Butterfly Winter (29 page)

Unfortunately, the employee, a scrawny young man named Philippe, had not had a good meal for several days and the prospect of tame doves was too much for him. He stuffed the docile birds into a sack and disappeared out the stage door toward his mother’s hillside hovel where the whole family feasted on roasted doves.

The sparse audience scarcely noticed the entertainment. As a tourist in Courteguay it was best to stay drunk. Though it was advertised as a bargain destination, with the exchange rate for the guilermo extremely attractive, locals wanted no part of any guilermos; they
wanted American dollars. The hotels charged American prices in American dollars for second- and third-rate accommodation and meals, while the man-made beaches on the man-made lagoons were infested with sand flies.

A member of the kitchen staff, Quintana Pollo Loca, leaned against a wall watching the performance. “They get paid in American dollars for such subtle subterfuge?” she asked a waiter. He nodded. “But I can truly do magic,” said Quintana. The waiter shrugged. “What is magic in one place is not necessarily magic in another,” he said, having probably heard such a statement from me.

Quintana, however, had heard no such statement. “I will show you magic,” she said. She marched into the audience to where a young couple who had been duped into holidaying in Courteguay with their new baby by a travel agency in Miami that was rumored to be owned by the Wizard (pardon me for referring to myself in the third person) sat miserably at their table. Quintana held out her hands for the baby and the surprised young mother handed the child over. No sooner had the baby been placed in Quintana’s hands than it disappeared.

The mother screamed. The small crowd turned toward her. The Magicians of Arkansas stopped performing.

Later that night, after local police reluctantly intervened, the baby was found forty miles outside San Barnabas, in a guava orchard, sleeping comfortably on a pillow. Quintana Pollo Loca left the country with the Magicians of Arkansas, who added a disappearing baby act to their repertoire.

U
mberto, the translator of dreams was, next to the Chief of Police—who had been born ninety miles away and was therefore considered a foreigner—the richest man in his village. But in order to keep his position, he lived in apparent poverty, though he hoarded a trove of silver beneath the floorboards in his hovel and counted it in the deepest part of each night by the glimmer of a guttering candle, or simply by the blue of the moon.

Umberto’s gift was to see into the hearts of his inarticulate neighbors. He had an unspectacular talent as an artist. Under ordinary circumstances, he might have been able to turn out sad portraits of big-eyed children and animals from which he would have earned a few centavos to buy bread.

But his secret was an eye into the heart. When Cortez the sandal maker said, “I dreamed of a woman,” Umberto knew that Cortez, who was lumpy and had a walleye, was wildly in love with Principetta, the beautiful daughter of the Chief of Police. Umberto paints on the outside wall of Cortez’ adobe shop a woman who is, yet is not, Principetta, and the man who Cortez would be—the man who Cortez is in his heart—a
tall, handsome man in formal attire and a scarlet cape. On the wall the two dance. The girl’s black eyes look up at the man, full of adoration.

Umberto knows.

Vasquez, a miserly and pathetic man, dreams that he has won the lottery, but he argues over the fee he will pay Umberto, and cries poverty when asked to remove the sweet pea vines from the south adobe wall of his home so that Umberto may work. Eventually Umberto pulls down the vines himself. He paints the wall white, then creates a mural which shows Vasquez in a fine frock coat over a lace-collared shirt standing on a small rise tossing golden coins to a group of people. Vasquez’s daughter, whom he disowned when she was a teenager because he disapproved of her boyfriend, stands beside him smiling, one arm about Vasquez’s shoulders, the other clutching her apron that is full of gold coins. Vasquez’s son, who ran off a few years previously because Vasquez expected him to work for nothing in the small mango orchard that provided their livelihood, and to postpone or abandon his plans to marry because his first duty was to Vasquez, is kneeling in front of his father, stuffing his pockets with money. When it comes time to pay Vasquez coughs up only half the promised fee along with a basket of hard and worm-riddled mangos. Umberto says nothing. But the colors in the mural run wildly into each other after the first rain.

“My dream is of herons, long and sleek as stilettos, patterning the sky, one dark, one light, one dark, until the whole sky is nothing but herons in flight,” Julio told Umberto. He had trekked many miles to Umberto’s village.

“There are no walls left for me to paint on,” said Umberto. “I serve the local population only. Strangers seldom come here.”

“I will have a wall built,” said Julio. “Or I will provide a large canvas so I can carry the painting back to San Cristobel with me.”

“I do not work on canvas,” said Umberto. “Nothing I paint must ever be removed from the village.”

Julio hired Sergio Montanez, the village carpenter, to construct a wall, on a vacant lot next to Umberto’s home, six feet high and eight feet long. Unpainted, it was propped securely from the back.

“The virginal wood awaits your paints,” said Julio.

The portrait was not of herons. It was of the side of a mountain with small evergreens covered with millions of monarch butterflies, on the earth were the outlines of Quita and Julio buried beneath an avalanche of butterflies.

When it came time to pay, Julio deposited twice the agreed fee in Umberto’s hand.

“No,” said Umberto, “the painting cannot leave the village.”

But Julio had already hired three husky boys to share the burden.

“It is mine. I will do with it as I please,” said Julio forcefully. It took them two days to transport the wall to San Cristobel.

When Julio unwrapped the canvas that protected it, the wall, which smelled of freshly sawed lumber, was blank and virginal. Though Julio imagined he could see Umberto’s laughing face lurking in the shadows of the pale wood.

A
fter Quita’s death, Julio drifted through two mediocre seasons. The political situation kept him from returning to Courteguay. His promise to Quita kept him from moving on with his life. He alternately pined for Quita, while cursing himself for being so weak as to desire other women. Without earthly love Julio became depressed, pitched lackadaisically, even so his record was 16-8. He made all sorts of fundamental errors, like forgetting when there were runners on base. Once with the bases loaded a sharp grounder was hit on one bounce into his waiting glove, but Julio was thinking about a girl in a red sweater sitting directly behind first. He began to make a play to first, then heard Esteban’s anguished cry from where he stood one size twelve planted firmly on the plate waiting for the force out. For some reason he looked to second before throwing to Esteban just as the sliding runner touched the plate.

It was in Boston that Julio, sick with guilt, decided he could no longer stand being without a woman. His promise to Quita was always with him, as night after night he fought back his desire but with diminishing success. He remembered Quita’s dying words, “You
will never make love with anyone but me,” and vowed that he would remain true to her, at least in spirit.

The physical is on one level, the spiritual another, he rationalized; it is merely lust which demands to be satisfied. I will not make love; I will satisfy only my physical passions.

The season was half over. After every game Julio waited in the clubhouse until the other players had left. He listened to their joking, their chattering, as they speculated on what adventures awaited outside the player’s gate. He pretended interest in his clothes and equipment as they wondered aloud which of the bizarre, wild, sensually violent women would be their lot.

Julio would sit in the damp, silent clubhouse, amid the odors of sweat, chlorine, and urine, dreaming of Courteguay, of Quita, of the winter of the butterflies, until he felt safe from temptation, until the streets around the ballpark would be deserted. Dressed so casually he could be mistaken for one of the park cleaners, who by then would be arriving for work, Julio would slip out of the park and walk, hands deep in pockets, the few blocks to his hotel, where he would sneak in a side entrance and up to his room.

He had awakened that morning in Boston full of an unquenchable desire, the kind he knew could be satisfied only by a woman. He relieved himself, while calling up his memories of Quita, breathing her name. But the relief was pale and useless; desire continued to smolder within him like ground fire.

That night he pitched indifferently, thinking more about what he would do after the game than the game itself. He tried to blot out the batter from his mind, tried to concentrate only on making the ball reach Esteban’s mitt. But his success was marginal. His team won 7-6, though Esteban reprimanded him for his carelessness on more than one occasion for throwing pitches to the wrong location, and twice for throwing the completely wrong pitch.

After the game he dressed carefully, splashing lime-scented aftershave lotion on his smooth cheeks. He wore tight, fawn-colored slacks, a black silk shirt with buttons in the shape of silver nuggets. He combed his
hair and donned his team jacket. By now the first rush of players would be on the street, signing autographs, eying the more aggressive groupies, who would be flaunting themselves, making their availability plain.

