第 26 页

beside a folding worktable. He produced a reed pen from its case, dipped it

into an inkwell and began furiously writing on a small piece of paper. I sensed

his pleasure at my watching him, and to show that I wasn’t afraid, I smiled

exaggeratedly.

“Who is this Hanged Jew, you must know?” he asked.

“Just beyond these houses there’s a yellow one. They say that Moshe

Hamon, the beloved doctor of the previous Sultan and the wealthiest of men,

had for years hidden his Jewish mistress from Amasya and her brother there.

Years ago in Amasya, on the eve of Passover, when a Greek youth supposedly

”disappeared‘ in the Jewish quarter, people claimed that he’d been strangled

so unleavened bread could be made from his blood. When false witnesses were

brought forward, an execution of Jews began; however, the Sultan’s beloved

doctor helped this beautiful woman and her brother escape, and hid them

with the permission of the Sultan. After the Sultan died, His enemies couldn’t

148

find the beautiful woman, but they hanged her brother, who’d been living

alone.“

“If Shekure doesn’t wait for my brother to come back from the front, they’ll

punish her,” said Hasan, handing me the letters.

No anger or wrath could be seen on his face, just the misfortune and

sorrow particular to the love-stricken. I suddenly saw in his eyes how fast love

had aged him. The money he’d begun to earn working in customs hadn’t

made him more youthful at all. After all his offended grimaces and threats, it

dawned on me that he might once again ask me how Shekure could be won

over. But he’d come so close to becoming thoroughly evil that he could no

longer ask. Once one accepts evil—and rejection in love is a significant cause

for doing so—cruelty follows quickly. I became afraid of my thoughts and that

terrible red sword the boys talked about, which severed whatever it touched;

in my desperation to leave, in a near frenzy, I stumbled outside onto the street.

This was how I fell unwitting victim to the curses of the Tatar beggar. But I

immediately pulled myself together. I softly dropped a small stone I’d picked

off the ground into his handkerchief and said, “There you go, mangy Tatar.”

Without laughing, I watched his hand reach hopefully for the stone he

thought was a coin. Ignoring his curses, I headed toward one of my

“daughters,” whom I’d married off to a good husband.

That sweet “daughter” of mine served me a piece of spinach pie, a leftover,

but still crisp. For the afternoon meal she was preparing lamb stew in a sauce

heavy with beaten eggs and spiced with sour plum, just the way I like it. So as

not to disappoint her, I waited and ate two full ladles with fresh bread. She’d

also made a nice compote of stewed grapes. Without any hesitation, I

requested some rose-petal jam, a spoonful of which I stirred into the compote

before topping off my meal. Afterward, I went on to deliver the letters to my

melancholy Shekure.

149

I, SHEKURE

I was in the midst of folding and putting away the clothes that had been

washed and hung out to dry yesterday when Hayriye announced Esther had

come…or, this was what I planned to tell you. But why should I lie? All right

then, when Esther arrived, I was spying on my father and Black through the

closet peephole, impatiently waiting for the letters from Black and Hasan, and

thus, my mind was preoccupied with her. Just as I sensed that my father’s

fears of death were justified, I also knew Black’s interest in me wasn’t eternal.

He was in love insofar as he wanted to be married, and because he wanted to

be married, he easily fell in love. If not me, he’d love. If not me, he’d marry

another, taking care to fall in love with her beforehand.

In the kitchen, Hayriye sat Esther in a corner and handed her a glass of

rosewater sherbet, as she gave me a guilty look. I realized that since Hayriye

had become my father’s mistress, she might be reporting to him everything

she sees. I’m afraid that this may indeed be the case.

“My black-eyed girl, my dark-fortuned beauty, my stunning beauty of

beauties, I was delayed because Nesim, my pig of a husband, kept me occupied

with all sorts of nonsense,” said Esther. “You have no husband senselessly

haranguing you, and I hope you know the value of this.”

