第 20 页

alone, and he appeared for an instant like a helpless old man. I was tempted to

run to him and tell him what that barbarian, from whose funeral we were

returning, had slanderously confided in me; I was going to confess what I’d

done to protect us, and to ask him: “Is it true what Elegant Effendi had

claimed? Are we abusing Our Sultan’s trust through the illustrations we’ve

made? Are our painting techniques traitorous and an affront to our religion?

And have you finished that last large painting?”

I stood in the middle of the snowy street as evening fell and gazed down the

dark road which had been abandoned along with me to jinns, fairies, brigands,

thieves, to the grief of fathers and children returning home and to the sorrow

of snow-covered trees. At the end of the street, inside Enishte Effendi’s

grandiose two-story house, beneath the roof, which I can now see through the

bare branches of the chestnut trees, there lives the most beautiful woman in

the world. But, no, why should I drive myself mad?

113

I AM A GOLD COIN

Behold! I am a twenty-two-carat Ottoman Sultani gold coin and I bear the

glorious insignia of His Excellency Our Sultan, Refuge of the World. Here, in

the middle of the night in this fine coffeehouse overcome with funereal

melancholy, Stork, one of Our Sultan’s great masters, has just finished

drawing my picture, though he hasn’t yet been able to embellish me with gold

wash—I’ll leave that to your imagination. My image is here before you, yet I

myself can be found in the money purse of your dear brother, Stork, that

illustrious miniaturist. He’s rising now, removing me from his purse and

showing me off to each of you. Hello, hello, greetings to all the master artists

and assorted guests. Your eyes widen as you behold my glimmer, you thrill as I

shimmer in the light of the oil lamp, and finally, you bristle with envy at my

owner, Master Stork. You’re justified in behaving so, for there’s no better

measure of an illustrator’s talent than I.

In the past three months, Master Stork has earned exactly forty-seven gold

pieces like myself. We’re all in this money-purse and Master Stork, see for

yourself, isn’t hiding us from anyone; he knows there’s none among the

miniaturists of Istanbul who earns more than he does. I take pride in being

recognized as a measure of talent among artists and in putting an end to

unnecessary disagreements. In the past, before we got used to coffee and our

minds sharpened, these dim-witted miniaturists weren’t satisfied with

spending their evenings arguing about who was the most talented or who had

the best sense of color, who could draw the best tree or who was most expert

in the depiction of clouds; no, they’d also come to blows over such issues,

knocking out each other’s teeth in the process. Now that my judgment decides

everything, there’s a sweet harmony in the workshop, and what’s more, an air

that would suit the old masters of Herat.

In addition to noting the harmony and ambience brought about by my

judgment, let me list for you the various things I might be exchanged for: the

foot of a young and beautiful slave girl, which amounts to about one-fiftieth

of her person; a good-quality walnut-handled barber’s mirror, edges inlaid

with bone; a well-painted chest of drawers decorated with sunburst designs

and silver leaf worth ninety silver pieces; 120 fresh loaves of bread; a grave site

and coffins for three; a silver armband; one-tenth of a horse; the legs of an old

and fat concubine; one buffalo calf; two high-quality pieces of china; the

monthly wage of Persian miniaturist Mehmet the Dervish of Tabriz and the

majority of those of his like who work in Our Sultan’s workshop; one good

114

hunting falcon with cage; ten jugs of Panayot’s wine; a heavenly hour with

Mahmut, one of those young boys world-renowned for his beauty, and many

other opportunities too numerous to specify.

Before I arrived here, I spent ten days in the dirty sock of a poor

shoemaker’s apprentice. Each night the unfortunate man would fall asleep in

his bed, naming the endless things he could buy with me. The lines of this epic

poem, sweet as a lullaby, proved to me that there was no place on Earth a coin

couldn’t go.

Which reminds me. If I recited all that happened to me before I came here,

it’d fill volumes. There are no strangers among us, we’re all friends; as long as

you promise not to tell anyone, and as long as Stork Effendi won’t take

offense, I’ll tell you a secret. Do you swear not to tell?

