Chapter 23 I AM CALLED “STORK”

After the evening prayers I intended to go to the coffeehouse, but they told me there was a visitor at the door. Good tidings, I hoped. I went to discover a messenger from the palace. He described the Sultan's contest. most beautiful horse. You tell me how much you'll offer for each, and I'll quickly draw you five or six of them. Rather than say any such thing, I maintained my reserve, and simply invited the boy waiting at the door inside. I thought for a moment: The world's most beautiful horse doesn't even exist that I might draw it. I can draw war steeds , large Mongolian horses, noble Arabians, heroic, writhing chargers covered in blood, or even luckless packhorses pulling a cartfull of stone to a building site, but no one would call any of them the world's most beautiful horse. Naturally, by “the world's most beautiful horse,” I knew that Our Sultan meant the most splendid of the horses that had been depicted thousands of times in Persia, in keeping with all of the formulas, models and poses of yore. But why?

Of course, there were those who didn't want me to win the purse of gold. If they'd told me to draw your average horse, it's common knowledge that nobody's picture could compete with mine. Who was it that had duped Our Sultan ? Our Sovereign, despite the endless gossip of all of those jealous artists, knows full well that I am the most talented of His miniaturists. He admires my illustrations. My hand abruptly and angrily sprang to action as if wanting to rise above all of these vexing considerations, and in one concentrated effort, I drew a true horse beginning from the tip of its hoof. You might see one like this on the street or in battle. Weary, but controlled…Next, in the same fit of anger, I dashed off a spahi cavalryman's horse, and this one was even better. None of the miniaturists of the book arts workshop could draw such beautiful animals. I was about to draw another from memory when the boy from the palace said, “One is enough.”

He was about to grab the sheet and leave, but I restrained him because I knew full well, as I know my own name, that these scoundrels would be giving up a purse of gold coins for these horses. If I illustrate the way I want to, they won't give me the gold! If I can't win the gold, my name will be tarnished forever. I stopped to think. I went inside and returned with two incredibly shiny counterfeit Venetian gold pieces, which I proceeded to give to the boy: He was afraid, his eyes widened. “You're as brave as a lion,” I said. I removed one of the notebooks of forms that I kept hidden from the eyes of the world. This is where I secretly made copies of the most beautiful illustrations that I'd seen over the years. Not to mention the copies that the chief of the dwarfs, Jafer, in the treasury would make of the best trees, dragons, birds, hunters and warriors from the pages of volumes locked away; that is, if you gave him ten gold pieces, the rogue. My notebook is excellent, not for those who want to see the actual world in which they live through pictures and decoration, but for those who want to recall the fables of old.

Flipping through the pages while showing the images to the pageboy, I selected the best of the horses. I briskly poked holes over the lines of that picture with a needle. Next, I placed a clean sheet of paper under the stencil. I gradually sprinkled a liberal amount of coal dust on top, then shook it so the dust would pass through the holes. I lifted the stencil. The coal dust, dot by dot, had transferred the beautiful horse's entire shape to the sheet below. to behold. I grabbed my pen. With an inspiration that suddenly welled up within me, I elegantly connected the dots with quick and decisive strokes, such that as I was drawing the horse's belly, graceful neck, nose and rump, I lovingly felt the horse within me "There it is," I said. "The world's most beautiful horse. Not one of those fools could draw this."

So the boy from the palace would believe this as well, and so he wouldn't explain to Our Sultan how I'd been inspired to draw this picture, I gave him three more counterfeit coins. I implied that I would give him even more if I ended up winning the gold. Furthermore, he also imagined, I believe, that he might soon be able to catch sight of my wife once again, whom he'd leered at open-mouthed. There are many who believe you can tell a good miniaturist by the horse he draws; however, to be the best miniaturist, it's not enough to make the best horse, you must also convince Our Sultan and His circle of sycophants that you are indeed the best miniaturist.

