Orhan Pamuk - My Name is Red

“Are you afraid, my child?” said Enishte Effendi compassionately, “of the paintings we’ve made?”

The room was black now, I couldn’t see for myself, but I sensed that he’d said this with a smile.

“Our book is no longer a secret,” I answered. “Perhaps this isn’t important. But rumors are spreading. They say we’ve underhandedly committed blasphemy. They say that, here, we’ve made a book-not as Our Sultan had commissioned and hoped for-but one meant to entertain our own whims; one that ridicules even Our Prophet and mimics infidel masters. There are those who believe it even depicts Satan as amiable. They say we’ve committed an unforgivable sin by daring to draw, from the perspective of a mangy street dog, a horsefly and a mosque as if they were the same size-with the excuse that the mosque was in the background-thereby mocking the faithful who attend prayers. I cannot sleep for thinking about such things.”

“We made the illustrations together,” said Enishte Effendi. “Could we have even considered such ideas, let alone committed such an offense?”

“Not at all,” I said expansively. “But they’ve heard about it somehow. They say there’s one final painting in which, according to the gossip, there’s open defiance of our religion and what we hold sacred.”

“You yourself have seen the final painting.”

“Nay, I made pictures of whatever you requested in various places on a large sheet, which was to be a double-leaf illustration,” I said with a caution and precision that I hoped would please Enishte Effendi. “But I never saw the completed illustration. If I had seen the entire painting, I’d have a clear conscience about denying all this foul slander.”

“Why is it that you feel guilty?” he asked. “What’s gnawing at your soul? Who has caused you to doubt yourself?”

“…to worry that one has attacked what he knows to be sacred, after spending months merrily illustrating a book…to suffer the torments of Hell while living…if I could only see that last painting in its entirety.”

“Is this what troubles you?” he said. “Is this why you’ve come?”

Suddenly panic seized me. Could he be thinking something horrendous, like I was the one who’d killed the ill-fated Elegant Effendi?

“Those who want Our Sultan dethroned and replaced by the prince,” I said, “are furthering this insidious gossip, saying that He secretly supports the book.”

“How many really believe that?” he asked wearily. “Every cleric with any ambition who’s met with some favor and whose head has swollen as a result will preach that religion is being ignored and disrespected. This is the most reliable way to ensure one’s living.”

Did he suppose I’d come solely to inform him of a rumor?

“Poor old Elegant Effendi, God rest his soul,” I said, my voice quavering. “Supposedly, we killed him because he saw the whole of the last painting and was convinced that it reviled our faith. A division head I know at the palace workshop told me this. You know how junior and senior apprentices are, everyone gossips.”

Maintaining this line of reasoning and growing increasingly impassioned, I went on for quite some time. I didn’t know how much of what I said I myself had indeed heard, how much I fabricated out of fear after doing away with that wicked slanderer, or how much I improvised. Having devoted much of the conversation to flattery, I was anticipating that Enishte Effendi would show me the two-page illustration and put me at ease. Why didn’t he realize this was the only way I might overcome my fears about being mired in sin?

Intending to startle him, I defiantly asked, “Might one be capable of making blasphemous art without being aware of it?”

In place of an answer, he gestured very delicately and elegantly with his hand-as if to warn me there was a child sleeping in the room-and I fell completely silent. “It has become very dark,” he said, almost in a whisper, “let’s light the candle.”

After lighting the candlestick from the hot coals of the brazier which heated the room, I noticed in his face an expression of pride, one to which I was unaccustomed, and this displeased me greatly. Or was it an expression of pity? Had he figured everything out? Was he thinking that I was some sort of a base murderer or was he frightened by me? I remember how suddenly my thoughts spiraled out of control and I was stupidly listening to what I thought as if somebody else was thinking. The carpet beneath me, for example: There was a kind of wolflike design in one corner, but why hadn’t I noticed it before?

“The love all khans, shahs and sultans feel for paintings, illustrations and fine books can be divided into three seasons,” said Enishte Effendi. “At first they are bold, eager and curious. Rulers want paintings for the sake of respect, to influence how others see them. During this period, they educate themselves. During the second phase, they commission books to satisfy their own tastes. Because they’ve learned sincerely to enjoy paintings, they amass prestige while at the same time amassing books, which, after their deaths, ensure the persistence of their renown in this world. However, in the autumn of a sultan’s life, he no longer concerns himself with the persistence of his worldly immortality. By ”worldly immortality“ I mean the desire to be remembered by future generations, by our grandchildren. Rulers who admire miniatures and books have already acquired an immortality through the manuscripts they’ve commissioned from us-upon whose pages they’ve had their names inserted, and, at times, their histories written. Later, each of them comes to the conclusion that painting is an obstacle to securing a place in the Otherworld, naturally something they all desire. This is what bothers and intimidates me the most. Shah Tahmasp, who was himself a master miniaturist and spent his youth in his own workshop, closed down his magnificent atelier as his death approached, chased his divinely inspired painters from Tabriz, destroyed the books he had produced and suffered interminable crises of regret. Why did they all believe that painting would bar them from the gates of Heaven?”

“You know quite well why! Because they remembered Our Prophet’s warning that on Judgment Day, Allah will punish painters most severely.”

“Not painters,” corrected Enishte Effendi. “Those who make idols. And this not from the Koran but from Bukhari.”

“On Judgment Day, the idol makers will be asked to bring the images they’ve created to life,” I said cautiously. “Since they’ll be unable to do so their lot will be to suffer the torments of Hell. Let it not be forgotten that in the Glorious Koran, ”creator“ is one of the attributes of Allah. It is Allah who is creative, who brings that which is not into existence, who gives life to the lifeless. No one ought to compete with Him. The greatest of sins is committed by painters who presume to do what He does, who claim to be as creative as He.”

I made my statement firmly, as if I, too, were accusing him. He fixed his gaze into my eyes.

“Do you think this is what we’ve been doing?”

“Never,” I said with a smile. “However, this is what Elegant Effendi, may he rest in peace, began to assume when he saw the last painting. He’d been saying that your use of the science of perspective and the methods of the Venetian masters was nothing but the temptation of Satan. In the last painting, you’ve supposedly rendered the face of a mortal using the Frankish techniques, so the observer has the impression not of a painting but of reality; to such a degree that this image has the power to entice men to bow down before it, as with icons in churches. According to him, this is the Devil’s work, not only because the art of perspective removes the painting from God’s perspective and lowers it to the level of a street dog, but because your reliance on the methods of the Venetians as well as your mingling of our own established traditions with that of the infidels will strip us of our purity and reduce us to being their slaves.”