I AM RED
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I appeared in Ghazni when Book of Kings poet Firdusi pleted the final line of a quatrain with the most intricate of rhymes, besting the court poets of Shah Mahmud, who ridiculed him as being nothing but a peasant. I was there on the quiver of Book of Kings hero Rüstem wheraveled far and wide in pursuit of his missing steed; I became the blood that spewed forth whe the notorious ogre in half with his wondrous sword; and I was in the folds of the quilt upon which he made furious love with the beautiful daughter of the king who’d received him as a guest. Verily and truly, I’ve been everywhere and am everywhere. I emerged as Tur traitorously decapitated his brother Iraj; as legendary armies, spectacular as a dream, clashed oeppes; and as Alexander’s lifeblood shimmered brightly from his handsome er he suffered sunstroke. Yes, Shah Behram Gür spent every night of the week with a differey beh domes of varying color from distant lands, listening to the story she reted, and I ofit of the striking maiden he visited on a Tuesday, whose picture he’d fallen in love with, just as I appeared from the to the caftan of Hüsrev, who’d fallen in love with Shirin’s picture. Verily, I was visible upon the military banners of armies besieging fortresses, upoablecloths c tables set for feasts, upon the velvet caftans of ambassadors kissing the feet of sultans, and wherever the sword, whose legends children loved, was depicted. Yes, handsome almond-eyed apprentices applied me with elegant brushes to thick paper from Hindustan and Bukhara; I embellished Ushak carpets, wall orion, the bs of fighting cocks, pomegrahe fruits of fabled lands, the mouth of Satan, the subtle at lines within picture borders, the curled embroidery os, flowers barely visible to the naked eye made for the artist’s own pleasure, blouses worn by stunning women with outstretched necks watg the street through open shutters, the sour-cherry e藏书网yes of bird statues made of sugar, the stogs of shepherds, the dawns described in legends and the corpses and wounds of thousands, nay, tens of thousands of lovers, warriors and shahs. I love engaging in ses of war where blood blooms like poppies; appearing on the caftan of the most profit of bards listening to musi a tryside outing as pretty boys and poets partake of wine; I love illuminating the wings of angels, the lips of maidens, the death wounds of corpses and severed heads bespeckled with blood.I hear the question upon your lips: What is it to be a color?
Color is the touch of the eye, music to the deaf, a word out of the darkness. Because I’ve listeo souls whispering—like the susurrus of the wind—from book to book and object to object for tens of
thousands of years, allow me to say that my touch resembles the touch of angels. Part of me, the serious half, calls out to your vision while the mirthful half soars through the air with ylances.
I’m so fortuo be red! I’m fiery. I’m strong. I know men take notie and that I ot be resisted.
I do not ceal myself: For me, delicacy mas itself her in weakness nor in subtlety, but through determination and will. So, I draw attention to myself. I’m not afraid of other colors, shadows, crowds or even of loneliness. How wonderful it is to cover a surface that awaits me with my own victorious being! Wherever I’m spread, I see eyes shine, passions increase, eyebrows rise abeats qui. Behold how wonderful it is to live! Behold how wonderful to see. Behold: Living is seeing. I am everywhere. Life begins with aurns to me. Have faith in what I tell you.
Hush and listen to how I developed such a magnifit red tone. A master miniaturist, an expert in paints, furiously pouhe best variety of dried red beetle from the hottest climes of Hindustan into a fine powder using his mortar ale. He prepared five drachmas of the red powder, one drachma of soapwort and a half drachma of lotor. He boiled the soapwort in a pot taining three okkas of water. , he mixed thhly the lotor into the water. He let it boil for as long as it took to drink an excellent cup of coffee. As he enjoyed his coffee, I grew as impatient as a child about to be born. The coffee had cleared the master’s mind and given him the eyes of a jinn. He sprihe red powder into the kettle and carefully mixed the co with one of the thin, sticks reserved for this task. I was ready to bee genuine red, but the issue of my sistency was of utmost importahe liquid shouldn’t be permitted to just boil away. He drew the tip of his stirring stick across the nail of his thumb (any other finger was absolutely uable). Oh, how exquisite it is to be red! I gracefully paihat thumbnail without running off the side in watery haste. In short, I was the right sistency, but I still tained sediment. He took the pot off the stove and strained me through a piece of cheesecloth, purifying me even further. , he heated me up again, bringio a frothy boil twice more. After adding a pinch of crushed alum, he left me to cool.
