Butterfly (12 page)

It was during that fateful, delirious week that my lust underwent its strange mutation. Until then it had been that of any other man—to enjoy through the senses a body I desired, to unite in flesh with a woman I loved. But now any hope, or even dream, of a union with Kate was irrevocably lost, and at the same
time my love for her had grown to demented proportions. Caught between the hammer of despair and the anvil of overweening passion, my desires took on a definitively weird cast.

In the beginning my one remaining desire, obscurely recognized, was to die before those eyes that I had defiled, and even better, by her own hand. For somewhere there lurked the hope that in death I might be pardoned and perhaps even loved again. Soon, however, another desire began to worm its way through my despair. Again and again I saw in my mind's eye Marika kneeling naked and lewdly exposed, heard her beg abjectly for punishment, felt the malicious caress of leather over skin, and then the swift rise and descent, the sharp crack . . . and I shivered, for it was as if I myself were reliving the scene but in Marika's place. It haunted me with an obsessive fascination, and prodded at a certain dark spot buried deep in my soul. What formerly I had experienced as at best a vague agitation, a troubled but undefined yearning, now emerged as a true desire. And as my fevered imagination wrapped around it, its shape became increasingly unmistakable: I craved what Marika had so unforgettably shown me, I craved the humiliation of kneeling before Kate, the total surrender of body and will, the words and gestures of submission, even the pain of being whipped. This recognition horrified me, but I was helpless to resist. Judgment and moral sense notwithstanding, I began to wallow in the horrendous events of that fateful afternoon, to relish positively the memory of those two barbarous lashes I still sensibly felt; all too willingly I would have offered myself to more—a hundred, if it took that to appease her anger. The thought of the sickening pain terrified me, and at the same time evoked such feelings of voluptuousness that I felt Heaven and Hell opening on either side to suck me in.

I have heard of men who pay money to be flogged or otherwise mistreated. No doubt I resembled them, yet in those days I would
not have seen or admitted a similarity. If the desire for punishment is an inversion of lust, in my case it grew so directly out of my love for Kate and was so indissociable from her person that I could not have conceived of it existing by itself. But if lust could—as it did—pursue a course independent of love, why not in its inverted form as well? This, however, would have seemed unimaginable to me at the time.

For however heated became my phantasies of humiliation, however urgently I craved her punishment and its pain, these did not become ends in themselves. No matter what form my longing took, it always looked to Kate's love. But having become unworthy of aspiring to that love, I in turn could no longer offer love, only submission. My lips, dispossessed of her kisses, stooped to her feet; her caresses forfeited, I yearned for her blows. If love is all that is noble and ennobling, love betrayed demeans and depraves. Thus it was in my abasement, in the mortification of my own flesh and soul, that I nursed a dark tenuous hope for redemption. I was confused then and could not have formulated it so, but consciously or not, such had become my persuasion by the time I left my bed and set off once again for Creighton.

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During his illness, Pinkerton's mind was unceasingly visited by female figures; they drifted in and out like so many preying ghosts.

Foremost was Kate, who came in two guises. One was the Kate he had known in bygone days. In a flowing white gown, she seemed an angel of light, all softness and grace, who brought with her fragrant breaths of a spring that would never return. The other was the Kate he had last seen; superb in her black riding
habit, with devouring eyes, she was like a dark avenging angel—powerful, inexorable, and if anything even more beautiful than the other. Sometimes, for a brief moment, they would both be present, but it was always the latter who remained.

Butterfly also appeared in two forms. One was the discreet, loving wife who, as it were, would slip in under the covers without even being seen and transport him back to Nagasaki. For a brief moment he would feel comforted and safe but after that even worse than before. He dreaded thinking of Butterfly now, and when he did, more often conjured up the other one, as lithe and lovely as a beautiful snake. Desiring her anew as if he had never possessed her, he hated her, and himself, for she was the cause of his misery. He wished he could pluck her from his life and rub out every trace of her existence. He always repented such unjust thoughts, yet it could not be denied that from the depths of his mortification, he would have given much not to remember her at all.

