My Name is Red Read online

  “Just as you did in concert with the calligraphers and miniaturists of Tabriz, I, too, have been preparing an illustrated manuscript,” I said. “My client is, in fact, His Excellency Our Sultan, the Foundation of the World. Because this book is a secret, Our Sultan has disbursed payment to me under cover of the Head Treasurer. And I have come to an understanding with each of the most talented and accomplished artists of Our Sultan’s atelier. I have been in the process of commissioning one of them to illustrate a dog, another a tree, a third I’ve charged with making border designs and clouds on the horizon, and yet another is responsible for the horses. I wanted the things I depicted to represent Our Sultan’s entire world, just as in the paintings of the Venetian masters. But unlike the Venetians, my work would not merely depict material objects, but naturally the inner riches, the joys and fears of the realm over which Our Sultan rules. If I ended up including the picture of a gold coin, it was to belittle money; I included Death and Satan because we fear them. I don’t know what the rumors are about. I wanted the immortality of a tree, the weariness of a horse and the vulgarity of a dog to represent His Excellency Our Sultan and His worldly realm. I also wanted my cadre of illustrators, nicknamed ‘Stork’, ‘Olive’, ‘Elegant’ and ‘Butterfly’, to select subjects of their own choosing. On even the coldest, most forbidding winter evenings, one of my Sultan’s illustrators would secretly visit to show me what he’d prepared for the book.

  “What kind of pictures were we making? Why were we illustrating them in that way? I can’t really answer you at present. Not because I’m withholding a secret from you, and not because I won’t eventually tell you. It’s as though I myself don’t quite know what the pictures mean. I do, however, know what kind of paintings they ought to be.”

  Four months after I sent my letter, I heard from the barber located on the street where we used to live that Black had returned to Istanbul, and, in turn, I invited him to our house. I was fully aware that my story bore a promise of both sorrow and bliss that would bind the two of us together.

  “Every picture serves to tell a story,” I said. “The miniaturist, in order to beautify the manuscript we read, depicts the most vital scenes: the first time lovers lay eyes on each other; the hero Rüstem cutting off the head of a devilish monster; Rüstem’s grief when he realizes that the stranger he’s killed is his son; the love-crazed Mejnun as he roams a desolate and wild Nature among lions, tigers, stags and jackals; the anguish of Alexander, who, having come to the forest before a battle to divine its outcome from the birds, witnesses a great falcon tear apart his woodcock. Our eyes, fatigued from reading these tales, rest upon the pictures. If there’s something within the text that our intellect and imagination are at pains to conjure, the illustration comes at once to our aid. The images are the story’s blossoming in color. But painting without its accompanying story is an impossibility.

  “Or so I used to think,” I added, as if regretfully. “But this is indeed quite possible. Two years ago I traveled once again to Venice as the Sultan’s ambassador. I observed at length the portraits that the Venetian masters had made. I did so without knowing to which scene and story the pictures belonged, and I struggled to extract the story from the image. One day, I came across a painting hanging on a palazzo wall and was dumbfounded.

  “More than anything, the image was of an individual, somebody like myself. It was an infidel, of course, not one of us. As I stared at him, though, I felt as if I resembled him. Yet he didn’t resemble me at all. He had a full round face that seemed to lack cheekbones, and moreover, he had no trace of my marvelous chin. Though he didn’t look anything like me, as I gazed upon the picture, for some reason, my heart fluttered as if it were my own portrait.

  “I learned from the Venetian gentleman who was giving me a tour through his palazzo that the portrait was of a friend, a nobleman like himself. He had included whatever was significant in his life in his portrait: In the background landscape visible from the open window there was a farm, a village and a blending of color which made a realistic-looking forest. Resting on the table before the nobleman were a clock, books, Time, Evil, Life, a calligraphy pen, a map, a compass, boxes containing gold coins, bric-a-brac, odds and ends, inscrutable yet distinguishable things that were probably included in many pictures, shadows of jinns and the Devil and also, the picture of the man’s stunningly beautiful daughter as she stood beside her father.

  “What was the narrative that this representation was meant to embellish and complete? As I regarded the work, I slowly sensed that the underlying tale was the picture itself. The painting wasn’t the extension of a story at all, it was something in its own right.

  “I never forgot the painting that bewildered me so. I left the palazzo, returned to the house where I was staying as a guest and pondered the picture the entire night. I, too, wanted to be portrayed in this manner. But, no, that wasn’t appropriate, it was Our Sultan who ought to be thus portrayed! Our Sultan ought to be rendered along with everything He owned, with the things that represented and constituted His realm. I settled on the notion that a manuscript could be illustrated according to this idea.

  “The Venetian virtuoso had made the nobleman’s picture in such a way that you would immediately know which particular nobleman it was. If you’d never seen that man, if they told you to pick him out of a crowd of a thousand others, you’d be able to select the correct man with the help of that portrait. The Venetian masters had discovered painting techniques with which they could distinguish any one man from another — without relying on his outfit or medals, just by the distinctive shape of his face. This was the essence of ‘portraiture.’

  “If your face were depicted in this fashion only once, no one would ever be able to forget you, and if you were far away, someone who laid eyes on your portrait would feel your presence as if you were actually nearby. Those who had never seen you alive, even years after your death, could come face-to-face with you as if you were standing before them.”

  We remained silent for a long time. A chilling light the color of the iciness outside filtered through the upper part of the small hallway window facing the street; this was the window whose lower shutters were never opened, which I’d recently paned over with a piece of cloth dipped in beeswax.

  “There was a miniaturist,” I said. “He would come here just like the other artists for the sake of Our Sultan’s secret book, and we would work together till dawn. He did the best of the gilding. That unfortunate Elegant Effendi, he left here one night never to arrive at home. I’m afraid they might have done him in, that poor master gilder of mine.”

  SIX

  I AM ORHAN

  Black asked: “Have they indeed killed him?”

  This Black was tall, skinny and a little frightening. I was walking toward them where they sat talking in the second-floor workshop with the blue door when my grandfather said, “They might have done him in.” Then he caught sight of me. “What are you doing here?”

  He looked at me in such a way that I climbed onto his lap without answering. Then he put me back down right away.

  “Kiss Black’s hand,” he said.

  I kissed the back of his hand and touched it to my forehead. It had no smell.

  “He’s quite charming,” Black said and kissed me on my cheek. “One day he’ll be a brave young man.”

  “This is Orhan, he’s six. There’s also an older one, Shevket, who’s seven. That one’s quite a stubborn little child.”

  “I went back to the old street in Aksaray,” said Black. “It was cold, everything was covered in snow and ice. But it was as if nothing had changed at all.”

  “Alas! Everything has changed, everything has become worse,” my grandfather said. “Significantly worse.” He turned to me. “Where’s your brother?”

  “He’s with our mentor, the master binder.”

  “So, what are you doing here?”

  “The master said, “Fine work, you can go now” to me.”

  “You made
your way back here alone?” asked my grandfather. “Your older brother ought to have accompanied you.” Then he said to Black: “There’s a binder friend of mine with whom they work twice a week after their Koran school. They serve as his apprentices, learning the art of binding.”

  “Do you like to make illustrations like your grandfather?” asked Black.

  I gave him no answer.

  “All right then,” said my grandfather. “Leave us be, now.”

  The heat from the open brazier that warmed the room was so nice that I didn’t want to leave. Smelling the paint and glue, I stood still for a moment. I could also smell coffee.

  “Yet does illustrating in a new way signify a new way of seeing?” my grandfather began. “This is the reason why they’ve murdered that poor gilder despite the fact that he worked in the old style. I’m not even certain he’s been killed, only that he’s missing. They’re illustrating a commemorative story in verse, a Book of Festivities, for Our Sultan by order of the Head Illuminator Master Osman. Each of the miniaturists works at his own home. Master Osman, however, occupies himself at the palace book-arts workshop. To begin with, I want you to go there and observe everything. I worry that the others, that is, the miniaturists, have ended up falling out with and slaying one another. They go by the workshop names that Head Illuminator Master Osman gave them years ago: “Butterfly,” “Olive,” “Stork”…You’re also to go and observe them as they work in their homes.”

  Instead of heading downstairs, I spun around. There was a noise coming from the next room with the built-in closet where Hayriye slept. I went in. Inside there was no Hayriye, just my mother. She was embarrassed to see me. She stood half in the closet.

  “Where have you been?” she asked.

  But she knew where I’d been. In the back of the closet there was a peephole through which you could see my grandfather’s workshop, and if its door were open, the wide hallway and my grandfather’s bedroom across the hall by the staircase — if, of course, his bedroom door were open.

  “I was with grandfather,” I said. “Mother, what are you doing in here?”

  “Didn’t I tell you that your grandfather had a guest and that you weren’t to bother them?” She scolded me, but not very loud, because she didn’t want the guest to hear. “What were they doing?” she asked afterward, in a sweet voice.

  “They were seated. Not with the paints though. Grandfather spoke, the other listened.”

  “In what manner was he seated?”

  I dropped to the floor and imitated the guest: “I’m a very serious man now, Mother, look. I’m listening to my grandfather with knit eyebrows, as if I were listening to the birth epic being recited. I’m nodding my head in time now, very seriously like that guest.”

  “Go downstairs,” my mother said, “call for Hayriye at once.”

  She sat down and began writing on a small piece of paper on the writing board she’d taken up.

  “Mother, what are you writing?”

  “Be quick, now. Didn’t I tell you to go downstairs and call for Hayriye?”

  I went down to the kitchen. My brother, Shevket, was back. Hayriye had put before him a plate of the pilaf meant for the guest.

  “Traitor,” my brother said. “You just went off and left me with the Master. I did all the folding for the bindings myself. My fingers are bruised purple.”

  “Hayriye, my mother wants to see you.”

  “When I’m done here, I’m going to give you such a beating,” my brother said. “You’ll pay for your laziness and treachery.”

  When Hayriye left, my brother stood and came after me threateningly, even before he’d finished his pilaf. I couldn’t get away in time. He grabbed my arm at the wrist and began twisting it.

  “Stop, Shevket, don’t, you’re hurting me.”

  “Are you ever going to shirk your duties again and leave?”

  “No, I won’t ever leave.”

  “Swear to it.”

  “I swear.”

  “Swear on the Koran.”

  “…on the Koran.”

  He didn’t let go of my arm. He dragged me to the large copper tray that we used as a table for eating and forced me to my knees. He was strong enough to eat his pilaf as he continued to twist my arm.

  “Quit torturing your brother, tyrant,” said Hayriye. She covered herself and was heading outside. “Leave him be.”

  “Mind your own affairs, slave girl,” my brother said. He was still twisting my arm. “Where are you off to?”

  “To buy lemons,” Hayriye said.

  “You’re a liar,” my brother said. “The cupboard is full of lemons.”

  As he had eased up on my arm, I was suddenly able to free myself. I kicked him and grabbed a candleholder by its base, but he pounced on me, smothering me. He knocked the candleholder away, and the copper tray fell over.

  “You two scourges of God!” my mother said. She kept her voice lowered so the guest wouldn’t hear. How had she passed before the open door of the workshop, through the hallway, and come downstairs without being seen by Black?

  She separated us. “You two just continue to disgrace me, don’t you?”

  “Orhan lied to the master binder,” Shevket said. “He left me there to do all the work.”

  “Hush!” my mother said, slapping him.

  She’d hit him softly. My brother didn’t cry. “I want my father,” he said. “When he returns he’s going to take up Uncle Hasan’s ruby-handled sword, and we’re going to move back with Uncle Hasan.”

  “Shut up!” said my mother. She suddenly became so angry that she grabbed Shevket by the arm and dragged him through the kitchen, passed the stairs to the room that faced the far shady side of the courtyard. I followed them. My mother opened the door. When she saw me, she said, “Inside, the both of you.”

  “But I haven’t done anything,” I said. I entered anyway. Mother closed the door behind us. Though it wasn’t pitch-black inside — a faint light fell through the space between the shutters facing the pomegranate tree in the courtyard — I was scared.

  “Open the door, Mother,” I said. “I’m cold.”

  “Quit whimpering, you coward,” Shevket said. “She’ll open it soon enough.”

  Mother opened the door. “Are you going to behave until the visitor leaves?” she said. “All right then, you’ll sit in the kitchen by the stove until Black takes his leave, and you’re not to go upstairs, do you understand?”

  “We’ll get bored in there,” Shevket said. “Where has Hayriye gone?”

  “Quit butting into everyone’s affairs,” my mother said.

  We heard a soft whinnying from one of the horses in the stable. The horse whinnied again. It wasn’t our grandfather’s horse, but Black’s. We were overcome with mirth, as if it were a fair day. Mother smiled, wanting us to smile as well. Taking two steps forward, she opened the stable door that faced us off the stairwell outside the kitchen.

  “Drrsss,” she said into the stable.

  She turned around and guided us into Hayriye’s greasy-smelling and mice-ridden kitchen. She forced us to sit down. “Don’t even consider standing until our guest leaves. And don’t fight with each other or else people will think you’re spoiled.”

  “Mother,” I said to her before she closed the kitchen door. “I want to say something, Mother: They’ve done our grandfather’s gilder in.”

  SEVEN

  I AM CALLED BLACK

  When I first laid eyes on her child, I knew at once what I’d long and mistakenly recalled about Shekure’s face. Like Orhan’s face, hers was thin, though her chin was longer than what I remembered. So, then the mouth of my beloved was surely smaller and narrower than I imagined it to be. For a dozen years, as I ventured from city to city, I’d widened Shekure’s mouth out of desire and had imagined her lips to be more pert, fleshy and irresistible, like a large, shiny cherry.

  Had I taken Shekure’s portrait with me, rendered in the style of the Venetian masters, I wouldn’t have felt
such loss during my long travels when I could scarcely remember my beloved, whose face I’d left somewhere behind me. For if a lover’s face survives emblazoned on your heart, the world is still your home.

  Meeting Shekure’s youngest son and speaking with him, seeing his face up close and kissing him, aroused in me a restlessness peculiar to the luckless, to murderers and to sinners. An inner voice urged me on, “Be quick now, go and see her.”

  For a while, I considered silently quitting my Enishte’s presence and opening each of the doors along the wide hallway — I’d counted them out of the corner of my eye, five dark doors, one of which, naturally, opened onto the staircase — until I found Shekure. But, I’d been separated from my beloved for twelve years because I recklessly revealed what lay in my heart. I decided to wait discreetly, listening to my Enishte while admiring the objects that Shekure had touched and the large pillow upon which she’d reclined who knows how many times.

  He recounted to me that the Sultan wanted to have the book completed in time for the thousandth-year anniversary of the Hegira. Our Sultan, Refuge of the World, wanted to demonstrate that in the thousandth year of the Muslim calendar He and His state could make use of the styles of the Franks as well as the Franks themselves. Because He was also having a Book of Festivities made, the Sultan granted that the master miniaturists, whom He knew were quite busy, be permitted to sequester themselves at home to work in peace instead of among the crowds at the workshop. He was, of course, also aware that they all regularly paid clandestine visits to my Enishte.

  “You shall visit Head Illuminator Master Osman,” said my Enishte. “Some say he’s gone blind, others that he’s lost his senses. I think he’s blind and senile both.”

  Despite the fact that my Enishte didn’t have the standing of a master illustrator and that this wasn’t his field of artistic expertise at all, he did have control over an illustrated manuscript. This, in fact, was with the permission and encouragement of the Sultan, a situation that, of course, strained his relationship with the elderly Master Osman.