第 37 页

You remember how only recently I declared I didn’t know why I was

speaking to Black in such a high-handed and insincere manner. Now I know:

I’ve come to realize that only by assuming such a tone might I convince

Black—who has yet to outgrow his childhood muddle-headedness—to believe

in the possibility of events that even I have a hard time believing will come to

pass.

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“We have a lot to do in fighting our enemies, those who would obstruct the

completion of my father’s book and those who could contest my divorce and

our marriage ceremony—which will be performed tonight, God willing. But I

suppose I shouldn’t further confuse you, since you are already even more

confused than I.”

“You aren’t confused at all,” said Black.

“Perhaps, but only because these aren’t my own ideas, I learned them from

my father over the years.” I said this so he wouldn’t dismiss what I said,

assuming that these plans had sprung from my feminine mind.

Next, Black said what I’d heard from every man who wasn’t afraid to admit

he found me very intelligent:

“You’re very beautiful.”

“Yes,” I said, “it pleases me to be praised for my intelligence. When I was a

child, my father would often do so.”

I was about to add that once I’d grown up my father ceased to praise my

intelligence, but I began to weep. As I cried, it was as if I’d left myself and was

becoming another, entirely separate woman. Like some reader troubled by a

sad picture in the pages of a book, I saw my life from the outside and pitied

what I saw. There’s something so innocent in crying over one’s troubles, as

though they were another’s, that when Black embraced me, a sense of well-

being spread over us both. Yet, this time, as we hugged, this sense of comfort

remained there between us, unable to affect the adversaries circling us.

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I AM CALLED BLACK

Widowed, abandoned and aggrieved, my beloved Shekure fled with featherlike

steps, and I stood as if stunned in the stillness of the house of the Hanged Jew,

amid the aroma of almonds and dreams of marriage she’d left in her wake. I

was bewildered, but my mind was churning so fast it almost hurt. Without

even a chance to grieve properly over my Enishte’s death, I swiftly returned

home. On the one hand, a worm of doubt was gnawing at me: Was Shekure

using me as a pawn in a grand scheme, was she duping me? On the other

hand, fantasies of a blissful marriage stubbornly played before my eyes.

After making conversation with my landlady who interrogated me at the

front door as to where I’d gone and whence I was coming at this morning

hour, I went to my room and removed the twenty-two Venetian gold pieces

from the lining of the sash I’d hidden in my mattress, placing them in my

money purse with trembling fingers. When I returned to the street, I knew

immediately I’d see Shekure’s dark, teary, troubled eyes for the rest of the day.

I changed five of the Venetian Lions at a perpetually smiling Jewish money

changer. Next, deep in thought, I entered the neighborhood whose name I’ve

yet to mention because I’m not fond of it: Yakutlar, where my deceased

Enishte and Shekure, along with her children, awaited me at their house. As I

made my way along the streets almost running, a tall plane tree seemed to

reproach me for being overjoyed by dreams and plans of marriage on the very

day my Enishte had passed away. Next, as the ice had melted, a street fountain

hissed into my ear: “Don’t take matters too seriously, see to your own affairs

and your own happiness.” “That’s all fine and good,” objected an ill-omened

black cat licking himself on the corner, “but everybody, yourself included,

suspects you had a hand in your uncle’s murder.”

The cat left off licking himself as I suddenly caught sight of its bewitching

eyes. I don’t have to tell you how brazen these Istanbul cats get when the

locals spoil them.

I found the Imam Effendi, whose droopy eyelids and large black eyes gave

him a perpetually sleepy look, not at his house, but in the courtyard of the

neighborhood mosque, and there I asked him quite a trivial legal question:

“When is one obligated to testify in court?” I raised my eyebrows as I listened

to his haughty answer as if I were hearing this information for the first time.

“Bearing witness is optional if other witnesses are present,” explained the

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Imam Effendi, “but, in situations where there was only one witness, it is the

will of God that one bear witness.”

