Butterfly Winter

by W. P. Kinsella

  This was not the last time Fernandella railed about the ancestry and shiftlessness of the Wizard.

  “He could not possibly be Boatly,” said her studious son, Esteban, many years later. “Sandor Boatly brought baseball to Courteguay. Sandor Boatly, if he were alive, would be over a hundred years old.”

  “NEVER MARRY A HANDSOME MAN,” Fernandella would tell her own daughters, when they became teenagers. But none paid the slightest attention, and all of them did marry handsome men, with varying degrees of success, except for her third daughter, the dwarf, Agurrie, who joined a touring circus and fled to Europe, supposing rightly that her handicap would be more acceptable there. She sent postcards that often took years to arrive.

  “TWIN SONS!” boomed the Wizard, “who will be great, no, not just great, but the two greatest baseball players ever to originate in the Republic of Courteguay.”

  The Wizard lived in poverty in a tent made of stolen canvas, saving the profits of his predictions in order to someday acquire a hot air balloon.

  “I will fly like an angel over Courteguay,” he proclaimed, “sizzling down out of the sky as a wizard ought to. My costume will be made of parrot-bright silks and will contrast favorably with the sleek brilliance of the balloon.”

  Removing his hand from Fernandella’s belly, he said to her husband, “That will be fifteen centavos, please.”

  “Thief!” cried Fernandella, watching her husband digging in the pocket of his ragged trousers. It was at that moment she felt the first painful stirrings in her belly, though she could not comprehend the nature of the pain, and had no idea it was caused by a miniscule pitcher gouging out dirt in front of the pitcher’s rubber, making a place for his forward foot to land comfortably.

  “Eyyya,” groaned Fernandella, grasping her belly with one hand.

  “To be completely fair,” said the Wizard to Fernandella’s husband, “I will prophesy the outcome of three baseball games of your choice, for the same ridiculously low fee.”

  EIGHT

  THE WIZARD

  Excuse me, please. There are inconsistencies here. I am the Wizard described in the preceding pages. I am at the moment staring over the shoulder of the author, a Gringo Journalist who is conducting interviews with me. He sits at a large oak table writing my story, the results of his interviews with me, on a pad of yellow lined paper. He was a guest in my own home. I allowed him to visit me when I was briefly confined to the General Omar Bravura wing of National Hospital of Courteguay, once known as the General Lucius Noir Hospital and Chiropractic Clinic.

  The Gringo Journalist’s handwriting is extremely bad, consequently I have to get so close I occasionally breathe on his neck and ear, distracting him momentarily from his task. Even though I am indeed a wizard and as such can routinely be in more than one place at a time, I cannot influence what this author is putting down. However, I can and will be certain to correct erroneous information, which I’m sure will keep me very busy.

  This gringo is hardly qualified to write even a novel set in Courteguay. He once spent two weeks there as the guest of a famous baseball scout named Bill Clark who worked for the only Major League Baseball Club in the True South. The Gringo Journalist spent the entire two weeks whining about the humidity, the accommodations, the unpaved roads, the presence of the military at the baseball stadiums, and did not pick up his fair share of the bar tabs.

  The one afternoon the famous baseball scout left him unattended he hired a taxi and attempted to cross the border into Haiti in order to investigate the origins of the infamous Dr. Lucius Noir, who was dictator and El Presidente of Courteguay during several of the years the gringo wishes to write about. The famous baseball scout, not wanting to be responsible for the permanent disappearance of the gringo, had stopped by Haitian Customs and told them that the gringo had once called Baby Doc Duvalier a pig, green pig to be exact, un cochon vert, and had said even worse things about his father, Papa Doc Duvalier. Haitian Customs denied the Gringo Journalist permission to enter, and spat on the back bumper of the taxi as it turned around. The Gringo Journalist suffered from nausea and stomach cramps the final three days of his stay.

