My Name is Red

I, SHEKURE

I was in the midst of folding and putting away the clothes that had been washed and hung out to dry yesterday when Hayriye announced Esther had come…or, this was what I planned to tell you. But why should I lie? All right then, when Esther arrived, I was spying on my father and Black through the closet peephole, impatiently waiting for the letters from Black and Hasan, and thus, my mind was preoccupied with her. Just as I sensed that my father’s fears of death were justified, I also knew Black’s interest in me wasn’t eternal. He was in love insofar as he wanted to be married, and because he wanted to be married, he easily fell in love. If not me, he’d love. If not me, he’d marry another, taking care to fall in love with her beforehand.

In the kitchen, Hayriye sat Esther in a corner and handed her a glass of rosewater sherbet, as she gave me a guilty look. I realized that since Hayriye had become my father’s mistress, she might be reporting to him everything she sees. I’m afraid that this may indeed be the case.

“My black-eyed girl, my dark-fortuned beauty, my stunning beauty of beauties, I was delayed because Nesim, my pig of a husband, kept me occupied with all sorts of nonsense,” said Esther. “You have no husband senselessly haranguing you, and I hope you know the value of this.”

She took out the letters; I snatched them from her hand. Hayriye withdrew to a corner where she wouldn’t be in the way, but could still hear everything that passed between us. So Esther wouldn’t be able to see my expression, I turned my back on her and read Black’s letter first. When I thought about the house of the Hanged Jew, I shuddered for a moment. “Don’t be afraid, Shekure, you can manage in any situation,” I said to myself and began reading Hasan’s letter. He was on the verge of madness:

Shekure, I’m burning with desire, yet I know you’re not in the least concerned. In my dreams, I see myself chasing you over deserted hilltops. Every time you leave one of my letters-that I know you read-unanswered, a three-feathered arrow pierces my heart. I’m writing in hopes that you’ll respond this time. The word is out, everyone’s spreading the news, even your children are saying it: You’ve dreamed that your husband has died, and now you claim that you’re free. I cannot say whether or not it’s true. What I do know is that you’re still married to my older brother and bound to this household. Now that my father finds me justified, we’re both going to the judge to have you returned here. We’ll be coming with a group of men we’ve assembled; so let your father be forewarned. Collect your things, you’re to come back to this house. Send your response with Esther immediately.

After reading the letter a second time, I pulled myself together and gazed at Esther with questioning eyes, but she told me nothing new about Hasan or Black.

I pulled out the reed pen that I kept hidden in a corner of the pantry, placed a sheet of paper on the breadboard and was about to begin writing a letter to Black when I froze.

Something came to mind. I turned toward Esther: She’d fallen upon the rosewater sherbet with the joy of a chubby child and so it seemed ridiculous to me that she could be aware of what was going through my mind.

“See how sweetly you’re smiling, my dear,” she said. “Don’t worry, in the end everything will be all right. Istanbul is rife with rich gentlemen and pashas who’d give their souls to be wed to a stunning beauty, possessed of so many talents like yourself.”

You understand what I’m talking about: Sometimes you’ll say something you’re convinced of, but no sooner do the words leave your mouth than you ask yourself, “Why did I say this so halfheartedly, even though I believe it through and through?” That was what happened when I said the following:

“But Esther, who’d want to marry a widow with two kids, for Heaven’s sake?”

“A widow like you? Plenty, a slew of men,” she said, conveying them all with a hand gesture.

I looked into her eyes. I was thinking I did not like her. I fell so silent that she knew I wasn’t going to give her a letter and even that it would be better if she left. After Esther had gone, I withdrew to my own corner of the house as though I could feel my silence-how should I put it-in my soul.

Leaning on the wall, for a long while I stood still in the blackness. I thought of myself, of what I should do, of the fear that was growing within me. All the while I could hear Shevket and Orhan chattering upstairs.

“And you’re as timid as a girl,” said Shevket. “You only attack from behind.”

“My tooth is loose,” said Orhan.

At the same time, another part of my mind was concentrating on what was transpiring between my father and Black.

