punish her,” said Hasan, handihe letters.
No anger or wrath could be seen on his face, just the misfortune and sorrow particular to the love-stri. I suddenly saw in his eyes how fast love had aged him. The money he’d begun to earn w in s hadn’t made him more youthful at all. After all his offended grimaces and threats, it dawned ohat he might once again ask me how Shekure could be won over. But he’d e so close to being thhly evil that he could no longer ask. One accepts evil—aion in love is a signifit cause for doing so—cruelty follows quickly. I became afraid of my thoughts and that terrible red sword the boys talked about, which severed whatever it touched; in my desperation to leave, in a near frenzy, I stumbled outside onto the street.
This was how I fell unwitting victim to the curses of the Tatar beggar. But I immediately pulled myself together. I softly dropped a small stone I’d picked off the ground into his handkerchief and said, “There you go, mangy Tatar.”
Without laughing, I watched his hand reach hopefully for the stohought was a . Ign his curses, I headed toward one of my “daughters,” whom I’d married off to a good husband.
That sweet “daughter” of mine served me a piece of spinach pie, a leftover, but still crisp. For the afternoon meal she reparing lamb stew in a sauce heavy with beaten eggs and spiced with sour plum, just the way I like it. So as not to disappoint her, I waited and ate two full ladles with fresh bread.
She’d also made a nipote of stewed grapes. Without aation, I requested some rose-petal jam, a spoonful of which I stirred into the pote before topping off my meal. Afterward, I went on to deliver the letters to my melancholy Shekure.
I, SHEKUREI was in the midst of folding and putting away the clothes that had been washed and hung out to dry yesterday when Hayriye announced Esther had e…or, this was what I plao tell you. But why should I lie? All right then, wheher arrived, I ying on my father and Black through the closet peephole, impatiently waiting for the letters from Blad Hasan, and thus, my mind reoccupied with her. Just as I sehat my father’s fears of death were justified, I also knew Black’s i in me wasernal. He was in love insofar as he wao be married, and because he wao be married, he easily fell in love. If not me, he’d love. If not me, he’d marry aaking care to fall in love with her beforehand.
I, Hayriye sat Esther in a er and handed her a glass of rosewater sherbet, as she gave me a guilty look. I realized that since Hayriye had bey father’s mistress, she might be rep to him everything she sees. I’m afraid that this may indeed be the case.
“My black-eyed girl, my dark-fortuned beauty, my stunniy of beauties, I was delayed because Nesim, my pig of a husband, kept me occupied with all sorts of nonsense,” said Esther. “You have no husband senselessly haranguing you, and I hope you know the value of this.”
She took out the letters; I snatched them from her hand. Hayriye withdrew to a er where she wouldn’t be in the way, but could still hear everything that passed between us. So Esther wouldn’t be able to see my expression, I turned my ba her and read Black’s letter first. When I thought about the house of the Hanged Jew, I shuddered for a moment. “Don’t be afraid, Shekure, you manage in any situation,” I said to myself and began reading Hasan’s letter. He was on the verge of madness:
Shekure, I’m burning with desire, yet I know you’re not in the least ed. In my dreams, I see myself chasing you over deserted hilltops. Every time you leave one of my letters—that I know you read—unanswered, a three-feathered arrow pierces my heart. I’m writing in hopes that you’ll respond this time. The word is out, everyone’s spreading the news, even your children are saying it: You’ve dreamed that your husband has died, and now you claim that you’re free. I ot say whether or not it’s true. What I do know is that you’re still married to my older brother and bound to this household. Now that my father finds me justified, we’re both going to the judge to have you returned here. We’ll be ing with a group of men we’ve assembled; so let your father be forewarned. Collect your things, you’re to e back to this house. Send your respoh Esther immediately.
After reading the letter a sed time, I pulled myself together and gazed at Esther with questioning eyes, but she told me nothing new about Hasan or Black.
I pulled out the reed pen that I kept hidden in a er of the pantry, placed a sheet of paper on the breadboard and was about to begin writing a letter to Black when I froze.
Something came to mind. I turoward Esther: She’d fallen upon the rosewater sherbet with the joy of a chubby child and so it seemed ridiculous to me that she could be aware of what was going through my mind.
