After that sad disappointment, the loathful and boring monotony of practical living and the difficulties of the beginner with the elements of art seemed two and three times worse to me. Under their weight, I began to waste away, to wilt sitting there, inside the Market of Constantinople, behind the iron gates of Kempetsi Inn, directing towards its led domes, miserable as I was, no longer the charming sounds of love songs but the cries and wailings of childish, heart-pounding nostalgia!
Most of all, I started to detest my boss, that small-statured, sickly old man, who, while accompanying the crunchy bites of his gluttonous scissors with the ridiculous movements of his jaw, never stopped watching me over his large, round glasses, lest I stretch a numb leg or lift my worn-out spine a little bit.
One day, out of either weakness or stubbornness, I insisted on violating the sacred rule of sewing decency so frequently, that I had the honor of meeting or the first time the “silent mistress,” which is to say, the stick lying by my boss’ side. That made my indignation erupt into irreverence. And I remember very well that during my deepest stubbornness, I began to cavil and to reproach God himself for taking the initiative to sew with his own hands that famous leather tunic for Eva’s nakedness, and in so doing giving rise and birth to the profession of tailors. If I were God, I would tell myself, I would have left Eva just the way I made her. What harm could the poor woman do me, naked as she was? It seems to me, in fact, that she would be even more beautiful. After all, while he kept woman in Paradise, that is to say in his own house, the “master-tailor-God” kept her naked; but when he decided to load her forever as a burden on the shoulders of unfortunate Adam and to take her out into the world, then he also endowed her with an adornment. Don’t you see what harm he has done? He founded with his own hands the most damned profession of tailors, thus condemning me to sit here cross-legged and stooped from early morning to late night. He also founded the evilest habit of fathers endowing their daughters not with inner virtues while they have them in their houses, but with outer fineries when they load them on the backs of their husbands.
These last pedantic observations, I’m sure, I wanted to express more simply back then, if only some familiar voice wouldn’t have called my name, suddenly interrupting the stream of my elegiac thoughts before they had completely taken their logical expression.
Despite all the repeated admonitions of my mother that art is a gold bracelet which I ought to obtain at all costs — that a stone that rolls isn’t fit for a foundation, and all such things — I insisted on sending word (back then I still didn’t know how to write) and begging her to call me back home or to send me to learn some other, more humane art. Although I didn’t have many chances of success, I still hoped to rid myself at least from that master tailor, in order to breathe the cleaner and more free air outside the market and the inns. Above all, I had the secret wish to enroll with the head tailor of the harem of the Sultan in Dolmabahçe palace who lives in the Asian bank of the Bosporus, across from the high palace. There, I would think to myself, the princesses will hear me when I sing and will either get into a boat to come or signal me from the window to go to them, swimming. You see, despite all my hardships, I still hadn't gotten the princess out of my head; because, as I have said, I completely trusted my grandfather’s stories. For me, he was the most well-traveled, the most experienced person. And if I didn’t manage to get a princess here, in Constantinople, my grandfather would finally lead me to the place where those princesses are that fall in love so easily with tailor boys. After all, it cannot be possible — my grandfather must have seen them, he must know them; and maybe, perhaps, even he himself fell in love with one of them, although he, poor guy, was neither a tailor nor a renowned singer.
So when I heard that voice calling my name, I jumped up with joy because it was the voice of Thymios, my grandfather’s servant.
The room in which we worked resembled a minaret top, which is to say it was a small upper room, like a swallow’s nest, built up high between two domed arches, into which lead the stone-built porticos around the central yard of the inns. From the portico, one could climb into this upper room through a narrow ladder, the top part of which leaned against the floor where we sat working. A moment after I heard my name, the head of Thymios emerged from behind the shabby railings of that ladder, climbing up this stair. My premonition was confirmed — Thymios’ serious eyes were looking for someone among my classmates. I didn’t wait for him to call me; I didn’t wait for his whole body to climb up the ladder to be convinced that my senses were not fooling me. I jumped up from my seat like a captive bird that unexpectedly finds the door of its cage open.
“Your grandfather is wrestling with the angel!” Thymios said while still climbing and without any introductory remarks. “Your grandfather is fighting for his last breath and is looking for you; come, let’s go quickly. Because if you don’t make it, he will die and his eyes will stay open.”
Leaning on the top step, Thymios gave an added weight to his words, signing towards me, as someone who has no time to waste.
I don’t know if it was the tone of his voice, the seriousness of his look, or the contents of his words that most contributed to my agitation. I only remember that, long after Thymios had gone quiet, I was still standing still and aghast at the spot where I found myself at the moment he spoke his first words, and I remember that under their influence successive shudders ran down my spine and shook me to the core.
(Will our tailor boy make it in time to see his grandfather one last time? And if he does, what will he tell him about his life and luck as a tailor boy in Constantinople? Read part four to find out.)
