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left foreleg. After quickly joining the leg to the body, I made two arcs swiftly,

pleasurably and confidently—had you seen them, you would’ve said this artist

is no illustrator, but a calligrapher. I was gazing at my hand with awe, while it

moved as if it belonged to another. These spectacular arcs became the horse’s

ample stomach, solid chest and swanlike neck. The illustration might’ve been

considered complete. Oh, the talent of which I am possessed! Meanwhile, I

looked to see that my hand had traced out the nose and open mouth of the

strong and joyful horse and laid down the intelligent forehead and ears. Next,

once again, look Mother, how beautiful, I merrily drew another arc as if

scripting a letter, and I was moved to the verge of laughter. I swooped down in

a perfect arc from the neck of my rearing horse to its saddle. My hand

occupied itself with the saddle as I proudly regarded my horse, now coming

into being, with a robust, rounded body not unlike my own: Everyone will be

stunned by this horse. I thought about the sweet comments Our Sultan would

make when I won the prize; He’d present me with a purse of gold coins; and I

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had the urge to laugh again as I imagined how I’d count them at home. Just

then, my hand, which I gazed at out of the corner of my eye, finished with the

saddle and took my brush to the inkwell and back before I began the horse’s

rump with a chuckle as though I’d told a joke. I briskly outlined the tail. How

gentle and curvaceous I made the rear end, lovingly wishing to cup it in my

hands like the gentle butt of a boy I was about to violate. As I smiled, my clever

hand finished with the hind legs, and my brush stopped: This was the finest

rearing horse the world had ever known. I was overcome with joy, happily

thinking about how much they would like my horse, how they would declare

me the most talented of miniaturists and even how they would announce at

once that I was to become Head Illuminator; but then I considered what else

those idiots would say: “How quickly and joyfully he’s drawn this!” For this

reason alone, I was worried they wouldn’t take my wonderful illustration

seriously. Therefore, I meticulously rendered the mane, nostrils, teeth, strands

of horsetail and saddle blanket in minute detail so there would be no doubt

that I had indeed labored over the illustration. From this position, that is, the

rear lateral view, the horse’s testicles should’ve been visible, but I left them

out because they might unduly preoccupy the women. Proudly, I studied my

horse: rearing, moving like a tempest, strong and powerful! It was as if a wind

had kicked up and set elliptical brush strokes in motion, like the letters in a

line of script, yet the animal was also poised. They’d praise the magnificent

miniaturist who drew this illustration as if praising a Bihzad or a Mir

Musavvir, and then, I, too, would be like them.

When I draw a magnificent horse, I become a great master of old drawing

that horse.

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I AM CALLED “STORK”

After the evening prayers I intended to go to the coffeehouse, but they told me

there was a visitor at the door. Good tidings, I hoped. I went to discover a

messenger from the palace. He described the Sultan’s contest. Fine, the

world’s most beautiful horse. You tell me how much you’ll offer for each, and

I’ll quickly draw you five or six of them.

Rather than say any such thing, I maintained my reserve, and simply

invited the boy waiting at the door inside. I thought for a moment: The

world’s most beautiful horse doesn’t even exist that I might draw it. I can

draw war steeds, large Mongolian horses, noble Arabians, heroic, writhing

chargers covered in blood, or even luckless packhorses pulling a cartfull of

stone to a building site, but no one would call any of them the world’s most

beautiful horse. Naturally, by “the world’s most beautiful horse,” I knew that

Our Sultan meant the most splendid of the horses that had been depicted

thousands of times in Persia, in keeping with all of the formulas, models and

poses of yore. But why?

Of course, there were those who didn’t want me to win the purse of gold. If

they’d told me to draw your average horse, it’s common knowledge that

nobody’s picture could compete with mine. Who was it that had duped Our

Sultan? Our Sovereign, despite the endless gossip of all of those jealous artists,

knows full well that I am the most talented of His miniaturists. He admires my

illustrations.

