The Blood of Flowers (15 page)

Before the first light of morning, I had removed the rug and started to restring the loom with cotton thread. Gordiyeh was the first person to see what I had done. She was bringing a large jar of sour cherry jam from the storerooms to the kitchen when she saw the empty loom and the ruined rug. She screamed, dropping the jar, which cracked and spilled its sticky contents around her feet, forming a deep red pool that looked like blood. Within seconds, the servants were all rushing into the courtyard. I stood rooted near the loom, quaking.

"Crazy!" Gordiyeh shouted. "You are crazy like that madman of the desert, Majnoon! What were you thinking?"

There was a big commotion as everyone tried to understand what had happened. Ali-Asghar bent down to ask Taghee, the errand boy, for information. Shamsi rushed to Gordiyeh's side to ask if she needed a whiff of rose water to revive herself. Cook put her hands on either side of her head as if she were at a funeral. Gostaham hurried into the courtyard and stared at the carpet, which sagged on the ground as if broken. He looked from me to the carpet and back again, disbelief in his eyes.

My mother arrived in a panic, patting her scarf into place on her head. "What has happened?" she asked in a pleading voice.

No one even looked at her. "You village idiot!" Gordiyeh yelled at me.

Only then did she turn to my mother, appealing for an explanation, but my mother stood dumbfounded when she realized what I had done.

"Do you have any idea how much wool you've wasted--how much wool and how much work? Are you trying to destroy this household?" asked Gordiyeh, hitting her chest over and over with the palm of her hand.

"We take them in, and they try to ruin us! Why? Why has God put this burden on us? Tell me why!" Gordiyeh demanded of her husband.

Her words chilled my bones.

Gostaham turned to me with anger in his eyes. "Explain yourself," he commanded.

He was the one person I had hoped to please. I could hardly force words out of my throat.

"The colors were bad," I said haltingly. I put my hands to my flushed face, trying to hide myself.

Gostaham didn't contradict me. "Your eyes were dazzled after last night, which is what happens to novices. But now you have destroyed months of work! Why didn't you ask me first?"

"I humbly beg your pardon," I whispered, for I still could not find my voice. "I did it because I thought I could make a better one."

"Of course you could make a better one," he said. "But why didn't you stop to think that you might sell the first one and make the second one superior?"

"What a fool!" exclaimed Gordiyeh.

I cringed at that word. They were right; I should have thought of that, but I had been too excited that morning, possessed by the thought that I could do better. Now I could hardly believe what I had done. I stood abjectly by the loom, suffering even more under the pitiless gaze of the servants, who stared at me with scorn and disbelief.

My mother threw herself on her knees and reached forward to kiss Gordiyeh's feet, her black sash trailing in the jam.

"Get up!" said Gordiyeh, with annoyance in her voice.

My mother arose, her arms outstretched in a plea. "Please pardon my wayward daughter," she said. "I'll pay you for the wool. I'll brew extra medicines and sell them to neighbors. My daughter just wanted to make something pleasing. She has always been that way--sometimes she loses her reason."

I hadn't known that before she said it, but it was true. I stood there, shamed by my own inability to see the difference between a good idea and a calamitous one.

"Loses her reason? What reason?" asked Gordiyeh, hitting her own chest again.

Gostaham grimaced and pressed his hands together, as if he were trying to hold himself back. "Such a reckless action cannot go unpunished," he said angrily. "From this moon until the next, you will not leave the house. You will do whatever my wife says. You will not even draw a breath without her permission."

I knew better than to speak unless asked a question. I kept my eyes averted, my face burning with shame.

"First she goes to the polo games," said Gordiyeh, "and now this. Why do we even give such people shelter?" she continued, as though talking to herself. My mother shivered, her worst fears hanging in the air. Gordiyeh tried to walk away but couldn't move. She looked down in horror. Clumps of jam had pasted her feet to the ground. She kicked off her shoes and continued barefoot to her rooms, muttering, "Imbecile!" as she left.

Gostaham followed, trying to console her. The servants began cleaning the jam and broken crockery, whispering together about the waste. "That was a lot of work," said Cook, who had made the jam herself.

"When will breakfast be sweet again?" asked Ali-Asghar sadly, for we all knew that Gordiyeh wouldn't buy any for our bread.

I followed my mother, head bowed, until we reached our room. "A potato is smarter," I heard Cook saying.

"It's her bad star," added Shamsi.

In our room, my mother didn't look at me or berate me, even though I knew she thought I had lost my reason. She put her chador over her head and began praying, touching her head to the mohr-- clay tablet--she had placed on the ground. After praying, she sat on her heels and called for help. "Please, God, protect us. Please, God, don't let us become beggars in the street. I call on you, Ya, Imam Hossein, Ya, Hazrat-e-Ali, you who know what it means to be martyred, please save my daughter, who has made a child's mistake."

I wished I had considered my mother's concerns about our future before I had removed the rug from the loom. When, at last, she finished her appeals, I crawled over to where she sat, staring straight ahead.

"Bibi," I said, touching her arm. "I beg your forgiveness with my whole heart. If I had known how angry everyone would be, I never would have made such a bad decision."

My mother's arm was stiff, and she didn't look at me. She moved away from my grasp. "How many times have your father and I told you not to be rash?" she asked. "How many times?"

I sighed. "I know," I said.

My mother looked up to the ceiling as if appealing to God for a better daughter. "You don't understand how lucky you have been," she replied. "But this time, I am certain that your luck has ended."

"Bibi, I was only trying to make it better," I whined.

"May your throat close!"

I turned my face to the wall and sat there, my eyes dry, my agony all inside. I would have given the life that pulses through my heart to relieve my mother's suffering. She went right back to praying out loud, as if the stream of her words could wash away my error.

