The Blood of Flowers

  In the afternoon, I walked to Fereydoon’s house for what I thought might be the last time. Since our contract expired the next day, I didn’t know whether he wanted to enjoy me only once more or if he had other plans for me. Naturally, I was at pains to conceal what I had done from the sharp eyes of Hayedeh and Aziz. When they saluted me, they seemed more nonchalant than before. I began removing my own clothes. They didn’t stop me, which made me suspect that they didn’t believe I would ever return. Before I descended into the tub, I said, “Don’t you want to inspect me for stray hairs?”

  Hayedeh made a pretense of looking for them while continuing her conversation with Aziz. “Anyway,” she said to her, “the wedding takes place in a week at the home of the groom’s father, who is a pistachio farmer.” She casually scrubbed my back with a kisseh as she described what her daughter was going to wear. Without her help, I immersed myself in the tub.

  After they had dressed me, I went into the bedchamber I had shared with Fereydoon so many times and sat in my usual place, but I was restless and couldn’t keep still. I arose and walked into the adjacent room, where we took our meals. What exactly would I do? I approached the silk rugs hanging on the wall that showed pairs of birds singing together in a tree. Their knots were so tight that their surface was sleeker than skin. A sudden impulse seized me to remove one of them. I took it into the bedchamber and spread it on the floor at some distance from the bedroll. Then I returned to the main chamber and waited.

  When Fereydoon arrived, he was in a dark mood. He barked at the servants for wine and a water pipe before even coming through the door. Within seconds, he noticed that the rug had been removed from the wall, leaving a blank space next to its mate.

  “What mule removed that rug?” Fereydoon growled. The servants cowered and protested their innocence with flowery words. I was afraid, but I said, “It was me.”

  “It looks terrible like that.”

  “I have a reason,” I replied.

  Fereydoon ignored me, lifting his arms so that a manservant could remove his robe and sash and unbuckle his pearl-studded knife. Another servant tiptoed in with the wine and pipe and backed away, bowing. Fereydoon pulled his turban off his head and consumed his libations without offering me any. When the food arrived, he ate it quickly, almost angrily. I hardly dared to put a morsel to my lips.

  The coffee arrived in two delicate green vessels. Fereydoon tasted it before the coffee boy had left the room and grumbled, “It’s not hot enough.”

  The coffee boy returned to remove the cups, but he didn’t look apologetic, nor did he offer words to soothe Fereydoon’s anger.

  “Wait a minute,” said Fereydoon. The coffee boy, who was probably no more than twelve, stood before him with the cups on the tray. Fereydoon grabbed my cup and threw the liquid in the boy’s face. He staggered, the tray nearly dropping out of his hands.

  “You see?” Fereydoon roared. “It’s not even hot enough to hurt you. Now bring me something that is!”

  There were scalded patches near the boy’s eyes. He stammered a few words of apology and backed out of the room with tears streaming down his face.

  “Donkey!” Fereydoon cried after him. I had never seen him behave this way. His anger had been as sudden and unpredictable as a hailstorm, and just as indifferent.

  Another servant returned minutes later with coffee so hot it burned my throat. Fereydoon drank his in a gulp, strode into the other chamber, and threw himself onto the bedroll, closing his eyes. It wasn’t long before I heard loud snores. Was this how my final night with Fereydoon must pass, with no chance of saving myself? I was filled with turmoil, yet frozen in place as if I were stuck in the bed of snow I had dreamed about the night before. I remembered the slow, chilly death I had almost experienced in my village and suddenly I leapt to my feet, knowing I had to do something.

  Night was falling and the room was becoming dark. I lit an oil lamp and placed it near the silk rug before tearing off my clothes except for my pink silk trousers. Crawling on top of the bedroll beside Fereydoon, I did my best to be clumsy and awaken him. It worked: His eyes fluttered open.

  “I have something to show you,” I whispered, my voice a desperate hiss.

  “What?” he mumbled, sounding annoyed.

  I was quiet for a moment, and then I said, “It is for you, and only you, to find.”

