My Name is Red

I AM CALLED BLACK

Maybe you’ve understood by now that for men like myself, that is, melancholy men for whom love, agony, happiness and misery are just excuses for maintaining eternal loneliness, life offers neither great joy nor great sadness. I’m not saying we can’t relate to other souls overwhelmed by these feelings, on the contrary, we sympathize with them. What we cannot fathom is the odd disquiet our souls sink into at such times. This silent turmoil dims our intellects and dampens our hearts, usurping the place reserved for the true joy and sadness we ought to experience.

I had buried her father, thank God, hurried home from the funeral, and in a gesture of condolence, embraced my wife, Shekure; then suddenly, in a fit of tears she collapsed onto a large cushion with her children, who were glaring at me with spite, and I didn’t know what to do. Her misery coincided with my victory. In one fell swoop, I had wed the dream of my youth, freed myself from her father who belittled me, and become master of the house. Who would ever believe the sincerity of my tears? But believe me, it wasn’t like that. I truly wanted to grieve, but couldn’t: Enishte had always been more of a father to me than my real father. But since the meddlesome preacher who’d performed Enishte’s final ablution never stopped babbling, the rumor that my Enishte died under mysterious circumstances spread among the neighbors during the funeral-as I could sense standing in the courtyard of the mosque. I didn’t want my inability to cry to be interpreted negatively; I don’t have to tell you how real the fear of being branded “stonehearted” is.

You know how some sympathetic aunt will always attest that “he’s crying on the inside” to prevent someone like me from being banished from the group. I did in fact cry on the inside as I tried to hide in a corner from the busybody neighbors and distant relatives with their astonishing abilities to summon a downpour of tears; I thought about being the master of the house and whether I should somehow take charge of the situation, but just then there came a knock at the door. A moment of panic. Was it Hasan? Regardless, I wanted to save myself from this hell of whimpering at whatever cost.

It was a royal page, summoning me to the palace. I was stunned.

As I exited the courtyard, I found a mud-covered silver coin on the ground. Was I afraid to go to the palace? Yes, but I was also happy to be outside in the cold among the horses, dogs, trees and people. I thought I’d befriend the pageboy like those hopeless daydreamers who, believing they might sweeten the world’s cruelty before facing the executioner, attempt a lighthearted conversation with the dungeon guard about this and that, the beauties of life, the ducks afloat on the pond, or the strangeness of a cloud in the sky; but alas he disappointed me, proving a rather morose, pimply, tight-lipped youth. As I passed the Hagia Sophia, noticing with awe the slender cypresses delicately stretching into the hazy sky, it wasn’t the horror of dying right after marrying Shekure after all these years that made my hair stand on end. It was the injustice of dying at the hands of the palace torturers without having shared one good session of lovemaking with her.

We didn’t walk toward the terrifying spires of the Middle Gate, beyond which the torturers and the quick-handed executioners saw to their work, but toward the carpentry shops. As we headed between the granaries, a cat cleaning itself in the mud between the legs of a chestnut horse with steaming nostrils turned but didn’t look at us: The cat was preoccupied with its own filth, much as we were.

Behind the granaries, two figures, whose rank and affiliation I couldn’t determine from their green and purple uniforms, relieved the pageboy, and locked me into the dark room of a small house, which I could tell was new by the smell of fresh lumber. I knew locking a man up in a dark room was meant to arouse fear before torture; hoping they’d begin with the bastinado, I thought about the lies I could tell to save my hide. A crowd in the adjoining room seemed to be raising quite a ruckus.

There are most certainly those of you who can’t attribute my mocking and mirthful tone to that of a man on the verge of torture. But haven’t I mentioned I consider myself one of God’s luckier servants? And if the birds of fortune that alighted upon my head these last two days after years of deprivation aren’t proof enough, surely the silver coin I found outside the courtyard gate must be some indication.

