The Girls' Garden By Amir Hosein Bakhshian (Translated by Farshad Torkashvand) is in Progress...
The Girls' Garden
Human civilization began when angry man instead of a stone, hurled a word. - Sigmund Freud
She always wants to be a text from God. Not a handwritten one, or in the margins, but she desires to be unattainable and yet within the text and heart of society. I understood a part of this "being text" When I saw her in the middle of "The Garden of Girls" and amidst the "Chehel Manbar" ceremony, amidst the eager crowd and within a halo of white incense smoke and the black smoke of the attendees' candles, performing curtain-reading and icon-carrying... Eager attendees who had come either to have their wishes granted and their desires fulfilled, or to perform their annual vows and partake in the spiritual grace of the ceremony.
I don't know why '361 degrees' had stepped into this garden and this ceremony, but I had come to tell her what was in my heart, no matter what, so that my desire would be fulfilled. I told myself this was the best day to find her somehow, and in that crowd, without fear or hesitation, meet her face to face. For this reason, I was compelled to appear in the guise of a marriageable girl. With a mask and a costume borrowed from Mahshid, and a window through which I peered around the whole time.
Mahshid used to say, "On this special day, all the rebellious girls of the city, From the devout and religious to the pretentious and sentimental, Wherever they are and however they can, from the four corners of the city; Sange Nevashte, Menareh Ajori, Gerdab Sangi, and Pol Shapouri, Through the spiral bridges that lead down to the garden, They reach this garden and spare no effort or attempt to fulfill their wishes."
I myself entered the garden through "Pol Safavi," which is the main path to the garden.
Mahshid used to say, "Two of the garden's girls, named Azar and Azita, are constantly responsible for keeping the candles lit, protecting the water taps, and keeping the Saghakhanes clean."
This ceremony has been held in this garden for several hundred years; A garden with vineyards and apple orchards, and pomegranate and orange groves, and the clear stream of Shah Abad, with its fish and ducks, passes through the heart of the garden's alleys and its narrow, dark passages. And on ordinary days, the hustle and bustle of the "Seven Sisters," Named "Gochehreh, Golrokh, Golnoosh, Golshifteh, Golpasand, Golnar, and Golnaz," And other playful girls with their games:
"My handkerchief is lost beneath the cherry tree,"
And "The ant's bathhouse makes me laugh and glee,
Are held within its heart.
A garden with Qajar brick villas full of ivy and creepers, And beehive-like lanterns, and crown-of-flower doorways, And cobblestone alleys and back alleys, Which annually host this ancient tradition, And each year it gains a fresh color and special scent; The color of satins and geraniums, the scent of bitter orange blossoms, And the fragrance of jasmine that steals one's senses. The scent of orchids and night-scented stock, and the color of pomegranate and judas tree blossoms... Especially this year, which had a special atmosphere, and the scent of oleaster trees mingled with the smell of rain-soaked earth, and vied with the scent of rosewater and amber.
Mahshid used to say, "One cannot imagine the Garden of Girls Without a girl smelling a lemon tree leaf." I observed this many times, and I saw the girls in the garden, Even though they wore masks, when they passed by a lemon tree, they would smell the leaves with such eagerness and delight.
When those around me, especially my parents, found out that I wanted to step into the garden, they severely reprimanded and mocked me, saying: "The garden is not for boys, and they won't let you in, and you are unaware of the ceremony's rituals, and so on..." I even replied to them, "I will not break the silence of the garden. I will not disrupt the ceremony's rituals. I will not remove anyone's mask from their face. I will uphold the girls' sanctity." But it was no use. So, I thought of a solution.
Mahshid used to say, "One must accept the reality that the Garden of Girls is not a place for ogling, and the Chehel Manbar ceremony is not a way to be seen... Because all the girls in the garden wear green and white masks and veils. They wear dark and black chadors and chaghchours, with bare feet and tongues that observe a vow of silence."
And this type of uniform clothing for the group, in fact, caused me trouble and made me doubt and make mistakes even more in finding and recognizing '361 degrees'. Especially since I had sworn not to make any misstep and not to break the rules of the game, because then my situation would be dire, and I would no longer have a place in the garden. Breaking the rule meant boldly standing in front of '361 degrees'; Removing her mask and breaking her vow of silence, and disgracing her publicly. Because in the ceremony, it is not a pleasant sight for someone not to wear a mask.
