My Name is Red

I AM CALLED BLACK

Widowed, abandoned and aggrieved, my beloved Shekure fled with featherlike steps, and I stood as if stunned in the stillness of the house of the Hanged Jew, amid the aroma of almonds and dreams of marriage she’d left in her wake. I was bewildered, but my mind was churning so fast it almost hurt. Without even a chance to grieve properly over my Enishte’s death, I swiftly returned home. On the one hand, a worm of doubt was gnawing at me: Was Shekure using me as a pawn in a grand scheme, was she duping me? On the other hand, fantasies of a blissful marriage stubbornly played before my eyes.

After making conversation with my landlady who interrogated me at the front door as to where I’d gone and whence I was coming at this morning hour, I went to my room and removed the twenty-two Venetian gold pieces from the lining of the sash I’d hidden in my mattress, placing them in my money purse with trembling fingers. When I returned to the street, I knew immediately I’d see Shekure’s dark, teary, troubled eyes for the rest of the day.

I changed five of the Venetian Lions at a perpetually smiling Jewish money changer. Next, deep in thought, I entered the neighborhood whose name I’ve yet to mention because I’m not fond of it: Yakutlar, where my deceased Enishte and Shekure, along with her children, awaited me at their house. As I made my way along the streets almost running, a tall plane tree seemed to reproach me for being overjoyed by dreams and plans of marriage on the very day my Enishte had passed away. Next, as the ice had melted, a street fountain hissed into my ear: “Don’t take matters too seriously, see to your own affairs and your own happiness.” “That’s all fine and good,” objected an ill-omened black cat licking himself on the corner, “but everybody, yourself included, suspects you had a hand in your uncle’s murder.”

The cat left off licking himself as I suddenly caught sight of its bewitching eyes. I don’t have to tell you how brazen these Istanbul cats get when the locals spoil them.

I found the Imam Effendi, whose droopy eyelids and large black eyes gave him a perpetually sleepy look, not at his house, but in the courtyard of the neighborhood mosque, and there I asked him quite a trivial legal question: “When is one obligated to testify in court?” I raised my eyebrows as I listened to his haughty answer as if I were hearing this information for the first time. “Bearing witness is optional if other witnesses are present,” explained the Imam Effendi, “but, in situations where there was only one witness, it is the will of God that one bear witness.”

“That’s just the predicament I find myself in now,” I said, taking up the conversation. “In a situation everyone knows about, all the witnesses have shirked their responsibilities and avoided going to court with the excuse that ”it’s only voluntary,“ and as a result the pressing concerns of those I’m trying to help are being completely disregarded.”

“Well,” said the Imam Effendi, “why don’t you loosen your purse-strings a little more?”

I took out my pouch and showed him the Venetian gold pieces huddled within: The broad space of the mosque courtyard, the face of the preacher, everything was suddenly illuminated by the glimmer of gold. He asked me what my dilemma was all about.

I explained who I was. “Enishte Effendi is ill,” I confided. “Before he dies, he wants his daughter’s widowhood certified and an alimony to be instituted.”

I didn’t even have to mention the proxy of the Üsküdar judge. The Imam Effendi understood at once and said the entire neighborhood had long been troubled over the fate of hapless Shekure, adding that the situation had already persisted too long. Instead of searching for a second witness required for a legal separation at the door of the Üsküdar judge, the Imam Effendi suggested his brother. Now, if I were to offer an additional gold piece to the brother, who lived in the neighborhood and was familiar with the predicament of Shekure and her darling children, I’d be doing a good pious turn. After all, for only two gold coins the Imam Effendi was giving me a deal on the second witness. We immediately agreed. The Imam Effendi went to fetch his brother.

The rest of our day rather resembled the “cat-and-mouse” stories that I’d watched storytellers in Aleppo coffeehouses act out. Because of all the adventure and trickery, such stories written up as narrative poems and bound were never taken seriously even if presented in fine calligraphy; that is, they were never illustrated. I, on the other hand, was quite pleased to divide our daylong adventure into four scenes, imagining each in the illustrated pages of my mind.

