I AM CALLED BLACK
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Various manuscript pages lay before me and the great Master Osman—some with calligraphed texts and ready to be bound, some not yet colored or otherwise unfinished for whatever reason—as we spent aire afternoon evaluating the master miniaturists and the pages of my Enishte’s book, keeping charts of our assessments. We thought we’d seen the last of the ander’s respectful but crude men, who’d brought us the pages collected from the miniaturists and calligraphers whose homes they raided and searched (some pieces had nothing whatsoever to do with either of our two books and some pages firmed that the calligraphers, as well, were secretly accepting work from outside the palace for the sake of a few extra s), when the most brash of them stepped over to the exalted master and removed a piece of paper from his sash.I paid no mind at first, thinking it was one of those petitions from a father seeking an apprenticeship for his son by approag as many division heads and group captains as possible. I could tell that the m sun had vanished by the pale light that filtered io rest my eyes, I was doing an exercise the old masters of Shiraz reended miniaturists do to stave off premature blindness, that is, I was trying to look emptily into the distahout fog. That’s when I reized with a thrill the sweet color a-stopping folds of the paper which my master held and stared at with an expression of disbelief. This matched exactly the letters that Shekure had sent me via Esther. I was about to say, “What a ce” like an idiot, when I noticed that, like Shekure’s first letter, it was apanied by a painting on coarse paper!
Master Osmahe painting to himself. He handed me the letter that I just then embarrassingly realized was from Shekure.
My Dear Husband Black. I seher to sound out late Elegant Effendi’s widow, Kalbiye. While there, Kalbiye showed Esther this illustrated page, which I’m sending to you. Later, I went to Kalbiye’s house, doing everything within my power to persuade her that it was in her best io give me the picture. This page was on poor Elegant Effendi’s body when he was removed from the well. Kalbiye swears that nobody had issioned her husband, may he rest in divine light, to draw horses. So then, who made them? The ander’s men searched the house. I’m sending this note because this matter must have significe to the iigation. The children kiss your hands respectfully. Your wife, Shekure.
I carefully read the last three words of this beautiful hrice as if staring at three wondrous red roses in a garden. I leaned over the page that Master Osman was scrutinizing, magnifying lens in hand. I straightaway noticed that the shapes whose ink had bled were horses sketched in a siion as the old masters would do to ac the hand.
Master Osman, who read Shekure’s hout ent, voiced a question: “Who drew this?” He then answered himself, “Of course, the same miniaturist who drew the late Enishte’s horse.”
Could he be so certain? Moreover, we weren’t at all sure who’d drawn the horse for the book. We removed the horse from among the nine pages and began to exami.
It was a handsome, simple, chestnut horse that you couldn’t take your eyes off of. Was I being truthful when I said this? I had plenty of time to look at this horse with my Enishte, and later, when I was left aloh these illustrations, but I hadn’t given it much thought then. It was a beautiful, but ordinary horse: It was so ordinary that we weren’t even able to determine who’d drawn it. It wasn’t a true chestnut, but more bay-colored; there was a faint hint of red in its coat as well. It was a horse that I’d seen so often in other books and other illustrations that I k’d been drawn by rote without the miniaturist’s stopping to give it any sideration at all.
We stared at the horse this way until we discovered it cealed a secret. Now, however, I could see a beauty in the horse that shimmered like heat rising before my eyes and within it a force that roused a zest for life, learning and embrag the world. I asked myself, “Who’s the miniaturist with the magic touch that depicted this horse the way Allah would see it?” as if having fotten suddenly that he was also nothing but a base murderer. The horse stood before me as if it were a real horse, but somewhere in my mind I also k was an illustration; being caught betweewo thoughts was enting and aroused in me a sense of wholeness and perfe.
For a time, we pared the blurred horses drawn for practice with the horse made for my Enishte’s book, determining finally that they’d been made by the same hand. The proud stances of those strong and elegant studs bespoke stillness rather than motion. I was in awe of the horse of Enishte’s book.
“This is such a spectacular horse,” I said, “it gives ohe urge to pull out a piece of paper and copy it, and then to draw every last thing.”
