In the Palace of Flowers Read online

  ‘I did not like it; was it replaced?’ The eunuch began to answer, but Nosrat continued to speak, raising his voice. ‘Why was this not done in the daytime?’

  ‘Please, Shāhzadeh, I can return in the morning…’

  ‘You do realise you interrupted me when you tried to enter?’ Nosrat paused; there were tears running down the eunuch’s face. ‘Is something the matter?’

  ‘Shāhzadeh, I am f-fine.’

  ‘You do not seem fine.’ Nosrat dropped his voice. ‘Would you like an apology?’

  Jamīla shot a look at Abimelech. In short, quick strides, he crossed the threshold and was outside the room. ‘Shāhzadeh,’ he said, inclining his head, ‘Wahbi is my subordinate. Allow me to sanction him for his error without continuing to interrupt your night.’

  Nosrat looked at Abimelech. He nodded. Jamīla exhaled.

  As the door closed, Nosrat turned back to her, shaking his head in wonder. ‘He is without fault. How does one become so?’ Almost to himself he added, ‘What would I be without Abimelech?’

  Impatient, unenlightened, alone? Jamīla thought. She closed her eyes and fell silent for a moment, steeling herself. She moved closer to Nosrat and nuzzled his arm. ‘Well, Shaazdeh,’ she began, with a beguiling smile, ‘shall we play a game?’

  It was another hour before Abimelech returned, his face wan. Nosrat and Jamīla were curled together on the bed. Nosrat jumped up. ‘Oh-ho! He returns. I thought they were keeping you from me, in the harem!’

  Jamīla and Abimelech exchanged glances. She wore only a quilted waistcoat, the one Nosrat had worn earlier. Abimelech said, ‘Shaazdeh, perhaps I should leave.’

  ‘You have only just arrived.’

  ‘I do not wish to interrupt you.’ He added with a light smile, ‘I know you cannot abide interruptions.’

  ‘Come over here and say that again.’ Jamīla couldn’t see Nosrat’s face, but she could see Abimelech’s: he looked relaxed and amused. Nosrat and Abimelech began chuckling together, an insular, jocular laugh. Watching them, she rose from the bed and wriggled onto a chair, taking one of the cushions spread across the floor and placing it on her lap. She had never let Abimelech see her like this; she was unused to being so exposed in the presence of more than one man. Yet they laughed like they could not see her. She felt like another ornament in the room, adorned but anonymous, as invisible as the voluptuous gold curtains that hung in the carefully constructed archways.

  ‘So, was he flogged?’ Nosrat asked, his tone languid as he paced the room. He drummed his fingers on a mahogany bureau before clasping one of the gilded metal handles and pulling open the drawer. ‘It is French,’ he announced, before removing an item and presenting it with a flourish to Abimelech. ‘Do you know what these are?’ he asked, watching his face. ‘These cigarettes are from the imperial court of Russia, but they were made in London. Sobranies of London. Do you approve? They are better than ḡalyāns, are they not?’

  ‘They are much better, Shaazdeh.’

  Jamīla smirked. She knew full well Abimelech preferred to smoke a pipe.

  ‘Try one.’

  ‘Certainly – but then, Shaazdeh, I should like to retire.’

  ‘No!’ Nosrat and Jamīla spoke at the same time. Nosrat peered at her, but continued regardless. ‘I wish to resume our previous discussion, about the service.’

  ‘And how you will be remembered?’ Jamīla asked.

  Nosrat looked at her, as if seeing her for the first time. ‘Yes.’

  ***

  Hours slid by. The room was bathed in pungent fumes. Nosrat refused to open the window further. He was pacing, pontificating. Jamīla was facing away from him, lying on her back, holding a goblet upright. Abimelech snorted as he poured more wine into it: Jamīla kept slopping it as she struggled to swallow. Nosrat shook the stem of his goblet. He stared into it. ‘It seems absurd that this – this should surpass everything.’

  He had not paused for breath. Jamīla hoped he would. She had almost forgotten what silence was like. She no longer knew what he was talking about. He continued. Abimelech gulped back his drink and lay on the floor, his head nudging Jamīla’s. She turned towards him, their faces mere inches apart. They had never been so close together.

