My Name is Red Read online

  “If they happen to kill me,” I said, “I want you to finish this book to which I’ve dedicated everything. Swear that you will.”

  “I give my word. Who will be the one to complete your book?”

  “Black! You can ensure that he does so.”

  “You are already ensuring that he does so, dear Father,” she said. “You have no need for me.”

  “Agreed, but he’s giving in to me because of you. If they kill me, he might be afraid to continue on.”

  “In that case, he won’t be able to marry me,” said my clever daughter, smiling.

  Where did I come up with the detail about her smiling? During the entire conversation, I noticed nothing except an occasional glimmer in her eyes. We were standing tensely facing one another in the middle of the room.

  “Do you communicate with each other, exchange signals?” I asked, unable to contain myself.

  “How could you even think such a thing?”

  A long agonizing silence passed. A dog barked in the distance. I was slightly cold and shuddered. The room was so black now that we could no longer see each other; we could each only sense the other’s presence. We abruptly embraced with all our might. She began to cry, and said that she missed her mother. I kissed and stroked her head, which indeed smelled like her mother’s hair. I walked her to her bedchamber and put her to bed next to the children who were sleeping side by side. And as I reflected back over the last two days, I was certain that Shekure had corresponded with Black.

  TWENTY-TWO

  I AM CALLED BLACK

  When I returned home that night, ably evading my landlady — who was beginning to act like my mother — I sequestered myself in my room and lay on my mattress, giving myself over to visions of Shekure.

  Allow me the amusement of describing the sounds I’d heard in Enishte’s house. On my second visit after twelve years, she didn’t show herself. She did succeed, however, in so magically endowing me with her presence that I was certain of being, somehow, continually under her watch, while she sized me up as a future husband, amusing herself all the while as if playing a game of logic. Knowing this, I also imagined I was continually able to see her. Thus was I better able to understand Ibn Arabi’s notion that love is the ability to make the invisible visible and the desire always to feel the invisible in one’s midst.

  I could infer that Shekure was continually watching me because I’d been listening to the sounds coming from within the house and to the creaking of its wood boards. At one point, I was absolutely certain she was with her children in the next room, which opened onto the wide hallway-cum-anteroom; I could hear the children pushing, shoving and sparring with each other while their mother, perhaps, tried to quiet them with gestures, threatening glances and knit brows. Once in a while I heard them whispering quite unnaturally, not as one would whisper to avoid disturbing someone’s ritual prayers, but affectedly, as one would before erupting in a fit of laughter.

  Another time, as their grandfather was explaining to me the wonders of light and shadow, Shevket and Orhan entered the room, and with careful gestures obviously rehearsed beforehand, proffered a tray and served us coffee. This ceremony, which should’ve been Hayriye’s concern, was arranged by Shekure so they could observe the man who might soon become their father. And so, I paid a compliment to Shevket: “What nice eyes you have.” Then, I immediately turned to his younger brother, Orhan — sensing that he might grow jealous — and added, “Yours are as well.” Next, I placed a faded red carnation petal, which I’d fast produced from the folds of my robe, onto the tray and kissed each boy on the cheeks. Later still, I heard laughter and giggling from within.

  Frequently, I grew curious to know from which hole in the walls, the closed doors, or perhaps, the ceiling, and from which angle, her eye was peering at me. Staring at a crack, knot or what I took to be a hole, I’d imagine Shekure situated just behind it. Suddenly, suspecting another black spot, and to determine whether I was justified in my suspicion — even at the risk of being insolent toward my Enishte as he continued his endless recital — I’d stand up. Affecting all the while the demeanor of an attentive disciple, quite enthralled and quite lost in thought, in order to demonstrate how intent I was upon my Enishte’s story, I’d begin pacing in the room with a preoccupied air, before approaching that suspicious black spot on the wall.

  When I failed to find Shekure’s eye nesting in what I had taken to be a peephole, I’d be overcome by disappointment, and then by a strange feeling of loneliness, by the impatience of a man uncertain where to turn next.

