Scent of Butterflies (13 page)

“Suddenly I saw a bright path, as if illuminated by hundreds of candles. But I was being sucked into a sand tunnel and couldn't move, so I gestured to your father and husband to lead you toward that illuminated path. But they gaped at me with glazed eyes and toothless mouths, never reacting, not even when the earth roared and yawned and swallowed every single one of you.

“Do you understand the significance of this dream? What it means is that I can't help you, and no one else will if you won't help yourself. Not a word!
Divar
moush
dareh
moush
ham
goush
dareh
.” She reminded me that walls have mice and mice have ears. “And, Soraya, one day you and Aziz will leave Iran. I am certain. I see it as clearly as my own tears. So swear on my life, Soraya, that when the time comes you'll go to a place where you'll learn to love the sky and the plants it feeds. Stay away from wet, cloudy climates. They have a way of getting under your skin and rotting you before your time.”

Unwilling to argue further with my beloved mentor, the source of encouragement in my life, I promised Mamabozorg I would follow her advice and never set foot in Britain, the country she refused to forgive for having exiled her beloved Reza Shah.

“One more thing, my child, at your age, you must be done idolizing your father. Sever the umbilical cord.” With an impatient wave of her hand, she stopped me from asking how it was possible to end a devotion that seemed older than myself, and why she called it idolization when my idol was my father, who deeply loved and cared for me.

She rubbed her amber beads between palms that had stroked resistant gems and velvet petals. Lifting the necklace over her head, she curled it once around her wrist and smelled the spicy scent of the beads that evoked her past. She ordered me to kneel in front of her and draped the necklace around my neck. “Reza Shah gave it to me. I want you to have it.”

I hurriedly removed the necklace. Like giant drops of honey, the beads coiled in my palms. “I can't accept, Mamabozorg. It means too much to you.” I could not endure the weight of her memories.

“Take it! I'm done with the past.”

She held my face between her hands, her once brilliantly green eyes dulled, yet full of the pleasure of seeing me. “Listen to me, Soraya, listen well. You might not know that a tiny mosquito can kill an elephant, but it can. If a mosquito finds its way into an elephant's ear and starts buzzing, to get rid of it the elephant will hit its head so hard and so often against a stone that it will eventually smash its skull and die.”

“Why are you telling me this, Mamabozorg
jan
?”

“Because I want you to be watchful of petty betrayals before they become insurmountable miseries.”

“You've always been my cynic, Mamabozorg.”

“No,” she sighed, stroking the owl in her lap. “I'm your
Morgheh
Hagh
, your Bird of Reason. Now go. I'm tired.”

***

On the day of her eightieth birthday, Mamabozorg Emerald, the matriarch and framework of my family, informed us that she had had enough of the petty familial revolutions in her own house and more than enough of the not-so-petty religio-political revolutions in the streets.

She summoned Mashti Gholdor, the famous blacksmith who catered to upscale mansions in Shemiran, north of Tehran.

Mashti the Bully entered the Alley of
Mullah
Sadra and marched toward Mamabozorg's mansion as if he were a one-man army coming to single-handedly fight off a squadron of enemies. The length of his bare arms and bulging biceps were tattooed with images from the great poet Ferdowsi's mythical
Epic
of
Kings
—Shah Kaiumars clad in tiger skins and seated on the Persian throne; the combat of Rostam and Sohrab that tragically ended in death because father and son were unaware of their familial ties; the seven knights of Turan wrestling with the valiant Rakush.

Mashti Gholdor came to a halt in front of Mamabozorg's gate, removed the decorative chains around his neck, and dropped them with a big clang at his feet. He turned to the neighborhood, cupped his mouth with his enormous hands, and bellowed, “Ohoy! Hear me, one and all! Ohoy! From now on, no one will step past this threshold without my permission. No one will disturb the respected
Khanom
!”

He worked day and night to raise a towering iron fence around the perimeter of my grandmother's mansion. On the seventh day, with much huffing and puffing and exaggerated petitioning of Allah and Akbar, he produced a massive, copper padlock to secure the gate. On a plaque that dangled with a chain from the padlock was engraved:

There is nothing more I wish to see.

Mamabozorg allowed no one in and out of the mansion except Asghar, the night watch, who was also her confidant and gardener, and Fatemeh, who had helped Mamabozorg raise her son.

She became a recluse in her own home.

