My Name is Red (5 page)

All of you, I know, are wondering what Shekure penned in that letter I presented to Black. As this was also a curiosity of mine, I learned everything there was to know. If you would, then, pretend you’re flipping back through the pages of the story and let me tell you what occurred before I delivered that letter.

Now, it’s getting on toward evening, I’ve retired to our house in the quaint little Jewish quarter at the mouth of the Golden Horn with my husband Nesim, two old people huffing and puffing, trying to keep warm by feeding logs into the stove. Pay no mind to my calling myself “old.” When I load my wares-items cheap and precious alike, certain to lure the ladies, rings, earrings, necklaces and baubles-into the folds of silk handkerchiefs, gloves, sheets and the colorful shirt cloth sent over in Portuguese ships, when I shoulder that bundle, Esther’s a ladle and Istanbul’s a kettle, and there’s nary a street I don’t visit. There isn’t a word of gossip or letter that I haven’t carried from one door to the next, and I’ve played matchmaker to half the maidens of Istanbul, but I didn’t begin this recital to brag. As I was saying, we were taking our ease in the evening, and “rap, rap” someone was at the door. I went and opened it to discover Hayriye, that idiot slave girl, standing before me. She held a letter in her hand. I couldn’t tell whether it was from the cold or from excitement, but she was trembling as she explained Shekure’s wishes.

At first, I assumed this letter was to be taken to Hasan, that’s why I was so astonished. You know about pretty Shekure’s husband, the one who never returned from the war-if you ask me, he’s long since had his hide pierced. Well you see, that never-to-return soldier-husband also has an eager, lovesick brother by the name of Hasan. So imagine my surprise when I saw that Shekure’s letter wasn’t meant for Hasan, but for someone else. What did the letter say? Esther was mad with curiosity, and in the end, I did succeed in reading it.

But alas, we don’t know each other that well, do we? To be honest, I was overcome with embarrassment and worry. How I read the letter you’ll never know. Maybe you’ll shame and belittle me for my meddling-as if you yourselves aren’t as nosy as barbers. I’ll just relate to you what I learned from reading the letter. This is what sweet Shekure had written:

Black Effendi, you’re a visitor to my house thanks to your close relations with my father. But don’t expect a nod from me. Much has happened since you left. I was wed, and have two strong and spirited sons. One of them is Orhan, he’s the one whom you saw just now come to the workshop. While I’ve been awating the return of my husband these four years, little else has entered my thoughts. I might feel lonely, hopeless and weak living with my two children and an elderly father. I miss the strength and protection of a man, but let no one assume he might take advantage of my situation. Therefore, it would please me if you ceased calling on us. You did embarrass me once before, and afterward, I had to endure much suffering to regain my honor in my father’s eyes! Along with this letter, I’m also returning the picture you painted and sent to me when you were an impulsive youth with his wits not yet about him. I do this so you won’t harbor any false hopes or misread any signs. It’s a mistake to believe that one could fall in love gazing at a picture. It’d be best if you stopped coming to our house completely.

My poor Shekure, you’re neither a nobleman nor a pasha with a fancy seal to stamp your letter! At the bottom of the page, she signed the first letter of her name, which looked like a small, frightened bird. Nothing more.

I said “seal.” You’re probably wondering how I open and close these wax-sealed letters. But in fact the letters aren’t sealed at all. “That Esther is an illiterate Jew,” my dear Shekure had assumed. “She’ll never understand my writing.” True, I can’t read what’s written, but I can always have someone else read it. And as for what’s not written, I can quite readily “read” that myself. Confused, are you?

Let me put it this way, so even the most thick-headed of you will understand:

A letter doesn’t communicate by words alone. A letter, just like a book, can be read by smelling it, touching it and fondling it. Thereby, intelligent folk will say, “Go on then, read what the letter tells you!” whereas the dull-witted will say, “Go on then, read what he’s written!” Listen, now, to what else Shekure said:

1. Though I’ve sent this letter in secret, by relying on Esther, who’s made letter-delivery a matter of commerce and custom, I’m signifying that I don’t intend to conceal that much at all.

2. That I’ve folded it up like a French pastry implies secrecy and mystery, true. But the letter isn’t sealed and there’s a huge picture enclosed. The apparent implication is, “Pray, keep our secret at all costs,” which more befits an invitation to love than a letter of rebuke.

3. Furthermore, the smell of the letter confirms this interpretation. The fragrance was faint enough to be ambiguous-did she intentionally perfume the letter?-yet alluring enough to fire readers’ curiosity-is this the aroma of attar or the smell of her hand? And a fragrance, which was enough to enrapture the poor man who read the letter to me, will surely have the same effect on Black.