  “Find what?” he asked, half asleep.

  “The secret I have prepared for you,” I said. He rolled onto one elbow, blinking his eyes to wake up. I rolled away a little, and when he reached for me, I rolled away again.

  “Let me see you,” he said.

  I got on my hands and knees, but turned around slightly to show him a view of my trousered hips and bare breasts. Then I began crawling toward the oil lamp. With a surprised look, Fereydoon got on all fours and followed. I let him grab my hips, but I wouldn’t turn around. From behind, he began exploring my bare chest with his soft hands. When I liked what he was doing, I leaned back against his chest, covered his hands with mine and kept them there.

  “What’s the secret?” asked Fereydoon softly. He was awake now, his eyes more alive than they had been in months.

  I wrested myself from his embrace and crawled away again as fast as I could. He grabbed at my trousers but missed, then came crawling after me again, laughing. When I was ready, I let him catch the edge of my trousers and press me down with my stomach on the ground.

  “Turn over,” he said. I lay still, teasing him with a smile and resisting him as he tried to flip me.

  “Ah!” he said, in a delighted tone, when I refused to budge. He didn’t force me, but rather lifted the waist of my trousers and tore the fabric off my body. The silk made a loud ripping sound, and satisfaction illuminated his face. Then he shrugged off his own clothes.

  I still refused to turn over. “You haven’t found it yet,” I teased.

  Fereydoon became wild then. He searched my naked back in the light of the oil lamp, caressing me with his hands and lips. His caresses were different this time; they seemed intended to inflame me. When he tried to turn me again, I still wouldn’t let him: I liked what he was doing too much. Fereydoon became wild, kissing and biting my shoulders and lifting up the front of my body to stroke my breasts from underneath. I began to feel as liquid as hot pomegranate syrup, and when I was panting and could no longer bear to hold myself back from him, I rolled over to allow him to explore me further.

  “Where is the secret?” he asked impatiently. I teased him with a smile, and Fereydoon dragged me into the light of the oil lamp, kissing and caressing me until he came closer and closer to my treasure.

  I kept my legs tightly closed and wouldn’t let him open them, indicating parts of my body as if to say, first touch me here, then kiss me there. It was as though he were discovering me for the first time. His mouth and hands crisscrossed my body like a caravan, making stops at oases along the way. When I was boiling with pleasure, my legs fell open, for I no longer desired to be separate from him. That’s when he saw what I had done. With a “voy!” of surprise, he moved his head between my legs to look more closely.

  Rather than just darkening the bottoms of my feet and my hands with henna, as women usually did, I had borrowed one of Gostaham’s single-haired brushes and painted my thighs where the flesh was heaviest and softest. My design was of pointed petals like those that would encircle the inmost center of a carpet. In between each petal, I had painted sprays of tiny roses, lilies, and narcissus.

  Fereydoon dragged me closer to the lamp to see better, and then he couldn’t keep his hands or his tongue away from my thighs. I remembered Gostaham’s joke about the language teacher, and it was only moments before I understood that the woman in his story had found a pearl beyond price in husband number three. Now, with Fereydoon’s lips in a new place, and his hands reaching all over my body, I began to breathe harder and faster. Too quickly, he stopped what he was doing, opened my legs, and sank his hips into mine. “Wait!” I wanted to shout.
I looked into his clouded eyes and felt that he had forgotten all about me, for he was lost in his own ecstasy.

  I began breathing normally, even as his grunts started to come faster. I don’t know what emboldened me to do this, but as his hips were moving away from mine, I closed my knees, twisted around quickly, and crawled away.

  “Vohhh!” he said in frustration.

