I’d lost myself in the pictures. I understood from the scent of Orhan’s beautiful head, upon which I’d rested my nose, that he, too, was looking at that odd and suspicious Red. As occasionally happened, I had the urge to take out my breast and nurse him. Later, when Orhan was frightened by the terrifying picture of Death, gently and sweetly breathing through his reddish lips, I suddenly wanted to eat him.
“I’ll eat you up, do you understand me?”
“Mama, tickle me,” he said and threw himself down.
“Get off there, get up you beast,” I screamed and slapped him. He’d lain across the pictures. I checked the illustrations; apparently no harm had come to them. The image of the horse in the topmost picture was faintly, yet unnoticeably, crumpled.
Hayriye entered with the empty chamber pot. I gathered the pictures and was about to leave the room when Shevket began to cry:
“Mother? Where are you going?”
“I’ll be right back.”
I crossed the freezing hallway. Black was seated across from my father’s empty cushion, in the same position that he’d spent four days discussing painting and perspective with him. I laid out the illustrations on the folding bookstand, the cushion and on the floor before him. Color abruptly suffused the candlelit room with a warmth and an astonishing liveliness, as if everything had been set in motion.
Utterly still, we looked at the pictures at length, silently and respectfully. When we made even the slightest movement, the still air, which bore the scent of death from the room across the wide hall, would make the candle flame flicker and my father’s mysterious illustrations seemed to move too. Had the paintings taken on such significance for me because they were the cause of my father’s death? Was I mesmerized by the peculiarity of the horse or the uniqueness of Red, by the misery of the tree or the sadness of the two wandering dervishes, or was it because I feared the murderer who’d killed my father and perhaps others on account of these illustrations? After a while, Black and I fully understood that the silence between us, as much as it might’ve been caused by the paintings, was also due to our being alone in the same room on our wedding night. Both of us wanted to speak.
“When we wake tomorrow morning, we should tell everybody that my hapless father has passed away in his sleep,” I said. Although what I’d said was correct, it appeared as if I were being insincere.
“Everything will be fine in the morning,” said Black in the same peculiar manner, unable to believe in the truth of what he’d spoken.
When he made a nearly imperceptible gesture to draw closer to me, I had the urge to embrace him and, as I did with the children, to take his head into my hands.
Just at that moment, I heard the door to my father’s room open and, springing up in terror, I ran over, opened our door and looked out: By the light that filtered into the hallway, I was shocked to see my father’s door half open. I stepped into the icy hallway. My father’s room, heated by the still-lit brazier, reeked of decay. Had Shevket or somebody else come here? His body, dressed in his nightgown, rested peacefully, bathed in the faint light of the brazier. I thought about the way, on some nights, I’d say, “Have a good night, dear Father,” while he read the Book of the Soul by candlelight before going to sleep. Raising himself slightly, he’d take the glass I’d brought him out of my hand and say, “May the water bearer never want for anything,” before kissing me on the cheek and looking into my eyes as he used to do when I was a girl. I stared down at my father’s horrid face and, in short, I was afraid. I wanted to avoid looking at him, while at the same time, goaded by the Devil, I wanted to see how gruesome he’d become.
I timidly returned to the room with the blue door whereupon Black made an advance on me. I pushed him away, more unthinkingly than out of anger. We struggled in the flickering light of the candle, though it wasn’t really a struggle but rather the imitation of a struggle. We were enjoying bumping into each other, touching one another’s arms, legs and chests. The confusion I felt resembled the emotional state that Nizami had described with regard to Hüsrev and Shirin: Could Black, who’d read Nizami so thoroughly, sense that, like Shirin, I also meant “Continue” when I said, “Don’t bruise my lips by kissing them so hard”?
“I refuse to sleep in the same bed with you until that devil-of-a-man is found, until my father’s murderer is caught,” I said.
As I fled the room, I was seized by embarrassment. I’d spoken in such a shrill voice it must’ve seemed I wanted the children and Hayriye to hear what I’d said-perhaps even my poor father and my late husband, whose body had long decayed and turned to dust on who knows what barren patch of earth.
As soon as I was back with the children, Orhan said, “Mama, Shevket went out into the hallway.”
“Did you go out?” I said, and made as if to slap him.
“Hayriye,” said Shevket and hugged her.
“He didn’t go out,” said Hayriye. “He was in the room the entire time.”
I shuddered and couldn’t look her in the eyes. I realized that after my father’s death was announced, the children would thenceforth seek refuge in Hayriye, tell her all our secrets, and that this lowly servant, taking advantage of this opportunity, would try to control me. She wouldn’t stop there either, but would try to place the onus of my father’s murder onto me, then she’d have the guardianship of the children passed on to Hasan! Yes, indeed she would! All this shameless scheming because she’d slept with my father, may he rest in divine light. Why should I hide all this from you any longer? She was, in fact, doing this, of course. I smiled sweetly at her. Then, I lifted Shevket onto my lap and kissed him.
“I’m telling you, Shevket went out into the hallway,” Orhan said.
“Get into bed, you two. Let me get between you so I can tell you the story of the tailless jackal and the black jinn.”
“But you told Hayriye not to tell us a story about jinns,” said Shevket. “Why can’t Hayriye tell us the story tonight?”
“Will they visit the City of the Forsaken?” asked Orhan.
“Yes they will!” I said. “None of the children in that city have a mother or a father. Hayriye, go downstairs and check the doors again. We’ll probably be asleep by the middle of the story.”
“I won’t fall asleep,” said Orhan.
“Where is Black going to sleep tonight?” said Shevket.
“In the workshop,” I said. “Snuggle up tight to your mother so we can warm up nicely under the quilt. Whose icy little feet are these?”
“Mine,” said Shevket. “Where will Hayriye sleep?”
I’d begun telling the story, and as always, Orhan fell asleep first, after which I lowered my voice.
“After I fall asleep, you’re not going to leave the bed, right, Mama?” said Shevket.
“No, I won’t leave.”
I really didn’t intend to leave. After Shevket fell asleep, I was musing about how pleasurable it was to fall asleep cuddled up with my sons on the night of my second wedding-with my handsome, intelligent and desirous husband in the next room. I’d dozed off with such thoughts, but my sleep was fitful. Later, this is what I remembered about that strange restless realm between dreaming and wakefulness: First I settled accounts with my deceased father’s angry spirit, then I fled the specter of that disgraceful murderer who wanted to send me off to be with my father. As he pursued me, the unyielding murderer, even more terrifying than my father’s spirit, began making a clattering ruckus. In my dream, he tossed stones at our house. They struck the windows and landed on the roof. Later, he tossed a rock at the door, at one point even trying to force it open. Next, when this evil spirit began to wail like some ungodly animal, my heart began to pound.
I awoke covered in sweat. Had I heard those sounds in my dream or had I been awakened by sounds from somewhere in the house? I couldn’t decide, and so snuggled up with the children, and without moving, I waited. I’d nearly assured myself that the noises were only in my sleep when I heard the same wail. Just then, something large landed in the courtyard with a bang. Was this also a rock, perhaps?