The blue door of the workshop was open, and I could easily hear them: “After beholding the portraits of the Venetian masters, we realize with horror,” said my father, “that, in painting, eyes can no longer simply be holes in a face, always the same, but must be just like our own eyes, which reflect light like a mirror and absorb it like a well. Lips can no longer be a crack in the middle of faces flat as paper, but must be nodes of expression-each a different shade of red-fully expressing our joys, sorrows and spirits with their slightest contraction or relaxation. Our noses can no longer be a kind of wall that divides our faces, but rather, living and curious instruments with a form unique to each of us.”

Was Black as surprised as I was that my father referred to those infidel gentlemen who had their pictures made as “we”? When I looked through the peephole, I found Black’s face to be so pale that I was momentarily alarmed. My dark beloved, my troubled hero, were you unable to sleep for thinking of me the whole night? Is that why the blush has left your face?

Perhaps you aren’t aware that Black is a tall, thin and handsome man. He has a broad forehead, almond-shaped eyes and a strong, straight, elegant nose. As in his childhood, his hands are long and thin and his fingers are jittery and agile. He’s wiry, and stands straight and tall, with shoulders on the broad side, but not as broad as those of a water carrier. When he was younger, his body and his face hadn’t yet settled. Twelve years later, when I first laid eyes on him from this dark refuge of mine, I immediately saw that he’d attained a kind of perfection.

Now, when I bring my eye right up to the hole, I see on his face the worry that plagues him. I felt at once guilty and proud that he’d suffered so on my account. Black listened to what my father said, gazing upon an illustration made for the book, with a look completely innocent and childlike. Just then, when I saw that he’d opened his pink mouth as a child would have, I unexpectedly felt, yes, like putting my breast into it. With my fingers on his nape and tangled in his hair, Black would place his head between my breasts, and as my own children used to do, he’d roll his eyes back into his head with pleasure as he sucked on my nipple: After understanding that only through my compassion would he find peace, he’d become completely bound to me.

I perspired faintly and imagined Black marveling at the size of my breasts with surprise and intensity-rather than studying the illustration of the Devil that my father was actually showing him. Not only my breasts, but as if drunk with the vision of me, he was gazing at my hair, my neck, at all of me. He was so attracted to me that he was giving voice to those sweet nothings he couldn’t summon as a youth; from his glances, I realized how he was in awe of my proud demeanor, my manners, my upbringing, the way I waited patiently and bravely for my husband, and the beauty of the letter I’d written him.

I felt anger toward my father, who was setting things up so I wouldn’t be able to marry again. I was also fed up with those illustrations he was having the miniaturists make in imitation of the Frankish masters, and I was sick of his recollections of Venice.

When I closed my eyes again-Allah, it wasn’t my own desire-in my thoughts, Black had approached me so sweetly that in the dark I could feel him beside me. Suddenly, I sensed that he’d come up from behind me, he was kissing the nape of my neck, the back of my ears, and I could feel how strong he was. He was solid, large and hard, and I could lean on him. I felt secure. My nape tingled, my nipples were stiffening. It seemed as if there in the dark, with my eyes closed, I could feel his enlarged member behind me, close to me. My head spun. What was Black’s like? I wondered.

At times in my dreams, my husband in his agony shows his to me. I come to the awareness that my husband is struggling to keep his bloody body, lanced and shot with Persian arrows, walking upright as he approaches. But sadly, there is a river between us. As he calls to me from the opposite bank, covered in blood and suffering terribly, I notice that he has become erect. If it’s true what the Georgian bride said at the public bath, and if there’s truth to what the old hags say, “Yes, it grows that large,” then my husband’s wasn’t so big. If Black’s is bigger, if that enormous thing I saw under Black’s belt when he took up the empty piece of paper I’d sent by Shevket yesterday; if that was actually it-and it surely was-I’m afraid I’ll suffer great pain, if it even fits inside me at all.

“Mother, Shevket is mocking me.”

I left the black corner of the closet, quietly passing into the room across the hall, where I removed the red broadcloth vest from the chest and put it on. They’d spread out my mattress and were shouting and frolicking on it.

