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that Elegant Effendi was in fact justified in his beliefs. Occasionally, I tell

myself I should ask him, pretending as if this suspicion hadn’t passed to me

from Elegant Effendi, but had simply occurred to me. In the end, it’s no

comfort either way.

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My legs, which have always been quicker than my head, had taken me of

their own accord to Enishte Effendi’s street. I crouched in a secluded spot, and

for a long time observed the house as best I could in the blackness. I watched

for a long time: Nestled among trees was the large and odd-looking two-story

house of a rich man! I couldn’t tell on which side Shekure’s room was located.

As is the case in some of the pictures made in Tabriz during the reign of Shah

Tahmasp, I imagined the house in cross-section—as if it were cut in half with a

knife—and I tried to illustrate in my mind’s eye where I would find my

Shekure, behind which shutter.

The door opened. I saw Black leaving the house in the darkness. Enishte

gazed at him with affection from behind the courtyard gate for a moment

before closing it.

Even my mind, which had given itself over to idiotic fantasies, quickly, and

painfully, drew three conclusions based on what I had seen:

One: Since Black was cheaper and less dangerous, Enishte Effendi would

have him complete our book.

Two: The beautiful Shekure would marry Black.

Three: What the unfortunate Elegant Effendi had said was true, and so, I’d

killed him for naught.

In situations such as this, as soon as our merciless intellects draw the bitter

conclusion that our hearts refuse, the entire body rebels against the mind. At

first, half my mind violently opposed the third conclusion, which indicated

that I was nothing but the vilest of murderers. My legs, once again, acting

quicker and more rationally than my head, had already put me in pursuit of

Black Effendi.

We’d passed down a few side streets when I thought how very easy it

would be to murder him, so contentedly and self-assuredly walking before me,

and how such a crime would save me from having to confront the first two

vexing conclusions established by my mind. Furthermore, I wouldn’t have

cracked Elegant Effendi’s skull for no reason at all. Now, if I run ahead eight or

ten paces, catch up to Black and land a blow onto his head with all my might,

everything will go on as usual. Enishte Effendi will invite me to finish our

book. But meanwhile my more honest (what was honesty if not fear?) and

prudent side continued to tell me that the monster I’d murdered and tossed

into a well was truly a slanderer. And if this were the case, I hadn’t killed him

for naught, and Enishte, who no longer had anything to hide with respect to

the book he was making, would most certainly invite me back to his home.

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As I watched Black walking before me, however, I knew with utmost

certainty that none of this would happen. It was all illusion. Black Effendi was

more real than I. It happens to us all: In reaction to being overly logical we’ll

feed fantasies for weeks and years on end, and one day we’ll see something, a

face, an outfit, a happy person, and suddenly realize that our dreams will never

come true; thus, we come to understand that a particular maiden won’t be

permitted to marry us or that we’ll never reach such-and-such a station in life.

I was watching the rise and fall of Black’s shoulders, his head and his

neck—the incredibly annoying way that he walked, as though his every step

were a gift to the world—with a profound hatred that coiled cozily around my

heart. Men like Black, free from pangs of conscience and with promising

futures before them, assume that the entire world is their home; they open

every door like a sultan entering his personal stable and immediately belittle

those of us crouched inside. The urge to grab a stone and run up behind him

was almost too great to resist.

We were two men in love with the same woman; he was in front of me and

completely unaware of my presence as we walked through the turning and

twisting streets of Istanbul, climbing and descending, we traveled like brethren

through deserted streets given over to battling packs of stray dogs, passed

burnt ruins where jinns loitered, mosque courtyards where angels reclined on

domes to sleep, beside cypress trees murmuring to the souls of the dead,

beyond the edges of snow-covered cemeteries crowded with ghosts, just out of

sight of brigands strangling their victims, passed endless shops, stables, dervish

houses, candle works, leather works and stone walls; and as we made ground, I

felt I wasn’t following him at all, but rather, that I was imitating him.

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I AM DEATH

I am Death, as you can plainly see, but you needn’t be afraid, I’m just an

illustration. Be that as it may, I read terror in your eyes. Though you know very

well that I’m not real—like children who give themselves over to a game—

you’re still seized by horror, as if you’d actually met Death himself. This

pleases me. As you look at me, you sense that you’ll soil yourselves out of fear

when that unavoidable last moment is upon you. This is no joke. When faced

with Death, people lose control of their bodily functions—particularly the

majority of those men who are known to be brave-hearted. For this reason,

the corpse-strewn battlefields that you’ve depicted thousands of times reek

not of blood, gunpowder and heated armor as is assumed, but of shit and

rotting flesh.

I know this is the first time you’ve seen a depiction of Death.

One year ago, a tall, thin and mysterious old man invited to his house the

young master miniaturist who would soon enough illustrate me. In the half-

dark workroom of the two-story house, the old man served an exquisite cup of

silky, amber-scented coffee to the young master, which cleared the youth’s

mind. Next, in that shadowy room with the blue door, the old man excited the

master miniaturist by flaunting the best paper from Hindustan, brushes made

of squirrel hair, varieties of gold leaf, all manner of reed pens and coral-

handled penknives, indicating that he would be able to pay handsomely.

“Now then, draw Death for me,” the old man said.

“I cannot draw a picture of Death without ever, not once in my entire life,

having seen a picture of Death,” said the miraculously sure-handed

miniaturist, who would shortly, in fact, end up doing the drawing.

“You do not always need to have seen an illustration of something in order

to depict that thing,” objected the refined and enthusiastic old man.

