Beast (17 page)

Meat.

The unbidden thought takes me by surprise. Self-loathing steals my breath.

I run for the woods, nausea rising in my throat.
Birds screech. A surprised wolf couple abandons a weasel carcass. I race by without thought, going nowhere, just running. If only I could shed this hateful body. If only I could flee this hateful self.

The land slopes uphill and I lope now, eventually slowing to a trot. I climb until the sun is directly overhead. From this vantage point I can see the land far, far in three directions. No homes. No roads.

I lie down and sleep.

That night I kill a doe. I drink her blood. I eat her hindquarters, then her forequarters, then her head. Only her skeleton remains. I bolted her down in a half hour. My abdomen swells.

After awhile I search for a cave, with no luck. So I sleep in the open. In the warm, gentle rain. The sun comes out, and I sleep all day.

When night comes, I wake. I'm not hungry; I won't be hungry for days. But I'm restless. I wander.

Thoughts come, at last, thoughts of the woman.

I made the man bring her to me — so I did this to myself. I assumed she was a child. What sort of grown woman asks for the gift of a rose from her father? A simple gift if desired by a child; a romantic gift if desired by a woman.

Something stirs in the bareheaded woman. Perhaps she's in love. Perhaps I've ripped her from her lover.

She doesn't smell of a lover, though. How I know
this, I cannot say, but I know it without doubt. Only the slightest twinge of embarrassment at that knowledge interrupts my appraisal of her.

Her face, though naked, isn't ugly. The coarseness of that nakedness shocked me at first. It shouldn't have. After all, I've seen so many women's faces since I left my true home. But the scarf on her head when she entered the castle, the way she walked right foot first, the whole of her demeanor, carried my soul back to sweetest Persia. For one enchanted moment I forgot who she was.

I forgot who I was.

If only she had really been a child, I'd have had a chance, perhaps. Children forgive. What else can they do? But a woman who has been torn from her family, no.

What an insane way to think. My gathering flour and sugar and nuts and candles—all of it was for naught. A castle in disrepair inhabited by a wild beast could never have made a proper home for a child, and it will never make a home for this woman. I am no longer the boy I was when the
pari
cursed me. Hardship has matured me beyond my years. How could I have allowed such self-deception?

This is the fact: A woman lives in my castle. And I thought of her as doelike. I must protect her from myself.

A woman. A bareheaded woman.

But she isn't crude. She simply doesn't know any better. Such is the custom of her people.

And her eyes. I cannot forget her eyes.

The castle is hers now.

My error has cost me dearly, for the castle offered me safety, and a place to retreat into hopeless hopes.

The sound of fast water attracts me. I trot through the woods swiftly. A high river, which I feel sure sinks to a trickle in autumn, like the Zaindeh Rud in my Persia. I dip a paw. The water is as cold as my moat in midwinter. Cold is not my favorite sensation. I wade in. It's deeper than I expected. At the center, I try to swim upstream. The fight stimulates me. I paddle harder, until I give up and let myself be carried downstream and to shore.

I climb onto the bank and sleep.

The next day I meander, in my slow, lion way. I am lion. Prince Orasmyn is no more. See my paws, the tuft on the end of my tail. I rip a gash in my thigh with one swipe of my claws, then I lick the blood. I am lion.

She is a human woman.

With all those qualities that women possess.

What qualities? The only woman I've ever known well is Mother.

This woman has courage. Her closing the door behind herself, smelling the roses, eating the almond—all
of it could have been resignation, that's true. But when she climbed the staircase, her eyes spoke courage. She is strong.

But what else do I know of her? Maybe she is not so desirable, after all. Perhaps she has green eyes — my nursemaid Ava would have called that a bad omen. Her head hair is long, just as it should be, it's true, but maybe she is hairy everywhere. After all, her eyebrows are thick. Ava said a bride's facial hair must be pulled out with a folded thread. And a bride must have no hair on her back at the time of marriage. A depilatory of lime and wood ashes and orpiment must be rubbed on her.

On the other hand, if she is hairy everywhere, she is more like a lioness.

And her eyes that stared up into the dark at the top of the staircase were wide set. Those eyes accepted both what they saw and what lay hidden, did they not? For she climbed the staircase. She climbed.

She has a lioness's eyes.

I am trotting. Though I'm not looking for landmarks, though I'm far beyond any landmarks I might recognize, I know I'm heading back to the castle.

At this pace, it takes all day to get home. But daylight lingers long, and I hear laughter from the castle grounds. Laughter.

I crawl through under the brambles.

She's laughing and running, her skirts flying, her sleeves pushed up to the elbow. My fox kit tags at her heels. They Ve made friends, the two of them, in just two days. She's calling,
“Bête, petite bête, ma chère bête”
—beast, small beast, my dear beast.

The fox has stolen her heart. In a flash, I understand. She thinks he's the beast—the ferocious beast that made her father quake. She's delighted with the surprise.

I lunge from the brambles, bite the fox in the hindquarters, and toss him high. He screams and lands with a slap. He whines pathetically.

The woman shrieks. She stands with both hands in her hair, her face full of horror. Tears stream down her cheeks. She shakes and shakes like a tree in an earthquake.

The fox is quiet now.

I cannot move. I have behaved more terribly than I ever could have imagined. I have behaved bestially. A
qadi
—an Islamic judge—would condemn me.

The only sounds are the woman's sobs. Her hands come down from her hair and now she hugs herself, rocking from the hips. Slowly, ever more slowly.

At last she stands still. Her hands drop and hang limp by her sides. The tears still fall, but her chest heaves less. She doesn't take her eyes from me, though they glitter with fear. She doesn't run.

I walk to the fox kit. He should be meat to me. The woman should be meat to me. I am lion.

The kit's breath comes hard. His eyes are open, but he doesn't seem to see anything. I did this.

The gash in his rump bleeds profusely. I lick it as softly as my tongue will allow. If only his backbone isn't broken. . . .

He mews.

The blood finally stops flowing. I lick his back now, his tiny, pointed head.

His eyes close. But his chest moves fast and rhythmically.

Little fox, I say inside my head. The part of me that knows you as more than meat, the being I was, that part is sorry. I press my nose against his soft belly.

“I didn't know,” says the woman, her words broken like bones. “I didn't know he belonged to you. Forgive me.”

I lie down beside the kit and stare at the woman. Is she trying to fool me into thinking she knows I am more than beast? And after this awful display?

She looks back at the house briefly, then turns to me with a small shudder. She pulls her sleeves down, smoothing them over her wrists, as though for modesty's sake. She kneels and comes forward, walking on her knees. “I am neither thief, nor seductress.” She sits back on her heels and lets her head fall forward
until her forehead touches the ground in a perfect
rakat.
She speaks to the earth: “Forgive me. For the love of God, forgive me.”

The mix of fear and sadness in her voice matches my heart. If she is duplicitous, she is skilled indeed. I force a puff of air through my lips.

She looks up, into my eyes. Then she comes forward on her knees again, until she reaches the fox kit. She pets it tenderly, her hand coming close to my paw. So close.

I want her to reach out for me.

I want to reach for her.

I jump up and back away. I scratch in the dirt, “You are brave.”

She gives a small gasp of amazement and stares at my words. “I don't have a choice.”

I wince. “And honest.” The tears still cling to her cheeks. Would that I could cry. “I, too, am sad.”

“I know. I hear it in your eyes.”

She listens to eyes, like my mother does.

My thoughts unravel. Confusion makes me wary. This is a stranger, not my mother, not anyone I understand, not anyone who understands me.

She gets to her feet and curtsies. “My name is Belle.”

Belle. The word sounds like the start of
belaq—
a sacred garden.

“And you?” she asks.

The image of Zanejadu replaces that of Belle. I'm startled, then fascinated. Lust rises within me, loosens my tongue. I want to answer her, to tell my whole story.

