Three Drops of Blood Read online

  Flandon was silent a moment, then said, “You’ve reminded me of something. One day in Iran something took place which was very strange for me. Up to now I haven’t told anyone, not even my friend Coste, who was with me. I was afraid he would laugh at me. You know that I don’t believe in anything. Only once in all my life have I worshipped God sincerely, with all my heart and soul. That was in Iran, near the same fire temple you saw the picture of. One night, when I was in the south of Iran excavating at Persepolis, I had gone alone to Nagshe Rostam. There the graves of ancient Persian kings were carved into the mountain. I think you may have seen the picture. It’s something like a cross that has been carved into the mountain. Above it is a picture of the king standing in front of the fire temple with his right arm raised towards the fire. Above the fire temple is Ahura Mazda, their god. Below the temple the stone has been cut in the form of a porch, and the king’s tomb is located within the stone crypt. Several of those crypts can be seen there. Opposite them is the great fire temple, which is called the Kaaba of Zoroaster.

  “Anyway, I remember clearly that it was near dusk. I was busy measuring this same temple. I was almost worn out with fatigue and the heat. Suddenly I saw two people, whose clothes were different from ordinary Persian clothes, coming towards me. When they got closer, I saw that they were two old men. Two old but strong, lively men with sparkling eyes and striking faces. I asked them questions and it became evident that they were merchants from Yazd who had come from the north of Iran. Their religion was like that of most of the inhabitants of Yazd. In other words, they were fire-worshippers like the ancient kings of Iran. They had deliberately gone out of their way to make a pilgrimage to the ancient fire temple. They hadn’t finished talking when they began to gather pieces of wood and twigs and dry leaves. They piled them up and made a small fire. I stood still, astonished, and watched them. They lit the dry wood and started to say prayers and murmur in a special language which I had not heard before. Probably it was the language of Zoroaster and the Avesta; maybe it was the same language which had been carved in cuneiform on the rocks.

  “At this point, when the two fire-worshippers were busy praying in front of the fire, I lifted my head. I saw that the scene carved in the stone exactly resembled the living scene in front of me. I stood frozen in my tracks. It was as if these people on the stone exactly above the grave of Darius had come to life and after several thousand years had come down opposite me to worship the manifestation of their god: I was amazed that after this length of time, in spite of the effort expended by the Muslims to destroy and overthrow this faith, this ancient religion still had followers who, secretly but in the open air, threw themselves to the ground before the fire!

  “The two fire-worshippers left and disappeared. I remained alone, but the small fire was still burning. I don’t know how it happened – but I felt that I was under pressure by a religious force and tension. A heavy silence ruled there. The moon had come out from the side of the mountain like a fiery sphere of sulphur and its pale light had illuminated the body of the great fire temple. Time seemed to have gone backwards two or three thousand years. I had forgotten my nationality, personality, and surroundings. I looked at the ashes in front of which those two mysterious old men had fallen down in worship and praise. Blue smoke was slowly rising from the spot in the shape of a column and was spiralling in the air. The shadow of broken stones, the blurred horizon, the stars which shone above my head and winked to each other, the display of the quiet and splendour of the plain among these mysterious ruins and ancient fire temples – it was as if the surroundings, the souls of all the dead, and the power of their thought, which was aloft over the crypt and the broken stones, had forced or inspired me, because things were no longer in my hands. I, who had no belief in anything, fell involuntarily to my knees before these ashes from which the blue smoke rose, and worshipped them: I didn’t know what to say but I didn’t need to murmur anything. Perhaps less than a minute passed before I came to myself again, but I worshiped the manifestation of Ahura Mazda – perhaps in the same way the ancient kings of Iran worshipped fire. In that moment I was a fire-worshipper. Now, think whatever you like about me. Maybe it was just because mankind is weak and is not capable…”

  Abji Khanom

  (from Buried Alive)

  Abji khanom was marokh’s older sister, but anyone who didn’t know the family would have found it hard to believe that they were sisters. Abji Khanom was tall, lanky, swarthy with thick lips and coarse black hair. She was altogether ugly. Marokh, on the other hand, was petite, fair, with a small nose and chestnut hair. Her eyes were alluring, and every time she laughed dimples appeared. They were very different from each other with regard to behaviour and habit too. Ever since she was a child, Abji Khanom had been fussy and quarrelsome and didn’t get along with people. She would even sulk at her mother for two or three months at a time. Her sister, by contrast, was tactful and appealing. She was always good natured and laughing. Naneh Hasan, their neighbour, had nicknamed her “Miss Favourite”. Even her mother and father loved Marokh more, since she was the youngest child and their dear darling.

