“Fat witch,” he said. “Even if you hadn’t shouted I would’ve recognized you by your footsteps.”

“You good-for-nothing blind man,” I said. “You ill-fated Tatar! Blind men like you are scourges forsaken by Allah. May He give you the punishment you deserve.”

In the past, such exchanges wouldn’t have angered me. I wouldn’t have taken them seriously. Hasan’s father opened the door. He was an Abkhazian, a noble gentleman and polite.

“Let’s have a look, then, what have you brought with you this time?” he said.

“Is that slothful son of yours still asleep?”

“How could he be sleeping? He’s waiting, expecting news from you.”

This house is so dark that each time I visit, I feel as if I’ve entered a tomb. Shekure never asks what they’re up to, but I always make a point of carping about the place so she won’t even consider returning to this crypt. It’s hard to imagine that lovely Shekure was once mistress of this house and that she lived here with her rascally boys. Within, it smelled of sleep and death. I entered the next room, moving farther into the blackness.

You couldn’t see your hand before your face. I didn’t even have the chance to present the letter to Hasan. He appeared out of the darkness and snatched it from my hand. As I always did, I left him alone to read the letter and satisfy his curiosity. He soon raised his head from the page.

“Isn’t there anything else?” he said. He knew there was nothing else. “This is a brief note,” he said and read

Black Effendi, you pay visits to our home, and spend your days here. Yet I’ve heard that you haven’t written even a single line of my father’s book. Don’t get your hopes up without first completing that manuscript.

Letter in hand, he glared accusingly into my eyes, as if all this was my fault. I’m not fond of these silences in this house.

“There’s no longer any word of her being married, of her husband returning from the front,” he said. “Why?”

“How should I know why?” I said. “I’m not the one who writes the letters.”

“Sometimes I wonder even about that,” he said, handing back the letter along with fifteen silver.

“Some men grow stingier the more they earn. You’re not that way,” I said.

There was such an enchanting, intelligent side to this man that despite all his dark and evil traits, one could see why Shekure would still accept his letters.

“What is this book of Shekure’s father?”

“You know! Our Sultan is funding the whole project they say.”

“Miniaturists are murdering each other over the pictures in that book,” he said. “Is it for the money or-God forbid-because the book desecrates our religion? They say one glance at its pages is enough to bring on blindness.”

He said all this, smiling in such a way that I knew I shouldn’t take any of it seriously. Even if it were a matter to take to heart, at the very least, there was nothing for him to take seriously about me taking the matter seriously. Like many of the men who depended on my services as a letter courier and mediator, Hasan lashed out at me when his pride was hurt. I, as part of my job, pretended to be upset to hearten him. Maidens, on the contrary, hugged me and cried when their feelings were hurt.

“You’re an intelligent woman,” said Hasan in order to soothe my pride, which he believed he’d injured. “Deliver this posthaste. I’m curious about that fool’s response.”

For a moment, I felt like saying, “Black is not so foolish.” In such situations, making rival suitors jealous of each other will earn Esther the matchmaker more money. But I was afraid he’d have a sudden tantrum.

“You know the Tatar beggar at the end of the street?” I said. “He’s very vulgar, that one.”

To avoid getting into it with the blind man, I walked down the other end of the street and thus happened to pass through the Chicken Market early in the morning. Why don’t Muslims eat the heads and feet of chickens? Because they’re so strange! My grandmother, may she rest in peace, would tell me how chicken feet were so inexpensive when her family arrived here from Portugal that she’d boil them for food.

At Kemeraralık, I saw a woman on horseback with her slaves, sitting bolt upright like a man. She was proud as proud could be, maybe the wife of a pasha or his rich daughter. I sighed. If Shekure’s father hadn’t been so absentmindedly devoted to books, if her husband had returned from the Safavid war with his plunder, Shekure might’ve lived like this haughty woman. More than anyone, she deserved it.

When I turned onto Black’s street, my heart quickened. Did I want Shekure to marry this man? I’ve succeeded both in keeping Shekure involved with Hasan and, at the same time, in keeping them apart. But what about this Black? He seems to have both feet on the ground in all respects except with regard to his love for Shekure.

“Clothierrrrr!”

There’s nothing I’d trade for the pleasure of delivering letters to lovers addled by loneliness or the lack of wife or husband. Even if they’re certain of receiving the worst news, when they’re about to read the letter, a shudder of hope overcomes them.

By not mentioning anything about her husband’s return, by tying her warning “Don’t get your hopes up” to one condition alone, Shekure had, of course, given Black more than just cause to be hopeful. With great pleasure, I watched him read the letter. He was so happy he was distraught, afraid even. When he withdrew to write his response, I, being a sensible clothes peddler, spread open my decoy “delivery” satchel and withdrew from it a dark money purse, which I attempted to sell to Black’s nosy landlady.

“This is made of the best Persian velvet,” I said.

“My son died at war in Persia,” she said. “Whose letters do you deliver to Black?”

I could read from her face that she was making plans to set up her own wiry daughter, or who knows whose daughter, with lionhearted Black. “No one’s,” I said. “A poor relative of his who’s on his deathbed in the Bayrampasha sickhouse and needs money.”

“Oh my,” she said, unconvinced, “who is the unfortunate man?”

“How did your son die in the war?” I asked stubbornly.

We began to glare at each other with hostility. She was a widow and all alone. Her life must’ve been quite difficult. If you ever happen to become a clothier-cum-messenger like Esther, you’ll soon learn that only wealth, might and legendary romances stir people’s curiosity. Everything else is but worry, separation, jealousy, loneliness, enmity, tears, gossip and never-ending poverty. Such things never change, just like the objects that furnish a home: a faded old kilim, a ladle and small copper pan resting on an empty baking sheet, tongs and an ash box resting beside the stove, two worn chests-one small, one large-a turban stand maintained to conceal the widow’s solitary life and an old sword to scare thieves off.

Black hastily returned with his money purse. “Clothier woman,” he said, making himself heard to the meddling landlady rather than myself. “Take this and bring it to our suffering patient. If he has any response for me, I’ll be waiting. You can find me at Master Enishte’s house, where I’ll spend the rest of the day.”

There’s no need for all of these games. No cause for a young brave-heart like Black to hide his amatory maneuvers, the signals he receives, the handkerchiefs and letters he sends in pursuit of a maiden. Or does he truly have his eye on his landlady’s daughter? At times, I didn’t trust Black at all and was afraid that he was deceiving Shekure terribly. How is it that, despite spending his entire day with Shekure in the same house, he’s incapable of giving her a sign?

Once I was outside, I opened the purse. It contained twelve silver coins and a letter. I was so curious about the letter that I nearly ran to Hasan. Vegetable-sellers had spread out cabbage, carrots and the rest in front of their shops. But I didn’t even have it in me to touch the plump leeks that were crying out to me to fondle them.