The Architect's Apprentice

by Elif Shafak

It’s odd how faces, solid and visible as they are, evaporate, while words, made of breath, stay.

Nikola, the most talented and the most timid; Davud, eager and earnest but impatient; Yusuf, mute and full of secrets, like a dense, impenetrable forest; and that Indian, Jahan, who was always asking questions,

single dimple in his left cheek, a cook’s fingerprint on soft dough.

‘Singing is allowed if done in silence.’

‘Sometimes, for the soul to thrive, the heart needs to be broken, son.’

‘In order to gain mastery, you need to dismantle as much as you put together.’

Fear turned into resentment; resentment into rage. And rage was a ball of flame you could not hold in your hands for too long; it had to be thrown at someone.

‘That’s easy. First, tell me, honestly, are you a learner?’ Jahan gave a surprised look. ‘I attend the Palace School and –’ ‘I didn’t say are you a student. I asked, are you a learner? Not every pupil is a learner.’

‘Masters are great but books are better. He who has a library has a thousand teachers.

‘Why don’t you want us to look at each other’s drawings?’ Jahan once asked. ‘Because you’ll compare. If you think you are better than the others, you’ll be poisoned by hubris. If you think another’s better, poisoned by envy. Either way, it is poison.’

‘Stones stay still. A learner, never.’

In response Sinan said that knowledge, ilm, was a carriage pulled by many horses. If one of the steeds began to gallop faster, the other horses, too, would speed up and the traveller in the carriage, the alim, would benefit from it. Improvement in one field backed improvements in other fields. Architecture had to be friends with astronomy; astronomy with arithmetic; arithmetic with philosophy; and so on.

Jahan understood that between people with a similar standing the hardest thing to accept was when one moved up and the other did not.

‘Truth is a butterfly: it lands on this 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.’