“What else?” I asked.
“Just that he is the son of a wealthy horse breeder who lives in the north.”
I stared at Naheed. I knew I had to say something, but I couldn’t get my lips to form words. Instead, I began coughing and gasping for breath. I bent over at the waist, head bowed, trying to find air.
“Voy!” said Naheed. “Are you all right?”
It seemed as if the attack would not end. I coughed until tears ran out of my eyes, and then I remained wordless.
“You look miserable,” Naheed said as I was wiping my eyes.
“If you only knew how much,” I replied. I forced myself to hold my tongue, since I had been hasty many times before. Weren’t there hundreds of wealthy horse traders? Or at least dozens? And didn’t most of them have sons? Surely it must be another man.
“Your parents must have told you more,” I said encouragingly.
Naheed paused to think for a moment. “He lost his first wife, but that’s really all I know,” she replied.
I felt a chill inside that made me want to wrap my arms around myself to dispel it.
“What’s his name?” I asked abruptly, my voice tight in my throat.
“I don’t know why it would mean anything to you,” Naheed replied, “for it doesn’t to me.” She sighed. “He could be Shah Abbas himself, and I wouldn’t care.”
“But who is he?” I insisted, feeling as if I might burst out of my skin.
Naheed looked surprised at my persistence. “I hesitate to say his name—I dislike the very sound of it,” she replied. “But if you must know, it is Fereydoon.”
I had another fit of coughing which felt as if I might lose my vital organs. I could have told her everything about her husband to be, of course; how his hair looked when released from his turban, how he closed his eyes in rapture at the sound of the kamancheh, the way he smelled when he was excited. Now I even knew how to please him, yet only she would have the right to become his proper wife for the rest of her days. A hot surge of jealousy coursed through me. At the thought that he might prefer her, I started sputtering so hard, it was a wonder that she didn’t suspect what was wrong.
Naheed looked very moved by my outburst. “My dearest friend, I’m sorry that my plight has disturbed you so deeply. Please don’t allow my bad luck to dim your life’s blood.”
I thought quickly about how to explain myself. “It’s just that I wanted you to be happy,” I said. “All the things you have told me have torn my heart.”
The tears slid out of her eyes, and mine too were veiled with mist. But while Naheed’s tears were mixed with gratitude for my friendship, mine sheltered a guilty secret.
The last call to prayer erupted in the air, signaling that it was time for me to go home. I left Naheed with her grief and walked back slowly with mine. Alone on the street, I could finally stop pretending why I was heartsick. No wonder Fereydoon had ignored me for so many weeks; he must have been busy discussing the marriage contract with Naheed’s parents and arranging the details of the wedding.
And what about our night of pleasure? He had let me gratify him until the cocks crowed, taking all my gifts as if they were his right. My blood began to seethe, and I walked faster and faster through Four Gardens until I bumped into a hunched old woman with a cane and had to excuse myself for disturbing her.
I heard a cat yowl in the bushes, probably in search of a mate, just like me. I had never desired anything but to be married to a good man. Why must I be the pleasure girl, while Naheed, who already had everything, could be the permanent wife? And why, of all the men in Isfahan, did her intended have to be Fereydoon?
When I arrived home, Cook heard my steps and called out to me from the kitchen. “You’re late,” she complained. “Come help us clean the dill.”
“Leave me alone!” I snapped. Cook was so surprised, she dropped her knife.
“I don’t know how you manage such a mule,” she said to my mother. I ignored her and stormed through the courtyard to our little room. How could Fereydoon have contracted a marriage without telling me? He didn’t know Naheed was my friend, but concealing such a momentous step showed how little I mattered in his eyes.
WHEN FEREYDOON SUMMONED me the next day, I went to his house but refused to let Hayedeh and Aziz bathe me, perfume me, or brush my hair. Now that my status had been restored, they were afraid of me again. They begged and pleaded until I yelled at them to retreat, and they left, cowed. I sat in the little room where we usually frolicked and waited for Fereydoon, still wearing all my street wraps. I was so angry I could feel the air getting hot around me, and my cheeks burned.
