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together and saw that Shekure was crying with tiny sobs.

“My ill-fated husband has a brother named Hasan. As I waited for my

husband’s return, I lived two years in the same house with him and my father-

in-law. He fell in love with me. Lately, he’s suspicious of what might be going

on. He’s furious imagining that I might marry somebody else, you perhaps. He

sent word declaring that he wants to take me back to their house by force.

They say that since I’m not a widow in the eyes of the judge, they’re going to

force me back there in the name of my husband. They might raid our house at

any time. My father doesn’t want me to be declared a widow by verdict of the

judge either. If I am granted a divorce, he thinks I’ll find myself a new husband

and abandon him. By returning home with my children, I brought him great

happiness in the loneliness he suffered after the death of my mother. Would

you agree to live with us?”

“How do you mean?”

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“If we were wed, would you live with my father, together with us?”

“I don’t know.”

“Think about this as soon as possible. You don’t have much time, believe

me. My father senses that some evil is coming our way, and I think he’s right.

If Hasan and his men raid our home with a handful of Janissaries and bring

my father before the judge, would you testify that you’d in fact seen my

husband’s corpse? You’ve recently come from Persia, they would believe you.”

“I would testify, but I wasn’t the one who killed him.”

“All right, then. Together with another witness, in order that I be declared a

widow, would you testify before the judge that you saw my husband’s bloody

corpse on the battlefield in Persia?”

“I didn’t actually see it, my dear, but for your sake I would testify so.”

“Do you love my children?”

“I do.”

“Tell me, what is it about them that you love?”

“I love Shevket’s strength, decisiveness, honesty, intelligence and

stubbornness,” I said. “And I love Orhan’s sensitive and delicate demeanor

and his astuteness. I love the fact that they’re your children.”

My black-eyed beloved smiled slightly and shed a few tears. Then, in the

calculated fluster of a woman hoping to accomplish a lot in a short time, she

changed the subject:

“My father’s book ought to be completed and presented to Our Sultan.

This book is the source of the bad luck that plagues us.”

“What devilry has plagued us besides the murder of Elegant Effendi?”

This question displeased her. Appearing insincere in her attempt to be

sincere, she said:

“The followers of Nusret Hoja are spreading rumors that my father’s book

is a desecration and bears the marks of Frankish infideldom. Have the

miniaturists who frequent our house grown jealous of each other to the

degree that they’re hatching plans? You’ve been among them, you would

know best!”

“Your late husband’s brother,” I said, “does he have any association with

these miniaturists, your father’s book or the followers of Nusret Hoja, or does

he keep to himself?”

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“He’s not involved in any of that, but he doesn’t keep to himself at all,” she

said.

A mysterious and strange quiet passed.

“When you lived in the same house with Hasan wasn’t there any way you

could get away from him?”

“As much as possible in a two-room house.”

A few dogs, not too far away, giving themselves over completely to whatever

they were up to, began barking excitedly.

I couldn’t bring myself to ask why Shekure’s late husband, a man who’d

emerged victorious from so many battles and had become the proprietor of a

fief, saw fit to have his wife live together with his brother in a two-room

house. Timidly and hesitantly, I asked my childhood beloved the following

question: “Why did you see fit to marry him?”

“I was, of course, certain to be married off to someone,” she said. This was

true, and it succinctly and cleverly explained her marriage in a way that

avoided praising her husband and upsetting me. “You’d left, perhaps never to

return. Disappearing in a sulk might be a symptom of love, yet a sulking lover

is also tiresome and holds no promise of a future.” This was true as well, but it

wasn’t cause enough to marry that rogue. It wasn’t too difficult to deduce

from her coy expression alone that a short time after I’d abandoned Istanbul,

Shekure had forgotten about me, like everyone else had. She’d told me this

blatant lie to mend my broken heart, if only a little, and I considered it a sign

of her good intentions, which demanded my gratitude. I began to explain how

during my travels I couldn’t get her out of my thoughts, how at night her

image haunted me like a specter. This was the most secret, most profound

agony I’d suffered and I assumed I’d never be able to share it with another;

the agony was quite real, but as I realized with surprise at that instant, it

wasn’t the least bit sincere.

So that my feelings and desires might be rightfully understood, I must

presently lay bare the meaning of this distinction between truth and sincerity

that I’ve come to know for the first time: How expressing one’s reality in

words, as truthful as they might be, goads one to insincerity. Perhaps, the best

example might be made of us miniaturists, who’ve grown edgy of late due to

the murderer in our midst. Consider a perfect painting—the image of a horse,

for instance—no matter how well it represents a real horse, the horse

meticulously conceived by Allah or the horses of the great master miniaturists,

it might still fail to match the sincerity of the talented miniaturist who drew

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it. The sincerity of the miniaturist, or of us humble servants of Allah, doesn’t

emerge in moments of talent and perfection; on the contrary, it emerges

through slips of the tongue, mistakes, fatigue and frustration. I say this for the

sake of those young ladies who will become disillusioned when they see that

there was no difference between the strong desire I felt for Shekure at that

moment—as she too could tell—and, say, the dizzying lust I’d felt for a

delicately featured, copper-complexioned, burgundy-mouthed Kazvin beauty

during my travels. With her profound God-given savvy and jinnlike intuition,

Shekure understood both my being able to withstand twelve years of pure

torture for love’s sake as well as my behaving like a miserable thrall of lust

who thought of nothing but the quick satisfaction of his dark desires the first

time we were alone. Nizami had compared the mouth of that beauty of

beauties, Shirin, to an inkwell filled with pearls.

