I AM ESTHER
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I uttiil soup on the boil for our evening meal when Nesim said, “There’s a visitor at the door.” I replied, “Make sure the soup doesn’t burn,” handing him the spoon and giving it a couple of turns i while holding his aged hand. If you don’t show them, they’ll stand there for hours idly holding the spoon i.When I saw Black at the door I felt nothing but pity for him. There was su expression on his face I was afraid to ask what had happened.
“Don’t bother to e inside,” I said, “I’ll be out as soon as I ge clothes.”
I dohe pink and yellow garments that I wear when I’m io Ramadaivities, wealthy bas ahy weddings, and took up my holiday satchel. “I’ll have my soup when I get back,” I said to poor Nesim.
Blad I had crossed oreet in my little Jewish neighborhood whose eys labor to expel their smoke, the way our kettles force out their steam, and I said:“Shekure’s former husband is back.”
Black fell silent and stayed that way until we left the neighborhood. His face was ashen, the color of the waning day.
“Where are they?” he asked sometime later.
From this question I guessed that Shekure and her children weren’t at home. “They’re at their house,” I said. Because I meant Shekure’s previous home, and k ohat this would singe Black’s heart, I opened a door of hope for him by tag the word “probably” onto the end of my statement.
“Have you seen her newly returned husband?” he asked me, looking deep into my eyes.
“I haven’t seen him, her did I see Shekure’s flight from the house.”
“How did you know they’d left?”
“From your face.”
“Tell me everything,” he said decisively.
Black was so troubled he didn’t uand that Esther—her eye eternally at the window, her ear eternally to the ground—could ell everything” if she wao tio be the Esther who found husbands for so many dreamy maidens and knocked on the doors of so many unhappy homes.
“What I’ve heard,” I said, “is that the brother of Shekure’s former husband, Hasan, visited your house”—it heartened him when I said “your house”—“and told Shevket that his father was on his way home from war, that he would arrive around midafternoon, and that if he didn’t find Shevket’s mother and brother in their rightful home, he’d be very upset. Shevket told this to his mother, who acted cautiously, but couldn’t e to a decision. Toward midafternoon, Shevket left the house to be with his Uncle Hasan and his grandfather.”
“Where did you learhings?”
“Hasn’t Shekure told you about Hasan’s schemes over the last two years to get her back to his house? There was a time when Hasa letters to Shekure through me.”
“Did she ever respond to them?”
“I know all the varieties of women in Istanbul,” I said proudly, “there’s no one who’s as bound to her house, her husband and her honor as Shekure is.”
“But I am her husband now.”
His voice bore that typically male uainty that always depressed me. Amazingly, to whichever side Shekure fled, the other side went to pieces.
“Hasan wrote a note and gave it to me to deliver to Shekure. It described how Shevket had e home to await the return of his father, how Shekure had been married in an illegitimate ceremony, how Shevket was very unhappy on at of the false husband who was supposed to be his new father and how he was never going back.”
“How did Shekure respond?”
“She waited for you all through the night with poor Orhan.”
“What about Hayriye?”
“Hayriye’s been waiting for years for the opportunity to drown your beautiful wife in a spoonful of water. This was why she began sleeping with your Enishte, may he rest in peace. When Hasan saw that Shekure ending the night alone in fear of murderers and ghosts, he sent along another not?hrough me.”
“What did he write?”
Thanks be to God that your unfortuher ’t read or write, because when irate Effendis and irritable fathers ask this question, she say: “I couldn’t read the letter, only the face of the beautiful maiden reading the letter.”
“What did you read in Shekure’s face?”
“Helplessness.”
For a long time we didn’t speak. Awaiting nightfall, an oerched on the dome of a small Greek church; runny-nosed neighborhood kids laughed at my clothes and bundle, and a mangy dog happily scratg himself loped down from the cemetery lined with cypresses to greet the night.
“Slow down!” I shouted at Black later, “I ’t get up these hills the way you . Where are you takih my satchel like this?”
“Before y me to Hasan’s house, I’m taking you to some generous and brave young men so you spread out your bundle ahem some flowery handkerchiefs, silk sashes and purses with silver embroidery for their secret lovers.”
