The Butterflies of Grand Canyon

by Margaret Erhart

  “There’s nothing to fear, my dear,” says he. “Hair of the dog, bit of tequila. Ah, forgive me. I didn’t even offer.” He waves the bottle at her and cocks his head.

  “No, thank you,” says Jane nervously.

  “Chacun à son goût and all that,” he shrugs. “Call it my different sort of satisfaction. Possibly not the one Aunt Gretchen had in mind—though she was a dragon wrestler, she was. Born the day Robert Lee signed away the South at Appomattox. Five days later Lincoln took the bullet. Some of us, my dear, have unrest in our veins. That one did.”

  He caps the bottle and tucks it back under the sink, behind a frail wall of sponges and soap powders. He sits down across from her at the little table and says, “I know almost nothing about your habits. That seems a shame.”

  Habits? Jane can’t think of any habits—except, according to Morris, she clicks her teeth in her sleep. There’s one. And she’s caught herself picking at a rough place on her elbow, fearing it will become a wart. But that’s not the kind of thing he needs to know. She offers something unincriminating: “I read,” she says.

  “Ah! Whom?”

  “The French at the moment.”

  “Vive the French! They write the way they cook. Rich, heavy stuff. Though in my opinion it makes better eating than reading.”

  She nods, though she’s not sure she agrees or whether agreement is expected or necessary.

  “I’ll tell you who I like,” he says. “I like that Mr. Tolstoy. Anna Karenina—now there’s a gal with spunk.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t call it spunk, would you? I’d call it a tragic fate.”

  “Women have their own words for things.”

  “But not spunk.”

  “She’s a rebel, dear girl. She’s led by her passions, doomed passions, to be sure, but passions nonetheless, leading her—”

  “Leading her around,” says Jane, “like a harnessed mare, the promise of a good trot ahead of her, a long fine trot through exquisite country, pulling a well-made wagon.”

  “That’s not far off,” says he.

  “But without choice, Oliver.”

  “What would she choose, then? How much choice does she require?”

  “She would choose what you and I would.”

  “And what’s that, young lady?”

  “Why, no harness. No traces. No wagon.”

  “I wouldn’t choose that,” he says bluntly, “and neither would you. Anyway, in her case, it’s either out there in the wind or back in the barn. Two important choices. It’s the wind she chooses.”

  Dotty, at that moment, appears in the kitchen wearing a housecoat so old and worn it might better serve as compost in her garden. “Good morning one and all,” she says cheerily. She favors cheer at this hour.

  “Jane and I have been engaging in the most fascinating conversation,” says Oliver. “Fascinating,” he repeats, shaking his head. He stands up and excuses himself, taking his orange juice with him.

  “He’s in a rare mood,” says Dotty. “He hasn’t been fascinated for years.” She looks around the kitchen. “Now what do I want for breakfast? Meat loaf! That’s what I want. Have you ever heard of such a thing? Cold meat loaf on a nice white bun, with mustard and a slice of apple? Oh, this will impress you, Jane.”

  “Dotty, I need some help,” says Jane.

  “Help, dear? What is it?”

  “I’ve misplaced my purse. I had it last night and don’t seem to have it this morning.”

  “You don’t think it was a prowler, do you?”

  “A prowler? In the house?”

  “It’s terrible to think of,” says Dotty, “but perfectly possible. Why, every year or two Babbitt Brothers is broken into. They take canned goods and such, because of course there’s never any money left in the till overnight. Now, you’d think whoever does this would learn there’s no cash to be had and they should just quit and get an honest job.”

  “Maybe the food is what they want.”

  “Oh, it can’t be worth it to them. The risk is so great. Besides, Jane, it’s not food they want, it’s . . . I hate to say it . . . drink. The Indians have a terrible time with it.”

  “These are Indians, then, these prowlers?”

  “I’m afraid so. They’ve never been apprehended, but it’s the work of Indians. They’re very stealthy, very crafty. They leave no trace and move like noonday shadows. Oh, if they weren’t engaged in unlawful acts, we might admire their skill. They enter and leave the store through locked doors. They really are the closest thing to ghosts.”

