The Blood of Flowers (20 page)

I didn't have to wait very long, for Fereydoon arrived just after dusk. He entered the room, removed his shoes, and sat heavily on a cushion near me. The dagger at his waist glittered in the light of the oil lamps, which I wished had been less bright.

"How is your health?" he asked in an abrupt tone.

My skin prickled at his sharpness, but I answered as calmly as I could, "I am well, thanks be to God." When I asked in turn how he was, he merely grunted in reply. I thought we would have food and drink first, for neither of us had consumed anything all day, but Fereydoon led me into the bedchamber and briskly pushed the turquoise robe off my shoulders. Off it came faster than a rose petal falls to the ground, followed by my pink tunic. Fereydoon pulled off my sheer trousers and cast them aside. I remained in my thin silk shift, which tied at the neck but opened to reveal all else. "I think I'll have you just like this," he said.

Fereydoon shrugged off his clothes and doffed his turban, sending it spinning across the room like a skipping ball. Without bothering to remove my hair covering, he parted my shift and crawled on top of me on the bedroll. Unlike our first time together, he thrust into me without delay. I winced, but he was not looking at me, and so, remembering what I ought to do, I began moving my hips in the way I had learned the last time, although I ached. It was only moments before Fereydoon shuddered and collapsed on my chest. I lay there beneath him, disappointed again, listening as the sound of his breathing quieted to normal. Was this the way it was to be with us? I felt a strong desire to caress his thick, wavy hair, which he revealed to my eyes only. But he was already nearly asleep, and I didn't dare rouse him. I lay there sleepless, my eyes wide open. This was nothing like what I had expected of marriage. It didn't remind me at all of how my father had adored my mother, or how Gostaham treated Gordiyeh.

After a while, the cannon boomed and Fereydoon stirred, stretched, put on his clothing, and told me to do the same. He clapped for the servants, who returned hastily with food and with the impertinent musician I remembered from our first evening. We ate another sumptuous meal of roasted meats, saffron rice, and fresh greens while the musician entertained us. I thought he was the prettiest young man I had ever seen. He had large almond-shaped eyes, thick brown curls, and the coquetry of a dancing girl. He couldn't have been much younger than I was, but the skin on his beardless face was smoother than mine. Fereydoon looked transported by his playing. When he reached high notes that shivered with beauty, Fereydoon nearly seemed to swoon. I thought I caught the musician sneering at the sight of Fereydoon's pleasure, but when Fereydoon opened his eyes, the young man's face was carefully neutral.

When Fereydoon had had enough of the musician, he sent him away along with the servants. Pouring milk into a large vessel of wine, he bade me drink it. I had never had any wine, as many of the women of my village refused to drink it for religious reasons (although I know some of them tasted it privately). The beverage had the aroma of a ripe grape and the comforting froth of fresh milk. I drank it very quickly and lay back on the bedroll, stretching out my arms and letting my legs part in a way that was starting to seem natural. I felt as relaxed and limp as I had in the bath. I imagined that Fereydoon might hold me in his arms and kiss my face, and that, after joining our bodies, he would listen as I told him stories about my life at home. But Fereydoon's eyes began to glitter, and without a word, he tore off all my garments again, this time with violence--I was alarmed to witness the fate of such costly clothes--and lifted me in his arms. He had me against the inlaid wooden doors that led to the room, which banged loudly with his every thrust. I cringed as I imagined what the servants must be thinking of the banging, as rhythmic as a drum, for they were right outside the door, listening for Fereydoon's quietest handclap. But that was not all. Fereydoon dragged me away from the doors and threw some cushions on the floor so that he could have me kneeling in the way that dogs rut, and finally, as the sky lightened, he took me standing up and supported in his arms, with my legs wrapped around his back. That night, I had no reason to worry about whether Fereydoon wanted me--whether my skin was too dark or whether I delighted him as a wife.

