I AM YOUR BELOVED UNCLE
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My funeral lendid, exactly as I’d wanted. It made me proud that everybody I’d wished would attend came. Of the viziers who were in Istanbul at the time of my death, Haji Hüseyin Pasha of Cyprus and Baki Pasha the Lame loyally remembered that I’d rendered extensive services to them at oime or ahe presence of the Minister of Ats, Red Melek Pasha, who, at the time of my death was both in high favor and much criticized, enlivehe humble courtyard of our neighborhood mosque. Had I lived and tinued an active political life, I would’ve been promoted to the same rank as Mustafa Agha, the Sultan’s Chief Herald, whose presence especially delighted me. The mourners stituted a large, dignified and impressive group that included the Divaary Kemalettin Effendi, Chief Secretary Salim Effendi the Austere, the heralds of the Divan—each of whom was either a dear friend or an aremy—a group of former Divan cillors whned early from active political life, my school friends, others who’d somehow learned of my death—I agine how or where—and various other relative９９lｉｂ.s, in-laws and youths.I also took pride in the gregation, its seriousness and its grief. The presence of the Head Treasurer Haz 1m Agha and the ander of the Imperial Guard made clear to all in attendahat His Excellency Our Sultan was sincerely aggrieved by my untimely death. I was, indeed, very pleased by this. I don’t know whether the sorrow of lorious Sultan means great efforts will be made to catch my rogue murderer, including the mobilization of torturers, but I do know this: that accursed man is now in the courtyard, among the other miniaturists and calligraphers, wearing a dignified and exceedingly tormented expression as he gazes at my coffin.
Pray, don’t think that I’m infuriated by my murderer or that I’m set on a path of revenge, or even that my soul is restless because I’ve been treacherously and cruelly slain. I am, at present, on a pletely different plane of being, and my soul is quite at peace, haviuro its flory after years of suffering oh.
My soul temporarily quitted my body, which was writhing in pain as it lay covered in blood from the blows of the inkpot, and quivered for a while within an intense light; afterward, two beautiful and smiling angels with faces bright as the sun—such as I’d read about tless times in the Book of the Soul—sloroached me within this ethereal brilliance, grabbed me by my arms, as if I were still a body, and began their ast. Ever so serenely aly, ever so quickly we asded as if in a blissful dream! We passed through forests of fire, forded rivers of light and fed dark seas and mountains of snow and ice. Each crossing took us thousands of years, though it seemed no more than the blink of an eye.
We asded through the seven Heavens, passing varieties of gatherings, peculiar creatures, marshes and clouds swarming with an infinite variety of is and birds. At each level of Heaven, the angel who led the way would kno a portal, and when the question, “Who goes there?” came from beyond, the angel would describe me including all my names and attributes, summing up by saying, “An obedient servant of Exalted Allah!”—which would bring tears of joy to my eyes. I knew, however, that there were yet thousands of years before the Day of Judgment when those destined for Heaven would be separated from those destined for Hell.
My assion, except for a few minor differences, happened just the way Gazzali, El Jevziyye and endary scholars described in their passages oh. Eternal puzzles and dark enigmas that only the dead might uand were now being revealed and illuminated, bursting forth brilliantly one by one in thousands of colors.
Oh, how might I adequately describe the hues I saw during this exquisite jourhe whole world was made up of color, everything was color. Just as I sehat the force separating me from all other beings and objects sisted of color, I now khat it was color itself that had affeately embraced me and bouo the world. I saw e-hued skies, beautiful leaf-green bodies, brown eggs and legendary sky-blue horses. The world was faithful to the illustrations and legends that I’d avidly scrutinized over the years. I beheld Creation with awe and surprise as if for the first time, but also as if it’d somehow emerged from my memory. What I called “memory” tained aire world: With time spread out infinitely before me in both dires, I uood how the world as I first experie could persist afterward as memory. As I died surrounded by this festival of color, I also discovered why I felt so relaxed, as if I’d been liberated from a straitjacket: From now on, nothing was restricted, and I had unlimited time and spa which to experience all eras and all places.
As soon as I realized this freedom, with fear aasy I knew I was close to Him; at the same time, I humbly felt the presence of an absolutely matchless red.
