A Canopy of Rose Leaves (10 page)

Deborah was too angry and, though she wouldn’t admit it, too frightened to know much about what she ate. She remembered thinking the dish was pretty, with the whiteness of the long-grained, delicious Persian rice, and the red barberries that glinted like jewels on the top, and the orange-yellow of the saffron that had been allowed to stain only the top of the rice. Bedded beneath the rice lay enormous portions of chicken, and there were pats of butter to moisten the dish. Najmeh piled up Deborah’s plate before serving herself.

‘Eat, child. Fretting never solved anything!’

‘But there must be something we can do!’

‘If there is, I’ll think of it. Eat,
kouchuk,
and grow strong! You have a long way before you and you are not used to walking!’

Deborah tried to humour her by taking a mouthful or two. ‘I’ve never slept in a tent either,’ she said, ‘certainly not anything like the black ones we saw on our way here.’

‘The other women will teach you cook over an open fire, but dear me, you have so many things to learn!’

‘I don’t intend to learn any of them!’ Deborah said flatly. ‘I will not!’

Najmeh looked sympathetic. ‘But you have no choice. Reza is a good man, but he has never had the wisdom of his brother. Mohamed would never have become involved with someone like yourself.’

Deborah prodded her food with her fork. ‘It’s ridiculous! Reza is an educated man! He can’t believe in these barbaric customs! It may be all right if you’ve never known anything better—’

‘Most of the Qashgai children go to school now,’ Najmeh interrupted her, eager to defend her people. ‘We have had schools since Mohamed Bahmanbegui started our tent schools in 1953. The children have between five and seven hours’ schooling every day. We even have a teacher-training centre at Shiraz with more than two thousand graduates. We are not as backward as you think!’

‘Only the women!’

Najmeh shook her head. ‘The girls go to school too. The Qashgai marry young, it is true, the men often when they are sixteen or seventeen, the girls as soon as they are old enough to bear children, but they do so not from ignorance but because they are ready for marriage. We think there must be something wrong with a girl or boy if he or she has not married before they are twenty!’

‘Then there must be something very wrong with me!’ Deborah said bluntly.

‘Reza spent those years in America. It’s time now he married, and it would seem he thinks so too!’

But Deborah couldn’t bring herself to respond to Najmeh’s gentle mockery. ‘What am I to do?’ she said, close to desperation, and then again, ‘Najmeh, what am I to do?’

The older woman shrugged her shoulders. “It’s no good upsetting yourself,’ she said. ‘What can you do? If you had not wanted this to happen you should have stayed in Shiraz—or you should have told the Khan that Professor Derwent is in the position of your family here. Why did you deny it?’

Why indeed? Deborah could wonder at herself. Was it because she had secretly wished it to be true?

‘When can I see the Khan again?’ she asked. Najmeh looked thoughtful. ‘I will speak for you,’ she said. ‘It is not in your heart to bring happiness to my son and it is best that you should go away. I shall explain this to Mohamed. It may be that he will listen to me.’

‘Thank you,’ said Deborah with relief. ‘Will you also tell him that I lied to him? I didn’t mean to precisely, but I was afraid to tell him the truth. You see, when Ian Derwent married someone else, our families decided I should come to Persia so that his brother could—well, there’s nothing decided yet. The Professor hasn’t
said
anything, but he wouldn’t, would he? I’d be the last to know!’

She watched closely to see what effect, this artless speech was having on her hostess and was satisfied that she had hit home when she saw her crestfallen face.

‘But the shop is half yours?’ Najmeh confirmed. ‘You said yourself that this was so!’

‘It is, but my family don’t like my going on working with Ian.’ That was true at any rate. Her family had been full of the difficulties ahead of her and had nearly driven her mad with their doubts. She lowered her eyes modestly. ‘Professor Derwent disapproves as well,’ she added.