When I draw a magnificent horse, I am who I am, nothing more. I WILL BE CALLED A MURDERER Were you able to determine who I am from the way I sketched a horse? As soon as I heard I was invited to make a horse, I knew this was no competition: They wanted to catch me through my illustration. I'm perfectly aware that the horse sketches I'd drawn on rough paper were found on poor Elegant Effendi's body. But I have no fault or style by which they might discover me through the horses I've made. Though I was as certain of this as I could be, I was in a panic while rendering the horse. Had I done something incriminating when I made the horse for Enishte? I had to depict a new horse this time. I thought of completely different things. I “restrained” myself and became another.

But who am I? Am I an artist who would suppress the masterpieces I was capable of in order to fit the style of the workshop or an artist who would one day triumphantly depict the horse deep within himself? Suddenly and with terror, I felt the existence of that triumphant miniaturist within me. It was as if I were being watched by another soul, and, in short, I was ashamed. I quickly knew that I wouldn't be able to remain at home, and bolting outside, I walked briskly down the darkened streets. As Sheikh Osman Baba wrote in his Lives of the Saints, in order for a genuine wandering dervish to escape the devil Within, he must roam his entire life without remaining anywhere too long. After roaming from city to city for sixty-seven years, he tired of running and surrendered to the Devil. This is the age when master miniaturists attain blindness, or the darkness of Allah, the age when they involuntarily achieve a style, while freeing themselves of all intimations of style.

I wandered through the Chicken-Sellers Market in Bayazid, through the empty square of the slave market, amid the pleasant aromas of soup and pudding shops, as if searching. I passed the closed doors of barbershops, clothes pressers, an old bread baker who was counting his money and looking at me in surprise; I passed a grocer's shop smelling of pickles and salted fish, and since my eyes were taken only by colors, I walked into a herbs and notions shop where something was being weighed, and in the light of a lamp, stared passionately, the way one looks at one's beloved, at the sacks of coffee, ginger, saffron and cinnamon, the colorful cans of gum mastic, the aniseed whose scent waxed from the counter, and at mounds of brown and black cumin. Sometimes I want to put everything into my mouth; sometimes I want to fill a page with a picture of all creation.

I walked into the place where I'd filled my stomach twice before in the last week, which I'd personally named the “soup kitchen of the downtrodden”—actually, of the “miserable” would’ve been more appropriate. It was open until midnight to those who knew about it. Inside were a few unfortunates dressed like horse thieves or like men who'd escaped the gallows; a couple of pathetic characters whose Sorrow and hopelessness caused their sights to slip from this world to distant paradises, as happens with opium addicts; two beggars who were at pains to follow even basic guild etiquette; and a young gentleman who'd seated himself in a corner at a distance from this crowd. I gave the Aleppan cook a graceful greeting. Heaping the meat-filled cabbage dolma into my bowl, I covered it with yogurt and topped it off with handfuls of hot red pepper flakes before taking a seat beside the young gentleman.

Every night a sorrow overwhelms me, a misery descends upon me. Oh, my brothers, my dear brothers, we're being poisoned, we're rotting, dying, we're exhausting ourselves as we live, we've sunk up to our necks in misery...Some nights, I dream that he emerges from the well and comes after me, but I know we've buried him deeply beneath plenty of earth. He couldn't possibly rise from the grave. The gentleman, who I thought had buried his nose in his soup and forgotten the whole world, opened the door to a conversation. Was this a sign from Allah? “Yes,” I answered, “they've ground the meat to the right consistency, my stuffed cabbage is quite to my liking.” I asked about him: He'd recently graduated from a miserable twenty-coin college and been taken into Arifi Pasha's patronage as a clerk. I didn't ask him why, at this hour of the night, he wasn't at the Pasha's estate, at the mosque or at home in the arms of his beloved wife, but chose instead to be at this street kitchen teeming with unmarried thugs. He asked me where I'd come from and who I was. I thought for a moment.