Within a short period, red imbued all. The beauty of this color suffused me and the whole universe. As I approached His Being in this manner, I had the urge to cry out in jubilation. I was suddenly ashamed to be taken into His presence, drenched in blood as I was. Another part of my mind recalled what I’d read in books oh, that He would enlist Azrael and His els to summoo His presence.
Would I be able to see Him? I wasn’t able to breathe out of excitement.
The red approag me—the om red within which all the images of the universe played—was so magnifit aiful that it quied my tears to think I would bee part of it and be so close to Him.
But I also knew He’d e no closer to me than He already had; He’d inquired about me from His angels and they’d praised me; He saw me as a loyal servant bound to His as and prohibitions; and He loved me.
My mounting joy and flowing tears were abruptly poisoned by a nagging doubt. Guilt-ridden and impatient in my uainty, I asked Him:
“Over the last twenty years of my life, I’ve been influenced by the infidel illustrations that I saw in Vehere was even a time when I wanted my own portrait painted in that method and style, but I was afraid. Instead, I later had Your World, Your Subjects and Our Sultan, Your Shadow oh,
depicted in the manner of the infidel Franks.”
I didn’t remember His voice, but I recalled the answer He gave me in my thoughts.
“East a belong to me.”
I could barely tain my excitement.
“All right then, what is the meaning of it all, of this…of this world?”
“Mystery,” I heard in my thoughts, or perhaps, “mercy,” but I wasn’t certain of either.
By the way the angels had e near me, I knew some sort of decision had been made about me at this height of the heavens, but I’d have to wait in the divine balance of Berzah with the mass of other souls who’d died over the last tens of thousands of years until the Day of Judgment, when the final decision about us would be made. That everything transpired the way it was recorded in books pleased me. I recalled from my readings as I desded that I’d be reunited with my body during my burial.
But I quickly uood that the phenomenon of “reentering my lifeless body” was just a figure of speech, thank goodness. Despite their sorrow, the dignified funeral gregation that filled me with pride was astonishingly anized as it shouldered my coffin after the prayers and desded into the little Hillock Cemetery beside the mosque. From above, the procession appeared like a thin and delicate length of string.
Let me clarify my situation: As might be inferred from the well-known legend of Our Prophet—which states “The soul of the faithful is a bird that feeds from the trees of Heaven”—after death, the soul roams the firmament. As claimed by Abu ?mer bin Abdülber, the interpretation of this legend doesn’t mean that the soul will possess a bird or even bee a bird itself, but as the learned El Jevziyye aptly clarifies, it means that the soul be found where birds gather. The spot from which I was things, what the Veian masters who love perspective would call my “point of view,” firmed El Jevziyye’s interpretation.
From where I was, for example, I could both see the threadlike funeral processioering the cemetery, and with the pleasure of analyzing a painting, watch a sailboat gaining speed, its sails g on wind as it tacked toalace Point, where the Golden Horhe Bosphorus. Looking down from the height of a mihe whole world resembled a magnifit book whose pages I was examining one by one.
Still, I could see much more than a man who’d simply asded to such heights without his soul havi his body, and furthermore, I could see it all at once: Oher side of the Bosphorus, beyond üsküdar, among gravestones in ay yard, children playing leapfrog; the graceful progression of the Vizier of Diplomatic Affair’s ca?que propelled by seven pairs of oarsmen twelve years and seven months
ago, when we apahe Veian ambassador from his seaside mansion to be received by the Grand Vizier, Bald Ragip Pasha; a portly woman in the new Langa bazaar holding a huge head of cabbage like a child she was about to nurse; my elatiohe Divan Herald Ramazan Effendi died, opening the way for my own adva; how I stared as a child from my grandmother’s lap at red shirts while my mother hung the laundry to dry in the courtyard; how I ran to distant neighborhoods in search of the midwife when Shekure’s mother, may she rest in peace, had goo labor; the location of the red belt I’d lost over forty years ago (I know now that Vasfi stole it); the splendid garden in the distahat I’d dreamed about owenty-one years ago, which I pray Allah will one day firm is Heaven; the severed heads, noses, and ears sent to Istanbul by Ali Bey, the Governeneral of Geia, who suppressed the rebels in the fortress of Gori; and my beautiful, dear Shekure, who separated herself from the neighborhood women m over me in the house and stared into the flames of the brick stove in our courtyard.
