A Canopy of Rose Leaves (11 page)

CHAPTER NINE

It
was still only April, but Deborah had never been so hot in her life. Whenever she could without attracting unnecessary attention to herself, she stopped walking and pretended to watch the antics of the animals all round her instead. The goats, as agile as all their kind, frolicked about her, not really mixing with the sheep but always travelling in the same direction. At first she had resented the fact that it was the men who lounged at their ease on horseback and the women who walked, but as the hours went by she no longer cared about anything but the state of her own feet. By noon the rather unsuitable shoes she had with her had blistered her heels, by four in the afternoon she began to doubt her ability to take another step, by five, when the Khan finally called a halt, she hoped for nothing more than an early death.

The other women laughed at her. They found her dress ridiculous and shoes even more so, but they admired the courage with which she laughed back at them, and they were scrupulous in always addressing her as
knome,
which as an address has the added convenience of applying to married and unmarried ladies alike. As they had no language in common, she couldn’t join in their long gossipy conversations which might have made the walk more bearable, but they tried to include her when they could, drawing pictures for her in the air, and grinning from ear to ear whenever they caught her eye.

The Khan himself came up to her as the other men occupied themselves making their arrangements for the animals for the night.

‘You found it a long way?’ he asked her.

‘More like slow torture,’ she answered him. ‘I’ve never walked so far in my life before!’

He frowned. ‘The Qashgai walk that far and more every day.’

‘The Qashgai are welcome!’ she retorted.

His reluctant smile warmed her frozen emotions a little. ‘I wanted to leave you with my mother, but Reza was determined that you should travel with us. Tomorrow you had better ride one of the donkeys—if you are still with us.’

Deborah looked at him full in the face. ‘You don’t understand our ways in the West any more than I understand yours. If he doesn’t come, it will only be because he won’t believe that I can’t look after myself. Women have more freedom and make their own decisions in England.’

The Khan laughed. ‘I think he will come. Or are women also unloved in the West?’

‘Unloved?’ she repeated. ‘Of course not! But we meet men on equal terms, not as their slaves!’

His grin grew broader. He was very like his brother, but he had more humour and was, she thought, by far the better man. ‘If you meet Professor Derwent on equal terms you must be a woman in a million. There are many men who are afraid of him.’

‘He’s very clever,’ she agreed.

‘And you are clever also?’ he inquired.

She shook her head. ‘If I were, I’d never had got myself involved with Ian Derwent, the Professor’s brother.’

The Khan looked interested. ‘Did you have any choice?’

‘Of course I had a choice! I told you, girls in England make their own decisions—they don’t have
to have
some man to make them for them! I thought I was in love with him—at the time!’

‘So it was your decision that you should marry this Ian?’ the Khan pressed her.

She nodded. ‘I thought I was in love with him,’ she explained. ‘But he married someone else.’

‘Leaving you to his brother? But, I think, it is not your decision as to whether you marry the Professor. He is not a man to allow a woman to decide such things for him.’

‘No,’ she admitted. ‘But he wouldn’t force me—’

There was a look of amusement in the Khan’s dark eyes. ‘You must be three years older than my sister, and maybe six years more than my wife, but beside them you are still a child, Miss Day. Only children pretend to themselves that they are more important than they are. When I tell my wife to do something, she does it. If your Professor told you, you would do it too. That is how life is.’

‘I know that! I’m not as childish as you think!’

‘No? You seem to me to be very like Reza, expecting the whole world to stop and bow as you go by. If this is the Western way, I prefer the ways of the East. My brother is a fine doctor and he went to school for many years. I can barely read and write and I learned my English when I worked in one of the oil companies for two years. Yet among my people we are only judged for the men we are, not for the advantages we have received.’

‘Then it isn’t because he is clever that you think so highly of Roger?’ she questioned him.

He smiled. ‘Nor because you are beautiful do we think more highly of you.’

‘Why should you?’ she said uncertainly. She was well aware that as a woman she hadn’t measured up to any of the exacting standards of the Qashgai tribesmen.

