Butterfly had been striking me all along, first like a child eager to determine whether or not my armor was genuine; next, like a friend who wanted to test its strength; and finally, like an incorrigible and jealous foe who wanted to do me harm. In truth, he understood that I was more talented than he; even worse, he probably sensed that Master Osman knew this too. With his God-given talent, Butterfly was a superb master, and his envy made me prouder: Unlike him, I became a master through the strength of my own “reed,” not by holding my master’s, and I sensed that I could force him to accept my superiority.
Raising my voice, I explained how pitiful it was that there were men who wanted to undermine Our Sultan and the late Enishte’s miraculous book. Master Osman was like a father to us all; he was everyone’s superior; we learned everything from him! Yet, after tracing the clues in Our Sultan’s Treasury, for some unknown reason, Master Osman tried to conceal his realization that Olive was the despicable murderer. I said I was certain that Olive, who couldn’t be found at home, was hiding away in the deserted Kalenderi dervish house near the Phanar Gate. This dervish lodge was closed during the reign of Our Sultan’s grandfather, not because it was a den of degradation and immorality, but rather, as a result of the endless wars with the Persians, and, I added, there was even a time when Olive boasted that he was keeping guard over the forbidden dervish lodge. If they didn’t trust me, suspecting some ruse behind my words, the dagger was in their hands, they were free to mete out my punishment then and there.
Butterfly landed two more heavy blows of the dagger that most armor could not have withstood. He turned to Black, who believed what I told them, and screamed at him childishly. I came up from behind, put my armor-plated arm around Butterfly’s neck and drew him toward me. Bending his other arm back with my free hand, I made him drop the dagger. We weren’t quite struggling, nor were we entirely playing. I recounted a similar, little-known scene in the Book of Kings.
“On the third day of a confrontation between Persian and Turanian armies fully equipped in armor and weaponry and arrayed at the foot of Mount Hamaran, the Turanians sent the wily Shengil into the field to learn the identity of a mysterious Persian who’d killed a great Turanian warrior on each of the previous two days,” I began. “Shengil challenged the mysterious warrior, and he accepted. The armies, their armor glimmering brightly in the afternoon sun, watched with bated breath. The armored horses of the two warriors engaged each other with such speed that sparks flying from the clash of metal singed the hides of the horses which gave off smoke. The fight was a lengthy one. The Turanian shot arrows; the Persian maneuvered his sword and horse skillfully; and finally, the mysterious Persian felled the Turanian after catching him by the tail of his steed. He then chased after Shengil who was trying to escape, and grabbed him by his armor from behind before taking him by the neck. As he accepted his defeat, the Turanian, still curious about the identity of the mysterious warrior, asked without hope what everybody had wondered for days, ”Who are you?“ ”To you,“ replied the mysterious warrior, ”my name is Death.“ Tell me then, my friends, who was he?”
“The legendary Rüstem,” said Butterfly with childlike glee.
I kissed him on the neck. “We’ve all betrayed Master Osman,” I said. “Before he metes out his punishment, we must find Olive, rid ourselves of this venom in our midst and come to an agreement so we can stand strong against the eternal enemies of art and those who long to send us directly to dungeons of torture. Perhaps, when we arrive at Olive’s abandoned dervish house, we’ll learn that the cruel murderer isn’t even one of our lot.”
Poor Butterfly uttered not a sound. Regardless of how talented, confident or well supported he might be, just like all illuminators who sought one another’s company depite their mutual loathing and envy, he was deathly afraid of being left alone in this world and of going to Hell.
On the route to the Phanar Gate, there was an eerie greenish-yellow light above us, but it wasn’t the light of the moon. In this light, the old, faithful nighttime appearance of Istanbul comprised of cypress trees, leaden domes, stone walls, wooden houses and tracts ravaged by fire was overtaken by an unfamiliarity such as might be caused by an enemy fortress. As we ascended the hill, in the distance we saw the fire that burned somewhere beyond the Bayazid Mosque.
In the heavy darkness, we came across an oxcart half-loaded with sacks of flour heading toward the city walls, and parting with two silver coins, we procured a ride. Black had the pictures with him, and he sat down carefully. As I lay back and watched the low clouds glow from the fire, two raindrops fell upon my helmet.
After a long journey, as we searched for the deserted dervish lodge we roused all the dogs in the neighborhood which, in the middle of the night, seemed to be abandoned. Although we saw that lamps were now burning in a few stone houses in response to our clamor, it was only the fourth door we knocked upon that opened to us, and a man in skullcap, gaping at us by the light of his lamp as if we were the living dead, gave us directions to the deserted dervish lodge without even sticking his nose out into the quickening rain-merrily adding that once there, we’d have no peace from the evils of jinns, demons and ghosts.
In the garden of the dervish lodge we were greeted by the calm of proud cypresses, indifferent to the rain and the stench of rotting leaves. I brought my eye up to one of the cracks between the wooden planks of the dervish-lodge walls, and later, to the shutter of a small window, whereupon, by the light of an oil lamp, I saw the menacing shadow of a man performing his prayers-or perhaps, a man pretending, for our sake, to pray.
I AM CALLED “OLIVE”
Was it more fitting for me to abandon my prayers, spring to my feet and open the door for them or to keep them waiting in the rain until I’d finished? When I realized they were watching me, I completed my prayers in a somewhat distracted state. I opened the door, and there they were-Butterfly, Stork and Black. I gave a cry of joy and embraced Butterfly.
“Alas, what we’ve had to bear of late!” I lamented, burying my head into his shoulder. “What do they want from us? Why are they killing us?”
Each of them displayed the panic of being separated from the herd, which I’d seen from time to time in every master painter over the span of my life. Even here in the lodge, they were loath to separate from one another.
“We can safely take refuge here for days.”
“We worry,” Black said, “that the person we should fear is perhaps in our very midst.”
“I, too, grow anxious,” I said. “For I have heard such rumors as well.”
There were rumors, spreading from the officers of the Imperial Guard to the division of miniaturists, claiming that the mystery about the murderer of Elegant Effendi and late Enishte was solved: He was one of us who’d labored over that book.
Black inquired as to how many pictures I’d drawn for Enishte’s book.
“The first one I made was Satan. It was of the variety of underground demon common to the old masters in the workshops of the Whitesheep. The storyteller and I were of the same Sufi path; that’s why I made the two dervishes. I was the one who suggested to Enishte that he include them in his book, convincing him that there was a special place for these dervishes in the lands of the Ottomans.”
“Is that all?” asked Black.
When I told him, “Yes, that’s all,” he went to the door with the superior air of a master who caught an apprentice stealing; he brought in a roll of paper untouched by the rain, and placed it before us three artists like a mother cat bringing a wounded bird to her kittens.