My goodness, I didn't realize how invested you all were in making sure Erik gets his dinner! Please rest assured that he would be eating well in Nowshahr- provided he remembers. And given the fact that he just felled five men, we can assume he's keeping up his strength well enough.

Dear Shadi,

Paris has become a bit too much for me these days, so I have repaired to the house at Lillebonne. I doubt you ever saw Normandy as a strange place. And one would think I would be used to it by now, but I am not. It's such a peculiar shade of grey-green at this time of year, with lime stone peeking out here and there and the Seine the color of lead. It is absolutely nothing like Persia.

Regardless, I force my nurse to walk with me in the afternoons. She always protests that there is a chill in the air and that I should not exert myself so. What she really means by that is that I am an old woman and ought to know my place.

(I told her recently that I forgot my place long ago and have no intention of rediscovering it. She pretended not to understand my accent.)

She told me today that we could motor instead, but I would hate to. I would loathe to become one of those old women who hide in their chaises, bored with the scenery and bored with life. No, so long as my legs will carry me, I shall walk. And when I can no longer walk, I shall acquire a wheeled chair and make my staff push me.

I believe she rather dreads that day, but at least she knows her place. She trudged behind me for nearly two hours today, and listened as I tried to figure out just how to say what I wanted to in this letter.

I'm not sure if the walk helped. (Talking to Nurse certainly did not.)

It's funny how much I think of my old country now. For years, it was just a place I had left behind. I would miss it from time to time, but I always lived in the present.

But since I have started writing to you on the subject, I find myself lost in the past.

I look out my window at this muted landscape and see my father's fields, white for the harvest. We pass by gothic cathedrals resounding with Latin hymns, and I hear allahu akbar coming from blue tiled mosques. My chef serves me bisque and baguette—I taste ash and fresh baked barbari. Last night, I awoke while it was still dark and was absolutely sure Feridoon was sleeping next to me.

Well. I will not worry unless I one day look at my mirror and see some dark haired, smooth faced girl looking back. Until then, we shall simply carry on.

I told you of Mazandaran, of the Sultana—of Erik and his glorious, tiger-taming voice. It had become the setting of my own strange fairytale, my honeymoon with life and my poor worn knight. Not even the Sultana, with her off-color whims, could destroy my equanimity. But we left all of that behind once autumn came. Feridoon was called to Tehran, and my life changed again.

I had grown very fond of Mazandaran, but I was thrilled to finally see more of the world. Not that Tehran was a particularly distant horizon, but it was something new and therefore quite exciting. We had taken a coastal route when Feridoon brought me from Ghazvin into Mazandaran, and had so bypassed the capitol city altogether. In retrospect, that had no doubt been by design. But now we just had to go, and I was glad. I pestered Feridoon all through the journey there to tell me something of what I could expect.

He started by talking of the treasury officers there, and the accounts he handled, and how he would probably be obliged to travel more. I listened, I hope patiently, and at the end asked, "but what shall I do?"

He considered this. "You'll be obliged to socialize more," he said, as if I was submitting to a very unpleasant operation. "I'm not entirely sure what the ladies do. They entertain for their husbands, which you'll be obliged to do on rare occasion. They entertain one another far more frequently, and I shall leave that up to your discretion. They shop monstrously. You can purchase most anything in Tehran."

"You will need to be careful," I teased him, "or I shall plunge you into debt."

He acquired a peculiar small smile at that, almost smug. "I should like to see you try."

My first recollections of Tehran are muddled and hazy, but I clearly remember the house—and remember thinking that the house spoke volumes as to how different Tehran was. I had expected another modest little place, like our home in Mazandaran. Feridoon had not led me to imagine anything different. He had called it 'a house, rather like any other house.' He had purchased it years ago from a conservative old family, and had paid for it to be restored, but not much changed. So a charming old house, I thought. A little out of fashion, but perfectly suitable.

What I did not expect was a grand old estate built in high Isfahani style, with a dozen marble pillars and a foyer tiled in mirror and gold. I did not expect the cheerful staff of eight from Mazandaran to be absorbed into an efficient body of forty. Nor did I expect to wake up the next morning and find my husband clean shaven and dressed in a cashmere frock coat and silk necktie.

"Well," he said, "it's Tehran."

For a little while, I wanted to despair over Tehran. I thought of my father's cotton fields and how I would run through them as a girl—how the fine silks Feridoon attired me in would snag and shred there. It did not help that Feridoon's prediction had come to pass—nearly every week, he had some responsibility or another that took him away for days at a time.

I rallied. I forced myself into a routine of social calls to the other political wives, and by the time winter came I was mostly at ease. The Shah had left Tehran shortly after his arrival in favor of one of his other estates, and the Sultana had gone with him. It was a blessing that allowed me to grow closer to some the more pleasant harem women I had met in Mazandaran.

Whenever Feridoon was away, I played at being a cosmopolitan lady. I would stay at the townhouses of my new friends. I became a particularly frequent visitor of Maryam Khanum. She had been one of Naser al-Din's minor temporary wives during the first years of his reign, but soon found herself divorced and given to one of the Shah's favorite ministers. She kept one of the grandest houses outside of the palace, and the role of society hostess seemed to suit her better than being hidden away in the harem. She would wear European bonnets instead of her veil and called her circle of respectable married friends disenfranchised harlots. One wanted to be offended by her off-handed manner, but she was simply too pleasant.

