The Blood of Flowers (11 page)

Things were not as easy in Isfahan for my mother. She remained in the kitchen at Gordiyeh's mercy and had to do the jobs I left behind. Gordiyeh always corrected her work as if scornful of our village ways. I believe she felt my mother's resistance to her and tried to break it whenever she could. She must rinse the rice six times, no more or less, to remove the starch; must cut the radishes lengthwise instead of into roses; must make chickpea cookies with extra pistachio chips on the outside; yet for the heavenly sharbat, must use less fruit and more rose water. My mother, who had been mistress of her own household since she was my age, was being ordered around like a child.

One day, during the afternoon rest, my mother burst into our little room so angry that I could feel the heat burning off her skin.

"Ay, Khoda," she said, calling on God for mercy, "I can't bear it anymore!"

"What is it? What happened?"

"She didn't like the pastries I made," replied my mother. "She wanted squares, not ovals! I had to throw all the dough to the dogs and make it again."

That kind of waste would have been unimaginable in my village, but Gordiyeh demanded perfection.

"I'm sorry," I said, feeling guilty. I had spent the day with Gostaham, and my work had been pleasant and light.

"It's not just the pastry," my mother said. "I'm tired of being a servant. If only your father were alive, we could be in our own home again, doing things our own way!"

I tried to console her, for I loved what I was learning. "At least now we eat well and have no fear of starving."

"Unless she throws us out."

"Why would she do that?"

My mother snorted in exasperation. "You have no idea how much Gordiyeh would like to be rid of us," she said.

She was exaggerating, I thought. "But look at how much we do for the household!"

She kicked off her shoes and collapsed on her bedroll. Her feet were bright red from standing so long while making the pastry. "Oh, how they ache!" she moaned. I arose and put a cushion underneath them.

"In Gordiyeh's mind, we are draining this household, yet we're not hired help that she can dismiss whenever she likes. She told me today that dozens of Isfahani women would give one of their eyes to work in her kitchen. Women who are young and who can work long and hard without complaint. Not women who want to spend valuable kitchen time learning about rugs."

"What can we do?" I asked.

"We can only pray for a husband for you so that you can start a household of your own," she said. "A good man who will consider it his duty to care for your mother."

I had thought the discussions about my marriage had ended now that we had nothing to offer.

"Without a dowry, how am I to find such a husband?"

My mother stretched her feet to release the pain. "What an unkind comet, to have taken him away before you were settled!" she complained. "I have decided to make herbal remedies and sell them to neighbors to help build a dowry for you. We must not wait much longer," she added, in a tone of warning.

It was true that I was getting old. Everyone I knew had been married by the age of sixteen, and most were married well before.

"I will start another carpet for my dowry," I promised.

"Marrying you is the only way we can hope to live on our own again," said my mother. She turned away and fell asleep almost immediately. I wished there were a way to make her life sweeter. I turned toward Mecca and prayed for a speedy end to the evil influences of the comet.

ONE EVENING, when I didn't have anything to do, I picked up a large piece of paper Gostaham had thrown away and took it to the room I shared with my mother. Hunching under an oil lamp, I began drawing a design for a carpet that I hoped would grace a wealthy man's guest room and make his other rugs blush. My design was filled with all the motifs I had been learning--I managed to fit in every one of them. I sketched leaping steeds, peacocks with multicolored tails, gazelles feeding on grasses, elongated cypress trees, painted vases, pools of water, swimming ducks, and silver fish, all connected by vines, leaves, and flowers. While I was working, I thought about an unforgettable carpet I had seen in the bazaar. It showed a magnificent tree, but rather than sprouting leaves, its branches ended in the heads of gazelles, lions, onagers, and bears. The merchant called it a "vaq-vaq tree," and it illustrated a poem in which the animals discussed humans and their mysterious ways. I thought that such a tree could gossip all night about the mysteries of our new household.