In the first scene, the miniaturist ought to depict us amid mustachioed and muscled oarsmen, forging our way across the blue Bosphorus toward Üsküdar in the four-oared red longboat we’d boarded in Unkapanı. The preacher and his skinny dark-complexioned brother, pleased with the surprise voyage, are engaging the oarsmen in friendly chatter. Meanwhile, amid blithe dreams of marriage that play ceaselessly before my eyes, I stare deep into the waters of the Bosphorus, flowing clearer than usual on this sunny winter morning, on guard for an ominous sign within its currents. I’m afraid, for example, that I might see the wreck of a pirate ship below. Thus, no matter how joyously the miniaturist colors the sea and clouds, he ought to include something equivalent to the darkness of my fears and as intense as my dreams of happiness-a terrifying-looking fish, for example-in the depths of the water so the reader of my adventure won’t assume all is rosy.

Our second picture ought to show the palaces of sultans, the meetings of the Divan Council of State, the reception of European ambassadors, and detailed and carefully composed crowded interiors of a subtlety worthy of Bihzad; that is, the picture ought to partake of playful tricks and irony. Thereby, while the Kadi Effendi apparently makes an open-handed “halt” gesture indicating “never” or “no” to my bribe, with his other hand he ought to be shown obligingly pocketing my Venetian gold coins, and the ultimate result of this bribe should be depicted in the same picture: Shahap Effendi, the Shafü proxy presiding in place of the Üsküdar judge. The simultaneous depiction of sequential events could only be achieved through an intelligent miniaturist’s cunning facility in page composition. Thus, when the observer, who first sees me giving a bribe, notices elsewhere in the painting that the man sitting cross-legged on the judge’s cushion is the proxy, he’ll realize, even if he hasn’t read the story, that the honorable judge has temporarily given up his office so his proxy might grant Shekure a divorce.

The third illustration should show the same scene, but this time the wall ornamentation should be darker and rendered in the Chinese style, the curly branches being more intricate and dense, and colorful clouds should appear above the judge’s proxy so the chicanery in the story might be apparent. Though the Imam Effendi and his brother have actually testified separately before the judge’s proxy, in the illustration they are shown together explaining how the husband of anguished Shekure hasn’t returned from war for four years, how she is in a state of destitution without a husband to look after her, how her two fatherless children are perpetually in tears and hungry, how there is no prospect for remarriage because she’s still considered married, and how in this state she can’t even receive a loan without permission from her husband. They’re so convincing that even a man as deaf as a stone would grant her a divorce through a cascade of tears. The heartless proxy, however, having none of it, asks about Shekure’s legal guardian. After a moment of hesitation, I immediately interrupt, declaring that her esteemed father, who has served as herald and ambassador for Our Sultan, is still alive.

“Until he testifies in court, I’ll never grant her a divorce!” said the proxy.

Thereupon, thoroughly flustered, I explained how my Enishte Effendi was ill, bed-ridden and struggling for his life, how his last wish to God was to see his daughter divorced, and how I was his representative.

“What does she want with a divorce?” asked the proxy. “Why would a dying man want to see his daughter divorced from her husband who’s long vanished at war anyway? Listen, I’d understand if there were a good, trustworthy candidate for son-in-law, because then he wouldn’t pass away with his wish unfulfilled.”

“There is a prospect, sir,” I said.

“Who might that be?”

“It is I!”

“Come now! You’re the guardian’s representative!” said the judge’s proxy. “What line of work are you in?”

“In the eastern provinces, I served as secretary, chief secretary and assistant treasurer to various pashas. I completed a history of the Persian wars that I intend to present to Our Sultan. I’m a connoisseur of illustrating and decoration. I’ve been burning with love for this woman for twenty years.”

“Are you a relative of hers?”

I was so embarrassed at having fallen so abruptly and unexpectedly into groveling meekness before the judge’s proxy, at having bared my life like some dull object devoid of any mystery, that I fell completely silent.

“Instead of turning beet red, give me an answer, young man, lest I refuse to grant her a divorce.”

“She’s the daughter of my maternal aunt.”

“Hmmm, I see. Will you be able to make her happy?”

When he asked the question he made a vulgar hand gesture. The miniaturist should omit this indelicacy. It’d be enough for him to show how much I blushed.

“I make a decent living.”

“As I belong to the Shafü sect, there is nothing contrary to the Holy Book or my creed in my granting the divorce of this unfortunate Shekure, whose husband has been missing at the front for four years,” said the Proxy Effendi. “I grant the divorce. And I rule that her husband no longer has any superceding rights should he return.”

