The Blood of Flowers

  I returned to the loom with a light step. Malekeh and Katayoon looked at me expectantly, and I showered them with praise and assured them that our patron was pleased with our work. Feeling relieved that we had passed our first test, I sang out the colors like a nightingale until it was time for the midday meal.

  After we ate, the others took up household tasks, while I turned my attention to knotting the new feathers carpet. It was much easier this time, for I knew the pattern well and had chosen colors based on Gostaham’s criticisms of my first attempt, in an effort to make the design seem even more delicate. I took great pleasure in the work. My fingers seemed to fly over the knots like birds skimming the surface of a river, and the carpet flowed from under my fingers like water.

  It was hot in the courtyard, and I had to wipe away the sweat from my brow. From time to time, my mother brought me water mixed with the essence of roses to refresh me. But I was intent on what I was doing and forgot about the children in the courtyard and the sound of braying donkeys bearing their burdens down the street. It was as if I were living within the surface of the carpet myself, surrounded by its soothing colors and its images of eternal tranquillity. Lost in its beauties, I forgot the misery around me. At nightfall, my mother had to pull me away from my work and remind me that I must eat, rest my hands, and stretch my limbs.

  My mother recited:

  My love is sweet-waisted, like a cypress.

  And when the wind blows, my love

  Neither breaks nor bends.

  It was several months later, and we had just finished the cypress tree carpet for Gostaham. We had laid it out in the courtyard and gathered around in a circle to admire it from above, as it would look to its owner.

  “How like the gardens that await us, God willing!” Davood proclaimed. “Its owner will feel soothed when he rests his body upon this treasure.”

  Salman and Shahvali were so excited that they were running on and off the carpet, until at last they veered into each other and fell into a tangle of arms and legs.

  “It’s just like being in a park!” Shahvali declared, and indeed with his limbs splayed in every direction on the carpet, he appeared to be entangled in the very heart of a garden.

  I began laughing at his boyish disarray, as did the others, and when my eyes met my mother’s, Katayoon’s, and Malekeh’s, my heart soared with joy over the completion of our first project. We had worked well together, with the sense that we were building a future that would benefit everyone. And through it all, like the cypress itself, we did not break, nor bend.

  Gostaham sent one of his men to pick up the carpet, and a few days later, I went to see him about it. I wanted to know if we had delivered exactly what he had wanted, and to hear his assessment of our work. I was pleased to learn that the owner liked it so much he had commissioned another of the same size, so that he would have a pair to adorn his Great Room. Gostaham advised him that it would have been cheaper to make them simultaneously, for I could have called out the colors for two groups of knotters. But I was only too happy to accept the commission.

  Gostaham asked how my work was proceeding on the feathers carpet, and I told him I worked on it every afternoon.

  “Try to complete it soon,” he said, “for it’s nearly time for the harem’s twice-yearly visit to the Great Bazaar.”

  I stayed silent, but a spring of hope welled in my heart.

  “If it is finished, I will grant you permission to display it in my alcove.”

  At that, I thanked him forty times and nearly ran home to get back to work. I was so eager that I did not heed my mother’s warnings but worked on the feathers carpet every day, from the moment it was light until it was too dark to see. When time became short, I hurried my work by knotting by the light of an oil lamp deep into the night.

  I completed the fringes just a day before the harem’s visit, and when the carpet had been sheared, I saw that Gostaham had been right about the color choices: Just a few delicate variations in the shades had made this carpet superior to the first one. All the elements had fallen into place, like the ingredients in a stew cooked to perfection, and the carpet pleased both the eye and the heart.

  Early the next morning, Salman and Shahvali helped me carry the carpet to the Image of the World. They were young enough not to be prohibited, like grown men, from catching a glimpse of the Shah’s women. To protect them, though, I sent them home before entering the gates of the square, and carried the rolled-up carpet myself to Gostaham’s alcove. His eldest daughter, Mehrbanoo, had been summoned from her family to run the shop. She greeted me with a cool peck on each cheek and said, “It’s going to be a long day. I wish I could be doing anything other than this.”

