The Blood of Flowers

by Anita Amirrezvani

  I had to struggle to make my face look as delighted as hers. “I hope from the wellsprings of my heart that they will be happy,” I said, but my voice was dull.

  I couldn’t have felt more like a traitor than I did at that moment. Ludmila looked at me as if she knew something was wrong, but then a friend called out to her, and she moved away.

  The servants began to scurry around, unrolling tablecloths on top of the rugs in preparation for the food. They rushed in all at once with platters of whole roasted lamb, oven-cooked squabs, wild game, including the flesh of onager and hare, thick vegetable stews, and steaming platters of rice. My mother and I claimed two cushions and ate our meal together. The meat from the lamb’s haunch was as soft as butter. My mother lifted some off the bone with a piece of bread and urged me to eat it. “It melts,” she said.

  I put it in my mouth but didn’t notice how it tasted. The din of the women rose higher and bothered my ears. I wished I could go home and do something quiet, like work on a carpet. I thought of my own marriage and how it had involved no celebrations, only the clink of silver.

  After the food was cleared, two female musicians began playing their drum and kamancheh and singing rousing songs about marriage. Groups of women stood up and danced together, repeating the refrains. Naheed had to sing with them and smile, although her heart was in the grave. “Look at the happy bride!” shouted a guest. “May your future always be as bright as today!”

  As the evening grew later, the lyrics became more bawdy. A group of women began singing about finding just the right fit between a knocker and its door. Naheed’s face became ashen, even when others assured her that she would soon enjoy it as much as they did. I hoped she didn’t, for her husband was mine; and yet I hoped she did, for she was my friend.

  The party continued deep into the night, even as the town around us grew silent. I drooped, craving my bedroll. But it was not over yet. Near dawn, the servants brought out another meal of lamb, liver, and kidney kebab, fresh hot bread, and yogurt with mint. The excitement began to mount, for we knew that Fereydoon was due to arrive. Ludmila and the women of her household wrapped Naheed in a white chador embroidered with gold, covering her face with a picheh so she would not be seen on the street.

  The knocker for men boomed through the house, and Fereydoon swept into the courtyard, dressed in a purple velvet robe with a sky-blue tunic underneath. The women made a show of throwing their wraps around their bodies, without real concern about being seen, for the usual rules were relaxed at a wedding.

  Everyone but me and my mother shouted blessings at Fereydoon: “May your marriage be fruitful!” “May your wealth increase!” “May your sons take after their father!” Fereydoon turned to the women, grinning and basking in their good wishes. Although he saw me, he did not acknowledge my presence. A pang of jealousy invaded my body as he took Naheed’s hand and led her through the house and out the door, while the rest of us surged behind her into the quiet street. A pair of dappled Arabian horses awaited her. Fereydoon lifted her by the waist so that she could put her foot into the stirrup and mount the mare. Then he hoisted himself onto the steed and flashed a triumphant smile.

  I imagined how he would lift Naheed’s picheh and look on her beautiful face, and I tried to crush the thoughts that kept arising about what they would do once they were alone. I wondered if he would admire her long, slender body, so different from mine, and if they would fit together the way he and I did. As they began to ride away, the women shouted blessings to the new husband and wife. All of us trotted behind the horses, which, in their excitement, left dark, heavy droppings in our path. The women’s cries grew so high-pitched I wanted to cover my ears. I grabbed my mother’s arm for fear I would collapse in the street. Then, at last, the animals gained speed and disappeared, and we could go home.

  THE NEXT MORNING, Gordiyeh stopped into the kitchen while I was mixing flour and water to make bread. I happened to be alone, for my mother was in the courtyard boiling herbs, and Cook had gone to the latrines.

  “Good news!” she said. “Naheed’s parents have commissioned a large silk rug from us as a gift to celebrate her marriage. It is to be made with saffron dye.”

  “That’s wonderful,” I said, feeling as heavy as the dough.

