My Name is Red

I, SHEKURE

It was snowing so hard that snowflakes occasionally passed right through my veil into my eyes. I picked my way through the garden covered in rotting grass, mud and broken branches, then quickened my pace once I’d exited onto the street. I know you’re all wondering what I’m thinking. How much do I trust Black? Let me be frank with you, then. I myself don’t know what to think. You do understand, don’t you? I’m confused. This much, however, I do know: As always, I’ll fall into the routine of meals, children, my father and errands, and before long my heart, without even having to be asked, will whisper the truth to me of its own accord. Tomorrow, before noon, I’ll know whom I am to marry.

I want to share something with you before I arrive home. No! Come off it, now, it’s not about the size of that monstrosity Black showed me. If you want we can talk about that later. What I was going to discuss was Black’s haste. It’s not that he seems to think only of satisfying his lust. To be honest, it’d make no difference if he did. What surprises me is his stupidity! I suppose it never crossed his mind that he could frighten and abduct me, play with my honor and put me off, or open the door to even more dangerous outcomes. I can tell from his innocent expression how much he loves and desires me. But after waiting twelve years, why can’t he play the game according to the rules and wait another twelve days?

Do you know I have the sinking feeling I’ve fallen in love with his incompetence and his melancholy childlike glances? At a time when it would’ve been more appropriate to be irate with him, instead, I pitied him. “Oh, my poor child,” a voice inside me said, “you suffer such torment and are still so utterly incompetent.” I felt so protective of him that I might’ve even made a mistake, I might’ve actually given myself to that spoiled little boy.

Thinking of my unfortunate children, I quickened my steps. Just then, in the early darkness and blinding snow, I thought a phantom of a man would run right over me. Ducking my head, I slipped by him.

Upon entering through the courtyard gate, I knew that Hayriye and the children hadn’t yet returned. Very well then, I’d come back in time, the evening prayers hadn’t yet been called. I climbed the stairs, the house smelled of orange jam. My father was in his darkened room with the blue door; my feet were freezing. I entered my room to the right beside the stairs holding a lamp, and when I saw that the cabinet had been opened, that the cushions had fallen out and the room had been ransacked, I assumed it was the naughty work of Shevket and Orhan. There was a silence in the house, not unusual, yet unlike the usual silence. I donned my house clothes and sat alone in the darkness, and as I gave myself over to momentary daydreaming, my mind registered a noise coming from below, directly below me, not from the kitchen but from the large room next to the stable, used in summertime as the illustrating workshop. Had my father gone down there, in this cold? I didn’t remember seeing the light of an oil lamp there; suddenly, I heard the squeak of the front door between the stone walkway and the courtyard, and afterward, the cursed and ominous barking of the pesky dogs roaming past the courtyard gate-I was alarmed, to put it mildly.

“Hayriye,” I shouted. “Shevket, Orhan…”

I felt a cold draft. My father’s brazier must be burning; I ought to sit with him and warm up. As I went to be with him, holding an oil lamp aloft, my thoughts weren’t with Black any longer, but with the children.

I crossed the wide hall diagonally, wondering if I should set water to boil on the downstairs brazier for the gray mullet soup. I entered the room with the blue door. Everything was in shambles. Without thinking, I was about to say, “What has my father done?”

Then I saw him on the floor.

I screamed, overcome with horror. Then I screamed again. Gazing at my father’s body, I fell silent.

Listen, I can tell by your tight-lipped and cold-blooded reaction that you’ve known for some time what’s happened in this room. If not everything, then quite a lot. What you’re wondering about now is my reaction to what I’ve seen, what I feel. As readers sometimes do when studying a picture, you’re trying to discern the pain of the hero and thinking about the events in the story leading up to this agonizing moment. And then, having considered my reaction, you’ll take pleasure in trying to imagine, not my pain, but what you’d feel in my place, had it been your father murdered like this. I know this is what you’re so craftily trying to do.

Yes, I returned home in the evening to discover that someone had killed my father. Yes, I tore out my hair. Yes, as I would do in my childhood, I hugged him with all my might and smelled his skin. Yes, I trembled and I couldn’t breathe. Yes, I begged Allah to raise him up and have him sit silently in his corner among his books as he always did. Get up, Father, get up, don’t die. His bloodied head was crushed. More than the torn papers and books, more than the breaking and tossing about of the end tables, paint sets and inkpots, more than the wild destruction of cushions, worktables and writing boards, and the ransacking of everything, more even than the anger that had killed my father, I feared the hatred that had destroyed the room and everything within it. I was no longer crying. A couple passed down the street outside, laughing and talking in the blackness; meanwhile, I could hear the infinite silence of the world in my mind; with my hands I wiped my running nose and the tears off my cheeks. For a long long time I thought about the children and our lives.