“The greatest pliment you pay a painter is to say that his work has stimulated your owhusiasm to illustrate,” said Master Osman. “But now let’s fet about his talent and try to uhis devil’s identity. Had Enishte Effendi, may he rest in peace, ever mentiohe kind of story this picture was meant to apany?”
“No. Acc to him, this was one of the horses that lived in the lands that our powerful Sultan rules. It is a handsome horse: a horse of the Ottoman li is a symbol that would demonstrate to the Veian Doge Our Sultan’s wealth and the regions under his trol. But oher hand, as with everything the Veian masters depict, this horse was also to be more lifelike than a horse born of God’s vision, more like a horse that lived in a particular stable with a particular groom in Istanbul so that the Veian Doge might say to himself, ”Just as the Ottoman miniaturists have e to see the world like us, so have the Ottomans themselves e to resemble us,“ in turn, accepting Our Sultan’s power and friendship. For if you begin to draw a horse differently, you begin to see the world differently. Despite its peculiarities, this horse was rendered in the manner of the old masters.”
The more we deliberated over the horse, the more beautiful and precious it became in my eyes. His mouth was slightly open, his tongue visible from between his teeth. His eyes shone bright. His legs were strong and elegant. Did a painting bee legendary<big>?9９lｉｂ?</big> for what it was or for what was said about it? Master Osman was ever so slowly moving the magnifying lens over the animal.
“What is it that this horse is trying to vey?” I said with husiasm. “Why does this horse exist? Why this horse! What about this horse? Why does this horse excite me?”
“The pictures as well as the books issioned by sultans, shahs and pashas proclaim their power,” said Master Osman. “The patrons find these works beautiful, with their extensive gold leaf and lavish expenditures of labor and eyesight because they are proof of the ruler’s wealth. An illustration’s beauty is signifit because it is proof that a miniaturist’s talent is rare and expensive just like the gold used in the picture’s creation. Others find the picture of a horse beautiful because it resembles a horse, is a horse of God’s vision or is a purely imaginary horse; the effect of verisimilitude is attributed to talent. As for us, beauty in illustration begins with subtlety and profusion of meaning. Of course, to discover that this horse reveals not merely itself, but the hand of the murderer, the mark of that devil, this would augment the meaning of the picture. Then there’s finding out that it’s not the image of the horse, but the horse itself that’s beautiful; that is, seeing the illustration of the horse not as an illustration, but as a true horse.”
“If you looked at this illustration as if you were looking at a horse, what would you see there?”
“Looking at the size of this horse, I could say that this wasn’t a pony but, judging from the length and curve of its neck, a good racehorse and that the flatness of its back would make it suitable for long trips. From its delicate legs we might ihat it was agile and clever like an Arabian, but its body is too long and large to be ohe elegance of its legs suggests what the Bukharan scholar Fadlan said of worthy horses in his Book of Equihat were it to happen upon a river it’d easily jump it without being startled and spooked. I know by heart the wonderful things written about the choicest horses in the Book of Equiranslated so beautifully by our royal veterinarian Fuyuzi, and I tell you that every word applies to the chestnut horse before us: A good horse should have a pretty fad the eyes of a gazelle; its ears should be straight as reeds with a good distaween them; a good horse should have small teeth, a rounded forehead and slight eyebrows; it should be tall, long-haired, have a short waist, small nose, small shoulders and a broad flat back; it should be full-thighed, long-necked, broadchested, with a broad rump ay ihighs. The beast should be proud and elegant and when it saunters, it should move as though it were greeting those oher side.”
“That’s our chestnut horse exactly,” I said, looking at the image of the horse in astonishment.
“We’ve discovered our horse,” said Master Osman with the same ironic smile, “but unfortuhis doesn’t do us any good when it es to the identity of the miniaturist, because I know that no miniaturist in his right mind would depict a horse using a real horse as a model. My miniaturists, naturally, would draw a horse from memory iion. As proof, let me remind you that most of them begin drawing the outline of the horse from the tip of one of its hooves.”
“Isn’t this done so the horse be depicted standing firmly on the ground?” I said apologetically.
