Scent of Butterflies (24 page)

We exchange silent glances, Aziz and I, in our first private moments together after Butterfly has fled our company in the gazebo to pack for their early-morning flight.

It is quiet around us as if the turmoil of the last hours evaporated when Butterfly left us. The sun has set. The shards of china on the table are gray in the dusk. I raise the phoenix and attach it to my blouse. I like this moment, alone with my husband.

Aziz rests his hand on my arm, his touch fierce and unrelenting. “I can't make sense of you, Soraya. Was I blind? Are you the same woman I married?”

I remain silent because I am not the same woman, of course. How could I be when so much has happened?

A breeze makes its way into the gazebo and tosses his hair onto his forehead. A series of emotions chase each other across his face. “Tell me, Soraya. Did you never love me?”

An angry sob escapes from my throat. I attempt to gulp a breath of damp air, double over with dry coughs. Never, ever did I expect Aziz to question my love for him. Never, ever did I expect this intolerable injustice. “I will tell you what real love is, Aziz. Prove how much I love you.” My throat feels raw and I think I might lose my voice. “My pills, Aziz, my pills.”

He comes closer. “What pills, Soraya?”

“My pills.”

“Pills?” A flash of concern in his eyes. “Are you sick?”

“My birth control pills.”

“Your birth control pills?”

“Yes. I did it for you, for us. This is how deeply I love you.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“About the birth control pills I've been taking. You know why? Because I can't bear to share you, Aziz. Not even with our own child.”

“What are you saying, Soraya?”

“We breathe together. We cry and laugh and think together. A third addition would damage us. Shatter what we have. We are one, Aziz.”

An imperceptible change takes over, a hardening of his mouth, a darkening of his shuttering eyes. “How long has this been going on, Soraya? How long?”

“Ever since we married.”

“All these years, you could have had my child?” An artery jumps at the side of his neck that is mottled with anger.

“I don't need children, Aziz. You're all I need.”

He picks up the bowl of sugar and hurls it onto the tabletop.

Shards of glass rain down. One last piece of china clings to the iron rim of the table, then falls silently. Sugar cubes and bowls of dates and pistachio and rock sugar scatter underfoot.

“Baba's betrayal pales compared to what you've done to me, Soraya!”

I turn toward him like a furious god, my hand darting out to press on his mouth, my voice harsh, cracking. “Don't you ever compare me to Baba!”

“I fear for you, Soraya. You're not well. You need help. I'm taking you home.”

My husband is right. Not that I need his help, but that I am not well, broken beyond repair and harder to put together than the shattered pieces of glass and china underfoot. Still, it feels good to see Aziz step in and offer to protect me.

My gaze seeks my owl, but finding no solace, I say: “I'm not going back, Aziz. There's no home to go back to.”

“Destroy what's left. Go ahead.” His face muscles tighten as if stitched too tight. His raises his hands to buffer me from what is to come. “I am filing for divorce.”

“Because of Parvaneh?”

His voice is hardly audible above the din behind my eardrums. “No, Soraya, this is not about her. She holds no power over
us
. It's about the pills. It's about you deceiving me for all our married life—and you don't even get it, do you? That's it! I am done. I'll mail you the divorce documents.”

My owl lets out a short, deep bark, spreads her wings, and flies straight toward the jasmine creepers. Her dappled wings get entangled in the branches, flapping violently. I can't tell whether she is in pain or simply disgusted. I rush to her aid. Struggle to free her with numb fingers that refuse to cooperate. I rub my hands together, blow on them, and manage, at last, to break the confining branches.

Freed like an arrow, my owl glides overhead and then, with unprecedented care and finesse, lands on my shoulder. Her sharp claws close into a tight grip. My blouse rips with a hiss. She puffs her chest and her every mottled feather stands on end. She lets out a piercing, apocalyptic bark as if to end this night that is longer and darker than the biblical Night of Noi.

Aziz leaps out of his chair. His left hand comes down in an iron grip over the bird's head to keep it from inflicting further damage. His right hand is as gentle as ever. One by one, he pries her talons open and dislodges them from my flesh.

