When I noticed in his eyes that he was prepared to speak, I asked the same question again: “Do you feel the balance of my weight upon your body?”
“Aye.”
“Do you like it?” I said. “Are we beautiful?” I asked. “Are we as beautiful as the legendary heroes who slay each other with such elegance in the masterpieces of the old masters?”
“I don’t know,” said Black, “I can’t see us in the mirror.”
When I imagined how my wife saw us from the other room in the light cast by the coffeehouse’s oil lamp resting on the floor only a short distance away, I thought I might actually bite Black’s ear out of excitement.
“Black Effendi, you, who have forced your way into my home and have disturbed my privacy, dagger in hand, in order to interrogate me,” I said, “do you now feel my strength?”
“Yes, I also sense that you’re truly in the right.”
“Then proceed, once again, to ask me what you want to know.”
“Describe how Master Osman would caress you.”
“As an apprentice, I was much more lithe, delicate and beautiful than I am now, and he would mount me then the way I have mounted you. He would caress my arms, at times he would even hurt me, but because I was in awe of his knowledge, his talent and strength, what he did pleased me, and I never harbored any ill will toward him, because I loved him. Loving Master Osman enabled me to love art, colors, paper, the beauty of painting and illumination and everything that was painted, and thereby to love the world itself and God. Master Osman is more than a father to me.”
“Would he beat you often?” he asked.
“In the role of a father, he beat me with an appropriate sense of justice; as a master, he beat me painfully so that I might learn from the punishment. Thanks to the pain and the fear of a ruler whacking my fingernails I learned many things better and faster than I would’ve alone. So he wouldn’t grab me by my hair and bang my head against the wall when I was an apprentice, I’d never spill paint, never waste his gold wash, would quickly memorize, for example, the curve of a horse’s foreleg, cover up the mistakes of the master limner, clean my brushes regularly and focus my attention and spirit on the page before me. Since I owe my talent and mastery to the beatings I received, I, in turn, beat my own apprentices without a guilty conscience. What’s more, I know that even a beating given without just cause, if it doesn’t break the spirit of the apprentice, will ultimately benefit him.”
“Even so, you understand that while drubbing a handsome-faced, sweet-eyed, angelic apprentice, now and then, you get carried away by the sheer pleasure of it, and you know that Master Osman probably experienced the same sensation with you, don’t you?”
“Sometimes he’d take a marble burnishing stone and strike me with such force behind the ear that my ear would ring for days, and I’d walk around half stunned. Sometimes he’d slap me so hard that for weeks my cheek would ache, enough to bring continual tears to my eyes. I shall never forget, yet I still love my mentor.”
“Nay,” said Black, “you were furious with him. You took revenge for the anger that silently accumulated deep within you by making illustrations for my Enishte’s Frankish-imitation book.”
“The opposite is true. The beatings that a young miniaturist receives from his master bind him to his master with a profound respect until the day he dies.”
“The cruel and treacherous cutting of the throats of Iraj and Siyavush from behind, as you are doing to me, arose out of sibling rivalry, and sibling rivalry, as in the Book of Kings, is always provoked by an unjust father.”
“True.”
“The unjust father of you master miniaturists, the one who set you at each other’s throats, is now preparing to betray you,” he said brazenly. “Ahh, I beg of you, it is cutting,” he whimpered. He cried in agony a bit longer. Then he went on, “True, cutting my throat and spilling my blood like a sacrificial lamb would be but the work of an instant, but if you do this without listening to what I’m about to explain-I don’t think you’ll do it anyway, ahh, please, enough-you’ll forever wonder what I was going to say. Please, move the blade away slightly.” I did so. “Master Osman, who followed your every step and your every breath since childhood, who happily watched your God-given talent bloom into artistry like a spring flower under his care, has now turned his back on you in order to save his workshop and its style, to which he has devoted his entire life.”
“I recounted three parables to you the day we buried Elegant Effendi so you might know how disgusting this thing they call ”style“ truly is.”
“Those stories pertained to a miniaturist’s individual style,” said Black carefully, “whereas Master Osman is concerned with preserving the style of the entire workshop.”
He explained how the Sultan attached great importance to finding the murderer of Elegant Effendi and his Enishte, how He’d even let them inspect the Royal Treasury to this end, and how Master Osman was using this opportunity to sabotage his Enishte’s book and punish those who betrayed him by imitating the Europeans. Black added that based on style, Master Osman suspected Olive was responsible for the horse with the clipped nostrils, but as Head Illuminator, he was convinced of Stork’s guilt and would turn him over to the executioners. I could sense he was telling the truth under the pressure of my sword, and I felt like kissing him because he gave himself over to what he was saying like a child. What I heard didn’t worry me, having Stork out of the way meant I’d become Head Illuminator after Master Osman’s death-may God grant him long life.
I wasn’t disturbed that what he said might happen, but by the possibility that it might not. Reading between the lines of Black’s account, I was able to glean that Master Osman was willing not only to sacrifice Stork, but me as well. Considering this incredible possibility made my heart quicken and drew me toward the horror of complete abandonment felt by a child who’s suddenly lost his father. Each time this came to mind, I had to restrain myself from cutting Black’s throat. I didn’t attempt to argue the point with Black or myself: Why should the fact that we made a few foolish illustrations inspired by European masters lower us to the level of traitors? Once again, I thought that behind Elegant’s death stood Stork and Olive and their schemes against me. I removed the sword from Black’s throat.
“Let’s go to Olive’s house together, and search it from top to bottom,” I said. “If the last picture is with him, at least we’ll know whom to fear. If not, we’ll take him with us as support and go on to raid Stork’s house.”
I told him to trust me and that his dagger was enough weaponry for the two of us. I apologized for not even having offered him a glass of linden tea. As I lifted the oil lamp from the floor, we both stared meaningfully at the cushion upon which I’d flattened him. I approached him with the lamp in my hand and told him how the ever-so-faint cut on his throat would be a mark of our friendship. He bled only slightly.
The commotion made by the Erzurumis and those pursuing them could still be heard on the streets, but no one noticed us. We were quick to arrive at Olive’s house. We knocked on the courtyard door, the door of the house, and impatiently upon the shutters. Nobody was home; we made so much noise that we were certain he wasn’t sleeping. Black gave voice to what we both were thinking: “Shall we go inside?”
I twisted the metal loop of the door lock using the blunt edge of Black’s dagger, then inserting it into the space between door and jamb and levering it with all our weight, we broke the lock. We were met by the stench of dampness, dirt and loneliness, which had accumulated over years. By the light of the lamp, we noticed an unmade bed, sashes tossed randomly upon cushions, vests, two turbans, undershirts, Nimetullah Effendi the Nakshibendi’s Persian dictionary, a wooden turban stand, broadcloth, needle and thread, a small copper pan full of apple peels, quite a few cushions, a velvet bedspread, his paints, his brushes and all of his supplies. I was on the verge of rifling through the writing paper, the layer upon layer of carefully trimmed Hindustan paper, and the illuminated pages on his small desk, but I restrained myself both because Black was more enthusiastic than I, and because I knew full well how a master miniaturist would incur nothing but bad luck if he went through the belongings of a less talented miniaturist. Olive is not as talented as is assumed, he’s merely eager. He tries to cover up for his lack of talent with adoration of the old masters. The old legends, however, only rouse an artist’s imagination; it’s the hand that does the painting.