It was a good sign that Black could still make jokes in his pitiable state, but I could fathom the seriousness behind his mirth. “If yoing to gather a posse, I’ll ake you to Hasan’s house,” I said. “I’m frighteo death of fights and brawls.”
“If you tio be the intelligeher you’ve always been,” he said, “there’ll be her fight nor brawl.”
We passed through Aksaray aered the road heading back, straight toward the Langa gardens. On the upper part of the muddy road, in a neighborhood that had seen happier days, Black walked into a barbershop that was still open. I saw him talking to the master barber being shaved by an ho-looking boy with lovely hands by the light of an oil lamp. Before long, the barber, his handsome apprentice, and later, two more of his men joined up with us at Aksaray. They carried swords and axes. At a side street in Shehzadebash 1, a theology student, whom I couldn’t picture involved in such rough affairs, joined us in the darkness, sword in hand.
“Do you plan on raiding a house in the middle of the city in broad daylight?” I said.
“It’s not day, it’s night,” said Bla a tone more pleased than joking.
“Don’t be so fident just because you’ve put together a gang,” I said. “Let’s hope the Janissaries don’t catch sight of this fully equipped little army wandering around.”
“No one will catch sight of us.”
“Yesterday the Erzurumis first raided a tavern and then the dervish house at Sa? 1rkap 1, beating up everyohey found in both places. An elderly man who took a blow to his head with a stick died. In this pitch blaess, they might think you’re of their lot.”
“I hear you went to dearly departed Elegant <samp></samp>Effendi’s house, saw his wife, God bless her, and the horse sketches with the smeared ink before relaying it all to Shekure. Had Elegant Effendi been spending a lot of time with the hen of the preacher from Erzurum?”
“If I sounded out Elegant Effendi’s wife, it was because I thought it might ultimately help my poor Shekure,” I said. “Anyway, I’d gohere to show her the latest cloth which had e off the Flemish ship, not to involve myself in yal and political affairs—which my poor brain couldn’t fathom anyway.”
As we ehe street, which ran<big></big> behind Charsh 1kap 1, my heart quied with fear. The bare, wet
branches of the chestnut and mulberry trees glimmered in the pale light of the half-moon. A breeze kicked up by jinns and the living dead rippled the laced edging of my satchel, whistled through the trees and carried the st of roup to neighborhood dogs lying in wait. As they began to bark one by one, I pointed out the house to Black. We stared quietly at its dark roof and shutters. Black had the men take positions around the house: in the empty garden, oher side of the courtyard gate and behind the fig trees in back.
“In that entryway over there is a vile Tatar beggar,” I said. “He’s blind, but he’ll know who’s e and gone along this street better than the neighborhood headman does. He tinually plays with himself as if he were one of the Sultan’s vulgar monkeys. Without letting your hand touch his, give him eight or ten silver pieces and he’ll tell you everything he knows.”
From a distance, I watched Black hand over the s, then lay his swainst the throat of the beggar and begin to pressure him with questions. , I’m not sure how it happehe barber’s apprentice, who I thought was simply watg the house, began to beat the Tatar with the butt of his axe. I watched for a while, thinking it wouldn’t last, but the Tatar was wailing. I ran over and pulled the beggar away before they killed him.
“He cursed my mother,” said the apprentice.
“He says that Hasan isn’t home,” Black said. “ we trust what this blind man says?” He handed me a hat he’d quickly written. “Take this, bring it to the house, give it to Hasan, and if he’s not there, give it to his father,” he said.
“Haven’t you written anything for Shekure?” I asked as I took the note.
“If I send her a separate ’ll ihe men of the house even more,” Black said. “Tell her I’ve found her father’s vile murderer.”
“Is this true?”
“Just tell her.”
Chastising the Tatar, who was still g and plaining, I quieted him down. “Don’t fet what I’ve done for you,” I said, ing to the realization that I’d drawn out the i so I wouldn’t have to leave.
Why had I stuck my o this affair? Two years ago in the Edire neighborhood they’d killed a clothes peddlar—after cutting off her ears—because the maiden she’d promised to one man married another. My grandmother used to tell me that Turks would often kill a man for no reason. I loo be with my dearest Nesim, at home haviil soup. Even though my feet resisted, I thought about how Shekure would be there, and walked to the house. Curiosity was eating at me.