“That’s just the predicament I find myself in now,” I said, taking up the

conversation. “In a situation everyone knows about, all the witnesses have

shirked their responsibilities and avoided going to court with the excuse that

”it’s only voluntary,“ and as a result the pressing concerns of those I’m trying

to help are being completely disregarded.”

“Well,” said the Imam Effendi, “why don’t you loosen your purse-strings a

little more?”

I took out my pouch and showed him the Venetian gold pieces huddled

within: The broad space of the mosque courtyard, the face of the preacher,

everything was suddenly illuminated by the glimmer of gold. He asked me

what my dilemma was all about.

I explained who I was. “Enishte Effendi is ill,” I confided. “Before he dies, he

wants his daughter’s widowhood certified and an alimony to be instituted.”

I didn’t even have to mention the proxy of the üsküdar judge. The Imam

Effendi understood at once and said the entire neighborhood had long been

troubled over the fate of hapless Shekure, adding that the situation had already

persisted too long. Instead of searching for a second witness required for a

legal separation at the door of the üsküdar judge, the Imam Effendi suggested

his brother. Now, if I were to offer an additional gold piece to the brother, who

lived in the neighborhood and was familiar with the predicament of Shekure

and her darling children, I’d be doing a good pious turn. After all, for only two

gold coins the Imam Effendi was giving me a deal on the second witness. We

immediately agreed. The Imam Effendi went to fetch his brother.

The rest of our day rather resembled the “cat-and-mouse” stories that I’d

watched storytellers in Aleppo coffeehouses act out. Because of all the

adventure and trickery, such stories written up as narrative poems and bound

were never taken seriously even if presented in fine calligraphy; that is, they

were never illustrated. I, on the other hand, was quite pleased to divide our

daylong adventure into four scenes, imagining each in the illustrated pages of

my mind.

In the first scene, the miniaturist ought to depict us amid mustachioed and

muscled oarsmen, forging our way across the blue Bosphorus toward üsküdar

in the four-oared red longboat we’d boarded in Unkapan?. The preacher and

his skinny dark-complexioned brother, pleased with the surprise voyage, are

engaging the oarsmen in friendly chatter. Meanwhile, amid blithe dreams of

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marriage that play ceaselessly before my eyes, I stare deep into the waters of

the Bosphorus, flowing clearer than usual on this sunny winter morning, on

guard for an ominous sign within its currents. I’m afraid, for example, that I

might see the wreck of a pirate ship below. Thus, no matter how joyously the

miniaturist colors the sea and clouds, he ought to include something

equivalent to the darkness of my fears and as intense as my dreams of

happiness—a terrifying-looking fish, for example—in the depths of the water

so the reader of my adventure won’t assume all is rosy.

Our second picture ought to show the palaces of sultans, the meetings of

the Divan Council of State, the reception of European ambassadors, and

detailed and carefully composed crowded interiors of a subtlety worthy of

Bihzad; that is, the picture ought to partake of playful tricks and irony.

Thereby, while the Kadi Effendi apparently makes an open-handed “halt”

gesture indicating “never” or “no” to my bribe, with his other hand he ought

to be shown obligingly pocketing my Venetian gold coins, and the ultimate

result of this bribe should be depicted in the same picture: Shahap Effendi, the

Shafü proxy presiding in place of the üsküdar judge. The simultaneous

depiction of sequential events could only be achieved through an intelligent

miniaturist’s cunning facility in page composition. Thus, when the observer,

who first sees me giving a bribe, notices elsewhere in the painting that the

man sitting cross-legged on the judge’s cushion is the proxy, he’ll realize, even

if he hasn’t read the story, that the honorable judge has temporarily given up

his office so his proxy might grant Shekure a divorce.

The third illustration should show the same scene, but this time the wall

ornamentation should be darker and rendered in the Chinese style, the curly

branches being more intricate and dense, and colorful clouds should appear

above the judge’s proxy so the chicanery in the story might be apparent.