  She wore a tunic in such a brilliant shade of orange, I was certain it had been dyed with saffron. The tree of life design on her hennaed hands was pristine. From this, I knew how idle she was. I choked back the words that came to my lips.

  “Don’t worry, I shall devote myself to helping you,” I said as gracefully as I could.

  Needing no further offer, she sank onto a large, comfortable bolster with a sigh that indicated exhaustion and instructed me to move a bundle of carpets from one end of the alcove to the other.

  I bent down and pretended I couldn’t move the bundle alone. I tugged and huffed until Mehrbanoo was shamed by her own indolence and arose to help me with it, although she added little strength to the endeavor.

  The ladies of Shah Abbas’s harem had begun to filter into the bazaar and penetrate the shops. I hung my feathers carpet on one of the most prominent walls in the alcove and waited to see what would happen. Before long, Jamileh, who was as beautiful as I remembered her, walked by without giving our shop a glance.

  “There’s the Shah’s favorite!” I exclaimed.

  Mehrbanoo laughed at my ignorance. “Not anymore,” she said. “The latest is Maryam. You’ll know her by the color of her hair.”

  When Maryam entered our shop later that morning, I realized it was the same harem woman I had seen years ago, whose hair flamed red like the dawn but who had looked lost and scared. She had an entourage now, spoke Farsi as well as her native Circassian, and appeared to be in charge of her sisters. Her dark eyes and eyebrows made a pleasing refuge from her bright red hair. After greeting us, she began looking at Gostaham’s wares and saw my carpet.

  “Look at that!” she said, attracted to it as if it were a lodestone. After gazing at it for a long time, she announced wistfully that the feathers reminded her of the birds in her homeland.

  I did not reveal that I was the carpet’s designer and knotter. I thought if she saw my callused fingers or looked closely at my tired red eyes—if she understood the fearsome work that a carpet demanded—its beauties would be forever tarnished in her eyes. Better for her to imagine it being made by a carefree young girl who skipped across hillsides plucking flowers for dyes before settling down to tie a few relaxing knots in between sips of pomegranate juice.

  I knew otherwise: My back ached, my limbs were stiff, and I had not slept enough for a month. I thought about all the labor and suffering that were hidden beneath a carpet, starting with the materials. Vast fields of flowers had to be murdered for their dye, innocent worms boiled alive for their silk—and what about knotters? Must we sacrifice ourselves for the sake of rugs?

  I had heard stories about women who became deformed by long hours of sitting at the loom, so that when they tried to deliver a child, their bones formed a prison locking the baby inside. In such cases, mother and child would die after many hours of anguish. Even the youngest knotters suffered aching backs, bent limbs, tired fingers, exhausted eyes. All our labors were in service of beauty, but sometimes it seemed as if every thread in a carpet had been dipped in the blood of flowers.

  These were things that Maryam would never know. Instead, I told her coyly that the carpet would distinguish her in everyone’s eyes—just like her thick red hair. I argued that any man who appreciated fine carpets, as I knew Shah Abbas di
d, would take great pleasure and pride in such an unparalleled design.

  She replied that she desired a carpet just like it, but twice as long to fit one of her rooms. When she asked the price of a commission, I replied sweetly, but there was iron in my voice. I would not give away my carpet this time. I, better than anyone else, knew the value of every knot.

  Maryam didn’t wince over the steep price, and after a brief bit of bargaining, we came to a deal. Her eunuch wrote up our agreement, which included a first payment that would allow me to buy the wool. I was so gleeful when they left that I wanted to dance around the shop, for I had finally achieved what I wanted: sold a carpet on my own, of my own design, on my own terms.

