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Stepping toward the door, I screamed with all my strength, “Stop, that’s

enough!”

The commotion outside and the wailing inside ended in a heartbeat.

“Mother, have Orhan open the door,” I said in a moment of inspiration and

in a sweet voice, as if I were speaking to the boy. “He wants to go home, no

one will take issue with that.”

The words had hardly left my mouth when Orhan freed himself from his

mother’s loosening arms, and like somebody who’d lived here for years, slid

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open the bolt, lifted the wooden bar, then unfastened the latch, and moved

backward two steps. The cold from outside entered as the door yawned open.

There was such a silence that all of us heard a lazy dog bark off in the distance.

Shekure kissed Orhan, who was back in his mother’s lap, and Shevket said,

“I’m going to tell Uncle Hasan.”

I saw Shekure stand, take up her cloak and prepare her bundle to leave, and

I was so greatly relieved, I was afraid I might laugh. I seated myself and had

two more spoonfuls of the lentil soup.

Black was intelligent enough not to come anywhere near the door of the

house. For a time, Shevket locked himself in his late father’s room, and even

though we called for Black’s help, neither he nor his men came. After Shekure

agreed to let Shevket take along his Uncle Hasan’s ruby-handled dagger, the

boy was willing to leave the house with us.

“Be afraid of Hasan and his red sword,” said the father-in-law with genuine

worry rather than an air of defeat and vengeance. He kissed each of his

grandchildren, sniffing their heads. He also whispered into Shekure’s ear.

When I saw Shekure gazing one last time at the door, walls and stove of the

house, I remembered once again how this was where she spent the happiest

years of her life with her first husband. But could she also tell that this same

house was the refuge of two miserable and lonely men, and that it bore the

stench of death? I didn’t walk with her on the way back for she had broken my

heart by coming back here.

It wasn’t the cold and blackness of the night that brought together the two

fatherless children and three women—one servant, one Jewess and one

widow—it was the strange neighborhoods, the nearly impassable streets and

the fear of Hasan. Our crowded company was under the protection of Black’s

men, and just like a caravan carrying treasure, we walked over out-of-the-way

roads, backstreets and solitary, seldom-visited neighborhoods, so as to avoid

running into guards, Janissaries, curious neighborhood thugs, thieves or

Hasan. At times, through blackness in which you couldn’t see your hand

before your face, we groped our way, perpetually bumping against each other

and the walls. We walked clinging to one another, overcome by the sensation

that the living dead, jinns and demons would surely emerge from

underground and abduct us into the night. Just behind the walls and closed

shutters, which we felt blindly with our hands, we heard the snoring and

coughing of people in the nighttime cold as well as the lowing of beasts in

their stables.

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Even Esther, no stranger to the poorest and worst districts, who’d walked

all the streets of Istanbul—that is excluding those neighborhoods wherein

migrants and the members of various unfortunate communities

congregated—occasionally felt that we would vanish on these streets, which

twisted and turned without end through an endless blackness. Yet I could still

make out certain street corners that I’d patiently passed in the daytime toting

my satchel; for example, I recognized the walls of Head Tailor’s Street, the

sharp smell of manure—which for some reason reminded me of cinnamon—

coming from the stable adjacent to Nurullah Hoja’s property, the fire-ravaged

sites on Acrobats Street and the Falconers Arcade that led into the square with

the Blind Haji Fountain, and thus I knew we weren’t heading toward the

house of Shekure’s late father at all, but to some other, mysterious

destination.

There was no telling what Hasan would do if angered, and I knew Black had

found another place to hide his family from him—and from that devil of a

murderer. If I could’ve made out where that place was, I would tell you, now,

and Hasan tomorrow morning—not out of spite, but because I’m convinced

that Shekure will again want to have Hasan’s interest. But Black, intelligent as

he was, no longer trusted me.

We were walking down a dark street behind the slave market when a

commotion of cries and wails erupted at the far end of the street. We heard

the sounds of a scuffle, and I recognized with fear the clamorous start of a

fight: the clash of axes, swords and sticks and the bellow of bitter pain.

Black handed his own large sword to one of his most trusted men, forcibly

took the dagger from Shevket, causing the boy to cry, and had the barber’s

apprentice and two other men move Shekure, Hayriye and the children a safe

distance away. The theology student told me he’d take me home by way of a

shortcut; that is, he didn’t let me stay with the others. Was this a twist of fate

or some cunning attempt to keep secret the whereabouts of their hideout?

There was a shop, which I understood to be a coffeehouse, at the end of this

narrow street we were passing down. Perhaps the swordfight stopped as soon

as it’d begun. Crowds of men were hooting as they entered and left; at first I

thought they were looting, but no, they were destroying the coffeehouse. They

carefully took out all of the ceramic cups, brass pots, glasses and low tables

under the light of the torches of the onlookers and destroyed them all as a

warning. They roughed up a man who tried to stop them, but he was able to

get away. Originally, I thought their target was only coffee, as they themselves

claimed. They were condemning its ill effects, how it harmed the sight and the

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stomach, how it dulled the intellect and caused men to lose their faith, how it

was the poison of the Franks and how Exalted Muhammad had turned down

coffee even though it was offered to him by a beautiful woman—Satan in

disguise. It was as if this were the theatrics for a night of instruction in moral

etiquette, and if I finally made it home, I thought I might even scold Nesim,

warning him not to drink too much of that poison.

Since there were quite a few rooming houses and cheap inns nearby, a

curious crowd formed in no time, made up of idle wanderers, homeless men

and no-good mongrels who’d snuck illegally into the city, and they

emboldened these enemies of coffee. It was then I understood that these men

were the henchmen of Preacher Nusret Hoja of Erzurum. They intended to

clean up all the dens of wine, prostitution and coffee in Istanbul and punish

severely those who veered from the path of Exalted Muhammad; those who,

for example, used dervish ceremonies as an excuse for belly-dancing to music.