Mahshid used to say, "I have seen public disgrace in the garden. Last year, I came to this garden with the goal of reaching my husband and participated in the ceremony. A boy was dressed like girls in a chador and wore a mask. As soon as the garden residents realized he had entered the garden without permission, they immediately surrounded him under the weeping willow tree in the middle of the garden, and caught him by asking the secret password. A girl was forced to partially break her vow of silence and interrogate the boy with her husky voice. The girl pronounced 'sin' as 'shin' and 'Seihoun' as 'Jeihoun', and the boy, who found himself surrounded by masked, candle-holding girls in the center of the garden, was looking for an escape route."
I asked in surprise, "Password?!" Mahshid replied, "A password consisting of three words: tree, weapon, book." I asked, "This type of password is for military bases and border areas!" Mahshid said, "The rules of the Garden of Girls are stricter than any military base when it comes down to it, and its measures are more severe than any border."
And then she continued, "While it was thundering and raining intermittently, the boy was bewildered and nervously stammered the password, as if he had a speech impediment: L, M, N, V, H, Y... And because he said the wrong password, they pulled the chador from his head and removed his mask, and with a pointing finger, showed him the exit door of the garden and whispered: Weeping willow, Kalashnikov, Shahnameh."
As Mahshid recounted, there are many debates about what happened to the young boy, and everyone says something and tells a different story. Whatever the case, the young boy passes away after leaving the Garden of Girls. A few days after his disappearance, his body is found downstream in the river, and in his pocket, they find leaves with those five alphabet letters written on them, which, from the evidence and clues, suggest they carried a message for a specific person. When Mahshid showed me his picture, I remembered seeing his obituary on the wall of the Hosseinieh Habib Ibn Mazaher.
Mahshid's reference to the exit door is that large wooden, blue door that has only one latch, that feminine latch which they call Zolfin.
I asked, "Why had he entered the garden?" She replied, "I don't know why, but he probably mistook the Garden of Girls for the wall-less city of Dagoyla, which is why he entered the garden without permission."
I asked, "Why did they disgrace the boy? They could have simply overlooked his transgression, and that unfortunate incident would not have happened." Mahshid replied, "They must have had a prior enmity, otherwise, she could have forgiven him."
I asked, "Do you know that girl? I think she can unveil this secret." Mahshid said, "Even if I knew who she was, I'm afraid that family's grief would be rekindled, and they would seek revenge. So sometimes, silence is the best solution. The only reason for this revenge can only be betrayal and nothing else!"
I asked, "What is the philosophy behind this ceremony at all?!" Mahshid used to say, "This ceremony is held in memory of the captivity of Lady Zeinab Kubra, who was taken from Karbala to Damascus over forty stages. And girls come to this ceremony for various purposes and intentions, from passing the university entrance exam to getting a job and healing the sick, and most importantly, for marriage."
Then Mahshid choked back a sob, and tears welled in her eyes. Once she had composed herself, I asked, "What is the golden hour of the ceremony?"
Mahshid said, "The busiest time for the ceremony is Tasu'a afternoon; a ceremony that begins at sunrise and ends at sunset. So seize the opportunity!"
During this time frame, I had to visit eighty saggakhanes and spy on everyone. I lit candles aimlessly and ceaselessly cried, sighing and moaning. It was as if I were a moth circling a candle in an assembly. The moth's shape is my heart. I played the role of a moth so much that all my limbs and organs were unintentionally emerging from their cocoons and transforming into the moth she desired. A moth that must be in love with the candle. First my heart, then my hands and feet, and then my eyes, which turned into "butterfly eyes."
Mahshid used to say, "Each saggakhane is named after the springs that feed it: Anahita Spring, Roshan Spring, Gilas Spring, Pari Spring, Fereshteh Spring, Nabat Spring, Tavous Spring. And they are adorned with sacred names and Quranic verses like 'Indeed, We have granted you a clear triumph,' 'Our Lord, do not let our hearts deviate,' 'The hand of God is above their hands,' and so on. Each saggakhane depicts a curtain of seventy-two scenes from the Karbala incident. Main scenes such as the journey from Kufa, facing Hurr ibn Riyahi, the arrival of Ibn Sa'd, the battle of Hazrat Abbas over the Alqameh River, Ali Akbar's battle with the infidels, Hazrat Qasem's battle, Ali Asghar being shot with an arrow, Imam Hussein kneeling with the head of young Ali Akbar, the lamentation of the women in the scenes, the burning of the tents... and secondary curtains like the assembly of jinn and humans, the ascension of the Prophet (PBUH), the binding of Hajjaj ibn Yusuf on the way to Karbala, Sultan Qays Hindi, the assembly of Prophet Solomon, heaven and hell, Imam Reza in Ma'mun's assembly, the assembly of Zaamin-e Ahu (guarantor of the deer), plus eight other scenes like the battle of Rostam and Esfandiyar, Rostam and Sohrab, the story of Siavash and Sudabeh, the epic of Gordafarid, Abu Moslemnameh, Eskandarnama..."
