Scent of Butterflies (9 page)

The mournful barks of the bird make their way from the courtyard and echo all night in my bedroom. I listen intently, wondering whether my guess is correct and what I hear are the cries of an owl. Mamabozorg believed that owls are a lucky omen for Jews. According to her, they heralded our freedom from Egypt. Trumpeted the completion of the Second Temple. And signaled the tumbling of the Walls of Jericho. She named her first owl,
Morgheh
Hagh
, her Bird of Reason, and insisted that right after it moved into her garden in 1930, her luck took a turn for the better.

She was young and full of hope and energy then, when she began to frequent the bazaar in the south of Tehran to accumulate antique jewelry, rare pieces she had a special eye for. Jewelers, back-alley peddlers, black-market thieves, middlemen, and even housewives who were in dire need of cash for some secret endeavor discovered that dealing with Mamabozorg was a rewarding experience.

After thoroughly examining and appraising a special piece, she'd drop it in her hammered silver box lined and faced with royal blue velvet. It took her all of five minutes to calculate, on her small abacus, the fair market value of a diamond ring, gold bracelet, pearl earrings, or an emerald brooch. She found the common practice of bargaining to be barbaric and unbecoming of the Persian culture, especially at a time of change when Reza Shah was modernizing the country. Sellers had the right of refusal, of course, but few chose to. No one in all of Tehran could outbid Mamabozorg.

On a winter afternoon in 1936, when plane trees were snow-heavy and nightingales huddled on branches to seek warmth, a merchant, a supplier of spices to the royal kitchens, sought Mamabozorg and handed her a gold-embossed invitation. Her name had made its way into the royal court, and Reza Shah's wife was summoning her to the palace. Mamabozorg stroked the amber beads of her necklace when she told me about the ample bosoms the Almighty had sent her way to adorn with rare Caspian pearls, deep Burma rubies, and Indian cut emeralds. It was a sight to behold, she mused, her eyes dreamy with past memories of the royal quarters abuzz with women shorn of their
chadors
.

Reza Shah had issued one of his most controversial decrees, ordering women to appear in public without their traditional
chadors
.
Mullahs
raised their voices in objection. Pious women fought back by refusing to leave their homes. Modern women rejoiced, emerging in public with all types of fashionable hats set at coquettish angles.

The day Mamabozorg visited the palace, the king's women—flush with their newfound freedom of expression, coiffed and painted and primped—had strutted in their colorful hats like a party of peacocks. Mamabozorg was intrigued by Reza Shah's estranged wife, Taj-ol-Moluk, the crown prince's mother. It was rumored that she possessed the power to terrorize Reza Shah, a man whose piercing stare sent ministers and military men quaking in their boots.

“You should have seen these women, Soraya, the way they attacked my jewelry box. It was a miracle one of the trinkets didn't end up drowned in a cleavage. My favorite was one of the ministers' wives. Bless her soul, her generosity was second only to her wide hips. Two chairs were nailed together to fit her.” Mamabozorg delighted in recounting the speed with which her fame had spread around town like juicy gossip and how she became
zabanzad
famous and rose to the enviable rank of favorite jeweler of the royal court.

A year or so went by. One day, Mamabozorg was summoned by Reza Shah himself. Why was she sent for? Sweat trickled down her back as she wondered whether she might have offended the queen, or even worse, Taj-ol-Moluk, the Shah's estranged wife. Was a blemish discovered in one of the diamonds, a crack in an emerald? Had a pearl lost its luster when coming in contact with perfumes or some unguent? These misfortunes were an expected part of her trade; yet no matter the cause, the jeweler was apt to be blamed.

She was led to the Sahebgaranieh Palace and straight into the formal Crystal Salon, her startled image staring back at her from shimmering cut glass that covered the surrounding walls.

