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through my mouth. All was subsumed in wondrous silence.

I could see now that my soul had left my body and that I was cupped in

Azrael’s hand. My soul, the size of a bee, was bathed in light, and it shuddered

as it left my body and continued to tremble like mercury in Azrael’s palm. My

thoughts were not of this, however, but of the unfamiliar new world I’d just

been born into.

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After so much suffering, a calm overcame me. Death did not cause me the

pain I’d feared; on the contrary, I relaxed, quickly realizing that my present

situation was a permanent one, whereas the constraints I’d felt in life were

only temporary. This was how it would be from now on, for century upon

century, until the end of the universe. This neither upset nor gladdened me.

Events I’d once endured briskly and sequentially were now spread over infinite

space and existed simultaneously. As in one of those large double-leaf

paintings wherein a witty miniaturist has painted a number of unrelated

things in each corner—many things were happening all at once.

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I, SHEKURE

It was snowing so hard that snowflakes occasionally passed right through my

veil into my eyes. I picked my way through the garden covered in rotting grass,

mud and broken branches, then quickened my pace once I’d exited onto the

street. I know you’re all wondering what I’m thinking. How much do I trust

Black? Let me be frank with you, then. I myself don’t know what to think. You

do understand, don’t you? I’m confused. This much, however, I do know: As

always, I’ll fall into the routine of meals, children, my father and errands, and

before long my heart, without even having to be asked, will whisper the truth

to me of its own accord. Tomorrow, before noon, I’ll know whom I am to

marry.

I want to share something with you before I arrive home. No! Come off it,

now, it’s not about the size of that monstrosity Black showed me. If you want

we can talk about that later. What I was going to discuss was Black’s haste. It’s

not that he seems to think only of satisfying his lust. To be honest, it’d make

no difference if he did. What surprises me is his stupidity! I suppose it never

crossed his mind that he could frighten and abduct me, play with my honor

and put me off, or open the door to even more dangerous outcomes. I can tell

from his innocent expression how much he loves and desires me. But after

waiting twelve years, why can’t he play the game according to the rules and

wait another twelve days?

Do you know I have the sinking feeling I’ve fallen in love with his

incompetence and his melancholy childlike glances? At a time when it

would’ve been more appropriate to be irate with him, instead, I pitied him.

“Oh, my poor child,” a voice inside me said, “you suffer such torment and are

still so utterly incompetent.” I felt so protective of him that I might’ve even

made a mistake, I might’ve actually given myself to that spoiled little boy.

Thinking of my unfortunate children, I quickened my steps. Just then, in

the early darkness and blinding snow, I thought a phantom of a man would

run right over me. Ducking my head, I slipped by him.

Upon entering through the courtyard gate, I knew that Hayriye and the

children hadn’t yet returned. Very well then, I’d come back in time, the

evening prayers hadn’t yet been called. I climbed the stairs, the house smelled

of orange jam. My father was in his darkened room with the blue door; my

feet were freezing. I entered my room to the right beside the stairs holding a

lamp, and when I saw that the cabinet had been opened, that the cushions had

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fallen out and the room had been ransacked, I assumed it was the naughty

work of Shevket and Orhan. There was a silence in the house, not unusual, yet

unlike the usual silence. I donned my house clothes and sat alone in the

darkness, and as I gave myself over to momentary daydreaming, my mind

registered a noise coming from below, directly below me, not from the kitchen

but from the large room next to the stable, used in summertime as the

illustrating workshop. Had my father gone down there, in this cold? I didn’t

remember seeing the light of an oil lamp there; suddenly, I heard the squeak of

the front door between the stone walkway and the courtyard, and afterward,

the cursed and ominous barking of the pesky dogs roaming past the courtyard

gate—I was alarmed, to put it mildly.

“Hayriye,” I shouted. “Shevket, Orhan…”

I felt a cold draft. My father’s brazier must be burning; I ought to sit with

him and warm up. As I went to be with him, holding an oil lamp aloft, my

thoughts weren’t with Black any longer, but with the children.

