My Name is Red

I AM CALLED “OLIVE”

Was it more fitting for me to abandon my prayers, spring to my feet and open the door for them or to keep them waiting in the rain until I’d finished? When I realized they were watching me, I completed my prayers in a somewhat distracted state. I opened the door, and there they were-Butterfly, Stork and Black. I gave a cry of joy and embraced Butterfly.

“Alas, what we’ve had to bear of late!” I lamented, burying my head into his shoulder. “What do they want from us? Why are they killing us?”

Each of them displayed the panic of being separated from the herd, which I’d seen from time to time in every master painter over the span of my life. Even here in the lodge, they were loath to separate from one another.

“We can safely take refuge here for days.”

“We worry,” Black said, “that the person we should fear is perhaps in our very midst.”

“I, too, grow anxious,” I said. “For I have heard such rumors as well.”

There were rumors, spreading from the officers of the Imperial Guard to the division of miniaturists, claiming that the mystery about the murderer of Elegant Effendi and late Enishte was solved: He was one of us who’d labored over that book.

Black inquired as to how many pictures I’d drawn for Enishte’s book.

“The first one I made was Satan. It was of the variety of underground demon common to the old masters in the workshops of the Whitesheep. The storyteller and I were of the same Sufi path; that’s why I made the two dervishes. I was the one who suggested to Enishte that he include them in his book, convincing him that there was a special place for these dervishes in the lands of the Ottomans.”

“Is that all?” asked Black.

When I told him, “Yes, that’s all,” he went to the door with the superior air of a master who caught an apprentice stealing; he brought in a roll of paper untouched by the rain, and placed it before us three artists like a mother cat bringing a wounded bird to her kittens.

I recognized the pages while they were still under his arm: They were the illustrations I’d rescued from the coffeehouse during the raid. I didn’t deign to ask how these men had entered my house and located them. Nevertheless, Butterfly, Stork and I each placidly owned up to the pictures we made for the storyteller, may he rest in peace. Afterward, only the horse, an exquisite horse, remained unclaimed off to the side, its head lowered. Believe me, I didn’t even realize that a horse had been drawn.

“You weren’t the one who made this horse?” said Black like a teacher holding a switch.

“I wasn’t,” I said.

“What about the one in my Enishte’s book?”

“I didn’t make that one either.”

“Based on the style of the horse, however, it’s been determined that you’re the one who drew it,” he said. “Furthermore, it was Master Osman who came to this conclusion.”

“But I have no style whatsoever,” I said. “I’m not saying this out of pride to counter the latest tastes. Neither am I saying so to prove my innocence. For me, having a style would be worse than being a murderer.”

“You have a distinct quality that distinguishes you from the old masters and the others,” said Black.

I smiled at him. He started to relate things that I’m sure you all know by now. I listened intently to how Our Sultan, in consultation with the Head Treasurer, sought a solution to the murders, to the matter of Master Osman’s three days, to the “courtesan method,” to the peculiarity in the noses of the horses and to Black’s miraculous admittance to the Royal Private Quarters for the sake of actually examining those superlative books. There are moments in all our lives when we realize, even as we experience them, that we are living through events we will never forget, even long afterward. A melancholy rain was falling. As if upset by the rain, Butterfly mournfully gripped his dagger. Olive, the backside of whose armor was white with flour, was courageously forging into the heart of the dervish lodge, lamp in hand. These master artists, whose shadows roamed the walls like ghosts, were my brethren, and how I loved them! I was delighted to be a miniaturist.

“Could you appreciate your good fortune as you gazed at the great works of the old masters for days on end with Master Osman at your side?” I asked Black. “Did he kiss you? Did he caress your handsome face? Did he hold your hand? Were you awed by his talent and knowledge?”

“There among the great works of the old masters he showed me how you had a style,” said Black. “He taught me how the hidden fault of ”style“ isn’t something the artist selects of his own volition, but is determined by the artist’s past and his forgotten memories. He also showed me how these secret faults, weaknesses and defects, at one time such a source of shame they were concealed so we wouldn’t be estranged from the old masters, will henceforth emerge to be praised as ”personal characteristics’ or “style,” because the European masters have spread them over the world. Henceforth, thanks to fools who take pride in their own shortcomings, the world will be a more colorful and more stupid and, of course, a much more imperfect place.“

The fact that Black confidently believed in what he said proved that he was one of the new breed of fools.

“Was Master Osman able to explain why, for years, I drew hundreds of horses with regular nostrils in Our Sultan’s books?” I asked.

