The Butterfly Plague

by Timothy Findley

  The police began to draw a map. They listed locations of the various crimes: Topanga Beach, Alvarez Canyon, Santa Monica, Watts, Westwood Village, Burbank, Pacific Palisades. A circle began to take shape.

  What are the connections among the events? The police asked one another about similarities in the cases. All the murder victims had been women. All the victims of rape were women. To help formulate a pattern, the following list has been drawn up:

  Jean Pollux—murdered (?)

  Clara Box—murdered (?)

  Mrs. Neilsen—raped.

  Gracie Hinxman—murdered.

  Mipsy Peterson—(dubious witness).

  Mavis Seaton—raped.

  Alice McKnee—raped.

  If they eliminated Mipsy Peterson (characterized by some as “a liar”), there was indeed a pattern: a pair of murders, a rape, a murder. A pair of rapes. Now, they wondered, would there be a murder and a rape? If that occurred, in that order, the pattern would be firmly established.

  They waited.

  Nothing happened.

  Six days passed.

  In the English Parliament, the Prime Minister, Mr. Neville Chamberlain, wearied by the ordeal of the Czechoslovakian situation, developed a cold and stayed home.

  In China, more bombs fell.

  In the Soviet Union there was a state banquet at the Kremlin for Herr von Ribbentrop. Joseph Stalin prepared a toast to Adolf Hitler.

  Leslie Howard and Olivia de Havilland were contracted to play featured roles in Gone With the Wind.

  Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, there was not even a fire. Bets were laid. The police (and indeed, the citizenry) became impatient. The reputations of those who put forward the pattern theory rested on what would happen next. Jobs were at stake. Would it be rape? Or murder.

  It was murder.

  The theorists sighed in relief. For the time being, their positions were secure.

  Thursday, October 27th, 1938

  The victim was Nellie Bergdorf, of Hollywood. A wardrobe mistress at one of the major studios, she was murdered with a pair of pinking shears. On the floor near her body an unknown insignia had been drawn with tailor’s soap.

  The next fire was at 111138½ La Conga Boulevard. A taxidermist’s shop. Burned to the ground. Mr. Gaylord Cohen.

  Sunday October 30th, 1938

  Silent screen star Naomi Nola celebrated her fifty-eighth birthday today. She began her career on the stage and entered films after the turn of the century, appearing first in The Thin Red Line, for her husband, director George Damarosch. She is currently in retirement. Best wishes, Naomi.

  Monday, November 7th, 1938

  Herschel Grynzspan, a seventeen-year-old German Jew who had managed to find refuge in Paris, France, mortally wounded Ernst von Rath, Third Secretary of Hitler’s Embassy in that lovely city. This murder of an innocent man, for no apparent reason, drew shocked response from Washington, London, and Paris.

  Wednesday, November 9th, 1938

  To celebrate the anniversary of Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch in Munich, an array of German dignitaries gathered, including Herr Hitler himself, Reichsmaster Goering, Dr. Goebbels, Julius Streicher, and the notorious American Nazi, Dr. Bruno Haddon (honorary doctorate in biology, University of Bonn).

  There were thirty-six deaths.

  Twenty thousand arrests.

  The celebrations were held by torchlight.

  Friday, October 28th to Tuesday,

  November 8th, 1938

  In Los Angeles during this period (twice the length of the previous hiatus in crime) there were no significant events—no fires, no rapes, no murders.

  The populace seethed with curiosity. Something was bound to happen.

  Friday, November 11th, 1938

  In the evening two events occurred in rapid succession. A woman was brutally raped, and five synagogues, eleven delicatessens, and one old-persons’ home were burned to the ground.

  The news of the rape and the fires created mayhem. Congratulations and promotions were spread far and wide. Lotteries were won. Fortunes on a minor scale were solidified. The pattern theorists had been proven incontrovertibly correct in their assumptions.