I started to play the tar again, which I had mostly given up after my mother's death. Most of the women I spent time with were musical—or pretended to be—and sometimes hours would be passed by a warm fire, a half-dozen of us tinkering with our instruments. Feridoon (who I think, looking back, must have been tone deaf) handled the hobby gallantly, but would I mind waiting for him to leave before I practiced?

Sometimes when I would go to Golestan Palace to visit, I would simply stand in one of the great, mosaic-covered colonnades, and let my eyes be assaulted by the colors and endless arches. The world was endless and strange and there for the taking—until one blinked.

Over all, they were pleasant days. Almost lazy, I suppose, but filled with good cheer and hope. I held fast to Feridoon's earliest advice to me, to be discreet and silent, and it served me well.

As winter came to a close, Feridoon was constantly away.

("Everyone knows that they need money," he told me, "but they haven't the faintest idea what it actually is.")

The Shah was expected back in Tehran for the start of Nurooz, and I hoped Feridoon would manage to return by then. I loathed the idea of facing the holiday without him.

But there was no sign of the royal party or my husband in the days before the New Year. The last Wednesday of the year—Red Wednesday— found me with Maryam and her friends again. She called us political widows, as the lot of our husbands were away in the Shah's service.

"But we won't let that stop our fun," she declared. We veiled ourselves and went out into the city to watch the revels. The evening was alight with bonfires, men jumping over them in the typical rite. Maryam made me climb up onto Fath Ali Shah's Pearl Cannon—such was the custom for childless wives. Of course, the women followed up the ritual with detail explanations of what I might be doing wrong, or what Feridoon might be doing wrong, in that I was nearly a year married and not yet with child.

Maryam took this all a step further and proceeded to give detailed instructions on what I should do correctly, but I will not make you suffer the details. Given your current interesting condition, I can only assume that you do not require further instruction.

In retrospect, I rather laugh at that entire conversation. One of the most important features of Red Wednesday is fal-goosh. It is believed that the last Wednesday of the year is an especially good day for divination, and it is traditional to find a hiding place, eavesdrop on someone's conversation, and then divine what it meant for your own future.

I can only imagine what some innocent fortuneteller saw in their future from Maryam's conversation.

How strange.

I had completely forgotten what my own fortune had been that night.

Maryam had ushered me into a darkened storefront. We stood silent, trying not to giggle. Two dour men were walk past us, and the one said—

Well, the little woman will be his death, of course.

Maryam laughed as we came out of her corner. "Well, I know what the New Year holds for me!"

I said it hardly seemed like a laughing matter.

She swatted my shoulder. "It means that my wicked ways will finally give my husband the heart attack he so keenly deserves." She paused for a moment. "But I wonder about you?"

I had never much believed in fate, and I told her as much.

"Don't you?" she asked. "It seems to me that the only people who can afford to dismiss the notion are those who are in control of their lives." In an uncharacteristically serious tone, she added, "neither of us can claim that power, I think, Mojgan-joon."

Feridoon returned the next day, looking tired but not entirely miserable. He commented on the spring cleaning I had embarked upon, approved of the new clothes I had ordered, and admired the haft-sin I had arranged. He generally seemed pleased at the prospect of Nurooz, which surprised me.

"Everyone knows that how you behave and feel on Nurooz dictates how the rest of your year goes," he said. He seemed quite earnest, which I found funny.

"You don't really believe that, do you?"

"Of course I do," he replied. "I know I'm not cheerful by nature, but I try for Nurooz, at least."

I think I must have looked rather incredulous, for he ended up with something of a sheepish smile.

"I didn't say that I always succeed," he said, "but I can tell you this: last year was the best Nurooz I had ever had. I cannot recall ever having been happier. And this past year? Most certainly the happiest so far."

I don't remember what I said to that. I may not have said anything. But I do remember holding Feridoon's hand, and thinking that perhaps there was something to the silly superstition after all.

I tried, for Feridoon's sake, to be particularly pleasant that Nurooz, as well. It became a bit harder after the Shah came to Tehran. After all, he brought the Sultana—and Erik.

But more on that later. It's stopped raining, and I think I want to pester my nurse to take me into the gardens.

Mojgan Khanum Banu

Today's chapter comes with a bit of a cultural glossary, for your convenience:

The Persian New Year, or Nurooz (literally, New Day), falls on the Spring Equinox—usually towards the end of March. Typically, extensive house cleaning immediately proceeds it. Theoretically, this is to get rid of the previous year's dirt and mess and bad luck. Practically, Nurooz involves quite a lot of house calls, and it really is better to have everything clean for visitors! New clothing is also usually purchased and worn.

The haft-sin is a display of seven ('haft' items that all begin with the Persian letter 'sin,' each symbolizing some positive attribute. Among these items is a dish of sprouts (wheat, barley, or the like) that grows throughout the New Year celebrations and then meets an… interesting end on the thirteenth day of the New Year. That day happens to be called Seezda Bedar, and we will be learning more about it in coming chapters. :p End lecture.