4. I am Esther, who knows neither how to read nor write, but this I do know: Although the flow of the script and the handwriting seems to say “Alas, I am rushed, I am writing carelessly and without paying serious attention,” these letters that twitter elegantly as if caught in a gentle breeze convey the exact opposite message. Even her phrase “just now come” when referring to Orhan, implying that the letter was written at that very moment, betrays a ploy no less obvious than care taken in each line.

5. The picture sent along with the letter depicts pretty Shirin gazing at handsome Hüsrev’s image and falling in love, as told in the story that even I, Esther the Jewess, know well. All the lovelorn ladies of Istanbul adore this story, but never have I known someone to send an illustration relating to it.

It happens all the time to you fortunate literate people: A maiden who can’t read begs you to read a love letter she’s received. The letter is so surprising, exciting and disturbing that its owner, though embarrassed at your becoming privy to her most intimate affairs, ashamed and distraught, asks you all the same to read it once more. You read it again. In the end, you’ve read the letter so many times that both of you have memorized it. Before long, she’ll take the letter in her hands and ask, “Did he make that statement there?” and “Did he say that here?” As you point to the appropriate places, she’ll pore over those passages, still unable to make sense of the words there. As she stares at the curvy letters of the words, sometimes I am so moved I forget that I myself can’t read or write and feel the urge to embrace those illiterate maidens whose tears fall to the page.

Then there are those truly accursed letter-readers; pray, don’t you turn out to be like one of them: When the maiden takes the letter in her own hands to touch it again, desiring to look at it without understanding which words were spoken where, these beasts will say to her, “What are you trying to do? You can’t read, what more do you want to look at?” Some of them won’t even return the letter, treating it henceforth as if it belonged to them. At times, the task of accosting them and retrieving the letter falls to me, Esther. That’s the kind of good woman I am. If Esther likes you, she’ll come to your aid as well.

Oh, why was I there at the window just when Black rode by on his white steed? Why did I open the shutters intuitively at that exact moment and stare at him so long from behind the snowy branches of the pomegranate tree? I can’t tell you for sure. I’d sent word to Esther by way of Hayriye. I was, of course, well aware that Black would take that route. Meanwhile, I’d gone up alone to the room with the built-in closet and the window facing the pomegranate tree to inspect the sheets in the chest. On a whim, and at just the right moment, I pushed the shutters open with all my strength and sunlight flooded the room: Standing at the window, I came face-to-face with Black, who, like the sun, dazzled me. Oh, it was quite lovely.

He’d grown and matured and, having lost his awkward youthful lankiness, he turned out to be a comely man. Listen Shekure, my heart did tell me, he’s not only handsome, look into his eyes, he possesses the heart of a child, so pure, so alone: Marry him. I, however, sent him a letter wherein I’d given him quite the opposite message.

Though he was twelve years my elder, when I was twelve, I was more mature than he. Back then, instead of standing straight and tall before me in a fashion befitting a man and announcing that he was going to do this or that, jump from this spot or climb onto that thing, he’d just bury his face in some book or picture, hiding as if everything embarrassed him. In time, he also fell in love with me. He made a painting declaring his love. We’d both matured by then. When I turned twelve, I sensed that Black could no longer look into my eyes, as if he were afraid I’d discover he loved me. “Hand me that ivory-handled knife,” he’d say, for example, looking at the knife but unable to look at me. If I asked him, for instance, “Is the cherry sherbet to your liking?” he couldn’t simply indicate so with a delicate smile or nod, as we do when our mouths are full, you see. Instead, he’d scream “Yes” at the top of his lungs, as if trying to communicate with a deaf man. He feared looking me in the face. I was a maiden of striking beauty then. Any man who caught sight of me even once, from afar, or from between parted curtains or yawning doors, or even through the layers of my modest head coverings, immediately became enamored of me. I’m not being a braggart, I’m explaining this so you’ll understand my story and be better able to share in my grief.

In the well-known tale of Hüsrev and Shirin, there’s a moment that Black and I had discussed at length. Hüsrev’s friend, Shapur, intends to make Hüsrev and Shirin fall in love. One day Shirin embarks on a countryside outing with her ladies of the court, when she sees a picture of Hüsrev that Shapur has secretly hung from the branch of one of the trees beneath which the outing party has stopped to rest. Beholding this picture of the handsome Hüsrev in that beautiful garden, Shirin is stricken by love. Many paintings depict this moment-or “scene” as the miniaturists would have it-consisting of Shirin’s look of adoration and bewilderment as she gazes upon the image of Hüsrev. While Black was working with my father, he’d seen this picture many times and had twice made exact copies by eyeing the original as he painted. After falling in love with me, he made a copy for himself. But this time in place of Hüsrev and Shirin, he portrayed himself and me, Black and Shekure. If it weren’t for the captions beneath the figures, only I would’ve known who the man and maiden in the picture were, because sometimes when we were joking around, he’d depict us in the same manner and color: I all in blue, he all in red. And if this weren’t indication enough, he’d also written our names beneath the figures. He’d left the painting where I would find it and run off. He watched me to see what my reaction to his composition would be.