Awaiting my torture, I was comforted by the silver coin and had complete faith it would protect me; I palmed it, rubbed it and repeatedly kissed this token of good fortune that Allah had sent me. But at whatever time they removed me from the darkness and brought me into the next room where I saw the Commander of the Imperial Guard and his bald-headed Croatian torturers, I knew the silver coin was worthless. The pitiless voice within me was absolutely correct: The coin in my pocket hadn’t come from God, but was one of those that I’d showered Shekure with two days ago-that the children overlooked. Hence, in the hands of my torturers, I had nothing in which to take refuge.

I didn’t even notice that tears began to fall from my eyes. I wanted to beg, but as in a dream, no sound issued from my mouth. I knew from wars, deaths and political assassination and torture (which I’d witnessed from afar) that life could be extinguished instantaneously, but I’d never experienced it this closely. They were going to strip me from this world just as they’d stripped off my garments.

They took off my vest and shirt. One of the executioners sat on me, driving his knees into my shoulders. Another placed a cage over my head with all the practiced elegance of a woman preparing food and began slowly turning the screw at its front. Nay, it wasn’t a cage, but rather a vise that gradually squeezed my head.

I screamed at the top of my lungs. I begged, but incoherently. I cried, mostly because my nerves had given out.

They stopped momentarily and asked: “Were you the one who killed Enishte Effendi?”

I took a deep breath: “Nay.”

They began to tighten the vise again. It was excruciating.

They asked again.

“Nay.”

“Who then?”

“I don’t know!”

I wondered if I should just tell them I’d killed him. The world spun pleasantly about my head. I was overcome with reluctance. I asked myself if I were growing accustomed to the pain. My executioners and I stayed still for a moment. I felt no pain, I was simply terrified.

Just as I decided from the silver coin in my pocket that they weren’t going to kill me, they suddenly released me. They removed the viselike contraption that had actually done little damage to my head. The executioner who’d pinned me down stood up without even a hint of apology. I donned my shirt and vest.

There passed a very long silence.

At the other end of the room, I saw Head Illuminator Osman Effendi. I went to him and kissed his hand.

“Don’t be concerned, my child,” he said to me. “They were just testing you.”

I knew at once that I’d found a new father to replace Enishte, may he rest in peace.

“Our Sultan has ordered that you not be tortured at this time,” said the Commander. “He deemed it appropriate for you to help Head Illuminator Master Osman find the rogue who’s been killing His miniaturists and the loyal servants preparing His manuscripts. You have three days in which to interrogate the miniaturists, scrutinize the illuminated pages they’ve made and find the sly culprit. The Sovereign is quite appalled by the rumors being spread by mischief makers about His miniaturists and illuminated manuscripts. Both the Head Treasurer Hazım Agha and I will help you find this scoundrel, as the Sultan has decreed. One of you has been very close to Enishte Effendi, and has thus heard his recitations and knows about the miniaturists who visited him at night and the story behind the book. The other is a great master who takes pride in knowing all the miniaturists of the workshop like the back of his hand. Within three days, if you fail to produce that swine along with the missing page he stole-about which much gossip is flying-it is Our Just Sultan’s express desire that you, my child Black Effendi, be the first to undergo torture and interrogation. Afterward, let there be no doubt, each of the other master miniaturists will have his turn.”

I could detect no secret gestures or signs between these two old friends, who’d worked together for years: Head Treasurer Hazım Agha, who commissioned the work, and Head Illuminator Master Osman Effendi, who received the funds and materials through him from the treasury.

“Everyone knows, whenever a crime is committed within Our Sultan’s wards, regiments and divisions, that the entire group is considered guilty until one among them is identified and turned in. A section that fails to name the murderer in its midst goes down in the judicial records as a ”division of murderers,“ including its officer or master, and is punished accordingly,” said the Commander. “Therefore, our Head Illuminator Master Osman will keep a sharp watch, scrutinize each of the illustrations with his penetrating gaze, uncover the devilry, ruse, mischief and instigation that has set the innocent miniaturists at each other’s throats, and remand the guilty party to the unwavering justice of the Refuge of the World, Our Sultan, thereby clearing the good name of his guild. To this end, we’ve ordered that whatsoever Master Osman may require be granted to him. My men are at this moment confiscating each of the manuscript pages that the master miniaturists have been illuminating in the privacy of their homes.”