She took out the letters; I snatched them from her hand. Hayriye withdrew

to a corner where she wouldn’t be in the way, but could still hear everything

that passed between us. So Esther wouldn’t be able to see my expression, I

turned my back on her and read Black’s letter first. When I thought about the

house of the Hanged Jew, I shuddered for a moment. “Don’t be afraid,

Shekure, you can manage in any situation,” I said to myself and began reading

Hasan’s letter. He was on the verge of madness:

Shekure, I’m burning with desire, yet I know you’re not in the least concerned.

In my dreams, I see myself chasing you over deserted hilltops. Every time you leave

one of my letters—that I know you read—unanswered, a three-feathered arrow

pierces my heart. I’m writing in hopes that you’ll respond this time. The word is

out, everyone’s spreading the news, even your children are saying it: You’ve

dreamed that your husband has died, and now you claim that you’re free. I cannot

say whether or not it’s true. What I do know is that you’re still married to my

older brother and bound to this household. Now that my father finds me justified,

we’re both going to the judge to have you returned here. We’ll be coming with a

150

group of men we’ve assembled; so let your father be forewarned. Collect your

things, you’re to come back to this house. Send your response with Esther

immediately.

After reading the letter a second time, I pulled myself together and gazed at

Esther with questioning eyes, but she told me nothing new about Hasan or

Black.

I pulled out the reed pen that I kept hidden in a corner of the pantry,

placed a sheet of paper on the breadboard and was about to begin writing a

letter to Black when I froze.

Something came to mind. I turned toward Esther: She’d fallen upon the

rosewater sherbet with the joy of a chubby child and so it seemed ridiculous

to me that she could be aware of what was going through my mind.

“See how sweetly you’re smiling, my dear,” she said. “Don’t worry, in the

end everything will be all right. Istanbul is rife with rich gentlemen and pashas

who’d give their souls to be wed to a stunning beauty, possessed of so many

talents like yourself.”

You understand what I’m talking about: Sometimes you’ll say something

you’re convinced of, but no sooner do the words leave your mouth than you

ask yourself, “Why did I say this so halfheartedly, even though I believe it

through and through?” That was what happened when I said the following:

“But Esther, who’d want to marry a widow with two kids, for Heaven’s

sake?”

“A widow like you? Plenty, a slew of men,” she said, conveying them all

with a hand gesture.

I looked into her eyes. I was thinking I did not like her. I fell so silent that

she knew I wasn’t going to give her a letter and even that it would be better if

she left. After Esther had gone, I withdrew to my own corner of the house as

though I could feel my silence—how should I put it—in my soul.

Leaning on the wall, for a long while I stood still in the blackness. I thought

of myself, of what I should do, of the fear that was growing within me. All the

while I could hear Shevket and Orhan chattering upstairs.

“And you’re as timid as a girl,” said Shevket. “You only attack from behind.”

“My tooth is loose,” said Orhan.

151

At the same time, another part of my mind was concentrating on what was

transpiring between my father and Black.

The blue door of the workshop was open, and I could easily hear them:

“After beholding the portraits of the Venetian masters, we realize with

horror,” said my father, “that, in painting, eyes can no longer simply be holes

in a face, always the same, but must be just like our own eyes, which reflect

light like a mirror and absorb it like a well. Lips can no longer be a crack in the

middle of faces flat as paper, but must be nodes of expression—each a

different shade of red—fully expressing our joys, sorrows and spirits with their

slightest contraction or relaxation. Our noses can no longer be a kind of wall

that divides our faces, but rather, living and curious instruments with a form

unique to each of us.”

Was Black as surprised as I was that my father referred to those infidel

gentlemen who had their pictures made as “we”? When I looked through the

peephole, I found Black’s face to be so pale that I was momentarily alarmed.

My dark beloved, my troubled hero, were you unable to sleep for thinking of

me the whole night? Is that why the blush has left your face?

Perhaps you aren’t aware that Black is a tall, thin and handsome man. He

has a broad forehead, almond-shaped eyes and a strong, straight, elegant nose.