“It was due to the love and beatings he gave all of you in your childhood. Because he was both father and beloved to you all, he doesn’t see that he associates all of you with himself and each of you with the others. He didn’t want you each to have a style of your own, he wanted the royal atelier as a whole to have a style. Because of the awesome shadow he cast over all of you, you forgot what came from within, the imperfections, the elements and differences that fell outside the confines of standard forms. Only when you painted for other books and other pages, which Master Osman’s eyes would never see, did you draw the horse that had lain within you all those years.”

“My mother, may she rest in peace, was more intelligent than my father,” I said. “One night I was at home, in tears, determined never again to return to the workshop because I was daunted not only by Master Osman’s beatings, but by those of the other harsh and irritable masters and by those of the division head who always intimidated us with a ruler. In consolation, my dearly departed mother advised me that there were two types of people in the world: those who were cowed and crushed by their childhood beatings, forever downtrodden, she said, because the beatings had the desired effect of killing the inner devils; and those fortunate ones for whom the beatings frightened and tamed the devil within without killing him off. Though the latter group would never forget these painful childhood memories-she’d warned me not to tell this to anybody-the beatings would in time enable them to develop cunning, to fathom the unknown, to make friends, to identify enemies, to sense plots being hatched behind their backs and, let me hasten to add, to paint better than anyone else. Because I wasn’t able to draw the branches of a tree harmoniously, Master Osman would slap me so hard that, amid bitter tears, forests would burgeon before me. After angrily striking me in the head because I couldn’t see the errors at the bottoms of pages, he lovingly took up a mirror and placed it before the page so I could see the work as if for the first time. Then pressing his cheek to mine, he so lovingly identified the mistakes that magically appeared in the mirror image of the picture that I never forgot either the love or the ritual. The morning after a night spent weeping in my bed, my pride violated because he chastised me with a ruler before everyone, he came and kissed my arms so tenderly that I passionately knew I’d one day become a legendary miniaturist. Nay, it was not I who drew that horse.”

“We,” Black was referring to Stork and himself, “will search the dervish house for the last picture which was stolen by the accursed man who murdered my Enishte. Did you ever see that last picture?”

“It is nothing that could be accepted by Our Sultan, illuminators like us bound to the old masters or by Muslims bound to their faith,” I said and fell silent.

My statement made him more eager. He and Stork began their search of the premises, turning the whole place upside down. A few times, simply to make their work easier, I went to them. In one of the dervish cells with a leaky ceiling, I pointed out the hole in the floor so they wouldn’t fall and could search it if they so desired. I gave them the large key to the small room in which the sheikh lived thirty years ago, before the adherents of this lodge joined up with the Bektashis and dispersed. They entered eagerly, but when they saw that an entire wall was missing and the room was open to the rain, they didn’t even bother to search it.

It pleased me that Butterfly wasn’t with them, but if evidence implicating me were found, he, too, would join their ranks. Stork was of the same mind as Black, who was afraid that Master Osman would turn us over to the torturers, and maintained that we must support one another and must be united in confronting the Head Treasurer. I sensed Black was not only motivated by the desire to give Shekure a genuine wedding present by finding his Enisthe’s murderer, he also intended to set Ottoman miniaturists on the path of European masters by paying them with the Sultan’s money in order to finish his Enishte’s book in imitation of the Franks (which was not only sacrilegious, but ridiculous). I also understood, with some certainty, that at the root of this scheme was Stork’s desire to be rid of us and even of Master Osman, for he dreamt of being Head Illuminator and (since everyone guessed that Master Osman preferred Butterfly) he was prepared to try anything to increase his chances. I was momentarily confused. Listening to the rain, I deliberated at length. Next, like a man who breaks away from the crowd and struggles to give his petition to the sovereign and grand vizier as they pass on horseback, I had the sudden inspiration to endear myself to Stork and Black. Leading them through a dark hallway and large portal, I took them to a frightening room that was once the kitchen. I asked them if they were able to find anything here among the ruins. Of course, they hadn’t. There was no trace of the kettles, the pots and pans and the bellows that were once used to prepare food for the forsaken and the poor. I never even attempted to clean up this ghastly room covered in cobwebs, dust, mud, debris and the excrement of dogs and cats. As always, a strong wind, rising up as if out of nowhere, dimmed the lamp-making our shadows now lighter, now darker.

“You searched and searched but you couldn’t find my hidden treasure,” I said.

