Zari had never felt so tired in all her life as she had over the past few days. “Ameh Khanom, the lunch is in your honour,” she said. “In any case, Ezzat-ud-Dowleh is your friend.” She nearly added, “She is your sister-by-oath and your crony,” but decided against it. Instead, she said, “You know, lately you’ve been cutting yourself off from us, and I was thinking perhaps it’s because you’re preparing to leave us altogether.”
“You’re quite right. When I leave here on my pilgrimage, I don’t want to feel your absence all the time. Besides, I don’t want these poor children to keep asking for me as soon as I go away.”
But finally Ameh Khanom consented. They took a droshke through the avenues, but walked the narrow back-streets. Khadijeh carried one twin while Zari gave a hand with the other, who was walking, helping her over the rock-strewn alleys. They passed the narrow Qahr-o-Ashti street, and on the right-hand side, just before Sardazak, they stopped in front of the enormous gates of Ezzat-ud-Dowleh’s house. Khadijeh was out of breath. Ameh Khanom read the Quranic inscription on the mosaic over the gate: “Lo! We have brought unto ye a great and glorious victory.” She glanced at the house opposite Ezzat-ud-Dowleh’s, the house in which she had grown up. “What a ruin it’s become!” she commented.
The gates of Ezzat-ud-Dowleh’s house were open. As they passed through the large, shady octagonal porch, the doorman was sitting idly on his wooden bench. He jumped to attention, as if roused from a dream. Taking off his felt hat, he greeted them and invited them in. At the entrance to the outer courtyard, an old black maidservant held out a crystal bowl. She removed the lid of the bowl and invited them to help themselves. The two women each took a jasmine-flavoured almond sweet. The black maid bent down to serve the twins, and then came round to Khadijeh. At the entrance of the inner courtyard, which was an orangery, Ezzat-ud-Dowleh’s personal maid Ferdows, wearing a blue silk chador, offered them a platter of fragrant melon. She served them as the black maid had done. Zari placed the cool melon against her face, inhaling its mild scent as if every refreshing aroma in the world was to be found right there.
In the large, cool basement, the fountains of the indoor marble pools had been turned on. Ezzat-ud-Dowleh was dominating the room from her position at one end where she was sitting on a folded blanket. She apologized for not rising to greet them, explaining that her chronic rheumatism plagued her even in the middle of summer. She then welcomed them profusely.
Ferdows re-appeared carrying a square bundle of cashmere brocade which she placed before Ameh Khanom. Then Ferdows helped her take off her black outdoor chador which she carefully folded while Ameh Khanom unwrapped the bundle and examined the pile of different chadors, choosing a plain navy one. Ferdows opened it up and draped it on her. Then she wrapped up the bundle of chadors again, including Ameh’s black one, inside the cashmere brocade and took them away.
After this, they were brought fresh lime juice in a decorative china bowl with a matching ladle. The bowl was placed carefully before Ezzat-ud-Dowleh. On a silver tray, the old black maid brought some finely-cut crystal glasses and Ezzat-ud-Dowleh served the lime juice with deliberation and ceremony. Turning to Ameh she said, “You’re so fortunate, Qods-ol-Saltaneh. If I didn’t have this rheumatism, I would have dearly liked to become a pilgrim to such an imam …”
Zari had long forgotten Ameh Khanom’s title.
“First of all, tell them to turn off those fountains,” Ameh said. “The damp does your leg pains no good.” Ezzat-ud-Dowleh ignored this. Zari concluded that the leg pains were merely pretence and wished that she would get to the point, in other words, the reason for all the hospitality. In an effort to make conversation, Zari once again complimented Ezzat-ud-Dowleh on the colour of her hair. Ezzat-ud-Dowleh smiled and passed a hand over her garish hair.
“Acquaintances,” she said, “even the Governor’s wife, kill themselves to get me to reveal the ingredients of this hair-dye. But I’ve refused to tell anyone so far. Everyone who sees me says, ‘What beautiful hair!’ And I say, ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. ‘But Zari dear, I’ll tell it to you. You’re like my own daughter. Your mother, God rest her soul, and I were like one soul in two bodies. I so wanted you to become my daughter-in-law. My poor Hamid singled you out from amongst all those girls. Well, it was not to be. That is, you played hard to get. But your own chestnut shade is also very pretty. It hasn’t turned grey yet, so it’s a shame to dye it. When you dye hair, it starts to go grey before you know it.”
