The Blood of Flowers (42 page)

"Anything."

"After I am gone, you must go to Gordiyeh and Gostaham and beg for their mercy."

I turned my body to face her.

"My child," she continued, "you must take the news to them with my dying wish: that they find you a husband."

The ground beneath me seemed to quiver, just as it had when my father had died.

"But--"

She tapped my hand with her finger, demanding silence. It was like the touch of a feather.

"And you must promise me that you will bow to their will."

"Bibi, you must live," I pleaded in a whisper. "I have no one else but you."

The pain in her eyes was visible. "Daughter of mine, I would never leave you, unless called by God."

"No!" I cried out. Davood awoke and asked what was wrong, but I could not speak. He had a coughing fit as wet and foul as the weather outside before falling asleep again.

"You haven't promised," said my mother, and again I felt her birdlike touch on my hand. I thought of how strong her hands used to be from years of knotting rugs, wringing out laundry, and kneading dough.

I bowed my head. "I swear by the Holy Qur'an," I said.

"Then I may rest content," she replied, closing her eyes.

The boys burst into the room, complaining that they were hungry. I had to leave my mother's side to attend to my work. As I thought back to her words, my hands began quivering, and I almost cut myself as I chopped the onions. I threw in the lamb bones, salt, and dill, and stoked the fire with dried dung to make the soup boil. The boys sniffed the air hungrily, their faces pinched and weary.

When the soup was ready, I served my mother, the children, Davood and Malekeh, and myself. It was little more than hot water, but after fasting, it seemed like a princely meal. As the boys drank their soup, their cheeks became as red as apples. I looked at my mother lying on the bedroll. Her soup was steaming beside her, untouched.

"Bibi, I beg you to eat," I said.

She put her hand over her nose as if the smell of the lamb bones sickened her. "I cannot," she replied weakly.

Salman burped and held out his vessel for more soup. I served him again, praying there would be leftover broth for my mother. But then Davood said, "May your hands never ache!" and emptied the pot into his bowl.

Shahvali said, "I want more, too!"

I was about to tell him that none remained, but then Malekeh's eyes met mine. "I'm sorry your mother can't eat her soup, but we should not waste her portion," she said gently.

I fetched the soup sitting beside my mother and handed it to her son without replying. When I returned to my mother's side, I tried not to listen to Shahvali's slurps, for my nerves were as frayed as the threads in an old carpet. I held my mother's limp hand and began praying in a soft voice.

"Blessed Fatemeh, esteemed daughter of the Prophet, grant my mother perpetual health," I begged.

"Fatemeh, wisest of women, hear my prayer. Save a blameless mother, the brightest star in her child's life."

MY MOTHER WAS hungry the next morning, but I had nothing for her. I was angry at Malekeh for giving away my mother's soup and avoided her eyes. After she had departed, and my mother and Davood had fallen asleep again, I put on my picheh and chador and walked quickly to the Ja'far Mausoleum. I was glad I lived far away from the Great Bazaar, for I did not want anyone to know I had become a beggar. On the way, I thought of new stories to tell passersby so that the rivers of their generosity might flow.

The beggar man was already there with his bowl. "May peace be upon you, graybeard!" I said.

"Who's there?" he asked gruffly.

"The woman from yesterday," I replied.

He thrust his cane in my direction. "What are you doing here again?"

I drew back, frightened of being struck. "My mother is still very ill," I said.

"And I'm still very blind."

"May God restore your sight," I said, trying to answer his rudeness with kindness.

"Until he does, I need to eat," he replied. "You may not come here every day, for we'll both starve."

"Then what am I to do? I don't want to starve, either."

"Go to one of the other mausoleums," he said. "If your mother is still ill next week, I will permit you to return here."

My cheeks began to burn. How dare a bedraggled beggar refuse me the few small coins I could earn! I walked away from him, taking up my place near the entrance to the octagonal shrine. Setting down my cloth, I began asking passersby for help.

