Chapter 12 I AM YOUR BELOVED UNCLE

A silence filled the room when he confessed he'd murdered Elegant Effendi. I assumed he'd kill me as well. My heart quickened. Had he come here to end my life or to confess and terrify me? Did he himself know what he wanted? I was afraid, realizing how absolutely unacquainted I was with the inner world of this magnificent artist whose splendid lines and magical use of color had been familiar to me for years. I could sense him standing stiffly behind me, there at the nape of my neck, holding that large inkpot reserved for red, but I didn't turn to face him. I knew my silence would make him uneasy. “The dogs haven't yet quieted down,” I said.

We fell silent again. This time, I knew that my death, or my somehow avoiding this misfortune, would depend on what I told him. All I knew aside from his work was that he was quite intelligent, and if you grant that an illustrator must never reveal his soul in his work, intelligence is, of course, an asset. How had he cornered me at home when no one else was here? My aged mind was furiously preoccupied with this question, but I was too confused to see myself out of this game. Where was Shekure? "You knew it was me, didn't you?" he asked. I hadn't known at all, not until he told me. In the back of my mind, I was even wondering whether he hadn't done well by killing Elegant Effendi, and that the late miniaturist might've actually succumbed to his anxieties and made trouble for the rest of us.

I was ever so slightly grateful to this murderer, with whom I was alone in the empty house. “I'm not surprised you killed him,” I said. Men like us who live with books and dream eternally of their pages fear only one thing in this world. What's more, we're struggling with something more forbidden and dangerous; is, we're struggling to make pictures in a Muslim city. As with Sheikh Muhammad of Isfahan, we miniaturists are inclined to feel guilty and regretful, we're the first to blame ourselves before others do, to be ashamed and beg pardon of God and the community. We make our books in secret like shameful sinners. I know too well how submission to the endless attacks of hojas, preachers, judges and mystics who accuse us of blasphemy, how the endless guilt both deadens and nourishes the artist's imagination ""You don't fault me ​​for murdering that idiotic miniaturist, do you then?"

"What attracts us to writing, illustrating and painting is bound up in this fear of retribution. It's not only for money and favor that we knee before our work from morning to evening, continuing by candlelight through the night to the point of blindness and sacrifice ourselves for pictures and books, it's to escape the prattle of others, to escape the community, but in contrast to this passion to create, we also want those we've forsaken to see and appreciate the inspired pictures we've made—and if they should call us sinners? Oh, the suffering this brings upon the illustrator of genuine talent! Yet, genuine painting is hidden in the agony no one sees and no one creates. It's contained in the picture, which on first sight, they'll say is bad, incomplete, blasphemous or heretical. A genuine miniaturist knows he must reach that point, yet at the same time, he fears the loneliness that awaits him there. Who would accede to such a frightful, nerve-wracking existence? himself b efore anyone else does, the artist believes

he'll be spared what he's feared for years. Others listen to him and believe him only when he admits his guilt, for which he is then condemned to burn in Hell—the illustrator of Isfahan lit these hellfires himself." “But you’re not a miniaturist,” he said. “I didn’t kill him out of fear.” “You murdered him because you wanted to paint as you wished, without fear.” For the first time in a long while, the miniaturist who aspired to be my murderer said something quite intelligent: “I know you're explaining all this to distract me, to dupe me, to get yourself out of this situation,” and he added, “but what you've just said is the truth. I want you to understand, listen to me.”

I looked into his eyes. He'd completely forgotten the formality customary between us as he spoke: He'd been carried away by his own thoughts. But to where? “Never fear, I won't offend your honor,” he said. He laughed bitterly as he circled around to face me. “Even now,” he said, “as I'm doing this, it doesn't seem to be me. It's as if there's something writhing within me compelling me to do its evil bidding. Yet I need that thing nonetheless. It's that way with painting, too." “These are old wives' tales about the Devil.” "You think I'm lying, then?"

He didn't have enough courage to murder me, so he wanted me to enrage him. “Nay, you're not lying but you're not acknowledging what you feel either.” "I acknowledge very well what I feel. I'm suffering the torments of the grave without having died. Unawares, we've sunk to our necks in sin because of you, and now you're preaching "more courage." You' re the one who's made me a murderer. Nusret Hoja's rabid henchmen will kill us all." The less confident he became, the more he raised his voice and the more fiercely he gripped the inkpot. Would somebody passing down the snowy street hear his shouting and enter the house?

“How did you kill him?” I asked, more to buy time than out of curiosity. “How did you chance to meet at the mouth of that well?” “The night Elegant Effendi left your house, he came to me,” he said, with an unexpected desire to confess. “He said he'd seen the final double-leaf painting. I tried at length to dissuade him from making an issue out of it. I got him to walk over to the area ravaged by the fire. I told him I had money buried near the well. When he heard that, he believed me...What better proof that an illustrator is motivated by greeded alone? That's another reason I'm not sorry. He was a talented, but mediocre artist. The greedy oaf

was ready to dig into the frozen earth with his fingernails. You see, if I truly had gold pieces buried beside that well, I wouldn't have had to do away with him. Yes, you hired yourself quite a miserable wretch to do your gilding. The dearly departed had finesse, but his choice of color and application was ordinary, and his illuminations were uninspired. I didn't leave a trace…Tell me, then, what is the essence of "style"? Today, both the Franks and the Chinese talk about the character of a painter's talent, what they call ”style.” Should style distinguish a good artist from others or not?”