When Fereydoon arrived, he noticed my unusual attire but didn’t say anything. He removed his shoes and his turban and told his servants to leave. Then he sat down beside me and took my hand in his. “Listen, joonam,” he began, as if he were going to explain something. It was the first time he had ever used the term “soul of mine.”
I didn’t let him continue. “You don’t want me anymore,” I said.
“Why wouldn’t I want you anymore? Especially after that last night.” He smiled and tried to push open my knees. I kept them squeezed shut.
“But you’re getting married.”
“I have to,” he said. “Don’t worry: Nothing else will change.”
His answer implied only one thing. “You mean, you intend to keep us both?”
“Of course.”
“You don’t know what problems that will cause.”
“Why?”
“Naheed is my best friend!”
He looked truly surprised. “Of all the women in Isfahan—”
“And she doesn’t know about my sigheh with you.”
“Why not?”
“My family told me to keep it quiet.”
Fereydoon shrugged. “Your family is concerned about their social standing,” he said, “but people do this kind of thing all the time.”
“Doesn’t it affect your standing?”
“A man can marry the way he likes,” he replied.
I looked at his costly blue velvet robe patterned with falcons, and in that moment he seemed to possess everything, while I had nothing.
“What does it matter what people think, anyway?” he said. “Wives who like each other can help each other with children and other womanly matters.”
“I’m not even your real wife!”
“That doesn’t matter, either.”
I remained silent, for it certainly mattered to me. Marriage to a wealthy man like Fereydoon would ease all my worries. I waited, hoping he would pledge to marry me, but he did not.
Fereydoon wrapped his arms around me, but I did not yield. “This is what my father wants,” he said, his breath warm on my ear. “He has always craved an alliance with one of the established families of Isfahan. This will aid his chances of being appointed a governor one day.”
He sighed. “But don’t think for a minute that I don’t want you. If I didn’t, I would have let you go the way a tree sheds its leaves in autumn.”
I didn’t reply. He never would have made a proposal to Naheed’s family if their daughter had not been as radiant as the five fingers of the sun.
“She’s very pretty,” I said, almost peevishly.
“That’s what I hear,” he replied. “I’ll be meeting her in a day or two to see for myself.”
Fereydoon began stroking my cheek with his soft hands. “I don’t know anything about what she’s like. But from the moment I met you and you ordered me not to look at you, I liked you. Most women would have pretended to be polite and slithered away; you showed me your sharp tongue. I admired your black hair and brown skin, so like two rich, dark velvets. I thought you were too young to be one of Gostaham’s daughters, and when the servant boy returned, I paid him to tell me who you were. When I hired Gostaham to make the carpet, I asked him to include the talismans because I wanted your fingers in the design. Once I saw the rug on the loom, with its shimmering jewels, I decided to ha
ve you.”
His words made my heart soar for the first time. “I never knew why you wanted me,” I said.
Fereydoon sighed. “My life is full of people who sing my praises so they can win a larger coin. Before she died, even my first wife used to coddle me to win the things she wanted. You don’t do that, and I like it.”
This surprised me, for I did everything I could to please him with my body. Yet it was true that I withheld the honey from my tongue.
Fereydoon smoothed his hands across his face as if wiping off the dust of the day. “I can’t change the facts of my position,” he said. “My father needs me to marry well-connected women, and I will. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want you—like this—and often.”
Fereydoon pulled my body between his legs, my back against his chest, and began stroking me although I was swathed in clothes. I didn’t want to let him please me, but his touch made my knees part, especially when I remembered what I now knew how to do. I allowed him to remove my street garments as if he were stripping off the layers of an onion.
“After last night,” he said, “I thought all day about what new surprise you might be preparing for me tonight.”
“I did nothing,” I said with iron in my voice.
