My Name is Red

I AM CALLED BLACK

Silent and unseen, under cover of early morning darkness, I left like a guilty houseguest and walked tirelessly through the muddy backstreets. At Bayazid, I performed my ablution in the courtyard, entered the mosque and prayed. Inside, there was no one but the Imam Effendi and an old man who could sleep as he prayed-a talent only rarely achieved after a lifetime of practice. You know how there are moments in our sleepy dreams and sad memories when we feel Allah has taken notice of us and we pray with the hopeful anticipation of one who’s managed to thrust a petition into the Sultan’s hand: Thus did I beg Allah to grant me a cheerful home filled with loving people.

When I’d reached Master Osman’s house, I knew that within a week’s time he’d gradually usurped my late Enishte’s place in my thoughts. He was more contrary and more distant, but his belief in manuscript illumination was more profound. He resembled an introspective elderly dervish more than the great master who’d kicked up tempests of fear, awe and love among the miniaturists for so many years.

As we traveled from the master’s house to the palace-he mounted on a horse and hunched slightly, I on foot and likewise hunched forward-we must’ve recalled the elderly dervish and aspiring disciple in those cheap illustrations that accompany old fables.

At the palace, we found the Commander of the Imperial Guard and his men even more eager and ready than we. Our Sultan was certain that once we’d looked at the three masters’ horse drawings this morning we could, in a trice, determine who among them was the accursed murderer; and so, He’d ordered that the criminal be quickly put to torture without even allowing him to answer the accusation. We were taken not to the executioners’ fountain where everyone could see and take warning, but to that small slapdash house in the sheltered seclusion of the Sultan’s Private Garden, which was preferred for interrogation, torture and strangling.

A youth, who seemed too elegant and polite to be one of the Commander’s men, authoritatively placed three sheets of paper on a worktable.

Master Osman took out his magnifying lens and my heart began to pound. Like an eagle gliding elegantly over a tract of land, his eye, which he maintained at a constant distance from the lens, passed ever so slowly over the three marvelous horse illustrations. And like that eagle catching sight of the baby gazelle which would be its prey, he slowed over each of the horses’ noses and focused on it intently and calmly.

“It’s not here,” he said coldly after a time.

“What isn’t here?” asked the Commander.

I’d assumed the great master would work with deliberation, scrutinizing every aspect of the horses from mane to hoof.

“The damned painter hasn’t left a single trace,” said Master Osman. “We won’t be able to determine who illustrated the chestnut horse from these pictures.”

Taking up the magnifying lens he’d put aside, I looked at the horses’ nostrils: The master was correct; there was nothing in the three horses resembling the peculiar nostrils of the chestnut horse drawn for my Enishte’s manuscript. Just then, my attention turned to the torturers waiting outside with an implement whose purpose I couldn’t fathom. As I was trying to observe them through the half-opened door, I saw somebody scuttle quickly backward as if possessed by a jinn, seeking shelter behind one of the mulberry trees.

At that moment, like an ethereal light that illuminated the leaden morning, His Excellency Our Sultan, the Foundation of the World, entered the room.

Master Osman confessed to Him that he hadn’t been able to determine anything from the illustrations. Nevertheless, he couldn’t refrain from drawing Our Sultan’s attention to the horses in these magnificent paintings: the way one reared, the delicate stance of the next and, in the third, a dignity and pride matching the content of ancient books. Meanwhile, he speculated about which artist had made each picture, and the pageboy who’d gone door to door to the artists’ houses confirmed what Master Osman said.

“My Sovereign, don’t be surprised that I know my painters like the back of my hand,” said the master. “What bewilders me is how one of these men, whom I indeed know like the back of my hand, could make a completely unfamiliar mark. For even the flaw of a master miniaturist has its origins.”

“You mean to say?” said Our Sultan.

“Your Excellency, Prosperous Sultan and Refuge of the World, in my opinion, this concealed signature, evident here in the nostrils of this chestnut horse, is not simply the meaningless and absurd mistake of a painter, but a sign whose roots reach into the distant past to other pictures, other techniques, other styles and perhaps even other horses. If we were allowed to examine the marvelous pages of centuries-old books that You keep under lock and key in the cellars, iron chests, and cabinets of the Inner Treasury, we might be able to identify as technique what we now see as mistake; then, we could attribute it to the brush of one of the three miniaturists.”

