第 8 页

While Black was working with my father, he’d seen this picture many times

and had twice made exact copies by eyeing the original as he painted. After

falling in love with me, he made a copy for himself. But this time in place of

Hüsrev and Shirin, he portrayed himself and me, Black and Shekure. If it

weren’t for the captions beneath the figures, only I would’ve known who the

man and maiden in the picture were, because sometimes when we were joking

around, he’d depict us in the same manner and color: I all in blue, he all in

red. And if this weren’t indication enough, he’d also written our names

beneath the figures. He’d left the painting where I would find it and run off.

He watched me to see what my reaction to his composition would be.

I was well aware that I wouldn’t be able to love him like a Shirin, so I

feigned ignorance. On the evening of that summer’s day when Black gave me

his painting, during which we’d tried to cool ourselves with sour-cherry

sherbets made with ice said to have been brought all the way from snow-

capped Mount Ulu, I told my father that he’d made a declaration of love. At

that time, Black had just graduated from the religious school. He taught in

remote neighborhoods and, more out of my father’s insistence than his own

desire, Black was attempting to obtain the patronage of the powerful and

esteemed Naim Pasha. But according to my father, Black didn’t yet have his

wits about him. My father, who’d taken great pains to win Black a place in

Naim Pasha’s circle, at least as a clerk to begin, complained that he wasn’t

doing much to further his own cause; in other words, Black was being an

ignoramus. And that very night in reference to Black and me, my father

declared, “I think he’s set his sights very high, this impoverished nephew,” and

without regard for my mother’s presence, he added, “he’s smarter than we’d

supposed.”

I remember with misery what my father did in the following days, how I

kept my distance from Black and how he ceased to visit our house, but I won’t

explain all of this for fear that you’ll dislike my father and me. I swear to you,

we had no other choice. You know how in such situations reasonable people

immediately sense that love without hope is simply hopeless, and

understanding the limits of the illogical realm of the heart, make a quick end

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of it by politely declaring, “They didn’t find us suitably matched. That’s just

the way it is.” But, I’ll have you know that my mother said several times, “At

least don’t break the boy’s heart.” Black, whom my mother referred to as a

“boy,” was twenty-four, and I was half his age. Because my father considered

Black’s declaration of love an act of insolence, he wouldn’t humor my

mother’s wishes.

Though we hadn’t forgotten him altogether by the time we received news

that he’d left Istanbul, we’d let him slip completely out of our affections.

Because we hadn’t received news about him from any city for years, I deemed

it appropriate to save the picture he’d made and shown me, as a token of our

childhood memories and friendship. To prevent my father, and later my

soldier-husband, from discovering the picture and getting upset or jealous, I

expertly concealed the names “Shekure” and “Black” beneath the figures by

making it appear as if someone had dribbled my father’s Hasan Pasha ink onto

them, in an accident later to be disguised as flowers. Since I’ve returned that

picture to him today, maybe those among you inclined to take a dim view of

how I revealed myself to him at the window will feel ashamed and reconsider

your prejudices somewhat.

Having exposed my face to him, I remained for a while there at the window,

showered in the crimson hue of the evening sun, and gazed in awe at the

garden bathed in reddish-orange light, until I felt the chill of the evening air.

There was no breeze. I didn’t care what someone passing in the street would’ve

said upon seeing me at the open window. One of Ziver Pasha’s daughters,

Mesrure, who always laughed and enjoyed herself saying the most surprising

things at the most inopportune times when we went merrily and playfully to

the public baths each week, once told me that a person never knows exactly

what she herself is thinking. This is what I know: Sometimes I’ll say something

and realize upon uttering it that it is of my own thinking; but no sooner do I

arrive at that realization than I’m convinced the very opposite is true.

I was sorry when poor Elegant Effendi, one of the miniaturists my father

often invited to the house—and I won’t pretend I haven’t spied on each of

them—went missing, much like my unfortunate husband. “Elegant” was the

ugliest among them and the most impoverished of spirit.

I closed the shutters, left the room and went down to the kitchen.

“Mother, Shevket didn’t listen to you,” Orhan said. “While Black was

taking his horse out of the stable, Shevket left the kitchen and spied on him

from the peephole.”

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“What of it!” Shevket said, waving his hand in the air. “Mother spied on

him from the hole in the closet.”

“Hayriye,” I said. “Fry some bread in a little butter and serve it to them

with marzipan and sugar.”

Orhan jumped up and down with joy though Shevket was silent. But as I

walked back upstairs, they both caught up to me, screaming, pushing and

shoving by me excitedly. “Be slow, slow down,” I said with a laugh. “You

rascals.” I patted them on their delicate backs.

How wonderful it is to be home with children as evening approaches! My

father had quietly given himself over to a book.

“Your guest has departed,” I said. “I hope he didn’t trouble you much?”

“On the contrary,” he said. “He entertained me. He’s as respectful as ever

of his Enishte.”

“Good.”

“But now he’s also measured and calculating.”

He’d said that less to observe my reaction than to close the subject in a

manner that made light of Black. On any other occasion, I would’ve answered

him with a sharp tongue, as I am wont to do. This time, though, I just thought

of Black making ground on his white horse, and I shuddered.

I’m not sure how it happened, but later in the room with the closet, Orhan

and I found ourselves hugging each other. Shevket joined us; there was a brief

skirmish between them. As they tussled we all rolled over onto the floor. I

kissed them on the backs of their necks and their hair, I pressed them to my

bosom and felt their weight on my breasts.

“Ahhh,” I said. “Your hair stinks. I’m going to send you to the baths

tomorrow with Hayriye.”

“I don’t want to go to the baths with Hayriye anymore,” Shevket said.

