My Name is Red Read online

  We heard the wailing of cats fighting for their lives just outside the courtyard gate. This was followed by a long silence. I thought I might sob. I could neither set my candle holder down on the end table nor turn around and head to my room to be with my sons. I told myself that I wouldn’t leave this room until I was absolutely convinced that Black had nothing whatsoever to do with my father’s death.

  “You belittle us,” I said to Black. “You’ve grown haughty since you married me. You clearly looked down on us because my husband was missing, and now that my father’s been killed you find us even more pitiful.”

  “My respected Shekure,” he said cautiously. It pleased me that he’d begun this way. “You yourself know that none of this is true. I’d do anything for you.”

  “Then get out of bed, and wait with me on your feet.”

  Why had I said that I was waiting?

  “I cannot,” he said, and in embarrassment, gestured to the quilt and his nightgown.

  He was right, but it annoyed me anyway that he wasn’t heeding my request.

  “Before my father was murdered, you entered this house cowering like a cat who’d spilled milk,” I said. “But now when you address me as “My respected Shekure” it seems empty — as though you want us to know it is.”

  I was trembling, not out of anger, but because of the icy cold that seized my legs, back and neck.

  “Get into bed and be my wife,” he said.

  “How will the villain who killed my father ever be found?” I said. “If it’s going to take some time before he’s found, it’s not right for me to stay in this house with you.”

  “Thanks to you and Esther, Master Osman has focused all his attention on the horses.”

  “Master Osman was the sworn enemy of my father, may he rest in peace. Now my poor father can see from above that you’re depending on Master Osman to find his murderer. It must be causing him great agony.”

  He abruptly leapt out of bed and came toward me. I couldn’t even move. But contrary to what I expected, he just snuffed out my candle with his hand and stood there. We were in pitch blackness.

  “Your father can no longer see us,” he whispered. “We’re both alone. Tell me now, Shekure: You gave me the impression, when I returned after twelve years, that you’d be able to love me, that you’d be able to make room in your heart for me. Then we married. Since then you’ve been running away from loving me.”

  “I had to marry you,” I whispered.

  There, in the dark, without pity, I sensed how my words were driving into his flesh like nails — as the poet Fuzuli had once put it.

  “If I could love you, I would’ve loved you when I was a child,” I whispered again.

  “Tell me then, fair beauty of the darkness,” he said. “You must’ve spied on all those miniaturists who frequented your house and come to know them. In your opinion, which one is the murderer?”

  I was pleased that he could still keep this good humor. He was, after all, my husband.

  “I’m cold.”

  Did I actually say this, I can’t remember. We began to kiss. Embracing him in the dark, still holding the candle in one hand, I took his velvety tongue into my mouth, and my tears, my hair, my nightgown, my trembling and even his body were full of wonder. Warming my nose against his hot cheek was also pleasant; but this timid Shekure restrained herself. As I was kissing him, I didn’t let myself go or drop the candle, but thought of my father, who was watching me, and of my former husband, and my children asleep in bed.

  “There’s somebody in the house,” I shouted. I pushed Black away and went out into the hall.

  FIFTY

  I AM CALLED BLACK

  Silent and unseen, under cover of early morning darkness, I left like a guilty houseguest and walked tirelessly through the muddy backstreets. At Bayazid, I performed my ablution in the courtyard, entered the mosque and prayed. Inside, there was no one but the Imam Effendi and an old man who could sleep as he prayed — a talent only rarely achieved after a lifetime of practice. You know how there are moments in our sleepy dreams and sad memories when we feel Allah has taken notice of us and we pray with the hopeful anticipation of one who’s managed to thrust a petition into the Sultan’s hand: Thus did I beg Allah to grant me a cheerful home filled with loving people.

  When I’d reached Master Osman’s house, I knew that within a week’s time he’d gradually usurped my late Enishte’s place in my thoughts. He was more contrary and more distant, but his belief in manuscript illumination was more profound. He resembled an introspective elderly dervish more than the great master who’d kicked up tempests of fear, awe and love among the miniaturists for so many years.

