Sound of Butterflies, The (6 page)

‘Não, o idiota não vai te matar,’ replied John, towering above the boy.

The others looked at John in surprise.

‘What did you say to him?’ asked Ernie. But John had already turned his back and was trudging ahead of them swinging his machete with his long arms.

‘You didn’t tell us you could speak Portuguese, John,’ said Thomas.

John paused for a moment and turned. ‘You didn’t ask,’ he said, and continued on his way. The young man ran to catch up with him, and Thomas could hear him chattering up at John, eliciting the odd low response.

As they left the road, the forest became as dark as dusk, despite the clear morning. The sun fell only in thin chinks through the tops of the trees. The terrain undulated between low patches of swamp and drier ground. Small streams crossed their path but most of these they could leap with one step; others had one or two stones to guide their way across.

George Sebel struggled with all of his equipment. He had no free hands to take his hat off and mop his brow, so he had to keep stopping.

‘Look,’ he said finally, ‘can somebody give me a hand?’

Thomas stepped forward to relieve him of his game bag.

‘You
will
carry a ridiculous amount of gear, Sebel,’ said Ernie. ‘What are you planning to catch?’

‘Everything. Insects, snakes, frogs. Lizards and whatnot. The more we catch, the more we get paid. I’m still going to study the Coleoptera, I’m just branching out in my collecting.’

‘But you’re not seriously going to try and collect all of these things on one day, are you? The
first
day?’

‘Never miss an opportunity, Ernest,’ said George. ‘You should know that by now. What if Thomas here were to find his butterfly out on a stroll and he had nothing with which to catch the thing? I didn’t come back from Africa with so many species by being unprepared, you know.’

George’s face was fixed as if he could smell something distasteful, when the only odours present were the hot, sweet smell of the jungle and the sandy earth. Perhaps a thin wisp of cooking from the outskirts of the town. When George turned away from him, Ernie grunted and pulled a face behind his back, making Thomas smile.

They came to a faint fork in the path, and John turned around and called out to them. ‘Here, you three take Paulo. I’m going on by myself.’ He veered off through the trees.

‘Are you sure, John?’ called Thomas, but the man was gone, into the shadows. Paulo fell into silence again, robbed of the one person who could speak his language. Even the boisterous Ernie was quiet, listening instead to the calls of the birds high in the trees.

Soon they came upon a small clearing. A brick well stood in the middle, strangled by creepers. Thomas tripped and reached out to steady himself on the slim trunk of a tree. Immediately his hand was covered with huge ants, tracing ticklish circles on his skin, advancing up his sleeve.

‘Ants!’ he cried to anyone who would listen. He jerked his hand away, cursed and shook his hands as if they were wet. Ants fell to the ground like shiny gemstones.

Ernie stood by and laughed. ‘I’m sure George could tell you exactly what kind of ant that is, Tom.’ But George had stopped behind them a distance and was crouching on the ground, trying to catch something.

A sudden sting under his cuff told Thomas he hadn’t rid himself of all of the insects. An angry red mark was blooming already on his wrist. Paulo came and took his hand and Thomas allowed himself to be examined.

‘Não foi nada,’ said the boy, and dropped the hand, looking bored.

‘What?’ said Thomas. ‘Ernie, what did he say? Will I be all right?’

‘He doesn’t look too concerned. I’m sure you’ll be fine.’ Ernie took his turn looking at it. ‘Just a little sting. Nothing to worry about. If it itches I can give you something for it later.’

The ants had taken all of Thomas’s attention, but he soon realised that the little clearing swarmed with butterflies. With the extra light, he could make out individual facets of the forest. In the gloom the tree trunks had been columns of shadows, but now each stood out with its own shape and texture; bark by turns scaly, smooth and grey, or with lethal spikes. Their roots — one of which he had tripped on — snaked out around the ground and climbing plants wound up the trees like boa constrictors. High above them, past the bushy wigs of epiphytes, the roof of the forest soared like the green stained-glass ceiling of a cathedral. The outlines were sharp. Thomas laid a hand on his chest to calm the quickening beat of his heart.

