Butterfly Winter (6 page)

“The first one was born in the catcher’s crouch,” Hector cried, as he came upon me where I hunched in the brittle undergrowth eating a mango. “His little hands are already scarred. He has suffered several broken knuckles. He has a stolid face and full head of black hair. I will name him Esteban.”

I stared at my reflection in the blue brook that had mysteriously appeared behind the tin shack that Hector and Fernandella called
home. Handsome and lean as a coyote, I thought, rubbing my thin hands together and deciding that as a reward I would add a name, and henceforth be known as Alfredo Jorge Blanco.

An hour later Hector Pimental returned.

“The second one, the one we will christen Julio, was born wearing baseball cleats,” he announced with wicked pride. He stared at me, dressed in my ink-blue robe covered with mysterious symbols. “The fingers on his pitching hand are like talons, the first two fingers splayed, the nails sharpened to fierce points.”

“Did I not prophesy so?” I asked. I was now Geraldo Alfredo Jorge Blanco, having added yet another name as soon as I heard Hector crashing through the thicket toward me.

I continued to rub my hands together, maintaining a calm outward appearance as I tried to decide how to best exploit the situation. Hector Pimental’s only motivation was greed; he would need much guidance.

“I am a wizard,” I repeated several times under my breath, shaking my head as if to clear away confusion. I should not be surprised, I told myself. One has only to trail dreams obsessively in order to make them come true.

After the births, Carlotta, the midwife, swaddled Esteban and Julio in blankets made from freshly laundered sugar sacks. After she stretched Esteban out of his catcher’s crouch, and attempted to force Julio to lie like a normal baby and stop the continual pitching motions, she propped the babies, one on each side of Fernandella, their tiny maple faces each resting against a swollen breast. It was then that the midwife discovered that, along with the twins, Fernandella’s womb had expelled two miniature baseball gloves, one a catcher’s mitt, three cumquat-sized baseballs, and a pen-sized bat. If Julio was the pitcher and Esteban the catcher, who held the bat was never known.

T
he Wizard, after washing his most colorful costume in the clear stream that had appeared beside the home of Hector and Fernandella Pimental, set off for the capital of San Barnabas. He did not have bus fare so walked partway, then with the help of an acquaintance who was already on a bus, he was pulled through a window, suffering only minor sprains and a large rip at the rear of his caftan. He presented himself at the Presidential Palace as an emissary of the miraculous, stupendous, fabulous, baseball-playing babies who had been born near San Cristobel. The Wizard lied outrageously, claiming that he had personally delivered the babies, and that he had a medical degree from Port-au-Prince Hospital in Haiti. The Wizard had heard that in Haiti, anyone with a sharp knife and more than one ounce of disinfectant could call himself a doctor, so he didn’t exactly consider his story a lie.

The Wizard’s message did eventually reach the Old Dictator, passing first through the head of the Secret Police, one Dr. Lucius Noir. The Old Dictator, who like the Wizard had a nose for a profitable situation, decided after leaving the Wizard waiting at the gate for 24 hours to give him an audience.

The Old Dictator donned his whitest uniform, one with flamingo-colored birds as epaulets, and stationed himself behind a huge marble-topped table, a bowl of peeled and sliced mango and a bowl of passion fruit the only decorations.

“I am humbled by your generosity,” said the Wizard, shaking yellow dust from his caftan. “I have been a party to one of the more remarkable occurrences in a land of remarkable occurrences: babies that played catch in their mother’s womb. Babies that even now, at the tender age of two weeks, play catch in their crib.”

The Wizard stopped and eyed the mouth-watering food.

The Old Dictator nodded for him to help himself.

The Wizard, rather than spoon out a dish for himself, pulled a full crystal bowl to the edge of the table and began to eat with the service spoon.

“Why exactly are you here? What do you hope to accomplish, other than a free breakfast?” the Old Dictator asked.

“Not a thing,” said the Wizard between mouthfuls. “I have seen something miraculous, and as someone who has always supported you over General Bravura, I decided that you should be apprised of the situation. You are so much more astute than your enemy, I know you, in your infinite wisdom, will know what should be done to make the most of the situation.”