“Ah, well,” he replied. “You were upset. It doesn’t matter.”
He began caressing my legs, and I pushed away his hand, but he didn’t mind. I saw right away that he would enjoy the novelty of taking me unprepared—unbathed, in my street clothes, resistant to his touch. I pushed him away again, but I didn’t mean it; he quickly saw that it was a game and courted me as if he were the courtesan, and I the one who had to be satisfied. He stroked my body until I could not keep myself away from him. Then he let me have him in any way I chose. He watched in wonder as I swooped over the mountain not once, but three times. He delighted in turnabout, the surprise this time being that he must devote himself to my pleasure. I took it and took it from him that night, until I was as sated with him as he had ever been with me.
Before I fell asleep, I thought back to the story my mother had told me a few days earlier about the slave girl Fitna and how she had tested and tamed her shah. He had not understood her value until he believed her to be gone forever. I wondered if I, too, could find a clever way to make Fereydoon declare me the most treasured affliction of his heart.
First there wasn’t and then there was. Before God, no one was.
Once there was a shah of Iran named Bahram who was known far and wide for his bravery. He had once slain a man-eating dragon and rescued the child inside its belly, and he had wrenched his own gold crown from the jaws of a lion. But in his moments of leisure, his greatest love was the hunt.
Bahram had a slave girl named Fitna who joined him on every hunting expedition. Fitna was lean and strong, and she could ride a horse as fast as her master. They used to gallop together for miles, searching for wild asses and other beasts of prey. At night Fitna feasted at his table, and he delighted in her above all others. Even his two sisters, whose arms were adorned with bracelets of gold, didn’t shine in his eyes like Fitna, whose bare arms were as white as pearls.
One day they were hunting deep in the desert, where prey was scarce. The shah’s men fanned out far and wide, forming a human net to drive the beasts toward him. Bahram and Fitna rode together, conversing, until the shah spotted a wild ass. With a shout, he spurred his horse and chased the animal, aiming an arrow at its heart. The ass dropped to its knees and relinquished its life to the shah. Seeing that Fitna watched but failed to utter a word of praise, Bahram spoke.
“Didn’t you see how well I aimed?” he inquired. “Here comes another beast now. How shall I kill this one?”
Fitna smiled, knowing how well he loved to be tested. “I can think of a fine way to strike it down,” she replied. “Why not pin its paw to its temple?”
Bahram thought for a moment until a plan formed in his mind. Placing a metal ball within his sling, he launched it at the ass’s ear. Stung, the beast pawed at its temple to clear away the headache. The shah swiftly drew his bow and with a single arrow fastened the animal’s paw to its head. Pleased with himself, he turned to Fitna for the expected praise.
In an even tone, she said only, “You are well practiced at the hunt, sire. He who works at a skill will one day master it.”
The shah was surrounded by courtiers who fawned upon him when he merely breathed. How could this slave be so bold? Knowing it would be wrong to strike her down, he withheld his blows. Secretly, he called an old, grizzled officer to his side and issued a command. “That woman has troubled the royal peace,” he said. “Destroy her before I do it myself.”
The officer swept Fitna onto his horse and galloped to a distant city, where he owned a palace with a tall tower. As they traveled, his heart was heavy with the thought of the task that lay ahead. He had killed many men in battle but could not bear the thought of destroying an unarmed slave girl.
When they arrived, he led Fitna up sixty steps to the top of his tower, where he planned to fulfill the shah’s command. But before he could draw his weapon, she stopped him with these words. “Do not forget that I am the shah’s favorite,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “Stay your hand from killing me for a few days, but tell the shah you have followed his orders. If he is satisfied, you may take my life without fault. But if he is not, you will one day earn his blessings.”
The kind officer considered for a moment. He had always been loyal, but this time the shah’s order seemed unjust. What did he have to lose by waiting? If the shah’s heart was hardened, he had only to return and carry out the deed. And if it wasn’t, then he would be shielding his leader from his own error.