  Dotty starts constructing her breakfast, and Jane experiences a sudden yearning for her turquoise ring, wondering if she will ever see it again. “I don’t think it was a prowler,” she says. “I’m quite sure I left it at the Schellbachs’.”

  “Well, that’s a relief,” says Dotty. “Why don’t you take the car and go on over.”

  “I might just walk. I feel like a little exercise.”

  “Take my bicycle! There’s an idea. We’ll pump up the tires and send you off! What fun!”

  A Man’s Plate

  Morris Merkle is a man of ritual. His red leather slippers live beneath his red leather armchair; he reads the newspaper before dinner and history after; he pulls on his left sock first, then his right; he has smoked the same cherry tobacco all his life, though pipes come and go, and has, as long as he can remember, parted his hair down the middle and visited the barber every other Tuesday, unless the barber is ill or on vacation. In twenty-five years he’s owned only six suits, due to parsimony on his part and the fact that he loathes new clothes of any kind. On Friday he eats fish (though he doesn’t pretend to be Catholic), on Monday and Wednesday red meat of some kind, on Tuesday and Thursday chicken, and on the weekend he allows himself to be somewhat spontaneous, catch-as-catch-can. In Jane’s absence he has had to hire a cook, a temporary woman named Catherine, who won’t come on the weekend but will leave him casseroles to reheat. She’s not a bad cook but terribly sloppy in the kitchen, and because, as she reminds him, she’s an artiste not a potwasher, he spends a good deal of his time cleaning up after her. Which he is content to do. As he discovered in Arizona, dishwashing calms him. It collects him. Its logic is plain and simple, quite the opposite of marriage.

  After Catherine serves him dinner and says good-bye—cheerio is her word—the house feels too quiet. Morris eats and listens for the sound of her husband’s car driving away with her in it, then he calls the dog, a chocolate brown and white springer spaniel. “Up,” he says, and Martin jumps up onto the dining room chair that Jane usually sits in. It’s now covered with a sheet. “Good boy,” says Morris. He gets Martin’s plate, an unbreakable one made of a new material called plastic, and sets it on the table and takes not just the scraps but often the juiciest bits from his own plate and places them in front of the dog. When they are finished eating, the dog goes into the library to wait beside Morris’s chair, and Morris goes into the kitchen to clean up. He is learning Spanish, and he keeps the book propped above the sink, as his sister does. He is proud of his progress through the verbs, but the reflexive stumps him somewhat. Those Spaniards certainly must admire themselves with all of that me me me business.

  As for Jane, she comes to mind often, especially at night. He doesn’t miss her, exactly. He doesn’t really know what his feelings are. He doesn’t think about feelings, or feel them much. He knows she’s always been good to him, and at the same time he’s aware of a certain relief in her absence. Without her there, he doesn’t have to keep up his end of things, or so it seems. Yet the house is well cared for. The kitchen is actually cleaner than it ever was, and meals proceed in an orderly fashion. She, of course, would never allow Martin at the table. She tolerates the dog without being overly fond of him. When it comes to living things, she has a certain reserve that mystifies Morris, for he does not share it. During their brief courtship, though he saw no sign of her wanting children, his expectation of it was so complete—a woman her age would naturally set
sail toward motherhood—he never thought to bring it up. He remembers the exquisite sensual delight of the first fortnight of their marriage and how responsive Jane was, how grateful to be his wife. He had thought then that surely they would make a baby, in gratitude to one another they would make a baby, that somehow in the warm light of their lovemaking a baby would arise. But it did not. And then to his surprise, one night Jane brought to their bed a thing, a rubbery thing the size of the palm of her hand, which she, with the boldness of new sex—a daring they had given each other—asked him to insert inside her. He was horrified. That was the end of their innocence together.

