Beast (7 page)

The deer jumps to attention. He has caught our scent. How stupid of us to approach upwind of the prey. He leaps away.

The second female comes out in front of him, running full speed.

The stag stops, bewildered. He leaps to the side.

The first female dashes out. Her claws grab at the stags rump. Within seconds, he's on his side. He struggles to get up, kicks her fiercely in the face, lets out a bleat. The second female bites his throat. The stag thrashes, goes limp.

The lionesses tear open the stag from belly to anus. They drag out the viscera, scooping with their paws, pulling with those fangs. One is chewing at the organs while the other chomps into the flesh at the groin. I watch, fascinated. The lioness with the nicked ear, my lioness, dislocates a hind leg at the pelvis and drags it aside to gnaw on.

They growl as they eat. The growls entice me. I stand and walk to my lioness. She looks up at me. Hesitantly, I reach my head forward to the meat. She springs away in alarm and goes back to the carcass. The other lioness growls louder at her. My lioness rips a foreleg from the shoulder and drags it into the bushes. She flops down and eats.

I am still standing over the half-chewed hind leg. Both females look at me between bites. The scent of
blood dampens the air. A tiny spasm of thought far back in my brain warns me. But it is too distant to understand, like a memory from infancy, before I could talk. A growl eases from my throat. I crouch and eat.

Hot blood fills my mouth, coats my tongue thickly; its aroma invades my nostrils, replacing all other smells. This flesh is wonderful.

I finish the leg and walk over to the carcass.

The other lioness jumps aside for me. I take the remaining hind leg and pull at it until the femur snaps away from the hip socket and black blood spurts up in my face. I eat this leg.

Both females are now ripping at the shoulder of the carcass. We eat.

Finally, I stop. The lionesses have stopped, as well. The head of the stag lies far from its ribcage. The grasses are wet with blood.

My belly is bloated and swollen, as are those of the females. We have eaten enough meat to feed a whole town. Meat and gristle and hide. We gorged.

The lionesses lick away the blood from their chops. Then they lick their paws and rub their faces against the moist paws. Grooming is slow and luxurious. Finally, they rise and I follow them. They are strangers to this hunting park, yet they seem to know exactly where they're going.

I walk naturally, my hind paws landing in the precise spots my front paws have just vacated. My ears turn to catch sounds from every direction. My tail swings. Managing this body requires not thought, but surrender. It is as though the muscles govern themselves.

We come to a stream. I know this stream; I have splashed up and down its length on hot summer days. I splashed without fear—Tor these woods held no predators large enough to threaten me. No predators large enough to threaten that stag. That must have been why he was such an easy prey; he never expected death.

The lionesses lower their front legs and lap water. They move in a companionable synchrony, and I sense they are sisters, perhaps even twins. I crouch and lap. The water is delicious.

We trot through the trees. My lioness stops to defecate. She leaves the steaming liquid pile and trots on. I am drawn to it. I smell it, then follow her.

We stop in a thicket and sink to the ground, emitting hoarse puffs of air. My lioness looks at me with a steady, open gaze. Her eyes accept the death of the stag and the hard earth and everything; they accept me. She licks my muzzle, humming all the while. I see now that she suffered a deep gash in her nose from the stag's hoof. It was hidden before under the blood from the meat. I lick her wound. She rubs her cheek
and ear against mine, sighs, and lets herself fall onto her back with her legs flopping in the air. Within moments both lionesses sleep.

I watch them as though in a trance.

Slowly my mind comes awake.

I know what I have done this morning. The sense of conscious realization that characterized Orasmyn's thoughts, the sense that has eluded me since I woke, has finally returned. I know what I have done. All without the
wudhu
that clenses body and soul first. All without prayer. And so much blood.

Father would never eat blood. Mother would never eat blood. All meat must be properly bled. But my people, the people of great Persia, have eaten blood since long before Islam came to this land, since ancient times. The townspeople saved the camel and sheep blood from the sacrifice yesterday. I know they did. We all know. They ate it later, congealed and cut into cubes. We
hajjiha
even watched as the women dipped cotton in the blood. We knew they brought it home to dry. When a child is sick, they will put the blood-hardened cotton in water and feed the child the water with a spoon. We knew this. Everyone knows.

