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said.

“If Shekure desires to see these sketches, let her come get them herself,” said

Kalbiye with no small hint of conceit.

268

I AM CALLED BLACK

Maybe you’ve understood by now that for men like myself, that is, melancholy

men for whom love, agony, happiness and misery are just excuses for

maintaining eternal loneliness, life offers neither great joy nor great sadness.

I’m not saying we can’t relate to other souls overwhelmed by these feelings,

on the contrary, we sympathize with them. What we cannot fathom is the odd

disquiet our souls sink into at such times. This silent turmoil dims our

intellects and dampens our hearts, usurping the place reserved for the true joy

and sadness we ought to experience.

I had buried her father, thank God, hurried home from the funeral, and in a

gesture of condolence, embraced my wife, Shekure; then suddenly, in a fit of

tears she collapsed onto a large cushion with her children, who were glaring at

me with spite, and I didn’t know what to do. Her misery coincided with my

victory. In one fell swoop, I had wed the dream of my youth, freed myself from

her father who belittled me, and become master of the house. Who would

ever believe the sincerity of my tears? But believe me, it wasn’t like that. I truly

wanted to grieve, but couldn’t: Enishte had always been more of a father to

me than my real father. But since the meddlesome preacher who’d performed

Enishte’s final ablution never stopped babbling, the rumor that my Enishte

died under mysterious circumstances spread among the neighbors during the

funeral—as I could sense standing in the courtyard of the mosque. I didn’t

want my inability to cry to be interpreted negatively; I don’t have to tell you

how real the fear of being branded “stonehearted” is.

You know how some sympathetic aunt will always attest that “he’s crying

on the inside” to prevent someone like me from being banished from the

group. I did in fact cry on the inside as I tried to hide in a corner from the

busybody neighbors and distant relatives with their astonishing abilities to

summon a downpour of tears; I thought about being the master of the house

and whether I should somehow take charge of the situation, but just then

there came a knock at the door. A moment of panic. Was it Hasan? Regardless,

I wanted to save myself from this hell of whimpering at whatever cost.

It was a royal page, summoning me to the palace. I was stunned.

As I exited the courtyard, I found a mud-covered silver coin on the ground.

Was I afraid to go to the palace? Yes, but I was also happy to be outside in the

cold among the horses, dogs, trees and people. I thought I’d befriend the

pageboy like those hopeless daydreamers who, believing they might sweeten

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the world’s cruelty before facing the executioner, attempt a lighthearted

conversation with the dungeon guard about this and that, the beauties of life,

the ducks afloat on the pond, or the strangeness of a cloud in the sky; but alas

he disappointed me, proving a rather morose, pimply, tight-lipped youth. As I

passed the Hagia Sophia, noticing with awe the slender cypresses delicately

stretching into the hazy sky, it wasn’t the horror of dying right after marrying

Shekure after all these years that made my hair stand on end. It was the

injustice of dying at the hands of the palace torturers without having shared

one good session of lovemaking with her.

We didn’t walk toward the terrifying spires of the Middle Gate, beyond

which the torturers and the quick-handed executioners saw to their work, but

toward the carpentry shops. As we headed between the granaries, a cat

cleaning itself in the mud between the legs of a chestnut horse with steaming

nostrils turned but didn’t look at us: The cat was preoccupied with its own

filth, much as we were.

Behind the granaries, two figures, whose rank and affiliation I couldn’t

determine from their green and purple uniforms, relieved the pageboy, and

locked me into the dark room of a small house, which I could tell was new by

the smell of fresh lumber. I knew locking a man up in a dark room was meant

to arouse fear before torture; hoping they’d begin with the bastinado, I

thought about the lies I could tell to save my hide. A crowd in the adjoining

room seemed to be raising quite a ruckus.

There are most certainly those of you who can’t attribute my mocking and

mirthful tone to that of a man on the verge of torture. But haven’t I

mentioned I consider myself one of God’s luckier servants? And if the birds of

fortune that alighted upon my head these last two days after years of

deprivation aren’t proof enough, surely the silver coin I found outside the

courtyard gate must be some indication.

Awaiting my torture, I was comforted by the silver coin and had complete

faith it would protect me; I palmed it, rubbed it and repeatedly kissed this

token of good fortune that Allah had sent me. But at whatever time they

removed me from the darkness and brought me into the next room where I

saw the Commander of the Imperial Guard and his bald-headed Croatian

torturers, I knew the silver coin was worthless. The pitiless voice within me

was absolutely correct: The coin in my pocket hadn’t come from God, but was

one of those that I’d showered Shekure with two days ago—that the children

overlooked. Hence, in the hands of my torturers, I had nothing in which to

take refuge.

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I didn’t even notice that tears began to fall from my eyes. I wanted to beg,

but as in a dream, no sound issued from my mouth. I knew from wars, deaths

and political assassination and torture (which I’d witnessed from afar) that life

could be extinguished instantaneously, but I’d never experienced it this

closely. They were going to strip me from this world just as they’d stripped off

my garments.

They took off my vest and shirt. One of the executioners sat on me, driving

his knees into my shoulders. Another placed a cage over my head with all the

practiced elegance of a woman preparing food and began slowly turning the

screw at its front. Nay, it wasn’t a cage, but rather a vise that gradually

squeezed my head.

I screamed at the top of my lungs. I begged, but incoherently. I cried, mostly

because my nerves had given out.

They stopped momentarily and asked: “Were you the one who killed

Enishte Effendi?”

I took a deep breath: “Nay.”

They began to tighten the vise again. It was excruciating.

They asked again.

“Nay.”

“Who then?”

“I don’t know!”