My owl nuzzles the top of her head against my right cheek, a soft, fleeting gesture, an apology perhaps. Our eyes meet. An instant of shared understanding: it is time to part ways, Mamabozorg. All has been done, all said. She spreads her wings and whirls twice above my head, then flies out of the gazebo and straight into the bruised horizon.

Four pool-drops of blood bubble up on my shoulder.

“What have I done to you,
Jounam
,” Aziz murmurs.

A wet smell of washed carpets and cheap aerosol lingers inside the rented black stretch limousine that glides down the silent Bel Air streets. It is a pearl-gray dawn and dew clings to the car windows. A breeze from the ocean ruffles the feathers of a crow that lands in front of the car. Mansour pounds his foot on the brakes and the car swerves. Butterfly's arms spring to the dashboard for support. She has had the good sense to banish herself to the passenger seat in front.

We sit in silence, all four of us—Mansour, Butterfly, Aziz, and myself. Nothing left to say. Friendships are broken. Promises shattered. Love soiled.

Aziz is leaving me.

Free to pick up the rest of his life and do as he pleases. Abandoning me to gather my shattered self and do what I please with my haven of butterflies, collection of photographs, and cesspool of memories.

Mansour clicks the glass partition between the front and backseat shut. Perhaps he sensed my wish, a wife's last wish to have a private moment with her husband. I want Aziz to be mine on this last ride, this very last time I will see, smell, and hear him. His shallow breathing beats in my chest. In my heart. Not wise of me to inhabit his skin in such an intimate manner. But, this I did. Lost myself in him. Forgot my soul and identity.

I stroke the amber chain slung around my neck, the Star of David heavy on my black dress. Two amber beads screech between my restless fingers. Mamabozorg knew then that a tiny mosquito can kill an elephant, yet I did not heed her advice to be watchful of petty betrayals, my own included, until they became insurmountable
badbakhti
miseries. But even she, who was my Bird of Reason, ended by betraying me. Our wise matriarch should not have turned her back on us and gone into seclusion. We needed her.

We leave Sunset Boulevard behind and enter the 405 freeway. It is an ugly stretch of concrete and cement, this freeway that replaces the proud mountains and ancient plane trees of my previous home. The sky here is dulled and suffocating, pressing down like a blanket of ash. Somewhere beyond lurk emerald mountains and a turquoise ocean, but this is my reality now, a freeway flanked by depressing blocks of low, industrial buildings. In Tehran, the Shahyad Monument—memorial to the Shah—greets visitors with its pre-Islamic arches, ornate domes, and intricate arabesque designs. It once suggested a gateway to the future and a celebration of the past. Now, it is a symbol of the Shah's aborted grandeur. But to me, it remains a monument to the best years of my life. I am exchanging that for my haunted house with its battered butterflies, abandoned monkey tree, and lifeless Amorphophallus titanum.

Will Aziz plant a farewell kiss on my cheek or will he withhold even that last gesture of…what? Love? Kindness? Mercy?

—There's nothing a tongue-kiss won't solve,
Jounam
—

But what he says now is: “Will you ever come back, Soraya?”

“No, Aziz. Nothing left to come back to. I've lost everything. Baba, Madar, my country. And you.”

He covers my hand with his large hand, then slides his wedding band off my thumb and rolls it down his own finger, taking back the last piece of his heart with him.

The limousine glides to the curb in the airport, and Mansour jumps out to open the door for Butterfly. She gathers her
chador
about her, making her way around the limousine and distancing herself from us with short, quick steps. Her hair is covered with the same orange polka-dotted kerchief she wore when she arrived here. Her
chador
floating behind her, she enters the terminal building. The
chador
gets trapped in the automatic sliding doors. She does not wait for the doors to open and release her
chador
, but abandons it to trampling footsteps as she continues on her way ahead and out of my life.

Aziz's hand is on the door handle. One last time, he turns his sleepy eyes my way with that expression that says—you're up to something,
Jounam
, the devil is in your eyes again—and for an instant I don't see anything but the delicious outline of his mouth because I think he might kiss me and our tongues might meet one last time.