As in his childhood, his hands are long and thin and his fingers are jittery and

agile. He’s wiry, and stands straight and tall, with shoulders on the broad side,

but not as broad as those of a water carrier. When he was younger, his body

and his face hadn’t yet settled. Twelve years later, when I first laid eyes on him

from this dark refuge of mine, I immediately saw that he’d attained a kind of

perfection.

Now, when I bring my eye right up to the hole, I see on his face the worry

that plagues him. I felt at once guilty and proud that he’d suffered so on my

account. Black listened to what my father said, gazing upon an illustration

made for the book, with a look completely innocent and childlike. Just then,

when I saw that he’d opened his pink mouth as a child would have, I

unexpectedly felt, yes, like putting my breast into it. With my fingers on his

nape and tangled in his hair, Black would place his head between my breasts,

and as my own children used to do, he’d roll his eyes back into his head with

pleasure as he sucked on my nipple: After understanding that only through my

compassion would he find peace, he’d become completely bound to me.

I perspired faintly and imagined Black marveling at the size of my breasts

with surprise and intensity—rather than studying the illustration of the Devil

152

that my father was actually showing him. Not only my breasts, but as if drunk

with the vision of me, he was gazing at my hair, my neck, at all of me. He was

so attracted to me that he was giving voice to those sweet nothings he

couldn’t summon as a youth; from his glances, I realized how he was in awe of

my proud demeanor, my manners, my upbringing, the way I waited patiently

and bravely for my husband, and the beauty of the letter I’d written him.

I felt anger toward my father, who was setting things up so I wouldn’t be

able to marry again. I was also fed up with those illustrations he was having

the miniaturists make in imitation of the Frankish masters, and I was sick of

his recollections of Venice.

When I closed my eyes again—Allah, it wasn’t my own desire—in my

thoughts, Black had approached me so sweetly that in the dark I could feel him

beside me. Suddenly, I sensed that he’d come up from behind me, he was

kissing the nape of my neck, the back of my ears, and I could feel how strong

he was. He was solid, large and hard, and I could lean on him. I felt secure. My

nape tingled, my nipples were stiffening. It seemed as if there in the dark, with

my eyes closed, I could feel his enlarged member behind me, close to me. My

head spun. What was Black’s like? I wondered.

At times in my dreams, my husband in his agony shows his to me. I come

to the awareness that my husband is struggling to keep his bloody body,

lanced and shot with Persian arrows, walking upright as he approaches. But

sadly, there is a river between us. As he calls to me from the opposite bank,

covered in blood and suffering terribly, I notice that he has become erect. If it’s

true what the Georgian bride said at the public bath, and if there’s truth to

what the old hags say, “Yes, it grows that large,” then my husband’s wasn’t so

big. If Black’s is bigger, if that enormous thing I saw under Black’s belt when

he took up the empty piece of paper I’d sent by Shevket yesterday; if that was

actually it—and it surely was—I’m afraid I’ll suffer great pain, if it even fits

inside me at all.

“Mother, Shevket is mocking me.”

I left the black corner of the closet, quietly passing into the room across the

hall, where I removed the red broadcloth vest from the chest and put it on.

They’d spread out my mattress and were shouting and frolicking on it.

“Didn’t I warn you that when Black visits you aren’t to shout, did I not?”

“Mama, why did you put that red vest on?” Shevket asked.

“But Mother, Shevket was mocking me,” Orhan said.

153

“Didn’t I tell you not to mock him? And what’s this foul thing doing here?”

Off to the side there was a piece of animal hide.

“It’s a carcass,” Orhan said. “Shevket found it on the street.”

“Quick, take it and throw it back where you found it, now.”

“Let Shevket do it.”

“I said now!”

As I would do before I slapped them, I bit my lower lip angrily, and seeing

how serious I really was, they fled in fright. I hope they return soon so they

don’t catch cold.

Of all the miniaturists, I liked Black the best. He liked me more than the

others did and I understood his soul. I took out pen and paper, and in one

sitting, without having to think, I wrote the following: