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fruit, gold, silver leaf and polished stones. More than embarrassment, I felt a

sadness that threatened to fill my eyes with tears each time the disrespectful

hand-drum and zurna players simply stopped playing when our procession got

swallowed up in crowds of market-goers or servants fetching water from the

fountain in the square because we had no one clearing the way with shouts of

“Here comes the bride.” As we were nearing the house, I mustered the courage

to turn in my saddle and gaze at her, and was relieved that beneath her pink

bride’s tinsel and red veil, far from being saddened by all these pitiful

shortcomings, she seemed heartened to know that we’d concluded our

procession and our journey with neither accident nor mishap. So, like all

grooms, I lowered my beautiful bride, whom I would shortly wed, from her

horse, took her by the arm, and handful by handful, slowly emptied a bag of

silver coins over her head before the gleeful crowd. While the children who’d

followed behind our meager parade scrambled for the coins, Shekure and I

entered the courtyard and crossed the stone walkway, and as soon as we

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entered the house, we were struck not only by the heat, but the horror of the

heavy smell of decay.

While the throng from the procession was making itself comfortable in the

house, Shekure and the crowd of elders, women and children (Orhan was

glaring suspiciously at me from the corner) carried on as if nothing were

amiss, and momentarily I doubted my senses; but I knew how corpses left

under the sun after battle, their clothes tattered, boots and belts stolen, and

their faces, their eyes and lips ravaged by wolves and birds smelled. It was a

stench that had so often filled my mouth and lungs to the point of suffocation

that I could not mistake it.

Downstairs in the kitchen, I asked Hayriye about Enishte Effendi’s body,

aware that I was speaking to her for the first time as master of the house.

“As you asked, we laid out his mattress, dressed him in his nightclothes,

drew his quilt over him and placed bottles of syrup beside him. If he’s giving

off an unpleasant smell, it’s probably due to the heat from the brazier in the

room,” the woman said through tears.

One or two of her tears fell, sizzling into the pot she was using to fry the

mutton. From the way she was crying, I supposed that Enishte Effendi had

been taking her into his bed at night. Esther, who was quietly and proudly

sitting in a corner of the kitchen, swallowed what she was chewing and stood.

“Make her happiness your foremost concern,” she said. “Recognize her

worth.”

In my thoughts I heard the lute I’d heard on the street the first day I’d

come to Istanbul. More than sadness, there was vigor in its melody. I heard the

melody of that music again later, in the half-darkened room where my Enishte

lay in his white nightgown, as the Imam Effendi married us.

Because Hayriye had furtively aired out the room beforehand and placed

the oil lamp in a corner so its light was dimmed, one could scarcely tell that

my Enishte was sick let alone dead. Thus, he served as Shekure’s legal guardian

during the ceremony. My friend the barber, along with a know-it-all

neighborhood elder, served as witnesses. Before the ceremony ended with the

hopeful blessings and advice of the preacher and the prayers of all in

attendance, a nosy old man, concerned about the state of my Enishte’s health,

was about to lower his skeptical head toward the deceased; but as soon as the

preacher completed the ceremony, I leapt from my spot, grabbed my Enishte’s

rigid hand and shouted at the top of my voice:

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“Put your worries to rest, my sir, my dear Enishte. I’ll do everything within

my power to care for Shekure and her children, to see they’re well clothed and

well fed, loved and untroubled.”

Next, to suggest that my Enishte was trying to whisper to me from his

sickbed, I carefully and respectfully pressed my ear to his mouth, pretending to

listen to him intently and wide-eyed, as young men do when an elder they

respect offers one or two words of advice distilled from an entire lifetime,

which they then imbibe like some magic elixir. The Imam Effendi and the

neighborhood elder appeared to appreciate and approve of the loyalty and

eternal devotion I showed my father-in-law. I hope that nobody still thinks I

had a hand in his murder.

