My Name is Red

My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk Read Free Book Online Page A

Book: My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk Read Free Book Online
Authors: Orhan Pamuk
grandfather,” I said. “Mother, what are you doing in here?”
    “Didn’t I tell you that your grandfather had a guest and that you weren’t to bother them?” She scolded me, but not very loud, because she didn’t want the guest to hear. “What were they doing?” she asked afterward, in a sweet voice.
    “They were seated. Not with the paints though. Grandfather spoke, the other listened.”
    “In what manner was he seated?”
    I dropped to the floor and imitated the guest: “I’m a very serious man now, Mother, look. I’m listening to my grandfather with knit eyebrows, as if I were listening to the birth epic being recited. I’m nodding my head in time now, very seriously like that guest.”
    “Go downstairs,” my mother said, “call for Hayriye at once.”
    She sat down and began writing on a small piece of paper on the writing board she’d taken up.
    “Mother, what are you writing?”
    “Be quick, now. Didn’t I tell you to go downstairs and call for Hayriye?”
    I went down to the kitchen. My brother, Shevket, was back. Hayriye had put before him a plate of the pilaf meant for the guest.
    “Traitor,” my brother said. “You just went off and left me with the Master. I did all the folding for the bindings myself. My fingers are bruised purple.”
    “Hayriye, my mother wants to see you.”
    “When I’m done here, I’m going to give you such a beating,” my brother said. “You’ll pay for your laziness and treachery.”
    When Hayriye left, my brother stood and came after me threateningly, even before he’d finished his pilaf. I couldn’t get away in time. He grabbed my arm at the wrist and began twisting it.
    “Stop, Shevket, don’t, you’re hurting me.”
    “Are you ever going to shirk your duties again and leave?”
    “No, I won’t ever leave.”
    “Swear to it.”
    “I swear.”
    “Swear on the Koran.”
    “…on the Koran.”
    He didn’t let go of my arm. He dragged me to the large copper tray that we used as a table for eating and forced me to my knees. He was strong enough to eat his pilaf as he continued to twist my arm.
    “Quit torturing your brother, tyrant,” said Hayriye. She covered herself and was heading outside. “Leave him be.”
    “Mind your own affairs, slave girl,” my brother said. He was still twisting my arm. “Where are you off to?”
    “To buy lemons,” Hayriye said.
    “You’re a liar,” my brother said. “The cupboard is full of lemons.”
    As he had eased up on my arm, I was suddenly able to free myself. I kicked him and grabbed a candleholder by its base, but he pounced on me, smothering me. He knocked the candleholder away, and the copper tray fell over.
    “You two scourges of God!” my mother said. She kept her voice lowered so the guest wouldn’t hear. How had she passed before the open door of the workshop, through the hallway, and come downstairs without being seen by Black?
    She separated us. “You two just continue to disgrace me, don’t you?”
    “Orhan lied to the master binder,” Shevket said. “He left me there to do all the work.”
    “Hush!” my mother said, slapping him.
    She’d hit him softly. My brother didn’t cry. “I want my father,” he said. “When he returns he’s going to take up Uncle Hasan’s ruby-handled sword, and we’re going to move back with Uncle Hasan.”
    “Shut up!” said my mother. She suddenly became so angry that she grabbed Shevket by the arm and dragged him through the kitchen, passed the stairs to the room that faced the far shady side of the courtyard. I followed them. My mother opened the door. When she saw me, she said, “Inside, the both of you.”
    “But I haven’t done anything,” I said. I entered anyway. Mother closed the door behind us. Though it wasn’t pitch-black inside-a faint light fell through the space between the shutters facing the pomegranate tree in the courtyard-I was scared.
    “Open the door, Mother,” I said. “I’m cold.”
    “Quit whimpering, you

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