  The end of the day held an even greater surprise. Right after the guards announced that the bazaar would be closing soon, Jamileh slipped into our shop. She was alone and behaved as if she wanted to conceal her visit. Although she was still beautiful, the faint valleys under her eyes hinted that the first flower of her youth was gone. Rather than the brash confidence she had exhibited when I first served her years before, she showed a touch of weariness and bitterness, for her star had already dimmed in the eyes of the only person who mattered.

  Without looking at our wares, she inquired about whether we were offering a carpet with the lightness of feathers. Mehrbanoo and I were both surprised that she knew of it. When I pointed it out, she pretended to examine it and then disparaged it, saying she thought it ought to be cheap, but the lust in her eyes told me she would not leave without it.

  “It’s a rare treasure: Only one other has been commissioned,” I said, and when her face darkened, I surmised that her spies had informed her of Maryam’s purchase.

  My initial price was very high, but I left enough air in it to be able to give her a discount. Jamileh did not like my price. She pouted, protested, and finally begged, but to no avail. All rug dealers learn to identify naked desire in their buyers and trap those who display it. Jamileh could not hope for a bargain, and she hated herself for having bared her heart.

  To console her, I asked Mehrbanoo’s permission to give her a free knotted cushion cover. Knowing it would be best for future business to appease her, Mehrbanoo agreed. I think she, too, felt vindicated, for she had heard the story of how Jamileh had talked Gordiyeh into a spectacular discount on the cushion covers, and how Gostaham had had to design and make them at a loss.

  Jamileh called in a eunuch to write down our agreement. I was to claim the money later from one of the Shah’s accountants, for the women did not carry any silver. She left with the coveted carpet, triumphant despite the price. I knew it would give her great satisfaction to be the first to show her treasure to the Shah, knowing that Maryam’s carpet would seem old to him when it was finally delivered.

  WHEN I ARRIVED HOME, my mother brought me a vessel of hot tea, and the family gathered around and made me tell them everything that had transpired during the day, including what the women looked like, how they bargained, and how I had managed to get the better of them. To celebrate our success, my mother cooked eggs with dates, and served the meal with fresh bread. As we ate, we began to discuss how we would accomplish all the work that lay ahead of us, for now we had two commissions to fulfill at once.

  “It would be best to work on the carpets at the same time, so that we can increase our income,” I said.

  “True,” replied Malekeh, “but the neighbors are already annoyed with us for using so much of the courtyard—more than our share.”

  “If only we could have our own home!” my mother said, and there was loud agreement.

  That began a discussion about how much money we could expect over the next few months. After calculating the amount, Davood declared that it might be possible to afford larger quarters and promised to find out how much they would cost.

  It took him only a week to find a house in the neighborhood that most people didn’t want, for it had very small rooms. He bargained over the price, receiving a reduction in rent after offering to make all the owner’s shoes and to fix any leather goods that needed repair, for he had been a cobbler before his illness. We concluded that our income would still be slim, but agreed that new accommodation was the only way we could get several looms under way at once, and seek to improve our fortunes.

  At the end of the month, we moved into our new lodging. It was a humble mud-brick home with two small rooms on either side of a large courtyard, and a tiny, dark room that served as a kitchen. But to me, it was like a palace, for now my mother and I had a room of our own again. The first night, after Davood, Malekeh, and their sons disappeared into their room, I had the courtyard all to myself. I sat there after everyone else had gone to sleep, with a vessel of hot tea, enjoying the snug feeling of being alone yet surrounded by kindhearted companions.

  There was ample room in the courtyard for two looms. Davood busied himself with setting them up and stringing them, while Malekeh and I looked for workers. We found five women knotters who needed to earn money and asked them to come for a trial day of work. One of the women was too slow, while another made sloppy, loose knots and would not be corrected, but we were pleased with the other three and retained them.