I was well aware that I wouldn’t be able to love him like a Shirin, so I feigned ignorance. On the evening of that summer’s day when Black gave me his painting, during which we’d tried to cool ourselves with sour-cherry sherbets made with ice said to have been brought all the way from snow-capped Mount Ulu, I told my father that he’d made a declaration of love. At that time, Black had just graduated from the religious school. He taught in remote neighborhoods and, more out of my father’s insistence than his own desire, Black was attempting to obtain the patronage of the powerful and esteemed Naim Pasha. But according to my father, Black didn’t yet have his wits about him. My father, who’d taken great pains to win Black a place in Naim Pasha’s circle, at least as a clerk to begin, complained that he wasn’t doing much to further his own cause; in other words, Black was being an ignoramus. And that very night in reference to Black and me, my father declared, “I think he’s set his sights very high, this impoverished nephew,” and without regard for my mother’s presence, he added, “he’s smarter than we’d supposed.”

I remember with misery what my father did in the following days, how I kept my distance from Black and how he ceased to visit our house, but I won’t explain all of this for fear that you’ll dislike my father and me. I swear to you, we had no other choice. You know how in such situations reasonable people immediately sense that love without hope is simply hopeless, and understanding the limits of the illogical realm of the heart, make a quick end of it by politely declaring, “They didn’t find us suitably matched. That’s just the way it is.” But, I’ll have you know that my mother said several times, “At least don’t break the boy’s heart.” Black, whom my mother referred to as a “boy,” was twenty-four, and I was half his age. Because my father considered Black’s declaration of love an act of insolence, he wouldn’t humor my mother’s wishes.

Though we hadn’t forgotten him altogether by the time we received news that he’d left Istanbul, we’d let him slip completely out of our affections. Because we hadn’t received news about him from any city for years, I deemed it appropriate to save the picture he’d made and shown me, as a token of our childhood memories and friendship. To prevent my father, and later my soldier-husband, from discovering the picture and getting upset or jealous, I expertly concealed the names “Shekure” and “Black” beneath the figures by making it appear as if someone had dribbled my father’s Hasan Pasha ink onto them, in an accident later to be disguised as flowers. Since I’ve returned that picture to him today, maybe those among you inclined to take a dim view of how I revealed myself to him at the window will feel ashamed and reconsider your prejudices somewhat.

Having exposed my face to him, I remained for a while there at the window, showered in the crimson hue of the evening sun, and gazed in awe at the garden bathed in reddish-orange light, until I felt the chill of the evening air. There was no breeze. I didn’t care what someone passing in the street would’ve said upon seeing me at the open window. One of Ziver Pasha’s daughters, Mesrure, who always laughed and enjoyed herself saying the most surprising things at the most inopportune times when we went merrily and playfully to the public baths each week, once told me that a person never knows exactly what she herself is thinking. This is what I know: Sometimes I’ll say something and realize upon uttering it that it is of my own thinking; but no sooner do I arrive at that realization than I’m convinced the very opposite is true.

I was sorry when poor Elegant Effendi, one of the miniaturists my father often invited to the house-and I won’t pretend I haven’t spied on each of them-went missing, much like my unfortunate husband. “Elegant” was the ugliest among them and the most impoverished of spirit.

I closed the shutters, left the room and went down to the kitchen.

“Mother, Shevket didn’t listen to you,” Orhan said. “While Black was taking his horse out of the stable, Shevket left the kitchen and spied on him from the peephole.”

“What of it!” Shevket said, waving his hand in the air. “Mother spied on him from the hole in the closet.”

“Hayriye,” I said. “Fry some bread in a little butter and serve it to them with marzipan and sugar.”

Orhan jumped up and down with joy though Shevket was silent. But as I walked back upstairs, they both caught up to me, screaming, pushing and shoving by me excitedly. “Be slow, slow down,” I said with a laugh. “You rascals.” I patted them on their delicate backs.

How wonderful it is to be home with children as evening approaches! My father had quietly given himself over to a book.

“Your guest has departed,” I said. “I hope he didn’t trouble you much?”

“On the contrary,” he said. “He entertained me. He’s as respectful as ever of his Enishte.”

“Good.”

“But now he’s also measured and calculating.”

He’d said that less to observe my reaction than to close the subject in a manner that made light of Black. On any other occasion, I would’ve answered him with a sharp tongue, as I am wont to do. This time, though, I just thought of Black making ground on his white horse, and I shuddered.

