第 31 页

what he said to be exceedingly reasonable and sound, I didn’t believe him. I

assumed he was suspicious of me, and thus, I grew suspicious of him; I sensed

that he was listening at times for the courtyard gate below, that he was hoping

someone would deliver him from my presence.

177

“You yourself told me how Sheikh Muhammad the Master of Isfahan

burned down the great library containing the paintings he had renounced,

and how he also immolated himself in a fit of bad conscience,” he said. “Now

let me tell you another story related to that legend that you don’t know. It’s

true, he’d spent the last thirty years of his life hunting down his own works.

However, in the books he perused, he increasingly discovered imitations

inspired by him rather than his original work. In later years, he came to realize

that two generations of artists had adopted as models of form the illustrations

he himself had renounced, that they’d ingrained his pictures in their minds—

or more accurately, had made them a part of their souls. As Sheikh

Muhammad attempted to find his own pictures and destroy them, he

discovered that young miniaturists had, with reverence, reproduced them in

countless books, had relied on them in illustrating other stories, had caused

them to be memorized by all and had spread them over the world. Over long

years, as we gaze at book after book and illustration after illustration, we come

to learn the following: A great painter does not content himself by affecting us

with his masterpieces; ultimately, he succeeds in changing the landscape of

our minds. Once a miniaturist’s artistry enters our souls this way, it becomes

the criterion for the beauty of our world. At the end of his life, as the Master

of Isfahan burned his own art, he not only witnessed the fact that his work,

instead of disappearing, actually proliferated and increased; he understood

that everybody now saw the world the way he had seen it. Those things which

did not resemble the paintings he made in his youth were now considered

ugly.”

Unable to rein in the awe stirring within me and to control my desire to

please Enishte Effendi, I fell before his knees. As I kissed his hand, my eyes

filled with tears and I felt I had relinquished to him the place in my soul that

had always been reserved for Master Osman.

“A miniaturist,” said Enishte Effendi in the tone of a self-satisfied man,

“creates his art by heeding his conscience and by obeying the principles in

which he believes, fearing nothing. He pays no attention to what his enemies,

the zealots and those who envy him have to say.”

But it occurred to me that Enishte Effendi wasn’t even a miniaturist as I

kissed his aged and mottled hand through my tears. I was embarrassed by my

thought. It was as if another had forced this devilish, shameless notion into my

head. Even so, you too know how true this statement is.

“I’m not afraid of them,” Enishte said, “because I’m not afraid of death.”

178

Who were “they”? I nodded as if I understood. Yet annoyance began to

mount within me. I noticed that the old volume immediately beside Enishte

was El-Jevziyye’s Book of the Soul. All dotards who seek death share a love for

this book that recounts the adventures that await the soul. Since I’d been here

last, I saw only one new item among the objects collected in trays, resting on

the chest, among the pen cases, penknives, nib-cutting boards, inkwells and

brushes: a bronze inkpot.

“Let’s establish, once and for all, that we do not fear them,” I said boldly.

“Take out the last illustration. Let’s show it to them.”

“But wouldn’t this prove that we minded their slander, at least enough to

take it seriously? We’ve done nothing of which we ought to be afraid. What

could justify your being so frightened?”

He stroked my hair like a father. I was afraid that I might burst into tears

again; I embraced him.

“I know why that unfortunate gilder Elegant Effendi was killed,” I said

excitedly. “By slandering you, your book and us, Elegant Effendi was planning

to set Nusret Hoja of Erzurum’s men upon us. He was convinced that we’d

fallen sway to the Devil. He’d begun spreading such rumors, trying to incite

the other miniaturists working on your book to rebel against you. I don’t

know why he suddenly began to do this. Perhaps out of jealousy, perhaps he’d

come under Satan’s influence. And the other miniaturists also heard how

determined Elegant Effendi was to destroy us all. You can imagine how each of

them grew frightened and succumbed to suspicions as I myself had. Because

one of their lot was cornered, in the middle of the night, by Elegant Effendi—

who had incited him against you, us, our book, as well as against illustrating,

painting and all else we believe in—that artist fell into a panic, killing that

scoundrel and tossing his body into a well.”

“Scoundrel?”

“Elegant Effendi was an ill-natured, ill-bred traitor. Villain!” I shouted as if

he were before me in the room.

Silence. Did he fear me? I was afraid of myself. It was as if I’d succumbed to

somebody else’s will and thoughts; yet, this was not wholly unpleasant.

