Free The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani

them because they, too, wanted carpets from the same maker used by the Shah's favorite courtesan.
    That evening, when Gostaham looked at the receipts, he praised my mother for her skill with money.
    "You have earned us a fine profit, despite Jamileh's wiles," he said. "Now what can I offer you as a fitting reward?"
    My mother said she'd like a new pair of shoes, for hers were frayed and dirty from our journey through the desert.
    "Two pairs of new shoes, then, one for each of you," Gostaham said.
    I had been waiting for a chance to ask Gostaham for what I really wanted, and this seemed the most auspicious moment.
    "Shoes are very nice," I blurted out, "but instead, will you take me to see the royal rug workshop?"
    Gostaham looked surprised. "I didn't think any young girl could resist a pair of shoes, but no matter. I'll take you after the bazaar returns to normal."
    My mother and I went to bed that night filled with glee. As we spread out our bedrolls, we began whispering together about the peculiarities of the household we were fated to live in.
    "Now I understand why Gordiyeh reuses the tea leaves," my mother said.
    "Why?" I asked.
    "She's a bad manager," she replied. "She loses her head in one situation, then tries to make it up in another."
    "She'll have to reuse a lot of tea to make up for the loss she took on Jamileh's cushions," I said. "What a funny woman."
    "Funny is not the word for it," my mother replied. "We'll need to show Gordiyeh that we're working hard instead of draining her household. After all, Gostaham hasn't said how long we can stay."
    "But they have so much!"
    "They do," said my mother, "but what does it matter if you have seven chickens in a shed when you believe you have only one?"
    My parents had always taken the opposite approach. "Trust God to provide," my father used to say. It may have been equally uncertain, but it was a much sweeter way to live.
    A FEW WEEKS later, after I had covered myself in my picheh and chador, Gostaham and I left the house and walked to his workshop near the Image of the World. It was a mild day, and signs of spring were alighting on the Four Gardens district. The trees had their first shimmer of green, and purple and white hyacinths were blooming in the gardens. The first day of the New Year was only a week away. We would celebrate it on the vernal equinox at twenty-two minutes past five in the morning, the precise moment when the sun crossed the celestial equator.
    Gostaham was looking forward to the New Year because he and his workers would take a two-week holiday. He began telling me about the latest projects. "We're working on a rug right now that has seventy knots per radj," he said proudly.
    I stopped so suddenly that a mule driver with a cargo of brass pots yelled at me to move out of the way. A radj was about the length of my middle finger. My own rugs might have had as many as thirty knots per radj, but no more. I could hardly imagine wool fine enough to produce so many knots, or fingers nimble enough to do so.
    Gostaham laughed at my astonishment. "And some are even finer than that," he added.
    The royal rug workshop was located in its own airy building near the Great Bazaar and the Shah's palace. The main workroom was large, with a high ceiling and plenty of light. Two, four, or even eight knotters were busy at each loom, and many of the carpets in process were so long they had to be rolled up at the foot of the loom to allow the workers to keep knotting.
    The men looked surprised to see a woman in the shop, but when they saw I was with Gostaham, they averted their eyes. Most were small in stature--everyone knows that the best knotters are small--but they all had larger hands than I did, and still they formed knots that could hardly be seen. I wondered if I could learn to make even smaller ones.
    The first carpet we looked at reminded me of Four Gardens, the parklike district near Gostaham's home. The carpet showed four square gardens divided by canals of