The king was decked in full regalia and covered with medals, cape tossed over one shoulder as if expecting a visit from a notable dignitary. His photographs in the papers and in governmental offices depicted a much younger man, and she was taken aback at his graying handlebar mustache and thick, graying eyebrows, a shocking contrast to his black eyes. Despite having heard much about the lethal power of his glare, she was unprepared for the dark wells directed at her.

His stare swept the length of her body to rest on her green eyes. He gestured for her to approach. “You are Jewish!” The statement was pronounced in a controlled, low voice that sent a shiver up her spine.

“Yes, King of Kings,” Mamabozorg replied, certain her good fortune had run its course, and she would be marched right out of the hall and tossed into a dank, rat-infested dungeon, forever forgotten.

“Jews, I understand, know when to keep their mouths shut and when to speak. Is this true, Emerald?”

At a loss as to how to respond, she cast her eyes down, finding it prudent to remain silent.

“Speak! Any unusual activity in the bazaar?”

Mamabozorg shifted from one foot to another, convinced she'd melt under the Shah's frown.

“We are waiting,” he boomed. “Answer!”

“I am a simple jeweler, Your Majesty. I deal with precious stones and metals. I do not socialize with merchants of the bazaar.”

“How are you paid?”

“Always in cash, Your Majesty, always. Well, until last week. Yes, two separate orders were placed with me last week. One for a turquoise bracelet and another for a mine-cut diamond medallion. On both occasions, I was compensated for the goods with foreign gold coins.”

The Shah took a forward step. His stare burrowed through my grandmother, demanding the truth. “Emerald! Who gave you the coins?”

“They did not introduce themselves, Your Majesty. They were ayatollahs.”

“
Akhound
mullahs
!” The Shah spat the title as if to rid himself of a vile insect. This information confirmed his suspicion that “a bunch of blue-eyed scoundrels” were shipping boxfuls of British King George sovereigns to bazaars in Mashhad to bribe the clergy into an uprising to topple the Pahlavi dynasty.

The Shah was in conflict with the clergy. Two years back, he had violated the sanctity of the Shrine of Fatimah in Qom by ordering the beating of a
mullah
who had admonished the king's wife for entering a mosque while wearing a hat in place of a
chador
. Devout Muslims were furious at new laws requiring everyone to wear Western clothes, hats with a brim that prevented men from touching their foreheads to the ground during prayer, and especially by the policy allowing women to mix with men, study in colleges, freely attend cinemas, and patronize restaurants and hotels.

Mamabozorg kissed the hand the Shah had extended to her, thanking him profusely for supporting women. Encouraged by his seeming willingness to hear her out, she added that the Jewish community was especially grateful to him for ensuring their safety by instituting laws that separated politics from religion, a feat no other Shah had managed to achieve. “
Shahanshaha
, our King of Kings, bears mighty roots deep under and around our ancient Persian foundation. No blue-eyed scoundrel or dark-bearded clergy will ever topple the Pahlavi dynasty.”

The pleased Reza Shah gifted Mamabozorg with sixteen sets of large gold coins, engraved with the likeness of himself and the royal prince. When, in 1941, the English exiled Reza Shah from Iran to Johannesburg and his son, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, ascended the throne, the coins became collector's items. Mamabozorg promptly exchanged them for hectares of inexpensive land in the outskirts of Tehran. The capital expanded with such speed that in a few years her property was considered prime, valuable land in the heart of the city.

“Nothing is left of the splendor of the Pahlavi dynasty, not even the memory of their good deeds,” she complained to Baba, after the Islamic Revolution. “We are at the mercy of a bunch of
dozd
crooked fundamentalists.”

“How old is your Bird of Reason?” I asked her.

“Older than Reza Shah if he were alive,” she replied. “Curse the thieves for ending him before his time. He had a strong disposition, you know. He would have lived for a hundred and twenty years, as long as
Hazrateh
Mousa lived, may his name be forever blessed.”

“Do owls live long?” I had asked.

“Mine do. Because they are blessed with two hearts, one for love, the other for devotion.”