But a cold wind freezes the well in my heart. I shiver with clarity: The
pari
wanted me to tell all to this woman. I don't know why, but I'm sure of this. If I am to know this woman, it must be as the lion I have become, not as the prince I once was. Thanks be to the Merciful One, who rules the weather of the heart. “No questions,” I scratch in the dirt.

“But I have so many,” she says.

I walk away.

w
e fall into a routine quickly. I hunt in the predawn mist. Belle takes a rabbit thigh or half a quail breast and roasts it, leaving the rest of the raw carcass for Chou Chou, as she has named the fox kit, and for me, whom she has taken to calling Mon Ami — my friend — a wishful name, to be sure.

Chou Chou eats his portion on the floor, under Belle's table. I carry mine away to eat in the privacy of the woods.

Chou Chou doesn't seem to understand that I'm the one who caused his limp. He's not a sly fox, after all. He's a foolish, happy little thing. He tags at Belle's heels all day, then curls up against me at night. Despite his wobbly leg, he's learned to maneuver the staircase. The castle and its grounds form one giant, safe den. He's Belle's pet, my cub.

After breakfast Belle tends the vegetable garden. Though her very presence here is due to a request for roses, she has paid no attention to the rose garden, or any of the flowers. Instead, she demonstrates an entirely practical attitude about the things that grow from the earth. She plants all the seeds I bring her, and many yield already under her care. She eats lettuce and peas at noon, lentils and turnips at night. I never watch her eat, though I look carefully as she prepares her plate.

She bakes bread with minced onion and sorrel rolled into the dough. The smell makes my nose wrinkle with interest, but the first time she offered me a slice, I backed away. She doesn't realize a slice is nothing to my gullet; I could eat a loaf in one bite. And she doesn't seem to understand that exciting my palate carries danger—danger I never forget after my outburst against the fox kit.

Or she gives no hint of understanding.

Still, since then, she hasn't offered spiced bread.

But she also bakes small cakes with flour and sugar and dove eggs, from the dovecote. She drizzles honey on top and tucks almonds into the dough here and there. She puts them on a plate on the table, which I easily reach, standing on all fours. For Chou Chou she breaks off chunks and puts them on the floor. I wait until her back is turned, then I eat the cakes. Whole.

The last mistress of this castle must have been close to Belle's size, for Belle has appeared in a number of different frocks. Yesterday I caught her looking at herself in the mirror over her dressing table, turning to the side, as if to admire her profile. When she saw me, she flushed and shut the door in my face.

If she fears me, she gives no evidence. She never asks permission, never apologizes.

Indeed, Belle never talks to me except to say her name for me—Mon Ami—when I perform a task for her or when she offers a cake. Perhaps she interpreted my ban on questions as a ban on her speaking to me entirely. But she chatters to Chou Chou nonstop. I eavesdrop shamelessly, even though it makes me feel like a thief, for I am famished for spoken language. Belle talks about the sky and what weather she can read from it—though she's quite poor at forecasts. She talks about her vegetable garden. About the birds and butterflies that have come in profusion to the flower gardens. About all the details of the world around her. But never about anything else, anything that would reveal who she is. It's as though she exists only as a creature of this moment: without either memories or hopes.

She alternates between being cheerful and being diligent.

She is almost uninteresting.

Perhaps I am becoming a master of self-deceit, to think such a thing. When Belle is near, I cannot take my eyes from her. I know I am in a state of
muraquibah
—guarding. I never touch her, not even the slightest brush in passing. I do all I can to keep evil thoughts at bay.

I am searching my soul for other points of self-deceit as I return from the hunt this morning. It's easy to think now, for I'm not even winded. The kill was quick. Within minutes of my passing through the perimeter brambles, an old wolf practically leaped into my jaws. I drag the body to the front steps before the sun has fully risen.

Belle sits at the table writing. I've never seen her write before.

My ears stiffen, my body goes alert—as when I've sighted a prey. I pad to her side.

She turns with a start. In Belle's hand is a sharp piece of charcoal.

The book is Chinese. Tiny, carefully formed French script fills the generous margins. I read eagerly.

Belle slaps the book shut. “I pray this is not one of your favorite books.” She hesitates. “Mon Ami.”