THE MONTH THAT I spent fulfilling my punishment seemed as vast as the desert. I began my day by collecting and emptying the pots full of night soil, which made me green with nausea. Then, after Gordiyeh consulted with Cook and Ali-Asghar about the tasks at hand, she assigned me the ones no one else wanted to do. I washed the greasy kitchen floor, chopped slimy kidneys, stomped filthy laundry in a basin and wrung it until my arms ached. Even in the afternoons, when everyone was sleeping, Gordiyeh loaded me with tasks. My hands became as rough as goats' horns, and I fell on my bed every evening weak with exhaustion. I bitterly regretted what I had done, but I also felt that my punishment was more severe than I deserved, and that Gordiyeh was enjoying her power over me.

One morning, when my month of labor was nearly finished, a servant summoned me and my mother into the birooni at Gostaham's command. My legs were trembling as we walked through the courtyard, for I was certain they were going to tell us that we were no longer welcome in their home. In the Great Room, I was surprised to find Gostaham seated in the place of honor, near the top of the carpet, with Gordiyeh on his right. He beckoned to my mother to join him on a cushion at his left. I sat alone facing them on the other side of the carpet.

"How are you, Khanoom?" Gordiyeh asked my mother, using the polite term for married women. "Is your health good?" Her sudden courtesy was unexpected.

"Why, yes," said my mother, mimicking the same tone of politeness. "I am very well, thank you."

"And you, my little one," continued Gordiyeh. "How are you?"

My skin prickled with surprise at the endearment, and I answered that I was in good health. I looked at Gostaham to try to understand the meaning of the meeting. Though normally able to sit cross-legged for hours without moving, his back straight as a loom, now he kept shifting his weight and rearranging his legs.

When the coffee arrived, Gordiyeh made a great show of passing it to us and offering us dates to accompany it. An awkward silence fell over the room as we sipped our coffee.

"Khanoom," Gostaham finally said, addressing my mother, "it is my duty to tell you about a letter I received this morning from Fereydoon, the horse merchant who commissioned a carpet from us some months ago."

My mother looked surprised, for she had only heard the name once before, when I told her about my contributions to the dangling gems design. What had I done wrong now? I wondered. Was there something in my design that had upset him?

"It is obvious that Fereydoon is pleased with the carpet, judging by what he said after seeing it on the loom," said Gostaham. "But the letter he wrote made very little mention of it, in fact, almost none at all."

My hand shook so much that I had to put down my cup for fear of spilling coffee on the silk rug, leaving behind a large brown stain that could never be removed.

"There is really only one other thing a wealthy man like that might desire," continued Gostaham, "and that is your daughter." He was speaking in a straightforward, businesslike tone similar to the one he used to negotiate the price of a rug.

My mother pressed her palms to her cheeks. "There is no God but God," she said, as she always did when she was surprised.

Gostaham put both hands on his turban and readjusted it as if he could no longer bear its weight. I knew him well enough to be able to read the fidgety marks of his distress. But why? What could be more flattering than the offer of a wealthy man?

Gordiyeh jumped in, unable to hide her excitement. "He wishes to make your daughter his wife," she said breathlessly.

Gostaham gave Gordiyeh a warning look, which my mother didn't see. She leapt to her feet, her coffee cup teetering and almost spilling. "At last!" she cried, opening her arms to the sky. "A match sent from the heavens for my only child! After all that we have endured, our fickle fortunes have finally changed! Praise be to Mohammad! Praise be to Ali!"

Gordiyeh looked amused by her outburst, but her reply was kind. "My mother's heart knows how yours must feel," she said. "Few are the women blessed with such good fortune, as welcome as rain."

"Daughter of mine, spring of my heart," cried my mother, opening her arms toward me. "Since the moment of your birth, you have brought wonders to our humble family. You're the light of my eyes."

My heart began to swell with hope. As the wife of a rich man, I would become one of those fat, pampered ladies the women of my village had teased me about. In the year of the comet, could such good fortune be possible?

Once my mother had calmed herself, she had questions. "How does Fereydoon know he desires my daughter?" she said. "Outside the house, she's always covered from head to toe!"

I kept my silence; the last thing I wanted the family to know was that I had uncovered myself in the presence of a stranger.

"I understand that Homa was singing your praises at the hammam," Gordiyeh said to me. "One of Fereydoon's woman servants happened to be there, and she told him of your charms."

I breathed with relief. He had waited to make the offer until he had found a proper excuse. Then I blushed, wondering whether the woman servant had described how I looked without my clothes.

My mother must have assumed that my silence grew out of modesty. "When shall we hold the ceremony?" she asked Gordiyeh. "As soon as we can, I think."

"I agree," said Gordiyeh, "although I don't believe he will require a grand wedding. Your daughter and Fereydoon would only need to meet with a mullah to make everything legal."

I had no experience of wealthy weddings, but in my village, weddings were celebrated for three days, if not more. What Gordiyeh described sounded more like signing a contract.

"I don't understand," said my mother, looking puzzled.

"The proposal I have here," said Gostaham, showing us the elegantly written letter, "is not for a lifetime marriage contract. It's for a sigheh of three months."

I had heard the word sigheh but didn't know all that it meant, except that it was short.

"A sigheh?" said my mother, looking puzzled. "I know that pilgrims to Qom may contract a sigheh for an hour or a night-- but these are arrangements for pleasure. You want my daughter to marry for that?"

Gordiyeh must have read the dismay on our faces. "It's true that it won't last forever," she said, "but nothing on this earth is permanent by God's own design. The important point is that it will bring you financial benefits you could never claim elsewhere."

My mother's instincts as a tradeswoman had stayed sharp. She straightened her back, and a fierce expression entered her eyes. She looked just like she had on the day she squeezed high prices out of the harem women.