“Fear not,” I said, “a new style doesn't spring from a miniaturist's own desire. A prince dies, a shah loses a battle, a seemingly never-ending era ends, a workshop is closed and its members disband, searching for other homes and other bibliophiles to become their patrons. One day, a compassionate sultan will assemble these exiles, these bewildered but talented refugee miniaturists and calligraphers, in his own tent or palace and begin to establish his own book-arts workshop. Even if these artists, unaccustomed to one another, continue at first in their respective painting styles, over time, as with children who gradually become friends by roughhousing on the street, they'll quarrel, bond, struggle and compromise. The birth of a new style is the result of years of disagreements, jealousies, rivalries and studies in color and painting. Generally, it'll be the most gifted member of the workshop who fathers this form. Let's also call him the most fortunate.falls the singular duty of perfecting and refining this style through perpetual imitation.”

Unable to look me straight in the eye, he assumed an unexpected gentle manner, and begging my compassion as much as my honesty, he asked me, trembling like a maiden: “Do I have a style of my own?” I thought tears would flow from my eyes. With all the gentleness, sympathy and kindness I could muster, I hastened to tell him what I believed to be the truth: “You are the most talented, divinely inspired artist with the most enchanted touch and eye for detail that I've seen in all my sixty years. If you put a painting before me which had seen the combined work of a thousand miniaturists, I' d still be able to recognize instantly the God-given magnificence of your pen.” "Agreed, but I know you're not wise enough to appreciate the mystery of my skill," he said. "You're lying, now, because you're afraid of me. Describe, once again, the character of my methods .” “Your pen selects the right line seemingly of its own accord, as if without your touch. What your pen draws is neither truthful nor frivolous! When you portray a crowded gathering, the tension emerging from the glances between figures, their positioning on the page and the meaning of the text metamorphose into an elegant eternal whisper. I return to your paintings again and again to hear that whisper, and each time, I realize with a smile that the meaning has changed, and how shall I put it, I begin to read the painting anew. When these layers of meaning are taken together, a depth emerges that surprises even the perspective of the European masters.” “Fine and well. Forget about the European masters. Start from the beginning.” "You have such a truly magnificent and powerful line, that the observer believes in what you've painted rather than in reality itself. And just as your talent could create a picture that would force the most devout man to renounce his faith, it could It also brings the most hopeless, unrepentant unbeliever to Allah's path." "True, but I'm not sure that amounts to praise. Try again." “There's no miniaturist who knows the consistency of paint and its secrets as well as you do. You always prepare and apply the glossiest, most vibrant, most genuine colors.” "Yes, and what else?" “You know you’re the greatest of painters after Bihzad and Mir Seyyid Ali.” “Yes, I'm aware of this. If you are too, why are you making the book with that model of mediocrity Black Effendi?” "First, the work he does doesn't require a miniaturist's skill," I said. "Second, unlike yourself, he's not a murderer." He smiled sweetly under the influence of my joke. With this, I thought I might be able to escape this nightmare thanks to a new expression—this word “style.” Upon my broaching the subject, we began a pleasant discussion concerning the bronze Mongol inkpot he held, not like father and son, but like two curious and experienced old men. The weight of the bronze, the balance of the inkpot, the depth of its neck, the length of old calligraphy reed pens and the mysteries of red ink , whose consistency he could feel as he gently swung the inkpot before me…We agreed that if the Mongols hadn't brought the secrets of red paint—which they'd learned from Chinese masters—to Khorasan, Bukhara and Herat, we in Istanbul couldn't make these paintings at all. As we talked, the consistency of time, like that of the paint, seemed to change, to flow ever more quickly. In a corner of my mind I was wondering why no one had yet returned home . If only he'd put down that weighty object. With our customary workaday ease, he asked me, “When your book is finished, will those who see my work appreciate my skill?” “If we can, God willing, finish this book without interference, Our Sultan will look it over, of course, checking first to see whether we used enough gold leaf in the appropriate places. Then, as if reading a description of Himself, as any sultan would, He'll stare at his own portrait, struck by His own likeness rather than by our magnificent illustrations; thereafter, if He takes the time to examine the spectacle we've painstakingly and devotedly created at the expense of the light of our eyes, so much the better. You know, as well as I, that barring a miracle, He'll lock the book away in His treasury without even asking who made the frame or the gilded illuminations, who painted this man or that horse—and like all skilled artisans, we'll go back to painting, ever hopeful that one day a miracle of acknowledgment will find us." We were silent for a while, as if patiently waiting for something. "When will that miracle happen?" he asked. "When will all those paintings we've worked on until we could no longer see straight truly be appreciated? When will they give me, give us, the respect we deserve?" "Never!" "How so?" "They'll never give you what you want," I said. "In the future, you'll be even less appreciated." “Books last for centuries,” he said proudly but without confidence. "Believe me, none of the Venetian masters have your poetic sensitivity, your conviction, your sensitivity, the purity and brightness of your colors, yet their paintings are more compelling because they more closely resemble life itself. They don't paint the world as seen from the balcony of a minaret, ignoring what they call perspective; they depict what's seen at street level, or from the inside of a prince's room, taking in his bed, quilt, desk, mirror, his tiger, his daughter and