The Butterfly Boy

by Tony Klinger

  “I’m not a little boy mother, don’t talk to me like this.” “I’m your mother, so I have to.” She admonished me, “But I’m not the little boy I once was.” She smiled and playfully smacked me on my ass, “For me you will always be my little boy.” Before we could continue the man wearing the black beret interrupted, tapping his finger on his watch. “No more time,” he said in his heavily accented German. Mother hugged Marlene, and then me and then forced us into a three-way embrace. While we were huddled she added, “Remember, we only have each other to love without question.” She released us and then joined the rest of her group, where she turned and waved, “Look after yourselves and love each other.”

  She turned and followed the others in her group, the man turned to us one last time, “I shall get your mother to her destination I promise, and maybe we can all meet again, shalom, next year in Jerusalem.” With that he led the group into the forest and out of sight.

  “What did he mean?” asked Helmut, “Shalom means peace, and Jews have been saying next year in Jerusalem for the thousands of years since we were dispersed around the world by the Romans. Adolf Hitler has made it possible for my mother.”

  “So now your mother goes to Palestine and you’re a Jew?”

  “Yes, it seems in today’s world we don’t have any choices, so some of my people are going home.”

  And I wondered if I would ever see my lovely mother again.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Berlin

  Spring 1942

  It was one of those balmy wonderful nights that Berlin does so well. Crowds swirled outside the theatre after the premiere for the new play. The women were in their best evening dress, the men mostly in uniform. I was standing next to Helmut, he was in his usual louche dinner suit and cape, I was in my very smart Colonel’s uniform given to me courtesy of the Fuhrer’s command. We both saw Marlene being escorted out of the building by Ratwerller; it still hurt me almost too much to bear to see them arm in arm. As usual Helmut tried his best to distract me, to block my line of sight, anything to stop yet another confrontation.

  “Get out of my way.” I told him. “Why do you punish yourself like this?” I shrugged my shoulders, “I don’t know old friend, I really don’t know.” Marlene smiled at the people being introduced to her by Ratwerller, unaware that I was staring at her.

  A portly man, wearing the dress uniform of a general greeted me enthusiastically, “Herr Hessel, what a pleasure to run into you again like this. It’s been what, a couple of years at least.” I recognized him at once, General Kleist, not a bad old stick, and he liked my work, which recommended him to me immensely. I smiled, “Good evening general, how pleasant to see you again, forgive me if I didn’t see you straight away, I was a million miles away. Refresh my memory, where was it we last met?” He laughed, full of merriment, “You’ve forgotten me already, just how many fat old generals do you meet?”

  We both laughed but then he noticed my eyes were still drawn to Marlene and Ratwerller, “Beauty and the beast eh. I can understand looking at her, but he’s no treat for the eyes.” I nodded, and then turned to face the general directly, “She is beautiful, and she was once my wife.”

  “Oh, I am sorry if I have said something to offend you.” “No,” I shook my head, “Forgive me, its me that is rude, now I remember, we were introduced by the Fuhrer himself, how could I possibly forget that.”

  The general was delighted we had moved the brief conversation to an easier topic, “Yes, that’s right, at the Wolf’s Lair.” He looked at Helmut, “I’m sorry,” I said, “This is my colleague Helmut Von Thysen.” They shook hands, “I think I know your family.” Kleist said to Helmut, “Most people appear to do so.” Replied Helmut. “I have heard very good things about the two of you, your fame and business acumen precede you. You’re legendary, its almost as if you had a bit of the Jew in you to be this good at squeezing people for the maximum money, just like the chosen people.” He laughed, but Arnie and Helmut forced themselves to join him.

  “How about the two of you join me for dinner, there’s a wonderful place near here, does the best food, and a tasty dessert if you know what I mean, they import the steak from the north and the women from Paris, a good combination yes?”

  “That would be very nice.” I started, trying to find an excuse not to join him, “No buts, let’s get out of the madding crowd eh, I insist, it will be my treat?” he ignored our protests and barged his way happily through the throngs of revelers.