They railed against the enemies of religion, men who collaborated with the

Devil, pagans, unbelievers and illustrators. I suddenly recalled this was the

coffeehouse on whose walls drawings were hung, where religion and the hoja

from Erzurum were maligned and where disrespect knew no bounds.

A coffee maker’s apprentice, his face spattered with blood, emerged from

inside, and I thought he might collapse, but he wiped the blood from his

forehead and cheeks with the cuff of his shirt, melded in with our group and

began to watch the raid. The crowd pulled back a little out of fear. I noticed

Black recognize somebody and hesitate. By the way the Erzurumis began to

collect together, I knew that the Janissaries or some other band armed with

clubs was on its way. The torches were extinguished and the crowd became a

confused mob.

Black grabbed me by the arm and had the theology student take me away.

“Go by way of the backstreets,” he said. “He’ll see you to your house.” The

student wanted to slip away as soon as possible and we were almost running

as we departed. My thoughts were with Black, but if Esther’s taken out of the

scene, she can’t possibly continue with the story, can she now?

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I AM A WOMAN

I can hear your objections already: “My dear Storyteller Effendi, you might be

able to imitate anyone or anything, but never a woman!” Yet I beg to differ.

True, I’ve wandered from city to city, imitating everything into the wee hours

of the night at weddings, festivals and coffeehouses until my voice gave out,

and thus it was never my lot to marry, but this doesn’t mean I’m

unacquainted with womenfolk.

I know women quite well; in fact, I’ve known four personally, seen their

faces and spoken with them: 1. my mother, may she rest in eternal peace; 2.

my beloved aunt; 3. the wife of my brother (he always beat me), who said “Get

out!” on one of those rare occasions when I saw her—she was the first woman

I fell in love with; and 4. a lady I saw suddenly at an open window in Konya

during my travels. Despite never having spoken with her, I’ve nursed feelings

of lust toward her for years and still do. Perhaps, by now, she’s passed away.

Seeing a woman’s bare face, speaking to her, and witnessing her humanity

opens the way to both pangs of lust and deep spiritual pain in us men, and

thus the best of all alternatives is not to lay eyes on women, especially pretty

women, without first being lawfully wed, as our noble faith dictates. The sole

remedy for carnal desires is to seek out the friendship of beautiful boys, a

satisfactory surrogate for females, and in due time, this, too, becomes a sweet

habit. In the cities of the European Franks, women roam about exposing not

only their faces, but also their brightly shining hair (after their necks, their

most attractive feature), their arms, their beautiful throats, and even, if what

I’ve heard is true, a portion of their gorgeous legs; as a result, the men of those

cities walk about with great difficulty, embarrassed and in extreme pain,

because, you see, their front sides are always erect and this fact naturally leads

to the paralysis of their society. Undoubtedly, this is why each day the Frank

infidel surrenders another fortress to us Ottomans.

After realizing, while still a youth, that the best recipe for my spiritual

happiness and contentment was to live far from beautiful women, I grew

increasingly curious about these creatures. At that time, since I hadn’t seen any

women besides my mother and my aunt, my curiosity assumed a mystical

quality, my head seemed to tingle, and I knew that I could only learn how

women felt if I did what they did, ate what they ate, said what they said,

imitated their behavior and, yes, only if I wore their clothes. Therefore, one

Friday, when my mother, father, older brother and aunt went to my

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grandfather’s rose garden on the shores of the Fahreng, I told them I was

feeling ill and stayed at home.

“Come along. Look, you’ll entertain us by mimicking the dogs, trees and

horses in the country. What’ll you do here all alone, anyway?” said my

mother, may she rest in peace.

“I’m going to put on your dresses and become a woman, dear mother,” was

an impossible answer. So I said, “My stomach hurts.”

“Don’t be such a coward,” said my father. “Come along and we’ll wrestle.”

I shall now describe to you, my painter and calligrapher brethren, exactly

what I felt once they’d left and I donned the underclothes and dresses

belonging to my now dearly departed mother and aunt, as well as the secrets I

learned that day about being a woman. Let me first state forthright that

contrary to what we’ve often read in books and heard from preachers, when

you are a woman, you don’t feel like the Devil.

Not at all! When I pulled on my mother’s rose-embroidered wool

underclothes, a gentle sense of well-being spread over me and I felt as sensitive

as she. The touch against my bare skin of my aunt’s pistachio-green silk shirt,

which she could never bring herself to wear, made me feel an irrepressible

affection toward all children, including myself. I wanted to nurse everybody

and cook for the whole world. After I understood to some extent what it was

like to have breasts, I stuffed my chest with whatever I could find—socks and

washcloths—so I might understand what really made me curious: how it felt

to be a large-breasted woman. When I saw these huge protrusions, yes, I admit

it, I was as proud as Satan. I understood at once that men, merely catching

sight of the shadow of my overabundant breasts, would chase after them and

strive to take them into their mouths; I felt quite powerful, but is that what I

wanted? I was befuddled: I wanted both to be powerful and to be the object of

pity; I wanted a rich, powerful and intelligent man, whom I didn’t know from

Adam, to fall madly in love with me; yet I also feared such a man. Sliding on

the bracelets made of twisted gold that my mother hid at the bottom of her

trousseau chest next to the sheets embroidered with leafy designs, in lavender-

scented wool socks, applying the rouge with which she brightened her cheeks

on the way back from the public baths, donning my aunt’s evergreen cloak

and putting on the thin veil of the same color after gathering up my hair, I

stared at myself in the mirror with the mother-of-pearl frame, and shuddered.

Although I hadn’t touched them, my eyes and eyelashes had become those of