I crossed the wide hall diagonally, wondering if I should set water to boil on

the downstairs brazier for the gray mullet soup. I entered the room with the

blue door. Everything was in shambles. Without thinking, I was about to say,

“What has my father done?”

Then I saw him on the floor.

I screamed, overcome with horror. Then I screamed again. Gazing at my

father’s body, I fell silent.

Listen, I can tell by your tight-lipped and cold-blooded reaction that you’ve

known for some time what’s happened in this room. If not everything, then

quite a lot. What you’re wondering about now is my reaction to what I’ve

seen, what I feel. As readers sometimes do when studying a picture, you’re

trying to discern the pain of the hero and thinking about the events in the

story leading up to this agonizing moment. And then, having considered my

reaction, you’ll take pleasure in trying to imagine, not my pain, but what

you’d feel in my place, had it been your father murdered like this. I know this

is what you’re so craftily trying to do.

Yes, I returned home in the evening to discover that someone had killed my

father. Yes, I tore out my hair. Yes, as I would do in my childhood, I hugged

him with all my might and smelled his skin. Yes, I trembled and I couldn’t

breathe. Yes, I begged Allah to raise him up and have him sit silently in his

corner among his books as he always did. Get up, Father, get up, don’t die. His

bloodied head was crushed. More than the torn papers and books, more than

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the breaking and tossing about of the end tables, paint sets and inkpots, more

than the wild destruction of cushions, worktables and writing boards, and the

ransacking of everything, more even than the anger that had killed my father, I

feared the hatred that had destroyed the room and everything within it. I was

no longer crying. A couple passed down the street outside, laughing and

talking in the blackness; meanwhile, I could hear the infinite silence of the

world in my mind; with my hands I wiped my running nose and the tears off

my cheeks. For a long long time I thought about the children and our lives.

I listened to the silence. I ran, I grabbed my father by the ankles and

dragged him into the hallway. For whatever reason, he felt heavier out there,

but without paying any mind to this, I began to pull him down the stairs.

Halfway down, my strength gave out and I sat on a step. I was on the verge of

tears again when I heard a noise that made me assume that Hayriye and the

children had returned. I grabbed my father by the ankles, and pressing them

into my armpits, I continued to descend, faster this time. My dear father’s

head had been so crushed and was so soaked in blood that it made the sound

of a wrung-out mop as it struck each step. At the base of the stairs, I turned

his body, which now seemed to have grown lighter, and with one great effort,

dragging him across the stone floor, I took him into the summer painting

room. In order to see within the pitch-black room, I hastened back out to the

stove in the kitchen. When I returned with a candle I saw how thoroughly the

room where I’d dragged my father had been pillaged. I was dumbstruck.

Who is it, my God, which one of them?

My mind was churning. Closing the door tightly, I left my father in the

demolished room. I grabbed a bucket from the kitchen, and filled it with water

from the well. I climbed the stairs, and by the light of an oil lamp, I quickly

wiped away the blood in the hallway, on the staircase and everywhere else. I

went back upstairs to my room, removed my bloodied clothes and put on

clean clothes. Carrying the bucket and rag, I was about to enter the room with

the blue door when I heard the courtyard gate swing open. The evening call to

prayer had begun. I mustered all my strength, and holding the oil lamp in my

hand, I waited for them at the top of the stairs.

“Mother, we’re back,” Orhan said.

“Hayriye! Where have you been!” I said forcefully, but as if I were

whispering, not shouting.

“But Mother, we didn’t stay out past the evening call to prayer…” Shevket

had begun to say.

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“Quiet! Your grandfather is ill, he’s sleeping.”

“Ill?” said Hayriye from below. She could tell from my silence that I was

angry: “Shekure, we waited for Kosta. After the gray mullet arrived, without

tarrying, we picked bay leaves, then I bought the dried figs and cherries for the

children.”

