I AM CALLED BLACK

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

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

    I ged five of the Veian Lions at a perpetually smiling Jewish money ger. , deep in

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    In the first se, the miniaturist ought to depict us amid mustachioed and muscled oarsmen, f our way across the blue Bosphorus toward üsküdar in the four-oared red longboat we’d boarded in Unkapan 1. The preacher and his skinny dark-plexioned brother, pleased with the surprise voyage, are engaging the oarsmen in friendly chatter. Meanwhile, amid blithe dreams of marriage that play ceaselessly before my eyes, I stare deep into the waters of the Bosphorus, flowing clearer than usual on this sunny winter m, on guard for an ominous sign within its currents. I’m afraid, for example, that I might see the wreck of a pirate ship below. Thus, no matter how joyously the miniaturist colors the sea and clouds, he ought to include something equivalent to the darkness of my fears and as intense as my dreams of happiness—a terrifying-looking fish, for example—in the depths of the water so the reader of my adventure won’t assume all is rosy.

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

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

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

    Thereupon, thhly flustered, I explained how my Enishte Effendi was ill, bed-ridden and struggling for his life, how his last wish to God was to see his daughter divorced, and how I was his representative.

    “What does she want with a divorce?” asked the proxy. “Why would a dying man want to see his daughter divorced from her husband who’s long va war anyway? Listen, I’d uand if there were a good, trustworthy didate for son-in-law, because then he wouldn’t pass away with his wish unfulfilled.”

    “There is a prospect, sir,” I said.

    “Who might that be?”

    “It is I!”

    “e now! You’re the guardian’s representative!” said the judge’s proxy. “What line of work are you in?”

    “In the eastern provinces, I served as secretary, chief secretary and assistant treasurer to various pashas. I pleted a history of the Persian wars that I io present to Our Sultan. I’m a oisseur of illustrating and decoration. I’ve been burning with love for this woman for twenty years.”

    “Are you a relative of hers?”

    I was so embarrassed at having fallen so abruptly and uedly into groveling meekness before the judge’s proxy, at having bared my life like some dull object devoid of any mystery, that I fell pletely silent.

    “Instead of turni red, give me an answer, young ma I refuse to grant her a divorce.”

    “She’s the daughter of my maternal aunt.”

    “Hmmm, I see. Will you be able to make her happy?”

    When he asked the question he made a vulgar haure. The miniaturist should omit this indelicacy. It’d be enough for him to show how much I blushed.

    “I make a det living.”

    “As I belong to the Shafü sect, there is nothing trary to the Holy Book or my creed in my granting the divorce of this unfortunate Shekure, whose husband has been missing at the front for four years,”

    said the Proxy Effendi. “I grant the divorce. And I rule that her husband no longer has any superg rights should he return.”

    The subsequent illustration, that is, the fourth, ought to depict the proxy rec the divor the ledger, unleashing obedient armies of blak letters, before presentih the dot declaring that my Shekure is no and there is no obstacle to her immediate remarriage. her by painting the walls of the courtroom red, nor by situating the picture within bloodred borders could the blissful inner radiance I felt at that moment be expressed. Running back through the crowd of false witnesses and other men gathering before the judge’s door seeking divorces for their sisters, daughters or even aunts, I set out on my return journey.

    Aft<df</dfn>er I crossed the Bosphorus and headed directly to the Yakutlar neighborhood, I dismissed both the siderate Imam Effendi, who wao perform the marriage ceremony, and his brother. Since I suspected everyone I saw oreet of hatg some mischief out of jealousy over the incredible happiness I was on the verge of attaining, I ran straight to Shekure’s street. How had the ominous crows divihe presence of a body in the house and taken to hopping arouedly oerra-cotta shingles? I was overe by guilt because I hadn’t been able to grieve for my Enishte or even shed a siear; even so, I knew from the tightly closed shutters and door of the house, from the silence, and even from the look of the pomegraree that everything roceeding as planned.

    I was ag intuitively in a great haste. I tossed a sto the courtyard gate but missed! I tossed a the house. It landed on the roof. Frustrated, I begaing the house with stones. A window opened. It was the sed-story window where four days ago, on Wednesday, I’d first seen Shekure through the branches of the pomegraree. Orhan appeared, and from the gap in the shutters I could hear Shekure scolding him. Then I saw her. For a moment, we gazed hopefully at each other, my fair lady and I. She was so beautiful and being. She <big>藏书网</big>made a gesture that I took to mean “wait” and shut the window.

    There was still plenty of time before evening. I waited hopefully in the empty garden, awestruck by the beauty of the world, the trees and the muddy street. Before long, Hayriye came in, dressed and covered not like a servant, but rather, like a lady of the house. Without nearing each other, we removed ourselves to the cover of the fig trees.

    “Everything is progressing as planned,” I said to her. I showed her the dot I’d obtained from the proxy. “Shekure is divorced. As for the preacher from another neighborhood…” I was going to add, “I’ll see to that,” but instead blurted out, “He’s on his way. Shekure should be ready.”

    “No matter how small, Shekure wants a bride’s procession, followed by a neighborhood reception with a weddi. We’ve prepared a stewpot of pilaf with almonds and dried apricots.”

    In her excitement, she seemed prepared to tell me everything else she’d cooked but I cut her off. “If the wedding is going to be su elaborate affair,” I cautioned, “Hasan and his men will hear of it; they’ll raid the house, disgrace us, have the marriage nullified and we’ll be able to do nothing about it. All our

    efforts will have been in vain. We o protect ourselves not only from Hasan and his father, but from the devil who murdered Enishte Effendi as well. Aren’t you afraid?”

