Butterfly Stitching

by Shermin Kruse

  “Samira! Samira!”

  “Baleh, Maman, but . . . ” But she was too short to see from where it was coming. Maman could not seem to tell the direction of the voice either.

  “Samira!”

  Maman did one more turn around when a man, having pushed his way through the crowd, came to a sudden stop just inches away from her face. She brought her hand to her mouth in a startled gesture. Sahar, also surprised, looked at the man in front of her. Tall, with many more gray hairs and wrinkles than her baba, he was dressed handsomely in a fancy navy-blue pinstriped suit and perfectly pressed pants. She looked down at his shoes, partly because the compressed crowd made it too difficult for her to keep her neck bent back for too long, and partly because she knew, even at her young age, that you can tell a lot about people by their shoes. They were brown, with fancy looking tassels, and looked like they had just been shined.

  She braved another neck bend to look up at his face. He was smiling from ear to ear, as though he had just found a lost pet. Something about his pearly-gray hair made Sahar feel warm and she let down her guard. She expected Maman to exchange pleasantries with this man whom she seemed to know, but neither Maman nor the strange man said a word for a long time. Sahar could not understand why Maman’s mouth hung open, why her hand moved to her hairline to fix her bangs, or why she was refusing to offer a polite “Salam.”

  Finally, the man said, “Samira, is it really you?”

  “Hello!” Maman managed with a nervous laugh, taking as big a step back as the crowded bazaar and Sahar allowed.

  “Wow! I can’t believe it’s you!”

  Sahar looked up at Maman and watched as her face formed a self-conscious smile. It was genuine. Her eyes wrinkled. The smile had a life of its own. There was something worthy of quiet notice in it. Sahar directed the universe to stop all of its movements for a second, because the moment called for it, then suddenly noticed how hard Maman was squeezing her hand and the world shook into sound and movement again.

  “Ouch! Maman, you’re hurting me!”

  Two adult heads looked down at her. The man’s eyes widened at seeing Sahar.

  “Oh, I’m sorry honey.” Immediately Maman’s grip relaxed and she kissed Sahar’s hand. Maman was about to rise again but the pearly-gray-haired man bent down instead, meeting her below the standing bodies that surrounded the three of them. With the two adults acting as kind of a barrier between Sahar and the crazed bazaar world, Sahar felt protected and stronger than before. Maybe if she took a breath and held it in, she would get a little taller and could feel even safer. She did.

  “Is this your daughter, Samira?” the man asked, extending his hand with perfect fingernails out to Sahar for a shake. Sahar was surprised, unsure what to do. She was at the legal age of marriage and that meant she could not be touched by men outside of her family. Everyone behaved differently indoors, but they were outside—in the bazaar—with Morality Police roaming like insects on the hunt. She glanced at Maman for advice.

  Subtle nod.

  Quick handshake.

  They all took some pleasure in the guilt of it. The adults seemed to take more pleasure. Maybe they felt more guilt. The awkwardness of the interaction eased a bit, and they smiled at one another. Sahar started to feel uncomfortable by the closeness of the three of them. She cued the adult heads to rise above her to create distance. They took direction well, became tall again. But now, through the buzz of the bazaar, she could not hear what they were saying. A few words were powerful enough to make their way to her ears:

  . . . three children no . . . It’s been . . . beautiful . . . Nine? Ten years? Gita . . . sorry . . . You’re still exhibiting . . . I hear . . . reviews . . . I owe you . . .

  Through the few stretched moments that ensued, the pearly-gray-haired man’s smile slowly melted into a sad grin. And, just as sudden as his hello, he bid goodbye and clumsily patted Sahar’s head, making her headscarf fall back a little.

  No one else noticed the headscarf, but Sahar fixed it anyway.

  Habit.

  Sahar and Maman did not exchange words until they finally exited the bazaar and head toward Khordad Avenue.

  “Maman jan, who was that man?”

  “Someone I used to know, my sweet. Just someone I used to know.”

  “But why did he—”

  “Hey, do you think Baba will be home when we get there?”

  Sahar let out a girlish giggle. “I sure hope so! I can’t wait to tell him and Reza and Raumbod about all our adventures today. And I’m going to tell all my friends in school, too!”