The faces of the girls in the garden were not visible, but from their movements and gestures, one could read what they thought of me, as I moved like a shadow behind them or appeared like a ghost in front of them. Until finally, I saw her; herself, and not face to face, but from behind the forty-light lamp that was moving along the garden path and through the plane trees and ash trees. I had no doubt it was her. Because as far as I know, she usually shows off and stands out if she is going to be in a gathering, and she must always be at the forefront and lead the group at any cost.
She was standing at a saggakhane named "Roshan Spring." A saggakhane that depicted the Prophet's ascension and showed the Prophet mounted on his steed "Buraq," and depicted Gabriel and the infallible household of purity. A saggakhane with a dome-shaped entrance full of intricate designs, along with illumination and embellishment, on its turquoise tile inscription, held by two archangels, the names of the five people of the cloak were written in Thuluth script: "Allah, Muhammad, Ali, Fatimah, Hassan, Hussein."
A saggakhane with a carved and latticework wooden window, lit and extinguished candles, a golden dome over the water source, a water tap and a bowl for drinking, a copper bowl, colorful cloths, and keys and locks tied to the saggakhane's shrine, in addition to a flag and standard next to the saggakhane wall, adorned with birds such as sparrows, canaries, roosters, and colorful peacock feathers.
After lighting a candle, she clasped her hands at the saggakhane's shrine, made a vow, dropped a chocolate into the saggakhane's bowl, and sang a song that I quickly lip-synced:
"There is but one tale, love's sorrow, a wonder it seems,
From every tongue I hear it, it's fresh as new dreams."
I wanted to break my forced vow of silence and tell her:
"A thousand efforts I made, my love to conceal,
But on the fire's edge, I could not but reveal."
But I bit my tongue and picked up the copper bowl and took a sip of water to compose myself.
Perhaps someone might ask how I recognized her immediately, especially in a place where no one's face is visible, and even more surprisingly, everyone is dressed in black from head to toe?!
She was also dressed in black, but not a black chador. She wore a black manteau whose skirt was full of colorful ladybugs, dragonflies, butterflies, and what resembled a golden-embroidered, pearl-studded headdress, similar to the garments of some 19th-century aristocratic ladies who tried to keep their figures slender and shapely by eating pumpkin worms, so as to cast a shadow of a mermaid.
In addition, on the back of her manteau, written vertically in Caprice Latin script, was "keep calm, I'm Queen." When I saw this text, I immediately said, "Finally, I found my queen!" But I was gravely mistaken.
She also wore a mask, but not a white Qajari mask or one made of green silk fabric. The mask on her face covered only a part of her face, leaving her eyes and lips exposed; green, emerald eyes and lips covered with black and cherry lipstick, matching her nail polish, rings, watchband, and crayon-shaped earrings. She wore a gold embossed mask with colorful peacock feathers unfurled in its design. A mask that was asymmetrical, and in this regard, made '361 degrees' resemble the actress playing the "Phantom of the Opera."
I had seen bronze masks before, in the FalK al Afalak Castle Museum or the National Museum of Iran, or in pictures and brochures of the Louvre and Metropolitan Museums, but I had never seen a golden mask. But... but now I remembered, once when I went to the National Museum of Iran with Mr. Afshar, we saw a golden mask discovered from the "Kalmakareh Cave" in Lorestan, dating back to five centuries before Christ, which was used in Achaemenid ceremonies and rituals.
Her shoulder bag was full of striped Muharram paisley patterns and deer antlers, plus a rainbow-colored wooden fan with which she fanned herself, and a book-shaped mirror with a picture of a red rose on it, which she took out of her bag every minute and looked at herself in. It was as if she was the Crystal Queen, constantly asking her magic mirror who was the fairest woman in the world, and the magic mirror would reply, "You."
Her feet were bare, but she had both covered and uncovered their bareness with short ankle socks, which was jarring and made her even more conspicuous. Perhaps the color of her face made her stand out the most. I told myself that perhaps she had mistaken the Chehel Manbar ceremony for a masquerade ball, seeing as she had entered the Garden of Girls with a mask and costume.
