Free My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk

given himself over to a book.
    “Your guest has departed,” I said. “I hope he didn’t trouble you much?”
    “On the contrary,” he said. “He entertained me. He’s as respectful as ever of his Enishte.”
    “Good.”
    “But now he’s also measured and calculating.”
    He’d said that less to observe my reaction than to close the subject in a manner that made light of Black. On any other occasion, I would’ve answered him with a sharp tongue, as I am wont to do. This time, though, I just thought of Black making ground on his white horse, and I shuddered.
    I’m not sure how it happened, but later in the room with the closet, Orhan and I found ourselves hugging each other. Shevket joined us; there was a brief skirmish between them. As they tussled we all rolled over onto the floor. I kissed them on the backs of their necks and their hair, I pressed them to my bosom and felt their weight on my breasts.
    “Ahhh,” I said. “Your hair stinks. I’m going to send you to the baths tomorrow with Hayriye.”
    “I don’t want to go to the baths with Hayriye anymore,” Shevket said.
    “Why? Are you too grown-up?” I said.
    “Mother, why did you wear your fine purple blouse?” Shevket said.
    I went into the other room and removed my purple blouse. I pulled on the faded green one that I usually wear. As I was changing, I felt cold and shivered, but I could sense that my skin was aflame, my body vibrant and alive. I’d rubbed a bit of rouge onto my cheeks, which probably smudged while I was rolling around with the children, but I evened it out by licking my palm and rubbing my cheeks. Are you aware that my relatives, the women whom I meet at the baths and everyone who sees me, swear that I look more like a sixteen-year-old maiden than a twenty-four-year-old mother of two past her prime? Believe them, truly believe them, or I shan’t tell you any more.
    Don’t be surprised that I’m talking to you. For years I’ve combed through the pictures in my father’s books looking for images of women and great beauties. They do exist, if few and far between, and always look shy, embarrassed, gazing only at one another, as if apologetically. Never do they raise their heads, stand straight and face the people of the world as soldiers and sultans would. Only in cheap, hastily illustrated books by careless artists are the eyes of some women trained not on the ground or on some thing in the illustration-oh, I don’t know, let’s say a lover or a goblet-but directly at the reader. I’ve long wondered about that reader.
    I shudder in delight when I think of two-hundred-year-old books, dating back to the time of Tamerlane, volumes for which acquisitive giaours gleefully relinquish gold pieces and which they carry all the way back to their own countries: Perhaps one day someone from a distant land will listen to this story of mine. Isn’t this what lies behind the desire to be inscribed in the pages of a book? Isn’t it just for the sake of this delight that sultans and viziers proffer bags of gold to have their histories written? When I feel this delight, just like those beautiful women with one eye on the life within the book and one eye on the life outside, I, too, long to speak with you who are observing me from who knows which distant time and place. I’m an attractive and intelligent woman, and it pleases me that I’m being watched. And if I happen to tell a lie or two from time to time, it’s so you don’t come to any false conclusions about me.
    Maybe you’ve noticed that my father adores me. He had three sons before me, but God took them one by one and left me, his daughter. My father dotes on me, though I married a man not of his choosing. I went to a spahi cavalry soldier whom I’d noticed and fancied. If it were left to my father, my husband would not only be the greatest of scholars, he’d also have an appreciation for painting and art, be possessed of power and authority, and be as rich as Karun, the