  Before we started, I taught Malekeh how to call out colors for a loom. She supervised Katayoon and one of the workers on the second cypress tree carpet for Gostaham’s client, whose design she already knew, while I presided over the other workers on the large feathers carpet for Maryam. In the mornings, the only sound that could be heard from our courtyard was of flowing colors, me calling them out at one end, Malekeh at the other. My mother cooked for us all, and the fragrance of her stews made us work well, in anticipation of the midday meal.

  One morning, my mother told me she was making one of my favorite dishes, pomegranate-walnut chicken, and I thought about how Gordiyeh had made me pound the nuts into powder.

  “I’m using crunchy nuts,” my mother added, as if she could see my thoughts, “because that’s the way we like it.”

  She disappeared into the kitchen, and I heard her singing a folk song that I remembered from happy days in our village, which told about a visit from the sweet nightingale of luck.

  When the stew was ready, we put aside our work and ate together in the courtyard while I enjoyed the view of the two rugs. I loved watching them transform from scraps of colored wool into gardens of unforgettable beauty.

  My mother asked me why I was smiling, and I told her it was because I was enjoying her food. But there was more to it than that. In my village, I had never imagined that a woman like myself— alone, childless, impoverished—could consider herself blessed. Mine was not the happy fate, with the husband and seven beautiful sons, that my mother’s tale had foretold. Yet with the aroma of the pomegranate-walnut chicken around me, the sound of laughter from the other knotters in my ears, and the beauty of the rugs on the loom filling my eyes, the joy I felt was as wide as the desert we had traversed to reach our new life in Isfahan.

  WE TOILED TOGETHER for many months before we finished the commissions for Gostaham and Maryam. Malekeh worked until her belly became too big for her to sit at the loom, for she had become pregnant with her third child.

  Davood delivered the second cypress tree carpet to Gostaham’s home, but when he offered to deliver Maryam’s, I thought of a better plan. A man would have to wait outside the harem gates while Maryam looked at the carpet and indicated through a servant whether it met with her approval. As a woman, I suffered no such strictures and could present the carpet to her myself.

  Davood carried the carpet for me to the Shah’s palace at the Image of the World and left me at the entrance. I approached one of the guards and told him I needed to deliver a carpet ordered by one of the ladies. As proof, I showed him the paper written by the eunuch, which confirmed the order.

  The guard took me to the side of the palace and delivered me into the care of a tall black eunuch. After unrolling the carpet and checking that nothing prohibited was hidden in it, he escorted me thro
ugh a group of wooden gates, each manned by a different guard. When I was finally through the last of them, I found myself directly behind the Shah’s palace in a forbidden area that contained houses for his women. Maryam lived in one of the best, an octagonal building known as Eight Heavens.

  I waited near a fountain on the ground floor, which was open to the air. A high brick wall surrounded the harem buildings, with no doors; the only exit was by way of the gates the eunuchs had ushered me through.

  After I had consumed several vessels of tea and eaten half a melon dripping with juice, I was summoned into Maryam’s presence. At the top of the stairs that led to her quarters, a servant took my street wraps, and I smoothed my hair and my simple cotton clothes. An old, bald eunuch followed with my carpet on his back. Maryam was lounging in a room decorated with turquoise and silver cushions. She was attended by a woman with large, wise eyes, whom I later learned was a physician revered for her knowledge.

  The eunuch unrolled my carpet in front of Maryam, who was wearing a dark blue robe that made her red hair look ablaze. I told her that I hoped the carpet would meet with her satisfaction, though it would always be unworthy of her beauty. She arose, gazed at it, and said, “It is more beautiful than I ever imagined.”

  “It is my privilege to be your servant,” I replied.

  Maryam told the eunuch to remove the old rug she had been using and place mine in the position of honor. Its colors blended beautifully with those she had chosen for the rest of the room.

  After admiring it, she said, “Why is it that you’ve delivered this yourself instead of using a man from your shop?”

  “I wanted to be sure the carpet met your desires,” I said, and then I paused. She knew that was not the only reason and looked at me with curiosity.