Fatima Sultan

It is another phantasmagoric Istanbul sunset. It colours the sky in all
shades of orange and red, while the waters of the Bosphorus reflect elongated
shadows in wavelets of purple. The sun shoots a final salvo of flames and
then sinks into the wet horizon like spent silver. The villages along the
shore seem ghostly in the twilight. Fatma Sultana, overawed by the fiery
spectacle and its aftermath, feels as if she too has melted into the sky.
Fatma, a Caucasian by birth, is best remembered for her love of roses. A lot
like a rose herself, with her blushed cheeks and full red lips, she was
nicknamed Gülistû (rose-garden). She is wearing a lilac-coloured velvet
caftan decorated with roses embroidered in golden yarn. It is of the finest
quality as befits her station in life. The sunset colours have given way to
night with only the sparkles of the Sultana’s diamond-encrusted hair-ornament
to illuminate the darkness in the room. She approaches the window and admires
the new moon, a diamond-like thin crescent that winks at her from above. Her
heart is heavy. She longs for her beloved husband Abdülmecid Khan. She smiles
bitterly, thinking: “Love is magic. It’s not something you can control. No
one falls in love willingly.” Fatma’s devotion to her husband is endless. She
feels enchanted by the alchemy of this love but she cannot understand it.
Fatma Gülistû Sultana, whose son Vahidettin became the last of a long line of
Ottoman Sultans, passed away with love still in her heart in the month of
May, 1861, when she was only thirty-one years old and Istanbul was awash in
roses.