“See how sweetly you’re smiling, my dear,” she said. “Don’t worry, in the end everything will be all right. Istanbul is rife with rich gentlemen and pashas who’d give their souls to be wed to a stunniy, possessed of so many talents like yourself.”
You uand what I’m talking about: Sometimes you’ll say something you’re vinced of, but no sooner do the words leave your mouth than you ask yourself, “Why did I say this so halfheartedly, even though I believe it through and through?” That was what happened when I said the following:
“But Esther, who’d want to marry a ith two kids, for Heaven’s sake?”
“A widow like you? Plenty, a slew of men,” she said, veying them all with a haure.
I looked into her eyes. I was thinking I did not like her. I fell so silent that she knew I wasn’t going to give her a letter and even that it would be better if she left. After Esther had gone, I withdrew to my own er of the house as though I could feel my silence—how should I put it—in my soul.
Leaning on the wall, for a long while I stood still in the blaess. I thought of myself, of what I should do, of the fear that was growing within me. All the while I could hear Shevket and Orhan chattering upstairs.
“And you’re as timid as a girl,” said Shevket. “You only attack from behind.”
“My tooth is loose,” said Orhan.
At the same time, another part of my mind was trating on what was transpiriween my father and Black.
The blue door of the workshop en, and I could easily hear them: “After beholding the portraits of the Veian masters, we realize with horror,” said my father, “that, in painting, eyes o longer simply be holes in a face, always the same, but must be just like our own eyes, which reflect light like a mirror and absorb it like a well. Lips o longer be a cra the middle of faces flat as paper, but must be nodes of expression—each a different shade of red—fully expressing our joys, sorrows and spirits with their slightest tra or relaxation. Our noses o longer be a kind of wall that divides our faces, but rather, living and curious instruments with a form uo each of us.”
Was Black as surprised as I was that my father referred to those infidel gentlemen who had their pictures made as “we”? When I looked through the peephole, I found Black’s face to be so pale that I was momentarily alarmed. My dark beloved, my troubled hero, were you uo sleep for thinking of me the whole night? Is that why the blush has left your face?
Perhaps you aren’t aware that Black is a tall, thin and handsome man. He has a broad forehead, almond-shaped eyes and a strong, straight, elegant nose. As in his childhood, his hands are long and thin and his fingers are jittery and agile. He’s wiry, and stands straight and tall, with shoulders on the broad side, but not as broad as those of a water carrier. When he was younger, his body and his face hadn’t yet settled. Twelve years later, when I first laid eyes on him from this dark refuge of mine, I immediately saw that he’d attained a kind of perfe.
Now, when I bring my eye right up to the hole, I see on his face the worry that plagues him. I felt at once guilty and proud that he’d suffered so on my at. Black listeo what my father said, gazing upon an illustration made for the book, with a look pletely i and childlike. Just then, when I saw that he’d opened his pink mouth as a child would have, I uedly felt, yes, like putting my breast into it. With my fingers on his nape and tangled in his hair, Black would place his head between my breasts, and as my own childreo do, he’d roll his eyes bato his head with pleasure as he sucked on my nipple: After uanding that only through my passion would he find peace, he’d bee pletely bound to me.
I perspired faintly and imagined Black marveling at the size of my breasts with surprise and iy—rather than studying the illustration of the Devil that my father was actually showing him. Not only my breasts, but as if drunk with the vision of me, he was gazing at my hair, my neck, at all of me. He was so attracted to me that he was giving voice to those sweet nothings he couldn’t summon as a youth; from his glances, I realized how he was in awe of my proud demeanor, my manners, my upbringing, the way I waited patiently and bravely for my husband, and the beauty of the letter I’d written him.
I felt aoward my father, who was setting things up so I wouldn’t be able to marry again. I was also fed up with those illustrations he was having the miniaturists make in imitation of the Frankish masters, and I was sick of his recolles of Venice.
When I closed my eyes again—Allah, it wasn’t my own desire—in my thoughts, Black had approached me so sweetly that in the dark I could feel him beside me. Suddenly, I sehat he’d e up from behind me, he was kissing the nape of my neck, the bay ears, and ?9９ｌib.I could feel how strong he was. He was solid, large and hard, and I could lean on him. I felt secure. My ingled, my nipples were stiffening. It seemed as if there in the dark, with my eyes closed, I could feel his enlarged member behind me, close to me. My head spun. What was Black’s like? I wondered.
