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sprinkled the red powder into the kettle and carefully mixed the concoction

with one of the thin, clean sticks reserved for this task. I was ready to become

genuine red, but the issue of my consistency was of utmost importance: The

liquid shouldn’t be permitted to just boil away. He drew the tip of his stirring

stick across the nail of his thumb (any other finger was absolutely

unacceptable). Oh, how exquisite it is to be red! I gracefully painted that

thumbnail without running off the side in watery haste. In short, I was the

right consistency, but I still contained sediment. He took the pot off the stove

and strained me through a clean piece of cheesecloth, purifying me even

further. Next, he heated me up again, bringing me to a frothy boil twice more.

After adding a pinch of crushed alum, he left me to cool.

A few days passed and I sat there quietly in the pan. In the anticipation of

being applied to pages, of being spread everywhere and onto everything,

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sitting still like that broke my heart and spirit. It was during this period of

silence that I meditated upon what it meant to be red.

Once, in a Persian city, as I was being applied by the brush of an apprentice

to the embroidery on the saddle cloth of a horse that a blind miniaturist had

drawn by heart, I overheard two blind masters having an argument:

“Because we’ve spent our entire lives ardently and faithfully working as

painters, naturally, we, who have now gone blind, know red and remember

what kind of color and what kind of feeling it is,” said the one who’d made

the horse drawing from memory. “But, what if we’d been born blind? How

would we have been truly able to comprehend this red that our handsome

apprentice is using?”

“An excellent issue,” the other said. “But do not forget that colors are not

known, but felt.”

“My dear master, explain red to somebody who has never known red.”

“If we touched it with the tip of a finger, it would feel like something

between iron and copper. If we took it into our palm, it would burn. If we

tasted it, it would be full-bodied, like salted meat. If we took it between our

lips, it would fill our mouths. If we smelled it, it’d have the scent of a horse. If

it were a flower, it would smell like a daisy, not a red rose.”

One hundred and ten years ago Venetian artistry was not yet threat enough

that our rulers would bother themselves about it, and the legendary masters

believed in their own methods as fervently as they believed in Allah; therefore,

they regarded the Venetian method of using a variety of red tones for every

ordinary sword wound and even the most common sackcloth as a kind of

disrespect and vulgarity hardly worth a chuckle. Only a weak and hesitant

miniaturist would use a variety of red tones to depict the red of a caftan, they

claimed—shadows were not an excuse. Besides, we believe in only one red.

“What is the meaning of red?” the blind miniaturist who’d drawn the

horse from memory asked again.

“The meaning of color is that it is there before us and we see it,” said the

other. “Red cannot be explained to he who cannot see.”

“To deny God’s existence, victims of Satan maintain that God is not visible

to us,” said the blind miniaturist who’d rendered the horse.

“Yet, He appears to those who can see,” said the other master. “It is for this

reason that the Koran states that the blind and the seeing are not equal.”

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The handsome apprentice ever so delicately dabbed me onto the horse’s

saddle cloth. What a wonderful sensation to fix my fullness, power and vigor

to the black and white of a well-executed illustration: as the cat-hair brush

spreads me onto the waiting page, I become delightfully ticklish. Thereby, as I

bring my color to the page, it’s as if I command the world to “Be!” Yes, those

who cannot see would deny it, but the truth is I can be found everywhere.

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I, SHEKURE

Before the children awoke, I wrote Black a brief note telling him to hurry to

the house of the Hanged Jew and pressed it into Hayriye’s hand so that she

might rush to Esther. As Hayriye took the letter, she looked into my eyes with

more fearlessness than usual despite worrying what was to become of us; and

I, who no longer had a father to fear, returned her glare with newfound

temerity. This exchange would determine the tone of our relationship in the

future. Over the last two years, I suspected Hayriye might even have a child by

my father, and forgetting her status as slave, maneuver to become lady of the

house. I visited my unfortunate father, respectfully kissing his now stiffened

hand, which, oddly, hadn’t lost its softness. I hid my father’s shoes, quilted

turban and purple cloak, then explained to the children once they awoke that

their grandfather had gotten better and had left for the Mustafa Pasha district

early in the morning.

Hayriye returned from her morning errand. As she was laying out the low

table for breakfast, and I was placing a portion of orange jam in the middle of

it, I imagined how Esther was now calling at Black’s door. The snow had

stopped and the sun had begun to shine.

In the garden of the Hanged Jew, I encountered a familiar scene. The icicles

hanging from the eaves and window casings were quickly shrinking, and the

garden that smelled of mold and rotting leaves was eagerly absorbing the sun. I

found Black waiting in the spot where I’d first seen him last night—it seemed

so long ago, as if weeks had passed. I raised my veil and said:

“You can be glad, if you feel the urge. My father’s objections and doubts

will not come between us anymore. While you were craftily trying to lay your

hands on me here last night, a devil-of-a-man broke into our empty house and

murdered my father.”

Rather than wondering about Black’s reaction, you’re probably puzzling

over why I spoke so coldly and somewhat insincerely. I don’t quite know the

answer myself. Maybe I thought I’d cry otherwise, provoking Black to embrace

me, and I’d become intimate with him sooner than I wanted.

“He destroyed our home with a thoroughness that clearly reveals anger and

hatred. I don’t think his work is done either, I don’t expect this devil will

calmly retire to some corner now. He stole the final picture. I’m calling on you

to protect me—protect us—and keep my father’s book from him. Now tell

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me, under what arrangement and conditions will you see to our safety? This is

what we have to resolve.”

He made an overture to speak, but I easily silenced him with a look—as

though this were something I’d done countless times before.