“My name is Bihzad. I've come from Herat and Tabriz. I've painted the most magnificent pictures, the most incredible masterpieces. In Persia and Arabia, in every Muslim book arts workshop where illustrations are made, they've said this about me for hundreds of years: It looks real, just like the work of Bihzad.” Of course, this isn't the issue. My paintings reveal what the mind, not the eye, sees. But painting, as you know quite well, is a feast for the eyes. If you combine these two thoughts, my world will emerge . That is: ALIF: Painting brings to life what the mind sees, as a feast for the eyes. LAM: What the eye sees in the world enters the painting to the degree that it serves the mind. MIM:Consequently, beauty is the eye discovering in our world what the mind already knows. Did the graduate of the incredible college understand this logic, which I'd extracted with lightning inspiration from the depths of my soul? Not at all. Why? Because, though you've spent three years seated at the foot of a hoja who gives lessons in an out-of-the-way neighborhood religious school for twenty silver coins a day—today you can buy twenty loaves of bread with that amount—you still wouldn't know who the hell Bihzad was. It was obvious that the twenty -coin Hoja Effendi didn't know who Bihzad was either. All right then, let me explain. I said: "I've painted everything, absolutely everything: Our Prophet at the mosque before the green prayer niche seated together with his four caliphs; in another book, the Apostle and Prophet of God ascending the seven heavens on the night of the Ascension; Alexander on his way to China banging on the drum of a seaside temple to scare off a monster stirring up the ocean with storms; a masturbating sultan spying on the beauties of his harem swimming naked in his pool while listening to a lute; victory after learning all his mentor's moves, only to be defeated in the presence of the Sultan at the hands of his mentor who had yet one last trick up his sleeve; Leyla and Mejnun as children kneeling in a schoolroom with exquisitely decorated walls, falling in love while reciting the Glorious Koran; the inability of lovers, from the most embarrassed to the most crass, to look at each other; the stone by stone construction of palaces; the punishment by torture of the guilty; t he flight of eagles; playful rabbits; treacherous tigers; cypress and plane trees that held magpies; Death; competing poets; feasts to commemorate victory; and men like you who see nothing but the soup before them.” The reserved clerk was no longer afraid, he even found me entertaining and was smiling. “Your Hoja Effendi must've had you read this, you'll know it,” I continued. “There's a story I love from Sadi's Garden. You know the one, King Darius becomes separated from the crowd during a hunt and goes off to roam the hills. Unexpectedly, a dangerous-looking stranger with a goatee appears before him. The king falls into a panic and reaches for the bow on his horse, whereupon the man begs, ”My king, hold off from shooting your arrow. How is it that you haven't recognized me? Am I not the loyal groom to whom you've entrusted a hundred horses and foals? How many times have we seen each other? I know each of your hundred horses by temperment and disposition, nay, by color even. So then, how is it you pay no attention to us, the servants under your command, even those like myself whom you encounter with such frequency?" When I depict this scene, I render the black, chestnut and white horses—so tenderly cared for by the groom in a heavenly green pasture covered with flowers of every imaginable color—with such happiness and calm that even the dullest of readers would understand the moral of Sadi's story: The beauty and mystery of this world only emerges through affection, attention, interest and compassion; if you want to live in that paradise where happy mares and stallions live, open your eyes wide and actually see this world by attending to its colors, details and irony. This progeny of the twenty-coin hoja was at once entertained and frightened by me. He wanted to drop his spoon and flee, but I didn't give him the chance. “This is how the master of masters Bihzad depicted the king, his groom and the horses in that picture,” I said. “For a hundred years miniaturists haven't stopped imitating those horses. Each horse rendered out of Bihzad's imagination and heart has become a model of form. Hundreds of miniaturists, including myself, can draw those horses from memory. Have you ever seen a picture of a horse?" “I once saw a winged horse in an enchanting book that a great teacher, a scholar of scholars, had presented to my late hoja.” I didn't know whether I should push the head of this clown into his soup, who, along with his teacher, had taken Strange Creatures seriously, and drown him or leave him to describe in glowing terms the only horse picture he'd ever seen in his life—in who knows how poor a manuscript copy. I came up with a third alternative, and that was to drop my spoon and quit the shop. After walking for a long while I entered the abandoned dervish