The Unraveling . . . of the Rug Merchants

By Janice Zalewski

Her head is spinning faster than a whirling dervishs. Yet, Christen, the owner of the Galleria Persian Arts in the New Orleans iconic French Quarter, is caught up in doing what is fun versus doing what is right. Her intuition is good; it tells her that this man might be trouble. He looks like Omar Shariff, knows Persian rugs, and acts like he can sell a lot of them. Her sensual nature wants to hire him on the spot. Her Catholic Blessed Mother upbringing cautions her to be careful.

The Unraveling of the Rug Merchants recounts the undoing of 44- year-old Polish Catholic Christen Janizeski, by hiring Jamshid Khafezi, an exiled Sufi mystic and Moslem rug merchant as her manager. Booklovers take a metaphorical magic carpet ride around the Islamic World where they are privy to honest bohemian introspective chit chat from paradoxical cultural perspectives. They meet exotic characters when they are taken into native homes and bustling bazaars where they listen in on indigenous conversations and intuit the consequence of forbidden love and sexual intrigue.

Readers witness a collision of remarkable characters and worlds as this is at once an extraordinary story of two people who are about to discover who they really are and an unforgettable look into the impact of poor Ohio Valley coal mining country and the stunning culture of Islam.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 9, 2012
• ISBN: 9781479729272

Janice Zalewski

Janice Zalewski owned and operated several Persian carpet businesses and conducted exhibitions, lectures and seminars throughout the US. Zalewski is a rug scholar and an authority who has learned the idiosyncrasies of conducting business in many countries and cultures. She presented her Walking on Heirs seminars at Artworks Around Town, The Oglebays Mansion Museum and N.C. State University, etc.. She is also featured in the PBS Series, Art Underfoot. . . in the segment entitled -- Wholesalers: Integrity and Savvy, The Art of Doing Business.

Book preview

I. MEETING

Jamshid Khafezi and Christen Janiszeski

Persian Rug Gallery, French Quarter, New Orleans

WHO%20ARE%20WE.jpg

WHO ARE WE

•Timeline: 1980s

Helluva Tush

Tribal Heaven

Polish-American Woman Rug Merchant Sufi

The Decapitated Genie

The Sheik of Araby

The Deal

TKO… Our Lady of Czestowhovia

Archetypes vs the Eyes

HELLUVA TUSH

Her head is spinning faster than a whirling dervish’s. Yet Christen, the owner of the Galleria Persian Arts in New Orlean’s French Quarter, is caught up in doing what is fun versus doing what is right. Her intuition is good. It tells her that this man might be trouble. He is the epitome of that striking movie actor, Omar Shariff. He knows Persian rugs, and acts like he can sell a lot of them. Her sensual nature wants to hire him on the spot. Her Catholic Blessed Mother upbringing cautions her to be careful.

Snuffing out his barely smoked cigarette, Jamshid smolders, Please, Christen, don’t insult me. I’m a professional. I’m definitely worth more than what you’re offering.

Good. Prove it. The artsy-dressed businesswoman fans her hands in the air, chasing away the noxious haze.

I will, Christen. Just you wait and see.

She sees all right. She sees that he is absolutely gorgeous. Miranda told her that he had a clever and brilliant mind. That he could sell a rug back to its weaver. That he spoke impeccable English, much better than hers. That having lived in LA, Chicago and now here in New Orleans for about fifteen years his street-panache only added to his charm. That in general, he was just a down-to-earth dandy. But, she didn’t tell her he was such an exquisite specimen of manhood. So cosmopolitan. So debonair. So damn good looking!

Gripping the handles of the leathery camel stool that he is sitting on, Jamshid scoots back and stands up. With the suaveness of a Gucci model, he slides his hands in his pockets, but not before Christen notices they are perfectly manicured, yet hairy, like the paws of a black bear cub. Outwardly he is cocksure and unbelievably handsome, yet she notes the nervous jingle jangle of keys and coins colliding in his pockets.

Christen, do you mind if I look around the gallery? It looks quite impressive. I didn’t realize how big it was.

Not at all. Please do. I have some bank business I have to take care of. Take as long as you like.

Thanks. Incidentally, I like the way you have everything displayed. It’s ingenious. Really clever and fun. Yet effective. It makes me feel like I’m in some billionaire sheik’s place.

Glad you like it. If you have any questions, I’m here.