My hand abruptly and angrily sprang to action as if wanting to rise above

all of these vexing considerations, and in one concentrated effort, I drew a true

horse beginning from the tip of its hoof. You might see one like this on the

street or in battle. Weary, but controlled…Next, in the same fit of anger, I

dashed off a spahi cavalryman’s horse, and this one was even better. None of

the miniaturists of the book arts workshop could draw such beautiful animals.

I was about to draw another from memory when the boy from the palace said,

“One is enough.”

He was about to grab the sheet and leave, but I restrained him because I

knew full well, as I know my own name, that these scoundrels would be giving

up a purse of gold coins for these horses.

If I illustrate the way I want to, they won’t give me the gold! If I can’t win

the gold, my name will be tarnished forever. I stopped to think. “Just wait,” I

said to the boy. I went inside and returned with two incredibly shiny

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counterfeit Venetian gold pieces, which I proceeded to give to the boy: He was

afraid, his eyes widened. “You’re as brave as a lion,” I said.

I removed one of the notebooks of forms that I kept hidden from the eyes

of the world. This is where I secretly made copies of the most beautiful

illustrations that I’d seen over the years. Not to mention the copies that the

chief of the dwarfs, Jafer, in the treasury would make of the best trees,

dragons, birds, hunters and warriors from the pages of volumes locked away;

that is, if you gave him ten gold pieces, the rogue. My notebook is excellent,

not for those who want to see the actual world in which they live through

pictures and decoration, but for those who want to recall the fables of old.

Flipping through the pages while showing the images to the pageboy, I

selected the best of the horses. I briskly poked holes over the lines of that

picture with a needle. Next, I placed a clean sheet of paper under the stencil. I

gradually sprinkled a liberal amount of coal dust on top, then shook it so the

dust would pass through the holes. I lifted the stencil. The coal dust, dot by

dot, had transferred the beautiful horse’s entire shape to the sheet below. It

was a pleasure to behold.

I grabbed my pen. With an inspiration that suddenly welled up within me, I

elegantly connected the dots with quick and decisive strokes, such that as I was

drawing the horse’s belly, graceful neck, nose and rump, I lovingly felt the

horse within me. “There it is,” I said. “The world’s most beautiful horse. Not

one of those fools could draw this.”

So the boy from the palace would believe this as well, and so he wouldn’t

explain to Our Sultan how I’d been inspired to draw this picture, I gave him

three more counterfeit coins. I implied that I would give him even more if I

ended up winning the gold. Furthermore, he also imagined, I believe, that he

might soon be able to catch sight of my wife once again, whom he’d leered at

open-mouthed. There are many who believe you can tell a good miniaturist by

the horse he draws; however, to be the best miniaturist, it’s not enough to

make the best horse, you must also convince Our Sultan and His circle of

sycophants that you are indeed the best miniaturist.

When I draw a magnificent horse, I am who I am, nothing more.

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I WILL BE CALLED A MURDERER

Were you able to determine who I am from the way I sketched a horse?

As soon as I heard I was invited to make a horse, I knew this was no

competition: They wanted to catch me through my illustration. I’m perfectly

aware that the horse sketches I’d drawn on rough paper were found on poor

Elegant Effendi’s body. But I have no fault or style by which they might

discover me through the horses I’ve made. Though I was as certain of this as I

could be, I was in a panic while rendering the horse. Had I done something

incriminating when I made the horse for Enishte? I had to depict a new horse

this time. I thought of completely different things. I “restrained” myself and

became another.

But who am I? Am I an artist who would suppress the masterpieces I was

capable of in order to fit the style of the workshop or an artist who would one

day triumphantly depict the horse deep within himself?

Suddenly and with terror, I felt the existence of that triumphant miniaturist

within me. It was as if I were being watched by another soul, and, in short, I

was ashamed.