“You wish to enter my Treasury?” said the Sultan in amazement.

“That is my wish,” said my master.

This was a request as brazen as asking to enter the harem. Just then, I understood that in as much as the harem and the Treasury occupied the two prettiest spots in the courtyard of the Private Paradise of Our Sultan’s Palace, they also occupied the two dearest spots in Our Sultan’s heart.

I was trying to read what would happen from Our Sultan’s beautiful face, which I could now look upon without fear, but He suddenly vanished. Had He been incensed and offended? Would we, or even the miniaturists as a whole, be punished on account of my master’s impudence?

Looking at the three horses before me, I imagined that I would be killed before seeing Shekure again, without ever sharing her bed. Despite the immediacy of all their beautiful attributes, these magnificent horses now seemed to have emerged from a quite distant world.

I thoroughly realized during this horrifying silence that just as being taken into the heart of the palace as a child, being raised here and living here meant serving Our Sultan and perhaps dying for Him, so being a miniaturist meant serving God and dying for the sake of His beauty.

Much later, when the Head Treasurer’s men brought us up toward the Middle Gate, death occupied my mind, the silence of death. But, as I passed through the gate where countless pashas had been executed, the guards acted as if they didn’t even see us. The Divan Square, which yesterday had dazzled me as if it were Heaven itself, the tower and the peacocks didn’t affect me in the least, for I knew that we were being taken further inside, to the heart of Our Sultan’s secret world, to the Private Quarters of the Enderun.

We passed through doors barred even to the Grand Viziers. Like a child who’d entered a fairy tale, I kept my eyes trained on the ground to avoid coming face-to-face with the wonders and creatures that might confront me. I couldn’t even look at the chamber where the Sultan held audiences. But my gaze happened to fall momentarily on the walls of the harem near an ordinary plane tree, one no different from other trees, and on a tall man in a caftan of shimmering blue silk. We passed among towering columns. Finally, we stopped before a portal, larger and more imposing than the rest, framed in ornate stalactite patterns. At its threshold stood Treasury chiefs in glimmering caftans; one of them was bending to open the lock.

Staring directly into our eyes, the Head Treasurer said: “You are truly blessed by fortune, His Excellency Our Sultan has granted you permission to enter the treasury of the Enderun. There, you will examine books that no one else has seen; you will gaze upon incredible pictures and pages of gold, and like hunters, you will track the spoor of your prey, the murderer. My Sultan bade me remind you that good Master Osman has three days-one of which is now over-until Thursday noon, in which to name the culprit in the miniaturists’ midst; failing that, the matter shall be turned over to the Commander of the Imperial Guard to be resolved by torture.”

First, they removed the cloth sheath around the padlock, sealed to ensure no key entered the keyhole without permission. The Doorkeeper of the Treasury and the two chiefs confirmed the seal was intact, signaling with a nod. The seal was broken, and when the key was introduced, the lock opened with a clatter that filled the pervasive silence. Master Osman suddenly turned an ashen gray. When one wing of the heavy, embellished-wood double door was opened, his face was struck by a dark radiance that seemed a remnant of ancient days.

“My Sultan didn’t want the scribal chiefs and the secretaries who keep inventory records to enter unnecessarily,” said the Head Treasurer. “The Royal Librarian has passed away and there’s no one to look after the books in his stead. For this reason, My Sultan has commanded that Jezmi Agha alone should accompany you within.”

Jezmi Agha was a dwarf with bright, shining eyes who appeared to be at least seventy years old. His headdress, which resembled a sail, was even more peculiar than he.

“Jezmi Agha knows the interior of the treasury like his own house; he knows the locations of books and all else better than anyone.”

The aging dwarf displayed no pride in this. He was running an eye over the silver-legged heating brazier, the chamber pot with a mother-of-pearl inlaid handle, the oil lamp and the candlesticks that the palace pages were carrying.

The Head Treasurer announced that the door would again be locked behind us and sealed with the seventy-year-old signet of Sultan Selim the Grim. After the evening prayers, at sunset, the seal would again be broken, before the witness of the attendant crowd of Treasury chiefs. Moreover, we should exercise great caution that nothing whatsoever “mistakenly” found its way into our clothes, pockets or sashes: we would be searched down to our undergarments upon exiting.

