The Blood of Flowers (45 page)

The boys shouted their approval and promised to sit quietly. Malekeh stroked their heads, and even Davood seemed well enough to stay awake through the tale. All of us turned to my mother in anticipation. She looked beautiful again, her cheeks shining from the warmth of the korsi, her eyes sparkling, her thick gray hair pulled away from her face. She began speaking in the honeyed voice that my father had always praised, which lulled me right back to the times we had sat together in our village and listened, held fast in the web of her tales.

First there wasn't and then there was. Before God, no one was.

Once there was a girl named Azadeh who, by nature, was firm and certain in her decisions. From the time she was a child, Azadeh always knew what she preferred: almonds over pistachios, the cooing of doves over the song of the nightingale, her quiet friend Laleh over her talkative friend Qomri. Even when the time came for her to marry, Azadeh did not behave like other girls, who trembled with fear under their veils. She had met her husband once, when he had come to admire her red hair and milky skin, and sip a sour cherry drink with her family. When she saw him and heard him speak with a catch in his throat about his favorite horse, she knew he was a man who understood tenderness. Looking toward her mother, she closed her eyes and held them shut for a moment to convey her assent.

Azadeh and her husband lived together in harmony for two years, at which time he yearned to make the pilgrimage to Mashhad. Admiring her husband's religious feeling, which had deepened during their years together, Azadeh encouraged him to travel, knowing they didn't have enough money to go together. "I will make the pilgrimage another time," she told him kindly, "when my heart is more ready."

Azadeh's husband left on his trip, murmuring thanks to the Lord of the Universe for blessing him with such a jewel of a wife. During his absence, he asked his brother to care for Azadeh like a sister, ensuring that she remain free from want and harm.

Her brother-in-law had always kept his distance, but that changed soon after her husband departed. Early in the morning, when she arose and came out of her room to take her morning meal, her brother-in-law would say, "Voy, Azadeh! Your face is as smooth and white as the moon that is only now slipping into the outer spheres of heaven!" And in the evenings: "Voy, Azadeh! Your hair shimmers like the last streaks of sun giving way to blackest night!" Azadeh would smile politely and suggest that the moon or sun or stars were signaling that the weather would be fine. Privately, she wished her brother-in-law would take a wife.

As the months passed, Azadeh yearned for her husband, and his brother yearned for Azadeh. Whenever he could, he brushed against her clothing or her hair, or stood too near when they spoke, so that she was always inching her body away. She spent long hours alone in her room, and when she emerged for food or other needs, he was always waiting. One day, when she tried to slip out of her room at dusk, she felt a tug at her tunic and saw him crouching near the door in the gloom. Before she could speak, he grabbed her legs, toppling her to the ground. Within moments his body was covering hers, and he was demanding her submission. "Otherwise," he said, his oniony breath hot against her cheek, "I will tell everyone that you pursued a soldier until he could no longer resist you, and the first story your husband hears will be of your adultery."

Azadeh screamed to summon her servant, forcing her brother-in-law to peel himself off her. Then she locked herself in her room in fright. That night, her brother-in-law came to her door, whispering through the lock that he'd give her seven days to yield, which became six and five and four, until all the days were spent.

On the eighth day, a group of men including her brother-in-law broke into her room. While Azadeh sat quietly with her sewing, he announced that she had been declared guilty of adultery. He had brought four witnesses before a judge, each of whom had sworn they had seen her commit the act itself, and she was to be punished that very day.

The men took Azadeh deep into the desert and dug a hole, burying her to the waist. As she stood immured in the sand, she watched them gather stones, which they placed in piles near her. The sun was hot on Azadeh's face and her arms were pinned tightly to her sides, so when the rocks began flying toward her, she couldn't defend herself. Blood streamed into her eyes, and before long she saw circles of light that looked like exploding stars. Her head lolled on her shoulder as if broken. When the men were satisfied that her body held no more breath, they departed, expecting that her bones would soon shine white in the sun.

