The Black Tulip

Table of Contents

• Georgia
• The First Tulips
• Growing Tulips
• The Strangers
• The Daring Choice
• Voyage to İstanbul
• City of the World’s Desire
• The Poet’s Gift
• Master Hyacinth
• Beyond the Gate of Felicity
• Leyla
• The Mistress of the Flowers
• Harem Life
• Winter
• The Royal Halvet
• The Most Beautiful Clothes
• The Hall of the Sultan
• The Secret Paintings
• The Dark Prison
• Princess Fatma
• Anticipation
• The Miracle
• Heart’s Desire
• Then and Now: Turkey

Georgia

Father, Aslan, is the best-known painter in Georgia, a land of many Christian people, and he is famous for his icons. Nearly every Orthodox church in the country holds one of his masterpieces, a saint crowned with a gold halo, an angel, or the Virgin Mary standing in a field. It is a strange calling for a Muslim man, but Aslan believes God is something personal and private, and it does not matter what religion a person follows. “Lailahi Illallah, there is no God but God,” he tells Laleena and Cengiz, explaining that what matters most is manifesting the gift you are given and sharing it with the world.

Father teaches his children to notice the shadow and light in everything around them, to draw silhouettes, and to see beneath the surface of things. Many evenings, the family gathers around the fireplace, where Laleena and Cengiz practice calligraphy for hours. They learn to paint and write in both the Mkhedruli and Arabic alphabets, Mkhedruli for the Georgian language and Arabic for Turkish. Father shows them how to blend colors, apply glaze, and shape a brushstroke with subtlety. Nothing brings Laleena more joy than painting alongside Father, except perhaps tending the garden with Mother, a double pleasure since the family not only grows the plants but paints them, too.

Then the war arrives. Georgia’s small kingdom is squeezed between two great powers, Russia and the Ottoman Empire. King Vakhtang appeals to Russia for military aid, but the help never comes, and some say the king later dies of grief. Father is no soldier. He is slight and dreamy by nature, but the Georgian army calls him anyway, to serve as a war painter who will record the battle scenes.

The whole family walks Father to the door and waves as he sets off with his paintbrushes and easel tucked under his arm. They watch him grow smaller and smaller against the hills until he is only a dot in the distance. Mother hurries back inside in tears, and Laleena stands rooted to the spot with Cengiz and the twins.

The image never leaves Laleena, Father shrinking down to the size of a toy. Afterward, she sometimes takes one of Cengiz’s tin soldiers and holds it in her palm, pretending it is Father, and talks to him as if he can hear her. He becomes her private icon, the one she trusts with every secret.

That is the last time the family sees Father. When the war finally ends, Georgia becomes part of the Ottoman Empire, and the Georgian people are free to return to their homes. Father does not come home. He is counted among the missing, and though no one says it aloud, the family fears the worst.

As the months pass, Mother grows desperate. Unable to feed her four children, she sells nearly everything the family owns, including Father’s most beautiful painting. She insists Father will return someday, but Laleena can sense that inside, Mother has finally given up hope. Slowly, without meaning to, Laleena finds herself giving up hope, too.