A DAY BEFORE ALL OF THOSE NIGHTS • by Sarah Crysl Akhtar

I’d tell it this way:

In that place, at a parallel moment, a troop of His Royal Vileness’s cavalry reached a village, poor but beautiful, looking for girls with the same attributes. His Wretchedness desired a new toy.

There, ice-clear streams embroidered shimmering mountains; orchards terraced the foothills; even in the heat of summer, you never breathed dust. The girls — eyes like gems set in snow-carved landscapes; noses that were heralds of magnificence, and nectarine mouths promising the soul’s replenishment.

The troop dismounted in the middle of the village triangle (it was too poor to have a square). Behind them a massive, steel-banded carriage rumbled to a halt.

Villagers gathered nervously, wondering what doom had come upon them.

The soldiers swiftly erected a tentlike little pavilion and lugged into it an enormous wood and leather chair.

Two of them, sweating despite the freshness of the breeze, placed a samovar next to the chair.

A tiny sigh rose, hovered above the triangle, and blew away. Such a samovar!

When the fragrance of an exquisite tea was scented, the carriage door opened. A terrifyingly large woman stepped down and seated herself in the pavilion.

The troop captain proclaimed, “His Royal Abysmalness commands us to find the loveliest virgin in the realm, that she may be blessed to delight him! Bring out your finest girls!”

(Daughters are like watermelons. Better sell ’em as soon as they’re ripe.)

A rumor spread faster than pneumonia: Her Royal Awfulness, the Queen Mother, herself was here to select one!

Girls and their mothers, stretching the triangle till it burst, began fainting to demonstrate their pliancy. One father collapsed too, but he was the one who had stomach-aches whenever his wife was in labor. No one took him seriously.

The rumor wasn’t true, anyway.

Think of her as the Quality Control Supervisor. Pinching, poking and probing, she judged the virginal quality of delectable flesh.

She’d been misfortunately named and that had curdled her life. Bewitched by their newborn’s fluttering little primrose lips, her parents called her Peri Gul.

Which means “Fairy Flower.”

She grew into a volcano, instead. Only her feet beguiled — fragile as a gazelle’s dancing hooves — exquisite tiny bones perpetually cracking inside their pointy little gold-embroidered shoes.

Had they only named her Shaheen — which means falcon — and captured her true nature!

Everyone laughed now, whispering “Peri Gul” — and imagining a djinni struggling to billow from its lamp but caught by the tips of its toes.

***

Some thought the village mayor’s wife, Mahzadeh, ill-named too. “Moon’s child” — for such a plain-faced woman! The moon enchants us with her beauty!

As she illumines the dark night.

Mahzadeh, also a woman of presence, knew the limits of her own pond. She strengthened her nerve and walked up to Peri Gul.

“Great lady, we welcome you. Your long journey must have been tiring. My home has nothing worthy of you, but its aspect, which God has made, is beautiful. Will you sit on my verandah and be refreshed?”

Peri Gul, overfed on others’ obsequiousness, was surprised by those clear honest eyes.

“This isn’t a pleasure tour,” she growled.

“It will shame me forever, that I failed to serve you tea from my own hand,” said Mahzadeh.

Peri Gul felt a strange little devil kick its razor-sharp feet in her heart. Simple  hospitality! His Crassness’s golden wages had never bought her that.

“Where is your house?”

“There, where the slope begins,” Mahzadeh pointed.

Peri Gul jutted her chin at the nervous crowd.

“Let them go back to their work, my lady,” said Mahzadeh; “we’ll summon them again at your pleasure.”

Peri Gul lumbered to her feet, muttering something to the captain. An unsurprisable man, this surprised him. He watched Mahzadeh, a quarter-step behind Peri Gul, guide the way.

A stone and timber farmhouse sat quiet within a curving sarabande of orchard, garden and rock. Peri Gul grunted up the steps and sat heavily down in one of the verandah’s wooden armchairs.

Far below coiled the river, where children splashed water buffaloes in the midmorning sun.

Mahzadeh whispered to her three daughters-in-law, invisible behind the door; soon a tray appeared, with glasses of tea, little dishes of pine nuts and dried mulberries.

“My lady,” said Mahzadeh. “Please take, in God’s name.”

She told her daughters-in-law to start the preparing of a fine pullao.

“I’m not here to dine,” said Peri Gul.

“Let us demonstrate the skills of our girls.”

“They’re not wanted for their cooking,” said Peri Gul.

“How better,” asked Mahzadeh, “to judge the delicacy of their touch and the excellence of their timing?”

Peri Gul, though she hated to admit it, longed for a good adversary.  Food’s joyless without spice.

That pinch on the tender spot enraged her. She exploded from her seat.

“You fence with me, you insect?”

“It’s unforgivable to discomfort a guest. Pardon me,” Mahzadeh said gently, and kissed Peri Gul’s hand.

Peri Gul burst into tears.

***

“Ah,”said Mahzadeh, almost to herself, when they’d finished the last scrumptious morsel, “a woman of property needs no one. Such quince trees those rings would buy!”

Peri Gul stared at her.

“The jam, from an orchard of quinces!”

Peri Gul thoughtfully stroked the gold bracelets on each of her mighty wrists.

***

She summoned the captain.  “I have died of a sudden apoplexy, and these humble people buried me, as custom requires. Let His Wretchedness know.”

The captain stared at her.

***

He summoned his lieutenant. “Great Lady Peri Gul and I have been taken by the flux and died, and these humble people buried us, as custom requires. Go home and let His Monstrousness know.”

***

His Just Dessertedness choked to death, one evening, on a mouthful of Turkish Delight.

***

Peri Gul, seasoned but not done, zestfully produced five daughters (after inviting the captain to marry her). All were delightfully named.

***

“My Falcon!” the captain cried out one night, at a moment of especially soaring passion, “let me call you that forever.  It should have been your name from the start.”


Sarah Crysl Akhtar‘s shtetl forebears gifted her with the genes that impel her to make much from little. So of course she writes flash fiction, cultivates orchards on her windowsill and bakes fabulous shortbread. Her son gives her what’s immeasurable — the best of all possible worlds. (Less miraculous fruit of her labors has appeared on 365tomorrows, Flash Fiction Online and Perihelion SF Magazine.)


Rate this story:
 average 5 stars • 1 reader(s) rated this

Every Day Fiction