lodge, where I was overcome with a sense of peace. I tidied up and without doing anything else, I listened to the silence. Later, I removed the mirror from where I kept it hidden and set it upon the low worktable. Next, I placed the two-page illustration and the drawing board on my lap. When I could see my face in the mirror from where I sat , I attempted to draw my portrait in charcoal. I drew for a long time, patiently. Much later, when I saw that once again the face on the page didn't resemble my face in the mirror, I was filled with such misery that tears welled in my eyes. How did the Venetian painters that Enishte described with such flourish do it? I then imagined myself to be one of them, thinking that if I illustrated in that state of mind, I could perhaps make a convincing self-portrait . Later still, I cursed the European painters and Enishte both, erased what I'd done and began looking into the mirror anew to begin another drawing. Ultimately, I found myself wandering the streets again, and then, here, at this despicable coffeehouse. I wasn't even sure how I happened to come here. As I entered, I felt such embarrassment about mingling with these miserable miniaturists and calligraphers that sweat accumulated on my forehead. I sensed that they were watching me, alerting each other of my presence with their elbows, and laughing—all right, I could plainly see them doing it. I seated myself in the corner, trying to behave naturally. At the same time my eyes sought the other masters, my dear brethren with whom, at one time, I'd served as Master Osman's apprentice. I was certain each of them was also asked to draw a horse this evening and that they'd each expended great desperate efforts, Taking the contest arranged by these idiots quite seriously. The storyteller effendi hadn't yet began his performance. The picture hadn't even been hung up yet. I was forced to socialize with the coffeehouse crowd. So be it then, let me be frank with you: Like everyone else I, too, made jokes, told indecent stories, kissed my companions on the cheeks with exaggerated gestures, spoke in double entendres, innuendos and puns, asked how the young assistant masters were doing, and like everybody else, mercilessly needed our common enemies; and after I really warmed up, I went so far as to roughhouse and kiss men on the neck. Yet, knowing that a part of my soul remained mercilessly silent when I involved myself in such behavior caused me unbearable torment. Nonetheless, before long, I not only succeeded in using figurative language to compare my own cock, and those of others that were much-talked about, to brushes, reeds, coffeehouse pillars, flutes, newel posts, door knockers, leeks, minarets, lady fingers in heavy syrup, pine trees, and twice, to the world itself, I was equally successful in comparing the asses of much-discussed pretty boys to oranges, figs, small haycocklike pastries, pillows and also to tiny anthills. Meanwhile, the most conceited of the calligraphers my age was only able to compare his own tool—quite amateurishly and without any self-confidence I might add—to a ship's mast and a porter's pole. Furthermore, I made allusions to old miniaturists' dicks that would no longer rise; the cherry-colored lips of new apprentices; master calligraphers who hoarded their money (as did I) in a certain place (“the most disgusting nook”); how perhaps opium had been put into the wine I was drinking instead of rose petals; the last great masters of Tabriz and Shiraz; the mixing of coffee and wine in Aleppo; At times it seemed that one of the two spirits within me had, in the end, emerged victorious, leaving the other behind, and that I'd finally forgotten that silent and loveless aspect of myself. At these times I remembered the holiday celebrations of my childhood during which I was able to be myself along with my kiss and kin. Despite all these jokes, kisses and embraces, there was still a silence within me that left me suffering and isolated in the heart of the crowd. Who had endowed me with this silent and merciless spirit—it was not a spirit but a jinn—which always chided me and cut me off from others? Satan? But the silence within me was eased, not by the crass mischief instigated by Satan, on the contrary, by the most pure and simple stories that drove into one's soul. Under the influence of wine, I told two stories, hoping that this would grant me peace. A tall, pale, yet pinkish-complected calligrapher's apprentice focused his green eyes onto mine and was listening to me with rapt attention. Two Stories on Blindness and Style the Miniaturist Told to Ease the Loneliness in His SoulALIF Contrary to what is assumed, making drawings of horses by looking at actual horses wasn't a discovery of European masters. The original idea belonged to the great master Jemalettin of Kazvin . After Tall Hasan, the Khan of the Whitesheep, conquered Kazvin, the old master Jemalettin was not content to simply join the book-arts workshop of the victorious khan; instead he headed out on campaign with him, claiming that he wanted to embellish the khan's History with scenes of