The Blood of Flowers

  Gordiyeh covered her face with her hands as if the shame were unbearable.

  I was quaking now. Although I had listened to the letter before sending it, I didn’t read well enough to know that the scribe had done such a poor job. My silence and flushing face made my guilt obvious.

  “How dare a woman of my household put me in such a humiliating position!”

  He grabbed my tunic and pulled me toward him. “You have no excuse for this,” he said. He smashed one hand into my temple and cracked the other against my jaw. I dropped to the ground.

  My mother threw her body in front of mine. “Hit me first!” she cried. “Only don’t touch my child again.”

  “I don’t suppose Fereydoon paid you,” Gordiyeh said to her husband.

  “Pay me?” Gostaham snorted in derision. “I was lucky he didn’t order someone to poison me. The only way I could gain his for giveness was to invent more stories. I told him we had found a permanent marriage for her and that it was in her best interest to accept it while she was still young, unless he wanted her for himself.”

  “What did he say?” my mother asked, unable to conceal the hope in her voice. I put my hand to my cheek to stop the pulsing pain in my jaw. The taste of blood was like iron on my tongue.

  “He said, ‘She is used, and I have had my fill of her.’ And then he brushed one hand against the other as if to clean them of dirt.”

  It was just as I had expected. I might have been able to please Fereydoon a while longer, but one day he would have rid himself of me.

  Gordiyeh’s face seemed to compress into knots as she peered down at me. “Your very tread is evil!” she said. “If it weren’t, your father wouldn’t have died at such a young age, Naheed wouldn’t have discovered the sigheh, and our friends wouldn’t have canceled their commissions.”

  There was no way to get rid of an evil tread. It would always bring misfortune on the household and taint everything it touched, at least in her eyes.

  “Naheed found out from Kobra,” I argued, the blood leaking out of my mouth. My mother ripped off her head scarf, her long gray hair falling around her shoulders, and soaked it up with the cloth. “All I did was admit it was true.”

  “You should have lied,” Gordiyeh said.

  “I couldn’t bear it any longer!” I cried, although the pain when I opened my lips was fierce. “How would you feel if every three months you had to worry about whether your husband still wanted you? Or if your best friend threatened your children?”

  “May God always keep my daughters safe,” Gordiyeh replied, ignoring my questions.

  I picked up the letter Gostaham had thrown at my feet. Of that, I was ashamed. No one had taught me more than he; and though he hadn’t extended as much protection as a father, he had been a loving teacher.

  “Nothing can excuse the fact that I took your seal without asking,” I said to him. “It was only because I saw no other way of leaving the sigheh.”

  “You should have told me how unhappy you were!” Gostaham exploded. “I could have announced your decision to Fereydoon with apologies and professions of thanks for his generosity. No doubt he is so angry because he did not expect to be dismissed so gracelessly, and with such poor grammar.”

  I sighed. Once again I had made the mistake of acting too quickly, yet this time I had had good reasons. “But Gordiyeh told me I had to say yes.”

  “If you had admitted your plans, I would have seen the danger and found a better way.”

  I didn’t believe him, for he had never gone against his wife’s wishes before. “I deeply regret my error,” I said nonetheless. “I know I haven’t always done things the right way, for I am not of Isfahan. I kiss your feet, amoo.”

  Gostaham opened his palms to the sky and looked up, as if forgiveness had come to him from above.

  “Haven’t they caused trouble enough?” Gordiyeh said. “We’ve lost the commissions for several carpets because of her. They no longer deserve to live here.”

  I tried again; I had nothing to lose. “I beg your permission to stay under your protection,” I said to him. “I will work like a slave on your carpets, so much so that it won’t cost you an abbasi for us to live here. I will do everything you say without complaint.”

  “That was what she said the last time,” Gordiyeh said.

  Gostaham remained silent. Then he said, “Yes, it is. It’s too bad, really too bad.”

  That was all Gordiyeh needed before pronouncing the words she had been yearning to say for weeks. “You are banished from this household. Tomorrow, you must go.”