“Clothierrr! I have new ese silks for holiday outfits.”
I sehe ish light filtering out between the shutters move. The door opened. Hasan’s polite father invited me ihe house was warm, like the houses of the rich. When Shekure, who was seated at a low dining table with her boys saw me, she rose to her feet.
“Shekure,” I said, “your husband’s here.”
“Whie?”
“The newer,” I said. “He’s surrouhe house with his band of armed men. They’re prepared to fight Hasan.”
“Hasan isn’t here,” said the polite father-in-law.
“How fortuake a look at this,” I said, giving him Black’s note like a proud ambassador of the Sultaing His merciless will.
As the gentlemanly father-in-law read the note, Shekure said, “Esther, e a me pour you a bowl of lentil soup to warm you up.”
“I don’t like lentil soup,” I said at first. I didn’t like the way she spoke as if she were mistress of the house. But when I uood that she wao be aloh me, I grabbed the spoon and rushed after her.
“Tell Black that it’s all because of Shevket,” she whispered. “Last night I waited all night aloh Orhahly afraid of the murderer. Orhan trembled with fright until m. My children had been separated! What kind of mother could remain apart from her child? When Black failed to e back, they told me that Our Sultan’s torturers had made him talk and that he’d a hand in my father’s death.”
“Wasn’t Black with you when your father was being killed?”
“Esther,” she said, opening her beautiful black eyes wide, “I beg of you, help me.”
“Then tell me why you’ve e back here so I might uand and help.”
“Do you think I know why I’ve returned?” she said. She seemed on the verge of tears. “Black was rough with my poor Shevket,” she said. “And when Hasan said that the children’s real father had returned, I believed him.”
But I could tell from her eyes that she was lying, and she knew I could tell. “I was duped by Hasan!” she whispered, and I sehat she wanted me to infer from this that she loved Hasan. But did Shekure realize that she was thinking more and more about Hasan because she had married Black?
The door opened and Hayriye entered carrying freshly baked bread whose aroma was irresistible. When she caught sight of me, I could tell from her expression of displeasure that after the death of Enishte Effendi, the poor thing—she couldn’t be sold, couldn’t be dismissed—had bee a legaisery for Shekure. The st of fresh bread filled the room, and I uood the truth of the matter as Shekure faced the children: Whether it be their real father, Hasan or Black, her problem wasn’t finding a husband she could love, her challenge was to find a father who would love these boys, both of whom were wide-eyed with fear. Shekure was ready, with the best of iions, to love any good husband.
“You’re seeking what you want with your heart,” I said unthinkingly, “whereas you o be making decisions with your mind.”
“I’m prepared to go back to Black immediately with the children,” she said, “but I have certain ditions!” She fell quiet. “He must treat Shevket and Orhan well. He shan’t inquire about my reasons for ing here. Above all, he must abide by our inal ditions of marriage—he’ll know what I’m talking about. He left me all aloo fend for myself last night against murderers, thieves and Hasan.”
“He hasn’t yet found your father’s murderer, but he told me to tell you he has.”
“Should I go to him?”
Before I could ahe former father-in-law, who’d long since finished reading the note, said, “Tell Black Effendi I ’t take the responsibility of handing over my daughter-in-law without my son being present.”
“Which son?” I said for the sake of being shrewish, but softly.
“Hasan,” he said. Since he was a man of etiquette, he blushed. “My oldest son is on his way back from Persia; there are witnesses.”
“Where’s Hasan?” I asked. I ate two spoonfuls of the soup Shekure had offered me.
“He went to gather the clerks, porters and other men of the s Office,” he said in the childish manner of det yet dull men who ot lie. “After what the Erzurumis did yesterday, the Janissaries are certain to be oreets tonight.”
“We didn’t see anything of the sort,” I said as I walked toward the door. “Is this all you have to say?”
I asked this question of the father-in-law to intimidate him, but Shekure knew full well that I was really
addressing her. Was her head truly this befuddled or was she hiding something; for example, was she awaiting the return of Hasan and his men? Oddly, I sehat I liked her indecisiveness.
“We don’t want Black,” Shevket said fidently. “And make this your last visit, fat lady.”
