My Name is Red (48 page)

I fell quiet and from distant streets we could hear the Erzurumis screaming as they ran. The terror outside at once brought the two of us, lying one on top of the other, closer.

“But in all those pictures,” I added, pulling harder on Black’s hair, “one can sense the difficulty of elegantly drawing two men who despise each other yet whose bodies, like ours, have become as one. It’s as if the chaos of treachery, envy and battle that comes just before the magical and magnificent moment of beheading has too fully permeated those pictures. Even the greatest masters of Kazvin would have difficulty drawing two men on top of each other; they’d confuse everything. Whereas you and I, see for yourself, we’re much more tidy and elegant.”

“The blade is cutting,” he whimpered.

“I’m much obliged for your polite words, my dear man, but it’s doing no such thing. I’m being quite careful. I wouldn’t do anything to ruin the beauty of our pose. In the scenes of love, death and war, wherein the great masters of old rendered intertwined bodies as if they were one, they were able to elicit only our tears. See for yourself: My head rests upon the nape of your neck as if it were a part of your body. I can smell your hair and the scent of your neck. My legs, on either side of yours, are stretched out in such harmony with yours, that an onlooker might mistake us for an elegant four-legged beast. Do you feel the balance of my weight on your back and buttocks?” Another silence, but I didn’t press the sword upward, because it would indeed have cut his throat. “If you’re not going to speak, I might be provoked to bite your ear,” I said, whispering into that very ear.

When I noticed in his eyes that he was prepared to speak, I asked the same question again: “Do you feel the balance of my weight upon your body?”

“Aye.”

“Do you like it?” I said. “Are we beautiful?” I asked. “Are we as beautiful as the legendary heroes who slay each other with such elegance in the masterpieces of the old masters?”

“I don’t know,” said Black, “I can’t see us in the mirror.”

When I imagined how my wife saw us from the other room in the light cast by the coffeehouse’s oil lamp resting on the floor only a short distance away, I thought I might actually bite Black’s ear out of excitement.

“Black Effendi, you, who have forced your way into my home and have disturbed my privacy, dagger in hand, in order to interrogate me,” I said, “do you now feel my strength?”

“Yes, I also sense that you’re truly in the right.”

“Then proceed, once again, to ask me what you want to know.”

“Describe how Master Osman would caress you.”

“As an apprentice, I was much more lithe, delicate and beautiful than I am now, and he would mount me then the way I have mounted you. He would caress my arms, at times he would even hurt me, but because I was in awe of his knowledge, his talent and strength, what he did pleased me, and I never harbored any ill will toward him, because I loved him. Loving Master Osman enabled me to love art, colors, paper, the beauty of painting and illumination and everything that was painted, and thereby to love the world itself and God. Master Osman is more than a father to me.”

“Would he beat you often?” he asked.

“In the role of a father, he beat me with an appropriate sense of justice; as a master, he beat me painfully so that I might learn from the punishment. Thanks to the pain and the fear of a ruler whacking my fingernails I learned many things better and faster than I would’ve alone. So he wouldn’t grab me by my hair and bang my head against the wall when I was an apprentice, I’d never spill paint, never waste his gold wash, would quickly memorize, for example, the curve of a horse’s foreleg, cover up the mistakes of the master limner, clean my brushes regularly and focus my attention and spirit on the page before me. Since I owe my talent and mastery to the beatings I received, I, in turn, beat my own apprentices without a guilty conscience. What’s more, I know that even a beating given without just cause, if it doesn’t break the spirit of the apprentice, will ultimately benefit him.”

“Even so, you understand that while drubbing a handsome-faced, sweet-eyed, angelic apprentice, now and then, you get carried away by the sheer pleasure of it, and you know that Master Osman probably experienced the same sensation with you, don’t you?”

“Sometimes he’d take a marble burnishing stone and strike me with such force behind the ear that my ear would ring for days, and I’d walk around half stunned. Sometimes he’d slap me so hard that for weeks my cheek would ache, enough to bring continual tears to my eyes. I shall never forget, yet I still love my mentor.”

“Nay,” said Black, “you were furious with him. You took revenge for the anger that silently accumulated deep within you by making illustrations for my Enishte’s Frankish-imitation book.”

“The opposite is true. The beatings that a young miniaturist receives from his master bind him to his master with a profound respect until the day he dies.”

“The cruel and treacherous cutting of the throats of Iraj and Siyavush from behind, as you are doing to me, arose out of sibling rivalry, and sibling rivalry, as in the
Book of Kings
, is always provoked by an unjust father.”

“True.”

“The unjust father of you master miniaturists, the one who set you at each other’s throats, is now preparing to betray you,” he said brazenly. “Ahh, I beg of you, it is cutting,” he whimpered. He cried in agony a bit longer. Then he went on, “True, cutting my throat and spilling my blood like a sacrificial lamb would be but the work of an instant, but if you do this without listening to what I’m about to explain-I don’t think you’ll do it anyway, ahh, please, enough-you’ll forever wonder what I was going to say. Please, move the blade away slightly.” I did so. “Master Osman, who followed your every step and your every breath since childhood, who happily watched your God-given talent bloom into artistry like a spring flower under his care, has now turned his back on you in order to save his workshop and its style, to which he has devoted his entire life.”

“I recounted three parables to you the day we buried Elegant Effendi so you might know how disgusting this thing they call ”style“ truly is.”

“Those stories pertained to a miniaturist’s individual style,” said Black carefully, “whereas Master Osman is concerned with preserving the style of the entire workshop.”

