miserably. He will wait for me, he said.
"No matter when you come, I'll be there."
As though magnetically attracted, my feet pull me toward the main square, but I slow them down. Kurosh. He makes the magic of the city somehow irresistible. The river yanks me back out of my dreams, and a smiling women's face looks like my own reflection. She greets me like an ally, and I say in passing, "Hi, how are you?"
Why is the Pole Khajou even more perfect today than before? Even the multilane road on the other side of the river no longer feels so uninviting. Happily I go back down the bank to the Sioseh Pol then up the Chahar Bagh. This part of Esfahan has become very familiar by now, and I hear my steps fall on the pavement as though they never knew another way.
In the courtyard of a former caravansary is a tea house, and I am now in the unusual mood to enjoy the tasteful luxury of the Abbasi Hotel currently occupying these ancient walls. The mirrors on the honeycomb-like ceiling show thousand times a cheerful woman in black on a red Persian carpet. And here, too, in these noble rooms, I feel at home. As though I were no longer a foreign occidental woman, a weary guest greets me with perfect Iranian courtesy like a good friend. Hand on his heart, he makes a hint of a small bow. It is the owner of the tea house under the Pole Jubi. Without his traditional tea house costume, he looks far more dignified. Esfahan, how will I ever be able to leave your bridges, walls and alleyways?

bridges, walls and alleyways? Why must the traveler's discovery of beauty always go hand in hand with the knowledge of impending parting. The painful moment will come in the end when the bus leaves the station, the road allows one last glimpse of the minaret or the great mosque and the warmth of wet tears fills the eyes. It is then that I see the picture of the oasis city left behind hanging in a gilt frame.The heralds of a multicolored sunset draw me to the great mosque.
"Haj chanum, the mosque is closing in a few minutes."
"Please let me in. I just want to take a few pictures. The light is so beautiful."
"Bashe chanum, very well. Knock on the gate when you want to get out. I'll wait here." The doorman takes a few steps with me, asks the other visitors to leave, then waves for me to follow him.
"Look, madam! Here are the famous text friezes by the calligrapher Ali Rezy al-Abbasi."
"What's written there?"
"Patronage details of the architect, Ali Akbar-i-Esfahani, and blessings for the builder, Shah Abbas I. It took 19 years to build this mosque. By your calendar, it was completed in 1630." Then he leaves me alone, and I sit on the narrow side of the great water basin in the mosque courtyard. Only a few visitors are still wandering through the house of worship. Two women have wrapped their chador tightly around their bodies, and are sitting in a domed corner. The water is clear, and not a breath of wind disturbs