war he'd witnessed himself. So this great master, who for sixty-two years had made pictures of horses, cavalry charges and battles without ever having seen a battle, went to war for the first time. But before he could even see the thunderous and violent clash of sweating horses, he lost his hands and his eyesight to enemy cannon-fire. The old master, like all genuine virtuosos, had in any case been awaiting blindness as though it were Allah's blessing, and neither did he treat the loss of his hands as a great deficiency. He maintained that the memory of a miniaturist was located not in the hand, as some insisted, but in the intellect and the heart, and furthermore, now that he was blind, he declared that he could see the true pictures, scenery and essential and flawless horses that Allah commanded be seen. To share these wonders with lovers of art, he hired a tall, pale-skinned, pink-complected, green-eyed calligrapher's apprentice to whom he dictated exactly how to draw the marvelous horses that appeared to him in God's divine darkness—as he would've drawn them had he been able to hold a brush in his hands. After the master's death, his account of how to draw 303 horses beginning from the left foreleg was collected by the handsome calligrapher's apprentice into three volumes respectively entitled The Depiction of Horses, The Flow of Horses and The Love of Horses, which were quite widely liked and sought after for a time in the regions where the Whitesheep ruled. Though they appeared in a variety of new editions and copies, were memorized by illustrators, apprentices and their students and were used as practice books, after Tall Hasan's Whitesheep nation was obliterated and the Herat style of illustrations overtook all of Persia and Jemalettin were forgotten. Doubtless, the logic behind Kemalettin R 1za of Herat's violent criticism of these three volumes in his book The Blindman's Horses, and his conclusion that they ought to be burned, had figured in this turn of events. Kemalettin R 1za claimed that none of the horses described by Jemalettin of Kazvin in his three volumes could be a horse of God's vision—because none of them were “immaculate,” Since the old master had described them after he'd witnessed an actual battle scene, no matter how briefly. Since the treasures of Tall Hasan of the Whitesheep had been plundered by Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror and brought to Istanbul, it should come as no surprise that occasionally certain of these 303 stories appear in other manuscripts in Istanbul and even that some horses are drawn as instructed therein. LAMIn Herat and Shiraz, when a master miniaturist nearing the end of his days went blind from a lifetime of excessive labor, it would not only be taken as a sign of that master's determination, but would be commended as God's acknowledgment of the great master's work and talent. There was even a time in Herat when masters who hadn't gone blind despite having grown old were regarded with suspicion, a situation that compelled quite a few of them to actually induce blindness in their old age. There was a long period during which men reverently recalled artists who blinded themselves, following in the path of those legendary masters who'd done so rather than work for another monarch or change their styles. And it was during this age that Abu Said, Tamerlane's grandson from the Miran Shah line of descent, introduced a further twist in his workshop after he'd conquered Tashkent and Samarkand: The practice of paying greater homage to the imitation of blindness than to blindness itself. Black Veli, the old artisan who inspired Abu Said, had confirmed that a blind miniaturist could see the horses of God's vision from within the darkness; however, true talent resided in a sighted miniaturist who could regard the world like a blind man. of sixty-seven he proved his point by dashing off a horse that came to the tip of his brush without so much as a glance at the paper, even as his eyes remained all the while open and fixed on the page. At the end of this artistic ceremony for which Miran Shah had deaf musicians play lutes and mute storytellers recite stories to support the legendary master's efforts, the splendid horse that Black Veli had drawn was compared at length with other horses he'd made: There was ever so no difference am w them, much to Miran Shah's irritation; thereafter, the legendary master declared that a miniaturist possessed of talent, regardless of whether his eyes are open or closed, will always and only see horses in one way, that is, the way th at Allah perceives them. And among great master miniaturists, there is no difference between the blind and the sighted: The hand would always draw the same horse because there was as yet no such thing as the Frankish innovation called “style.” The horses made by the great master Black Veli have been imitated by all Muslim miniaturists for 110 years. As for Black Veli himself, after the defeat of Abu Said and the dispersal of his workshop, he moved from Samarkand to Kazvin, where two years later he was condemned for his spiteful