“I know,” he said without sorrow. “Before going to bed you were downstairs for a while. They were chanting ”Black, Black, my ass’s crack,“ loud enough so I could hear.”
“You should’ve given them a beating,” I said, at first half-wishing he’d done so. Then I added in a panic, “If you raise a hand against them, I’ll kill you.”
“Get into bed,” he said. “Or you’ll freeze to death.”
“Maybe I’ll never get into your bed. Maybe we’ve made a mistake by getting married. They say our ceremony has no legitimacy before the law. Do you know I heard Hasan’s footsteps before I fell asleep? It’s not surprising, when I was living in the house of my late husband, I heard Hasan’s footsteps for years. The children like him. And he’s merciless, that one. He has a red sword, take care to guard yourself against it.”
I saw something so weary and so stern in Black’s eyes that I knew I wouldn’t be able to scare him.
“Of the two of us, you’re the one with more hope and the one with more sadness,” I said. “I’m just struggling not to be unhappy and to protect my children, whereas you’re stubbornly trying to prove yourself. It’s not because you love me.”
He went on at length about how much he loved me, how he always thought only of me in desolate caravansaries, on barren mountains and during snowy nights. If he hadn’t said these things, I would’ve awakened the children and returned to my former husband’s house. Because I had the urge, I said the following:
“Sometimes it seems that my former husband might return at any time. It’s not that I fear being caught in the middle of the night with you or being caught by the children, I’m afraid that as soon as we embrace he’ll come knocking on the door.”
We heard the wailing of cats fighting for their lives just outside the courtyard gate. This was followed by a long silence. I thought I might sob. I could neither set my candle holder down on the end table nor turn around and head to my room to be with my sons. I told myself that I wouldn’t leave this room until I was absolutely convinced that Black had nothing whatsoever to do with my father’s death.
“You belittle us,” I said to Black. “You’ve grown haughty since you married me. You clearly looked down on us because my husband was missing, and now that my father’s been killed you find us even more pitiful.”
“My respected Shekure,” he said cautiously. It pleased me that he’d begun this way. “You yourself know that none of this is true. I’d do anything for you.”
“Then get out of bed, and wait with me on your feet.”
Why had I said that I was waiting?
“I cannot,” he said, and in embarrassment, gestured to the quilt and his nightgown.
He was right, but it annoyed me anyway that he wasn’t heeding my request.
“Before my father was murdered, you entered this house cowering like a cat who’d spilled milk,” I said. “But now when you address me as ”My respected Shekure“ it seems empty-as though you want us to know it is.”
I was trembling, not out of anger, but because of the icy cold that seized my legs, back and neck.
“Get into bed and be my wife,” he said.
“How will the villain who killed my father ever be found?” I said. “If it’s going to take some time before he’s found, it’s not right for me to stay in this house with you.”
“Thanks to you and Esther, Master Osman has focused all his attention on the horses.”
“Master Osman was the sworn enemy of my father, may he rest in peace. Now my poor father can see from above that you’re depending on Master Osman to find his murderer. It must be causing him great agony.”
He abruptly leapt out of bed and came toward me. I couldn’t even move. But contrary to what I expected, he just snuffed out my candle with his hand and stood there. We were in pitch blackness.
“Your father can no longer see us,” he whispered. “We’re both alone. Tell me now, Shekure: You gave me the impression, when I returned after twelve years, that you’d be able to love me, that you’d be able to make room in your heart for me. Then we married. Since then you’ve been running away from loving me.”
“I had to marry you,” I whispered.
There, in the dark, without pity, I sensed how my words were driving into his flesh like nails-as the poet Fuzuli had once put it.
“If I could love you, I would’ve loved you when I was a child,” I whispered again.
“Tell me then, fair beauty of the darkness,” he said. “You must’ve spied on all those miniaturists who frequented your house and come to know them. In your opinion, which one is the murderer?”
I was pleased that he could still keep this good humor. He was, after all, my husband.
“I’m cold.”
Did I actually say this, I can’t remember. We began to kiss. Embracing him in the dark, still holding the candle in one hand, I took his velvety tongue into my mouth, and my tears, my hair, my nightgown, my trembling and even his body were full of wonder. Warming my nose against his hot cheek was also pleasant; but this timid Shekure restrained herself. As I was kissing him, I didn’t let myself go or drop the candle, but thought of my father, who was watching me, and of my former husband, and my children asleep in bed.
“There’s somebody in the house,” I shouted. I pushed Black away and went out into the hall.
I AM CALLED BLACK
Silent and unseen, under cover of early morning darkness, I left like a guilty houseguest and walked tirelessly through the muddy backstreets. At Bayazid, I performed my ablution in the courtyard, entered the mosque and prayed. Inside, there was no one but the Imam Effendi and an old man who could sleep as he prayed-a talent only rarely achieved after a lifetime of practice. You know how there are moments in our sleepy dreams and sad memories when we feel Allah has taken notice of us and we pray with the hopeful anticipation of one who’s managed to thrust a petition into the Sultan’s hand: Thus did I beg Allah to grant me a cheerful home filled with loving people.
When I’d reached Master Osman’s house, I knew that within a week’s time he’d gradually usurped my late Enishte’s place in my thoughts. He was more contrary and more distant, but his belief in manuscript illumination was more profound. He resembled an introspective elderly dervish more than the great master who’d kicked up tempests of fear, awe and love among the miniaturists for so many years.
As we traveled from the master’s house to the palace-he mounted on a horse and hunched slightly, I on foot and likewise hunched forward-we must’ve recalled the elderly dervish and aspiring disciple in those cheap illustrations that accompany old fables.
At the palace, we found the Commander of the Imperial Guard and his men even more eager and ready than we. Our Sultan was certain that once we’d looked at the three masters’ horse drawings this morning we could, in a trice, determine who among them was the accursed murderer; and so, He’d ordered that the criminal be quickly put to torture without even allowing him to answer the accusation. We were taken not to the executioners’ fountain where everyone could see and take warning, but to that small slapdash house in the sheltered seclusion of the Sultan’s Private Garden, which was preferred for interrogation, torture and strangling.
A youth, who seemed too elegant and polite to be one of the Commander’s men, authoritatively placed three sheets of paper on a worktable.
Master Osman took out his magnifying lens and my heart began to pound. Like an eagle gliding elegantly over a tract of land, his eye, which he maintained at a constant distance from the lens, passed ever so slowly over the three marvelous horse illustrations. And like that eagle catching sight of the baby gazelle which would be its prey, he slowed over each of the horses’ noses and focused on it intently and calmly.