Scent of Butterflies (7 page)

I buzz the guesthouse intercom to call Mansour, the Iranian chauffeur I hired. He has no relatives in California and is to be at my beck and call at all hours.

Mansour arrives, wearing his brown uniform and holding his cap deferentially, pleased that I've decided to leave the house at last. His combed-back hair is wet, but as it dries, the curls spring back into the tight coils he can't tame with strong-smelling pomades. A badly healed scar runs down the length of his left cheek, digging into his upper lip and giving his weather-beaten face the lopsided look of a felon who flaunts his injury with pride.

The scar is the result of a knife brawl, I am certain, to protect his
namous
, his honor, his woman. Knife fights are part of daily life in the streets of Tehran. An innocent look at Mansour's wife, sister, or mother could have provoked him to go for the jugular.

“Where to,
Khanom
?” he asks, tucking his hat under his arm.

“Take me to a secluded place nearby.”

I do not tell Mansour that I am going hunting. Hunting for men I will trap in the lens of my camera. Collect their photographs. Do with them what I want.

“Franklin Canyon is nearby,
Khanom
, a fifteen-minute drive.”

We ride to the Santa Monica Mountains and Franklin Canyon, up North Beverly Drive, and higher still around the winding road that leads to the canyon. From afar, the panorama seems lush and content, but as we get closer, trees and bushes turn the shade of mud. Los Angeles is thirsty.

Mamabozorg was right. The trilling of birds sounds better from afar.

Mansour parks the car on Lake Drive and opens the door for me.

“Pick me up in an hour, Mansour.”

“I beg you,
Khanom
, don't go up there alone. It's dangerous. A woman was murdered here.”

“Go run your errands, Mansour. I know how to take care of myself.”

“
Bebakhshid
pardon me, I am the dust beneath your feet. All types of criminals prowl these hills.”

I shoulder my camera and tripod. Turn my back to Mansour to conceal my smile. He has no inkling that I am the one who is on the prowl.

I leave Lake Drive behind and walk around the pond and up the canyon, my ears tuned to the sound of footsteps.

Ducks sail on the pond. Bullfrogs honk like war trumpeters. I am saddened by the sight of two herons that huddle on a moss-covered plank, content in their togetherness. Long-lashed deer eyes flicker among bushes, the slight tremble of a blue jay's wings among thirst-mottled leaves. The
tap, tap
of a walking stick echoes in the surrounding hills. A man? I isolate details of nature through the viewfinder, observe the world with sharpened eyes—flight of a crow, scampering of a pair of squirrels, rattling of snakes.

A couple strolls toward me. They hold hands. The woman's pale eyes and arched eyebrows glitter in the sunlight. She raises the man's hand to her red mouth and holds it there, white marks visible on the back of her hand where he must have squeezed too hard. The language of his hand is repulsive to me, this soliciting attention, only to reject. Yet her eyes continue to lick him with adoring glances.

Butterfly, too, must have melted like sticky syrup all over my husband.

The woman guides the man's hand toward her belly. She is pregnant. Their shared smiles send my stomach heaving, and for an instant, I envision myself carrying Aziz's child. I quickly turn away.

Swiveling my camera around the hills, I search for my prey.

None to be found.

I point my camera toward the far bank of the pond, toward a narrow bend, zoom in on strong, masculine legs. A man is jogging around the pond. A pulse jumps in my neck. I tighten my grip around the camera.

A quick calculation of the width of the pond, the distance that separates us, and I conclude that if he maintains his pace, while I slightly add to mine without raising his suspicion, we will come face to face in less than five minutes.

I hold him in my gaze, slink forward, soft-footed and determined, the scent of fresh possibilities propelling me forward.

He suddenly stops, bends to pull up one sock, and then resumes his trot toward a bench ahead. He stretches one leg, then another on the bench, his T-shirt rippling against his muscled back.