Diligent though I was in his arms, my body didn't soar with pleasure. Where were the raptures everyone had promised? I was even more disappointed than I had been after our first meeting, for nothing had changed. But I did whatever Fereydoon told me to do, mindful that he could say good-bye to me after a few months, and leave my mother and me dependent on the kindness of Gordiyeh and Gostaham. I could not imagine enduring ever again the winter of deprivation we had suffered in my village. Here in Isfahan, we were warm, comfortable, and well fed. So if Fereydoon told me to leave my clothes on or take them off, to go here or there, or to bend over like a dog, I felt I must obey.

Fereydoon seemed well pleased by our evening together. He reached for me again in the morning, groaning quickly, and then hummed to himself as he wrapped his body in a robe before his bath. I put on my cotton clothes to wear home. The servants appeared with coffee and bread, averting their eyes from me. I thought I caught Hayedeh smirking as she collected the cushions Fereydoon had arranged on the floor, for she could tell exactly what we had done and in which corner of the room.

DURING THE FIRST few weeks of my sigheh, I worked hard on the carpet. As it grew on my loom, I became more and more happy with it. The colors were felicitous; Gostaham had seen to that. There was no doubt that the rug outshone the last one. Even Gordiyeh couldn't deny it. Having endured her fury, I rejoiced about that.

One afternoon, I was in the courtyard knotting the rug when a servant came by to tell me that Gostaham had returned home with a Dutchman. That was my signal to go upstairs to the secret nook and peek through the white carvings. Gostaham and the Dutchman were sitting on cushions in a semicircle with the accountant Parveez, who was present to write down any agreement the two might achieve. Although I had seen foreigners before, I had never seen one from the Christian lands to the west. All I knew was that the farangis believed in worshipping idols, and that their women thought nothing of displaying their hair and their bosoms in public.

The Dutchman had hair like straw and blue eyes like a dog's. Rather than wearing a long, cool tunic, he was attired in a tight blue velvet jacket and short blue pants that formed pouches near the tops of his thighs, as if he had buttocks both front and back. His legs were covered with white stockings, which must have been hot. When he raised his arm, I saw that sweat had bitten white rings into his coat.

"It is a great honor to have you as a guest in my home," Gostaham was saying to him.

"The honor is very much mine," replied the Dutchman in fluent Farsi. Like children, he had trouble making kh and gh sounds, but otherwise he was very easy to understand.

"We don't see foreigners like yourself very often," Gostaham continued.

"It's because the journey is long and arduous," replied the Dutchman. "Many of my colleagues have died in their pursuit of business here. But we are grateful that your esteemed Shah Abbas has opened your country so warmly to trade. Your silk is far cheaper than China's, and just as good."

Gostaham smiled. "It's our biggest export. Every family who can afford it has a shed for silkworms."

Gostaham had one of his own near his house. I loved to go inside the cool, dark shed and stroke the soft white fibers that grew a little rounder every day.

"The silk certainly makes some of the finest rugs I have ever seen," said the Dutchman, who seemed eager to steer the conversation to business.

"Indeed," said Gostaham, but he was not ready for that discussion. He changed the subject to a friendlier topic. "I imagine that if you have been traveling for more than a year, you must miss your family," he said.

"Very much," said the Dutchman, sighing heavily.

I was eager to hear something of his wife, but he didn't elaborate. "It's kind of you to ask about my family," he said, "but what I wanted to talk about today was carpets, and the possibility of commissioning one from a great master like yourself."

I stiffened in my nook. Didn't the Dutchman have any manners? It was rude to begin discussing business so quickly. I could tell Gostaham was offended from the way he looked away without speaking. Parveez stiffened; he was embarrassed for the man.

The Dutchman's forehead creased with heavy folds, as if he realized he had made a mistake. Fortunately, the awkward moment was interrupted by Taghee, who entered the room bearing vessels of sour cherry sharbat. It was stuffy in the nook, and I craved a taste of the tart drink.

"Please tell us about your country," said Gostaham, demon-strating his unerring hospitality. "We have heard so much about its beauties."

