Orhan Pamuk - My Name is Red

We too, like melancholy harem women, reminisced about the gifts of fur-lined caftans and purses full of money that the Sultan would present to us in reciprocation for the colorful decorated boxes, mirrors and plates, embellished ostrich eggs, cut-paper work, single-leaf pictures, amusing albums, playing cards and books we’d offer him on holidays. Where were the hardworking, long-suffering, elderly artists of that day who were satisfied with so little? They’d never sequester themselves at home and jealously hide their methods from others, dreading that their moonlighting would be found out, but would come to the workshop every day without fail. Where were the old miniaturists who humbly devoted their entire lives to drawing intricate designs on castle walls, cypress leaves whose uniqueness was discernible only after close scrutiny and the seven-leaf steppe grasses used to fill empty spaces? Where were the uninspired masters who never grew jealous, having accepted the wisdom and justice inherent in God’s bestowal of talent and ability upon some artists and patience and pious resignation upon others? We recalled these fatherly masters, some of whom were hunched and perpetually smiling, others dreamy and drunk and still others intent upon foisting off a spinster daughter; and as we recollected, we attempted to resurrect the forgotten details of the workshop as it had been during our apprentice and early mastership years.

Do you remember the limner who stuck his tongue into his cheek when he ruled pages-to the left side if the line he drew headed right, and to the right side if the line went left; the small, thin artist who laughed to himself, chortling and mumbling “patience, patience, patience” when he dribbled paint; the septuagenarian master gilder who spent hour upon hour talking to the binder’s apprentices downstairs and claimed that red ink applied to the forehead stopped aging; the ornery master who relied on an unsuspecting apprentice or even randomly stopped anyone passing by to test the consistency of paint upon their fingernails after his own nails were completely filled; and the portly artist who made us laugh as he caressed his beard with the furry rabbit’s foot used to collect the excess flecks of gold dust used in gilding? Where were they all?

Where were the burnishing boards which were used so much they became a part of the apprentices’ bodies and then just tossed aside, and the long paper scissors that the apprentices dulled by playing “swordsman”? Where were the writing boards inscribed with the names of the great masters so they wouldn’t get mixed up, the aroma of China ink and the faint rattle of coffeepots aboil in the silence? Where were the various brushes we made of hairs from the necks and inner ears of kittens born to our tabby cats each summer, and the great sheaves of Indian paper given to us so, in idle moments, we could practice our artistry the way calligraphers did? Where was the ugly steel-handled penknife whose use required permission from the Head Illuminator, thus providing a deterrent to the entire workshop when we had to scrape away large mistakes; and what happened to the rituals that surrounded these mistakes?

We also agreed that it was wrong for the Sultan to allow the master miniaturists to work at home. We recalled the marvelous warm halva that came to us from the palace kitchen on early winter evenings after we’d worked with aching eyes by the light of oil lamps and candles. Laughing and with tears in our eyes, we remembered how the elderly and senile master gilder, who was stricken with chronic trembling and could take up neither pen nor paper, on his monthly workshop visits brought fried dough-balls in heavy syrup that his daughter had made for us apprentices. We talked about the exquisite pages rendered by the dearly departed Black Memi, Head Illuminator before Master Osman, discovered in his room, which remained empty for days after his funeral, within the portfolio found beneath the light mattress he’d spread out and use for catnaps in the afternoons.

We talked about and named the pages we took pride in and would want to take out and look at now and again if we had copies of them, the way Master Black Memi had. They explained how the sky on the upper half of the palace picture made for the Book of Skills , illuminated with gold wash, foreshadowed the end of the world, not due to the gold itself, but due to its tone between towers, domes and cypresses-the way gold ought to be used in a polite rendition.

They described a portrayal of Our Exalted Prophet’s bewilderment and ticklishness, as angels seized him by his underarms during his ascension to Heaven from the top of a minaret; a picture of such grave colors that even children, upon seeing the blessed scene, would first tremble with pious awe and then laugh respectfully as if they themselves were being tickled. I explained how along one edge of a page I’d commemorated the previous Grand Vizier’s suppression of rebels who’d taken to the mountains by delicately and respectfully arranging the heads he’d severed, tastefully drawing each one, not as an ordinary corpse’s head, but as an individual and unique face in the manner of a Frankish portraitist, furrowing their brows before death, dabbing red onto their necks, making their sorrowful lips inquire after the meaning of life, opening their nostrils to one final, desperate breath, and shutting their eyes to this world; and thus, I’d imbued the painting with a terrifying aura of mystery.

As if they were our own unforgettable and unattainable memories, we wistfully discussed our favorite scenes of love and war, recalling their most magnificent wonders and tear-inducing subtleties. Isolated and mysterious gardens where lovers met on starry nights passed before our eyes: spring trees, fantastic birds, frozen time…We imagined bloody battles as immediate and alarming as our own nightmares, bodies torn in two, chargers with blood-spattered armor, beautiful men stabbing each other with daggers, the small-mouthed, small-handed, slanted-eye, bowed women watching events from barely open windows…We recalled pretty boys who were haughty and conceited, and handsome shahs and khans, their power and palaces long lost to history. Just like the women who wept together in the harems of those shahs, we now knew we were passing from life into memory, but were we passing from history into legend as they had? To avoid being drawn further into a realm of horror by the lengthening shadows of the fear of being forgotten-even more terrifying than the fear of dying-we asked each other about our favorite scenes of death.

The first thing to come to mind was the way Satan duped Dehhak into killing his father. At the time of that legend, which is described in the beginning of the Book of Kings , the world had been newly created, and everything was so basic that nothing needed explanation. If you wanted milk, you simply milked a goat and drank; you’d say “horse,” then mount it and ride away; you’d contemplate “evil” and Satan would appear and convince you of the beauty of murdering your own father. Dehhak’s murder of Merdas, his father of Arab descent, was beautiful, both because it was unprovoked and because it occurred at night in a magnificent palace garden while golden stars gently illuminated cypresses and colorful spring flowers.

Next, we recalled legendary Rüstem, who unknowingly killed his son Suhrab, commander of the enemy army that Rüstem had battled for three days. There was something that touched us all in the way Rüstem beat his breast in tearful anguish when he saw the armband he had given the boy’s mother years ago and recognized as his own son the enemy whose chest he’d ravished with thrusts of the sword.

What was that something?

The rain continued its patter on the roof of the dervish lodge and I paced back and forth. Suddenly I said the following: