The Butterflies of Samarkand

 2011

He had learned to be careful. He couldn’t expose his body in public—only in private.

‘Oh, that’s beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like that.’ The man stared at Justin’s body. His mouth opened slightly and he ran his tongue over his lips, anticipating the taste of Justin’s flesh. His eyes fixed unblinking on Justin, mesmerized by the sight.

‘Are those tattoos? They look almost alive.’ He whispered, as if speech might startle the images and frighten them away.

Justin lifted his arms above his head and rotated slowly, allowing the man to see his entire body. He said nothing. The images would speak for him.

A cloud of iridescent, deep blue butterflies began on the inside of his right thigh, just above the knee. In an ever-widening sinuous band, the butterflies swarmed upward along the outside of his thigh and across his right buttock and then his lower back. The band grew wider as it crossed his stomach from left to right and then continued under his arm to his back again. The butterflies rose in a stream of colour over his left shoulder and then down on to his left pec.

The butterflies grew in size as they circled his body—the first was a minute, meticulously detailed mark above his knee, the last a large image poised over his left nipple as if about to alight on a flower. They glowed with colour. When Justin moved, the images seemed to move with him, their wings undulating as if floating lazily above a summer garden.

‘What are they?’ the man asked. Everyone who saw them asked that.

Justin had asked the same question the first time he had seen them. And the man had answered, ‘The butterflies of Samarkand.’

*

‘Come on. It’ll be fun.’ Declan grabbed Justin’s arm above the elbow and tried to pull him towards the shop door. ‘Everyone’s getting one. You’re not gay until you get a tattoo.’

‘I don’t like them. I think they’re ugly. Look at those.’ Justin pointed at the pictures in the tattoo shop’s window. ‘They’re like smuts on those men’s bodies. Big ugly blotches. Why do people think they’re sexy? They’re all wrong.’

‘I agree.’

Both Justin and Declan turned towards the speaker. The man ignored Declan and spoke to Justin. ‘So few tattoos complement the body. Most of them disfigure it. They are, as you said, smuts, blotches, that have nothing to do with the body to which they are attached. Occasionally, however, there is one that works with the body and transfigures it. Unfortunately the artists who can create such tattoos are rare.’ He nodded at Justin and walked on.

Declan shot a look of disdain at the man. ‘Wanker. I don’t care what he says. I’m going to get one. Are you coming with me?’

Justin shook his head no. ‘I’m going home. I’ve got work to do.’ He walked away brusquely. Declan was becoming a nuisance. His notions of fun weren’t Justin’s, and he was becoming insistent that Justin fall in with whatever whim flitted across his consciousness. Time to break it off before they went further.

*

‘Did your friend decide to get a tattoo?’

Jason looked up from the magazine he had been paging through. He had stopped at a coffee bar after leaving Declan. The man who had spoken to him earlier took the chair opposite him at the small table. It was hard to tell his age. He could be only a few years older than me, thought Jason. Maybe around thirty. But there was something about his face that hinted he was older, perhaps even much older—a suggestion of too many summers’ sun.

Jason’s defences against being picked up by strangers instantly activated. He felt prickly and, without thinking, sat up higher in the chair, stiff and wary, poised to leave. ‘Yes.’ Jason pulled back the sleeve of his sweater and looked at his watch. ‘I should get back there and meet him. He’ll be finished by now.’

‘No. Even a small tattoo will take longer than that. And your friend will opt for a large one. It will require many visits before it is finished.’ The man spoke confidently.

‘What makes you so sure of that?’

‘You. It is what you think.’ The man was handsome in a sardonic way, dark. His hair was cut short but was so dense that his scalp was not visible. He was clean shaven and dressed neatly but without ostentation. Jason knew that the clothes had not been purchased in a shop. A tailor had made them, in some distant, foreign city. He gave the impression of a quiet power, a power that, if necessary, could be uncoiled slowly but effectively. His eyes regarded Jason as if he could indeed see into Jason’s mind.

‘How can you know what I am thinking?’

‘You are thinking that your friend—Declan, isn’t it?—will not settle for a small tattoo. He will want to impress everyone. At least he thinks in terms of impressing others—really it’s himself he wants to impress. If others think well of what he does and applaud him, then that will reinforce and confirm his opinion of himself. He will ignore contrary opinions. Isn’t that what he always does?’

‘How can you know that?’

‘I read minds, Justin.’ The man smiled. ‘My name is Paul.’ He extended his right hand across the table.

Justin shook Paul’s hand automatically. His touch was cool and dry, firm. ‘You have beautiful hands. Do you play the piano?’ Both the comment and the question surprised Justin. He had never told someone that his hands were beautiful, and he had no idea how he knew that the man played the piano.

‘Yes, I play. I will play for you later.’ Paul splayed his fingers out flat and then lay his hand on the table. Justin stared at it because he didn’t trust himself to look at Paul’s face. Paul’s fingers were long and slightly flattened at the ends. the nails trimmed square.

As Paul’s fingers touched the keys of the piano, Justin felt them touching his own body, playing him as they were playing the piano, creating that cascade of sound and emotions. At the end of the piece, Paul sat motionless, his hands lowered to his lap, and allowed the silence to linger. The room was dark, lit only by a small lamp on a table on the other side of the room. Speech would have disturbed too much.

Paul stood up without speaking and undressed. He walked over to the sofa where Justin was sitting. It was then that Justin whispered, ‘What are those?’

And Paul answered, ‘The butterflies of Samarkand.’

They gleamed as if made of crushed pearls and lapis lazuli, shot through with threads of gold and silver. Hundreds of them flying on Paul’s body, wings held at various angles, a flock of butterflies surrounding Paul. As he moved, the wings fluttered.

‘What are they?’ Justin asked again.

‘Whatever you desire them to be. Promises. Mementos. Gestures. Signs. Falsehoods. Truths.’ He moved closer. ‘Touch them.’

*

It was not until he was showering the next morning that Justin noticed the butterfly just above his right knee, a small image no more than a centimetre square. That was the first. The others came later, one by one. Tomorrow there would be another. Tomorrow the man who was now tracing them with his fingers in wonderment would find the first of them on his body.