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a grave fear I’ve carried within me for years: The horror of waking in the black

of night to realize there’s a stranger making faint sounds as he creeps about

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the blackness of the room! Imagine that the intruder wields a dagger in one

hand as he strangles you with the other. Every detail, the finely wrought wall,

window and frame ornamentation, the curves and circular designs in the red

rug, the color of the silent scream emanating from your clamped throat and

the yellow and purple flowers embroidered with incredible finesse and vigor

on the magnificent quilt upon which the bare and vile foot of your murderer

mercilessly steps as he ends your life, all of these details serve the same

purpose: While augmenting the beauty of the painting, they remind you just

how exquisite are the room in which you will soon die and the world you will

soon leave. The indifference of the painting’s beauty and of the world to your

death, the fact of your being totally alone in death despite the presence of your

wife, this is the inescapable meaning that strikes you.

“This is by Bihzad,” the aging master said twenty years ago as we examined

the book I held in my trembling hands. His face was illuminated not by the

nearby candle, but by the pleasure of observation itself. “This is so Bihzad that

there’s no need for a signature.”

Bihzad was so well aware of this fact that he didn’t hide his signature

anywhere in the painting. And according to the elderly master, there was a

sense of embarrassment and a feeling of shame in this decision of his. Where

there is true art and genuine virtuosity the artist can paint an incomparable

masterpiece without leaving even a trace of his identity.

Fearing for my life, I murdered my unfortunate victim in an ordinary and

crude manner. As I returned to this fire-ravaged area night after night to

ascertain whether I’d left behind any traces that might betray me, questions of

style increasingly arose in my head. What was venerated as style was nothing

more than an imperfection or flaw that revealed the guilty hand.

I could’ve located this place even without the brilliance of the falling snow,

for this spot, razed by fire, was where I’d ended the life of my companion of

twenty-five years. Now, snow covered and erased all the clues that might have

been interpreted as signature, proving that Allah concurred with Bihzad and

me on the issue of style and signature. If we actually committed an

unpardonable sin by illustrating that book—as that half-wit had maintained

four days ago—even if we had done so unawares, Allah wouldn’t have

bestowed this favor upon us miniaturists.

That night, when Elegant Effendi and I came here, the snow hadn’t yet

begun to fall. We could hear the howling of mongrels echo in the distance.

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“Pray, for what reason have we come here?” the unfortunate one had asked.

“What do you plan to show me out here at this late hour?”

“Just ahead lies a well, twelve paces beyond which I’ve buried the money

I’ve been saving for years,” I said. “If you keep everything I’ve explained to you

secret, Enishte Effendi and I will see that you are happily rewarded.”

“Am I to understand that you admit you knew what you were doing from

the beginning?” he said in agitation.

“I admit it,” I lied obligingly.

“You acknowledge the picture you’ve made is in fact a desecration, don’t

you?” he said innocently. “It’s heresy, a sacrilege that no decent man would

have the gall to commit. You’re going to burn in the pits of Hell. Your

suffering and pain will never diminish—and you’ve made me an accomplice.”

As I listened to him, I sensed with horror how his words had such strength

and gravity that, willingly or not, people would heed them, hoping that they

would prove true about miserable creatures other than themselves. Many

rumors like this about Enishte Effendi had begun to fly due to the secrecy of

the book he was making and the money he was willing to pay—and because

Master Osman, the Head Illuminator, despised him. It occurred to me that

perhaps my brother gilder, Elegant, had with sly intent used these facts to

buttress his false accusations. To what degree was he being honest?

I had him repeat the claims that pitted us against each other, and as he

spoke, he didn’t mince his words. He seemed to be provoking me to cover up a

mistake, as during our apprentice years, when the goal was to avoid a beating

by Master Osman. Back then, I found his sincerity convincing. As an

apprentice, his eyes would widen as they did now, but back then they hadn’t

yet dimmed from the labor of embellishing. But finally I hardened my heart;

he was prepared to confess everything to everyone.

“Do listen to me,” I said with forced exasperation. “We make illuminations,

create border designs, draw frames onto pages, we brightly ornament page

after page with lovely tones of gold, we make the greatest of paintings, we

adorn armoires and boxes. We’ve done nothing else for years. It is our calling.

They commission paintings from us, ordering us to arrange a ship, an antelope

or a sultan within the borders of a particular frame, demanding a certain style

of bird, a certain type of figure, take this particular scene from the story, forget

about such-and-such. Whatever it is they demand, we do it. ”Listen,“ Enishte

Effendi said to me, ”here, draw a horse of your own imagining, right here.“ For

three days, like the great artists of old, I sketched hundreds of horses so I might

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come to know exactly what ”a horse of my own imagining‘ was. To accustom

my hand, I drew a series of horses on a coarse sheet of Samarkand paper.“

I took these sketches out and showed them to Elegant. He looked at them

with interest and, leaning close to the paper, began to study the black and

white horses in the faint moonlight. “The old masters of Shiraz and Herat,” I

said, “claimed that a miniaturist would have to sketch horses unceasingly for

fifty years to be able to truly depict the horse that Allah envisioned and

desired. They claimed that the best picture of a horse should be drawn in the

dark, since a true miniaturist would go blind working over that fifty-year

period, but in the process, his hand would memorize the horse.”

The innocent expression on his face, the one I’d also seen long ago, when

we were children, told me that he’d become completely absorbed in my

horses.

“They hire us, and we try to make the most mysterious, the most

unattainable horse, just as the old masters did. There’s nothing more to it. It’s

unjust of them to hold us responsible for anything more than the illustration.”

“I’m not sure that’s correct,” he said. “We, too, have responsibilities and

our own will. I fear no one but Allah. It was He who provided us with reason

that we might distinguish Good from Evil.”