  He had no facial hair beyond his brows and lashes. There was nothing on his top lip, not a wisp on his chin. She traced a cheekbone with her finger. It swooped outwards and hollowed out beneath. He was somehow aged, yet with creamy, childlike skin. She led her hand across his entire face, pausing before his lips.

  She hesitated and then crumpled her fingers against them. Abimelech, who had been lying almost perfectly still, grasped her hand. He held it against his lips, kissed it and closed his eyes for a moment. Then he pushed it firmly away from him. He rose and walked over to Nosrat, and stroked the back of his head. Jamīla snorted. Abimelech caught her eye for a moment and held her gaze. He tugged Nosrat’s chin and watched him dimple in delight and surprise. Soon they were cuffing each other and laughing aloud. Jamīla watched Nosrat yelping as Abimelech tickled him. She rose to leave, but Abimelech reached out and grabbed her ankle.

  ‘Stay.’ He was gasping for breath, Nosrat behind him, tugging him and cackling.

  She stood for a moment and watched them, a quagmire of interlinked limbs, squealing voices and vibrant fabric. Then she dressed and left with speed before Abimelech could convince her otherwise.

  Outside Nosrat’s room she paused. It was too late to return to the harem. Chehra Khaanoum would hear her; she would either be angry or take her to bed. Jamīla suppressed a shudder as she wandered around Nosrat’s quarters. She idled until she came to a familiar door, and, pushing it open, froze at the sight. It was not just a room built for a prince, it was a room built for a European prince.

  This room, like those in the photographs Nosrat had shown her, had gilt-lined wooden panelling, European chairs pressed against the walls and a chaise longue at the foot of the bed. There was not a single cushion. Unlike Nosrat’s room, Abimelech’s room was pristine. It was empty of personal items but for a tall smooth pillbox hat that she knew to be his. It was part of the eunuch’s uniform, mirroring that of a nobleman’s. It sat, serene, on a gleaming bureau, as bold and discreet as its owner. The rest of the room was similar: muted colours, without the explosions of gold Jamīla was accustomed to seeing throughout the palace.

  She felt guilty about stealing the bed; no slave was worthy of sleeping in such opulence. She was rather surprised that Abimelech dared to sleep here himself; Nosrat could not protect him from the wrath of the Shāh if he were caught. She wondered what would happen if Abimelech saw her in the bed. She envisioned him entering the room, heavy with drink but light-footed with caution, caught by surprise at the sight of her. She would be flagrantly presented, her brown skin sprawled across the royal duvet for all to see. Abimelech, she suspected, would simply settle himself on the floor at her feet. It was the most gallant of the options – even if his carpet woven with rubies was more luxurious than the mattresses in the harem. Or perhaps he would continue drinking with Nosrat tonight. They would pass out in Nosrat’s room, and she could slip away, unnoticed, just after dawn.

  She clambered onto the bed, squirrelling herself into a corner. Slipping her hand under the pillow, she withdrew a tattered copy of Hafiz’s Divan and smiled. It was not a warm night; she pushed some of the bedding onto the floor so that if Abimelech returned, he would have something to sleep under. But when she woke, she found he had slipped in beside her.

  3

  Her dreams at night always ended the same way. Flickering reinventions of that night would stalk innocuous worlds before wholly taking them over. They might start as all her dreams had lately: chasing ibex through mosques she had never entered. Trees would poke their twigs through open windows, roots would spread over the mirrored tiles. The Persian mosque would become an Abyssinian forest, and Dinha, panting beside her, would remind her she was playing a chieftain. Jamīla in the dream would sigh because, of cours
e, she knew what was coming. Each night she sought to do something different at that moment. Before she and Dinha fought, before the latter fled, before the figure appeared to drag her far away.

  Jamīla turned over as she woke and found Abimelech staring at her. His eyes, almond shaped and dark, with lashes so long and curled she wanted to stroke them, were often opaque. She started to speak, but he spoke over her. ‘You should not be here.’ She didn’t reply and he turned on to his back, away from her.

  No matter how terse his tone, she always felt a warmth when they were alone. It was then and only then that he would speak to her in the language of their home. It was important to her; without those four years of secret conversation she would have forgotten more than her tongue, she would have struggled to retain her history. And it would not have grown with her. At best it would exist as a relic, consigned to memory, insufficient as a medium through which to depict her life now.

