Beast (21 page)

We have reached a delicate equilibrium.

At least until today. Today I'm grouchy with hunger. Belle took the rabbit I left her from this morning's hunt and gave none of it to me. None at all. She didn't give any to Chou Chou, either. But she at least gave the little fox chunks of stoat meat from yesterday's hunt. I got nothing.

So I've been wandering about the grounds, tense and twitchy. I could go off and easily kill myself another rabbit. But I don't want to leave. I'm afraid I'll miss out. Something's going to happen; Belle's planning something.

All afternoon she's been working on building a fire in the clearing at the site of her secret. Her pile of pine boughs keeps me from seeing what's going on, but I watched her carry fire logs and I've seen and smelled the curling smoke.

Now, though, there's another smell. Roasting meat. I sniff. It's rabbit. Belle's roasting this morning's rabbit outside. Why?

Belle comes out of the kitchen with three large bowls stacked together. Cabbage and peas sit in the top bowl. She heads for the clearing.

I block her path.

Belle laughs. “I was wondering when your curiosity would win.” She laughs again. “All right, Mon Ami, I have a present for you.” She puts the stack of bowls on the ground. “First, let's wash and pray.”

I'm full of questions, but Belle is already halfway to the moat. We perform the
wudhu
and pray.

After the last
rakat,
she skips ahead of me and picks up the bowls. “Come on.” Her smile excites me.

I follow her to the pine brush. She puts down the bowls and clears away the boughs.

A stone hearth holds a white fire with a rabbit roasting on a ledge halfway up.

Belle kneels and arranges the bowls in a row on the ground. “I know Chou Chou won't eat greens.” She looks up at me. “And I suspect you won't, either?” Her voice rises in a question.

I nod.

Belle smiles. “Chou Chou,” she calls, over her shoulder. She uses tongs to move the rabbit from the hearth to one of the bowls. Then she cuts off a leg and
puts it alone in a bowl. She places that bowl in front of Chou Chou, who has come running from his den.

Chou Chou sniffs warily at the cooked meat. He puts his nose to it and jumps back.

Belle laughs. “Let it cool down, little silly.” She cuts off a second leg and puts it on top of the greens.

Then she pushes the bowl that holds all the rest of the meat toward me.

I look from the bowl to Belle.

“Please, Mon Ami.” Belle sits back on her heels and folds her hands in her lap. “In this hearth I can cook any kind of animal you catch, any size.”

Cooked meat. It's been years since I've eaten cooked meat. I remember verse eighteen of book one of Rumi's
Masnavi:

State of the cooked is beyond the raw

The wise in silence gladly withdraw

Belle's instincts are good. But do I even like cooked meat anymore?

Belle's chest rises and falls in heavy breath. “We can enjoy meals together. Please.”

Meals together. Meals in which I rip meat with my fangs and crack bones to suck out marrow. This is what Belle wants to share?

“Together,” says Belle. “Like friends.” Her voice grows firm. “Like a family.”

Amazing thought. And verse twenty-one from Rumi's
Divan-e Shams
comes to me now:

O Shams-e Trabrizi, you

Compassionately blend and renew

East and west through and through

And so we say, may it be so

I am east and Belle is west. Can we be compassionately blended? Can we be family together?

Belle leans toward me. “You don't have to drag your meat into the woods. You don't have to eat behind my back. Please, Mon Ami. Let me help you.”

Let Belle help me.

I want to tell her I am the Prince of Persia. I want to say I need no help. I am not weak.

But I want to eat with her at this hearth. I scratch in the dirt, “Thank you.”

Belle smiles the most beautiful smile in the world.

I stretch my forepaws out on either side of the bowl and bite into the meat. It is good to eat cooked meat again. Good to eat with company.

We stay long by the heat of the hearth.

When Belle rises, I press my nose against her hand.

“What, Mon Ami?”

I lead her to the rose garden.

Belle stops at the border.

I take the hem of her skirt in my mouth and pull her forward.