Strangely, perhaps, he had no such bitter feelings toward Marika. With her he now felt a deep bond. At times she seemed almost his twin; for though he trembled still to remember the degrading sensuality she had drawn him into, he no longer saw in her the temptress but the slave humbling herself before the mistress he too adored. She was perhaps the one person he truly wanted to see. To her alone he could speak freely; only in her arms could he hope for a moment's respite. And she was above all a link, perhaps the last, to Kate. He hoped against hope for a visit. But she never came.

When he spoke, it was only with Lisa. But she provided no succor, and her constant presence at his bedside was less than welcome, for he did not want her to see his passion and distress. Somehow his sense of guilt carried over to her, and he was terrified that she might question him. There had been a time when she surely would have, but now she discreetly refrained;
nonetheless she saw more than he wished and was clearly troubled. Sometimes she read, but at other times she would just sit in the darkened room and watch, and that in particular upset him. More than once, waking in the dim light and feeling her eyes upon him, he mistook her for Kate, and though he never gave himself away, each time it left him violently shaken.

Worse, however, was his mother. The sight of her gaunt figure slipping noiselessly in and out of the room took him back to an earlier time of his life when she would enter without warning and on the flimsiest excuse, undoubtedly in the hope of catching him at something forbidden. He had always known her to be cold and irritable, but had there never been a time, he wondered, when she too was young? A time when her eyes were not so hard and dry, her lips less pinched and bitter? He seemed to remember, vaguely, having once had a mother who was different, but the image was buried somewhere and he could never find it. Did it in fact come out of his past? He had the feeling—it was not tangible enough to be a memory—that at some point something had disrupted their relations and banished him from her affections; but this too was probably a dream or a figment of his imagination.

He thought also of other women: women he had forgotten long ago, playmates, servants, casual acquaintances; and Anne, who all in all was quite a lovely girl—would his life not be happier now if he had married her? He did not believe that, of course, yet he felt a lingering regret. How long ago that morning seemed when he first saw Kate! The turns his life had taken since—he had difficulty believing that everything had really happened; at times it all seemed like a dream.

37

(
The Nagasaki ms.)

For a time I was torn between sailing for Japan as planned and abandoning all to a passion already beyond control. In more lucid moments I was determined not to succumb and anxiously counted the few days I had left before catching my boat in San Francisco. I even had a heated altercation with Lisa, who with the doctor's support refused to let me leave; my condition, I must admit, justified her insistence, and in the end I was secretly relieved at being forced to stay.

My intentions in going to Creighton were vague; I knew only that I had to see Kate again. During my convalescence I had composed speeches and scripts for a projected reunion, but however eloquent these had been in the sickroom, that bright early November morning made them seem tenuous and without substance. As the crisp, fresh air filled and revitalized my lungs, my lurid imaginings began to dissolve like remnants of a fading dream.

Marika, though not surprised to find me at the door, made a slight grimace. We stood looking awkwardly at one another. She did not show me in.

“You come to see me . . . or her?”

“You,” I felt compelled to lie.

“I cannot. She do not permit me.”

I stared at her, not knowing what to say.

“It is finished. You understand?” She said this impassively and seemed to be waiting for me to turn and leave. When I did not move, she added, as if making a concession, “After what has happened, it is not possible to continue.”

Although I had not come to see Marika, I was quite put out by
her remoteness. However things might stand, I had expected a little more warmth, not to mention civility.

“All right,” I said coolly. “But I should like to speak to your mistress.”

“She do not like to speak to you.” Apparently Marika did not intend to let me in.

“Look, Marika,” I said, trying to keep down my exasperation, “what happened was unfortunate. I'm very sorry for it, and I know that she is upset, but I must see her. Don't you see? It's important.”

Marika shrugged. She was still waiting for me to go away.

“Well, you can at least go and tell her.”