his coins . They include it all, as you know. I'm not persuaded by everything they do. Attempting to imitate the world directly through painting seems dishonorable to me. I resent it. But there's an undeniable allure to the paintings they make by those new methods. They depict what the eye sees just as the eye sees it. Indeed, they paint what they see, whereas we paint what we look at. Beholding their work, one comes to realize that the only way to have one's face immortalized is through the Frankish style. And it's not only the inhabitants of Venice who are captured by this notion, but all the tailors, butchers, soldiers, priests and grocers in all the Frankish lands...They all have their portraits made this way. Just a glance at those paintings and you too would want to see yourself this way, you'd want to believe that you're different from all others, a unique, special and particular human being. Painting people, not as they are perceived by the mind, but as they are actually seen by the naked eye, painting in the new method, allows for this possibility. One day everyone will paint as they do. When "painting" is mentioned, the world will think of their work! Even a poor foolish tailor who understands nothing of illustrating will want such a portrait so he might be convinced, upon seeing the unique curve of his nose, that he's not an ordinary simpleton, but an extraordinary man." “So? We can make that portrait, as well,” quipped the witty assassin. "We won't!" I replied. "Haven't you learned from your victim, the late Elegant Effendi, how afraid we are of being labeled imitators of the Franks? Even if we venture bravely to paint like them, it'll amount to the same thing. In the end, our methods will die out, our colors will fade. No one will care about our books and our paintings, and those who do express interest will ask with a sneer, with no understanding whatever, why there's no perspective—or else they won't be able to find the manuscripts at all. Indifference, time and disaster will destroy our art. The Arabian glue used in the bindings contains fish, honey and bone, and the pages are sized and polished with a finish made from egg white and starch. Greedy, shameless mice will nibble these pages away; termites, worms and a thousand varieties of insect will gnaw our manuscripts out of existence. Bindings will fall apart and pages will drop out. , thieves, indifferent servants and children will thoughtlessly tear out the pages and pictures. Child princes will scrawl over the illustrations with toy pens. They'll blacken people's eyes, wipe their runny noses on the pages, doodle in the margins with blackink. And religious censors will blacken out whatever is left. They'll tear and cut up our paintings, perhaps use them to make other pictures or for games and such entertainment. While mothers destroy the illustrations they consider obscene, fathers and older brothers will jack off onto the pictures of women and the pages will stick together, not only because of this, but also due to being smeared with mud, water, bad glue, spit and all manner of filth and food. Stains of mold and dirt will blossom like flowers where the pages have stuck together. Rain, leaky roofs, floods and dirt will ruin our books. Of course, together with the tattered, faded and unreadable pages, which water, humidity, bugs and neglect will have reduced to pulp, the one last volume to emerge intact, like a miracle, from the bottom of a bone-dry chest will also one day disappear, swallowed up in the flames of a merciless fire. Is there a neighborhood in Istanbul that hasn't been burned to the ground at least once e very twenty years that we might expect such a book to survive? In this city, where every three years more books and libraries disappear than those the Mongols burned and plundered in Baghdad, what painter could possibly imagine that his masterpiece might last more t , or that one day his pictures might be seen, and he revered like Bihzad? Not only our own art, but every single work made in this world over the years will vanish in fires, be destroyed by worms or be lost out of neglect: Shirin proudly watching Husrev from a window; Husrev delightfully spying on Shirin as she bathes by moonlight; lovers gazing at each other with grace and subtlety; Rustem's wrestling a white demon to death at the bottom of a well; befriending a white tiger and a mountain goat in the desert; the capture and hanging of a deceitful shepherd dog who presents a sheep from his flock to the she-wolf he mates with each night; the flower, angel, leafy twig, birdand teardrop border illuminations; the lute players that embellish Hafiz's enigmatic poems; the wall ornamentations that have ruined the eyes of thousands, nay tens of thousands of miniaturist apprentices; the small plaques hung above doors and on walls; borders of illustrations; the humble signatures hidden at the bases of walls, in corners, in facade embellishments, under the soles of feet, beneath shrubbery and between rocks; the flower-covered quilts covering lovers; the severed infidel heads patiently awaiting Our late Sultan grandfather as he victoriously marches upon an enemy fortress; the cannon, guns and tents that even in your youth you helped illustrate and that appeared in the background as the ambassador of the infidels kissed the feet of Our Sultan's great-grandfather; and without horns, with and without tails, with pointed teeth and with pointed nails; the thousands of varieties of birds including Sol omon's wise hoopoe, the jumping swallow, the dodo and the singing nightingale; the serene cats and restless dogs; fast-moving clouds; the small charming blades of grass reproduced in thousands of pictures; cypress, plane and pomegranate trees whose leaves were drawn one after another with the patience of Job; the palaces—and their hundreds of thousands of bricks—which were modeled on palaces from the time of Tamerlane or Shah Tahmasp but accompanied stories from much earlier eras; the tens of thousands of melancholy princes listening to music played by beautiful women and boys sitting cars on magnificent fields of flowers and beneath flowering trees; the extraordinary pictures of ceramics and carpets that owe their perfection to the thousands of apprentice illustrators from Samarkand to Islambol beaten to the point of tears over the last one hundred fifty years; the sublime gardens and the soaring black