I announced to the wedding guests still in the room that the afflicted man

wished to be left alone. They abruptly began to leave, passing into the next

room where the men had gathered to feast on Hayriye’s pilaf and mutton (at

this point I could scarcely distinguish the smell of the corpse from the aroma

of thyme, cumin and frying lamb). I stepped into the wide hallway, and like

some morose patriarch roaming absentmindedly and wistfully through his

own house, I opened the door to Hayriye’s room, paying no mind to the

women who were horrified to have a man in their midst, and gazing sweetly at

Shekure, whose eyes beamed with bliss to see me, said:

“Your father’s calling for you, Shekure. We’re married now, you’re to kiss

his hand.”

The handful of neighborhood women to whom Shekure had sent last-

minute invitations and the young maidens I assumed were relatives motioned

to collect themselves and cover their faces, all the while scrutinizing me to

their heart’s content.

Not long after the evening call to prayer the wedding guests dispersed,

having heartily partaken of the walnuts, almonds, dried fruit leather, comfits

and clove candy. In the women’s quarters, Shekure’s incessant crying and the

bickering of the unruly children had dampened the festivity. Among the men,

my stony-faced silence in response to the mirthful wedding-night gibes of the

neighbors was attributed to my preoccupation with my father-in-law’s illness.

Amid all the distress, the scene most clearly ingrained in my memory was my

leading Shekure to Enishte’s room before dinner. We were alone at last. After

both of us kissed the dead man’s cold and rigid hand with sincere respect, we

withdrew to a dark corner of the room and kissed each other as if slaking a

great thirst. Upon my wife’s fiery tongue, which I’d successfully taken into my

mouth, I could taste the hard candies that the children greedily ate.

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I, SHEKURE

The last guests of our woeful wedding veiled and covered themselves, put on

their shoes, dragged off their children, who were tossing a last piece of candy

into their mouths, and left us to a penetrating silence. We were all in the

courtyard, nothing could be heard but the faint noise of a sparrow gingerly

drinking water from the half-filled well bucket. This sparrow, whose tiny head

feathers gleamed in the light of the stone hearth, abruptly vanished into the

blackness, and I felt the insistent presence of the corpse in my father’s bed

within our emptied house, now swallowed by night.

“Children,” I said in the cadence Orhan and Shevket recognized as the one I

used to announce something, “come here, the both of you.”

They did so.

“Black is now your father. Let’s see you kiss his hand.”

They did so, quietly and docilely. “Since they’ve grown up without a father,

my unfortunate children know nothing of obeying one, of heeding his words

while looking into his eyes, or of trusting in him,” I said to Black. “Thus, if they

behave disrespectfully, wildly, immaturely or childishly toward you, I know

that you’ll show them tolerance at first, understanding that they’ve been

raised without ever once obeying their father, whom they do not even

remember.”

“I remember my father,” said Shevket.

“Hush…and listen,” I said. “From now on Black’s word carries more weight

than even my own.” I faced Black. “If they refuse to listen to you, if they are

disobedient or show even the slightest sign of being rude, spoiled or ill-

mannered, first warn them, but forgive them,” I said, forgoing the mention of

beatings that was on the tip of my tongue. “Whatever space I occupy in your

heart, they shall share that space, too.”

“I didn’t marry you solely to be your husband,” said Black, “but also to be

father to these dear boys.”

“Did you two hear that?”

“Oh my Lord, I pray you never neglect to shine your light down upon us,”

Hayriye interjected from a corner. “My dear God, I pray you protect us, my

Lord.”

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“You two did hear, didn’t you?” I said. “Good for you, my pretty young

men. Since your father loves you like this, should you suddenly lose control

and disregard his words, he will have forgiven you for it beforehand.”

“And I’ll forgive them afterward, as well,” said Black.

“However, if you two defy his warning a third time…then, you’ll have

earned the right to a beating,” I said. “Are we understood? Your new father,

Black, has come here from the vilest, the worst of battles, from wars that were

the very wrath of God and from which your late father did not return; yes,

he’s a hardened man. Your grandfather has spoiled you and indulged you. Your

grandfather is now very ill.”

“I want to go and be with him,” Shevket said.

