The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani Page B

boldness.
    Few girls were as confident about their future as Naheed. I admired her for her certainty, just as I was dazzled by her smooth white skin, her green eyes, her lavender silk tunic, and her skill with the pen. I couldn't understand why she wanted to be my friend, as I was just a poor village girl and she was a learned child of the city, but it seemed that Naheed was one of those girls who could make or break rules as she liked.
    ON THE NEXT DAY, Friday, my mother and I arose before the sun and went to the kitchen, looking for breakfast. A pretty maid named Shamsi gave us hot bread and my first vessel of coffee. The rich taste of it brought tears of pleasure to my eyes. No wonder everyone talked about the wonder of the bean! If tea enlivened the appetite, coffee was rich enough to quench it. It was sweet, but I stirred in another spoonful of sugar when no one was looking. I began chattering with my mother about nothing in particular. Her cheeks were flushed, and I noticed that she, too, was chirping like a bird.
    While we were eating, Gordiyeh stopped by and told us that her daughters would be visiting with their children, as they did on every holy day, and that everyone would be needed to help make the festive midday meal. It would be a large task, as the household was even grander than it looked at first. There were six servants: Cook; Ali-Asghar, who was responsible for men's jobs like slaughtering animals; two maids, Shamsi and Zohreh, who scrubbed, polished, and cleaned; a boy named Samad whose only job was to make and serve coffee and tea; and an errand boy, Taghee. All these people would have to be fed, plus my mother and I, Gordiyeh and Gostaham, their daughters and their children, and anyone else who happened to visit.
    Ali-Asghar, a small, wiry man with hands as big as his head, had already killed a lamb in the courtyard that morning and suspended it to let the blood flow out of its body. While we peeled eggplant with sharp knives, he stripped off its skin and chopped the body into parts. Cook, a thin woman who never stopped moving, threw the meat into a cauldron over a hot fire, adding salt and onions. My mother and I cut the eggplant into pieces and salted them to make the sour black juice erupt.
    Gordiyeh appeared from time to time to check on the preparations. Looking at the eggplant, which had only just begun to sweat, she told my mother, "More salt!"
    I could feel words behind my mother's lips, but she didn't speak them. She sprinkled more salt and then paused.
    "More!" Gordiyeh said.
    This time, my mother poured until the eggplant was nearly buried and Gordiyeh told her to stop.
    After the sourness had drained out, we rinsed the chopped eggplant in cool water, and my mother fried it in a pot bubbling with hot oil. When each piece was cooked, I patted it with a cloth to remove the grease, and put it aside. The eggplant would be laid on top of the lamb just before serving to allow it to marry the meat juices.
    Since the meal was still hours away, Gordiyeh told us to make a large vessel of vegetable torshi, a spicy relish that added flavor to rice. Cook's recipe called for eggplant, carrots, celery, turnips, parsley, mint, and garlic by the basketload, all of which we had to wash, peel, and chop. Then Cook measured out the vinegar she had made and mixed everything together. By the time we had finished, my hands were tired and raw.
    Gordiyeh's daughters, Mehrbanoo and Jahanara, arrived and dropped in to the kitchen to see what we were cooking. Mehrbanoo, the eldest at twenty-two, had two daughters, who were dressed and groomed like little dolls, in yellow and orange tunics with gold earrings and gold bracelets. Jahanara was a year younger and had one son, Mohammad, a three-year-old child who seemed small for his age and who had a runny nose. Both of the women lived with their husbands' families but came to visit their parents at least once a week. I was introduced to them as their father's half brother's