The Blood of Flowers

by Anita Amirrezvani

  “I hope this is not imposing on you,” I said, “but I would be honored to know what you think of it, for it is a carpet of my own design.”

  Maryam looked surprised. “Your own design?”

  “I drew the pattern myself,” I said.

  I could see from her expression that she did not believe me, so I asked if she would call for paper, a reed pen, and a writing stand. After the bald eunuch brought them in, I sat cross-legged next to her, dipped the pen in the ink, and drew one of the feathery shapes, after which I let my pen dance around other common carpet motifs, like roses, cedar trees, onagers, and nightingales.

  “Can you teach me?” Maryam asked.

  Now it was my turn to be surprised. “Of course,” I said, “but as a lady who belongs to the Shah, why would you need to make rugs?”

  “I don’t need to make them,” she replied, “but I should like to learn to draw. I am so often bored.”

  Her honesty delighted me. Drawing would be a new way to amuse herself inside the harem.

  “It would be an honor,” I said. “I will come to you whenever you like.”

  A servant entered bearing coffee in pure silver cups, which were decorated with scenes from legends like the story of Layli and Majnoon. I had never seen such costly vessels, even at Fereydoon’s house, and I marveled at their size and weight. The hot drink was followed by fruit heaped on silver trays, sweetmeats, including my favorite chickpea cookies, and cold cherry sharbat in porcelain vessels. The sharbat contained ice, which I had never seen before in a summer drink. Maryam explained that the Shah’s servants dug up blocks of ice in winter and stored them underground to keep them cold during the hot months.

  After we had enjoyed the refreshments, Maryam asked me to look at another carpet she had bought in the bazaar, and I praised its simple, geometric design, which looked as if it came from the northeast.

  “My mother used to make carpets like this one when I was a child in the Caucasus,” Maryam said, and then I understood why she wanted to learn to draw patterns.

  “If you like, we can study the designs from your native region,” I said, and she replied that she would like that best of all. Then I rose and begged her permission to depart.

  “I will send for you soon,” Maryam said, kissing me warmly on each cheek.

  After I said good-bye, the bald eunuch took me to the harem’s accountant, who gave me a large bag of silver for the carpet, the largest I had ever held in my hands. It was nearly dark when I was ushered back through the gates to the Image of the World.

  As each of the thick wooden gates slammed behind me, I thought about how richly dressed Maryam was, how soft her hands, how glittering her rubies, how perfect her face, how lovely her red hair and tiny red lips. And yet, I did not envy her. Each time a gate closed with a thud, I was reminded that while I was free to come and go, she could not leave without an approved reason and a large entourage. She could not walk across Thirty-three Arches Bridge and admire the view, or get soaked to the skin on a rainy night. She could not make the mistakes I had, and try again. She was doomed to luxuriate in the most immaculate of prisons.

  EVERY WEEK, Maryam summoned me to give her lessons in drawing. We became friends, and around the harem quarters, I became something of a curiosity. The other women often invited me to look at their carpets and give my opinion. I had the freedom to mingle with them that no man had, except for the Shah, and they welcomed the diversion of visitors.

  Gostaham congratulated me on my work at the harem. He had never been able to develop a loyal clientele among the women, and he encouraged me to use the advantage I had in being able to visit them. He even paid a tailor to make me a fine orange silk robe, with a turquoise sash and turquoise tunic, so that I would look well-dressed and successful when I called on them.

  As I got to know the harem ladies, they began to commission me to make carpets and cushion covers, as did their family members and friends who lived outside the harem. Their appetite for beautiful things was insatiable, and we began to have so much business that we had to hire more workers. Before long, Malekeh and my mother had to supervise them, for I was often busy at the harem or at drawing new designs to delight the ladies.

  One day, I was surprised to get a commission for a feathers carpet from an acquaintance of Maryam’s, who sent one of her servants to our house with a letter. It was written very simply so that I could read it, and before long, I realized that it was from Naheed. Although it did not include anything personal about her life or our friendship, I knew that by this gesture, she was making amends in the best way she knew how. Having recognized the sacrifice I had made by ending the sigheh with her husband (and mine), she had decided to help me in my new life.