When the eager dogs began barking with renewed fervor, a restless Shekure

said, “I ought to go now.” It was at that moment we both realized that the

house of the Jew’s ghost had indeed become quite dark, although there was

still time before nightfall. My body sprung up of its own volition, to hug her

once again, but like a wounded sparrow, she quickly hopped away.

“Am I still beautiful? Answer me quickly.”

I told her. How beautifully she listened to me, believing and agreeing with

what I said.

“And my clothes?”

I told her.

“Do I smell nice?”

Of course, Shekure also knew that what Nizami referred to as “love chess”

did not consist of such rhetorical games, but of the hidden emotional

maneuvers between lovers.

“What kind of living do you expect to earn?” she asked. “Will you be able

to care for my fatherless children?”

As I talked about my more than twelve years of governmental and

secretarial experience, the vast knowledge I’d acquired in battle and witnessing

death and my luminous prospects, I embraced her.

“How beautifully we embraced each other just now,” she said. “And already

everything has lost its primal mystery.”

To prove how sincere I was, I hugged her even tighter. I asked her why, after

having kept it for twelve years, she’d had Esther return the painting I’d made

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for her. In her eyes I read surprise at my weariness and an affection that welled

up within her. We kissed. This time I didn’t find myself immobilized by a

staggering yoke of lust; both of us were stunned by the fluttering—like a flock

of sparrows—of a powerful love that had entered our hearts, chests and

stomachs. Isn’t lovemaking the best antidote to love?

As I palmed her large breasts, Shekure pushed me away in an even more

determined and sweeter way than before. She implied that I wasn’t a mature-

enough man to maintain a trustworthy marriage with a woman that I’d

sullied beforehand. I was careless enough to forget that the Devil would get

involved in any hasty deeds and too inexperienced to know how much

patience and quiet suffering underlie happy marriages. She’d escaped my arms

and was walking toward the door, her linen veil having fallen around her neck.

I caught sight of the snow falling onto the streets, which always succumbed to

the darkness first, and forgetting that we’d been whispering here, perhaps to

avoid disturbing the spirit of the Hanged Jew, I cried out:

“What are we to do now?”

“I don’t know,” she said, minding the rules of “love chess.” Walking

through the old garden, she left delicate footprints in the snow—certain to be

erased by the whiteness—and disappeared quietly.

170

I WILL BE CALLED A MURDERER

Doubtless, you too have experienced what I’m about to describe: At times,

while walking through the infinite and winding streets of Istanbul, while

spooning a bite of vegetable stew into my mouth at a public kitchen or

squinting with fixed attention on the curved design of a reed-style border

illumination, I feel I’m living the present as if it were the past. That is, when

I’m walking down a street whitewashed with snow, I’ll have the urge to say

that I was walking down it.

The extraordinary events I will relate occurred at once in the present and in

the past. It was evening, the twilight gave way to blackness and a very faint

snow fell as I walked down the street where Enishte Effendi lived.

Unlike other evenings, I’d come here knowing precisely what I wanted. On

other evenings, my legs would take me here as I absentmindedly thought

about other things: how I’d told my mother I earned seven hundred silver

pieces for a single book, about the covers of Herat volumes with ungilded

ornamental rosettes dating from the time of Tamerlane, about the continued

shock of learning that others still painted under my name or about my

tomfoolery and transgressions. This time, however, I’d come here with

forethought and intent.

The large courtyard gate—that I feared no one would open for me—opened

on its own when I went to knock, reassuring me that Allah was with me. The

shiny stone-paved portion of the courtyard that I walked through on those

nights when I came to add new illustrations to Enishte Effendi’s magnificent

book was empty. To the right beside the well rested the bucket, and perched on

it a sparrow apparently oblivious to the cold; a bit farther on sat the open-air

stone stove, which for some reason wasn’t lit even at this late hour; and to the

left, the stable for visitors’ horses which made up part of the house’s ground

floor. Everything was as I expected it to be. I entered through the unlocked

door beside the stable, and as an uninvited guest might do to avoid happening

upon an inappropriate scene, I stamped my feet and coughed as I climbed the

wooden staircase to the living quarters.

My coughing elicited no response. Nor did the noise of stamping my

muddy shoes, which I removed and left next to those lined up at the entrance

of the wide hall which was also used as an anteroom. As had become my

custom whenever I visited, I searched for what I assumed to be Shekure’s

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elegant green pair among the others, but for naught, and the possibility that

no one was home crossed my mind.

I walked to the right into the room—there was one in each corner of the

second floor—where I imagined Shekure slept cuddled with her children. I

groped for beds and mattresses, and opened a chest in the corner and a tall

armoire with a very light door. While I thought the delicate almond scent in

the room must be the scent of Shekure’s skin, a pillow, which had been stuffed

into the cabinet, fell onto my dim-witted head and then onto a copper pitcher

and cups. You hear a noise and suddenly realize the room is dark; well, I

realized it was cold.

“Hayriye?” Enishte Effendi called from within another room, “Shekure?

Which of you is it?”

I swiftly exited the room, walking diagonally across the wide hall, and

entered the room with the blue door where I had labored with Enishte Effendi

on his book this past winter.

“It’s me, Enishte Effendi,” I said. “Me.”

“Who might you be?”

At that instant, I understood that the workshop names Enishte Effendi had

selected had less to do with secrecy then with his subtle mockery of us. As a

haughty scribe might write in the colophon on the last leaf of a magnificently

illustrated manuscript, I slowly pronounced the syllables of my full name,

which included my father’s name, my place of birth and the phrase “your

poor sinful servant.”

“Hah?” he said at first, then added, “Hah!”

Just like the old man who meets Death in the Assyrian fable I heard as a

child, Enishte Effendi sank into a very brief silence that lasted forever. If there

are those among you who believe, since I’ve just now mentioned “Death,” that