Beast (22 page)

The knowledge makes me sadder than I have ever been before. I sink to a lying position and let my head fall on the stone step.

Chou Chou comes over and licks my ears. Inside and out. Then he falls asleep, curled against my belly.

Daylight comes. Darkness comes.

I'm not even thirsty anymore.

Once upon a time, what seems like another lifetime ago, I planned to lure a woman here so that she could love me and break the
pari's
spell. Now that plan doesn't matter at all. I would gladly remain lion forever, if only Belle would return.

Belle is gone.

I feel myself contract, wither. Life ebbs.

I felt this way once before —on the mountain in India, when I thought of giving up. That time I got close to euphoria. This time I should make it all the way there. For if the poets of
tasawwuf
—Islamic mysticism— are right, all is happening as it should: The lover is annihilated by the beloved.

From somewhere comes the energy to walk. I go to the new orchard, to the center. Chou Chou runs ahead
of me. He disappears down a hole. He's made a tunnel right here, right in the middle of my gift to Belle.

I dig at the tunnel opening. It leads to a shallow den. I dig it big enough for me, and let myself drop into it.

My thoughts are sharper now than they have been for days. I remember the old lion I met in India. The one whose ribs showed. The one I knew the jackals would chase away if I tried to leave him the meat. I see the weariness in his eyes. It is my weariness.

And now I realize I made a mistake. I should have broken off branches of roses to throw down into Chou Chou's den. Then I could have rested on a bed of thorns with rose perfume filling my head as I died.

But I haven't the strength to get up again.

I close my eyes.

“Where are you?” The voice comes from far away, high and sweet. “Oh, Mon Ami, where are you?”

A phantasm of a voice. This must be what the poets call ecstasy. I wait for my mind to explode.

Chou Chou goes running.

And the voice realizes itself into the vision of the woman. But Chou Chou jumps on her insistently. He knows this is no vision.

Belle is here, really here. She rushes along a rose path, following the fox. She kneels before me, bringing all the sweetness of a perfect rose. “What's this?
You're sick.” Her face crumples with grief. “You're dying.”

I stretch my paw and scratch in the dirt, “Dead long ago.”

“What do you mean?”

I have no energy to explain.

Belle waves her arms around at the trees and flowers. “I have seen all that you did while I was gone — the ducks, the feathers, the firewood. I'm astonished at this garden. You make beauty.” She puts both hands on my head and circles them around the backs of my ears.

“You pet me like animal.”

Belle shakes her head in confusion at the words in the dirt. “But you are an animal.”

A cry comes from deep in my throat. My heart breaks. I scratch out, “Not animal—monster.”

Belle's eyes fill with tears. “You have a good heart, Mon Ami. You aren't a monster.” She puts her hands under my chin and brings her face close to mine. “Oh, Mon Ami. I'm the one who's a monster.” Her tears fall on my nose. “Forgive me for having come back late. It was hard to leave Papa, he ails so. But I had to come back.”

“Why?”

“I missed everything about this new life,” she says softly. “The gardens and castle. Chou Chou. Reading
and praying together.” She rests her chin on the top of my muzzle. “I missed you, Cher Ami. You are gentle and passionate at once. You make me happy.” Her hands press. “And, most of all, you need me like no one ever has before.”

All pride flames and turns to ash. The world comes alive in colors that never before existed. I need you, Belle. Oh, how I need you.

“You let me help you; you let me know you.” Belle whispers now. “You let me love you.”

The words seep into my head, they grow hot and loud, louder and louder, they deafen me, and I'm screaming screaming.

But it's Belle who's screaming, not me. Her hands grasp at the air.

And I catch them in mine — in my own hands. Human hands. Me, I am me. I pull Belle close and hold her fast against the impossible knowledge.

And we weep, together. Shaking.

Belle and I. Human tears for human love.

And we bow to the Merciful One and make a pool of our tears in the middle of this garden.

A pool in His honor.

The story of Beauty and the Beast recurs in fairy tales around the world. The one Americans are perhaps most familiar with has its roots in France in the 1700s, with a romance for adults written in 1740 by Gabrielle Susanne Barbot de Gallon de Villeneuve called
La jeune amériuquaine, et les contes marins,
the first-known literary version of the tale. Madame Le Prince de Beaumont offered the first version for children in 1756, and it became the classic model for the tale as we know it. Indeed, popular versions of the tale, with varying styles, proliferated. Charles Lambs poetry version in 1811 is told with propriety and civility, and it reveals that the beast had been transformed by a wicked fairy. While earlier versions also attributed the transformation to a fairy, Lamb's version named the beast-man Prince Orasmyn, and said that he was from Persia.