At times in my dreams, my husband in his agony shows his to me. I e to the awarehat my husband is struggling to keep his bloody body, lanced and shot with Persian arrows, walking upright as he approaches. But sadly, there is a river between us. As he calls to me from the opposite bank, covered
in blood and suffering terribly, I notice that he has bee erect. If it’s true what the Geian bride said at the public bath, and if there’s truth to what the old hags say, “Yes, it grows that large,” then my husband’s wasn’t so big. If Black’s is bigger, if that enormous thing I saw under Black’s belt wheook up the empty piece of paper I’d sent by Shevket yesterday; if that was actually it—and it surely was—I’m afraid I’ll suffer great pain, if it even fits inside me at all.
“Mother, Shevket is mog me.”
I left the black er of the closet, quietly passing into the room across the hall, where I removed the red broadcloth vest from the chest and put it on. They’d spread out my mattress and were shouting and frolig on it.
“Didn’t I warn you that when Black visits you aren’t to shout, did I not?”
“Mama, why did you put that red vest on?” Shevket asked.
“But Mother, Shevket was mog me,” Orhan said.
“Didn’t I tell you not to mock him? And what’s this foul thing doing here?” Off to the side there iece of animal hide.
“It’s a carcass,” Orhan said. “Shevket found it oreet.”
“Quick, take it and throw it back where you found it, now.”
“Let Shevket do it.”
“I said now!”
As I would do before I slapped them, I bit my lower lip angrily, and seeing how serious I really was, they fled in fright. I hope they return soon so they don’t catch cold.
Of all the miniaturists, I liked Black the best. He liked me more thahers did and I uood his soul. I took out pen and paper, and iting, without having to think, I wrote the following:
All right then, before the evening prayer is called, I’ll meet you at the house of the Hanged Jew. Finish my father’s book as soon as possible.
I did not reply to Hasan. Even if he was actually going to the judge today, I didn’t believe that the men he and his father were assembling would raid our house immediately. If he were indeed ready to take such a he’d have done so without writing a letter or awaiting my reply. He’s surely awaiting my
response, and, when it doesn’t arrive, it’ll drive him mad. Only then will he begin assembling people and prepare to abduct me. Don’t think I’m not afraid of him at all. But, I’m ting on Black to protect me. Anyway, let me tell you what’s going on in my heart just now: I believe I’m not so afraid of Hasan because I love him as well.
If you objed think to yourselves, “Now what is this love about?” I’d find you justified. It’s not that I failed to notice during the years we waited uhe same roof for my husband’s return, how pitiful, weak and selfish this man was. But now that Esther tells me he earns a lot of money—and I always tell when she’s being truthful from her raised eyebrows—since he has money, and with it self-fidehe overbearing Hasan has surely disappeared, exposing the dark, jinnlike peculiarity that attracts me to him. I discovered this side of him through the letters he stubbornly sent to me.
Both Blad Hasan have suffered for their love of me. Black disappeared, traveling for twelve years. The other, Hasa me letters every day, in the ers of which he’d illustrated birds and gazelles. At first I was frightened of him, but later, I loved to read his letters again and again.
As I well khat Hasan was thhly curious about everything having to do with me, I wasn’t surprised that he knew I’d seen my husband’s corpse in a dream. What I suspected was that Esther was letting Hasahe letters I’d sent to Black. That’s why I sent no respoo Black by way of Esther. You know better than I whether my suspis are justified.
“Where were you?” I said to the childrehey returned.
They quickly uood that I wasn’t really angry. Discreetly, I pulled Shevket aside, to the edge of the darkened closet. I lifted him onto my lap. I kissed his head and the nape of his neck.
“You’re cold, my dear,” I said. “Give me those pretty hands of yours so Mother warm them up…”
His hands had a foul smell, but I didn’t ent. Pressing his head to my bosom, I gave him a long hug. In a short time he warmed up, relaxing like a kitten, sweetly mewling with pleasure.
“So then, you love your mother quite a lot, don’t you?”
“Ummmhmmm.”
“Is that a ”yes“?”
“Yes.”
“More than anybody else?”
