The Cries of the Butterfly - A LOVE STORY (65 page)

She stood there in the center of the room, her mind blank. Nothing happened for a while.

Then something kicked at her heart, and suddenly triggered, she made a wild dash out of the house. She didn’t wait for the escalator, instead swept down the steps like a demented ghost.

She caught him just as he was about to disappear around the bend of her street. She screamed for him, waving her arms frantically. He saw her in the rear-view mirror in the nick of time.

By the time she reached him, the driver’s side door had been thrown open and Grant had stepped out.

“I’ll do it!” she blurted, panting. “I’ll do it, sir. Tomorrow…today…anytime you say.”

SHE
remembered him now.

Not so much his face—it was still too fuzzy. But the name and the rest…

Wavell. Wavell Waugh. And he was the sweetest man she had ever known. Although immensely rich, Savannah hadn’t known a more self-effacing guy, and a guy who made her laugh so much.

They had met at the twenty-four hour coffee shop of the New Halcyon Grand Hotel, where she had been a waitress, working the evening shift. The attraction had been instant and they began seeing each other, usually at her studio apartment. He said he was an affluent stockbroker, worked in the family firm (father, uncles, brothers, cousins), and promised to take her to his home and introduce her to his folks at an appropriate time.

“You must understand my situation,” he said. “Ours is a pretty conventional type of family and though we are progressive Westerners in every other sense, there are certain ways of life that remain.”

“What exactly does that mean?” Savannah asked.

“It means that for one you are expected to marry a girl that can match you socially and economically.”

“Which I am not. Nowhere close.”

“It does not matter to me. All that matters is that I love you and that I want you, and only you, as my wife.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“The thing is that we are one big undivided family. We all live together.”

“You live with your parents still?” she asked, a little taken aback.

“And with my uncles and brothers and cousins.”

“I don’t believe it! In this day and age?”

He laughed. “It is not as scandalous as you might think. We live in a sprawling residence and each unit of family has their complete space and freedom. And yet, we are closely bonded to each other,” he said. “We are like a pride of lions. We find safety and prosperity in a group. One for all and all for one. Our family is the happiest family in the world.”

Suddenly she was very excited. For a person who had known no family, this sounded grand.
Oh, how would that feel—to be a part of a majestic pride!
The warmth that would come with it, the sense of belonging, the caring, the support system…
In the name of progress and advancement, Western civilization has steadily lost the very essence of humanity. No wonder the world is gripped by so much strife and unhappiness
. Savannah decided she would love to be part of such a setup for a change.

“So if you have complete freedom and space as you say, why do you need sanction as to who you marry?” she said.

“I do not need any sanction at all. No one would question me. But they would not like it on a subterranean level. Someone from an unlike social stratum would not flow seamlessly into the larger structure.”

“That’s not true, Wave. You need to keep an open mind.”

“Exactly. And that is why I need some time to prepare my family for you. They are good-hearted folks, Sav, and once they realize you can so easily blend in, they would welcome you with unreserved affection.”

Savannah felt warmth pervade her being. A glowing warmth. If just listening to him was so exhilarating and soothing, what would it be like to
actually
be in the heart of such a milieu?

“But unless you familiarize your family with me, how are they going to like or dislike me? And you can’t familiarize them unless you take me home to them,” she said.

“That could be counter-productive at this stage. What if they do not take to you at first glance? I do not want to risk that. First, I want to lay the groundwork, and that is best accomplished by talking about you all the time, casually telling them what a wonderful person you are and how happy you make me and all the rest of it. That way, they shall become familiar with you even before seeing you. Their curiosity would have been pricked and my constant glorification of you, albeit subtle, would soon make them like you. And then
they
would be eager to meet you. Thereafter, it would be a cinch.”

Yes, she liked it—it sounded good.

“I think it’s a neat idea,” she nodded. “How long do you think it’ll take, Wave?”

“Not long at all.”

But it prolonged…and kept prolonging. And he kept telling her to be patient, give him just a little more time.

And then, four months after they had first begun dating, she realized she was pregnant. At first, she was greatly disconcerted, almost freaking out.

But he calmed her down.

“Gracious Lord, Sav, is this not the most wonderful piece of news we could have?” he said, over the moon. “Look, there is nothing more I could want, darling. You have made me ecstatic beyond words.”

He would adoringly run his hand over her belly, then press his face to it. He would look up and his eyes would brim with fondness and love and he would wind his arms around her waist and heap her with tender kisses.

And in return, she would hug him ardently. Oh, how she loved him.

“I’m sacred, Wave.”

“What of?”

“What if something happens and we don’t make it?”

“What could happen?”

She would rest her face on his chest. “I don’t know. Something…”

“Gracious Lord, you are scared my family will not accept you and we cannot marry.”

She nodded.

“Perish the thought,” he said determinedly. “For, in that case, I would leave them and we shall set up a separate home. I am committed to you, Sav, more than I have been committed to anything or anyone. And now that you are carrying my child, there is nothing that can ever part us. Not even death.” And his charming smile and earnest manner would ebb her fears.

And so they kept seeing each other almost every day, spending as much time together as they could. They were a couple desperately in love, with the celebration of their devotion on its way. It was only a matter of time before they formalized their bond.