  He cursed and pleaded and called my name, but as I refused to return, he followed on all fours. I let him chase me around the room, and then I made haste to the silk rug I had laid on the floor, with his breath practically at my ear. He grabbed my hips as if he were still master, but I could sense that he was waiting for me to do something. I turned around and pushed him very gently back onto the silk rug, and there he lay staring up at me, waiting to do my bidding. I put my knees on either side of him and began rubbing the length of my body along his. He reached his hands to my breasts, at last, and I moaned as the passion returned to my body. For the first time ever, I caressed his beautiful hair, which fell in shimmering black waves around his head. The softness of his hair in my hands, the slippery silk under my knees and feet, and the bristly hairs on his chest stirred a warmth in my groin I had never felt before. I took him this time, gluing my hips to his and rocking back and forth, slowly at first and then faster, until we were no more separate than warp and weft. Fereydoon followed along at my speed, meeting me this time as I had so often met him. The world, which I had always thought of as solid, suddenly began to lose its substance. I screamed and perhaps roared, and Fereydoon roared with me, and I felt myself dissolve in an instant the way the moth is consumed by the flame, with nothing remaining but a puff of smoke.

  Our roars must have alarmed the servants, for they banged on the door, asking if Fereydoon was well, and he barked at them to give him peace. The two of us didn’t speak at all, but stayed panting on the rug. As soon as his breath had quieted, Fereydoon could not keep his hands separate from my body. He began caressing me again, and I reached down and touched his middle. It was as stiff as a pole, even though we had just finished. We began sporting again like animals. Thinking of the fox’s tail, I grabbed my sash, tied it around Fereydoon’s eyes, and nibbled him with my tongue until he began making small cries of ecstasy that had never issued from his lips before. We continued that way for the rest of the night.

  In the morning, I awoke with Fereydoon’s face close to mine, his eyes open. Though he had business to attend to, he didn’t seem to want to leave. Even after he had bathed and dressed, he could not stop himself from parting my legs again to see the design I had drawn, and dipping his fingers there.

  For my part, I could hardly believe what I had learned to do. At last I understood the rapture that Goli had described! Now I, too, could smile knowingly to myself when women joked about relations with men, for my body had finally grasped the joy of it.

  Not long after I returned home that morning, Gostaham received a letter from Fereydoon renewing my sigheh for another three months. He must have written it right after we said good-bye. With jubilation, we sent back a letter of agreement. Gordiyeh congratulated me, surprised that I had succeeded. “I thought he had done with you,” she said.

  Gostaham gave us another sack of coins from Fereydoon’s accountant, after taking his share to pay for our keep. My mother put both her hands to my cheeks and told me I was like the moon. I glowed with triumph. Unlike Gordiyeh, my mother, and all the other women I knew, I had had to prove myself after marriage or risk losing my husband. I had succeeded with only hours remaining, and I vowed not to make the same mistake again. Right away, I began planning what I would do the next time Fereydoon summoned me to his bed.

  THAT AFTERNOON, a messenger from Naheed knocked on Gostaham’s door to tell me that I was invited for coffee. Although my eyes were burning with fatigue and I longed to rest, I had to go with her to avoid being rude. Naheed had sent for me several times during the last few days, but I had returned my apologies, for I had been too perplexed by my own problems.

  I already knew what Naheed was going to tell me. Only a few days before, she had probably met Iskandar’s mother and sister at the hammam, and they would have exchanged pleasantries all afternoon as they bathed. At the end of the day, his mother would have been enchanted enough to reveal that she was searching for a good match for her son. Since Iskandar was already in love, I suspected that his family’s offer had come quickly and that Naheed’s had already accepted. Girls like Naheed were destined to marry wealthy men; but her fate would be even better, for she would be marrying someone she had chosen herself.

  I hummed to myself as I walked through Four Gardens. Rosebushes were blooming in a garden near the river, and I stopped to admire them. Small yellow buds with delicate petals were planted near fat red blossoms that had already spread their petals wide. The song that I loved to sing with my father came to me:

  I shall plant roses at her feet,

  For I am drunk, drunk, drunk on love.

  If a girl like Naheed could get what she wanted, perhaps so could a girl like me. I had won Fereydoon as a lover; maybe with more cleverness I could ensnare him as a permanent husband.