“Didn’t I warn you that when Black visits you aren’t to shout, did I not?”

“Mama, why did you put that red vest on?” Shevket asked.

“But Mother, Shevket was mocking me,” Orhan said.

“Didn’t I tell you not to mock him? And what’s this foul thing doing here?” Off to the side there was a piece of animal hide.

“It’s a carcass,” Orhan said. “Shevket found it on the street.”

“Quick, take it and throw it back where you found it, now.”

“Let Shevket do it.”

“I said now!”

As I would do before I slapped them, I bit my lower lip angrily, and seeing how serious I really was, they fled in fright. I hope they return soon so they don’t catch cold.

Of all the miniaturists, I liked Black the best. He liked me more than the others did and I understood his soul. I took out pen and paper, and in one sitting, without having to think, I wrote the following:

All right then, before the evening prayer is called, I’ll meet you at the house of the Hanged Jew. Finish my father’s book as soon as possible.

I did not reply to Hasan. Even if he was actually going to the judge today, I didn’t believe that the men he and his father were assembling would raid our house immediately. If he were indeed ready to take such action he’d have done so without writing a letter or awaiting my reply. He’s surely awaiting my response, and, when it doesn’t arrive, it’ll drive him mad. Only then will he begin assembling people and prepare to abduct me. Don’t think I’m not afraid of him at all. But, I’m counting on Black to protect me. Anyway, let me tell you what’s going on in my heart just now: I believe I’m not so afraid of Hasan because I love him as well.

If you object and think to yourselves, “Now what is this love about?” I’d find you justified. It’s not that I failed to notice during the years we waited under the same roof for my husband’s return, how pitiful, weak and selfish this man was. But now that Esther tells me he earns a lot of money-and I can always tell when she’s being truthful from her raised eyebrows-since he has money, and with it self-confidence, the overbearing Hasan has surely disappeared, exposing the dark, jinnlike peculiarity that attracts me to him. I discovered this side of him through the letters he stubbornly sent to me.

Both Black and Hasan have suffered for their love of me. Black disappeared, traveling for twelve years. The other, Hasan, sent me letters every day, in the corners of which he’d illustrated birds and gazelles. At first I was frightened of him, but later, I loved to read his letters again and again.

As I well knew that Hasan was thoroughly curious about everything having to do with me, I wasn’t surprised that he knew I’d seen my husband’s corpse in a dream. What I suspected was that Esther was letting Hasan read the letters I’d sent to Black. That’s why I sent no response to Black by way of Esther. You know better than I whether my suspicions are justified.

“Where were you?” I said to the children when they returned.

They quickly understood that I wasn’t really angry. Discreetly, I pulled Shevket aside, to the edge of the darkened closet. I lifted him onto my lap. I kissed his head and the nape of his neck.

“You’re cold, my dear,” I said. “Give me those pretty hands of yours so Mother can warm them up…”

His hands had a foul smell, but I didn’t comment. Pressing his head to my bosom, I gave him a long hug. In a short time he warmed up, relaxing like a kitten, sweetly mewling with pleasure.

“So then, you love your mother quite a lot, don’t you?”

“Ummmhmmm.”

“Is that a ”yes“?”

“Yes.”

“More than anybody else?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’m going to tell you something,” I said as if divulging a secret. “But you won’t tell anyone, all right?” I whispered in his ear: “I love you more than anyone, you know that?”

“More than Orhan, even?”

“More than Orhan, even. Orhan’s young, like a small bird, he doesn’t understand anything. You’re smarter, you’re able to understand.” I kissed and smelled his hair. “So, I’m going to ask you a favor. Remember how you secretly brought Black a blank piece of paper yesterday? You’ll do the same today, all right?”

“He’s the one who killed Father.”

“What?”

“He killed my father. He himself said so yesterday in the house of the Hanged Jew.”

“What did he say?”

“”I killed your father,“ he said. ”I’ve killed plenty of men,“ he said.”

Suddenly something happened. Shevket slid down my lap and began to cry. Why was this child crying now? All right then, I confess, I must’ve been unable to control myself just then, and I slapped him. I wouldn’t want anyone to think I was hard-hearted. But how could he say such nonsense about a man I’d been making arrangements to marry-and that, with the well-being of these boys in mind.