  Gostaham cringed but did not tell her to hold her tongue. He walked away and Gordiyeh followed, leaving me bleeding there. My mother tilted my head back and used her scarf to swab at the soft flesh inside my cheeks, which was ripped and bruised. I winced from the pain.

  It wasn’t long before we heard Gordiyeh’s moans throughout the house, Gostaham’s reward for letting her get her way.

  “That is a filthy sound,” I muttered.

  My mother did not reply.

  “Bibi,” I mumbled, for I could hardly open my mouth, “I’m sorry about the way I did this.”

  My mother’s face became stony. She arose abruptly and went into the kitchen, leaving me alone. “Not her again,” I heard Cook say. I lay on the ground, bleeding and bewildered. I stood up slowly and made my own way to bed, moaning with pain.

  Shamsi, Zohreh, and my mother finished pitting the dates for the meal. The rich aroma of lamb stew with dates filled the air, and I heard all the servants eating together. I remained on my bed, occasionally dozing, holding my jaw to quell the pain. My mother did not ask how I felt when she came in to sleep. In the middle of the night, I arose to use the latrines and ran into Shamsi, whose eyes grew large when she looked at me. I put my hand to my face and discovered that my cheek had swelled to the size of a ball.

  THE NEXT MORNING, I could not open my mouth enough to eat, and my lower lip was numb. Ali-Asghar, who knew about horses and sheep, felt my jaw for fractures. “I don’t believe it is broken,” he said, but just in case, he wrapped a cloth around my chin and tied it on top of my head, instructing me to leave it on until the pain had gone away.

  “How long?” I asked between closed teeth.

  “At least a week,” he replied. A look of pity entered his eyes. “You deserved to be punished,” he said, “but not like that. I wouldn’t hurt even a cursed dog the way he hurt you.”

  “And all for the sake of his wife!” said my mother.

  “As always,” said Ali-Asghar, who had been their servant for many years. “That will never change.”

  We put our few clothes into bundles and awaited Gordiyeh and Gostaham in the courtyard.

  “Where is your carpet?” my mother asked, looking worriedly at my small bundle.

  “I think the Dutchman is going to buy it,” I replied, although I hadn’t heard from him. I wondered with a pang why his boy hadn’t returned with an offer.

  Just then, Gordiyeh and Gostaham came into the courtyard dressed in their crisp tunics, hers pink and his like wine. Neither one said anything about the cloth around my head or my swollen face. Gordiyeh offered me her stiff cheeks to kiss good-bye and then resolutely looked away. I thought that Ali-Asghar must have spoken to Gostaham about my injury, for he took my hand and left a small purse of coins in my sleeve when Gordiyeh wasn’t looking.

  “Thank you for all you have done for us,” said my mother to them both. “I apologize for the ways we have been a burden.”

  “May God always be with you,” replied Gordiyeh, in a tone implying that we would need help.

  “And with you, too,” my mother replied. She looked hopefully from one to the other, as if they might relent, but they turned away and walked back into the birooni. I did not say anything other than good-bye, for my face ached from Gostaham’s blows, and my heart ached even more.

  Ali-Asghar escorted us into the street, and we watched the tall gates of the house close behind us. From
the outside, Gostaham’s house now looked like a fortress. Nothing could be seen of the comforts within, not even a light. The other houses on the street were just as blank and unsmiling.

  We walked to the top of the road that penetrated Four Gardens. The beggar was at his usual post near the cedar tree. His alms bowl was empty, and he shivered in the wind, the end of his stump blue with cold. At the sight of him, my mother leaned over and began wailing from the depths of her heart.

  “Kind Khanoom, what ails you? How can I help?” the beggar asked, waving his stump. To have such a ragged fellow offer assistance only made her wail more loudly. I tried to put my arms around her, but she evaded my embrace.

  “Bibi-joon, we’ll find a way,” I said with my teeth clenched to protect my jaw. But I didn’t sound convincing, for I hardly believed it myself.