  We arrived at the restaurant in the company of Kleist who seemed totally unconcerned that we quickly became the centre of attention as we took our table. The general sat opposite us and we now had the opportunity to look more closely at our surroundings, the place was like a giant womb, hot and red. The other occupants were mostly discreetly hidden behind drawn curtains, each in their private booths. Ours had the curtain open as Kleist soon had the drinks and food flowing. Soon three beautiful French girls wearing very little but skimpy maids outfits and saucy smiles joined us. Kleist ignored them except when one of them put her hand on him under the table and he swatted it away, “Not while we’re eating dear heart, you can spoil a man’s digestion. These French women, so eager to co-operate with their conquerors eh?”

  I was fascinated and repelled by the man’s Rabelaisian gusto; he was just such a happy pig as he gorged himself on his vast greasy sausage and sauerkraut. Bits of his food dribbled and squeezed from the side of his thick-lipped mouth as he attempted to combine talking and eating simultaneously, “Your business spreads faster than the Reich itself. You boys must be making a bloody fortune, not that I have anything against making a fortune you understand, it would be un-Germanic to be against making money so we can pay more tax eh?” He laughed and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “What plans do you have for the future of the business?” he asked me.

  “I’m just a painter, its Helmut who runs the business.” I responded, “He’s just being modest, most of the original ideas are his, and all the good paintings.” Helmut said, the beer rapidly going to his head, “You know how it is general, what with the war and the business I don’t have time just to sit and do my painting anymore, we’re more of a business than anything else.” The general laughed and raised his glass to us, “You are more of an industry than a business, I haven’t seen your figures, but they must be most impressive. Let us drink to the business!” Everyone at the table took a drink to toast our business, the young lady next to me held my glass to my lips with one hand and surreptitiously felt me under the table with her free hand, “I’ve never had one of our disabled boys before, I’ll do you for free.” She whispered in my ear, but before I could explain that I was disabled long before the war and she didn’t have to service me out of misplaced patriotism the general continued. “To have a business such as yours in the middle of this war is a great comfort. A comfort I don’t presently enjoy myself. I have been stuck away on the freezing bloody Russian front where your balls have to be wrapped up warm or they freeze up and fall off. My business is nearly kaput. I don’t know what I am going to come home to.”

  He was near to tears of self-pity. “I thought you were a professional army man?” I inquired, “What me, no, ha, my wife should hear you say that. No I have a print works in Munich. I am a printer, not a soldier, that’s what I am, Kleist the printer. The Kleist Printing Company, that’s me.” “Oh,” said Helmut, “I’ve heard of you, that’s the biggest printer in Southern Germany!”

  Kleist beamed proudly, “It is the biggest print works in the whole of Germany!” his good humor evaporated as he continued, “But now the its government work at government controlled prices and this isn’t so good, but perhaps providence smiled on us all tonight.”

  “Go on,” suggested Helmut, the general was now apparently stone cold sober, “I can print your cards better, cheaper and in bigger numbers for less than you pay anywhere else, I guarantee that fo
r special friends, and I can even guarantee that they will be distributed throughout the war and all over Europe, come on tell me that you’re not interested.”

  It was a tempting pitch, it could solve all the problems with costs, printing and distribution that we’d been encountering as our enterprise had grown too fast and become unwieldy. “How did we become your special friends to get such a special deal general?” I asked, “I’m not an unreasonable man, for a factory owning general, I want you to flourish and at the same time we should also make a profit, it isn’t unreasonable eh, if we are to be long time in a working relationship with each other eh?”

  I was to find out the answer to that question a few days later when we visited the general’s house in Munich. It was a huge and garish mansion that only the newly rich, with more money than taste or experience could relish. Set in a couple of hectares of neatly trimmed gardens the home seemed to reflect everything unappealing about the man and his money. Helmut and I were ushered into the hall with its immensely high ceiling and overly ostentatious and grotesquely overlarge crystal chandelier by a frock coated butler. Both Helmut and I followed the man as he led us to the drawing room.