Though the Imam Effendi and his brother have actually testified separately

before the judge’s proxy, in the illustration they are shown together explaining

how the husband of anguished Shekure hasn’t returned from war for four

years, how she is in a state of destitution without a husband to look after her,

how her two fatherless children are perpetually in tears and hungry, how there

is no prospect for remarriage because she’s still considered married, and how

in this state she can’t even receive a loan without permission from her

husband. They’re so convincing that even a man as deaf as a stone would grant

her a divorce through a cascade of tears. The heartless proxy, however, having

none of it, asks about Shekure’s legal guardian. After a moment of hesitation, I

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immediately interrupt, declaring that her esteemed father, who has served as

herald and ambassador for Our Sultan, is still alive.

“Until he testifies in court, I’ll never grant her a divorce!” said the proxy.

Thereupon, thoroughly flustered, I explained how my Enishte Effendi was

ill, bed-ridden and struggling for his life, how his last wish to God was to see

his daughter divorced, and how I was his representative.

“What does she want with a divorce?” asked the proxy. “Why would a

dying man want to see his daughter divorced from her husband who’s long

vanished at war anyway? Listen, I’d understand if there were a good,

trustworthy candidate for son-in-law, because then he wouldn’t pass away

with his wish unfulfilled.”

“There is a prospect, sir,” I said.

“Who might that be?”

“It is I!”

“Come now! You’re the guardian’s representative!” said the judge’s proxy.

“What line of work are you in?”

“In the eastern provinces, I served as secretary, chief secretary and assistant

treasurer to various pashas. I completed a history of the Persian wars that I

intend to present to Our Sultan. I’m a connoisseur of illustrating and

decoration. I’ve been burning with love for this woman for twenty years.”

“Are you a relative of hers?”

I was so embarrassed at having fallen so abruptly and unexpectedly into

groveling meekness before the judge’s proxy, at having bared my life like some

dull object devoid of any mystery, that I fell completely silent.

“Instead of turning beet red, give me an answer, young man, lest I refuse to

grant her a divorce.”

“She’s the daughter of my maternal aunt.”

“Hmmm, I see. Will you be able to make her happy?”

When he asked the question he made a vulgar hand gesture. The

miniaturist should omit this indelicacy. It’d be enough for him to show how

much I blushed.

“I make a decent living.”

“As I belong to the Shafü sect, there is nothing contrary to the Holy Book or

my creed in my granting the divorce of this unfortunate Shekure, whose

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husband has been missing at the front for four years,” said the Proxy Effendi.

“I grant the divorce. And I rule that her husband no longer has any

superceding rights should he return.”

The subsequent illustration, that is, the fourth, ought to depict the proxy

recording the divorce in the ledger, unleashing obedient armies of black-ink

letters, before presenting me with the document declaring that my Shekure is

now a widow and there is no obstacle to her immediate remarriage. Neither

by painting the walls of the courtroom red, nor by situating the picture within

bloodred borders could the blissful inner radiance I felt at that moment be

expressed. Running back through the crowd of false witnesses and other men

gathering before the judge’s door seeking divorces for their sisters, daughters

or even aunts, I set out on my return journey.

After I crossed the Bosphorus and headed directly to the Yakutlar

neighborhood, I dismissed both the considerate Imam Effendi, who wanted to

perform the marriage ceremony, and his brother. Since I suspected everyone I

saw on the street of hatching some mischief out of jealousy over the incredible

happiness I was on the verge of attaining, I ran straight to Shekure’s street.

How had the ominous crows divined the presence of a body in the house and

taken to hopping around excitedly on the terra-cotta shingles? I was overcome

by guilt because I hadn’t been able to grieve for my Enishte or even shed a

single tear; even so, I knew from the tightly closed shutters and door of the

house, from the silence, and even from the look of the pomegranate tree that