A feassed and I sat there quietly in the pan. Iicipation of being applied to pages, of being spread everywhere and onto everything, sitting still like that broke my heart and spirit. It was during this period of silehat I meditated upon what it meant to be red.
Once, in a Persian city, as I was being applied by the brush of an appreo the embroidery on the saddle cloth of a horse that a blind miniaturist had drawn by heart, I overheard two blind masters having an argument:
“Because we’ve spent our entire lives ardently and faithfully w as painters, naturally, we, who have now gone blind, know red and remember what kind of color and what kind of feeling it is,” said the one who’d made the horse drawing from memory. “But, what if we’d been born blind? How would we have been truly able to prehend this red that our handsome apprentice is using?”
“An excellent issue,” the other said. “But do not fet that colors are not known, but felt.”
“My dear master, explaio somebody who has never known red.”
“If we touched it with the tip of a finger, it would feel like somethiween iron and copper. If we took it into our palm, it would burn. If we tasted it, it would be full-bodied, like salted meat. If we took it between our lips, it would fill our mouths. If we smelled it, it’d have the st of a horse. If it were a flower, it would smell like a daisy, not a red rose.”
One hundred and ten years ago Veian artistry was not yet threat enough that our rulers would bother themselves about it, and the legendary masters believed in their owhods as fervently as they believed in Allah; therefore, they regarded the Veiahod of using a variety of red tones for every ordinary sword wound and even the most on sackcloth as a kind of disresped vulgarity hardly worth a chuckle. Only a weak aant miniaturist would use a variety of red too depict the red of a caftan, they claimed—shadows were not an excuse. Besides, we believe in only one red.
“What is the meaning of red?” the blind miniaturist who’d drawn the horse from memory asked again.
“The meaning of color is that it is there before us and we see it,” said the other. “Red ot be explaio he who ot see.”
“To deny God’s existence, victims of Satan maintain that God is not visible to us,” said the blind miniaturist who’d rehe horse.
“Yet, He appears to those who see,” said the other master. “It is for this reason that the Koran states that the blind and the seeing are not equal.”
The handsome apprentice ever so delicately dabbed me onto the horse’s saddle cloth. What a wonderful sensation to fix my fullness, power and vigor to the blad white of a well-executed illustration: as the cat-hair brush spreads me onto the waiting page, I bee delightfully ticklish. Thereby, as I bring my color to the page, it’s as if I and the world to “Be!” Yes, those who ot see would deny it, but the truth is I be found everywhere.
I, SHEKUREBefore the children awoke, I wrote Black a brief elling him to hurry to the house of the Hanged Jeressed it into Hayriye’s hand so that she might rush to Esther. As Hayriye took the letter, she looked into my eyes with more fearlesshan usual despite w what was to bee of us; and I, who no longer had a father to fear, returned her glare with newfound temerity. This exge would dete>藏书网</a>rmihe tone of our relationship iure. Over the last two years, I suspected Hayriye might even have a child by my father, and fettiatus as slave, mao bee lady of the house. I visited my unfortuher, respectfully kissing his now stiffened hand, which, oddly, hadn’t
lost its softness. I hid my father’s shoes, quilted turban and purple cloak, then explaio the children ohey awoke that their grandfather had gotteer and had left for the Mustafa Pasha district early in the m.
Hayriye returned from her m errand. As she was laying out the low table for breakfast, and I lag a portion e jam in the middle of it, I imagined how Esther was now calling at Black’s door. The snow had stopped and the sun had begun to shine.