“Who was this miniaturist who fell into a panic like you and the illustrator

from Isfahan? Who killed him?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

179

Yet I wanted him to infer from my expression that I was lying. I realized that

I’d made a grave error in coming here, but I wasn’t going to succumb to

feelings of guilt and regret. I could see that Enishte Effendi was growing

suspicious of me and this pleased and fortified me. If he became convinced

that I was a murderer and this knowledge struck terror throughout his soul,

then he wouldn’t dare refuse to show me the final painting. I was so curious

about that picture, not because of any sin I’d committed on its account—I

genuinely wanted to see how it’d turned out.

“Is it important who killed that miscreant?” I said. “Is it not possible that

whoever rid us of him has done a good deed?”

I was encouraged when I saw he could no longer look me directly in the eye.

Magnanimous men, who think themselves better and morally superior to

others, cannot look you in the eye when they are embarrassed on your behalf,

perhaps because they are contemplating reporting you and abandoning you to

a fate of torture and execution.

Outside, just in front of the courtyard gate, the dogs began a frenzied

howling.

“It’s begun to snow again,” I said. “Where has everyone gone at this late

hour? Why have they left you here all alone? They haven’t even lit a candle for

you.”

“It’s quite strange, indeed,” he said. “I don’t understand it myself.”

He was so sincere that I believed him completely, and despite ridiculing him

just as the other miniaturists did, I once again knew that I actually loved him

profoundly. But how had he so quickly sensed my sudden and great flood of

respect and affection, to which he responded by stroking my hair with

irresistible fatherly concern? I began to see that Master Osman’s style of

painting, and the legacy of the old masters of Herat, had no future whatsoever.

And this abominable thought frightened me yet again. After some tragedy, we

all feel the same way: In one last desperate hope, and without caring how

comic and foolish we might appear, we pray that everything might continue as

it always has.

“Let’s continue to illustrate our book,” I said. “Let everything continue as it

always has.”

“There’s a murderer among the miniaturists. I am continuing my work

with Black Effendi.”

Was he provoking me to kill him?

180

“Where is Black now?” I asked. “Where is your daughter and her children?”

I sensed that some other power had placed these words into my mouth, yet

I couldn’t restrain myself. There was no longer any way for me to be happy

and hopeful. I could only be smart and sarcastic. Behind these two always

entertaining jinns—intelligence and sarcasm—I sensed the presence of the

Devil, who controlled them, overcoming me. At the same moment, the

accursed dogs beyond the gate began to howl madly as if they’d tracked the

scent of blood.

Had I lived this exact moment long ago? In a distant city, at a time which

now seemed far from me, as a snow that I couldn’t see fell, by the light of a

candle, I was attempting to explain through tears that I was entirely innocent

to a crotchety old dotard, who’d accused me of stealing paint. Back then, just

as now, dogs began to howl as if they’d smelled blood. And I understood from

Enishte Effendi’s great chin, befitting an evil old man, and from his eyes,

which he was finally able to fix mercilessly into mine, that he intended to

crush me. I recalled this tattered memory from when I was a ten-year-old

miniaturist’s apprentice like a picture whose outlines are clear but whose

colors have faded. Thus was I living the present as though it were a distinct but

faded memory.

So, as I arose and circled behind Enishte Effendi, lifting that new, huge and

heavy bronze inkpot from among the familiar glass, porcelain and crystal ones

that rested on his worktable, the hardworking miniaturist within me—that

Master Osman had instilled in us all—was illustrating what I did and what I

saw in distinct yet faded colors, not as something I was experiencing now but

as if it were a memory from long ago. You know how in dreams we shudder to

see ourselves as if from the outside, with the same sensation, holding the large

yet small-mouthed bronze inkpot, I said:

“When I was a ten-year-old apprentice, I saw just such an inkpot.”

“It’s a three-hundred-year-old Mongol inkpot,” said Enishte Effendi. “Black

brought it all the way from Tabriz. It’s for red.”

At that very moment, it was of course the Devil prodding me to drive that

inkpot down with all my might onto this conceited old man’s faulty brain. But

I didn’t give in to the Devil, and with false hope, I said, “It is I, I’m the one

who murdered Elegant Effendi.”

You understand why I said this hopefully, don’t you? I trusted that Enishte

would understand, and in turn, forgive me—that he would fear and help me.

181

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; that 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?”

182

“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 kneel 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? By blaming himself before anyone