Shahrazad’s Winter Morning
They are playing Shahrazad from The Tales of One Thousand and One Nights, by Rimsky Korsakov on the radio. As I listen I smile in delight. My mind flies to a winter morning when I was a little girl in Tehran. It must have been a Friday, for Papa was home, since there was classical music playing. If he wasn’t, we would have been listening to Mama’s music, something like Coco Polka or Siboney or La Vie En Rose.
I was in the dining room, dressed in my flannel nightgown and the warm, scratchy woolen dressing gown which I truly hated! It made my skin itch terribly. But Mama had Khadija, the sweet seamstress that came to the house to sew our essential everyday clothes, make it for me. The pot bellied stove was pumping its heart out keeping the room warm. It must have been morning, for the samovar was gurgling merrily at the head of the table, the teapot perched on top of it, covered with a thick quilted damask cabbage green tea cozy.
I was sitting cross legged on the floor surrounded by books, crayons and an art pad. I was neither reading nor drawing. I was listening to the music. I had read the abridged version of The Tales of One Thousand and One Nights. I considered Rimsky Korsakov to be a personal friend of mine. I believed that he composed his very exciting music especially for me. It did not matter that I had never met him. He was still my friend. Just listen to all that wonderful music he had composed for me!
I get up and walk towards the cushy and spacious armchair by one of the two bay window in the dining room. It is so deeply cushioned that one can almost sink into it. I curl up into a small little ball in the corner of it, as I listen to the music. As I listen, I lazily glance down to the avenue below. It is the weekend and there is hardly any traffic. It is snowing. It seems to amble down from the heavens above. It makes the world outside look so picturesque. It reminds me of one my snow globes. If you shake it, the snow falls, making everything inside the globe look magical, just like the music I am listening to.
My spirit flies up, up, up. It travels across time and space to meet Shahrazad in her room in the palace where she recounts one of her nightly tales to the King of Persia. She weaves one thrilling tale after another in a desperate attempt to save her life. If she loses his interest by the coming of dawn, she will lose her life! I am an invisible breathless witness to all that. Each night she stops at an exciting moment. Each night the king saves her life in order to hear more of her tales. For one thousand and one nights, she recounts her stories to him. The music draws to an end. The king had fallen in love with her in all those nights that he spent listening to her. He spares her life. He makes her his permanent wife. She can finally relax in the thought that she will be able to live all her tomorrows. I draw a sigh of relief.
I return to the present. I go back to sprawling on the carpeted floor. I lie on my stomach, my knees bent up to my back, my ankles crossed. I take up my colouring pencils and concentrate on drawing myself traveling on a flying carpet, traveling all the way into the land of the tales of The One Thousand and One Nights…