  Morris is not in favor of spoiling children, but dogs are a different matter. One evening, while lingering at the dinner table with Martin, whose interest in staying seated wanes dramatically after his food has been devoured, he decides it’s time for a chat. “Martin,” he says. Their names are so similar in sound and form, he sometimes wishes he’d just named the dog Morris instead. “I don’t know whether you’ve given this any thought. I suspect you haven’t.” Martin is licking his plate and seems not to be listening. “Martin!” Morris commands. “Pay attention here! Now, it may not have entered your brain that our Jane will at some point return home. We certainly look forward to it, but at that time, my dear boy, your life will cease to be the rich and fanciful thing it is today and will become more or less the same drab monster it once was.” Martin delivers a quizzical look in the direction of his master’s unlicked plate. “Which isn’t to say we fault her. No, it’s nobody’s fault. We’re not perfectly suited to one another, there’s the rub, but we do love each other. On our best behavior is what we are. And I’m afraid my best behavior is at odds with your best interests. I cannot see a way to satisfy Jane and continue our—Martin! Feet off the table! Right now! What in the world has come over you? This is exactly what I’m speaking of. Jane has no patience for this kind of performance, and if presented with it, what am I to do? Who am I to protect? You leave me little choice, dear fellow. It’s in the future, I know, yet soon I must turn my mind to it in a serious fashion.” He scratches Martin behind the ears. “You’re a scoundrel, and I’m tempted to let you clean my plate tonight for a special treat, but we’ll not make it a habit, will we? We’ll not expect it every night. And when Jane comes home we’ll button up a bit, won’t we? We’ll make everything shipshape. We’ll straighten up and fly right. Oh, don’t look at me that way, sir, if you please. We’ll still have our evening walks together, our romps in the wet leaves. Now, I won’t have those sad eyes, Martin, I mean it.”

  Morris carries his plate into the kitchen and the dog follows. He sets the plate on the floor, and Martin, with one long swipe of his fat pink tongue, cleans the plate, which is quite an attractive plate, Morris realizes, though he doesn’t remember where it came from. He picks it up and examines it. Jane would know. She would know everything about that plate. She would know both the long and short histories of it. It was probably a wedding present. Though one was seldom presented with a single plate. Unless it was some sort of award. Could Jane have earned an award? Has he forgotten a shining moment in her life? His heart sinks. Then he notices with relief that the plate is not a woman’s plate, it’s a man’s. It has red-coated fellows riding in a circle around its outer edge, and within that circle a circle of hounds, and in the center a running fox. Over hill and dale it runs, its pointy face to the wind, its bushy tail streaming out behind. He realizes, to his surprise, he feels just like that fox, and in his imagination it runs and runs, never to be caught until it reaches the sea, where it stops and turns to meet its pursuers. Then, by the power of its magnanimous and reasonable personality, it turns back the hounds; it turns back the red coats. This sequence of events puzzles Morris. It’s true he often feels dogged by obligations to wife and home, but never has he thought of himself as a man driven to the brink of something. And more surprising still, when riders and hounds have trotted away and he is alone, he can scarcely imagine a life without them. So back over hill and dale he runs, pursuing his pursuers in order that they might once again give his life purpose and meaning.

  The Myth at Home

  As Jane Merkle pedals through the village, past Babbitt Brothers where Supai Mary is sitting on the porch on a milk crate, past the post office, past the train yard where the train is disgorging dozens of French tourists chattering like phlegmy squirrels, Louis Schellbach is having a difficult morning. He has already anticipated, with the invitation of a certain female personage to lunch, a difficult afternoon. It’s Sunday, and to his great dissatisfaction he does not go to work on Sundays. Nor Saturdays. And he is simply not the myth at home that he is in uniform. He would like to be a family man but finds domestic life full of annoying little knots he cannot untie. He feels at times disrespected by his son Donny and overlooked by his well-meaning wife, Ethyl. As a result, he has fashioned a little laboratory for himself, consisting of one long table at the back of his study. At one end of the table is a microscope, a large bottle of formaldehyde, an enamel pan containing surgical tools, and half a dozen boxes of Lepidoptera (butterflies, moths, skippers) or Hemiptera (true bugs) or Odonata (dragonflies and damsel-flies). It is nothing more elaborate than this, but the presence of the table allows him to feel mythical, which in turn allows him to do his work. This morning he tried, unsuccessfully, to interest Donny, age fourteen, in the variations in wing venation in dragonflies, and he showed him a green darner, Anax junius, one of the largest and most terrifying-looking dragonflies, under the microscope. Donny, his eye to the scope, only commented that “This whole business of bugs is sort of sick, Papa, and you’re obsessed.” At least he didn’t run away in tears as he used to.