“No use. She tell me to not let you in.”

“Never mind,” I said with considerable heat. “Just go and say I'm here!”

“I cannot,” Marika replied, as cool as you please.

“Listen,” I told her. “If you won't, I'll simply go in and announce myself.”

“You cannot.”

I was getting angry enough to throttle her. “Do you think you'll stop me?” I asked with scarcely concealed menace.

“Not I will stop you.” Again she shrugged and let me glare a moment longer before saying with an air of lassitude: “She is not there.” At that she took a small step back, as if inviting me to look for myself. I was on the point of pushing past her but checked myself.

“And you won't talk with me. . . .” I looked into her face; it remained quite blank. She shook her head. For an instant I wanted to argue, to plead, but when she refused to meet my eyes, I turned abruptly and strode away without saying good-bye.

My heart contracted violently when an hour later, from my post across the street, I saw Kate ride up with a man who clearly was not her groom. To my relief, he did hot go in but rode away
with her mount. I barely had time to rush over and cry out to her before the door could shut.

Frowning, Kate stepped back out onto the porch; she advanced to the edge so that I could not mount the steps without seeming invasive. From below, I looked up a little breathlessly at her; my heart was pounding so that I could hardly speak, and it was she who addressed me first.

“I believe I made it clear that I no longer wish to see you, and Marika has surely said so again today. How many times do you need to be told?”

“I know . . . I know,” I stammered; all the phrases I had prepared were gone without a trace. “But I had to speak to you.”

“Well?” she demanded impatiently.

I declared that my behavior had indeed been inexcusable, worse than inexcusable, and that I could in no way defend it. But I begged her to forgive me nonetheless—not because I deserved it, but out of mercy, as I could not live without seeing her.

“If it makes you happier, you can consider yourself forgiven,” Kate said coldly. “But to see you, I am afraid, is out of the question.”

“Then you haven't forgiven me at all!” I blurted. “What can it mean to be forgiven if I am banished from your sight?”

“You want me to continue receiving you, but on what basis? Consider: you were my friend's brother; you made love to me and proposed marriage; you jilted me and married another; you came back and made love to me again though without proposing marriage; at the same time you were seducing my slave, and as if that weren't outrageous enough, you had to steal into my own house and violate her under my very eyes! Which of these colorful personages am I supposed to see in you? A friend? A deserter? An aspiring lover? And whose, if you please—mine or my slave's?”

Merely to hear Kate speak of her slave brought back in a flood
all the scenes I had envisioned; but now, in her actual presence, they seemed ridiculously melodramatic. I had with little difficulty imagined prostrating myself before her and imitating Marika's phrases, but to fall on my knees in broad daylight and actually to utter such silly-sounding words were something else again. Embarrassed and overwhelmed by my absurd desires, I stood rooted in confusion. Kate, seeing me unable to reply, curtly bade me good day and turned to go into the house.

At that moment I knew only that if she were to close that door behind her, I should have no hope of ever being admitted again, and that thus banished I could not go on living. Beside myself with desperation, I broke out of my paralysis and, leaping up the steps, caught her hand. Whereupon she turned with a look of such burning indignation that I was utterly confounded. Without being aware of my actions, I fell to my knees and pressed the gloved hand to my lips.

“Get up and let go of me,” Kate said icily.

But now I had started and was not to be stopped. “No!” I cried.

“Not until you forgive me—really forgive.”

“What you want is impossible. I've told you that already.”

“It's not true!” Now the words came out by themselves; I listened to them in amazement. “If you can forgive Marika, why can't you forgive me? Beat me if you like, punish me the way you punished her, or however you please. Punish me, Kate, I beg you to, but then forgive me!”

Kate heaved a little sigh of annoyance. “Who are you that I should beat you? I can punish Marika because she is my slave, but you're nothing to me. Please let me by.”

“No, not nothing!” I blurted out. “I'll be anything you want . . . a slave if you will. Let me be your slave, if nothing more!”