“If you’re not going to listen, Black will teach you what it means to get a

beating from Hell. Your grandfather won’t be able to save you from Black the

way he used to protect you from me. If you don’t want to suffer your father’s

wrath, you’re not to fight anymore, you’re to share everything, tell no lies,

perform your prayers, not go to bed before memorizing your lessons and

you’re not to speak roughly to Hayriye or tease her…Are we understood?”

In one movement, Black crouched down and took Orhan up in his arms.

Shevket kept his distance. I had the fleeting urge to embrace him and weep.

My poor forlorn and fatherless son, my poor solitary Shevket, you’re so alone

in this immense world. I thought of myself as a small child, like Shevket, a

child all alone in the world, and remembered how once I’d been held in my

dear father’s arms the way Orhan was now being held by Black. But unlike

Orhan, I wasn’t awkward in my father’s embrace, like a fruit unaccustomed to

its tree. I was delighted; I recalled how my father and I would often embrace,

sniffing each other’s skin. I was on the verge of tears, but restrained myself.

Though I hadn’t planned to say anything of the sort, I said:

“Come now, let’s hear you call Black ”Father.“”

The night was so cold and our courtyard was so very silent. In the distance

dogs were barking and howling pitifully and sorrowfully. A few more minutes

passed. The silence bloomed and spread secretly like a black flower.

“All right, children,” I said much later. “Let’s go inside so we all don’t catch

cold out here.”

It wasn’t only Black and I who felt the timidity of a bride and groom left

alone after the wedding, but Hayriye and the children, all of us, entered our

home hesitantly as though it were the darkened house of a stranger. We were

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met with the smell of my father’s corpse, but nobody seemed to be aware of

it. We silently climbed the stairs, and the shadows cast onto the ceiling by our

oil lamps, as always, spun and merged, now expanding, now shrinking, yet

seemed somehow to be doing so for the first time. Upstairs, as we were

removing our shoes in the hall, Shevket said:

“Before I go to sleep can I kiss my grandfather’s hand?”

“I checked in on him just now,” Hayriye said. “Your grandfather is in such

pain and discomfort it’s clear that evil spirits have taken hold of him. The fever

of the illness has consumed him. Go to your room so I can prepare your bed.”

Hayriye herded them into the room. As she laid out the mattress and

spread out the sheets and quilts, she was going on as if every object she held

was a marvel unique to the world, and muttering about how sleeping here in a

warm room between clean sheets and under warm down quilts would be like

spending the night in a sultan’s palace.

“Hayriye, tell us a story,” said Orhan as he sat on his chamber pot.

“Once upon a time there was a blue man,” said Hayriye, “and his closest

companion was a jinn.”

“Why was the man blue?” said Orhan.

“For goodness sake, Hayriye,” I said. “Tonight at least don’t tell a story

about jinns and ghosts.”

“Why shouldn’t she?” said Shevket. “Mother, after we fall asleep do you

leave the bed and go to be with Grandfather?”

“Your grandfather, Allah protect him, is gravely ill,” I said. “Of course I go to

his bedside at night to look after him. Then, I return to our bed, don’t I?”

“Have Hayriye look after Grandfather,” said Shevket. “Doesn’t Hayriye look

after my grandfather at night anyway?”

“Are you finished?” Hayriye asked of Orhan. As she wiped Orhan’s behind

with a wet rag, his face was overcome with a sweet lethargy. She glanced into

the pot and wrinkled up her face, not due to the smell, but as if what she saw

wasn’t sufficient.

“Hayriye,” I said. “Empty the chamber pot and bring it back. I don’t want

Shevket to leave the room in the middle of the night.”

“Why shouldn’t I leave the room?” asked Shevket. “Why shouldn’t Hayriye

tell us a story about jinns and fairies?”

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“Because there are jinns in the house, you idiot,” Orhan said, not so much

out of fear, but with the dumb optimism I always noticed in his expression

after he’d relieved himself.

“Mother, are there jinns here?”

“If you leave the room, if you attempt to see your grandfather, the jinn will

catch you.”

“Where will Black lay out his bed?” said Shevket. “Where will he sleep