The Blood of Flowers (35 page)

She sat between Haroot and Maroot, who pressed close against each of her hips. Haroot felt an ecstatic surge in his loins. For a moment he imagined throwing Maroot in a well, just so he could be alone with the pilgrim.

"Speak," said the woman. "What can you teach me about God, the Compassionate, the Merciful?"

"His ninety-nine names are already well known," said Maroot. "The only man to know the hundredth name was the holy Prophet Mohammad--that is, until the two of us arrived on earth."

"You think you know the Great Name?" said the woman. "I don't believe you."

"First, a kiss," said Haroot and Maroot together.

"Oh no," said the woman. "I've heard promises like yours before. First, the name."

Haroot and Maroot leaned in close, putting their lips near each of her ears. After drawing in a breath, the two men whispered the Great Name. The woman's mind filled with the majestic sound, which reverberated between her ears. Had she been able to think of Haroot and Maroot, she would no longer have doubted them. But all of her thoughts had become echoes of the sound, and her body began to feel as cool and as light as air. All her desires were fulfilled in a single instant, and she became a planet in the third sphere beyond earth, from which she now glows eternally as pure light.

Haroot and Maroot were transported, too. They found themselves suspended by their ankles inside a deep well, their heads pointing toward the water. By day, the sun beat down, blistering their lips and burning the soles of their feet. Their throats dried and cracked as they stared into the cool water, which was just out of reach of their hands. By night, they shivered in the cold, their flesh puckering with goose bumps. If they spoke at all, it was to remember what it had been like to be angels and feel nothing.

Sometimes, when the stars were positioned in the skies just so, they could see her. She beamed the light of her beautiful, compassionate eyes onto the earth, and they loved her and longed for her through their misery.

Chapter
SIX

The next day, I was standing in the kitchen helping my mother clean herbs for her medicines when the knocker for men boomed twice. "Go see who it is," Cook said, so I covered myself in my chador and picheh, opened the door, and saw one of Fereydoon's menservants, who handed me a letter for Gostaham. Knowing that he couldn't recognize me in my wraps, I concealed the letter and told Cook it had been a merchant selling mountain roots for stew, which I knew we didn't need.

I went to the room that my mother and I shared and looked at the seal: It was Fereydoon's. My heart beat faster. I had shown Fereydoon my displeasure, and now perhaps he was writing to say he was done with me. I held the paper to an oil lamp in a vain effort to see the writing it concealed. I told myself to take the letter directly to Gostaham, but I couldn't force my feet to move. Even if the letter was not mine, the news it contained certainly was. I hesitated, and then I broke the seal.

It took me a long time to read the letter: My skills were still poor, and I couldn't understand many of the words. But I found my name mentioned a few times, and I understood that Fereydoon was offering a sigheh for another three months, in consideration of the fact that he was pleased with me.

Having committed an unforgivable deed by opening a letter addressed to Gostaham, I hid the letter in my sash. I needed to think about the offer this time without the advice of my family. Now that I was no longer a virgin, it was my turn to decide what I wanted. Homa had said that was my right.

KATAYOON AND MALEKEH arrived a little later than usual that morning. Katayoon looked as fresh as ever, but Malekeh had deep circles under her eyes.

"How is your husband?" I asked.

"Still ailing," she replied. "He was coughing all night."

"How about some coffee to lift your spirits?" I asked. She gratefully accepted the steaming vessel I put beside her.

When we sat down to work, I called out the colors while considering Fereydoon's offer. I felt my body saying yes to it. Not even one day had gone by and I was already craving Fereydoon's arms, despite the way he had cuffed me; and I had already thought of a dozen new ways to please him and myself. I had become like the opium eaters who fret until they get their daily dose of the sticky black drug, after which they relax against their cushions, their knees parted, a look of bliss in their eyes.

I told myself it was a fine idea to go on with things as they were. Now that Naheed knew everything, I didn't need to keep the sigheh a secret anymore. She would hate me and hate my children, but I would have Fereydoon's attention, and perhaps I could live a happy, separate life. Maybe I would conceive boys, and although I would have no rights of inheritance, they would take care of me in my old age.

If I accepted Fereydoon's offer, it would also be a sweet form of revenge. I would be like a thorn, reminding Naheed that Fereydoon had married her not for love, but for power. When her husband was absent at night, she would think about how much he was enjoying me, and suffer.

Such were my thoughts until the midday meal, when Gordiyeh came to talk to me. She was smartly dressed in a new yellow robe and green tunic, with the emerald Gostaham had given her long ago shining like a small sea above her breasts.

"I have just received an invitation to visit Naheed's mother," she said.

"May your visit be charmed," I replied, concealing a smile. Rather than tell her what had happened, I decided to leave that to Ludmila.

"Would you like to accompany me?" Gordiyeh was pleased with me lately and was showing it with small favors. "We'll probably discuss the carpet commission, which I know will interest you."

"You are kind to think of me," I replied, "but I must attend to Katayoon and Malekeh, who need me here so that they can do their work."

"All right, then," she said, smiling. I know she liked it when I stayed with my chores.

I continued singing out the colors for my knotters until it was time to stop for a moment so that Malekeh and Katayoon could compress the knots with a wooden comb. Malekeh pressed down so hard on her side that the comb broke, and then she looked as if she, too, might snap. I could always see how she felt by looking at her eyes, which spoke far more than she did.

"No matter," I said, although I could ill afford the loss. "I'll buy a new one."

Malekeh said nothing, but I knew she was grateful that I did not make her pay for the comb.

When she and Katayoon departed, I began knotting on my own. I wanted to be there when Gordiyeh returned so I could see her face. She came back an hour later looking white and scared, the kohl smudged around her eyes. She shook a letter in my face.