Belle walks slowly. “It is beautiful, Mon Ami. I thought it was forbidden me, because you got so angry at Papa for taking roses. All this time I've wanted so much to walk here—to enjoy the simple pleasure of a rose.” She puts her face into clusters of blossoms over and over. She laughs.

I bask in the purity of Belle's laughter. For the first time since the
pari
cursed me, I am happy.

The next morning Belle comes downstairs in her original frock again. Immediately I know she wants to go to town. I wonder what she will sell, what she will buy. But as far as I can see, she goes empty-handed.

She rides me through the woods, and the whole way I am wondering what she will do in town. Her empty hands worry me.

At the same place as last time, Belle dismounts. She turns and walks away.

I hesitate, then run after her, out in the open, where any passing human might see me. I scratch in the dirt, “Will you come back?”

She says solemnly, “Let your heart tell you.” She leaves.

I go back to the woods and wait.

I don't want to wonder how to interpret her words. I want my heart to know. But my heart splutters.

My heart tells me I love Belle.

Crazy heart. I cannot listen to my heart.

Belle returns quickly, her face pinched. She gets on my back, and I feel the squeeze of her thighs. Her fingers dig into my mane.

I run, I run as fast as I can.

When we get to the castle, she slips off and rushes inside. She chops vegetables. Then she comes outside again, her face distracted. She walks swiftly through the flower garden that is all but past. Only the roses are still in form. She goes right to Chou Chou's den, but he's not there. The little fox strays more often and longer every day.

She twirls around and catches me following her.

I pause.

She comes to me. “I don't know what to do.” She falls to her knees.

I want to hold her, cradle her. Her sadness is dreadful. I sit on my haunches as close to her as I can get without pressing on her.

“I wrote to Papa. But he doesn't answer. I'm afraid for him. He isn't strong.” Belle sighs. “I want to visit him.” She looks at me with her wide lioness eyes.

I scratch in the dirt, “You miss that life.”

Belle shakes her head. “You read my diary. You
know my old life is not something to be missed.”

I scratch, “People.”

“Yes, I miss people. But not all people. It's Papa I love.”

I reach out to scratch the dirt again, but she catches my paw.

“I'll come back.”

I shake her hand off and scratch out, “3 weeks.” That's how long I gave her father. He did it; she can do it.

Belle nods.

We spend the rest of the day separate. I wonder how she will travel. I wonder what she will tell her father, her brothers, her sisters. I can't stand my worries. They don't suit my lion nature.

So I hunt.

I catch a beaver, of all things, a foolish youngster who somehow wandered too far from the pond. His top teeth cut bone-deep into my foreleg. I would eat him whole, but then I remember the hearth Belle built. I carry him home.

Chou Chou and Belle attend to me in their own ways, Belle swabbing the wound and pouring wine on it with an ironic little smile, happy to have found a use for the spirits, Chou Chou licking my face a thousand times. That night we eat beaver outside by the hearth. But Belle and I are not really together for the
meal —for we are both lost inside our heads. We don't read after dinner. We pray, then sleep.

I dream of hunting in the desert of my childhood, with so many
taziyan
—greyhounds. It is a strange dream, and I'm aware of its strangeness even as I dream it, for I never hunted in my youth. The thrill of this dream hunt makes me ache. The
taziyan
bark. I'm so excited, I could bark myself. But now the dogs are barking at me, they're running at me, teeth bared, eyes hot.

I wake, shaking, and wait for dawn.

In the morning Belle comes down with the cloth sack full. “I'd like to bring presents to my family.”

Her family. People. Chou Chou and I, we are not family, despite the hearth she built.

She mounts my back, but I don't know where to go. When she doesn't speak, I head for town.

At the usual spot, she dismounts. She bends to my ear and says,
“Je suis désolée”
—I'm sorry. She leaves without a backward glance.

I watch her go. Then I settle low to the ground to wait.

Within an hour, Belle appears on horseback, riding with the authority of someone who has ridden for years. She glances up toward the woods, toward where I lie hidden, but she doesn't wave. She gallops off.