I waited until Gostaham seemed in a cheerful mood before asking if I could show him the design. He seemed surprised by the request, but beckoned me to follow him into his workroom. We sat on cushions, and he unrolled the paper onto the floor in front of us. It was so quiet in the room that I could hear the last call to prayer from the Friday mosque. The evening caller, who sat high in the minaret, had a clear, sweet voice that always filled me with happiness and hope. I thought his call might be a good omen.

Gostaham glanced at the design for only a moment. "What's the meaning of all this?" he asked, looking at me.

"W-well," I stammered, "I wanted to make something very fine, something that. . ."

An unpleasant silence fell on the room. Gostaham pushed aside the paper, which curled up and rolled away. "Listen, joonam," he said, "you probably think that carpets are just things--things to buy, sell, and sit down on. But once you become initiated as a rug maker, you learn that their purpose is much greater, for those who care to see."

"I know that," I said, although I didn't grasp what he meant.

"You think you know," said Gostaham. "So tell me--what do all these patterns have in common?"

I tried to think of something, but I couldn't. I had drawn them because they were pretty decorations. "Nothing," I finally admitted.

"Correct," said Gostaham, sighing as if he had never had to work quite this hard before. He tugged at one side of his turban as if trying to pull out a thought.

"When I was about your age," he said, "I learned a story in Shiraz that affected me deeply. It was about Tamerlane, the Mongolian conqueror who limped his way toward Isfahan more than two hundred years ago and ordered our people to surrender or be destroyed. Even so, our city revolted against his iron hand. It was a small rebellion with no military might behind it, but in revenge Tamerlane had his soldiers run their swords through fifty thousand citizens. Only one group was spared: the rug makers, whose value was too great for them to be destroyed. Even after that calamity, do you think the rug makers knotted death, destruction, and chaos into their rugs?"

"No," I said softly.

"Never, not once!" replied Gostaham, his voice rising. "If anything, the designers created images of even more perfect beauty. This is how we, the rug makers, protest all that is evil. Our response to cruelty, suffering, and sorrow is to remind the world of the face of beauty, which can best restore a man's tranquillity, cleanse his heart of evil, and lead him to the path of truth. All rug makers know that beauty is a tonic like no other. But without unity, there can be no beauty. Without integrity, there can be no beauty. Now do you understand?"

I looked at my design again, and it was as if I were seeing it through Gostaham's eyes. It was a design that tried to cover its ignorance through bold patterns, one that would sell only to an unwashed farangi who didn't know better. "Will you help me make it right?" I asked in a meek voice.

"I will," said Gostaham, reaching for his pen. His corrections were so severe that there was almost nothing left of my design. Using a fresh sheet of paper, he chose to draw just one of the motifs that I had selected: a teardrop-shaped boteh called a mother and daughter because it had its own progeny within it. He drew it neatly and cleanly, intending for there to be three across the carpet and seven down. That was all; and yet it was far more beautiful than the design I had made.

It was a sobering lesson. I felt as if I had more to learn than I had time on earth. I leaned back in the cushions, feeling tired.

Gostaham leaned back, too. "I've never known someone as eager to learn as you," he said.

I thought perhaps he had--himself. Yet I felt ashamed; it was not a womanly quality to be so eager, I knew. "Everything changed after my father . . ."

"Indeed, it was the worst luck for you and Maheen," Gostaham said gravely. "Perhaps it's not such a bad thing for you to distract yourself by learning."

I had more than distraction on my mind. "I was hoping that with your permission, I might make the carpet you just designed for use as my dowry . . . in case I ever need one."

"It's not a bad idea," said Gostaham. "But how will you afford the wool?"

"I would have to borrow the money," I replied.

Gostaham considered for a moment. "Though it would be simple compared with the carpets we make at the royal workshop, it would certainly be worth many times more than the cost of the wool."

"I would work very hard," I said. "I promise I won't disappoint you."

Gostaham was looking at me in a fixed fashion, and for a moment he didn't say anything. All of a sudden, he jumped off his cushion as if he had been startled by a jinn.