Once Baba had silently mourned his loss and was ready to broach the subject, he said that he understood why his mother had exiled herself into the safe haven of her home. In her lifetime, she had experienced major political upheavals, wars, and revolutions: the 1941 invasion of Iran by Britain and the Soviets; the nationalist revolt of 1953; and the most enduring one, the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The last one, Baba was certain, had crumbled his mother's hopes and memories to such tiny slivers that she didn't even attempt to collect the shreds.

I, on the other hand, believed that a more profound incident must have caused Mamabozorg's abrupt retreat. I also knew that she would not easily divulge her secret to me or to anyone else. But I assumed that she would make an exception in my case and allow me to visit her. I was wrong. She refused my repeated pleas. Even when I sent word through her gardener that I was in a predicament and in dire need of guidance, she would not unlock her gates to me.

My world fell apart in her absence.

Mamabozorg withdrew and Butterfly emerged.

The plant has changed in the last day and a half. The lavender stem has turned a lewd purple, a shade darker than liver. The leaf that hugs the stem is now a glassy, almost transparent green. The stem is like fire, the engulfing veined leaf the hue of pistachio ice. And something else! Two centimeters below the tip, on the left, a fleshy knoblike growth that resembles a strange fruit. But in none of the books I've read, nor in my extensive research, is it mentioned that the Amorphophallus might bear fruit the color of clouds with a peculiar smell. Not quite unpleasant, nor inviting, but suggestive of concoctions Butterfly once steeped.

My dear friend, Butterfly, with lips like blood and vampire fingernails.

Not yet fifteen, she substituted her taffeta skirts for ankle-length dresses, toned down the kohl eyeliner, applied lip gloss in place of red lipstick, ironed her curls straight, and braided her hair into a thick plait tossed over one shoulder like a cobra.

Even now, miles from home, I recall with great clarity the afternoon she came to our house after school to complain to Baba about Aunt Tala. His face a mask of rage, he summoned our chauffeur and ordered him to drive through the hectic streets of Tehran and straight into the dirt road alley. The car came into a noisy halt in front of Butterfly's mustard-colored brick house, with its wide-open door and depressingly gray laundry limp on balcony railings.

The immigrant prostitute from a Communist country, who occupied the first floor, was leaning against the doorframe that day. She wore a camisole, green satin pants, and silver slippers. Two golden braids framed her chubby, yogurt-pale face. Numerous wrinkled shar-pei puppies yelped and skipped between her legs. She curled an inviting forefinger at Baba and, finding him unreceptive, shrugged her shoulders and winked at a man who happened to exit the Saraf Bakery next door.

More than once, fights had broken out between one man and another, each insisting that the lady's soliciting finger and flirtatious lashes were meant for him. More than once, sharp switchblades or broken bottles of
arragh
vodka were used as weapons aimed at an artery, and more than once the knives or bottles had been hurled at the bakery windows, scattering shreds of glass, cookies, blood, and guts onto the sidewalk.

Years later, during the first months of the revolution, Butterfly's neighbor was among the first of many prostitutes who faced the firing squad of Khalkhali, a
mullah
known for his sadistic delight in strangling cats.

That afternoon, Baba marched past the prostitute, straight up the stairs, and into Butterfly's home. He let loose his baritone into the small apartment, calling out, “Tala! Tala!” as if he was a general on his way to punish a petty officer.

Aunt Tala came running out of her bedroom, her black jersey dress and bat sleeves twisting like poisonous snakes around her skeletal frame.

Baba thrust his hands under her armpits and lifted her off the ground, dangling her in the air like an emaciated scarecrow hanging from the gallows. “As of this moment you'll have a pot of food simmering on the stove when Parvaneh comes home from school. Do you hear me! I will weigh her myself in two weeks, and if she doesn't gain three kilos, you'll be responsible for your own blood.”

I felt a twitch of jealousy that day, and again sometime later, when Baba took time off from work to invite us to Saraf Bakery after school. Even now, in my house in America, I can taste the bleached cardamom cookies and golden
guitty
pastries laced with saffron and pistachio and the glistening, honey-soaked baklava perfumed with rosewater. I am still able to summon the smooth, voluptuous taste of
naneh
khamei
, pastry shells pregnant with fresh cream from the milk of goats that fed on clover pastures.

Butterfly looked forward to the visits to the bakery. Baba enjoyed them, too. He felt useful and needed. And Butterfly, who seldom benefited from fatherly advice, was hungry to learn and please. Baba discussed the
vazifeh
duties of a wife, the importance of being independent, yet appearing vulnerable, so our future husbands would presume they wore the pants around the house, even if the reality was otherwise. “Voice your opinions, by all means. But present them in a diplomatic way so your husband ends up believing the idea is his.”

