It was a rainy night, and I was awakened by a drop of cold water that struck my face from a leak in the roof. As I wiped it away, I thought of Gostaham’s Great Room, with its ruby-red carpets, its vases of flowers, and its perpetual warmth. I shivered and pulled the thin blanket around me. When I finally arose with the dawn, I was more tired than I had been the night before.
IN THE MORNING, my mother and I offered to stay behind to care for Malekeh’s husband and children while she tried to sell her carpets. But before she departed, to make us honest in the eyes of God and her neighbors, she asked us to contract sighehs with Salman and Shahvali. They were only five and six, so the sighehs were not real marriages, of course. We simply pronounced our acceptances of the contracts, and suddenly we were family and would not have to cover ourselves around Davood.
“You are now our daughters-in-law,” said Malekeh with a smile, “even you, Khanoom.” It was peculiar to think of my mother as the daughter-in-law of a woman who was half her age, and yet necessary.
After Malekeh left, my mother asked the children to take her to the nearest bazaar, where she bought a bag of cheap lamb bones. She threw them into a pot full of water on top of the oven and boiled them with a few vegetables. Davood woke up, looked around the room in confusion, and asked who we were. “Friends,” said my mother, “here to make you a healing soup.” He grunted and rolled over to sleep again.
I stayed on my bedroll in a daze. From time to time I fell asleep, only to awake to the pain in my jaw and the ache of hunger in my belly. I had trouble sleeping, for Malekeh’s home was noisy. Six other families lived in rooms right off the shared courtyard, including Katayoon, her brother Amir, and their mother, so there was constant traffic. I felt assaulted by all the smells: night soil, cooking oil gone rancid, the frightening odor of chicken’s blood after slaughter, the acrid smell of boiling beans, the reeking shoes left in the courtyard, all the everyday stink of close living. And then there were endless sounds: a mother shouting at her child to do his lessons, a husband yelling at his wife, neighbors fighting about money, wheels creaking in the uneven mud alley, vegetables being chopped, mumbled prayers, moans of pain and distress—I heard it all. Gostaham’s house had been as quiet as a fortress.
The only thing that kept me from despair was the knowledge that I owned a costly rug. When I recovered, I would seek out the Dutchman and complete the sale. As soon as I held the silver in my hands, I wanted to start a new carpet with Katayoon and Malekeh. My dream was to be able to hire others so that we would have many carpets on the looms at once, just like at the royal rug workshop. Then maybe my mother and I could finally earn enough money to keep ourselves and live as we pleased.
It took more than a week for my jaw to heal enough for me to seek out the Dutchman. I hadn’t wanted to visit him while I was feeling so bruised and broken, for it would have been easy for him to think I would take any price for my carpet.
When I told my mother of my plans to find him, she said only two words: “I’ll cook.” She was still not speaking to me very much. Her anger seared me, and I hoped that the money from the Dutchman would soothe her.
My mother took the last of our coins to the small bazaar near Malekeh’s house and bought a chicken. In the courtyard, she slashed the artery in its neck while all the other people’s children looked on enviously, then cleaned the bird and cooked it in a pot with fresh greens. Malekeh came home that night to the smell of stew, a delight she had not had in a long time. We all feasted together, and even Davood sat up and ate a few bites of stew, proclaiming it “the food of paradise.”
The next day was Wednesday, the Dutchman’s day at the bazaar. My mother heated the leftover stew and bread for me late in the morning. I ate my fill before putting on the last of my good clothes— Naheed’s pink tunic and purple robe—although I knew no one would see them. “I’ll be back soon, with silver, I hope,” I said.
“Good luck,” replied my mother dryly without looking at me.
I left off my picheh so the Dutchman would recognize me and walked through the bazaar toward the Image of the World. After only a short time with Malekeh’s family, I no longer felt as if I belonged in the Great Bazaar with its view of the Shah’s palace and his lemon-colored mosque, so bright against the blue sky, for now I lived in a place where even keeping clean was a struggle.