  Now and then, I’d experience such an abrupt and intense feeling that Shekure was watching me, I’d be so absolutely convinced I was within her gaze, that I’d start posing like a man trying to show he was wiser, stronger and more capable than he really was so as to impress the woman he loved. Later, I’d fantasize that Shekure and her boys were comparing me with her husband — the boys’ missing father — before my mind would focus again upon whichever variety of famous Venetian illustrator about whose painting techniques my Enishte was waxing philosophic at the moment. I longed to be like these newly famed painters solely because Shekure had heard so much about them from her father; illustrators who had earned their renown — not through suffering martyrdom in cells like saints, or through severing the heads of enemy soldiers with a mighty arm and a sharp scimitar, as that absent husband had done — but on account of a manuscript they’d transcribed or a page they’d illuminated. I tried very hard to imagine the magnificent pictures created by these celebrated illustrators, who were, as my Enishte explained, inspired by the power of the world’s mystery and its visible blackness. I tried so hard to visualize them — those masterpieces my Enishte had seen and was now attempting to describe to one who had never laid eyes on them — that, finally, when my imagination failed me, I felt only more dejected and demeaned.

  I looked up to discover that Shevket was before me again. He approached me decisively, and I assumed — as was customary for the oldest male child among certain Arab tribes in Transoxiana and among Circassian tribes in the Caucasus mountains — that he would not only kiss a guest’s hand at the beginning of a visit, but also when that guest left. Caught off guard, I presented my hand for him to kiss. At that moment, from somewhere not too far away, I heard her laughter. Was she laughing at me? I became flustered and to remedy the situation, I grabbed Shevket and kissed him on both cheeks as though this were what was really expected of me. Then I smiled at my Enishte as though to apologize for interrupting him and to assure him that I meant no disrespect, while carefully drawing the child near to check whether he bore his mother’s scent. By the time I understood that the boy had placed a crumpled scrap of paper into my hand, he’d long since turned his back and walked some distance toward the door.

  I clutched the scrap of paper in my fist like a jewel. And when I understood that this was a note from Shekure, out of elation I could scarcely keep from grinning stupidly at my Enishte. Wasn’t this proof enough that Shekure passionately desired me? Suddenly, I imagined us engaged in a mad frenzy of lovemaking. So profoundly convinced was I that this incredible event I’d conjured was imminent that my manhood inappropriately began to rise — there in the presence of my Enishte. Had Shekure witnessed this? I focused intently on what my Enishte was explaining in order to redirect my concentration.

  Much later, while my Enishte came near to show me another illustrated plate from his book, I discreetly unfolded the note, which smelled of honeysuckle, only to discover that she’d left it completely blank. I couldn’t believe my eyes and senselessly turned the paper over and over, examining it.

  “A window,” said my Enishte. “Using perspectival techniques is like regarding the world from a window — what is that you are holding?”

  “It’s nothing, Enishte Effendi,” I said. When he looked away, I brought the crumpled paper to my nose and deeply inhaled its scent.

  After an afternoon meal, as I did not want to use my Enishte’s chamb
er pot, I excused myself and went to the outhouse in the yard. It was bitter cold. I had quickly seen to my concern without freezing my buttocks too much when I saw that Shevket had slyly and silently appeared before me, blocking my way like a brigand. In his hands he held his grandfather’s full and steaming chamber pot. He entered the outhouse after me and emptied the pot. He exited and fixed his pretty eyes on mine as he puffed out his plump cheeks, still holding the empty pot.

  “Have you ever seen a dead cat?” he asked. His nose was exactly like his mother’s. Was she watching us? I looked around. The shutters were closed on the enchanted second-floor window in which I’d first seen Shekure after so many years.

  “Nay.”

  “Shall I show you the dead cat in the house of the Hanged Jew?”

