I had never ventured alone among so many Christians. Shah Abbas had moved thousands of Armenians to New Julfa—some say against their will—to serve him as merchants in the silk trade. Many had become rich. I walked by their ornate church and peeked inside. The walls and ceiling were covered with images of men and women, including a painting of a group of men eating together. They had halos around their heads, as if they were meant to be worshipped. I saw another painting of a man carrying a piece of wood on his back, with a terrible look of suffering in his eyes, followed by a woman who looked as if she would give her life for his. So perhaps it was true that the Christians worshipped human idols as well as God.
Gostaham had told me that the Shah graced the Armenians with his presence during religious celebrations twice a year, yet when an Armenian architect had designed a church that was taller than the tallest mosque, his hands had been cut off. I shivered at the thought, for what could an architect—or a rug maker—do without hands?
Leaving the church, I turned down a small alley and continued until I spotted the sign that Kobra had once mentioned: a page of writing affixed to a door painted spring-green. I couldn’t read much of it, but I knew this was where I was supposed to be. I knocked, looking around again anxiously, for I had never gone on an errand like this before.
The door was opened by an older woman with startling blue eyes and long honey-colored hair lightly covered with a purple head scarf. Without a word, she beckoned me inside and shut the door. I followed her through a small courtyard and into a house with low ceilings and whitewashed walls. The room we sat down in was full of strange things: animal bones in ceramic pots, ewers of red and golden liquids, baskets overflowing with roots and herbs. Astrological symbols and cosmological charts were pinned to the walls.
I removed my coverings and sat against a cushion. Rather than ask me anything, the woman lit a clump of wild rue, closed her eyes, and began reciting poetry in a singsong voice. Then she opened her eyes and said, “Your problem is a man.”
“Yes,” I replied. “How did you know?”
The charm maker didn’t answer. “How did you come to Isfahan?”
No doubt she could tell from my accent that I was from the south. I told her my mother and I had left our village after my father had died and we had almost starved, and that I was embroiled in a three-month sigheh with a wealthy man.
The charm maker’s blue eyes looked troubled. “Why didn’t he offer to make you his full-fledged wife?” she asked.
“I’m told he must marry a woman who can bear him suitable heirs.”
“In that case, why didn’t your family wait to find you a proper marriage?”
“I don’t know.” I didn’t want to tell her about how I had destroyed the rug.
The woman looked puzzled. She eyed my attire, a simple red cotton tunic and orange cotton robe, bound with a red sash. “Are there money problems in your household?”
“My uncle and his family are very comfortable, but his wife always worries about the burden of feeding my mother and me.”
“So they were gambling that your husband would keep you a long time, and perhaps shower you with gifts.”
“Yes,” I replied, “but my marriage ends the day after to-morrow.”
“Voy!” replied the charm maker, looking alarmed. “We don’t have much time.”
“Can you make a charm to make him want me?” I asked.
“It’s possible,” she said, but she seemed to be searching my face for clues. “What is your husband like?”
“He has a lot of energy,” I said. “He tells everyone around him what to do. He is often very impatient.”
“Does he love you?”
“He has never said so,” I replied, “but last time, he bought me new clothes, and it was almost as if he liked me.” I said this in a tone full of wonder, for I had only just grasped it myself.
“Yet you are not speaking like a woman in love, her eyes shining bright with joy.”
“No,” I admitted with a sigh.
“Do you love your husband?”
I thought for a moment before answering. “I don’t tremble the way one of my friends does when she talks about her beloved,” I said. “Being with him is something I’ve had to do.”
“In that case, do you have any idea why he might not have sent for you?”
“No,” I said miserably.
Her blue eyes seemed to pierce mine. She fanned the rue, whose sharp smell made my eyes water. “How have your nights been together?”
I told her how shy I had felt, yet how Fereydoon had often kept me up until dawn, taking me in the four corners of the room.
“That’s what might be expected in the beginning,” she said.
“I suppose so, but now it seems as if the fire of his passion is dying.”
“Already?” She paused and again seemed to be striving to understand something. “What happened the last time you saw him?”
“I don’t know,” I said, trying to avoid the question. “I always do what I’m told, but I sense his weariness.”
“As if he was bored?”
“Yes,” I said, shifting uncomfortably on my cushion and looking away. There was a long silence, broken only when I admitted in a halting voice that Fereydoon had pleased himself without me.
“Did he say anything to you afterward?”
I had not allowed myself to think about this for many days. “He asked me if I enjoyed being with him. I was so startled by the question that I said, ‘I am honored beyond my years to be in your world-brightening presence.’”
The charm maker smiled, but it was not a happy smile. “That was very formal of you.”
Now that I had begun, I thought I might as well tell her everything. “Then he lifted his eyebrows and said, ‘You needn’t talk with me like that when we’re alone.’”
“So then you told him the truth about how you felt?”