In one of the alleys, I came across the young musician playing his kamancheh. He looked more dirty and disheveled than before. I hurried past, for I had no coin to give him. How many beggars there were all over the city! I had barely noticed them when I had first come to Isfahan.
When I arrived in the carpet sellers’ section of the bazaar, I pretended to look at the wares on display while hoping to hear a familiar foreign voice. To pass the time, I examined a prayer rug that showed a shimmering expanse of sable-colored silk between two white columns joined by an arch. Its knotting was so fine, and its vision so pure, I forgot the ache in my jaw.
Though I spent many hours in the shops, I didn’t see or hear any sign of the Dutchman. Still hopeful, I began asking the merchants if they knew of him or where he lived. One of them, a portly fellow who was hard to see clearly because of the thick haze of opium in his shop, said, “I haven’t seen him for days.” I must have looked alarmed, for he leered at me and told me he’d give me money for whatever I needed. I clutched my chador under my chin and ran out of his shop.
The day was getting colder. I blew on my hands to keep them warm, squatting for a moment near one of the shops. A coffee boy went by with a tray full of steaming vessels, singing out how his liquid would stir the blood. I looked longingly at the hot drink but did not have the coin.
Remembering that I had seen the Dutchman speaking with a young merchant the first time I had found him, I walked slowly to that man’s shop. He was alone, sitting on a cushion with a wooden desk on his lap, on which he was reading a ledger of accounts.
“Salaam aleikum,” I said.
He returned my greeting and asked how he could help.
“Do you know the farangi with the blue eyes?”
“The Dutchman,” said the merchant, standing up to assist me. My heart lurched for a moment, for his close-cropped beard and thinness reminded me of Fereydoon. I blushed and averted my gaze.
“I’m seeking him on an urgent matter of business,” I said. “Might you tell me where to find him?”
“You can’t find him,” said the merchant. “He has left.”
“Left Isfahan?”
“Left Iran.”
My heart began beating so quickly I feared it might jump out of my mouth, and I had to brace myself against the side of the alcove.
“What ails you, Khanoom?” asked the merchant, addressing me respectfully as if I were married.
“I am . . . unwell,” I said, trying to hold myself up. After all that had happened to me and my mother, I could not bear the thought that my one remaining hope for the future had been stolen.
“I beg you to sit and rest,” he said. I sank down into his cushions, trying to recover myself, while he called out to a passing coffee boy and paid him for a cup. I drank it quickly, grateful to feel the familiar warmth in my blood.
I had stirred the merchant’s curiosity, of course. “What is your business with the Dutchman?” he asked, still standing at a respectful distance.
“He was thinking of buying a rug I made,” I said. “His servant fetched it weeks ago, and I haven’t heard from him since.”
I had trouble concealing the pain I felt. I thought of Naheed, and how she had forced her face into a look of composure. I did the same by sinking my nails into my palm.
“I’m so sorry, Khanoom,” said the merchant. “You must know that farangis only come here to get rich, and many of them don’t have the manners of a dog.”
I thought about how poorly the Dutchman had comported himself with Gostaham.
“I heard that he even obtained a carpet from one of Isfahan’s carpet-making families for free. It takes skill
with the tongue to do that,” said the merchant.
“What great fortune,” I replied bitterly, remembering how Gordiyeh had betrayed me. I looked around and noticed that some of the other merchants were beginning to stare. I rose to go; I could not linger alone in a man’s shop without people making remarks about my honor.
“If you see him, will you tell him that a woman is looking for him? Perhaps he has forgotten.”
“Of course,” he said. “God willing, he will return and pay you all that you deserve.”
“May I come here again to ask after him?”
“Think of my shop as your own,” he replied.
The expression of pity in his eyes told me that he didn’t believe I would ever see the Dutchman again. I thanked him for his kindness and began the long walk home. It was nearly evening, and the weather had turned cold and sharp. As I trudged through the old square, the first snowflakes of the year began to fall. By the time I arrived at Malekeh’s, they were sticking to my chador. My jaw was aching in the cold, and I had to warm my face in front of the oven before I could talk. Malekeh and her boys clustered around me, and even my mother looked hopeful that I was bringing good news.
