I AM ESTHER

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    Oh, how wonderful it is to cry along with the rest of them! While the men were at the funeral of my dear Shekure’s father, the women, kith and kin, spouses and friends, gathered in the house and shed their tears, and I, too, beat my chest in m a with them. Now wailing in unison with the pretty maiden beside me, leaning on her and swaying bad forth; n in a pletely different frame of mind, I was deeply touched by my own woes and pitiful life. If I could cry like this just once a week, I thought, I might fet how I had to roam the streets all day just to make ends meet, fet being mocked for my weight and my Jewishness and be reborn an even more chattermouth Esther.

    I like social gatherings because I  eat to my heart’s tent, and, at the same time, fet that I’m the black sheep of the crowd. I love the baklava, mint dy, marzipan bread and fruit leather of holidays; the pilaf with meat and the tea-cup pastries of circumcision ceremonies; drinking sour-cherry sherbet at celebrations held by the Sultan in the Hippodrome; eating everything at weddings; and tossing down the sesame, honey or variously flavored dolence halvas sent by the neighbors at wakes.

    I quietly slipped into the hallut on my shoes a downstairs. Before I turned into the kit, I grew curious about an odd noise ing through the half-open door of the room o the stable. I took a few steps in that dire and glanced io discover that Shevket and Orhan had tied up the son of one of the women mourners and were in the midst of painting his face with their late grandfather’s paints and brushes. “If you try to escape, we’ll hit you like this,” Shevket said and slapped the boy.

    “My dear child, play nid gentle now, don’t hurt each other, all right?” I said in a voice as velvety as I could muster.

    “Mind your own affairs!” Shevket shouted.

    I noticed the small, frightened, blond-haired sister of the boy they were tormenting standing beside them, and for whatever reason, I felt for her pletely. Fet about it, now, Esther!

    I, Hayriye peered at me suspiciously.

    “I’ve cried myself dry, Hayriye,” I said. “Fod’s sake, pour me a glass of water.”

    She did so, silently. Before I drank it, I stared into her eyes, swollen from weeping.

    “Poor Enishte Effendi, they say he was already dead before Shekure’s wedding,” I ented. “People’s mouths aren’t like bags that  be ched up, some even claim there was foul play involved.”

    In an exaggerated gesture, she looked down at her toes. Then she lifted her head and without looking at me said, “May God protect us from baseless slander.”

    Her first gesture firmed what I’d said, and moreover the ce of her words veyed that they were spoken under duress—to hide the truth.

    “What’s going on?” I asked abruptly, whispering as if I were her fidant.

    Indecisive Hayriye had of course uood that there was no hope of claiming any authority over Shekure after Enishte Effendi’s death. And a short while ago, she was the one m with the most heartfelt tears.

    “What’s to bee of me, now?” she said.

    “Shekure holds you in high regard,” I said in my habit of giving news. Lifting up the lids of the pots of halva lined up between the large clay jar of grape molasses and the pickle jar, sneaking a fingerful from one or simply leaning over to smell another, I asked who’d sent each of them.

    Hayriye was rattling off who’d sent which pot: “This one’s from Kas 1m Effendi of Kayseri; this ohe assistant from the miniaturists division who lives two streets over; that’s from the locksmith, Left-Handed Hamdi; that ohe young bride from Edirne—” when Shekure interrupted her.

    “Kalbiye, the late Elegant Effendi’s widow, didn’t e to offer her dolences, didn’t send word and didn’t send any halva either!”

    She was heading from the kit door to the foot of the stairs. I followed her, knowing that she wao have a word with me in private.

    “There was no ill-will betwee Effendi and my father. On the day of Elegant’s funeral, we prepared our halva a it to them. I want to know what’s going on,” Shekure said.

    “I’ll ght away and find out,” I said, anticipating Shekure’s thoughts.

    Since I kept our chat brief, she kissed me on the cheek. As the cold of the courtyard bit into us, we embraced and stood there without moving. Afterward, I stroked my beautiful Shekure’s hair.

    “Esther, I’m afraid,” she said.

    “My dear, don’t be afraid,” I said. “Every cloud has a silver lining. Look, you’re finally married.”

    “But I’m not sure I did the right thing,” she said. “That’s why I haven’t let him get near me. I spent the night beside my unfortuher.”

    She opened her eyes wide and looked at me in a way that said, You uand what I mean.

    “Hasan claims that your wedding is null in the eyes of the judge,” I said. “He sent this to you.”

    Though she said, “No more,” she immediately opehe small note and read, but this time she didn’t tell me what it tained.

    She was right to be discreet; we weren’t alone in the courtyard where we’d stood embrag: Above us, a smirking carpenter, reattag the shutter of the hall window, which fell and broke for some unknown reason that m, was also eyeing both us and the women m inside. Meanwhile, Hayriye

    came out of the house and rushed to open the door for the son of a loyal neighbor who’d called out, “the halva’s here,” as he knocked on the courtyard gate.

    “It’s been quite some time since we buried him,” said Shekure. “I ow sehat my poor father’s soul is leaving his body food and rising into the heavens.”

    She removed herself from my arms, and gazing up at the bright sky, recited a long prayer.

