Orhan Pamuk - My Name is Red

Later, he regretted what he’d done. Not due to the terror with which he’d imbued his picture, but because he dared to make the illustration at all. As for me, I feel like someone whose father regards him with embarrassment and regret. Why did the miniaturist with the gifted hands regret having illustrated me?

1. Because I, the picture of Death, had not been drawn with enough mastery. As you can see, I am not as perfect as what the great Venetian masters or the old masters of Herat drew. I, too, am embarrassed by my wretchedness. The great master has not depicted me in a style befitting the dignity of Death.

2. Upon being cunningly duped by the old man, the master illustrator who drew me found himself, suddenly and unwittingly, imitating the methods and perspectives of the Frankish virtuosos. It disturbed his soul because he felt he was being disrespectful and, he sensed for the first time, oddly dishonorable toward the old masters.

3. It must’ve even dawned on him, as it does now on some of the imbeciles who have tired of me and are smiling: Death is no laughing matter.

The master miniaturist who made me now roams the streets endlessly each night in fits of regret; like certain Chinese masters, he believes he’s become what he has drawn.

Ladies from the neighborhoods of Redminaret and Blackcat had ordered purple and red quilting from the town of Bilejik; so, early in the morning, I loaded up my makeshift satchel-the large cloth that I’d fill up and tie into a bundle. I removed the green Chinese silk that had recently arrived by way of the Portuguese trader but wasn’t selling, substituting the more alluring blue. And given the persistent snows of this endless winter, I carefully folded plenty of colorful socks, thick sashes and heavy vests, all of wool, arranging them in the center of the bundle: When I spread open my blanket a bouquet of color would bloom to make even the most indifferent woman’s heart leap. Next, I packed some lightweight, but expensive, silk handkerchiefs, money purses and embroidered washcloths especially for those ladies who called for me not to make a purchase but to gossip. I lifted the tote. My goodness, this is much too heavy, it’ll break my back. I put it down and opened it. As I stared at it, trying to determine what to leave out, I heard knocking at the door. Nesim opened it and called to me.

It was that concubine Hayriye, all flushed and blushing. She held a letter in her hand.

“Shekure sent it,” she hissed. This slave was so flustered that you’d think she was the one who’d fallen in love and wanted to get married.

With dead seriousness, I grabbed the letter. I warned the idiot to return home without being seen by anyone and she left. Nesim cast a questioning eye at me. I took up the larger, yet lighter decoy satchel I carried whenever I was out delivering my letters.

“Shekure, the daughter of Master Enishte, is burning with love,” I said. “She’s gone clear out of her mind, the poor girl.”

I cackled and stepped outside, but then was gripped by pangs of embarrassment. If truth be told, I longed to shed a tear for Shekure’s sorrows instead of making light of her dalliances. How beautiful she is, that dark-eyed melancholy girl of mine!

I ever so quickly strode past the run-down homes of our Jewish neighborhood, which looked even more deserted and pitiful in the morning cold. Much later, when I caught sight of that blind beggar who always took up his spot on the corner of Hasan’s street, I shouted as loud as I could, “Clothierrr!”

“Fat witch,” he said. “Even if you hadn’t shouted I would’ve recognized you by your footsteps.”

“You good-for-nothing blind man,” I said. “You ill-fated Tatar! Blind men like you are scourges forsaken by Allah. May He give you the punishment you deserve.”

In the past, such exchanges wouldn’t have angered me. I wouldn’t have taken them seriously. Hasan’s father opened the door. He was an Abkhazian, a noble gentleman and polite.

“Let’s have a look, then, what have you brought with you this time?” he said.

“Is that slothful son of yours still asleep?”

“How could he be sleeping? He’s waiting, expecting news from you.”

This house is so dark that each time I visit, I feel as if I’ve entered a tomb. Shekure never asks what they’re up to, but I always make a point of carping about the place so she won’t even consider returning to this crypt. It’s hard to imagine that lovely Shekure was once mistress of this house and that she lived here with her rascally boys. Within, it smelled of sleep and death. I entered the next room, moving farther into the blackness.

You couldn’t see your hand before your face. I didn’t even have the chance to present the letter to Hasan. He appeared out of the darkness and snatched it from my hand. As I always did, I left him alone to read the letter and satisfy his curiosity. He soon raised his head from the page.

“Isn’t there anything else?” he said. He knew there was nothing else. “This is a brief note,” he said and read

Black Effendi, you pay visits to our home, and spend your days here. Yet I’ve heard that you haven’t written even a single line of my father’s book. Don’t get your hopes up without first completing that manuscript.

Letter in hand, he glared accusingly into my eyes, as if all this was my fault. I’m not fond of these silences in this house.

“There’s no longer any word of her being married, of her husband returning from the front,” he said. “Why?”

“How should I know why?” I said. “I’m not the one who writes the letters.”

“Sometimes I wonder even about that,” he said, handing back the letter along with fifteen silver.

“Some men grow stingier the more they earn. You’re not that way,” I said.

There was such an enchanting, intelligent side to this man that despite all his dark and evil traits, one could see why Shekure would still accept his letters.

“What is this book of Shekure’s father?”

“You know! Our Sultan is funding the whole project they say.”

“Miniaturists are murdering each other over the pictures in that book,” he said. “Is it for the money or-God forbid-because the book desecrates our religion? They say one glance at its pages is enough to bring on blindness.”

He said all this, smiling in such a way that I knew I shouldn’t take any of it seriously. Even if it were a matter to take to heart, at the very least, there was nothing for him to take seriously about me taking the matter seriously. Like many of the men who depended on my services as a letter courier and mediator, Hasan lashed out at me when his pride was hurt. I, as part of my job, pretended to be upset to hearten him. Maidens, on the contrary, hugged me and cried when their feelings were hurt.

“You’re an intelligent woman,” said Hasan in order to soothe my pride, which he believed he’d injured. “Deliver this posthaste. I’m curious about that fool’s response.”

For a moment, I felt like saying, “Black is not so foolish.” In such situations, making rival suitors jealous of each other will earn Esther the matchmaker more money. But I was afraid he’d have a sudden tantrum.

“You know the Tatar beggar at the end of the street?” I said. “He’s very vulgar, that one.”

To avoid getting into it with the blind man, I walked down the other end of the street and thus happened to pass through the Chicken Market early in the morning. Why don’t Muslims eat the heads and feet of chickens? Because they’re so strange! My grandmother, may she rest in peace, would tell me how chicken feet were so inexpensive when her family arrived here from Portugal that she’d boil them for food.