“Yes, perhaps not,” said the master illustrator. “Yet, if the picture is to be

perfect, the way the masters of old would’ve made it, it ought to be drawn at

least a thousand times before I attempt it. No matter how masterful a

miniaturist might be, when he paints an object for the first time, he’ll render

it as an apprentice would, and I could never do that. I cannot put my mastery

aside while illustrating Death; this would be equivalent to dying myself.”

“Such a death might put you in touch with the subject matter,” quipped

the old man.

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“It’s not experience of subject matter that makes us masters, it’s never

having experienced it that makes us masters.”

“Such mastery ought to be acquainted with Death then.”

In this manner, they entered into an elevated conversation with double

entendre, allusions, puns, obscure references and innuendos, as befit

miniaturists who respected both the old masters as well as their own talent.

Since it was my existence that was being discussed, I listened intently to the

conversation, the entirety of which, I know, would bore the distinguished

miniaturists among us in this good coffeehouse. Let me just say that there

came a point when the discussion touched upon the following:

“Is the measure of a miniaturist’s talent the ability to depict everything

with the same perfection as the great masters or the ability to introduce into

the picture subject matter which no one else can see?” said the sure-handed,

stunning-eyed, brilliant illustrator, and although he himself knew the answer

to this question, he remained quite reserved.

“The Venetians measure a miniaturist’s prowess by his ability to discover

novel subject matter and techniques that have never before been used,”

insisted the old man arrogantly.

“Venetians die like Venetians,” said the illustrator who would soon draw

me.

“All our deaths resemble one another,” said the old man.

“Legends and paintings recount how men are distinct from one another,

not how everybody resembles one another,” said the wise illustrator. “The

master miniaturist earns his mastery by depicting unique legends as if we

were already familiar with them.”

In this manner, the conversation turned to the differences between the

deaths of Venetians and Ottomans, to the Angel of Death and the other angels

of Allah, and how they could never be appropriated by the artistry of the

infidels. The young master who is presently staring at me with his beautiful

eyes in our dear coffeehouse was disturbed by these weighty words, his hands

grew impatient, he longed to depict me, yet he had no idea what kind of entity

I was.

The sly and calculating old man who wanted to beguile the young master

caught the scent of the young man’s eagerness. In the shadowy room, the old

man bore his eyes, which glowed in the light of the idly burning oil lamp, into

the miracle-handed young master.

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“Death, whom the Venetians depict in human form, is to us an angel like

Azrael,” he said. “Yes, in the form of a man. Just like Gabriel, who appeared as

a person when he delivered the Sacred Word to Our Prophet. You do

understand, don’t you?”

I realized that the young master, whom Allah had endowed with

astonishing talent, was impatient and wanted to illustrate me, because the

devilish old man had succeeded in arousing him with this devilish idea: What

we essentially want is to draw something unknown to us in all its

shadowiness, not something we know in all its illumination.

“I am not, in the least, familiar with Death,” said the miniaturist.

“We all know Death,” said the old man.

“We fear it, but we don’t know it.”

“Then it falls to you to draw that fear,” said the old man.

He was about to create me just then. The great master miniaturist’s nape

was tingling; his arm muscles were tensing up and his fingers yearned for a

reed pen. Yet, because he was the most genuine of great masters, he restrained

himself, knowing that this tension would further deepen the love of painting

in his soul.

The wily old man understood what was happening, and aiming to inspire

the youth in his rendition of me, which he was certain would be completed

before long, he began to read passages about me from the books before him:

El-Jevziyye’s Book of the Soul, Gazzali’s Book of the Apocalypse and Suyuti.

And so, as the master miniaturist with the miracle touch was making this

portrait, which you now so fearfully behold, he listened to how the Angel of

Death had thousands of wings which spanned Heaven and Earth, from the

farthest point in the East to the farthest point in the West. He heard how

these wings would be a great comfort to the truly faithful yet for sinners and

rebels as painful as a spike through the flesh. Since a majority of you

miniaturists are bound for Hell, he depicted me laden with spikes. He listened

to how the angel sent to you by Allah to take your lives would carry a ledger

wherein all your names appeared and how, some of your names would be

circled in black. Only Allah has knowledge of the exact moment of death:

When this moment arrives, a leaf falls from the tree located beneath His

throne and whoever lays hold of this leaf can read for whom Death has come.

For all these reasons, the miniaturist depicted me as a terrifying being, but

thoughtful, too, like one who understands accounts. The mad old man

continued to read: when the Angel of Death, who appeared in human form,

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extended his hand and took the soul of the person whose time on Earth had

ended, an all-encompassing light reminiscent of the light of the sun shone, and

thus, the wise miniaturist depicted me bathed in light, for he also knew that

this light wouldn’t be visible to those who had gathered beside the deceased.

The impassioned old man read from the Book of the Soul about ancient grave

robbers who had witnessed, in place of bodies riddled with spikes, only flames

and skulls filled with molten lead. Hence, the wondrous illustrator, listening

intently to such accounts, depicted me in a manner that would terrify

whoever laid eyes on me.

Later, he regretted what he’d done. Not due to the terror with which he’d

imbued his picture, but because he dared to make the illustration at all. As for

me, I feel like someone whose father regards him with embarrassment and

regret. Why did the miniaturist with the gifted hands regret having illustrated

me?

1. Because I, the picture of Death, had not been drawn with enough

mastery. As you can see, I am not as perfect as what the great Venetian masters

or the old masters of Herat drew. I, too, am embarrassed by my wretchedness.

The great master has not depicted me in a style befitting the dignity of Death.

2. Upon being cunningly duped by the old man, the master illustrator who

drew me found himself, suddenly and unwittingly, imitating the methods and