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innocent.”

“During the interrogation, torture him,” I said. “That way we’ll learn what

other secrets our late Enishte was harboring.”

“We’ve sent for him,” said the Commander of the Imperial Guard.

“Afterward, we’ll thoroughly search the house of that newlywed.”

Both their faces were strangely illuminated, a flicker of fear and awe

overcame them, and they snapped to their feet.

Without having to turn around I knew we were in the presence of His

Excellency, Our Sultan, the Refuge of the World.

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I AM ESTHER

Oh, how wonderful it is to cry along with the rest of them! While the men

were at the funeral of my dear Shekure’s father, the women, kith and kin,

spouses and friends, gathered in the house and shed their tears, and I, too,

beat my chest in mourning and wept with them. Now wailing in unison with

the pretty maiden beside me, leaning on her and swaying back and forth; now

crying in a completely different frame of mind, I was deeply touched by my

own woes and pitiful life. If I could cry like this just once a week, I thought, I

might forget how I had to roam the streets all day just to make ends meet,

forget being mocked for my weight and my Jewishness and be reborn an even

more chattermouth Esther.

I like social gatherings because I can eat to my heart’s content, and, at the

same time, forget that I’m the black sheep of the crowd. I love the baklava,

mint candy, marzipan bread and fruit leather of holidays; the pilaf with meat

and the tea-cup pastries of circumcision ceremonies; drinking sour-cherry

sherbet at celebrations held by the Sultan in the Hippodrome; eating

everything at weddings; and tossing down the sesame, honey or variously

flavored condolence halvas sent by the neighbors at wakes.

I quietly slipped into the hallway, put on my shoes and went downstairs.

Before I turned into the kitchen, I grew curious about an odd noise coming

through the half-open door of the room next to the stable. I took a few steps

in that direction and glanced inside to discover that Shevket and Orhan had

tied up the son of one of the women mourners and were in the midst of

painting his face with their late grandfather’s paints and brushes. “If you try

to escape, we’ll hit you like this,” Shevket said and slapped the boy.

“My dear child, play nice and gentle now, don’t hurt each other, all right?”

I said in a voice as velvety as I could muster.

“Mind your own affairs!” Shevket shouted.

I noticed the small, frightened, blond-haired sister of the boy they were

tormenting standing beside them, and for whatever reason, I felt for her

completely. Forget about it, now, Esther!

In the kitchen, Hayriye peered at me suspiciously.

“I’ve cried myself dry, Hayriye,” I said. “For God’s sake, pour me a glass of

water.”

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She did so, silently. Before I drank it, I stared into her eyes, swollen from

weeping.

“Poor Enishte Effendi, they say he was already dead before Shekure’s

wedding,” I commented. “People’s mouths aren’t like bags that can be cinched

up, some even claim there was foul play involved.”

In an exaggerated gesture, she looked down at her toes. Then she lifted her

head and without looking at me said, “May God protect us from baseless

slander.”

Her first gesture confirmed what I’d said, and moreover the cadence of her

words conveyed that they were spoken under duress—to hide the truth.

“What’s going on?” I asked abruptly, whispering as if I were her confidant.

Indecisive Hayriye had of course understood that there was no hope of

claiming any authority over Shekure after Enishte Effendi’s death. And a short

while ago, she was the one mourning with the most heartfelt tears.

“What’s to become of me, now?” she said.

“Shekure holds you in high regard,” I said in my habit of giving news.

Lifting up the lids of the pots of halva lined up between the large clay jar of

grape molasses and the pickle jar, sneaking a fingerful from one or simply

leaning over to smell another, I asked who’d sent each of them.

Hayriye was rattling off who’d sent which pot: “This one’s from Kas?m

Effendi of Kayseri; this one, the assistant from the miniaturists division who

lives two streets over; that’s from the locksmith, Left-Handed Hamdi; that one,

the young bride from Edirne—” when Shekure interrupted her.

“Kalbiye, the late Elegant Effendi’s widow, didn’t come to offer her

condolences, didn’t send word and didn’t send any halva either!”