  Abji Khanom’s mother used to hit her when she was a child. She would nag her and make a fuss but publicly, in front of the neighbours and other people, she would pretend that she felt sorry for Abji Khanom. She would cross her hands and say, “What can I do with this bad luck, eh? Who will marry such an ugly girl? I am afraid she will remain at home. A girl who has no wealth, no beauty, and no accomplishment. Who is the miserable person who will marry her?” Words like this had been repeated in the presence of Abji Khanom so many times that she too had totally lost hope, and had given up on the idea of finding a husband. She spent most of her time praying and fulfilling religious duties. She had completely given up on marriage, since no husband had appeared for her. Once they wanted to give her to Kalb Hosein, the apprentice carpenter, but he didn’t want her. Nonetheless, every time Abji Khanom met people, she would tell them, “I had a proposal but I turned it down. Today’s husbands are all immoral drunkards, better dead than alive. I shall never get married.”

  She spoke like this on the surface, but it was evident that in her heart she liked Kalb Hosein and was very eager to get married. But since from the age of five she had been told that she was ugly and no one would marry her, and since she knew she had no share in the pleasures of this world, she wanted at least to receive the wealth of the other world by the power of prayer and worship. In this way she had found comfort for herself. Yes, why should she regret that she had no share in the pleasures of this transitory world? After all, the eternal world, the hereafter, would be all hers. Then all the attractive people, including her sister and everybody else, would wish they were her. When the months of Muharri and Safar* arrived, this was Abji Khanom’s time to show off. There was no preaching at which she was not at the head of the crowd. In the passion plays* she would take a place for herself an hour before noon. All the preachers knew her and were very eager that Abji Khanom should be at the foot of their pulpits so that the crowd would get worked up from her crying groans and screams. She had memorized most of the sermons. She had heard the sermons so many times and she knew so many religious problems that most of the neighbours would come to her and ask about their mistakes. Early in the morning, she was the one in charge of waking up the household. First she would go to her sister’s bed and kick her, saying, “It’s almost noon. When are you going to get up and say your prayers?” The poor girl would get up, sleepily wash and stand up to say her prayers. The morning call to prayer, the cry of the rooster, the dawn breeze, the murmur of prayers, gave Abji Khanom a special feeling, a spiritual feeling, and she felt proud before her conscience. She would say to herself, “If God doesn’t take me to heaven then whom will He take?” The rest of the day also, after doing some insignificant housework and fussing about this and that, she would take in her hand a long rosary, whose black colour had turned yellow from being handled so much,
and recite the beads. Now her only wish was that, by whatever means, she could go on a pilgrimage trip to Karbala and stay there.

  But her sister didn’t show any special religious zeal and did all of the housework. Then when she was fifteen she went to work as a maid. Abji Khanom was twenty-two, but she was stuck at home and secretly envied her sister. During the year and a half that Marokh went away to work as a maid, not even once had Abji Khanom tried to visit her or asked how she was. When Marokh came home every two weeks to see her family, Abji Khanom would either quarrel with someone or go and pray, stretching it out for two or three hours. Also, later when everyone was sitting together, she would make sarcastic remarks to her sister and would begin lecturing her about prayers, fasting, cleanliness and scepticism. For example, she would say, “From the time when these modern, mincing women appeared, bread became more expensive… Whoever doesn’t cover her face will be suspended by the hair in hell. Whoever talks behind someone’s back will have her head as big as a mountain and her neck as thin as a hair. In hell there are such snakes that people take shelter with dragons.” And she would go on in this vein. Marokh had felt that her sister was jealous but she pretended that she didn’t notice.

