I
was woken up by the faintest sound, like a fluttering of wings. It
was about noon. I was taking my preprandial nap. It was a butterfly.
I was astonished. I said so. “My, there's a butterfly stuck in the
room.” That's what I said, word for word. Out of the few days or
weeks this butterfly had to live in this physical world, he was
doomed to spend a few hours here with me, banging and crashing on the
windowpanes, circling the wooden beam in the middle of the room. I
did open the doors. Wide open. A full-grown baby elephant could have
manoeuvred in there without but brushing past a hinge. The
lepidoptera didn't find the way out, though. I couldn't leave the
door open too long – it was getting cold, you see. November can be
cold after a cool summer. So it remained in the room – I still
wonder how it entered it in the first place – until I saw it not.
It was perhaps laying flat in some nook or cranny amid the junk and
miscellany stored in here, waiting for something we can't understand
the value of. I wish I had been a butterfly, or I wish I could be
one, as much as metempsychosis would allow me, so that I could
understand what it meant by that.
I
understood then that much of men's behaviour could find an equivalent
in the animals' behaviour. I was a butterfly. Some were snakes. Some
were bulls or sheep or fish or worms. Some were giraffes and others
elephants. The desert mole rat's behaviour might mirror that of
Indians'. Europe is full of black-backed jackals. Some species are
sedentary, some are nomadic. People who live on their own are a
bloody pain. They never know what they want, pass it by without
blinking and, being offered something else, discard it with a
cantankerous wave of the hand. Perhaps a snicker. And then I knew the
butterfly in me was dying. It was one of those nights when you could
almost see the links between the stars, drawing the constellations
for the naked eye. I decided to leave.
I
took the first ship out of the continent, then learnt to ride a
horse, learnt the rules of the desert and became aware of thirst and
hunger. I rode and rode. I went to Samarkand. Mingled with the
merchants for seasons unaccounted. On being attacked by a swarm of
bandits, I left the caravan and joined the thieves. We roamed the
deserts of Persia, assailed, plundered, haggled the stolen goods,
caroused, slept with the glossy, tenebrious dome over our heads and
bought whores and drank tea.
One
night I stole the captain's horse and rode for ten days and ten
nights. The stallion died and I pursued on foot. I arrived at dawn,
dusty and tired, in Merv, in Turkmenistan. There I hid in the
suburbs, stole fruits and vegetables from the back of stalls, washed
downstream in the river, bidding my time. One day, I spotted the
palanquin of a prince. I knew of him through legends and hearsays. He
would ride in his palanquin, all curtains drawn. No one had ever seen
his face for he constantly concealed it under a shawl. He was all
mystery. I sneaked in his palace under the cover of darkness and hid
under his bed for two full weeks, stealing occasionally from the
various fruit bowls laying here and there. There I eavesdropped his
every habit. He was a man of few words. He received no visitors. One
night, I stabbed him in his sleep, pierced his heart with my dagger
and unveiled his visage. Amidst tormented flesh and disfiguring scars
were set a pair of pale green eyes.
This
is how I became the Mysterious Prince of Turkmenistan. I found the
name myself. I spent lavishly in parties I didn't attend at first. I
offered exquisite jewels to splendiferous princesses. I donated money
to the city council, erected orphanages and schools. I made love to
princes and princesses alike, always making a point not to reveal my
figure. Never. Not to anyone, under no circumstances. I was served in
gold dishes, I shat in gold buckets. A slave wiped my buttocks clean.
My scam could have gone on for ever were it not for the sudden
appearance of the real prince's brother who, hearing on the coming
out of the prince, thought his brother had recovered from whatever
demons assaulted him and was finally blending with his peer. He was
too sharp and suspicious a fellow not to die at my dagger's tip. I
fled at once, only with the gold and jewels I could carry on my
person.
I
travelled on horseback without stopping to sleep or feed, took
shelter in caves, slipped into caravans and ships. However cautious I
was not to leave traces of my passage, I was chased after. I had to
kill to live. I had to steal food to live, I was forced to pinch
horses and mules and carts. On occasions I couldn't but ransack,
despoil, embezzle and burn to the ground to save my skin. I was
hunted again and again, relentlessly. I remembered the Erinyes in
times long gone. Reward posters were pasted in every city I reached,
forcing me to seek refuge in deserted areas. I was probably the most
wanted man in the whole silk road, perhaps in the entire Ariana. I
fed on roots and drank dew. Rats were my only companions and meals in
the last ship I took.
I
ultimately attained Sevilla. There I set up a shop as an alchemist
cum banker cum general goods store. The knowledge I had acquired and
the little gold and jewels I could save allowed me only this. But
business was good, for I was not known. I experimented on various
metals, obtained gold after much fumbling, tried my hand at
dissecting living things, subjecting them to the absorption of the
various gases I was using and multitudes of plants and medicinal
herbs. Fire gave good results too. I compiled all my results in books
with titles such as: “The Black Boke of Magick Spelles”, “The
Boke of Torture and Various Methodes of Inflickting Pain”,
“Anatomie of Man” and such like. They sold so many copies and
people asked for so many more that I had to hire scribes.
I
soon met my future wife because she kept on coming to my shop under
various pretexts, started to help me, doing menial tasks at first,
then entrusted herself to seeking out herbs on her own and gradually
made herself invaluable. We were married a week later. She became
heavy with child almost at once.
We
now live in a comfortable house in the new part of town. Notables and
princes from Spain, Morocco and such countries come to seek my advice
or my potions. I count a handsome number of kings and queens as my
clients. My chest is filled with gold and jewels and precious stones.
My children receive a good education for I insist on the tutors to
come every day. I trade silk and spices, carpets and saffron from the
very cities that vowed to put me to death. A young gentleman whom I
befriended recently wants to write a book on my adventures. He comes
every evening after dinner, and I exchange wine and dates against an
hour or two of conversation, a handful of words he conscientiously
pens on dirty pieces of parchment. He is not the only one to revere
me, I usually marvel at my being here, alive, in one piece and sane
enough not to put my eggs in the same basket.
All
of this happened because a butterfly was stuck in my room, and
wouldn't come out. Funny.