Still jiggling his keys and coins, Jamshid walks toward the back looking all around. He tells himself, Man, I heard this was the biggest and best Persian Rug Gallery in New Orleans, probably in the entire South, but I wasn’t expecting this, pile after pile of neatly stacked collector and designer oriental rugs from all over the world. Hell, most are investment Persians and valuable antiques. There has to be a half million hanging on the walls alone.

He’s flabbergasted, and that’s only at the rugs. Then he glances over at another section of the gallery.

Now what in the name of Allah are all these other ancient looking pieces? They must be from that famous New York Religious Antiquities Collection Miranda was raving on and on about. Hell, some give me the heebie-jeebies. Those gargoyles and garudas look like they could be visiting from hell. No wonder, I’m sure they came from some devil’s temple in Hindu India.

Meanwhile, Christen is scrutinizing this Pakistani gentleman as closely as he is scrutinizing her gallery. She can’t take her eyes off him, and it isn’t only because he knows how to dress. When interested, she always checks out the eyes and voice first, the hands next, and then she screams inside herself, Oh my god! Look at that! Now that’s what I call one helluva tush!

Stalking fringe to fringe over the Baluchi runner, Jamshid seems stuck within its running dog border. He reminds Christen of that troubled tribal chief in Jaffe’s movie The Horseman where his look-alike Omar Shariff aptly portrays the one-legged Afghani buszkashi champion who epitomizes inner homelessness. This same inner homelessness she senses running rampant in Jamshid.

In spite of, or, perhaps because of, this perceived homelessness, Christen finds herself helpless. Her mother earth ilk, Oh, don’t worry Honey . . . I’ll take care of you, con, not only kicks in but takes over. The universal mom out to heal the wounded world while denying feelings of inadequacy from her own little girl wounds she didn’t know how to handle or heal.

The magnificence of the Persian Royal Tabriz carpet hanging to his right has stopped Jamshid in his tracks. He is on the other side of the gallery and far enough away from Christen that he mumbles, "La ilaha ilah’llah, Dhul-Jalal-wal-ikram . . . there is no God but God, Lord of Majesty and Bounty. I can’t believe this. This is almost like a few of those rugs I saw in London’s Victoria and Albert Museum. Such a fine carpet. I wonder where in the hell this American woman got this museum piece? How could she afford it? I know you couldn’t get it in Queta, Pakistan, the Persian rug black market capital of the world, for under a $100,000."

Unbeknownst to Jamshid, while his eyeballs are glued to the intricately silk outlined masterpiece woven by hands from heaven, her eyeballs are glued to his tush. Christen likes tushes. She always has. She always will.

Stop. Stop it right now. What’s the matter with you? Are you horny or what? Christen yells at herself. You promised no more men for at least two years. It’s been what? Only seven or eight months since Bigsby, since filing for divorce. You have three businesses to run: this rug business, Bigsby’s British Pub, and Another Brick in the Wall Condominiums. They’re counting on you, Christen. You screw up… they’re history! You’re bankrupt! So don’t get conned. Don’t look at men. Don’t look at their tushes either.

Not surprisingly, since going to therapy, Christen’s mind is again invaded by the Jungian concept of the shadow archetype: that cunning loiterer, that general sabotager, that celebrated impostor, that noble fraud. Supposedly the shadow is this darker side of one’s soul that contains all of the buried stuff that eventually oozes out because of the secrets one can not admit even to oneself. Sometimes Christen wishes that Dr. Derek Pedragovich, her Jungian therapist, would stop putting all of these psychologically curative possibilities out there for her to act upon, or at least consider.

One of his psyche therapeutic directives is hanging on the wall above her desk. It is a painted mandala or sacred healing circle, and right now it is staring her in the face. Dr. Pedragovich recommended that she create these soul paintings after she told him that she would like to kill her husband for cheating on her. He gave her an option. Christen, you can kill Bigsby and go to jail for the rest of your life. Or you can throw the bum out and heal yourself by painting mandalas. You know that Jung himself was a real believer in their healing power, he even created his own mandalas. Christen giggles, deducing that she should already be 100 percent healed since she has painted so many of these circular dimensions of the unconscious that she could open another gallery.

The Galleria’s Whitney and Hibernia bank statements are in columns across the top of her desk, and Christen is pretending to be checking them. However, what she is really doing is dwelling on the sordid choices of her past unfulfilling and dysfunctional male relationships. She wonders, Gosh, what was that dropout beatnik shrink’s name? That genius one from Pittsburgh that used to come in for coffee at Stashia’s in Steubenville where I worked while going to college. Anyway, that unkempt Dr. Long Hair predicted way back when I was a sophomore at St. Stanislaus that even though I wanted more than anything to be married and have a family with my whole heart and soul, I would always fall in love with unmarriageables. Basically, because I utopized marriage. While making it out to be heavenly and perfect, down deep I loved marriage so much, at least as an idea, that I feared it.

