I WILL BE CALLED A MURDERER

Ticking away, my windup clock told me it was evening. The prayers had yet to be called, but long before, I’d lit the candle resting beside my folding worktable. I quickly completed drawing an opium addict from memory, having dipped my reed pen into black Hasan Pasha ink and skated it over well-burnished and beautifully sized paper, when I heard that voice calling me out to the street as it did every night. I resisted. I was so determined not to go, but to stay at home and work, I even tried nailing my door shut for a time.

This book I was hastily completing was commissioned by an Armenian who’d come all the way from Galata, knocking on my door this morning before anyone had risen. The man, an interpreter and guide, though he stuttered, hunted me down whenever a Frank or Venetian traveler wanted a “book of costumes” and engaged me in a bout of vicious bargaining. Having agreed that morning upon a lesser-quality book of costumes for a price of twenty silver pieces, I proceeded to illustrate a dozen Istanbulites in a single sitting around the time of the evening prayer, paying particular attention to the detail of their outfits. I drew a Sheikhulislam, a palace porter, a preacher, a Janissary, a dervish, a cavalryman, a judge, a liver seller, an executioner-executioners in the act of torture sold quite well-a beggar, a woman bound for the hamam, and an opium addict. I’d done so many of these books just to earn a few extra silver pieces that I began to invent games for myself to fight off boredom while I drew; for example, I forced myself to draw the judge without lifting my pen off the page or to draw the beggar with my eyes closed.

All brigands, poets and men of constant sorrow know that when the evening prayer is called the jinns and demons within them will grow agitated and rebellious, urging in unision: “Out! Outside!” This restless inner voice demands, “Seek the company of others, seek blackness, misery and disgrace.” I’ve spent my time appeasing these jinns and demons. I’ve painted pictures, which many regard as miracles that have issued from my hands, with the help of these evil spirits. But for seven days now after dusk, since I murdered that disgrace, I’m no longer able to control the jinns and demons within me. They rage with such violence that I tell myself they might calm down if I go out for a while.

After saying so, as always without knowing how, I found myself roaming through the night. I walked briskly, advancing through snowy streets, muddy passages, icy slopes and deserted sidewalks as if I would never stop. As I walked, descending into the dark of night, into the most remote and abandoned parts of the city, I’d ever so gradually leave my soul behind, and walking along the narrow streets, my footsteps echoing off the walls of stone inns, schools and mosques, my fears would subside.

Of their own accord, my feet brought me to the abandoned streets of this neighborhood on the outskirts of the city, where I came each night and where even specters and jinns would shudder to roam. I heard tell that half the men in this neighborhood had perished in the wars with Persia and that the rest had fled, declaring it ill-omened, but I don’t believe such superstition. The only tragedy that has befallen this good quarter on account of the Safavid wars was the closing of the Kalenderi dervish house forty years ago because it was suspected of harboring the enemy.

I meandered behind the mulberry bushes and the bay-leaf trees, which had a pleasant aroma even in the coldest weather, and with my usual fastidiousness, I straightened up the wall boards between the collapsed chimney and the window with its dilapidated shutters. I entered and drew the lingering scent of one-hundred-year-old incense and mold deep into my lungs. It made me so blissful to be here, I thought tears would fall from my eyes.

If I haven’t already said so, I’d like to say that I fear nothing but Allah and the punishment meted out in this world has no import whatsoever in my opinion. What I fear are the various torments that murderers like myself will have to endure on Judgment Day, as is clearly described in the Glorious Koran, in the “Criterion” chapter, for example. In the ancient books, that I quite rarely lay hold of, whenever I see this punishment in all its colors and violence, recalling the simple, childish, yet terrifying scenes of Hell illustrated on calfskin by the old Arab miniaturists, or, for whatever reason, the torments of demons depicted by Chinese and Mongol master artists, I can’t keep myself from drawing this analogy and heeding its logic: What does “The Night Journey” chapter state in its thirty-third verse? Is it not written that one should not, without justification, take the life of another whose murder God forbids? All right then: The miscreant I’ve sent to Hell was not a believer, whose murder God had forbidden; and besides, I had excellent justification for shattering his skull.

This man had slandered those of us who’d worked on that book Our Sultan had secretly commissioned. If I hadn’t silenced him, he would’ve denounced as unbelievers Enishte Effendi, all the miniaturists and even Master Osman, letting the rabid followers of the Hoja of Erzurum have their way with them. If someone succeeded in announcing that the miniaturists were committing blasphemy, these followers of Ezurumi-who are looking for any excuse to exercise their strength-wouldn’t just be satisfied with doing away with the master miniaturists, they’d destroy the entire workshop and Our Sultan would be helpless to do anything but watch without a peep.

As I did every time I came here, I cleaned up with the broom and some rags I kept hidden in a corner. As I cleaned, I was heartened and felt like a dutiful servant of Allah again. So that He wouldn’t deprive me of this blessed feeling, I prayed for a long time. The cold, which was enough to make a fox shit copper, drove into my bones. I began to feel that sinister ache at the back of my throat. I stepped outside.

Soon afterward, again in the same strange state of mind, I found myself in a completely different neighborhood. I don’t know what had happened, what I’d thought between the deserted neighborhood of the dervish house and here. I didn’t know how I’d arrived on these roads lined with cypress trees.

However much I walked, a pestering thought wouldn’t leave me be, and it ate at me like a worm. Maybe if I tell you it’ll ease the burden: Call him a “vile slanderer” or “poor Elegant Effendi”-either way it’s the same thing-a short time before the dearly departed gilder had left this world, he was making vehement accusations against our Enishte, but when he saw that I wasn’t that affected by his declaration that Enishte Effendi made use of the perspectival techniques of the infidels, that beast divulged the following: “There’s one final picture. In that picture Enishte desecrates everything we believe in. What he’s doing is no longer an insult to religion, it’s pure blasphemy.” Furthermore, three weeks after this accusation by that scoundrel, Enishte Effendi had actually asked me to illustrate a number of unrelated things, such as a horse, a coin and Death, in various random spots on a page and in shockingly inconsistent scales; indeed, it was what one would expect of a Frankish painting. Enishte always took the trouble to cover large portions of the ruled section of the page he wanted me to illustrate as well as the places ill-fated Elegant Effendi had guilded, as though he wanted to conceal something from me and the other miniaturists.

I want to ask Enishte what he’s illustrating in this large, final painting, but there’s much holding me back. If I ask him, he’ll of course suspect that I murdered Elegant Effendi and make his suspicions known to all. But there’s something else that unsettles me as well. If I ask him, Enishte might declare that Elegant Effendi was in fact justified in his beliefs. Occasionally, I tell myself I should ask him, pretending as if this suspicion hadn’t passed to me from Elegant Effendi, but had simply occurred to me. In the end, it’s no comfort either way.