Butterfly Stitching

by Shermin Kruse

  Your Unrelenting Armin

  She had not seen Armin in six months and the pain in her heart consumed her.

  Later that morning, Samira was on her way to meet Mr. Olum when she found Mrs. Darkan giving cleaning instructions to a new maid, which included taking the young girl from room to room and explaining all the needs and cares of that particular room. Samira tried to get Mrs. Darkan to warm up to her.

  “This room is really more of a den and sitting area,” Mrs. Darkan explained in her usual authoritative and hurried manner to the skittish maid. “You need to water all of these plants over here every single day and the two up there should be watered every other day.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Mrs. Darkan,” Samira said, “did you see the new china that Davoud brought back from London? There’s this pattern that I know—”

  “And this floor should be swept twice a week. Make sure you roll up the rug before you sweep. Don’t just push it to the side.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Anyway,” Samira continued, “the pattern is wonderful. I was thinking that maybe it’d be fun to go over some of my old portraits of ladies holding tea cups and paint over the tea cups with this new pattern!”

  Mrs. Darkan did not respond to Samira and simply continued instructing the maid. “Now, this hallway leads to the music room. The marble, and all the windows that line this hallway, should be cleaned four times a week. I know that seems like a lot but this is an area of the house that gets a lot of foot traffic. Samira Khanum and Mr. Montazar are often in that room at the end of the hall and it’s also where Samira Khanum takes her history classes.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said the maid.

  “I was thinking that maybe Davoud would allow me to paint you again,” Samira said.

  “For God’s sakes, child, do you know any other phrases?” Mrs. Darkan asked the maid.

  “Uh, no ma’am . . . sorry.”

  “It’s been a long while and—”

  “Well, do you have any questions?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “And I thought that if I talked to him about it, maybe—”

  Mrs. Darkan walked down the hallways with long steps. Samira continued trying to get her attention and the new maid followed, too, with her head low, doing the best she could with her short legs. Mrs. Darkan opened the large doors to the music room and continued her instruction.

  “Okay, now we’re in the music room. The two most important things in this room are the painting over the fireplace there and the piano over—Oh, sorry, Mr. Olum, I didn’t know you were in here today. Well, I should’ve known. I was distracted.”

  Mr. Olum, being early, was taking tea in the music room as he waited for Samira. He looked up from his glass with a startled manner contradicting the aura of calm dignity that his rounded glasses and perfectly groomed mustache gifted him.

  “Yes,” he said, “I’m a bit early I’m afraid.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Olum,” Samira said. “I was on my way but, um, I had to speak with Mrs. Darkan about something.”

  “Oh, not a problem. I thought I might have some tea before we begin anyway.”

  “Well, this is Maryam,” Mrs. Darkan said nervously. “She’s the new maid for this wing. As you know, Sara got married last week and is moving to her husband’s village with him to start bearing children.”

  Samira could not help but laugh at Mrs. Darkan’s constant criticism of what she had not-so-lovingly called “the female profession of childbearing”.

  “You’re not going to get married and start birthing babies, are you?” Mrs. Darkan asked poor Maryam.

  “Er, no, ma’am.”

  “Good.” She looked at Mr. Olum who smiled back at her. “Well. I guess we’d better get going. Good afternoon to you both.” And there it was again, that nervousness in her tone. She even gave an anxious smile to Mr. Olum, who immediately responded by bowing his head, moving his shoulders into his chest and giving a hardly visible smile back.

  Samira’s gaze moved back and forth between Mrs. Darkan and Mr. Olum. What she saw between them could not only result in their happiness but perhaps her own as well. With a requited love of her own, Mrs. Darkan might be much more sympathetic to Samira’s plight. And why not? she thought. They had been seeing each other nearly every day of nearly every week for decades since Mr. Olum became Davoud’s tutor. Mr. Olum was a respected man; educated and well regarded. And Mrs. Darkan, although a domestic worker, knew more about the world than most women her age and had aged quite well. Their mutual affection whistled in the air.