kites that you still depict with your old enthusiasm, your astounding scenes of death and war, your graceful hunting sultans, and with the same finesse, your startled fleeing gazelles, your dying shahs, your prisoners of war, your infidel galleons and your rival cities, your shiny dark nights that glimmer as if night itself had flowed from your pen, your stars, your ghostlike cypresses, your red-tinte d pictures of love and death, yours and all the rest, all of it will vanish…” Raising the inkpot, he struck me on the head with all his strength. I tottered forward under the force of the blow. I felt a horrible pain that I could never even hope to describe. The entire world was wrapped in my pain and faded to yellow. A large portion of my mind assumed that this attack was intentional; yet, along with the blow—or perhaps because of it—another, faltering part of my mind, in a sad show of goodwill, wanted to say to the madman who aspired to be my murderer: “Have mercy, you've attacked me in error." He raised the inkpot again and brought it down upon my head. This time, even the faltering part of my mind understood that this was no mistake, but madness and wrath that might very well end in my death. I was so terrified by this state of affairs that I began to raise my voice, howling with all my strength and suffering. The color of this howl would be verdigris, and in the blackness of evening on the empty streets, no one would be able to hear its hue; I knew I was all alone. He was startled by my wail and hesitated. We momentarily came eye to eye. I could tell from his pupils that, despite his horror and embarrassment, he'd resigned himself to what he was doing. , but an unfamiliar and ill-willed stranger who didn't speak my language, and this sensation protracted my momentary isolation for centuries. I wanted to hold his hand, as if to embrace this world; it was of no use. I begged, or thought I did: “My child, my dear child, please do not end my life.” As if in a dream, he seemed not to hear. He lowered the inkpot onto my head again. My thoughts, what I saw, my memories, my eyes, all of it, merging together, became fear. I could see no one color and realized that all colors had become red. What I thought was my blood was red ink; thought was ink on his hands was my flowing blood. How unjust, cruel, and merciless I found it to be dying at that instant. Yet, this was the conclusion that my aged and bloody head was slowly coming to. Then I saw it. My recollections were stark white, like the snow outside. My heart ached as it throbbed as if within my mouth. I shall now describe my death. Perhaps you've understood this long ago: Death is not the end, this is certain. However, as it is written everywhere in books, death is something painful beyond comprehension. It was as if not only my shattered skull and brain but every part of me, merging together, was burning and racked with torment. Withstanding this boundless suffering was so difficult that a portion of my mind reacted—as if this were its only option—by forgetting the agony and seeking a gentle sleep. Before I died, I remembered the Assyrian legend that I heard as an adolescent. An old man, living alone, rises from his bed in the middle of the night and drinks a glass of water. He places the glass upon the end table to discover the candle that had been there is missing. Where had it gone? A fine thread of light is filtering from within. He follows the light, retracing his steps back to his bedroom to find that somebody is lying in his bed holding the candle.” Who might you be?" he asks. "I am Death," says the stranger. The old man is overcome by a mysterious silence. Then he says, "So, you've come." "Yes," responds Death haughtily. “No,” the old man says firmly, “you're but an unfinished dream of mine.” The old man abruptly blows out the candle in the stranger's hand and everything vanishes in blackness. The old man enters his own empty bed, goes to sleep and lives for another twenty years. I knew this was not to be my fate. He brought the inkpot down onto my head once again. I was in such a state of profound torment that I could only vaguely discern the impact. He, the inkpot and the room illuminated faintly by the candle had already begun to fade. Yet, I was still alive. My desire to cling to this world, to run away and escape him, the flailing of my hands and arms in an attempt to protect my face and bloody head, the way, I believe, I bit his wrist at one time, and the inkpot striking my face made me aware of this. We struggled for a while, if you can call it that. He was very strong and very agitated. He laid me out flat on my back. Pressing his knees onto my shoulders, he practically nailed me to the ground while he raved on in a very disrespectful tone, accosting me, a dying old man. Perhaps because I could neither understand nor listen to him, perhaps because I took no pleasure in looking into his bloodshot eyes, he struck my head once more. become bright red from the ink splattering out of the inkpot, and I suppose, from the blood splattering out of me. Saddened that the last thing I'd ever see in this world was this man who would be my enemy, I closed my eyes. Thereupon, I saw a soft, gentle light. The light was as sweet and enticing as the sleep I thought would straightaway ease all my pains. I saw a figure within the light and as a child might, I asked, “Who are you?” “It is I, Azrael, the Angel of Death,” he said. “I am the one who ends man's journey in this world. I am the one who separates children from their mothers, wives from their husbands, lovers from each other and fathers from their daughters. No mortal in this world avoids meeting me.” When I knew death was unavoidable, I wept. My tears made me profoundly thirsty. On the one hand there was the stupid agony of my face and eyes drenched in blood; on the other hand there was the place where frenzy and cruelty ceased, yet that place was strange and terrifying. to be that illuminated realm, the Land of the Dead, to which Azrael beckoned me, and I was frightened. Even so, I knew I couldn't long remain in this world that caused me to writee and howl in agony. In this land of frightful pain and torment, there was no place for me to take solace. To stay, I'd have to resign myself to this unbearable torment and this was impossible in my elderly condition. Just before I died, I actually longed for my death, and at the same