He became acutely aware of the sounds around him: hisses, whistles and cries; every few seconds the distant crack of a falling branch. The floor was alive with ants and he glimpsed beetles threading themselves through the tree roots and pieces of rotting fruit. A brown snake slunk away from them in the direction they had come.

A cackling birdcall sounded and Ernie snapped his head up, attentive, tilting his head to determine its direction.

‘Can you wait here for me for a moment?’ He ducked off at a run into the trees.

Thomas took his hat off and fanned himself, suddenly overwhelmed by the humidity. His shirt clung to his back. Paulo was looking at him quizzically.

‘Yes, go with him,’ said Thomas. He flicked his fingers in Ernie’s direction. ‘I’ll be fine.’

The boy understood and jogged after him. George, deprived of his guide, stood and, after brushing off his still tidy clothes, followed, with barely a glance in Thomas’s direction.

Thomas wiped his brow. He felt strangely awake. His heart was still beating quickly in his chest — too quickly for the leisurely walk it had taken to get there. His limbs felt restless and he shook them one by one, shaking out the kinks of a short night’s sleep on a bowed bed.

He crossed to the well and, after checking for ants, leaned against it to see which of the butterflies would come to him. One or two flittered past — a bold blue morpho and a brown skipper, whose mushroom wings flashed purple every now and then as they caught the light. They made no sound. He couldn’t bring himself to study chirping crickets or cicadas — great winged beetles that buzzed past his ear. It was the butterfly that sneaked up on him; its soft wings produced not even a rush of air as it passed. He could pluck one out of his net and hold out his hand; it would sit still for a moment, dazed, then launch itself with barely a tickle from his hand to the nearest flower.

Then there was the excitement of the chase — waiting for its descent if out of reach, the creeping walk, net ready as it settles on a flower. He must become as silent as the butterfly in order not to startle it.

He enjoyed his moment of solitude — without the boisterous ramblings of Ernie or the terse, tight-lipped replies of George. Only John seemed to share his love of silence — amazing, really, that a man so big could move through the jungle barely snapping a twig.

The sun was climbing higher in the sky; he could see it winking through the tall palms. It was getting hotter. His wet shirt clung to his back now and he took a sip of water from his bottle. It tasted like metal. From somewhere nearby came the boom of a shotgun — Ernie’s collection had begun.

A delicate, creamy butterfly — possibly an
endymion
but he couldn’t be sure — flapped lazily past him, with its stardust wings catching the light. He pushed himself off the well and crept after it. When it alighted on a curved flower with clinging moisture pooled inside it, he readied his net. He swiped; the net opened out and received the butterfly.

‘Come here, little thing,’ said Thomas. He carefully turned it out into one of his killing jars, lined with plaster of Paris imbued with a few drops of cyanide. The butterfly flicked around inside the jar. He knew it would soon be dead and hoped it didn’t damage itself in the meantime. When it was still, he carefully opened the jar and drew it out with tweezers, his cork-lined collecting box at the ready. He settled the thorax into the groove cut in the cork and pinned it. For a moment the butterfly seem to rise and fall in a sigh and he let his little fingertip linger on its soft wing.

He always felt a pang of guilt when he killed a butterfly, but he hoped it wasn’t a painful death. There was no other way to study them, really. He could keep them in jars until they died of their own accord, but he then ran the risk of the butterflies being damaged, of age wearing tears into the delicate wings. This way, when he mounted it, then identified it properly, labelled it and sent it back to England, the specimen would be perfect.

Before long, he had collected ten butterflies, including two more
Helicopis endymion
, which he had found clinging to the underside of a heart-shaped leaf, and a swallow-tailed
papilio.
He sat back on the well and gazed up at the giant
Morpho rhetenor
gliding in the treetops. As they flapped occasionally, their wings gave off a wild blue flash that Thomas was sure he would spot half a mile away if the forest wasn’t so dense. He felt a small sense of loss; a feeling that they would never come down and he would never be able to reach them.