As is recorded in books and firmed by scholars, the soul dwells in four realms: 1. the womb; 2. the terrestrial world; 3. Berzah, or divine limbo, where I now await Judgment Day; and 4. Heaven or Hell, where I will arrive after the Judgment.
From the intermediate state of Berzah, past and present time appear at once, and as long as the soul remains within its memories, limitations of place do not obtain. Only when one escapes the dungeons of time and space does it bees evident that life is a straitjacket. However blissful it is being a soul without a body in the realm of the dead, so too is being a body without a soul among the living; what a pity nobody realizes this before dying. Therefore, during my lovely funeral, as I grievously watched my dear Shekure wear herself out weeping in vain, I begged of Exalted Allah to grant us souls-without-bodies in Heaven and bodies-without-souls in life.
IT IS I, MASTER OSMANYou know about those ornery old men who’ve charitably devoted their lives to art. They’ll attayone who gets in their way. They’re usually gaunt, bony and tall. They’ll want the dwindling number of days before them to be just like the long period they’ve left behind. They’re short-tempered, and they plain about everything. They’ll try to grab the reins in all situations, causing everyone around them to throw up their hands in frustration; they don’t like anyone or anything. I know, because I’m one of them.
The master of masters Nurullah Selim Chelebi, with whom I had the honor of making illustrations ko knee in the same workshop, was this way in his eighties, when I was but a sixteen-year-old apprehough he wasn’t as peevish as I am now). Blond Ali, the last of the great masters, laid to rest thirty years ago, was also this way (though he wasn’t as thin and tall as I am). Sihe arrows of criticism aimed at these legendary masters, who directed the workshops of their day now frequently strike me in the back, I want you to know that the haeyed accusations leveled at us are entirely unfouhese are the facts:
1. The reason we don’t like anything innovative is that there is truly nothing new worth liking.
2. We treat most men like morons because, indeed, most men are morons, not because we’re poisoned by anger, unhappiness or some other flaw in character. (Grareating these people better would be more refined and sensible.)
3. The reason I fet and fuse so many names and faces—except those of the miniaturists I’ve loved and trained siheir apprenticeships—is not senility, but because these names and faces are so lackluster and colorless as to be hardly worth remembering.
During the funeral of Enishte, whose soul rematurely taken by God because of his own foolishness, I tried tet that the deceased had at oime caused me uionable agony by f me to imitate the European masters. On the way back, I had the following thoughts: blindness ah, those gifts bestowed by God, are not so far from me now. Of course, I will be remembered only so long as my illustrations and manuscripts cause your eyes to prand flowers of bliss to bloom in your hearts. But after my death let it be known that in my old age, at the very end of my life, there was still plenty that made me smile. For instance:
1. Children—They represent what is vital in the world.
2. Sweet memories of handsome boys, beautiful women, painting well and friendships.
3. Seeing the masterpieces of the old masters of Herat—this ot be explaio the uninitiated.
The simple meaning of all of this: In Our Sultan’s workshop, which I direct, magnifit works of art o longer be made as they once were—and the situation will only get worse, everything will dwindle and disappear. I am painfully aware that we quite rarely reach the sublime level of the old masters of Herat, despite having lovingly sacrificed our entire lives to this work. Humbly accepting this truth makes life easier. Indeed, it is precisely because it makes life easier that modesty is such a highly prized virtue in our part of the world.
With an air of such modesty I was toug up an illustration in the Book of Festivities, which described the circumcision ceremonies of our prince, wherein was depicted the Egyptian Governeneral’s presentation of the following gifts: a gold-chased sword decorated with rubies, emeralds, and turquoise on a swatch of red velvet and one of the Governeneral’s proud, lightning fast and spirited Arabian horses with a white blaze on its nose and a silvery, gleaming coat, fully appointed with a gold bit and reins, stirrups of pearl and greenish-yellow chrysoberyl, and a red velvet saddle embellished with silver thread and ruby rosettes. With a fliy brush, here and there, I was toug up the illustration, whose position I had arranged while delegating the rendering of the horse, the sword, the prind the spebassadors to various apprentices. I applied purple to some of the leaves of the plaree in the Hippodrome. I dabbed yellow upon the caftan-buttons of the Tatar Khan’s ambassador. As I was brushing a sparse amount of gold wash onto the horse’s reins, somebody k the door. I quit
what I was doing.