I wondered if I should just tell them I’d killed him. The world spun

pleasantly about my head. I was overcome with reluctance. I asked myself if I

were growing accustomed to the pain. My executioners and I stayed still for a

moment. I felt no pain, I was simply terrified.

Just as I decided from the silver coin in my pocket that they weren’t going

to kill me, they suddenly released me. They removed the viselike contraption

that had actually done little damage to my head. The executioner who’d

pinned me down stood up without even a hint of apology. I donned my shirt

and vest.

There passed a very long silence.

At the other end of the room, I saw Head Illuminator Osman Effendi. I

went to him and kissed his hand.

“Don’t be concerned, my child,” he said to me. “They were just testing

you.”

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I knew at once that I’d found a new father to replace Enishte, may he rest

in peace.

“Our Sultan has ordered that you not be tortured at this time,” said the

Commander. “He deemed it appropriate for you to help Head Illuminator

Master Osman find the rogue who’s been killing His miniaturists and the loyal

servants preparing His manuscripts. You have three days in which to

interrogate the miniaturists, scrutinize the illuminated pages they’ve made

and find the sly culprit. The Sovereign is quite appalled by the rumors being

spread by mischief makers about His miniaturists and illuminated

manuscripts. Both the Head Treasurer Haz?m Agha and I will help you find this

scoundrel, as the Sultan has decreed. One of you has been very close to Enishte

Effendi, and has thus heard his recitations and knows about the miniaturists

who visited him at night and the story behind the book. The other is a great

master who takes pride in knowing all the miniaturists of the workshop like

the back of his hand. Within three days, if you fail to produce that swine along

with the missing page he stole—about which much gossip is flying—it is Our

Just Sultan’s express desire that you, my child Black Effendi, be the first to

undergo torture and interrogation. Afterward, let there be no doubt, each of

the other master miniaturists will have his turn.”

I could detect no secret gestures or signs between these two old friends,

who’d worked together for years: Head Treasurer Haz?m Agha, who

commissioned the work, and Head Illuminator Master Osman Effendi, who

received the funds and materials through him from the treasury.

“Everyone knows, whenever a crime is committed within Our Sultan’s

wards, regiments and divisions, that the entire group is considered guilty until

one among them is identified and turned in. A section that fails to name the

murderer in its midst goes down in the judicial records as a ”division of

murderers,“ including its officer or master, and is punished accordingly,” said

the Commander. “Therefore, our Head Illuminator Master Osman will keep a

sharp watch, scrutinize each of the illustrations with his penetrating gaze,

uncover the devilry, ruse, mischief and instigation that has set the innocent

miniaturists at each other’s throats, and remand the guilty party to the

unwavering justice of the Refuge of the World, Our Sultan, thereby clearing

the good name of his guild. To this end, we’ve ordered that whatsoever Master

Osman may require be granted to him. My men are at this moment

confiscating each of the manuscript pages that the master miniaturists have

been illuminating in the privacy of their homes.”

272

IT IS I, MASTER OSMAN

The Commader of the Imperial Guard and the Head Treasurer reiterated Our

Sultan’s decrees before leaving the two of us alone. Of course, Black was

exhausted by fear, crying and the ruse of torture. He fell quiet like a boy. I

knew I would come to like him, and I didn’t disturb his peace.

I had three days to examine the pages that the Commander’s men collected

from the homes of my calligraphers and master miniaturists, and to

determine who had worked on them. You all know how disgusted I was when

I first laid eyes on the paintings prepared for Enishte Effendi’s book, and how

Black had given them to the Head Treasurer Haz?m Agha to clear his name.

Granted, there must be something to those pages for them to arouse such

violent disgust and hatred in a miniaturist like myself who’s devoted his life to

artistry; merely bad art wouldn’t provoke such a reaction. So, with newfound

curiosity, I began to reexamine the nine pages that the deceased fool had

commissioned from the miniaturists who came to him under cover of night.

I saw a tree in the middle of a blank page, situated within poor Elegant’s

border design and gilding work, which gracefully framed every page. I tried to

conjure the scene and story to which the tree belonged. If I had told my

illustrators to draw a tree, dear Butterfly, wise Stork and wily Olive would have

begun by conceiving of this tree as part of a story so they might draw the

image with confidence. If I were then to scrutinize that tree, I’d be able to

determine which tale the illustrator had in mind based on its branches and

leaves. This, however, was a miserable, solitary tree; behind it, there was a quite

high horizon line that hearkened back to the style of the oldest masters of

Shiraz and accentuated the feeling of isolation. There was nothing at all,

however, filling the area created by raising the horizon. The desire to depict a

tree simply as such, as the Venetian masters did, was here combined with the

Persian way of seeing the world from above, and the result was a miserable

painting that was neither Venetian nor Persian. This was how a tree at the edge

of the world would look. Attempting to combine two separate styles, my

miniaturists and the barren mind of that deceased clown had created a work

devoid of any skill whatsoever. But it wasn’t that the illustration was informed

by two different worldviews so much as the lack of skill that incurred my

wrath.

I felt the same way as I looked at the other pictures, at the perfect dream

horse and the woman with the bowed head. The choice of subject matter also

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iritated me, whether it was the two wandering dervishes or Satan. It was

obvious that my illustrators had coyly inserted these inferior pictures into Our

Sultan’s illuminated manuscript. I felt renewed awe at exalted Allah’s

judgment in taking Enishte’s life before the book had been finished. Needless

to say, I had no desire whatsoever to complete this manuscript.

Who wouldn’t be annoyed by this dog, drawn from above but staring at

me from just beneath my nose as if it were my brother? On the one hand, I

was astounded by the plainness of the dog’s positioning, the beauty of its

threatening sidelong glance, head lowered to the ground, and the violent