  As we traveled from the master’s house to the palace — he mounted on a horse and hunched slightly, I on foot and likewise hunched forward — we must’ve recalled the elderly dervish and aspiring disciple in those cheap illustrations that accompany old fables.

  At the palace, we found the Commander of the Imperial Guard and his men even more eager and ready than we. Our Sultan was certain that once we’d looked at the three masters’ horse drawings this morning we could, in a trice, determine who among them was the accursed murderer; and so, He’d ordered that the criminal be quickly put to torture without even allowing him to answer the accusation. We were taken not to the executioners’ fountain where everyone could see and take warning, but to that small slapdash house in the sheltered seclusion of the Sultan’s Private Garden, which was preferred for interrogation, torture and strangling.

  A youth, who seemed too elegant and polite to be one of the Commander’s men, authoritatively placed three sheets of paper on a worktable.

  Master Osman took out his magnifying lens and my heart began to pound. Like an eagle gliding elegantly over a tract of land, his eye, which he maintained at a constant distance from the lens, passed ever so slowly over the three marvelous horse illustrations. And like that eagle catching sight of the baby gazelle which would be its prey, he slowed over each of the horses’ noses and focused on it intently and calmly.

  “It’s not here,” he said coldly after a time.

  “What isn’t here?” asked the Commander.

  I’d assumed the great master would work with deliberation, scrutinizing every aspect of the horses from mane to hoof.

  “The damned painter hasn’t left a single trace,” said Master Osman. “We won’t be able to determine who illustrated the chestnut horse from these pictures.”

  Taking up the magnifying lens he’d put aside, I looked at the horses’ nostrils: The master was correct; there was nothing in the three horses resembling the peculiar nostrils of the chestnut horse drawn for my Enishte’s manuscript. Just then, my attention turned to the torturers waiting outside with an implement whose purpose I couldn’t fathom. As I was trying to observe them through the half-opened door, I saw somebody scuttle quickly backward as if possessed by a jinn, seeking shelter behind one of the mulberry trees.

  At that moment, like an ethereal light that illuminated the leaden morning, His Excellency Our Sultan, the Foundation of the World, entered the room.

  Master Osman confessed to Him that he hadn’t been able to determine anything from the illustrations. Nevertheless, he couldn’t refrain from drawing Our Sultan’s attention to the horses in these magnificent paintings: the way one reared, the delicate stance of the next and, in the third, a dignity and pride matching the content of ancient books. Meanwhile, he speculated about which artist had made each picture, and the pageboy who’d gone door to door to the artists’ houses confirmed what Master Osman said.

  “My Sovereign, don’t be surprised that I know my painters like the back of my hand,” said the master. “What bewilders me is how one of these men, whom I indeed know like the back of my hand, could make a completely unfamiliar mark. For even the flaw of a master miniaturist has its origins.”

  “You mean to say?” said Our Sultan.

  “Your Excellency, Prosperous Sultan and Refuge of the Wo
rld, in my opinion, this concealed signature, evident here in the nostrils of this chestnut horse, is not simply the meaningless and absurd mistake of a painter, but a sign whose roots reach into the distant past to other pictures, other techniques, other styles and perhaps even other horses. If we were allowed to examine the marvelous pages of centuries-old books that You keep under lock and key in the cellars, iron chests, and cabinets of the Inner Treasury, we might be able to identify as technique what we now see as mistake; then, we could attribute it to the brush of one of the three miniaturists.”

  “You wish to enter my Treasury?” said the Sultan in amazement.

  “That is my wish,” said my master.

  This was a request as brazen as asking to enter the harem. Just then, I understood that in as much as the harem and the Treasury occupied the two prettiest spots in the courtyard of the Private Paradise of Our Sultan’s Palace, they also occupied the two dearest spots in Our Sultan’s heart.

  I was trying to read what would happen from Our Sultan’s beautiful face, which I could now look upon without fear, but He suddenly vanished. Had He been incensed and offended? Would we, or even the miniaturists as a whole, be punished on account of my master’s impudence?

  Looking at the three horses before me, I imagined that I would be killed before seeing Shekure again, without ever sharing her bed. Despite the immediacy of all their beautiful attributes, these magnificent horses now seemed to have emerged from a quite distant world.