“As Jemalettin of Kazvin wrote in his The Illustration of Horses, one properly plete a picture of a horse beginning from its hoof only if he carries the entire horse in his memory. Obviously, to render a
horse through excessive thought and recolle, or even more ridiculous, by repeatedly looking at a real horse, one would have to move from head to ned theo body. I hear there are certaiian illustrators who are happy to sell tailors and butchers such pictures of your average street packhorse drawn indecisively by trial and error. Su illustration has nothing whatsoever to do with the meaning of the wo<cite>?</cite>rld or with the beauty of God’s creation. But I’m vihat even mediocre artists must know a genuine illustration isn’t drawn acc to what the eye sees at any particular moment, but acc to what the hand remembers and is aced to. The painter is always alone before the page. Solely for this reason he’s always depe on memory. Now, there’s nothi for us to do but use the ”courtesahod“ to uhe hidden signature borne by our horse, which has been drawn from memory through the quid skillful movement of the hand. Take a careful look here.”
He was ever so slowly moving the magnifying lens over the spectacular horse as if he were trying to discover the location of a treasure on an old map meticulously rendered on calfskin.
“Yes,” I said, like a disciple overe by the pressure to make a quid brilliant discovery that would impress his master. “We could pare the colors and embroidery of the saddle blao those iher pictures.”
“My master miniaturists wouldn’t even deign to lower a brush to these designs. Apprentices draw the clothes, carpets and blas in the pictures. Perhaps the late Elegant Effendi might’ve dohem. Fet them.”
“What about the ears?” I said in a fluster. “The ears of the horses…”
“No. These ears haven’t ged form sihe time of Tamerlahey’re just like the leaves of reeds, which we well know.”
I was about to say, “What about the braiding of the mane and the depi of every strand of its hair,” but I fell silent, not at all amused by this master-apprentice game. If I’m the apprentice, I ought to know my place.
“Take a look here,” said Master Osman with the distressed yet attentive air of a doctor pointing out a plague pustule to a colleague. “Do you see it?”
He’d moved the magnifying lens over the horse’s head and was slowly pulling it away from the surface of the picture. I lowered my head to better see what was being enlarged through the lens.
The horse’s nose eculiar: its nostrils.
“Do you see it?” said Master Osman.
To be certain of what I saw, I thought I should ter myself right behind the lens. When Master Osman did likewise, we met cheek to cheek just behind the lens that was now quite a distance from the picture. It momentarily alarmed me to feel the harshness of the master’s dry beard and the ess of his cheek on my face.
A sile was as if something wondrous were happening within the picture a handspan away from my weary eyes, and we were witnessing it with resped awe.
“What’s wrong with the nose?” I was able to whisper much later.
“He’s drawn the nose oddly,” said Master Osman without taking his eyes off the page.
“Did his hand slip, perhaps? Is this a mistake?”
We were still examining the peculiar, unique rendering of the nose.
“Is this the Veian-inspired ”style“ everyohe great masters of a included, has begun talking about?” asked Master Osman mogly.
I succumbed to rese, thinking that he was mog my late Enishte: “My Enishte, may he rest in peace, used to say that any fault arising not from lack of ability or talent, but from the depths of the miniaturist’s soul, ought not be deemed fault but style.”
However it came about, whether by the miniaturist’s own hand or the horse itself, there was no clue other than this nose as to the identity of the blackguard who murdered my Enishte. For, let alone making out the nostrils, we were having difficulty identifying the noses of the smudged horses on the page found with poor Elegant Effendi.
We spent much time searg for horse pictures that Master Osman’s beloved miniaturists had made for various books i years, looking for the same irregularity in the horse’s nostrils. Because the Book of Festivities, still being pleted, depicted the societies and guilds marg on foot before Our Sultan, there were few horses among its 250 illustrations. Men were dispatched to the book-arts workshop, where certain figure books, some notebooks of standard forms and newly finished volumes were stored, as well as to the private rooms of the Sultan, and the harem so that they could bring bay books that hadn’t been securely locked up and hidden in the palace treasury, all of this, naturally, with the permission of Our Sultan.