“Not exactly; it was the first time he had given me permission to speak my mind. What I said was, ‘My only concern has been pleasing you.’ He bent his body over mine, stroked the hair away from my face, and said, ‘Child of the south, I know that. And so far, you have. But there’s more to this than pleasing me, you know.’ Then he asked me if I liked what we did together at night, and I said yes.”
“Is that the truth?”
I shrugged. “I don’t understand why people talk about it so much all the time.”
The charm maker looked at me so sympathetically I thought I might weep.
“Why don’t you like it as much as he does?”
“I don’t know,” I said again, shifting on my cushion and wishing I had not come. The charm maker took one of my hands and held it between hers to comfort me. I felt just the way I had right before my father’s death, as if I were about to lose everything at once.
“I can’t endure the way things unravel,” I said all of a sudden, not knowing why.
The charm maker looked as if she understood. “My child, you can’t stop what God gives and takes away, but you, too, can end things. Promise me you’ll remember that.”
“I promise,” I said, though it was the last of my worries.
“Now that I understand your problem, there are a few things I can do to help you,” said the charm maker. “But first I want to know this: Isn’t it possible that your husband will take a permanent wife?”
I paused for a moment, remembering that right before I got married, Gordiyeh had said that Homa was already looking for a girl suitable to be the mother of his heirs.
“Of course,” I said.
“Then let me make you a charm to knot their path,” she said. She reached into a basket that contained many balls of thread. Choosing the seven colors of the rainbow, she knotted the threads together in seven places and then bound the cord around my throat.
“Wear it until it falls off,” she said. “And don’t tell your husband what it’s for.”
“If I see him again,” I said miserably.
 
; “God willing, you shall,” she replied. “And if you do, you must try harder to please him.”
I was taken aback by her suggestion. “I thought I was already doing everything he wanted.”
The charm maker stroked my hand as if she were soothing a difficult child. “I don’t think so,” she said gently.
My cheeks flushed with shame. “I wish I knew the things my mother knew when she was my age,” I said bitterly. “My father loved her every minute of their life together.”
“What do you think her secret was?”
I told her that my mother’s ability to tell stories had magnetized my father’s love, even though he was once the most handsome man in the village. I did not have such gifts.
The charm maker stopped me. “Imagine for a moment that you were the one telling a story instead of your mother,” she said. “Let’s say it’s the one about Fatemeh the spinner girl. At the beginning, you captivate your listeners by telling them how Fatemeh’s father drowns in a shipwreck, leaving her to fend for herself. But what if, rather than waiting until the end of the story to tell them how she fares, you tell them right away?”
“That would be silly,” I said.
“Indeed,” she replied. “So how do you think a story should be told?”
“When my mother tells tales, she puts the beginning, the middle, and the end in their proper place.”
“That’s right,” said the charm maker. “The storyteller teases you with a little bit of information here and a little there. She keeps you in a state of wonder until the very end, when she finally sates your desire.”
I knew exactly what she meant. My mother’s listeners became entranced, staring at her with glazed eyes and open mouths as if they had forgotten where they were.
The charm maker smoothed back her honey-hued hair. “So think of your evenings with your husband as a time when you tell him a story, but not with words. To him, it’s an old tale, so you need to learn to tell it in new ways.”
I blushed again, but this time it felt like a burn starting deep within my liver and spreading until even my toes were tingling. “I’ve already had a few ideas,” I admitted, “but I’ve been too ashamed to try them out.”
“Don’t delay,” said the charm maker with an edge of warning in her voice that let me know she believed I was in peril.
“Yet I don’t know where to start,” I said, in almost a whisper.
“There is a clue in the question your husband asked the last time he saw you,” replied the charm maker. “Is there anything you like doing with him?”
“I like his kisses and caresses,” I said, “but they always end when he joins his body to mine. Then he forgets all about me and pushes toward the moment of his greatest pleasure.”
“And what about you?”
“I try to do everything I can to help him.”
“He doesn’t need help,” said the charm maker. I stared at her, hoping she would continue, but she remained silent. The moments passed slowly, while I twisted on my cushion with anticipation and hope.
“Tell me,” I pleaded.
She smiled. “So now I have your full attention.”
“Yes,” I replied.
“And you won’t be satisfied until I give you what you need.”
My head felt light from the acrid smell of rue lingering in the air. “I must know.”
“You are in thrall, and if I wanted to keep you there,” she said, “I might tell you a side story, perhaps a quick one about Fatemeh’s mother and the circumstances of her birth.”
“I wish you wouldn’t,” I said, hearing a begging tone in my voice. My heart was beating faster than usual and my hands felt moist.
The charm maker was watching me carefully. “So now you understand,” she said with a smile.
“Yes,” I replied.
“In that case, I shall not frustrate you any longer,” she said. “The ending is always necessary, though it is never as exciting as the climb.”
Then she asked if I had ever seen a certain part of my body, one that was usually kept hidden.
“Of course not!” I replied, recoiling in surprise. In my village, I had always shared a room with my parents. At the hammam, I had always been surrounded by other women. The only private place I ever visited was the latrines, which were too dark and smelly to linger in.