  He went out to the street without waiting for my response. I followed him. We walked forty or fifty paces along the muddy and icy path before entering an unkempt garden. Here, it smelled of wet and rotting leaves, and faintly of mold. With the confidence of a child who knew the place well, taking firm, rhythmic steps, he entered through the door of a yellow house, which stood before us almost hidden behind somber fig and almond trees.

  The house was completely empty, but it was dry and warm, as if somebody were living there.

  “Whose house is this?” I asked.

  “The Jews”. When the man died, his wife and kids went to the Jewish quarter over by the fruit-sellers’ quay. They’re having Esther the clothier sell the house.” He went into a corner of the room and returned. “The cat’s gone, it’s disappeared,” he said.

  “Where would a dead cat go?”

  “My grandfather says the dead wander.”

  “Not the dead themselves,” I said. “Their spirits wander.”

  “How do you know?” he said. He was holding the chamber pot tightly against his lap in all seriousness.

  “I just know. Do you always come here?”

  “My mother comes here with Esther. The living dead, risen from the grave, come here at night, but I’m not afraid of this place. Have you ever killed a man?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many?”

  “Not many. Two.”

  “With a sword?”

  “With a sword.”

  “Do their souls wander?”

  “I don’t know. According to what’s written in books, they must wander.”

  “Uncle Hasan has a red sword. It’s so sharp it’ll cut you if you just touch it. And he has a dagger with a ruby-studded handle. Are you the one who killed my father?”

  I nodded indicating neither “yes” nor “no.” “How do you know that your father is dead?”

  “My mother said so yesterday. He won’t be returning. She saw him in her dream.”

  If presented with the opportunity, we would choose to do in the name of a greater goal whatever awful thing we’ve already prepared to do for the sake of our own miserable gains, for the lust that burns within us or for the love that breaks our hearts; and so, I resolved once more to become the father of these forsaken children, and, when I returned to the house, I listened more intently to Shevket’s grandfather as he described the book whose text and illustrations I had to complete.

  Let me begin with the illustrations that my Enishte had shown me, the horse for example. On this page there were no human figures and the area around the horse was empty; even so, I couldn’t say it was simply and exclusively the painting of a horse. Yes, the horse was there, yet it was apparent that the rider had stepped off to the side, or who knows, perhaps he was on the verge of emerging from behind the bush drawn in the Kazvin style. This was immediately apparent from the saddle upon the horse, which bore the marks and embellishments of nobility: Maybe, a man with his sword at the ready was about to appear beside the steed.

  It was obvious that Enishte commissioned this horse from a master illustrator whom he’d secretly summoned from the workshop. Because the illustrator, arriving at night, could draw a horse — ingrained in his mind like a stencil — only if it were the extension of a story, that’s exactly how he’d begin: by rote. As he was drawing the horse, which he’d seen thousands of times in scenes of love and war, my Enishte, inspired by the methods of the Venetian masters, had probably instructed the illustrator; for example, he might have said, “Forget about the rider, draw a tree there. But draw it in the background, on a smaller scale.”

  The illustrator, who came at night, would sit before his work desk together with my Enishte, eagerly drawing by candlelight an odd, unconventional picture that didn’t resemble any of the usual scenes to which he was accustomed and had memorized. Of course, my Enishte paid him handsomely for each drawing, but frankly, this peculiar method of drawing also had its charms. However, as with my Enishte, after a while, the illustrator could no longer determine which story the illustration was intended to enhance and complete. What my Enishte expected of me was that I examine these illustrations made in half-Venetian, half-Persian mode and write a story suitable to accompany them on the opposite page. If I hoped to get Shekure, I absolutely had to write these stories, but all that came to mind were the stories the storyteller told at the coffeehouse.

  TWENTY-THREE

  I WILL BE CALLED A MURDERER

  Ticking away, my windup clock told me it was evening. The prayers had yet to be called, but long before, I’d lit the candle resting beside my folding worktable. I quickly completed drawing an opium addict from memory, having dipped my reed pen into black Hasan Pasha ink and skated it over well-burnished and beautifully sized paper, when I heard that voice calling me out to the street as it did every night. I resisted. I was so determined not to go, but to stay at home and work, I even tried nailing my door shut for a time.

