Candlemoth (18 page)

    'So
it is with a stroke,' he went on. 'You have a body that is worn out, that's the
basis of it, and when the body starts to wear out there is little that you can
do. Sometimes things improve significantly by themselves, and sometimes they
don't.'

    'What
about hospital?' I asked.

    'Hospital?'
Backermann echoed. 'There are places you can send folks in this condition,
places where specialists in such fields work to improve conditions for them,
but we're talking a great deal of money, and unfortunately Eve Chantry never
got it into her mind to take care of such things as medical insurance.'

    I was
confused.

    'So
you're not going to do anything?' I asked.

    'Not
going to do anything?' Backermann asked back. 'And what would you have me do?'

    I
frowned, shrugged my shoulders. 'I don't know, you're the doctor.'

    Backermann
smiled deprecatingly. 'It is a money-driven world, Mister Ford,' he said, his
tone condescending. 'If you care to find something in the region of ten or
twenty thousand dollars then I would be more than happy to refer Eve Chantry to
Charleston State Hospital and instruct they start work tomorrow.'

    I
stood immobile and silent.

    Backermann
seemed to be waiting for me to say something.

    My
head was empty.

    Backermann
sighed a little impatiently, and then walked to the head of the stairwell.

    'I'll
check on her, Mister Ford,' he said. 'When I'm down this way I'll check on her.
If something happens you can call me or my assistant. Aside from that she
should rest, take plenty of fluids, eat some proteins…'

    He
was already starting down the stairs.

    There
was no money here; his work was done; everything else was platitudes.

    I
stood there for some time. I perceived then the utter emptiness of the house. Its
size dwarfed me, made me feel grandly insignificant, and when I crossed the
landing and entered Eve's room, I was aware also of how tiny she seemed beneath
the covers.

    'I
will die you know,' was her greeting.

    I sat
there on the edge of the bed and took her hand.

    She
smiled. The tension down the right side of her face seemed to have eased a
little, but it was still obvious that the stroke had done its work.

    'You
cannot expect me to be anything but the candle- moth,' she added.

    I
frowned.

    'The
what?'

    'The
candlemoth,' she repeated.

    I had
heard her correctly.

    I
shook my head.

    Eve
Chantry used my hand to pull herself up into a sitting position.

    'There
is the biological view of life, and then there is everything else,' she
started. 'The butterfly is proud to be so colored and graceful, to spread its
wings in the sun. The moth however, its closest relative, is a night creature.
The moth possesses beauty equal to a butterfly, but it does not see it… more
importantly, people don't see it because it is primarily nocturnal. And moths
are attracted to light because they wish to be seen, to have their own magical
beauty recognized.'

    Eve
Chantry squeezed my hand and smiled.

    'Leave
a candle on the porch at night and watch them come. A biologist will tell you
that the reason the moth circles the flame is because it naturally flies
towards a source of light, that the wing nearest the source will take shorter
strokes thus creating the ever-decreasing circle.'

    She
shook her head.

    'That's
not true. They see the beauty of their own wing in the light, and wishing to
emphasize it, wishing everyone around to see it, they draw ever closer in order
to illuminate it further. The heat is a worthwhile price to pay for being a butterfly.
They gather momentum, the circle decreases, and suddenly, unexpectedly, in that
last split second, in that last beat of the fragile wing, they catch fire… and
whoosh! The body aflame, bright yellow and red and blue… the moth becomes a
butterfly at last.'

    Eve
nodded.

    'That's
a candlemoth.'

    I
smiled, squeezed her hand. I did not understand the significance.

    'And
the reason I tell you this, Daniel Ford,' she said, interrupting my half-formed
questions, 'is that I am an old woman, and soon I will die, and there is
nothing that you or I can do to change the fact that I am an old woman about to
die.'

    She
looked away towards the window for a moment.

    'People
change, of course they do,' she went on. 'People change a little every day, and
sometimes you can meet someone down the road and they are utterly different
from the person you thought they were… but then sometimes it's you who has
changed, and they stayed exactly the same, and now you merely see them from a
different point of view…'

    Eve
paused as if to catch her breath a little.

    'Truth
is truth, you are who you are, and though your viewpoint might change, and
though you might possess a different perspective about something, your heart
and what you believe and who you are inside is only ever you… and you have to
follow that heart, you have to believe what you're doing is right, and no
matter what anyone might say or think or do you have to trust yourself to make
the right decision.'

    She
fell silent for a minute or two.

    The
window was slightly open. The cooling breeze lifted the netting and flicked it
into the room like a sail.

    Three
sheets to the breeze, I thought. She sails towards her own death with three
sheets to the breeze. I said nothing however. I sat silent, immobile.

    I
could feel my own heart beating.

    'So
when it comes,' she whispered, 'remember that it's your choice, and your faith,
and your heart you follow. If you don't want to go to war, then don't go… but
only you,
only you
can decide that. You hear me?'