‘I should think so!’ Najmeh exclaimed. She sighed heavily. ‘Much of Reza’s work is at the university. This could affect him very badly if he has made the Professor angry. The Professor is much liked and much respected in Shiraz.’

‘I should have told the Khan, but I was afraid,’ Deborah murmured. ‘It never occurred to me that Reza felt anything but friendship for me—as I do for him.’

Najmeh made a sound of utter disbelief. ‘What friendship can there be between a man and a woman?’ she demanded. ‘You must be a fool if you believe that!’ She got up and began to pace restlessly up and down the room. ‘The sooner I speak with Mohamed the better,’ she said at last. ‘I’m afraid that he, too, will be very angry!’

There was little doubt as to whom he would be angry with, but Deborah thought that that was a small price for her to pay. She was a little surprised that she could play the part of the submissive woman with such meekness. She had never suspected that she possessed any histrionic abilities at all, and yet the part was becoming more and more real to her by the moment. She could even feel a shiver of real fear when she thought about Roger’s reaction when he found out how she had made use of his name.

The afternoon stretched before her in unutterable boredom. There was, she soon discovered, absolutely nothing for her to do. Najmeh refused to allow her to mix amongst the women of the Qashgai, determined to keep her out of sight as much as possible. From the window of her room she could watch the comings and goings of the tribespeople as they made their preparations for their departure next day. The men sat in groups discussing the route they would take, while the women did everything else, even pitching the black tents for the night, as well as the cooking, the cleaning and guarding the children as they ran wild in the yard, busy with their own games and arguments.

In the evening Najmeh invited her to keep her company in her rooms, but when Deborah asked her if she had spoken to the Khan, she became vague and changed the subject, finally saying that it would be better if they didn’t speak of the matter again that evening.

‘There is time,’ she said softly. ‘There is time, and Reza has a persuasive tongue. You must trust in God, child. Perhaps He will rescue you from your foolishness.’

There was a certain amount of sense in what she said. If Deborah herself acted as though she were paying Mrs. Mahdevi a perfectly normal visit, perhaps Reza would understand that she meant what she said and had no intention of becoming his wife, or concubine, or whatever else it was he had in mind. For that was something else for her to worry about. She knew that Persian Muslims, unlike their Sunni brethren, could marry for a set period of time and that then, willy-nilly, the marriage came to an end. She had been told that in most marriage contracts the bride stipulated that the marriage was to be permanent one for that very reason.

Najmeh was hospitable in her own way. She served endless cups of tea and did her best to entertain her reluctant guest by showing her the double cloth she was weaving, a tribal skill of which she was justly proud. She explained how it was produced on a double warp with two contrasting colours.

‘It’s different from what we call the
zilu,
though it is also similar. The difference is that here we are employing two independent wefts so that there are in effect two fabrics, one behind the other, but they combine together on all those points where one warp changes from the front to the back and the other comes forward, and the other way round.’

Deborah followed the explanation closely. ‘I thought most warp-faced and weft-faced patterns have floating threads,’ she said. ‘You don’t seem to have any?’ Najmeh shook her head. ‘No, none. You see how the pattern comes out in reverse colours on either side? It looks almost as though it has been embroidered. It is pretty, no?’

‘It’s just the sort of thing I should like to sell in London,’ Deborah admitted.

Najmeh looked at her slyly out of the corners of her eyes. ‘Why don’t you learn how to weave it for yourself?’ she suggested.

‘I shan’t be here long enough!’

‘It is in the hands of God. Do you want to see how our carpets are made? My daughter is making one now and will be pleased to show you.’

Deborah accepted the invitation with some impatience. She was beginning to think the Khan was avoiding her. Worse still, where was Reza? If she could see him for a few minutes she would soon tell him the mistake he had made and she couldn’t really believe, even now, that a man who was a medical doctor and who had lived for so long in America wouldn’t let her go in the last resort.

‘Are you sure the Khan won’t see me now?’ she pleaded with Najmeh.