  The next crime to be committed in the calendar of rampage (apparently being drawn up by a single protagonist) would undoubtedly be a murder.

  The authorities (some of them in their new offices) awaited history with interest. The events of November 11th, however, proved to be conclusive. The pogrom was over.

  Its final victim had been Ruth Damarosch.

  Friday November 11th, 1938: 8:30 p.m.

  “Where are you going, dear?” said Naomi. She reclined in her bed. Her eyes were clouded; she could barely see. “Out,” said Ruth.

  “Come, come, dear. Be kinder than that.”

  “Just driving, Mother. Really. Nothing else than that.”

  “You seem upset, Ruth. Nervous. Please tell me what’s wrong.”

  “It’s nothing, Mama. Please don’t fret.”

  “It’s me, isn’t it,” said Naomi. The shadows cast by the light from golden lamps seemed to menace the edges of her pillows. “It’s because I’m sick and you can’t stand being near me.”

  “No, Mama. No.”

  “You hate me. You want to get away from me because I don’t believe the things you say. I know you hate me, Ruth, and I know you’ll be glad when I’m dead.”

  Ruth beckoned to Miss Bonkers, who stood behind her in the living room.

  “Shouldn’t Mother have a sedative, Miss Bonkers? Perhaps even another shot? She’s terribly upset.”

  Miss Bonkers low-voiced it back that “She can’t have more right now, Mrs. Haddon. I’ve got to adhere strictly to this schedule” (she held up her clipboard with the morphine timetable appended to it) “and if I get away from this, then there’s nothing I can do for her when the pain becomes unbearable.”

  “She’s so unhappy,” said Ruth. “And so suspicious. It’s unlike her.”

  “Yes, but it’s typical,” said Miss Bonkers, popping a gumdrop into her mouth and dusting the sugar from her hands onto her uniform. “This is always the worst stage of cancer. Paranoia sets in, and there’s nothing a person can do.”

  Ruth glanced, attempting nonchalance, back into Naomi’s room. The figure in the bed was tense and twisted. But its eyes were closed.

  “Tell her not to worry about me,” said Ruth. “I’m only going for a drive.”

  “Very well, Mrs. Haddon.”

  Ruth got to the front door.

  “Oh, by the way, Miss Bonkers,” she said, turning back to speak. “I think it’s time you stopped calling me that. Mrs. Haddon.”

  “But…”

  “No buts, Miss Bonkers, please. I’m asking you to obey me. From now on, call me Miss Ruth. And if you must refer to me on the telephone, or elsewhere, please refer to me as Mrs. Damarosch.”

  “Mrs. Damarosch!”

  “Yes, it’s perfectly legal. Don’t look so shocked, Miss Bonkers. Lots of divorced women do it, revert to their maiden name. I shall henceforth be Mrs. Damarosch. It’s quite simple.”

  Miss Bonkers performed a few vulgar expressions, but said nothing.

  Ruth opened, went beyond, and closed the door.

  “Mrs. Damarosch,” muttered Miss Bonkers into the pages on her clipboard, “is the mother’s name.” Did this mean she must now call Naomi Nola “the Dowager Mrs. Damarosch”?

  9:00 p.m.

  The Franklin climbed.

  Since Myra’s death, Dolly had been making life difficult for taxi drivers, while Ruth fell occasional heir to the purple-painted motorcar that her brother never drove himself.

  The car responded cautiously to the unprecedented demands which Ruth now pressed upon it. It seemed never to have known a speed above thirty miles an hour.

  In the hills above the city it was hot and dry. A fog of road dust and heat waves lay between the winding road and the view below. Through this veil, the lights came on street by street—avenue by avenue—until a
ll at once the whole of La Cienega Boulevard was lit up by a thrusting arrow of white electricity, and there was fire, or so it appeared, all over Los Angeles.

  Now Ruth drove higher, moving farther away from this vision, closer to the darkness.

