My Name is Red

by Orhan Pamuk

  Because Hayriye had furtively aired out the room beforehand and placed the oil lamp in a corner so its light was dimmed, one could scarcely tell that my Enishte was sick let alone dead. Thus, he served as Shekure’s legal guardian during the ceremony. My friend the barber, along with a know-it-all neighborhood elder, served as witnesses. Before the ceremony ended with the hopeful blessings and advice of the preacher and the prayers of all in attendance, a nosy old man, concerned about the state of my Enishte’s health, was about to lower his skeptical head toward the deceased; but as soon as the preacher completed the ceremony, I leapt from my spot, grabbed my Enishte’s rigid hand and shouted at the top of my voice:

  “Put your worries to rest, my sir, my dear Enishte. I’ll do everything within my power to care for Shekure and her children, to see they’re well clothed and well fed, loved and untroubled.”

  Next, to suggest that my Enishte was trying to whisper to me from his sickbed, I carefully and respectfully pressed my ear to his mouth, pretending to listen to him intently and wide-eyed, as young men do when an elder they respect offers one or two words of advice distilled from an entire lifetime, which they then imbibe like some magic elixir. The Imam Effendi and the neighborhood elder appeared to appreciate and approve of the loyalty and eternal devotion I showed my father-in-law. I hope that nobody still thinks I had a hand in his murder.

  I announced to the wedding guests still in the room that the afflicted man wished to be left alone. They abruptly began to leave, passing into the next room where the men had gathered to feast on Hayriye’s pilaf and mutton (at this point I could scarcely distinguish the smell of the corpse from the aroma of thyme, cumin and frying lamb). I stepped into the wide hallway, and like some morose patriarch roaming absentmindedly and wistfully through his own house, I opened the door to Hayriye’s room, paying no mind to the women who were horrified to have a man in their midst, and gazing sweetly at Shekure, whose eyes beamed with bliss to see me, said:

  “Your father’s calling for you, Shekure. We’re married now, you’re to kiss his hand.”

  The handful of neighborhood women to whom Shekure had sent last-minute invitations and the young maidens I assumed were relatives motioned to collect themselves and cover their faces, all the while scrutinizing me to their heart’s content.

  Not long after the evening call to prayer the wedding guests dispersed, having heartily partaken of the walnuts, almonds, dried fruit leather, comfits and clove candy. In the women’s quarters, Shekure’s incessant crying and the bickering of the unruly children had dampened the festivity. Among the men, my stony-faced silence in response to the mirthful wedding-night gibes of the neighbors was attributed to my preoccupation with my father-in-law’s illness. Amid all the distress, the scene most clearly ingrained in my memory was my leading Shekure to Enishte’s room before dinner. We were alone at last. After both of us kissed the dead man’s cold and rigid hand with sincere respect, we withdrew to a dark corner of the room and kissed each other as if slaking a great thirst. Upon my wife’s fiery tongue, which I’d successfully taken into my mouth, I could taste the hard candies that the children greedily ate.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  I, SHEKURE

  The last guests of our woeful wedding veiled and covered themselves, put on their shoes, dragged off their children, who were tossing a last piece of candy into their mouths, and left us to a penetrating silence. We were all in the courtyard, nothing could be heard but the faint noise of a sparrow gingerly drinking water from the half-filled well bucket. This sparrow, whose tiny head feathers gleamed in the light of the stone hearth, abruptly vanished into the blackness, and I felt the insistent presence of the corpse in my father’s bed within our emptied house, now swallowed by night.

  “Children,” I said in the cadence Orhan and Shevket recognized as the one I used to announce something, “come here, the both of you.”

  They did so.

  “Black is now your father. Let’s see you kiss his hand.”

  They did so, quietly and docilely. “Since they’ve grown up without a father, my unfortunate children know nothing of obeying one, of heeding his words while looking into his eyes, or of trusting in him,” I said to Black. “Thus, if they behave disrespectfully, wildly, immaturely or childishly toward you, I know that you’ll show them tolerance at first, understanding that they’ve been raised without ever once obeying their father, whom they do not even remember.”

  “I remember my father,” said Shevket.

  “Hush…and listen,” I said. “From now on Black’s word carries more weight than even my own.” I faced Black. “If they refuse to listen to you, if they are disobedient or show even the slightest sign of being rude, spoiled or ill-mannered, first warn them, but forgive them,” I said, forgoing the mention of beatings that was on the tip of my tongue. “Whatever space I occupy in your heart, they shall share that space, too.”

  “I didn’t marry you solely to be your husband,” said Black, “but also to be father to these dear boys.”

  “Did you two hear that?”

  “Oh my Lord, I pray you never neglect to shine your light down upon us,” Hayriye interjected from a corner. “My dear God, I pray you protect us, my Lord.”

  “You two did hear, didn’t you?” I said. “Good for you, my pretty young men. Since your father loves you like this, should you suddenly lose control and disregard his words, he will have forgiven you for it beforehand.”

  “And I’ll forgive them afterward, as well,” said Black.

