Black asked: "Have they indeed killed him?"
This Black was tall, skinny and a little frightening. I was walking toward them where they sat talking in the second-floor workshop with the blue door when my grandfather said, "They might have done him in." Then he caught sight of me. "What are you doing here?"
He looked at me in such a way that I climbed onto his lap without answering. Then he put me back down right away.
"Kiss Black's hand," he said.
I kissed the back of his hand and touched it to my forehead. It had no smell.
"He's quite charming," Black said and kissed me on my cheek. "One day he'll be a brave young man."
"This is Orhan, he's six. There's also an older one, Shevket, who's seven. That one's quite a stubborn little child."
"I went back to the old street in Aksaray," said Black. "It was cold, everything was covered in snow and ice. But it was as if nothing had changed at all."
"Alas! Everything has changed, everything has become worse," my grandfather said. "Significantly worse." He turned to me. "Where's your brother?"
"He's with our mentor, the master binder."
"So, what are you doing here?"
"The master said, 'Fine work, you can go now' to me."
"You made your way back here alone?" asked my grandfather. "Your older brother ought to have accompanied you." Then he said to Black: "There's a binder friend of mine with whom they work twice a week after their Koran school. They serve as his apprentices, learning the art of binding."
"Do you like to make illustrations like your grandfather?" asked Black.
I gave him no answer.
"All right then," said my grandfather. "Leave us be, now."
The heat from the open brazier that warmed the room was so nice that I didn't want to leave. Smelling the paint and glue, I stood still for a moment. I could also smell coffee.
"Yet does illustrating in a new way signify a new way of seeing?" my grandfather began. "This is the reason why they've murdered that poor gilder despite the fact that he worked in the old style. I'm not even certain he's been killed, only that he's missing. They're illustrating a commemorative story in verse, a Book of Festivities, for Our Sultan by order of the Head Illuminator Master Osman. Each of the miniaturists works at his own home. Master Osman, however, occupies himself at the palace bookarts workshop. To begin with, I want you to go there and observe everything. I worry that the others, that is, the miniaturists, have ended up falling out with and slaying one another. They go by the workshop names that Head Illuminator Master Osman gave them years ago: 'Butterfly,' 'Olive,' 'Stork' … You're also to go and observe them as they work in their homes."
Instead of heading downstairs, I spun around. There was a noise coming from the next room with the built-in closet where Hayriye slept. I went in. Inside there was no Hayriye, just my mother. She was embarrassed to see me. She stood half in the closet.
"Where have you been?" she asked.
But she knew where I'd been. In the back of the closet there was a peephole through which you could see my grandfather's workshop, and if its door were open, the wide hallway and my grandfather's bedroom across the hall by the staircase—if, of course, his bedroom door were open.
"I was with grandfather," I said. "Mother, what are you doing in here?"
"Didn't I tell you that your grandfather had a guest and that you weren't to bother them?" She scolded me, but not very loud, because she didn't want the guest to hear. "What were they doing?" she asked afterward, in a sweet voice.
"They were seated. Not with the paints though. Grandfather spoke, the other listened."
"In what manner was he seated?"
I dropped to the floor and imitated the guest: "I'm a very serious man now, Mother, look. I'm listening to my grandfather with knit eyebrows, as if I were listening to the birth epic being recited. I'm nodding my head in time now, very seriously like that guest."
"Go downstairs," my mother said, "call for Hayriye at once."
She sat down and began writing on a small piece of paper on the writing board she'd taken up.
"Mother, what are you writing?"
"Be quick, now. Didn't I tell you to go downstairs and call for Hayriye?"
I went down to the kitchen. My brother, Shevket, was back. Hayriye had put before him a plate of the pilaf meant for the guest.
"Traitor," my brother said. "You just went off and left me with the Master. I did all the folding for the bindings myself. My fingers are bruised purple."
"Hayriye, my mother wants to see you."
"When I'm done here, I'm going to give you such a beating," my brother said. "You'll pay for your laziness and treachery."
When Hayriye left, my brother stood and came after me threateningly, even before he'd finished his pilaf. I couldn't get away in time. He grabbed my arm at the wrist and began twisting it.
"Stop, Shevket, don't, you're hurting me."
"Are you ever going to shirk your duties again and leave?"
"No, I won't ever leave."
"Swear to it."
"I swear."
"Swear on the Koran."
"… on the Koran."
He didn't let go of my arm. He dragged me to the large copper tray that we used as a table for eating and forced me to my knees. He was strong enough to eat his pilaf as he continued to twist my arm.
"Quit torturing your brother, tyrant," said Hayriye. She covered herself and was heading outside. "Leave him be."
"Mind your own affairs, slave girl," my brother said. He was still twisting my arm. "Where are you off to?"
"To buy lemons," Hayriye said.
"You're a liar," my brother said. "The cupboard is full of lemons."
As he had eased up on my arm, I was suddenly able to free myself. I kicked him and grabbed a candleholder by its base, but he pounced on me, smothering me. He knocked the candleholder away, and the copper tray fell over.
"You two scourges of God!" my mother said. She kept her voice lowered so the guest wouldn't hear. How had she passed before the open door of the workshop, through the hallway, and come downstairs without being seen by Black?
She separated us. "You two just continue to disgrace me, don't you?"
"Orhan lied to the master binder," Shevket said. "He left me there to do all the work."
"Hush!" my mother said, slapping him.
She'd hit him softly. My brother didn't cry. "I want my father," he said. "When he returns he's going to take up Uncle Hasan's ruby-handled sword, and we're going to move back with Uncle Hasan."
"Shut up!" said my mother. She suddenly became so angry that she grabbed Shevket by the arm and dragged him through the kitchen, passed the stairs to the room that faced the far shady side of the courtyard. I followed them. My mother opened the door. When she saw me, she said, "Inside, the both of you."
"But I haven't done anything," I said. I entered anyway. Mother closed the door behind us. Though it wasn't pitch-black inside—a faint light fell through the space between the shutters facing the pomegranate tree in the courtyard—I was scared.
"Open the door, Mother," I said. "I'm cold."
"Quit whimpering, you coward," Shevket said. "She'll open it soon enough."
Mother opened the door. "Are you going to behave until the visitor leaves?" she said. "All right then, you'll sit in the kitchen by the stove until Black takes his leave, and you're not to go upstairs, do you understand?"
"We'll get bored in there," Shevket said. "Where has Hayriye gone?"
"Quit butting into everyone's affairs," my mother said.
We heard a soft whinnying from one of the horses in the stable. The horse whinnied again. It wasn't our grandfather's horse, but Black's. We were overcome with mirth, as if it were a fair day. Mother smiled, wanting us to smile as well. Taking two steps forward ward, she opened the stable door that faced us off the stairwell outside the kitchen.
"Drrsss," she said into the stable.
She turned around and guided us into Hayriye's greasy-smelling and mice-ridden kitchen. She forced us to sit down. "Don't even consider standing until our guest leaves. And don't fight with each other or else people will think you're spoiled."
"Mother," I said to her before she closed the kitchen door. "I want to say something, Mother: They've done our grandfather's gilder in."