My poor little fatherless boy was still crying, and all at once, this upset me greatly. I, too, was on the verge of tears. We hugged each other. He hiccuped occasionally. Did this slap merit so much crying? I stroked his hair.

This is how it all began: The previous day, as you know, I’d told my father in passing that I’d dreamed my husband had died. Actually, as happened quite frequently over these four years during which my husband never returned from battling the Persians, I dreamed of him fleetingly, and there was also a corpse, but was he the corpse? This was a mystery to me.

Dreams are always used as a means to other ends. In Portugal, from where Esther’s grandmother had emigrated, it seems dreams were used as an excuse to prove heretics met with the Devil and made love. For example, even if Esther’s forebears denied their Jewishness by declaring, “We’ve become Catholics like you,” the Jesuit torturers of the Portuguese Church, unconvinced, would torture them, forcing them to describe the jinns and demons of their dreams, as well as burdening them with dreams they never had. Then they’d force the Jews to confess these dreams so in the end they could burn them at the stake. In this way, dreams could be manipulated over there, to show that people were having sex with the Devil and to accuse and condemn Jews.

Dreams are good for three things:

ALIF: You want something but you just can’t ask for it. So you’ll say that you’ve dreamed about it. In this manner, you can ask for what you want without actually asking for it.

BA: You want to harm someone. For example, you want to slander a woman. So, you’ll say that such-and-such woman is committing adultery or that such-and-such pasha is pilfering wine by the jug. I dreamed it, you’ll say. In this fashion, even if they don’t believe you, the mere mention of the sinful deed is almost never forgotten.

DJIM: You want something, but you don’t even know what it is. So, you’ll describe a confusing dream. Your friends or family will immediately interpret the dream and tell you what you need or what they can do for you. For example, they’ll say: You need a husband, a child, a house…

The dreams we recount are never the ones we actually see in our sleep. When people say they’ve “seen it,” they simply describe the dream that is “dreamed” during the day, and there’s always an underlying purpose. Only an idiot would describe his actual nighttime dreams exactly as he’s had them. If you do, everyone will make fun of you or, as always, interpret the dream as a bad omen. No one takes real dreams seriously, including those who dream them. Or, pray tell, do you?

Through a dream that I half-heartedly recounted, I hinted that my husband might truly be dead. Though my father at first wouldn’t accept this as an indication of the truth, after returning from the funeral, he was suddenly persuaded by the evidence of the dream, and concluded that my husband was indeed dead. Thus, everyone not only believed that my husband, who was virtually immortal these past four years, had died in a dream, they couldn’t have been more certain of his death had it been officially announced. It was only then that the boys truly realized that they’d been left fatherless. It was then that they truly began to grieve.

“Do you ever have dreams?” I asked Shevket.

“Yes,” he said smiling. “My father doesn’t return home, and I end up marrying you.”

His narrow nose, dark eyes and broad shoulders resemble me more than his father. Occasionally, I feel guilty that I wasn’t able to pass on to my children their father’s high, broad forehead.

“Go on then, play ”swordsman“ with your brother.”

“Can we use father’s old sword?”

“Yes.”

For some time, I gazed at the ceiling, listening to the sounds of the boys’ swords striking each other, as I struggled to quell the fear and anxiety that was brewing within me. I went down to the kitchen and said to Hayriye: “My father’s been asking for fish soup for quite some time now. Maybe I ought to send you to Galleon Harbor. Why don’t you take a few strips of that dried fruit pulp that Shevket likes out of its hiding place and let the kids have some.”

While Shevket was eating in the kitchen, Orhan and I went upstairs. I lifted him onto my lap and kissed his neck.

“You’re covered in sweat,” I said. “What happened here?”

“Shevket hit me with our uncle’s red sword.”

“It’s bruised,” I said and touched the spot. “Does it hurt? How thoughtless our Shevket is. Listen to what I have to say. You’re very smart and sensitive. I have a request to make of you. If you do what I say, I’ll tell you a secret that I won’t tell Shevket or anyone else.”

