Butterfly Stitching

by Shermin Kruse

  Davoud, this isn’t your decision. I’m going back. With or without you.

  DAVOUD

  If you go back, your son will lose his mother. They’ll take you. Especially now that you’ve tried to flee. They’ll never believe that you are innocent. They will take you, and they will kill you.

  (beat)

  I know what it is to lose a child. At least Raumbod is alive, safe, and with people who love him.

  SAHAR

  Maman, Raumbod wants to know when we’re coming home.

  SAMIRA

  (takes the phone)

  Raumbod jan! Raumbod aziz. Don’t you worry, darling. We’ll find a way to get you back. Won’t we, Davoud? Yes, we will. Your Amoo Davoud is very powerful and we’ll find a way to get you back. But you have to be patient. It’ll take a little while. But we’ll get you back. Do you hear me? I promise. Do you hear me, sweetie? I promise!

  RAUMBOD (V.O.)

  I heard you, Maman. I miss you.

  SAMIRA

  I miss you too, baby. I miss you too. But your amoo and khaleh will take very good care of you. Until we can get you back, they’ll take very good care of you. I think they might even give you ice cream every day! What do you think? Do you think they’ll give you lots of ice cream?

  RAUMBOD (V.O.)

  Yeah.

  Will you tell Reza I’m sorry I ruined our game?

  SAMIRA begins to answer him but their connection is cut off.

  FADE TO BLACK

  FADE IN:

  INT. CHARLES DE GAULLE AIRPORT, AFTERNOON

  SAMIRA, DAVOUD, REZA and SAHAR connect through Charles De Gaulle on their way to Chicago. SAMIRA and SAHAR wear the same black headscarves they wore throughout their travels, the ones approved by the Iranian government. Around them, fashionably attired men and women reveal their shoulders and legs, and couples share a kiss or two. There is a big black trash can to the side. SAMIRA stands still, staring into the air, remembering all the times in her youth she came to Paris with DAVOUD.

  SAHAR

  Maman, Reza’s hungry.

  SAMIRA

  Yes, of course, my love. I’m sorry! I—I guess I was just thinking back to another time. We’ll get you something in a minute. There’s just one quick thing we need to do before that. Follow me. Come on.

  SAMIRA seems to be wandering aimlessly toward the large trash can. She stands in front of it for a good while, staring at the garbage. SAHAR WATCHES HER MAMAN WITH CONCERN. SAMIRA walks closer to the trash can and then unties her head scarf. Slowly. Deliberately. She slides the headscarf off. Her curls are bared in public for the first time in nearly a decade. She lumps up the scarf and puts it in the trash.

  SAMIRA

  Come on, Sahar jan. Come here, darling.

  SAHAR

  Why are you throwing away a perfectly good headscarf?

  SAMIRA does not answer. Instead, she unties SAHAR’S headscarf and throws it where she’s thrown her own.

  SAHAR

  (confused)

  Hey! That was mine! Why’d you do that?

  SAHAR tries reaching in the garbage after her head scarf, but SAMIRA restrains her. Then SAMIRA unbuttons her own rupush, with angry haste. She practically rips it off her body and then does the same with SAHAR’S rupush. She stuffs both garments into the garbage can.

  SAHAR

  Maman! What are you doing? That’s the only headscarf I brought with me. It was perfectly good! And now we have to go and buy another one.

  SAMIRA looks up at DAVOUD who has joined them. He is holding REZA’S hand and grinning. THE CHILDREN have not caught on but the adults understand. SAMIRA kneels down next to her whimpering daughter and motions for her son to join them.

  SAMIRA

  We won’t need those anymore. Do you remember what I told you about America?

  SAHAR

  (confident)

  Yes. You said there’d be butterflies.

  SAMIRA

  (smiles)

  Yes, I did say that and there will be butterflies. But do you remember I also said we wouldn’t have to wear the hejab? Do you remember I said we wouldn’t have to pretend anymore?

  SAHAR

  I remember!

  SAMIRA

  Well, we’re now in France and, just like in America, you don’t have to wear the hejab if you don’t want to. Look around you, see? No one’s wearing the hejab!

  SAHAR’S eyes widen with understanding as she pays attention to the scene around. To her left, a young woman with puffy hair wears black pants that stick to her skin like pantyhose and only come down to her calves, and a bright pink T-shirt with orange swirls. Her red lips laugh hysterically at something that the handsome man holding her hand just told her. To her right stand a group of teenagers with funky hair colors and ripped jeans, mingling. One of the girls wears a shirt that even shows her belly button! Men and women are openly kissing and there is someone with a small white puppy on a leash, tight clothes, loud makeup and blond hair unrestrained by any sort of covering. SAHAR looks to REZA and is delighted to catch him with a smile.

  SAMIRA

  Reza, you can wear whatever you want, too. You can wear jeans or short sleeves, just like in the movies. You can even dance in the streets if you want to! Anything you want!

  REZA

  But Raumbod still can’t dance in the streets, right?

  Beat.

  SAMIRA

  Yes, my angel. You’re right. But we’ll do everything in our power for as long as it takes to bring him to us. We will not abandon him. Do you hear me?