    “How could we not be?” she said and began to cry.

    “You’re not to tell ahing,” I said. “Dress Enishte in his nightclothes, spread out his mattress and lay him upon it, not as a dead man, but as though he were sick. Arrange glasses and bottles of syrup by his head, and draw the shutters closed. Make certain there are no lamps in his room so that he  act as Shekure’s guardian, her sick father, during the ceremony. There’s no plaow for a bride’s procession. You  invite a handful of neighbors at the last mihat’s all. While you’re inviting them, say that this was Enishte Effendi’s last wish…It won’t be a joyous wedding, but a melancholy one. If we don’t see ourselves through this affair, they’ll destroy us, and they’ll punish you as well. You uand, don’t you?”

    She nodded as she wept. Mounting my white horse, I said I’d secure the witnesses aurn before long, that Shekure ought to be ready, that hereafter, I would be master of the house, and that I was going to the barber. I hadn’t thought through any of this beforehand. As I spoke, the details came to me, and just as I’d felt during battles from time to time, I had the vi that I was a cherished and favored servant of God and He roteg me; thus, everything was going to turn out fine. When you feel this trust, do whatever es to mind, follow your intuition and your as will prove correct.

    I rode four blocks toward the Golden Horn from the Yakutlar neighborhood to find the black-bearded, radiant-faced preacher of the mosque in Yasin Pasha, the adjat neighborhood; broom in hand, he was shooing shameless dogs out of the muddy courtyard. I told him about my predit. By the will of God, I explained, my Enishte’s time on him, and acc to his last wish, I was to marry his daughter, who, by decision of the üsküdar judge, had just been granted a divorce from a husband lost at war. The preacher objected that by the dictates of Islamic law a divorced woman must wait a month before remarrying, but I tered by explaining that Shekure’s former husband had been absent for four years; and so, there was no ce she regnant by him. I hasteo add that the üsküdar judge granted a divorce this m to allow Shekure to remarry, and I showed him the certifying dot. “My exalted Imam Effendi, you may rest assured that there’s no obstacle to the marriage,” I said. True, she was a blood relation, but being maternal cousins is not an obstacle; her previous marriage had been nullified; there were nious, social or moary differences between us. And if he accepted the gold pieces I offered him up front, if he performed the ceremony at the wedding scheduled to take place before the entire neighborhood, he’d also be aplishing a pious act befod for the fatherless children of a oman. Did the Imam Effendi, I inquired, enjoy pilaf with almonds and dried apricots?

    He did, but he was still preoccupied with the dogs at the gate. He took the gold s. He said he’d don his wedding robes, straighten up his appearance, see to his turban and arrive in time to perform the nuptials. He asked the way to the house and I told him.

    No matter how rushed a wedding might be—evehat the groom has dreamed about for twelve years—what could be more natural than his fetting his worries and troubles and surrendering to the affeate hands ale banter of a barber for a prenuptial shave and haircut? The barber’s, where my feet took me, was located he market, oreet of the run-down house in Aksaray, which my late Enishte, my aunt and fair Shekure had quitted years after our childhood. This was the barber I’d faced five days ago, my first day back. Wheered he embraced me and as any good Istanbul barber would do, rather than asking where the last dozen years had gone, launched into the latest neighborhood gossip, cluding the versation with an allusion to the place we would all go at the end of this meaningful journey called life.

    The master barber had aged. The straight-edged razor<cite>９９lｉｂ?</cite> he held in his freckled hand trembled as he made it dance ay cheek. He’d given himself over to drinking and had taken on a pink-plexioned, full-lipped, green-eyed boy-apprentice—who looked upon his master with awe. pared with twelve years ago, the shop was er and more orderly. After filling the hanging basin, which hung from the ceiling on a new , with boiling water, he carefully washed my hair and face with water from the brass faucet at the bottom of the basin. The old broad basins were newly tinned with no signs of rust, the heating braziers were , and the agate-handled razors were sharp. He wore an immaculate silk waistcoat, something he was loath to wear twelve years ago. I assumed that the elegant appreall for his age and of slender build, had helped bring some order to the shop and its owner, and surrendering myself to the soapy, rose-sted and steamy pleasures of a shave, I couldn’t help thinking how marriage not only brought new vitality and prosperity to a bachelor’s home, but to his work and his shop as well.

    I’m not certain how much time had passed. I melted into the warmth of the brazier that gently heated the small shop and the barber’s adept fingers. With life having suddenly presented me the greatest of gifts today, as if for free, and after so much suffering, I felt a profound thanks toward exalted Allah. I felt an intense curiosity, w out of what mysterious balahis world of His had emerged, and I felt sadness and pity for Enishte, who lay dead in the house where, a while later, I would beaster. I was readying myself t into a when there was a otion at the always-open door of the barbershop: Shevket!

    Flustered, but with his usual self-fidence, he held out a piece of paper. Uo speak and expeg the worst, my insides were chilled as if by an icy draft as I read:

    If there isn’t going to be a bride’s procession, I’m not getting married—Shekure.

    Grabbing Shevket by the arm, I lifted him onto my lap. I would’ve liked to have respoo my dear Shekure by writing, “As you wish, my love!” but what would pen and ink be doing in the shop of an illiterate barber? So, with a calculated reserve, I whispered my respoo the boy’s ear: “All right.” Still whispering, I asked him how his grandfather was doing.

    “He’s sleeping.”

    I now sehat Shevket, the barber and even you are suspicious about me and my Enishte’s death (Shevket, of course, suspects other things as well). What a pity! I forced a kiss upon him, and he quickly left, displeased. During the wedding, dressed in his holiday clothes, he glared at me with hostility from a distance.