Sounds tear out of him that I've never heard before. This man who does not know how to cry. His chest heaves and I think his heart is about to break. My right hand rests on his heart to catch the broken pieces. I don't look away because for the first time in our life together I see my husband crying.

Tears roll down his cheeks and wet his lower lip and stain his white shirt. I wipe tears off his mouth and suck my finger.

This is not the salty taste of guilt.

The car door is opening. He is stepping out; one decisive foot after the other takes him away from me. He does not look back. I notice an imperceptible wave of his lowered hand and a dismissive shake of his head. And just like that, Aziz is gone.

Unbidden tears and helpless wails pour out of me as if a fist shattered my chest open. I hold my head between my hands and cry out with all the force of my rage and remorse.

Mansour turns to offer me a bottle of water. A policeman tells him that he needs to move the vehicle. Mansour shoots him an angry look and gestures toward me as if to say we have an emergency on our hands. “She is not well, officer.”

The policeman peers in through the window and then orders Mansour to move on.

“Shall we go,
Khanom
, or do you need more time?”

More time for what? I stifle my scream; I've run out of time. “Go, Mansour, go now!”

The limousine slowly pulls away from the curb.

My head is aching with a thousand images of my lost husband. Aziz is lurking in my greenhouse, snipping branches off Daddy Long Legs, arranging them in funny positions. We laugh. Now we swim in the Caspian Sea and it is a bright day and he fixes me forever in his gaze. Now his image is merging with mine on our wedding day on the dance floor and we are flushed with love.

Now, it is our last night together in my bed in America. We are curled away from each other, our backs touching lightly. The rhythm of his breathing tells me he is awake. Hours pass. It is midnight. The clock in the hallway plays “The Blue Danube.” My mind roils with regret. Forgive me, I whisper. Forgive me. I want him to turn around and hold me close. But all he offers is his indifferent silence, until the sun rises and we have to face the day.

The limousine jerks to a halt.

The door opens and he slides inside like a shadow, swift and silent and with no explanation. He reaches for my hands and locks them between his; it feels like a warm cocoon.

“My Soree,
Jounam
, my life.”

I slide close to him and nuzzle my cheek against his shoulder. His scent of tobacco and desire is devastating.

1.
How does the protagonist's introduction set the tone for the novel? What do you think it means when Soraya's father says that the day she called herself an artist was the very same day she lost touch with the reality of their culture. Do you agree or disagree? Explain your opinion.

2.
Soraya says of her difficulty letting go of clothing restrictions that “a habit of twenty years can be as stubborn as a handful of bloodthirsty leeches.” What other habits does Soraya have trouble discarding? Do you have habits within your own life that would be extremely difficult to break?

3.
While seated next to the
mullah
on the plane, Soraya feels that “the urge to take action is blinding.” What kind of action is she considering? Why?

4.
How did you feel when you learned that Soraya had been taking birth control pills even while enduring fertility treatments and tests? Did her reasons match your expectations? Why or why not?

5.
Through her story, Soraya details how women have suffered oppression by men in Iran but also how oppressive love can be. Explore the ways in which oppression influences the characters in this novel. How much control do they each have over their situations? In what ways do they seek to exert that control?

6.
Discuss how the politics of Iran's 1979 revolution and the fall of the Pahlavi dynasty influence the characters of the novel. What exactly does “Westoxication” mean in the context of this story? How did the term first strike you?

7.
The relationship between Soraya and Parvaneh is a complicated tangle Soraya seeks to unravel during her time in California. She explains on the very first page of the novel that she's here in part because “I can't free myself from Parvaneh.” Do you trust her interpretation more or less after discovering the truth at the end of the novel?

8.
How does Soraya compare the life cycle of the butterfly to her friend's transformation over their years together? In what other ways does Soraya draw comparisons between the butterflies of her garden and Parvaneh?

