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him by imitating the Europeans. Black added that based on style, Master

Osman suspected Olive was responsible for the horse with the clipped nostrils,

but as Head Illuminator, he was convinced of Stork’s guilt and would turn him

over to the executioners. I could sense he was telling the truth under the

pressure of my sword, and I felt like kissing him because he gave himself over

to what he was saying like a child. What I heard didn’t worry me, having Stork

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out of the way meant I’d become Head Illuminator after Master Osman’s

death—may God grant him long life.

I wasn’t disturbed that what he said might happen, but by the possibility

that it might not. Reading between the lines of Black’s account, I was able to

glean that Master Osman was willing not only to sacrifice Stork, but me as

well. Considering this incredible possibility made my heart quicken and drew

me toward the horror of complete abandonment felt by a child who’s

suddenly lost his father. Each time this came to mind, I had to restrain myself

from cutting Black’s throat. I didn’t attempt to argue the point with Black or

myself: Why should the fact that we made a few foolish illustrations inspired

by European masters lower us to the level of traitors? Once again, I thought

that behind Elegant’s death stood Stork and Olive and their schemes against

me. I removed the sword from Black’s throat.

“Let’s go to Olive’s house together, and search it from top to bottom,” I

said. “If the last picture is with him, at least we’ll know whom to fear. If not,

we’ll take him with us as support and go on to raid Stork’s house.”

I told him to trust me and that his dagger was enough weaponry for the

two of us. I apologized for not even having offered him a glass of linden tea. As

I lifted the oil lamp from the floor, we both stared meaningfully at the cushion

upon which I’d flattened him. I approached him with the lamp in my hand

and told him how the ever-so-faint cut on his throat would be a mark of our

friendship. He bled only slightly.

The commotion made by the Erzurumis and those pursuing them could

still be heard on the streets, but no one noticed us. We were quick to arrive at

Olive’s house. We knocked on the courtyard door, the door of the house, and

impatiently upon the shutters. Nobody was home; we made so much noise

that we were certain he wasn’t sleeping. Black gave voice to what we both were

thinking: “Shall we go inside?”

I twisted the metal loop of the door lock using the blunt edge of Black’s

dagger, then inserting it into the space between door and jamb and levering it

with all our weight, we broke the lock. We were met by the stench of

dampness, dirt and loneliness, which had accumulated over years. By the light

of the lamp, we noticed an unmade bed, sashes tossed randomly upon

cushions, vests, two turbans, undershirts, Nimetullah Effendi the

Nakshibendi’s Persian dictionary, a wooden turban stand, broadcloth, needle

and thread, a small copper pan full of apple peels, quite a few cushions, a

velvet bedspread, his paints, his brushes and all of his supplies. I was on the

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verge of rifling through the writing paper, the layer upon layer of carefully

trimmed Hindustan paper, and the illuminated pages on his small desk, but I

restrained myself both because Black was more enthusiastic than I, and

because I knew full well how a master miniaturist would incur nothing but

bad luck if he went through the belongings of a less talented miniaturist. Olive

is not as talented as is assumed, he’s merely eager. He tries to cover up for his

lack of talent with adoration of the old masters. The old legends, however, only

rouse an artist’s imagination; it’s the hand that does the painting.

As Black was searching meticulously through all the chests and boxes, going

as far as to check the bottoms of laundry baskets, without touching anything I

glanced at Olive’s Bursa towels, his ebony comb, his dirty bath hand towel, his

rosewater bottles, a ridiculous waist cloth with an Indian block-print pattern,

quilted jackets, a heavy, dirty women’s robe with a slit, a dented copper tray,

filthy carpets and other furnishings too cheap and slovenly for the money he

earned. Olive was either very stingy and salting his money away or he was

squandering it somehow…

“The house of a murderer, precisely,” I said later. “There isn’t even a prayer

rug.” But this wasn’t what I was thinking. I concentrated. “These are the

belongings of a man who doesn’t know how to be happy…” I said. Yet, in a

corner of my mind, I thought sadly about how misery and proximity to the

Devil nursed painting.