“Yes.”
“Then I’m going to tell you something,” I said as if divulging a secret. “But you won’t tell anyone, all right?” I whispered in his ear: “I love you more than anyone, you know that?”
“More than Orhan, even?”
“More than Orhan, even. Orhan’s young, like a small bird, he doesn’t uand anything. You’re smarter, you’re able to uand.” I kissed and smelled his hair. “So, I’m going to ask you a favor. Remember how you secretly brought Black a blank piece of paper yesterday? You’ll do the same today, all right?”
“He’s the one who killed Father.”
“What?”
“He killed my father. He himself said so yesterday in the house of the Hanged Jew.”
“What did he say?”
“”I killed your father,“ he said. ”I’ve killed plenty of men,“ he said.”
Suddenly something happened. Shevket slid down my lap and began to cry. Why was this child g now? All right then, I fess, I must’ve been uo trol myself just then, and I slapped him. I wouldn’t want ao think I was hard-hearted. But how could he say suonsense about a man I’d been making arras to marry—and that, with the well-being of these boys in mind.
My poor little fatherless boy was still g, and all at ohis upset me greatly. I, too, was on the verge of tears. We hugged each other. He hiccuped occasionally. Did this slap merit so much g? I stroked his hair.
This is how it all began: The previous day, as you know, I’d told my father in passing that I’d dreamed my husband had died. Actually, as happened quite frequently over these four years during which my husband never returned from battling the Persians, I dreamed of him fleetingly, and there was also a corpse, but was he the corpse? This was a mystery to me.
Dreams are always used as a means to other ends. In Pal, from where Esther’s grandmother had emigrated, it seems dreams were used as an excuse to prove heretics met with the Devil and made love. For example, even if Esther’s forebears deheir Jewishness by declaring, “We’ve bee Catholics like you,” the Jesuit torturers of the Puese Church, unvinced, would torture them, f them to describe the jinns and demons of their dreams, as well as burdening them with dreams they never had. Then they’d force the Jews to fess these dreams so in the end they could bur the stake. In
this way, dreams could be manipulated over there, to shoeople were having sex with the Devil and to accuse and n Jews.
Dreams are good for three things:
ALIF: You want something but you just ’t ask for it. So you’ll say that you’ve dreamed about it. In this manner, you ask for what you want without actually asking for it.
BA: You want to harm someone. For example, you want to slander a woman. So, you’ll say that sud-suan is itting adultery or that sud-such pasha is pilfering wine by the jug. I dreamed it, you’ll say. In this fashion, even if they don’t believe you, the mere mention of the sinful deed is almost never fotten.
DJIM:You want something, but you don’t even know what it is. So, you’ll describe a fusing dream. Your friends or family will immediately interpret the dream and tell you what you need or what they do for you. For example, they’ll say: You need a husband, a child, a house…The dreams we ret are he ones we actually see in our sleep. When people say they’ve “seen it,” they simply describe the dream that is “dreamed” during the day, and there’s always an underlying purpose. Only an idiot would describe his actual nighttime dreams exactly as he’s had them. If you do, everyone will make fun of you or, as always, interpret the dream as a bad omen. No oakes real dreams seriously, including those who dream them. Or, pray tell, do you?
Through a dream that I half-heartedly reted, I hihat my husband might truly be dead. Though my father at first wouldn’t accept this as an indication of the truth, after returning from the funeral, he was suddenly persuaded by the evidence of the dream, and cluded that my husband was indeed dead. Thus, everyo only believed that my husband, who was virtually immortal these past four years, had died in a dream, they couldn’t have been more certain of his death had it been officially announced. It was only then that the boys truly realized that they’d bee fatherless. It was then that they truly began to grieve.
“Do you ever have dreams?” I asked Shevket.
“Yes,” he said smiling. “My father doesn’t return home, and I end up marrying you.”
His narrow nose, dark eyes and broad shoulders resemble me more than his father. Occasionally, I feel guilty that I wasn’t able to pass on to my children their father’s high, broad forehead.
“Go on then, play ”swordsman“ with your brother.”
“ we use father’s old sword?”
“Yes.”
