A year had passed since Khanom Jan’s death when they decided to look into her chest. They were curious to know what she had hidden inside, always wearing the key to its lock around her neck. When the chest was opened, they found nothing but a pair of shoes and a fabric doll. Only Fakhr ol-Molouk knew the secret of those shoes. Every time Khanom Jan passed by the cobbler’s shop in the market, she would involuntarily gaze at the display, hoping to find something similar and look at it with longing. The red patent leather shoes with their delicate high heels took Fakhr ol-Molouk back to her memories of being four years old when those red shoes were the only color among her gray recollections.
That gray day was when the family was invited to a relative’s wedding. According to tradition, the women’s celebration was on an afternoon in late autumn. Khanom Jan dressed Fakhr ol-Molouk in a white muslin dress she had sewn herself, and under her floral chador, she wore a newly bought pleated skirt and a loose white coat. Despite still having two weeks left before giving birth, she squeezed her swollen feet into the red high-heeled shoes and they headed to the wedding. The walk to the wedding house wasn’t far. Apart from the main streets which were paved, the rest of the alleys were either dirt or sporadically cobblestone.
A few alleys from the wedding house, the heel of Khanom Jan’s shoe got caught in a cobblestone groove, and both she and Fakhr ol-Molouk fell, hand in hand. They struggled to reach the celebration. Khanom Jan instructed Fakhr ol-Molouk not to elaborate on the incident when Aghajan arrived for the dinner feast. Fakhr ol-Molouk was thrilled that after the feast, Aghajan would hold the mirror and candelabra and lead the procession carrying the bride’s trousseau from the groom’s father’s house to the bride’s father’s house, swaying to the beat of Mrs. Maqbool Khanom’s drum.
However, Khanom Jan hid the increasing pain in her lower abdomen from Aghajan, fearing it would ruin everyone’s joy, and she painfully dragged herself along with the crowd. She concealed her pain until morning, but before Aghajan left for work, her pain became unbearable and she cried out. Aghajan rushed to fetch Kolsoom Mama, the midwife. Kolsoom saw no other option but to deliver the baby to save the mother. Aghajan’s anxiety turned to rage when the news came that the newborn had not survived. His anger exploded upon the shoes, and while cursing the host of the wedding in the middle of the courtyard, he sawed off the heels of the shoes.