T
wenty-one days are a long time. I knew that, from the last time I waited. But this time twenty-one has grown.

I pass the days in projects. I kill twenty-one ducks and set about plucking them with my teeth. Chou Chou thinks this is a strange and wonderful new game. I keep moving my body between him and the pile of ducks, to keep him from ruining my plans, but though his lame leg slows him down, his persistence is remarkably effective. Finally, in defeat, I give him a duck for himself. He runs around the castle, battering the thing against the legs of chairs and tables, shaking his head and sneezing as the fluff flies. He growls and drops the duck and runs away and then comes racing back to pounce on it fiercely. I imagine Belle's laughter if she could see him.

The feathers and down from the other twenty ducks sit in a corner of Belle's room, waiting for her to make a fine new quilt so shell be warm in the coming damp of winter. The duck bodies hang in the smokehouse, gradually turning dark. I feed the fire with green wood several times a day. The smoke stings my eyes and makes me cough. But Belle and I will be able to enjoy these together in the winter, when it's too cold to eat by the outside hearth.

I gather wood, dragging fallen trees from the forest up to the castle into a ramshackle pile. Chou Chou naturally decides this is his mountain, and he climbs to the top and yaps. Every time I toss another branch on the pile, he jumps off and runs for cover. But within moments he returns and resumes his spot of royalty.

Some branches crack easily in my jaws, so I can make their length match the fireplace. The larger ones have to lie in wait for Belle to use the ax on them. I don't know if she can swing an ax, though the way she rode that horse makes me think she can do many things I haven't guessed. But just in case, I gather a huge amount of smaller branches.

The best thing I do, though, is prepare the garden. Belle loves fresh fruits; I watched her eat cherries and raspberries with closed eyes. For some odd reason, with the exception of figs, the castle lacks fruit trees. So I'm making a mixed orchard by taking young trees
from orchards nearby. Morello cherries and medlars, sour apples, pears, peaches, apricots. I even plant lemons and oranges from farms along the east coast. I don't know if they can all grow side by side, but I place the lemons and oranges on the southeast corner of the orchard, to give them the best chance. I long for banana trees and date palms, like at home, in Persia. But I haven't found any here.

Laying out the orchard is a welcome diversion. The garden is symmetrical around a central area. In the spring I will dig a small pool there and line it with stones. But, for now, Belle will have to imagine the water.

The orchard takes over much of the land nearest the castle, so I have to replant the flower gardens. But that's a joy in itself, for I remember colors vividly. I plant anemone around the bases of apricots; marigolds around the bases of pears; larkspur around the bases of sour apples. I scatter bluebells everywhere. And I make paths going out in spokes from the central area, paths lined with rosebushes.

It is not a grand garden. It is nothing compared to the scale of the gardens at my palaces in Persia. But it has charm. The colors will blend. The aromas will blend. And the fruit will satisfy. Belle will be happy here.

I work feverishly for these three weeks, proud to
have so much in place by the day of her return.

That night I open all the windows and let the smell of jasmine wet the air. I sit on my haunches on the front step and wait.

Night grows deep fast. There's a slight chill. Belle shouldn't travel alone in such darkness.

She doesn't come.

Hours pass, and she doesn't come.

That's good. She's spending the night somewhere safe.

It's morning, and she'll come now. Just one day late.

But she doesn't.

She doesn't come all day. All night.

Now she's two days late.

I'm thirsty. I haven't moved since the night Belle was due back. I go to the moat and drink. I perform the
wudhu
and pray. Then I return to the step and wait, sitting on my haunches, ready.

Days pass. Nights pass.

It rains on and off.

I don't eat, I don't drink. I drift in and out of sleep, always on my haunches. Thought is often absent, and, when it comes, it yields easily to delirium.

Chou Chou jumps at me and tries to get me to play. He whines. I know he's not suffering — for he eats his share of moles and mice. But he won't stop pestering me.

I snarl.

Chou Chou screams and runs behind a bush. After a long while, he peeks out.

And now I realize: Chou Chou does know that I attacked him that time. He knows. And he forgave me.