We entered, passing between chiefs standing at either side. Inside, it was ice cold. When the door closed behind us, we were enveloped in blackness. I smelled a combination of mildew, dust and humidity that drove deep into my nasal passages. Everywhere the clutter of objects, chests and helmets intermingled in a huge chaotic jumble. I had the feeling that I was witness to a great battle.

My eyes adjusted to the odd light that fell over the entire space, which filtered through the thick bars of the high windows, through the balustrades of the stairs along the high walls and the railing of the second-floor wooden walkways. This chamber was red, tinged with the color of the velvet cloth, carpets and kilims hanging on the walls. With due reverence, I considered how the accumulation of all this wealth was the consequence of wars waged, blood spilt and cities and treasuries plundered.

“Frightened?” asked the elderly dwarf, giving voice to my feelings. “Everybody is frightened on their first visit. At night the spirits of these objects whisper to each other.”

What was frightening was the silence in which this abundance of incredible objects was interred. Behind us we heard the clattering of the seal being affixed to the lock on the door, and we looked around in awe, motionless.

I saw swords, elephant tusks, caftans, silver candlesticks and satin banners. I saw mother-of-pearl inlaid boxes, iron trunks, Chinese vases, belts, long-necked lutes, armor, silk cushions, model globes, boots, furs, rhinoceros horns, ornamented ostrich eggs, rifles, arrows, maces and cabinets. There were heaps of carpets, cloth and satin everywhere, seemingly cascading over me from the wood-paneled upper floors, from the balustrades, the built-in closets and small storage cells built into the walls. A strange light, the likes of which I’d never seen, shone on the cloth, the boxes, the caftans of sultans, swords, the huge pink candles, the wound turbans, pillows embroidered with pearls, gold filigree saddles, diamond-handled scimitars, ruby-handled maces, quilted turbans, turban plumes, curious clocks, ewers and daggers, ivory statues of horses and elephants, narghiles with diamond-studded tops, mother-of-pearl chests of drawers, horse aigrettes, strands of large prayer beads, and helmets adorned with rubies and turquoise. This light, which filtered faintly down from the high windows, illuminated floating dust particles in the half-darkened room like the summer sunlight that streams in from the glass skylight atop the dome of a mosque-but this wasn’t sunlight. In this peculiar light, the air had become palpable and all the objects appeared as if made from the same material. After we apprehensively experienced the silence in the room for a while longer, I knew it was as much the light as the dust covering everything that dimmed the red color reigning in the cold room, melding all the objects into an arcane sameness. And as the eye swam over these strange and indistinct items, unable to distinguish one from another at even the second or third glance, this great profusion of objects became even more terrifying. What I thought was a chest, I later decided was a folding worktable, and later still, some strange Frankish device. I saw that the mother-of-pearl inlaid chest among the caftans and plumes pulled out of their boxes and hastily tossed hither and yon was actually an exotic cabinet sent by the Muscovite Czar.

Jezmi Agha placed the brazier in the fire niche that had been cut into the wall.

“Where are the books located?” whispered Master Osman.

“Which books?” said the dwarf. “The ones from Arabia, the Kufic Korans, those that His Excellency Sultan Selim the Grim, Denizen of Paradise, brought back from Tabriz, the books of pashas whose property was seized when they were condemned to death, the gift volumes brought by the Venetian ambassador to Our Sultan’s grandfather, or the Christian books from the time of Sultan Mehmet the Conqueror?”

“The books that Shah Tahmasp sent His Excellency Sultan Selim, Denizen of Paradise, as a present twenty-five years ago,” said Master Osman.

The dwarf brought us to a large wooden cabinet. Master Osman grew impatient as he opened the doors and cast his eyes on the volumes before him. He opened one, read its colophon and leafed through its pages. Together, we gazed in astonishment at the carefully drawn illustrations of khans with slightly slanted eyes.

“”Genghis Khan, Chagatai Khan, Tuluy Khan and Kublai Khan the Ruler of China,“” read Master Osman before closing the book and taking up another.

We came across an incredibly beautiful illustration depicting the scene in which Ferhad, empowered by love, carries his beloved Shirin and her horse away on his shoulder. To convey the passion and woe of the lovers, the rocks on the mountain, the clouds and the three noble cypresses witnessing Ferhad’s act of love were drawn with a trembling grief-stricken hand in such agony that Master Osman and I were instantly affected by the taste of tears and sorrow in the falling leaves. This touching moment had been depicted-as the great masters intended-not to signify Ferhad’s muscular strength, but rather to convey how the pain of his love was felt at once throughout the entire world.