  He would be up here somewhere. That much she had surmised. He had to have somewhere to hide, and since the city afforded no such place, the hills, with their tall, sunburnt grasses and copses of low shrub, were the only sensible and safe place from which to direct his operations. She was determined to find him.

  9:30 p.m.

  She parked the car.

  She sat very still. In the last of the cityglow and the first of the moonlight she had seen what must have been a figure striding along the ridge of the hill that now rose above her.

  She had parked the Franklin off the road in the lee of this hill, and looking up, she could see the clear black heat of the sky with its starspots and pale cast of moonlight. The rim of the hill was unmistakable and clear.

  She rolled down all the windows and lit a cigarette.

  She listened. Surely he was there.

  Would there be the whisper of bare feet in the dust and dry grass? Or would he shake the earth with his approach?

  She wanted to get out of the car, but something was still afraid inside of her.

  Was this rape, since she was willing? And since she was willing, would he have to kill her? What were the terms? How did you survive him?

  The grass crackled.

  Ruth closed her eyes. She prayed for moisture in her mouth, for motion in her tongue. For words. There were none.

  Some birds flew up and away from the hillside. Ruth opened her eyes just in time to guess at their silhouette as they beat away into the moon.

  Then silence.

  He was there. Somewhere. She’d seen him. She couldn’t doubt that. She’d seen him, striding across…

  A stone was turned and lifted. It began to roll.

  Only a human foot could turn and move a stone so violently. No animal would be that clumsy. Not in its own terrain.

  She peered out into the darkness.

  She wanted to call, but was afraid of who might answer. It could be some tramp, or a pair of lovers, or a troop of boy scouts…She smiled at the thought. Boy scouts.

  She lit another cigarette. Part of her mind was still calm, even practical enough to have the thought that once the baby had begun to grow inside her she would have to give up smoking. But the rest of her mind was listening and watching out into the night, waiting with neither patience nor impatience, but only with the insistent and unshakable certainty that he would come.

  Somehow, too, she had known all day long that this was the day, that this would be the place, and that she would be the one.

  The golden head would hover over hers…

  She thought of Dolly. Dolly would be pleased. A child was being born. A Damarosch.

  Ruth gasped.

  He was standing just beyond the motorcar.

  His uniform was soiled. His bare feet were darkened with blood and dust. A faint aroma—leather—smoke—filtered through the air and made Ruth ache with nostalgia and longing. Her cigarette fell to the ground.

  Where was his face? What did he look like now? She could not quite make it out, so perfect was the dimness of the light. But something glimmered there and she guessed it was his eyes.

  “Are you there?” she asked. “Is it you?”

  Nothing responded. Neither voice nor movement.

  But he was there. She could see his shoulders. His hands. His feet. His uniform. His hair.

  Staring at him, trying with all her might to see his face, Ruth unlocked the door of the motorcar, opened it, and waited.

  Would he come over? Must she go to him? What?

  He stood stock still.

  For a moment she thought, He’s a tree…and then his fingers moved.

  She got out.

  The odors of leather and smoke grew stronger, almost overpowering. Ruth advanced.

  “I’m here,” she said. “See me? Here I am.”

  She fumbled in her pocketbook and withdrew the torn insignia. She held it out toward him as a signal of her submission.

  “Speak to me, please. You’ve come so far. It’s taken me so long to understand. Now, surely, you can tell me that I’m right and that you want me.”

  Closer.

  “Weren’t you in Alvarez?” she asked. “In Alvarez with me…?”

  The figure moved.

  It trembled.

  “I was there,” said Ruth, “with you.”

  From a long distance—so far away that Ruth’s ears could not encompass the distance—a siren wailed a tale of fire.

  Unafraid, Ruth walked up to him and grasped his hand.

  With her other hand, she showed the insignia.

  There at last was his face. It was sad. His lips would not part. His cheeks had hollowed but he was beautiful still—more beautiful than she had remembered. He seemed no longer pure and young, but troubled and mature. He eyed the insignia. His fingers moved to touch where it had been on his arm. Its twin was still in place below his other shoulder.