  Silk loved saffron, but the cost was beyond compare. Workers would harvest thousands of lavender-colored flowers when they bloomed in the fall and remove the three stigmata—so thin as to be almost weightless—from each flower. The bright red stigmata would be dried and powdered, and a dye brewed to create the dearest of yellows.

  “It’s a sign from above that it was wise to keep the sigheh secret,” Gordiyeh said. “You did right, you know.”

  I must have shown my unease, for Gordiyeh leaned toward me and said in a whisper, “The consequences will be very grave if Naheed’s family ever learns about your sigheh. Do you understand me?”

  I thought I did; she meant she would put us out. But I also realized that the commission made Gordiyeh vulnerable. If Naheed’s family ever found out about the sigheh, they would believe she hadn’t told them out of greed.

  “I will not speak of it,” I said coolly, “under one condition.”

  “What?”

  “I need to be excused from kitchen duties so I can make a rug.”

  “For how long?”

  “A few months. And I need to bring some women here to help me.”

  Gordiyeh laughed. “You are a crafty little thing. The city has changed you.”

  “Perhaps it has,” I said. “But as you have said yourself, a mother and daughter on their own should always be cautious about their financial future.”

  Gordiyeh snorted as I threw her words back at her, and her eyes were cold. “You drive a difficult bargain,” she said.

  “But well worth its price to this household.”

  She couldn’t deny that. “I agree,” she said reluctantly, “but let me hear your promise.”

  “And let me hear yours,” I replied. Her eyebrows jumped at that, but she had little choice.

  “I promise,” we said together.

  It was the first time that Gordiyeh had not bested me. I would no longer be docile under her orders if I could think of a way to get something in return. She didn’t like it, but she had to take note of it.

  WHEN WOULD I hear from him again? How long before he would tire of her and want me in his bed? The days came and went with no word. He would be spending a lot of time with his pretty new wife. There was only one thing I could think of to do to soothe myself, and that was to pick up my pen and draw. I spent hours working on a design in the new Shah Abbas style that Gostaham had shown me, but I thought I’d try something a little different, inspired by the foliage in the Four Gardens district. I drew long, tapered leaves that looked like scimitars, which would cross the rug horizontally. Once I had the pattern for the leaves, I drew small bouquets of flowers and arranged them vertically above and below. The design led the eye in both directions, left to right and back again, using the leaves; and up and down and back again, using the blossoms.

  When I showed Gostaham the design, he studied it for a long time. He made a few corrections and changes before giving me his approval. Then he sighed and exclaimed, “If you had only been a boy . . .!”

  I sighed, too.

  “You take after me more than my own daughters—you have a natural gift. If you had been a boy, you could have risen through the ranks and learned to make carpets that would be treasured forever and cited by the masters after you. Perhaps, as a sign of recognition from the Shah, you might even have been permitted to inscribe your name on one of your finest works. I know you would have made me proud. As it is, you have made a very good design.”

  I flushed, imagining my name knotted in silver thread on an indigo carpet, identifying me as a master for hundreds of years to come. No one in my village ever signed their rugs.

  He continued studying my design. “What are you going to do for the colors?”

&nb
sp; “I thought I’d ask for your help,” I said, having learned my lesson on the last one.

  “Choose your color samples yourself, and then show them to me,” he replied.

  I spent entire afternoons in the bazaar looking at balls of wool and thinking of how the hues would fit together. I brought Gostaham fourteen color samples and my design, which I had outlined on a grid, and described which colors I thought would go where. I planned to use a grassy green on the long leaves.

  “You could make this rug,” he said, “but it wouldn’t be as beautiful as you had hoped.”

  “Why?”

  “The colors don’t sing together,” he said. “That’s the difference between an adequate rug and the rug of a master. It’s also the difference between making a good profit and a vast one.”

