The Diamond That Would Not Sit Still
Purple, three fingers deep,
a red diamond set in it like a coal,
and orange licking at the edges
where she could not leave it alone.
The Zayan are the Beni M'Guild's neighbours and cousins around Khenifra, and they weave the same deep wool, but they weave it hotter. This rug is purple, thick and dense, and set into it is a great diamond in red with orange flaring at its points, and around that a second ring of diamonds, and around that the small bright marks the weaver added because the design kept asking for more. It is a rug with a pulse. It was made around 1980 for cold nights and it would warm a room with the heating off.
Forty years have mellowed the purple to aubergine and left the red exactly as red. The pile is three centimetres and springs back under the foot. It wants a room with a dark wall or a dark sofa, something for the red to answer, and it will make that room the one everyone drifts into.
Handwoven rugs grow in beauty, memory, and value with every passing year.