He forced himself to look at her face. An old, badly stitched scar stretched from her right temple to the opening of her mouth and another ran over the bridge of her nose. The skin was almost translucent: a map of despair clinging to the bones out of habit.
“You were right … It was a piecrust promise. But I didn’t break it.”
“Cabrones,” she repeated without feeling.
“I am.” He held her hand and despite himself, felt sickened by the bones sliding under the loose skin, by the smell of her. “If love is guilt then I have always loved you, Gabriella.”
She smiled, as though he were something of only limited interest. He couldn’t think of anything else to say. After all that lost time … twenty years of sleepwalking through his life, taking any drug he could, lying out in the scrub most nights, just staring at the moon and wondering; there was no way of converting all that into something worth saying, something that could take it all back, free her and absolve him. So he adjusted the remote. The sound of children’s laughter came from just beyond the trees. Gabriella turned towards the voices.
“Look,” Adam said. “It’s the children.”
She made a noise and tried to rise.
“No, stay there. I’ll call them. Jane! Michael! Come over here!”
They came from behind a tree as if pushed onto a stage. The girl looked to be around five, the boy seven. He swung a stick and his younger sister carried a jam jar full of assorted insects. She held it up as they approached.
“Look what I caught for you, Mummy.”
Adam touched the remote again and they went to their mother. The sun burned through the swaying branches. A wood pigeon cooed nearby. Gabriella sat on the blanket with her children and took food from the hamper. She didn’t seem to notice that the dried fruit and meat she gave them kept falling through their hands. After some time, Adam took out a bottle and a metal spoon. He poured a viscous red liquid onto the spoon and put it to Gabriella’s lips.
“Come along; a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down.”
Gabriella swallowed it without comment. Adam’s hands shook as he poured a spoonful for himself. He felt drowsy very quickly and put his arm around Gabriella’s thin waist. She flinched a little and then rested her head upon his shoulder.
“You are slow,” Gabriella whispered sleepily.
“I am,” Adam replied.
They lay back on the sun-splashed blanket and closed their eyes. The children stood up and stared at the couple, shuffling their feet as they waited for further instructions.
* * *
… Moises sat up and wiped the tears from his eyes. Gabriella! Was he seeing her future? Mama selva, what was this magic?
He was incredibly thirsty and with his mind still struggling over what he had read, he scrabbled around in his rucksack. He found half a bottle of water and as he drained it, his ears picked up a tiny creak from outside. Moises turned in his chair and remained very still, eyes focussed on the indistinct shape of the front door. It had sounded like the wooden steps to his house, bending under a carefully placed foot. He waited. The silence stretched and then as he released a breath it came again! Moises shot out of his chair and ran to the door. When he pulled it open, Walter was halfway up the steps in a crouched position. He looked up, startled, and began to bluster, “Oh, Moises, I thought I heard a call from your house. Thought you might be ill … You said you were ill earlier …”
Moises closed the door behind him.
“I did not hear anything. I am well,” he said.
The old man rubbed his ears. “My hearing plays tricks at my age I think.”
Moises raised his fist and stepped forward as if about to strike the old man.
“No tricks, why are you here?”
Walter raised his arms to defend his head. “I wondered, I mean the butterfly, do you have it?”
“Mana intindinichu?” Moises asked in Quechua. “Señor Dollie? You have contacted him tonight haven’t you?”
Walter’s eyes widened. A great excitement shone in them. “I knew it! You have the butterfly-”
“Why did you tell him?”
“Señor Dollie said I would be famous.”
Moises sighed. “Why does everybody want to be famous these days?” He asked the question quietly, rhetorically.
Walter grinned. “Everybody wants to be famous.”
“Go away,” said Moises. “If I hear you near my door before he arrives, I will kill you.”
Walter backed away into the darkness and his grin was the last thing to disappear. Moises went back inside and bolted the door, rested his head against it for a moment. There was nowhere to run to now. This night would be his last, and it would be endless. He sat and looked down the microscope again …
Somebodies
Propped against the empty kitchen cupboards, the 40-inch television glowed with sharp, saturated images, its fat-gummed screen jumping to a shapeless dance track. Ascención rested her cereal bowl on the pile of lifestyle magazines that seemed to be the only things holding the TV in place and poured some milk. She took the bowl and sat opposite the two suited gentlemen who were waiting patiently.
“It’s the children I worry about mostly. What would be for the best?” she asked loudly, cramming a large spoonful of Pop Tart cereal into her mouth. The music seemed to increase in volume and urgency to compete with her, and she gave the television a disparaging look.
The tall, young man across the table glanced at his older partner and smiled. “That is entirely up to you, Mrs–”
“What?”
“I said that it–”
“Whoar wud ou eccomend?” She shouted through a mouthful of cereal, a little of which landed on the table in front of her. She flicked it away casually.
The man glanced at the TV and smiled an even sunnier smile. “Could we just …” His hand turned a make-believe dial. “Just a little.”