All right then, I confess. I’m not a genuine twenty-two-carat Ottoman

Sultani gold coin minted at the Chemberlitash Mint. I’m counterfeit. They

made me in Venice using adulterated gold and brought me here, passing me

off as twenty-two-carat Ottoman gold. Your sympathy and understanding are

much obliged.

Based on what I could gather from being in the mint in Venice, this

business has been going on for years. Until recently, the debased gold pieces

that the Venetian infidels brought to the East and spent were Venetian ducats

which they minted in that same mint. We Ottomans, forever respectful of

whatever is written, paid no heed to the amount of gold in each ducat—so

long as the inscription remained the same—and these fake Venetian gold

pieces flooded Istanbul. Later, noting that coins with less gold and more

copper were harder, we began to distinguish the coins by biting them. For

example, you’re burning with love; you go running to Mahmut, that youth of

unsurpassed beauty, beloved by all; first, he takes into his soft mouth the

coin—not the other thing—and biting it, declares it counterfeit. As a

consequence, he’ll take you to Heaven for only half an hour instead of one full

hour. The Venetian infidels, realizing that their counterfeit coins presented

such disadvantages, decided that they might as well counterfeit Ottoman

coins, reasoning that the Ottomans would be fooled again.

Now, let me draw your attention to something quite bizarre: When these

Venetian infidels paint, it’s as if they’re not making a painting but actually

creating the object they’re painting. When it comes to money, however, rather

than making the real thing, they make its counterfeit.

115

We were loaded into iron chests, hauled onto ships and pitching to and fro

traveled from Venice to Istanbul. I found myself in a money changer’s shop, in

the garlicky mouth of its proprietor. We waited for a while, and a simple-

minded peasant entered, hoping to exchange some gold. The master money

changer, who was a genuine trickster, declared that he needed to bite the gold

piece to see if it was counterfeit. So he took the peasant’s coin and tossed it

into his mouth.

When we met inside his mouth, I realized that the peasant’s coin was a

genuine Ottoman Sultani. He saw me within that stench of garlic and said,

“You’re nothing but a counterfeit.” He was right, but his arrogant manner

offended my pride and I lied to him: “Actually, my brother, you’re the one

who’s counterfeit.”

Meanwhile, the peasant was proudly insisting, “How could my gold coin

possibly be counterfeit? I buried it in the ground twenty years ago, did a vice

like counterfeiting exist back then?”

I was wondering what the outcome would be when the money changer

took me out of his mouth instead of the peasant’s gold coin. “Take your gold

coin, I don’t want any vile Venetian infidel’s fake money,” he said, “have you

no shame?” The peasant responded with some biting words of his own, then

took me with him out the door. After hearing the same pronouncement from

other money changers, the peasant’s spirit broke and he exchanged me as a

debased coin for only ninety silver pieces. This is how my seven-year saga of

endless wandering from hand to hand began.

Allow me to admit proudly that I’ve spent most of my time in Istanbul

wandering from purse to purse, and from sash to pocket, as befits an

intelligent coin. My worst nightmare is to be stored in a jug and languish for

years beneath a rock, buried in some garden; not that it hasn’t happened to

me, but for whatever reason, these periods have never lasted long. Many of the

people who hold me want to be rid of me as soon as possible, especially if they

discover I’m fake. Nonetheless, I have yet to come across someone who’ll warn

an unsuspecting buyer that I’m counterfeit. A broker, not recognizing that I’m

counterfeit, who has counted out 120 silver coins in exchange for me, will

berate himself in fits of anger, sorrow and impatience as soon as he learns he’s

been cheated, and these fits won’t subside until he rids himself of me by

cheating another. During this crisis, even as he attempts to repeatedly swindle

others, failing each time on account of his haste and anger, he’ll continue all

the while to curse the “immoral” person who had originally conned him.

