My Name is Red

I AM CALLED “STORK”

Butterfly and Black arrived in the middle of the night; they spread the pictures on the floor before me, and asked me to tell them who’d made which illustration. It reminded me of the game “Whose Turban” we used to play when we were children: You’d draw the various headdresses of a hoja, a cavalryman, a judge, an executioner, a head treasurer and secretary and try to match them with the corresponding names written on other facedown sheets.

I told them I’d made the dog myself. We’d told its story to the storyteller. I said that gentle Butterfly, who held a dagger to my throat, must’ve drawn Death, over which the light of the lamp wavered pleasantly. I remembered that Olive had rendered Satan with great enthusiasm, whose story was spun entirely by the dearly departed storyteller. I’d started the tree whose leaves were drawn by all of us who came to the coffeehouse that night. We came up with the story as well. So it was with Red, too: Some red ink had splattered onto a page and the stingy storyteller asked if we could make a picture of it. We dribbled some more red ink onto the page, then each of us sketched the image of something red in a corner and told the story of his image so the storyteller might recount it. Olive made this exquisite horse here-praised be his talent-and I think it was Butterfly who drew the melancholy woman. Just then Butterfly removed the dagger from my throat and told Black that, yes, he now remembered how he’d drawn the woman. We all contributed to the gold coin in the bazaar, and Olive, a descendant of Kalenderis himself, drew the two dervishes. The sect of the Kalenderis is based on buggering young boys and begging and their sheikh, Evhad-üd Dini Kirmani wrote the sect’s sacred book 250 years ago, revealing in verse that he’d seen God’s perfection manifested in beautiful faces.

I asked the forgiveness of my master artist brethren for the disheveled state of our house, offering the excuse that we’d been caught unprepared, and I told them how sorry I was that we could offer them neither fragrant coffee nor sweet oranges because my wife was still asleep in the inner room. I said this so they wouldn’t barge in there and I wouldn’t have to wreak bloody havoc upon them when they didn’t find what they were looking for among the canvas, drawstring cloth, summer sashes of Indian silk and fine muslin, Persian prints and dolmans in the baskets and trunks they eagerly rummaged through, under the carpets and cushions, among the illuminated pages I’d prepared for various books, and within the pages of bound volumes.

Nevertheless, I must confess that it gave me a certain pleasure to behave as if I were afraid of them. An artist’s skill depends on carefully attending to the beauty of the present moment, taking everything down to the minutest detail seriously while, at the same time, stepping back from the world, which takes itself too seriously, and as if looking into a mirror, allowing for the distance and eloquence of a jest.

Accordingly, upon their asking, I said that, yes, when the Erzurumis began their raid, there was, as on most evenings, a crowd of about forty in the coffeehouse, which included, besides myself, Olive, Nasır the Limner, Jemal the calligrapher, two young assistant illustrators, the young calligraphers who were now spending their days and nights with them, Rahmi the apprentice of unsurpassed beauty, other handsome novices, six or seven men belonging to the lot of poets, drunks, hashish addicts and dervishes and others who cunningly charmed the proprietor into allowing them to join this mirthful and witty group. I explained how confusion reigned as soon as the raid began. When the crowd of onlookers gathered by the proprietor for some bawdy entertainment began to leave in a panic, no one thought to mount a defense of the establishment or of the poor old storyteller dressed as a woman. Did I grieve over this calamity? “Yes! I, Mustafa the Painter, also known as ”Stork,“ who have truly devoted my entire life to illumination, find it necessary, each night, to sit together with my artist brethren and converse, joke, ridicule, pay compliments, recite poems and speak in innuendos,” I confessed, looking directly into the eyes of dim-witted Butterfly, shrouded in the air of a plump, moist-eyed boy plagued by envy. Even as an apprentice, this Butterfly of ours, whose eyes were still as lovely as a child’s, was a sensitive, fine-skinned beauty.