  This book I was hastily completing was commissioned by an Armenian who’d come all the way from Galata, knocking on my door this morning before anyone had risen. The man, an interpreter and guide, though he stuttered, hunted me down whenever a Frank or Venetian traveler wanted a “book of costumes” and engaged me in a bout of vicious bargaining. Having agreed that morning upon a lesser-quality book of costumes for a price of twenty silver pieces, I proceeded to illustrate a dozen Istanbulites in a single sitting around the time of the evening prayer, paying particular attention to the detail of their outfits. I drew a Sheikhulislam, a palace porter, a preacher, a Janissary, a dervish, a cavalryman, a judge, a liver seller, an executioner — executioners in the act of torture sold quite well — a beggar, a woman bound for the hamam, and an opium addict. I’d done so many of these books just to earn a few extra silver pieces that I began to invent games for myself to fight off boredom while I drew; for example, I forced myself to draw the judge without lifting my pen off the page or to draw the beggar with my eyes closed.

  All brigands, poets and men of constant sorrow know that when the evening prayer is called the jinns and demons within them will grow agitated and rebellious, urging in unision: “Out! Outside!” This restless inner voice demands, “Seek the company of others, seek blackness, misery and disgrace.” I’ve spent my time appeasing these jinns and demons. I’ve painted pictures, which many regard as miracles that have issued from my hands, with the help of these evil spirits. But for seven days now after dusk, since I murdered that disgrace, I’m no longer able to control the jinns and demons within me. They rage with such violence that I tell myself they might calm down if I go out for a while.

  After saying so, as always without knowing how, I found myself roaming through the night. I walked briskly, advancing through snowy streets, muddy passages, icy slopes and deserted sidewalks as if I would never stop. As I walked, descending into the dark of night, into the most remote and abandoned parts of the city, I’d ever so gradually leave my soul behind, and walking along the narrow streets, my footsteps echoing off the walls of stone inns, schools and mosques, my fears would subside.

  Of their own accord, my feet brought me to the abandoned streets of this neighborhood on the outskirts of the city, where I came eac
h night and where even specters and jinns would shudder to roam. I heard tell that half the men in this neighborhood had perished in the wars with Persia and that the rest had fled, declaring it ill-omened, but I don’t believe such superstition. The only tragedy that has befallen this good quarter on account of the Safavid wars was the closing of the Kalenderi dervish house forty years ago because it was suspected of harboring the enemy.

  I meandered behind the mulberry bushes and the bay-leaf trees, which had a pleasant aroma even in the coldest weather, and with my usual fastidiousness, I straightened up the wall boards between the collapsed chimney and the window with its dilapidated shutters. I entered and drew the lingering scent of one-hundred-year-old incense and mold deep into my lungs. It made me so blissful to be here, I thought tears would fall from my eyes.

  If I haven’t already said so, I’d like to say that I fear nothing but Allah and the punishment meted out in this world has no import whatsoever in my opinion. What I fear are the various torments that murderers like myself will have to endure on Judgment Day, as is clearly described in the Glorious Koran, in the “Criterion” chapter, for example. In the ancient books, that I quite rarely lay hold of, whenever I see this punishment in all its colors and violence, recalling the simple, childish, yet terrifying scenes of Hell illustrated on calfskin by the old Arab miniaturists, or, for whatever reason, the torments of demons depicted by Chinese and Mongol master artists, I can’t keep myself from drawing this analogy and heeding its logic: What does “The Night Journey” chapter state in its thirty-third verse? Is it not written that one should not, without justification, take the life of another whose murder God forbids? All right then: The miscreant I’ve sent to Hell was not a believer, whose murder God had forbidden; and besides, I had excellent justification for shattering his skull.