The Blood of Flowers Read Online Free Page B

to cry, she loosened her tunic and put the child to her breast. Goli's cheeks glowed pink like the baby's; the two of them looked healthy and contented. I wished with all my heart that my life were like hers.
    When the baby had finished nursing, Goli placed her in my arms. I breathed in her newborn smell, as fresh as sprouting wheat, and whispered, "Don't forget me." I stroked her tiny cheek, thinking about how I would miss her first words and her first halting steps.
    Goli wrapped her arms around me. "Think of how big Isfahan is!" she said. "You'll promenade through the biggest city square ever built, and your mother will be able to choose your husband from thousands upon thousands!"
    I brightened for a moment, as if my old hopes were still possible, before remembering my problem.
    "But now I have no dowry," I reminded her. "What man will take me with nothing?"
    The whole room became quiet again. My mother fanned the rue, the lines in her forehead deepening. The other women began speaking all at once. "Don't worry, Maheen-joon! Your new family will help you!"
    "They won't let such a fine young girl get pickled!"
    "There's a healthy stud for every mare, and a lusty soldier for every moon!"
    "Shah Abbas will probably desire your daughter for his harem," said Kolsoom to my mother. "He'll fatten her up with cheese and sugar, and then she'll have bigger breasts and a rounder belly than all of us!"
    At a recent visit to the hammam, I had caught my reflection in a metal mirror. I had none of the ripeness of nursing mothers like Goli, who were so admired at the hammam. The muscles in my forearms stood out, and my face looked pinched. I was sure I could not be moonlike to anyone, but I smiled to think of my thin, bony body in such a womanly form. When Zaynab noticed my expression, her face twisted with mirth. She laughed so hard she began pitching forward over her stomach, and her lips wrapped back over her teeth until she looked like a horse fighting its bit. I flushed to the roots of my hair when I understood that Kolsoom had only been trying to be kind.
    IT DIDN'T TAKE us long to pack our things, since we had so very few. I put one change of black mourning clothes into a hand-knotted saddlebag along with some heavy blankets to sleep in, and filled as many jugs as I could find with water. The morning of our departure, neighbors brought us gifts of bread, cheese, and dried fruit for the long journey. Kolsoom threw a handful of peas to divine whether it was an auspicious day for travel. After determining that it was excellent, she raised a precious copy of the Qur'an and circled our heads with it three times. Praying for a safe journey, we touched our lips to it. Just as we were setting off, Goli took a piece of dried fruit out of my bag and slipped it into her sleeve. She was "stealing" something of mine to make sure that one day, I would return.
    "I hope so," I whispered to her as we said good-bye. It pained me to leave her most of all.
    My mother and I were traveling with a musk merchant named Abdul-Rahman and his wife, who escorted travelers from one city to another for a fee. They often journeyed all the way to the northeastern borders of our land, looking for musk bladders from Tibet to sell in big cities. Their saddlebags, blankets, and tents smelled of the fragrance, which commanded princely prices.
    The camel that my mother and I shared had soft black eyes that had been lined with protective kohl, and thick, bushy hair the color of sand. Abdul-Rahman had decorated his pretty nose with a strip of woven red cloth with blue tassels, a kind of bridle. We sat on his back atop a mountain of folded rugs and sacks of food, and held on to his hump. The camel lifted his feet delicately when he walked but was ill-tempered and smelled as rotten as one of the village latrines.
    I had never seen the countryside north of my village. As soon as we stepped away from the mountains' life-giving streams, the land became barren. Pale green shrubs