  THE TWINS WERE MY FIRST PERSONAL TRIUMPH as a wizard. I think that, as an author, the Gringo Journalist could have spent a little more time on the gravity of that situation. If gravity is the right word. You see, one simply does not say “I am a wizard,” and suddenly everyone treats you with the deference and skepticism that such a proclamation deserves and entails.

  I remember once, not too long after my arrival in Courteguay, I had gotten myself into a rather precarious situation; it is a universal truth that gamblers who cannot meet their obligations are known to have their kneecaps broken, or worse. I was being approached by several sleek young men who had unexpectedly won a considerable number of guilermos from me because a no-account pitcher for a no-account baseball team had pitched a one-hitter against the San Barnabas Beasts, playing at home in the Jesus, Joseph, and Mary Celestial Baseball Palace. I honestly did not have the guilermos necessary to pay my debts and was prepared for the worst when, as the young men, lean and vicious as coyotes, approached me, I flung open my shirt to display the gardenias growing from my chest hairs. The young men studied me, sniffed the air, glanced at each other with amber eyes. Without words their consensus was that a lucky flower would more than compensate for their financial loss. The only pain I suffered was from the flowers being ripped unceremoniously from my chest.

  But what transpired was much more than being forgiven a debt, it established my credentials as a wizard. Word of a new wizard travels faster than pink eye, and within a day my reputation was known in both San Cristobel and the capital, San Barnabas. Though it took many more years before I could be a successful and nonchalant wizard, I, like that rookie pitcher who threw an unexpected one-hitter, had established my potential. No one would ever dismiss me at a glance again.

  What transpired pertaining to the birth of the Pimental twins was secondary, for though it was perhaps my greatest triumph, my life was not endangered if the outcome was not magical or spectacular, or both. There is the story of the famous American golfer who, when asked if he didn’t get very nervous when putting for hundreds of thousands of dollars, replied that nothing serious happened if he missed one of those putts; nervous, he said, was playing a wise guy who could have your knees broken, and putting for a hundred dollars with nothing but lint in his pockets.

  NINE

  THE GRINGO JOURNALIST

  There is a certain heat in the city of San Cristobel. The daytime sky is always high and white, a carnivorous sun reflects blindingly off whitewashed adobe walls. Heat waves bounce from the walls and the red dust of the streets, until the air looks like it is filled with wavy spiderwebs.

  The heat of San Cristobel saps the strength. Birds fall silent. Insects drone like overloaded aircraft. The heat of San Cristobel touches the mind. Eyes squinting against the fierce glare do not always see what is before them. The heat of San Cristobel is a magician pulling rabbits from hats, birds from concealed pockets, coins from ears. The temperament of the land is regulated by heat. Sudden and casual violence is a way of life, flaring like lightning, as quickly forgotten.

  There are rumors in San Cristobel that Dr. Lucius Noir while he was El Presidente of Courteguay could command lightning to strike his enemies.

  I’ve also been told of a woman who sold lightning, claimed she had learned the trick in Haiti. For a fee she would sell a lightning bolt from the storm that perpetually dumped torrents of rain on San Cristobel every evening. Your personal lightning bolt would strike wherever the buyer desired. But, as with all magic, there were risks, if the mood of the people was bitter, sellers of lightning were sometimes stoned, other times tied to trees and burned alive.

  It is said that nothing in San Cristobel has ever been exactly normal. At least not since baseball arrived, the accoutrements carried by a ragged, starved, fiery-eyed fanatic with a few chittering baseballs in a canvas bag, hang
ing from a bat. I have heard the Wizard’s own story, but there is great confusion over whether a man named Sandor Boatly ever existed let alone brought baseball to Courteguay.

  Easier to remember is the Wizard descending from the sky in a multicolored balloon, distributing baseballs like party favors. In this part of Courteguay, time is measured since the arrival of baseball. It was not all that long ago, and one or more of the versions of Courteguayan History begins just before the first baseball season. Those who remember the event, or claim to remember, sometimes refer to it as the Teaching Time. After-history being almost as interesting as history itself, the stories told by liars are often more entertaining, contain more truth than those told by people who actually witnessed events.

