Butterfly Stitching

by Shermin Kruse

  Sahar hung her head down and walked back to that bend in the brick where she had so many times before waited to be saved. After a few paces, she peeked behind her to find that Mrs. Abrisham was no longer there. She took her chance and made a run for it, determined to make it home without pausing.

  By the time she reached Morde Avenue, the bumping book bag felt heavy on her back and the sounds of the sirens were ringing louder in her head than ever before. She plugged her ears and focused on the exaggerated sounds of breathing. Inhale. Exhale. She felt dizzy and kept losing her balance. She tried to keep her focus on the first stop sign ahead. When she passed it, she allowed herself a half smile. But she was still dizzy and so slowed down a little. A little trip made her look at her feet. Focus. One step. Two step. Three step. Focus. Her dirty shoelaces hopped from side to side. A loud and bright spark leaping out of the clouds startled her. Thunder. She stopped, unplugged her ears, and looked up at the sky. Fat drops of rain began to fall. Another loud thud and the earth shook again. This one was not thunder. Another rocket. She could only tell the difference after a second or two. She noticed her panties were moist with fear. She pushed back the tears, re-plugged her ears and returned to running. Rain splish-splashed everywhere. Dirt became mud. It swallowed her white running shoes and soaked her laces.

  Follow the swinging pattern of muddy-stringy laces.

  Don’t get caught in the trapping cracks in between the safe places of the sidewalk.

  Step, leap, hop and bounce around the fractured floor or it might crumble.

  Keep your eyes out for the second stop sign.

  She passed the second stop sign.

  Cars, mopeds, children and sirens whizzed past and through her. She was sure she could feel her heart thumping. Loud. Fast. In rhythm with her inhales and exhales. She passed the second stop sign, then lowered her eyes and ran without stopping. Without even pausing. Stubborn noises of her surroundings forced themselves through her scrawny hands and into her head.

  “Little girl.”

  She thought she imagined a faint voice calling to her. She ignored it.

  “Little girl.”

  She ignored the voice and plugged her ears more tightly. She peeked up from time to time to merge with the thoughts that were so directly and entirely focused on that third stop sign, and when she saw it, she turned her lanky legs to the right. Her street. She was now on her street. She felt the tiniest bit of relief.

  “Little girl!”

  All of a sudden, Sahar felt something grab her shoulder and abruptly reverse her course. She pinwheeled her arms to regain balance, forgetting the wail of sirens and thump of rockets. Sahar recognized the fingers that dug into her shoulder. They had black nail polish. She looked up and through the rain, she saw the woman. It was the same woman who had been on this same corner only a few days before.

  “Little girl, it’s Red Alert!” said the woman, more with her thick eyebrows and puffy cheeks than with her lips. She smelled like she had not bathed in weeks. “It’s very dangerous for you to be out here alone. Where’s your maman?”

  Sahar, shocked silent, said and did nothing except switch her gaze back and forth from the thick eyebrows to the black fingernails in her arm.

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” She softened her grip, but did not release Sahar. “Listen, honey, you need to go home. Where do you live? I can help you. Where’s your maman? Where’s your ba —”

  THUD. The sound of a rocket blast that could not have hit more than ten blocks away. Everything shook, the grip on Sahar’s shoulder loosened and her knees caved in. She fell to the trembling ground and covered her head with her arms as the surrounding windows shattered. The sirens were louder than ever and competed with the glass-crushing, car-honking and cursing that shadowed the blast. The sorrowful smell of burning forced itself through the driving rain. Sahar’s need to get to safety was more urgent than ever before. She saw the black-nailed woman on the ground next to her. Her instincts told her to get up and run. As fast as she could. She hopped up and darted away.

  She was almost home. After only a few paces, the imperfect broken gates that were safety’s entrance lay ahead. Without thinking, she ran across the street toward them. She had not gone more than two or three steps before the paralyzing, ear-splitting horn and screaming brakes froze Sahar in her tracks. She glanced up, her world filled with blinding lights, a deafening honk and the hood of a truck. She squeezed her eyes shut, clasped her ears again and everything became quiet for a second. There was only the sound of her breaths.