Before long, a tall, older woman who must have been one of the beggar man's regular benefactors arrived and inquired about his health.

"Not too bad, by the grace of Ali!" he replied. "At least I'm better off than her," he added, gesturing in my direction. I thought he was being kind again and trying to send coins my way.

"What do you mean?" asked the woman, eager for gossip.

In a loud whisper, he replied, "She uses the generosity of esteemed people like you to buy opium."

"What!" I said. "I've never touched opium in my life! I'm here because my mother is ill."

My protests only made me sound guilty. "Then you should spend your money on her instead of yourself," the woman replied.

"God knows what is right," said the beggar man sagely.

The two began conversing loudly about the perils of addiction. People who were walking by stopped and stared at me as if I were an evil jinn. I could see it was useless to stay, for they trusted the beggar man's word. No one would give coins to an opium eater.

"Good-bye, graybeard," I said, with resignation. I hated to be cordial to him, but I might have to return. "I'll see you next week."

"May God be with you," he replied, in a kinder tone. Now I understood how he had survived at his corner for so many years.

I visited two other mausoleums, but each had their regular beggars, who hissed at me when I tried to claim a corner. Too tired to insist, I turned my steps toward home. The sky was heavy with clouds, and there was a thin layer of snow on the ground. By the time I reached the old square, the cold had driven away all the vendors and shoppers. The few beggars who remained outside were shuffling to the old Friday mosque to take shelter. In the wan light, the dome of the mosque looked hard and frozen. I felt frozen, too. By the time I arrived at Malekeh's, my fingers and toes were stiff with cold.

My mother was asleep on her dirty bedroll. The bones of her face looked frighteningly visible through her skin. Her eyes fluttered open and searched my person for parcels. Seeing I had nothing, she closed them again.

I pressed my cold hands against my mother's face, and she sighed with relief. She was burning from the inside. Afraid that the fire in her body would vanquish her, I went out, collected some snow, wrapped it in the arm of one of my tunics, and laid it on her forehead. When she moaned for something to drink, I gave her sips of a strong liquor mixed with the juice of willows, a tonic for fevers that Malekeh had bartered for in the bazaar. My mother drank it under protest, then vomited it up right away along with green bile. I cleaned up the lumpy, smelly mess, wondering why the liquor seemed to be making her worse.

There was no food for the family that night. Malekeh came home and drank some weak tea before going to bed. The boys were enervated from hunger and whined about their aching bellies before curling up on either side of her. The sight of them together filled me with longing for the times I had gone to sleep with my mother's arm around me and her reassuring stories in my ear.

As the moon rose, my mother's fever rose with it. I gathered more snow to cool her and laid it gently on her forearm. This time, she inhaled sharply and drew back from the snow as if it burned. When I tried again, she crossed her arms over her chest in a weak attempt to protect herself. I was anguished about hurting her, but I continued to apply the tunic of snow to her body, for this was the only treatment that cooled her. Before long, she stopped moving her limbs and began to keen softly. Had she cried out and screamed, I would have rejoiced, for I would have known there was vigor in her. But this sound was as weak and pathetic as the cries of an abandoned kitten. It was all that her poor, tired body could force out.

As I tended to my mother, I listened to the household's nightmarish chatter. Salman cried out in his sleep about a terrible jinn chasing him under a bridge. Davood wheezed as if his lungs were half filled with water. A woman who lived in one of the rooms off of the courtyard wailed and called on God for protection as she endeavored to give birth.

I don't know how much time passed before my mother began trying to speak. Her lips were moving, but I couldn't make out the words. I tried to smooth her hair away from her face. She stopped my hand and mumbled, "First there wasn't."

"Sleep, Bibi-joon," I urged, not wanting her to waste her energy telling a story.