“What is it?”

“Do you see this piece of paper? You’re to go to your grandfather, and without letting him see, you’re to place this in Black Effendi’s hand. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

“Will you do it?”

“What’s the secret?”

“Just take him the paper,” I said. I once again kissed his neck, which smelled fragrantly. And while we’re on the subject of fragrance, it’s been so very long since Hayriye has taken these boys to the public bath. They haven’t gone since Shevket’s thing began to rise in front of the women there. “I’ll tell you the secret later.” I kissed him. “You’re very bright and very pretty. Shevket’s a nuisance. He’d even have the audacity to lift a hand against his mother.”

“I’m not going to deliver this,” he said. “I’m afraid of Black Effendi. He’s the one who killed my father.”

“Shevket told you this, didn’t he?” I said. “Quick, go downstairs and tell him to come here.”

Orhan could see the rage in my face. Terrified, he slid off my lap and ran out of the room. Maybe he was even slightly pleased that Shevket was in trouble. A while later, both of them returned flushed and blushing. Shevket was holding a strip of dried fruit in one hand and a sword in the other.

“You’ve told your brother that Black was the one who killed your father,” I said. “I don’t ever want you to say such a thing in this house again. You should both show respect and affection to Black. Do we understand each other? I won’t allow you to live your entire lives without a father.”

“I don’t want him. I’d rather return to our house, where Uncle Hasan lives, and wait for my father,” Shevket said brazenly.

This made me so irate that I slapped him. He hadn’t put the sword down; it fell from his hand.

“I want my father,” he said through his tears.

But I was crying more than he was.

“You have no father anymore, he won’t be coming back,” I said tearfully. “You’re fatherless, don’t you understand, you bastards.” I was crying so much that I was afraid they’d heard me from within.

“We aren’t bastards,” said Shevket, crying.

We all cried long and hard. Weeping softened my heart and I sensed that I was crying because it made me a better person. In our communal fit of tears, we embraced each other and lay upon the roll-up mattress. Shevket had snuggled his head down between my breasts as if to nap. Sometimes, he’d cuddle up with me like this, as if we were stuck together, but I could sense that he wasn’t sleeping. I might’ve dozed off with them, except that my mind was preoccupied with what was going on downstairs. I could smell the sweet aroma of boiling oranges. I abruptly sat up in bed and made such a sound that the boys awoke.

“Go downstairs, have Hayriye fill your stomachs.”

I was alone in the room. Snow had begun to fall outside. I begged for Allah’s help. Then I opened the Koran, and after once again reading the section in the “Family of Imran” chapter which stated that those who were killed in battle, who were killed on the path of Allah, would join Him, I put myself at ease with regard to my deceased husband. Had my father shown Black Our Sultan’s as yet unfinished portrait? My father claimed that this portrait would be so lifelike that whoever beheld it would avert his eyes out of fear, as happened to those who tried to look directly into Our Glorious Sultan’s eyes.

I called for Orhan, and without lifting him onto my lap, kissed him at length on the forehead, crown and cheeks. “Now then, without being scared, and without letting your grandfather see, you’re to give this paper to Black. Do you understand?”

“My tooth is loose.”

“When you get back, if you want, I’ll pull it out,” I said. “You’re to sidle up to him. He’ll be at a loss for what to do and he’ll hug you. Then you’ll secretly place the paper into his hand. Am I understood?”

“I’m afraid.”

“There’s nothing to be afraid of. If it weren’t for Black, do you know who wants to become your father in his stead? Uncle Hasan! Do you want Uncle Hasan to become your father?”

“No.”

“All right then, let’s see you go, my pretty and smart Orhan,” I said. “If not, watch out, I’ll be really angry…And if you cry, I’ll get even angrier.”

I folded my letter several times, then stuck it into his small hand now stretched out in hopelessness and resignation. Allah, come to my aid so that these fatherless children aren’t left to fend for themselves. I escorted him to the door, holding his hand. At the threshold he looked at me fearfully one last time.