He explained how the Sultan attached great importance to finding the murderer of Elegant Effendi and his Enishte, how He’d even let them inspect the Royal Treasury to this end, and how Master Osman was using this opportunity to sabotage his Enishte’s book and punish those who betrayed him by imitating the Europeans. Black added that based on style, Master Osman suspected Olive was responsible for the horse with the clipped nostrils, but as Head Illuminator, he was convinced of Stork’s guilt and would turn him over to the executioners. I could sense he was telling the truth under the pressure of my sword, and I felt like kissing him because he gave himself over to what he was saying like a child. What I heard didn’t worry me, having Stork out of the way meant I’d become Head Illuminator after Master Osman’s death-may God grant him long life.

I wasn’t disturbed that what he said might happen, but by the possibility that it might not. Reading between the lines of Black’s account, I was able to glean that Master Osman was willing not only to sacrifice Stork, but me as well. Considering this incredible possibility made my heart quicken and drew me toward the horror of complete abandonment felt by a child who’s suddenly lost his father. Each time this came to mind, I had to restrain myself from cutting Black’s throat. I didn’t attempt to argue the point with Black or myself: Why should the fact that we made a few foolish illustrations inspired by European masters lower us to the level of traitors? Once again, I thought that behind Elegant’s death stood Stork and Olive and their schemes against me. I removed the sword from Black’s throat.

“Let’s go to Olive’s house together, and search it from top to bottom,” I said. “If the last picture is with him, at least we’ll know whom to fear. If not, we’ll take him with us as support and go on to raid Stork’s house.”

I told him to trust me and that his dagger was enough weaponry for the two of us. I apologized for not even having offered him a glass of linden tea. As I lifted the oil lamp from the floor, we both stared meaningfully at the cushion upon which I’d flattened him. I approached him with the lamp in my hand and told him how the ever-so-faint cut on his throat would be a mark of our friendship. He bled only slightly.

The commotion made by the Erzurumis and those pursuing them could still be heard on the streets, but no one noticed us. We were quick to arrive at Olive’s house. We knocked on the courtyard door, the door of the house, and impatiently upon the shutters. Nobody was home; we made so much noise that we were certain he wasn’t sleeping. Black gave voice to what we both were thinking: “Shall we go inside?”

I twisted the metal loop of the door lock using the blunt edge of Black’s dagger, then inserting it into the space between door and jamb and levering it with all our weight, we broke the lock. We were met by the stench of dampness, dirt and loneliness, which had accumulated over years. By the light of the lamp, we noticed an unmade bed, sashes tossed randomly upon cushions, vests, two turbans, undershirts, Nimetullah Effendi the Nakshibendi’s Persian dictionary, a wooden turban stand, broadcloth, needle and thread, a small copper pan full of apple peels, quite a few cushions, a velvet bedspread, his paints, his brushes and all of his supplies. I was on the verge of rifling through the writing paper, the layer upon layer of carefully trimmed Hindustan paper, and the illuminated pages on his small desk, but I restrained myself both because Black was more enthusiastic than I, and because I knew full well how a master miniaturist would incur nothing but bad luck if he went through the belongings of a less talented miniaturist. Olive is not as talented as is assumed, he’s merely eager. He tries to cover up for his lack of talent with adoration of the old masters. The old legends, however, only rouse an artist’s imagination; it’s the hand that does the painting.

As Black was searching meticulously through all the chests and boxes, going as far as to check the bottoms of laundry baskets, without touching anything I glanced at Olive’s Bursa towels, his ebony comb, his dirty bath hand towel, his rosewater bottles, a ridiculous waist cloth with an Indian block-print pattern, quilted jackets, a heavy, dirty women’s robe with a slit, a dented copper tray, filthy carpets and other furnishings too cheap and slovenly for the money he earned. Olive was either very stingy and salting his money away or he was squandering it somehow…

“The house of a murderer, precisely,” I said later. “There isn’t even a prayer rug.” But this wasn’t what I was thinking. I concentrated. “These are the belongings of a man who doesn’t know how to be happy…” I said. Yet, in a corner of my mind, I thought sadly about how misery and proximity to the Devil nursed painting.

“Despite knowing what it takes to be content, a man might still be unhappy,” said Black.

He placed before me a series of pictures drawn on coarse Samarkand paper, backed with heavy sheets, which he’d removed from the depths of a chest. We studied the pictures: a delightful Satan all the way from Khorasan that had emerged from beneath the ground, a tree, a beautiful woman, a dog and the picture of Death I myself had drawn. These were the illustrations that the murdered storyteller hung up each night he told one of his disgraceful stories. Prompted by Black’s question, I pointed out the picture of Death I had drawn.

“The same pictures are in my Enishte’s book,” he said.

“Both the storyteller and the proprietor of the coffeehouse realized the wisdom of having the miniaturists render the illustrations each night. The storyteller would have one of us quickly dash off an illustration on one of these coarse sheets, ask us a little about the story and about our in jokes and then, adding some of his own material, he’d start the evening’s performance.”

“Why did you make the same picture of Death for him that you made for my Enishte’s book?”

“Upon the request of the storyteller, it was a lone figure on the page. But I didn’t draw it with attention and effort the way I had for Enishte’s book; I drew it quickly, the way my hand felt like drawing it. The others too, perhaps trying to be witty, drew for the storyteller in a cruder and simpler manner what they had made for that secret book.”

“Who made the horse,” he asked, “with the slit nostrils?”

Lowering the lamp we watched the horse in wonder. It resembled the horse made for Enishte’s book, but it was quicker, more careless and catered to a simpler taste, as if somebody had not only paid the illustrator less money and made him work faster, but also forced him to make a rougher and, I suppose precisely for this reason, more realistic horse.

“Stork would know best who made this horse,” I said. “He’s a conceited fool who can’t last a day without listening to the gossip of miniaturists, that’s why he visits the coffeehouse every night. Yes, most certainly, Stork drew this horse.”

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.