She released my hand and rolled restlessly on her bedroll. "Wasn't," she mumbled again. Her bottom lip cracked and began to bleed. I felt around in the dark until I found a vessel of lamb's fat and herbs, which I applied to her mouth to halt the bleeding.

Her lips worked fruitlessly as if she were still trying to finish the invocation. To help her, I whispered gently, "And then there was."

My mother's mouth curved into something like a smile. I hoped she would be calm now. I held her hand and stroked it, as she had stroked mine so many times before. Her lips began working again. I had to bend my face close to hers to hear what she was saying.

"Was!" she said insistently. "Was!" Her eyes were glazed and looked joyful in the strange, unhealthy way that an opium addict's do.

Sweat streaked her brow. I brought her some water and tried to lift her head so she could drink it. Excitedly, she averted her face and kept trying to speak. The words sounded as jumbled as vegetables in a stew. I thought of how she used to tell stories in a honeyed voice that entrapped listeners in her spell.

"Bibi-joon, you must drink something--you are as hot as a coal!" I said.

She sighed and closed her eyes. I soaked a cloth with water and offered it to her. "Will you suck on this, just for me?" I pleaded.

She opened her mouth and allowed me to insert a small corner of the cloth. She made a sucking motion to please me, but after a moment or two, began to try to talk again. The cloth fell out of her mouth. She grabbed her belly and mumbled a few incoherent words.

"What is it, Bibi-joon?" I asked.

She massaged her stomach. "Pushed and pushed," she whispered, her words like susurrations. She took my hand again and pressed it faintly.

"And then there was . . . ," she mouthed, and I could make out the words only because I knew them so well.

"Please, please keep yourself still," I said gently.

Her arms and legs tightened, and her forehead knotted. Her mouth opened, and finally she breathed, ". . . you!"

She reached up and touched my cheek, her eyes tender. Of all the tales she had ever created, I was the one written in the ink of her soul. I held her fingers against my face, wanting desperately to infuse her body with the strength of mine.

"Bibi-joon," I cried, "please take the life that pulses through my heart!"

Her fingers became flaccid and slid away from my face. She lay motionless on her bedroll, her energy spent.

I would have given my very eyes to go back to the moment that Gordiyeh and Gostaham had told me I must renew the sigheh. I would have begged Gostaham to remove me from that tangled knot in a suitable fashion, and if he had refused, I would have acceded to his demands to stay with Fereydoon until he tired of me. Anything at all to prevent my mother's suffering.

My mother was speaking again. Her words came out one at a time, at great cost to her. "May God . . . keep you . . . from need!" she whispered slowly. Then her body seemed to go limp.

"Bibi, stay with me!" I cried out. I squeezed her hand, but there was no response. I shook her arm slightly, then her shoulder, but she didn't stir.

I rushed to Malekeh, who was still curled up with one child on either side of her. "Wake up, wake up!" I whispered urgently. "Come and look at my mother."

Malekeh wiped her eyes, sighing, and arose sleepily. She crouched beside my mother's bedroll, and when she looked closely at her sallow, sunken face, she drew a frightened breath. She placed her fingertips near my mother's nostrils and held them there. I stopped breathing, for if my mother was not drawing breath, neither could I.

The first call to prayer from the Friday mosque pierced the air. People were beginning to stir. Outside, a donkey brayed and a child wailed loudly. Salman awoke and called to Malekeh, pleading for bread. She positioned her body in front of my mother's, as if to shield Salman from the sight of her.

"She is barely tethered to earth," Malekeh finally said. "I will pray for her--and for you."

SHORTLY AFTER DAWN, I covered myself in my chador and picheh and ran most of the way to the meat sellers' section of the Great Bazaar. The sheep had already been slaughtered and skinned. A moneyed crowd buzzed around carcasses hanging on hooks and displayed on countertops. The marbled meat made my mouth water, and I thought of how much strength a fresh lamb stew would give my mother. Perhaps someone would offer charity. I put my sash on the ground and began to beg.