    Since Shekure wouldn’t be leaving her father’s house for mine, and I would be moving into the paternal home as bridegroom, the bridal procession was only fitting. Naturally, I was in no position to bedeck my wealthy friends aives and have them wait at Shekure’s front gate mounted on their horses as others might have done. Even so, I iwo of my childhood friends whom I’d run int my six days ba Istanbul (one had bee a clerk like myself and the other was running a bath house) as well as my dear barber, whose eyes had watered as he wished me happiness during my shave and haircut. Mounted upon my white horse, which I’d been riding that first day, I k my beloved Shekure’s gate as if poised to take her to another house and another life.

    To Hayriye, who opehe gate, I presented a generous tip. Shekure, dressed in a bright-red wedding gown with pink bridal streamers flowing from her hair to her feet, emerged amid cries, sobs, sighs (a woman scolded the children), outbursts, and shouts of “May God protect her,” and gracefully mounted a sed white horse which we’d brought with us. As a hand-drummer and shrill zurna piper, kindly arranged by the barber for me at the last minute, began to play a slow bride’s melody, our poor, melancholy, yet proud processio out on its way.

    As our horses began to saunter, I uood that Shekure, with her usual ing, had arrahis spectacle for the sake of safeguarding the nuptials. Our procession, having announced our wedding to the entire neighborhood, even if only at the last moment, had essentially secured everyone’s approval, thereby ralizing any future objes to our marriage. heless, announg that we were on the verge of marriage, and having a public wedding—as if to challenge our enemies, Shekure’s former husband and his family—further endahe whole affair. Had it beeo me, I’d have held the ceremony i, without telling a soul, without a wedding celebration; I’d have preferred being her husband first and defending the marriage afterward.

    I led the parade astride my fickle white fairy-tale horse, and as we moved through the neighborhood, I nervously watched for Hasan and his men, whom I expected to ambush us from an alleyway or a shadowy courtyard gate. I noticed how youhe elders of the neighborhood and strangers stopped and waved from door fronts, without pletely uanding all that was transpiring. In the small market area we’d uionally entered, I figured out that Shekure had masterfully activated her grapevine, and that her divord marriage to me was quickly winning acceptan the neighborhood. This was evident from the excitement of the fruit-aable seller, who without leaving his colorful quinces, carrots and apples for too long, joined us for a few strides shouting “Praise be to God, may He protect you both,” and from the smile of the woeful shopkeeper and from the approving glances of the baker, who was having his apprentice scrape away the burnt residue in his pans. Still, I was anxious, maintaining my vigil against a sudden raid, or even a word of vulgar heg. For this reason, I wasn’t at all disturbed by the otion of the crowd of money-seeking children that

    had formed behind us as we left the bazaar. I uood from the smiles of women I glimpsed behind windows, bars and shutters that the enthusiasm of this noisy throng of children protected and supported us.

    As I gazed at the road along which we’d advanced and were now, thank God, finally winding our way back toward the house, my heart was with Shekure and her sorrow. Actually, it wasn’t her misfortune in having to wed within a day of her father’s murder that saddened me, it was that the wedding was so unadorned and meager. My dear Shekure was worthy of horses with silver reins and ored saddles, mounted riders outfitted in sable and silk with gold embroidery, and hundreds of carriages laden with gifts and dowry; she deserved to lead an endless procession of pasha’s daughters, sultans and carriages full of elderly harem women chattering about the extravagances of days bygone. But Shekure’s wedding lacked even the four pole bearers to hold aloft the red silk opy that ordinarily protected rich maidens fr eyes; for that matter, there wasn’t even one servant to lead the procession bearing large wedding dles and tree-shaped decorations ored with fruit, gold, silver leaf and polished stones. More than embarrassment, I felt a sadhat threateo fill my eyes with tears each time the disrespectful hand-drum and zurna players simply stopped playing when our procession got swallowed up in crowds of market-goers or servants fetg water from the fountain in the square because we had no one clearing the way with shouts of “Here es the bride.” As we were nearing the house, I mustered the ce to turn in my saddle and gaze at her, and was relieved that beh her pink bride’s tinsel and red veil, far from being saddened by all these pitiful shortings, she seemed hearteo know that we’d cluded our procession and our journey with her act nor mishap. So, like all grooms, I lowered my beautiful bride, whom I would shortly wed, from her horse, took her by the arm, and handful by handful, slowly emptied a bag of silver s over her head before the gleeful crowd. While the children who’d followed behind our meager parade scrambled for the s, Shekure and I ehe courtyard and crossed the stone walkway, and as soon as we ehe house, we were struot only by the heat, but the horror of the heavy smell of decay.

    While the throng from the procession was making itself fortable in the house, Shekure and the crowd of elders, women and children (Orhan was glaring suspiciously at me from the er) carried on as if nothing were amiss, and momentarily I doubted my senses; but I knew how corpses left uhe sun after battle, their clothes tattered, boots as stolen, and their faces, their eyes and lips ravaged by wolves and birds smelled. It was a stench that had so often filled my mouth and lungs to the point of suffocation that I could not mistake it.

    Downstairs i, I asked Hayriye about Enishte Effendi’s body, aware that I eaking to her for the first time as master of the house.

    “As you asked, we laid out his mattress, dressed him in his nightclothes, drew his quilt over him and placed bottles of syrup beside him. If he’s giving off an unpleasant smell, it’s probably due to the heat from the brazier in the room,” the woman said through tears.

    One or two of her tears fell, sizzling into the pot she was using to fry the mutton. From the way she was

    g, I supposed that Enishte Effendi had been taking her into his bed at night. Esther, who was quietly and proudly sitting in a er of the kit, swallowed what she was chewing and stood.