  Maman looked down. “Well, all I asked him to do was pick up the drinks. So I think he’ll be home when we get there.”

  Sahar knew that by drinks her maman meant whiskey. One time, her cousin Farhad told her how it was made, that the whiskey chefs steeped the grains in the bathtub for several days, spread it on the floor to germinate, then dried it in furnaces or ovens using whatever fuel they had on hand. To make scotch, they put the malt in a barbeque smoker and smoked the grain dry.

  Drinks were all Baba was supposed to pick up, and so, yes, he would be home soon. As Sahar and Maman walked, Sahar twirled various thoughts in her head: the warm smell of freshly baked bread; a spicy orange spot of saffron on her nose; whiskey, bourbon and gin; wiggling and clinking tea glasses and roughly cut sugar cubes; shiny brown tasseled shoes and pearly-gray-hair.

  “Oh, Khordad Avenue,” Maman said. “I think our car’s just a block or two down the street.” Sahar looked around. A cluster of people with dark expressions were enclosing them. The air was balmy and clotted from the murmurs that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. Sahar picked up a few phrases from the whispers.

  “Not for children,” someone said.

  “When did it get so crowded around here?” Maman said.

  “Man caught,” someone echoed.

  “Look at all these people.” Maman was looking but not listening to the low voices. “They’re all going the same direction, too.”

  “Lady, turn back,” in soft warning.

  “That’s strange,” Maman said. “Turn left here, Sahar jan.”

  But when they turned the corner they suddenly stopped. There it was, right there, in the middle of the street in front of Mr. Palami’s bakery: a public execution.

  Sahar was immediately nauseated with fear.

  “What’s going on here?” Maman asked one of the observers.

  “They caught him selling imported vodka.”

  Baba bought imported vodka sometimes. Even right now he was buying alcohol for tonight’s party. Was it worth it? Sahar focused her gaze on the man about to die. He was down on his knees and the gun was pointed at his head. They would shoot him in a few seconds. No time to run away. He was crying from underneath his blindfold. Sahar could practically taste the salty tears rolling down his cheeks. Maman quickly turned Sahar around and toward herself. Sahar’s eyes squished into Maman’s skirt, held there firmly by the back of her head.

  “Put your hands to your ears, Sahar jan.” Maman’s tone was urgent but soft. “Do it now, my love. Press them hard.”

  She obeyed. She raised her hands to her ears and pressed as hard as she could. She tried to focus on the pistachio-bread man or the gaunt boy with his tea glasses. But she only saw the man on his knees. His covered eyes. His salty tears. Sahar, focus on how much fun it was to grind the saffron in the mortar this morning. Mismatched cries coming from the crowd. Lots of confused eye-witnesses. Baba’s poem. What was Baba’s poem about? The velvety touch of Maman’s skirt against her eyelids. The smell of walnuts and pomegranates. Dead plants. A beheaded Iran. The LOUD single sound of the bullet killing. Not muffled by the hands pressed against her ears.

  She did not want to tell her baba and brothers about her adventures anymore.

  Maman released Sahar’s eyes but kept her pressed against herself. The body was immediately carried off and thrown into the back of a white van. There was a smear of blood on the place where h
e had been shot. It was supposed to rain that night. That would wash it away. Or maybe the baker would hose it down. Baker. Bakery. They were standing in front of a bakery. Sahar could suddenly smell freshly-baked chick-pea cookies mixed in with the wrench of sorrow and blood.

  She was crying. She wanted to run but was planted still, her hands still holding her ears, as the frightened crowd began to clear. Maman knelt down. She looked into Sahar’s face, wiped her tears, and gently lowered her hands from her ears. Sahar tightly wrapped her arms around Maman’s leg and began to sob. Maman returned the hug. Will Maman say anything about what just happened? she wondered. Explain things? What things? Things about life. Things about death. Things about the Iran they lived in. Or something about Heaven. Or all the good that’s hidden in between the cracks of the bad, camouflaged by the shadows of tomorrow’s hopes. Maybe something about how it was going to be okay.

  Anything at all.

  Maman did look as though she was going to say something, but remained silent. Instead, she picked up Sahar off the ground and held her tight.

  “Sahar jan, wrap your legs around Maman’s hips.”