It was an imperial pageboy. The Head Treasurer had summoned me to the palace. My eyes ached ever so mildly. I placed my magnifying lens in my pocket, a with the boy.
Oh, how is to walk through the streets after having worked without a break for so long! At such times, the whole world strikes one as inal and stunning, as if Allah had created it all the day before.
I noticed a dog, more meaningful than all the pictures of dogs I’d ever seen. I saw a horse, a lesser creation than what my master miniaturists might make. I spied a plaree in the Hippodrome, the same tree whose leaves I’d just now ated with tones of purple.
Strolling through the Hippodrome, whose parades I’d illustrated over the last two years, was like stepping into my own painting. Let’s say we were to turn down a street: In a Frankish painting, this would result in our stepping outside both the frame and the painting; in a painting made following the example of the great masters of Herat, it’d bring us to the place from which Allah looks upon us; in a ese painting, we’d be trapped, because ese illustrations are infinite.
The pageboy, I discovered, wasn’t takio the Divan Chamber where I ofte with the Head Treasurer to discuss one of the following: the manuscripts and ored ostrich eggs or ifts my miniaturists were preparing for Our Sultan; the health of the illustrators or the Head Treasurer’s own stitution and peaind; the acquisition of paint, gold leaf or other materials; the usual plaints and requests; the desires, delights, demands and disposition of the Refuge of the World, Our Sultan; my eyesight, my looking glasses or my lumbago; or the Head Treasurer’s good-for-nothing son-in-law or the health of his tabby cat. Silently, we ehe Sultan’s Private Garden. As if itting a crime, but with great delicacy, we serenely desded toward the sea through the trees. “We’re nearing the Sea-Side Kiosk,” I thought, “this means I will see the Sultan. His Excellency must be here.” But we turned off the path. We walked ahead a few steps through the arched doorway of a stone building behind the rowboat and ca?que sheds. I could smell the st of baking bread wafting from the guard’s bakery before >?９9ｌib?</a>atg sight of the Imperial Guard themselves in their red uniforms.
The Head Treasurer and the ander of the Imperial Guard were together in one room: Angel and Devil!
The ander, who performed executions in the name of Our Sultan on the palace grounds—who tortured, interrogated, beat, blinded and administered the bastinado—smiled sweetly at me. It was as if some piddling lodger, with whom I was forced to share a caravansary cell, were going to ret a heart-warming story.
The Head Treasurer diffidently said, “Our Sultan, one year prior, charged me with having an illuminated manuscript prepared under ditions of the utmost privacy, a manuscript that would be included among the gifts meant for an ambassadorial delegation. In light of the secrecy of the book, His Excellency did
not deem it appropriate that Master Lokman the Royal Historian be enlisted to write the manuscript. Similarly, He did not veo involve you, whose artistry He quite admires. Indeed, He supposed that you were already fully engaged with the Book of Festivities.”
Upoering this room I had abruptly assumed that some wretch had slandered me, claiming that I was itting heresy in sud-su illustration and that I’d lampoohe Sn in another; I imagined with horror that this tattler had been able to vihe Sn of my guilt and that I was about to be laid out for torture with no sideration for my age. And so to hear that the Head Treasurer was simply trying to make amends for Our Sultan’s having issioned a manuscript from an outsider—these words were sweeter than honey indeed. Without learning anything new, I listeo an at of the manuscript, about which I was already well aware. I rivy to the rumors about Hoja of Erzurum, and naturally, to the intrigues within the workshop.
“Who is responsible for preparing the manuscript?” I asked.
“Enishte Effendi, as you know,” said the Head Treasurer. Fixing his gaze into my eyes, he added, “You were aware that he died an untimely death, that is to say, that he was murdered, weren’t you?”