Out of habit, I used the back of my hand as a broom to sweep away the ashes in what used to be a hearth and when an old stove emerged, I lifted up its iron lid with a creak. I held the lamp to the small mouth of the stove. I shall never forget how Stork leapt forward and greedily grabbed the leather pouches within before Black could act. He was about to open the pouches right there in the mouth of the oven, but as I had returned to the large salon, followed by Black who was afraid of remaining here, Stork bounded after us on his long thin legs.

When they saw that one pouch contained a pair of clean woolen socks, my drawstring trousers, my red underwear, the nicest of my undershirts, my silk shirt, my straight razor, my comb and other belongings, they were momentarily at a loss. Out of the other pouch, which Black opened, emerged fifty-three Venetian gold coins, pieces of gold leaf that I’d stolen from the workshop in recent years, my sketchbook of model forms which I concealed from everybody, more stolen gold leaf hidden between the pages, indecent pictures-some of which I’d drawn myself and some I’d collected-a keepsake agate ring from my dear mother along with a lock of her white hair, and my best pens and brushes.

“If I were truly a murderer as you suspect,” I said with stupid pride, “the final picture would’ve emerged from my secret treasury, not these things.”

“Why these things?” asked Stork.

“When the Imperial Guard searched my house, as they did yours, they shamelessly pilfered two of these gold pieces that I’ve spent my entire life collecting. I thought about how we’d be searched again on account of this wretched murderer-and I was right. If that last picture were with me, it would be here.”

It was a mistake to utter this last sentence; nevertheless, I could sense that they were put at ease and no longer afraid that I’d strangle them in a dark corner of the lodge. Have I gained your trust as well?

At this time, however, I was overwhelmed by a severe restlessness; no, it wasn’t that my illuminator friends, whom I’d known since childhood, saw how I’d been greedily squirreling money away for years, how I bought and saved gold, or even that they learned about my sketchbooks and obscene pictures. In truth, I regretted having shown them all of these things in a moment of panic. Only the mysteries of a man who lived quite aimlessly could be exposed so easily.

“Nonetheless,” said Black much later, “we must come to a consensus about what we will say under torture if Master Osman happens to turn us over without any forewarning.”

A hollowness and depression descended upon us. In the pale light of the lamp, Stork and Butterfly were staring at the vulgar pictures in my sketchbook. They displayed an air of complete indifference; in fact, they were even happy in some horrid way. I had a strong urge to look at the picture-I could very well surmise which one it was; I rose and circled around behind them, gazing silently at the obscene picture I’d painted, thrilled as though I were recalling a now distant yet blissful memory. Black joined us. For whatever reason, that the four of us were looking at that illustration relieved me.

“Could the blind and the seeing ever be equal?” said Stork much later. Was he implying that even though what we saw was obscene, the pleasure of sight that Allah had bestowed upon us was glorious? Nay, what would Stork know of such matters? He never read the Koran. I knew that the old masters of Herat would frequently recite this verse. The great masters used this verse as a response to enemies of painting who warned that illustrating was forbidden by our faith and that painters would be sent to Hell on Judgment Day. Until that magical moment, however, I’d never even once heard from Butterfly those words that now emerged from his mouth as if on their own:

“I’d like to depict how the blind and the seeing are not equal!”

“Who are the blind and the seeing?” Black said naively.

“The blind and the seeing are not equal, it’s what ”ve ma yestevil’ama ve’l basiru’nun means,“ Butterfly said and continued:

“…nor are the darkness and the light.

The shade and the heat are not equal,

nor are the living and the dead.“

I shuddered for an instant, thinking of the fates of Elegant Effendi, Enishte and our storyteller brother who was killed tonight. Were the others as frightened as I? Nobody moved for a time. Stork was still holding my book open, but seemed not to see the vulgarity I’d painted though we were all still staring at it!

“I’d want to paint Judgment Day,” said Stork. “The resurrection of the dead, and the separation of the guilty from the innocent. Why is it that we cannot depict the Sacred Word of our faith?”