  Nosrat had learned Afaan Oromoo from his nurses, and had spoken it as a baby, but he refused to speak it to her or have the ‘Galla nonsense’ spoken in his presence. It had taken Jamīla a while to recall it at first. Her last memories of Afaan Oromoo had been the songs her mother used to sing. She couldn’t remember on her own, but whenever Abimelech spoke the tongue, the lullabies rose unbidden.

  Her mother’s voice was voluptuous; it rolled and clicked like a ductile cube. It moved as swiftly as her hand. Jamīla had two memories of her mother: her voice as she sang her to sleep and her fist as it furled when she fumed. Her mother was not one for punching, but whenever she smacked Jamīla, she would clench her fist first, steeling herself. She would spread her fingers out again immediately, flexing them at the tips, before chasing after Jamīla. Jamīla missed it all. She missed the sting of her mother’s palm as it curved through the air like a lasso, languid as it stung her skin. Sometimes it burned the tip of her nose, often it cuffed her chin. Jamīla had no other memories of her mother, not the shape of her body as she stood or the arch of her back when they passed strange men, her shoulders proud as she ignored their praise. She had memories of those memories, but she could never recall those moments herself.

  Abimelech turned his head slightly, his glance fluttering on Jamīla’s mouth, before fixing his eyes to the ceiling once more. With a light cough, he said, ‘You really should not be here.’

  She scoffed. ‘The chief eunuch sent me to Prince Nosrat. He will expect me to stay the night. Chehra Khaanoum knows. I shall say Nosrat kept me late in the morning. Nobody will ask him, and thus, for now, my time is my own.’ She leaned towards him and added, ‘Once Nosrat gave me a day to myself. He said I had to stay within the palace walls, and should I be questioned later, he would be my excuse.’

  Abimelech looked incredulous. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Well, I stayed with him. I did not dare wander by myself. But he did show me,’ she lowered her voice to a stage whisper, ‘the Shāh’s photography studio and he took my picture! There is a photograph, Abimelech. Of me. It is the strangest thing. I look – I look as I do in the mirror. It is…exact.’

  ‘Well. That is generous of him.’

  ‘You sound surprised.’ Jamīla laughed.

  ‘I am not surprised. I know Nosrat Mirza is a fair master.’ Abimelech sighed, his words wistful. ‘He did not grant me a new name when I arrived. He allowed me to remain “Abimelech”. I have served kinder men than he, but none who let me keep my identity.’

  ‘It matters little, in the end.’

  ‘As we will all be forgotten…’ Abimelech’s tone was sober. ‘What compelled you to say such a thing? What were you thinking – were you even thinking?’

  ‘It is the truth.’

  ‘What difference does that make?’

  ‘Does it not concern you?’

  ‘That I shan’t have 40 days of funeral rites in the bāzār’s most beautiful mosque?’

  ‘No,’ Jamīla said in a quiet voice. ‘I am referring to the reasons why.’

  ‘I am a slave.’

  ‘Thus your life is of no consequence. You are of no consequence!’

  ‘Is this about Aabir?’

  ‘This is about all of us!’

  There was a silence.

  ‘It does not bother you?’ Without waiting for an answer, she rose from the bed. Abimelech sat up, following her movements warily. ‘Last night, Chehra Khaanoum was nervous and anxious because she was invited to a dinner with women she cannot stand. The day before, we were to discuss why, in great depth, they might hate her. Prior to that, she decided to cry because she felt unloved. All the while, I have to write out her inane correspondence, complete her innumerable errands, help her choose her outfits and otherwise follow her around. Do you know how much of my day involves standing against a wall, playing at being invisible?’

  ‘I could not possibly; I am not a eunuch after all. My day is not remotely similar.’

  She had been standing over him, jabbing the air with her finger. At his words, she dropped her hand and sat down with a guilty sigh. ‘Of course. I know your experience is the same.’ She could not bring herself to voice her real complaint.

  ‘It could be worse, Jamīla. We could be domestics.’

  ‘We are Abyssinian,’ Jamīla snapped. ‘We would never be domestics.’

  ‘Al-ḥamdulillāh for slave hierarchies.’

  Jamīla rolled her eyes. ‘It is not enough.’

