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careful thought, I might find myself, God forbid, his slave instead of his wife.

In any event, because they were afraid that I would demand my portion of the

inheritance and then abandon them and return to my father with the

children, they, too, weren’t eager for a judge’s decision proclaiming my

husband’s death. If, in the eyes of the judge, my husband wasn’t dead, I

naturally couldn’t wed Hasan, nor could I marry anyone else. Because this

dilemma bound me to that house and that marriage, my in-laws preferred my

having a “missing” husband, and the continuation of this vague situation. For

lest you forget, I saw to all their household chores, I did everything from their

cooking to their laundry, and furthermore, one of them was madly in love

with me.

When my father-in-law and Hasan grew dissatisfied with this arrangement

and decided it was time for me to marry Hasan, it was necessary first to

arrange for the witnesses to convince the judge of my husband’s death. Thus,

if my missing husband’s closest kin, his father and brother, accepted his death,

if there was no longer anyone who objected to declaring my husband dead,

and if, for the price of a few silver coins, witnesses would testify that they’d

seen the man’s corpse in the field of battle, the judge would also oblige. It

would be most difficult to convince Hasan once I was declared a widow that I

wouldn’t leave the household, demand my inheritance rights or ask for money

to marry him; and moreover, that I’d marry him of my own free will.

Naturally, I knew that to gain his trust in this regard, I’d have to sleep with

him in a very convincing manner so he’d be completely assured I was giving

myself to him, not to get his permission to divorce my husband, but because I

was sincerely in love with him.

With some effort, I could’ve fallen in love with Hasan. He was eight years

younger than my missing husband, and when my husband was at home,

Hasan was like my little brother, and this sentiment endeared him to me. I

liked his humble and passionate demeanor, his pleasure in playing with my

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children and even the way he desirously looked at me as though he were dying

of thirst and I were a glass of cold sour-cherry sherbet. On the other hand, I

also knew I’d really have to force myself to fall in love with a man who made

me wash clothes and didn’t mind my having to wander through markets and

bazaars like a common slave. During those days when I’d go to my father’s

house and cry endlessly as I stared at the pots, pans, bowls and cups, during

those nights when the children and I would sleep cuddled up together in

solidarity, Hasan never gave me cause for a change of heart. He had no faith

that I could love him or that this essential and mandatory precondition for

our marriage would manifest itself; and because he had no confidence in

himself, he acted inappropriately. He tried to corner me, kiss me and fondle

me. He declared that my husband would never return, that he would kill me.

He threatened me, cried like a baby and in his haste and fluster, never allowed

time for a true and noble love to be born. I knew I could never wed him.

One night, when he tried to force the door of the room where I slept with

the children, I rose immediately, and without a thought that I might frighten

them, screamed at the top of my lungs that evil jinns had entered the house.

This fit of jinn-panic and screaming awakened my father-in-law and thereby

exposed Hasan, whose excited violence was still visible, to his father. Amid my

ridiculous howls and inane rantings about jinns, the staid old man to his

embarrassment acknowledged the awful truth: His son was besotted and had

inappropriately approached his brother’s wife, a mother of two. My father-in-

law made no reply when I said I wouldn’t sleep a wink till morning, keeping

watch at the door to protect my children against “the jinns.” The following

day, I announced that I’d be returning to my father’s home with my children

for an extended stay to care for him in his time of illness; thus did Hasan

accept his defeat. I returned to my father’s house, taking with me as

mementos of my married life the clock with bells plundered from Hungarian

lands by my husband (who’d never succumbed to the temptation to sell it),

the whip made from the sinews of the most explosive of Arab steeds, the

Tabriz-made ivory chess set whose pieces the children used to play war and the

silver candlesticks (booty from the Battle of Nahjivan), which I’d fought so

desperately to keep when money was short.

As I expected, quitting my absent husband’s house turned Hasan’s

obsessive and disrespectful love into a hopeless inferno. Knowing full well that

his father wouldn’t stand behind him, instead of threatening me, he sought

my pity by sending me love letters in whose corners he drew forlorn birds,

teary-eyed lions and sad gazelles. I won’t hide from you the fact that I’ve

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recently begun to read them anew, those letters that reveal Hasan’s rich

imagination, of which I wasn’t aware when we lived together under the same

roof—assuming he didn’t enlist one of his more artistic or poetic friends to

write and embellish them. In his last letter, Hasan pledged that I would no

longer be a slave to housework, and that he’d made a lot of money. This

disclosure in his sweet, respectful and humorous tone, compounded by the

endless fights and demands of the children, and my father’s complaints,

turned my head into a veritable kettledrum. Indeed, it was in order to heave a

sigh of relief to the world that I’d opened the shutters of that window.

Before Hayriye set the dinner table, I prepared a draught of bitters from the

best Arabian date palm flower; I mixed in a spoonful of honey and a little

lemon juice, then quietly entered my father’s company as he was reading the

Book of the Soul, and like a spirit myself, placed it before him without making

my presence known, as he preferred.

“Is it snowing?” he asked in such a faint and melancholy voice that I

understood at once this would be the last snowfall my poor father would ever

see.

53

I AM A TREE

I am a tree and I am quite lonely. I weep in the rain. For the sake of Allah,

listen to what I have to say. Drink down your coffee so your sleep abandons

you and your eyes open wide. Stare at me as you would at jinns and let me

explain to you why I’m so alone.

1. They allege that I’ve been hastily sketched onto nonsized, rough paper so

the picture of a tree might hang behind the master storyteller. True enough. At

this moment, there are no other slender trees beside me, no seven-leaf steppe

plants, no dark billowing rock formations which at times resemble Satan or a

man and no coiling Chinese clouds. Just the ground, the sky, myself and the

horizon. But my story is much more complicated.