  I thoroughly realized during this horrifying silence that just as being taken into the heart of the palace as a child, being raised here and living here meant serving Our Sultan and perhaps dying for Him, so being a miniaturist meant serving God and dying for the sake of His beauty.

  Much later, when the Head Treasurer’s men brought us up toward the Middle Gate, death occupied my mind, the silence of death. But, as I passed through the gate where countless pashas had been executed, the guards acted as if they didn’t even see us. The Divan Square, which yesterday had dazzled me as if it were Heaven itself, the tower and the peacocks didn’t affect me in the least, for I knew that we were being taken further inside, to the heart of Our Sultan’s secret world, to the Private Quarters of the Enderun.

  We passed through doors barred even to the Grand Viziers. Like a child who’d entered a fairy tale, I kept my eyes trained on the ground to avoid coming face-to-face with the wonders and creatures that might confront me. I couldn’t even look at the chamber where the Sultan held audiences. But my gaze happened to fall momentarily on the walls of the harem near an ordinary plane tree, one no different from other trees, and on a tall man in a caftan of shimmering blue silk. We passed among towering columns. Finally, we stopped before a portal, larger and more imposing than the rest, framed in ornate stalactite patterns. At its threshold stood Treasury chiefs in glimmering caftans; one of them was bending to open the lock.

  Staring directly into our eyes, the Head Treasurer said: “You are truly blessed by fortune, His Excellency Our Sultan has granted you permission to enter the treasury of the Enderun. There, you will examine books that no one else has seen; you will gaze upon incredible pictures and pages of gold, and like hunters, you will track the spoor of your prey, the murderer. My Sultan bade me remind you that good Master Osman has three days — one of which is now over — until Thursday noon, in which to name the culprit in the miniaturists’ midst; failing that, the matter shall be turned over to the Commander of the Imperial Guard to be resolved by torture.”

  First, they removed the cloth sheath around the padlock, sealed to ensure no key entered the keyhole without permission. The Doorkeeper of the Treasury and the two chiefs confirmed the seal was intact, signaling with a nod. The seal was broken, and when the key was introduced, the lock opened with a clatter that filled the pervasive silence. Master Osman suddenly turned an ashen gray. When one wing of the heavy, embellished-wood double door was opened, his face was struck by a dark radiance that seemed a remnant of ancient days.

  “My Sultan didn’t want the scribal chiefs and the secretaries who keep inventory records to enter unnecessarily,” said the Head Treasurer. “The Royal Librarian has passed away and there’s no one to look after the books in his stead. For this reason, My Sultan has commanded that Jezmi Agha alone should accompany you within.”

  Jezmi Agha was a dwarf with bright, shining eyes who appeared to be at least seventy years old. His headdress, which resembled a sail, was even more peculiar than he.

  “Jezmi Agha knows the interior of the treasury like his own house; he knows the locations of books and all else better than anyone.”

  The aging dwarf displayed no pride in this. He was running an eye over the silver-legged heating brazier, the chamber pot with a mother-of-pearl inlaid handle, the oil lamp and the candlesticks that the palace pages were carrying.

  The Head Treasurer announced that the door would again be locked behind us and sealed with the seventy-year-old signet of Sultan Selim the Grim. After the evening prayers, at sunset, the seal would again be broken, before the witness of the attendant crowd of Treasury chiefs. Moreover, we should exercise great caution that nothing whatsoever “mistakenly” found its way into our clothes, pockets or sashes: we would be searched down to our undergarments upon exiting.

  We entered, passing between chiefs standing at either side. Inside, it was ice cold. When the door closed behind us, we were enveloped in blackness. I smelled a combination of mildew, dust and humidity that drove deep into my nasal passages. Everywhere the clutter of objects, chests and helmets intermingled in a huge chaotic jumble. I had the feeling that I was witness to a great battle.