116

Over the last seven years in Istanbul, I’ve changed hands 560 times, and

there’s not a house, shop, market, bazaar, mosque, church or synagogue I

haven’t entered. As I’ve roamed about, I’ve learned that much more gossip has

been spread, many more legends told and lies spun in my name than I’d ever

suspected. I’ve constantly had my nose rubbed in it: Nothing’s considered

valuable anymore besides me, I’m merciless, I’m blind, I myself am even

enamored of money, the unfortunate world revolves around, not God, but me,

and there’s nothing I can’t buy—all this is to say nothing of my dirty, vulgar

and base nature. And those who know that I’m fake are given to even harsher

judgments. As my actual value drops, however, my metaphorical value

increases—proof that poetry is consolation to life’s miseries. But despite all

such heartless comparison and thoughtless slander, I’ve realized that a large

majority do sincerely love me. In this age of hatred, such heartfelt—even

impassioned—affection ought to gladden us all.

I’ve seen every square inch of Istanbul, street by street and district by

district; I’ve known all hands from Jews to Abkhazians and from Arabs to

Mingerians. I once left Istanbul in the purse of a preacher from Edirne who

was going to Manisa. On the way, we happened to be attacked by thieves. One

of them shouted, “Your money or your life!” Panicking, the miserable preacher

hid us in his asshole. This spot, which he assumed was the safest, smelled

worse than the mouth of the garlic lover and was much less comfortable. But

the situation quickly grew worse when instead of “Your money or your life!”

the thieves began to shout “Your honor or your life!” Lining up, they took him

by turns. I don’t dare describe the agony we suffered in that cramped hole. It’s

for this reason that I dislike leaving Istanbul.

I’ve been well received in Istanbul. Young girls kiss me as if I were the

husband of their dreams; they hide me beneath their pillows, between their

huge breasts, and in their underwear; they even fondle me in their sleep to

make certain I’m still there. I’ve been stored next to the furnace in a public

bath, in a boot, at the bottom of a small bottle in a wonderful-smelling musk

seller’s shop and in the secret pocket sewn into a chef’s lentil sack. I’ve

wandered through Istanbul in belts made of camel leather, jacket linings made

from checkered Egyptian cloth, in the thick fabric of shoe lining and in the

hidden corners of multicolored shalwars. The master watchmaker Petro hid me

in a secret compartment of a grandfather clock, and a Greek grocer stuck me

directly into a wheel of kashari cheese. I hid together with jewelry, seals and

keys wrapped in pieces of thick cloth stowed away in chimneys, in stoves,

beneath windowsills, inside cushions stuffed with rough straw, in

117

underground chambers and in the hidden compartments of chests. I’ve known

fathers who frequently stood up from the dinner table to check whether I was

still where I was supposed to be, women who sucked on me like candy for no

reason, children who sniffed at me as they stuck me up their noses and old

people with one foot in the grave who couldn’t relax unless they removed me

from their sheepskin purses at least seven times a day. There was a meticulous

Circassian woman who, after spending the whole day cleaning the house, took

us coins out of her purse and scrubbed us with a coarse brush. I remember the

one-eyed money changer who constantly stacked us up into towers; the porter

who smelled of morning glories and who, along with his family, watched us as

if looking out over a stunning landscape; and the gilder, no longer among us—

no need to name names—who spent his evenings arranging us into various

designs. I’ve traveled in mahogany skiffs; I’ve visited the Sultan’s palace; I’ve

hidden within Herat-made bindings, in the heels of rose-scented shoes and in

the covers of packsaddles. I’ve known hundreds of hands: dirty, hairy, plump,

oily, trembling and old. I’ve been redolent of opium dens, candle-makers’

shops, dried mackerel and the sweat of all of Istanbul. After experiencing such

excitement and commotion, a base thief who had slit his victim’s throat in the

blackness of night and tossed me into his purse, once back in his accursed

house, spat in my face and grunted, “Damn you, it’s all because of you.” I was