“Sure.” Ascención snapped up a remote and pressed it.
“Thanks. That is a nice TV by the way. What I was saying was that, well, the English have a phrase for this, sin dolor no hay ganancia, do you understand?”
“Yes, of course.” Ascención dropped her spoon in the bowl and sighed. No pain no gain. That was easy for them to say in their shiny suits. What pain had they suffered? She leaned over to peer into the living room. The children were hooked up to their Playplaces, grunting and spitting in frustration. She lowered her voice. “It’s a big decision to make on a Saturday morning.” She laughed a little. “Haven’t woken up yet.”
The older man moved a pile of food-encrusted plates aside and slid some brochures across the table. “It is a big decision Ascención, and you only get one shot at it. That’s why it’s very important you get it right.” He put a hand on his colleague’s shoulder and his smile increased in wattage. “Young Luis here is correct. The harder it is for your family to endure, the better the results; that is the bottom line. In my opinion, from five years’ experience in the business, if you’re going to do it, do it properly – no half measures.” He leaned back in his chair and waited as Ascención flicked through the brochures. The pictures were glossy and vivid, the testimonials predictably gushing.
“We realise at the high end it appears very expensive, but–”
“It’s not about the money; I’ve been saving for a couple of years now … I just want it to be long lasting.”
The man looked around the kitchen, at the door-less food cupboards and the rashes of damp where the emulsion had bubbled from the walls. “Of course.”
Ascención lit up a bacon-flavoured cigar and her visitors pretended not to notice her shaking hand.
“The people from Longlegends™ guaranteed two years newsworthy but you only guarantee six months, and they’re cheaper,” she said.
The salesmen
smiled at each other. The older man spoke again. “It’s impossible for them to guarantee two years and in our opinion–”
“Longlegends™ are the biggest in the industry so they must be doing something right.” Ascención was pleased at how business-like she sounded now. She had learned quickly that these people were essentially all the same. Their sales talk was full of traps and she was proud of how she had danced around their words that week, trying to find the best deal for her family. Within a few minutes, they usually realised she was no cojuda and stopped patronising her.
“Their prices are low because they are a bigger company, but you lose the personal touches because of that, señora. You take a chance with them. Sometimes their work is good, sometimes it’s poor. They have been known to carry out the order at the wrong address.”
“Yes, I heard about that.”
The man shrugged. “Ascención, you are just a number to them, believe me. To us, you are a family of individuals and will be treated with the care and attention you deserve. If you decide to go with ForeverinLights™, we will spend a lot of time getting to know you; that’s how we get spectacular results. Your history, your situation and your personalities will enrich the story and give it longevity.”
That’s what had been worrying Ascención. Was her family interesting enough? Was their story outstanding, their loss so heart-breaking it would stand out from all the others? Ascención took one last tug on her cigar and dropped it into her cereal bowl. “Longevity is the key here,” she muttered, as if to herself, “and documentaries, candle-lit vigils.”
“It’s all here in this brochure, Ascención. This is a growing industry… although it can only grow so far, for obvious reasons. More than ever, the story has to be believable and compelling, otherwise it’s not newsworthy. That’s where we excel. The more you pay of course, the more you get.”
“It’s not about the money.”
“Of course it isn’t. It’s about what’s best for your family.”
The men from ForeverinLights™ let themselves out.
“A su madre! I’ve scrimped and scraped for five years; of course it’s about the fucking money,” Ascención muttered when she heard the door shut. A cockroach scuttled out from underneath the fridge. She eyed it for a second, threw her cereal bowl and scored a direct hit, cutting the insect in half. The front of the insect righted itself and limped on through the shards of glass and milk. Ascención went over, hunkered down and watched until it gave up the fight for life.
She went back to the table and spent another fifty minutes poring over the shiny brochures. After much consideration, she chose ForeverinLights™ and the Gold B option. As expected, the Platinum range was well out of their financial reach. Looking through the brochure, it was obvious why it was so expensive. There was a more elaborate backstory in the Platinum range, greater attention to detail and even more avenues explored to achieve long-lasting publicity. When Ascención read through the details, her heart yearned for it, but along with the extras, there was the expectation of more sacrifices from the family involved. Some of that she could barely read, let alone consider doing. Take Platinum A for example, the most expensive on the list; it took a whole year to complete!
No, all in all, Gold B was probably the best option for them. They would be part of a serial, which should help. And cameras could be fitted in the house for the duration, which would shave a bit off the cost. She couldn’t quite bring herself to opt for Gold A; not right to expect her children to suffer through weeks of it, she supposed.
At just before midday, Ascención put the brochure in the sink and it burst briefly into an intense ball of white flame. She glanced at the clock; it was exactly one hour after she had opened it as they said it would be. They covered their tracks these people. It reassured her to know that.
Her husband, Sergio, was as unsure and half-hearted as he generally was. She approached him with the laptop after he had taken his MAYK-M that afternoon.
