Forty Rules of Love(98)

After the guests left, I returned to the house and meditated in a quiet corner. Then I went to the room where Kimya was waiting for me. I found her sitting on the bed, wearing a white robe adorned with golden threads, her hair braided into a multitude of plaits, each of which was ornamented with beads. It was impossible to see her expression, as her face was covered with thick, red tulle. Except for a candle that flickered by the window, the room was without light. The mirror on the wall had been covered by a velvet cloth, as it was deemed to be bad luck for a young bride to see her reflection on her wedding night. Beside our bed there was a pomegranate and a knife, so that we could eat the fruit and have as many children as the seeds inside.

Kerra had told me all about the local customs, reminding me to give the bride a necklace with gold coins upon opening her veil. But I never had gold coins in my life and did not want to greet my bride with coins borrowed from someone else. So when I lifted Kimya’s veil, all I did was to give her a comb made of tortoiseshell and plant a small kiss on her lips. She smiled. And for a second I felt as shy as a lost little boy.

“You are beautiful,” I said.

She blushed. But then she squared her shoulders, doing her best to look more tranquil and mature than she could ever be.

“I am your wife now,” she said.

Then she pointed toward the beautiful carpet on the floor, which she had crafted on her own and with great care as part of her dowry. Exuberant colors, sharp contrasts. As soon as I saw it I knew that every knot and every pattern on the carpet was about me. Kimya had been weaving her dreams.

I kissed her again. The warmth of her lips sent waves of desire across my entire body. She smelled of jasmine and wildflowers. Stretching out beside her, I inhaled her smell and touched her breasts, so small and firm. All I wanted was to enter her and get lost inside her. She offered herself to me the way a rosebud opens to the rain.

I pulled away. “I’m sorry, Kimya. I can’t do this.”

She looked at me, still and stunned, forgetting to breathe. The disappointment in her eyes was too much to bear. I jumped to my feet.

“I need to go,” I said.

“You cannot go now,” Kimya said in a voice that didn’t sound like her. “What will people say if you leave the room now? They will know that this marriage was not consummated. And they’ll think it was because of me.”

“What do you mean?” I murmured, half to myself, because I knew what she was suggesting.

Averting her eyes, she mumbled something incomprehensible, and then she said quietly, “They’ll think I wasn’t a virgin. I’ll have to live in shame.”

It made my blood boil that society imposed such ridiculous rules on its individuals. These codes of honor had less to do with the harmony God created than with the order human beings wanted to sustain.

“That’s nonsense. People should mind their own business,” I objected, but I knew that Kimya was right.

With one quick move, I grabbed the knife beside the pomegranate. I glimpsed a trace of panic in Kimya’s face, slowly replaced by the expression of someone who recognized a sad situation and accepted it. Without hesitation I cut my left palm. My blood dripped on our bedsheet, leaving dark crimson stains.

“Just give them this sheet. This will shut their mouths, and your name will remain pure and clean, the way it should be.”

“Wait, please! Don’t go,” Kimya beseeched. She rose to her feet, but, not knowing what to do next, she repeated once again, “I am your wife now.”

In that moment I understood what a terrible mistake I had made by marrying her. My head throbbing with pain, I walked out of the room into the night. A man like me should never have gotten married. I wasn’t designed to perform marital duties. I saw this clearly. What saddened me was the cost of this knowledge.

I felt a strong need to run away from everything, not only from this house, this marriage, this town, but also from this body I had been given. Yet the thought of seeing Rumi the next morning held me anchored here. I couldn’t abandon him again.

I was trapped.





Aladdin





KONYA, MAY 1247

Being forced into a decision that I knew I would deeply regret later, I remained silent and did not openly object to this marriage. But on the day Kimya was going to be married to Shams, I woke up with a pain such as I had never felt before. I sat up in bed gasping for breath like a drowning man, and then, annoyed with myself for wallowing in self-pity I slapped my face again and again. A strangled sigh escaped my lips. And it was that sound that made me realize I wasn’t my father’s son anymore.

I had no mother. No father. No brother. And no Kimya. I was all alone in the world. What little remained of my respect for my father had disappeared overnight. Kimya was like a daughter to him. I thought he cared about her. But apparently the only person he really cared about was Shams of Tabriz. How could he marry Kimya to a man like him? Anyone could see that Shams would make a terrible husband. The more I thought about it, the clearer it became that just to make Shams safe, my father had sacrificed Kimya’s happiness—and along with it mine.