  Inhale. Exhale.

  She was going to die. She knew it.

  But then, suddenly, there were arms around her, strong and male. And she was lifted up and in flight. They felt so warm, those arms that wrapped around her; and dry, despite the unforgiving rain. They were confident in their movements, and when they set her down on solid ground again, when she dared open her eyes again, she could see the rear of the truck that had plowed through the spot she had stood seconds before. She looked down at the hands clasping her. Fat veins popped out. Moles on the left thumb. Perfect fingernails, not dirty and chewed like Baba’s. Something about the hands seemed familiar, but by the time she gathered herself enough to turn around, all she could see was the back of her saviour’s silver hair, silky as her mother’s pearls, running away from her.

  She thought about calling after him but sirens still rang and the angry truck driver, who had come to a stop a few feet away from where she stood, threw curses at her for nearly getting herself killed. She could not run after her hero, even if she were not immobilized by panic. He ran away too fast for her to catch him. She watched him splash through puddles of rain and disappear around the corner.

  But she was here. In front of her own broken gates. Excellent gates. And then up the stairs, and through her door, and pooling water on the living room rug with Maman’s arms around her.

  “Where is everyone else, Sahar jan?” Maman asked, pushing her back, pulling off her hejab. “Look at you! You’re soaked to the bone! How’d you manage to get yourself so wet? Did you wait outside in the rain for your baba to pick you up, you silly child?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What do you mean, what do I mean? You need to get out of those clothes right now. Are your baba and the twins still in the car? What’s taking them so long to get upstairs? And how’d you guys get here so fast with that crazy Red Alert traffic?”

  “No, Maman jan, I didn’t come with Baba.”

  “Hmm? What are you saying, silly girl? Come on, take off that rupush. You’ll catch your death!”

  “I mean I walked home like Zahra jan said. And you’ll never guess what—”

  “You what?” Maman’s eyebrows arched really high. Sahar had never seen Maman look as scared as she did now.

  The combined effect of the perils of her walk home and Maman’s frightened and angry expression immediately convinced Sahar she should never have attempted this and she had severely misunderstood her instructions. Sahar also knew she should definitely not tell Maman about the black-nailed prostitute and almost being run over by the truck.

  Sahar bore her lecture well, explained “where in the world” she got the idea that she should walk home alone and received a hug for being okay. When, nearly forty minutes later, Baba frantically burst into the house with the boys tucked one under each arm, Sahar was dry, warm and coloring her books in the living room. He ran to his daughter and lifted her into the air.

  “Sahar!” he said, tears in his eyes. “I was so worried! I couldn’t find you—finally found your principal and she said some mumbo jumbo about you walking home and disappearing right when she turned her back. What were you thinking, child? It really isn’t safe out there for a nine-year-old all by herself. Especially during Red Alert. Honey, you’re smart enough to know that.”

  “I’m okay, Baba jan!” Sahar said as he planted kisses all over her face. Maman explained the misunderstanding and the lecture that Sahar had already received.


  “You almost killed me today, child. Killed me! Don’t you know that you, your brothers and your maman are everything to me? I am nothing and no one without all of you. You must be more careful. We’re so close to leaving, so close to safety. We’re almost there, probably only a month or so away, then we’ll be safe forever! Please, the next few weeks, you have to be double, triple, extra careful. Basheh?”

  “Chashm, Baba jan!” the kids said together.

  9

  Later that afternoon, Baba decided to visit Amoo Hassan’s mother for an hour or so before dinner. Maman took to the kitchen and prepared meat and eggplant stew (which happened to be Sahar’s favorite) in celebration of their Westbound Departure and Sahar’s safety.

  Warm smells filled the apartment. Maman put out plates, silverware, napkins, and glasses on the kitchen table. It was Sahar’s job to deliver them to the dinner table. She stood outside the kitchen door to watch Maman stir the red stew. Check on the saffron-stained rice. Drain it. Wash the pot. Wipe the counter. Elegant fingers expertly chop lettuce and slice the mini-limes. Open the kitchen window to let the smoke out. Pull out and close the drawers. Tapping feet to the beat of the songs being hummed. A last-minute dash of salt here. Some turmeric and saffron there.

