Butterfly Winter

Two chapters were published in somewhat different form as short stories: “Butterfly Winter,” in
Red Wolf, Red Wolf
, HarperCollins, 1987; and “The Battery,” in
The Thrill of the Grass
, Penguin, 1985.

“Y
ou appear to be a man in your late 60s,” the Gringo Journalist says.

“I have always been what I appear to be,” replies the Wizard. “And,” he adds, the words barely audible under his creaking breath, “I always tell people what they want to hear, whether it is truth or fiction.”

“I am told that you move from place to place as if by magic,” the Gringo Journalist continues.

“There is no magic, there are no gods,” says the Wizard.

“You are currently referred to as a wizard, even by your enemies.”

“It takes a wizard to know there are none,” says the Wizard.

THE WIZARD LIES IN A HIGH
, white hospital bed. The room is banked with flowers, bouquets made up of various combinations of the eleven national flowers of Courteguay. The Wizard stares up at the Gringo Journalist, who is lean and blond, holding a sleek black tape recorder toward the Wizard as if he were offering a bite from a sandwich.

The Wizard, who has discarded his hospital garb, is wearing a midnight-blue caftan covered in mysterious silver symbols that look
like what a comic strip artist might use to intimate curse words, and insists on being paid for the interview, not in Courteguayan guilermos, but in American dollars. He forces a smile for the Gringo Journalist, his gimlet eyes twinkling.

“
INTERVIEWS ARE SO TIRING
. Even wizards die, did you know that?”

The morning air is cool and lustrous, rife with possibilities, silvered with deception, tasty as fresh lime.

“Here I am. Cool pillows, a clean room, a ceiling fan. And I still have a listener, something terribly important to one who is a storyteller. An excellent way to die. I close my eyes and my long life slides by like a newsreel, like a canoe floating on placid water. The room is liquid with memories. Me, planting baseballs like seed corn, waiting for the stadiums to grow and flourish.

“My enemies, and they are many, will deny it all. Without me there would have been no Julio or Esteban Pimental; their father was a gambler but I was a better one. It is not something I am exactly proud of. But it is all connected, as everything is. Knee bone connected to the thigh bone. Now hear the word.…”

The Gringo Journalist asks another question, watches the Wizard’s eyes, waiting. He wants to know how to find a place, a place important to his research.

“My friend, it is very difficult to give directions in Courteguay. Objects have minds of their own. In the night houses sometimes slip across a street, or change places with a house a few doors away. One might go to bed in a home on the south bank of a river and wake in that same house but on the north bank, and the basement not even damp.

“So, you want to know about Julio Pimental? Perhaps the greatest pitcher ever to play in the Major Leagues, certainly the greatest pitcher ever to come out of Courteguay. That is somewhat easier than giving directions. The rumors you have heard are true. Twin boys playing catch in the womb. An unusual event in many parts of the world, but not in Courteguay. Here the unusual is the norm. The
sky once rained silken handkerchiefs. There was a woman with three breasts … a man with a square penis.

“Well, you have come to the right person. The horse’s mouth so to speak. Speaking of the horse’s mouth did you know that there is a jungle spirit called a Loa that rides men like a horse? If you are unlucky enough to have a Loa land on your back it will run you until you collapse, if you are truly unlucky the Loa will ride you until you die.

“Of course Loas are Haitian. But spirits do not recognize arbitrary boundaries, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Courteguay, they are all the same to a Loa.”

The Wizard takes a deep breath.

“I’ve seen it all. Not always through my own eyes, of course. I’ve spied on armies through the eyes of a predator, overheard the strategies of the Insurgents while lying comfortably in the undergrowth in the guise of a buzzard munching on a Government soldier. I can smell out conspiracy. Through the ears of an ivory-feathered cockatoo I have overheard young girls’ secrets, eavesdropped on many a whispered plot, changed myself into a dewdrop and cooled a lover’s back in the steamy dawn.

“You look skeptical. You question my veracity? An old fool on his death bed, you think, wizened to half his size. An old fool who has been President of the Republic of Courteguay, several times. I was there when that other El Presidente—it is a travesty that the words
El Presidente
should be uttered in the same breath as the name Dr. Lucius Noir, murderer of Quita Garza’s father. Ah, I thought that would get your attention. But do not jump to rash conclusions. In Courteguay El Presidente is an all-encompassing statement. You will, I’m sure want to hear about Quita Garza and Julio Pimental. But before we get too far into the interview, I must warn you that the boundaries here are different. Never forget that. Never be surprised.”

The Gringo Journalist eyes the Wizard suspiciously, trying to find a suitable place to set the tape recorder, a recorder which he had to pay a bribe of three times its value just to bring into Courteguay. He
gets no help from the Wizard. He finally swings the brown arborite arm that holds the food tray, into position, across the middle of the bed and places the tape recorder on it. The Wizard smiles again, the wrinkles around his eyes crinkling like crumpled newspaper. The old man coughs wetly.

“I crouched among the plumeria when the evil deed was done. Oh, yes, I’ve seen it all.

“It all began with the Wizard. If it wasn’t for the Wizard there wouldn’t be a story. You might say Courteguay began with the Wizard, with the coming of the Wizard, and the coming of baseball.

“Excuse me? Of course I am the Wizard, at least today. May I not speak of myself in the third person? Is there some new government regulation against speaking of oneself in the third person? My mind, the Wizard’s mind, shifts constantly, my mind is like a record with a scratch, a tape with a flaw. Have you ever heard the name Jorge Blanco? Don’t answer. Of course you have. All politicians have to reinvent themselves occasionally. Ah, for the simplicity of life when I was Jorge Blanco. Before the twins were born, before the dark shadow of Dr. Noir passed over Courteguay.