A movie was running through my head. Gabbeh tells a story woven into a rug, and how that rug is woven, and also how the nomads who weave it live. And I was thinking about that carpet, when I entered a store in Isfahan. Well, more than entering, he invited me to visit Ali, a boy who approached me in Naqsh-e Jahan Square.
Inside, all attention was focused on a group of tourists. A pile of rugs had been spread out on the floor. The salespeople studied the slightest gestures of the customers, a smile, a grimace at the corner of the mouth. They served me tea and, as a spectator, I contemplated this ritual that has been repeated for centuries in all the bazaars of Persia and along the routes that go from China to Morocco.
When the tourists left, the tension eased. Salespeople stopped mincing words. They folded and organized the rugs again, sat down to share tea, and incorporated me into their conversation. We discussed the styles and qualities they offered, but without the pressure of considering me a client, but more like the idle acquaintance who sits down to keep company, or as that relative who makes conversation to lighten the idle moments. I don’t know how they knew that his gender didn’t suit me.
As he left, Ali said goodbye with a warning: “Watch out, there are many hookers, like me, and they charge commission.”
It was in another store, where my heart raced. A glance at what they had hanging was enough. I went in, took a look, exchanged a look with the salesman.
I returned a couple of days later. I asked about the gabbeh, interesting, at acceptable prices. Husein, the man who served, invited me to tea upstairs. There were a couple more clerks there and, next to the cashier, the owner. Bahir joined us and, with Hussein, they rolled out some rugs, without obligation, of course. The red ones of the Baluchi nomads, a pair from Tabriz with intricate blooms and a central medallion, one from Qom made of silk, so he could admire its microscopic knots. And they spread the Bakhtiar carpet. A delicate vine followed the first edge. At the main edge, some stylized flowers were linked. They framed a set of diamond-shaped medallions in which different gardens were inscribed: some with roses, others with the tree of life or with poppies. It had been woven in one of the towns located in the fertile foothills of the Zagros Mountains. The price was out of my budget.
I returned the next day. Hussein and Bahir spread the Bakhtiar carpet again. Also some gabbeh, to give color. They served me tea and we talked. “What is your maximum?” Bahir asked. It was well below what they had proposed. We studied possibilities, until, to the bajtiar, a small gabbeh joined and neither they nor I were left.
The price was what it has always been: that meeting point that seems good to all of us.
“Today, instead of bread and chicken, just bread,” Bahir joked.
To the rug package, he added a pair of colorful camel blinders for my daughters.
Since then, when I read the result of any political negotiation, I think about what would have been achieved if one of the teams had incorporated Bahir and his colleagues into their ranks.