For some time, I gazed at the ceiling, listening to the sounds of the boys’ swords striking each other, as I struggled to quell the fear and ahat was brewing within me. I went down to the kit and said to Hayriye: “My father’s been asking for fish soup for quite some time now. Maybe I ought to send you to Galleon Harbor. Why don’t you take a few strips of that dried fruit pulp that Shevket likes out of its hiding plad let the kids have some.”
While Shevket was eating i, Orhan and I went upstairs. I lifted him onto my lap and kissed his neck.
“You’re covered i,” I said. “What happened here?”
“Shevket hit me with our uncle’s red sword.”
“It’s bruised,” I said and touched the spot. “Does it hurt? How thoughtless our Shevket is. Listen to what I have to say. You’re very smart aive. I have a request to make of you. If you do what I say, I’ll tell you a secret that I won’t tell Shevket or anyone else.”
“What is it?”
“Do you see this piece of paper? You’re to go to yrandfather, and without letting him see, you’re to place this in Black Effendi’s hand. Do you uand?”
“I uand.”
“Will you do it?”
“What’s the secret?”
“Just take him the paper,” I said. I once again kissed his neck, which smelled fragrantly. And while we’re on the subject ra’s been so very long since Hayriye has taken these boys to the public bath. They haven’t gone since Shevket’s thing began to rise in front of the women there. “I’ll tell you the secret later.” I kissed him. “You’re very bright and very pretty. Shevket’s a nuisance. He’d even have the audacity to lift a hand against his mother.”
“I’m not going to deliver this,” he said. “I’m afraid of Black Effendi. He’s the one who killed my father.”
“Shevket told you this, didn’t he?” I said. “Quick, go downstairs and tell him to e here.”
Orhan could see the rage in my face. Terrified, he slid off my lap and ran out of the room. Maybe he was even slightly pleased that Shevket was in trouble. A while later, both of them returned flushed and blushing. Shevket was holding a strip of dried fruit in one hand and a sword iher.
“You’ve told your brother that Black was the one who killed your father,” I said. “I don’t ever want you to say such a thing in this house again. You should both show resped affe to Black. Do we uand each other? I won’t allow you to live your entire lives without a father.”
“I don’t want him. I’d rather return to our house, where Uncle Hasan lives, and wait for my father,” Shevket said brazenly.
This made me so irate that I slapped him. He hadn’t put the sword down; it fell from his hand.
“I want my father,” he said through his tears.
But I was g more than he was.
“You have no father anymore, he won’t be ing back,” I said tearfully. “You’re fatherless, don’t you uand, you bastards.” I was g so much that I was afraid they’d heard me from within.
“We aren’t bastards,” said Shevket, g.
We all cried long and hard. Weeping softened my heart and I sehat I was g because it made me a better person. In our unal fit of tears, we embraced each other and lay upon the roll-up mattress. Shevket had snuggled his head dowween my breasts as if to nap. Sometimes, he’d cuddle up with me like this, as if we were stuck together, but I could sehat he wasn’t sleeping. I might’ve dozed off with them, except that my mind reoccupied with what was going on downstairs. I could smell the sweet aroma of boiling es. I abruptly sat up in bed and made such a sound that the boys awoke.
“Go downstairs, have Hayriye fill your stomachs.”
I was alone in the room. Snow had begun to fall outside. I begged for Allah’s help. Then I opehe Koran, and after once again reading the se in the “Family of Imran” chapter which stated that those who were killed in battle, who were killed oh of Allah, would join Him, I put myself at ease with regard to my deceased husband. Had my father shown Black Our Sultan’s as yet unfinished portrait? My father claimed that this portrait would be so lifelike that whoever beheld it would avert his eyes out of fear, as happeo those who tried to look directly intlorious Sultan’s eyes.
I called for Orhan, and without lifting him onto my lap, kissed him at length on the forehead, and cheeks. “Now then, without being scared, and without letting yrandfather see, you’re to give this paper to Black. Do you uand?”
“My tooth is loose.”
“When you get back, if you want, I’ll pull it out,” I said. “You’re to sidle up to him. He’ll be at a loss for what to do and he’ll hug you. Then you’ll secretly place the paper into his hand. Am I uood?”
“I’m afraid.”
“There’s nothing to be afraid of. If it weren’t for Black, do you knoants to bee your father in his stead? Uncle Hasan! Do you want Uncle Hasan to bee your father?”