“Why? Are you too grown-up?” I said.

“Mother, why did you wear your fine purple blouse?” Shevket said.

I went into the other room and removed my purple blouse. I pulled on the

faded green one that I usually wear. As I was changing, I felt cold and shivered,

but I could sense that my skin was aflame, my body vibrant and alive. I’d

rubbed a bit of rouge onto my cheeks, which probably smudged while I was

rolling around with the children, but I evened it out by licking my palm and

rubbing my cheeks. Are you aware that my relatives, the women whom I meet

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at the baths and everyone who sees me, swear that I look more like a sixteen-

year-old maiden than a twenty-four-year-old mother of two past her prime?

Believe them, truly believe them, or I shan’t tell you any more.

Don’t be surprised that I’m talking to you. For years I’ve combed through

the pictures in my father’s books looking for images of women and great

beauties. They do exist, if few and far between, and always look shy,

embarrassed, gazing only at one another, as if apologetically. Never do they

raise their heads, stand straight and face the people of the world as soldiers

and sultans would. Only in cheap, hastily illustrated books by careless artists

are the eyes of some women trained not on the ground or on some thing in

the illustration—oh, I don’t know, let’s say a lover or a goblet—but directly at

the reader. I’ve long wondered about that reader.

I shudder in delight when I think of two-hundred-year-old books, dating

back to the time of Tamerlane, volumes for which acquisitive giaours gleefully

relinquish gold pieces and which they carry all the way back to their own

countries: Perhaps one day someone from a distant land will listen to this

story of mine. Isn’t this what lies behind the desire to be inscribed in the

pages of a book? Isn’t it just for the sake of this delight that sultans and viziers

proffer bags of gold to have their histories written? When I feel this delight,

just like those beautiful women with one eye on the life within the book and

one eye on the life outside, I, too, long to speak with you who are observing

me from who knows which distant time and place. I’m an attractive and

intelligent woman, and it pleases me that I’m being watched. And if I happen

to tell a lie or two from time to time, it’s so you don’t come to any false

conclusions about me.

Maybe you’ve noticed that my father adores me. He had three sons before

me, but God took them one by one and left me, his daughter. My father dotes

on me, though I married a man not of his choosing. I went to a spahi cavalry

soldier whom I’d noticed and fancied. If it were left to my father, my husband

would not only be the greatest of scholars, he’d also have an appreciation for

painting and art, be possessed of power and authority, and be as rich as Karun,

the wealthiest of men in the Koran. The inkling of such a man couldn’t even be

found in the pages of my father’s books, and so I would’ve been forced to pine

away at home forever.

My husband’s handsomeness was legendary, and I gave him the nod

through intermediates. He found the opportunity to appear before me as I was

returning from the public baths. His eyes were as brilliant as fire, and I

immediately fell in love. He was a dark-haired, fair-skinned, green-eyed man

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with strong arms; but at heart, he was innocent and quiet like a sleepy child.

Nevertheless, it seemed, to me at least, that he also had the tang of blood

about him, perhaps because he expended all his strength slaying men in battle

and amassing booty, even though at home he was as gentle and quiet as a lady.

This man—whom my father looked upon as a penniless soldier, and hence,

disapproved of—was later allowed to marry me because I threatened to kill

myself otherwise. And after they gave him a military fief worth ten thousand

silver coins, a reward for his heroism in battle after battle wherein he

performed the greatest acts of bravery, truly, everyone envied us.

Four years ago when he failed to return with the rest of the army from

warring against the Safavids I wasn’t worried at first. For the more experience

he had on the battlefield, the more adept and clever he became in creating

opportunities for himself, in bringing home greater spoils, in winning larger

fiefs, and in enlisting more soldiers of his own. There were witnesses who said

he fled to the mountains with his own men after he became separated from a

division of the army. In the beginning, I suspected a scheme and hoped he’d

return, but after two years, I slowly grew accustomed to his absence; and when

I realized how many lonely women like me with missing soldier-husbands

there were in Istanbul, I resigned myself to my fate.

At night, in our beds, we’d hug our children and mope and cry. To quiet

their tears, I’d tell them hopeful lies; for example, that so-and-so had proof

their father would return before spring. Afterward, when my lie would

circulate, changing and spreading until it found its way back to me, I’d be the

first to believe the good news.

When the main support of the household vanished, we fell upon hard

times. We were living in a rented house in Charsh?kap? with my husband’s

gentlemanly Abkhazian father, who’d never lived an easy life, and his brother,

who had green eyes as well. My father-in-law, who left his mirror-making

business after his oldest son made his fortune soldiering, returned to take up

his trade at a late age. Hasan, my husband’s bachelor brother, worked in

customs, and as he prospered he made plans to assume the role of “man of

the house.” One winter, fearing they wouldn’t be able to pay rent, they hastily

took the slave who saw to the household chores to the slave market and sold

her, after which they wanted me to do the kitchen work, wash the clothes and

even go out to the bazaars to do the shopping in her stead. I didn’t protest by

saying, “Am I the type of woman to take on such drudgery?” I swallowed my

pride and went to work. But when that brother-in-law of mine Hasan, now

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without his slave girl to take into his room at night, began forcing my door, I

didn’t know what to do.

Of course, I could’ve immediately come back here to the home of my

father, but according to the kadi judge my husband was legally alive, and were

I to anger my in-laws, they might not stop at forcing my children and me back

to my husband’s home, but humiliate us further by having me and my father,

who had “detained” me, punished. To tell the truth, I could’ve loved Hasan,

whom I found to be more humane and reasonable than my husband, and who

was obviously very much in love with me. But if I were to do this without