The day after Butterfly received her high school diploma, she married Hamid, Aziz's good friend and partner in the import and distribution of pharmaceutical products.

Hamid was of medium height, but the resonant timbre of his voice and the way he carried himself made him seem taller than he was. Like me, he must have had foreign genes in his far past. He had light, chestnut-colored hair and mischievous hazel eyes. Unlike most Iranian men, Hamid found it unfair that women were not allowed to date like men.

He also did not believe in outdated customs that demanded girls to remain virgins until their wedding night, when men were not held to the same standards. He did end up marrying a virgin, however, because Butterfly did not have the backbone to defy her aunt and toss away that ridiculous nuptial piece of framed cloth signed by an ignorant rabbi.

On her wedding, Baba played the role of Butterfly's father, who by then was far gone, hopelessly lost in his own labyrinthine void and incapable of giving his daughter away. Aziz was the best man. He suggested that the wedding ceremony be held in his house, which, with my help, no longer resembled a bachelor's den.

My parents took care of Butterfly's dowry. Madar, who had volunteered to oversee the wedding party coordinators, went to work with a passion and interest in detail that she had not yet lost.

That night, creamy roses and snowy baby's breath spilled over Baccarat vases. Marble consoles were set with caramelized almonds and dates rolled in coconut; mounds of rock sugar and cones of sugar were displayed for good luck. I decorated a six-tiered Napoleon cake with edible chrysanthemums, daffodils, bachelor's buttons, and carnations.

More than two thousand identical, peach-colored rosebuds had been flown in from Holland and strewn on the table that displayed the bridal gifts. A set of antique candelabra with burnished cherubs held up marbleized candles. Ten obsidian marble slaves carried an antique clock. An ancient mirror that had lost its mercury to time was framed in bronze encrusted with agate, opal, and turquoise.

Two sets of enamel combs, brushes, hand mirrors, and other toiletries were on view in royal blue velvet boxes. A watch for the groom; emerald earrings, necklace, and bracelet for the bride. An antique trunk brimmed with evening gowns, satin slippers, and silk underwear. And, on a separate table, silver vases held sugared candies for each guest to take home as a memento. Madar had outdone herself.

Butterfly appeared in a swirl of white gauze and the rustle of shantung skirts, red lips and dark-lashed eyes gleaming behind layered veils. My father, in black tuxedo and wide satin cummerbund, ushered Butterfly in with pride, a pair of gloves in one of his hands and the other holding her elbow. Aunt Tala followed, hanging on to Butterfly's father and hardly able to keep him at bay. Having given up her funereal dresses for the occasion, she sported a multi-tiered, crushed velvet skirt and green taffeta blouse that gave her the air of a puffed-up parrot. She was visibly overjoyed that she would, at last, be left alone with her older brother, who could hardly differentiate between day and night, let alone meddle in her suspicious visits to the Synagogue of Rabbi Eshagh the Henna Beard, with whom she had forged a romantic liaison.

To the joyous tune of “Congratulations, My Beloved,” the wedding guests rose as one. Applause echoed around the house. Women tossed sugared candies in the air and ululated in an ancient cry of joy.

Musicians tuned their instruments. Waiters ceased serving and, silver trays in hand, retreated to the perimeters. Ladies gathered their skirts and stepped closer to surround the bride. A faint scent of roast lamb and saffron rice wafted into the salon. The crash of plates could be heard from the kitchen.

Baba lifted Butterfly's veils and kissed her on both cheeks, smoothing her veils back over her tiara before stepping back to relinquish her to her future husband.

Hamid carried her in his arms to a sofa upholstered with a fabric woven with the design of tulips. At the time, we were still dazed from the unexpected fall of the Shah and the rise of Khomeini and his cronies, so the sight of the tulips that
mullahs
believed grew from the blood of martyrs brought the acrid smell of death into my throat.

Hamid came down on one knee in front of his radiant bride, who was holding court in a cloud of Chanel perfume and crowded by blood-of-martyr tulip prints. He snapped open a satin box. A ten-carat diamond solitaire reflected stars on her tiara, surely exceptional by anyone's standards, let alone Butterfly's.

Her eyes shifted, dismissing her wedding ring and her future husband at her feet, and wandered in pursuit of another.

Click!

What I captured in that frame should have warned me.