Both of which I am in need of now, I muse, wondering whether the invisible bird is playing with my head. Its high-pitched barking makes its way from the courtyard, a constant echo in the house. Oni walks around with her hands pressed to her ears as if the sound hurts her. Mansour suggests erecting some type of partition around the courtyard to protect the house from the evil spirits.

“Who in their right minds,” I heard him complain to Oni, “would build an open courtyard smack in the middle of a house?”

I ordered him to stay away from the monkey tree, around which I'd noticed him loiter one early morning, a long stick in hand.

Mamabozorg believed her owls communicated with her through feathers, antennas that link us to the supernatural. She, too, was fascinated by extraordinary phenomena and would inundate me with questions—Why do female cats scream during copulation? Wolves howl at the moon? Snakes have forked penises? The more tidal shrimp that flamingos consume, the pinker they become? How is it that the aurora borealis sounds like an orchestra of angels, and a mongoose can actually kill the deadly, fast-as-lightning cobra? “
Begoo
, tell me, Soraya, do animals sense our feelings and emotions?”

By the time I had an answer to her last question, Mamabozorg had become a recluse, and as much as I longed to, I had no way of telling her that animals are far more perceptive than humans. I had no way of telling her what had occurred on my last birthday in Iran.

Aziz had come home with a small box wrapped in black paper with imprints of ladybugs. Even then, he was attracted to insects, their spidery legs and useless bodies that carry nothing but the plague. I lifted the top of the box and peered in. A rainbow-colored creature raised its spiky neck, anxious green eyes and thin tongue darting about.

“A rhinoceros iguana of Haiti,
Jounam
. They exchange kisses like us and refuse to fuck unless in love.”

Right then and there, on the Esfahan carpet with a border of royal blue scrolls and deep red arabesques, we made love with an urgency that left us soaking. We didn't bother with sending the carpet to be properly washed in a running stream. We liked the carpet better with traces of our passion.

Later that evening, we went to check on the iguana.

The animal was dead.

“It couldn't adapt to the new environment,” Aziz announced.

“It's a bad omen!” I sobbed. “It died on my birthday.”

I realize now that the insufferable air of duplicity in our house had suffocated the poor creature's love heart.

Aziz paid an expert embalmer to preserve the dead iguana. Its embalmed body, storing memories I could not abandon, has traveled from Iran to Los Angeles and now stands on the dressing table opposite my bed, stiff legs firmly planted in a bar of gold-flecked onyx, arms raised in eternal prayer. The vibrant colors of the animal's skin remain intact. The colors of our Persian carpet. The colors of butterflies. Purple and blue and blood-red. They hurt my eyes in the morning when I wake up and at night before I fall asleep.

I grab the embalmed iguana and hurl it across the bedroom. It crashes against the mirror, then falls with a muffled thump back on the dressing table. The cracked reflection of my face in the broken mirror is pale and haggard, green eyes lifeless, the pupils dilated, full lips twisted. A fragmented collage.

Tens of thousands of petrified Monarchs crunch under my shoes as I trudge deeper into the eucalyptus grove. The air is laced with the saccharine smell of rotting pumpkins. I can hardly breathe. What could have wreaked such havoc on my Monarchs? What disaster could have struck my eucalyptus grove last night in the dark to eliminate such a large population of Monarchs in the span of a few short hours?

Two days ago at half past three in the afternoon, hardly a day after the landscapers completed work on the eucalyptus grove, an orange cloud had darkened the skies overhead. Gardening shears in hand, I watched droves of purposeful Monarchs sail in my direction and make their way straight ahead to settle among the eucalyptus. In no time, the grove was transformed into a flurry of activity with tiny orange flames weighing the younger branches and sending leaves aflutter, thousands of fanning wings raising the scent of camphor.