time, I understood the answer to the question that I'd spent my entire life pondering, the answer I couldn't find in books: How was it that everybody , without exception, succeeded in dying? It was precisely through this simple desire to pass on. I also understood that death would make me a wiser man. Nonetheless, I was overcome with the indecision of a man about to take a long journey and unable to refrain from taking one last glance at his room, at his belongings and his home. In a panic I wished to see my daughter one last time. I wanted this so badly I was prepared to grit my teeth for a while longer and endure the pain and my increasing thirst, to wait for Shekure's return. And thus, the deathly and gentle light before me faded somewhat, and my mind opened itself up to the sounds and noises of the world in which I lay dying. I could hear my murderer roaming around the room, opening the cabinet, rifling through my papers and searching intently for the last picture. When he came up empty-handed, I heard him pry open my paint set and kick the chests, boxes, inkpots and folding worktable. I sensed that I was groaning now and then and making odd twitching gestures with my old arms and tired legs. And I waited. My pain was not abating in the least. I grew increasingly silent and could no longer stand to grit my teeth, but again, I held on, waiting. Then it occurred to me, if Shekure came home, she might encounter my ruthless murderer. I didn't want to even think about this. At that instant, I sensed that my murderer had exited the room. He'd probably found the last painting. I'd become excessively thirsty but still I waited. Come now, dear daughter, my pretty Shekure, show yourself. She did not come. I no longer had strength to withstand the suffering. I knew I would die without seeing her. This seemed so bitter I wanted to die of misery. Afterward, a face I'd never seen before appeared to my left, and smiling all the while, he kindly offered me a glass of water. Forgetting all else, I greedily reached for the water. He pulled the glass back: “Denounce the Prophet Muhammad as a liar,” he said. “Deny all that he has said.” It was Satan. I didn't answer, I wasn't even afraid of him. Since I never once believed that painting amounted to being duped by him, I waited confidently. I dreamed of the endless journey that awaited me and of my future . Meanwhile, as I was approached by the illuminated angel whom I'd just seen, Satan vanished. Part of me knew that this glowing angel who had caused Satan to flee was Azrael. But another rebellious part of my mind remembered that in the Book of the Apocalypse it was written that Azrael was an angel with one thousand wings spanning East and West and that he held the whole world in his hands. As I grew more confused, the angel bathed in light approached as if coming to my aid, and yes, just as Gazzali had stated in Pearls of Magnificence, he sweetly said: "Open your mouth so that your soul might leave." “Nothing but the besmele prayer ever leaves my mouth,” I answered him. This was just one last excuse however. I knew I could no longer resist, that my time had now come. For a moment I was embarrassed at having to leave my bloodied and ugly body in this miserable condition for my daughter, whom I'd never see again. But I wanted to leave this world, shedding it like some tight-fitting garment that pinched. I opened my mouth and abruptly all was color just as in the pictures of Our Prophet's Miraj journey, during which he visited Heaven. Everything was flooded in exquisite brightness as if generously painted with gold wash. Painful tears flowed from my eyes. passed from my lungs through my mouth. All was subsumed in wondrous silence. I could see now that my soul had left my body and that I was cupped in Azrael's hand. My soul, the size of a bee, was bathed in light, and it shuddered as it left my body and continued to tremble like mercury in Azrael's palm. My thoughts were not of this, however, but of the unfamiliar new world I'd just been born into. After so much suffering, a calm overcame me. Death did not cause me the pain I'd feared; on the contrary, I relaxed, quickly realizing that my present situation was a permanent one, whereas the constraints I'd felt in life were only temporary. This was how it would be from now on, for century upon century, until the end of the universe. This neither upset nor gladdened me. Events I'd once endured briskly and sequentially were now spread over infinite space and existed simultaneously. As in one of those large double-leaf paintings wherein a witty miniaturist has painted a number of unrelated things in each corner—many things were happening all at once. I, SHEKUREIt was snowing so hard that snowflakes occasionally passed right through my veil into my eyes. I picked my way through the garden covered in rotting grass, mud and broken branches, then quickened my pace once I'd exited onto the street. I know you're all wondering what I'm thinking. How much do I trust Black? Let me be frank with you, then. I myself don't know what to think. You do understand, don't you? I'm confused. This much, however, I do know: As always, I'll fall into the routine of meals, children, my father and errands, and before long my heart, without even having to be asked, will whisper the truth to me of its own accord. Tomorrow, before noon, I'll know whom I am to marry. I want to share something with you before I arrive home. No! Come off it, now, it's not about the size of that monstrosity Black showed me. If you want we can talk about that later. What I was going to discuss was Black's haste. It's not that he seems to think only of satisfying his lust. To be honest, it'd make no difference if he did. What surprises me is his stupidity! I suppose it never crossed his mind that he could frighten and abduct me, play with my honor and put me off, or open the door to even more dangerous outcomes. I can tell from his innocent expression how much he loves and desires me. But after waiting twelve years, why can't he play the game according to the rules and wait another twelve days? Do you know I have the sinking feeling I've fallen in love with his incompetence and his melancholy childlike glances? At a time when it would've been more appropriate to be irate with him, instead, I pitied him. “Oh, my poor child,” a voice inside me said, “you suffer such torment and are still so utterly