Dear Shadi,

Before I arose this morning, I turned and looked out my bedroom windows. It was not the view (which is rather dreary at the moment) that drew my eye. A draft had caught my curtains. They are lovely old Brussels lace. This past summer, my housekeeper soaked them in soured milk and then rinsed them in rainwater and left them out on the lawn to dry during the heat of the day. It struck me as a needlessly complicated process, but one cannot argue with results. I had not realized that the lace had yellowed so terribly—my eye had been as jaundiced with age as my curtains.

They are now brilliantly white.

The curtains in my house in Mazandaran were soft cream silk, shot with gold thread and edged in meticulous paisley embroidery. I remember looking at them the morning after Feridoon died—much as I looked at my lace drapery this morning.

That image of glittery silk, catching the early summer sun, is one of the few things I recall from that time with any real clarity.

The days after Feridoon's death mostly escape me. There are things I know by instinct, because I am Persian and I know what our funerals are like. I know what prayers were offered, though I do not remember hearing them. I know what food the neighbors must have provided, though I do not recall tasting a single thing. My actual memories consist of snippets and impressions and half-formed images. I do not remember learning of his death—I have a hazy picture of Nadir's distressed face and of his hand clutching the hilt of his sword, nothing more. I do not remember who told me how my husband died, although I can recall the particulars as if I had been personally present for the murder.

What I do remember is noise, more noise than you can possibly imagine.

I do not think you have ever encountered anything to match it. Remember when we heard Mussorgsky's Witches' Sabbath performed? The trombones and tuba and bassoons thundered fast and fierce. Our ears rang for days afterwards. Now replace brass and woodwinds with wails and tears—but no. Perhaps it is more like a train station. One suffers the incessant babbling of passengers, the shouts of the staff, the perpetual sense of being crowded. Add to that the deafening scream of a steam engine grinding to a halt… No, even that does not quite fit. Perhaps, if the keening of the train lasted for days upon days without letup, as constant as the ocean tides…

But now I am mixing my metaphors, am I not? Poor Shadi, how do you manage?

It suffices to say that the noise at a Persian funeral is a nightmare incarnate. One is surrounded on all sides by the soul-crushing, heart-rending wails of grief. It is enough to suffocate a person. It is enough to drown in.

I did not drown. I felt like some sort of stone, jutting out of a rushing river, surrounded and pummeled but ultimately unmoved. I simply could not mourn Feridoon in such a fashion. I kept my sorrow carefully bound up in my heart, quiet and discreet. I was fond of the man, and I mourned him in my way—but I mourned the future more. And while one might wail for a man, I just could not bring myself to do so for unborn children, uninhabited houses, and unrealized potential.

I think there was another reason why I could not lose myself in a current of grief. Those mourned-for possible futures gave way to a profoundly uncertain reality. I was well-provided for financially, which was an enviable situation for a woman in those days. But as to where I would go and what I should do, I could not even begin to guess. Each day seemed to bring ten new questions and no answers.

At first, it had seemed simple. I sent notice of Feridoon's death to my family, fully expecting my father to travel to Mazandaran for the funeral and then take me back to Ghazvin. The reply I received instead informed me that my father was extremely ill. He did not live through the forty days of mourning I was obliged to spend near my husband's grave. With this one obvious option taken from me, it seemed as though I could do anything—and yet nothing. I now had a deficit of male mahreem—unmarriageable relatives who could in good conscience serve as my protectors and escorts. I had two brothers-in-law back home who would be taking possession of our estate and the care of my other sisters. But after being mistress of my own house, I did not relish the thought of becoming a permanent guest in someone else's.

Beyond these practical matters, there were other factors at play that I did not properly understand. Politics were an ever-present nuisance. As the widow of a highborn and high stationed man, I could not escape courtly machinations. Four and half months from Feridoon's death, I would be eligible to marry again. Apparently I (or at least the independent fortune I now possessed) had been deemed a rather desirable matrimonial prize.

This is when Nadir entered into my life in a large way.