    “Make her happiness your foremost ,” she said. “Reize her worth.”

    In my thoughts I heard the lute I’d heard oreet the first day I’d e to Istanbul. More than sadness, there was vigor in its melody. I heard the melody of that music again later, in the half-darkened room where my Enishte lay in his white nightgown, as the Imam Effendi married us.

    Because Hayriye had furtively aired out the room beforehand and placed the oil lamp in a er so its light was dimmed, one could scarcely tell that my Enishte was sick let alone dead. Thus, he served as Shekure’s legal guardian during the ceremony. My friend the barber, along with a know-it-all neighborhood elder, served as witnesses. Before the ceremony ended with the hopeful blessings and advice of the preacher and the prayers of all in attendance, a nosy old man, ed about the state of my Enishte’s health, was about to lower his skeptical head toward the deceased; but as soon as the preacher pleted the ceremony, I leapt from my spot, grabbed my Enishte’s rigid hand and shouted at the top of my voice:

    “Put your worries to rest, my sir, my dear Enishte. I’ll do everything within my power to care for Shekure and her children, to see they’re well clothed and well fed, loved and untroubled.”

    , to suggest that my Enishte was trying to whisper to me from his sickbed, I carefully and respectfully pressed my ear to his mouth, pretending to listen to him ily and wide-eyed, as young men do when an elder they respect offers one or two words of advice distilled from aire lifetime, which they then imbibe like some magic elixir. The Imam Effendi and the neighborhood elder appeared to appreciate and approve of the loyalty aernal devotion I showed my father-in-law. I hope that nobody still thinks I had a hand in his murder.

    I annouo the wedding guests still in the room that the afflicted man wished to be left alohey abruptly began to leave, passing into the  room where the men had gathered to feast on Hayriye’s pilaf and mutton (at this point I could scarcely distinguish the smell of the corpse from the aroma of thyme,  and frying lamb). I stepped into the wide hallway, and like some morose patriaring absentmindedly and wistfully through his own house, I opehe door to Hayriye’s room, paying no mind to the women who were horrified to have a man in their midst, and gazing sweetly at Shekure, whose eyes beamed with bliss to see me, said:

    “Your father’s calling for you, Shekure. We’re married now, you’re to kiss his hand.”

    The handful of neighborhood women to whom Shekure had sent last-minute invitations and the young maidens I assumed were relatives motioo collect themselves and cover their faces, all the while scrutinizio their heart’s tent.

    Not long after the evening call to prayer the wedding guests dispersed, haviily partaken of the walnuts, almonds, dried fruit leather, fits and clove dy. In the women’s quarters, Shekure’s incessant g and the bickering of the unruly children had dampehe festivity. Among the men, my stony-faced silen respoo the mirthful wedding-night gibes of the neighbors was attributed to my preoccupation with my father-in-law’s illness. Amid all the distress, the se most clearly ingrained in my memory was my leading Shekure to Enishte’s room before dinner. We were alo last. After both of us kissed the dead man’s cold and rigid hand with sincere respect, we withdrew to a dark er of the room and kissed each other as if slaking a great thirst. Upon my wife’s fiery tongue, which I’d successfully taken into my mouth, I could taste the hard dies that the children greedily ate.

    I, SHEKUREThe last guests of our woeful wedding veiled and covered themselves, put on their shoes, dragged off their children, who were tossing a last piece of dy into their mouths, a us to a peing silence. We were all in the courtyard, nothing could be heard but the faint noise of a sparrow gingerly drinking water from the half-filled well bucket. This sparrow, whose tiny head feathers gleamed in the light of the stoh, abruptly vanished into the blaess, and I felt the insistent presence of the corpse in my father’s bed within our emptied house, now swallowed by night.

    “Children,” I said in the ce Orhan and Shevket reized as the one I used to announething, “e here, the both of you.”

    They did so.

    “Black is now your father. Let’s see you kiss his hand.”

    They did so, quietly and docilely. “Sihey’ve grown up without a father, my unfortunate children know nothing of obeying one, of heeding his words while looking into his eyes, or of trusting in him,” I said to Black. “Thus, if they behave disrespectfully, wildly, immaturely or childishly toward you, I know that you’ll show them tolera first, uanding that they’ve been raised without ever once obeying their father, whom they do not even remember.”

    “I remember my father,” said Shevket.

    “Hush…and listen,” I said. “From now on Black’s word carries more weight than even my own.” I faced Black. “If they refuse to listen to you, if they are disobedient or show even the slightest sign of being rude, spoiled or ill-mannered, first warn them, but five them,” I said, foing the mention of beatings that was oip of my tongue. “Whatever space I occupy in your heart, they shall share that space, too.”

    “I didn’t marry you solely to be your husband,” said Black, “but also to be father to these dear boys.”

    “Did you two hear that?”

    “Oh my Lord, I pray you never o shine yht down upon us,” Hayriye interjected from a er. “My dear God, I pray you protect us, my Lord.”

    “You two did hear, didn’t you?” I said. “Good for you, my pretty young men. Since your father loves you like this, should you suddenly lose trol and disregard his words, he will have fiven you for it beforehand.”

    “And I’ll five them afterward, as well,” said Black.

    “However, if you two defy his warning a third time…then, you’ll have earhe right to a beating,” I said. “Are we uood? Your new father, Black, has e here from the vilest, the worst of battles, from wars that were the very wrath of God and from which your late father did not return; yes, he’s a hardened man. Yrandfather has spoiled you and indulged you. Yrandfather is now very ill.”