“Nay,” I said simply, like a child, and fell quiet.
“Our Sultan is quite furious,” the Head Treasurer said.
That Enishte Effendi was a duhe master miniaturists always mocked him for being more pretentious than knowledgeable, more ambitious than intelligent. I knew something was rotten at the funeral anyway. How was he killed, I wondered?
The Head Treasurer explaily hoalling. Dear God protect us. Yet who could be responsible?
“The Sultan has decreed,” said the Head Treasurer, “that the book iion should be finished as soon as possible, as with the Book of Festivities manuscript…”
“He has also made a sed decree,” said the ander of the Imperial Guard. “If, ihis unspeakable murderer is one of the miniaturists, He wants the black-hearted devil found. He intends to sentence him to a punishment such as will stand as a deterrent to one and all.”
An expression of such excitement appeared on the face of the ander as if to suggest he already khe monstrous punishment Our Sultan had decreed.
I khat Our Sultan had only retly charged these two men with this task, thereby f them to cooperate—on which at they couldn’t hide their distaste even now. Seeing this inspired in me a love for the Sultan that went beyond mere awe. A servant boy served coffee a for a while.
I was told that Enishte Effendi had a nephew named Black Effendi whom he’d cultivated, a man trained in illumination and book arts. Had I met him? I remained silent. A short while ago, upon the invitation of his Enishte, Black had returned from the Persian front, where he was under Serhat Pasha’s and—the ander shot me a look of suspi. Here, in Istanbul, he worked himself into his Enishte’s good graces and learhe story of the book whose creation Enishte was overseeing. Black claimed that after Elegant Effendi was killed, Enishte suspected one of the master miniaturists who visited him at night to work on this manuscript. He’d seen the illustrations these masters had made and said that Enishte’s murderer—the selfsame painter who stole the Sultan’s illustration with the lion’s share of gold leaf—was one of them. For two days, this young Black Effendi had cealed the death of Enishte from the palad the Head Treasurer. Within that very teriod, he’d rushed ahead with a marriage to Enishte’s daughter, ahically and religiously dubious affair, aled into Enishte’s house; thus, both the men before me sidered Black a suspect.
“If their houses and workplaces are searched and the missing page turns up with one of my master miniaturists, Black’s innoce will be established at once,” I said. “Frankly, however, I tell you that my dearest children, my divinely inspired miniaturists, whom I’ve known sihey were apprentices, are incapable of taking the life of another man.”
“As for Olive, Stork and Butterfly,” said the ander, mogly using the niames I’d affeately given to them, “we io b their homes, haunts, places of work and, if applicable, shops, leaving no stourned. And that includes Black…” His expression bespnation: “Given such troublesome circumstahank God, the judge has granted us per<dfn></dfn>mission to resort to torture if necessary during the interrogation of Black Effendi. Torture was deemed lawfully permissible because a seurder had been itted against someoh a link to the miniaturists guild, making suspects of them all, from appreo master.”
I mulled this over silently: 1. The phrase “lawfully permissible” made clear that Our Sultan wasn’t the one who’d grahe permission for torture. 2. Because all the miniaturists were under suspi of double murder in the eyes of the judge, and because I, though Head Illuminator, had been uo identify the criminal in our midst, I, too, was suspect. 3. I uood that they wanted my expliplicit approval to go ahead with the torture of my beloved Butterfly, Olive, Stork and the others, all of whom, i years, had betrayed me.
“Since Our Sultan desires both the satisfactory pletion of the Book of Festivities and this book<tt></tt>—which is evidently only half finished,” said the Head Treasurer, “we’re worried that torture might damage the masters’ hands and eyes, destroying their agility.” He faced me. “Isn’t this so?”