I quickly knew that I wouldn’t be able to remain at home, and bolting

outside, I walked briskly down the darkened streets. As Sheikh Osman Baba

wrote in his Lives of the Saints, in order for a genuine wandering dervish to

escape the devil within, he must roam his entire life without remaining

anywhere too long. After roaming from city to city for sixty-seven years, he

tired of running and surrendered to the Devil. This is the age when master

miniaturists attain blindness, or the darkness of Allah, the age when they

involuntarily achieve a style, while freeing themselves of all intimations of

style.

I wandered through the Chicken-Sellers Market in Bayazid, through the

empty square of the slave market, amid the pleasant aromas of soup and

pudding shops, as if searching. I passed the closed doors of barbershops,

clothes pressers, an old bread baker who was counting his money and looking

at me in surprise; I passed a grocer’s shop smelling of pickles and salted fish,

and since my eyes were taken only by colors, I walked into a herbs and notions

shop where something was being weighed, and in the light of a lamp, stared

passionately, the way one looks at one’s beloved, at the sacks of coffee, ginger,

saffron and cinnamon, the colorful cans of gum mastic, the aniseed whose

scent wafted from the counter, and at mounds of brown and black cumin.

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Sometimes I want to put everything into my mouth; sometimes I want to fill a

page with a picture of all creation.

I walked into the place where I’d filled my stomach twice before in the last

week, which I’d personally named the “soup kitchen of the downtrodden”—

actually, of the “miserable” would’ve been more appropriate. It was open until

midnight to those who knew about it. Inside were a few unfortunates dressed

like horse thieves or like men who’d escaped the gallows; a couple of pathetic

characters whose sorrow and hopelessness caused their sights to slip from this

world to distant paradises, as happens with opium addicts; two beggars who

were at pains to follow even basic guild etiquette; and a young gentleman

who’d seated himself in a corner at a distance from this crowd. I gave the

Aleppan cook a graceful greeting. Heaping the meat-filled cabbage dolma into

my bowl, I covered it with yogurt and topped it off with handfuls of hot red

pepper flakes before taking a seat beside the young gentleman.

Every night a sorrow overwhelms me, a misery descends upon me. Oh, my

brothers, my dear brothers, we’re being poisoned, we’re rotting, dying, we’re

exhausting ourselves as we live, we’ve sunk up to our necks in misery…Some

nights, I dream that he emerges from the well and comes after me, but I know

we’ve buried him deeply beneath plenty of earth. He couldn’t possibly rise

from the grave.

The gentleman, who I thought had buried his nose in his soup and

forgotten the whole world, opened the door to a conversation. Was this a sign

from Allah? “Yes,” I answered, “they’ve ground the meat to the right

consistency, my stuffed cabbage is quite to my liking.” I asked about him: He’d

recently graduated from a miserable twenty-coin college and been taken into

Arifi Pasha’s patronage as a clerk. I didn’t ask him why, at this hour of the

night, he wasn’t at the Pasha’s estate, at the mosque or at home in the arms of

his beloved wife, but chose instead to be at this street kitchen teeming with

unmarried thugs. He asked me where I’d come from and who I was. I thought

for a moment.

“My name is Bihzad. I’ve come from Herat and Tabriz. I’ve painted the

most magnificent pictures, the most incredible masterpieces. In Persia and

Arabia, in every Muslim book arts workshop where illustrations are made,

they’ve said this about me for hundreds of years: It looks real, just like the

work of Bihzad.”

Of course, this isn’t the issue. My paintings reveal what the mind, not the

eye, sees. But painting, as you know quite well, is a feast for the eyes. If you

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combine these two thoughts, my world will emerge. That is:

ALIF:

Painting brings to life what the mind sees, as a feast for the eyes.

LAM: What the eye sees in the world enters the painting to the degree

that it serves the mind.

MIM:

Consequently, beauty is the eye discovering in our world what

the mind already knows.

Did the graduate of the miserable college understand this logic, which I’d

extracted with lightning inspiration from the depths of my soul? Not at all.