    “I want to go ah him,” Shevket said.

    “If you’re not going to listen, Black will teach you what it means to get a beating from Hell. Yrandfather won’t be able to save you from Black the way he used to protect you from me. If you don’t want to suffer your father’s wrath, you’re not to fight anymore, you’re to share everything, tell no lies, perform your prayers, not go to bed before memorizing your lessons and you’re not to speak roughly to Hayriye or tease her…Are we uood?”

    In one movement, Black crouched down and took Orhan up in his arms. Shevket kept his distance. I had the fleeting urge to embrace him and weep. My poor forlorn and fatherless son, my poor solitary Shevket, you’re so alone in this immense world. I thought of myself as a small child, like Shevket, a child all alone in the world, and remembered how once I’d been held in my dear father’s arms the way Orhan was now being held by Black. But unlike Orhan, I wasn’t awkward in my father’s embrace, like a fruit unaced to its tree. I was delighted; I recalled how my father and I would often embrace, sniffing each other’s skin. I was on the verge of tears, but restrained myself. Though I hadn’t plao say anything of the sort, I said:

    “e now, let’s hear you call Black ”Father.““

    The night was so cold and our courtyard was so very silent. In the distance dogs were barking and howling pitifully and sorrowfully. A few more minutes passed. The silence bloomed and spread secretly like a black flower.

    “All right, children,” I said much later. “Let’s go inside so we all don’t catch cold out here.”

    It wasn’t only Blad I who felt the timidity of a bride and groom left aloer the wedding, but

    Hayriye and the children, all of us, entered our home hesitantly as though it were the darkened house of a stranger. We were met with the smell of my father’s corpse, but nobody seemed to be aware of it. We silently climbed the stairs, and the shadows cast onto the ceiling by our oil lamps, as always, spun and merged, now expanding, now shrinking, yet seemed somehow to be doing so for the first time. Upstairs, as we were removing our shoes in the hall, Shevket said:

    “Before I go to sleep  I kiss my grandfather’s hand?”

    “I checked in on him just now,” Hayriye said. “Yrandfather is in such pain and disfort it’s clear that evil spirits have taken hold of him. The fever of the illness has ed him. Go to your room so I  prepare your bed.”

    Hayriye herded them into the room. As she laid out the mattress and spread out the sheets and quilts, she was going on as if every object she held was a marvel uo the world, and muttering about how sleeping here in a warm room between  sheets and under warm down quilts would be like spending the night in a sultan’s palace.

    “Hayriye, tell us a story,” said Orhan as he sat on his chamber pot.

    “Once upon a time there was a blue man,” said Hayriye, “and his closest panion was a jinn.”

    “Why was the man blue?” said Orhan.

    “Foodness sake, Hayriye,” I said. “Tonight at least don’t tell a story about jinns and ghosts.”

    “Why shouldn’t she?” said Shevket. “Mother, after we fall asleep do you leave the bed and go to be with Grandfather?”

    “Yrandfather, Allah protect him, is gravely ill,” I said. “Of course I go to his bedside at night to look after him. Then, I return to our bed, don’t I?”

    “Have Hayriye look after Grandfather,” said Shevket. “Doesn’t Hayriye look after my grandfather at night anyway?”

    “Are you finished?” Hayriye asked of Orhan. As she wiped Orhan’s behind with a wet rag, his face was overe with a sweet lethargy. She glanced into the pot and wrinkled up her faot due to the smell, but as if what she saw wasn’t suffit.

    “Hayriye,” I said. “Empty the chamber pot and bring it back. I don’t want Shevket to leave the room in the middle of the night.”

    “Why shouldn’t I leave the room?” asked Shevket. “Why shouldn’t Hayriye tell us a story about jinns and fairies?”

    “Because there are jinns in the house, you idiot,” Orhan said, not so much out of fear, but with the dumb optimism I always noticed in his expression after he’d relieved himself.

    “Mother, are there jinns here?”

    “If you leave the room, if you attempt to see yrandfather, the jinn will catch you.”

    “Where will Black lay out his bed?” said Shevket. “Where will he sleep tonight?”

    “I’m not sure,” I said. “Hayriye will be preparing his bed.”

    “Mother, you’re still going to sleep with us, aren’t you?” said Shevket.

    “How many times do I have to tell you? I’ll sleep together with you two as before.”

    “Always?”

    Hayriye left carrying the chamber pot. From the et where I’d hidden them, I removed the remaining nine illustratio behind by the unspeakable murderer and sat on the bed. By the light of a dle, I stared at them for a long time trying to fathom their secret. These illustrations were beautiful enough that you might mistake them for your own fotten memories; and as with writing, as you looked at them, they spoke.

    I’d lost myself in the pictures. I uood from the st of Orhan’s beautiful head, upon which I’d rested my hat he, too, was looking at that odd and suspicious Red. As occasionally happened, I had the urge to take out my breast and nurse him. Later, when Orhan was frightened by the terrifying picture of Death, gently and sweetly breathing through his reddish lips, I suddenly wao eat him.

    “I’ll eat you up, do you uand me?”

    “Mama, tickle me,” he said and threw himself down.

    “Get off there, get up you beast,” I screamed and slapped him. He’d lain across the pictures. I checked the illustrations; apparently no harm had e to them. The image of the horse iopmost picture was faintly, yet unnoticeably, crumpled.

    Hayriye entered with the empty chamber pot. I gathered the pictures and was about to leave the room whe began to cry:

    “Mother? Where are you going?”

    “I’ll be right back.”