  I know that most people would never understand why I had traded a life of occasional opulence with Fereydoon for the life of hard work I had now. I couldn’t have explained it myself at the time, except that I knew in my heart it was right to leave the sigheh. For I, a maker of carpets, had become an aspirant to the highest things. I couldn’t content myself with a secret sigheh, nor pretend to be clean on the outside while I felt dirty on the inside. Gordiyeh would have been surprised to discover that my lessons with Gostaham had spurred this decision, for he had taught me this: Just as when we step into a mosque and its high open dome leads our minds up, up, to greater things, so a great carpet seeks to do the same under the feet. Such a carpet directs us to the magnificence of the infinite, veiled, yet ever near, closer than the pulse of the jugular. The sunburst that explodes at the center of a carpet signals this boundless radiance. Flowers and trees evoke the pleasures of paradise, and there is always a spot at the center of the carpet that brings calm to the heart. A single white lotus flower floats in a turquoise pool, and in this tiniest of details, there it is: a call to the best within, summoning us to the joy of union. In carpets, I now saw not just intricacies of nature and color, not just mastery of space, but a sign of the infinite design. In each pattern lay the work of the Weaver of the World, complete and whole; and in each knot of daily existence lay mine.

  I will never inscribe my name in a carpet like the masters in the royal rug workshop who are honored for their great skill. I will never learn to knot a man’s eye so precisely it looks real, nor design rugs with layers of patterns so intricate that they could confound the greatest of mathematicians. But I have devised designs of my own, which people will cherish for years to come. When they sit on one of my carpets, their hips touching the earth, their back elongated, and the crown of their head lifted toward the sky, they will be soothed, refreshed, transformed. My heart will touch theirs and we will be as one, even after I am dust, even though they will never know my name.

  A FEW MONTHS LATER, Malekeh gave birth to her third child. She and Davood named her Elahay—goddess.

  The first time I held her in my arms, I was intoxicated by her sweet baby smell, the dark hair sticking up on her head, her tiny feathery eyebrows, and her feet as smooth as velvet. I lifted her and held her close to my breast, and I thought about how I’d like to teach her everything I knew.

  But then a river of feelings coursed through me that I did not expect, and I had to give the baby back to Malekeh so that I could conceal the emotions on my face. I had already entered my nineteenth year, and I was unmarried and childless. I had been too busy making carpets since we had left Gostaham’s to think about anything else. But now that I had Elahay to gaze on every waking hour, I began to wonder if there was any hope for me, and whether my future must be to be respected as a knotter but pickled as a woman.

  One afternoon on my way home from the harem, I walked by the hammam where I had bathed so many times with Naheed and thought about how much I missed Homa. After my mother and I had left Gostaham’s house, we could no longer pay the coin for bathing and had to content ourselves with washing over a bucket while Davood was out of the room. But now I had plenty of silver to pay the entrance fee, and I decided to go in.

  It had been more than a year
since my last visit. Homa was still working there, as I had hoped, and when she recognized me, she said, “How your place has been empty! How I have thought of you, and wondered about your fate! Come here, my child, and tell me everything.”

  Her hair was pure white against her dark skin, as radiant as the moon in a dark sky. She took charge of my clothes and led me to one of the private bathing areas, where she sat me down and began pouring buckets of warm water over me.

  Homa’s dark eyes looked sorrowful. “My child, whenever I thought about you, I feared you had fallen into the worst of all fates—on the street.”

  “Not quite,” I replied, “but times were very hard for us.” And I told her about all that we had endured, the words flowing easily as she began kneading my muscles and loosening them.

  I recounted how our life had improved after we had begun making rugs with Malekeh’s family, and how the commissions had started to stream in from the women in the harem.

