Orhan Pamuk - My Name Is Red

by Omar Pamuk

2001

In Istanbul, in the late 1590s, the Sultan secretly commissions a great book: a celebration of his life and his empire, to be illuminated by the best artists of the day in the European manner. But when one of the miniaturists goes missing and is feared murdered, their master seeks outside help.

I AM A CORPSE

I am nothing but a corpse now, a body at the bottom of a well. Though I drew my last breath long ago and my heart has stopped beating, no one, apart from that vile murderer, knows whats happened to me. As for that wretch, he felt for my pulse and listened for my breath to be sure I was dead, then kicked me in the midriff, carried me to the edge of the well, raised me up and dropped me below. As I fell, my head, which hed smashed with a stone, broke apart; my face, my forehead and cheeks, were crushed; my bones shattered, and my mouth filled with blood.

For nearly four days I have been missing: My wife and children must be searching for me; my daughter, spent from crying, must be staring fretfully at the courtyard gate. Yes, I know theyre all at the window, hoping for my return.

But, are they truly waiting? I cant even be sure of that. Maybe theyve gotten used to my absence how dismal! For here, on the other side, one gets the feeling that ones former life persists. Before my birth there was infinite time, and after my death, inexhaustible time. I never thought of it before: Id been living luminously between two eternities of darkness.

I was happy; I know now that Id been happy. I made the best illuminations in Our Sultans workshop; no one could rival my mastery. Through the work I did privately, I earned nine hundred silver coins a month, which, naturally, only makes all of this even harder to bear.

I was responsible for painting and embellishing books. I illuminated the edges of pages, coloring their borders with the most lifelike designs of leaves, branches, roses, flowers and birds. I painted scalloped Chinese-style clouds, clusters of overlapping vines and forests of color that hid gazelles, galleys, sultans, trees, palaces, horses and hunters. In my youth, I would decorate a plate, or the back of a mirror, or a chest, or at times, the ceiling of a mansion or of a Bosphorus manor, or even, a wooden spoon. In later years, however, I only worked on manuscript pages because Our Sultan paid well for them. I cant say it seems insignificant now. You know the value of money even when youre dead.

After hearing the miracle of my voice, you might think, Who cares what you earned when you were alive? Tell us what you see. Is there life after death? Wheres your soul? What about Heaven and Hell? Whats death like? Are you in pain? Youre right, the living are extremely curious about the Afterlife. Maybe youve heard the story of the man who was so driven by this curiosity that he roamed among soldiers in battlefields. He sought a man whod died and returned to life amid the wounded struggling for their lives in pools of blood, a soldier who could tell him about the secrets of the Otherworld. But one of Tamerlanes warriors, taking the seeker for the enemy, cleaved him in half with a smooth stroke of his scimitar, causing him to conclude that in the Hereafter man gets split in two.

Nonsense! Quite the opposite, Id even say that souls divided in life merge in the Hereafter. Contrary to the claims of sinful infidels whove fallen under the sway of the Devil, there is indeed another world, thank God, and the proof is that Im speaking to you from here. Ive died, but as you can plainly tell, I havent ceased to be. Granted, I must confess, I havent encountered the rivers flowing beside the silver and gold kiosks of Heaven, the broad-leaved trees bearing plump fruit and the beautiful virgins mentioned in the Glorious Koran though I do very well recall how often and enthusiastically I made pictures of those wide-eyed houris described in the chapter That Which Is Coming. Nor is there a trace of those rivers of milk, wine, fresh water and honey described with such flourish, not in the Koran, but by visionary dreamers like Ibn Arabi. But I have no intention of tempting the faith of those who live rightfully through their hopes and visions of the Otherworld, so let me declare that all Ive seen relates specifically to my own very personal circumstances. Any believer with even a little knowledge of life after death would know that a malcontent in my state would be hard-pressed to see the rivers of Heaven.

In short, I, who am known as Master Elegant Effendi, am dead, but I have not been buried, and therefore my soul has not completely left my body. This extraordinary situation, although naturally my case isnt the first, has inflicted horrible suffering upon the immortal part of me. Though I cannot feel my crushed skull or my decomposing body covered in wounds, full of broken bones and partially submerged in ice-cold water, I do feel the deep torment of my soul struggling desperately to escape its mortal coil. Its as if the whole world, along with my body, were contracting into a bolus of anguish.

I can only compare this contraction to the surprising sense of release I felt during the unequaled moment of my death. Yes, I instantly understood that the wretch wanted to kill me when he unexpectedly struck me with a stone and cracked my skull, but I didnt believe hed follow through. I suddenly realized I was a hopeful man, something I hadnt been aware of while living my life in the shadows between workshop and household. I clung passionately to life with my nails, my fingers and my teeth, which I sank into his skin. I wont bore you with the painful details of the subsequent blows I received.

When in the course of this agony I knew I would die, an incredible feeling of relief filled me. I felt this relief during the moment of departure; my arrival to this side was soothing, like the dream of seeing oneself asleep. The snow- and mud-covered shoes of my murderer were the last things I noticed. I closed my eyes as if I were going to sleep, and I gently passed over.

My present complaint isnt that my teeth have fallen like nuts into my bloody mouth, or even that my face has been maimed beyond recognition, or that Ive been abandoned in the depths of a well its that everyone assumes Im still alive. My troubled soul is anguished that my family and intimates, who, yes, think of me often, imagine me engaged in trivial dealings somewhere in Istanbul, or even chasing after another woman. Enough! Find my body without delay, pray for me and have me buried. Above all, find my murderer! For even if you bury me in the most magnificent of tombs, so long as that wretch remains free, Ill writhe restlessly in my grave, waiting and infecting you all with faithlessness. Find that son-of-a-whore murderer and Ill tell you in detail just what I see in the Afterlife but know this, after hes caught, he must be tortured by slowly splintering eight or ten of his bones, preferably his ribs, with a vise before piercing his scalp with skewers made especially for the task by torturers and plucking out his disgusting, oily hair, strand by strand, so he shrieks each time.

Who is this murderer who vexes me so? Why has he killed me in such a surprising way? Be curious and mindful of these matters. You say the world is full of base and worthless criminals? Perhaps this one did it, perhaps that one? In that case let me caution you: My death conceals an appalling conspiracy against our religion, our traditions and the way we see the world. Open your eyes, discover why the enemies of the life in which you believe, of the life youre living, and of Islam, have destroyed me. Learn why one day they might do the same to you. One by one, everything predicted by the great preacher Nusret Hoja of Erzurum, to whom Ive tearfully listened, is coming to pass. Let me say also that if the situation into which weve fallen were described in a book, even the most expert of miniaturists could never hope to illustrate it. As with the Koran God forbid Im misunderstood the staggering power of such a book arises from the impossibility of its being depicted. I doubt youve fully comprehended this fact.