In a double-leaf illustration from a Book of Victories found in the quarters of a young prince, which showed the funeral ceremonies of Sultan Süleyman the Magnifit who’d died during the siege of Szegetvar, we first examihe chestnut horse with a white blaze, the gazelle-eyed gray pulling the funeral carriage and the other melancholy horses fitted with spectacular saddle blas and gold embroidered saddles. Butterfly, Olive and Stork had illustrated all these horses. Whether the horses were
pulling the large-wheeled funeral carriage or standing at attention with watery eyes trained on their master’s body covered with a red cloth, all stood with the same elegant stance borrowed from the old masters of Herat, that is, with one f proudly extended and the other firmly planted on the ground beside it. All their necks were long and curved, their tails bound up and their marimmed and bed, but none of the noses had the peculiarity we sought. her was this peculiarity evident in any of the hundreds of horses that bore anders, scholars and hojas, who’d participated in the funeral ceremony and now stood at attention on the surrounding hilltops in honor of the late Sultan Süleyman.
Something of the sadness of this melancholy funeral passed to us as well. It upset us to see that this illustrated manuscript, upon which Master Osman and his miniaturists labored so much, had been ill-treated, and that women of the harem, playing games with princes, had scribbled and marked various places on the pages. Beside a tree under which Our Sultan’s grandfather hunted, written in a bad hahe words, “My Exalted Effendi, I love you and am waiting for you with the patience of this tree.” So, it was with our hearts full of defeat and sorrow that we pored over the legendary books, whose creation I’d heard about, but none of which I’d ever seen.
In the sed volume of the Book of Skills, which had seen the brush strokes of all three master miniaturists, we saw, behind the r on and the foot soldiers, hundreds of horses of every hue including chestnuts, grays and blues, clattering along in mail and full panoply, bearing their glorious scimitar-wielding spahi cavalrymen, as they crossed over pink hilltops in an orderly advance, but none of their noses was flawed. “And what is a flaw after all!” Master Osman said later, while examining a page in the same book, which depicted the Royal ate and the parade ground where eo be at that very moment. We also failed to discover the mark we were searg for on the noses of the horses of vario<mark>..</mark>us hues mounted by guards, heralds aaries of the Divan cil of State in this illustration, which depicted the hospital off to the right, the Sultan’s Royal Audience Hall, and the trees in the courtyard on a scale small enough to fit into the frame yet grand enough to match their importan our minds. We watched Our Sultan’s great-grandfather Sultan Selim the Grim, during the time he declared war on the ruler of the Dhulkadirids, erect the imperial tent along the banks of the Küskün river and hunt scurryiailed black greyhounds, gazelle fawns with rumps in the air and frightened rabbits, before leaving a leopard lying in a pool of red blood, its spots blooming like flowers. her the Sultan’s chestnut horse with the white blaze nor the horses upon which the falers waited, their birds at the ready on their forearms, had the mark we were looking for.
Till dusk, we pored over hundreds of horses that had issued from the brushes of Olive, Butterfly and Stork over the last four or five years: the Crimean Kha Giray’s elegant-eared chestnut palomino; blad golden horses; pinkish and gray-colored horses whose heads and necks alone could be seen behind a hilltop during battle; the horses of Haydar Pasha who recaptured the Halkul-Vad fortress from the Spanish infidels in Tunisia and the Spaniards’ reddish-chestnut and pistachio-green horses, one of which had tumbled headlong, as they fled from him; a black horse that caused Master Osman to remark, “I overlooked this one. I wonder who did such careless work?”; a red horse who politely turned his ears to the lute that a royal pageboy was strumming under a tree; Shirin’s horse, Shebdiz, as bashful and elegant as she, waiting for her while she bathed in a lake by moonlight; the lively horses used in javelin jousts; the tempestlike horse and its beautiful groom that for some reason
caused Master Osman to remark, “I loved him dearly in my youth, I’m very tired”; the sun-colored, golden, winged horse which Allah sent to the prophet Elijah to protect him from an attack by the pagans—whose wings had been mistakenly drawn on Elijah; Sultan Süleyman the Magnifit’s gray thhbred with the small head and large body, which stared sorrowfully at the young and lovable prince; enraged horses; horses at full gallop; weary horses; beautiful horses; horses that nobody noticed; horses that would never leave these pages; and horses that leapt ilded borders esg their fi.
Not one of them bore the signature we were looking for.
