Orhan Pamuk - My Name is Red

“Nothing is pure,” said Enishte Effendi. “In the realm of book arts, whenever a masterpiece is made, whenever a splendid picture makes my eyes water out of joy and causes a chill to run down my spine, I can be certain of the following: Two styles heretofore never brought together have come together to create something new and wondrous. We owe Bihzad and the splendor of Persian painting to the meeting of an Arabic illustrating sensibility and Mongol-Chinese painting. Shah Tahmasp’s best paintings marry Persian style with Turkmen subtleties. Today, if men cannot adequately praise the book-arts workshops of Akbar Khan in Hindustan, it’s because he urged his miniaturists to adopt the styles of the Frankish masters. To God belongs the East and the West. May He protect us from the will of the pure and unadulterated.”

However soft and bright his face might have appeared by candlelight, his shadow, cast on the wall, was equally as black and frightening. Despite finding what he said to be exceedingly reasonable and sound, I didn’t believe him. I assumed he was suspicious of me, and thus, I grew suspicious of him; I sensed that he was listening at times for the courtyard gate below, that he was hoping someone would deliver him from my presence.

“You yourself told me how Sheikh Muhammad the Master of Isfahan burned down the great library containing the paintings he had renounced, and how he also immolated himself in a fit of bad conscience,” he said. “Now let me tell you another story related to that legend that you don’t know. It’s true, he’d spent the last thirty years of his life hunting down his own works. However, in the books he perused, he increasingly discovered imitations inspired by him rather than his original work. In later years, he came to realize that two generations of artists had adopted as models of form the illustrations he himself had renounced, that they’d ingrained his pictures in their minds-or more accurately, had made them a part of their souls. As Sheikh Muhammad attempted to find his own pictures and destroy them, he discovered that young miniaturists had, with reverence, reproduced them in countless books, had relied on them in illustrating other stories, had caused them to be memorized by all and had spread them over the world. Over long years, as we gaze at book after book and illustration after illustration, we come to learn the following: A great painter does not content himself by affecting us with his masterpieces; ultimately, he succeeds in changing the landscape of our minds. Once a miniaturist’s artistry enters our souls this way, it becomes the criterion for the beauty of our world. At the end of his life, as the Master of Isfahan burned his own art, he not only witnessed the fact that his work, instead of disappearing, actually proliferated and increased; he understood that everybody now saw the world the way he had seen it. Those things which did not resemble the paintings he made in his youth were now considered ugly.”

Unable to rein in the awe stirring within me and to control my desire to please Enishte Effendi, I fell before his knees. As I kissed his hand, my eyes filled with tears and I felt I had relinquished to him the place in my soul that had always been reserved for Master Osman.

“A miniaturist,” said Enishte Effendi in the tone of a self-satisfied man, “creates his art by heeding his conscience and by obeying the principles in which he believes, fearing nothing. He pays no attention to what his enemies, the zealots and those who envy him have to say.”

But it occurred to me that Enishte Effendi wasn’t even a miniaturist as I kissed his aged and mottled hand through my tears. I was embarrassed by my thought. It was as if another had forced this devilish, shameless notion into my head. Even so, you too know how true this statement is.

“I’m not afraid of them,” Enishte said, “because I’m not afraid of death.”

Who were “they”? I nodded as if I understood. Yet annoyance began to mount within me. I noticed that the old volume immediately beside Enishte was El-Jevziyye’s Book of the Soul . All dotards who seek death share a love for this book that recounts the adventures that await the soul. Since I’d been here last, I saw only one new item among the objects collected in trays, resting on the chest, among the pen cases, penknives, nib-cutting boards, inkwells and brushes: a bronze inkpot.

“Let’s establish, once and for all, that we do not fear them ,” I said boldly. “Take out the last illustration. Let’s show it to them.”

“But wouldn’t this prove that we minded their slander, at least enough to take it seriously? We’ve done nothing of which we ought to be afraid. What could justify your being so frightened?”

He stroked my hair like a father. I was afraid that I might burst into tears again; I embraced him.

“I know why that unfortunate gilder Elegant Effendi was killed,” I said excitedly. “By slandering you, your book and us, Elegant Effendi was planning to set Nusret Hoja of Erzurum ’s men upon us. He was convinced that we’d fallen sway to the Devil. He’d begun spreading such rumors, trying to incite the other miniaturists working on your book to rebel against you. I don’t know why he suddenly began to do this. Perhaps out of jealousy, perhaps he’d come under Satan’s influence. And the other miniaturists also heard how determined Elegant Effendi was to destroy us all. You can imagine how each of them grew frightened and succumbed to suspicions as I myself had. Because one of their lot was cornered, in the middle of the night, by Elegant Effendi-who had incited him against you, us, our book, as well as against illustrating, painting and all else we believe in-that artist fell into a panic, killing that scoundrel and tossing his body into a well.”

“Scoundrel?”

“Elegant Effendi was an ill-natured, ill-bred traitor. Villain!” I shouted as if he were before me in the room.

Silence. Did he fear me? I was afraid of myself. It was as if I’d succumbed to somebody else’s will and thoughts; yet, this was not wholly unpleasant.

“Who was this miniaturist who fell into a panic like you and the illustrator from Isfahan? Who killed him?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

Yet I wanted him to infer from my expression that I was lying. I realized that I’d made a grave error in coming here, but I wasn’t going to succumb to feelings of guilt and regret. I could see that Enishte Effendi was growing suspicious of me and this pleased and fortified me. If he became convinced that I was a murderer and this knowledge struck terror throughout his soul, then he wouldn’t dare refuse to show me the final painting. I was so curious about that picture, not because of any sin I’d committed on its account-I genuinely wanted to see how it’d turned out.

“Is it important who killed that miscreant?” I said. “Is it not possible that whoever rid us of him has done a good deed?”

I was encouraged when I saw he could no longer look me directly in the eye. Magnanimous men, who think themselves better and morally superior to others, cannot look you in the eye when they are embarrassed on your behalf, perhaps because they are contemplating reporting you and abandoning you to a fate of torture and execution.

Outside, just in front of the courtyard gate, the dogs began a frenzied howling.

“It’s begun to snow again,” I said. “Where has everyone gone at this late hour? Why have they left you here all alone? They haven’t even lit a candle for you.”

“It’s quite strange, indeed,” he said. “I don’t understand it myself.”

He was so sincere that I believed him completely, and despite ridiculing him just as the other miniaturists did, I once again knew that I actually loved him profoundly. But how had he so quickly sensed my sudden and great flood of respect and affection, to which he responded by stroking my hair with irresistible fatherly concern? I began to see that Master Osman’s style of painting, and the legacy of the old masters of Herat, had no future whatsoever. And this abominable thought frightened me yet again. After some tragedy, we all feel the same way: In one last desperate hope, and without caring how comic and foolish we might appear, we pray that everything might continue as it always has.