  I went back to the bazaar and tried again. Although my pattern was based on leaves, the long, tapered shapes that crisscrossed the rug also looked like feathers. They made me think of the lightness of birds and the coolness of wind. I decided to make the feather shapes as white as a dove against a cerulean blue, with a background of deep wine and a dark blue border. The deeper colors would make the paler feathers appear to be light, as if floating from the sky.

  Gostaham approved the main colors but felt that the contrasting hues weren’t quite right. He told me to find slightly different ones: a darker gray-green for the flower stems, a brighter shade of red for accents within the blossoms. I went back to the bazaar, asking impossible questions. “Don’t you have a gray-green that looks like the stem of a flower in the shade?” “How about a richer red, like sour cherry jam?” The merchants soon tired of me. “This is all I’ve got,” one of them told me, waving his arm at his wares. “If you need more precision, pay someone to dye the wool for you.” I didn’t have that much money, so I persisted until I found samples that seemed right.

  After Gostaham approved all the color choices, he told me to paint a copy of my design and show him. I colored it in painstakingly, trying to demonstrate that I had learned his lessons well: Delight the eye with patterns, but refresh it; surprise the eye, but don’t overwhelm it.

  Even so, Gostaham still didn’t like my plan.

  “You have large blotches of color without enough complexity. Paradoxically, more detail makes the design lighter. Try again.”

  It was the hardest thing to achieve as a designer yet the simplest and clearest thing to see as a viewer. I tried three more times. By the time I colored the last copy, I felt I had found the balance I needed among the parts. I begged my mother to give me some of my sigheh money to hire workers. Alone, it would take me a long time to make a rug as tall as I was. But with two workers, it could be done in a few months. My mother didn’t want to part with the money because it was all we had, but she changed her mind after she saw my design. “Mash’Allah!” she said. “That is more beautiful than any pattern you’ve ever made.”

  As soon as she gave me the money, I went to the bazaar and bought all the wool, and I hired Malekeh to help me. Her husband’s health had not improved, and she was grateful for a chance to earn money without having to sell her wares on the street. She had a young cousin named Katayoon who was a fast knotter, and I hired her, too. Neither one knew how to follow a design on paper, so I promised to call out the colors for them.

  Before we started the carpet, I showed my final design to Gostaham and asked for his approval. It took him only a few moments before he smiled and said simply, “You have understood.”

  There was something like wonder in his eyes. “Although you are not a child of my own, you are indeed a child of my heart,” he said. “I have always wished to share the secrets of my work with a son. Although God never granted me a boy, He has brought me you.”

  He fixed a look on me that was so tender, I felt as if I could see my father’s bright eyes shining through his.

  “Thank you, dear amoo,” I said, bathing in his love. It was the first time I had dared to address him as “uncle.”

  NAHEED HAD MOVED to one of the many homes Fereydoon owned, this one located close to the Eternal River with a view of the water and the mountains. After she was settled, she sent a messenger asking me to visit her. I didn’t want to go, but I knew that I must, to make things look right.

  As I walked through Four Gardens toward the river, I was glad her house was far from the old Friday mosque and the jewel-like home where I met Fereydoon. I turned onto a street near Thirty-three Arches Bridge. The air was fresh, for it was cooled by the river. I understood that the houses were large from the vast distances between one tall gate and the next. Naheed’s messenger had told me to look for a new house with a lot of wind catchers on its roof. They sucked air inside and cooled it over pools of water in the basement, keeping its occupants fresh on even the hottest days.

  When I stepped through the tall gates that guarded the outside of Naheed’s home, I was taken aback. It was a small palace, as if Fereydoon hoped to populate it with a dozen sons and daughters. A deferential servant took my chador and led me into a guest room with silk carpets knotted with rosettes so small they could only have been made by children. The vessels for flowers and libations were all of silver. The cushions sparkled, for they were woven with silver thread. I tried to quell the envy that surged in my heart.