She was heading from the kitchen door to the foot of the stairs. I followed

her, knowing that she wanted to have a word with me in private.

“There was no ill-will between Elegant Effendi and my father. On the day of

Elegant’s funeral, we prepared our halva and sent it to them. I want to know

what’s going on,” Shekure said.

“I’ll go right away and find out,” I said, anticipating Shekure’s thoughts.

Since I kept our chat brief, she kissed me on the cheek. As the cold of the

courtyard bit into us, we embraced and stood there without moving.

Afterward, I stroked my beautiful Shekure’s hair.

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“Esther, I’m afraid,” she said.

“My dear, don’t be afraid,” I said. “Every cloud has a silver lining. Look,

you’re finally married.”

“But I’m not sure I did the right thing,” she said. “That’s why I haven’t let

him get near me. I spent the night beside my unfortunate father.”

She opened her eyes wide and looked at me in a way that said, You

understand what I mean.

“Hasan claims that your wedding is null in the eyes of the judge,” I said.

“He sent this to you.”

Though she said, “No more,” she immediately opened the small note and

read, but this time she didn’t tell me what it contained.

She was right to be discreet; we weren’t alone in the courtyard where we’d

stood embracing: Above us, a smirking carpenter, reattaching the shutter of

the hall window, which fell and broke for some unknown reason that

morning, was also eyeing both us and the women mourning inside.

Meanwhile, Hayriye came out of the house and rushed to open the door for

the son of a loyal neighbor who’d called out, “the halva’s here,” as he knocked

on the courtyard gate.

“It’s been quite some time since we buried him,” said Shekure. “I can now

sense that my poor father’s soul is leaving his body for good and rising into

the heavens.”

She removed herself from my arms, and gazing up at the bright sky, recited

a long prayer.

I suddenly felt so distant and estranged from Shekure that it wouldn’t have

surprised me if I were the cloud she was gazing at. As soon as she finished her

prayer, pretty Shekure kissed me affectionately on both cheeks.

“Esther,” she said, “so long as my father’s murderer roams free, there’ll be

no peace in this world for me or my children.”

It pleased me that she didn’t mention her new husband’s name.

“Go to Elegant Effendi’s house, talk casually to his widow and learn why

they didn’t send us any halva. Let me know immediately what you find out.”

“Do you have any messages for Hasan?” I said.

I felt embarrassed, not because I’d asked this question, but because I

couldn’t look her in the eye as I did so. To cover up my embarrassment, I

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stopped Hayriye and opened the lid of the pot she was holding. “Ohh,” I said,

“semolina halva with pistachios,” as I had a taste. “And they’ve added oranges,

too.”

It made me happy to see Shekure smile sweetly as if everything were

happening as planned.

I grabbed my bundle and left. I’d taken no more than two steps when I saw

Black at the end of the street. He’d just come from the burial of his father-in-

law, and I could tell from his beaming face that this new husband was quite

pleased with his life. In order not to dampen his spirits, I left the street,

entered the vegetable rows and passed through the garden of the house where

the brother of the lover of the famous Jewish doctor Moshe Hamon had lived

before he was hanged. This garden, which recalled death, always brought such

great sadness upon me when I walked through it that I invariably forgot I’d

been charged to find a buyer for the property.

The air of death was also in Elegant Effendi’s house, though for me it

provoked no sadness. I was Esther, a woman who went in and out of

thousands of homes and was acquainted with hundreds of widows; I knew

that women who lost their husbands early were spellbound either by defeat

and misery or anger and rebellion (although Shekure had suffered all these

afflictions). Kalbiye had partaken of the poison of anger and I fast realized that

this would serve to hasten my work.