In the garden of the Hanged Jew, I entered a familiar se. The icicles hanging from the eaves and window gs were quickly shrinking, and the garden that smelled of mold and rotting leaves was eagerly abs the sun. I found Black waiting in the spot where I’d first seen him last night—it seemed so long ago, as if weeks had passed. I raised my veil and said:
“You be glad, if you feel the urge. My father’s objes and doubts will not e between us anymore. While you were craftily trying to lay your hands on me here last night, a devil-of-a-man broke into our empty house and murdered my father.”
Rather than w about Black’s rea, you’re probably puzzling over why I spoke so coldly and somewhat insincerely. I don’t quite know the answer myself. Maybe I thought I’d cry otherwise, provoking Blabrace me, and I’d bee intimate with him soohan I wanted.
“He destroyed our home with a thhhat clearly reveals anger and hatred. I don’t think his work is doher, I don’t expect this devil will calmly retire to some er now. He stole the final picture. I’m calling on you to protect me—protect us—and keep my father’s book from him. Now tell me, under what arra and ditions will you see to our safety? This is what we have to resolve.”
He made aure to speak, but I easily silenced him with a look—as though this were something I’d done tless times before.
“In the eyes of the judge, it is my husband and his family who succeed my father as my guardians. This was the case even before his death, for acc to the judge my husband is still alive. It was only because Hasan tried to take advantage of me during his older brother’s absence, a failed assault that embarrassed my father-in-law, that I was allowed to return to my father’s home though not officially a widow. But now that my father is dead and I am without even a brother, there is no question that my only possible guardians are my husband’s brother and my father-in-law. They’ve already been scheming to have me returo their home, c my father, and threatening me. Ohey hear my father is dead, they won’t hesitate to take official ay only hope to prevent this is to ceal my father’s death. Perhaps in vain, for they may be t></a>he ones behind the crime.”
At that very moment, a thin beam of light gracefully filtered through the broken shutters and fell between Blad me, illuminating the a dust ihe room.
“This isn’t the only reason I’m hiding my father’s death,” I said, fixing my gaze into Black’s eyes, in which I was gladdeo see attentiveness more than love. “I’m also afraid of being uo prove my whereabouts at the time of my father’s murder. Though she’s a slave and her word might be disted, I’m afraid that Hayriye is involved in these maations, if not against me, then against my father’s book. And as long as I remain without a protector, the annou of my father’s murder, while initially simplifying matters at home, might well, solely for the reasons I’ve eed, cause me great misfortu her hand; for instance, what if Hayriye is aware that my father didn’t wao marry you?”
“Your father didn’t want you to marry me?” asked Black.
“No, he didn’t, he was worried that you’d take me away from him. Sihere’s no longer any danger of you doing such evil to him, let’s assume my dear unfortuher has no further obje. Do you have any?”
“ all, my darling.”
“Fihen. My guardian has no claims of money old on you. Please excuse the impropriety of my discussing marital circumstany own behalf, but I have certain prerequisites that I must, unfortunately, explain to you.”
As I fell silent for a while, Black said, “Yes,” in a mahat suggested an apology for his hesitation.
“First,” I began, “you must swear before two withat if you behave badly toward me in our marriage, to a degree that I find unbearable, or if you take a sed wife, you will grant me a divorce with alimony. Sed, you must swear before two withat if for whatever reason you are absent from the house for more than a six-month period without a visit, I will also be granted a divorce with alimony. Third, after we are married, you will of course move into <mark>..</mark>my home; however, until the villain who has murdered my father has been caught or until you find him—how I’d love to torture him myself!
—and until Our Sultan’s book, pleted uhe guidance of your talents and efforts, has been honorably preseo Him, you will not share my bed. Fourth, you will love my sons, who do share my bed with me, as if they were your own children.”
“I agree.”
“Good. If all of the obstacles that still lie before us disappear this quickly, we’ll soon be wed.”
“Yes, wed, but not in the same bed.”