I circle the pond and move closer, closer to this man, my prey, frame his profile within the world of my camera. Bring his features into focus: sharp cheekbones, strong chin, tamed-back hair. The similarity of his mouth to my husband's is startling, the plump outline and defiant lower lip.

Aziz is an excellent photographic subject. At different times and places, I would fall in love again and again with the Aziz framed in my viewfinder. Take pleasure in focusing on the fine pores across his warm skin, the masculine shadow of his well-shaven beard, the strong folds of his mouth, the beads of perspiration on the bridge of his nose.

I position the tripod next to me and squat into picture-taking position. A bee buzzes across my ear. I slap it off and inadvertently push on the shutter release.

Click!

He turns around. The corners of his eyes crinkle like caterpillar antennas. His drooping eyelids intensify the shock of his stare, which is as direct and bold as the four-eyed Peacock butterfly.

The man in my viewfinder narrows his eyes into slits. He takes one threatening step toward me. Another ten steps and he will easily circle his hands around my neck and squeeze.

Still, I remain where I am, too close to this stranger, to his privileged aloneness. I like this, like it very much, this capturing of his bold image in my zoom lens. And I am not about to shy away. Not now that he alone exists in the freeze-frame of the moment.

I manipulate the shutter into frenzy, shoot off frame after frame—tapered fingers, arrogant cheeks, determined mouth.

Click!

He pounces ahead with five long strides. His bared teeth flash in the sunlight. With an angry shove, he pushes my camera away. “How about I pose for you,” he says, sarcasm dripping from his voice.

“Oh! No!” I croon, every muscle on the alert. “Don't change a thing. You are perfection.”

The voice is a valuable weapon, Mamabozorg taught me. Use the pitch, tenor, mood, and tone to disarm, befriend, humble, or to simply assert yourself. How right she was. And never forget, Soraya, Mamabozorg reminds, at times, silence, dark and deep and mysterious, can be far more effective than words.

The silent eye of my camera is focused between his thighs, this man who will forever live in my collection, allowing him ample time to savor my attention before the lens zeros back in on his face. I feel seen, even recognized, as if Aziz's gaze is bent on excavating my every last secret. I become deaf to all surrounding noises and scents but to the thumping in the man's chest, the insistent beat of the artery at the crook of his neck, because Aziz, loud and demanding, occupies my mind and body as my viewfinder continues to tease and kiss and caress this stranger.

I lower my camera at last, press four fingers to my lips, and send him an aerial kiss. “Thank you, my David! My Adam! You are an artist's dream.”

His head slightly tilted, he assesses me with a measure of arrogance and curiosity.

“Sorry I interrupted your workout,” I murmur shyly. “I couldn't resist.”

His features open up and soften into an imperceptible smile. He is ripe to tumble like a fish into my net, yes he certainly is. And I am hungry to have my share before tossing him back into the deep.

Mounting my camera on the tripod, I switch on the self-timer and go to stand next to him. I throw my arm around his neck. Rest my head on his shoulder as if we are longtime lovers.

His arm tightens around my waist, squeezing too hard. My eyes half-closed, my smile flirtatious, I spread my net wider.

Click!

I touch my forefinger on my mouth, then press it to his. “What an amazing model!”

He introduces himself, holding my hand in his. “I live close by. Free?”

Just like that! Free? As if mine is a world of choices, as if I am free to decide how to pass this night and the others and yet others that will inevitably follow.

“Depends,” I reply.

“On what?” he asks.

“On you,” I say, folding the tripod and placing my camera in its case.

I cock my head and hold him in my gaze as he struts his muscles as if he is a slave being displayed for sale in a public
souk
market, and I am the buyer.

My gaze travels the length of his body, assessing, with seemingly detached interest, the merchandise presented to me. I like what I see; I certainly do. Can't imagine a more appetizing morsel.

I throw my shoulders up and turn my back to him.