  Samira recalled all the compliments Mr. Olum had given her throughout the years on her portraits of Mrs. Darkan, compliments given in the light of an unrealized love. She could tell by the extent of their shyness and anxiety that nothing had yet happened between them, and thought, rather sadly, that nothing ever might. She was not about to let that happen. Wasted love was a crime. For them and for her.

  The next day, Samira handed Mrs. Darkan another letter for Armin.

  “Mrs. Darkan, can you please mail this out today?”

  Predictably, Mrs. Darkan took one look at the addressee and prepared to launch into another lecture, but this time Samira was fully armed.

  “You know, if you ever wanted to write a letter to Mr. Olum, I’d deliver it for you.”

  Mrs. Darkan’s reaction was at first pure surprise. “What do you mean? What are you talking about? That’s just nonsense, Samira.” But very quickly, her tone changed, almost as if to seek affirmation. “I can’t believe that you’d suggest such a thing! So indecent!”

  “But why is it indecent, Mrs. Darkan? Why can’t it work out between you two?”

  “Well, at my old age, well, it’s just indecent at this age.” She furrowed her brows as though she were solving a riddle in her head. “Besides which, he’s a very educated man. A much higher class than I, really. And it wouldn’t be decent of me to think of such things. I couldn’t bear children, it’s too late for any of that nonsense.”

  “First of all, there is no one of a higher class than you, Mrs. Darkan.” The housekeeper’s soft brown eyes moistened. “Second, I’ve seen the way he looks at you. He returns your feelings! He already has a son from his previous marriage, God rest his wife’s soul, and at his age, I’m sure he doesn’t want any more. And you’re not too old. For God’s sake, Mrs. Darkan, you can’t be more than fifty, right?”

  “Fifty four,” Mrs. Darkan said in a manner that sounded more like a question than an answer, as though she was asking if fifty four was too old to fall in love.

  “Fifty four! Why, that’s young, nowadays. It’s different now than your parents’ generation. Nowadays people live until their seventies or eighties! That’s another thirty years of life!” She softly put her hands on Mrs. Darkan’s shoulders and continued, “You have plenty of life to live. You shouldn’t waste it.” Samira leaned in but stopped short of hugging.

  Mrs. Darkan shook her head with a smile. “Oh, all right. I’ll stamp your silly letter and put it in the mailbox.”

  “Ah! Thank you, Mrs. Darkan!” Samira smiled broadly. “I knew you’d understand!”

  Her letter read:

  My Armin,

  I love your penmanship. It is so perfect, as though the poetry in the meaning gives poetry to the letters themselves. I love your words. I love your humility. I love that you will not give up on us. I even love your delusions. They’re even more severe than my own. You speak to me of divorce, but you should know Davoud would never grant me one. I have no real choices, and times are not that modern.

  Love, Samira

  12

  He had addressed it to his Dearest Love. Dearest Love, Samira thought to herself as her feet hit the pavement and her breathing deepened. She had decided on a longer run this morning. Beginning with the grounds of the house. Past the trees. Mulberries. Cherries. Through the gravel path. Around to the back of the garden. There was Gita’s greenhouse. Not much different th
an the first time Samira had seen it. The day she had met Shabnam. The girl allowed to be a girl. Pretty ribbon in her pretty hair. Hopscotch jumps. Birds of paradise. The promise of a friendship. Gita’s handprint on her cheek. Friendship gone. Along with Samira’s innocence. She remembered the coldness of the hard wedding-night floor on her bare back. Looked around at the lonely garden immersing her. Could not remember why she had ever thought it beautiful.

  She had tucked the letter into the small pocket of her shorts. His voice whispered through her mind. His words blanketed her eyes: To the one who plagues my dreams despite our distance. The composer that conducts the rhythm of my heartbeats.

  She had looped the garden twice and now ran down the driveway and into the street. Mrs. Azin was walking Visky again and Samira blew them a kiss and received a friendly yelp from Visky and a wave from her neighbor in return. She searched for the folded letter in her pocket. That it was there with her made her less lonely. She tried to remember the words.