It was an appropriate response.

“Allah sees and knows all…” I said in Arabic. “He’ll know that you and I,

we’ve done this work without being aware of what we were doing. Who will

you notify about Enishte Effendi? Aren’t you aware that behind this affair rests

the will of His Excellency Our Sultan?”

Silence.

I wondered whether he was really such a buffoon or whether his loss of

composure and ranting had sprung out of a sincere fear of Allah.

We stopped at the mouth of the well. In the darkness, I vaguely caught

sight of his eyes and could see that he was scared. I pitied him. But it was too

late for that. I prayed to God to give me one more sign that the man standing

before me was not only a dim-witted coward, but an unredeemable disgrace.

“Count off twelve steps and dig,” I said.

“Then, what will you do?”

“I’ll explain it all to Enishte Effendi, and he’ll burn the pictures. What other

recourse is there? If one of Nusret Hoja’s followers hears of such an allegation,

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nothing will remain of us or the book-arts workshop. Are you familiar with

any of the Erzurumis? Accept this money so that we can be certain you won’t

inform on us.”

“What is the money contained in?”

“There are seventy-five Venetian gold pieces inside an old ceramic pickle

jar.”

The Venetian ducats made good sense, but where had I come up with the

ceramic pickle jar? It was so foolish it was believable. I was thereby reassured

that God was with me and had given me a sign. My old companion

apprentice, who’d grown greedier with each passing year, had already started

excitedly counting off the twelve steps in the direction I indicated.

There were two things on my mind at that moment. First of all, there were

no Venetian coins or anything of the sort buried there! If I didn’t come up

with some money this buffoon would destroy us. I suddenly felt like

embracing the oaf and kissing his cheeks as I sometimes did when we were

apprentices, but the years had come between us! Second, I was preoccupied

with figuring out how we were going to dig. With our fingernails? But this

contemplation, if you could call it that, lasted only a wink in time.

Panicking, I grabbed a stone that lay beside the well. While he was still on

the seventh or eighth step, I caught up to him and struck him on the back of

his head with all my strength. I struck him so swiftly and brutally that I was

momentarily startled, as if the blow had landed on my own head. Aye, I felt

his pain.

Instead of anguishing over what I’d done, I wanted to finish the job quickly.

He’d begun thrashing about on the ground and my panic deepened further.

Long after I’d dropped him into the well, I contemplated how the

crudeness of my deed did not in the least befit the grace of a miniaturist.

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I AM YOUR BELOVED UNCLE

I am Black’s maternal uncle, his enishte, but others also call me “Enishte.”

There was a time when Black’s mother encouraged him to address me as

“Enishte Effendi,” and later, not only Black, but everyone began referring to

me that way. Thirty years ago, after we’d moved to the dark and humid street

shaded by chestnut and linden trees beyond the Aksaray district, Black began

to make frequent visits to our house. That was our residence before this one. If

I were away on summer campaign with Mahmut Pasha, I’d return in the

autumn to discover that Black and his mother had taken refuge in our home.

Black’s mother, may she rest in peace, was the older sister of my dearly

departed wife. There were times on winter evenings I’d come home to find my

wife and his mother embracing and tearfully consoling each other. Black’s

father, who could never maintain his teaching posts at the remote little

religious schools where he taught, was ill-tempered, angry and had a weakness

for drink. Black was six years old at the time; he’d cry when his mother cried,

quiet down when his mother fell silent and regarded me, his Enishte, with

apprehension.

It pleases me to see him before me now, a determined, mature and

respectful nephew. The respect he shows me, the care with which he kisses my

hand and presses it to his forehead, the way, for example, he said, “Purely for

red,” when he presented me with the Mongol inkpot as a gift, and his polite

and demure habit of sitting before me with his knees mindfully together; all of

this not only announces that he is the sensible grown man he aspires to be,

but it reminds me that I am indeed the venerable elder I aspire to be.

He shares a likeness with his father, whom I’ve seen once or twice: He’s tall

and thin, and makes slightly nervous yet becoming gestures with his arms and

hands. His custom of placing his hands on his knees or of staring deeply and

intently into my eyes as if to say, “I understand, I’m listening to you with

reverence” when I tell him something of import, or the way he nods his head

with a subtle rhythm matching the measure of my words are all quite

appropriate. Now that I’ve reached this age, I know that true respect arises not

from the heart, but from discrete rules and deference.

During the years Black’s mother brought him frequently to our house

under every pretense because she anticipated a future for him here, I

understood that books pleased him, and this brought us together. As those in

the house used to put it, he would serve as my “apprentice.” I explained to

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him how miniaturists in Shiraz had created a new style by raising the horizon

line clear to the top of the border, and that while everyone depicted Mejnun

in a wretched state in the desert, crazed with love for his Leyla, the great

master Bihzad was better able to convey Mejnun’s loneliness by portraying

him walking among groups of women cooking, attempting to ignite logs by

blowing on them or walking between tents. I remarked how absurd it was that

most of the illustrators who depicted the moment when Hüsrev spied the

naked Shirin bathing in a lake at midnight had whimsically colored the lovers’

horses and clothes without having read Nizami’s poem, my point being that a

miniaturist who took up a brush without the care and diligence to read the

text he was illustrating was motivated by nothing more than greed.

I’m delighted now to see that Black has acquired another essential virtue:

To avoid disappointment in art, one mustn’t treat it as a career. Despite

whatever great artistic sense and talent a man might possess, he ought to seek

money and power elsewhere to avoid forsaking his art when he fails to receive

proper compensation for his gifts and efforts.

Black recounted how he’d met one by one all of the master illustrators and