  “Go on, Sahar jan, deliver the plates,” Maman said. “Your baba will be home soon.”

  Sahar nodded and stuck her chest out, proud of her own usefulness. She bounced into the kitchen and spotted the five aging plates with faded yellow flower prints on the table. She had to reach up a little to get a hold of them, using both hands. With slow steps, she inched into the dining room while she counted the cracks in the parquet flooring and avoided stepping on the fringes of the antique rug. She found the dining room table, reached up to set the plates down, and blew out a loud sigh of relief. Now to check on the twins. Her brothers were still coloring in their room. They seemed to have selected only three colored markers: red, purple, and orange.

  “Come on boys. It’s time for dinner. Baba will be home any minute.” Sahar’s voice was adult-like and she held out both hands for the twins to take. Raumbod obediently extended a blood-red-markered hand while Reza offered a bruised-purple-colored wrist. They took shorter steps than Sahar did, and the mismatched offbeat sounds of pitter-patter followed the three of them down the hall.

  “What have you two done to your hands?” Maman yelped when they walked into the kitchen. She tried to look mad, but was unable to keep herself from smiling. The twins giggled and reached out their hands to show their artistic creations.

  “We’re artists, just like you!” Raumbod asserted with utmost certainty.

  Maman examined the four hands extended for her approval, then judged that although it was a shame to erase such beautiful artistic renderings, it was important to have clean hands before dinner.

  “I always wash my hands after I’ve painted and always before I eat. You boys should do the same. Sahar, why don’t you go with them and make sure they do a nice, clean job, okay?”

  The trio ran back up the hall to the bathroom. Sahar pulled out the two yellow-and-green footstools in front of the sink (she was tall enough to do so without the pink stool that used to be her elevator not too long ago). She turned on the sink very slowly since scary black cockroaches were prone to crawl out of the faucet with that first turn of the knob, and helped the twins wash their hands.

  They heard the front gate opening: Baba was home! A few red-and-purple stains remained, but the job was good enough and they were ready to greet their baba at the door. Quick towel dry and fast pitter-patter down the hall again, stop at the kitchen door to their left, peek inside at Maman’s coordinated dinner dance, then look to the front door’s lock and imagine it turning with Baba’s key and those end-of-the-day “I’m home!” hugs and kisses.

  But they heard people yelling outside their kitchen window. Loud footsteps, not like her and her brothers’, but harsh and hurrying up the stairs. No jingly sound of a key turning in a lock. Instead, crashing against their front door.

  Loud. LOUD.

  An army breaking into their house. Maman dropped something breakable. It broke. The twins cried and buried their heads under Sahar’s arms. And then Maman was with them, over them, falling to the ground.

  Thud. THUD.

  The twins screamed. Sahar tried not to cry but could not help it. She felt Maman’s hands shaking as she held them all tightly. “Shh,” she whispered. “Please, shh . . .”

  The lock broke and the door burst into splinters and dust.

  Big men and short, veiled women ran in shouting, pointing long-barreled guns at Sahar, her brothers and Maman. The strangers tried to pull Maman off them but she would not let go. Sahar looked at the hole at the end of the gun. It looked so small. So small. It could not hurt anyone, not really, she was certain of it.

  The twins cried even louder and Reza peed himself but Maman did not get mad at him. The strangers screamed questions. One of them stood back in the corner with a crooked smile of blackened teeth. Sahar could not understand what the shouting was about. They kept repeating, over and over again, louder each time; “Where is he? Where’s the writer? Your husband? Where is your husband?”

  So angry.

  The strength of the black smoke’s demented fanaticism jabbed the small hole at the end of a heavy machine gun’s muzzle into Sahar’s side, shoving them all to the couch.

  Huddle. Together.

  Sahar tried to shut the scene out of her mind by focusing on the tactile sensation of Maman’s blouse, where her brothers had also drowned themselves. The blouse smelled like tomato paste and turmeric.

