Orhan Pamuk - My Name is Red

I was saddened as I left. I’d never seen Shekure’s eyes so wet with tears. As soon as I adjusted to the cold outside, Black stopped me on the muddy road, sword in hand.

“Hasan’s not home,” I said. “Perhaps he’s gone to the market to buy wine to celebrate Shekure’s return. Perhaps he’ll soon be back with his men. In that case you’ll come to blows, because he’s crazy. And if he takes up that red sword of his, there’s no telling what he’ll do.”

“What did Shekure say?”

“The father-in-law said absolutely not, I won’t give up my daughter-in-law, but if I were you I wouldn’t worry about him, worry about Shekure. Your wife is confused. If you ask me, she took refuge here two days after her father perished for fear of the murderer, because of Hasan’s threats and your disappearance without a word. She knew she couldn’t spend another night in that same house plagued by the same fears. They also told her that you had a hand in her father’s death. But her first husband hasn’t come back or anything like that. Shevket, and it seems the father-in-law, believed Hasan’s lie. She wants to return to you, but she has certain conditions.”

Staring directly into Black’s eyes, I listed her conditions. He accepted at once with an official air as if he were speaking with a genuine ambassador.

“I, too, have a condition,” I said. “I’m heading back into the house again.” I pointed out the shutters of the window behind which the father-in-law sat. “In a little while attack from there and the front door. When I scream, that’ll be the signal for you to stop. If Hasan arrives, don’t hesitate to attack him.”

My words, of course, did not befit an ambassador, to whom no harm should come, but I let myself get carried away, you see. This time, as soon as I yelled “Clothierrr,” the door opened. I went directly to the father-in-law.

“The entire neighborhood, and the judge who presides over these parts, that is everyone, knows that Shekure has long been divorced and properly remarried in keeping with the dictates of the Koran,” I said. “Even if your son, who has long since passed away, came back to life and returned here to you from Heaven in the company of the Prophet Moses, it’d be of no use for he’s divorced from Shekure. You’ve abducted a married woman and are holding her here against her will. Black requested that I tell you he and his men will see to your punishment for this crime before the judge can.”

“Then he will have made a grave mistake,” said the father-in-law delicately. “We didn’t abduct Shekure at all! I’m the grandfather of these children, praise be to God. Hasan is their uncle. When Shekure was left all alone, what choice did she have but to seek shelter here? If she wants, she can leave now and take her children with her. But never forget that this is her first home, where she gave birth to her children and happily raised them.”

“Shekure,” I said unthinkingly, “do you want to return to your father’s house?”

She’d begun to cry on account of the “happy hearth” speech. “I have no father,” she said, or was that how I heard it? Her children first embraced her legs, then sat her down and hugged her; the three of them hugged one another in a large ball and wept. But Esther is no idiot: I knew full well that Shekure’s tears were meant to appease both sides without her having to make a decision. But I also knew they were genuine tears, because they moved me to cry, too. A while later, I noticed that Hayriye, that snake, was also crying.

As if to pay back the green-eyed father-in-law for being the sole person in the room who wasn’t crying, Black and his men began their attack on the house that very moment by banging on the shutters and forcing the door. Two men were at the front door with a battering ram whose blows sounded like cannonfire through the house.

“You’re an experienced and dignified man,” I said, encouraged by my own tears, “open the door and tell those rabid mongrels out there that Shekure is on her way.”

“Would you send an unprotected woman, your daughter-in-law no less, who’d taken refuge in your house, out onto the streets with those dogs?”

“She herself wants to go,” I said. With my purple handkerchief I wiped my nose, which had stuffed up from crying.

“In that case she’s free to open the door and leave,” he said.

I sat down beside Shekure and her children. At each new blow, the terrifying noise made by the men forcing the door became yet another excuse for yet more tears, the children began to cry louder, which in turn increased Shekure’s wailing and mine as well. Still, even taking into account the threatening cries from outside and the blows of the battering ram that seemed on the verge of destroying the house, both of us knew we were crying to gain time.

“My beautiful Shekure,” I said, “your father-in-law has given you permission and your husband Black has accepted all of your terms, he’s waiting for you lovingly, you no longer have any business in this house. Put on your cloak, don your veil, take your belongings and your children, and open the door so we can go quietly back to your house.”

This statement of mine made the children wail even more, and caused Shekure to open her eyes in shock.

“I’m afraid of Hasan,” she said, “his revenge will be horrible. He’s wild. Remember, I came here on my own.”

“This doesn’t cancel out your new marriage,” I said. “You were left helpless, of course you were going to take refuge somewhere. Your husband’s forgiven you, he’s prepared to take you back. As for Hasan, we’ll deal with him the way we have for years.” I smiled.

“But I’m not going to open the door,” she said, “because then I’ll have returned to him of my own free will.”

“My dearest Shekure, I cannot open the door either,” I said. “You know as well as I that this would mean I’ve meddled in your affairs. They’d bitterly avenge such meddling.”

I could see from her eyes that she understood. “Then no one will open the door,” she said. “Let’s wait for them to break it down and take us by force.”

I knew at once this would be the best alternative for Shekure and her children, and I was afraid. “But that means blood will be spilled,” I said. “If the judge isn’t involved in this affair, blood will flow, and a blood feud will last for years. No honorable man could stand by and watch as his house was broken into and raided to abduct a woman residing there.”

I once again understood regretfully how deceptive and calculating this Shekure was as she embraced her two boys and wailed with all her being rather than answer. A voice was telling me to forget everything and leave, but I could no longer walk back through the door, which was being battered to the breaking point. Actually, I was afraid of both what would happen if they broke down the door and came through and what would happen if they didn’t; I kept thinking that Black’s men, who trusted in me, were worried about going too far and might retreat at any moment, which would, in turn, embolden the father-in-law. When he went to Shekure’s side, I knew he’d begun to cry fake tears, but what’s worse, he was trembling in a way that couldn’t be feigned.

Stepping toward the door, I screamed with all my strength, “Stop, that’s enough!”

The commotion outside and the wailing inside ended in a heartbeat.

“Mother, have Orhan open the door,” I said in a moment of inspiration and in a sweet voice, as if I were speaking to the boy. “He wants to go home, no one will take issue with that.”

The words had hardly left my mouth when Orhan freed himself from his mother’s loosening arms, and like somebody who’d lived here for years, slid open the bolt, lifted the wooden bar, then unfastened the latch, and moved backward two steps. The cold from outside entered as the door yawned open. There was such a silence that all of us heard a lazy dog bark off in the distance. Shekure kissed Orhan, who was back in his mother’s lap, and Shevket said, “I’m going to tell Uncle Hasan.”