What caused these Monarchs to lose their sense of direction and deviate from their normal course? What magical secret could have jumbled their inner compasses, steering them off course toward Bel Air, a place Monarchs do not normally migrate to? At that moment, strolling among them while they set up home, occupying every leaf, branch, and shallow nook carved into tree trunks, I turned my gaze upward and thanked Mamabozorg. Thanked her profusely for the blessing of her gift. Hordes of Monarchs to catch and dissect and experiment on, to study one after the other to discover what makes this breed so fertile, so flirtatious, so poisonous.

Now, surrounded by dead butterflies in my grove, I realize that they're not such a resilient species after all. For example, although known for their long migrations—southward in August and northward in spring—the life span of butterflies born in early summer is less than two months, and none live long enough to survive the entire round trip. Still, during these migrations, females drop millions of eggs, ensuring the birth of the next generation. I am not surprised that barren females born in late summer live longer than the fertile ones, three or four times as long. It makes sense that females who don't experience the rigors of producing eggs would live longer than those that do. Do women who take the pill extend their lives, too?

Mansour catches up with me in the eucalyptus grove. He warns me of hidden dangers. He prays under his breath, murmurs that he's never seen anything as macabre.

He is right. The grove is a mass graveyard. A lethal plague has infected every Monarch. They are everywhere! Dead at their roosts in the trees, carpeting leaves and branches underfoot, spread around roots and stuck to tree trunks, hanging on flaking bark. A few Monarchs that managed to survive huddle motionless, seeking warmth, or else dangle in clusters from branches.

Mansour slaps himself as dead butterflies rain down on us from roosts where they festooned tall trees. He throws his arms up in exasperation and stops, shuffling from foot to foot, before gathering the courage to face me.

“
Khanom
, it's not wise to go there.” He gestures toward the end of the grove where the grave is. “Please look around at the death everywhere. Pay attention to all the corpses and sickness raining on us. A bad curse struck this place. It's the grave. Let's get rid of it. Burn everything down and plant other trees.”

“Stop this superstition, Mansour. They're just dead butterflies! And if they're cursed, they deserve it. Come along, it's hard enough to breathe in this air without you grumbling in my ear.”

“But forgive me,
Khanom
, it's a contagious plague. I am obligated to protect you from this…”

“I know what I am doing,” I say, silencing him with an impatient wave of one hand as I continue to walk ahead, shoes sinking into the wet carpet of discolored butterflies stretching underfoot like pale, veined leaves.

I had read that as many as 250 million Monarchs were killed in a storm in the central mountains of Mexico, yet the loss of life, even at that extraordinary rate, did not render them extinct. How long will it take for the Monarch population to rebound this time?

An imperceptible movement, something struggling to be freed underneath the leaves, catches my attention. I kneel to examine the leaves underfoot, cautiously sweeping back an upper layer of death.

Mansour sprints toward me, horror further distorting his scarred face. “No!
Khanom
, I beg of you, please don't! It's very dangerous. Who knows what's buried here.”

I'm taken aback by the enormity of his fear, but more so by his insolent grip on my arm, which he quickly releases when he realizes what he is doing. “Stand back, Mansour. I need to do this.”

I plunge my hand deep, past corpses and leaves into the thick underlayer of twigs and branches to discover a bunch of limp butterflies underneath. I retrieve one and examine it on my palm. Its wiry legs twitch weakly; the wings tremble. Why did this one survive? I settle down cross-legged on the ground.

“
Khanom
, I beg of you. Be careful of snakes down there. They don't like to be disturbed. They hold grudges…They'll follow you until the end of time…” He slaps his forehead. “I don't know,
Khanom
. I don't like these butterflies. They came here dragging misery behind.”

That they certainly did, I think, as Mansour crouches down next to me, sour-faced and stubborn, wincing when I stick my hands under layers of dead butterflies to free the few that cheated death.

“It's not proper for you to do this alone,
Khanom
.” He makes a face as if tasting something bitter, further contorting the scar across his mouth, and pressing his eyes shut before sinking one hand in to test the surroundings. He pulls out his hands and demonstrates his empty, mud-streaked palm. “See,
Khanom
, nothing. No sign of life.”