9.
Discuss the significance of names in this novel. Why do you think Soraya's father was against naming his daughter after a constellation? What other names have particular meaning? Why do you think the author chose these names?

10.
Soraya's obsessions while in California revolve around butterflies, plants, and photography—a collection each time. What relation does each of these pastimes have to the other? How does Soraya use them as a means through which she struggles to deal with Aziz's and Parvaneh's betrayal?

11.
Soraya is charmed and thrilled to discover a rare Corpse Plant in her new gardens. Discuss the irony of a plant by this name being the prize and jewel of the atrium and grounds. Compare and contrast her various descriptions of the Corpse Plant with Soraya herself.

12.
Soraya describes her photo album on page 39 as a “testament to how I will trap men like moths in my net, suffocate them in jars, pin them in cigar boxes.” Yet, despite her appreciation of the “appetizing morsel” of a man she encounters in Franklin Canyon in chapter 6, she ultimately refuses his invitation and returns home with only photos. Why? What is she really after?

13.
What is the “scent of butterflies”? How does Soraya describe it? What is the significance of this phrase as the novel's title?

14.
Revenge is another prominent theme in this novel. Soraya explains of her plans, “Scores must be settled gradually and patiently. To savor the sweet nuances of dessert, it must be allowed to slowly melt on the tip of the tongue.” How does Aziz's surprise visit upset this approach? Discuss how events might have unfolded differently if everything had gone according to Soraya's plan. In what other ways do the characters of this novel take revenge on one another?

15.
Just when she's longing for home the most, Soraya discovers a Barking Owl, also called “the Screaming Woman,” in her atrium. What is the significance of the owl as a symbol and for Soraya in particular? Discuss the differences between how Mansour and Soraya each view the bird.

16.
What is it that bothers Soraya most about Aziz's betrayal with Parvaneh? Why does the sight of them kissing seem to hurt her more deeply than the fact that they are lovers, or even that they are in her and Aziz's bed?

17.
When Parvaneh arrives in California, Soraya notices for the first time how her friend's breasts have swelled. How does she explain this to herself? How else do you think Soraya's tendency to see Parvaneh only as her childhood friend affects Soraya's ability to see the truth?

18.
Soraya never wavers for a moment in her surety that Aziz has been unfaithful with Parvaneh for years. Were you as surprised as she to find out what had actually happened? Looking back, what clues did the author leave you?

19.
Discuss the difference between Baba and Madar and between Aziz and Soraya. Are Baba's and Aziz's betrayals equal? Why or why not? Could you have forgiven either one of them if you were Soraya? How do you feel about Madar's and Soraya's betrayals of their husbands?

20.
Soraya's dark plans include hurting and humiliating Aziz by sleeping with other men (or making him think that she had, in the case of the photo album) and then killing Parvaneh. Why do you think she was unable to fulfill the first part but went as far as serving Parvaneh the poisoned tea, which she continued to try serving her even after she discovered who Parvaneh was really in love with?

21.
Mamabozorg is a character who has lived through two very different Irans. Identify the lessons she seeks to impart to Soraya and discuss their influence on the plot of the novel. Do you agree or disagree with her decision to isolate herself in her own home? Explain your opinion. What would you have done?

22.
Superstition and religion influence the characters of this novel in many ways. Identify the role of each using examples from the novel to illustrate your points. For example, why do you think the author chose to make Soraya blond, tall, and so different from everyone around her? How does the author blend the cultural proclivities of the Jewish Iranian people with post-revolution Iranian Islam?

23.
Why do you think the author chose this ending, even after Soraya discovers that her worst fear—that Aziz and Parvaneh are in love—is far from the truth?

24.
As the story progresses, how do Soraya's gardening efforts reflect who she is and who she is becoming? Discuss the irony of Soraya's own transformation through her obsession with Parvaneh's. Do you feel, as Aziz does, that Soraya has become a completely different person—or have her experiences simply brought out latent characteristics? In what ways is Soraya unable to change?

25.
Why do you think Aziz acts the way he does at the very end?
Where do you see their marriage going now that Soraya has decided never to
return home?