I listened to the silence. I ran, I grabbed my father by the ankles and dragged him into the hallway. For whatever reason, he felt heavier out there, but without paying any mind to this, I began to pull him down the stairs. Halfway down, my strength gave out and I sat on a step. I was on the verge of tears again when I heard a noise that made me assume that Hayriye and the children had returned. I grabbed my father by the ankles, and pressing them into my armpits, I continued to descend, faster this time. My dear father’s head had been so crushed and was so soaked in blood that it made the sound of a wrung-out mop as it struck each step. At the base of the stairs, I turned his body, which now seemed to have grown lighter, and with one great effort, dragging him across the stone floor, I took him into the summer painting room. In order to see within the pitch-black room, I hastened back out to the stove in the kitchen. When I returned with a candle I saw how thoroughly the room where I’d dragged my father had been pillaged. I was dumbstruck.

Who is it, my God, which one of them?

My mind was churning. Closing the door tightly, I left my father in the demolished room. I grabbed a bucket from the kitchen, and filled it with water from the well. I climbed the stairs, and by the light of an oil lamp, I quickly wiped away the blood in the hallway, on the staircase and everywhere else. I went back upstairs to my room, removed my bloodied clothes and put on clean clothes. Carrying the bucket and rag, I was about to enter the room with the blue door when I heard the courtyard gate swing open. The evening call to prayer had begun. I mustered all my strength, and holding the oil lamp in my hand, I waited for them at the top of the stairs.

“Mother, we’re back,” Orhan said.

“Hayriye! Where have you been!” I said forcefully, but as if I were whispering, not shouting.

“But Mother, we didn’t stay out past the evening call to prayer…” Shevket had begun to say.

“Quiet! Your grandfather is ill, he’s sleeping.”

“Ill?” said Hayriye from below. She could tell from my silence that I was angry: “Shekure, we waited for Kosta. After the gray mullet arrived, without tarrying, we picked bay leaves, then I bought the dried figs and cherries for the children.”

I had the urge to go down and admonish Hayriye in a whisper, but I was afraid that as I was going downstairs, the oil lamp I carried would illuminate the wet steps and the drops of blood I’d missed in my haste. The children noisily climbed the stairs and then removed their shoes.

“Ah-ah-ah,” I said. Guiding them toward our bedroom, “Not that way, your grandfather’s sleeping, don’t go in there.”

“I’m going into the room with the blue door, to be by the brazier,” Shevket said, “not to Grandfather’s room.”

“Your grandfather fell asleep in that room,” I whispered.

But I noticed that they hesitated for a moment. “Let’s be certain that the evil jinns that’ve possessed your grandfather and made him sick don’t set upon the both of you as well,” I said. “Go to your room, now.” I grabbed both of them by their hands and put them into the room where we slept together. “Tell me then, what were you doing out on the streets till this hour?” “We saw some black beggars,” said Shevket. “Where?” I asked. “Were they carrying flags?” “As we were climbing the hill. They gave Hayriye a lemon. Hayriye gave them some money. They were covered in snow.” “What else?” “They were practicing shooting arrows at a target in the square.” “In this snow?” I said. “Mother, I’m cold,” said Shevket. “I’m going into the room with the blue door.” “You’re not to leave this room,” I said. “Otherwise you’ll die. I’ll bring you the brazier.” “Why do you say we’re going to die?” said Shevket. “I’m going to tell you something,” I said, “but you’re not to tell anyone, are we understood?” They swore not to tell. “While you were out, a completely white man who’d died and lost his color came here from a faraway country and spoke to your grandfather. It turns out he was a jinn.” They asked me where the jinn came from. “From the other side of the river,” I said. “Where our father is?” asked Shevket. “Yes, from there,” I said. “The jinn came to take a look at the pictures in your grandfather’s books. They say that a sinner who looks at those pictures immediately dies.”

A silence.

“Listen, I’m going downstairs to be with Hayriye,” I said. “I’m going to carry the brazier in here, as well as the dinner tray. Don’t even think of leaving the room or you’ll die. The jinn is still in the house.”

“Mama, Mama, don’t go,” Orhan said.