  When Naheed entered the room, I was surprised at how quickly she had assumed the role of a woman of wealth and power. She wore thick gold armbands with hanging turquoise and pearls, and the same combination of stones on her forehead, strung on a gold band that held her lacy white head covering in place. Her pale blue silk robe and tunic were subdued, making her look older. Her face was quiet and composed. Her eyes seemed larger than ever, but they were not red. She now reigned over a domicile with twelve servants who attended only to her needs.

  “Naheed-joon!” I said, kissing her on each cheek—“though I suppose now that you’re married, I should call you Naheed-Khanoom! How are you?”

  “How do I look?” she asked wearily.

  “Like the moon,” I said, “but older than before.”

  “And sadder.”

  “Yes, and sadder,” I said. We looked at each other, and the sadness in her eyes found a reflection in my own. We sat on cushions close to each other, and Naheed called for coffee and sweets.

  “How is married life?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

  “It’s as good as can be expected,” she said with a shrug. “I don’t see him much.”

  That seemed odd for a new bride, yet I couldn’t help hoping that the reason was me.

  “Why not?”

  “He is very busy with his land, his horses, and his duties to his father.”

  “But surely he spends time with you.”

  “Only at night,” she said.

  That was not what I wished to hear. I searched her body and face for signs of satisfaction that I hoped not to find. I couldn’t bear to know if they were enjoying each other, so I said quickly, “I suppose you can’t forget Iskandar.”

  Her eyes became bigger and sadder, but she retained her composure. “Never,” she whispered.

  She beckoned me closer. “I must speak quietly. I cannot show myself here until I know who is loyal to him and who is loyal to me. I must pretend that everything is exactly as I want it to be.”

  “I’m sorry you are so unhappy,” I whispered back.

  “How can I be happy?” she said. “He is nothing like Iskandar. He is neither handsome nor kind.”

  In my eyes, Fereydoon had become more handsome than Iskandar. I thought about his muscled thighs wrapped around my hips and his warm wiry chest pressed close to my own. I wanted to protest, “But what about his beautiful hair? And what about when his tongue is drawing patterns on your thighs?” Instead, I began speaking of other things—the carpet I was working on, the wedding presents Naheed had received, her calligraphy—but the conversation kept returning to Fereydoon.

  “I could almost stand being married to him—any man is as bad as the next i
f he isn’t Iskandar—except for what happens at night,” she said, and then she stopped speaking abruptly.

  She took a sip of coffee from a fine blue porcelain cup. “I wish you were married so I could tell you all about it.”

  Even as she said this, I knew Naheed would tell me everything because she needed to talk, and I was the only woman she trusted. But I didn’t want to hear.

  “Have you gotten to know his daughter?” I asked quickly, trying to change the subject.

  Naheed looked surprised. “Who told you about her?”

  For a moment I didn’t know how to answer. I had to be very careful now not to reveal too much.

  “Ahhh—the carpet,” I sputtered. “Remember the carpet he commissioned with talismans to thank God for his daughter’s return to health?”

  “You mentioned that carpet long ago, when you were helping Gostaham,” said Naheed. “But you never told me that Fereydoon commissioned it.”

  I breathed with difficulty. “I didn’t put him together with the man you were marrying until recently,” I lied.

  “Oh,” she said. “I would have expected to be told everything you knew about the man I was marrying.” Her tone was sharp.

  “I’m truly sorry,” I said. “I must have forgotten.”

  “How strange,” she replied. “Is there anything else you know about him?”

  My heart was turning blacker than ever, like a lamb’s heart roasting over a fire. “Only that Gostaham hopes for more commissions!” I said quickly, trying to sound lighthearted.

  Naheed raised her eyebrows, for as the wife of a wealthy man, it was now in her power to offer them. I ducked my head, embarrassed by what I had said.

  “I didn’t mean anything by that,” I said quickly.

  She waved her hand. “I know.”

  Naheed took another sip of coffee while I felt sweat leak down my back.

  “I’m glad your home is so beautiful,” I said.