Maybe you』ve uood by now that for men like myself, that is, melanen for whom love, agony, happiness and misery are just excuses for maintainiernal loneliness, life offers her great joy nreat sadness. I』m not saying we 』t relate to other souls overwhelmed by these feelings, on the trary, we sympathize with them. What we ot fathom is the odd disquiet our souls sink into at such times. This silent turmoil dims our intellects and dampens our hearts, usurping the place reserved for the true joy and sadness we ought to experience.
I had buried her father, thank God, hurried home from the funeral, and in a gesture of dolence, embraced my wife, Shekure; then suddenly, in a fit of tears she collapsed onto a large cushion with her children, whlaring at me with spite, and I didn』t know what to do. Her misery cided with my victory. In one fell swoop, I had wed the dream of my youth, freed myself from her father who belittled me, and beaster of the house. Who would ever believe the siy of my tears? But believe me, it wasn』t like that. I truly wao grieve, but couldn』t: Enishte had always been more of a father to me than my real father. But sihe meddlesome preacher who』d performed Enishte』s final
ablution opped babbling, the rumor that my Enishte died under mysterious circumstances spread among the neighbors during the funeral—as I could seanding in the courtyard of the mosque. I didn』t want my inability to cry to be interpreted ively; I don』t have to tell you how real the fear of being branded 「stoed」 is.
You know how some sympathetit will always attest that 「he』s g on the io prevent someone like me from being banished from the group. I did in fact cry on the inside as I tried to hide in a er from the busybody neighbors and distaives with their astonishing abilities to summon a downpour of tears; I thought about being the master of the house and whether I should somehow take charge of the situation, but just then there came a knock at the door. A moment of panic. Was it Hasan? Regardless, I wao save myself from this hell of whimpering at whatever cost.
It was a royal page, summonio the palace. I was stunned.
As I exited the courtyard, I found a mud-covered silver on the ground. Was I afraid to go to the palace? Yes, but I was also happy to be outside in the cold among the horses, dogs, trees and people. I thought I』d befriend the pageboy like those hopeless daydreamers who, believing they might sweeten the world』s cruelty before fag the executioner, attempt a lighthearted versation with the dungeon guard about this and that, the beauties of life, the ducks afloat on the pond, or the strangeness of a cloud in the sky; but alas he disappointed me, proving a rather morose, pimply, tight-lipped youth. As I passed the Hagia Sophia, notig with awe the slender cypresses delicately stretg into the hazy sky, it wasn』t the horror of dying right after marrying Shekure after all these years that made my hair stand on end. It was the injustice of dying at the hands of the palace torturers without having shared one good session of lovemaking with her.
We didn』t walk toward the terrifying spires of the Middle Gate, beyond which the torturers and the quick-handed executioners saw to their work, but toward the carpentry shops. As we headed between the granaries, a cat ing itself in the mud between the legs of a chestnut horse with steaming nostrils turned but didn』t look at us: The cat reoccupied with its own filth, much as we