“A Bihzad imitation made in Tabriz eighty years ago,” Master Osman said as he replaced the volume and opened another.

This was a picture that showed the forced friendship between the cat and the mouse from Kelile and Dimne. Out in the fields, a poor mouse, caught between the attacks of a marten on the ground and a hawk in the air, finds his salvation in an unfortunate cat caught in a hunter’s trap. They come to an agreement: The cat, pretending to be the mouse’s friend, licks him, thereby scaring away the marten and the hawk. In turn, the mouse cautiously frees the cat from the snare. Even before I could understand the painter’s sensibility, the master had stuffed the book back beside the other volumes and had randomly opened another.

This was a pleasant picture of a mysterious woman and a man: The woman had elegantly opened one hand while asking a question, holding her knee with the other over her green cloak, as the man turned to her and listened intently. I looked at the picture avidly, jealous of the intimacy, love and friendship between them.

Putting that book down, Master Osman opened to a page from another book. The cavalry of Persian and Turanian armies, eternal enemies, had donned their full panoply of armor, helmets, greaves, bows, quivers and arrows and had mounted those magnificent, legendary and fully armored horses. Before they engaged one another in a battle to the death, they were arrayed in orderly ranks facing each other on a dusty yellow steppe holding the tips of their lances upright, bedecked in an array of colors and patiently watching their commanders, who’d rushed to the fore and begun to fight. I was about to tell myself that regardless of whether the illustration was made today or a hundred years ago, whether it’s a depiction of war or love, what the artist of absolute faith actually paints and conveys is a battle with his will and his love for painting; I was going to declare further that the miniaturist actually paints his own patience, when Master Osman said:

“It’s not here either,” and shut the heavy tome.

In the pages of an album we saw high mountains interwoven with curling clouds in a landscape illustration that seemed to go on forever. I thought how painting meant seeing this world yet depicting it as if it were the Otherworld. Master Osman recounted how this Chinese illustration might’ve traveled from Bukhara to Herat, from Herat to Tabriz, and at last, from Tabriz to Our Sultan’s palace, moving from book to book along the way, bound and unbound, finally to be rebound with other paintings at the end of the journey from China to Istanbul.

We saw pictures of war and death, each more frightening and more expertly done than the next: Rüstem together with Shah Mazenderan; Rüstem attacking Afrasiyab’s army; and Rüstem, disguised in armor, a mysterious and unidentified hero warrior…In another album we saw dismembered corpses, daggers drenched in red blood, sorrowful soldiers in whose eyes the light of death gleamed and warriors cutting each other down like reeds, as fabled armies, which we could not name, clashed mercilessly. Master Osman-for who knows how many thousandth time-looked upon Hüsrev spying on Shirin bathing in a lake by moonlight, upon the lovers Leyla and Mejnun fainting as they beheld each other after an extended separation, and a spirited picture, all aflutter with birds, trees and flowers, of Salaman and Absal as they fled the entire world and lived together on an isle of bliss. Like a true great master, he couldn’t help drawing my attention to some oddity in a corner of even the worst painting, perhaps having to do with an oversight on the part of the illuminator or perhaps with the conversation of colors: As might be expected, Hüsrev and Shirin are listening to a charming recital by her ladies-in-waiting, but see there, what kind of sad and spiteful painter had needlessly perched that ominous owl on a tree branch?; who had included that lovely boy dressed in woman’s garb among the Egyptian women who cut their fingers trying to peel tasty oranges while gazing upon the beauty of handsome Joseph?; could the miniaturist who painted İsfendiyar’s blinding with an arrow foresee that later on he, too, would be blinded?

