“Even so, you would go there,” said the wretch.

“Yes, because I enjoyed myself there.” Had he an inkling of how honest I was being? I added, “Despite knowing how ugly and wrong something is, we descendants of Adam might still derive considerable pleasure from it. And I’m embarrassed to say I was also entertained by those cheap illustrations, the mimicry and those stories about Satan, the gold coin and the dog, which the storyteller told crudely without meter or rhyme.”

“Even so, why would you even step foot in that den of unbelievers?”

“Fine then,” I said resigning myself to an inner voice, “at times there’s also a worm of doubt that gnaws at me: Ever since I was openly recognized as the most talented and most proficient among the masters of the workshop, not only by Master Osman, but by Our Sultan as well, I began to be so terrified of the envy of the others that I tried, if only at times, to go where they went, to befriend them and to resemble them so they wouldn’t turn on me in a sudden fit of vengeance. Do you understand? And since they’ve begun labeling me an ”Erzurumi,“ I’ve been going to that den of vile unbelievers so others might discount this rumor.”

“Master Osman said you often acted as if apologizing for your talent and proficiency.”

“What else did he say about me?”

“That you’d paint absurd, minute pictures on grains of rice and fingernails so that others would be convinced you’d forsaken life for art. He said you were always trying to please others because you were embarrassed by the great gifts Allah had bestowed upon you.”

“Master Osman is on Bihzad’s level,” I said with sincerity. “What else?”

“He listed your faults without the slightest hesitation,” said the wretch.

“Let’s hear my faults then.”

“He said that despite your prodigious talent, you painted not for the love of art but to ingratiate yourself. Supposedly, what most motivated you while painting was imagining the pleasure an observer would feel; whereas, you should’ve painted for the pleasure of painting itself.”

It singed my heart that Master Osman so brazenly revealed what he thought about me to a man of such diminished spirit, one who devoted his life, not to art, but to being a clerk, writing letters and hollow flattery. Black continued:

“The great masters of old, Master Osman claimed, would never renounce the styles and methods they cultivated through self-sacrifice to art just for the sake of a new shah’s authority, the whims of a new prince or the tastes of a new age; thus, to avoid being forced to alter their styles and methods, they’d heroically blind themselves. Meanwhile, you’ve enthusiastically and dishonorably imitated the European masters for the pages of my Enishte’s book, with the excuse that it’s the will of Our Sultan.”

“The great Head Illuminator Master Osman most certainly meant no evil by this,” I said. “Allow me to put some linden tea on the boil for you, my dear guest.”

I passed into the adjoining room. My beloved tossed over my head the nightgown of Chinese silk she was wearing, which she’d purchased from Esther the clothier, then mockingly parroted me, “Allow me to put some linden tea on the boil for you, my dear guest,” and placed her hand on my cock.

I took out the agate-handled sword hidden among rose-scented sheets at the bottom of the chest on the floor nearest our roll-up mattress, which she’d hopefully spread out, and drew the weapon from its sheath. Its edge was so sharp that if you tossed a silk handkerchief over it, the sword would easily cut through it; if you placed a sheet of gold leaf upon it, the edges of the resulting pieces would be as straight as any cut with a ruler.

Concealing the sword as best I could, I returned to my atelier. Black Effendi was so pleased with his interrogation of me that he was still circling the red cushion, dagger in hand. I placed a half-finished illustration upon the cushion. “Take a look at this,” I said. He knelt out of curiosity, trying to understand the picture.

I stepped behind him, drew my sword and in one motion lowered him to the ground, pinning him with my weight. His dagger fell away. Grabbing him by the hair, I pushed his head against the ground and pressed my sword to his neck from below. I flattened out Black’s delicate body and pressed him facedown beneath my heavy body, using my chin and one free hand to push his head so it nearly touched the sharp point of the sword. My one hand was full of his dirty hair, the other held the sword to the delicate skin of his throat. Wisely, he didn’t move at all, because I could have finished him then and there. Being this close to his curly hair, to the nape of his neck-which might’ve invited an insulting slap at another time-and to his ugly ears enraged me all the more. “I’m using all my restraint to keep from doing away with you this instant,” I whispered into his ear as if divulging a secret.

That he listened to me like an obedient child without making a peep pleased me: “You’ll recognize this legend from the Book of Kings,” I whispered. “Feridun Shah, in error, bequeaths the worst of his lands to his two older sons and the best, Persia, to Iraj, the youngest. Tur, bent on revenge, dupes his younger brother, Iraj, of whom he is jealous; before he cuts Iraj’s throat, he grabs his hair just as I am doing now and lies on top of him with all his weight. Do you feel the weight of my body?”

He gave no answer, but from his eyes, which stared blankly like those of a sacrificial lamb, I could tell that he was listening, and I was struck with inspiration: “I’m not only faithful to Persian styles and methods in painting, but also in beheadings. I’ve also seen another version of this much loved scene that describes Shah Siyavush’s death.”

I explained to Black, who listened silently, how Siyavush made preparations for avenging his brothers, how he burned down his entire palace, all his belongings and property, how he forgivingly parted from his wife, mounted his steed and went to war, how he lost the battle and was dragged by his hair along the ground before being laid out facedown “just as you are now,” and how a knife was pressed against his throat, how there erupted an argument between his friends and enemies over whether they should kill him or let him free and how the defeated king, his face in the dirt, listened to his captors. Then I asked him, “Are you fond of that illustration? Geruy comes up behind Siyavush, as I have to you, gets on top of him, rests his sword against his neck, grabs a fistful of hair and cuts his throat. Your red blood, soon to flow, makes black dust rise from the dry earth, where later still, a flower will bloom.”

I fell quiet and from distant streets we could hear the Erzurumis screaming as they ran. The terror outside at once brought the two of us, lying one on top of the other, closer.

“But in all those pictures,” I added, pulling harder on Black’s hair, “one can sense the difficulty of elegantly drawing two men who despise each other yet whose bodies, like ours, have become as one. It’s as if the chaos of treachery, envy and battle that comes just before the magical and magnificent moment of beheading has too fully permeated those pictures. Even the greatest masters of Kazvin would have difficulty drawing two men on top of each other; they’d confuse everything. Whereas you and I, see for yourself, we’re much more tidy and elegant.”

“The blade is cutting,” he whimpered.

“I’m much obliged for your polite words, my dear man, but it’s doing no such thing. I’m being quite careful. I wouldn’t do anything to ruin the beauty of our pose. In the scenes of love, death and war, wherein the great masters of old rendered intertwined bodies as if they were one, they were able to elicit only our tears. See for yourself: My head rests upon the nape of your neck as if it were a part of your body. I can smell your hair and the scent of your neck. My legs, on either side of yours, are stretched out in such harmony with yours, that an onlooker might mistake us for an elegant four-legged beast. Do you feel the balance of my weight on your back and buttocks?” Another silence, but I didn’t press the sword upward, because it would indeed have cut his throat. “If you’re not going to speak, I might be provoked to bite your ear,” I said, whispering into that very ear.