attempts to refute the verse in the Glorious Koran that declares, “The blind and the seeing are not equal.” For this, he was first blinded, then killed by young Nizam Shah's soldiers. I was on the verge of telling a third story, describing to the pretty-eyed calligrapher's apprentice how the great master Bihzad had blinded himself, how he never wanted to leave Herat, why he never painted again after being taken forcibly to Tabriz, how a miniaturist's style was really the style of the workshop in which he worked and other tales I'd heard from Master Osman, but I became preoccupied with the storyteller. How had I known that he was going to tell Satan's story tonight? I had the urge to say, “It was Satan who first said ”I“! It was Satan who adopted a style. It was Satan who separated East from West.” I closed my eyes and drew Satan on the storyteller's rough sheet of paper as my heart desired. As I drew, the storyteller and his assistant, other artists and curious onlookers giggled and goaded me on. Pray, do you think I have my own style, or do I owe it to the wine? I, SATAN I am fond of the smell of red peppers frying in olive oil, rain falling into a calm sea at dawn, the unexpected appearance of a woman at an open window, silences, thought and patience. I believe in myself, and, most of the time, pay no mind to what's been said about me. Tonight, however, I've come to this coffeehouse to set my miniaturist and calligrapher brethren straight about certain gossip, lies and rumors. Of course, because I'm the one speaking, you're already prepared to believe the exact opposite of what I say. But you're smart enough to sense that the opposite of what I say is not always true, and though you might doubt me, you're astute enough to take an interest in my words: You're well aware that my name, which appears in the Glorious Koran fifty-two times, is one of the most frequently cited. All right then, let me begin with God's book, the Glorious Koran. Everything about me in there is the truth. Let it be known that when I say this, I do so with the ultimate humility. For there's also the issue of style. It has always caused me great pain that I'm belittled in the Glorious Koran. But this pain is my way of life. This is simply the way it is. It's true, God created man before the eyes of us angels. Then He wanted us to prostrate ourselves before this creation. Yes, it happened the way it's written in “The Heights” chapter: While all the other angels bowed before man, I refused .I reminded all that Adam was made from mud, whereas I was created from fire, a superior element as all of you are familiar. So I didn't bow before man. And God found my behavior, well, “proud.” “Lower yourself from these heavens,” He said. “It's beyond the likes of you to scheme for greatness here.” “Permit me to live until Judgment Day,” I said, “until the dead arise.” He granted His permission. I promised that during this entire time I would tempt the descendents of Adam, who'd been the cause of my punishment, and He said He'd send to Hell those I'd successfully corrupted. have to tell you that we've each remained true to his word. I have nothing more to say about the matter. As some will claim, at that time Almighty God and I made a pact. According to them, I was helping to test the Almighty's subjects by attempting to destroy their faith: The good, possessed of sound judgment, would not be led astray, while the evil, giving into their carnal desires, would sin, to later fill the depths of Hell. Therefore, what I did was quite important: If all men went to Heaven, no one would ever be frightened, and the world and its governments could never function on virtue alone; for in our world evil is as necessary as virtue and sin as necessary as rectitude. Given that I am to thank for the genesis of Allah's worldly order—with His permission no less (why else would He allow me to live until Judgment Day?)—to be branded “evil” and never be granted my due is my hidden troment. Men like the mystic Mansur, the wool carder, or the famous Imam Gazzali's younger brother Ahmet Gazzali, have taken this line of reasoning so far as to conclude in their writings that if the si ns I caused are actually committed through God's permission and will, then they are what God desires; furthermore, they maintain that good and evil do not exist because everything emerges from God, and even I am a part of Him. Some of these mindless men have quite appropriately been burned to death with their books. Of course, good and evil do exist, and the responsibility for drawing a line between the two falls to each of us. I am not Allah, God forbid, and I was not the one who planted such absurdities into the heads of these dimwits; they came up with it all by themselves. This brings me to my second complaint: I am not the source of all the evil and sin in the world. Many people sin out of their own blind ambition, lust, lack of willpower, baseness, and most often, out of their own idiocy Without any inspection, deception or temptation on my part. However absurd the efforts of certain learned mystics to absorb me of any evil