    I crossed the freezing hallway. Black was seated across from my father’s empty cushion, in the same position that he’d spent four days discussing painting and perspective with him. I laid out the illustrations on the folding bookstand, the cushion and on the floor before him. Color abruptly suffused the dlelit room with a warmth and an astonishing liveliness, as if everything had bee in motion.

    Utterly still, we looked at the pictures at length, silently and respectfully. When we made even the slightest movement, the still air, which bore the st of death from the room across the wide hall, would make the dle flame flicker and my father’s mysterious illustrations seemed to move too. Had the paintings taken on such signifie because they were the cause of my father’s death? Was I mesmerized by the peculiarity of the horse or the uniqueness of Red, by the misery of the tree or the sadness of the two wandering dervishes, or was it because I feared the murderer who’d killed my father and perhaps others on at of these illustrations? After a while, Blad I fully uood that the sileween us, as much as it might’ve been caused by the paintings, was also due to our being alone in the same room on our wedding night. Both of us wao speak.

    “When we wake tomorrow m, we should tell everybody that my hapless father has passed away in his sleep,” I said. Although what I’d said was correct, it appeared as if I were being insincere.

    “Everything will be fine in the m,” said Bla the same peculiar manner, uo believe iruth of what he’d spoken.

    When he made a nearly imperceptible gesture to draw closer to me, I had the urge to embrace him and, as I did with the children, to take his head into my hands.

    Just at that moment, I heard the door to my father’s room open and, springing up in terror, I ran over, opened our door and looked out: By the light that filtered into the hallway, I was shocked to see my father’s door half open. I stepped into the icy hallway. My father’s room, heated by the still-lit brazier, reeked of decay. Had Shevket or somebody else e here? His body, dressed in his nightgowed peacefully, bathed in the faint light of the brazier. I thought about the way, on some nights, I’d say, “Have a good night, dear Father,” while he read the Book of the Soul by dlelight befoing to sleep. Raising himself slightly, he’d take the glass I’d brought him out of my hand and say, “May the water bearer never want for anything,” before kissing me on the cheek and looking into my eyes as he used to do when I was a girl. I stared down at my father’s horrid fad, in short, I was afraid. I wao avoid looking at him, while at the same time, goaded by the Devil, I wao see how gruesome he’d bee.

    I timidly returo the room with the blue door whereupon Black made an advane. I pushed him away, more unthinkingly than out of anger. We struggled in the flickering light of the dle,

    though it wasn’t really a struggle but rather the imitation of a struggle. We were enjoying bumping into each other, toug one another’s arms, legs and chests. The fusion I felt resembled the emotional state that Nizami had described with regard to Hüsrev and Shirin: Could Black, who’d read Nizami so thhly, sehat, like Shirin, I also meant “tinue” when I said, “Don’t bruise my lips by kissing them so hard”?

    “I refuse to sleep in the same bed with you until that devil-of-a-man is found, until my father’s murderer is caught,” I said.

    As I fled the room, I was seized by embarrassment. I’d spoken in such a shrill voice it must’ve seemed I wahe children and Hayriye to hear what I’d said—perhaps even my poor father and my late husband, whose body had long decayed and turo dust on who knows what barren patch of earth.

    As soon as I was back with the children, Orhan said, “Mama, Shevket went out into the hallway.”

    “Did you go out?” I said, and made as if to slap him.

    “Hayriye,” said Shevket and hugged her.

    “He didn’t go out,” said Hayriye. “He was in the room the eime.”

    I shuddered and couldn’t look her in the eyes. I realized that after my father’s death was annouhe children would theh seek refuge in Hayriye, tell her all our secrets, and that this lowly servant, taking advantage of this opportunity, would try to trol me. She wouldn’t stop there either, but would try to place the onus of my father’s murder onto me, then she’d have the guardianship of the children passed on to Hasan! Yes, indeed she would! All this shameless scheming because she’d slept with my father, may he rest in divine light. Why should I hide all this from you any longer? She was, in fact, doing this, of course. I smiled sweetly at her. Then, I lifted Shevket onto my lap and kissed him.

    “I’m telling you, Shevket went out into the hallway,” Orhan said.

    “Get into bed, you two. Let me get between you so I  tell you the story of the tailless jackal and the black jinn.”

    “But you told Hayriye not to tell us a story about jinns,” said Shevket. “Why ’t Hayriye tell us the story tonight?”

    “Will they visit the City of the Forsaken?” asked Orhan.

    “Yes they will!” I said. “None of the childr<cite>?</cite>en in that city have a mother or a father. Hayriye, go downstairs and check the dain. We’ll probably be asleep by the middle of the story.”

    “I won’t fall asleep,” said Orhan.

    “Where is Black going to sleep tonight?” said Shevket.

    “In the workshop,” I said. “Snuggle up tight to your mother so we  warm up nicely uhe quilt. Whose icy little feet are these?”

    “Mine,” said Shevket. “Where will Hayriye sleep?”

    I’d begun telling the story, and as always, Orhan fell asleep first, after which I lowered my voice.

    “After I fall asleep, you’re not going to leave the bed, right, Mama?” said Shevket.

    “No, I won’t leave.”

    I really didn’t io leave. After Shevket fell asleep, I was musing about how pleasurable it was to fall asleep cuddled up with my sons on the night of my sed wedding—with my handsome, intelligent and desirous husband in the  room. I’d dozed off with such thoughts, but my sleep was fitful. Later, this is what I remembered about that strange restless realm between dreaming and wakefulness: First I settled ats with my deceased father’s angry spirit, then I fled the specter of that disgraceful murderer who wao send me off to be with my father. As he pursued me, the unyielding murderer, even more terrifying than my father’s spirit, began making a clattering ruckus. In my dream, he tossed sto our house. They struck the windows and landed on the roof. Later, he tossed a rock at the door, at one point even trying to force it ope, when this evil spirit began to wail like some ungodly animal, my heart began to pound.