Even so, we were able to maintain a persisteement in the face of the weariness and melancholy that desded upon us: A couple of times we fot about the horse and lost ourselves to the beauty of a picture, to colors that forced a momentary surrender. Master Osman always looked at the pictures—most of which he himself had created, supervised or ored—more out of nostalgithusiasm than wonder. “These are by Kas 1m from the Kas 1m Pasha district!” he said once, pointing out the little purple flowers at the base of the red war tent of Our Sultan’s grandfather Sultan Süleyman. “He was by no means a master, but for forty years he filled the dead space of pictures with these five-leaf, single-blossom flowers, before he uedly died two years ago. I always assigned him to draw this small flower because he could do it better than anyone.” He fell silent for a moment, then exclaimed, “It’s a pity, a pity!” With all my soul, I sehat these words sighe end of an era.
Darkness had nearly overtaken us, when a light flooded the room. There was a otion. My heart, which had begun to beat like a drum, prehended immediately: The Ruler of the World, His Excellency Our Sultan had abruptly entered. I threw myself at His feet. I kissed the hem of His robe. My head spun. I couldn’t look Him in the eye.
He’d long since begun speaking with Head Illuminator Master Osman anyway. It filled me with fiery pride to witness Him speak to the man with whom I’d only moments ago been sitting ko knee looking at pictures. Unbelievable; His Excellency Our Sultan was now sitting where I’d been earlier and He was listening at?ively to what my master was explaining, as I had dohe Head Treasurer, who was at his side and the Agha of the Falers and a few others whose identities I couldn’t make out were keeping close guard over Him and gazing at the open pages of books with rapt attention. I gathered all my ce and looked at length at the fad eyes of the Sn Ruler of the World, albeit with a sidelong glance. How handsome He was! How upright and proper! My heart no longer beat excitedly. At that moment, our eyes met.
“How much I loved your Enishte, may he rest in peace,” He said. Yes, He eaking to me. In my excitement, I missed some of what He was saying.
“…I was quite aggrieved. However, it’s quite a fort to see that each of these pictures he made is a masterpiece. When the Veian giaour sees these, he will be stunned and fear my wisdom. You shall determine who the accursed miniaturist is by this horse’s herwise, however merciless, it’ll be
necessary to torture all the master miniaturists.”
“Sn Refuge of the World Your Excellency My Sultan,” said Master Osman. “Perhaps we better catch the man responsible for this slip of the brush, if my master miniaturists are forced to draw a horse on a blank sheet of paper, quickly, without any story in mind.”
“Only, of course, if this is really a slip of the brush and not an actual nose,” said Our Sultan shrewdly.
“My Sultan,” said Master Osman, “to this end, if a petition by express and of Yhness were annouonight; if a guard were to visit Your miniaturists, requesting them to draw a horse quickly on a blank sheet for this test…”
Our Sultan looked at the ander of the Imperial Guard with an expression that said, “Did you hear that?” Then he said, “Do you know which of the Poet Nizami’s stories of rivalry I like best of all?”
Some of us said, “We know.” Some said, “Whie?” Some, including myself, fell silent.
“I’m not fond of the test of poets or the story about the test between ese aern painters and the mirror,” said the handsome Sultan. “I like best the test of doctors who pete to the death.”
After He’d said this, He abruptly took leave of us for His evening prayers.
Later, as the evening azan was being called, in the half dark, after exiting the gates of the palace, I hurried toward my neighborhood happily imagining Shekure, the boys and our house, when I recalled with horror the story of the test of doctors:One of the two doctors peting in the presence of their sultan—the oeed in pink—made a poison green pill strong enough to fell an elephant, which he gave to the other doctor, the one in the navy-blue caftan. That doctor first swallowed the poisonous pill, and afterward, swallowed a navy-blue antidote that he’d just made. As could be uood from his gentle laughter, nothing at all happeo him. Furthermore, it was now his turn to give his rival a whiff of death. Moving ever so deliberately, sav the pleasure of taking his turn, he plucked a pink rose from the garden, and bringing it to his lips, inaudibly whispered a mysterious poem into its petals. , with gestures that bespoke extreme fidence, he extehe rose to his rival so he might take in its bouquet. The force of the whispered poem so agitated the doctor in pink that uping the flower to his nose, which bore nothing but its regular st, he collapsed out of fear and died.
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