    I suddenly felt so distant aranged from Shekure that it wouldn’t have surprised me if I were the cloud she was gazing at. As soon as she finished her prayer, pretty Shekure kissed me affeately on both cheeks.

    “Esther,” she said, “so long as my father’s murderer roams free, there’ll be no pea this world for me or my children.”

    It pleased me that she didn’t mention her new husband’s name.

    “Go to Elegant Effendi’s house, talk casually to his widow and learn why they didn’t send us any halva. Let me know immediately what you find out.”

    “Do you have any messages for Hasan?” I said.

    I felt embarrassed, not because I’d asked this question, but because I couldn’t look her in the eye as I did so. To cover up my embarrassment, I stopped Hayriye and opehe lid of the pot she was holding. “Ohh,” I said, “semolina halva with pistachios,” as I had a taste. “And they’ve added es, too.”

    It made me happy to see Shekure smile sweetly as if everything were happening as planned.

    I grabbed my bundle a. I’d taken no more than two steps when I saw Black at the end of the street. He’d just e from the burial of his father-in-law, and I could tell from his beaming face that this new husband was quite pleased with his life. In order not to dampen his spirits, I left the street, ehe vegetable roassed through the garden of the house where the brother of the lover of the famous Jewish dooshe Hamon had lived before he was hahis garden, which recalled death, always brought such great sadness upon me when I walked through it that I invariably fot I’d been charged to find a buyer for the property.

    The air of death was also i Effendi’s house, though <samp>.9９lib?</samp>for me it provoked no sadness. I was Esther, a woman who went in and out of thousands of homes and was acquainted with hundreds of widows; I khat women who lost their husbands early were spellbouher by defeat and misery er and rebellion (although Shekure had suffered all these afflis). Kalbiye had partaken of the poison of anger and I fast realized that this would serve to hasten my work.

    As with all ceited women to whom life has been cruel, Kalbiye quite rightly suspected that all her visitors came to pity her in her darkest hour, or even worse, to witness her agony aly rejoi their ower situations; thus, she engaged in no pleasantries with her guests, but went straight to the heart of the matter foing any flowery small talk. Why had Esther e this afternoon, just as Kalbiye was about to take a soling nap with her grief? Well aware she’d take no i iest silks from a or handkerchiefs from Bursa, I didn’t eveend to open my bundle, but came right to the point and described teary-eyed Shekure’s . “It has heightened Shekure’s misery to think that she has somehow hurt your feelings, with whom she shares the same sorrow,” I said.

    Arrogantly, Kalbiye firmed that she hadn’t asked after Shekure’s well-being, hadn’t visited to express her dolenourn with her, nor could she bring herself to prepare and send any halva. Behind her pride, there also lurked a glee that she couldn’t ceal: The delight that her rese had been re<var></var>ized. It was from this point of entry that your sharp-witted Esther attempted to discover the reasons for and circumstances of Kalbiye’s anger.

    It didn’t take long for Kalbiye to admit that she’d been upset with the late Enishte Effendi due to the illustrated manuscript he reparing. She said her husband, may he rest in peace, hadn’t agreed to work on the book for the sake of a handful of extra silver s, but because Enishte Effendi vinced him the project was authorized by the Sultan. However, when her late husband became aware that the illuminations Enishte Effendi hired him to gild were slowly evolving from simple ored pages into full-blown illustrations, pictures moreover that bore the marks of Frankish blasphemy, atheism and even heresy, he grew uneasy and began to lose sight ht and wrong. Being a much more reasonable and prudent person tha Effendi, she cautiously added that all these doubts arose gradually rather than at once, and since poor Elegant Effendi never found anything that would be sidered blatant sacrilege, he was able to dismiss his worries as unfounded. Besides, he forted himself by never missing a sermon given by  Hoja of Erzurum, and if he skipped one of his five daily prayers it uled him. Just as he khat certain sdrels at the workshop ridiculed his plete devotion to the faith, so he uood very well that their brazen jokes arose out of envy of h Shekure’s situation was much more beautiful, rid mysterious. I let Kalbiye kly what I felt:

    “Shekure told me to tell you that if she has wronged you, she’s sorry,” I said. “She wants to.. say that she loves you as a sister and as a woman who shares her fate. She wants you to think about this and help her. Whee Elegant Effendi left here on his last night, did he mention he’d be seeing anyone besides Enishte Effendi? Did you ever sider that he might’ve been going to meet somebody else?”

    “This was found on his person,” she said.

    She removed a folded piece of paper from a lidded wicker box, which tained embroidery needles, pieces of cloth and a large walnut.

    When I took up the crumpled piece h paper and exami, I saw a variety of shapes drawn in ink that had run and smudged in the well water. I’d just determined what the forms were when Kalbiye voiced my thoughts.

    “Horses,” she said. “But late Elegant Effendi only did gilding work. He never drew horses. And no one would’ve ever asked him to render a horse.”

    Your elderly Esther was looking at the horses which had been quickly sketched, but she couldn’t quite make anything of them.

    “If I were to take this piece of paper to Shekure, she’d be quite pleased,” I said.

    “If Shekure desires to see these sketches, let her e get them herself,” said Kalbiye with no small hint of ceit.

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