The Blood of Flowers

  “Yes, Iskandar loves me,” said Naheed, the words like honey on her tongue. “And my heart has been lost to his. I want nothing more than to spend my hours by his side, listening to his sweet words of love.”

  Now that I knew more about men and women, I didn’t believe the polo player would only whisper words of love. He would want to nuzzle Naheed and to part her thighs, like Fereydoon had parted mine.

  “Insh’Allah, he will love you with his words, but also with his body,” I blurted out.

  Naheed’s eyes seemed to get clearer for a moment. “I have never heard you speak that way,” she said. “What do you mean?”

  I shouldn’t have said anything, but it was too late. I thought back quickly to the things I had heard in my village. “Back home, after my friend Goli got married, she told me how important it was to her husband to take her at night,” I said.

  “Oh, that!” said Naheed with a look of disdain. “I suppose he will do whatever he wants to—that will be his privilege when I am his wife.”

  I took a sip of coffee. “You’re not worried about that, not even a little?”

  “Why should I worry? I just want him to hold me in his arms and utter the honeyed words he writes in his letters. If I have that, I will be content.”

  The last few weeks had taught me that things had to work between a man and a woman in the dark, things that had nothing to do with words. Would it be different for Naheed and Iskandar because they loved each other already?

  “We will be just like Shireen and Khosrow, the happiest of lovers once they were finally united!” said Naheed exultantly, and to me she looked like a woman in the middle of a happy dream.

  I smiled. “Iskandar didn’t see you bathing naked in a stream, but I believe he saw enough of your face to be as entranced as when Khosrow surprised Shireen without her clothes.”

  “I knew I could ensnare him! I knew it!” said Naheed.

  The more I thought about it, though, the more Naheed and Iskandar reminded me of Layli and Majnoon, for those two lovers had loved without the benefit of being together. What did they know about each other? Majnoon had starved himself in the wilderness, composing poetry about Layli that found a home on every Bedouin’s lips. Layli had been sequestered by her family, who were certain he was mad. The two had gone to their graves filled with longing, yet what would have happened if they had been united? What if they had fumbled in the dark, and what if Layli had had to listen to the lonely sound of skin slapping against skin? Naheed couldn’t know if being with her beloved was a taste of paradise until they shared the same pillow.

  I knew I must stop getting lost in my own sad thoughts and try to help Naheed conclude her quest. “How will you get your parents to approve the marriage?” I asked.

  Naheed’s crafty smile lit up her face, and I was glad to see her back to her plotting self.

  “Iskandar wrote to me that his mother and his sisters always bathe at Homa’s hammam on the first day of the week. He told them to start looking for a pretty girl for him to marry, and he described someone exactly like me.”

  “That was clever,” I said.

  “I wish I had the ripeness that Homa praised you for at the hammam. I’ve been trying to eat more, but it doesn’t help.”

  I protested. “Naheed-joon, you are the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen. There will be no doubt of their interest!”

  Naheed smiled, secure after all in her beauty. “I will try to get them to notice me. If they like me, and if an offer is made from his family to mine, my parents will never know that Iskandar and I have secretly corresponded all this time.”

  “And what about his family—will your parents approve of them?”

  Naheed put on a brave face. “His father tends horses for a governor in the provinces,” she said.

  I was astonished that he came from such humble stock. “Won’t your parents insist on a rich man?”

  “Why should they, when I have money enough for two?”

  “But Naheed—” I said. She looked away, and I didn’t have the heart to continue. “May God grant your every wish!”

  I prayed for her happiness with all my heart, but I felt much older than her, and wiser, too. While Naheed was singing the blessings of love from afar, I was mired in the problems of a marriage unfulfilled. And although I had arrived wanting to unburden my heart to her, I was beginning to understand that it probably would have been of no use. She was caught in the web of her dreams, and they were much prettier than the truth of married life that I had come to know.

  Naheed put her arms around me and laid her cheek against mine. I smelled the sweet musk she used to perfume her clothes. “If I couldn’t unburden my heart to you, I’m sure I would die,” she said. “Thank you for being such a loyal friend.”

  It was good to feel the strength of her affection, for I had suffered a crimp in my heart ever since we had been caught at polo. I returned her embrace, but then sat upright and alone.

  “For a while,” I confessed, “I thought you wanted to be friends just so that you’d have a companion for the games.”

  Two pink spots appeared on Naheed’s cheeks, and she looked away.

  “Perhaps that was true at first,” she admitted, “but not anymore. You are the kindest friend, the most unaffected, and the most true. I’ll always be grateful you took the blame for me at polo. If it wasn’t for you, my love for Iskandar would have been discovered and destroyed.”

  “It was nothing,” I mumbled, blushing.

  Naheed’s eyes were bright and happy. “I hope you and I will share our secrets and our hearts forever,” she said.

  “I hope so, too,” I said, and a much-needed spring of joy welled up in my heart, although it was quickly followed by melancholy, for I ached to confide in her as she had confided in me. But I didn’t mind taking the blame for polo now that she had revealed how much it had meant to her. Naheed’s love for Iskandar had softened her, like Layli’s for Majnoon.