  Though outsiders may think what we have is taboo, you and I know that you raise the child within me to something grand and more spectacular than anything I could have dreamed of.

  His words drowned out all the noise around her, making her forget all: the strain in her calf; the shoelace slowly untying itself; the beads of sweat above her lips. And now she could feel the unexpected warmth of her studio floor the night she had been with Armin. She raised the child within him, he had said, rather than treating her like the child to be groomed.

  You are my teacher, my love and the only future my childlike eyes can imagine.

  His teacher. She was his teacher, not he hers.

  She thought of his face. The contours of his jaw and chin. The softness of his smile.

  It seems like eons since we last saw one another, (yes, it did, like eons). There’s something sweet in the morning dew today, convincing me that I will see you soon.

  Samira breathed in the morning around her, and discovered him.

  With Love, he had signed, Your Pupil.

  She looked up and realized just how long she had run. In front of her was the small lily pond outside the park in her neighborhood. Wow, she thought. That’s about twelve kilometers. How did I get here so fast? How long was I gone? She felt suddenly overheated. She turned around to return home, but her calves were strained and exhausted. She would just walk it. The wind whispered in the ivy around her and a thick fog moved in. She stretched for a few minutes, retied her shoelaces and washed her hands and face with the cool water from the pond, green as it was.

  Rising, water dripping from her face, she realized a group of men were watching her from across the pond. There were six of them, and they frowned with such severity. Was that censure she saw there? Was there danger? Careful. Put your head down. She turned and retraced her path back home. It was not long, however, before she realized there were footsteps behind her, and a quick glance over her shoulder confirmed the men were following her. She picked up her pace and turned down a street, deviating from her usual route. They still followed. By now the knot in her calf was a knife, and it was still a long way home. Outrunning them was not likely. She turned down another street, one she knew led to a main road, and picked up her pace again into a run, fighting back pain.

  She turned the corner onto the main road and burst upon a street celebration. She slowed her pace, quickly checking her surroundings. Families milled among vendors barking their offerings of cotton candy, roasted beets and smoked corn. For her, there was safety in numbers.

  “Excuse me,” Samira, breathless from her run and her anxiety, asked one of the celebrants. “Is there a celebration of something?”

  “So they say,” the stranger said, eyeing Samira’s running attired. “Some of the families on the street are sending off their boys to fight the war with Iraq.”

  “That’s the cause of the celebration?”

  The stranger shrugged. “Some men and women came around the last few days, telling all the shopkeepers that going to war for Allah is a cause for festivities and we should be grateful to have the opportunity to martyr our children in this glorious way. They paid off the vendors to give free snacks and encouraged the poorer families to come out for the handouts in celebration.”

  The people are hungry, she thought, so they came. She shook her head with disappointment.

  It was then that Samira felt callused hands. On her shoulders. More on her stomach and face. Pulling her backwards. They thrust her against a wall, her head ringing with impact. She reached up to touch the pain. Was unable. Found herself pinned by the men who had followed her. Now they flourished guns in her face and shouted angry words. And beyond them gathered the horrified faces of people. She thought she cried out, a plea for help, but there was a distance between her attackers and the crowd.

  No rescue there, she thought vaguely, aware of something warm and wet dripping through her hair. Her heart beat a tattoo.

  “I’m Samira Montazar,” she said, or thought she said, thinking if she gave them the coin of her name it would buy her freedom, clear up any misunderstanding.

  But they shouted words like stones: running in public, dressed like a harlot, impropriety, a perversion of Islam.

  “I was just running,” she said. “Even Mohammed, bless his holy name, ran.”

  And now there was the chill of the gun barrel against her ear.

  An explosion of sound.

  And nothing.

  To My Dearest Love,

  To the one who plagues my dreams despite our distance.

  The composer that conducts the rhythm of my heartbeats.