  REZA lowers his head.

  SAMIRA

  We will not give up on your brother. Never. Do you understand?

  REZA believes her and leaps into her arms. SAMIRA holds him for a few moments, then sets him down to remove something from her shoulder bag. It is a faded red headscarf with butterfly embroidery.

  DAVOUD

  I remember that.

  SAMIRA smiles and wraps the headscarf softly around her face

  SAHAR

  Maman, I thought you just said we weren’t wearing headscarves anymore.

  SAMIRA

  No, I said we don’t have to wear anything we don’t want. You see this headscarf? I’ve had it for more than twenty years!

  REZA

  Twenty years!

  SAMIRA

  Yes! And I made it myself. I even dyed the fabric. And your granny did the butterfly stitching.

  SAHAR

  How do you know how to make headscarves?

  SAMIRA

  When I was a little girl we made our own clothes. And when I was not much older than you, Sahar, I would wear this very headscarf all the time, even though I didn’t have to.

  SAHAR

  But why would you wear it if you don’t have to?

  SAMIRA

  (smiling)

  For all the reasons anyone should ever wear a headscarf. Faith. Modesty. Equality. Tradition. I suppose it also makes me feel warm, protected. And then one day, I just stopped.

  SAHAR

  Why?

  SAMIRA

  I was told it was old fashioned. That I needed to become a modern woman, and modern women didn’t wear headscarves. That was our Iran back then. And then, after the revolution, the Mullahs stole the veil. They took it away from God and tradition, took away its color and made it black. They made it theirs and splashed blood on it, and it became dirty and hateful to me. But now it isn’t their tool anymore. I’m taking it back.

  SAHAR

  Maman?

  SAMIRA

  Baleh, azizam?

  SAHAR

  Should I get a bright-red headscarf, too?

  SAMIRA

  If you want to. It’s up to you. You’re too young now anyway. You can decide when you’re a little older. Now come on. We have to catch our connection.

  FADE TO BLACK

  Epilogue

  Hijri Calendar, 1435, Gregorian Calendar, 2014

  Chicago, Illinois, USA

&nbs
p; The water is serene, and in the distance, I can see the boats of the seasons showing off their first sails of spring. My butterfly-patterned scarf is wrapped around and tied in a knot above my head. The fringed ends kiss my cheeks with each step. Nestled in some trees, across from the jogging and biking path that runs along the lake, are stone chairs and tables with chessboards painted on them where sharp-witted strangers match strategies. Edmund runs behind me, catching up. His pace is faster so he goes further than I do then loops back again so we can be home around the same time.

  I think of Raumbod, that he is with us after all of these years, that my maman did not live to see him. If it had not been for Edmund, I would never have seen him either. His visa applications were rejected, one after another, until Edmund stepped in.

  I remember the first time I came to the Olum house, straight from O’Hare airport—my first American house. Mrs. Olum (or as my maman always called her, Mrs. Darkan) let us take off our socks and walk around on the front lawn with our bare feet. I remember the feeling of grass, lots of healthy grass that had not been destroyed by missiles or lack of water, tickling my toes. I remember how disappointed I was that the butterflies in Chicago were not big enough to carry me to the corner store. And I remember Mr. Olum’s half-American grandson, with his blue eyes and straight nose, not much older than I, bragging about becoming a surgeon when he grows up. It was when Edmund realized his own dream that he made Reza’s and my dream come true. He presented brain scans that he claimed were of Raumbod’s brain, so that we could get my brother a medical visa. He risked his license and lied to the American and Iranian governments. Reza, who had disliked Edmund at the beginning, was in tears with gratitude.

  “It’s what they would’ve wanted,” he said, referring to Mr. and Mrs. Olum. And so it was that in marrying Edmund, I gained not only a husband, but also my brother.

  Now I run free, lost in my memories, watching the beautiful redness of the evening sun on the lake. Time stills and I stop pounding the path, compelled to stand still with the moment.

  “Lady, watch out!”

  I turn to see a cyclist only inches away from crashing into me, but we do not collide. For the second time in my life, I feel the strength of arms picking me up from behind as though I am as light as a bird, rescuing me from certain collision, less than a second before the bicyclist whizzes his way through the spot where I was mesmerized by the sunset.

  And there it is. A memory. Forgotten in the haze of tragedies that followed it. But somehow preserved in some corner of my mind. It floods through me. Like a slap in the cheek. I see it now. As if it were only yesterday.

  When Edmund, who has just snatched me out of harm’s way, puts me back down, I remember another man who rescued me from collision. The veins in his hands. The three spots on his left thumb. The speeding truck passing us by. And for the first time I understand Davoud had been our protector more than any of us knew.

  “Are you okay, azizam?” Edmund asks. “You look dazed.”

  “What?” I manage to whisper through the travesty of recollection.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Oh, right. Yes, I’m fine. Yes. Thank you, thank you.” I cannot stay in this universe. I am too busy watching old memories rain down. Repairing the ancient chasms of my mind. “I have to run . . .”

  “Run back home? That’s what we were doing—”

  “No, I have to run somewhere else.”

