Persian Rug
Giselle Cory
1
Mum was surprised when I said I would take it. I’d declined my grandmother’s chunky gold necklaces and put my mother-in-law’s hardwood bureau into storage. But the rug was different.
2
Our family has seen loses and gains within each generation. Impermanence runs through. They fled war - and yet the rug remains. I struggle to weave together a story that involves the immediacy of exile and the pragmatism of shipping and customs.
They say it takes four generations to heal one act of violence. I am the third.
3
The angular grey sofa covers one corner, the worn dog basket another. The rug is too big for the room - we don’t live like they lived, having lost a social class or two across borders - but its clay-reds and Azure-blues, its geometric flowers make me feel calm. They remind me other moments have been and other moments will come.
4
Weaving Persian rugs is a practice older than Christianity. It began as a way to offer insulation and protection to nomadic tribes.
5
I haven’t seen my grandmother since I was a toddler and she was about to die in her sleep. But I see her now, her thin body too small for the deep sofa.
“Your grandfather brought it home one day.” She tilts her chin at the rug. “I wouldn’t have chosen it, too… ostentatious.” I have only ever seen one photo of her before she was an old woman, her thick brown hair in Victory Rolls. A skew smile suggests she knows things that you don’t know she knows.
“Do you like it though?”
“It’s fine. You’ve let it rip.” She nods at the tear we tried to hide under the sofa. “But you, my love - are you married?”
The robotic hoover whirs and moves off it’s base. My grandmother disappears.
6
In Feng Shui, rugs ground a space. The blue tones relate to water and money, the red to fire and passion, the browns, safety. I grip the rug under my toes.
7
I don’t live like they did. I don’t speak the language, or cook the signature dishes. I don’t go to church. Each individual change was on purpose, yet the combined loss was by accident. The rug offers me a route in or back, whilst not demanding we stay the same. It is the literal foundation onto which we layer our life.
8
Aladdin on his carpet, his getaway vehicle of choice. Am I a caricature? This is why identity is impossible: every thread is made into something else.
9
I visit a friend in Rabat. On the last day of the trip, we visit the man who runs the carpet shop in the market. He pulls rugs from stacks taller than himself. I want to invest in something timeless but I don’t have the money. I choose what I can afford: two small, plain rugs, one orange, one yellow. But they feel good against my fingertips, something born out of my own choosing.