He left Fitna in his tower and returned to Bahram’s palace. When he was received by that lion of lions, he reported that he had sent the girl to her grave. The shah’s eyes filled with stinging tears, and he turned away to hide his grief. The officer returned to his tower to tell Fitna the news. She was happy but not hasty, knowing the shah well enough to let time do its work.
Fitna spent her days at the officer’s palace befriending a calf, who became her main companion. Since the calf would not climb the sixty stairs to the tower, she used to carry it all the way up on her back, where it would graze in the green grass that grew on the roof. Every morning she brought the calf there, and every evening she returned him to the animal pens below, whispering to herself, “May I be worthy of this trial.” At the end of six years the calf had become a full-sized ox, and Fitna’s muscles were as strong as a wrestler’s.
One day, Fitna pulled the ruby earrings from her ears and gave them to the officer. “Take these gems and sell them, and buy supplies for a fine feast,” she said. “We’ll need incense and candles, rice and lamb, pastries and wine. Bring all these things here, and then invite the shah to dine with you after the hunt.”
The officer, who had grown fond of his prisoner, refused to take her jewels. Instead, he opened his own bags of treasure to purchase the things she had requested. The next time he saw the shah, he begged the favor of his visit. “It would do great honor to your humble slave,” said he, “if you would drink and sup with me on top of my tower.”
Hearing this fine speech, Bahram granted his request. While the shah went off to hunt, the officer returned to his tower and helped Fitna prepare a grand celebration. Together, they unrolled his finest carpets on the roof and arranged pillows for reclining. Then Fitna cooked a beautiful meal, singing as she stirred a bit of amatory musk into the shah’s favorite dish of lamb with dates.
Toward evening, Bahram arrived with his men, and the officer ate and drank with them until they could consume no more. While they were smoking their water pipes, the shah said, “You have a fine palace here, my friend, and a lush garden. But these sixty steps are a long way to go, I should think, for a man of your age. Is it not one step for every year?”
The officer concurred that his age was indeed near sixty. “For a man used to the military lif
e, the steps are no trial,” he added quickly. “But I know a woman who can mount all these steps with the weight of an ox on her back. I don’t think there’s a man in the empire who could do the same.”
“How could a woman lift such a beast?” the shah asked. “Bring her here so that we all may witness this feat.”
The officer descended to find Fitna, hoping that when the evening meal was over, both of them would still be in possession of their lives. He trembled a little as he searched for her. But when he lifted the curtain leading to her quarters and beheld her, all his nervousness dropped away. She wore layers of white Chinese silk, which she had scented with incense. A white veil hid everything but her eyes, and a scarf lined with seed pearls covered her hair. Her almond eyes were lined with kohl. She was ready for battle.
Fitna loaded the heavy ox onto her back and mounted the stairs one by one. When she reached the top, she saluted Bahram and laid the ox at his feet. “O shah of shahs,” said she, “please accept my gift of this ox, which I was able to offer to you here through my skill alone.”
The shah looked awestruck, but his reply was full of reason. “This thing you call skill,” he said, “is just repetition. You’ve borne the burden of this ox so many times that now it seems easy.”
Fitna smiled and bowed down to the ground. “Sire, you are right,” she said. “I have borne this ox every day for six long years. But should someone who shoots a wild ass be celebrated for skill, while someone who lifts an ox be known only for repetition?”
Now the shah was speechless. He looked from Fitna to the officer and back again as if he were seeing the dead. Then he sprang to his feet and lifted Fitna’s veil. When he saw her moonlike face, he cried out with joy. Tears streamed from his eyes, matched by those that flowed from hers. For a few moments they were like two river spirits, speaking only through water.
The shah cleared the tower of all his men, including the officer. Then he seated Fitna on the carpet beside him and said, “I humbly request your forgiveness. In a moment of weakness I coveted your praise, but now I see that your wisdom is an even greater gift.”