We saw the angels accompanying Our Exalted Prophet during his Ascension; the dark-skinned, six-armed, long-white-bearded old man symbolizing Saturn; and baby Rüstem sleeping peacefully in his mother-of-pearl-inlaid cradle beneath the watchful eyes of his mother and nursemaids. We saw the way Darius died an agonizing death in Alexander’s arms, how Behram Gür withdrew to the red room with his Russian princess, how Siyavush passed through fire mounted on a black horse whose nostrils bore no peculiarity, and the woeful funeral procession of Hüsrev, murdered by his own son. As Master Osman rapidly picked out the volumes and set them aside, he would at times recognize an artist and show me, or winkle out an illustrator’s signature humbly hidden among flowers growing in the seclusion of a ruined building, or hiding in a black well along with a jinn. By comparing signatures and colophons, he could determine who’d taken what from whom. He’d flip through certain books exhaustively in hope of finding a series of pictures. Long silences passed wherein nothing but the faint susurrus of turning pages could be heard. Occasionally, Master Osman would cry out “Aha!” but I kept my peace, unable to understand what had excited him. At times he would remind me that we’d already encountered the page composition or arrangement of trees and mounted soldiers of a particular illustration in other books, in different scenes of completely different stories, and he’d point out these pictures again to jog my memory. He compared a picture in a version of Nizami’s Quintet from the time of Tamerlane’s son Shah Rıza-that is, from nearly two hundred years ago-with another picture he said was made in Tabriz seventy or eighty years earlier, and then go on to ask me what we could learn from the fact that two miniaturists had created the same picture without having seen each other’s work. He answered the question himself:

“To paint is to remember.”

Opening and shutting old illuminated manuscripts, Master Osman would sink his face with sorrow into the wondrous artwork (because nobody could paint this way anymore) and then become animated with joy before poorly executed pieces (for all miniaturists were brethren!)-and he’d show me what the artist had remembered, that is, old pictures of trees, angels, parasols, tigers, tents, dragons and melancholy princes, and in the process, what he hinted at was this: There was a time when Allah looked upon the world in all its uniqueness, and believing in the beauty of what he saw, bequeathed his creation to us, his servants. The duty of illustrators and of those who, loving art, gaze upon the world, is to remember the magnificence that Allah beheld and left to us. The greatest masters in each generation of painters, expending their lives and toiling until blind, strove with great effort and inspiration to attain and record the wondrous dream that Allah commanded us to see. Their work resembled Mankind recalling his own golden memories from the very beginning. Unfortunately, even the greatest masters, just like tired old men or great miniaturists gone blind from their labors, were only vaguely able to recollect random parts of that magnificent vision. This was the mysterious wisdom behind the phenomenon of old masters who miraculously drew a tree, a bird, the pose of a prince washing himself in the public baths or a sad young woman at a window in exactly the same way despite never having seen each other’s work and despite the hundreds of years that separated them.

Long afterward, once the red light of the Treasury had dimmed and it became evident that the cabinet contained none of the gift books that Shah Tahmasp had sent to Our Sultan’s grandfather, Master Osman revisited the same logic:

“At times, a bird’s wing, the way a leaf holds to a tree, the curves of eaves, the way a cloud floats or the laugh of a woman is preserved for centuries by passing from master to disciple and being shown, taught and memorized over generations. Having learned this detail from his master, the miniaturist believes it to be a perfect form, and is as convinced of its immutability as he is of the glorious Koran’s, and just as he memorizes the Koran, he’ll never forget this detail indelibly painted in his memory. However, never forgetting does not mean the master artist will always use this detail. The customs of the workshop wherein he extinguishes the light of his eyes, the habits and taste for color of the ornery master beside him or the whims of his sultan will, at times, prevent him from painting that detail, and he’ll draw a bird’s wing, or the way a woman laughs-”

“Or the nostrils of a horse.”

“-or the nostrils of a horse,” said a stone-faced Master Osman, “not the way it’s been ingrained in the depths of his soul, but according to the custom of the workshop where he presently finds himself, just like the others there. Do you understand me?”

From a page in Nizami’s Hüsrev and Shirin, quite a few versions of which we’d thumbed through already, in a picture depicting Shirin seated on her throne, Master Osman read aloud an inscription engraved on two stone plates above the palace walls: EXALTED ALLAH PRESERVE THE POWER OF THE VICTORIOUS SON OF TAMERLANE KHAN, OUR NOBLE SULTAN, OUR JUST KHAN, PROTECT HIS SOVEREIGNTY AND DOMAINS SO HE MAY FOREVER BE CONTENTED (the leftmost stone read) AND WEALTHY (the rightmost stone read).

Later, I asked, “Where might we find illustrations wherein the miniaturist has rendered a horse’s nostrils in the same way they were etched upon his memory?”

“We must locate the legendary Book of Kings volume that Shah Tahmasp sent as a gift,” said Master Osman. “We must revisit those glorious old days of legend, when Allah had a hand in the painting of miniatures. We have many more books yet to examine.”