  One day towards evening, Marokh came home and talked quietly with her mother for a while and then left. Abji Khanom had gone to the entrance of the opposite room and had sat, puffing on a water pipe, but because of her jealousy she didn’t ask her mother what her sister’s conversation had been about and her mother said nothing about it either. In the evening when her father, with his egg-shaped hat on which whitewash had dried, came home from bricklaying, he changed his clothes, took his tobacco pouch and his pipe, and went up on the roof. Abji Khanom, leaving her work as it was, went with her mother and took the samovar, a pot, a copper container, and relish and onions. They sat next to each other on a carpet. Her mother started the conversation, saying that Abbas, a servant in the same house where Marokh worked, had proposed to her. This morning when the house was empty Abbas’s mother had come to ask for her hand. They wanted to sign the marriage contract next week. They would give twenty-five tomans as a gift for the bride’s mother, thirty tomans to the bride in case there was a divorce, as well as a mirror, candlesticks, a Koran, a pair of shoes, sweets, a bag of henna, a taffeta scarf, brocaded chintz trousers… Her father, fanning himself with a fan hemmed around the edges, sucking a piece of sugar in the corner of his mouth and drinking tea, nodded and said offhandedly, “Good enough. Congratulations. There’s no objection.” He didn’t show any surprise or happiness and didn’t express any opinion. It was as if he was afraid of his wife. But Abji Khanom was furious as soon as she heard this news. She couldn’t listen to the rest of the agreements and on the pretext of prayers she got up without intending to and went downstairs to the main room which had five entrances. She stared at herself in a small mirror she had. In her own eyes she appeared old and broken down, as if these few minutes had aged her several years. She examined the wrinkle between her eyebrows. She found one white hair. With two fingers she pulled it out. She stared at it for a while under the light. Where she pulled it from she felt nothing.

  Several days passed. There was quite a commotion at home. They went back and forth to the bazaar and bought two silk outfits, a water pitcher, glasses, embroidery, a rose water sprinkler, a drinking container, a night cap, a box of cosmetics, eyebrow paint, a bronze samovar, painted curtains, everything imaginable. Since the mother wanted a great deal for her daughter, whatever trinkets from the home came into her hands she would put aside for Marokh’s trousseau. Even the hand-woven prayer carpets that Abji Khanom had asked her mother for several times and which she hadn’t given to her she put aside for Marokh. During these several days Abji Khanom silently and apprehensively watched these things, pretending not to notice. For two days she pretended to have a headache and rested. Her mother repeatedly scorned her, saying, “When is sisterhood valuable, if not now? I know it’s from jealousy, and no one reaches his goal from that. Besides, ugliness and beauty aren’t in my hands, it’s God’s work. You saw that I wanted to give you to Kalb Hosein, but they didn’t like you. Now you’re pretending to be sick so you won’t have to do anything. From morning till night you pretend to be pious, while I must strain my weak eyes sewing.”

  Furious with the jealousy which had overflowed her heart, Abji Khanom answered from under the quilt, “Enough, enough. She tries to put a brand in a heart of ice. Such a bridegroom you found her! Whenever you hit a dog someone like Abbas will appear in this town. What kind of taunt are you giving me? It’s clear that everyone knows what kind of a man Abbas is. Now don’t make me spell out that Marokh is two months pregnant. I saw that her stomach has swollen, but I didn’t show that I noticed it. I no longer consider her my sister.”

  Her mother became very angry. “May God strike you dumb. Go and die. I hope you die, shameless girl. Go and get lost. Do you want to stain my daughter’s reputation? I know this is just jealousy. You are dying because nobody will marry you with that face and figure. Now out of grief you slander your own sister. Didn’t you say that God in his own Koran has written that a liar is a big sinner, eh? God had mercy on others that he did not make you pretty… Every other hour you leave the house on the pretext of going to a sermon. You’re the one who makes people gossip… Go, go. All this praying and fasting isn’t worth the curse of Satan for people who have been deceitful. You’re just fooling people.”