    I awoke covered i. Had I heard those sounds in my dream or had I been awakened by sounds from somewhere in the house? I couldn’t decide, and so snuggled up with the children, and without moving, I waited. I’d nearly assured myself that the noises were only in my sleep when I heard the same wail. Just then, something large landed in the courtyard with a bang. Was this also a rock, perhaps?

    I aralyzed with terror. But the situation immediately got worse: I heard noises from within the house. Where was Hayriye? In whi had Black fallen asleep? In what state was my father’s pitiful corpse? My God, I prayed, protect us. The children were deep asleep.

    Had this happened before I was married, I’d have risen from bed, and taking charge of the situation like the man of the house, I’d have suppressed my fears and scared away the jinns and spirits. In my present dition, however, I cowered and hugged the children. It was as if there were no one else in the world. Nobody was going to e to the aid of the children and me. Expeg something awful to happen, I prayed to Allah for deliverance. As in my dreams, I was alone. I heard the courtyard gate open. It was the courtyard gate, wasn’t it? Yes, absolutely.

    I rose abruptly, grabbed my robe and quitted the room without even knowing myself what I was doing.

    “Black!” I hissed from the top of the stairs.

    After hastily donning shoes, I desded the stairs. The dle I’d lit at the brazier blew out as soon as I stepped out onto the courtyard’s stone walkway. A strong wind had begun to blow, though the sky was clear. As soon as my eyes adjusted, I saw that the half-moon was flooding the courtyard with moonlight. My dearest Allah! The court></a>yard gate en. I stood stunned, atremble in the cold.

    Why hadn’t I brought a kh me? her did I have a dlestick or even a piece of wood. For a moment, in the blaess, I saw the gate move of its own accord. Later, after it appeared to have stilled, I heard it squeal. I remember thinking, This seems like a dream.

    When I heard a noise from within the house, as if from just beh the roof, I uood that my father’s soul was struggling to leave his body. Knowing my father’s soul was in suent both put me at ease and plunged me into agony. If Father is the cause of these noises, I thought, then no evil will befall me. Oher hand, his tormented soul, frantically fluttering about, trying to escape and asd, so troubled me that I prayed to Allah to fort him. But when it occurred to me that his soul would protect me and the children, a feeling of great relief washed over me. If there were truly some demon plating evil just beyond the gate, let him fear my father’s restless soul.

    Just then, I worried that perhaps it was Black that setting my father so much. Would my father bring evil upon Black? Where was he? Just then, outside the courtyard gate, oreet, I noticed him and froze. He eaking with somebody.

    A man was talking to Black from the trees in the empty yard on the far side of the street. I was able to ihat the howling I’d heard as I lay in bed had e from this man whom I straightaway ko be Hasan. There lairain, a weeping in his voice, but also a threatening overtone. I listeo them from a distance. Within the silent night they’d given themselves over to settling ats.

    I uood that I was all alone in the world with my children. I was thinking that I loved Black, but to tell the truth, what I wanted was to love only Black—for Hasan’s melancholy voice singed my heart.

    “Tomorrow, I’ll return with the judge, Janissaries and witnesses who’ll swear that my older brother is alive and still fighting in the mountains of Persia,” he said. “Your marriage is illegitimate. You’re itting adultery in there.”

    “Shekure wasn’t your wife, she was your late brother’s wife,” Black said.

    “My older brother’s still alive,” Hasan said with vi. “There are witnesses who have seen him.”

    “This m, based on the fact that he hasn’t returned after four years campaigning, the üsküdar judge granted Shekure a divorce. If he is alive, have your witell him that he’s now a divorced man.”

    “Shekure is restricted from remarrying for a month,” said Hasan. “Otherwise it’s a sacrilege trary to the Koran. How could Shekure’s father sent to such disgraceful nonsense?”

    “Enishte Effendi,” Black said, “is very sick. He’s on his death bed…and the judge sanctified our marriage.”

    “Did you work together to poison your Enishte?” said Hasan. “Did you plan this out with Hayriye?”

    “My father-in-law is deeply distressed by what you’ve doo Shekure. Your brother, if he’s really still alive, could also call you to at for your dishonor.”

    “These are all lies, eae!” said Hasan. “These are only excuses cooked up by Shekure so she could leave us.”

    There came a cry from within the house; it was Hayriye who’d screamed. , Shevket screamed. They shouted to each other. Unwitting and afraid, without being able to restrain myself, I shouted too and ran into the house without knowing what I was doing.

    Shevket ran dowairs and fled out into the courtyard.

    “My grandfather is as cold as ice,” he cried. “My grandfather has died.”

    We hugged each other. I lifted him up. Hayriye was still shouting. Blad Hasan heard the shouts and everything that was said.

    “Mother, they’ve killed grandfather,” Shevket said this time.

    Everyone heard this, too. Had Hasan heard? I squeezed Shevket tightly, and calmly walked with him baside. At the top of the stairs, Hayriye was w how the child had awoken and sneaked out.

    “You promised you wouldn’t leave us,” said Shevket, who began to cry.

    My mind reoccupied now with Black. Because he was busy with Hasan, he didn’t think to close the gate. I kissed Shevket oher cheek and hugged him even tighter, taking in the st of his neck, soling him and, finally handing him over to Hayriye, I whispered, “You two go upstairs.”