It crossed my mind that, just perhaps, Master Osman’s main goal was not to find horses with peculiarly drawn noses, but to scrutinize as much as possible these spectacular pictures that had slept quietly for years in this Treasury safe from prying eyes. I grew so impatient to find the clues that would unite me with Shekure, who awaited me at the house, that I’d been loath to believe that the great master might want to stay in the icy Treasury as long as possible.

Thus did we persist in opening other cabinets, other chests shown us by the aged dwarf, to examine the pictures therein. Periodically, I’d get fed up with the pictures, which all looked alike, and wish never again to watch Hüsrev visit Shirin under the castle window; I’d leave the master’s side-without even a glance at the nostrils of the horse Hüsrev rode-and try to warm myself at the brazier or I’d walk respectfully and awestruck among the heaps of cloth, gold, weapons, armor and plunder in the adjacent rooms of the Treasury. At times, prompted by an abrupt cry and hand gesture by Master Osman, I’d imagine that a new masterpiece had been found or, yes, at last a horse with a curious nose, and running to his side, I’d look at the picture the master was holding with his hand slightly atremble as he sat curled up on an Ushak carpet dating from the time of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror, only to encounter an illustration, the likes of which I’d never before seen, depicting, say, Satan slyly boarding Noah’s ark.

We watched as hundreds of shahs, kings, sultans and khans-who’d ruled from the thrones of various kingdoms and empires from the time of Tamerlane to Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent-happily and excitedly hunted gazelles, lions and rabbits. We saw how even the Devil bit his finger and recoiled in embarrassment at the shameless man who stood upon scraps of wood tied to the back legs of a camel so he could violate the poor animal. In an Arabic book that had come by way of Baghdad, we watched the flight of the merchant who clung to the feet of a mythical bird as he spanned the seas. In the next volume, which opened by itself to the first page, we saw the scene that Shekure and I loved the most, in which Shirin beheld Hüsrev’s picture hanging from a branch and fell in love with him. Then, looking at an illustration that brought to life the inner workings of a complicated clock made from bobbins and metal balls, birds and Arabic statuettes seated on the back of an elephant, we remembered time.

I don’t know how much more time we spent examining book after book and illustration after illustration in this manner. It was as if the unchanging, frozen golden time revealed in the pictures and stories we viewed had thoroughly mingled with the damp and moldy time we experienced in the Treasury. It seemed that these illuminated pages, created over the centuries by the lavish expenditure of eyesight in the workshops of countless shahs, khans and sultans, would come to life, as would the objects that seemed to besiege us: The helmets, scimitars, daggers with diamond-studded handles, armor, porcelain cups from China, dusty and delicate lutes, and the pearl-embellished cushions and kilims-the likes of which we’d seen in countless illustrations.

“I now understand that by furtively and gradually re-creating the same pictures for hundreds and hundreds of years, thousands of artists had cunningly depicted the gradual transformation of their world into another.”

I’ll be first to admit that I didn’t completely understand what the great master meant. But the close attention my master had shown to the thousands of pictures made over the last two hundred years from Bukhara to Herat, from Tabriz to Baghdad and all the way to Istanbul, had far exceeded the search for a clue in the depiction of some horse’s nostrils. We’d participated in a kind of melancholy elegy to the inspiration, talent and patience of all the masters who’d painted and illuminated in these lands over the years.

For this reason, when the doors of the Treasury were opened at the time of the evening prayer and Master Osman explained to me that he had no desire whatsoever to leave, and that furthermore, only by remaining here until morning examining pictures by the light of oil lamps and candles could he execute properly Our Sultan’s charge, my first response, as I informed him, was to remain here with him and the dwarf.

However, when the door was opened and my master conveyed our wish to the waiting chiefs and asked permission of the Head Treasurer, immediately regretted my decision. I longed for Shekure and our house. I grew increasingly restless as I wondered how she would manage, spending the night alone with the children and how she would batten down the now-repaired shutters of the windows.

Through the opened half of the Treasury portal, I was beckoned to the magnificence of life outside by the large damp plane trees in the courtyard of the Enderun-now under a hint of fog-and by the gestures of two royal pages, speaking to each other in a sign language so as not to disturb the peace of Our Sultan; but I remained where I was, frozen by embarrassment and guilt.