Pulling out the long rickety drawer, she picks up the Louisiana Purchase bank statements then makes a third column. She’s really putting on a good show.

Sniggering, she continues to reflect, Whatever that hippie shrink’s name was, he sure was right about the unmarriageables. Let’s see, I’m forty-four now, so that means over the years there was that first unmarriageable, Snooky Sheck. That missing-in-action Vietnam F-104 fighter pilot that I met while teaching on Okinawa. A sarcastic giggle erupts as she remembers, What fun all of us teachers and marines had when Snooky directed that 8mm Sinderella Satire in the Futema Officer’s Club where he starred me wearing black lace stockings and a Kennedy for President button. Followed by another snicker, Who knows, maybe I could’ve been a movie star if he hadn’t gone and got himself shot down over Hanoi.

"Let’s see, unmarriageable number two? Definitely Teofolo Victore, the black Dominican cardiologist from my Peace Corps days in the Dominican Republic. Followed by Father Jim Regnis, the Jesuit priest who I met working on Cleveland’s Mayor Carl Stokes campaign and who initially counseled me about not marrying the other unmarriageable. Of course I could never forget the first man to actually enter my Garden of Eden the night before my thirty-third birthday, Mr. Temor Khabibi, the traditional Iranian Jewish businessman who was my mentor in Persian rugs. In fact we even lived together for a few years, but he would never marry me because I wasn’t a Jewess, therefore his babies wouldn’t be Jewish."

And… the shadow grows.

Having gone through all this betrayal and divorce crap, there seems to be something nagging Christen inside about repressed feelings, about never feeling good enough, about denied and despised aspects of herself. She wonders if the shadow that Jung talks about can really upset your balance and sabotage your efforts. She’s certainly been feeling sabotaged lately and wonders if she could somehow be sabotaging herself. If so, why? Of course she realizes her subconscious is still not absolutely free from those dreadful experiences she had during the Iranian Embassy Hostage Crisis because of her nagging nightmares… but she is sure this is not it.

Even with Jamshid back there snooping around like her favorite pet ferret, Rikki-Tikki, the gallery is so quiet that you can hear her shifting the bank statements, as if she’s actually analyzing them. That’s until the hush is broken. Again, by her own chuckling. "Now I must not forget that glorious, sometimes mystical, five-year stint out on the Navajo Indian Reservation with Tso Manygoats. The cowboy-stompin’, rodeo-rompin’, peyote-poppin’ Navajo shaman who helped me discover the mysteries of the desert and that I wasn’t a Navajo but a Bellagana (white woman) after all. Then the grand finale, with actual wedding bells and a Scott-English architect husband named Bigsby Daveed. Only one problem, he turned out to be a schizophrenic alcoholic cocaine addict. I even married that unmarriageable."

Unhurriedly sipping her Diet Coke, Christen surveys the awesome Persian rugs hanging on the walls. Each one with its very own personal history, makeup, and story. Just like her men. Some tending toward the tribal geometric, loosely knotted, unprocessed wool, naturally dyed type. Some, the floral curvilinear, tightly knotted, processed wool, chemically dyed type. This reflection engenders a mammoth sense of gratitude and appreciation for those five spectacular years she lived in Persia… followed by a sadness as she recalls the abrupt hostile goodbye due to the Iranian Revolution.

Throwing her empty Coke can in the copper trash tub, Christen’s attention is caught off guard by the intentionally woven, spirit-escape line, in the Shahsavahni rug hanging behind it. Sometimes this premeditated woven soul-line is called the only-Allah-is-perfect-line. So if it’s the escape route for the weaver’s artistic soul or if it’s the weaver’s humble heart acknowledging that only Allah is perfect, for some reason, just seeing this supposed divine-getaway cord makes Christen want to pull it. Pull it hard. Pull it so hard that the whole rug unravels. Lickety-split, just like that, the rug unravels… like her relationships… the story ends… or like the Ouroborian symbol… has it only begun?

Then Christen giggles one of her you’d-never-believe-it-anyway ironic giggles and mumbles, louder than she realizes, Who knows, maybe someday, I’ll have time to finish writing about the weaving… or should I say the unraveling… of my own life’s rugs. One thing for sure, all of my dysfunctional male relationships would make damn intriguing books!