When I told them to expect nothing, Davood broke into a fit of wet coughing that sounded as though it would never end. Malekeh looked weary, as if her bones no longer had enough weight to carry her body. And my mother’s face seemed even more deeply etched with worry than before.
Malekeh gave me a puzzled look. “You let his boy take your carpet—without any security?” she asked.
“He was doing business with Gostaham,” I said. “I thought that would protect me.”
My mother and Malekeh exchanged a glance.
“Your designs are so beautiful,” Malekeh said musingly. “You have great conviction when you call out a rug’s colors. It’s easy to forget that you are still very young.”
My mother sighed. “Younger than her years,” she said darkly, and she remained silent after that. We sat there together, drinking pale tea and eating cold bread, for that was all we had, and listening to the sharp, angry cries of the children in the courtyard.
I WANTED TO start a new rug, but we didn’t have enough money for wool. The only thing we could do to earn coins was brew medicines and sell them. Having noticed that many of the district’s residents were already coughing and sneezing in the cold, my mother decided to make a concoction for diseases of the lungs, nose, and throat. “You can try,” said Malekeh doubtfully, “but most people here are too poor for such luxuries.”
I asked if I could help. “I believe you’ve helped enough,” said my mother in a sharp voice.
I sat quietly while my mother built a hot fire in the oven and put the roots and herbs she had gathered during the summer on to boil. The tiny room filled with a bitter smell, and the air became clouded with steam. My eyes watered so much from the fumes that I had to go out in the courtyard from time to time. Only Malekeh’s husband seemed to improve: The steam cleared his throat and allowed him to breathe more freely for a while.
In the afternoon, my mother sent me to the small local bazaar to buy several dozen cheap clay vessels, undecorated, with clay stoppers. I looked at the thin coins she put in my hand, which were so few that only someone more miserable than we were would even bother to take them. But I went to the bazaar, anyway, lifting my chador from time to time to keep it from dragging in the wet garbage that lay uncollected. This bazaar served the poorest residents of the city by offering things like crude pots, shoes made out of old clothes, tattered blankets, and used turbans.
The first clay merchant I approached scoffed at what I had to offer. “I’m not a charity,” he said.
I sought out the most run-down shop in the bazaar, but when I offered the merchant my coins, he, too, laughed at me. Hearing a child wail from the back of his shop, I offered to bring him two bottles of medicine that would calm children and treat coughs. When he agreed, I knew it was partly out of kindness, for with my sunken face I looked undernourished. I had caught a glimpse of it in the metal pans for sale at the entrance to the bazaar.
After my mother finished brewing the medicine, she poured it into the vessels and stoppered them. I took two of the bottles back to the clay merchant, who thanked me for the prompt return of my obligation. Then we told all the families in the courtyard that we would trade medicine for coins or food. But Malekeh was right: No one had the means. It was not like in Gostaham’s neighborhood, where families kept supplies of medicine in the house. Here, sickness was a costly tragedy, and only when it was dire would a doctor be summoned and a woman sent to the druggist to buy the things he had prescribed and prepare a medicine.
After failing with the neighbors, we made plans to peddle the medicine elsewhere. Because all the respectable peddlers were men, we asked Katayoon’s brother Amir to come with us and help us sell our wares in the wealthier parts of town. He was a tall, gangly boy with a friendly manner and a voice that rumbled as if it came from a grown man.
The first day, we left early in the morning and went to a prosperous neighborhood near Four Gardens, far enough from Gostaham’s house to avoid meeting him by chance. Amir took eagerly to his role. “May you breathe as easily as the wind!” he shouted, his warm breath freezing in the air. “Made by an herbalist from the south with proven powers!” From time to time, a servant would come outside to inspect our wares. If it was a man, Amir would grab a bottle and try to sell it to him. If a woman, my mother and I would go. By the afternoon, we had sold two vessels of the liquid, enough to buy bread and grilled kidneys for the three of us.