“But then who’ll bring around the lace tablecloths, the handkerchiefs embroidered with flowers and birds that your pretty mother likes, and your favorite red shirt cloth?” I said, leaving my bundle in the middle of the room. “Until I return, you open it up and take a look, try on, alter and sew whatever you like.”
I was saddened as I left. I’d never seen Shekure’s eyes so wet with tears. As soon as I adjusted to the cold outside, Black stopped me on the muddy road, sword in hand.
“Hasan’s not home,” I said. “Perhaps he’s goo the market to buy wio celebrate Shekure’s return. Perhaps he’ll soon be back with his men. In that case you’ll e to blows, because he’s crazy. And if he takes up that red sword of his, there’s no telling what he’ll do.”
“What did Shekure say?”
“The father-in-law said absolutely not, I won’t give up my daughter-in-law, but if I were you I wouldn’t worry about him, worry about Shekure. Your wife is fused. If you ask me, she te here two days after her father perished for fear of the murderer, because of Hasan’s threats and your disappearahout a word. She knew she couldn’t spend anht in that same house plagued by the same fears. They also told her that you had a hand in her father’s death. But her first husband hasn’t e back or anything like that. Shevket, and it seems the father-in-law, believed Hasan’s lie. She wants to return to you, but she has certain ditions.”
Staring directly into Black’s eyes, I listed her ditions. He accepted at oh an official air as if he were speaking with a genuine ambassador.
“I, too, have a dition,” I said. “I’m heading bato the house again.” I pointed out the shutters of the window behind which the father-in-law sat. “In a little while attack from there and the front door. When I scream, that’ll be the signal for you to stop. If Hasan arrives, don’t hesitate to attack him.”
My words, of course, did not befit an ambassador, to whom no harm should e, but I let myself get carried away, you see. This time, as soon as I yelled “Clothierrr,” the door opened. I went directly to the father-in-law.
“The entire neighborhood, and the judge who presides over these parts, that is everyone, knows that Shekure has long been divorced and properly remarried in keeping with the dictates of the Koran,” I said. “Even if your son, who has long since passed away, came back to life aurned here to you from Heaven in the pany of the Prophet Moses, it’d be of no use for he’s divorced from Shekure.
You’ve abducted a married woman and are holding her here against her will. Black requested that I tell you he and his men will see to your punishment for this crime before the judge .”
“Then he will have made a grave mistake,” said the father-in-law delicately. “We didn’t abduct Shekure at all! I’m the grandfather of these children, praise be to God. Hasan is their uncle. When Shekure was left all alone, what choice did she have but to seek shelter here? If she wants, she leave now and take her children with her. But never fet that this is her first home, where she gave birth to her children and happily raised them.”
“Shekure,” I said unthinkingly, “do you want to return to your father’s house?”
She’d begun to cry on at of the “happy hearth” speech. “I have no father,” she said, or was that how I heard it? Her children first embraced her legs, then sat her down and hugged her; the three of them hugged one another in a large ball a. But Esther is no idiot: I knew full well that Shekure’s tears were meant to appease both sides without her having to make a decision. But I also khey were geears, because they moved me to cry, too. A while later, I noticed that Hayriye, that snake, was als.
As if to pay back the green-eyed father-in-law for being the sole person in the room who wasn’t g, Blad his men began their atta the house that very moment by banging on the shutters and f the door. Two men were at the front door with a battering ram whose blows sounded like ohrough the house.
“You’re an experienced and dignified man,” I said, enced by my own tears, “open the door ahose rabid mongrels out there that Shekure is on her way.”
“Would you send an unprotected woman, your daughter-in-law no less, who’d taken refuge in your house, out onto the streets with those dogs?”
“She herself wants to go,” I said. With my purple handkerchief I wiped my nose, which had stuffed up fr.
“In that case she’s free to open the door and leave,” he said.
I sat down beside Shekure and her children. At eaew blow, the terrifying noise made by the men f the door became yet another excuse for yet more tears, the children began to cry louder, whi turn<s>藏书网</s> increased Shekure’s wailing and mine as well. Still, even taking into at the threatening cries from outside and the blows of the battering ram that seemed on the verge of destroying the house, both of us kneere g to gain time.