Like some tiptoeing Islamic jinn, Jamshid unexpectedly materializes back up front and asks, Christen, what did you say about damn intriguing books?

She momentarily forgot he was in the gallery. But she hasn’t now. Looking straight at him, Christen asks herself, Who is this Jamshid Khafezi? A Muslim Don Juan? More trouble? Another book? Another rug? Another unmarriageable? Or can he truly be the man of my dreams? The man I respect? The man I deserve? Am I kidding myself again? Or should I check him out? Be careful, Christen, you’re getting too old. You don’t need more trouble. And you certainly don’t need another unraveling… even by a helluva tush!

TRIBAL HEAVEN

Brushing off Jamshid by sending him on some phony humdrum errand to the back of the gallery, Christen continues the fake examination of her bank statements. A balding sophisticated older gentleman in his tailored yet uniformish navy jacket and gray pants walks in the gallery like he knows the place. He looks like all the other 16,000 bankers in town for the convention. He walks right up to the subdued rose and muted blue antique Kurdish kilim hanging on the historic elevator door. By the way his fingers are running around the wool and through the warps and wefts, Christen can see he knows rugs.

Uhmm, maybe a hot one, maybe a collector, maybe a sale, Christen tells herself. Jamshid’s tush is now history, and her mind is back where it belongs, on business. Pretending to riffle through the bank statements, her eagle eyes never leave this familiar looking man. It’s too soon to approach. She must heed her own seminar sales training advice: Don’t bother the customers, give them time to become acclimated, let them need you, then advance.

Christen waits and watches. The banker ambles over near the Ghenghis Khan scimitar and pulls back an antique Bachtiyari rug to judge the strength of its foundation. He tiptoes to examine the smudge mark on its corner spandrel. He smiles, knowing the brown crayon looking splotch is tariack or opium by its smell. He tries to scrape the kahky gook off with his antiseptic fingernail but becomes repulsed and aborts.

Back there watching Christen watch, Jamshid steps into the safer roundish hub of the Herati medallion. He’s careful not to step into the carpet’s surrounding fishnet motifs. His rascally grin intimates that he might be saving them for Christen, to see if she is the fish or the fisherman.

Flicking a smidgen of wool off her new oyster-gray Elizabeth jacket sleeve, Christen confidently approaches. Good morning, sir, feel free to look around and if I can help… excuse me, don’t I know you? She is taken aback. Oh, my goodness gracious! Dr. Morgan, I’m sorry, but I didn’t recognize you without your pipe and Marie. Besides, you usually come in wearing blue jeans and tennies. It’s so good to see you. She takes both her hands and clasps his in a warm welcoming gesture while giving him an affectionate peck on the cheek.

He wraps both arms around her and hugs hard. You looked busy, and you know how I am with these rugs. I can’t keep my hands off them.

Where’s Marie?

She’s back in Ohio raising holy hell about the twenty thousand tons of Canadian garbage the greatest nation in the world is importing to our neighborhood every day.

Fidgety, probably feeling left out, Jamshid reemerged up front and asks, Did you say you are from Ohio? Which city?

Forgive me, Mr. Khafezi, I didn’t mean to be rude. I got caught up with my friend here. Dr. Morgan, this—

Please, Christen, Otis.

Okay, Otis Morgan, this is Jamshid Khafezi. Jamshid, Otis is an investment banker and an economics professor at Case Western Reserve University. He and his dauntless wife Marie live in a village near Cleveland, and she is heavily invested in dated primitives, mostly kilims. Otis, Jamshid is in the rug business too.

The mutual it’s a pleasure—verbal niceties and handshakes are exchanged.

Excuse me, Christen, you know how I love to talk. I could dilly-dally here with you all day, but I’m conducting that investment bankers’ seminar in conjunction with Case at the Windsor Court Hotel and won’t have any other free time. You know our forty-seventh anniversary is the day after tomorrow. Do you still have those twin antique Sennehs Marie fell in love with the last time we were here?

Sure do. They’re upstairs. Christen nods toward the steps. Would you like to go up and see them?

Of course. He’s all happy-go-lucky. You know I love going up to that tribal heaven. Otis heads past the Persian ivory miniature display, up the three steps, opens the door, perfunctorily switches the lights on; and up he goes, like he owns the place.

Christen asks Jamshid if he could wait up front since Fariborz is still in the back investment room with his customers. And Clayton, her manager, hasn’t come back from the Whitney Bank yet. She would feel safer. With all the doors open in the front and Otis being in a hurry, she doesn’t want to take the time to close them. Scrunching over his shoulder, she whispers, If you sell something, 5 percent commission.