I will choose one from the background, Julio decided, one who might not be attracted solely by my uniform, one who, as my third baseman might say, won’t spread her legs until she reaches the hotel room.

He emerged from the player’s gate smiling, tossing a baseball in the air. If I could only be like Esteban, he thought almost hourly. Esteban was mainly indifferent to sex and the pleasures of the flesh. But I cannot, Julio concluded. As he signed autographs he studied the women who waited; he dismissed the predatory ones, the grasping ones, the lewd-mouthed ones, who demanded that he sign their clothing or parts of their bodies. At the rear of the semicircle he spotted a dark-complexioned girl in a blouse the color of outfield grass; her hair reached below her shoulders. She might be of Latin origin, he decided. Staring above the crowd he caught her eye, and aiming carefully tossed the baseball to her. She caught it awkwardly, cupping both hands as she did so.

He deliberately made her wait until last; he finished signing autographs for all the little boys in baseball uniforms; he fended off the more aggressive women, especially a persistent one in a thousand-dollar dress and floppy black hat who he had heard the other players speak of with a mixture of admiration and contempt.

Finally, the dark-haired girl was alone in front of him. He seized the baseball.

“Should I write, From the greatest pitcher in all baseball?” Julio asked, smiling to show off his even white teeth.

“Whatever you wish,” the girl replied. She was not beautiful, Julio noticed. Her face was too long, her chin pointed.

“Do you by chance speak any language other than English?” Julio asked.

“Espanol,” the girl whispered.

“Would you go for a walk with me?” Julio asked in his best Spanish, which while not perfect was far better than his English, adding before she could reply, “It is sometimes very lonely being a traveling baseball player.”

The girl nodded, and as they set out Julio took her hand; the very touch of warm flesh made him draw in his breath. He had intended to be brash and brazen with this woman, the way he promised himself he would be with all women for the rest of his life. He had planned to make it clear that she meant nothing to him but a means of sexual release, a toy to be used and then held in mild contempt. He planned on behaving like Navarro the third baseman, who would fling a heavy arm around a woman’s shoulders, grin jovially, and say something like, “Hey, honey, you like to get sucked off before you get fucked?”

Instead, Julio and the girl walked in silence for a block.

“I am Carmen,” the girl said.

“Do you know who I am?” Julio asked.

“Of course, you are the handsome half of the Pimental twins,” she replied.

“Of course,” said Julio.

He bought some roasted nuts from a street vendor and they ate them as they walked. The girl’s hand was warm in his; when his cheek brushed against her hair he could smell rose-scented soap, and the hair tickling his nose, the way Quita’s had, excited him. He was tempted to ask the girl why she was doing this, inquire as to why she was attracted to him, find out if it was the uniform, the fact that he was famous, find out if it was the money, his own good looks. At length he decided he really didn’t want to know. He supposed there wasn’t a logical answer anyway.

At the hotel he was solicitous as a bridegroom, ordering drinks and ice from room service, inquiring as to the girl’s comfort an endless number of times, until she finally stepped into his arms and raised her mouth to his, beginning the kiss in the same aggressive way that Quita always had. Julio found himself trembling as Carmen’s delicious tongue touched his.

Forgive me, Quita, he thought. This will be for physical satisfaction only. But when he mounted the girl, Carmen; when she seized his penis and guided it into her the way his beloved Quita had done, Julio felt his senses dissolve in an all-encompassing passion. He felt
as if he were being slowly immersed in sweet, heated water. Carmen’s tongue rattled in his mouth; her odors were of sun-sweet earth, leather, Quita’s odors. As he abandoned himself totally to sexual pleasure, the woman in his arms seemed to become Quita. As he changed positions, tasted her body, felt her convulse against his tongue, her red nails scraped his shoulders in loving passion in the exact way Quita’s used to do. Julio called her name into the sweet sexual warmth of the room.

As he lay gasping, his head on the pillow next to her, she licked her own taste off his lips, exactly as Quita used to do. And when she slid down and took him in her mouth it was like the slim fire-colored skaters he had seen on
TV
racing through his veins.