Again, upon their asking me, I described how on the second day that the storyteller, may his soul find peace in Heaven, wandering the city and neighborhoods began plying his trade in the coffeehouse, one of the miniaturists, perhaps under the influence of coffee, hung a picture on the wall to be amusing; the glib storyteller took notice and, as a joke of his own, began a monologue as if he were the dog in the picture, which met with great success; thenceforth, every night he continued to feature pictures drawn by the master miniaturists and to tell witty tales they whispered into his ear. Because the jibes at the preacher from Erzurum at once exhilarated the artists, who lived in terror of the preacher’s wrath, and drew more customers to the coffeehouse, the proprietor from Edirne encouraged the performances.

They asked me my interpretation of the pictures the storyteller hung up behind himself each night, the ones they found during their raid of brother Olive’s empty house. I explained that there was no need for interpretation because the proprietor, like Olive himself, was a begging, thieving, wild wretch of a Kalenderi dervish. The simple-minded Elegant Effendi, terrified of Hoja Effendi’s exhortations, and especially of his fire-and-brimstone Friday sermons, must’ve complained of them to the Erzurumis. Or even more probable, when Elegant warned them to stop in their mischief, the proprietor and Olive, both of the same temperament, conspired to cruelly do away with the ill-fated gilder. The Erzurumis, incited by Elegant’s murder, and perhaps because Elegant Effendi had described Enishte’s book to them, held Enishte responsible for the murder and killed him; and, they must’ve raided the coffeehouse to complete their revenge.

How much attention were chubby Butterfly and grave Black (he was like a ghost) paying to what I said as they ransacked my possessions, gleefully lifting every lid and leaving not a stone unturned? When they came across my boots, armor and warrior’s equipage in the embellished walnut trunk, a look of envy blossomed on Butterfly’s childish face, and I once again declared what everybody already knew quite well. I was the first Muslim illustrator to set out on campaign with the army and the first to carefully study and depict what I’d witnessed in various victory Chronicles-the firing of cannon, the towers of enemy castles, the colors of infidel soldiers’ uniforms, the sprawl of corpses, the piles of severed heads along riverbanks and the order and charge of armored cavalry!

When Butterfly asked me to show him how I donned my armor, I forthwith and without embarrassment took off my overshirt, my black rabbit-fur-lined undershirt, my trousers and my underwear. Pleased with the way they watched me by the light of the stove, I pulled on my clean long underwear, the thick shirt of red broadcloth worn under armor in cold weather, woolen socks, the boots of yellow leather, and over them, my gaiters. Removing it from its case, I was delighted to put on my breastplate, then I turned my back toward Butterfly and as if ordering a pageboy, had him do up the laces of the armor tightly and ordered him to attach my shoulder plates. As I was putting on my vambraces, gloves, the camel hair sword belt and finally the gold-worked helmet that I wore for ceremonies, I proudly declared that henceforth battle scenes would never again be depicted as they’d been in days of old. “It is no longer permissible to depict the cavalries of two opposing armies uniformly using the same pattern as a guide and simply flipping it over to draw the enemy’s forces,” I said. “From now on, the battle scenes made in the workshops of the Ottomans will be drawn the way I’ve seen them and drawn them: a tumult of armies, horses, armor-clad warriors and bloodied bodies!”

Seized by envy, Butterfly said, “The illuminator draws not what he sees, but what Allah sees.”

“Yes,” I said, “however, exalted Allah certainly sees everything we see.”

“Of course, Allah sees what we see, but He doesn’t perceive it the way we do,” said Butterfly as if chastising me. “The confused battle scene that we perceive in our bewilderment, He perceives in His omniscience as two opposing armies in an orderly array.”

Naturally, I had a response. I wanted to say, “It falls to us to believe in Allah and to depict only what He reveals to us, not what He conceals,” but I held my peace. And I hadn’t kept quiet because Butterfly would otherwise accuse me of imitating the Europeans or because he was relentlessly striking one end of his dagger against my helmet and back, supposedly to test my armor, but because I calculated that only if I restrained myself and won over Black and this pretty-eyed oaf could we deliver ourselves from Olive’s scheming.

Once they knew they wouldn’t find what they were looking for here, they told me what they were after. There was a picture that the unspeakable murderer had absconded with…I said that my house was already searched for the same reason; as a result, the wise murderer most certainly would’ve hid that picture where nobody could ever find it (I was thinking of Olive), but did they heed my words? Black explained the horse drawn with clipped nostrils and how the three-day period Our Sultan had granted Master Osman was well nigh over. When I inquired further about the significance of the clipped nostrils, Black told me, looking straight into my eyes, how Master Osman, analyzing them as a clue, linked them to Olive, although he suspected me even more, being no stranger to my ambitions.

