My legs, which have always been quicker than my head, had taken me of their own accord to Enishte Effendi’s street. I crouched in a secluded spot, and for a long time observed the house as best I could in the blackness. I watched for a long time: Nestled among trees was the large and odd-looking two-story house of a rich man! I couldn’t tell on which side Shekure’s room was located. As is the case in some of the pictures made in Tabriz during the reign of Shah Tahmasp, I imagined the house in cross-section-as if it were cut in half with a knife-and I tried to illustrate in my mind’s eye where I would find my Shekure, behind which shutter.
The door opened. I saw Black leaving the house in the darkness. Enishte gazed at him with affection from behind the courtyard gate for a moment before closing it.
Even my mind, which had given itself over to idiotic fantasies, quickly, and painfully, drew three conclusions based on what I had seen:
One: Since Black was cheaper and less dangerous, Enishte Effendi would have him complete our book.
Two: The beautiful Shekure would marry Black.
Three: What the unfortunate Elegant Effendi had said was true, and so, I’d killed him for naught.
In situations such as this, as soon as our merciless intellects draw the bitter conclusion that our hearts refuse, the entire body rebels against the mind. At first, half my mind violently opposed the third conclusion, which indicated that I was nothing but the vilest of murderers. My legs, once again, acting quicker and more rationally than my head, had already put me in pursuit of Black Effendi.
We’d passed down a few side streets when I thought how very easy it would be to murder him, so contentedly and self-assuredly walking before me, and how such a crime would save me from having to confront the first two vexing conclusions established by my mind. Furthermore, I wouldn’t have cracked Elegant Effendi’s skull for no reason at all. Now, if I run ahead eight or ten paces, catch up to Black and land a blow onto his head with all my might, everything will go on as usual. Enishte Effendi will invite me to finish our book. But meanwhile my more honest (what was honesty if not fear?) and prudent side continued to tell me that the monster I’d murdered and tossed into a well was truly a slanderer. And if this were the case, I hadn’t killed him for naught, and Enishte, who no longer had anything to hide with respect to the book he was making, would most certainly invite me back to his home.
As I watched Black walking before me, however, I knew with utmost certainty that none of this would happen. It was all illusion. Black Effendi was more real than I. It happens to us all: In reaction to being overly logical we’ll feed fantasies for weeks and years on end, and one day we’ll see something, a face, an outfit, a happy person, and suddenly realize that our dreams will never come true; thus, we come to understand that a particular maiden won’t be permitted to marry us or that we’ll never reach such-and-such a station in life.
I was watching the rise and fall of Black’s shoulders, his head and his neck-the incredibly annoying way that he walked, as though his every step were a gift to the world-with a profound hatred that coiled cozily around my heart. Men like Black, free from pangs of conscience and with promising futures before them, assume that the entire world is their home; they open every door like a sultan entering his personal stable and immediately belittle those of us crouched inside. The urge to grab a stone and run up behind him was almost too great to resist.
We were two men in love with the same woman; he was in front of me and completely unaware of my presence as we walked through the turning and twisting streets of Istanbul, climbing and descending, we traveled like brethren through deserted streets given over to battling packs of stray dogs, passed burnt ruins where jinns loitered, mosque courtyards where angels reclined on domes to sleep, beside cypress trees murmuring to the souls of the dead, beyond the edges of snow-covered cemeteries crowded with ghosts, just out of sight of brigands strangling their victims, passed endless shops, stables, dervish houses, candle works, leather works and stone walls; and as we made ground, I felt I wasn’t following him at all, but rather, that I was imitating him.
I AM DEATH
I am Death, as you can plainly see, but you needn’t be afraid, I’m just an illustration. Be that as it may, I read terror in your eyes. Though you know very well that I’m not real-like children who give themselves over to a game-you’re still seized by horror, as if you’d actually met Death himself. This pleases me. As you look at me, you sense that you’ll soil yourselves out of fear when that unavoidable last moment is upon you. This is no joke. When faced with Death, people lose control of their bodily functions-particularly the majority of those men who are known to be brave-hearted. For this reason, the corpse-strewn battlefields that you’ve depicted thousands of times reek not of blood, gunpowder and heated armor as is assumed, but of shit and rotting flesh.
I know this is the first time you’ve seen a depiction of Death.
One year ago, a tall, thin and mysterious old man invited to his house the young master miniaturist who would soon enough illustrate me. In the half-dark workroom of the two-story house, the old man served an exquisite cup of silky, amber-scented coffee to the young master, which cleared the youth’s mind. Next, in that shadowy room with the blue door, the old man excited the master miniaturist by flaunting the best paper from Hindustan, brushes made of squirrel hair, varieties of gold leaf, all manner of reed pens and coral-handled penknives, indicating that he would be able to pay handsomely.
“Now then, draw Death for me,” the old man said.
“I cannot draw a picture of Death without ever, not once in my entire life, having seen a picture of Death,” said the miraculously sure-handed miniaturist, who would shortly, in fact, end up doing the drawing.
“You do not always need to have seen an illustration of something in order to depict that thing,” objected the refined and enthusiastic old man.
“Yes, perhaps not,” said the master illustrator. “Yet, if the picture is to be perfect, the way the masters of old would’ve made it, it ought to be drawn at least a thousand times before I attempt it. No matter how masterful a miniaturist might be, when he paints an object for the first time, he’ll render it as an apprentice would, and I could never do that. I cannot put my mastery aside while illustrating Death; this would be equivalent to dying myself.”
“Such a death might put you in touch with the subject matter,” quipped the old man.
“It’s not experience of subject matter that makes us masters, it’s never having experienced it that makes us masters.”
“Such mastery ought to be acquainted with Death then.”
In this manner, they entered into an elevated conversation with double entendre, allusions, puns, obscure references and innuendos, as befit miniaturists who respected both the old masters as well as their own talent. Since it was my existence that was being discussed, I listened intently to the conversation, the entirety of which, I know, would bore the distinguished miniaturists among us in this good coffeehouse. Let me just say that there came a point when the discussion touched upon the following:
“Is the measure of a miniaturist’s talent the ability to depict everything with the same perfection as the great masters or the ability to introduce into the picture subject matter which no one else can see?” said the sure-handed, stunning-eyed, brilliant illustrator, and although he himself knew the answer to this question, he remained quite reserved.