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

  When Layli’s mother told her about the man she was to marry, she responded with neither anger nor tears. Bowing her head, Layli replied obediently, “I am yours to command, Mother.” For what did it matter?

  Layli’s parents had chosen a wealthy man from a respected Bedouin tribe. For her wedding day, the families erected tall black tents in the desert and furnished them with soft carpets, bowls of fruit, braziers of incense, and oil lamps. Layli wore a red gown embroidered with silver thread and silver shoes. Around her neck were fine silver chains with carnelian stones inscribed with verses from the Holy Qur’an.

  When Layli’s husband greeted her for the first time, she felt nothing but indifference. He smiled at her, revealing a gap where he had lost a tooth. As they exchanged their wedding vows, Layli could think only of the man she loved, Majnoon.

  Majnoon was part of her tribe, and they had played together in the desert as children. He had once brought her a blooming yellow desert flower and dropped it shyly in her lap. Even when she reached the age of ten, had been veiled, and could no longer play with boys, she thought about Majnoon and loved him. He grew into a handsome young man, tall and thin in his long white tunic and turban. He could not suppress a smile when she walked past. And although he could not see her, her beauty was something well known about the tribe, as accepted as the light of the moon.

  When he was old enough, Majnoon begged his father to approach Layli’s parents for their daughter. They refused, for Majnoon had strange habits. He had already taken to spending days by himself in the desert. He would return thin, wasted, clad in nothing but a white turban and white loincloth, and it took time before his senses returned. That was how he had earned his nickname Majnoon, which means “crazy.”

  “What is wrong with your son?” asked Layli’s father.

  Majnoon’s father could not answer, for he did not know what drove his son into the desert, or why he returned shattered, as if he had glimpsed the Divine.


  After Layli’s parents refused him, Majnoon fled to the desert and lived alone, surviving almost without food or water. Whenever he saw a gazelle or another animal in a trap, he released it, and soon the animals began gathering around his camp and lying down beside his fire. Predators became friends in his presence, and one and all protected him from harm.

  With his beasts around him, Majnoon began composing poetry that mentioned the name of his beloved, verses so beautiful that passing strangers memorized them and brought them to other Bedouin camps. Soon Layli’s name was heard everywhere and her parents decided she must marry, for the sake of her honor. Knowing she had no hope of marrying her true love, Layli accepted her parents’ choice, for she must not defy them. And one man was just as unsuitable as the next if it was not Majnoon.

  After the wedding festivities, Layli sat quietly on her marriage bed, waiting for her husband, Ibn Salam. Delighted to claim her as his prize, he entered and offered her a plate of the sweetest dates, carefully selected from the date palms he owned. She tasted them politely and spoke with him amicably, the very picture of an obedient wife. But when he touched her hand, she withdrew it. Even as the night fled, he did not dare approach her lips with his or put his sun-browned hands on her small waist. At dawn, he fell asleep beside her, fully clothed, and she curled up near him and did the same.

  Life continued in this fashion for months. Layli greeted Ibn Salam with respect, prepared his tea and his meals, and even massaged his feet when he was tired, but would never allow him near her flawless treasure. For he was an ordinary man. He could ride a horse, hunt with a falcon, and earn enough from his date palms to keep them in comfort. But he would never compose poetry like Majnoon, nor make her heart soar with longing. Layli respected her husband and even admired him but felt no stirrings of desire.

  Despite her indifference, Ibn Salam was falling more and more in love with Layli. That she should refuse to open her heart hurt him deeply. He once considered taking her against her will, for after all, she was his. But what good would that do? Layli was a woman who would come to him herself, or not at all. He resolved to wait and hope that she might one day soften, and that made his heart grow bigger with each passing day. Although she was as closed to him as a shell, he became as wide open to her as the sea. No man treated his wife with more tenderness or loved her more completely.

  As months turned into years, and still Layli remained chaste, she at last began to wonder about her decision. All her friends had married and were bearing children. She alone knew nothing of a man’s body or of holding her own child in her arms. Didn’t she deserve the same life as others? Shouldn’t she, the glory of her tribe, offer her husband all of herself, and hope that her love would one day blossom to match his?

  In the market a few days later, she heard a new verse about Majnoon’s love for Layli on an old man’s lips.

  My foot welcomes pain,

  For it reminds me of my beloved.

  I would rather walk in Layli’s field of thorns

  Than in another’s garden of roses.

  Layli drew in a breath. “Where is he?” she asked the man, knowing Majnoon must be near.

  “He has returned,” replied the man, “and looks for no one but you.”

  “And I him,” she replied. “Tell him to meet me this evening, in the grove of palms.” For she had to test her love to see if it remained pure and strong.

  Layli told her husband she was going to her mother’s tent to drink tea. She arrived at the palm grove, wrapped in her veils, after dark. Majnoon sat in a patch of moonlight, clad only in a loincloth. He looked taller and thinner, for he had wasted away; she could see all the ribs jutting out of his body. He seemed like a creature of the wild now, naked before God and the sky.

  “At last, my beloved!” he cried.

