My Name is Red Read Online Free Page A

MURDERER
    Nay, I wouldn’t have believed I could take anyone’s life, even if I’d been told so moments before I murdered that fool; and thus, my offense at times recedes from me like a foreign galleon disappearing on the horizon. Now and again, I even feel as if I haven’t committed any crime at all. Four days have passed since I was forced to do away with hapless Elegant, who was a brother to me, and only now have I, to some extent, accepted my situation.
    I would’ve preferred to resolve this unexpected and awful dilemma without having to do away with anybody, but I knew there was no other choice. I handled the matter then and there, assuming the burden of responsibility. I couldn’t let the false accusations of one foolhardy man endanger the entire society of miniaturists.
    Nevertheless, being a murderer takes some getting used to. I can’t stand being at home, so I head out to the street. I can’t stand my street, so I walk on to another, and then another. As I stare at people’s faces, I realize that many of them believe they’re innocent because they haven’t yet had the opportunity to snuff out a life. It’s hard to believe that most men are more moral or better than me simply on account of some minor twist of fate. At most, they wear somewhat stupider expressions because they haven’t yet killed, and like all fools, they appear to have good intentions. After I took care of that pathetic man, wandering the streets of Istanbul for four days was enough to confirm that everyone with a gleam of cleverness in his eye and the shadow of his soul cast across his face was a hidden assassin. Only imbeciles are innocent.
    Tonight, for example, while warming up with a steaming coffee at the coffeehouse located in the back streets of the slave market, gazing at the sketch of a dog hanging on the back wall, I was gradually forgetting my plight and laughing with the rest of them at everything the dog recounted. Then, I had the sensation that one of the men beside me was a common murderer like myself. Though he was simply laughing at the storyteller as I was, my intuition was sparked, either by the way his arm rested near mine or by the way he restlessly rapped his fingers on his cup. I’m not sure how I knew, but I suddenly turned and looked him directly in the eye. He gave a start and his face contorted. As the crowd dispersed, an acquaintance of his took him by the arm and said, “Nusret Hoja’s men will surely raid this place.”
    Raising an eyebrow, he signaled the man quiet. Their fear infected me. No one trusted anyone, everyone expected to be done in at any moment by the man next to him.
    It had become even colder, and snow had accumulated on street corners and at the bases of walls. In the blindness of night, I could find my way along the narrow streets only by groping with my hands. At times, the dim light of an oil lamp still burning somewhere inside a wooden house filtered out from behind blackened windows and drawn shutters, reflecting on the snow; but mostly, I could see nothing, and found my way by listening for the sounds of watchmen banging their sticks on stones, for the howling of mad dogs, or the sounds coming from houses. At times the narrow and dreadful streets of the city seemed to be lit up by a wondrous light coming from the snow itself; and in the darkness, amid the ruins and trees, I thought I spotted one of those ghosts that have made Istanbul such an ominous place for thousands of years. From within houses, now and again, I heard the noises of miserable people having coughing fits or snorting or wailing as they cried out in their dreams, or I heard the shouts of husbands and wives as they tried to strangle each other, their children sobbing at their feet.
    For a couple of nights in a row, I came to this coffeehouse to relive the happiness I’d felt before becoming a murderer, to raise my spirits and to listen to the storyteller. Most of my miniaturist friends, the brethren with whom I’d