I’d be happy to. Go on. Go on. He motions his head upward. Just sell him. Just sell him.

She scuttles off to catch up with Otis, who is already at the top of the long staircase with the high steps. He says, See what I mean, Christen, I bowed and blessed myself as if I entered some church. Actually, it makes me feel like I’m walking into a tribal heaven. Can you imagine what the angels and saints would be like if heaven had a tribal decor?

Christen laughs. Imagine if God had a tribal decorum.

Wouldn’t that be great? Maybe it’s my age, but this modern world is whizzing by too fast. We don’t have time just to be… to stop and smell the mountains. These tribals make me stop. Their bold motifs and bedazzling hues jump out at me from the mountains, steppes, and deserts. They grab me and hold on until I am quiet inside. Why do you think that is, Christen?

She tells him that she’s not sure but probably a combination of things: like the soulful energies of the weavers themselves, our own innate aesthetic sense with our unconscious absorption of things human and divine, the symbolism implicit in the valiant patterns and bedazzling shades, plus, the unusually high twenty-four-foot ceilings with the hanging mirrored Hindu altar cloths… perhaps suggesting that something good from up in heaven is coming down to us.

Otis and Marie only buy tribals, so he asks, Christen, don’t you agree that the tribal geometric rugs, even though generally not as tightly knotted as the finer rugs woven in the cities, are soulfully more powerful? Like these up here? He motions all around with his never been dirty hands.

Nudging him with her arm, she tells him not to put her on the spot since she’s in the business and loves all of them.

"Let me ask you, Otis, which do you like better. Folk, jazz, and rock music or classical?

Jazz and rock!

"Well, the geometric tribals are created in the same way. Spontaneously. They well up out of the heart of the weavers with no particular plans or calculations. Bring it on. Let your feelings flip out and into designs and motifs.

With classical music, it’s different, you have the whole orchestra and director. Plans must be followed. Synchronization necessary. Then you get this other type of curvilinear masterpiece, the finely woven floral city rugs. One day I want to write this book on rugs and personalities… like Janis Joplin or Roseanne Barr rugs vs. Margaret Thatcher and Jackie Kennedy rugs."

Wearing the smirk of a grandpa imp, he asks, Then I’d be in the chapter with Mick Jagger and Jack Kennedy, not Dicky Nixon and Pat Robertson, right, Christen?

They both laugh. Then Christen admits that her home, with the exception of the living room, resembles this bazaar-tent look of the upstairs.

About a quarter of the way down this palatial-looking tent, Otis gives the impression that he won the lottery big time. He defrocks the wooden camel of its prized twin Sennehs. Then he moves directly under the spotlight so he can closely examine these Kurdish wedding rugs that are more than twice as old as he.

Look at me. I’m bald. Blind. Busting out of my pants because I’m over seventy. Yet I’m as excited as a little boy examining his first tricycle that Santa Claus left. Excuse me, Christen, but I just have to say it, these tribals excite the shit out of me. Honestly. They make me feel holy. Like I really am a child of God that is made in his image. Why, Christen? Tell me why!

I wish I knew. All I know is that the Great Ones of all religions say that art is divine. Like I told you before, Otis, I lived and worked for years with the Navajo Indians, the Muslims, the Germans, the Dominicans, and the Buddhists. Even with my own Polish people and these Louisiana Bayou folk, I have seen the Divine do amazing and miraculous things. It’s humbling.

THE POLISH-AMERICAN

WOMAN RUG MERCHANT

SUFI

Befuddled, Jamshid sits down at Christen’s desk. The one she jokingly calls her Takhteh Tavoos or Peacock Throne. She lived right down the street from the real one, Shah Reza Pahlavi’s Peacock Throne in Tehran. He cannot believe he is actually listening to all this psycho-spiritual nonsense tumbling down the steps. Tugging at his left earlobe, like he always does to check his reality status, he says to himself, Only in America. Only in America. Who’d believe it? She has a master’s degree, and he has a PhD.

Gawking back at the large room behind the Persian Moon Arch, Jamshid is almost overcome. He wants to run in and touch and touch and touch. He loves rugs. He loves to touch rugs. Most men who are into rugs love to touch them. In fact, he smiles and reflects on his discovered rule, which, until today, has never been broken. Not once. If a man touches a rug. If a man feels a rug. He will sell that man a rug.