He was not actually mahram to me, but he ignored that as technicality. He took to calling me 'little sister' and made it clear to all that I was under his protection. I stayed at Feridoon's house with the old staff and Khadija, but Nadir was a consistent presence. I know he felt a very real, if somewhat self-imposed, sense of familial responsibility towards me. But more than that, I believe he was glad for the company. Not that he would have ever admitted to such a thing.

And then there was Erik.

Poor Erik.

Some intrinsic shift occurred in the relationship between Nadir and Erik after Feridoon's death. He could never quite shake the idea that Erik had contributed, in some fashion, to the tragedy. And what Nadir could not shake he could not forgive. 'Erik' irrevocably became 'that monster Erik.' They maintained a relationship, but in a twisted, strange incarnation. They seesawed continually between almost familial affection and outright animosity. Though, ultimately, this inconsistency became its own constant: they remained in this state for the next twenty years.

As for me, I had developed some small liking for Erik over the previous months. I couldn't call it affection. Sympathy, perhaps?

I knew who he was and what he did for the Shah. The whole of Persia must have known by then. Whether it was Feridoon's colleagues speaking in riddles or the harem girls relaying some story of the Sultana's or Darius chatting up my prettiest kitchen maid or Nadir grimacing meaningfully—I could not help but know what Erik did.

Perhaps he really did kill Feridoon. Perhaps not. He said he did not and I believed him. Perhaps I chose to believe him—God knows I wanted to. I was sick, sick unto death, of the horrible fools' gold flash of the Imperial Court. The glamor of it had faded in the aftermath of my own near-death in Tehran—it was forever lost upon Feridoon's assassination.

I did not want this man, who seemed to me to be as much a prisoner in the Shah's world as a partaker in its sins, to be the author of my unhappiness. That bit of sympathy I had for him generated the most fleeting sense of trust. And that sense of trust, as tenuous as it was, made the idea that Erik had betrayed my family—heartbreaking.

I could not stand to have my heart broken again. In the midst of that desolation of faith, alone and vulnerable and as pliable as I was, I decided to trust him. Perhaps it was the greatest act of naïveté I have ever committed, but I do not regret it. Trusting Erik has saved my life more than once and in more than one way.

After Feridoon's death I saw much more Erik. Much more. I saw him absolutely mad, raving at Nadir. I saw him revert to a child at times, completely baffled as to who he was and what he was doing. I saw him try to be good and I watched him fall into badness. I saw his cruelty from a distance, but his kindness firsthand.

I remember when he accompanied me to Feridoon's grave for my last compulsory visit. He brought along a gheychak and played some song that lightened my spirits considerably.

"I think it is Bach," he told me, "and I am fairly certain it has something to do with death or resurrection or the like." After a moment he asked, "Do you think we will be all right, Mojgan?"

I do not remember how I replied. But time testifies that I did indeed manage to be 'all right.' So did Erik, I suppose, though it took him quite a bit longer.

My housekeeper tells me that we have another set of the Brussels lace curtains in storage. I suppose they're not the least bit modern, but would you like them for your dressing room in the Geneva house? Let me know, and I will send them along with my next letter.

Mojgan Banu Khanum

a/n: To be clear, I am neither Persian nor Muslim. I have tried to maintain some sort of factual integrity, but there are bound to be mistakes. Do let me know, if you spot one. That said, I have spoken with a number of friends and acquaintances that do fall into the above categories. I ended up with a lot of 'yes, but—' and 'should, but never really—' sorts of answers. That, combined with the 'fast and loose and faithful when it suits' tendencies of this era and social sphere, I'm comfortable bending the rules a bit. Chances are, someone did it—so why not have that someone be Mojgan?

Also… total Leroux reference towards the end there. A gheychak is more or less the Persian version of a violin (okay, it's a bowed lute. Not a violin at all.) Bach composed a little piece entitled Die Auferweckung Lazarus. This, to my mind, is a rather too cheery thing for Erik to play in graveyards. But that's Leroux for you.