“In the eyes of the judge, it is my husband and his family who succeed my

father as my guardians. This was the case even before his death, for according

to the judge my husband is still alive. It was only because Hasan tried to take

advantage of me during his older brother’s absence, a failed assault that

embarrassed my father-in-law, that I was allowed to return to my father’s

home though not officially a widow. But now that my father is dead and I am

without even a brother, there is no question that my only possible guardians

are my husband’s brother and my father-in-law. They’ve already been

scheming to have me returned to their home, coercing my father, and

threatening me. Once they hear my father is dead, they won’t hesitate to take

official action. My only hope to prevent this is to conceal my father’s death.

Perhaps in vain, for they may be the ones behind the crime.”

At that very moment, a thin beam of light gracefully filtered through the

broken shutters and fell between Black and me, illuminating the ancient dust

inside the room.

“This isn’t the only reason I’m hiding my father’s death,” I said, fixing my

gaze into Black’s eyes, in which I was gladdened to see attentiveness more than

love. “I’m also afraid of being unable to prove my whereabouts at the time of

my father’s murder. Though she’s a slave and her word might be discounted,

I’m afraid that Hayriye is involved in these machinations, if not against me,

then against my father’s book. And as long as I remain without a protector,

the announcement of my father’s murder, while initially simplifying matters

at home, might well, solely for the reasons I’ve enumerated, cause me great

misfortune at her hand; for instance, what if Hayriye is aware that my father

didn’t want me to marry you?”

“Your father didn’t want you to marry me?” asked Black.

“No, he didn’t, he was worried that you’d take me away from him. Since

there’s no longer any danger of you doing such evil to him, let’s assume my

dear unfortunate father has no further objection. Do you have any?”

“None at all, my darling.”

“Fine, then. My guardian has no claims of money or gold on you. Please

excuse the impropriety of my discussing marital circumstances on my own

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behalf, but I have certain prerequisites that I must, unfortunately, explain to

you.”

As I fell silent for a while, Black said, “Yes,” in a manner that suggested an

apology for his hesitation.

“First,” I began, “you must swear before two witnesses that if you behave

badly toward me in our marriage, to a degree that I find unbearable, or if you

take a second wife, you will grant me a divorce with alimony. Second, you

must swear before two witnesses that if for whatever reason you are absent

from the house for more than a six-month period without a visit, I will also be

granted a divorce with alimony. Third, after we are married, you will of course

move into my home; however, until the villain who has murdered my father

has been caught or until you find him—how I’d love to torture him myself!—

and until Our Sultan’s book, completed under the guidance of your talents

and efforts, has been honorably presented to Him, you will not share my bed.

Fourth, you will love my sons, who do share my bed with me, as if they were

your own children.”

“I agree.”

“Good. If all of the obstacles that still lie before us disappear this quickly,

we’ll soon be wed.”

“Yes, wed, but not in the same bed.”

“The first step is marriage,” I said. “Let’s see to that first. Love comes after

marriage. Don’t forget: Marriage douses love’s flame, leaving nothing but a

barren and melancholy blackness. Of course, after marriage, love itself will

vanish anyway; but happiness fills the void. Still, there are those hasty fools

who fall in love before marrying and, burning with emotion, exhaust all their

feeling, believing love to be the highest goal in life.”

“What, then, is the truth of the matter?”

“The truth is contentment. Love and marriage are but a means to obtaining

it: a husband, a house, children, a book. Can’t you see that even in my state,

with a missing husband and a deceased father, I’m better off than you in your

isolation? I’d die without my sons, with whom I spend my days laughing,

tussling and loving. Moreover, since you long for me even in my present

predicament, since you secretly ache to spend the night with me—even if not

in the same bed—under the same roof with my father’s body and my unruly

children, you’re compelled to listen with all your heart to what I now have to

say.”

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“I’m listening.”

“There are various ways that I might secure a divorce. False witnesses could

swear that before my husband set out on campaign, they witnessed him grant

me a conditional divorce; for example, that he’d pledged that if he didn’t

return within two years, I should be considered free. Or, more simply, they

might swear they’d seen my husband’s corpse in the field of battle, citing

various convincing and descriptive details. But taking my father’s body and

the objections of my in-laws into consideration, to rely on false witnesses

would be an unsound way to proceed, as no judge of any intelligence or

caution would be persuaded. Considering that my husband left me without

alimony and hasn’t returned from war for four years, even judges of our

Hanefi creed couldn’t grant me a divorce. The üsküdar judge, however,

knowing how the number of women in my situation is increasing each day, is

more sympathetic and so—with a nod from Our Excellency the Sultan and the

Sheikhulislam—the judge occasionally allows his proxy of the Shafü creed to

rule in his place, thereby granting divorces left and right to women like me,

including conditions of alimony. Now, if you can find two witnesses to testify

openly to my predicament, pay them off, cross the Bosphorus with them to

the üsküdar side, arrange for the judge, making certain that his proxy will sit

in for him so the divorce might be granted by virtue of the witnesses, register

the divorce in the judge’s ledger, obtain a certificate testifying to the

proceeding, obtain written permission for my immediate remarriage, and if

you can accomplish all of this and get back to this side of the Bosphorus by the

afternoon, then—assuming no difficulty in finding a preacher who might

marry us this evening—then, as my husband, you could spend this night with

me and my children. Thereby, you’ll also spare us a sleepless night of hearing

in every creaking of the house the steps of that devilish murderer. Moreover,

you’ll save me from the wretchedness of being a poor unprotected woman

when we announce the death of my father in the morning.”

“Yes,” said Black with good humor and somewhat childishly. “Yes. I agree to

make you mine.”