“My beautiful Shekure,” I said, “your father-in-law has given you permission and your husband Black has accepted all of your terms, he’s waiting for you lovingly, you no longer have any business in this
house. Put on your cloak, don your veil, take your belongings and your children, and open the door so we go quietly back to your house.”
This statement of mine made the children wail even more, and caused Shekure to open her eyes in shock.
“I’m afraid of Hasan,” she said, “his revenge will be horrible. He’s wild. Remember, I came here on my own.”
“This doesn’t cel out your new marriage,” I said. “You were left helpless, of course you were going to take refuge somewhere. Your husband’s fiven you, he’s prepared to take you back. As for Hasan, we’ll deal with him the way we have for years.” I smiled.
“But I’m not going to open the door,” she said, “because then I’ll have returo him of my own free will.”
“My dearest Shekure, I ot open the door either,” I said. “You know as well as I that this would mean I’ve meddled in your affairs. They’d bitterly avenge such meddling.”
I could see from her eyes that she uood. “Then no one will open the door,” she said. “Let’s wait for them to break it down and take us by force.”
I k ohis would be the best alternative for Shekure and her children, and I was afraid. “But that means blood will be spilled,” I said. “If the judge isn’t involved in this affair, blood will flow, and a blood feud will last for years. No honorable man could stand by and watch as his house was broken into and raided to abduct a woman residing there.”
I once again uretfully how deceptive and calculating this Shekure was as she embraced her two boys and wailed with all her being rather than answer. A voice was telliet everything and leave, but I could no longer walk back through the door, which was being battered to the breaking point. Actually, I was afraid of both what would happen if they broke down the door and came through and what would happen if they didn’t; I kept thinking that Black’s men, who trusted in me, were worried about going too far and might retreat at any moment, which would, in turn, emboldeher-in-law. When he went to Shekure’s side, I knew he’d begun to cry fake tears, but what’s worse, he was trembling in a way that couldn’t be feigned.
Stepping toward the door, I screamed with all my strength, “Stop, that’s enough!”
The otion outside and the wailing inside ended in a heartbeat.
“Mother, have Orhahe door,” I said in a moment of inspiration and in a sweet voice, as if I were speaking to the boy. “He wants to go home, no one will take issue with that.”
The words had hardly left my mouth when Orhan freed himself from his mother’s loosening arms, and like somebody who’d lived here for years, slid open the bolt, lifted the wooden bar, then unfastehe latch, and moved backward two steps. The cold from outside entered as the door yawned open. There was such a silehat all of us heard a lazy dog bark off in the distance. Shekure kissed Orhan, who was ba his mother’s lap, and Shevket said, “I’m going to tell Uncle Hasan.”
I saw Shekure stand, take up her cloak and prepare her buo leave, and I was so greatly relieved, I was afraid I might laugh. I seated myself and had two more spoonfuls of the lentil soup.
Black was intelligent enough not to e anywhere he door of the house. For a time, Shevket locked himself in his late father’s room, and even though we called for Black’s help, her he nor his men came. After Shekure agreed to let Shevket take along his Uncle Hasan’s ruby-handled dagger, the boy was willing to leave the house with us.
“Be afraid of Hasan and his red sword,” said the father-in-law with genuine worry rather than an air of defeat and vengeance. He kissed each of his grandchildren, sniffing their heads. He also whispered into Shekure’s ear.
When I saw Shekure gazing one last time at the door, walls and stove of the house, I remembered once again how this was where she spent the happiest years of her life with her first husband. But could she also tell that this same house was the refuge of two miserable and lonely men, and that it bore the stench of death? I didn’t walk with her on the way back for she had broken my heart by ing back here.
It wasn’t the cold and blaess of the night that brought together the two fatherless children and three women—one servant, one Jewess and one widow—it was the strange neighborhoods, the nearly impassable streets and the fear of Hasan. Our crowded pany was uhe prote of Black’s men, and just like a caravan carrying treasure, we walked over out-of-the-way roads, backstreets and solitary, seldom-visited neighborhoods, so as to avoid running into guards, Janissaries, curious neighborhood thugs, thieves or Hasan. At times, through blaess in which you couldn’t see your hand before your face, we groped our erpetually bumping against each other and the walls. We walked ging to one another, overe by the sensation that the living dead, jinns and demons would surely emerge from underground and abduct us into the night. Just behind the walls and closed shutters, which we felt blindly with our hands, we heard the sn and coughing of people in the nighttime cold as well as the lowing of beasts in their stables.