might be, so too is the assumption that I am the source of all of it, which also contradicts the Glorious Koran. I'm not the one who tempts every fruit monger who craftily fosters rotten apples upon his customers, every child who tells a lie, every fawning sycophant, every old man who has obscene daydreams or every boy who jacks off. Even the Almighty could t find anything evil in passing wind or jacking off. Sure, I work very hard so you might commit grave sins. But some hojas claim that all of you who gape, sneeze or even fart are my dupes, which tells me they haven't understood me in the least. Let them misunderstand you, so you can dupe them all the more easily, you might suggest. True. me remind you, I have my pride, which is what caused me to fall out with the Almighty in the first place. Even though I can assume every imaginable form, and though it's been recorded in numerous books tens of thousands of times that I've successfully tempted the pious, especially in the lust-kindling guise of a beautiful woman, can the miniaturist brethren before me tonight please explain why they persist in picturing me as a misshapen, horned, long-tailed and gruesome creature with a face covered with protruding moles? Like so, we arrive at the heart of the matter: figurative painting. An Istanbul street mob incited by a preacher whose name I won't mention so he won't bother you later on, condemns the following as being contrary to the word of God: the calling of the azan like a song; the gathering of men in dervish lodges, sitting in each other's laps, and chanting with abandon to the accompaniment of musical instruments; and the drinking of coffee. I've heard that some of the miniaturists among us who fear this preacher and his mob claim that I'm the one behind all this painting in the Frankish style. For centuries, countless accusations have been leveled at me, but none so far from the truth. Let's start from the beginning. Everybody gets caught up in my provoking Eve to eat of the forbidden fruit and forgets about how this whole matter began. No, it doesn't begin with my hubris before the Almighty, either. Before anything else, there's the matter of His presenting man to us and expecting us to bow down to him, which met with my quite appropriate and decisive refusal—though the other angels obeyed. Do you think it fitting that, after creating me from fire, He require me to bow before man, whom He created out of the crudest mud? Oh my brethren, speak the truth of your conscience. All right, then, I know you've been thinking about it and fear that anything said here will not just remain between us: He will hear it all and one day He'll call you to account. Fine, never mind why He's provided you with that conscience in the first instance; I agree, you're justified in being afraid, and I'll forget about this question and the mud-versus-fire debate. But there's something I'll never forget—yes indeed, something I'll always be proud of: I never bowed down before man. This, however, is precisely what the new European masters are doing, and they're not satisfied with merely depicting and displaying every single detail down to the eye color, complexion, curvy lips, forehead wrinkles, rings and disgusting ear hair of gentlemen, priests, wealthy merchants and even women—including the lovely shadows that fall between their breasts. These artists also dare to situate their subjects in the center of the page, as if man were meant to be worshiped, and display these portraits like idols before which we should prostrate ourselves. Is man important enough to warrant being drawn in every detail, including his shadow? If the houses on a street were rendered according to man's false perception that they gradually diminish in size as they recede into the distance, wouldn't man then effectively be usurping Allah's place at the center of the world? Well, Allah, almighty and omnipotent, would know better than I. But surely it's absurd on the face of it to credit me with the idea of these portraits; I, who having refused to prostrate myself before man suffered untold pain and isolation; I, who fell from God's grace to become the subject of curses. It would be more reasonable to hold me responsible, as some mullahs and preachers do, for all the children who play with themselves and everyone who farts. I have one last comment on this subject, but my words aren't for men who can't think beyond their eagerness to show off, their carnal desires, lust for money or other absurd passions! Only God, in His infinite wisdom, will understand me: Was it not You who instilled man with pride by making the angels bow before him? Now they regard themselves as Your angels were made to regard them; men are worshiping themselves, placing themselves at the center of the world. Even your most devoted servants want to be depicted in the style of the Frankish masters. I know it as well as I know my own name that this narcissism will end in their forgetting You entirely. And I'm the one who'll be blamed. How might I convince you that I don't take all of this to heart? Naturally, by standing firmly on my