“You are a toady of the first ilk,” said the Old Dictator said with a smile.

“Thank you.”

“What percentage do you want?”

“What is it we are planning to do?”

“That remains to be seen. First the business arrangements.”

“A what is it they call it, a finder’s fee, perhaps. Say, 40 percent.”

“I would not even allow my banker 40 percent. You look like a charlatan, and a not very successful one. Five percent, take it or leave it.”

“With all due respect, I will leave it. I am necessary because I have complete access to the remarkable and marketable twins. Their father is a close friend and confidant. Their mother is like a sister to me. Thirty percent, not a guilermo less.”

“If I were not an honorable man I would send Dr. Noir and his secret police to pick up the twins and deliver them to me. I assure you that Dr. Noir, who is more of a toady than you will ever be, would be certain there would be no survivors, that the parents, and anyone associated with the family, I assume that would include you, would disappear forever. As a benevolent head of state I would personally adopt the orphaned twins. Now, I’m sure you wouldn’t want that to happen. Fortunately, I am able to keep Dr. Noir’s basest instincts under control. Ten percent.”

They eventually settled on a fifteen percent share for the Wizard, of whatever might develop. After many hours of tossing ideas about it was agreed that the whole family would be moved to San Barnabas and set up in a fine home where tours would be held at least twice a day, possibly three, maybe even four times. The babies would be observed playing catch, and as their skills increased they would put on longer and longer displays. In return their family would be cut in for a percentage of the take, they would be fed, housed, and supplied with nurses and a personal physician.

Fernandella refused outright.

“I will raise my own children without the help of the state. How come a state that never helped me or even knew of my existence now wants to shower me with treasures all because my sons are unique?”

Hector Pimental lurked by the stream. A massive home in San Barnabas, good clothes, perhaps a car. His mouth watered at the prospect.

“We must work slowly,” he told the Wizard. “We will make changes so gradually that Fernandella will hardly notice, and when she does, the changes will be so beneficial she will not reject them. My influence will cost you 10 guilermos per day.”

The Wizard delivered the 10 guilermos which Hector immediately bet with him on losing baseball teams.

So as not to make Fernandella suspicious, Hector claimed to have been been wildly successful with his betting.

“With my winnings I am going to show my love of family by replacing the tin roof which attracts heat for a much cooler wooden
one. Also the walls, and I will fill them with insulation to keep out the heat.”

Though mistrustful, Fernandella allowed the remodeling.

“Next a nursery for the twins,” proclaimed Hector, a few weeks later, flashing a wad of guilermos such as Fernandella had never seen.

The nursery was built, then a couple more rooms were added. Finally the grounds were landscaped, the brush and refuse cleared away, a low chain-link fence created a large front yard, with a sidewalk where passers-by could stare at the twins as they played by the miniature plate and pitcher’s rubber that had been surreptitiously installed.

“The ticket booth will be at the foot of the hill where Fernandella will not even notice it,” Hector told the Wizard who passed the information to the Old Dictator.

By the time Fernandella realized that people were paying for the privilege of watching her babies play catch, she was lulled by the comfort of her home, the fine clothes that had been provided, the abundance and variety of food, the new furniture.

“How are we being compensated?” she demanded of the Wizard, who now lived in a small home at the bottom of the hill, where from his window he could watch the tickets being sold and calculate his percentage of the take. He hired a housekeeper for himself, one who had formerly worked as a dancer at Miss Kitty’s Bar and Pleasure Palace on the seamier side of San Cristobel.

“The profits are mainly being held in trust for the twins,” replied the Wizard. “They will be very rich young men when they come of age. In the meantime your needs are being taken care of, are they not? You have to do nothing but put the twins on display three times per day. I myself receive a small fee for inaugurating the idea. The Old Dictator takes a percentage, for it is the Government of Courteguay that advertises the unique and stupendous Baseball Playing Babies, live and in color without commercial interruption. The Old Dictator also oversees the fees paid by foreign media for the privilege of photographing your beautiful sons.”

Fernandella was suspicious but she was dealing with powers far beyond her.