  Abimelech shrugged.

  ‘I know–’ she paused and smiled. ‘Might I suggest this is your fault?’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘You gave me that book! Mulla Sadra’s—’

  ‘—Transcendent Theosophy? I have been searching for that. I thought I might teach it to Nosrat Mirza—’

  ‘I keep re-reading it. I wish I had unlimited time to ponder such questions, about essentialism and existentialism. I know, I know, it is impossible, but it seems absurd that this – the petty squabbling and scheming of the harem – should be my only alternative.’

  There was a long silence.

  ‘It is not enough, Abimelech. I feel enraged every day. These lives of ours…do they not strike you as strange? You are not truly surprised by the words I spoke to Prince Nosrat. I know you. You are not satisfied with this life. Would you read Mulla Sadra if you were? You cannot cast your thoughts aside.’ She leaned closer. ‘I do not simply want out. I want…more. Our minds are not mere basins for our memories. The questions of who we are, where we come from, why we live like this, why one society can sell another – I am tormented by them…’

  Abimelech sighed. ‘I do not know what to tell you.’

  Jamīla stared at him, her face a mask. Then she rose without speaking and headed for the door.

  ‘You are upset with me.’

  Jamīla shook her head. ‘No, Abimelech. I have to go to the bāzār. I have errands to run.’

  ‘Let me come with you.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘Goodbye, Abimelech,’ Jamīla said, but she stood at the door.

  Abimelech smiled. ‘Let me come with you.’

  ‘Why?’

  He rose from the bed and followed her. Stopping in front of her, he took her hand. ‘I will tell you what you want to know.’

  Jamīla looked down at her hand, encased in both of his. She looked back at him, her face doubtful. ‘I know you, Abimelech.’

  ‘I will. I promise.’

  4

  Tehran’s grand bāzār was not the most beautiful Jamīla had seen, but parts of it came close. Unlike most that were purely markets, the bāzār in Tehran was a city within a city. Domed buildings were connected to large labyrinth passageways that folded out onto courtyards, docks and open streets. Mosques and schools were not far from bath houses and guest houses. Bakers, apothecaries and confectioners were found throughout; tailors, shoemakers and craftsmen were generally together. The bāzār was a world apart from the harem in Golestan Palace. In the palace, every word was courteous, every action preced
ed by a bow. Here, words spun fast and loose, questions roared from full-throated men. For Jamīla, it was brilliant but dismal, the long-tunnelled galleries humming with the footfall of the forlorn.

  In summer months, on sticky days, she came here to escape. The blast of cool air that greeted her would feel like a reprieve. In winters, when she entered, the smells assailed her first. They were unusual aromas: a slew of mismatched spices from competing sellers together would make her head spin. The recurring blend, she grew to discern, was a burst of sumac and saffron. The tart lemony sharpness of the sumac combined with the honey vanilla of the saffron was often followed by wafts of tobacco smoke, that she could see curling through the air.

  Despite the vastness of the place, it felt as familiar as it did complex. Jamīla knew which corridors sold Chehra’s favourite spices and where to get writing paper for Nosrat. He never asked her for it and had access to more luxuriant options, but his response to her first, impulsive gesture told her that he liked being cared for – he liked the pretence that they were young lovers. Thus Jamīla, despite her ambivalence, indulged his little dream and got him cheap trinkets from the bāzār whenever she could.

  Jamīla walked in silence beside Abimelech, waiting for him to begin. As they entered the bāzār he all but disappeared, turning once to slip her a silent smile before snaking through the heaving hoards, sweeping through the clamour of shouting traders. Finally, he stopped in a quieter corridor and waited for her to catch up. He was smiling, standing still, as she panted in front of him. He began to speak, but the smell of pomegranates from a nearby stall caught her attention. Her favourite thing to do when running Chehra’s errands in the bāzār was to stop in an unfamiliar passageway and buy pomegranates for herself. Jamīla liked the sensation of being slightly lost, and in a world of unending routine, she craved the occasional surprise. She lived for those moments when she bit into the pomegranate and found it unexpectedly sweet or soft. It was not supposed to be either and you were supposed to peel them first, but Jamīla did not care. The best ones were firm and tasted more sharp than sweet, but she relished the unexpected, even when it was unpleasant.