“God bless you for your kindness,” replied Zari, and to herself, “Thank God I didn’t marry your lecherous son!”
“I’m going to tell it to you, but you must swear never to divulge it …” confided Ezzat-ud-Dowleh, staring cross-eyed at her guests, “it’s been a family secret. Henna, coffee and cocoa, that’s what it is! I added the cocoa myself. It softens the hair. Take one soup-spoonful of henna, cocoa and coffee at a time, add some chamomile and rub all over the hair. Then cover this with fresh walnut leaves and wrap your hair overnight or from morning till afternoon …”
Zari had no interest in hair-colour secrets. If her poor mother had been alive, it might have meant something. Her mother had vowed, if she ever recovered from her illness, to take a set of silver dishes as a gift to the shrine of Hazrate Abbas and then come back and dye her hair just like Ezzat-ud-Dowleh. She used to say that she would get the secret ingredients out of Ezzat-ud-Dowleh by whatever means. But her mother was away from all this now. She began to pray that Ezzat-ud-Dowleh’s breathtaking generosity was not building up to some impossible favour in return.
When they went to the changing rooms outside the bath, the black maid was squatting there next to a His Master’s Voice gramophone with a conical horn which she switched on the moment they walked in. “You left me and broke your pledge …” The lower half of the changing-room walls was made of marble, while the upper half and the ceiling were covered with frescoes. Zari had seen this very hammam and the Zurkhaneh behind it, on that school trip when the teacher had brought all the girls of marriageable age to Ezzat-ud-Dowleh’s place on the pretext of visiting a historic old house. The building was one of the town’s landmarks, nevertheless, and no important foreign visitor left Shiraz without seeing it.
It was easy to understand why Hamid Khan himself had taken on the role of tour-guide to the school visitors. The large reception room with sash windows did not have electric lights yet, and Hamid Khan had tried to show the girls the paintings on the ceiling with the aid of a kerosene lamp which he held high above his head. The reception room ceiling was lined from one end to the other with portraits of men and women next to each other. The women were depicted with tiny, pea-sized mouths, doe-like eyes, and long, wavy locks. The men were identical to the women, only they had forelocks and no earrings.
That day Zari had not really noticed Hamid Khan’s ogling. But the following week, when Ezzat-ud-Dowleh intruded into their private cubicle at the hammam, squinting curiously at her naked body, Zari suddenly realized what was going on. The woman’s stare sent shivers down Zari’s spine. It was as if something was being stripped away from her. How impudently Ezzat-ud-Dowleh had tilted Zari’s chin upward to catch the sunlight in the cubicle, muttering to herself, “God protect her, never seen such a fair and delicate body! Just like fine porcelain! Eyes the colour of mahogany … never seen eyes this colour. God created you for His own heart. By all that’s perfect! God knows if we weren’t in a bath I would’ve thought it was make-up or something …”
Zari had wanted to shove the woman’s hand away from her chin. But after two hours of Etiquette and one hour of Conduct every day at school, how could she possibly do such a thing? Of course they always ended up reading the Bible instead of Conduct, but Etiquette was about manners … and Ezzat-ud-Dowleh was not going to give up. “Pearly teeth, such a beautiful neck you’d think it’s carved out of marble, what eyelids …”
The twins brought her back to the present with their refusal to undress and their fascin
ation with the paintings on the ceiling, especially one of a man on horseback staring at a naked girl combing her long hair. Zari remembered that on the day of the school-trip, Hamid Khan had purposely kept the girls for a long time in the changing-rooms to explain in detail about this very picture which was a scene from the famous Khosrow and Shirin love-story. The naked woman had huge breasts and was sitting next to a stream, combing her long, black hair. Some kind of screen separated the woman from the rider, who sported a thick moustache and a royal hat, and although the screen should have hidden the man’s anatomy too, every detail of his body and that of his horse was visible. And the woman had nothing covering her genitals, either.