  The general entered with a very amply proportioned young woman, “This is my little princess, my daughter, Kathrin.” The one word that didn’t do her justice was his inappropriate use of the word little; she was very large, very pretty but ovoid. However she had a winning smile and despite her potentially slow metabolism a lovely personality. She saw Helmut and I at the same moment the maid brought in tea and cakes. Clearly she was under strict instructions not to eat as she forced herself to look at us rather than the food but I felt her attention stray toward the cakes occasionally.

  I realized this was a set up almost immediately, the fat girl and the cripple, a partnership made in heaven. To give her some credit I could see from the way Kathrin looked at me that she recognized the situation for what it was, but was resigned to her fate. “Hello Kathrin. Any cakes for a hungry man?”

  She beamed at me, “You like cake Herr Hessel?” “I love cakes,” I stipulated, “But only if you can help me with it?” she moved over to me and looked me straight in the eye, “You can call me Kat, all my special friends call me Kat.” “OK Kat, I think we can be special friends.” Helmut read the signals and smiled, as did the general, deal done!

  I think Kathrin saw me as a challenge to fatten up and she wasn’t worried about me not having the use of my arms. In fact she saw this as a potential advantage, it meant she could always take the initiative and I could never hit her as the general had often done as she’d being growing up. I exchanged a happy glance with the general, some things, it was understood, such as business, being far more important than any others. I sat next to Kat and opened my mouth; she started to feed me and never stopped again for many years.

  The wedding ceremony took place at the registry office; it was brief and awkward. Only a few richly dressed people attended. I stood next to Kathrin and we were both happy enough and the General was more relieved than thrilled. I was so busy thinking about the business I almost didn’t hear the registrar tell me, “You may now kiss the bride.” I did so without any great enthusiasm but Kathrin saw this as her first opportunity to take ownership of the romantic situation, as she grabbed the back of my head in both her large hands and returned the kiss with enormous gusto and stuck her tongue into my mouth.

  This was to be my first experience of Kat’s other hunger. She was a very earthy woman, and this was immediately revealed in our seaside hotel bedroom. Kathrin went after me like a tigress, with no subtlety or style but enormous energy and power. I felt like I had been ravished. No intimacy was a problem for this woman; she would wipe me in the toilet as if I was her baby, and then make love with me as if I was the only man in the world. I was to find more to recommend this girl as time passed, but above all I was pleased to be with a person who woke up happy and always seemed pleased to see another day. It was to take me out of my more introspective moments as I shared her simple joys.

  Our first morning together, as man and wife, I was standing by the window of our large honeymoon suite, looking out of at the sea below. I was dressed in my pajama trousers and Kathrin was sitting in our bed, consuming a deluxe box of chocolates imported from Belgium. “Are you happy?” I asked her, “Happy?” she said, playing with the word, “Yes,” I said, “You know, with me?” She smiled and popped another chocolate in her mouth, “Look what an appetite you gave me, you wore me out, you’re very good in bed, very imaginative, much better than I thought you’d be, very, acrobatic; are you happy with me?” Now it was my turn to smile, “Of course I am.”

  She stopped eating for a second, “I know some people think I’m fat, but I hope you see me as voluptuous. Daddy was especially generous with my dowry. A half-share in his factory, and a large amount of money, you must be very happy with that.”

  “I think you’re voluptuous, and you know, a dowry is normal. And I was comfortably off already, you know that, I think you’re very special, voluptuous in fact.” I kissed her on the cheek. She shook her head and ate another chocolate, “Look I’m a practical girl, you just have to keep me well fed and looked after in the bed department, that’s all I ask, I’m old fashioned, you can do what you like as long as its not in my face or on my doorstep, understood?”