  From the research of the Gringo Journalist:

  A FIRSTHAND ACCOUNT OF BASEBALL COMING TO COURTEGUAY

  The Teaching Time, perhaps a year, perhaps considerably longer, depending on whose story you believe. It is speculated that Time in Courteguay began on opening day of the Courteguayan National Baseball Association, at the moment when the Old Dictator, who may or may not have been Octavio Court, (I have so far been unable to determine if there ever was an Octavio Court, so ephemeral is his memory, so steeped in fog the short history of Courteguay), threw out the first pitch at Jesus, Joseph, and Mary Celestial Baseball Palace, in San Barnabas, inaugurating the four-team league encompassing two teams each from San Cristobel and the capital city, San Barnabas.

  During the baseball season, a cloud in the early evening sky is an occasion. The temperament of the land is regulated by the heat. The season, which is theoretically year round, is curtailed during the rainy months by hurricanes and torrential downpours, but not shut down. I am told that there was a law enacted against rain falling before nine in the evening, (but who enacted it?), a time when all but the longest extra-inning game was in the records and the fans and players had safely returned to their homes.

  Sandor Boatly, the Wizard, as well as some historical sources, claim that Boatly demonstrated baseball by first teaching a would-be player to hit, first grounders, then flies. Boatly then played at every position on the field, showing how each player should conduct himself. He even visited the priests enclosed behind chain-link fencing and before long, though there were not enough for a single team, let alone two, they laid out a diamond and enjoyed a rousing game of scrub.

  It is said that years later, Dr. Noir repeatedly mouthed the words, “There is no need for God in a warm climate,” as he personally shot priest after priest where they were trapped inside their chain-link prisons.

  As one must have in any odd or experimental project, Sandor Boatly had luck on his side. Just as the people in some societies have no resistance to alcohol, or religion, the people of Courteguay were seemingly born with no resistance to baseball, and it seems they were born with an innate knowledge of the game that only had to be scratched to bloom fully. Many of the young men were blessed with uncanny ability, the pitchers, with no training, able to throw 90 MPH fastballs, the hitters, equally untrained, able to club five-hundred-foot home runs, the infielders capable of performing contortions like gymnasts, able to retrieve sharply-hit baseballs from the short outfield grass and throw accurately to first base, always a hairsbreadth ahead of the fleet runner.

  BUT HOW MUCH OF THIS IS TRUE? The Wizard is at best a charlatan. Could he, as many claim, actually be Sandor Boatly? It seems unlikely, but just as I feel I have a handle on him, he does something that makes me want to believe everything he tells me. For instance, no matter how many times I change it back, when I next open my manuscript my description of the Wizard in the second sentence has been changed to charming charlatan.

  TEN

  THE WIZARD

  The birth of Julio and Esteban Pimental was my first triumph. I lurked in the dry weeds behind the shack while the births were taking place. My eyes glistened and my skin shone like polished teakwood.

  Hector Pimental, who considered it unmanly to be anywhere in the vicinity of women’s work, still couldn’t keep himself away from the birth. What if my prognosis was right? What if Fernandella were to produce from his seed the two finest baseball players ever to come out of Courteguay? Hector fancied himself selling his services as a stud, fathering an army of sons, graceful, powerful baseball players all. He fantasized the pleasure he would receive while doing his duty for Courteguay.

  “The first one was born in the catcher’s crouch,” Hector cried, as he came upon me where I hunched in the brittle undergrowth eating a mango. “His little hands are already scarred. He has suffered several broken knuckles. He has a stolid face and full head of black hair. I will name him Esteban.”

  I stared at my reflection in the blue brook that had mysteriously appeared behind the tin shack that Hector and Fernandella called home. Handsome and lean as a coyote, I thought, rubbing my thin hands together and deciding that as a reward I would add a name, and henceforth be known as Alfredo Jorge Blanco.

  An hour later Hector Pimental returned.

  “The second one, the one we will christen Julio, was born wearing baseball cleats,” he announced with wicked pride. He stared at me, dressed in my ink-blue robe covered with mysterious symbols. “The fingers on his pitching hand are like talons, the first two fingers splayed, the nails sharpened to fierce points.”

  “Did I not prophesy so?” I asked. I was now Geraldo Alfredo Jorge Blanco, having added yet another name as soon as I heard Hector crashing through the thicket toward me.

  I continued to rub my hands together, maintaining a calm outward appearance as I tried to decide how to best exploit the situation. Hector Pimental’s only motivation was greed; he would need much guidance.

  “I am a wizard,” I repeated several times under my breath, shaking my head as if to clear away confusion. I should not be surprised, I told myself. One has only to trail dreams obsessively in order to make them come true.

  After the births, Carlotta, the midwife, swaddled Esteban and Julio in blankets made from freshly laundered sugar sacks. After she stretched Esteban out of his catcher’s crouch, and attempted to force Julio to lie like a normal baby and stop the continual pitching motions, she propped the babies, one on each side of Fernandella, their tiny maple faces each resting against a swollen breast. It was then that the midwife discovered that, along with the twins, Fernandella’s womb had expelled two miniature baseball gloves, one a catcher’s mitt, three cumquat-sized baseballs, and a pen-sized bat. If Julio was the pitcher and Esteban the catcher, who held the bat was never known.

  ELEVEN

  THE GRINGO JOURNALIST

  The Wizard, after washing his most colorful costume in the clear stream that had appeared beside the home of Hector and Fernandella Pimental, set off for the capital of San Barnabas. He did not have bus fare so walked partway, then with the help of an acquaintance who was already on a bus, he was pulled through a window, suffering only minor sprains and a large rip at the rear of his caftan. He presented himself at the Presidential Palace as an emissary of the miraculous, stupendous, fabulous, baseball-playing babies who had been born near San Cristobel. The Wizard lied outrageously, claiming that he had personally delivered the babies, and that he had a medical degree from Port-au-Prince Hospital in Haiti. The Wizard had heard that in Haiti, anyone with a sharp knife and more than one ounce of disinfectant could call himself a doctor, so he didn’t exactly consider his story a lie.

  The Wizard’s message did eventually reach the Old Dictator, passing first through the head of the Secret Police, one Dr. Lucius Noir. The Old Dictator, who like the Wizard had a nose for a profitable situation, decided after leaving the Wizard waiting at the gate for 24 hours to give him an audience.

  The Old Dictator donned his whitest uniform, one with flamingo-colored birds as epaulets, and stationed himself behind a huge marble-topped table, a bowl of peeled and sliced mango and a bowl of passion fruit the only decorations.

  “I am humbled by your generosity,” said the Wizard, shaking
yellow dust from his caftan. “I have been a party to one of the more remarkable occurrences in a land of remarkable occurrences: babies that played catch in their mother’s womb. Babies that even now, at the tender age of two weeks, play catch in their crib.”

  The Wizard stopped and eyed the mouth-watering food.

  The Old Dictator nodded for him to help himself.

  The Wizard, rather than spoon out a dish for himself, pulled a full crystal bowl to the edge of the table and began to eat with the service spoon.

  “Why exactly are you here? What do you hope to accomplish, other than a free breakfast?” the Old Dictator asked.

  “Not a thing,” said the Wizard between mouthfuls. “I have seen something miraculous, and as someone who has always supported you over General Bravura, I decided that you should be apprised of the situation. You are so much more astute than your enemy, I know you, in your infinite wisdom, will know what should be done to make the most of the situation.”

  “You are a toady of the first ilk,” said the Old Dictator said with a smile.

  “Thank you.”

  “What percentage do you want?”

  “What is it we are planning to do?”

  “That remains to be seen. First the business arrangements.”

  “A what is it they call it, a finder’s fee, perhaps. Say, 40 percent.”

  “I would not even allow my banker 40 percent. You look like a charlatan, and a not very successful one. Five percent, take it or leave it.”