The subsequent illustration, that is, the fourth, ought to depict the proxy recording the divorce in the ledger, unleashing obedient armies of black-ink letters, before presenting me with the document declaring that my Shekure is now a widow and there is no obstacle to her immediate remarriage. Neither by painting the walls of the courtroom red, nor by situating the picture within bloodred borders could the blissful inner radiance I felt at that moment be expressed. Running back through the crowd of false witnesses and other men gathering before the judge’s door seeking divorces for their sisters, daughters or even aunts, I set out on my return journey.

After I crossed the Bosphorus and headed directly to the Yakutlar neighborhood, I dismissed both the considerate Imam Effendi, who wanted to perform the marriage ceremony, and his brother. Since I suspected everyone I saw on the street of hatching some mischief out of jealousy over the incredible happiness I was on the verge of attaining, I ran straight to Shekure’s street. How had the ominous crows divined the presence of a body in the house and taken to hopping around excitedly on the terra-cotta shingles? I was overcome by guilt because I hadn’t been able to grieve for my Enishte or even shed a single tear; even so, I knew from the tightly closed shutters and door of the house, from the silence, and even from the look of the pomegranate tree that everything was proceeding as planned.

I was acting intuitively in a great haste. I tossed a stone at the courtyard gate but missed! I tossed another at the house. It landed on the roof. Frustrated, I began pelting the house with stones. A window opened. It was the second-story window where four days ago, on Wednesday, I’d first seen Shekure through the branches of the pomegranate tree. Orhan appeared, and from the gap in the shutters I could hear Shekure scolding him. Then I saw her. For a moment, we gazed hopefully at each other, my fair lady and I. She was so beautiful and becoming. She made a gesture that I took to mean “wait” and shut the window.

There was still plenty of time before evening. I waited hopefully in the empty garden, awestruck by the beauty of the world, the trees and the muddy street. Before long, Hayriye came in, dressed and covered not like a servant, but rather, like a lady of the house. Without nearing each other, we removed ourselves to the cover of the fig trees.

“Everything is progressing as planned,” I said to her. I showed her the document I’d obtained from the proxy. “Shekure is divorced. As for the preacher from another neighborhood…” I was going to add, “I’ll see to that,” but instead blurted out, “He’s on his way. Shekure should be ready.”

“No matter how small, Shekure wants a bride’s procession, followed by a neighborhood reception with a wedding repast. We’ve prepared a stewpot of pilaf with almonds and dried apricots.”

In her excitement, she seemed prepared to tell me everything else she’d cooked but I cut her off. “If the wedding is going to be such an elaborate affair,” I cautioned, “Hasan and his men will hear of it; they’ll raid the house, disgrace us, have the marriage nullified and we’ll be able to do nothing about it. All our efforts will have been in vain. We need to protect ourselves not only from Hasan and his father, but from the devil who murdered Enishte Effendi as well. Aren’t you afraid?”

“How could we not be?” she said and began to cry.

“You’re not to tell anyone a thing,” I said. “Dress Enishte in his nightclothes, spread out his mattress and lay him upon it, not as a dead man, but as though he were sick. Arrange glasses and bottles of syrup by his head, and draw the shutters closed. Make certain there are no lamps in his room so that he can act as Shekure’s guardian, her sick father, during the ceremony. There’s no place now for a bride’s procession. You can invite a handful of neighbors at the last minute, that’s all. While you’re inviting them, say that this was Enishte Effendi’s last wish…It won’t be a joyous wedding, but a melancholy one. If we don’t see ourselves through this affair, they’ll destroy us, and they’ll punish you as well. You understand, don’t you?”

She nodded as she wept. Mounting my white horse, I said I’d secure the witnesses and return before long, that Shekure ought to be ready, that hereafter, I would be master of the house, and that I was going to the barber. I hadn’t thought through any of this beforehand. As I spoke, the details came to me, and just as I’d felt during battles from time to time, I had the conviction that I was a cherished and favored servant of God and He was protecting me; thus, everything was going to turn out fine. When you feel this trust, do whatever comes to mind, follow your intuition and your actions will prove correct.