The sweet taste of triumph in my mouth, I circle the pond, past the ducks and the love-struck herons, climb up the wooden steps, take the dirt road to the car, and order Mansour to drive back home.

I pull up a chair and sit at the table in my drawing room, gather my butterfly net in the center, lean back, and observe an Emerald Swallowtail that accidentally fluttered into my net and, in so doing, robbed me of the pleasure of the hunt. The terrified butterfly trembles and quivers and flaps, unrolling its coil into a tube as if searching to suck upon any available drop of fluid in my net.

I breed these butterflies in the humid warmth of the atrium. Collect eggs in small containers, check them every morning for hatched caterpillars, and then transfer them to lidded jars to keep them from wandering about and devouring the Amorphophallus. If allowed, the mean creatures will embark on cannibalism, the larger ones feasting on the smaller caterpillars.

The fleeting life cycles, habits, and preferences of butterflies as they metamorphose from egg to caterpillar to chrysalis to winged adult fascinate me. The larva matures, attaches like
sirishom
glue to the firm support of a leaf or stem before changing to naked pupa or chrysalis. This is all a butterfly's life amounts to. Evolving from egg to worm to adult, with nothing better to do than obsess over a quick sip of nectar so as to get on with the senseless frenzy of mating.

Not much different from the friend I once knew who became a rebellious teenager, as if it was a prerequisite to casting off her skin, a necessary stage before she metamorphosed into the seducer she became, banishing me to a foreign continent.

“Those foreigners!” Mamabozorg had spat out one day. “Here they go again. Meddling in our affairs.”

Mamabozorg's declaration had embedded itself in my two-year-old brain, continuing to change form over the next thirty-three years, igniting a spark of suspicion now and then—sometimes justified, often not—making me wonder, even today, whether “those foreign elements”
did
meddle too much in our internal politics. Years later, older and able to better understand how her past bled into her present, I asked Mamabozorg what had upset her that day in 1966.

“Soraya, I still cannot get over the insult. My ears still turn red with shame when I remember that our own Queen Farah commissioned Van Cleef & Arpels to make her coronation crown. Not only that, but Reza Shah's sisters and daughters had the audacity to follow suit. Such insult! An upward spit that landed on our own faces. The Imperial family ignored our own wonderful jewelers and handed the honor to foreigners. Traitors! Reza Shah's bones must have rattled in his grave. Yes, his own flesh and blood acted like traitors! As if a plague had wiped out all of our own jewelers, Reza Shah's son opened the doors to our National Treasury to a French
maison
.”

Pierre Arpels spent days in the basement of the Central Bank of Iran, where the national jewels were housed during Mohammad Reza Shah's reign. Since the precious jewels were not allowed to leave Iran, a workshop was set up for the jeweler, his designer, and foreman in the National Treasury room, where they worked under heavy security for six months. The result was a crown of unprecedented beauty that boasted a stunning emerald weighing 4.3 pounds.

I check the Emerald Swallowtail in my net. She must be female. Her abdomen is visibly larger than any male's, in order to store the great amount of fluids she suckles during her lifetime. And down under, shadowed by the gray-bordered, emerald velvet of her wings, her sex protrudes from the end of her abdomen like a clasp. To better imprison the male in her grip. The males of the species have their own wiles, too. A certain type collects nectar with which it blends a perfume it hides in the pockets of its legs to attract females. Another type, a breed of male Clearwings, passes bitter alkaloids to females during mating to render the female repugnant to other males.

Aziz carries his smell of sandalwood, smoke, and power in full view and with no apologies. I fell in love with his base notes first, the initial scents that tickled my nose and warmed my lungs. Later, I got drunk on his top notes of passion, sweat, and sperm.