  “You’re growing more like us,” Ruth said. “You’re growing more like everyone. Oh, hurry—hurry before it’s too late!”

  She dragged him, running, to the dried-up hillside, to the crackling golden grass.

  She lay down, drawing him with her.

  “Undo me,” she said. “Undo yourself. Be quick.”

  He would not. Or could not. She did not know which.

  Her mind twitched. This was impossible. All this time. All this way. The intention; the intention must be fulfilled.

  She undid her blouse.

  “I will, then,” she said. “I will do it.”

  Quickly she spread the blouse beneath her, rising in the same motion to unbutton her skirt. This she removed, and her slip, and spread them widely where her buttocks and legs must lie.

  Sideways would be easiest, she decided.

  He’s tired.

  How practical the desperate are, she thought, bending over him now, her knees spread for support, undoing the buttons of his shirt.

  At last she was able to roll him out of his sleeves and as she knelt farther in toward him, reaching for the buckle of his belt, she caught sight of his eyes watching her. Those eyes will be the eyes of my child, she thought. Placid and unafraid, neither curious nor repulsed. The expression was unforgettable.

  The buckle momentarily jammed and she was about to cry out with frustration when she felt him move beneath her fingers. He lifted his hips and instantly the buckle opened. He was moving with her now, still letting her command his actions, but obeying more swiftly.

  She had to alter her position in order to remove his trousers. She knelt down between his feet. In her hands, his feet were dry and covered with healed sores. She pitied him. She pitied him his commission and the conditions under which he had to commit it. Then, staring down at the golden lengths of his body, she pitied him more—pitied his perfection and the curse it had laid on him. He had to be the messenger of Race: chosen—not choosing.

  She crawled around to his side and faced him.

  She lay down with him, breast to breast.

  She stared into his eyes, and he, unblinking, stared dispassionately back.

  “Begin,” she commanded, but her voice was as low and gentle as a mother asking her infant to feed. And just as obedient as a hungry child, the blond head arched inward to her rising breast.

  Ruth wanted to breathe him like air into her lungs. She wanted to bleed him instantly into her veins. To absorb him.

  His hand fell lightly on her tilted buttock. His knees insinuated themselves between her. Ruth’s pelvis burned forward; she grasped him, held him warmly for a moment in the sheath of her hand, and then she thrust him into the wound prepared for him, impelling her body onto his blade so suddenly their union was completed in a single spasm of alarm.

  There was no thought in Rut
h’s mind. There could be none. Everything but fulfillment had been driven away. She knew there was life inside her. She knew it as surely as the sky was there and the stars and the moon and the silhouettes of hills and scrub.

  She lay there fully an hour, unaware of both sound and silence, unaware of the ghostly holocaust that was whispering around her.

  Suddenly waking from whatever it was that had possessed her, Ruth sat up, fully aware. Each sense was alert with panic.

  The darkness was awash with orange waves. Fire.

  She touched herself. Naked.

  She lurched sideways to waken—to save him…

  But he was not there. Gone. But when?

  There was no time. She rose to her feet, staggering into her clothes, lurching toward the parked, endangered motorcar.

  “Where are you?” she started to cry, but the flames would not let her. She breathed in smoke and heat and her throat constricted. She gasped for air.

  Ashes and cinders rose up with every step. Embers and sparks set fire to her sleeves, her hair and her eyebrows.

  She struggled into the car and rolled up all the windows. Somehow she remembered how to turn the key, how to make the car function, how to accelerate and how to steer. The road was barely visible through smoke and flame. She did not know yet that she, herself, was on fire.

  “Alvarez,” she kept saying, but as a question. “Alvarez? Alvarez?”

  At last she broke free of the flames and brought the Franklin to a halt just in time to avoid smashing head on into a fire truck that had pulled to a stop on its way up the road to the inferno in the hills.