“There was similar worry over another i retly,” said the ander brusquely. “A goldsmith and a jeweler who did repairs fell sway to the Devil. They were childishly ented with a ruby-handled coffee cup belonging to Our Sultan’s younger sister Nejmiye Sultan, and ended up stealing it. Sihe theft of the cup, which overwhelmed Our Sultan’s sister with grief—she was quite fond of the
piece—occurred in the üsküdar Palace, the Sn appointed me to iigate. It became apparent that both Our Sultan and Nejmiye Sultan wanted no harm to e to the eyes and fingers of the master gold- and jewelry smiths lest their skills be affected. So, I had all the master jewelry smiths stripped naked and thrown into the freezing pool in the yard among pieces of id frogs. Periodically, I’d have them taken out and lashed forcefully, taking care that their faces and hands remained unharmed. Within a short period, the jeweler who’d been duped by the Devil fessed and accepted his punishment. Despite the ice-cold water, the frozen air and all the lashings, no lasting injury came to the eyes and fingers of the master jewelers because they were pure of heart. Even the Sultaiohat His sister was quite pleased with my work and that the jewelers were w with more zeal now that the bad apple was out of the barrel.”
I was certain that the ander would treat my master illustrators more severely than he had the jewelers. Though he had respect for Our Sultahusiasm for illuminated manuscripts, like many others, he deemed calligraphy the only respectable art form, belittling embellishment and illustration as flirtations with heresy, fit for women and deserving of nothing but rebuke. In order to provoke me, he said, “While you’ve been absorbed in your work, your beloved miniaturists have already begun scheming to see who’ll bee Head Miniaturist upon your death.”
Was this gossip I hadn’t already heard? Had he informed me of something new? Restraining myself, I didn’t respond. The Head Treasurer was more than aware of the fury I felt toward him for issioning a manuscript from that deceased half-wit behind my back, and toward my ingrate miniaturists, who’d secretly prepared these illustrations to curry favor and earn a few extra silver s.
I caught myself p the methods of torture that might be inflicted. They wouldn’t resort to flaying during the interrogation, because that iably leads to death. They wouldn’t impale anyoher, as they do with rebels, because that’s used as a deterrent. Crag and splintering the fingers, arms s of these miniaturists was also out of the question. Of course, the removal of an eye—which I gathered was a measure of increasing frequency these days, to judge by the growing numbers of one-eyed people oreets of Istanbul—would be inappropriate for master artists. So, as I imagined my dear miniaturists in a secluded er of the Royal Private Garden, there in the ice-cold pool among the water lilies, shivering violently and glaring hatefully at one another, I had the passing urge to laugh. heless, it caused me agony to imagine how Olive would shriek when his hindquarters were branded with a hot iron and how dear Butterfly’s skin would pale when he was shackled. I couldn’t bear to jure the se of dear Butterfly—whose skill and love for illuminatiht tears to my eyes—as he was given the bastinado like a on thieving apprentice. I just stood there dumbfounded and hollow.
My elderly mind was mute uhe spell of its own internal silehere was a time when we’d paint together with a passion that made us fet everything.
“These mehe most expert miniaturists serving Our Sultan,” I said. “Make certain no harm befalls them.”
Pleased, the Head Treasurer rose, grabbed a number of pages from the worktable at the other end of the room and arrahem in front of me. , as if the room were dark, he placed beside me twe dle holders whose portly tapers burned with bobbing and twittering flames so I could study the paintings iion.
How might I explain what I saw as I moved the magnifying lens over them? I felt like laughing—and not because they were humorous. I was insed—it seemed that Enishte Effendi had instructed my masters as follows: “Don’t paint like yourselves, paint as if you were someone else.” He’d forced them to recall ent memories, to jure and paint a future, which they’d never want to live. What was even more incredible was that they were killing each other over this nonsense.
“By looking at these illustrations, you tell me which miniaturist worked on which picture?” asked the Head Treasurer.
“Yes,” I said angrily. “Where did you find these paintings?”
“Black brought them of his own accord ahem with me,” said the Head Treasurer. “He’s bent on proving that he and his late Enishte are i.”
“During the interrogation, torture him,” I said. “That way we’ll learn what other secrets our late Enishte was harb.”
“We’ve sent for him,” said the ander of the Imperial Guard. “Afterward, we’ll thhly search the house of that newlywed.”
Both their faces were strangely illuminated, a flicker of fear and awe overcame them, and they so their feet.
Without having to turn around I kneere in the presence of His Excellency, Our Sultan, the Refuge of the World.
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