Zari promised the twins that if they let Khadijeh undress them, she would send them in the afternoon to see the Zurkhaneh next door which had pictures of the ancient warrior Rostam with his parted beard and tiger-skin garment, torn off the body of the monster, Akvan. They could also see Akvan being slaughtered and skinned.
In the bath, Ameh Khanom did an ablution, rinsed her body quickly and left. She couldn’t bear the noise of the scratchy records. But Zari tried to linger as long as she could. She sat on the lowest step of the warm-water pool and let the hike-warm water engulf her body. Soon every part of her was feeling limp and relaxed. She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the edge of the pool. When she got out, she sat on a shiny white tray, and wrapped a large white embroidered cloth around her body. The black maid came in at that moment. She was stark naked, and brought in the water-melon on a tray which she set down on top of one of the empty copper bowls. The water-melon had been neatly cut with a zig-zag pattern along the edge. The twins gaped at the sight of the negress. Marjan was about to cry out in fear, but was stopped by Mina’s loud question, “But mother, this one has a skin! Didn’t you say they’ve skinned her and that bearded man is wearing the skin?”
Zari laughed, and the black maid said, “God bless you, my sweet child! I’ll go burn some incense to protect you against the evil eye.”
Nana Seyyid, the best bath-masseuse in town, came in holding a shiny pitcher with prayers engraved all round the rim. She was taken aback to see Zari, but she greeted her politely. She was naked except for a red loincloth tied between her legs and held up at the waist with a thin red band. On that day too, this same Nana Seyyid had been in their cubicle at the Shapuri Hammam. She had come to wash Ezzat-ud-Dowleh but was ordered to wash Zari first. Chatting away pleasantly, Nana Seyyid had first washed Zari’s right arm, but had given the left one such a harsh rub that Zari was forced to say, “Gently!”
Nana Seyyid had quickly taken offence. Removing her bath-glove, she had placed it in front of Zari and said, “Do it yourself, if you know how.” And how pleased Zari had been about that! They didn’t have any money to hire or tip a bath-masseuse, anyway.
Now Nana Seyyid went over to the warm-water pool with the pitcher which she filled and then emptied over Zari’s shoulders. She sat on the floor in front of Zari, pulling forward the raised tray containing the bath-glove and other items for the bath. She took a pinch of salt from a small copper bowl and rubbed it on Zari’s heels. Then she began to gently massage the heels with a delicately fashioned pumice-stone which had a silver cap. It tickled, but Zari didn’t make a sound. Again, the black maid came in and circled around each one of them—even Khadijeh and Nana Seyyid—with a fistful of incense. Shortly after she left, the smell of burning incense from the changing rooms filled the bath.
Zari sat on the outside step of the warm-water pool while Nana Seyyid massaged her scalp with a shampoo mixture of mud and rose petals. It occurred to her that it was a pity to stain the shiny whiteness of the marble floor with mud from the shampoo. But she surrendered herself to the gentle kneading of the masseuse, thinking of all those wonderful fragrances still lingering in her senses: melon, jasmine, lime, incense, rose-petal … and she wished this euphoria could go on for a long time.
15
But Ezzat-ud-Dowleh did not get to the point till late that afternoon. Even then she built up to it with much preamble, explanations and beating about the bush. It was early evening and her guests were sitting around cross-legged on a large, twelve-segment wooden takht placed over the pool for cool air. The takht was covered with layers of carpets over which soft, striped sheets had been spread. Carpet-covered cushions had been arranged against the tall latticed railings of the takht. Ezzat-ud-Dowleh had taken up her usual place at the head of the takht, fanning herself. Ameh Khanom and Zari were seated on either side of her, but were not using fans.
The air had cooled. The blossoms of jasmine bushes, in large flower-pots around the pool, seemed to twinkle like so many stars at the reluctant sun, unwilling to set over the orangery. Ezzat-ud-Dowleh had managed to send Mina and Marjan off with Khadijeh, Ferdows and her children, to the police-chief’s garden to watch the Pahlavan Kachalak puppet show.