I rode four blocks toward the Golden Horn from the Yakutlar neighborhood to find the black-bearded, radiant-faced preacher of the mosque in Yasin Pasha, the adjacent neighborhood; broom in hand, he was shooing shameless dogs out of the muddy courtyard. I told him about my predicament. By the will of God, I explained, my Enishte’s time was upon him, and according to his last wish, I was to marry his daughter, who, by decision of the Üsküdar judge, had just been granted a divorce from a husband lost at war. The preacher objected that by the dictates of Islamic law a divorced woman must wait a month before remarrying, but I countered by explaining that Shekure’s former husband had been absent for four years; and so, there was no chance she was pregnant by him. I hastened to add that the Üsküdar judge granted a divorce this morning to allow Shekure to remarry, and I showed him the certifying document. “My exalted Imam Effendi, you may rest assured that there’s no obstacle to the marriage,” I said. True, she was a blood relation, but being maternal cousins is not an obstacle; her previous marriage had been nullified; there were no religious, social or monetary differences between us. And if he accepted the gold pieces I offered him up front, if he performed the ceremony at the wedding scheduled to take place before the entire neighborhood, he’d also be accomplishing a pious act before God for the fatherless children of a widowed woman. Did the Imam Effendi, I inquired, enjoy pilaf with almonds and dried apricots?

He did, but he was still preoccupied with the dogs at the gate. He took the gold coins. He said he’d don his wedding robes, straighten up his appearance, see to his turban and arrive in time to perform the nuptials. He asked the way to the house and I told him.

No matter how rushed a wedding might be-even one that the groom has dreamed about for twelve years-what could be more natural than his forgetting his worries and troubles and surrendering to the affectionate hands and gentle banter of a barber for a prenuptial shave and haircut? The barber’s, where my feet took me, was located near the market, on the street of the run-down house in Aksaray, which my late Enishte, my aunt and fair Shekure had quitted years after our childhood. This was the barber I’d faced five days ago, my first day back. When I entered he embraced me and as any good Istanbul barber would do, rather than asking where the last dozen years had gone, launched into the latest neighborhood gossip, concluding the conversation with an allusion to the place we would all go at the end of this meaningful journey called life.

The master barber had aged. The straight-edged razor he held in his freckled hand trembled as he made it dance across my cheek. He’d given himself over to drinking and had taken on a pink-complexioned, full-lipped, green-eyed boy-apprentice-who looked upon his master with awe. Compared with twelve years ago, the shop was cleaner and more orderly. After filling the hanging basin, which hung from the ceiling on a new chain, with boiling water, he carefully washed my hair and face with water from the brass faucet at the bottom of the basin. The old broad basins were newly tinned with no signs of rust, the heating braziers were clean, and the agate-handled razors were sharp. He wore an immaculate silk waistcoat, something he was loath to wear twelve years ago. I assumed that the elegant apprentice, tall for his age and of slender build, had helped bring some order to the shop and its owner, and surrendering myself to the soapy, rose-scented and steamy pleasures of a shave, I couldn’t help thinking how marriage not only brought new vitality and prosperity to a bachelor’s home, but to his work and his shop as well.

I’m not certain how much time had passed. I melted into the warmth of the brazier that gently heated the small shop and the barber’s adept fingers. With life having suddenly presented me the greatest of gifts today, as if for free, and after so much suffering, I felt a profound thanks toward exalted Allah. I felt an intense curiosity, wondering out of what mysterious balance this world of His had emerged, and I felt sadness and pity for Enishte, who lay dead in the house where, a while later, I would become master. I was readying myself to spring into action when there was a commotion at the always-open door of the barbershop: Shevket!

Flustered, but with his usual self-confidence, he held out a piece of paper. Unable to speak and expecting the worst, my insides were chilled as if by an icy draft as I read:

If there isn’t going to be a bride’s procession, I’m not getting married-Shekure.

Grabbing Shevket by the arm, I lifted him onto my lap. I would’ve liked to have responded to my dear Shekure by writing, “As you wish, my love!” but what would pen and ink be doing in the shop of an illiterate barber? So, with a calculated reserve, I whispered my response into the boy’s ear: “All right.” Still whispering, I asked him how his grandfather was doing.

“He’s sleeping.”

I now sense that Shevket, the barber and even you are suspicious about me and my Enishte’s death (Shevket, of course, suspects other things as well). What a pity! I forced a kiss upon him, and he quickly left, displeased. During the wedding, dressed in his holiday clothes, he glared at me with hostility from a distance.