At first, it appeared they’d come here prepared to believe that I was the murderer and to find proof of it, but in my opinion, this wasn’t the sole reason for their visit. They’d also come knocking at my door out of loneliness and desperation. When I opened the door, the dagger that Butterfly pointed at me shook in his hand. Not only were they terrified, thinking that the despicable murderer, whose identity they were at such pains to uncover, might corner them in the darkness, smiling like an old friend, and swiftly cut their throats, they were also losing sleep for fear that Master Osman might conspire with Our Sultan and the Head Treasurer to turn them over to the torturer-not to mention the mob of Erzurumis roaming the streets, which demoralized them. In short, they desired my friendship. But Master Osman had instilled in them the opposite notion. It was my present obligation to show them sincerely how Master Osman was mistaken, which is what they’d hoped for deep down anyway.

Simply declaring that the great master was mistaken and that he’d become senile would surely arouse Butterfly’s enmity. For in the watery eyes of the handsome illuminator, whose eyelashes fluttered like the insect he was named for as he banged upon my armor with his dagger, I could still make out the pale fire of love he felt for the great master, whose favorite he had been. In my youth, the closeness of those two, master and apprentice, was enviously ridiculed by the others; but they themselves paid no mind, they’d stare into each other’s eyes at length and fondle each other in front of everybody; later still, Master Osman would declare tactlessly that Butterfly was possessed of the most agile pen and the most mature color brush. This declaration-often quite true-became the source of endless puns among the jealous miniaturists using pens, brushes, inkpots and pen boxes in vulgar allusions, devilish comparisons and indecent metaphors. For this reason, I’m not the only one who senses that Master Osman wants Butterfly to succeed him as head of the workshop. I’ve long understood from the way he talks to others about my belligerence, incompatibility and stubbornness that this is what the great master has hidden in the back of his mind. He thinks, justifiably, that I tend far more toward the European methods than Olive or Butterfly, and could never resist Our Sultan’s new desires by saying, “The great masters of old would never paint this way.”

I knew I’d be able to cooperate closely with Black because our eager new groom must’ve wanted to complete his deceased Enishte’s book, not only to conquer beautiful Shekure’s heart and show her that he could fill her father’s shoes, but also, most probably, to ingratiate himself with Our Sultan by the quickest means possible.

Therefore, I introduced the matter quite unexpectedly by saying that Enishte’s book was a blissful miracle without equal in the world. When this masterpiece was completed, in keeping with Our Sultan’s decree and the late Enishte Effendi’s desire, the whole world would marvel over the Ottoman Sultan’s power and wealth as well as the talent, elegance and ability of us, His master miniaturists. Not only would they fear us, our power and our relentlessness, they’d be bewildered, seeing how we laughed and cried, how we stole from the Frankish masters, how we saw the most buoyant colors and the minutest of details; and ultimately, they would acknowledge with terror what only the most intelligent sultans understood: that we were situated both within the world of our paintings and far far away in the company of the old masters.

Butterfly had been striking me all along, first like a child eager to determine whether or not my armor was genuine; next, like a friend who wanted to test its strength; and finally, like an incorrigible and jealous foe who wanted to do me harm. In truth, he understood that I was more talented than he; even worse, he probably sensed that Master Osman knew this too. With his God-given talent, Butterfly was a superb master, and his envy made me prouder: Unlike him, I became a master through the strength of my own “reed,” not by holding my master’s, and I sensed that I could force him to accept my superiority.

Raising my voice, I explained how pitiful it was that there were men who wanted to undermine Our Sultan and the late Enishte’s miraculous book. Master Osman was like a father to us all; he was everyone’s superior; we learned everything from him! Yet, after tracing the clues in Our Sultan’s Treasury, for some unknown reason, Master Osman tried to conceal his realization that Olive was the despicable murderer. I said I was certain that Olive, who couldn’t be found at home, was hiding away in the deserted Kalenderi dervish house near the Phanar Gate. This dervish lodge was closed during the reign of Our Sultan’s grandfather, not because it was a den of degradation and immorality, but rather, as a result of the endless wars with the Persians, and, I added, there was even a time when Olive boasted that he was keeping guard over the forbidden dervish lodge. If they didn’t trust me, suspecting some ruse behind my words, the dagger was in their hands, they were free to mete out my punishment then and there.