I watched him through the peephole as he took his uncertain steps toward the sofa, approached my father and Black, stopped, and momentarily hesitated-unsure what to do. He glanced back at the peephole looking for me. He began to cry. But with one final effort he succeeded in surrendering himself to Black’s lap. Black, clever enough to have earned the right to be father to my children, didn’t panic to find Orhan crying unaccountably on his lap and he checked to see if there was anything in the boy’s hands.

Orhan returned beneath the startled gaze of my father, and I ran to meet him and took him onto my lap, kissing him at length. I brought him downstairs to the kitchen, and filled his mouth with the raisins he liked so much.

“Hayriye, take the boys to Galleon Harbor and buy some gray mullet suitable for soup from Kosta’s place. Take these silver coins and with the change from the fish, buy Orhan some dried yellow figs and cherries on the way back. Buy Shevket roasted chickpeas and sweetmeat sausage with walnuts. Walk them around to wherever they want to go until the evening prayers are called, but be careful they don’t catch cold.”

After they’d bundled up and left, the quiet in the house pleased me. I went upstairs and took out the little mirror that my father-in-law had made and my husband had given me as a gift. I kept it hidden away between pillowcases that smelled of lavender. I hung it up. If I looked at myself in the mirror from a distance, and moved oh so delicately, I could see my whole body. My vest of red broadcloth suited me, but I also wanted to don my mother’s purple blouse which had been part of her trousseau. I took out the long pistachio-colored robe my grandmother had embroidered with flowers, and tried it on, but it didn’t please me. As I was trying it on under the purple blouse, I felt a chill; I shuddered, and the candle flame trembled with me. Over it all, of course, I was going to wear my fox fur-lined street robe, but at the last minute I changed my mind, and silently crossing the hall, I removed the very long and loose azure-colored woolen robe that my mother had given me and put it on. Just then I heard a noise at the door and fell into a panic: Black was leaving! I quickly removed my mother’s old robe and put on the fur-lined red one: It was tight around the bustline, but I liked it. I then donned the softest and whitest veil, lowering it over my face.

Black Effendi hadn’t left yet, of course; I’d let my apprehension deceive me. If I go out now, I can tell my father that I went to buy fish with the children. I padded down the stairs like a cat.

I closed the door-click-like a ghost. I quietly passed through the courtyard and when I was out on the street, momentarily turned and looked back at the house. From behind my veil it seemed as if it wasn’t our house at all.

There was no one in the street, not even any cats. Flakes of snow danced in the air. With a shudder, I entered the abandoned garden where sunlight never fell. It smelled of rotten leaves, dampness and death; yet, when I entered the house of the Hanged Jew, I felt as though I were in my own home. They say that jinns meet here at night, light the stove and make merry. I was startled to hear my footsteps in the empty house. I waited, stock-still. I heard a sound in the garden, but then everything was overcome by silence. I heard a dog bark nearby. I recognize all the dogs in our neighborhood from their barks, but I couldn’t place this one.

During the next silence I sensed that there was somebody else in the house and I stood dead still so he wouldn’t hear my footsteps. Strangers talked as they passed on the street. I thought of Hayriye and the children. I hoped to God that they wouldn’t catch cold. In the silence that followed, I was gradually overcome by regret. Black wasn’t coming. I’d made a mistake, and I ought to return home before my pride was damaged even further. Terrified, I imagined that Hasan was watching me, and then I heard movement in the garden. The door opened.

I abruptly changed my position. I didn’t know why I did so, but when I stood to the left of the window through which a faint light from the garden was filtering, I realized that Black would be able to see me, to borrow a phrase from my father, “within the mysteries of shadow.” I covered my face with my veil and waited, listening to his footsteps.

Black passed through the doorway and saw me, then took a few more steps and stopped. We stood five paces apart and beheld each other. He looked healthier and stronger than he’d appeared through the peephole. There was a silence.

“Remove your veil,” he said in a whisper. “Please.”

“I’m married. I’m awaiting my husband’s return.”

“Remove your veil,” he said in the same tone. “Your husband won’t ever come back.”

“Have you arranged to meet me here to tell me this?”