“Shall we try to sell our wares near the mosque with the brass minaret?” I asked my mother. She did not reply. I sighed and followed her home.
For the next several weeks, we peddled our medicine every day but Friday in the city’s richer neighborhoods. The weather had become colder and more people were getting sick. We were not earning much money, but it was enough to keep us fed and to add a small amount of food to Katayoon’s table.
One day, my mother awoke with glassy eyes and a damp feeling in her chest. I told her I would go out alone with Amir, but she said that would not be proper. Although I begged her to stay home and rest, she forced herself to her feet, and we made our rounds that day in the Christian part of town across Thirty-three Arches Bridge.
It was bitterly cold. An icy wind blew off the Eternal River, and the tops of the Zagros Mountains were white with snow. The river looked as if it might freeze. As we walked across the bridge, a great gust of icy wind trapped us in its embrace. My mother and I held on to each other to avoid being blown away. “Akh!” she exclaimed, her voice thick with fluid. We continued over the bridge, passed the huge church, and began walking down a street that looked prosperous.
Despite the cold, Amir had lost neither his enthusiasm nor his shouting power. He called out the merits of our medicines, his deep voice like an invitation. Women in particular responded to his call. A pretty young servant emerged from one of the homes and opened her gates to inspect our bottles. When my mother and I ran to greet her, she looked disappointed that Amir did not approach.
“Breathe easier, and may you stay well!” said my mother.
“How much?”
My mother broke into a fit of coughing so severe that tears ran out of her eyes, and she choked and snorted before she managed to recover herself.
The servant drew back and slammed the gates in our faces.
My mother squatted against that grand house and wiped her eyes, promising that she would soon recover, but we had no heart to continue that day. We returned to a cold, dark house. My mother wrapped herself in a blanket, shivering, and slept on and off until the next morning. I put a pot outside our door to signal that there was illness within our house so that neighbors who had means might drop in an onion, a carrot, or a squash. I planned to make a thin soup out of whatever we received. But when my mother awoke, she refused all food, for she was burning with fever.
FOR T
HE NEXT FEW DAYS, I did nothing but tend to the family. I fetched water from a nearby well and offered it to my mother and Davood. I placed cool cloths upon my mother’s head. I tied string around an egg brought by Katayoon and suspended it from the ceiling, for new life has curative powers. When Salman and Shahvali became hungry, I mixed together flour and water and made them bread. I did everything that Malekeh was too tired to do, from washing the boys’ clothes to sweeping the house.
When my mother’s fever came, in the afternoons, the pain was almost too much for her to bear. She held the blankets to her eyes to try to shut out the light. She twisted on her bedroll and shivered, although sweat glistened on her forehead. Then, after the fever had fled, she lay on the bedroll with lifeless limbs, her face drained of color.
I gave the last of our vessels of lung medicine to Amir, who sold them and brought us the money. My mother had planned to use it to buy dried roots and herbs to make the next batch, for she could not collect fresh plants during the winter. But I was unable to put aside any money, since Malekeh still had not sold a carpet.
I spent the coins as slowly as I could, buying only essentials such as flour to make bread, and vegetables for soup. The food did not last very long. When the money was gone, we all endured the first day of fasting with few complaints. But the second day, Salman followed me while I was at my chores, begging me for food. “He needs bread!” he said, pointing to Shahvali, who was so tired he sat quietly near the stove, his eyes dull.
“I would give you my life, but I have no bread,” I said, pitying him even more than I lamented over my own empty stomach. “Take Shahvali to Katayoon’s house and beg them for a morsel to eat.”
After they left, I looked around at the dim room in dismay. My mother and Davood lay on stained bedrolls. There was dirt near the door where we left our shoes, and the room smelled of unwashed bodies. I hadn’t had time to bathe myself. I could not believe that I had once been anointed by my own bathing attendants, washed clean and plucked until I was as smooth as an apple, dressed in silks, and sent to minister to a man who changed houses the way others changed clothes.