Zari didn’t even quite realize how the conversation turned to her charities at the prison and the asylum. She found herself explaining about the women’s prison. “It’s not too crowded there,” she said. “They’re not too restricted, either, because the crimes are generally not more serious then stealing a ewer. Yes, I’m allowed to sit privately with the prisoners on the little rugs their relatives bring them and listen to their complaints. But I don’t see the men. I just take their food to the Karim Khani citadel, and deliver it at the warden’s office. What happens to it after that, is a matter between God and the warden! But there’s a belief among prison wardens that whoever steals from rations will be stricken with leprosy.” She added, “One day I insisted on taking the food to the male prisoners myself. That day they were cleaning out the Dosagkhaneh latrines which are in the hallway. The stench makes you want to die.”
Then the conversation turned to the madam of a ‘hospice’ who had recently been imprisoned.
“I wanted this woman imprisoned myself,” Zari said, “but I wasn’t the one who reported her. It was the regional officer who’d accompanied us. Mahin Khanom and I had been on an inspection tour of the houses in the Mordestan District, on behalf of the Women’s Society. No matter how long we knocked at this woman’s house, no one would answer. The regional officer started kicking the door. Finally the madam herself let us in. It was getting dark. We inspected all the rooms. Mahin had them open up some of the beds and she ordered fresh pillow cases and sheets for the mattresses. In the end, when we had gone to the madam’s room to give her a supply of anti-flea powder and disinfectant, I saw something wriggling under the sewing-machine stand in the corner of the room. First I thought it was a cat. Only a black little head was visible. I reached out and switched on the light, motioning for the regional officer to take a look. Sure enough he pulled out a seven-or eight-year-old girl from underneath the sewing-machine table. The little girl was wearing a glittery, wrinkled dress, and her breasts hadn’t yet fully developed. She was shivering like a sparrow in snow. Despite my quiet nature, I lost my temper. I shouted at the madam and asked whether she wasn’t ashamed to use children of this age for work like that. At first she swore frantically that the girl was her niece who was staying with her for the night, but then she broke down and confessed. ‘Well, what can I do, Khanom?’ she said. ‘There are too many customers. One Indian sergeant major has been waiting some time for a young girl. You can’t let the customers down. We’re constantly being ordered from above to keep our customers satisfied, and now you’re here criticizing us? What brings you here, anyway? Isn’t it to clean up the place to ensure the satisfaction of the foreign customers? After all, I’ve been in this business for many a year and no one has ever come to inspect us for anything else.’”
Zari stopped talking. But when she sensed her hearers’ eagerness to know more, she went on.
“Later it transpired that the madam had had ten or twelve of these children working for her and that day she had sent them off to escape over the roof—all except the little one who hadn’t been able to get away in time. But what bracelets the m
adam herself was wearing! She had on at least ten pairs of gold bracelets.”
“Shameless woman!” exclaimed Ezzat-ud-Dowleh. “May she pay hereafter for what she did to those innocent children!” Then she added, “They’ve got our maid Nana Ferdows in prison too. I expect you’ll see her tomorrow when you go there.”
“On what charge?” Ameh asked.
Zari suddenly understood. She realized the favour needed of her somehow related to the women’s prison and Nana Ferdows. She waited. But Ezzat-ud-Dowleh was taking her time.
“What I suffer because of this child of mine! My husband—may he never rest in peace—had no idea how to raise a child. He didn’t even let Hamid do his compulsory military service. He faked the medical certificate by slipping pebbles in the boy’s urine sample and bribing the doctor to diagnose a kidney stone condition. If they’d taken him for military service, maybe it would have done him some good. May he never rest in peace, my husband! He would go whoring with a fifteen-year-old boy, and my poor Hamid caught gonorrhoea at sixteen. His wife isn’t capable of making a man out of him now. How I wished he’d married Zari! It was not to be, I suppose. Like father, like son. May he turn in his grave, my husband, may he never rest in peace!”
“But I heard Hamid has given up his extravagant habits and settled down,” said Ameh Khanom.
“Settled down? With all the money he throws away and that shrew of a wife? I kept insisting that he should do up this big house and come to live here, but he wouldn’t listen. Or rather, his wife wouldn’t think of it. The woman kept repeating that she would get depressed living in these back alleys and nothing would do but that she had to live on a main street.”