Eveher, ner to the poorest and worst districts, who’d walked all the streets of Istanbul—that is excluding those neighborhoods wherein migrants and the members of various unfortunate unities gregated—occasionally felt that we would vanish on these streets, which twisted and turned without end through an endless blaess. Yet I could still make out certain street ers that I’d patiently passed in the daytime toting my satchel; for example, I reized the walls of Head Tailor’s Street, the sharp smell of manure—which for some reason reminded me of amon—ing from the stable adjat to Nurullah Hoja’s property, the fire-ravaged sites on Acrobats Street and the Falers
Arcade that led into the square with the Blind Haji Fountain, and thus I kneeren’t heading toward the house of Shekure’s late father at all, but to some other, mysterious destination.
There was no telling what Hasan would do if angered, and I knew Black had found another place to hide his family from him—and from that devil of a murderer. If I could’ve made out where that place was, I would tell you, now, and Hasan tomorrow m—not out of spite, but because I’m vihat Shekure will again want to have Hasan’s i. But Black, intelligent as he was, no lorusted me.
We were walking down a dark street behind the slave market when a otion of cries and wails erupted at the far end of the street. We heard the sounds of a scuffle, and I reized with fear the clamorous start of a fight: the clash of axes, swords and sticks and the bellow of bitter pain.
Black handed his own large sword to one of his most trusted men, forcibly took the dagger from Shevket, causing the boy to cry, and had the barber’s apprentid two other men move Shekure, Hayriye and the children a safe distance away. The theology student told me he’d take me home by way of a shortcut; that is, he didn’t let me stay with the others. Was this a twist of fate or some ing attempt to keep secret the whereabouts of their hideout?
There was a shop, which I uood to be a coffeehouse, at the end of this narrow street we were passing down. Perhaps the swht stopped as soon as it’d begun. Crowds of men were hooting as they entered a; at first I thought they were looting, but no, they were destroying the coffeehouse. They carefully took out all of the ceramic cups, brass pots, glasses and low tables uhe light of the torches of the onlookers aroyed them all as a warning. They roughed up a man who tried to stop them, but he was able to get away. inally, I thought their target was only coffee, as they themselves claimed. They were ning its ill effects, how it harmed the sight and the stomach, how it dulled the intelled caused men to lose their faith, how it was the poison of the Franks and how Exalted Muhammad had turned down coffee even though it was offered to him by a beautiful woman—Satan in disguise. It was as if this were the theatrics for a night of instru in moral etiquette, and if I finally made it home, I thought I might even scold Nesim, warning him not to drink too much of that poison.
Sihere were quite a few rooming houses and cheap inns nearby, a curious crowd formed in no time, made up of idle wanderers, homeless men and no-good mongrels who’d snuck illegally into the city, and they emboldehese enemies of coffee. It was then I uood that these mehe hen of Preacher Hoja of Erzurum. They inteo up all the dens of wine, prostitution and coffee in Istanbul and punish severely those who veered from the path of Exalted Muhammad; those who, for example, used dervish ceremonies as an excuse for belly-dang to music. They railed against the enemies ion, men who collaborated with the Devil, pagans, unbelievers and illustrators. I suddenly recalled this was the coffeehouse on whose walls drawings were hung, where religion and the hoja from Erzurum were maligned and where disrespeew no bounds.
A coffee maker’s apprentice, his face spattered with blood, emerged from inside, and I thought he might collapse, but he wiped the blood from his forehead and cheeks with the cuff of his shirt, melded in with
roup and began to watch the raid. The crowd pulled back a little out of fear. I noticed Black reize somebody aate. By the way the Erzurumis began to collect together, I khat the Janissaries or some other band armed with clubs was on its way. The torches were extinguished and the crowd became a fused mob.
Black grabbed me by the arm and had the theology student take me away. “Go by way of the backstreets,” he said. “He’ll see you to your house.” The student wao slip away as soon as possible and we were almost running as we departed. My thoughts were with Black, but if Esther’s taken out of the se, she ’t possibly tih the story, she now?
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