“Despite knowing what it takes to be content, a man might still be

unhappy,” said Black.

He placed before me a series of pictures drawn on coarse Samarkand paper,

backed with heavy sheets, which he’d removed from the depths of a chest. We

studied the pictures: a delightful Satan all the way from Khorasan that had

emerged from beneath the ground, a tree, a beautiful woman, a dog and the

picture of Death I myself had drawn. These were the illustrations that the

murdered storyteller hung up each night he told one of his disgraceful stories.

Prompted by Black’s question, I pointed out the picture of Death I had drawn.

“The same pictures are in my Enishte’s book,” he said.

“Both the storyteller and the proprietor of the coffeehouse realized the

wisdom of having the miniaturists render the illustrations each night. The

storyteller would have one of us quickly dash off an illustration on one of

these coarse sheets, ask us a little about the story and about our in jokes and

then, adding some of his own material, he’d start the evening’s performance.”

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“Why did you make the same picture of Death for him that you made for

my Enishte’s book?”

“Upon the request of the storyteller, it was a lone figure on the page. But I

didn’t draw it with attention and effort the way I had for Enishte’s book; I

drew it quickly, the way my hand felt like drawing it. The others too, perhaps

trying to be witty, drew for the storyteller in a cruder and simpler manner

what they had made for that secret book.”

“Who made the horse,” he asked, “with the slit nostrils?”

Lowering the lamp we watched the horse in wonder. It resembled the horse

made for Enishte’s book, but it was quicker, more careless and catered to a

simpler taste, as if somebody had not only paid the illustrator less money and

made him work faster, but also forced him to make a rougher and, I suppose

precisely for this reason, more realistic horse.

“Stork would know best who made this horse,” I said. “He’s a conceited

fool who can’t last a day without listening to the gossip of miniaturists, that’s

why he visits the coffeehouse every night. Yes, most certainly, Stork drew this

horse.”

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I AM CALLED “STORK”

Butterfly and Black arrived in the middle of the night; they spread the pictures

on the floor before me, and asked me to tell them who’d made which

illustration. It reminded me of the game “Whose Turban” we used to play

when we were children: You’d draw the various headdresses of a hoja, a

cavalryman, a judge, an executioner, a head treasurer and secretary and try to

match them with the corresponding names written on other facedown sheets.

I told them I’d made the dog myself. We’d told its story to the storyteller. I

said that gentle Butterfly, who held a dagger to my throat, must’ve drawn

Death, over which the light of the lamp wavered pleasantly. I remembered that

Olive had rendered Satan with great enthusiasm, whose story was spun

entirely by the dearly departed storyteller. I’d started the tree whose leaves

were drawn by all of us who came to the coffeehouse that night. We came up

with the story as well. So it was with Red, too: Some red ink had splattered

onto a page and the stingy storyteller asked if we could make a picture of it.

We dribbled some more red ink onto the page, then each of us sketched the

image of something red in a corner and told the story of his image so the

storyteller might recount it. Olive made this exquisite horse here—praised be

his talent—and I think it was Butterfly who drew the melancholy woman. Just

then Butterfly removed the dagger from my throat and told Black that, yes, he

now remembered how he’d drawn the woman. We all contributed to the gold

coin in the bazaar, and Olive, a descendant of Kalenderis himself, drew the two

dervishes. The sect of the Kalenderis is based on buggering young boys and

begging and their sheikh, Evhad-üd Dini Kirmani wrote the sect’s sacred book

250 years ago, revealing in verse that he’d seen God’s perfection manifested in

beautiful faces.