I’m not sure how it happened, but later in the room with the closet, Orhan and I found ourselves hugging each other. Shevket joined us; there was a brief skirmish between them. As they tussled we all rolled over onto the floor. I kissed them on the backs of their necks and their hair, I pressed them to my bosom and felt their weight on my breasts.

“Ahhh,” I said. “Your hair stinks. I’m going to send you to the baths tomorrow with Hayriye.”

“I don’t want to go to the baths with Hayriye anymore,” Shevket said.

“Why? Are you too grown-up?” I said.

“Mother, why did you wear your fine purple blouse?” Shevket said.

I went into the other room and removed my purple blouse. I pulled on the faded green one that I usually wear. As I was changing, I felt cold and shivered, but I could sense that my skin was aflame, my body vibrant and alive. I’d rubbed a bit of rouge onto my cheeks, which probably smudged while I was rolling around with the children, but I evened it out by licking my palm and rubbing my cheeks. Are you aware that my relatives, the women whom I meet at the baths and everyone who sees me, swear that I look more like a sixteen-year-old maiden than a twenty-four-year-old mother of two past her prime? Believe them, truly believe them, or I shan’t tell you any more.

Don’t be surprised that I’m talking to you. For years I’ve combed through the pictures in my father’s books looking for images of women and great beauties. They do exist, if few and far between, and always look shy, embarrassed, gazing only at one another, as if apologetically. Never do they raise their heads, stand straight and face the people of the world as soldiers and sultans would. Only in cheap, hastily illustrated books by careless artists are the eyes of some women trained not on the ground or on some thing in the illustration-oh, I don’t know, let’s say a lover or a goblet-but directly at the reader. I’ve long wondered about that reader.

I shudder in delight when I think of two-hundred-year-old books, dating back to the time of Tamerlane, volumes for which acquisitive giaours gleefully relinquish gold pieces and which they carry all the way back to their own countries: Perhaps one day someone from a distant land will listen to this story of mine. Isn’t this what lies behind the desire to be inscribed in the pages of a book? Isn’t it just for the sake of this delight that sultans and viziers proffer bags of gold to have their histories written? When I feel this delight, just like those beautiful women with one eye on the life within the book and one eye on the life outside, I, too, long to speak with you who are observing me from who knows which distant time and place. I’m an attractive and intelligent woman, and it pleases me that I’m being watched. And if I happen to tell a lie or two from time to time, it’s so you don’t come to any false conclusions about me.

Maybe you’ve noticed that my father adores me. He had three sons before me, but God took them one by one and left me, his daughter. My father dotes on me, though I married a man not of his choosing. I went to a spahi cavalry soldier whom I’d noticed and fancied. If it were left to my father, my husband would not only be the greatest of scholars, he’d also have an appreciation for painting and art, be possessed of power and authority, and be as rich as Karun, the wealthiest of men in the Koran. The inkling of such a man couldn’t even be found in the pages of my father’s books, and so I would’ve been forced to pine away at home forever.

My husband’s handsomeness was legendary, and I gave him the nod through intermediates. He found the opportunity to appear before me as I was returning from the public baths. His eyes were as brilliant as fire, and I immediately fell in love. He was a dark-haired, fair-skinned, green-eyed man with strong arms; but at heart, he was innocent and quiet like a sleepy child. Nevertheless, it seemed, to me at least, that he also had the tang of blood about him, perhaps because he expended all his strength slaying men in battle and amassing booty, even though at home he was as gentle and quiet as a lady. This man-whom my father looked upon as a penniless soldier, and hence, disapproved of-was later allowed to marry me because I threatened to kill myself otherwise. And after they gave him a military fief worth ten thousand silver coins, a reward for his heroism in battle after battle wherein he performed the greatest acts of bravery, truly, everyone envied us.

Four years ago when he failed to return with the rest of the army from warring against the Safavids I wasn’t worried at first. For the more experience he had on the battlefield, the more adept and clever he became in creating opportunities for himself, in bringing home greater spoils, in winning larger fiefs, and in enlisting more soldiers of his own. There were witnesses who said he fled to the mountains with his own men after he became separated from a division of the army. In the beginning, I suspected a scheme and hoped he’d return, but after two years, I slowly grew accustomed to his absence; and when I realized how many lonely women like me with missing soldier-husbands there were in Istanbul, I resigned myself to my fate.

At night, in our beds, we’d hug our children and mope and cry. To quiet their tears, I’d tell them hopeful lies; for example, that so-and-so had proof their father would return before spring. Afterward, when my lie would circulate, changing and spreading until it found its way back to me, I’d be the first to believe the good news.