Since Shekure wouldn’t be leaving her father’s house for mine, and I would be moving into the paternal home as bridegroom, the bridal procession was only fitting. Naturally, I was in no position to bedeck my wealthy friends and relatives and have them wait at Shekure’s front gate mounted on their horses as others might have done. Even so, I invited two of my childhood friends whom I’d run into during my six days back in Istanbul (one had become a clerk like myself and the other was running a bath house) as well as my dear barber, whose eyes had watered as he wished me happiness during my shave and haircut. Mounted upon my white horse, which I’d been riding that first day, I knocked at my beloved Shekure’s gate as if poised to take her to another house and another life.

To Hayriye, who opened the gate, I presented a generous tip. Shekure, dressed in a bright-red wedding gown with pink bridal streamers flowing from her hair to her feet, emerged amid cries, sobs, sighs (a woman scolded the children), outbursts, and shouts of “May God protect her,” and gracefully mounted a second white horse which we’d brought with us. As a hand-drummer and shrill zurna piper, kindly arranged by the barber for me at the last minute, began to play a slow bride’s melody, our poor, melancholy, yet proud procession set out on its way.

As our horses began to saunter, I understood that Shekure, with her usual cunning, had arranged this spectacle for the sake of safeguarding the nuptials. Our procession, having announced our wedding to the entire neighborhood, even if only at the last moment, had essentially secured everyone’s approval, thereby neutralizing any future objections to our marriage. Nevertheless, announcing that we were on the verge of marriage, and having a public wedding-as if to challenge our enemies, Shekure’s former husband and his family-further endangered the whole affair. Had it been left to me, I’d have held the ceremony in secret, without telling a soul, without a wedding celebration; I’d have preferred becoming her husband first and defending the marriage afterward.

I led the parade astride my fickle white fairy-tale horse, and as we moved through the neighborhood, I nervously watched for Hasan and his men, whom I expected to ambush us from an alleyway or a shadowy courtyard gate. I noticed how young men, the elders of the neighborhood and strangers stopped and waved from door fronts, without completely understanding all that was transpiring. In the small market area we’d unintentionally entered, I figured out that Shekure had masterfully activated her grapevine, and that her divorce and marriage to me was quickly winning acceptance in the neighborhood. This was evident from the excitement of the fruit-and-vegetable seller, who without leaving his colorful quinces, carrots and apples for too long, joined us for a few strides shouting “Praise be to God, may He protect you both,” and from the smile of the woeful shopkeeper and from the approving glances of the baker, who was having his apprentice scrape away the burnt residue in his pans. Still, I was anxious, maintaining my vigil against a sudden raid, or even a word of vulgar heckling. For this reason, I wasn’t at all disturbed by the commotion of the crowd of money-seeking children that had formed behind us as we left the bazaar. I understood from the smiles of women I glimpsed behind windows, bars and shutters that the enthusiasm of this noisy throng of children protected and supported us.

As I gazed at the road along which we’d advanced and were now, thank God, finally winding our way back toward the house, my heart was with Shekure and her sorrow. Actually, it wasn’t her misfortune in having to wed within a day of her father’s murder that saddened me, it was that the wedding was so unadorned and meager. My dear Shekure was worthy of horses with silver reins and ornamented saddles, mounted riders outfitted in sable and silk with gold embroidery, and hundreds of carriages laden with gifts and dowry; she deserved to lead an endless procession of pasha’s daughters, sultans and carriages full of elderly harem women chattering about the extravagances of days bygone. But Shekure’s wedding lacked even the four pole bearers to hold aloft the red silk canopy that ordinarily protected rich maidens from prying eyes; for that matter, there wasn’t even one servant to lead the procession bearing large wedding candles and tree-shaped decorations ornamented with fruit, gold, silver leaf and polished stones. More than embarrassment, I felt a sadness that threatened to fill my eyes with tears each time the disrespectful hand-drum and zurna players simply stopped playing when our procession got swallowed up in crowds of market-goers or servants fetching water from the fountain in the square because we had no one clearing the way with shouts of “Here comes the bride.” As we were nearing the house, I mustered the courage to turn in my saddle and gaze at her, and was relieved that beneath her pink bride’s tinsel and red veil, far from being saddened by all these pitiful shortcomings, she seemed heartened to know that we’d concluded our procession and our journey with neither accident nor mishap. So, like all grooms, I lowered my beautiful bride, whom I would shortly wed, from her horse, took her by the arm, and handful by handful, slowly emptied a bag of silver coins over her head before the gleeful crowd. While the children who’d followed behind our meager parade scrambled for the coins, Shekure and I entered the courtyard and crossed the stone walkway, and as soon as we entered the house, we were struck not only by the heat, but the horror of the heavy smell of decay.