  My eyes adjusted to the odd light that fell over the entire space, which filtered through the thick bars of the high windows, through the balustrades of the stairs along the high walls and the railing of the second-floor wooden walkways. This chamber was red, tinged with the color of the velvet cloth, carpets and kilims hanging on the walls. With due reverence, I considered how the accumulation of all this wealth was the consequence of wars waged, blood spilt and cities and treasuries plundered.

  “Frightened?” asked the elderly dwarf, giving voice to my feelings. “Everybody is frightened on their first visit. At night the spirits of these objects whisper to each other.”

  What was frightening was the silence in which this abundance of incredible objects was interred. Behind us we heard the clattering of the seal being affixed to the lock on the door, and we looked around in awe, motionless.

  I saw swords, elephant tusks, caftans, silver candlesticks and satin banners. I saw mother-of-pearl inlaid boxes, iron trunks, Chinese vases, belts, long-necked lutes, armor, silk cushions, model globes, boots, furs, rhinoceros horns, ornamented ostrich eggs, rifles, arrows, maces and cabinets. There were heaps of carpets, cloth and satin everywhere, seemingly cascading over me from the wood-paneled upper floors, from the balustrades, the built-in closets and small storage cells built into the walls. A strange light, the likes of which I’d never seen, shone on the cloth, the boxes, the caftans of sultans, swords, the huge pink candles, the wound turbans, pillows embroidered with pearls, gold filigree saddles, diamond-handled scimitars, ruby-handled maces, quilted turbans, turban plumes, curious clocks, ewers and daggers, ivory statues of horses and elephants, narghiles with diamond-studded tops, mother-of-pearl chests of drawers, horse aigrettes, strands of large prayer beads, and helmets adorned with rubies and turquoise. This light, which filtered faintly down from the high windows, illuminated floating dust particles in the half-darkened room like the summer sunlight that streams in from the glass skylight atop the dome of a mosque — but this wasn’t sunlight. In this peculiar light, the air had become palpable and all the objects appeared as if made from the same material. After we apprehensively experienced the silence in the room for a while longer, I knew it was as much the light as the dust covering everything that dimmed the red color reigning in the cold room, melding all the objects into an arcane sameness. And as the eye swa
m over these strange and indistinct items, unable to distinguish one from another at even the second or third glance, this great profusion of objects became even more terrifying. What I thought was a chest, I later decided was a folding worktable, and later still, some strange Frankish device. I saw that the mother-of-pearl inlaid chest among the caftans and plumes pulled out of their boxes and hastily tossed hither and yon was actually an exotic cabinet sent by the Muscovite Czar.

  Jezmi Agha placed the brazier in the fire niche that had been cut into the wall.

  “Where are the books located?” whispered Master Osman.

  “Which books?” said the dwarf. “The ones from Arabia, the Kufic Korans, those that His Excellency Sultan Selim the Grim, Denizen of Paradise, brought back from Tabriz, the books of pashas whose property was seized when they were condemned to death, the gift volumes brought by the Venetian ambassador to Our Sultan’s grandfather, or the Christian books from the time of Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror?”

  “The books that Shah Tahmasp sent His Excellency Sultan Selim, Denizen of Paradise, as a present twenty-five years ago,” said Master Osman.

  The dwarf brought us to a large wooden cabinet. Master Osman grew impatient as he opened the doors and cast his eyes on the volumes before him. He opened one, read its colophon and leafed through its pages. Together, we gazed in astonishment at the carefully drawn illustrations of khans with slightly slanted eyes.

  “ ‘Genghis Khan, Chagatai Khan, Tuluy Khan and Kublai Khan the Ruler of China,’” read Master Osman before closing the book and taking up another.

  We came across an incredibly beautiful illustration depicting the scene in which Ferhad, empowered by love, carries his beloved Shirin and her horse away on his shoulder. To convey the passion and woe of the lovers, the rocks on the mountain, the clouds and the three noble cypresses witnessing Ferhad’s act of love were drawn with a trembling grief-stricken hand in such agony that Master Osman and I were instantly affected by the taste of tears and sorrow in the falling leaves. This touching moment had been depicted — as the great masters intended — not to signify Ferhad’s muscular strength, but rather to convey how the pain of his love was felt at once throughout the entire world.