Given the importance of gardens in Persian history and culture—especially the importance of roses—mixed with the place the lion holds in Persian folklore, the choice of which version of the story to use as a springboard was obvious.

Thank you, Charles Lamb.

Many non-English words are used in this story, usually to give a sense of time and place. When the meanings of these words are necessary to understanding the plot, these meanings are given in the text.

However, some readers might enjoy a glossary of the words that are dearest to Orasmyn's heart.

abghosht:
mutton, white beans, and spinach stew

adhan:
call to prayer

anar:
pomegranate

aqrab:
scorpion

bade gule sourkh:
the wind of roses (a particular wind that blows at the end of winter and signals the coming of spring)

bagh:
garden

baghbanha:
gardeners

beh daneh:
quince seed

belaq:
sacred garden (ancient term, lost today)

bholsari:
a plant which blooms off-white in the rains

chador:
veil

chambeli:
a plant which blooms white, yellow, and blue in the rains and sometimes in winter

derakhte badam:
almond tree

djinn:
fairy

esfenaj surkh kardeh:
spinach with onions and turmeric

fessenjan ba morgh ya goosht:
chicken with walnut, onion, and pomegranate

ghorme sabzi:
meat stew

gul:
flower, rose

gule sourkh:
rose (a particular kind of rose—the generic term for rose is “gule rose”)

gulistan:
rose garden

hajji:
pilgrim

halal:
prepared according to sacred custom (said of meat, similar to “Kosher” for the Jewish religion)

halim bademjan:
lamb with eggplant and onions

imam:
prayer leader

iwan:
vaulted portal to a mosque

jannat:
garden of paradise

kerna:
trumpet

kuzah:
a plant that blooms white in the hot season

maddi:
water channel

mar:
snake

mihrab:
niche in a mosque wall that faces Mecca

mongra:
a plant with yellow flowers in summer

muraquibah:
a state of guarding, to keep away evil thoughts

naishakar:
sugarcane

pari:
fairy

qadi:
an Islamic judge

rakat:
prayer bow

riabel:
a flowering plant

sabzi:
spices

saz:
oboe

sendjed:
bohemian olive

sewti:
a plant with white flowers that blooms all year, especially toward the end of the rains

sheikh:
a venerable patriarch, learned in religion

sib:
apple

sir:
garlic

sophreh:
cloth to eat on

souk:
market

syah-dane:
fennel

talar:
platform

taj:
crown

tanour:
a flat bread

tasawwuf:
Islamic mysticism (Sufism)

tawhid:
the unity that bridges the distance between humans and God

taziyan:
greyhounds

wudhu:
cleansing ritual before prayer

zakat:
charitable giving (one of the Five Pillars of Islam)

zarehun:
farmers

ziyada:
the outer court of a mosque

The words in this glossary are a mix of Farsi (the language native to Persia) and Arabic (the language of Islam, which came to Persia a few hundred years before Orasmyn lived). Some of the words borrowed from the Arabic into Farsi are unaltered, whereas others have been changed as
they were borrowed. In the story, many of these words appear in the plural, in which case the Farsi plural rather than the Arabic plural appears, even in Arabic words, such as
hajji,
“pilgrim,” since this is the plural Orasmyn most probably would have used. So, for example, I use the Farsi plural
hajjiha
rather than the Arabic plural
hujjaj.

A word of caution about the spelling of the words is in order. Orasmyn would have written all of these words in the Farsi alphabet or the Arabic alphabet. In the story, however, they are written in our Roman alphabet. Transliterating from other writing systems invariably results in multiple ways to spell words (that's why you Ve undoubtedly seen several ways to spell Hannukah, which is transliterated from the Hebrew alphabet). Whenever I dealt with Persian words in this work, I opted for a transliteration considered “ordinary” for the Iranians I have asked, even if that is not the most frequently used transliteration in the literature about Islam that I have consulted. That's because the point of view is consistently that of Orasmyn, raised with Persian traditions within a Muslim world.

Finally, a note to the budding linguists out there, who might wish there was a glossary of every non-English word in this story: Your public libraries probably have Latin and French dictionaries. I encourage you to study both a modern and an ancient language in high school if your school offers them. Language is the fabric of culture. I urge you to revel in it, as Orasmyn most assuredly did.