She was six months pregnant and on maternity leave when a strange man accosted her one evening outside her building as she was returning from some shopping.

“Ms. Burns?” he said.

She nodded, suddenly tense.

“My name’s Tudor. I’m Wavell’s cousin,” he said.

Her heart began to pulsate. Had something happened to Wavell?

“Please…please come on up…” she stammered.

“Thank you.”

Once inside her apartment, she turned to him. “Is Wavell alright?”

“Yes, ma’am, he’s absolutely fine.” He paused for a second. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

“Yes, please.”

“I think you should forget about Wavell.” Just like that.

“What!”

“Wavell is getting married next week and you should now evict him from your mind.”

At first she thought this was some prank, perhaps Wavell’s, perhaps this stranger’s. But seeing the man’s sincere face the hair on her nape stood up and she could only stare stupidly.

“It’s like this, ma’am,” he continued, his tone dour. “Wavell belongs to a very privileged family and there are certain obligations that go with being a member of such a family. One among them is that he marries any girl of his choice provided she matches up to our socio-economic status. Perhaps it’s unfair, but that’s the way it is. All important families have some unwritten policies that must be respected. The British royal family for instance.” He paused, gazed at the opposite wall for a second, then went on, “Let me tell you this—Wavell was totally devoted to you till the very last moment. He truly wanted to marry you and was even ready to abandon his family for it. But finally good sense prevailed and he has made this supreme sacrifice in the interest of the family. I think you too should appreciate his sacrifices and understand his compulsions and make your own little sacrifice for the better good. It would be much appreciated by us all.

“Yes, there is this one little thing…the child you are carrying. You have nothing to fear, ma’am. My family shall not shirk its financial responsibilities.” He dug into his handbag and fished out a slim envelope. He got to his feet and handed it to her. She took it mechanically, then perhaps it was just too heavy to hold and she dropped it on the chair next to her.

“A check for you, ma’am. Plus you shall get a monthly allowance as determined by our lawyers. Please do not fear—it shall be at least twice what the courts would normally decide. Your child shall want for nothing, and if you so choose, you won’t have to do another day’s work in your life.” He handed her a note. “These are our lawyers’ numbers. Contact them if there’s anything that you need for the child, or for yourself, anything whatever. But from this point on, you shall never see me or any other member of my family ever, and it would be in your and your child’s best interest not to try and make contact with us. For then, you shall lose our support.”

He was nearly at the door, when he turned around.

“Oh, I almost forgot.” He handed her another envelope.

When he had gone, she opened it.

It was a note from Wavell.

I am very sorry, Savannah. I truly am. I do not know what more to say. Please forgive me. W.

Then she robotically moved to the other envelope. It was a check for two million dollars. She was in such shock then that it did not occur to her to inspect the signatory of the check. If she had she would have realized she had been lied to all along.

It was three days before she could pick up the phone receiver.

But Wavell’s regular (an unlisted fixed-line) and cellphone numbers were no longer in service.

A week later, she tore into smithereens, first the check, then the lawyers’ phone numbers, then
his
note. Then in the dead of the night, she collected all that he had given her over the months—the platinum, the diamonds… And she went down and dumped it in a garbage can, where in the morning it would be found by some very blessed bloke.

For the next three months, she vegetated, in total shock. As had happened when her soul-mate Mary had died, she was unable to express her grief, and the cries of this desolate butterfly remained imprisoned in her heart.

Her friends and acquaintances got to know. They were supportive and advised her to sue Wavell Waugh…
rip his balls off, skin him to his fucking bones.
But she refused.

Soon the friends tired of her…tired of her unrelenting inert anguish, which had become, oh, so boring. The visits became infrequent, then stopped altogether.

It was a miracle she didn’t abort in these three months.

She delivered a baby girl one day just before daybreak.

She robotically went about looking after the infant, steered by instinct, struggling from hour to hour. At some level she realized that she was steadily losing it and could no longer care for her child…that if she didn’t do something, the poor thing would die.

One late night, she put the infant in a cardboard box. And in it she also placed the gifts that Mary had given her over the years, and her gifts to Mary. She had no use of them anymore—she had no use of any memories any longer. She hurriedly scribbled a note and put it in the box too. She called her daughter ‘Mary’, after her deceased best friend. Then in the dead of the night, she left her house, the cardboard box in her arms. She footed across a few streets, her destination the house of a distant acquaintance, Ceecee Sandford, a housemaid at ‘Green Emerald’, a hotel five lanes from the New Halcyon Grand where Savannah worked.

Over the next several months she remained at home, a zombie.

Finally, she relocated to another part of town.

A year after her baby was born, she finally began looking for work, her savings having run out. The episode with Wavell Waugh and the child she had given birth to and abandoned had by now been completely eclipsed from her psyche. She looked, and looked more, and got a job at ‘White House’, a low-end watering hole off King’s Road. It paid bad money and too many creepy hands groped her all night. But she had to live.

When it got unbearable, she quit. She began looking again, thought of returning to the States, but stayed put at New Halcyon. When her savings ran out again, and she still could find no work, she went back to ‘White House’.

It was the same—too much pain for very little gain. Then she came in touch with a girl named Lianne, a mousy little thing, a kind soul with the brains of a sparrow, whose favorite expressions were
Jesus of Christ
and
sort-of
.