  When I arrived at Naheed’s, we greeted each other with a kiss on each cheek. As her mother’s birds chirped merrily in their cages, I looked at Naheed for signs of the good news. But as soon as the servants left us alone, Naheed’s face twisted into grief, and she collapsed onto a cushion, crying.

  I was astonished. “Naheed, my dear, my life! What has happened?”

  She looked up for a moment, her green eyes beautiful through her tears. “They said no,” she said, before choking on more sobs.

  “Who said no? Iskandar’s parents?”

  “No, no. My own parents!”

  “Why?”

  Naheed sat up and tried not to choke on her own sobs. “They found the letters,” she said when she finally recovered. “There were too many for me to keep them in my sash. I hid them underneath my bedroll, but I must have been careless. One of my mother’s maids betrayed me. She is a wealthy woman now, I’m sure.”

  “You poor animal!” I said. “Did they even consider Iskandar as a husband for you?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s too poor!” said Naheed, sobbing even more. I reached forward and put my arms around her waist, and she leaned toward me and cried on my shoulder. When she had stopped for a moment, she looked at me with so much pain in her eyes that my heart felt heavy with grief. “I love him!” she burst out. “I will always love him! Whatever happens, he and I will always be as close as a cloud and its life-giving rain!”

  I sighed, though I was not surprised that her parents had refused a poor man. “Have you heard from Iskandar?”

  “He sent me a letter through Kobra, but we have to be very careful now because my parents are watching me. They said I had shamed the family name by having a secret romance, and that people would talk. They have instructed the head servants to pat down the others for missives when they come in the door.”

  “What did he write to you?”

  “That even if I am old and sickly, if my hair is gray and I walk with a limp, he will love me always.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I know how much you love him.”

  Naheed clicked her tongue against her teeth. “How could you know? You have never been in love,” she said almost angrily.

  I admitted that was true, although now that I had enjoyed an evening of newly awakened delights with Fereydoon, my feelings had begun to change. I wondered if they could be considered love.

  “Naheed-joon,” I said, “on my way here, I was so certain you were going to tell me you were engaged to Iskandar and were about to obtain your heart’s greatest desire that I was singing to myself with joy.”

  “I thought so, too,” she replied.

  I considered for a moment. “What if Iskandar does well for himself? Is it possible that your parents will change their mind one day?”

&nbs
p; “No,” she said darkly. And just when I thought her tears had started to dry, she bent over and moaned like an animal in a trap. I hadn’t heard keening like that since my father had died, and the sounds tore at my heart.

  I tried to comfort her. “Naheed, my life, you must have hope. Let’s pray to God, and trust that He has a compassionate fate in store for you and Iskandar.”

  “You don’t understand,” Naheed replied, and returned to her low, guttural wailing. A servant knocked at the door with our coffee. I jumped up and took the tray from her hands so that she wouldn’t enter and see Naheed’s tear-streaked face.

  “It’s all right,” she said, “they all know about my engagement.”

  I was puzzled. “What do you mean?”

  Naheed’s tears flowed even faster, like a heavy spring rain. “If I had renounced Iskandar, my parents probably would have done nothing, but I wept and told them I would never forget him. For that reason, they have contracted a marriage for me with another man. I am to be married when the moon is full again.”

  This news was even crueler than the last. How could Naheed’s parents, who had loved and spoiled their girl all her life, throw her at a man while she was still mourning her first love? I felt very, very sorry for her. I put my arms around Naheed again, inclining my head toward hers.

  “And whom are you to marry?” I asked, hoping it was a good choice who would make her happy.

  “My mother called on Homa, who she said knew of just the man,” said Naheed bitterly. “Of course, I have never seen him in my life.”

  “Do you know anything at all about him?”

  Her parents would have been able to choose from among thousands, for Naheed had money and beauty in equal measure. Perhaps he would be her match in those things and unveil the nighttime pleasures that I now had learned to enjoy.

  She shrugged. “He’s a horseman, which my parents thought would make him a good substitute for Iskandar.”

  The hair on my arms stood on end suddenly, as if there was a draft in the room.