While the throng from the procession was making itself comfortable in the house, Shekure and the crowd of elders, women and children (Orhan was glaring suspiciously at me from the corner) carried on as if nothing were amiss, and momentarily I doubted my senses; but I knew how corpses left under the sun after battle, their clothes tattered, boots and belts stolen, and their faces, their eyes and lips ravaged by wolves and birds smelled. It was a stench that had so often filled my mouth and lungs to the point of suffocation that I could not mistake it.

Downstairs in the kitchen, I asked Hayriye about Enishte Effendi’s body, aware that I was speaking to her for the first time as master of the house.

“As you asked, we laid out his mattress, dressed him in his nightclothes, drew his quilt over him and placed bottles of syrup beside him. If he’s giving off an unpleasant smell, it’s probably due to the heat from the brazier in the room,” the woman said through tears.

One or two of her tears fell, sizzling into the pot she was using to fry the mutton. From the way she was crying, I supposed that Enishte Effendi had been taking her into his bed at night. Esther, who was quietly and proudly sitting in a corner of the kitchen, swallowed what she was chewing and stood.

“Make her happiness your foremost concern,” she said. “Recognize her worth.”

In my thoughts I heard the lute I’d heard on the street the first day I’d come to Istanbul. More than sadness, there was vigor in its melody. I heard the melody of that music again later, in the half-darkened room where my Enishte lay in his white nightgown, as the Imam Effendi married us.

Because Hayriye had furtively aired out the room beforehand and placed the oil lamp in a corner so its light was dimmed, one could scarcely tell that my Enishte was sick let alone dead. Thus, he served as Shekure’s legal guardian during the ceremony. My friend the barber, along with a know-it-all neighborhood elder, served as witnesses. Before the ceremony ended with the hopeful blessings and advice of the preacher and the prayers of all in attendance, a nosy old man, concerned about the state of my Enishte’s health, was about to lower his skeptical head toward the deceased; but as soon as the preacher completed the ceremony, I leapt from my spot, grabbed my Enishte’s rigid hand and shouted at the top of my voice:

“Put your worries to rest, my sir, my dear Enishte. I’ll do everything within my power to care for Shekure and her children, to see they’re well clothed and well fed, loved and untroubled.”

Next, to suggest that my Enishte was trying to whisper to me from his sickbed, I carefully and respectfully pressed my ear to his mouth, pretending to listen to him intently and wide-eyed, as young men do when an elder they respect offers one or two words of advice distilled from an entire lifetime, which they then imbibe like some magic elixir. The Imam Effendi and the neighborhood elder appeared to appreciate and approve of the loyalty and eternal devotion I showed my father-in-law. I hope that nobody still thinks I had a hand in his murder.

I announced to the wedding guests still in the room that the afflicted man wished to be left alone. They abruptly began to leave, passing into the next room where the men had gathered to feast on Hayriye’s pilaf and mutton (at this point I could scarcely distinguish the smell of the corpse from the aroma of thyme, cumin and frying lamb). I stepped into the wide hallway, and like some morose patriarch roaming absentmindedly and wistfully through his own house, I opened the door to Hayriye’s room, paying no mind to the women who were horrified to have a man in their midst, and gazing sweetly at Shekure, whose eyes beamed with bliss to see me, said:

“Your father’s calling for you, Shekure. We’re married now, you’re to kiss his hand.”

The handful of neighborhood women to whom Shekure had sent last-minute invitations and the young maidens I assumed were relatives motioned to collect themselves and cover their faces, all the while scrutinizing me to their heart’s content.

Not long after the evening call to prayer the wedding guests dispersed, having heartily partaken of the walnuts, almonds, dried fruit leather, comfits and clove candy. In the women’s quarters, Shekure’s incessant crying and the bickering of the unruly children had dampened the festivity. Among the men, my stony-faced silence in response to the mirthful wedding-night gibes of the neighbors was attributed to my preoccupation with my father-in-law’s illness. Amid all the distress, the scene most clearly ingrained in my memory was my leading Shekure to Enishte’s room before dinner. We were alone at last. After both of us kissed the dead man’s cold and rigid hand with sincere respect, we withdrew to a dark corner of the room and kissed each other as if slaking a great thirst. Upon my wife’s fiery tongue, which I’d successfully taken into my mouth, I could taste the hard candies that the children greedily ate.