I had the urge to go down and admonish Hayriye in a whisper, but I was

afraid that as I was going downstairs, the oil lamp I carried would illuminate

the wet steps and the drops of blood I’d missed in my haste. The children

noisily climbed the stairs and then removed their shoes.

“Ah-ah-ah,” I said. Guiding them toward our bedroom, “Not that way, your

grandfather’s sleeping, don’t go in there.”

“I’m going into the room with the blue door, to be by the brazier,” Shevket

said, “not to Grandfather’s room.”

“Your grandfather fell asleep in that room,” I whispered.

But I noticed that they hesitated for a moment. “Let’s be certain that the

evil jinns that’ve possessed your grandfather and made him sick don’t set

upon the both of you as well,” I said. “Go to your room, now.” I grabbed both

of them by their hands and put them into the room where we slept together.

“Tell me then, what were you doing out on the streets till this hour?” “We saw

some black beggars,” said Shevket. “Where?” I asked. “Were they carrying

flags?” “As we were climbing the hill. They gave Hayriye a lemon. Hayriye gave

them some money. They were covered in snow.” “What else?” “They were

practicing shooting arrows at a target in the square.” “In this snow?” I said.

“Mother, I’m cold,” said Shevket. “I’m going into the room with the blue

door.” “You’re not to leave this room,” I said. “Otherwise you’ll die. I’ll bring

you the brazier.” “Why do you say we’re going to die?” said Shevket. “I’m

going to tell you something,” I said, “but you’re not to tell anyone, are we

understood?” They swore not to tell. “While you were out, a completely white

man who’d died and lost his color came here from a faraway country and

spoke to your grandfather. It turns out he was a jinn.” They asked me where

the jinn came from. “From the other side of the river,” I said. “Where our

father is?” asked Shevket. “Yes, from there,” I said. “The jinn came to take a

look at the pictures in your grandfather’s books. They say that a sinner who

looks at those pictures immediately dies.”

A silence.

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“Listen, I’m going downstairs to be with Hayriye,” I said. “I’m going to

carry the brazier in here, as well as the dinner tray. Don’t even think of leaving

the room or you’ll die. The jinn is still in the house.”

“Mama, Mama, don’t go,” Orhan said.

I squared myself to Shevket. “You’re responsible for your brother,” I said. “If

you leave the room and the jinn doesn’t get you, I’ll be the one who kills you.”

I put on the frightening expression that I made before slapping them. “Now

pray that your ill grandfather doesn’t die. If you’re good, God will grant you

your prayers and no one will be able to harm you.” Without giving themselves

over to it too much, they began to pray. I went downstairs.

“Somebody knocked over the pot of orange jam,” said Hayriye. “The cat

couldn’t have done it, not strong enough; a dog couldn’t have gotten into the

house…”

She abruptly saw the terror on my face and stopped: “What’s the matter,

then,” she said, “what happened? Has something happened to your dear

father?”

“He’s dead.”

She shrieked. The knife and onion she was holding fell from her hands and

hit the cutting board with such force that the fish she was preparing flopped.

She shrieked again. We both noticed that the blood on her left hand had

come, not from the fish, but from her index finger, which she’d sliced

accidentally. I ran upstairs, and as I was searching for a piece of muslin in the

room opposite the one the children were in, I heard their noises and shouts.

Holding the piece of cloth I’d torn off, I entered the room to find that Shevket

had climbed onto his younger brother, pinning Orhan’s shoulders down with

his knees. He was choking him.

“What are you two doing!” I shouted at the top of my lungs.

“Orhan was leaving the room,” Shevket said.

“Liar,” said Orhan. “Shevket opened the door and I told him not to leave.”

He began to cry.

“If you don’t sit up here quietly, I’ll kill both of you.”

“Mama, don’t go,” Orhan said.

Downstairs, I bound Hayriye’s finger, stopping the bleeding. When I told

her that my father hadn’t died a natural death, she grew frightened and

recited some prayers asking for Allah’s protection. She stared at her injured

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finger and began crying. Was her affection for my father great enough to