incompetent.” I felt so protective of him that I might've even made a mistake, I might've actually given myself to that spoiled little boy. Thinking of my unfortunate children, I quickened my steps. Just then, in the early darkness and blinding snow, I thought a phantom of a man would run right over me. Ducking my head, I slipped by him. Upon entering through the courtyard gate, I knew that Hayriye and the children hadn't yet returned. Very well then, I'd come back in time, the evening prayers hadn't yet been called. I climbed the stairs, the house smelled of orange jam. My father was in his darkened room with the blue door; my feet were freezing. I entered my room to the right beside the stairs holding a lamp, and when I saw that the cabinet had been opened, that the cushions had fallen out and the room had been ransacked, I assumed it was the naughty work of Shevket and Orhan. There was a silence in the house, not unusual, yet unlike the usual silence. I donned my house clothes and sat alone in the darkness, and as I gave myself over to momentary daydreaming, my mind registered a noise coming from below, directly below me, not from the kitchen but from the large room next to the stable, used in summertime as the illustrating workshop. Had my father gone down there, in this cold? I didn't remember seeing the light of an oil lamp there; suddenly, I heard the squeak of the front door between the stone walkway and the courtyard, and afterward, the cursed and ominous barking of the pesky dogs roaming past the courtyard gate—I was alarmed, to put it mildly. “Hayriye,” I shouted. “Shevket, Orhan…” I felt a cold draft. My father's brazier must be burning; I ought to sit with him and warm up. As I went to be with him, holding an oil lamp aloft, my thoughts weren't with Black any longer, but with the children. I crossed the wide hall diagonally, wondering if I should set water to boil on the downstairs brazier for the gray mullet soup. I entered the room with the blue door. Everything was in shambles. Without thinking, I was about to say, “What has my father done?” Then I saw him on the floor. I screamed, overcome with horror. Then I screamed again. Gazing at my father's body, I fell silent. Listen, I can tell by your tight-lipped and cold-blooded reaction that you've known for some time what's happened in this room. If not everything, then quite a lot. What you're wondering about now is my reaction to what I've seen, what I feel. As readers sometimes do when studying a picture, you're trying to discern the pain of the hero and thinking about the events in the story leading up to this agonizing moment. And then, having considered my reaction, you'll take pleasure in trying to imagine, not my pain, but what you'd feel in my place, had it been your father murdered like this. I know this is what you're so craftily trying to do. Yes, I returned home in the evening to discover that someone had killed my father. Yes, I tore out my hair. Yes, as I would do in my childhood, I hugged him with all my might and smelled his skin. Yes, I trembled and I couldn't breathe. Yes, I begged Allah to raise him up and have him sit silently in his corner among his books as he always did. Get up, Father, get up, don't die. His bloodied head was crushed. More than the torn papers and books, more than the breaking and tossing about of the end tables, paint sets and inkpots, more than the wild destruction of cushions, worktables and writing boards, and the ransacking of everything, more even than the anger that had killed my father, I feared the hatred that had destroyed the room and everything within it. I was no longer crying. A couple passed down the street outside, laughing and talking in the blackness; meanwhile, I could hear the infinite silence of the world in my mind; with my hands I wiped my running nose and the tears off my cheeks. For a long long time I thought about the children and our lives. I listened to the silence. I ran, I grabbed my father by the ankles and dragged him into the hallway. For whatever reason, he felt heavier out there, but without paying any mind to this, I began to pull him down the stairs. Halfway down, my strength gave out and I sat on a step. I was on the verge of tears again when I heard a noise that made me assume that Hayriye and the children had returned. I grabbed my father by the ankles, and pressing them into my armpits, I continued to descend, faster this time. My dear father's head had been so crushed and was so soaked in blood that it made the sound of a wrung-out mop as it struck each step. At the base of the stairs, I turned his body, which now seemed to have grown lighter, and with one great effort, dragging him across the stone floor, I took him into the summer painting room. In order to see within the pitch-black room, I hastened back out to the stove in the kitchen. When I returned with a candle I saw how thoroughly the room where I'd dragged my father had been pillaged. I was dumbstruck. Who is it, my God, which one of them? My mind was churning. Closing the door tightly, I left my father in the demolished room. I grabbed a bucket from the kitchen, and filled it with water from the well. I climbed the stairs, and by the light of an oil lamp, I quickly wiped away the blood in the hallway, on the staircase and everywhere else. I went back upstairs to my room, removed my bloodied clothes and put on clean clothes. Carrying the bucket and rag, I was about to enter the room with the blue door when I heard the courtyard gate swing open. The evening call to prayer had begun. I mustered all my strength, and holding the oil lamp in my hand, I waited for them at the top of the stairs. “Mother, we're back,” Orhan said. “Hayriye! Where have you been!” I said forcefully, but as if I were whispering, not shouting. “But Mother, we didn't stay out past the evening call to prayer…” Shevket had begun to say. “Quiet! Your grandfather is ill, he's sleeping.” “Ill?” said Hayriye from below. She could tell from my silence that I was angry: “Shekure, we waited for Kosta. After the gray mullet arrived, without tarrying, we picked bay leaves, then I bought the dried figs and cherries for the children.” I had the urge to go down and admonish Hayriye in a whisper, but I was afraid that as I was going downstairs, the oil lamp I carried would illuminate the wet steps and the drops of blood I'd missed in my haste. The children noisily climbed