  “No, we will not,” she said. “You have no understanding of what you have done. We are on the streets now, and we may die.”

  “But—”

  “We should go back to our village,” my mother said. “At least we have a roof there.”

  I imagined leaving the city the same way we had come, over the bridge built for the Shah. But I knew I could no sooner take my first steps on that bridge than I would turn around to look at the city again, if only to see its turquoise and lemon domes basking in the morning light. And then I imagined continuing a few more paces, only to stop at one of the bridge’s archways to embrace the view of the city with my eyes. I had become the nightingale to the rose of Isfahan, singing an eternal love song to its beauties.

  “I don’t want to leave,” I said.

  “Don’t talk to me anymore,” snapped my mother. She began walking away and I followed, while the kind beggar begged us to make amends with one another.

  Her steps led us to the Image of the World, where a bitter wind was whirling the dust in the square. A man passed us, rubbing his hands together and shivering. The vendors were like mosquitoes, buzzing around our ears with no respite. A knife seller kept thrusting “blades as sharp as Solomon’s” under our noses.

  “Leave me alone—I have no money,” I finally growled. It hurt my jaw to say that much.

  “That’s a lie,” he said rudely as he walked away.

  A gust of cold wind blew dust in our faces. My mother caught some in her throat and began to cough. I called out to a coffee boy to bring us two steaming cups and paid him with one of my precious coins. The knife seller saw my silver from across the square and caught the sun on one of his blades, flashing it into my eyes.

  I filled my lungs to hurl a curse, but my mother stopped me. “May your throat close, for a change.”

  Chastened, I sipped the coffee between barely parted lips. I had no idea what we were going to do. I knew I had to think of something before my mother started looking for a camel driver to take us back to our village.

  “I have an idea,” I said. When I stood up, my mother followed, and we picked our way among the vendors until I spotted a cluster of women who had spread out their humble wares near the gateway to the bazaar. One offered a hand-embroidered tree of life, probably the best thing in her household. Another was selling blankets she had woven herself. I looked for Malekeh and found her squatting on her two carpets. When she saw me, she sprang to her feet in horror.

  “May God keep you safe!” she said. “What happened to you?”

  “Malekeh,” I whispered, “can you help us?”

  She drew back for a moment, considering my bruised and swollen face. “What have you done?”

  I wasn’t surprised that she blamed me, for I knew how I must look. “Gordiyeh decided that we were too much of a burden,” I said.

  Malekeh’s eyes narrowed. “Did you bring shame on your family?”

  “Of course not!” snapped my mother. “My daughter would never do such a thing.”

  Malekeh looked contrite, for my mother was obviously a respectable widow in black mourning clothes.

  “They became angry after I made an error of judgment on a carpet,” I said, which was at least partly the truth. I didn’t want to tell her about my sigheh, for fear it would make me low in her eyes.

  “Malekeh, do you know anyone who would take in two poor women? We have money to pay.”

  I shook the little bag of coins hidden in my sash. I knew that Malekeh needed the money, and we needed to be under the protection of a family.

  She sighed. “My husband is still ailing, and we have only one room for the four of us.”

  “I beg you,” I replied. “We can care for him while you’re out.”

  Malekeh hesitated, looking as if she was about to say no.

  “I know how to make medicines,” offered my mother. “I’ll try to cure him.”

  Hope made Malekeh’s face pretty for moment. “What can you do?” she asked.

  “I can make a concoction of dried mountain herbs that will cure his lungs,” my mother said promptly. She pointed to her bundle. “Here are the plants that I collected during the summer.”

  Malekeh sighed. “You helped me when I was very needy,” she said. “I will not leave you to freeze or starve.”

  “May God rain His blessings on you, Malekeh!” I said. She had every reason not to believe my story, but she chose to help anyway.