A crashing sound alerted him to George and Ernie’s return. Harris carried several paper-wrapped parcels in his arms. Blood was smeared across them like ink. Paulo, whose face was solemn, held out a cone of paper to Thomas, who peered inside. Tiny dead birds — hummingbirds — were piled inside it like sweet treats, their colours sharp. The shot that Ernie had used was so fine there was barely a mark on them.

‘Estão mortos.’ Paulo looked mournfully at his little package.

‘He couldn’t understand why I was skinning them,’ said Ernie. ‘I think he wanted me to take the meaty carcasses with us, for food. He got quite upset when I dumped them on the ground. A waste, I suppose. Those ants will make short work of them. I bet if we went back they’d all be picked clean.’ He stopped. ‘I say, old boy,’ he said. ‘Are you
that
pleased to see us?’

Thomas realised with a shudder that Ernie was staring at his groin, a look of amusement on his face. He snatched his hat off his head and held it in front of him. George looked away, blushing, and found something interesting to look at a few paces away in the undergrowth. He beckoned Paulo to squat with him.

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Thomas. He took the opportunity to change the subject. ‘But I’ve been feeling a bit peculiar since that ant bite.’

‘In what way?’ Ernie was standing in front of him now, piling the birds into his bag and adjusting his shotgun over his shoulder.

‘Everything seems to be louder, sharper. I feel restless and —’

‘And your heart seems to be beating faster?’

‘Yes,’ said Thomas. ‘What is it? Some kind of poison?’

‘Well, I don’t know what it has to do with the activity downstairs, Tom, but I’d say you’ve had too much coffee! Not to mention — how many lumps of sugar did you put in it?’

‘About three. Well, it was bitter!’

‘Ha!’ Ernie slapped Thomas’s back and sent him forward a pace to steady himself. ‘There’s your answer, Tom. You don’t have coffee very often, I take it? Never mind, keep it up and you soon won’t notice much change. I suggest you have another dose tomorrow. It wasn’t unpleasant, was it?’

‘No, I guess not. Just strange.’

‘Careful, you’ll become addicted! Especially if that’s the effect it has on you!’ He glanced at where Thomas’s hat was still clasped in front of him.

Thomas felt himself redden. ‘Nonsense,’ he muttered.

Ernie turned to Paulo, who had lost interest in George and his beetles. ‘Café,’ he said to him, and brought an imaginary cup to his lips, then pointed at Thomas. Then he set his hands vibrating and jittered his head around. Paulo laughed.

‘Ele bebeu café demais? Que engraçado!’

‘Quite right,’ said Ernie. ‘Look, chaps, I think we should turn back now. It’s going to be the hottest part of the day soon; I think you’ll find all the birds and insects will go into hiding, and so should we.’

Thomas took a last longing look at the blues gliding in the treetops and turned with his companions towards home.

Thomas knew that his time in the jungle would never be as sweet as those first few days. Every discomfort — his creaky hammock, the oppressive humidity, the strange food prepared by the black cook Antonio had hired for them, and the relentless attack of mosquitoes and gnats — was overpowered by the devastating beauty of the rainforest and all that he found within it.

They quickly established a routine. They rose just after dawn, drank coffee, which seemed to be in abundance, then strolled around the forest collecting specimens until two or three in the afternoon.

Thomas liked nothing better than the peacefulness of stalking a butterfly, when he could disappear into the jungle and into his thoughts for hours at a time. He never left the established paths, but he sometimes managed to go all morning without seeing another soul. Occasionally he would pass a native hut by a stream, and a tribe of children would line up to stare at him as he passed.

Even having George near, digging into trees and squatting gingerly in the undergrowth so as not to dirty himself looking for beetles, was harmonious. Ernie would inevitably disturb their peace if he was close, ribbing them and blasting away with his gun, not caring how soiled his clothes got with blood and guts, but John also preferred to collect on his own and the men would often go all day without seeing him.