  “Like a meymoon?” Sahar whispered.

  “Just like a meymoon.”

  Maman did not carry her very often anymore now that she was such a big girl. Sahar leaned her head into the comfort of Maman’s shoulder. They said nothing more. Maman carried her all the way to the car, placed her in the passenger seat, tucked her under the blanket and headed home. Sahar thought they might speak of it when they got home. Maybe later Maman and Baba would talk to her together and say things that would take away the horror. But that did not happen. The devastation that soon came washed away the memory of the stranger’s death like blood in the rain.

  6

  “Right on time,” Baba said as the first guest rang the bell, nearly an hour later than the time of the invitation.

  “I wanna open it! I wanna open it!” Sahar ran to the door with the twins not far behind her. Khaleh Soroor, her husband Amoo Mahmood, and their three girls, Ghazal (three years old), Nahal (four years old), and Sanaz (ten months old). Each of them planted kisses on each cheek of each Afsseus family member. Plus a hug for the kids. Khaleh Soroor wore a showy snake-print scarf around her hips and a smile that was finding its way back on her lips after a long absence. Amoo Mahmood was finally looking healthy in his clothes. The twins immediately jumped into a game of hide and seek with Ghazal and Nahal.

  “We’re the first here?” Khaleh Soroor asked.

  “The first!” Maman answered.

  “Oh good.” Khaleh Soroor walked over to the couch. She unwrapped the snake-print scarf and used it to cover up her nipple while nursing Sanaz. “This little angel has been soooo patient!” Maman joined her on the couch and the two of them began to chat about Sanaz’s sleep schedule while Baba poured Amoo Mahmood a drink. Sahar evaluated her options and decided to shadow Baba’s conversation.

  “How’s the paper doing?”

  “Oh you know. Nothing very exciting was printed while I was in Evin. Thirteen months and nothing edgy. I’ve been out for three months already and it’s time to rev it up again.” He gulped down his drink in one smooth gesture.

  “Well, maybe it’s alright to relax the content a little.”

  “Oh how can you say that, Armin?”

  “Because. You have children. You keep pushing the content more and more. Spending more and more time in prison. What if, next time, you don’t make it out?”

  “You know full well this latest stint was for nothing more than questioning the legitimacy of confessions from political prisoners. If I can’t even do that, I may as well not run a newspaper at all.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t run a newspaper at all.”

  “Funny.”

  Sahar was happy to see Amoo Mahmood’s cheeks looking full for the first time in a long time. When he first got out a few months ago, he had been skin and bones. And his eyes had looked like he had just been awakened from deep sleep, only half in this world. Tonight, he looked handsome in his purple tie. Sahar noticed that Khaleh Soroor had finished nursing and was now bouncing the baby on her knee. She approached with hopes of being allowed to hold little Sanaz.

  “How many are you expecting tonight, aziz?” asked Khaleh Soroor.

  “Only thirty,” Sahar’s maman answered, taking Sanaz into her arms.

  “So many people are up north, trying to avoid the rockets.”

  “Well, they’re missing out because I’d willingly brave a few rockets just to have some of Samira’s fesenjan!” Even as she walked through the door, Maryam jan was taking off her rupush to reveal new red highlights, a mini-skirt that showed off her legs and a bejeweled neck that set off her sharp collar bone like a picture frame. This all helped to ease her son-losing mania. Narges was three steps behind. She looked really pretty in a blue-gray dress with pink-stitched tulips.

  Khaleh Zahra came next holding onto a Pyrex dish full of saffron rice pudding in her paint-streaked hands. Bright red earrings that hung down to her neck peeked out as they dangled to and fro beneath her veil. She smelled like rosewater and saffron when Sahar kissed her.

  “Oh, Zahra, you brought your sholeh zard!” Maman said, baby Sanaz still in her arms as she kissed her great friend and fellow artist Zahra.

  “Je sais combien tu l’aime, Sahar.”

  Very true. Sahar’s mouth was already watering at the sight of the yellow pudding.

  “How many are coming?” Narges came up to Sahar and asked. The apartment was already crammed and guests were pouring into the bedrooms from the overflow. The Ansari family brought a great-uncle with them who was visiting from Esfahan. The Nourbakhsh family brought two grandparents who were too old to spend their last few good years alone at home.

