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clothed her children in hand-me-downs even more ragged than her own. She never had time to grow her own flowers again. But sometimes, when she passed the walled garden where she used to tend her rosebush, she would close her eyes and remember the smell of its blossoms, sweeter than hope.
    When my mother stopped speaking, I rolled this way and that to free my legs and back from the prickling straw, but I couldn't get comfortable. I felt as distressed as if a buzzing bee had gotten stuck in my ear.
    My mother took my face in her hands. "What is it, daughter of mine?" she asked. "Are you ill? Are you suffering?"
    An unhappy sound escaped my lips, and I pretended I was trying to sleep.
    My mother said, as though thinking aloud, "I'm not sure why I told you that story. It poured out of me before I remembered what it was about."
    I knew the tale, for my mother had told it once or twice in our village. Back then, it hadn't troubled me. I had been anticipating a life with a husband who paved my path with rose petals, not with a boy who smelled of rotting cowhides. I had never thought that my fate might be like Golnar's, but now, in the darkness of a strange room in a strange city, the story sounded like a prophecy. My father could no longer protect us, and no one else was duty-bound to do so. My mother was too old for anyone to want her, and now that we had no money for a dowry, no one would want me. With the first pass of the comet, all my prospects had been ruined.
    My eyes flew open; in the wan streaks of light creeping into our chamber, I saw my mother studying me. She looked frightened, which made me feel sadder for her than for myself. I took a sharp breath and forced calm into my face.
    "I felt ill for a moment, but now I'm better," I said.
    The relief in my mother's eyes was so great that I thanked God for giving me the strength to say what I did.

    Chapter TWO
    We arose the next morning to the sound of travelers loading up their mules for the day's journey. My black trousers and tunic were stiff with dust and sweat, as I had been wearing them for more than a week. With the last of our money, my mother paid for us to enter a nearby hammam, where we scrubbed the grime off our bodies and washed our hair until it squeaked. When we were clean, we performed the Grand Ablution, submerging our bodies in a tank large enough for twenty women. The bath attendant rubbed my back and legs until I felt all the tightness from our long journey dissolve. As she worked, I cast my eyes over my bony ribs, my concave stomach, my callused fingers, and my stringy arms and legs. In my daydreams, I had imagined myself as a pampered woman, my hips and breasts round like melons. But it was no use: Nothing had changed except for the color of my face and hands, which to my dismay had darkened after all the days of travel.
    When we were clean, we dressed in fresh black clothes and black head scarves and went in search of Gostaham at the Image of the World, which Shah Abbas had built after naming Isfahan his new capital. We entered the square through a narrow gateway that gave no hint of its vastness, but once inside we halted in our tracks, astonished.
    "Our whole village . . .!" I began to say. My mother finished the sentence, for she was thinking the same thing.
    ". . .could fit in this square two times over. No wonder people say Isfahan is half the world!"
    The square was so large that the people at either end looked like figures in a miniature painting. The minarets of the Friday mosque were so long, thin, and tall that when I looked up at them, I felt dizzy, for they seemed to vanish into the sky. The mosque's huge turquoise dome appeared to be suspended in space; surely the hand of man must have been aided by God to make clay seem so light! The tall gateway to the bazaar was surmounted by a mural--the first I had ever seen--of a battle, which looked as real as if the men were fighting before our eyes. Everything about the square seemed to defy the