‘There is a tribal dispute,’ the older woman said helplessly.

‘Then where is Reza?’

‘Reza is with his brother. But there is time yet for you to see them both. You mustn’t worry any more now.’

But that was easier said than done. Najmeh’s daughter was extraordinarily like her mother to look at. They greeted each other affectionately and then turned to Deborah.

‘This is my daughter Mina,’ Najmeh began the introduction, but then, was at a loss as to how to describe Deborah. ‘Miss Day,’ she ended. ‘Miss Deborah Day. Reza brought her!’

Mina’s eyes widened. ‘Does she come with us?’ she lisped awkwardly in English. She was not nearly as fluent as the other members of her family.

‘Yes, unless—Mohamed has decided it. Reza is not to see her until the truth of the matter has been decided. It’s all very complicated.’

Deborah looked at Najmeh accusingly. ‘You’ve spoken with the Khan!’ she exclaimed. ‘You’ve spoken with him and you didn’t tell me!’

‘I didn’t wish to upset you further,’ Najmeh said uncomfortably. ‘My son, the Khan, says if you are speaking the truth about Professor Derwent he will come and find you once he knows you are gone. If he doesn’t come, then Reza is speaking the truth and he may have you.’

Deborah went white. ‘But it’s intolerable! Don’t my feelings count with him at all?’

It was Mina who answered her. ‘Reza says you have a fine dowry. He had many expenses becoming a doctor and he likes to live a very social life in Shiraz. He is not like the rest of our people.’

Showing the carpets became a duty on both sides after that. Mina carefully explained that all the tribal rugs were made of wool because it was so easily gathered from their flocks, but they all knew that Deborah was scarcely listening. She had room in her thoughts only for Roger, and the more she thought about him, the less she thought he would bestir himself to rescue her. He would conclude that she had gone of her own free will and she would never see him again! It was a desolate conclusion to take to bed with her, but there was none other that she could come to with any conviction. She might have fallen in love with Roger, but he wasn’t in love with her, and there was no reason to suppose that he even knew she had left Shiraz.

The house was buzzing with activity very early the next morning. Deborah dressed herself and wandered through the rooms looking for the Khan, determined to speak to him herself. She found him too. He was standing in the courtyard of his mother’s part of the house, watching Najmeh arrange a flower, a small white Koran and a bowl of water in which one leaf floated on a tray.

‘Come, Miss Day,’ he greeted her. ‘You are in time to witness our small ceremony of farewell, though as you are not a believer, perhaps it will mean little to you.’

Deborah clenched her fists and faced him. ‘Please let me go back to Shiraz,’ she begged him.

His eyes narrowed. ‘I have sent a message to the brother of your friend telling him that you are here. I can do no more. The rest is between you and Reza.’

Howard!
He had sent a message to Howard? And Howard would do nothing. She knew that as surely as she was standing there. He would think it a fine joke—and he would do absolutely nothing! Her eyes were blurred with tears as she watched the Khan advance towards the tray his mother had arranged, giving her a running commentary as he did so.

‘I touch the flower to lay hold on its beauty. I kiss the Koran because all beauty comes from God, Allah is the beginning and the end of all beauty.’ His mother splashed him with a little of the water and held up the Koran so that he could walk under it, praying passionately in short, bursting sentences.

‘God keep you, my son.

God be with you wherever you go.

God return you to me.

My prayers will bear you company.

May God go with you.’

But if anyone was in need of her prayers it was Deborah at that moment. If God would bring Roger to her, it was surely a very small thing to ask.

‘
Aga,
please let me go!’ she whispered.

The Khan turned and looked at her. ‘Do you doubt that the Professor will come?’ he asked her, an edge to his voice. ‘If you were mine, I would find you beautiful enough to go many miles to bring you back to my side. If he thinks so little of you that he lets you go, you are better off with Reza.’ His expression softened a little. ‘Go and get ready, Miss Deborah. We have many miles to go.’