In our youth, working together in the same room of our workshop, we would periodically lift our faces from our work boards and tables, just as the aging masters would do to rest their eyes, and begin talking about any topic that happened to enter our minds. Back then, just as we now did while looking at the book open before us, we didn’t look at one another as we chatted. For our eyes would be turned toward some distant spot outside an open window. I’m not sure if it was the excitement of recalling something remarkably beautiful from my halcyon apprenticeship days, or the sincere regret I felt at that moment because I hadn’t read the Koran for so long, or the horror of the crime I’d seen at the coffeehouse that night, but when my turn came to speak, I grew confused, my heart quickened as if I’d come under the threat of some danger, and as nothing else came to mind, I simply said the following:

“You remember those verses at the end of ”The Cow“ chapter? I’d want most of all to depict them: ”Oh God, judge us not by what we’ve forgotten and by our mistakes. Oh God, burden us not with a weight we cannot bear, as with those who have gone before us. Forgive and absolve us of our transgressions and sins! Treat us with mercy, my dear God.“” My voice broke and I was embarrassed by the tears I shed unexpectedly-perhaps because I was wary of the sarcasm that we always kept at the ready during our apprenticeships to protect ourselves and to avoid exposing our sensitivities.

I thought my tears would quickly abate, but unable to restrain myself, I began to cry in great sobs. As I wept, I could sense that each of the others was overcome by feelings of fraternity, devastation and sorrow. From now on, the European style would be preeminent in Our Sultan’s workshop; the styles and books to which we’d devoted our entire lives would slowly be forgotten-yes, in fact, the whole venture would come to an end, and if the Erzurumis didn’t throttle us and finish us off, the Sultan’s torturers would leave us maimed…But as I cried, sobbed and sighed-even though I continued to listen to the sad patter of the rain-a part of my mind sensed that these were not the things I was actually crying about. To what extent were the others aware of this? I felt vaguely guilty for my tears, which were at once genuine and false.

Butterfly came up beside me, placed his arm upon my shoulder, stroked my hair, kissed my cheek and comforted me with honeyed words. This show of friendship made me cry with even more sincerity and guilt. I couldn’t see his face but, for some reason, I incorrectly thought he too was crying. We sat down.

We recalled how we’d started our workshop apprenticeships in the same year, the strange sadness of being torn away from our mothers to suddenly begin a new life, the pain of beatings we received from the first day, the joy of the first gifts from the Head Treasurer, and the days we went back home, running the whole way. At first, only he talked while I listened sorrowfully, but later, when Stork and, sometime afterward, Black-who came to the workshop for a time and left it, during our early apprenticeship years-joined our mournful conversation, I forgot that I’d just been crying and began to talk and laugh freely with them.

We reminisced about winter mornings when we would wake early, light the stove in the largest room of the workshop and mop the floors with hot water. We recalled an old “master,” may he rest in peace, who was so uninspired and cautious that he could draw only a single leaf of a single tree during the span of a single day and who, when he saw that we were again looking at the lush green leaves of the springtime trees through the open window rather than at the leaf he drew, without striking us, would chastise us for the hundredth time: “Not out there, in here!” We recalled the wailing, which could be heard throughout the entire atelier, of the scrawny apprentice who walked toward the door, satchel in hand, having been sent back home because the intensity of the work caused one of his eyes to wander. Next, we imagined how we watched (with pleasure because it wasn’t our fault) the slow spread of a deadly red seeping from a bronze inkpot that had cracked over a page three illuminators had labored on for three months (it depicted the Ottoman army on the banks of the Kınık River en route to Shirvan, overcoming the threat of starvation by occupying Eresh and filling their stomachs). In a refined and respectful manner, we talked about how the three of us together made love to and together fell in love with a Circasian lady, the most beautiful of the wives of a seventy-year-old pasha who-in consideration of his conquests, strength and wealth-wanted ceiling ornamentation in his home made in imitation of the designs in Our Sultan’s hunting lodge. Then, we longingly recalled how on winter mornings we would have our lentil soup on the threshold of the yawning door so its steam wouldn’t soften the paper. We also lamented being separated from workshop friends and masters when the latter compelled us to travel to distant places to serve as journeymen. For a time, the sweetness of my dear Butterfly in his sixteenth year appeared before my eyes: He was burnishing paper to a high gloss by rubbing it quickly with a smooth seashell as the sunlight, coming through an open window on a summer’s day, struck his naked honey-colored forearms. For a moment he stopped what he was so absentmindedly doing and carefully lowered his face to the page to examine a blemish. After making a few passes over the offending spot with the burnishing shell using different motions, he returned to his former pattern, moving his hand back and forth as he stared out of the window into the distance, losing himself in daydreams. I shall never forget how before looking outside again, he briefly gazed into my eyes-as I would later do to others. This dolorous look has only one meaning, which all apprentices know quite well: Time doesn’t flow if you don’t dream.