I asked the forgiveness of my master artist brethren for the disheveled state

of our house, offering the excuse that we’d been caught unprepared, and I told

them how sorry I was that we could offer them neither fragrant coffee nor

sweet oranges because my wife was still asleep in the inner room. I said this so

they wouldn’t barge in there and I wouldn’t have to wreak bloody havoc upon

them when they didn’t find what they were looking for among the canvas,

drawstring cloth, summer sashes of Indian silk and fine muslin, Persian prints

and dolmans in the baskets and trunks they eagerly rummaged through, under

the carpets and cushions, among the illuminated pages I’d prepared for

various books, and within the pages of bound volumes.

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Nevertheless, I must confess that it gave me a certain pleasure to behave as

if I were afraid of them. An artist’s skill depends on carefully attending to the

beauty of the present moment, taking everything down to the minutest detail

seriously while, at the same time, stepping back from the world, which takes

itself too seriously, and as if looking into a mirror, allowing for the distance

and eloquence of a jest.

Accordingly, upon their asking, I said that, yes, when the Erzurumis began

their raid, there was, as on most evenings, a crowd of about forty in the

coffeehouse, which included, besides myself, Olive, Nas?r the Limner, Jemal the

calligrapher, two young assistant illustrators, the young calligraphers who were

now spending their days and nights with them, Rahmi the apprentice of

unsurpassed beauty, other handsome novices, six or seven men belonging to

the lot of poets, drunks, hashish addicts and dervishes and others who

cunningly charmed the proprietor into allowing them to join this mirthful

and witty group. I explained how confusion reigned as soon as the raid began.

When the crowd of onlookers gathered by the proprietor for some bawdy

entertainment began to leave in a panic, no one thought to mount a defense

of the establishment or of the poor old storyteller dressed as a woman. Did I

grieve over this calamity? “Yes! I, Mustafa the Painter, also known as ”Stork,“

who have truly devoted my entire life to illumination, find it necessary, each

night, to sit together with my artist brethren and converse, joke, ridicule, pay

compliments, recite poems and speak in innuendos,” I confessed, looking

directly into the eyes of dim-witted Butterfly, shrouded in the air of a plump,

moist-eyed boy plagued by envy. Even as an apprentice, this Butterfly of ours,

whose eyes were still as lovely as a child’s, was a sensitive, fine-skinned beauty.

Again, upon their asking me, I described how on the second day that the

storyteller, may his soul find peace in Heaven, wandering the city and

neighborhoods began plying his trade in the coffeehouse, one of the

miniaturists, perhaps under the influence of coffee, hung a picture on the wall

to be amusing; the glib storyteller took notice and, as a joke of his own, began

a monologue as if he were the dog in the picture, which met with great

success; thenceforth, every night he continued to feature pictures drawn by the

master miniaturists and to tell witty tales they whispered into his ear. Because

the jibes at the preacher from Erzurum at once exhilarated the artists, who

lived in terror of the preacher’s wrath, and drew more customers to the

coffeehouse, the proprietor from Edirne encouraged the performances.

They asked me my interpretation of the pictures the storyteller hung up

behind himself each night, the ones they found during their raid of brother

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Olive’s empty house. I explained that there was no need for interpretation

because the proprietor, like Olive himself, was a begging, thieving, wild wretch

of a Kalenderi dervish. The simple-minded Elegant Effendi, terrified of Hoja

Effendi’s exhortations, and especially of his fire-and-brimstone Friday

sermons, must’ve complained of them to the Erzurumis. Or even more

probable, when Elegant warned them to stop in their mischief, the proprietor

and Olive, both of the same temperament, conspired to cruelly do away with

the ill-fated gilder. The Erzurumis, incited by Elegant’s murder, and perhaps

because Elegant Effendi had described Enishte’s book to them, held Enishte

responsible for the murder and killed him; and, they must’ve raided the

coffeehouse to complete their revenge.

How much attention were chubby Butterfly and grave Black (he was like a

ghost) paying to what I said as they ransacked my possessions, gleefully lifting

every lid and leaving not a stone unturned? When they came across my boots,

armor and warrior’s equipage in the embellished walnut trunk, a look of envy

blossomed on Butterfly’s childish face, and I once again declared what