As with all conceited women to whom life has been cruel, Kalbiye quite

rightly suspected that all her visitors came to pity her in her darkest hour, or

even worse, to witness her agony and secretly rejoice in their own better

situations; thus, she engaged in no pleasantries with her guests, but went

straight to the heart of the matter forgoing any flowery small talk. Why had

Esther come this afternoon, just as Kalbiye was about to take a consoling nap

with her grief? Well aware she’d take no interest in the latest silks from China

or handkerchiefs from Bursa, I didn’t even pretend to open my bundle, but

came right to the point and described teary-eyed Shekure’s concern. “It has

heightened Shekure’s misery to think that she has somehow hurt your

feelings, with whom she shares the same sorrow,” I said.

Arrogantly, Kalbiye confirmed that she hadn’t asked after Shekure’s well-

being, hadn’t visited to express her condolences or mourn with her, nor could

she bring herself to prepare and send any halva. Behind her pride, there also

lurked a glee that she couldn’t conceal: The delight that her resentment had

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been recognized. It was from this point of entry that your sharp-witted Esther

attempted to discover the reasons for and circumstances of Kalbiye’s anger.

It didn’t take long for Kalbiye to admit that she’d been upset with the late

Enishte Effendi due to the illustrated manuscript he was preparing. She said

her husband, may he rest in peace, hadn’t agreed to work on the book for the

sake of a handful of extra silver coins, but because Enishte Effendi convinced

him the project was authorized by the Sultan. However, when her late

husband became aware that the illuminations Enishte Effendi hired him to

gild were slowly evolving from simple ornamented pages into full-blown

illustrations, pictures moreover that bore the marks of Frankish blasphemy,

atheism and even heresy, he grew uneasy and began to lose sight of right and

wrong. Being a much more reasonable and prudent person than Elegant

Effendi, she cautiously added that all these doubts arose gradually rather than

at once, and since poor Elegant Effendi never found anything that would be

considered blatant sacrilege, he was able to dismiss his worries as unfounded.

Besides, he comforted himself by never missing a sermon given by Nusret Hoja

of Erzurum, and if he skipped one of his five daily prayers it unsettled him.

Just as he knew that certain scoundrels at the workshop ridiculed his complete

devotion to the faith, so he understood very well that their brazen jokes arose

out of envy of his talent and artistry.

A large, glimmering tear slid from Kalbiye’s gleaming eye down her cheek,

and at the first opportunity, your good-hearted Esther decided to find Kalbiye

a better husband than the one she’d recently lost.

“My late husband didn’t often share these concerns of his with me,”

Kalbiye said cautiously. “Based on whatever I could remember and piece

together I’ve concluded that everything happened on account of the

illustrations that took him to Enishte Effendi’s house on his very last night.”

This was some manner of apology. In response, I reminded her how her fate

and Shekure’s, not to mention their enemies, were the same if one considered

that Enishte Effendi had perhaps been killed by the same “scoundrel.” The two

large-headed fatherless waifs staring at me from the corner suggested another

similarity between the two women. But my merciless matchmaker’s logic

quickly reminded me that Shekure’s situation was much more beautiful, rich

and mysterious. I let Kalbiye know exactly what I felt:

“Shekure told me to tell you that if she has wronged you, she’s sorry,” I

said. “She wants to say that she loves you as a sister and as a woman who

shares her fate. She wants you to think about this and help her. When the late

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Elegant Effendi left here on his last night, did he mention he’d be seeing

anyone besides Enishte Effendi? Did you ever consider that he might’ve been

going to meet somebody else?”

“This was found on his person,” she said.

She removed a folded piece of paper from a lidded wicker box, which

contained embroidery needles, pieces of cloth and a large walnut.

When I took up the crumpled piece of rough paper and examined it, I saw a

variety of shapes drawn in ink that had run and smudged in the well water. I’d

just determined what the forms were when Kalbiye voiced my thoughts.

“Horses,” she said. “But late Elegant Effendi only did gilding work. He never

drew horses. And no one would’ve ever asked him to render a horse.”

Your elderly Esther was looking at the horses which had been quickly

sketched, but she couldn’t quite make anything of them.

“If I were to take this piece of paper to Shekure, she’d be quite pleased,” I