“The first step is marriage,” I said. “Let’s see to that first. Love es after marriage. Don’t fet: Marriage douses love’s flame, leaving nothing but a barren and melancholy blaess. Of course, after marriage, love itself will vanish anyway; but happiness fills the void. Still, there are those hasty fools
who fall in love before marrying and, burning with emotion, exhaust all their feeling, believing love to be the highest goal in life.”
“What, then, is the truth of the matter?”
“The truth is te. Love and marriage are but a means to obtaining it: a husband, a house, children, a book. ’t you see that even in my state, with a missing husband and a deceased father, I’m better off than you in your isolation? I’d die without my sons, with whom I spend my days laughing, tussling and loving. Moreover, since you long for me even in my present predit, since you secretly ache to spend the night with me—even if not in the same bed—uhe same roof with my father’s body and my unruly children, you’re pelled to listen with all your heart to what I now have to say.”
“I’m listening.”
“There are various ways that I might secure a divorce. False witnesses could swear that before my husba out on campaign, they witnessed him grant me a ditional divorce; for example, that he’d pledged that if he didn’t return within two years, I should be sidered free. Or, more simply, they might swear they’d seen my husband’s corpse in the field of battle, g various ving and descriptive details. But taking my father’s body and the objes of my in-laws into sideration, to rely on false witnesses would be an unsound way to proceed, as no judge of any intelligence or caution would be persuaded. sidering that my husba me without alimony and hasn’t returned from war for four years, even judges of our Hanefi creed couldn’t grant me a divorce. The üsküdar judge, however, knowing how the number of women in my situation is increasing each day, is more sympathetid so—with a nod from Our Excellency the Sultan and the Sheikhulislam—the judge occasionally allows his proxy of the Shafü creed to rule in his place, thereby granting divorces left and right to women like me, including ditions of alimony. Now, if you find two wito testify openly to my predit, pay them off, cross the Bosphorus with them to the üsküdar side, arrange for the judge, makiain that his proxy will sit in for him so the divorce might be granted by virtue of the witnesses, register the divor the judge’s ledger, obtain a certificate testifying to the proceeding, obtain written permission for my immediate remarriage, and if you aplish all of this a back to this side of the Bosphorus by the afternoon, then—assuming no difficulty in finding a preacher who might marry us t<var></var>his evening—then, as my husband, you could spend this night with me and my children. Thereby, you’ll also spare us a sleepless night of hearing in every creaking of the house the steps of that devilish murderer. Moreover, you’ll save me from the wretess of being a poor unprotected woman when we annouhe death of my father in the m.”
“Yes,” said Black with good humor and somewhat childishly. “Yes. I agree to make you mine.”
You remember how only retly I declared I didn’t know why I eaking to Bla such a high-handed and insincere manner. Now I know: I’ve e to realize that only by assuming such a tone might I vince Black—who has yet to outgrow his childhood muddle-headedo believe in the possibility of events that even I have a hard time believing will e to pass.
“We have a lot to do in fighting our ehose who would obstruct the pletion of my father’s book and those who could test my divord our marriage ceremony—which will be performed tonight, God willing. But I suppose I shouldn’t further fuse you, since you are already even more fused than I.”
“You aren’t fused at all,” said Black.
“Perhaps, but only because these aren’t my own ideas, I learhem from my father over the years.” I said this so he wouldn’t dismiss what I said, assuming that these plans had sprung from my feminine mind.
, Black said what I’d heard from every man who wasn’t afraid to admit he found me very intelligent:
“You’re very beautiful.”
“Yes,” I said, “it pleases me to be praised for my intelligence. When I was a child, my father would often do so.”
I was about to add that once I’d grown up my father ceased to praise my intelligence, but I began to weep. As I cried, it was as if I’d left myself and was being another, entirely separate woman. Like some reader troubled by a sad picture in the pages of a book, I saw my life from the outside and pitied what I saw. There’s something so i in g over oroubles, as though they were another’s, that when Black embraced me, a sense of well-being spread over us both. Yet, this time, as we hugged, this sense of fort remaihere between us, uo affect the adversaries cirg us.
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