“About the kids? Are you sure it is best for them, too?” His red eyes quivered like jellyfish abandoned by a receding tide.
Ascención gave Esteban and Claudia a look; they were both online, eating their lunch with the screens down over their eyes. She had shaved a few extra slivers of MAYK-M topping onto their pizzas and they were buzzing as loudly as the old fridge she couldn’t wait to leave behind.
“Do you know how many people have been born on this planet?”
Sergio shrugged. “When?”
“Ever?”
He shrugged again.
“One hundred and six point five billion, and less than one percent of those have been famous for anything.”
“A su, when you put it like that, but …”
“What?”
“Well, maybe the kids will be famous for doing something when they grow up?”
“There’s more chance of us finding the next black butterfly on the indoor garden. Do you want them to be one of the billions forgotten?”
He put down his pizza and picked up the laptop. “Where do I sign?”
They had a month now to make sure everything was right.
The day before the men from ForeverinLights™ were due to come was a short one. Ascención kept looking at the clock as it zipped around. She wanted to physically grab the second hand and hold it still, to have a few moments outside of time where she could not feel the clock relentlessly nudging her into the future.
Everybody has nerves, she reasoned.
Ascención had done all she could to ensure the success of their story; they all had something to lose now. And somehow, even though these things were possibilities created by her own planning, they made it harder for her to let go.
Having successfully begun weaning himself off MAYK-M during the past month, Sergio had got an interview with the newly formed company Hero™, who produced the substitute he was using. Hero™ were making a new, long-running advertisement string, which would follow six users from Cuzco: three who used their product, EEZ-ME, and three who used a rival but unnamed substitute. The company were hoping that the three users of the rival product would fail by going back on MAYK-M. This meant, of course, that the three who were chosen to use their own product, had to succeed. Sergio was subjected to psychological and physical tests to ascertain his suitability. The job came with a new car and rent-free accommodation in the suburbs for the duration of the campaign run, which might be up to six months.
Despite pestering the company at Ascención’s urging, Sergio hadn’t heard if he had got the position as yet. If it came out afterwards that he had, she knew that could only help.
The children were put through an elaborate array of tests and the possibility of Esteban being a mathematical genius was forecast, while Claudia had a great ear for music. Ascención had paid a violin teacher to assert that Claudia could almost certainly develop into a master violinist. She had a lesson every day for three weeks, despite the fact that she hated it.
Ascención herself was everything she needed to be in that month leading up to the big day. She had timed her pregnancy to perfection and would be eight months when the time came. It was a little boy and in quiet moments, she would pat her belly and whisper, “You’re going to be famous baby,” and she would cry a little.
Every weekday afternoon, she did voluntary work with under-privileged children. She found them weak and cloying, but stuck to the task admirably, becoming quite well-liked in a community she had previously tried to escape from.
When she put her own children to bed that night she gave them a cuddle – a rare gift, and they sensed something was different.
“Is tomorrow the special day?” Esteban asked.
“Yes, baby.”
“Are we going somewhere?”
“Yes, we are, if you behave that is.”
Claudia sat up. “Where to?”
Claudia laughed.
“You want to be somebody, don’t you?”
“Yes, Mummy.”
“Good, then settle down and get to sleep.”
Ascención went to bed alone. She had allowed Sergio some MAYK-M because he couldn’t sleep and he had then insisted on spending the night in the children’s room.
At around midnight, she had a wild urge to grab the kids and run. She sat up in bed and breathed deeply in the darkness, whispering the reasons for their decision. She was under no illusions. These occurrences were becoming more common, but still … even if it was only for a couple of weeks, or less; they would still rise up through the dismal sea of the nameless, the faceless, and her family would shine in high definition for the briefest of moments. She laid her head back down and watched the brittle glow of the digital alarm clock as it winked through the minutes. She smiled through chattering teeth as she imagined her own face on the big TV in the kitchen, people discussing her story, bringing flowers to her house …
A blinding light and a shriek of terror woke her. The scream was hers: a pre-emptive strike against what she knew was coming.
Two men in grey clothing were in her bedroom. Their faces had been wiped. Sergio was crawling in front of them. One of the men swung a boot up into his stomach and he rolled over, mewling like a sick cat. His hands clawed at the trousers of the man who had kicked him and red spittle bubbled from his mouth. There was a crunch as the boot met his face again and a bright loop of blood swung across the duvet near Ascención’s feet.
The men chuckled, but their featureless faces hardly moved.
Sergio got to his knees and waved his hands around blindly, trying to find his assailant. Ascención could see why; the men had the children, one each under the left arm while the right ran a chromium blade back and forth through the gauzy air. The man who held Claudia addressed Ascención; his voice came hot and muffled from the small mouth and the children were sobbing so it took a couple of seconds for her brain to decipher his words.
The Dreams of the Black Butterfly Page 7