‘Your beauty is for your husband, but it is your courage that will make you worthy of him.’ He turned to leave her. ‘We must both hope your professor comes quickly, for you are not for Reza.’

She jumped to her feet, forgetting for the moment her blisters. ‘Then you’ll let me go? Even if Roger doesn’t come?’

‘That is Reza’s decision, not mine,’ he answered, and he was gone before she could argue with him further.

For a long time Deborah stood where he had left her, fighting a losing battle with the tears that threatened to break through the control she had imposed on herself all day. The worst part was that she knew she had no right to expect Roger to extract her from the very situation he had warned her she might find herself in. Only she hadn’t paid any attention to what he had been saying. She hadn’t thought about it at all, let alone take it seriously. If he didn’t come, it would be no more than she deserved.

Such was her misery that she didn’t feel the small hand on her arm until the girl pulled at her sleeve with greater violence.

‘Knome,’
the child said, and pointed towards one of the black tents.

Deborah followed her inside, bending almost double to do so. The inside smelt strongly of unwashed wool and she would have liked to have headed straight outside again, but the group of women inside were waiting for her and she didn’t want them to know that she felt sick after the long day in the sun, her aching muscles and now the suffocating smell inside the tent. She smiled wearily at them, her face white and drawn, and they clucked over her with concern, making her sit down on one of the hastily spread carpets on the ground and pouring her a cup of tea from a solid silver samovar that stood in the corner of the tent.

The atmosphere seemed less oppressive after she had drunk her tea. One of the older women was smoking and the tobacco had a strange, sweet smell that Deborah found soothing. When she was offered a cigarette herself, she was tempted to accept, but as she had never smoked, she refused from habit. It was only when she had done so that she wondered if it was indeed tobacco the woman was smoking. It could easily have been hashish.

She sat in the corner of the tent, determined not to be shocked by her discovery. She was sure she was right. She remembered having been told that the word assassin came from the same source, and that the first assassins had been a politically-orientated group in Persia who had followed the fabled Old Man of the Mountains, carrying out his orders with fanatical exactitude until even one of the Prime Ministers of Persia had fallen by their hand. They had had a castle in the Valley of the Assassins to which they had taken young men, promising them all the delights of heaven on earth if they joined the sect. And the sect still survived today, respectable and respected all over the world, led by the Aga Khan and very different from their forefathers. Nowadays, they probably didn’t smoke hashish at all, and yet Deborah was almost sure that this woman was. Perhaps many people did even nowadays in modern Iran. It had never occurred to her before to ask anyone about such things. It wouldn’t have occurred to her now if she hadn’t seen a policeman in a play on television sniffing at cigarette butts and loudly crying, ‘Here’s one, sir! It smells sweet!’

The woman gave her more tea and she leaned forward to admire the samovar more closely, enjoying the rich glow of the silver and the delicate tracery on the tap in the front that released the hot liquid through a handsome spout. The owner was pleased by her pleasure and began to show her some of her other possessions, some of them, some of the bowls for instance, as beautiful in their own way as the silver samovar, some of them no more than the coarse pottery that was coloured in bright greens and sold in every bazaar around for a few coins. Even the cooking pots were brought out for her to examine, each piece made individually by a craftsman and polished until the patina inside shone almost as brightly as the polished silver of the samovar.

As soon as she could, without hurting their feelings, Deborah withdrew from the group and went outside. It was dark now and there was a wind blowing. The tents, no more than dark shadows against a dark background, flapped in the dusty breeze and the sheep bleated as one of their number was pushed back into the circle by one of the boys who was shepherding them.

Deborah moved a little way away from the camp. One of the Qashgai women, her skirts brilliantly coloured in the firelight, crossed from one tent to another, carrying an enormous dish in front of her. The Khan’s evening meal, Deborah guessed, was about to be served. After that they would probably all eat, and she had to admit that she was extremely hungry. She had been too miserable to eat all day, even if food had been offered to her, but it was a long time since her last meal and she was too sensible to think that she would help herself in her present plight by starving herself.