    I
nodded; I heard her.

    Even
here, even after suffering a stroke, she was still the most perceptive and
direct person I had ever known.

    She
knew what was in my mind. She saw inside my thoughts, my heart, my soul, and she
knew also that at least half of any decision I might make would depend on
Nathan Verney.

    She
was telling me to decide alone.

    I
asked myself if I had ever really decided anything alone.

    'And
so at some point I will turn towards the candle, and I will fly ever closer,
and in one last brilliant burst I will be gone,' she whispered. 'And you,
Daniel Ford… you must let me go.'

    I
looked back at the window. I didn't wish to see her eyes.

    'There,'
she said.

    She
pointed at a chest of drawers against the wall.

    'The
lower drawer to the right,' she said. 'Open it.'

    I
rose, crossed the room, opened the drawer. Among neatly folded sheets and
pillowcases was a square wooden box.

    'Take
it out,' Eve said.

    I lifted
the box, and turning it over I realized it was not a box at all, but a small
wooden picture frame.

    Behind
the glass was a perfectly preserved moth, its wingspan no more than two or
three inches, but within those wings every hue of gold and brown and russet and
sienna captured.

    'Jack
made it for our daughter,' Eve Chantry said. 'And you shall take it with you
today.'

    I
looked at her.

    She
raised her hand, a single finger extended.

    'Not
a word,' she whispered. 'Not a word, Daniel Ford.'

    I
nodded.

    There
would be no arguing today.

    Or
any other day.

    Eve
Chantry was dead within a week.

    She
left no will, no family could be traced, and then a gray man with deep shadows
beneath his eyes appeared. He said he was a representative of Carolina &
North Eastern United Trust And Savings, that Mrs. Chantry had owed more than a
thousand dollars on the house, that the house would now be repossessed by the
bank, sold at auction, they would recoup their losses and the remainder would
be turned over to something called the Community Fund.

    The
gray man with deep shadows seemed to be completely unconcerned with any funeral
arrangements or expenses. He was there to collect his dues, and collect his
dues he would.

    So
Eve Chantry was buried after a simple ceremony in Reverend Verney's church. She
was not, however, buried in Reverend Verney's cemetery, but in a white plot,
unmarked and obscure, beside a wall that separated the cemetery from the far
end of Nine Mile Road.

    With
the money I had earned that summer I paid for a headstone.

    It
was plain white marble, and on it was the simple inscription:

    Eve
Chantry.

    Mother.

    Wife.

    Friend.

    Rest
In Peace

    My mother
attended the service and the burial. She understood enough to know why I had
spent my money this way and she neither questioned nor protested. This was my
way of giving something back, and she respected that.

    In
losing Eve Chantry I had lost a lifeline, an anchor to a reality more real than
that within which I lived, and I felt a greater wrenching of the soul than ever
I had for my father.

    I
would remember 1967, for this was the watershed.

    The
circle grew smaller, bringing me ever nearer that flame.

    On a
small nail I hung the candlemoth above my bed. It was the last thing I saw
before I slept, the first as I woke.

    It
was a reminder to be true to myself, to believe what I believed, and never to
compromise.

    That
would prove, of all else, the hardest lesson of all.

    It
was a harsh winter. Folks who had been alive two and three times my lifespan
spoke of it as the worst that ever was. Snow drifted eight and nine feet high,
cars were buried, and in February a cow was found frozen upright against a
fence. Ben Tyler and Quinn Stowell tied a rope around its neck to drag it away
with a CMC Jimmy, but the cow's head snapped right off like a branch. It was
that cold. Really that cold.

    I
stayed indoors much of the time, either at home or at the Radio Store. The post
sometimes got through, but more often than not it would be delayed for up to a
week. I was not certain if this was better or worse, for the thought of my
Draft Notice lying in a sack somewhere near Myrtle Beach - something like that
with my name on it and I just didn't know - gnawed at me relentlessly. I spoke
with Nathan, and each conversation seemed abrupt, as if every word was strained
and unnatural. We understood the significance of what would happen when those
notices came, that we would be caught then, caught between a rock and a hard
place, and though the thought of leaving haunted my thoughts, an ever-present
shadow, I could not bring myself to voice it. Nathan possessed that thought
too. I could read it in his eyes, and the aura of fear it precipitated was not
even close to what we had experienced a thousand years before in Benny's. This was
nothing to do with race or color or religion, this was life and death.
Sometimes I pretended this thing would never come, but pretense it was.

    Eve
Chantry's house stayed empty, much of the back half buried beneath the snow
drifts, and it wouldn't be until spring that the gray people with dark shadowed
eyes would come to lay up signage and put fliers out for the auction.

    If
I'd had enough money I would have bought that house. Just for the way the light
came in through the upper floor windows. Just for the smell. Just because it
was hers.