  My mother and I squatted with her, trying to help her sell her wares. Malekeh called out to passersby, enticing them to look at her carpets. Many men stopped to look at her instead, for she had lips like a rosebud and a pearly smile. My mother tried to distract them by detailing the carpets’ merits, but the honey had left her tongue. I thought back to the way she had enticed the traveling silk merchant to buy my turquoise carpet, bargaining coyly until she got her price. Now she just looked tired, and no one stopped to banter with her for very long. I sat on the carpets while she worked, holding my hand against my jaw to quell the pain. The only person who was selling anything on that frozen day was the blanket maker, for her wares were irresistible.

  Late in the afternoon, Malekeh still had not made a sale, and most shoppers had gone home. She rolled up her rugs, and she and I each slung one across our backs. My mother carried our small bundles, and we followed Malekeh through the bazaar, toward the old square and the old Friday mosque.

  My mother walked ahead beside Malekeh, her body stiff. She did not turn and look at me or ask me how I felt. The pain in my jaw tore through my body, but I suffered even more deeply from her neglect.

  As we traversed the old square I had walked through so many times on my way to see Fereydoon, I began thinking about him and the small, tree-lined street where his jewel-like pleasure house was located. He might be there right now, preparing to greet another musician or some other sigheh. I felt an involuntary gripping of my loins as if I were holding him there, and a surge of heat blossomed from my belly to my cheeks. I must renounce those pleasures now, and I might never have them again.

  We kept walking until we were almost outside the city. I had never known that so close to Fereydoon’s pleasure palace was a warren of streets where servants lived. Malekeh turned down a dark, twisting alley wet with mud. Piles of garbage lay in the street, with flies buzzing around them. Puddles of night soil stank even more, for there were no night-soil collectors here. Filthy wild dogs lunged at the piles of garbage, halted only by the rocks hurled at them by little boys with dirty hair.

  Although it was still light outside, the streets became darker and darker as we twisted through the alleys, and the smells more rancid. Finally, after too many turns to count, we arrived at Malekeh’s broken door. We passed into a tiny courtyard floored with broken tiles, where a gang of children were playing and fighting. Two of the boys rushed at Malekeh, their dirty hands outspread. “Bibi, is there chicken?” “Is there meat?”

  “No, souls of my heart,” Malekeh said gently. “Not today.”

  Disappointed, they rejoined their friends, and the squabbling continued.

  “Those are my children, Salman and Shahvali,” she said.

 
Malekeh pushed open the door to her room. “Welcome,” she said. “Please be comfortable while I make tea.”

  We left our shoes near the door and sat down. At one end of the room was a tiny oven for heat and cooking, with a few blackened pots nearby. There were two baskets on the floor, which probably contained the family’s possessions and clothes. The ceiling was brown in places where the rain had leaked through. I pitied Malekeh for having to live in such squalor. When I employed her, I had never realized how badly she needed the money.

  Malekeh’s husband, Davood, was sleeping on a bedroll in one corner, breathing heavily as if something were stuck in his lungs. She touched his head to see how hot he was and wiped away the sweat from his brow with a cloth.

  “Poor animal,” she said.

  We drank weak tea together, barely speaking. I took care not to hurt my lips on the rim of my vessel, which was chipped. Before long, Malekeh called in her children for their evening meal, though she had only bread and cheese to feed them. My mother and I refused the food, claiming we were not hungry. I would not have been able to force bread into my mouth or to chew it, in any case.

  “You need soup,” Malekeh said to me sympathetically.

  “With your permission, I’ll make soup for everyone tomorrow,” my mother replied.

  “Ah, but with what money?”

  “We still have some left,” I croaked. The pain in my jaw was fierce.

  When it grew dark, we spread the family’s blankets on the floor. Davood slept near one of the walls, with Malekeh beside him and her children in the middle. Then came my mother and finally, me. When our bodies touched by accident, my mother moved away and kept her distance from me.

  With all of us stretched out on the ground, there was just enough room for one person to arise and use the night-soil vessel, crouching near the oven for privacy. Davood wheezed loudly throughout the night. The children must have been having dreams, for they cried out from time to time. Malekeh often sighed in her sleep. I know I moaned, for I awoke to that terrible sound and realized it was mine.