  Though outsiders may think our love taboo, you and I know that you raise the child within me to something grand and more spectacular than anything I could have dreamed of.

  You are my teacher, my love, and the only future my childlike eyes can imagine. It seems like eons since we last saw one another. There’s something sweet in the morning dew today, convincing me I will see you soon.

  With Love, Your Pupil

  The words were imprinted in her. But the letter itself was on fire. Someone had set it on fire. Burning. When she tried to put out the fire, her eyelashes caught fire. Her eyes burned. Strangely painless, but she still screamed and screamed and screamed. Convulsed. Someone shouted “Samira!” She tried to answer. Tried but could not speak. They kept shouting, “Samira, Samira!” She opened her mouth and tried again. Why can’t I speak? She was trapped. She felt so afraid. There it was again. The painless burning in her eyes. Speak! She told herself. For the love of God—say something! Anything!

  “Samira! Samira jan, wake up, darling! You’re dreaming!”

  “Hmm? What?”

  “You’re dreaming!”

  Her eyes half opened through the throbbing pain in her head and she found herself in bed.

  “Do you remember your name?” Dr. Maklini, Davoud’s personal physician, was sitting to Samira’s left. She could tell by his tone that he was raising his voice, but she could barely hear him.

  “Hmm?”

  “Your name, dear girl . . . your name?”

  “Um, my name? Samira.” A dream. The water was just a dream. She touched her eyelashes. They were intact.

  “Yes, that’s right. And . . . how old . . . ?”

  “How old am I?”

  He nodded.

  “I’m, twenty six.”

  “And do . . . know . . . I am?”

  “You’re Davoud’s doctor.”

  “And is Davoud here?”

  Samira looked around the room and located Davoud at the foot of the bed. “Yes, he’s over there.” She slowly pointed. “He was in—Germany, and France.”

  “I returned earlier, serendipitously,” Davoud said. She could hear him much better.

  “You’re doing great, Samira,” Mrs. Darkan, sitting to Samira’s right, said as she rested her hand on Samira’s shoulder for comfort. She could hear Mrs. Darkan almost perfectly.

  “Mrs. Darkan!”

  “
I’m here.”

  “What happened?” She could not really remember. She tried to concentrate. There were fragments. “I was running—”

  “You’re okay now, darling,” Davoud said.

  “Was I? There were . . . men—” She brought her hand to the jabbing pain in the back of her head and felt the bandage. Dr. Maklini gently moved her hand away.

  “Don’t touch . . . dear. Just let the bandage—”

  “You were attacked in the street,” Davoud said. “You’re safe now.”

  “Yes. In the street. How did I—?”

  “You fainted when the men fired a shot behind you. It appears that, given your delirium, they decided you’d had enough and left.”

  “Was there a fire?”

  “Fire?”

  “Did I burn?”

  “There was no fire, my dear.”

  “Oh.”

  “You’re . . . lucky!” Dr. Maklini said. “It . . . much worse.”

  “Thank Khoda that Jafar was in the area to refill his can of oil and had seen a big crowd. When he went to see what had happened, he saw you passed out on the ground. There were people all around you who told him what had happened.”

  “Very lucky indeed,” Mrs. Darkan said.

  “Even luck . . . r . . . think,” Dr. Maklini fiddled with a gadget. She strained to hear him. “That . . . hear us at all . . . gr . . . t sign. But we’ll . . . wait . . . sound pressure levels . . . weapon . . . sensory-neural hearing loss.”

  “Hmm? I could go deaf?” Samira asked.

  “Your . . . improve from . . . now, but I don’t know . . . Based on the scars . . . brick shrapnel . . . guessing . . . fired the gun right next to your . . . right?”

  “Hmm?”

  Dr. Maklini spoke a bit louder. “Did they fire . . . next to your left ear? Or right ear?”

  “Left. The left.”

  The doctor moved around the bed to Samira’s right ear. “Is this better?”

  “Yes.”

  Davoud joined the doctor on Samira’s right side where Mrs. Darkan was already sitting.