“And yet, you must know what I mean.”
Despite what I had just said, I thought I did. I could feel it, after all.
“Before your husband moves too far up the mountain of bliss, place yourself in a pinnacle-pleasuring position, and join him as he climbs. Some of the positions you can try are the frog, the twisting scissors, the Indian, and the nail in the shoe.”
To make sure I knew what she meant, she demonstrated the positions with her fingers. I began imagining how they would feel with Fereydoon and wondered if I could arrange myself so he thought they were his own plan.
“I can do what you suggest,” I said. “But I never thought my husband cared much about my pleasure.”
“Perhaps he doesn’t,” she said. “But imagine how you would feel if every night you met him, he failed to ascend.”
It had been agonizing not being able to please him. I had been like a stuffed doll that doesn’t move until the child playing with her puts an arm or a leg in a new place. No wonder Fereydoon had become bored.
“I bend my head low before your knowledge,” I said to the charm maker.
She smiled. “When you are as old as I am, you will know just as much, and probably more,” she replied.
I paid the charm maker with money my mother had given me from the sigheh, for she had done her best for me. It was only when I arrived home that I realized she hadn’t given me a charm to make Fereydoon want me, but rather one to prevent him from wanting someone else. That seemed very odd to me, until I understood that I must discover ways to charm him myself.
THAT NIGHT, I could hardly bear to be near my mother, Gostaham, or Gordiyeh. Whenever I met their eyes, it seemed as if they were looking at me with pity, confirming with their silence that no letter had arrived from Fereydoon. My mother didn’t say anything, but at night she patted the blankets around me gently and told me one of my favorite tales, the one about Bahram and his slave girl Fitna. I loved that story, for Fitna had won Bahram through a clever trick that revealed to him his own weaknesses. I only wished I could do the same with Fereydoon.
I fell asleep and began dreaming that we had returned to our old house in my village. When we opened the front door, the whole room was filled with snow. My mother and I had no choice but to burrow into it. We tried to insulate our burrow with scraps of clothing and carpets, but we were piteously cold. The whiteness of the snow hurt my eyes and its wet cold penetrated my fingers and toes. I felt as if I had been buried alive in a bed of white. I woke up shivering, with sweat on my forehead and chest.
Lying in the dark, I wondered what fate held in store for us. How long would Gordiyeh and Gostaham be willing to keep us if we didn’t get more money from Fereydoon? We would be hungry again; we would have to accept the generosity of others, which would sometimes mask sinister desires. And I wanted to stay in the city. I liked the way my body had filled out in the capital, becoming womanly and rounded because we ate well every day. I loved what I was learning from Gostaham, who was now teaching me how to draw lions, dragons, birds of paradise, and some of the other fanciful animals I had seen in the Shah’s hunting rug.
But more than that, my mind was filled with ideas about how to win Fereydoon if I should have another chance. If I were a peacock, like the one I had been trying to draw recently, I would rub my soft, iridescent feathers all over his back. If a fox, I would blindfold his eyes with my tail while licking him with my quick tongue. Now that would rub the bored look out of his eyes!
The next morning, I was awakened by the sound of a vendor with a nasal voice advertising his barley soup, and I went to ask Cook what she needed me to do. As we were speaking, I heard the knocker
for women. Shamsi fetched me and led me to Gordiyeh and Gostaham, for a letter had arrived for me at last.
“What does it say?” I asked, forgetting to greet them properly, for I feared the letter would confirm the end of my alliance.
“Good morning to you, too,” Gordiyeh replied, reminding me of my manners, and I quickly returned her greeting.
Gostaham broke the letter’s wax seal, which bore Fereydoon’s unmistakable signature. As I watched his eyes move back and forth, I had an urge to seize the letter and try to read it myself.
“Well?” Gordiyeh said.
Gostaham continued to read. “If only he would stop using so many flowery expressions and get to the point,” he said, scanning the lines of handwriting. “Ah—here it is at last. Fereydoon is requesting her this evening. Praise be to God!”
I was speechless with relief.
Gordiyeh smiled. “Such good fortune is a sign of favor from heaven,” she said.
I didn’t want to make the mistake of being fatigued, the way I had been during my last visit. “I will need time to prepare for him,” I said.
Gordiyeh seemed to understand. “You are excused from all your duties,” she replied. “I’ll tell Shamsi to work in the kitchen today in your place.”
Her generosity surprised me, until I remembered she had her own reasons for desiring this union. From time to time, she would ask me if Fereydoon had mentioned that he wanted new rugs and would suggest that I prompt him to commission one from us. I never had.
I asked my mother to let me be alone the whole morning, and she left to gather herbs for her medicines. Shutting myself in our little room, I hennaed my feet and hands and decided to surprise Fereydoon by applying the designs to a place only he would see. It took several hours and I had to remain very still while the paste was drying, which was difficult because I was so restless. I also had to keep myself lightly covered out of fear that my mother would return and discover the daring thing I had done.