The Architect's Apprentice

by Elif Shafak

Memories of their previous lives had been locked inside caskets, the keys thrown away. Still, at times like these, when they stood face to face with death, the caskets opened of their own accord and released fragments of their childhood, like a dream they had once had but couldn’t piece together.

The children of Albanians, Greeks, Bulgarians, Serbs, Bosnians, Georgians and Armenians were taken into the levy of boys, but not the children of Turks, Kurds, Iranians and Gypsies.

‘Greed puts gratitude to sleep.’

It was after this incident that Jahan understood his master’s secret resided not in his toughness, for he was not tough, nor in his indestructibility, for he was not indestructible, but in his ability to adapt to change and calamity, and to rebuild himself, again and again, out of the ruins.

‘It means you fight battles that aren’t needed,’ said Olev. ‘You are stronger. Beware, though. If you carry a sword, you obey the sword, not the other way round. Nobody can hold a weapon and keep their hands clear of blood at the same time.’

Greek painters were brought from the island of Chios to help with the decoration. There was a Mohammedan artist, too, a dreamy man by the name of Nakkash Ahmed Chelebi. Such was his regard for the mosque that he would come at different times of the day just to see, to admire. While out in the open sea, islands were captured, fleets were sunk, Muslims killed Christians and Christians killed Muslims, in Sinan’s cocoon-like universe they worked side by side.

One way or another, everyone was parading. They performed their tricks, each of them, some staying longer, others shorter, but in the end they all left through the back door, similarly unfulfilled, similarly in need of applause.

Yes, the world was beautiful – a beauty that irritated him. What difference did it make whether they were hurt or happy, right or wrong, when the sun rose and the moon waned just the same, with or without them?

It seemed to Jahan that he and only he had reached a standstill while the world had moved on. Everything was familiar in a strange way. Next to the vastness of the universe his heartbeat was inaudible. He was an observer. No more. The leaves rustled, the slugs inched forward, a moth’s wings beat in the breeze. Jahan savoured every detail, sensing he would never have this moment again.

Perhaps, Jahan would conclude, with closeness came blindness and with a certain distance, awareness.

What they raised in years, stone upon stone, could be destroyed in one afternoon. That which was treasured today was treated with contempt tomorrow. Everything remained subject to the whims of fate, and by now he had no doubt that fate was whimsical.

That was where he had been all this time – somewhere on the edge of her existence.

There was a tree in Paradise unlike any on earth. Its branches were translucent, its roots absorbed milk instead of water, and its trunk glittered as if ice-bound, though when one got close to it, it was not cold, not cold at all. Every leaf of this tree was marked with the name of a human being.

In that moment Jahan understood that life was the sum of the choices one did not make; the paths yearned for but not taken.

Centre of the universe was neither in the East nor in the West. It was where one surrendered to love. Sometimes it was where one buried a loved one.

In his eyes Jahan saw the sparkle he’d had when he was the boy’s age – a reckless curiosity for the world and a hidden wish to leave one’s place of birth in the belief that real life was elsewhere.

He charged into fields of black – a black so complete and absolute as to suck up all other shades – one after another.

He wondered if this was what death would be like. If so, it didn’t feel frightening, only profound.

‘There are two kinds of men, this I have learned. Those who covet happiness. Those who seek justice. You long for a happy life, whereas I long for adalet. We shan’t agree.’

The voice of the younger woman who still resided inside her.

Even so, she never asked for help. They could hate, fear or shun her, if they wished, but she would never allow anyone to pity her.

flower and that. You run after it with a net. If you capture it, you are happy. But it won’t live long. Truth is a delicate thing.’

They laughed like the boys they were deep inside.

Up and down the streets they proceeded in a gaudy convoy, ignoring the stares of the townspeople, who gaped at them, half in amazement, half in disdain, as if they had descended from a different Adam and a different Eve.

Some cities you go to because you want to; some cities you go to because they want you to.

He could not help but think if human beings could only live more like animals, without a thought to the past or the future, and without rounds of lies and deceit, this world would be a more peaceful place, and perhaps a happier one.

We live, toil and die under the same invisible dome. Rich and poor, Mohammedan and baptized, free and slave, man and woman, Sultan and mahout, master and apprentice . . . I have come to believe that if there is one shape that reaches out to all of us, it is the dome. That is where all the distinctions disappear and every single sound, whether of joy or sorrow, merges into one huge silence of all-encompassing love. When I think of this world in such a way, I feel dazed and disoriented, and cannot tell any longer where the future begins and the past ends; where the West falls and the East rises.

It was Gülru Necipoğlu’s The Age of Sinan: Architectural Culture in the Ottoman Empire,

And there really was an elephant named Suleiman in Vienna, whose story has been beautifully narrated by José Saramago in The Elephant’s Journey.