JULIO WAS WALKING
by seven months, however Esteban remained stable in the catcher’s crouch until he was nearly three. Esteban stared straight ahead apparently concentrating on his pitching twin. He paid no attention to the throngs of people, many from the United States (the baseball playing twins increased tourism to Courteguay by nearly a thousand percent) who pushed against the fence, their cameras snapping photos constantly, clicking like cicadas. Julio often dazzled the tourists with a smile. The women immediately fell in love with him. He would stare arrogantly at the prettiest female in the audience, tug suggestively at his diaper, then unleash a wild pitch into the crowd, aimed, usually with great accuracy, at the stuffiest looking male present.

I
have more in common with the Wizard than I ever suspected. I often feel like the Wizard skulking in the underbrush witnessing events I was not meant to see. I am collecting material for my book on the history of Courteguay, incorporating my series of articles and features; to my knowledge no such compilation has ever been published. But I am coming to realize there is good reason for that because the history of Courteguay, such as it is, is so ephemeral as to crumble like pastry when put to any kind of test, to turn from a dew-studded spiderweb sparkling in the dawn to a useless daub of wet, black nothingness, only to reappear as a mysterious bright object visible only to certain birds.…

AS HE GREW OLDER
, Julio was able to remember the batters he had faced in the womb. He recalled them as being grey and spectral, faceless as fog.

When Julio began pitching in the Major Leagues, he treated all batters as if seen in the translucent memory of his mother’s womb. When reporters inquired as to how he pitched to a certain batter, he
replied that he did not know one hitter from another. When the press asked Esteban what pitches he called, he would shrug and say, “Julio knows the pitches he should throw.” When pressed further, to mollify the questioners he would admit, “by reading Julio’s mind, I always know what pitch is coming.”

HECTOR PIMENTAL
studied his children as his calculating heart expanded in the throes of love. The ultimate battery, he thought. The perfect pitcher, the immaculate catcher, not shaped by fathers and coaches and practice, but created by the universe. Hector Alvarez Pimental was poor enough to know that God was a rich man’s device for theoretically keeping the poor happy, but always for keeping them subservient.

As a father, Hector allowed his imagination to fall in on itself, bringing him visions and memories of events in other men’s lives, as well as his own, for which he would forever claim credit.

He saw hot air balloons, exotic as jungle birds, hissing like a dragon’s breath, gliding across the sky like wondrous, garish melons. Hector Alvarez Pimental would wake in the night yowling, sweat-soaked, his mind like a box of photographs scattered callously on a floor.

He saw the Wizard dressed in harlequin-bright silks, in a flying basket, swishing over San Barnabas, the presidential machete held high in triumph. He was witness to his son, Julio, standing like a general in front of a row of pregnant women, fresh as cherry blossoms. A contest of some kind? He was unsure.

He also dreamed that he saw Julio pitch the final delivery of a no-hit, no-run game, then be mobbed by players and fans alike. He saw Julio in a business suit, older than Hector Alvarez Pimental was now, the sleek black hair on each side of his head tinged with grey, being inducted into the American Baseball Hall of Fame.

But the visions were not all pleasant, for he saw his Fernandella in mourning. He saw her dressed in clingy black crepe like the elderly crones who creaked into what few priestless churches were left standing, on her knees clawing at an elaborate coffin. Hector Alvarez Pimental peered with trepidation over Fernandella’s shoulder, his chest
tight, afraid he was about to see himself in the coffin. What he saw, though not his own body, was equally shocking, for there lay his perfect son, Esteban, sturdy arms folded in death, called away at what appeared to be the prime of his life.

SOON AFTER THE BASEBALL-PLAYING TWINS
were born, a clear brook, four inches wide, with water the cold blue of ice, began flowing downhill, passing only yards from the tin-roofed shack. The stream plashed softly and the cool waters held a plentiful supply of iridescent parrotfish, their larkspur-blue bodies darting like shadows. A guava tree in full fruition manifested itself among the bone-dry scrub on the hillside behind the shack where the Wizard had skulked. A dozen lemon-crested cockatoos appeared in a row on the tin roof and kept the area free of insects, while the yard filled with pheasants and game hens, tame and docile, anxious to lay down their lives to provide food for Fernandella and her family.