  “Where?”

  “I . . . I just remembered something. I have to go. I have to go alone.”

  “What? What’s going on?”

  “I’ll explain later. I’ll see you for dinner. I love you.”

  I speed away, faintly aware that Edmund runs after me for a while before giving up. I remember my run through the streets of Tehran during Red Alert that day when things more terrible than fiction befell my family. I remember my shoelaces. Soaked with the rain. Fearing that they might catch in the cracks on the sidewalk. I remember how loud my own breaths sounded in my head. “Little girl, little girl,” called out by a prostitute. My ears. I remember that I had plugged my ears to dampen the blast of the rockets.

  Now, once again, my breathing and heartbeat grow louder and louder as I run without pause, eyes ahead. From the jogging path along the lake I turn left on Fullerton, run through the park, past Dunn Cleaners and all the way up to Lehmann Court toward the apartment. Without pause, I run up the steps to the third floor and bang the doorknocker.

  The nurse opens the door and I push through the small, gray-tiled kitchen where fresh tea brews on a gas stove, through the door with the square knob that leads to the back room. He is in bed, as he often is these days, his heart heavy with sickness. I fall to my knees right next to him.

  “What is it, child?” he says with concern, trying to sit up.

  I do not answer. I do not know how. Instead, I sit, catching my breath. I take hold of his left hand, with its fat vein and the three spots on his thumb, where they had always been despite my blindness to them. I see him through my tears.

  “You,” I manage. “It was you, that day in the street.”

  “In the street?”

  “With the truck. In Tehran. When I was a child. It was you. I remember. I can’t explain it. It’s as though my memories were tampered with.”

  I can see from his face that he knows what I mean. That, unlike me, he never pushed the memory away, but silently maintained it all these years. “It was me.”

  “That truck would have hit me. Killed me for sure. I didn’t see your face, just your hands. They were familiar because I had seen them in the bazaar the day before. Then I saw your hands many times after that, for years, but I—I didn’t remember it because—”

  “Because the horror that followed that memory overshadowed it.”

  “Yes. You were there, in front of our house in Tehran, the night they came to arrest Baba.”

  “Yes.”

  “But, I don’t understand. What were you doing there? Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  I am suddenly suspicious of Davoud’s possible role in my baba’s death, and the questions filling my mind circle the room and imprint the walls. He takes a long breath, expected from an ill eighty-three-year-old man preparing for a difficult talk. The air around us grows so thick that it creaks like the floors of our old apartment 3A, not far from where Baba fell. The red sun has departed now and darkness burgles the corners of the room. I do not think to turn on the light.

  “I wasn’t involved in what happened to your father,” he begins, wanting desperately to thin the air. “But I could’ve prevented it.”

  I’m still holding his left hand, afraid that releasing hold of the three spots will release the truth of this moment. He continues, “I came back to Iran to warn Samira. I’d been back for three weeks, trying to gather up whatever courage I had. To put aside my anger. My disdain for Armin. To warn them to run. I wandered the streets and my mind, looking for a way to bring myself to wander onto your street. Then I saw Samira in the crowded bazaar. I just smiled at the sight of her, forgetting the pain of the past. She was still so beautiful.”

  His sadness stung me. If not for him, Maman may have died in Iran after Baba’s death. And his friendship with Maman was one of the greater joys of her later years. He had become family over time, and I cared for him.

  “I met you for the first time that day in the bazaar,” Davoud said. “You looked so much like the perfect blend of your mother and father, and I even saw some of Gita in you. The next day I went to your house. The Red Alert was loud and my mind wasn’t so clear. After the taxi dropped me off, I stood in front of your building for a few minutes. That’s when I saw you, frozen in the middle of the street with a large truck about to strike you dead. I pulled you out of the way.”

  “But why didn’t you—?”

  “There was no way I could explain who I was in that state. I’d made it much further than any day before and with you there and the twins either at home or needing to be pic
ked up, I ran out of there. I thought that it just wasn’t the right time. I promised myself that I’d come again the next day.”

  “But the next day was too late.”

  “And I could do nothing except help the rest of you escape.”

  I feel the world around me reduce to only things that exist in this room and in my heart. I reach inside for the burden of anger and hatred but I cannot find any for the man before me.

  “Did you ever tell Maman?”

  “That I knew what was coming but didn’t warn her in time? How could I? It took us so long just to form a friendship. If she knew I could have saved Armin but didn’t, or couldn’t, or wouldn’t . . . she wouldn’t have forgiven me.”

  “She might have.”

  He pauses. “She might have.”

  I do not know what time it was when the man who set my parents’ lives in motion, and outlived them both, slipped away to join them, but I know I held his hand as it happened.

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to thank the following remarkable people who have made this journey possible:

  Stuart. Butterfly Stitching would not exist were it not for your unending support of it. You are my heart. My inspiration.

  My parents, Amir and Nahid. For leaving everything to give us everything.

  The original twins in my life, Atessa and Mahsa. You light me up and will forever be my soul mates.

  My magical children, Elise, Pierce, and Amara. You take my breath away.