“No.”
“All right the’s see you go, my pretty and smart Orhan,” I said. “If not, watch out, I’ll be really angry…And if you cry, I’ll get even angrier.”
I folded my letter several times, then stuck it into his small hand now stretched out in hopelessness and resignation. Allah, e to my aid so that these fatherless childre left to fend for themselves. I escorted him to the door, holding his hand. At the threshold he looked at me fearfully one last time.
I watched him through the peephole as he took his uaioward the sofa, approached my father and Black, stopped, and momentarily hesitated—unsure what to do. He glanced back at the peephole looking for me. He began to cry. But with one final effort he succeeded in surrendering himself to Black’s lap. Black, clever enough to have earhe right to be father to my children, didn’t panic to find Orhan g unatably on his lap and he checked to see if there was anything in the boy’s hands.
Orhaurned beh the startled gaze of my father, and I ran to meet him and took him onto my lap, kissing him at length. I brought him downstairs to the kit, and filled his mouth with the raisins he liked so much.
“Hayriye, take the boys to Galleon Harbor and buy some gray mullet suitable for soup from Kosta’s place. Take these silver s and with the ge from the fish, buy Orhan some dried yellow figs and cherries on the way back. Buy Shevket roasted chickpeas and sweetmeat sausage with walnuts. Walk them around to wherever they want to go until the evening prayers are called, but be careful they don’t catch cold.”
After they’d bundled up a, the quiet in the house pleased me. I went upstairs and took out the little mirror that my father-in-law had made and my husband had given me as a gift. I kept it hidden away between pillowcases that smelled of lavender. I hung it up. If I looked at myself in the mirror from a distance, and moved oh so delicately, I could see my whole body. My vest of red broadcloth suited me, but I also wao don my mother’s purple blouse which had been part of her trousseau. I took out the long pistachio-colored robe my grandmother had embroidered with flowers, and tried it on, but it didn’t please me. As I was trying it on uhe purple blouse, I felt a chill; I shuddered, and the dle flame trembled with me. Over it all, of course, I was going to wear my fox fur–lireet robe, but at the last
minute I ged my mind, and silently crossing the hall, I removed the very long and loose azure-colored woolen robe that my mother had given me and put it on. Just then I heard a the door and fell into a panic: Black was leaving! I quickly removed my mother’s old robe and put on the fur-lined red o was tight around the bustline, but I liked it. I then dohe softest and whitest veil, l it over my face.
Black Effendi hadn’t left yet, of course; I’d let my apprehension deceive me. If I go out now, I tell my father that I went to buy fish with the children. I padded dowairs like a cat.
I closed the door—click—like a ghost. I quietly passed through the courtyard and when I was out oreet, momentarily turned and looked back at the house. From behind my veil it seemed as if it wasn’t our house at all.
There was no one ireet, not even any cats. Flakes of snow danced in the air. With a shudder, I ehe abandoned garden where sunlight never fell. It smelled of rotten leaves, dampness ah; yet, wheered the house of the Hanged Jew, I felt as though I were in my own home. They say that jin here at night, light the stove and make merry. I was startled to hear my footsteps in the empty house. I waited, stock-still. I heard a sound in the garden, but thehing was overe by silence. I heard a dog bark nearby. I reize all the dogs in our neighborhood from their barks, but I couldn’t place this one.
During the silence I sehat there was somebody else in the house and I stood dead still so he wouldn’t hear my footsteps. Straalked as they passed oreet. I thought of Hayriye and the children. I hoped to God that they wouldn’t catch cold. In the silehat followed, I was gradually overe by regret. Black wasn’t ing. I’d made a mistake, and I ought to return home before my pride was damaged even further. Terrified, I imagihat Hasan was watg me, and then I heard movement in the garden. The door opened.
I abruptly ged my position. I didn’t know why I did so, but when I stood to the left of the window through which a faint light from the garden was filtering, I realized that Black would be able to see me, to borrohrase from my father, “within the mysteries of shadow.” I covered my face with my veil and waited, listening to his footsteps.
Black passed through the doorway and saw me, then took a few more steps and stopped. We stood five paces apart and beheld each other. He looked healthier and strohan he’d appeared through the peephole. There was a silence.