"What is it?" I asked, alarmed.

Gostaham uttered a big sigh and settled back into the cushions. "For a moment," he said, "I had the strangest feeling that I was sitting next to my younger self."

I smiled, remembering his story. "The young man who gave his finest possession to a shah?"

"The very one."

"I would have done the same thing."

"I know," said Gostaham. "And therefore, as a tribute to all the good fortune that has come to my door, I will give you my permission to make the rug. When you finish it, you can keep what you earn after paying me back for the wool. But remember: You are still responsible to Gordiyeh for your household duties."

I bent and kissed Gostaham's feet before going to tell my mother the good news.

NAHEED DIDN'T HAVE to trouble herself with making her own dowry, but she had other problems. When she knocked at Gostaham's door and invited me to visit her, I knew what she wanted to do. Sometimes we went to her house and I continued my writing lessons under her supervision. Other times, instead of going where we said we would, we took a shortcut to the Image of the World and went to the perch near the bazaar where Naheed had first shown Iskandar a glimpse of her face. I watched in fascination the people milling around during the game--sunburned soldiers with long swords, dervishes with ragged hair and begging bowls, strolling minstrels, Indians with trained monkeys, Christians who lived across the Julfa Bridge, traveling merchants come to trade their wares, veiled women with their husbands. We tried to lose ourselves in the crowd, as if we were attached to the families around us. When the game started, Naheed sought out her beloved and followed his form the way other spectators followed the ball, her body straining toward his.

Iskandar was handsome like Yusuf, who in tales was so renowned for his beauty that he made women lose their reason. I remembered a line that my mother always used: "Blinded by his beauty, the Egyptian ladies merrily sliced their own fingers, their shiny red blood dripping onto the purple plums." They would have done the same for Iskandar, I thought. I was especially drawn to the beauty of his mouth. His white, even teeth sparkled like stars when he smiled. I wondered how it would feel to be a girl like Naheed, who could set her heart on such a man and conquer him. I had no such hopes of my own.

One afternoon, we arrived at the square just before the game started. I noticed that people kept looking toward the Shah's palace with an air of excitement. Suddenly, the royal trumpets blasted and the Shah emerged onto his balcony high above the square. He wore a long dark blue velvet robe embroidered with small golden flowers, a green tunic, and a sash that married layers of green, blue, and gold. His turban was white, with an emerald aigrette; his mustache was long and gray; and even at a distance I could see that most of his teeth were missing.

"Vohhh!" I said in surprise and awe at my first glimpse of royalty. Naheed laughed at me, for she was a child of the city.

The Shah sat upon a low throne placed in the middle of a blue-and-gold carpet. Once he was comfortable, the men in his retinue knelt around him in a semicircle and sat back on their heels. The Shah made a sign with his hand and the game began.

When I had had my fill of staring at him through my picheh, I left Naheed to examine the carpets for sale in the bazaar. I didn't enjoy polo that much, with all the dust and dirt kicked up by the horses, and the people weaving back and forth for a better view and yelling out for their favorites. I checked on the carpet that I had made and discovered that it was no longer hanging in the shop. The merchant told me it had sold the day before to a foreigner. When I returned to Naheed's side to tell her the news, her response was short and full of reproach. She wore her picheh and chador so she couldn't be recognized, but still, she oughtn't to be there at all, and to be seen alone was even worse. She needed me.

Naheed turned back to the game. She was hoping for a sign from Iskandar, even though the square was thronged with spectators. How could he distinguish her tiny, white-shrouded form among hundreds of other women? She was standing in the same corner where she had shown him her face. That afternoon, we watched him score three goals in a row and drive the spectators into a frenzy of delight. After the game, he was called back to ride to each of the four corners and salute the crowd. When he arrived at ours, he reached into his belt and drew out a leather polo ball, which he threw in the air. It rose high before dropping straight into Naheed's outstretched hand. It was as if a pari--a fire-born fairy--had brought it right to her.