Early the next morning, a Bedouin traveling through the desert thought that the strange creature he spotted must be a mirage. When he came closer, he noticed that its lips were still moving. The Bedouin unburied Azadeh, slung her body on his camel, and brought her home to his wife, who tended her until her wounds healed.

Although Azadeh's heart was heavy with sorrow, it was only a matter of months before her beauty bloomed again, her hair as red as if it had been fired by henna, her skin as white as milk, her lips like the pinkest corals. Smitten, the Bedouin asked her to be his second wife. When she gently reminded him that she already had a husband, he promised to care for her like a sister, and remained true to his word.

But to most men, Azadeh's beauty pricked like a needle. Such a man was the Bedouin's servant, whose heart stung whenever Azadeh came near. If she passed on her way to fetch water, he murmured passages of soul-stirring poetry, but she remained deaf to his pretty words. One night, when he could no longer bear being spurned, he threatened to commit a crime unless she relented. But Azadeh remained firm, refusing him out of respect for her husband. In desperation, his mind clouded by lust, the servant grabbed a stone from the garden and sought out the Bedouin's only child, a baby who slept in her own small bed. He smashed in the child's head, breaking her fragile skull, and hid the bloody rock under Azadeh's pillow.

When the child's death and the rock were discovered, the Bedouin summoned Azadeh, tears streaming from his eyes. "Voy, Azadeh!" he said. "I gave you back your life. Is this how you repay me, with blood and death?"

"Kindest of masters, I beg you to use your reason," she replied. "What motive would I have for killing the child of a man who saved my life? Look around you: Who else might have wanted to commit such an evil deed?"

The Bedouin knew that his servant had always yearned for Azadeh. He struggled to master his feelings, realizing Azadeh was right. She had never done anything to make him distrust her.

"I believe you are innocent," he said slowly. "But if you stay, every time my wife looks at you, she will be consumed by grief. No woman can bear to be reminded of so much sorrow. I am sorry to lose you, but you must go."

The Bedouin gave Azadeh a sack of silver, and she left with only the money and the clothing on her back. Not knowing what to do, she walked to the port and found a ship sailing for Baku, where one of her uncles had gone many years before to make his fortune. She gave the captain all her money, and he promised her safe passage and freedom from harm. But only a few days after they had set sail the captain felt stricken by the sight of Azadeh's flaming hair and her cheeks like blooming roses.

"But I am a married woman!" protested Azadeh, cloaking her hair and body and wishing she had been born as plain as her friend Laleh.

Azadeh fled from the captain's grasping hands and prayed to the Redeemer of Men. To her wonder, the skies began to darken and a fierce wind stirred the water. As the waves became as tall as buildings, even the hardiest seamen began to pray with her. Suddenly, there was a loud, violent crack and the ship split in two, spilling its contents into the sea. In the water, Azadeh felt a piece of the ship's hull strike her cheek. She rolled her body on top of it, her tunic billowing in the water behind her. For hours, she drifted alone, and though she had reason to believe she would die of hunger or thirst, she was surprised at how calm she felt, for the sky, the sea, and the birds were all unconcerned by her presence.

After a night and a day, Azadeh spotted a thin strip of land. She paddled herself to shore and threw herself onto the sand, aching with fatigue. Her cheek had swelled like a melon from being hit by the debris that had saved her. She could barely open her right eye.

Not far away, she noticed the body of one of the sailors, who appeared to have drowned. Azadeh crawled over to him, checking his breath to make sure he was dead. Then she discarded her own sopping clothing and donned his, which was stiff with salt. In his pocket she found a knife. She unsheathed it and examined its sharp blade, and an idea came to her about how to separate herself from her misery.

She had always known what she wanted; her decisions came easily. Now, as she approached this one, she hesitated under the burden of doubt. How could she do what her mind was imagining? She sat holding the knife until dawn, when the sounds of fishermen preparing to launch their boats roused her. And suddenly Azadeh, who was too weary to endure anything more, made her decision.