Perhaps it is my Persian heritage that allowed me to eat the blood of the stag. Eat without the ritual prayers first. Eat ravenously until I was obscenely oversatiated.

I listen to the grunts of the lionesses as they sleep. I hear their heartbeats. I hear their heartbeats!

No, I didn't eat blood because of my Zoroastrian heritage. I ate blood because I am lion.

I mated with lionesses.

O Merciful One, the mix of good and evil that the
Qur'an
speaks of has tipped within me.

I await my slaughter.

T
he earth vibrates. The lionesses jump to their feet. They race off. I chase after.

I stop.

It's the elephants — I know this simply from the sound. Dogs bark. They are still far away, but they're moving. They come from the direction of the mountains. Abdullah and the other
mahouts
must have led them there early this morning.

If I follow the lionesses, we will be driven toward the hunters. Father will kill me. Perhaps with his bare hands.

Did I not sit here waiting for death?

But that was another me. The lion me lives.

I lope back to the stream and splash into the center. It's deep, and I slap wildly at the water with my forepaws. I'm swimming now, a sort of random
paddling with all legs at once. At places the stream is shallow, and my paws run along the bottom. I'm going with the current, back toward the palace. But the other direction, upstream, leads toward Kooma and the dogs.

The thought of the dogs spurs me on. I have never been afraid of dogs, yet now I am panic stricken. Yapping dogs.

I need a plan; this body cannot simply trust every compulsion that assails it. As long as I stay in the stream, no dogs can follow my scent, at least. So maybe my lion self made a good choice when it jumped into the water. But I'm getting closer to the palace fast—the water follows a straighter path than I did when I was running through the woods. I see a line of cypresses not far off, and I know they flank the path back to the entrance gate of the hunting park.

It's hard to hear anything else above the noise of the water. I cannot know if the hunters' horses are gathered at the entrance to the hunting park or if they have already begun to move toward the prey.

The stream has narrowed and grown shallow. I walk in the center, the water not quite up to my chest. Now the wall that separates the hunting park from the palace grounds comes into view. A small bridge spans the stream ahead.

I must make a choice. I move to the very edge of
the stream and crouch. If I stay on this side of the wall, I can try to slink along unseen until I reach the gate. Then I can make a dash for it.

For what?

My room is no haven. Besides, I could never open the doors.

The
pari
said Father would kill me today. If midnight comes and I am still alive, perhaps the spell will be broken. All I have to do is live until midnight. There must be a place I can hide.

I walk out of the stream and close to the wall. Water drips from my fur with small pluds on the earth. My panting is so loud, I shut my jaw fast and almost choke on my tongue.

A man talks on the other side of the wall. Kiyumars. He speaks of preparations for the midday meal, which will be very soon. They are making
halim bademjan
—lamb with eggplant and onions — and
fes-senjan ba morgh ya goosht
—chicken in walnut-onion-pomegranate sauce. These are meals fit for guests, tender and succulent. I imagine the hunting party eating these foods that took the entire morning to prepare, then placing a lump of sugar on their tongues and sipping aromatic tea through it. Their meal will be nothing like the meal I shared with the lionesses. The blood has washed off my paws, but it may well still stain my face.

A woman answers Kiyumars. It is Roya, my mother's own maidservant. All the servants have been enlisted to help in meals because there are so many guests here for the hunt.

Would Kiyumars recognize his friend in me? Would he help hide me?

A ridiculous thought.

I remember the fear in Kiyumars' eyes as he came to find me yesterday and warn me not to go off walking because of the lions and tigers.

I walk farther, my side grazing the wall. Birds scream as I pass a bush. A small flock flies into a date palm.

“Who's there?” Kiyumars calls from the other side of the wall.

Can't birds take flight without questioning? How annoying Kiyumars can be.