I squared myself to Shevket. “You’re responsible for your brother,” I said. “If you leave the room and the jinn doesn’t get you, I’ll be the one who kills you.” I put on the frightening expression that I made before slapping them. “Now pray that your ill grandfather doesn’t die. If you’re good, God will grant you your prayers and no one will be able to harm you.” Without giving themselves over to it too much, they began to pray. I went downstairs.

“Somebody knocked over the pot of orange jam,” said Hayriye. “The cat couldn’t have done it, not strong enough; a dog couldn’t have gotten into the house…”

She abruptly saw the terror on my face and stopped: “What’s the matter, then,” she said, “what happened? Has something happened to your dear father?”

“He’s dead.”

She shrieked. The knife and onion she was holding fell from her hands and hit the cutting board with such force that the fish she was preparing flopped. She shrieked again. We both noticed that the blood on her left hand had come, not from the fish, but from her index finger, which she’d sliced accidentally. I ran upstairs, and as I was searching for a piece of muslin in the room opposite the one the children were in, I heard their noises and shouts. Holding the piece of cloth I’d torn off, I entered the room to find that Shevket had climbed onto his younger brother, pinning Orhan’s shoulders down with his knees. He was choking him.

“What are you two doing!” I shouted at the top of my lungs.

“Orhan was leaving the room,” Shevket said.

“Liar,” said Orhan. “Shevket opened the door and I told him not to leave.” He began to cry.

“If you don’t sit up here quietly, I’ll kill both of you.”

“Mama, don’t go,” Orhan said.

Downstairs, I bound Hayriye’s finger, stopping the bleeding. When I told her that my father hadn’t died a natural death, she grew frightened and recited some prayers asking for Allah’s protection. She stared at her injured finger and began crying. Was her affection for my father great enough to unleash such a fit of crying? She wanted to go upstairs and see him.

“He’s not upstairs,” I said. “He’s in the back room.”

She gazed at me suspiciously. But when she realized I couldn’t bear another look at him, she was overcome by curiosity. She grabbed the lamp and left. She took four or five steps beyond the entrance of the kitchen, where I stood, and with respect and apprehension, she slowly pushed open the door of the room, and by the light of the lamp she was holding, looked inside. Unable at first to see my father, she raised the lamp even higher, trying to illuminate the corners of the large rectangular room.

“Aaah!” she screamed. She’d caught sight of my father where I’d left him just beside the door. Frozen, she gazed at him. The shadow she cast along the floor and stable wall was motionless. As she looked, I imagined what she was seeing. When she returned, she wasn’t crying. I was relieved to see that she still had her wits about her, enough to be able to register completely what I was prepared to tell her.

“Now listen to me, Hayriye,” I said. As I spoke, I waved the fish knife, which my hand had grabbed seemingly on its own. “The upstairs has been ransacked too; the same accursed demon has destroyed all, he’s made a shambles of everything. That’s where he crushed my father’s face and skull; that’s where he killed him. I brought him down here so the children wouldn’t see and so I might have a chance to caution you. After you three left, I also went out. Father was home by himself.”

“I was not aware of that,” she said insolently. “Where were you?”

I wanted her to take careful note of my silence. Then I said, “I was with Black. I met with Black in the house of the Hanged Jew. But you won’t breathe a word of this to anyone. Nor, for the time being, will you mention that my father has been killed.”

“Who was it that murdered him?”

Was she truly such an idiot or was she trying to corner me?

“If I knew, I wouldn’t hide the fact that he was dead,” I said. “I don’t know. Do you?”

“How should I know anything?” she said. “What are we going to do now?”

“You’re going to behave as if nothing whatsoever has happened,” I said. I felt the urge to wail, to burst out crying, but I restrained myself. We both were quiet.

Much later, I said, “Forget about the fish for now, set out the dishes for the children.”

She objected and started to cry, and I put my arms around her. We hugged each other tightly. I loved her then, momentarily pitying, not only myself and the children, but all of us. But even as we embraced, a worm of doubt was anxiously gnawing at me. You know where I was while my father was being murdered. To further my own designs, I’d cleared the house of Hayriye and the children. You know that leaving my father alone in the house was an unforeseen coincidence…But did Hayriye know? Did she comprehend what I’d explained to her, will she understand? Indeed, yes, she’d quickly understand and grow suspicious. I hugged her even tighter; but I knew that with her slave girl’s mind she’d assume I was doing this to cover up my wiles, and before long even I felt as if I were deceiving her. While my father was being murdered here, I was with Black engaged in an act of lovemaking. If it were only Hayriye who knew this, I wouldn’t feel as guilty, but I suspect that you might make something of it as well. So, admit it, you believe that I’m hiding something. Alas, poor woman! Could my fate be any darker? I began to cry, then Hayriye cried, and we embraced again.