  “Sahar jan,” Maman said, “why don’t you and Narges get out of the kitchen and let us finish our work in here?”

  “I can help set the table, Maman!” Sahar insisted. “Narges can too!”

  “Na, aziz. It’s too crowded. Go on and play.”

  “Oh, they’re not bothering anyone. Here, sweetie, do you want a spoonful of pudding?”

  “Yes, Khaleh Zahra! Yes! Yes!”

  “It didn’t turn out as well as it normally does.”

  Maman smelled the pudding. “Oh hush, Zahra. You always say that and it’s always a masterpiece!”

  Sahar turned to Narges and asked, as though it was a matter of national security, “You wanna share?” Narges answered with a smile and so Sahar took the spoon she was offered, gave half to Narges and slurped up the rest herself. The taste of saffron, slivered pistachios, cardamom, rosewater and cinnamon tickled her tongue.

  “Let’s go see if we can help my baba.” Sahar headed into the living room without waiting for an answer from Narges, who followed her as she always did. Baba was pouring liquor and handing out cigarettes. Sahar noticed the Michael Jackson record had come to an end and the turntable needed some new music.

  “Baba, what should we play next?”

  He pointed to a stack of records at the corner of the turn table. “They’re over there. My selections.”

  “Which one?”

  “Just pick anything.”

  Sahar was delighted and a bit overwhelmed at this responsibility. She enlisted Narges’s help, and together they selected Pink Floyd’s The Wall just as the food was set on the table. One colorful dish after another arrived: three appetizers and four different entrees in all. Her maman served three different kinds of stew that night: ghormeh sabzi (a green stew made from a variety of herbs which smelled like an herb garden and was served with beef), khoreshte bademjan (a tomato sauce and eggplant dish, also served with beef), and her specialty, fesenjan (a walnut and pomegranate stew which took a full two days to prepare and was served with duck). All of them to be eaten over basmati rice decorated with saffron which was placed in the center of the table. The table took on the colors of the earth and the guests lined up to have their dish of kitchen heaven.r />
  Sahar and Narges got ready made plates from their mamans and found a spot on the floor near Sahar’s maman, Khaleh Malike and Khaleh Zahra.

  “It’s a joke,” Maman said to Khaleh Malike and Khaleh Zahra. “A real joke.”

  “Samira, how can you say that? It’s the United Nations!” Khaleh Malike said.

  “A joke. All of it. Especially resolution 598!”

  “What’s that? Samira how do you keep up with all this stuff?” Khaleh Malike asked.

  “Oh, nothing much, just the UN passing a resolution calling for an end to our war with Iraq and pre-war boundaries. That’s all.” Maman seemed very upset by this.

  “And this is bad because . . . ?” Khaleh Malike asked.

  “It’s not bad. Peace is a great goal. A great one. But, and I’m no genius here, I think it’d really help the war end if the UN’s most powerful nation wasn’t selling weapons directly to both sides. Vous savez? C'est une blague stupide. Oh pass this resolution and that one while our most powerful members fuel the war!”

  Khaleh Zahra chimed in, always happy to talk French with Maman even though it was rude to talk French in front of people who did not speak it, like Sahar. “Pendant ce temps, il ya six missiles par jour ici. Personne ne se soucie vraiment de la mort et les mourants.”

  Sahar’s eyes felt tired. She turned to Narges and said, “They’re always talking about the war. Always talking about politics.”

  “No. Sometimes they talk about art.”

  “Yeah, they talk about how they can’t exhibit their paintings anymore. Or can’t see such and such artist because she’s in jail. It’s still politics. Always.” Sahar looked down at Khaleh Zahra’s red stiletto heels. She must have changed into them when she arrived without Sahar noticing. Sahar wondered if the shoes would fit her own feet, and how well she could walk in them if she tried really hard.

  “Where’d they learn to talk French anyway?” Narges asked.

  Sahar knew that Khaleh Zahra had gone to the Pont-Aven art school in France because Maman kept talking about Sahar going there one day when she grew up and “finding her vision.” But Sahar did not know where Maman had learned French. She had asked her once, and had simply been told, “I was taught as a teenager.”