“Nay, I’ve done so to be able to see you. I’ve been thinking of you for twelve years. Remove your veil, my darling, let me look at you just once.”

I removed it. I was pleased as he silently studied my face and stared at length into the depths of my eyes.

“Marriage and motherhood have made you even more beautiful. And your face has become entirely different than what I remembered.”

“How had you remembered me?”

“With agony, because when I thought of you, I couldn’t help but think that what I was remembering wasn’t you but a fantasy. In our childhood, you remember how we used to discuss Hüsrev and Shirin, who fell in love after seeing images of each other, don’t you? Why was it that Shirin hadn’t fallen in love with handsome Hüsrev when first she saw his picture hanging from a tree branch but had to see that image three times before falling in love? You used to say that in fairy tales everything happens thrice. I would argue that love ought to have blossomed when she first saw the picture. But who could have depicted Hüsrev realistically enough for her to fall in love with him, and precisely enough that she would recognize him? We never talked about this. Over these last twelve years, if I had such a realistic portrait of your matchless face, perhaps I wouldn’t have suffered so.”

He said some quite lovely things in this vein, stories of looking at an illustration and falling in love and of how he’d suffered desperately for me. I noticed the way he slowly approached; and his every word flitted through my conscious mind and alighted somewhere in my memory. Later, I would muse over these words one by one. But at the time my appreciation of the magic of what he said was purely visceral and it bound me to him. I felt guilty for having caused him such pain for twelve years. What a honey-tongued man! What a good person this Black was! Like an innocent child! I could read all of this from his eyes. The fact that he loved me so much made me trust him.

We embraced. This so pleased me that I felt no guilt. I let myself be borne away by sweet emotion. I hugged him tighter. I let him kiss me, and I kissed him back. And as we kissed, it was as if the entire world had entered a gentle twilight. I wished everybody could embrace each other the way we did. I faintly recalled that love was supposed to be like this. He put his tongue into my mouth. I was so content with what I was doing, it was as if the whole world were engulfed in blissful light; I could think of nothing bad.

Let me describe for you how our embrace might’ve been depicted by the master miniaturists of Herat, if this tragic story of mine were one day recorded in a book. There are certain amazing illustrations that my father has shown me wherein the thrill of the script’s flow matches the swaying of the leaves, the wall ornamentation is echoed in the design of the border gilding and the joy of the swallow’s matchless wings piercing the picture’s border suggests the elation of the lovers. Exchanging glances from afar and tormenting each other with suggestive phrases, the lovers would be depicted so small, so far in the distance, that for a moment it’d seem like the story wasn’t about them at all, but had to do with the starry night, the dark trees, the exquisite palace where they met, its courtyard and its wonderful garden whose every leaf was lovingly and particularly rendered. If, however, one paid very close attention to the secret symmetry of the colors, which the miniaturist could only convey with total resignation to his art, and to the mysterious light infusing the entire painting, the careful observer would immediately see that the secret behind these illustrations is that they’re created by love itself. It’s as if a light were emanating from the lovers, from the very depths of the illustration. And when Black and I embraced, well-being flooded the world in the very same manner.

Thank God I’ve seen enough of life to know that such well-being never lasts for long. Black sweetly took my large breasts into his hands. This felt good and, forgetting all, I longed for him to suck on my nipples. But he couldn’t quite manage it, because he wasn’t all that sure of what he was doing, though his uncertainty didn’t prevent him from wanting more. Gradually, fear and embarrassment came between us the longer we embraced. But when he grabbed my thighs to pull me close, pressing his large hardened manliness against my stomach, I liked it at first; I was curious. I wasn’t embarrassed. I told myself that an embrace such as we’d had would naturally lead to another such as this. And though I turned my head away, I couldn’t take my widening eyes off its size.

Later still, when he abruptly tried to force me to perform that vulgar act that even Kipchak women and concubines who tell stories at the public baths wouldn’t do, I froze in astonishment and indecision.

“Don’t furrow your brow, my dear,” he begged.

I stood up, pushed him away and began shouting at him without paying the slightest mind to his disappointment.