But I told myself, as far as I know, she knows the difference between a masquerade ball and a religious ceremony very well. She always appears at the "Bronze Garden" masquerade ball in the guise of an anthropomorphic rabbit. In my opinion, '361 degrees' has a kind of fantasy delusion that if she's single, she imagines herself as Cinderella waiting for her prince charming, and if she ever gets married, she'll think she's Snow White in the clutches of the Crystal Queen.
Apparently, she was observing a vow of silence, but with the text and words carved in broken Nasta'liq script on her teal green headscarf, in my opinion, she had broken her vow:
"Last night the sheikh, with lamp in hand, roamed through the town,
'From beast and devil weary, a human I yearn for now!'"
As I read the words on her headscarf, I unconsciously heard her voice. I even felt the scent of her words with the expensive cologne she wore, and it unintentionally led me into the "Ink Garden" of her mind. Her perfume was so strong that for a moment I felt as if I had entered a perfumer's market and was about to faint. To put it this way, she had not followed the rules of the game and had broken the sanctity of the garden and the special ceremony's rituals with the noise she had created from her Persian and English words. I am sure she had somehow evoked the sound of the crowd, but due to the circumstances of the ceremony, no one could say anything. I hope I heard wrong, but for a moment, I heard an old woman's voice, in her Borujerdi Lori accent, say, "Qerti Qajari!"
I also say to her, my dear Qerti Qajari, now I understand why in old schools only reading was allowed, and girls were not supposed to learn to write, because it was well-known that: "A girl who learns to write will fly paper kites."
...meaning she writes love letters. Now, you, who also want to make a name for yourself and become famous, didn't need all this fuss and pretense.
This was the first time I had seen a girl write something on the back of her manteau or pants, or on her headscarf.
To be honest, I was thrilled by her visual innovation and really excited. More precisely, I was deeply annoyed and for a moment felt like I was melting away like a candle, little by little. She even had an inscription on her long necklace, which was shaped like an evil eye, written in Thuluth script and Tugra style with gold water, which fortunately was illegible and more like an amulet. I was afraid it was a spell, and reading it would bring disaster upon me.
Because anything can come from this bipedal creature.
She had even written something cryptic on her wrist, like the Abjad letters, in the manner of school and university cheat sheets, that needed to be deciphered: "H, S, T, M."
When I saw her text and innovation, I suddenly felt as if the ink of the letters and words on the occasional tourist ladies' T-shirts in the garden were running, and their T-shirts were tearing.
Apart from that, she communicated with me, the other girls in the garden, and the backpack-wearing, camera-wielding female photographers and journalists through gestures and signs, dictating many of her words to us with her body language, which drew masked and unmasked gazes to herself, especially the photographers and journalists who were constantly taking pictures of '361 degrees' and somehow breaking the garden's silence, as if they were a chain-hitting mourning group beating their cymbals and drums. Especially when she moved towards a saggakhane, their excitement grew because when lighting her candles, which were often in English letters, she struck special and unique poses, like fashion models and networks. It was as if she had come to a birthday party and had mistaken the saggakhanes for birthday cakes. The girls of the garden, imitating her, changed their poses and figures when lighting candles. It was as if she were a gladiator and the rest were soldiers. But in that crowd, I knew that '361 degrees' was a women's specialist and the rest were her living night nurses...
They were about to take off all their masks and break their vow of silence by praising and admiring her. Interestingly, the turtledoves and sparrows, chirping and twittering, had also become her companions and traveled with her, landing on the ground wherever she went, even without water or grain.
Mahshid used to say, "Many years ago, in this very garden, Rebecca, the daughter of a Jewish merchant who owned the Shamash exchange house, had a dovecote on her rooftop full of homing pigeons. Every day, by sending love letters with specific names and signatures but different texts, she would incite the boys of the city against each other to see who was a true man. To the extent that the boys, with their enthusiasm, would take up pens and begin writing letters... 'My angel, all my being, my only treasure in life...'"
Now, '361 degrees' has followed in her footsteps and has become famous and a public nuisance in her own right.
Exactly at the seventh saggakhane of the garden, which was named "Hazrat Abolfazl," I managed to get a little closer to her again. The sky had clouded over, and the alley was completely enveloped in fog, and only by the light of the candles could the surroundings be seen a little more clearly. A foggy and smoky atmosphere, a place between sleep and a dream, similar to that alley where I saw the blonde girl behind the colored window with calligraphed curtains that night...