It was only then that she noticed that there was a vehicle drawn up beside the Khan’s tent. It was large and high off the ground, and she was tempted to go across and examine it. It was probably Reza’s jeep. She sat down in the dust and gave way to the despair within her. Just for a moment she had thought it might have been somebody else’s—it might have been Roger’s! The tears came hard at first, tearing at her throat and making her lungs ache with their intensity.

She cried until she could cry no more, and by then the damage had been done. Her head ached and her eyes were swollen and sore. If she could have washed her face, she might have removed some of the prickly discomforts from her skin, but she had no idea where to find any water. She didn’t even know where she was supposed to be sleeping that night!

When she finally brought herself to go back inside the tent, the women looked at her curiously, but they made no comment at her rather bedraggled appearance. A young woman she had not seen before, a small child at her heels and another one, younger still, on her hip, brought her a plate of boiled eggs, flat, still warm Iranian bread, and yoghourt. Deborah ate everything that was offered to her, finishing her meal with yet more tea because she was afraid to drink the water they offered her in case it upset her stomach. Tea was safer, because at least the water had been boiled.

When she had finished eating the young woman came back for her, gesturing for her to go with her. She was younger than Deborah had first thought and she moved with a swinging walk that carried her easily across the rough ground. Deborah, stumbling along in her wake, felt remarkably unattractive and ungraceful. She ran her fingers through her hair in a defensive gesture and wondered what she was going to do about her blistered feet.

The young woman pointed to one of the tents. ‘Khan,’ she said, and pointed towards herself with a complacent giggle. It was immediately clear that she was the Khan’s wife and that she couldn’t imagine a better life for herself. Deborah glared at the girl’s back, remembering that the Khan had said his wife was less of a child than she was. Was it only because she was absolutely sure of her value in her husband’s eyes, whereas Deborah couldn’t be sure that Roger even liked her? Had the Khan guessed that after Ian’s defection she was less than sure of her powers to attract any man, let alone a man like Roger Derwent?

They reached another tent and the young wife paused outside it, pulling her
chador
across the lower part of her face. She put out her hand to Deborah, her palm towards her, silently bidding her to stay where she was, and then she disappeared inside, leaving Deborah alone in the darkness outside.

By the time the girl came out again, Deborah was decidedly nervous. She shivered in the light wind, feeling suddenly cold and, when the Khan’s wife gestured for her to enter, she lowered her head and almost ran through the doorway, only to find that the tent was completely empty except for a number of luxurious rugs that were spread over the floor. To one side was a large cotton pad, that could have been meant to be a mattress, and a pile of patterned blankets. Beside it was an
aftabe
of water and a bowl for washing in. But of other people there were none and the silence was almost tangible after the sheer volume of sound in the tent she had come from.

The Khan’s wife made her a little bow and said something to her which she didn’t understand.

‘
Tashakor,
thank you,’ she replied, and wondered at the other girl’s knowing smile.

‘
Khoda hafez,’
the girl whispered, giggling.
‘Bebak-shhid.’

Deborah wished she could say something in return, but she could only smile and shrug her shoulders, and in the next instant the girl had gone. Deborah ran after her, wincing from the pain in her feet.

‘Reza?’ she asked her, a hint of panic in her voice. ‘Because if this is his tent, I’m not staying there!’

The girl’s giggle was as carefree as the sound of a bell. ‘Reza,
kheyr
,’ she shook her head, and then more definitely still:
‘
Nakheyr
.’

Feeling more than a little foolish, Deborah could at least understand no when it was said in such definite tones.

‘Thank God for that,’ she said, and managed a tired smile. ‘
Tashakor
.’

The girl gave her a cheeky grin. ‘
Merci
,’
she laughed. She pointed back towards the tent. ‘Reza
kheyrl Aga anglisi bale
!’ She giggled again and gestured more urgently towards the tent.