Jamshid is proud of this little discovery. He has never shared it with anyone. It’s one of his trade secrets he keeps to himself. Who knows, maybe one day he will share it with this Polish-American woman rug merchant.

He is quiet. He is reflecting on the spiritual mumbo-jumbo he is hearing. He is wondering if it is Christen’s con, to sell. If so, she is good. Better than he. He had better be careful. But then, what if it’s for real? What if she believes that kind of stuff?

He bursts out laughing, saying, Oh, Allah. No! A Polish-American woman rug merchant is bad enough. Now, maybe it’s a Polish-American woman rug merchant Sufi?

This is too much. One part of him wants to run into the back room, yet another part wants to run out the front door. Depressed, he tries to console himself saying, Me, Mr. Sheik Jamshid Khafezi. Mr. Big Shot Sheik Jamshid Khafezi, whose father was one of the biggest carpet exporters in all of India. Me, who had my own gallery in Taos, New Mexico. Now reduced to interviewing for a mere sales position with an American woman.

A cough attacks him, an upshot of his three, closer to four, sometimes even five pack a day habit.

Oh, Allah. Why such humiliation? He stands up, extends his hands forward, and with palms up he prays from his heart. "La ilaha illa’llah, Al-Latif Ya-Latif. Only you, Allah. The Subtle One, who knows the delicate meaning of everything. You, who creates subtly things that can’t be understood. You, who blesses accordingly. Bless me. Bless me now. Please, Allah."

Being as antsy as ever, Jamshid wonders what the hell Fariborz is doing back there so long. He assumes he is either a talky son of a bitch or has a hot customer. Not knowing what to do with himself, he straightens out then lights up the cigarette he had snuffed out earlier. The puffed smoke encircling his head relaxes him. His mind goes back. Way back to when he was five years old in his father’s New Delhi oriental carpet warehouse. He sees himself as a little boy jumping from soft stack into lumpy hill piles as his dad lovingly chases him, catches him, hugs him.

That was before his father’s best friend, an English colonel with the transition forces, rescued them in a British tank. That was before he knew how lucky he was because all of his little Muslim friends watched their moms and sisters being brutally tortured and raped by Hindus. That was before they were picked up by their little legs and swung against the whitewashed wall where their heads were bashed in and their brains dribbled down to form thick sticky puddles on the dusty roads. That was before the Hindu-Muslim War when he lived in the big white house with the funny fat servants, when he swam in their big swimming pool, when he was rich.

Well, he is not rich now. He needs a job. His teenage sons are here. They hate seeing him driving a taxi. They cannot believe it. He, their dad, Sheik Jamshid Khafezi, a taxi driver. They are humiliated and ashamed. Ashamed of him.

He spins the desk chair around and stretches his muscular legs way out only to quickly pull them in again. He’s definitely mulling things over. But no matter what, working for an American woman would be worse than driving… unless… unless? His demeanor seems to fluctuate from compassion and self-confidence to conceit and sheer cockiness.

Skittish, perhaps to take the edge off, he lights up another Camel and walks over to the open Chartres Street doors. He runs his shoulders in circles as he puffs more circles to help relieve tension. He reminds himself to take it easy, to not act excited or impressed, to be cool like his black taxi-driving buddies coached him. Who knows, there may be something here for him yet.

Stepping out of the door, he smiles and waves to the owner of Pipes, Pipes and Pipes across the street since he knows Christen and he are buddies because he has been secretly watching her. He figures he may as well be friendly with the neighbors in case something happens here. Besides, he window-shopped there at night and would love to get a bargain on one of his handmade pipes. People from all over the world come and buy them.

Jamshid gave Christen the thrice over, up and down and all around. His verdict: she’s chubby but cute. Real cute. Blonde, ash-blonde, he’s glad; he hates the peroxide blondes. Sexy as hell, he can tell. Besides, he likes his women chubby. He hates doing the skinny ones. Their bones hurt. She’s sexy all right. She has those hungry blue eyes that can sometimes look green. Taking a couple more steps, along with a couple more puffs, out on the new gray-green slate French Quarter sidewalk, he continues his verdict. She acts professional. She is professional. But she’s still hungry, and not just for food. She’s hungry all right; that she can’t hide. She can’t con a con.

The queenish Tabriz rug in all her kazillion knotted splendor beckons him as he steps back into the gallery. He is about to feel her soft cork wool when he is jerked back into reality via the clip-clopping of Otis’s heavy cowboy boots as the metal cleats stomp down on each step. He noticed they were expensive and crafted from ostrich skin in an oak color that he liked but would have never worn with gray pants and a navy jacket. The colors fought. He barely hears Christen’s soft shadowing steps behind Otis but is not surprised because he noticed her agility when he watched her on other occasions. As the door shoots open, laughter bursts out as Otis and Christen reemerge on the boxy platform.