own two feet despite centuries of merciless stonings, curses, damnings and denouncements. If only my angry and shallow enemies, who never tire of condemning me, would remember that it was the Almighty Himself who granted me life until Judgment Day, while allotting them no more than sixty or seventy years. If I were to advise them that they could extend this period by drinking coffee, I know quite well that some, because it was Satan speaking, would do the exact opposite and refuse coffee entirely, or worse yet, stand on their heads and try pouring it into their asses. Don't laugh. It's not the content, but the form of thought that counts. It's not what a miniaturist paints, but his style. Yet these things should be subtle. I was going to conclude with a love story, but it's gotten quite late. The honey-tongued master storyteller who's given me voice tonight promises to tell this story of love when he hangs up the picture of a woman the day after tomorrow, on Wednesday night. I, SHEKUREI dreamed that my father was telling me incomprehensible things, and it was so terrifying that I woke up. Shevket and Orhan were clinging tightly to me on either side, and their warmth made me sweat. Shevket had his hand on my stomach. Orhan was resting his sweaty head on my bosom. Somehow, I was able to get out of bed and leave the room without waking them. I crossed the wide hallway and silently opened Black's door. In the light cast by my candle, I couldn't see him, only the edge of his white mattress which lay like a shrouded body in the middle of the dark, cold room. The candlelight seemed unable to reach the mattress. When I brought my hand even closer, the reddish-orange light of the candle struck Black's weary, unshaven face and naked shoulders. I drew near to him. Just as Orhan did, he slept curled up like a pill bug, and he wore the expression of a sleeping maiden. “This is my husband,” I said to myself. He seemed so distant, so much a stranger, that I was filled with sorrow. If I'd had a dagger with me, I would've murdered him—no, I didn't actually want to do such a thing; I was only wondering, the way children do, how it'd be if I killed him. I didn't believe he'd lived for years through thoughts of me, neither in his innocent childlike expression. Prodding his shoulder with the edge of my bare foot, I woke him. When he saw me, he was startled more than enchanted and excited, if only for a moment, just as I'd hoped. Before he'd completely come to his senses, I said:“I dreamed I saw my father. He confided something horrible to me: You were the one who killed him…” “Weren't we together when your father was murdered?” “I'm aware of this,” I said. “But you knew that my father would be at home all alone.” “I did not. You were the one who sent the children out with Hayriye. Only Hayriye, and perhaps Esther, knew about it. And as for whoever else might've known, you'd have a better idea than I.” “There are times I feel an inner voice is about to tell me why everything has gone so badly, the secret of all of our misfortune. I open my mouth so that voice might speak, but as in a dream, I make no sound. You're no longer the good and naive Black of my childhood.” “That naive Black was driven away by you and your father.” “If you've married me to take revenge on my father, you've accomplished your goal. Maybe this is why the children don't like you.” “I know,” he said without sorrow. “Before going to bed you were downstairs for a while. They were chanting ”Black, Black, my ass's crack,“ loud enough so I could hear.” “You should've given them a beating,” I said, at first half-wishing he'd done so. Then I added in a panic, “If you raise a hand against them, I'll kill you.” “Get into bed,” he said. “Or you'll freeze to death.” “Maybe I'll never get into your bed. Maybe we've made a mistake by getting married. They say our ceremony has no legitimacy before the law. Do you know I heard Hasan's footsteps before I fell asleep? It's not surprising, when I was living in the house of my late husband, I heard Hasan's footsteps for years. The children like him. And he's merciless, that one. He has a red sword, take care to guard yourself against it.” I saw something so weary and so stern in Black's eyes that I knew I wouldn't be able to scare him. “Of the two of us, you're the one with more hope and the one with more sadness,” I said. “I'm just struggling not to be unhappy and to protect my children, whereas you're stubbornly trying to prove yourself. It's not because you love me.” He went on at length about how much he loved me, how he always thought only of me in desolate caravansaries, on barren mountains and during snowy nights. If he hadn't said these things, I would've awakened the children and returned to my former husband's house. Because I had the urge, I said the following:“Sometimes it seems that my former husband might return at any time. It's not that I fear being caught in the middle of the night with you or being caught by the children, I'm afraid that as soon as we embrace he'll come knocking on the door.” 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.