She lifted a hank of her hair and slid it against the sharp blade, cutting as close to the scalp as she could. Then she cut another hank, and another. Clumps of red hair drifted, lifted, and billowed around her, blowing into the sea like some strange creature returning to the deep. When she was finished, Azadeh's scalp felt the night air for the first time, and she shivered with pleasure as if she were being caressed. She placed the sailor's cap on her head, dragged her body away from his, and slept like the dead.

Late that morning, a group of fishermen discovered her as well as some of the bales of silver that had been part of the ship's cargo. Knowing that such a treasure was a matter for the shah, they took Azadeh to his palace to explain what had happened.

To Azadeh, whose body was salt-encrusted and broken, the shah looked as clean as if he had bathed in light. He was dressed in a red silk robe, and his face glowed under a rose-embroidered turban that sparkled with rubies.

"Your name?" demanded the shah.

"I am Amir, son of a sea captain," replied Azadeh in her throatiest voice.

"What a fair youth you must have been before this tragedy!" exclaimed the shah. "Your face has been cracked and bruised, yet God in his mercy has preserved your life."

Azadeh almost smiled, her body tingling with relief at the thought of her own ugliness. Mastering herself, she replied, "All my father's cargo has washed up on your shores, but my father, alas, is lost. I offer you all his goods in exchange for just one thing."

"I give you permission to make your request," replied the shah.

"From now on, I renounce voyaging and moneymaking," she said. "Only build me a stone tower near the sea where none shall visit, and there I shall worship the Leader of the Faithful for the rest of my days."

"It shall be granted," the shah replied, dismissing Amir without a second glance.

Amir walked toward the town square. A few of the townspeople expressed sympathy for his losses and offered poultices for his face. Later, an innkeeper provided him with a bed in a room with other men. They joked with him a little, trying to relieve his sorrow, their eyes sliding across his face with no more interest than if they had been gazing at a mule. As Amir pulled the blankets over his body, he knew he would sleep peacefully for the first time since being left to die in the desert. That night, he dreamed of his stone tower, where he would live free and forgotten, listening no longer to fevered words of love but only to the soothing sound of the sea.

Amir worshipped God in that tower, and his fame as a man of devotion spread across the land. Such was his reputation that when the shah became ill, he called on Amir to become his successor, for he knew of no one more pure. But rather than accept, Amir revealed that he was a woman. Awestruck by this display of humility, the shah called upon Azadeh to select a man among them who would be a fitting ruler.

By then, Azadeh had also become known as a healer. Every day, pilgrims came to the stone tower to beg for blessings and to ask for the gift of health. One of these was Azadeh's brother-in-law. When her husband had returned from his pilgrimage, he had found his brother's limbs paralyzed and offered to take him to the stone tower to seek a cure.

Another supplicant was the Bedouin's servant. He had mysteriously become blind, and the Bedouin promised to accompany him to visit the sage of the tower. The four men met on the road and decided to travel together.

Naturally, Azadeh recognized them as they approached, but in her disguise as a man, they did not know her. When the men asked for help in curing their ills, she demanded that they first confess their crimes. "Reveal all that is hidden within your heart," she told them, "for only then will you be cured. If you leave anything veiled, it is certain that you will remain stricken."

Her husband's brother, shamefaced, revealed how he had lusted after a woman, falsely accused her of infidelity, and brought her to her death. The servant admitted that he, too, had desired a woman and crushed a baby's skull when she would not relent. Once the truth had been uttered, Azadeh offered a prayer to God, who released the men from their afflictions. Now her husband's brother could walk again and the servant could see. Each one begged for forgiveness for his crimes, and Azadeh granted them pardon.

Then she revealed herself to her husband, and all the love that had been denied them for so long gushed forth like a river. Azadeh installed her husband as shah and made the Bedouin her vizier, and justice reigned forevermore in their land.