    They went upstairs. I returned and stood a few steps behind the gate. I assumed Hasan couldn’t see me. Had he ged his position in the darkened garden across the erhaps moving behind the trees

    that lihe street? As it happened, however, he could see me, and as he spoke he addressed me, too. It was unnerving to vene in the dark with somebody whose face I couldn’t see, but it was even worse, as Hasan accused me, accused us, to realize deep down that he was justified. With him, as with my father, I always felt guilty, always in the wrong. And now, moreover, I knew with great sadhat I was in love with the man who was incriminating me. My beloved Allah please help me. Love isn’t suffering for the sake of suffering, but a means to reach You, is it not?

    Hasan claimed that I’d killed my father in league with Black. He said he’d heard what Shevket had said, adding that everything had been laid bare and that we’d itted an unpardonable sin deserving of the torments of Hell.  he’d go to the judge to explain it all. If I were found to be i, if my hands weren’t red with my father’s blood, he swore to have me and the childreuro his house where he’d serve as father until his older brother came back. If, however, I were found guilty, a woman like me, who’d mercilessly abandoned her husband—a man willing to make the highest sort of sacrifice—for her no punishment was too severe. We patiently listeo his fury, then noticed that there was an abrupt silence amid the trees.

    “If you return of your own free will to the home of your true husband, now,” said Hasan, assuming a pletely different tone, “if you silently pitter-patter back with your children without being seen by anyone, I’ll fet the fake wedding ploy, the crimes you’ve itted, all of it, I’ll five it all. And, we’ll wait together, Shekure, year after year, patiently, for my brother’s return.”

    Was he drunk? There was something so infantile in his void what he was now proposing to me in front of my husband that I feared it might cost him his life.

    “Do you uand?” he called out from among the trees.

    I couldn’t determily where he was in the blaess. My dear God, e to our aid, to us, Your sinning servants.

    “Because you won’t be able to live uhe same roof with the man who killed your father, Shekure. This I know.”

    I momentarily thought that he could’ve been the one who killed my father, and that he was now mog us, perhaps. This Hasan was the Devil inate. But I couldn’t be certain of anything.

    “Listen to me, Hasan Effendi,” Black called out to the darkness. “My father-in-law was murdered, this much is true. The most despicable of men killed him.”

    “He’d been murdered before the wedding, isn’t that so?” said Hasan. “You two killed him because he opposed this marriage sham, this fake divorce, the false witnesses and all your deceits. If he’d sidered Black to be appropriate, he’d have given his daughter to him years ago.”

    Having lived for years with my late husband, with us, Hasan knew our past as well as we ourselves did. And with the passion of a spurned lover, he remembered every last detail of everything I’d discussed with my husband at home, but had subsequently fotten, or now waet. Over the years, we’d shared so many memories—he, his brother and I—that I worried how strange, new and distant Black would seem to me if Hasao begin reting the past.

    “We suspect that you were the one who killed him,” Black said.

    “On the trary, you were the ones who killed him so you could marry. This is evident. As for me, I have no motive.”

    “You killed him so we wouldn’t get married,” said Black. “When you learhat he’d permitted Shekure’s divord our marriage, you lost your mind. Besides, you were furious with Enishte Effendi because he’d enced Shekure to return home to live with him. You wanted revenge. As long as he remained alive, you knew you’d never get your hands on Shekure.”

    “Be doh your stalling,” Hasan said decisively. “I refuse to listen to this prattle. It’s very cold here. I froze out here trying to get your attention with the rocks—didn’t you hear them?”

    “Black had lost himself in my father’s illustrations,” I said.

    Had I done wrong in saying this?

    Hasan spoke in precisely the same false tohat I sometimes resorted to with Black: “Shekure, as you are my brother’s wife, your best course of a is to return now with your children to the house of the hero spahi cavalryman to whom you’re still wed acc to the Koran.”

    “I refuse,” I said, as if hissing into the heart of the night. “I refuse, Hasan. No.”

    “Then, my responsibility aion to my brother forces me to alert the judge first thing tomorrow m of what I’ve heard here. Otherwise, they’ll call me to at.”

    “They’re going to call you to at anyway,” said Black. “The moment you go to the judge, I’ll reveal that you’re the one who murdered Our Sultan’s cherished servant, Enishte Effendi. This very m.”

    “Very well,” said Hasan calmly. “Make that revelation.”

    I shrieked. “They’ll torture the both of you!” I shouted. “Don’t go to the judge. Wait. Everything will bee clear.”

    “I have no fear of torture,” Hasan said. “I’ve been tortured twice before, and both times I uood it

    was the only way the guilty could be culled from the i. Let the slanderers fear torture. I’m going to tell the judge, the captain of the Janissaries, the Sheikhulislam, everybody about poor Enishte Effendi’s book and its illustrations. Everybody is talking about those illustrations. What is it about them? What’s in those pictures?”

    “There’s nothing in them,” Black said.

    “Which means you examihem at the first opportunity.”

    “Enishte Effendi wants me to finish the book.”

    “Very well. I hope, God willing, that they’ll torture the both of us.”

    The two of them fell silent. , Blad I heard footsteps in the empty yard. Were they leaving or approag us? We could her see Hasan nor tell what he was doing. It would’ve been senseless for him to push through the thorns, shrubs and brambles lining the far end of the garden ich-blaess. He could’ve easily left without being seen, had he passed through the trees and wound his way before us, but we didn’t hear any footsteps nearing us. I boldly shouted, “Hasan!” There was no response.

    “Hush,” said Black.

    We were both trembling from the cold. Without hesitating too long, we closed the gate and the doors tightly behind us. Before entering my bed warmed by the children, I checked on my father again. Meanwhile, Blace agaied himself before the pictures.

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