It was a mud-brick saggakhane located at the end of a narrow alley with brick walls, overlooking a part of the Shah Abad river with a small arched bridge. On its entrance, it was written in Kufic script: "Verily, in the remembrance of Allah do hearts find rest," and on its tiles, Hazrat Abolfazl Abbas was depicted with a torn waterskin, arrows in it, and his two severed hands by the Alqameh River, a sight that would melt even a stone heart.
Fortunately, it was quiet around her, and I reached her and quickly told her:
"To thirsty revelers, no one gives a sip,
As if the wise have left this sacred strip."
She filled the copper bowl with water and, without saying anything, held it out to me, answering me with her silent tongue:
"In locks like snares, my heart, do not entwine,
For heads are severed there, without fault or crime."
I wanted to answer her mockery, but suddenly a wave of girls from the garden surrounded us, and without lighting a candle, I pulled back and drank the water in one gulp, saying, "May I be sacrificed for the thirsty Hussein and his loyal companions."
The saggakhanes were often located at the entrances of large, old houses in the garden, and the homeowners had opened their doors and spread carpets on the verandas and placed flowerpots around the ponds. There, teacups, samovars, teapots, and hookahs were ready and prepared, and they welcomed the lovers of Lady Zeinab Kubra (PBUH) with citronella syrup, basil seed syrup, milk and dates, tea, and cookies. It was an opportunity to breathe and think about how to escape this eighty-piece puzzle, or rather, this thousand-path labyrinth of the Garden of Girls where I was trapped.
I visited many saggakhanes, step by step with her, and witnessed her lighting candles, and I saw that after lighting each candle, a certain expression appeared on her face, surely a prayer or an invitation she made in her heart, or God forbid, a moan or curse she sent off to a turn of bad luck. When I saw the change in her expression, I immediately either sang a song or whispered an incantation, all of which ended well and offered a thought and a way to penetrate her stony and dark heart. I counted the turquoise prayer beads falling through her crystal hands and her multicolored nail-polished fingers, and in response to her remembrance, I sang love songs. Perhaps we exchanged forty songs. It was as if we had come to a night gathering and were taking a "Chel-Soru" (forty songs) fortune for the good luck of marriageable girls.
When I saw her at the "Hazrat Solomon" saggakhane, I felt that she was the wind, and I was a fly who had been granted audience with Prophet Solomon. A saggakhane that had the tile "His Throne extends over the heavens and the earth" above it and was narrating the scene of Imam Hussein (PBUH) kneeling with the head of Hazrat Ali Akbar.
When I saw her dropping one of her prayer beads, I felt her saying:
"When love arrives, it steals the wise heart's grace,
The clever thief first dims the home's bright space."
And I loudly replied,
"Whosoever fails to grasp this enchanting quill's tale
His image is forbidden, though a Chinese painter he be."
Or I would say, and she would reply with the remembrance...
"If you unveil your face in the city's midst
A thousand sincere believers you'll cast into hell."
And she replied:
"How long shall I endure your cruelty, unfaithful one, begone!
No foe did what you, my friend, have done, begone!"
When her prayer was finished, at the very end, she would drop a sugar cube or a piece of rock candy into the saggakhane's bowl, probably hoping it would melt someone's heart or cure someone's stomachache. But she did not know that I was the very customer and enthusiast of her sugar and rock candy. And she did not even know that it was not the wind that extinguished her lit candles, but it was me. But I think she understood from my movements and smirk. For a moment, she lit a candle, and I immediately blew it out.
We were precisely at the "Simorgh" saggakhane, watching the curtain depicting Hurr ibn Riyahi's confrontation with Aba Abdillah, when we unexpectedly bumped into each other. It was as if we were thirty birds (si morgh) who had become Simorgh itself, and with a pointing finger, she showed me the image of "Mount Ohud."
I didn't hold back and whispered in her ear, "A husband who comes with the lighting of a candle, also leaves with a blow."
I expected her to take off her mask, abandon the special ritual, break her vow of silence, and curse me... I told her the truth. As Mahshid had said, "My husband came with a candle and left with a blow."
Her only action was to give a handful of mixed nuts to two small, waterskin-carrying girls who were making vows of water. Of course, this wasn't the whole story, and I wanted to make '361 degrees' understand that there was a great distance between her "I am" and my "I am." She flaunted her "I am" by wearing a manteau, a golden mask, a headscarf, and using talismans, geomancy, and astrolabes to me and the attendees of the garden, and I reacted by blowing out and extinguishing her candles.