  “We are planning to buy a home for all of us,” I said, “and we can now afford comforts for the children and for ourselves.”

  I had just bought myself a pair of orange silk shoes, my first new shoes in a long time. The toe was pointed and curved gracefully upward like the spout of a teapot. I loved looking down at them.

  Homa’s eyes became wide with wonder.

  “So your fortunes have changed at last!” she said. “Azizam, you deserve it.”

  She reached for a kisseh and began scrubbing my legs, and I watched the dead skin sliding away. When Homa turned me facedown to scrub my back, I let my arms and legs flop open, for I felt safe in her care.

  “And what of the family you live with?”

  I described how well the boys were doing, now that they had enough to eat, and how kind Davood was to my mother, for he believed her herbal potions had cured him. I told her that he and Malekeh had recently welcomed a new child, and when I said her name, I was surprised to find tears flooding my cheeks.

  Homa reached for a soft cloth and gently wiped my face. “Akh, akh!” she said sympathetically. “Now you are ready for one of your own.”

  She turned me on my side, and scrubbed me from my outer ankle to my armpit. “You are not young, but you still have time to bear children,” she said.

  “But what about my sigheh?”

  “There’s no reason why you can’t contract a regular marriage, now that you have money for a dowry,” she replied. “Remember what I told you? The first marriage is for the girl’s parents. The second is for herself.”

  She turned me over and scrubbed my other side.

  “But now you must think about what would satisfy you, and avoid making a foolish mistake.”

  While she scrubbed my palms and callused fingertips, I thought about the marriages I had witnessed among girls my own age.

  Maryam had one of the most exalted liaisons I had ever seen, as concubine to the Shah himself, but saw him only when it suited him, and would always have to wonder when she would be supplanted by another favorite.

  Naheed had been forced to marry a man she loathed and must content herself with dreams of what might have been with Iskandar, whom she would most likely never possess. Her story was just like that of Golnar and her beloved rosebush.

  My village friend Goli was her husband’s perfect gift, but in his presence she had been meek; he was much older, and I could see now that she obeyed him like a child.

  I was unlike all of them, for I had my carpets and my adopted family to think of. Even if I contracted a marriage, it was my duty and my desire to keep working with Malekeh’s family and developing my craft. Each passing month confirmed that my work compared favorably to that of other designers. It also offered the novelty of being the work of a woman, and was popular with the harem ladies. I should never want to give up designing, even if my husband were as rich as the Shah.

  Yet my path was not what I had expected when I was a village girl listening to my mother’s stories.

  “All my life,” I said to Homa, “the tales I have been told ended in marriages between a wealthy, generous prince and a beautiful, troubled woman who is rescued and folded into his life.”

  Homa smiled. “That’s the way they go,” she replied, pouring warm water over my head, “but not always.”

  She dug her fingers into my scalp to massage it. “Remember, you are no longer troubled. You have made yourself valuable—even more valuable than you were as a virgin. There’s no reason why you can’t tell your own tale.”

  When Homa finished washing my hair, she poured buckets of water over me until my skin glowed. Then she dispatched me to soak in the hottest of the tubs, and I lay there thinking about what she had said. She was right: Now that I was older, unmarried, and had some money, I could make my own choices. I needn’t be pickled, for I had plenty to offer a suitor. But I would never want another man like Fereydoon, even though he was rich, for he saw in me only a mirror of his own pleasure.

  I longed for something else, which made me think about my parents. When my mother was so ill that she had almost died, she had told me about the selflessness of my father’s devotion. For her, he had sacrificed the deepest desires of his heart not once, but twice. First, he had determined to endure life without a child rather than torment my mother by taking a second wife. Then, after I was born, he had made his peace with never having a son. He was like the humble stone that suffered so much and shed so much heart’s blood that it was finally transformed into a ruby. Such was the shining jewel I was now seeking.