  I laughed, “If everyone in the world was more like you there would be no wars!” I was very happy at that moment, we had an understanding, and we could, I thought, both live with that quite happily. “I see it like this eh, you like to paint and fornicate, I like to eat and fornicate, what’s the problem eh, you go and paint a nice picture, make us some money, and I shall find a nice patisserie. We shall meet for lunch at one and maybe have a quickie and a siesta, sounds nice doesn’t it, now hurry along my little apple strudel, all this talking is making me hungry.”

  I smiled at her, sharing her humor, “you said making love makes you hungry.” I scolded her, “Everything makes me hungry, even breathing. You don’t want to reform me do you, I like eating, I don’t even mind being voluptuous.” I looked at her Rubenesque body and shook my head, “Never, of course not, eating, for you, is an art form!”

  The rest of our honeymoon was, on the surface, a light-hearted pleasure for the two of us. Perhaps this was not love’s first dream, but it was a very serviceable arrangement that made Kat, the general and myself very happy.

  We returned to the rather large house Kathrin’s father had purchased for us his wedding gift. “He might not have table manners,” said Helmut who was waiting for us by the stairs to the front porch, “But my god, he is a generous fellow!” “It’s good to see you to Hynie!” I called to him, trying to hush him from embarrassing Kat, “OH, I don’t mind, daddy is a bit below stairs sometimes, but he’s a lovely fellow.” She hugged Helmut; the two of them had become firm friends very quickly. “Did my friend look after you appropriately?” He asked her, “If you know what I mean?” wiggling his eyebrows theatrically. “I know what you mean you naughty boy,” she giggled, “....and Arnie did very well in that department, in fact I don’t think I can walk without being bandy!”

  “That’s enough of the detail Kat. I invited my friend here so he could carry you across the threshold on my behalf.” I said this mischievously, never one to lose an opportunity to challenge my friend, who was plainly annoyed by my idea of a joke. Kathrin looked at me and wagged her finger in my direction in admonishment, “You’re a very naughty boy sometimes.”

  “That’s exactly my thought,” said Helmut, “...so I had better be running along to leave you two lovebirds to your cooing.” He was about to turn but Kathrin caught his sleeve in her not inconsiderable hand, “But I do like the idea of being carried across our threshold. It is supposed to be lucky you know.”

  Before Helmut could react she put her arms around his neck and daintily for someone of her size, jumped into his arms. Helmut stagge
red but kept himself upright. Kathrin smiled appealingly, “Let’s go Hynie.” She insisted. Helmut nearly buckled under the weight, but one step at a time; he managed to carry my wife into the house with my laughter and that of Kathrin ringing in his ears. It was at this moment that Helmut realized the two of us had set him up and this only served to increase our laughter until he was no longer able to hold my wife aloft. They collapsed in a heap onto the floor. “Very funny you two!” he called with Kathrin sitting on him, “I can see you have perfectly matching warped humor.”

  Kathrin pulled Helmut up easily, “I thought you were going to burst!” she said, and I added, “You went redder than a tomato!” We all laughed but something about the look on Helmut’s face made both Kathrin and I pause, “What is it?” I asked, “You’ve got your marching orders again old friend.”

  I was annoyed by this but not half as much as Kathrin, “I shall put a stop to this, I shall phone my father, this just isn’t fair, we only were married a few days ago, it isn’t right eh?” “Yes,” I agreed, “We just got married and it’s the first time I’ve laughed like this in years!”

  Helmut brought the mood down to a more sober level, “It isn’t a party that you’ve been invited to, and it’s a war Arnie, our war.” What is it Hynie, what’s really wrong?” I knew him well enough to know that his sudden change of mood signaled that something was seriously troubling him. “I also have to tell you that I am going to the front.”

  “Of course, if you want to come with me, that’s fine, I can make arrangements I am sure. We can fix it up.” But something about the stiffness of the set of his shoulders, the stillness of his eyes, the way he clenched his jaw meant that there was something more serious for him to consider, and then I realized what it was, “You bloody fool, you’ve done it haven’t you, you’ve bloody volunteered to become more cannon fodder just like all the rest of the idiots. I’m right aren’t I, that’s it?”