The path of the saggakhanes was winding, and the houses and trees also twisted along with this winding, causing me to lose '361 degrees' for moments, despite all the care and meticulousness I exercised. This was because the crowd was so large, and their numbers were increasing moment by moment, and the white and black halo of candle and incense smoke grew thicker and thicker. Even the large Falak-ol-Aflak Castle, visible from everywhere in the garden, sometimes disappeared. Until I lost both the garden, the castle, '361 degrees', and myself. And out of intense distress, I sat down heavily on the stone bench at the entrance of a saggakhane where I had last glimpsed '361 degrees' and then lost sight of her...
A "Bibi Shahrzad" saggakhane, in whose watering section rested a "Chehel Kelid" (Forty Keys) or "Chehel Bismillah" (Forty In the Name of God) bowl, which, according to Mahshid, is mostly used for bringing good fortune, cutting the forty-day ritual for children, and warding off jinn. The saggakhane wall was adorned with a wide and long silk curtain, embroidered with beads and raw silk, depicting the master of martyrs in a large form and the Karbala incident. The phrase embroidered on it was "Indeed, Hussein is the lamp of guidance and the ark of salvation," in addition to the saggakhane's own entrance inscribed with "Allah is the best Guardian!"
I was engrossed in watching the curtain and the painting on it: in the upper right part of the curtain, paradise was depicted, where the saints, with faces surrounded by halos of light, accompanied by their white horses, whose faces radiated peace and nobility, and their companions in green clothes, and white doves flying in their sanctuary, were present. And in the lower left part, hell, the breeding ground of evil thoughts, and in it, the wicked with ugly and cruel faces and their companions in red clothes, unruly and unrestrained horses, and savage and ugly animals, and the overwhelming serpent were with them.
I remembered '361 degrees', about whom Mahshid had said, "I guess she is the last survivor and the only curtain-reader and icon-carrier girl in the city."
Mahshid was right; her guess was probably correct, because now I understood that all along, without speaking a word, without a drumstick or staff, she had been showing me and narrating the multi-stage curtain-reading and icon-carrying ceremonies. If that was the case, then one more act of the play remained. So, I had to see her, no matter what, at the last saggakhane she would step into.
Mahshid used to say, "The fortieth saggakhane, where you light the last candle and step into, is the end of the line; you remove your mask and break your vow of silence."
I also had to remove my mask and break my vow at the same time as her. In the meantime, a black cloud covered the garden's sky, and suddenly it started raining heavily... what a downpour it was! It hit from sky to earth and earth to sky; it was a sideways, heavy shower, aiming to overturn earth and time.
The smell of rain-soaked earth rose into the air, the gutters began to gurgle, and the rainwater, as if it were the yellow and black water of a hookah, flowed on the ground, and the smell of wet tobacco rose into the air.
I wondered which saggakhane '361 degrees' would choose for removing her mask and breaking her vow of silence. Definitely the same saggakhane where I had been squatting at the entrance, waiting for her. A place where I wanted to see her face clearly and brightly in a peaceful manner.
A saggakhane located at the end of an alley that led to stairs going to the street, and at the bottom of the stairs, there was an ancient mulberry tree.
Suddenly, I saw a huge, masked, and black-clad crowd rushing towards me. I don't know if it was because of the heavy rain and they were looking for shelter, or if they had realized that I was an outsider and had entered the garden without permission. In any case, the only thought that came to my mind was to prefer flight over fight. I immediately ran to the mulberry tree to escape the garden via the stairs.
I heard the sound of a military march, and suddenly I found myself surrounded by masked, black-chador-clad girls who had cornered me in the garden, getting closer and closer, tightening the circle around me. While I was in a poetic duel with '361 degrees', I recited a poem that I think really got on her nerves:
"Last night no axe-sound came from Behistun's height,
I fear Farhad in sweet slumber rests, bathed in moon's light."
Suddenly, she flared up, her face flushed, and she extinguished a few candles in one go. I think she must have been thinking of revenge now.
Mahshid whispered the password in my ear: "Mulberry tree, catapult, Masnavi-ye Manavi."
I picked up a large stone, as if to throw it, so that if I saw her, I could hurl it at her and escape the peril, because all the fire was rising from her grave. Suddenly, a hand touched my shoulder.
It asked, "Sin?" I replied, "Jim!"
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