  The guns looked like well-made toys. The outsiders said things to each other which Sahar could not hear. Suddenly, it was quiet. They were waiting. Waiting for something. Someone. Who? Baba. They were waiting for her baba, Armin-the-Writer. But why? What did he do? Something. He must have done something.

  One, two, four, seven, Sahar counted eleven of them. Their mouths looked sewn shut so their screams must have been telepathic, Sahar thought. Somehow, this made them louder. She saw deep, dried-up, cockroach-filled wells squatted in the places where their eyes should be. An ugly red-and-brown piece of hair kept on slithering out of one woman’s tightly clipped headscarf despite her repeated attempts to tuck it back in, like a stubborn wiggly worm after a spring rain. There must be an entire head of crawling creatures underneath her black cloak. Sahar saw these creatures floating like smoke, swimming through the homemade aromas of their small apartment, sucking all the home out of homemade.

  The entire cast stared at the broken door: the smoky people, Sahar, Maman and the twins, with their hearts beating hard, waiting. A large wasp flew in through the kitchen window and loudly circled the rom. The one with the crooked smile and blackened teeth tried to swat it, but he just ended up looking like a fool. The wasp ran circles around the sinner’s ear and made Sahar smirk. Go wasp, go!

  The door moved. Someone was coming in. Someone with her baba’s face. More screams. “Stop right there—put your hands up. Your hands up! Now! Do it now!” They were shouting, inching toward him, empty wells where their eyes should be and the small holes at the end of their gun barrels.

  “Are you Afsseus?”

  The face of the man in the doorframe who looked like Baba reflected utter shock. His hand was still on the broken door handle, frozen. The wrinkles walked off the old leather couch and found themselves comfortable places around his eyes and on his forehead, aging him in a second. Sweat washed down his face and onto his shirt collar. He stared at his wife and children. Such concern there, Sahar thought. He wants us safe.

  “I don’t understand,” he said. “I’m—what’s the problem? Have you harmed my chil—?”

  “Are you Mr. Afsseus, the poet?” A female hollow-faced mass of smoke spoke, but Sahar did not see her lips move. As if she talked with her mind instead of her mouth. She waved the barrel of her gun crazy close to Reza’s head. Maman pulled Reza away from the weapon and int
o herself, screaming for them to leave her “innocent children alone.”

  Innocent. Children. Alone.

  The twins got louder, their eyes scrunched up, their drool dripped on their shirts and Maman’s arms, and their tears washed snot into their mouths. Sahar did not cry. She was not even in the room. She had turned into pink air and flown into the sky. From there she watched people who only looked like people she knew frightened by things she did not understand.

  “Answer! Answer now!”

  “Yes, yes, I’m Mr. Afsseus. What’s all this about —”

  “Put your hands up. Your hands up! You are under arrest. Get down on your knees with your hands up. Down on your knees!”

  The faceless people kept repeating themselves. They threatened to shoot if he moved an inch and ordered him again and again to comply with their demands. It all happened so fast. Sahar screamed from the sky to just do as they said and maybe they would go away.

  The man who looked like Baba looked at Maman. He was trying to tell her something. Sahar saw the pride and fear in his eyes but did not understand their message. Maybe she would have understood him if she had not already flown away. He then turned and sneered at the masses of smoke.

  “Go to Hell.”

  He threw one last loving and apologetic glance toward his family, then jerked his body around in a pretend attempt to make a run for it.

  That was all they needed.

  Bullets flung. Baba’s eyes were wide open as his body jerked from side to side. Again. And again. Seventeen in the seconds that followed that last glance. Seventeen. Sahar could not help but count them.

  Seventeen loud bangs.

  Seventeen shells.

  A few seconds.

  The cracks in the parquet flooring took up the color of Raumbod and Reza’s coloring book. The inherited Persian rug that had borne the footsteps and tears of their family for generations blushed like a shy girl. Maman let go of the little ones as she ran toward the falling man, trying to hold him up so he did not hurt himself as he crashed to the ground. She struggled but his body was too heavy and he fell on top of her. She took on his crimson paint.