Butterfly landed two more heavy blows of the dagger that most armor could not have withstood. He turned to Black, who believed what I told them, and screamed at him childishly. I came up from behind, put my armor-plated arm around Butterfly’s neck and drew him toward me. Bending his other arm back with my free hand, I made him drop the dagger. We weren’t quite struggling, nor were we entirely playing. I recounted a similar, little-known scene in the Book of Kings.

“On the third day of a confrontation between Persian and Turanian armies fully equipped in armor and weaponry and arrayed at the foot of Mount Hamaran, the Turanians sent the wily Shengil into the field to learn the identity of a mysterious Persian who’d killed a great Turanian warrior on each of the previous two days,” I began. “Shengil challenged the mysterious warrior, and he accepted. The armies, their armor glimmering brightly in the afternoon sun, watched with bated breath. The armored horses of the two warriors engaged each other with such speed that sparks flying from the clash of metal singed the hides of the horses which gave off smoke. The fight was a lengthy one. The Turanian shot arrows; the Persian maneuvered his sword and horse skillfully; and finally, the mysterious Persian felled the Turanian after catching him by the tail of his steed. He then chased after Shengil who was trying to escape, and grabbed him by his armor from behind before taking him by the neck. As he accepted his defeat, the Turanian, still curious about the identity of the mysterious warrior, asked without hope what everybody had wondered for days, ”Who are you?“ ”To you,“ replied the mysterious warrior, ”my name is Death.“ Tell me then, my friends, who was he?”

“The legendary Rüstem,” said Butterfly with childlike glee.

I kissed him on the neck. “We’ve all betrayed Master Osman,” I said. “Before he metes out his punishment, we must find Olive, rid ourselves of this venom in our midst and come to an agreement so we can stand strong against the eternal enemies of art and those who long to send us directly to dungeons of torture. Perhaps, when we arrive at Olive’s abandoned dervish house, we’ll learn that the cruel murderer isn’t even one of our lot.”

Poor Butterfly uttered not a sound. Regardless of how talented, confident or well supported he might be, just like all illuminators who sought one another’s company depite their mutual loathing and envy, he was deathly afraid of being left alone in this world and of going to Hell.

On the route to the Phanar Gate, there was an eerie greenish-yellow light above us, but it wasn’t the light of the moon. In this light, the old, faithful nighttime appearance of Istanbul comprised of cypress trees, leaden domes, stone walls, wooden houses and tracts ravaged by fire was overtaken by an unfamiliarity such as might be caused by an enemy fortress. As we ascended the hill, in the distance we saw the fire that burned somewhere beyond the Bayazid Mosque.

In the heavy darkness, we came across an oxcart half-loaded with sacks of flour heading toward the city walls, and parting with two silver coins, we procured a ride. Black had the pictures with him, and he sat down carefully. As I lay back and watched the low clouds glow from the fire, two raindrops fell upon my helmet.

After a long journey, as we searched for the deserted dervish lodge we roused all the dogs in the neighborhood which, in the middle of the night, seemed to be abandoned. Although we saw that lamps were now burning in a few stone houses in response to our clamor, it was only the fourth door we knocked upon that opened to us, and a man in skullcap, gaping at us by the light of his lamp as if we were the living dead, gave us directions to the deserted dervish lodge without even sticking his nose out into the quickening rain-merrily adding that once there, we’d have no peace from the evils of jinns, demons and ghosts.

In the garden of the dervish lodge we were greeted by the calm of proud cypresses, indifferent to the rain and the stench of rotting leaves. I brought my eye up to one of the cracks between the wooden planks of the dervish-lodge walls, and later, to the shutter of a small window, whereupon, by the light of an oil lamp, I saw the menacing shadow of a man performing his prayers-or perhaps, a man pretending, for our sake, to pray.