My Name is Red

Orhan, Shekure’s younger son, enters the room as Black and Enishte consider the disappearance of Elegant. Orhan fears Black, who is a stranger, but obeys his grandfather when encouraged to kiss Black’s hand. Dismissed from the presence of his elders, Orhan initially listens to the men talk, overhearing their talk of Elegant’s murder and the Sultan’s book project.

Afterwards, Orhan visits the room of Hayriye, the family’s enslaved servant woman. There, Shekure asks Orhan about Black and Enishte’s conversation and then asks the boy to retrieve Hayriye. Orhan encounters his brother, Shevket, who blames the younger boy for leaving him alone with the master binder. While Hayriye leaves to buy lemons, the brothers begin to physically fight. Shekure steps in and ends the fight by slapping Shevket. The older boy responds by telling his mother that their father will return and they will move back in with their Uncle Hasan. Angered by this response, Shekure locks her sons in a closet and then allows them to sit quietly in the kitchen. As she leaves, Orhan tells his mother, “They’ve done our grandfather’s gilder in” (31).

After meeting Orhan, Black realizes that he was mistaken about Shekure’s face and has been remembering her incorrectly. Black muses that he would have remembered her more fully if he had a European-style portrait of Shekure. Black desperately wants to see his cousin, but maintains his composure, reminding himself that when he first revealed his feelings 12 years previously, he had been denied entrance to the house.

Enishte continues to discuss the secret book, explaining that it must be completed before the celebration of the thousand-year anniversary of the Hegira, Mohammad’s difficult and symbolic journey from Mecca to Medina. Enishte also wants Black to visit Master Osman, who, although nearly blind and senile, resents Enishte’s oversight of the secret book.

Thinking back on his earlier days in Enishte’s home, Black contemplates his childhood happiness. He enjoyed painting and reading with Enishte and grew to love Shekure. Leaving the environment he loved plunged him “into a desolate abyss” (33), that was unaltered by the women he later slept with.

When Enishte expresses his fear that he may die before the completion of the secret book, Black promises to visit the three remaining miniaturists and tell his uncle all that he learns. When leaving Enishte’s home, he meets a large Jewish woman named Esther who offers to sell him her wares. Suddenly, though, she gives Black a letter that directs him to a window of Enishte’s house. There, Black sees Shekure’s face and is reminded of the story of Shirin and Hüsrev, two doomed lovers well known in Persian literature.

Although Shekure’s letter asks Black to refrain from visiting and returns a picture he painted for her years before, Esther believes more is hinted at in Shekure’s letter. Reading between the lines, Esther reveals the various factors that negate Shekure’s claim that she doesn’t want to see Black. Instead, Esther believes that the smell of the letter, the way it’s folded, the enclosed painting, and the fact that she was asked to deliver it at all show that Shekure is interested in Black.

Shekure relates that when she saw Black at her window, she was impressed with him. Her heart tells her to marry him, even though she admits to writing a letter expressing a completely different message. The tragic story of Shirin and Hüsrev reminds Shekure of Black, who once painted the two of them as the famous lovers. When Black gave her the painting, though, she was incapable of loving him. She told her father of Black’s advances, and Black was banished from their home. Shekure, though, secretly kept the picture.

That night, Shekure thinks about her beauty. She frequently searches for images of beautiful women in her father’s books, but rarely finds them. Instead, women are often depicted as subservient and embarrassed. Shekure hopes to be written about and enjoys the attention of others, believing that she is “an attractive and intelligent woman” (43). Enishte prized her for her beauty and was upset when she wanted to marry the soldier. After Shekure threatened suicide, though, he relented and the two were wed. After her husband disappeared, Shekure and her boys lived with her brother-in-law Hasan, but found the experience degrading—she was expected to do all of the housework and was constantly sexually threatened by Hasan, who even tried to break down her door and rape her.

In response, Shekure fled to Enishte’s house. Hasan continued to write her letters, begging her to return and promising that she would be taken care of. Frequently torn between the demands of her children, father, and in-laws, Shekure remains in an untenable position as she is unable to wed and maintains little agency over her own life. She also fears that this may be the final snowfall her father will experience.

An image of a sad tree drawn crying in the rain asks readers to listen to its story. Sketched hastily and hung behind a storyteller, the picture of the tree admits that it does not depict something out of a book; it was supposed to be part of a story but now does not know its purpose.

The tree describes a shah who quit drinking coffee and lost control of his thinking. Later, he was possessed by one of the jinn and gave up wine, young boys, and painting. Following his possession, the shah attempted to sabotage the creation of a book for the sultan. However, work continued, and a librarian faithfully tried to gather all of the book’s pages. The picture of the tree, however, did not make it into the book: The courier carrying the tree drawing was set upon by thieves, raped, and killed. The picture was taken by one of the thieves, sold for a jug of wine, and finally ended up with the storyteller who told the coffeehouse audience about the dog.

Finally, the tree explains that Europeans not only paint recognizable individuals, but also allow their women to walk the streets freely. The tree finds such behavior scandalous and concludes that it doesn’t want to be represented as an actual tree but as the idea of a tree.