"What do you know about this?" she asked, her voice like a shriek.

"What is it?"

"Kobra told me to wait outside, and then Ludmila handed me this letter and slammed the door in my face."

I feigned surprise. "Why would she do that?"

Gordiyeh sat down beside me on a cushion. "They must have found out," she said, tapping the letter against my shoulder. "This cancels the order for the rug. Do you know what that means to us?"

Gostaham had spent a mountain of money on the design and on ordering a roomful of silk to be dyed to his specifications. The carpet would be impossible to sell elsewhere, for it was designed with motifs particular to Fereydoon and Naheed. I had not thought about its fate when Naheed and I were arguing.

"What a calamity!" I said, and meant it. I knew everyone in the household would pay if Gordiyeh felt worried about money. We had only just started eating jam again.

Gordiyeh poked me with her finger. "When was the last time you saw Naheed?"

"Just a few days ago, but she didn't mention anything about the carpet," I said. That much was true.

"Then how did her parents find out?"

"I don't know," I said, trying to look scared. "I wonder what Naheed will think . . . Will her parents tell her?"

"Of course they will," said Gordiyeh. Her voice became cajoling and almost gentle. "Surely you or your mother must have told someone."

"I have never opened a discussion about my marriage," I said, keeping my voice even. Gordiyeh looked as if she didn't believe me.

"I'm frightened," I added, hoping to engage her sympathy. "I hope Naheed doesn't ask me to visit her."

"I don't think you have to worry about that anymore."

Gordiyeh went to her rooms with a headache. I thought I would be gloating over how she had been disgraced, but my thoughts turned to Ludmila. She had always been kind to me, and now she despised us. I regretted that my desire for Fereydoon had made me agree to keep silent. What should I do now about his offer? That morning, I had wanted to accept it. Now I wasn't sure. My heart turned first one way, then the other.

AS SOON AS I had a free moment, I went to the bazaar to replace the comb that Malekeh had broken. I walked by the rug sellers and wool dyers to get to the part of the bazaar reserved for rug tools such as surface-shearing blades, fringe separators, and combs. The alleyways were dim and narrow in this section of the bazaar, and they were littered with trash.

As I looked in the shops, I heard someone playing a searing melody on his kamancheh. I hummed along, for it was strangely familiar. When I realized why, I retraced my steps and found Fereydoon's young musician sitting alone on a stone, playing his instrument. The ends of his turban looked ragged, and his face was streaked with dirt.

I approached him and said, "Salaam. It's me."

"Who is 'me'" he asked in a surly voice without looking up from his bowing.

I flipped up my picheh to show him my face.

"Oh," he said. "You're one of his."

"What do you mean by that?" I asked, surprised by his rudeness.

"Nothing," he replied, as if the subject bored him.

I concealed my face again. "What happened to you? I thought you were one of his favorites."

He bowed a note on the kamancheh like a cat yowling, and his lips formed a sarcastic smile. "He threw me out."

"Why?"

"I gave him too much cheek," he said. "He loves it until you say the wrong thing."

The sour notes he was playing hurt my ears. "Stop that," I said. "What will you do now?"

"I don't know," he replied. "I have nowhere to go." I saw fear in his pretty, long-lashed eyes, and his smooth chin trembled. He was still hardly more than a child.

I pulled out the coin I had intended to use to buy the comb and put it in his begging bowl. "May God be with you," I said.

He thanked me and bowed a sweet, melancholy melody as I walked away. It reminded me of the music he had played the first night I had spent with Fereydoon. How much had changed since then, both for me and for the young musician! How abruptly he had been abandoned to the street!

Having lost my heart for shopping, I turned my steps toward home. On my way out of the bazaar, I passed a small mosque that I knew well. I entered it and sat quietly in one of its carpeted side rooms, listening to a woman read aloud from the Qur'an. She had arrived at one of my favorite passages, about how there are two seas, one with water that is sweet and nourishing, while the other is salty, yet from both emerge big, beautiful fish. The words calmed my heart, and when I heard the call from the minaret, I arose and prayed, touching my head to the mohr. After I finished, I sat down again on the carpet, listening to the woman's smooth voice with my eyes closed. I thought of Fereydoon and Naheed and the knots of our friendships, which stayed knotted in my mind like tangled fringes. I still didn't know what to do about Fereydoon's offer, and my sigheh was due to expire soon.

Whenever I used to be tormented by a problem in my village, my father would always relieve me of it with an observation. What would he say to me now? In my mind I could see him clearly as he looked on our last walk together, his walking stick in his hand. He lifted it and pointed it like a sword. "Open your eyes!" he said, his voice booming through me.

I obeyed, and it was as if I were seeing the carpet under my feet for the first time. Its flowers began to flicker as if they were turning into stars, and its birds seemed to take flight. All the shapes I was so used to, like the yellow tiled walls of the mosque, the dome reaching heavenward, even the ground itself, now seemed as changeable as particles of sand in the desert. The walls began to wobble and buckle--an earthquake? I wondered--but no one else seemed to notice, and nothing was certain anymore, neither the ground nor the walls or ceiling. I, too, seemed to lose my physical form, and for a blissful moment a feeling of surrender came over me, dissolving me into perfect nothingness.

"Baba," I cried silently. "What should I do?"

He didn't reply, but his love rushed through my body. I felt joy in his nearness for the first time since his death. I remembered the day he had shown me the waterfall and the woman with the strong arms concealed behind it, despite his weariness. His love had never sprung from his own interests, nor did it depend on my pleasing him. To have known his love was to know what love should be. It was as clean and as pure as a river, and it was how I wanted to feel inside from now on. Khizr, a prophet of God, showed lost pilgrims the way to water in the desert; now my own father was showing me my way.