“Remove your veil,” he said in a whisper. “Please.”
“I’m married. I’m awaiting my husband’s return.”
“Remove your veil,” he said in the same tone. “Your husband won’t ever e back.”
“Have yed to meet me here to tell me this?”
“Nay, I’ve done so to be able to see you. I’ve been thinking of you for twelve years. Remove your veil, my darling, let me look at you just once.”
I removed it. I leased as he silently studied my fad stared at length into the depths of my eyes.
“Marriage and motherhood have made you even more beautiful. And your face has bee entirely different than what I remembered.”
“How had you remembered me?”
“With agony, because when I thought of you, I couldn’t help but think that what I was remembering wasn’t you but a fantasy. In our childhood, you remember how we used to discuss Hüsrev and Shirin, who fell in love after seeing images of each other, don’t you? Why was it that Shirin hadn’t fallen in love with handsome Hüsrev when first she saw his picture hanging from a tree branch but had to see that image three times before falling in love? You used to say that in fairy tales everything happens thrice. I would argue that love ought to have blossomed when she first saw the picture. But who could have depicted Hüsrev realistically enough for her to fall in love with him, and precisely enough that she would reize him? We alked about this. Over these last twelve years, if I had such a realistic portrait of your matchless face, perhaps I wouldn’t have suffered so.”
He said some quite lovely things in this vein, stories of looking at an illustration and falling in love and of how he’d suffered desperately for me. I noticed the way he sloroached; and his every word flitted through my sind and alighted somewhere in my memory. Later, I would muse over these words one by one. But at the time my appreciation of the magic of what he said urely visceral and it bouo him. I felt guilty for having caused him such pain for twelve years. What a hoongued man! What a good person this Black was! Like an i child! I could read all of this from his eyes. The fact that he loved me so much made me trust him.
We embraced. This so pleased me that I felt no guilt. I let myself be borne away by sweet emotion. I hugged him tighter. I let him kiss me, and I kissed him back. And as we kissed, it was as if the entire world had entered a gewilight. I wished everybody could embrace each other the way we did. I faintly recalled that love was supposed to be like this. He put his too my mouth. I was so tent with what I was doing, it was as if the whole world were engulfed in blissful light; I could think of nothing bad.
Let me describe for you how our embrace might’ve beeed by the master miniaturists of Herat, if this tragic story of mine were one day recorded in a book. There are certain amazing illustrations that my father has shown me whereihrill of the script’s flow matches the swaying of the leaves, the wall orion is echoed in the design of the bilding and the joy of the swallow’s matchless wings
pierg the picture’s bgests the elation of the lovers. Exging glances from afar and tormenting each other with suggestive phrases, the lovers would be depicted so small, so far in the distahat for a moment it’d seem like the story wasn’t about them at all, but had to do with the starry night, the dark trees, the exquisite palace where they met, its courtyard and its wonderful garden whose every leaf was lovingly and particularly rendered. If, however, one paid very close attention to the secret symmetry of the colors, which the miniaturist could only vey with total resignation to his art, and to the mysterious light infusing the entire painting, the careful observer would immediately see that the secret behind these illustrations is that they’re created by love itself. It’s as if a light were emanating from the lovers, from the very depths of the illustration. And when Blad I embraced, well-being flooded the world in the very same manner.
Thank God I’ve seen enough of life to know that such well-being never lasts for long. Black sweetly took my large breasts into his hands. This felt good and, fetting all, I longed for him to suy nipples. But he couldn’t quite ma, because he wasn’t all that sure of what he was doing, though his uainty didn’t prevent him from wanting mradually, fear and embarrassment came between us the longer we embraced. But when he grabbed my thighs to pull me close, pressing his large hardened manliness against my stomach, I liked it at first; I was curious. I wasn’t embarrassed. I told myself that an embrace such as we’d had would naturally lead to another such as this. And though I turned my head away, I couldn’t take my widening eyes off its size.
Later still, when he abruptly tried to force me to perform that vulgar act that even Kipchak women and es who tell stories at the public baths wouldn’t do, I froze in astonishment and indecision.
“Don’t furrow your brow, my dear,” he begged.
I stood up, pushed him away and began shouting at him without paying the slightest mind to his disappoi.
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