My Name is Red Read Online Free PDF Page B

us.”
    “What is the money contained in?”
    “There are seventy-five Venetian gold pieces inside an old ceramic pickle jar.”
    The Venetian ducats made good sense, but where had I come up with the ceramic pickle jar? It was so foolish it was believable. I was thereby reassured that God was with me and had given me a sign. My old companion apprentice, who’d grown greedier with each passing year, had already started excitedly counting off the twelve steps in the direction I indicated.
    There were two things on my mind at that moment. First of all, there were no Venetian coins or anything of the sort buried there! If I didn’t come up with some money this buffoon would destroy us. I suddenly felt like embracing the oaf and kissing his cheeks as I sometimes did when we were apprentices, but the years had come between us! Second, I was preoccupied with figuring out how we were going to dig. With our fingernails? But this contemplation, if you could call it that, lasted only a wink in time.
    Panicking, I grabbed a stone that lay beside the well. While he was still on the seventh or eighth step, I caught up to him and struck him on the back of his head with all my strength. I struck him so swiftly and brutally that I was momentarily startled, as if the blow had landed on my own head. Aye, I felt his pain.
    Instead of anguishing over what I’d done, I wanted to finish the job quickly. He’d begun thrashing about on the ground and my panic deepened further.
    Long after I’d dropped him into the well, I contemplated how the crudeness of my deed did not in the least befit the grace of a miniaturist.

I AM YOUR BELOVED UNCLE
    I am Black’s maternal uncle, his
enishte
, but others also call me “Enishte.” There was a time when Black’s mother encouraged him to address me as “Enishte Effendi,” and later, not only Black, but everyone began referring to me that way. Thirty years ago, after we’d moved to the dark and humid street shaded by chestnut and linden trees beyond the Aksaray district, Black began to make frequent visits to our house. That was our residence before this one. If I were away on summer campaign with Mahmut Pasha, I’d return in the autumn to discover that Black and his mother had taken refuge in our home. Black’s mother, may she rest in peace, was the older sister of my dearly departed wife. There were times on winter evenings I’d come home to find my wife and his mother embracing and tearfully consoling each other. Black’s father, who could never maintain his teaching posts at the remote little religious schools where he taught, was ill-tempered, angry and had a weakness for drink. Black was six years old at the time; he’d cry when his mother cried, quiet down when his mother fell silent and regarded me, his Enishte, with apprehension.
    It pleases me to see him before me now, a determined, mature and respectful nephew. The respect he shows me, the care with which he kisses my hand and presses it to his forehead, the way, for example, he said, “Purely for red,” when he presented me with the Mongol inkpot as a gift, and his polite and demure habit of sitting before me with his knees mindfully together; all of this not only announces that he is the sensible grown man he aspires to be, but it reminds me that I am indeed the venerable elder I aspire to be.
    He shares a likeness with his father, whom I’ve seen once or twice: He’s tall and thin, and makes slightly nervous yet becoming gestures with his arms and hands. His custom of placing his hands on his knees or of staring deeply and intently into my eyes as if to say, “I understand, I’m listening to you with reverence” when I tell him something of import, or the way he nods his head with a subtle rhythm matching the measure of my words are all quite appropriate. Now that I’ve reached this age, I know that true respect arises not from the heart, but from discrete rules and deference.
    During the years Black’s mother brought him