  “However, if you two defy his warning a third time…then, you’ll have earned the right to a beating,” I said. “Are we understood? Your new father, Black, has come here from the vilest, the worst of battles, from wars that were the very wrath of God and from which your late father did not return; yes, he’s a hardened man. Your grandfather has spoiled you and indulged you. Your grandfather is now very ill.”

  “I want to go and be with him,” Shevket said.

  “If you’re not going to listen, Black will teach you what it means to get a beating from Hell. Your grandfather won’t be able to save you from Black the way he used to protect you from me. If you don’t want to suffer your father’s wrath, you’re not to fight anymore, you’re to share everything, tell no lies, perform your prayers, not go to bed before memorizing your lessons and you’re not to speak roughly to Hayriye or tease her…Are we understood?”

  In one movement, Black crouched down and took Orhan up in his arms. Shevket kept his distance. I had the fleeting urge to embrace him and weep. My poor forlorn and fatherless son, my poor solitary Shevket, you’re so alone in this immense world. I thought of myself as a small child, like Shevket, a child all alone in the world, and remembered how once I’d been held in my dear father’s arms the way Orhan was now being held by Black. But unlike Orhan, I wasn’t awkward in my father’s embrace, like a fruit unaccustomed to its tree. I was delighted; I recalled how my father and I would often embrace, sniffing each other’s skin. I was on the verge of tears, but restrained myself. Though I hadn’t planned to say anything of the sort, I said:

  “Come now, let’s hear you call Black ‘Father.’”

  The night was so cold and our courtyard was so very silent. In the distance dogs were barking and howling pitifully and sorrowfully. A few more minutes passed. The silence bloomed and spread secretly like a black flower.

  “All right, children,” I said much later. “Let’s go inside so we all don’t catch cold out here.”

  It wasn’t only Black and I who felt the timidity of a bride and groom left alone after the wedding, but Hayriye and the children, all of us, entered our home hesitantly as though it were the darkened house of a stranger. We were met with the smell of my father’s corpse, but nobody seemed to be aware of it. We silently climbed the stairs, and the shadows cast onto the ceiling by our oil lamps, as always, spun and merged, now expanding, now shrinking, yet seemed somehow to be doing so for the first time. Upstairs, as we were removing our shoes in
the hall, Shevket said:

  “Before I go to sleep can I kiss my grandfather’s hand?”

  “I checked in on him just now,” Hayriye said. “Your grandfather is in such pain and discomfort it’s clear that evil spirits have taken hold of him. The fever of the illness has consumed him. Go to your room so I can prepare your bed.”

  Hayriye herded them into the room. As she laid out the mattress and spread out the sheets and quilts, she was going on as if every object she held was a marvel unique to the world, and muttering about how sleeping here in a warm room between clean sheets and under warm down quilts would be like spending the night in a sultan’s palace.

  “Hayriye, tell us a story,” said Orhan as he sat on his chamber pot.

  “Once upon a time there was a blue man,” said Hayriye, “and his closest companion was a jinn.”

  “Why was the man blue?” said Orhan.

  “For goodness sake, Hayriye,” I said. “Tonight at least don’t tell a story about jinns and ghosts.”

  “Why shouldn’t she?” said Shevket. “Mother, after we fall asleep do you leave the bed and go to be with Grandfather?”

  “Your grandfather, Allah protect him, is gravely ill,” I said. “Of course I go to his bedside at night to look after him. Then, I return to our bed, don’t I?”

  “Have Hayriye look after Grandfather,” said Shevket. “Doesn’t Hayriye look after my grandfather at night anyway?”

  “Are you finished?” Hayriye asked of Orhan. As she wiped Orhan’s behind with a wet rag, his face was overcome with a sweet lethargy. She glanced into the pot and wrinkled up her face, not due to the smell, but as if what she saw wasn’t sufficient.

  “Hayriye,” I said. “Empty the chamber pot and bring it back. I don’t want Shevket to leave the room in the middle of the night.”

  “Why shouldn’t I leave the room?” asked Shevket. “Why shouldn’t Hayriye tell us a story about jinns and fairies?”

  “Because there are jinns in the house, you idiot,” Orhan said, not so much out of fear, but with the dumb optimism I always noticed in his expression after he’d relieved himself.

  “Mother, are there jinns here?”

  “If you leave the room, if you attempt to see your grandfather, the jinn will catch you.”

  “Where will Black lay out his bed?” said Shevket. “Where will he sleep tonight?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “Hayriye will be preparing his bed.”

  “Mother, you’re still going to sleep with us, aren’t you?” said Shevket.

  “How many times do I have to tell you? I’ll sleep together with you two as before.”

  “Always?”

  Hayriye left carrying the chamber pot. From the cabinet where I’d hidden them, I removed the remaining nine illustrations left behind by the unspeakable murderer and sat on the bed. By the light of a candle, I stared at them for a long time trying to fathom their secret. These illustrations were beautiful enough that you might mistake them for your own forgotten memories; and as with writing, as you looked at them, they spoke.

  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.