  It is in this mood of glum rebellion against fatherhood that Louis Schellbach hears a faint knock at the door. Ethyl has gone shopping, and Donny has either locked himself in his room or run away from home to throw off the burden of an obsessed father. Outside, Jane leans the fat-tired blue Schwinn up against the low rock wall enclosing Ethyl Schellbach’s garden. Apparently Oliver has never ridden a bicycle, or has limited knowledge of them, because the bicycle he bought for Dotty is not equipped with two of the more practical elements involved in transport: basket and kickstand. With an unexpected case of nerves, she walks to the door and, finding no doorbell, knocks on it. There seems to be nobody home. She readjusts her hat, which she has grown quite fond of, and knocks again. Inside, a dog starts yapping. She doesn’t remember a dog from the night before. She guesses it’s long haired and under five pounds and its eyes leak and it has a flattened nose that looks like a culinary mistake. A man cries, “Reginald! Reginald! Reggie!” Footsteps approach. The yapping approaches as well. The footsteps stop, followed by a bout of coughing. The yapping continues and little nails scratch at the inside of the door. The coughing grows louder, accompanied by horrible gasps. “Goodness,” she thinks, “he may be dying! While I stand here as useless as Reginald!”

  She turns the doorknob: nothing. She leans her shoulder against the door, preparing to knock it down if necessary. It is at this moment that Louis Schellbach recovers himself and opens the door from within, and little Reggie bursts forth to administer sharp nips to the ankles of the unexpected visitor. Jane Merkle suddenly finds the top half of herself in the arms of the park naturalist, while the bottom half is severely buffeted by the park naturalist’s pug. There is a brief, confused readjusting among the humans: a straightening of the tie by Schellbach, who is seldom seen without a tie, and a rearrangement of the hat by Mrs. Merkle. The dog is told to “Stop that, Reginald!” and made to sit, which he’s poor at. Finally he’s banished to the back of the house.

  “My deepest apologies,” says Schellbach, wheezing ominously. Jane hopes to heaven he won’t start in again with that racking cough. “It’s the dog,” he manages to say. “Allergic,” he gasps.

  “Is there anything I can do?” asks Jane.

  He shakes his head. Finally he’s able to speak again and says, “Annoying little fell
ow, isn’t he? Ethyl’s dog, really. Ethyl’s watchdog. Takes his job rather seriously, I’m afraid. Now, I think we better have a look at your ankles. Little devil’s been known to break the skin.”

  “Oh.” Jane smiles, with effort. She’s determined to keep her ankles to herself. “Oh, no no no. They’re sharp little teeth all right, but no harm done. I have a dog myself,” she adds. “It’s Morris’s dog. They’re useless, aren’t they?”

  “Useless?” Schellbach raises an eyebrow. He has a long, comical face, a neatly trimmed mustache, and gray pouches under his eyes.

  “Did I say useless?” asks Jane.

  “You did.”

  “Useful is what I meant.”

  “Useless may be more accurate,” says Schellbach, winking at her. “Shall we go inside?”

  “Oh, well. I don’t know about that. You’re probably busy and I—”

  “Nonsense. It’s true, I’m up to no good, but you might find it interesting.” He sweeps her down the hall into a room that smells of tobacco. There are several large windows covered with shades, two tall shelves of books, and a desk with a cow skull hanging over it. This must be his study, though the skull seems as poor an invitation to sit and think as Jane can imagine.

  “The truth is,” says Schellbach, leading her to a long table at the back of the room, “I’ve forgotten your name.”

  “Jane. Jane Merkle. I’m Oliver Hedquist’s sister-in-law.”

  “Of course you are.” He motions to the table. “Here lies a dilemma.”

  What Jane sees is puzzling, to be sure. A stole. In the middle of the table. It’s a dull fur, obviously an inexpensive one or poorly cared for. It must have been left behind by one of last night’s partygoers.