The Blood of Flowers Read Online Free Page A

we'd been sent off to the Christian lands, where barbarian women exposed their bosoms to all eyes, ate the singed flesh of pigs, and bathed only once a year, our destination could hardly have seemed more remote.
    Word of our upcoming departure spread rapidly through the village. In the afternoon, women began arriving at our home with their smallest children. Pulling off their head scarves, they fluffed their hair and greeted the others in the room before arranging themselves in clusters on our carpet. Children who were old enough to play gathered in their own corner.
    "May this be your final sorrow!" said Kolsoom as she came in, kissing my mother on each cheek in greeting.
    Tears sprang to my mother's eyes.
    "It was the comet," Kolsoom added sympathetically. "Mere humans couldn't defeat a power that great."
    "Husband of mine," my mother said, as if my father were still alive. "Why did you announce that life was going so well? Why invite the comet's wrath?"
    Zaynab made a face. "Maheen, remember the Muslim who traveled from Isfahan all the way to Tabriz to try to outrun the angel of death? When he arrived, Azraeel thanked him for meeting him there on time. Your husband did nothing wrong; he just answered God's command."
    My mother's back bent a little, as it always did when she felt grief. "I never thought I would have to leave my only home," she replied.
    "God willing, your luck will change in Isfahan," said Kolsoom, offering us the wild rue she had brought to protect us from the Evil Eye. She lit the herb with a coal from the oven, and soon its acrid smell purified the air.
    My mother and I served tea to our guests and offered the dates that Kolsoom had brought, for we had nothing of our own to serve. I brought a cup of tea to Safa, the eldest villager, who was sitting in a corner of the room with a water pipe. It bubbled as she drew in smoke.
    "What do you know of your new family?" she asked as she exhaled.
    It was such an embarrassing question that it quieted the room for a moment. Everyone knew that my grandfather had married my father's mother many years ago while he had been visiting friends in our village. My grandfather was already married to his first wife, and lived with her and Gostaham in Shiraz. After my grandmother bore my father, he visited occasionally and sent money, but the families were understandably not close.
    "I know very little," replied my mother. "I haven't seen Gosta-ham for more than twenty-five years. I met him only once, when he stopped by our village on his way to visit his parents in Shiraz, the city of poets. Even then, he was becoming one of the exalted carpet designers in the capital."
    "And his wife?" asked Safa, her voice tight from the smoke in her lungs.
    "I know nothing of her, except that she bore him two daughters."
    Safa exhaled with satisfaction. "If her husband is successful, she will be running a grand household," she said. "I only hope she is generous and fair in her division of work."
    Her words made me understand that we would no longer be mistresses of our lives. If we liked our bread baked dark and crisp but she didn't, we would have to eat it her way. And no matter how we felt, we'd have to praise her name. I think Safa noticed my distress, because she stopped smoking for a moment to offer a consolation.
    "Your father's half brother must have a good heart, or he would not have sent for you," she said. "Just be sure to please his wife, and they will provide for you."
    "Insh'Allah," said my mother, in a tone that sounded unconvinced.
    I looked around at all the kind faces I knew; at my friends and my mother's friends, women who had been like aunts and grandmothers to me while I was growing up. I could not imagine what it would be like not to see them: Safa, with her face crinkled like an old apple; Kolsoom, thin and swift, renowned for her wisdom about herbs; and finally Goli, my truest friend.
    She was sitting next to me, her newborn daughter in her arms. When the baby started