  This kind of talk passed between them for the next several days. Marokh stared at these scuffles astonished and said nothing, until the night of the ceremony arrived. All the neighbours and the local unladylike women had gathered together, their eyes and eyebrows painted black, their faces white and their cheeks red. The women wore print chadors, had straight fringes and sported baggy cotton trousers. Among them Naneh Hasan was in the limelight. Simpering and smiling, she had tilted her head and was playing the drum. She sang whatever came to her mind:

  Oh friends, congratulations. With the blessing of God, congratulations.

  We came, we came again, we came from the bridegroom’s home –

  Everybody’s pretty as the moon, everybody’s a king, everybody’s got almond eyes.

  Oh friends, congratulations. With the blessing of God, congratulations.

  We came, we came again, we came from the bride’s home.

  Everybody’s blind, everybody’s lethargic, everybody’s with sick eyes.

  Oh friends, congratulations. We have come to take the angel and the fairy.

  With the blessing of God, congratulations.

  She would repeat this same thing over and over. They came and went, cleaning trays by the fountain, rubbing them with ashes. The smell of vegetable stew permeated the air. Someone shooed a cat out of the kitchen. Someone wanted eggs for an omelette. Several small children had taken each other’s hands and were sitting down and getting up saying, “The small bath has ants; sit down and get up.” They lit bronze fires in rented samovars. Unexpectedly they had news that the lady of the house where Marokh was a maid was coming to the ceremony with her daughters. On two tables sweets and fruit were arranged and they put two chairs at each table. Marokh’s father was pacing pensively, thinking that his expenditure had been great. But Marokh’s mother was insisting that for the approaching night they should have a puppet show. In all this tumult there was no sign of Abji Khanom. She had been gone since two in the afternoon. No one knew where she was. Probably she had gone to listen to a sermon.

  When the candles were lit and the ceremony was over, everyone had gone except for Naneh Hasan. They had joined the hands of the bride and groom who were sitting beside each other in the main room. The doors were closed. Abji Khanom entered the house. She went directly to the room next to the main room to take off her chador. As soon as she entered she noticed that they had pulled down the curtain in the main room. Out of curiosity she lifted a corner of the curtain from behind the glass. Under the light
of the lamp, she saw her sister Marokh, looking prettier than ever with make-up and painted eyebrows, beside the bridegroom, who seemed to be about twenty. They were sitting in front of a table filled with sweets. The bridegroom put his hand around Marokh’s waist and said something in her ear. It looked as if they had noticed Abji Khanom or maybe her sister had recognized her. To spite Abji Khanom, they laughed and then kissed. From the end of the courtyard came the sound of Naneh Hasan’s drum. She was singing, “Oh friends, congratulations…” A feeling of hatred mixed with jealousy overcame Abji Khanom. She dropped the curtain and went and sat on the pile of bedding which they had put near the wall. Without opening her black chador she rested her chin in her hands and stared at the ground at the flower patterns of the carpet. She counted them and they seemed to her to be something new; she noticed the pattern of their colours. She either didn’t notice anyone coming and going, or she wouldn’t lift her head to see who it was. Her mother came to the door of her room and said to her, “Why don’t you eat supper? Why do you make yourself suffer? Why are you sitting here? Take off your black chador. Why have you left it on like a bad omen? Come and kiss your sister. Come and watch them from behind the glass. The bride and groom look like the full moon. Aren’t you happy for them? Come on, say something, finally. Everyone was asking where her sister was. I didn’t know what to say.”

  Abji Khanom only raised her head and said, “I’ve eaten supper.”

  * * *

  It was midnight. Everyone was asleep with the memory of his own wedding night and dreaming happy dreams. Suddenly, as if somebody were thrashing in water, the sound of splashing woke everybody abruptly. At first they thought a cat or a child had fallen into the fountain. With bare heads and feet they lit the lights. They searched everywhere but found nothing extraordinary. When they came back to go to sleep Naneh Hasan saw that Abji Khanom’s slippers had fallen near the cover of the water reservoir. They brought the light forwards and saw Abji Khanom’s body floating on the water surface. Her braided black hair had wrapped around her throat like a snake. Her rust-coloured clothes clung to her body. Her face shone with splendour and luminosity. It was as if she had gone to a place where there existed neither ugliness nor beauty, neither marriage nor funerals, neither laughter nor crying, neither happiness nor sorrow. She had gone to heaven.