the stairs and then removed their shoes. “Ah-ah-ah,” I said. Guiding them toward our bedroom, “Not that way, your grandfather's sleeping, don't go in there.” “I'm going into the room with the blue door, to be by the brazier,” Shevket said, “not to Grandfather's room.” “Your grandfather fell asleep in that room,” I whispered. But I noticed that they hesitated for a moment. “Let's be certain that the evil jinns that've possessed your grandfather and made him sick don't set upon the both of you as well,” I said. “Go to your room, now.” I grabbed both of them by their hands and put them into the room where we slept together. “Tell me then, what were you doing out on the streets till this hour?” “We saw some black beggars,” said Shevket. “Where?” I asked. “Were they carrying flags?” “As we were climbing the hill. They gave Hayriye a lemon. Hayriye gave them some money. They were covered in snow.” “What else?” “They were practicing shooting arrows at a target in the square.” “In this snow?” I said. “Mother, I'm cold,” said Shevket. “I'm going into the room with the blue door.” “You're not to leave this room,” I said. “Otherwise you'll die. I'll bring you the brazier.” “Why do you say we're going to die?” said Shevket. “I'm going to tell you something,” I said, “but you're not to tell anyone, are we understood?” They swore not to tell. “While you were out, a completely white man who'd died and lost his color came here from a faraway country and spoke to your grandfather. It turns out he was a jinn.” They asked me where the jinn came from. “From the other side of the river,” I said. “Where our father is?” asked Shevket. “Yes, from there,” I said. “The jinn came to take a look at the pictures in your grandfather's books. They say that a sinner who looks at those pictures immediately dies.” A silence. “Listen, I'm going downstairs to be with Hayriye,” I said. “I'm going to carry the brazier in here, as well as the dinner tray. Don't even think of leaving the room or you'll die. The jinn is still in the house.” “Mama, Mama, don't go,” Orhan said. I squared myself to Shevket. “You're responsible for your brother,” I said. “If you leave the room and the jinn doesn't get you, I'll be the one who kills you.” I put on the frightening expression that I made before slapping them. “Now pray that your ill grandfather doesn't die. If you're good, God will grant you your prayers and no one will be able to harm you.” Without giving themselves over to it too much, they began to pray. I went downstairs. “Somebody knocked over the pot of orange jam,” said Hayriye. “The cat couldn't have done it, not strong enough; a dog couldn't have gotten into the house…” She abruptly saw the terror on my face and stopped: “What's the matter, then,” she said, “what happened? Has something happened to your dear father?” “He's dead.” She shrieked. The knife and onion she was holding fell from her hands and hit the cutting board with such force that the fish she was preparing flopped. She shrieked again. We both noticed that the blood on her left hand had come, not from the fish, but from her index finger, which she'd sliced accidentally. I ran upstairs, and as I was searching for a piece of muslin in the room opposite the one the children were in, I heard their noises and shouts. Holding the piece of cloth I'd torn off, I entered the room to find that Shevket had climbed onto his younger brother, pinning Orhan's shoulders down with his knees. He was choking him. “What are you two doing!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. “Orhan was leaving the room,” Shevket said. “Liar,” said Orhan. “Shevket opened the door and I told him not to leave.” He began to cry. “If you don't sit up here quietly, I'll kill both of you.” “Mama, don't go,” Orhan said. Downstairs, I bound Hayriye's finger, stopping the bleeding. When I told her that my father hadn't died a natural death, she grew frightened and recited some prayers asking for Allah's protection. She stared at her injured finger and began crying. Was her affection for my father great enough to unleash such a fit of crying? She wanted to go upstairs and see him. “He's not upstairs,” I said. “He's in the back room.” She gazed at me suspiciously. But when she realized I couldn't bear another look at him, she was overcome by curiosity. She grabbed the lamp and left. She took four or five steps beyond the entrance of the kitchen, where I stood, and with respect and apprehension, she slowly pushed open the door of the room, and by the light of the lamp she was holding, looked inside. Unable at first to see my father, she raised the lamp even higher, trying to illuminate the corners of the large rectangular room. “Aaah!” she screamed. She'd caught sight of my father where I'd left him just beside the door. Frozen, she gazed at him. The shadow she cast along the floor and stable wall was motionless. As she looked, I imagined what she was seeing. When she returned, she wasn't crying. I was relieved to see that she still had her wits about her, enough to be able to register completely what I was prepared to tell her. “Now listen to me, Hayriye,” I said. As I spoke, I waved the fish knife, which my hand had grabbed seemingly on its own. “The upstairs has been ransacked too; the same accursed demon has destroyed all, he's made a shambles of everything. That's where he crushed my father's face and skull; that's where he killed him. I brought him down here so the children wouldn't see and so I might have a chance to caution you. After you three left, I also went out. Father was home by himself.” “I was not aware of that,” she said insolently. “Where were you?” I wanted her to take careful note of my silence. Then I said, “I was with Black. I met with Black in the house of the Hanged Jew. But you won't breathe a word of this to anyone. Nor, for the time being, will you mention that my father has been killed.” “Who was it that murdered him?” Was she truly such an idiot or was she trying to corner me? “If I knew, I wouldn't hide the fact that he was dead,” I said. “I don't know. Do you?” “How should I know anything?” she said. “What are we going to do now?” “You're going to behave as if nothing whatsoever has happened,” I said. I felt the urge to wail, to burst out crying, but I restrained myself. We both were quiet. Much later, I said, “Forget about the fish for now, set out the dishes for the children.” She objected and started