I, SHEKURE

Oh, why was I there at the window just when Black rode by on his white steed? Why did I open the shutters intuitively at that exact moment and stare at him so long from behind the snowy branches of the pomegranate tree? I can’t tell you for sure. I’d sent word to Esther by way of Hayriye. I was, of course, well aware that Black would take that route. Meanwhile, I’d gone up alone to the room with the built-in closet and the window facing the pomegranate tree to inspect the sheets in the chest. On a whim, and at just the right moment, I pushed the shutters open with all my strength and sunlight flooded the room: Standing at the window, I came face-to-face with Black, who, like the sun, dazzled me. Oh, it was quite lovely.

He’d grown and matured and, having lost his awkward youthful lankiness, he turned out to be a comely man. Listen Shekure, my heart did tell me, he’s not only handsome, look into his eyes, he possesses the heart of a child, so pure, so alone: Marry him. I, however, sent him a letter wherein I’d given him quite the opposite message.

Though he was twelve years my elder, when I was twelve, I was more mature than he. Back then, instead of standing straight and tall before me in a fashion befitting a man and announcing that he was going to do this or that, jump from this spot or climb onto that thing, he’d just bury his face in some book or picture, hiding as if everything embarrassed him. In time, he also fell in love with me. He made a painting declaring his love. We’d both matured by then. When I turned twelve, I sensed that Black could no longer look into my eyes, as if he were afraid I’d discover he loved me. “Hand me that ivory-handled knife,” he’d say, for example, looking at the knife but unable to look at me. If I asked him, for instance, “Is the cherry sherbet to your liking?” he couldn’t simply indicate so with a delicate smile or nod, as we do when our mouths are full, you see. Instead, he’d scream “Yes” at the top of his lungs, as if trying to communicate with a deaf man. He feared looking me in the face. I was a maiden of striking beauty then. Any man who caught sight of me even once, from afar, or from between parted curtains or yawning doors, or even through the layers of my modest head coverings, immediately became enamored of me. I’m not being a braggart, I’m explaining this so you’ll understand my story and be better able to share in my grief.

In the well-known tale of Hüsrev and Shirin, there’s a moment that Black and I had discussed at length. Hüsrev’s friend, Shapur, intends to make Hüsrev and Shirin fall in love. One day Shirin embarks on a countryside outing with her ladies of the court, when she sees a picture of Hüsrev that Shapur has secretly hung from the branch of one of the trees beneath which the outing party has stopped to rest. Beholding this picture of the handsome Hüsrev in that beautiful garden, Shirin is stricken by love. Many paintings depict this moment-or “scene” as the miniaturists would have it-consisting of Shirin’s look of adoration and bewilderment as she gazes upon the image of Hüsrev. While Black was working with my father, he’d seen this picture many times and had twice made exact copies by eyeing the original as he painted. After falling in love with me, he made a copy for himself. But this time in place of Hüsrev and Shirin, he portrayed himself and me, Black and Shekure. If it weren’t for the captions beneath the figures, only I would’ve known who the man and maiden in the picture were, because sometimes when we were joking around, he’d depict us in the same manner and color: I all in blue, he all in red. And if this weren’t indication enough, he’d also written our names beneath the figures. He’d left the painting where I would find it and run off. He watched me to see what my reaction to his composition would be.

I was well aware that I wouldn’t be able to love him like a Shirin, so I feigned ignorance. On the evening of that summer’s day when Black gave me his painting, during which we’d tried to cool ourselves with sour-cherry sherbets made with ice said to have been brought all the way from snow-capped Mount Ulu, I told my father that he’d made a declaration of love. At that time, Black had just graduated from the religious school. He taught in remote neighborhoods and, more out of my father’s insistence than his own desire, Black was attempting to obtain the patronage of the powerful and esteemed Naim Pasha. But according to my father, Black didn’t yet have his wits about him. My father, who’d taken great pains to win Black a place in Naim Pasha’s circle, at least as a clerk to begin, complained that he wasn’t doing much to further his own cause; in other words, Black was being an ignoramus. And that very night in reference to Black and me, my father declared, “I think he’s set his sights very high, this impoverished nephew,” and without regard for my mother’s presence, he added, “he’s smarter than we’d supposed.”

I remember with misery what my father did in the following days, how I kept my distance from Black and how he ceased to visit our house, but I won’t explain all of this for fear that you’ll dislike my father and me. I swear to you, we had no other choice. You know how in such situations reasonable people immediately sense that love without hope is simply hopeless, and understanding the limits of the illogical realm of the heart, make a quick end of it by politely declaring, “They didn’t find us suitably matched. That’s just the way it is.” But, I’ll have you know that my mother said several times, “At least don’t break the boy’s heart.” Black, whom my mother referred to as a “boy,” was twenty-four, and I was half his age. Because my father considered Black’s declaration of love an act of insolence, he wouldn’t humor my mother’s wishes.

Though we hadn’t forgotten him altogether by the time we received news that he’d left Istanbul, we’d let him slip completely out of our affections. Because we hadn’t received news about him from any city for years, I deemed it appropriate to save the picture he’d made and shown me, as a token of our childhood memories and friendship. To prevent my father, and later my soldier-husband, from discovering the picture and getting upset or jealous, I expertly concealed the names “Shekure” and “Black” beneath the figures by making it appear as if someone had dribbled my father’s Hasan Pasha ink onto them, in an accident later to be disguised as flowers. Since I’ve returned that picture to him today, maybe those among you inclined to take a dim view of how I revealed myself to him at the window will feel ashamed and reconsider your prejudices somewhat.

Having exposed my face to him, I remained for a while there at the window, showered in the crimson hue of the evening sun, and gazed in awe at the garden bathed in reddish-orange light, until I felt the chill of the evening air. There was no breeze. I didn’t care what someone passing in the street would’ve said upon seeing me at the open window. One of Ziver Pasha’s daughters, Mesrure, who always laughed and enjoyed herself saying the most surprising things at the most inopportune times when we went merrily and playfully to the public baths each week, once told me that a person never knows exactly what she herself is thinking. This is what I know: Sometimes I’ll say something and realize upon uttering it that it is of my own thinking; but no sooner do I arrive at that realization than I’m convinced the very opposite is true.

I was sorry when poor Elegant Effendi, one of the miniaturists my father often invited to the house-and I won’t pretend I haven’t spied on each of them-went missing, much like my unfortunate husband. “Elegant” was the ugliest among them and the most impoverished of spirit.

I closed the shutters, left the room and went down to the kitchen.

“Mother, Shevket didn’t listen to you,” Orhan said. “While Black was taking his horse out of the stable, Shevket left the kitchen and spied on him from the peephole.”