  After I finished soaking, I went into a private cubicle and lay down on a soft cushion. Homa returned with cool water for me to drink and sweet cucumbers to taste before leaving me to rest. Sleep didn’t come, but a rich tale began to weave itself in my mind. I don’t know what stuff it came from, for I had never heard it before; perhaps I was making it up myself. Yet I loved it, for it seemed to tell of the lion-man that I now desired, someone as treasured as the length of my life. God willing, our story would one day be written in the brightest of inks, and continue that way until the last page was turned.

  “Homa!” I called. “I have something important to tell you!”

  Homa came into my cubicle, her eyes shining like stars, her white hair as luminous as the moon. She sat down near me and leaned close to listen, and this is what I said.

  First there wasn’t and then there was. Before God, no one was.

  Once there was a man who was vizier to an aging and cantankerous shah. When the shah demanded the vizier’s only daughter in marriage, he refused to give her away. The shah had him executed for disobedience and told the girl that she could win her freedom only if she could knot him a carpet finer than any in his possession.

  The girl was locked in a chamber with a tiny window that overlooked the shah’s gardens, where his ladies strolled, drank tea, and ate sweetened sesame paste. During the day, she watched them laughing together and amusing themselves while she sat in front of an old loom and a coarse pile of brown wool.

  Because she was lonely, the girl left bits of bread every morning for the birds. One day, a bird with a proud crested head and long white feathers entered her cell from a window in the roof. He alighted near the bread, ate a morsel or two, and flew away.

  The bird came again the next day and ate a little more. After that, he visited every morning and ate from her fingertips. He was her only companion, and whenever she was especially sad, he would perch on her shoulder and sing to her.

  “Ay, Khoda!” she lamented one day, calling on God’s mercy. “This wool is so smelly and coarse, it will never make a carpet fit for a shah!”

  The bird stopped singing as if he had heard her, and all of a sudden he disappeared. In his place was a fleecy white sheep. She reached out her hand to touch him, for she could not believe her eyes, and discovered that his underbelly had the finest wool imaginable. She sheared it, and it grew right back again. The sheep stood patiently as she cut and cut, and when she had enough wool, he turned back into a bird an
d flew away.

  The girl spun the wool and began using it in her carpet, which became as soft as velvet. The next morning, the bird returned, perched on her shoulder, and sang sweetly while she made her knots. But after a few more days of knotting, the girl became sorrowful again.

  “Ay, Khoda!” she sighed. “This rug looks like a shroud, for I have no colorful wool. How shall I make a carpet fit for a shah?”

  The bird fell silent and disappeared. In its place, a bowl that had been empty was suddenly filled with bright red flowers. When she smeared one in her palm, it left a streak as bright as blood. She kept one of the flowers alive by putting it into a vase. The others she crushed and boiled into a dye for her fine white wool. The wool she saturated briefly turned orange, while the deeply saturated wool became scarlet. Then she knotted the orange and scarlet threads into her rug.

  The bird visited the next morning and sang his song, but his beautiful voice sounded faint, and his proud head was bowed.

  “My dear bird, did you sacrifice yourself yesterday?” the girl asked. The bird shivered and could sing no more, and since he was too tired to continue, she fed him extra bread and stroked his long, white feathers.

  Now the girl’s rug was becoming beautiful, like the pleasure gardens she could see from her window. Having finished the borders, she began knotting a pattern of autumn maple trees filled with songbirds. The rich red leaves tinged with orange hues against the brown tree trunks delighted the eyes, and yet she knew the carpet was still not fine enough.

  “Ay, Khoda!” the girl sighed. “How can I make a carpet that dazzles the shah? I shall need golden thread to brighten his old eyes!”

  The bird was perched on her shoulder, as usual. Suddenly his wings began to flutter, and a small feather drifted to the floor. Then he began trembling so violently, she feared for his life.

  “No!” she cried. “For I would rather have you than make a carpet fit for a shah!”

  But the room filled with dazzling light as the bird changed from one with a beating heart into one of solid gold, finer than any jewel owned by a shah. The girl marveled at its brightness, for it lit up her cell like the sun.