“She refused your offer of marriage.”
“Yes. Well, no. I don’t know.”
“So you might also be the happiest of men?”
“I don’t know!”
“Sir, please. Let go of my hand.”
“…”
“If you don’t know, don’t you think we could wait a little and find out?”
“But you see, this is my problem. This is my problem.”
“Waiting.”
“No. If she says yes—Maryam, who loves me, and I who love Maryam—we will be richer in joy that the great Xerxes.”
“It sounds nice.”
“Except her brothers have sworn to poison me. I will die. She will be widowed and left to those villains.”
“I see. And if she says no, in order to prevent all this?”
“That one is obvious, Doktor.”
“I see.”
“So, the hemlock if you please, Doktor. A large gunny sack of it.”
“Right away.”
“No one will blame you. I’ll tell everyone I got it from a dervish.”
“You’re too kind. But first, have you heard of Mithridates’ antidote? Could I offer you the story?”
“Doktor, I don’t want to be rude.”
“You’re pressed for time, I understand. It will be short.”
“I don’t go to the baker for soap. And I don’t go to the storyteller for cures.”
“But you’ve come to a doctor for a killing drink.”
“Of course! A builder can make and unmake a house. Both are his job.”
“…”
“…”
“The price of my poison is to hear my story.”
“Akh. Very well, Doktor. Only because you have been kind to my mother.”
“Once upon a time …”
“Don’t get greedy, Doktor. A quick anecdote, if you please.”
“The father of the great king Mithridates was assassinated at a banquet. He’d been poisoned, you see.”
“As I would be if I married my love.”
“Yes. Now you see the connection. And so Mithridates went into hiding. He wandered the forest, and vowed to become stronger than his enemies. Every day he drank a sublethal dose of poison until his body became accustomed to it. And so when he returned to his kingdom, he imprisoned his mother and brothers, who he suspected had killed his father, and he threw a banquet. ‘They put arsenic in his meat and stared aghast to watch him eat; they poured strychnine in his cup and shook to see him drink it up.’ But Mithridates was immune to such a death. He smiled and drank. Then he offered each of them a sip from his own goblet. They were his friends, after all. They couldn’t refuse. If they did he would know that they knew that it was poisoned. And so each drank, and each died, and the poets say, ‘I tell the tale that I heard told. Mithridates, he died old.’”
“…”
“…”
“So.”
“So.”
“So you think I should ambush her brothers with such a ploy?”
“No. I think whatever grievance you have with your future brothers, you should offer forgiveness, and ask them for theirs.”
“That is not what the story said, Doktor.”
“Sure it is.”
“It said Mithridates foiled the plans of his killers.”
“It said his friends hated him. It said he killed his mother and brothers.”
“Yes, but he died old.”
“Kill everyone at a party, and you are the life of the party, but that doesn’t make you good company.”
“…”
“…”
“I think your story needs work, Doktor.”
“You’re probably right.”
“To explain that Mithridates was unhappy with his decision. And perhaps add the idea that he did not become strong by drinking poison daily. He only became full of poison himself.”
“That’s good.”
“His poisoned heart beat poisoned blood.”
“I will work on it.”
“No, no. I think you should stick to physician’s work.”
“Very well, then.”
“I’ll ask Maryam’s brothers to sit with me.”
“That sounds like a good plan.”
“One of them suffers in his back, when he sleeps.”
“I will give you an ointment. He’ll sleep like a mountain bear.”
“Thank you, Doktor. The thing is that I don’t have money.”
“It’s my wedding gift, then.”
“I must tell Maryam.”
“Go.”
“She’ll make you her honey cake.”
“I would be honored.”
“Best in Isfahan. Her hand sweetens the honey itself.”
“I’m in your debt.”
When I tell this story to Mrs. Miller’s class, I don’t do the talking parts. There is just too much to explain. I only say, Jamshid was famous for taking his payment in whatever patients could offer. Honey cake. A chicken that laid hard-boiled eggs. Three bottles of jam made from his garden’s apricots.
“That’s super weird,” says Jennifer S.
Jennifer S. thinks everything that isn’t in a mall is weird.
And so the legend goes, that he was a good man, peculiar, and not very good at explaining stories clearly. But see, this is the thing with legends. They are more detailed than myths, but not always more accurate.
So the telling goes, the young doctor of Isfahan was summoned to the palace of a great pasha. No one knows the details, so let’s imagine them. Maryam’s cousin—a merchant of rare furs—knocks on the doctor’s back gate. He has returned from the court of a Parsi king who worshipped the Hindu gods. In the bazaar, as he haggled, he saw a magistrate climb onto a mountain of rugs (despite the rug merchant’s protests) and shout over the crowd.
“The pasha—generous and merciful—”
At this point Jared S. interrupts. “Wait. Who’s the cousin?”
“I’m confused,” says Jennifer L.
“Can you make him do his reports on horses or normal stuff?” says Doug P.
“No,” says Mrs. Miller. “I would hope that everyone does the research assignment and writes a report on their actual family, Douglas.”
Doug P. made up a bunch of stuff about horses in case you didn’t figure it out.
Anyway, Jared says, “Is the cousin the same guy as before who wanted the poison?”
“No, that’s Maryam’s husband,” says Jessica, who is the best listener.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “None of these people are important. The only person to remember is Jamshid. The rest are just people for the story. The only part I know for sure is Jamshid.”
“Then get to the point,” says Jared.
The point was that the pasha’s daughter suffered a supernatural illness. Magistrates (like the pompous one in the bazaar who did not purchase a rug after all that) were sent to every city to find doctors to help her. And the cousin—doesn’t matter whose cousin—had the letter of invitation for the doctor of Isfahan, which he had promised to deliver in exchange for a meager fee.