Orhan Pamuk - My Name is Red

“What kind of pictures were we making? Why were we illustrating them in that way? I can’t really answer you at present. Not because I’m withholding a secret from you, and not because I won’t eventually tell you. It’s as though I myself don’t quite know what the pictures mean. I do, however, know what kind of paintings they ought to be.”

Four months after I sent my letter, I heard from the barber located on the street where we used to live that Black had returned to Istanbul, and, in turn, I invited him to our house. I was fully aware that my story bore a promise of both sorrow and bliss that would bind the two of us together.

“Every picture serves to tell a story,” I said. “The miniaturist, in order to beautify the manuscript we read, depicts the most vital scenes: the first time lovers lay eyes on each other; the hero Rüstem cutting off the head of a devilish monster; Rüstem’s grief when he realizes that the stranger he’s killed is his son; the love-crazed Mejnun as he roams a desolate and wild Nature among lions, tigers, stags and jackals; the anguish of Alexander, who, having come to the forest before a battle to divine its outcome from the birds, witnesses a great falcon tear apart his woodcock. Our eyes, fatigued from reading these tales, rest upon the pictures. If there’s something within the text that our intellect and imagination are at pains to conjure, the illustration comes at once to our aid. The images are the story’s blossoming in color. But painting without its accompanying story is an impossibility.

“Or so I used to think,” I added, as if regretfully. “But this is indeed quite possible. Two years ago I traveled once again to Venice as the Sultan’s ambassador. I observed at length the portraits that the Venetian masters had made. I did so without knowing to which scene and story the pictures belonged, and I struggled to extract the story from the image. One day, I came across a painting hanging on a palazzo wall and was dumbfounded.

“More than anything, the image was of an individual, somebody like myself. It was an infidel, of course, not one of us. As I stared at him, though, I felt as if I resembled him. Yet he didn’t resemble me at all. He had a full round face that seemed to lack cheekbones, and moreover, he had no trace of my marvelous chin. Though he didn’t look anything like me, as I gazed upon the picture, for some reason, my heart fluttered as if it were my own portrait.

“I learned from the Venetian gentleman who was giving me a tour through his palazzo that the portrait was of a friend, a nobleman like himself. He had included whatever was significant in his life in his portrait: In the background landscape visible from the open window there was a farm, a village and a blending of color which made a realistic-looking forest. Resting on the table before the nobleman were a clock, books, Time, Evil, Life, a calligraphy pen, a map, a compass, boxes containing gold coins, bric-a-brac, odds and ends, inscrutable yet distinguishable things that were probably included in many pictures, shadows of jinns and the Devil and also, the picture of the man’s stunningly beautiful daughter as she stood beside her father.

“What was the narrative that this representation was meant to embellish and complete? As I regarded the work, I slowly sensed that the underlying tale was the picture itself. The painting wasn’t the extension of a story at all, it was something in its own right.

“I never forgot the painting that bewildered me so. I left the palazzo, returned to the house where I was staying as a guest and pondered the picture the entire night. I, too, wanted to be portrayed in this manner. But, no, that wasn’t appropriate, it was Our Sultan who ought to be thus portrayed! Our Sultan ought to be rendered along with everything He owned, with the things that represented and constituted His realm. I settled on the notion that a manuscript could be illustrated according to this idea.

“The Venetian virtuoso had made the nobleman’s picture in such a way that you would immediately know which particular nobleman it was. If you’d never seen that man, if they told you to pick him out of a crowd of a thousand others, you’d be able to select the correct man with the help of that portrait. The Venetian masters had discovered painting techniques with which they could distinguish any one man from another-without relying on his outfit or medals, just by the distinctive shape of his face. This was the essence of ”portraiture.“

“If your face were depicted in this fashion only once, no one would ever be able to forget you, and if you were far away, someone who laid eyes on your portrait would feel your presence as if you were actually nearby. Those who had never seen you alive, even years after your death, could come face-to-face with you as if you were standing before them.”

We remained silent for a long time. A chilling light the color of the iciness outside filtered through the upper part of the small hallway window facing the street; this was the window whose lower shutters were never opened, which I’d recently paned over with a piece of cloth dipped in beeswax.

“There was a miniaturist,” I said. “He would come here just like the other artists for the sake of Our Sultan’s secret book, and we would work together till dawn. He did the best of the gilding. That unfortunate Elegant Effendi, he left here one night never to arrive at home. I’m afraid they might have done him in, that poor master gilder of mine.”

Black asked: “Have they indeed killed him?”

This Black was tall, skinny and a little frightening. I was walking toward them where they sat talking in the second-floor workshop with the blue door when my grandfather said, “They might have done him in.” Then he caught sight of me. “What are you doing here?”

He looked at me in such a way that I climbed onto his lap without answering. Then he put me back down right away.

“Kiss Black’s hand,” he said.

I kissed the back of his hand and touched it to my forehead. It had no smell.

“He’s quite charming,” Black said and kissed me on my cheek. “One day he’ll be a brave young man.”

“This is Orhan, he’s six. There’s also an older one, Shevket, who’s seven. That one’s quite a stubborn little child.”

“I went back to the old street in Aksaray,” said Black. “It was cold, everything was covered in snow and ice. But it was as if nothing had changed at all.”

“Alas! Everything has changed, everything has become worse,” my grandfather said. “Significantly worse.” He turned to me. “Where’s your brother?”

“He’s with our mentor, the master binder.”

“So, what are you doing here?”

“The master said, ”Fine work, you can go now“ to me.”

“You made your way back here alone?” asked my grandfather. “Your older brother ought to have accompanied you.” Then he said to Black: “There’s a binder friend of mine with whom they work twice a week after their Koran school. They serve as his apprentices, learning the art of binding.”

“Do you like to make illustrations like your grandfather?” asked Black.

I gave him no answer.

“All right then,” said my grandfather. “Leave us be, now.”

The heat from the open brazier that warmed the room was so nice that I didn’t want to leave. Smelling the paint and glue, I stood still for a moment. I could also smell coffee.

“Yet does illustrating in a new way signify a new way of seeing?” my grandfather began. “This is the reason why they’ve murdered that poor gilder despite the fact that he worked in the old style. I’m not even certain he’s been killed, only that he’s missing. They’re illustrating a commemorative story in verse, a Book of Festivities , for Our Sultan by order of the Head Illuminator Master Osman. Each of the miniaturists works at his own home. Master Osman, however, occupies himself at the palace book-arts workshop. To begin with, I want you to go there and observe everything. I worry that the others, that is, the miniaturists, have ended up falling out with and slaying one another. They go by the workshop names that Head Illuminator Master Osman gave them years ago: ”Butterfly,“ ”Olive,“ ”Stork“…You’re also to go and observe them as they work in their homes.”