The Dutchman took a deep drink of his sharbat and leaned back into the cushions. "Ah," he said, smiling. "My land is a land of rivers. You needn't carry water when you travel, as you do here."

Parveez spoke for the first time. "Your land must be very green, like an emerald," he said. He was an accountant in training who liked to imagine himself as a poet.

"Green everywhere," replied the merchant. "When spring comes, the green is so piercing it hurts to look at it, and it rains almost every day."

Parveez sighed again, no doubt at the thought of so much water, and his long eyelashes fluttered like a woman's. I don't think the Dutchman noticed.

"We have cows that get fat from the rich green grass, and dairies that make the creamiest cheese. We grow yellow and red tulips, which require much water to thrive. Because we are a nation of water, we are also sailors. We have a saying: 'You must never turn your back on the sea.' We are always finding ways to tame her."

"You have blue eyes," said Parveez, "like the water."

I giggled quietly. I suspected that Parveez was thinking of attaching himself to this fellow, perhaps as a traveling companion whose poetry would be inspired by the sight of foreign lands.

The Dutchman smiled. "Even our houses sit on the sea. My own is built on one of the canals that run through the city. Because of the damp, my people like to warm their floors with your rugs. On top of them they put many items made of wood--things to sit on, things to eat on, things to lie on at night. We don't like to be near the floor, where it is moist and chilly."

"We have no need for that here," Gostaham said. "The ground is dry and comfortable."

"Where do you find so much wood?" Parveez asked the merchant with astonishment. "Your country sounds like a paradise."

"Our forests grow thick all over the country. A man can walk in with an ax and cut more wood than a horse can carry."

"Does it look like the countryside around the Caspian Sea, which is the greenest in all of Iran?" asked Parveez.

The Dutchman laughed. "What you call green, we call brown," he replied. "We have one hundred trees for every one of yours, even in the most luxuriant part of your land."

I thought back to the single cypress in my village. People who lived in a land as fertile as the Dutchman's must never have to experience the pain of a hungry belly.

The Dutchman wiped away the sweat on his forehead and drank the last of his sharbat. Gostaham and Parveez were drinking hot tea, which of course would cool them down more quickly, but the Dutchman didn't seem to know that.

"With so much water, you must have hammams beyond our understanding," Parveez said. "I can imagine huge pools of water, hot and cold, with fountains and cascades streaming from on high. You must be the cleanest people in all the world."

The farangi paused. "Well, no. We have no hammams."

Parveez looked surprised. "How do you keep clean?"

"Our women heat up a basin of water over the fire at home for special occasions, but we never bathe in the winter when it is cold."

Parveez's face twisted in disbelief, and I myself felt a disgust almost as deep as when I had had to empty the pans of night soil. "All winter--without a bath?"

"And all fall, and all spring, too. Usually, we bathe at the beginning of summer," said the merchant nonchalantly.

I thought of the rings under his arms. Without a bath, he would sweat over and over into his clothes until they smelled as rank as fields covered with dung. I was glad I wasn't sitting near him. The room fell quiet for a moment. The Dutchman scratched his head, and flakes of dandruff drifted onto his shoulders.

"I will miss your baths when I return home," he conceded. "The land of Iran is the paragon of pure, the baths are the promised land of purging, and the rose water is the perfume of paradise!" His expressions in Farsi were flawless and I could see that Gostaham and Parveez were delighted by his poetic words of praise.

A servant brought in trays of food and laid them in front of the guest. "Really, there is no need to go to so much trouble," said the Dutchman. "I simply wanted to inquire if we might do business together."

Gostaham twitched as he tried to contain his anger at this display of rudeness. He looked down at the carpet as he said, "Please, my friend, eat. We won't allow you to leave with an empty belly."

The Dutchman ate a few morsels grudgingly, with an unconcealed air of obligation. I was astonished by his barbarous manners. He seemed like an animal, incapable of normal human pleasantries.