I burrow around, then fish out another limp Monarch. Hardly alive, but breathing nonetheless. I drop it in one hand for inspection. It is larger than those that perished. Yes, its size must have worked to its advantage. An image flashes across the screen of my mind. Soraya, tall and confident; Butterfly, petite and timid. Who will survive?

Mansour mumbles under his breath, “Please pardon me,
Khanom
, but I don't understand why you care about these bad-luck creatures.”

The truth is that I do not care much about the Monarchs. What I want is to find out what killed them, what differentiates the surviving ones from those that did not, learn their secret strengths and weaknesses. I am simply heeding Baba's advice that it is prudent to know my enemy as well as I know the palm of my hand.

Not daring to face me, yet feeling obligated to keep me company and lend a hand, Mansour drops another Monarch in my cupped hands.

I check it closely, flip it around, and feel its frail legs, limp antennas, the wings surprisingly warm to the touch. It must be the dry warmth underneath the leaves that saved the larger, sturdier ones. Perhaps the others perished because the temperature suddenly dropped last night. But it is spring in California. How cold could it become?

I continue to riffle deep among petrified corpses. A slow-spreading dull pain radiates from the center of my palm toward my fingers. I jerk my hand out and spring up to my feet. A sharp pain shoots from my hand toward my wrist and elbow. I take a close look at my hand and notice a small cut I'd incurred when gardening. My palm is turning a dark plum color. It is swelling, swelling fast.

Pale-faced and bewildered, Mansour shouts, “
Mar
! Snake! Help! Oni, quick. Here!”

Doubled over with pain, I am unable to speak. My fingertips are becoming numb. I check my fingernails and notice a slight bluish hue at the base.

Mansour makes way for Oni, who runs toward us with a first aid kit. She kneels and inspects my palm. She quickly snaps open the box and in silence begins to apply alcohol, ointments, and bandages.

I am relieved by her efficiency. She is taking all the right steps. Also assured by her calm demeanor, Mansour stops cursing and grumbling and begins to send
salavat
prayers to his Allah.

Having cleaned and applied antiseptics, Oni collects her supplies and bows to me a few times.

I massage my hand. Give myself a moment to catch my breath, time for the pain to take its course.

There's an unexpected chill in the weather. Nature herself is troubled. The hiss of agitated ghosts can be heard in the stale air.

“You are very good, Oni. Where did you learn to do this?”

She shrugs, endearing in her attempt at dismissing any compliment as undeserved. Assessing my situation and concluding, perhaps, that I am out of danger, she turns on her heels and disappears as silently and purposefully as she had appeared.

Mansour lets out a low growl: “I am getting the car,
Khanom
, taking you to a doctor!
Zahreh
mar
snake venom can stop your heart faster than a sharp knife.”

“Come back, Mansour! It's not a snake. Monarch caterpillars are filled with the toxin of milkweed leaves that's poisonous to humans if consumed. But here, with thousands around and such a concentrated amount of toxins, the smallest of nicks on the skin allows the toxin into the bloodstream, causing severe reaction.”

My throbbing hand pressed against me, I continue to walk deeper into the grove and toward the direction of the grave.

Mansour begins to mumble and curse anew, voicing all types of incantations to ward off evil djinns and spirits.

The grave is covered by a velvety quilt in different shades of orange, embroidered with black veins and strewn with pearls. A blanket of Monarchs with wings spread out to heaven as if praying for salvation. Their flamboyant wings are lovelier than the most ornate Japanese fans. Dead, they are so beautiful. So harmless.

I like this specific posture. Like the idea of trapping and displaying praying Monarchs on glass shelves in my cabinets. An homage to my best friend, who once raised her hands in prayer to a framed nuptial kerchief.

Had she, even then, prayed for what was mine?