Jamshid, have you been up there in that tribal heaven yet? Otis blurts out with a satisfied glow spiraling around his head.

No, Otis. I haven’t. Not yet anyway.

Well, what are you waiting for? You better get on up there. You may be lucky like me and get all tangled up in the veils of the belly dancing angels. He jokingly elbows Jamshid in the ribs.

Belly dancing angels? With those bombs bursting in your eyes, Otis, it looks to me like those veils still have you tangled up.

Only an imp would know for sure. Otis giggles like a little boy as he walks toward the desk. He reaches inside his inner jacket pocket to get his checkbook. From the front pocket, he pulls out his Parker pen.

Jamshid assumes today must be Christen’s lucky day as she is holding a pair of magnificent soft-hued peach and silvery blue Senneh kilims. Dated. Vintage. Expensive. Nonchalantly, he tries to see how much Otis is writing the check for but doesn’t succeed.

Otis, are you absolutely sure you don’t want me to UPS these kilims? Christen asks. I promise you’ll get them within a few days, and you won’t have to bother with them on the plane. Besides, if I ship them, you won’t have to pay that horrendous 9.5 percent sales tax. Christen tries to accommodate this adorable professor, but since it seems futile, she is already folding them into snug, manageable bundles.

No, thank you, Christen. I want to surprise Marie with them tomorrow night. Heck, the government already gets most of my money, it may as well take the rest. Right, Jamshid?

Wrong, Otis. The government doesn’t get any of my hard-earned money unless it has to. I’ll bet since you are an investment banker, you know all the legal loopholes and have already figured a way to get your tax money back. Right?

Right, Jamshid. You Arabs are cunning. In fact, if I had to put my money on an investment banker or an Arab, I’d take the Arab.

You overestimate us. Be careful, Jamshid cautions. He could explain he is a Pakistani and not an Arab but figures why bother since most Americans still don’t understand the difference even after he explains.

Having finished roping the kilims into a maneuverable size and placing them in a Galleria Persian Arts shopping bag, along with a Turkoman rug-mat as a present, she hands it to Otis. She shakes his hand and gives him a peck on the cheek saying, Happy forty-seventh anniversary, Otis, to you and Marie. Please give her my fondest regards and a big hug. I thank you.

Hugging her, Otis says, I know Marie will love them. We’ll see you in a couple of months. In the meantime, if you want to visit us, you know we’d be honored. God bless you, Christen. He kisses her on the forehead. You too, Jamshid. God bless. Bye.

Since Jamshid is there, Christen walks Otis out the door and down the street a half block to the famous Cajun’s, K-Paul’s Restaurant, where his hungry associates are waiting for him in the two block Cajun cuisine line.

THE DECAPITATED GENIE

Lifting the four-thousand-year-old broken head off the sandalwood smoking genie, Jamshid is again ambushed by this American woman’s ingenuity. He grins, analyzing the corpulent turned-up toed bronze. He is amazed at how she used the jagged hole forged by the break in the neck to allow puffs of smoke to escape from the incense burning deep within the genie’s pot belly. He repositions the turbaned head back on its craggy neck.

Returning from walking Otis down the block to K-Paul’s, Christen says, Thanks a million, Jamshid, for being so kind and watching the gallery. I appreciate it. She rolls her Afshari cushioned chair out and sits down at her desk.

You are most welcome. I was happy to do it, that Otis is such a gentleman. I like him. I like your genie here too. Jamshid pats him on his puffer belly. He’s cute, even distinguished. Useful too. He almost says There is something round, impish, and wise about him that reminds me of you but decides not to.

Clever, eh? He’s not for sale either because I have fallen in love with him. Jimmie is so old and has such character, I hated to throw him away just because his head was broken off. When I ran across his chunky body in the Tibetan Stupa box with the monk’s eyeglasses, I placed his head back on and found him something to do.

Clever indeed. Jamshid smirks, still fingering his coins in one pocket. Wonder what force could’ve decapitated your genie like that? Break bronze? He sounds skeptical, picking up the head to reexamine it again. Do Iranians use a lot of incense?