2. As a tree, I need not be part of a book. As the picture of a tree, however,

I’m disturbed that I’m not a page within some manuscript. Since I’m not

representing something in a book, what comes to mind is that my picture will

be nailed to a wall and the likes of pagans and infidels will prostrate

themselves before me in worship. May the followers of Erzurumi Hoja not

hear that I secretly take pride in this thought—but then I’m overcome with

the utmost fear and embarrassment.

3. The essential reason for my loneliness is that I don’t even know where I

belong. I was supposed to be part of a story, but I fell from there like a leaf in

autumn. Let me tell you about it:

Falling from My Story Like a Leaf Falls in Fall

Forty years ago, the Persian Shah Tahmasp, who was the archenemy of the

Ottomans as well as the world’s greatest patron-king of the art of painting,

began to grow senile and lost his enthusiasm for wine, music, poetry and

painting; furthermore, he quit drinking coffee, and naturally, his brain

stopped working. Full of the suspicions of a long-faced, dark-spirited old

geezer, he transferred his capital from Tabriz, which was then Persian territory,

to Kazvin so it would be farther from the Ottoman armies. One day when he

had grown even older, he was possessed by a jinn, had a nervous fit, and

begging God’s forgiveness, completely swore off wine, handsome young boys

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and painting, which is proof enough that after this great shah lost his taste for

coffee, he also lost his mind.

This was why the divinely inspired bookbinders, calligraphers, gilders and

miniaturists, who created the greatest masterpieces in the world over a

twenty-year period in Tabriz, scattered like a covey of partridges to other cities.

Shah Tahmasp’s nephew and son-in-law, Sultan Ibrahim Mirza, invited the

most gifted among them to Mashhad, where he served as provincial governor,

and settled them in his miniaturists’ workshop to copy out a marvelous

illuminated and illustrated manuscript of all seven fables of the Seven Thrones

of Jami—the greatest poet in Herat during the reign of Tamerlane. Shah

Tahmasp, who both admired and envied his intelligent and handsome nephew,

and regretted having given his daughter to him, was consumed by jealousy

when he heard about this magnificent book and angrily ousted his nephew

from the post of Governor of Mashhad, banishing him to the city of Kain,

before sending him off to the smaller town of Sebzivar in a renewed fit of

anger. The calligraphers and illuminators of Mashhad thereupon dispersed to

other cities and regions, to the book-arts workshops of other sultans and

princes.

Miraculously, however, Sultan Ibrahim Mirza’s marvelous volume did not

remain unfinished, for in his service he had a devoted librarian. This man

would travel on horseback all the way to Shiraz where the best master gilders

lived; then he’d take a couple pages to Isfahan seeking the most elegant

calligraphers of Nestalik script; afterward he’d cross great mountains till he’d

made it all the way to Bukhara where he’d arrange the picture’s composition

and have the figures drawn by the great master painter who worked under the

Uzbek Khan; next he’d go down to Herat to commission one of its half-blind

old masters to paint from memory the sinuous curves of plants and leaves;

visiting another calligrapher in Herat, he’d direct him to inscribe, in gold Rika

script, the sign above a door within the picture; finally, he’d be off again to the

south, to Kain, where displaying the half-page he had finished during his six

months of traveling, he’d receive the praises of Sultan Ibrahim Mirza.

At this pace, it was clear that the book would never be completed, so

mounted Tatar couriers were hired. In addition to the manuscript leaf, which

was to receive artwork and scripted text, each horseman was given a letter

describing the desired work in question to the artist. Thus, messengers

carrying manuscript pages passed over the roads of Persia, Khorasan, the Uzbek

territory and Transoxania. The creation of the book sped up with the fleet

messengers. At times, on a snowy night, Chapter 11 and 29, for example,

55

would cross paths in a caravansary wherein the howlings of wolves could be

heard, and as they struck up a friendly conversation, they’d discover that they

were working on the same book project and would try to determine between

themselves where and in which fable the prospective pages, retrieved from

their rooms for this purpose, actually belonged.

I was meant to be among the pages of this illustrated manuscript that I

sadly heard was completed today. Unfortunately, on a cold winter’s day, the

Tatar courier who was carrying me as he crossed a rocky mountain pass was

ambushed by thieves. First they beat the poor Tatar, then they robbed him and

raped him in a manner befitting thieves before mercilessly killing him. As a

result, I know nothing about the page I’ve fallen from. My request is that you

look at me and ask: “Were you perhaps meant to provide shade for Mejnun

disguised as a shepherd as he visited Leyla in her tent?” or “Were you meant to

fade into the night, representing the darkness in the soul of a wretched and

hopeless man?” How I would’ve wanted to complement the happiness of two

lovers who fled from the whole world, traversing oceans to find solace on an

island rich with birds and fruit! I would’ve wanted to shade Alexander during

the final moments of his life on his campaign to conquer Hindustan as he died

from a persistent nosebleed brought on by sunstroke. Or was I meant to

symbolize the strength and wisdom of a father offering advice on love and life

to his son? Ah, to which story was I meant to add meaning and grace?

Among the brigands who’d killed the messenger and taken me with them,

dragging me headlong from mountain to mountain and city to city, there was

a thief who occasionally understood my worth, and had the refinement to

realize that looking at the drawing of a tree is more pleasant than looking at a

tree; but because he didn’t know to which story I belonged, he quickly tired of

me. After dragging me from city to city, this rogue didn’t tear me apart and

dispose of me as I’d feared he might, but sold me to a cultivated man in a

caravansary for a jug of wine. Sometimes at night this unfortunate delicate-

spirited man would stare at me by candlelight and cry. In time, he died of grief