  “At last!” she echoed. She had not seen him for more years than she could count.

  “My Layli! Your tresses are as black as the night; your eyes as dark and lovely as a gazelle’s. I shall love you always.”

  “And I you, life of mine!” She sat down just outside the circle of moonlight that bathed him.

  “Yet now I must question your love,” Majnoon added, his eyes full of sorrow. “Why have you betrayed me?”

  “What do you mean?” she replied, drawing back with surprise.

  “You have a husband!” he said, shivering, though the night air had not grown cool. “Why should I believe that you love me still?”

  “I have a husband in name only,” she replied. “In all these years, I could have given myself to him a thousand times over, yet my fortress has remained unvanquished.”

  “For me,” he replied, and there was joy in his eyes.

  “For you,” she answered. “For what is he compared to you?”

  She wrapped her garments more closely around her, as if to protect herself from prying eyes. “Yet, truth be told, lately I have come to wonder about the life I have chosen,” she added. “You are free. You may go as you please, live with your animals, and compose your verse. You may sing out what ails you, and all will repeat your sorrow. But I am confined here, alone, and may tell no one for fear of losing my honor. Now tell me: For whom is it harder to be faithful?”

  Majnoon sighed. “For you, my beloved. For you. That is why, with my whole heart, I abandon you to your husband’s love, if you choose to give yourself to him. For you deserve love as much as any woman. For my part, I shall always love you no matter what you do.”

  Layli remained silent, for she was deep in thought.

  “Layli, my beloved, I am your slave. When I see a cur that has passed near your house, I kiss its dirty paws with reverence, for it has been close to you. When I look in the mirror, I no longer see myself, but only you. Don’t call me by my name anymore. Call me Layli, for that’s who I have become!”

  Layli felt her heart blossom. What was the good of the love of a man like Ibn Salam—what was the use of his tired feet, the stink of his tunic after a day at the hunt, the stories he had spoken a thousand times? Yet how could she promise herself to Majnoon, who would never belong to her?

  “How do you keep the faith of your love?” she asked. “Do you not shiver with disappointment and dry up with yearning? Do you never wish to abandon me?”

  Majnoon laughed. “What good would my love be if it were so easily disturbed by obstacles?” he asked. “When I was younger, I suffered so much disappointment over your parents’ refusal that I thought my heart would burst. But the more I thought of you and wept over you, the deeper and clearer my love became. Suffering has revealed to me the depths of my own heart. What is ordinary love compared to that? It ebbs and flows and is easily swayed. But my love for you has become so deep and strong it will never wane. There are few certainties in this world, but such love is one of them.”

  Layli wanted to melt into Majnoon’s thin, wasted body, to live with him and his animals under the clear desert sky, to hear the verses on his lips. But there could be no honor in such a life, for all good people would shun her. There was no hope of ever living with him on earth.

  But perhaps that was not the most precious thing. Even if Layli could not have Majnoon by her side, she could always have his love. She felt her heart expanding, growing bigger and bigger until it encompassed nothing but him. That was love, she thought, not the everyday fare that Ibn Salam was offering her. That was what loosened tears from her eyes and made her wild with ecstasy. “My beloved, my heart is yours!” she exclaimed. “When I see my reflection in a basin of water, I shall see only you. We are so close it matters little whether we are near or far.”

  “My Layli,” he replied, “you are like the blood circulating in my veins. If I cut myself, I rejoice, for I feel your warmth.”

  It was late, and Layli dared not stay any longer. She walked back to her tent alone, her heart bursting with joy. She would remain Ibn Salam’s wife, but in name only. Her love for Majnoon was so deep it needed nothing but itself. From now on, he would always be Layli, an
d she would always be Majnoon.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A week went by with no word from Fereydoon. Perhaps he had gone to the south on business, I thought, knowing his father often sent him to examine costly steeds to determine their worth. Or perhaps he had gone to visit his parents or his sister, or taken a hunting trip for pleasure. Every evening, I asked Gostaham and Gordiyeh if any letters had arrived that pertained to me. At first they simply said no, but as the days passed, they began to answer my question with pitying looks. After another week, I started to jump when I heard the knocker and scurried to the door on any excuse.

  Although he had been angry with me the last time we parted, still I hoped he would want me for another three months. My mother and I needed the money. And although I wasn’t in love, at least not the way Naheed loved Iskandar, there were mysteries I still hoped to understand. Perhaps if we had more time together, I would learn to love him. And there was always the hope that he would make me a permanent wife, or that I would get pregnant.

  I had already bled twice since I had married Fereydoon. Before each time, my mother had watched me closely for signs that I was carrying a child. After I began bleeding, my mother said, “Don’t worry, azizam. There is always next month.” But I knew she was disappointed and worried that I would be as slow to conceive as she had been.

  In the third month of my marriage, my mother made me a special medicine that was supposed to encourage pregnancy, a green brew that reminded me of brackish water. She also commented on everything I ate and did.

  “Praise be to God!” she said one day when I had consumed a mound of sour fruit torshi with my meal. “That’s just what I craved when I was pregnant with you.”