Jamshid thinks about joining her at the desk but chooses to remain standing. He leans back against the Persian’s favorite rug, the red and blue Kashan, because red shows dirt the least and is a good contrast color to their blue skies and sandy earth tones. Red is not only easy on but also good for the eyes. It is hanging on the triple-arched center wall that separates the rug showroom from the eminent Albert Rudolph Religious Antiquities Collection displays in this spacious 65’ × 110’ gallery.

No. But most Americans think they do. They always connect Persia with the Orient and the exotic. What about in Pakistan?

"No. Generally Muslims don’t. Those crazy weird smells are Hindu." You can tell that just saying the word Hindu makes him jumpy.

Actually, incense is probably more Catholic than Muslim. As a little girl, I always considered it a holy, yet threatening, you-better-be-good smell. Especially since it was connected to priests and bishops in long gold and red vestments with pointed, you-better-do-what-I-say steeple hats. Christen giggles, pointing her forefinger at Jamshid and shaking it hard.

Making the big move, Jamshid walks over to sit down on the 3’ × 5’ pile of ultrafine Esphahani, Nain, and Qum city rugs near her.

The phone rings, and it is Yellow Freight returning her call. She is checking on the cost of shipping a couple of big rugs she sold to the Longstaffs in Billings, Montana, plus a few smaller ones to their daughter Aslan in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

While Christen is on the phone, that Shahbanou Tabriz carpet beckons Jamshid again to come and feel her cork, which is the finest lamb’s wool that is sheared from the chest of yearling sheep. He is comfortable walking across the densely knotted Kurdish Bijar runner, known in the trade as iron rugs. They are made for traffic. A camel caravan or a Bourbon Street Mardi Gra crowd would only increase their already lovely sheen. The Kurds understood durability, probably tied like their knots, to eternity.

He looks up at the Ferdowsi Arabesque Arch he is about to pass through and marvels at the way she has each side mounted with a pair of Garden of Eden Gom silk prayer rugs. They appear to be hovering like protective archangels, poised there, radiating harmony and tranquility from their mosque dome color glows of soft golds, ivories, and turquoises. The glows do not seem to be pacifying Christen though. She is arguing about the absolute preposterousness of the shipping prices and why they must give her a better deal since it is tons, not pounds, she will be shipping every month. She is feistier than he had heard and cannot imagine anybody ever conning her.

Jamshid titters, A yakkity-yak-yakker too.

Ducking, while parting the woolen tassels bobbing from the brick and blood red Tekke Turkoman Asmaliks, he feels like an Afghani Pashtun chieftan exiting his yurt. Again he is taken aback at her cleverness, only such a ballsy American woman would dare use Asmaliks, the ceremonial weavings hung on the lead camel in Turkoman bridal processions as gallery decorative accessories. They make him sneeze.

GOD BLESS YOU! Christen yells as she bangs down the phone. Damn trucking companies must think I’m not only a stupid woman but a rich Saudi. $1,257.52 to ship seven rugs.

Jamshid has still not made it over to feel Her Heavenly Highness, the royal Tabriz rug. Hearing Christen, he turns around feeling that perhaps she needs to vent her frustration. On the way back, he runs into Fariborz exiting the Jomeh Mosque Arch. He is leading his well-heeled customers with a giant smile marching across his face. In fact his grin seems to be saluting as he discreetly points to the check triumphantly sticking out of his shirt pocket. He escorts Dr. and Mrs. Rocky Swift over the Hosseinabad rug, past the samovar exhibit and past Christen, to the wide open Chartres Street doors. Out on the sidewalk, he points down past Conti Street and the magnificent European-like Fish and Wildlife Building to St. Louis Street and the restaurant that all Epicureans love, Antoine’s. He shakes their hands with both of his and respectfully bows with his whole body, thanking them.

Coming across like an innocent country college boy who left home for the first time in his life, Fariborz continues tongue tying flowery knots with his broken English that many find enchanting. Christen cannot fathom how he so easily snookers people and sells them the proverbial rug right off the shop floor.

Knowing how cunning, even corrupt, he is, Christen never trusts him to be in the gallery alone. Having learned the hard way, if there’s an emergency, or if her manager Clayton cannot be there hovering nearby, she closes the gallery. Fariborz is the absolute perfect con.

She remembers the time she returned from a Mayor Morial dinner party only to be almost knocked unconscious by clouds of marijuana fumes that left her fuming for a month. She remembers when she walked in the back investment room and found Fariborz and his infamous sister friends, Pretty, Prettier and Prettiest, local French Quarter damsels of the dark, puffing away on her treasured 18’th century Shah-Abbass Hubbly-Bubbly. She remembers when Prettiest stepped out from behind