—
Jounam
, you are better at detecting smells than any reputable “nose”—

That I certainly am. Unlike experts, I don't have to go through a series of complicated rituals to detect the characteristics of a scent, the base notes and top notes, lock myself in dark rooms, or blow my nose clean, pinch my nostrils, sprinkle a handkerchief with perfume, and wave it in the air to bring out its gaseous state. No! I don't need any of these rituals to detect that live butterflies smell different from dead ones. Still alive and active, like the one trembling in my net, they give off the odor of predators, acidic and pungent, similar to the stench of Butterfly's Chanel No. 5.

Reaching into the net, I tenderly rub the butterfly's fuzzy warmth, caress the throbbing underbelly, stroke the quivering antennae. My forefinger crawls up to tease the erogenous spot on top of her head, the spot the aroused male fondles with his antennae.

And then gently. With the slightest of pressure. I squeeze the thorax.

Scarcely dead and still supple to my touch, she begins to give off the smell of public baths, humid and cloying and a bit dirty. And now, just this instant, limp and rendered harmless, she emits the bland odor of stale flowers.

I move quickly to prepare a relaxing jar of high humidity, place a wet sponge at the bottom of a plastic container the size of a shoe box, a wire mesh over the sponge, and then spread a paper towel on top. If the Emerald Swallowtail becomes wet, she will discolor and lose her beauty. I drop mothballs in the four corners of the box. One is more than enough to keep fungi and mold away; still, no harm done by taking extra precautions.

Careful not to cause any injuries, I lay the butterfly in the box, stick a wet paper towel under the lid, and snap the box shut. In a day or two, the butterfly will become pliable and ready to be pinned in position on a spreading board.

At that time, properly labeled for display, she will forever carry the odor of burnt wood, bitter, dry, and disintegrating.

Oni shuffles in, her razor-sharp, blue-black hair shining under the overhead light, her tight-lidded eyes seeking me as she holds out a tray with a bowl of cottage cheese and sliced apples.

“Lunch already?”

In this world, far from my family and friends and with my guts in knots, my stomach refuses to digest any elaborate food. I've been living on cereal and milk, cottage cheese and fruit. Simple and uncomplicated.

I see Baba yanking on his handlebar mustache, slapping his gloves against his thigh, and reaffirming his fear that his daughter, his
tajeh
saram
, his precious crown, will end up a starving artist. I feel Mamabozorg's hand on my shoulder, hear her whispering in my ear: Don't disappoint me, Soraya. No man is worth starving yourself for.

Oni places the tray on the table. She is silent. A childhood trauma forever tied up her tongue into
gereh, gereh
knots. I understand trauma. Her written notes suit me quite well, as does her habit of melting away and disappearing as if her mere existence is an unfortunate accident.

When I moved into the house, I called a domestic agency. A horsey-voiced woman with a dry cough suggested Oni, an experienced housekeeper. Her sole shortcoming, I was informed in a conspiratorial whisper, is her inability to communicate because she is mute.

I hired her on the spot.

I feel enormous compassion and respect for this unassuming, quiet woman, who must be bristling with the weight of her past. She, unlike Butterfly, had the conviction to stop talking so as to sever her ties with the world.

Early mornings, I hear her leave the attic and come down the stairs, hear her wander around the house like a hard-working ghost in ballet slippers who evaporates like a wisp of leftover smoke whenever I appear.

“Thank you, Oni. I don't need food.”

What I need is air, a place to wash my memories and hang them up to dry.

She glances at the relaxing box and then at me, totters on her toes, uncertain whether to stay or escape into the safety of her retreat.

I smile to put her at ease, to assure her that she need not fear anything down here and that it is important to leave the horrors of her past behind in the attic where they belong. “Come, Oni, see what I've got here,” I encourage, opening the relaxing box. “Come look inside. It's beautiful, isn't it? Emerald Swallowtail! Smells bad, doesn't it? I wouldn't get this close.”

Oni makes fists. The revival of a memory is drawing her to the butterfly. She bends to take a better look. I shield the butterfly with one hand and gesture to Oni to step back. I don't want her tears to wet the butterfly.

“Don't be sad, Oni. The victim always ends up triumphant.”