I pretended to satisfy my hunger at the table we’d set upstairs. From time to time, with the excuse of “checking on Grandfather,” I would step into the other room and burst into tears. Later because the children were scared and agitated, they snuggled up tightly next to me in bed. For a long while they were unable to sleep for fear of jinns, and as they tossed and turned they kept asking, “I heard a noise, did you hear it?” To lull them to sleep, I promised to tell them a love story. You know how words take wing in the darkness.

“Mother, you’re not going to get married are you?” said Shevket.

“Listen to me,” I said. “There was a prince who, from afar, fell in love with a strikingly beautiful maiden. How did this happen? I’ll tell you how. Before laying eyes on the pretty maiden, he’d seen her portrait, that’s how.”

As I would often do when I was upset and troubled, I recounted the tale not from memory, but improvising according to how I felt at that time. And since I colored it using a palette of my own memories and worries, what I recounted became a kind of melancholy illustration to accompany all that had happened to me.

After both children fell asleep, I left the warm bed and, together with Hayriye, cleaned up what that vile demon had scattered about. We picked up ruined chests, books, cloth, ceramic cups, earthenware pots, plates and inkpots that had been thrown about and shattered; we cleared away a demolished folding worktable, paint boxes and papers that had been torn up with furious hatred; and while doing so one of us, periodically, would stop and break down crying. It was as though we were more distraught over the wreckage of the rooms and their furnishings and the savage violation of our privacy, than we were over my father’s death. I can tell you from experience, unfortunates who’ve lost loved ones are comforted by the unchanged presence of objects in the house; they’re lulled by the sameness of the curtains, blankets and daylight, which, in turn, allows them occasionally to forget that Azrael has carried away their beloved or kin. The house that my father looked after with patience and love, whose nooks and doors he had meticulously embellished, had been mercilessly vandalized; thus, we were not only devoid of comfort and pleasant memories but, reminded of the pitilessness of the culprit’s damned soul, we were terrified as well.

When, for example, at my insistence we went downstairs, drew fresh water from the well, performed our ablutions and were reciting from the “Family of Imran” chapter-which my dearly departed father said he loved so much because it mentioned hope and death-out of his most cherished Herat-bound Koran, we were under sway of this terror and alarmed that the courtyard gate had begun to creak. It was nothing. But, after we checked that the latch was locked, and barricaded the gate by moving with our combined strength the planter of sweet basil that my father would water on spring mornings with freshly drawn well water, we reentered the house in the dead of night, and it suddenly seemed that the elongated shadows we were casting by the light of the oil lamp belonged to others. Most frightening of all was the horror that overcame us like a silent act of piety, as we solemnly washed his bloodied face and changed his clothes so that I might deceive myself into believing that my father had died at his appointed time; “Hand me his sleeve from underneath,” Hayriye had whispered to me.

As we removed his bloody clothes and undergarments, what aroused our amazement and awe was the vitality and whitish color of my father’s skin illuminated by candlelight. Because there were many more threatening things to frighten us, neither of us was shy about looking at my father’s sprawling naked body covered with moles and wounds. When Hayriye went back upstairs to fetch clean undergarments and his green silk shirt, unable to restrain myself, I looked down there and was immediately quite ashamed at what I’d done. After I’d dressed my father in fresh clothes and carefully cleaned the blood off his neck, face and hair, I embraced him with all my strength, and burying my nose in his beard, I inhaled his scent and cried at length.

For those of you who would accuse me of lacking feeling, or even of being guilty, let me hasten to tell of two further instances when I broke down crying: 1. When I was tidying the upstairs room so the children wouldn’t discover what had happened and I brought a seashell he’d used as a paper burnisher to my ear, as I’d done as a child, only to discover that the sound of the sea had diminished. 2. When I saw that the red velvet cushion my father sat upon often over the last twenty years-so much so it’d become part of his rear end-had been torn apart.

When everything in the house, excluding the damage that was beyond repair, was put back in order, I mercilessly denied Hayriye’s request to spread her roll-up mattress out in our room. “I don’t want the children to get suspicious in the morning,” I explained to her. But, to be honest, I was as eager to be alone with my children as I was to punish her. I entered my bed but was unable to sleep for a long while, not because I was preoccupied with the horror of what had happened, but because I was considering all that yet lay in store.