to cry, and I put my arms around her. We hugged each other tightly. I loved her then, momentarily pitying, not only myself and the children, but all of us. But even as we embraced, a worm of doubt was anxiously gnawing at me. You know where I was while my father was being murdered. To further my own designs, I'd cleared the house of Hayriye and the children. You know that leaving my father alone in the house was an unforeseen coincidence…But did Hayriye know? Did she comprehend what I'd explained to her, will she understand? Indeed, yes, she'd quickly understand and grow suspicious. I hugged her even tighter; but I knew that with her slave girl's mind she'd assume I was doing this to cover up my wiles, and before long even I felt as if I were deceiving her. While my father was being murdered here, I was with Black engaged in an act of lovemaking. If it were only Hayriye who knew this, I wouldn't feel as guilty, but I suspect that you might make something of it as well. So, admit it, you believe that I'm hiding something. Alas, poor woman! Could my fate be any darker? I began to cry, then Hayriye cried, and we embraced again. I pretended to satisfy my hunger at the table we'd set upstairs. From time to time, with the excuse of “checking on Grandfather,” I would step into the other room and burst into tears. Later because the children were scared and agitated, they snuggled up tightly next to me in bed. For a long while they were unable to sleep for fear of jinns, and as they tossed and turned they kept asking, “I heard a noise, did you hear it?” To lull them to sleep, I promised to tell them a love story. You know how words take wing in the darkness. “Mother, you're not going to get married are you?” said Shevket. “Listen to me,” I said. “There was a prince who, from afar, fell in love with a strikingly beautiful maiden. How did this happen? I'll tell you how. Before laying eyes on the pretty maiden, he'd seen her portrait, that's how.” As I would often do when I was upset and troubled, I recounted the tale not from memory, but improvising according to how I felt at that time. And since I colored it using a palette of my own memories and worries, what I recounted became a kind of melancholy illustration to accompany all that had happened to me. After both children fell asleep, I left the warm bed and, together with Hayriye, cleaned up what that vile demon had scattered about. We picked up ruined chests, books, cloth, ceramic cups, earthenware pots, plates and inkpots that had been thrown about and shattered; we cleared away a demolished folding worktable, paint boxes and papers that had been torn up with furious hatred; and while doing so one of us, periodically, would stop and break down crying. It was as though we were more distraught over the wreckage of the rooms and their furnishings and the savage violation of our privacy, than we were over my father's death. I can tell you from experience, unfortunates who've lost loved ones are comforted by the unchanged presence of objects in the house; they're lulled by the sameness of the curtains, blankets and daylight, which, in turn, allows them occasionally to forget that Azrael has carried away their beloved or kin. The house that my father looked after with patience and love, whose nooks and doors he had meticulously embellished, had been mercilessly vandalized; thus, we were not only devoid of comfort and pleasant memories but, reminded of the pitilessness of the culprit's damned soul, we were terrified as well. When, for example, at my insistence we went downstairs, drew fresh water from the well, performed our ablutions and were reciting from the “Family of Imran” chapter—which my dearly departed father said he loved so much because it mentioned hope and death—out of his most cherished Herat-bound Koran, we were under sway of this terror and alarmed that the courtyard gate had begun to creak. It was nothing. But, after we checked that the latch was locked, and barricaded the gate by moving with our combined strength the planter of sweet basil that my father would water on spring mornings with freshly drawn well water, we reentered the house in the dead of night, and it suddenly seemed that the elongated shadows we were casting by the light of the oil lamp belonged to others. Most frightening of all was the horror that overcame us like a silent act of piety, as we solemnly washed his bloodied face and changed his clothes so that I might deceive myself into believing that my father had died at his appointed time; “Hand me his sleeve from underneath,” Hayriye had whispered to me. As we removed his bloody clothes and undergarments, what aroused our amazement and awe was the vitality and whitish color of my father's skin illuminated by candlelight. Because there were many more threatening things to frighten us, neither of us was shy about looking at my father's sprawling naked body covered with moles and wounds. When Hayriye went back upstairs to fetch clean undergarments and his green silk shirt, unable to restrain myself, I looked down there and was immediately quite ashamed at what I'd done. After I'd dressed my father in fresh clothes and carefully cleaned the blood off his neck, face and hair, I embraced him with all my strength, and burying my nose in his beard, I inhaled his scent and cried at length. For those of you who would accuse me of lacking feeling, or even of being guilty, let me hasten to tell of two further instances when I broke down crying: 1. When I was tidying the upstairs room so the children wouldn't discover what had happened and I brought a seashell he'd used as a paper burnisher to my ear, as I'd done as a child, only to discover that the sound of the sea had diminished. 2. When I saw that the red velvet cushion my father sat upon often over the last twenty years—so much so it'd become part of his rear end—had been torn apart. When everything in the house, excluding the damage that was beyond repair, was put back in order, I mercilessly denied Hayriye's request to spread her roll-up mattress out in our room. “I don't want the children to get suspicious in the morning,” I explained to her. But, to be honest, I was as eager to be alone with my children as I was to punish her. I entered my bed but was unable to sleep for a long while, not because I was preoccupied with the horror of what had happened, but because I was considering all that yet lay in store.