But I understand: Kiyumars worries that a guest has lost his way. He's giving Roya instructions and hurrying ahead to the gate. He will come through in a moment. He will see me.

I race back to the water. I crouch and go under the bridge, my face half in the water, my distended belly touching the streambed. I'm past the wall now. Roya's back is turned to me. She walks toward the palace. Who else is about?

“Is someone there?” calls Kiyumars. I pinpoint his
voice: He's standing on the inside of the wall, at the edge of the stream, just a few paces from the bridge.

Stupid birds, who endangered me so.

Birds. That's it. I slouch out of the water and make a dash for the fat, round tower where the pigeons live. The sides are speckled with openings in the stones, perches for the birds. There's a door at the bottom so that servants can scoop out the droppings and spread them as fertilizer on the melon beds. Perhaps a thousand pigeons call this tower home. The door is closed, but not latched. I dig at its bottom edge with my claws. It comes open. I go inside and work my paw under the door to pull it closed. It swings open again. I need to wedge it in place.

My paws have sunk to the ankle in pigeon droppings. Someone must have scooped out the bottom within the past week, for I've seen the droppings much deeper than this before. The pungent, unpleasant scent makes me woozy. I scrape one forepaw through the muck to form a little wall at the door opening. Now I pull the door shut again and work my paw out from underneath. The door stays, sealed by the muck.

Did anyone see me?

No one screamed. No one shouted.

But even if no one saw me enter the tower, I must have left paw prints. The dirt is dry and hard, but my
paws were sopping wet from the stream. O Merciful One, bring a wind. Dry my prints. Blow them away. Be merciful.

The pigeons coo nervously from their perches above me. But they don't take to the air. Pigeons are placid, thanks be to the Merciful One.

I yawn, though I'm not tired. And I stretch. First, with all four paws close together, my head down, and my back with its midpoint high. Next, with my front paws stretched forward, my shoulders low, my rump high, and my back arched with my belly close to the ground. My claws extend, and the muck enters between my toes. The stretches leave me feeling absurdly, unreasonably calm.

I drop to my side, rest my chin on my crossed front paws, and sleep.

T
he
adhan
for the morning prayers wakes me. For a second I'm lost in the hot dark, then I remember where I am. I lift a hand. Though I cannot see, I know immediately from the weight: It is not hand, but paw.

I am still lion; the
pari's
curse endures, though a full day passed.

The realization neither shocks nor saddens me. This is simply fact. I drift in and out of sleep.

Pigeons are smelly. I am smelly, smeared with their droppings. I snort to clear my nose, but the same odor reenters.

On and off all day, voices come. The servants. The hunters. The
imam
and his helper on the way to the mosque. Many pass by the pigeon tower, but no one stops. People must be searching for me, but I cannot
make out what anyone says. The pigeons keep up a continuous muffled din of stupid warbles.

I hear the
adhan
for the noon prayers, the afternoon prayers, the sunset prayers, and the night prayers. Between the calls, I sleep. There is a strange solidity to my sleep, as though nothing can truly bother me. Almost a drugged sleep, like when I was a child and my nursemaid Ava had me drink thick, sticky liquids that tasted awful but numbed me for days. There is also a timelessness to my sleep. Were it not for the
adhan,
here in the darkness of the tower I'd have no sense of time passing. And I wouldn't care. Perhaps I am fundamentally lazy.

Or perhaps digesting this much meat takes too much blood from my brain, so that I can't do much else.

One thing I know by nightfall, though, is that I must leave the tower. My mouth is dry as uncooked rice. Thirst compels me.

I stand up. Pigeon droppings fall from my fur in clumps. It is good to be on all fours. I stretch again, long long. This body brings unexpected pleasures — a simple stretch becomes a languorous moment.

I lean against the wooden door. It resists briefly, then pops open, swinging wide. I crouch as low as I can and creep out. No one is about. I lick the muck from my paws, front and hind—this time, I won't leave a trail.

I stand upright so that I can move with more ease. The night air still smells of the evening meal—cooked meat. It stirs no interest in me. I wonder if I will ever be hungry again.