The Cries of the Butterfly - A LOVE STORY (9 page)

Wolf turned the laptop off and labored to his feet. He was tired and he walked a few paces, switched the lights off and flopped down across his giant double-bed. And he lay there spread-eagled.

He didn’t know how long he had been lying, when there was a knock on the door.

“Wolf?”

It was Art’s wife Rochelle, and Wolf knew what it meant.

“I’m not hungry, Roch!” he shouted.

The door was opened nevertheless. Wolf hurriedly sat up.

“Won’t do,” she said. “God have mercy, what’s all this...what are you doing in the dark?” The lights flashed on, blinding Wolf, scurrying his arms to his eyes.

She was by the bed and he felt her touch on his upper arm.

“Up on your legs, big boy,” she said firmly, now pulling him to his feet.

“Okay, okay!” he mumbled, rubbing his eyes.

“What’s bothering you? You’ve been so strange the whole week,” she said.

He clicked his tongue dismissively.
The freaking lights are bothering me.

“Wolf!” she demanded.

He looked at her and their eyes met. And there came in her eyes a curious expression. It was held for the briefest of second, then it was gone.

“I’m just fine, okay?” he answered, suddenly awkward.

“Your brother and Dad are waiting for you in the dining,” she said, almost snappily, not looking at him anymore. Then she was gone. He glanced at the wall-clock. It said: eight-forty pm.
Sweet shit!
He had been in nap-zone for over an hour.

A quick trip to the washroom and he proceeded to the dining.

.

A
fter a swift half-hearted dinner, Wolf went out to the front garden. And he was immediately smacked by a delightful cocktail of the most wonderful scents in the world. They were so exhilarating to the senses that he stopped outside the front porch and raised his face to the sky, shut his eyes and spread his arms before him like a Christ, for a moment disregarding the ache in his heart.
Wooooow!

It was a quiet, cool evening and the firmament was clear and bright. The stars sparkled as if dancing to their own tune. It was spring in New Halcyon and the night was in bloom.

A spattering of well placed bulbs on high posts baptized the large Butcher Garden in soft silver light. Wolf moved westward, strolling with his arms across his chest, avoiding the tiled pathways, choosing instead to let his naked feet relish the earth. The clean luxuriant grass felt good against his toes and he wriggled them in it. Droplets of dew soothed his soles, sending fine tingles up his ankles.

After Rochelle, it had been Grant’s turn to fuss. Like her, he had picked up on it too.
What has been the matter with you the last week? You have not been yourself, son.
Somehow, Wolf had borne it, someway forced the food down his gullet.

He kept pausing every often to look around the garden. What a place, this house of his. Oh, how he loved her. It had only been since the tragedy that he had come to truly appreciate the beauty and the warmth of his home...the comfort she accorded him, the sense of security he felt with her.

Coming to the west side of the estate, he stopped at one plot of roses. He crouched and regarded the blushing purple petals of the Fragrant Plum, and his eyes began to fill with wistfulness. Around eleven days ago, about this time, he had been hunched over this beautiful plant, cutter in hand. He had cleaved twelve of the best roses, and in the process had sustained a decent cut on his left middle-finger. But he had nevertheless gone ahead and completed the task. Then, with his chest brimming over, he had gone to Marina Park, Lane Seven, Building C, Apartment 3B, on the third floor.

Wolf sighed now. On the way back, he had dumped the flowers on the stairway of her building, a puncture in his heart.

There was soft thumping on the grass behind him and Wolf turned his head.

“Bruno!” he said, as a big Alsatian came bounding over to him from nowhere.

Wolf opened his arms and took the dog in them and giggled as he was mercilessly licked on his face and mouth and in general done over. In some way, the fellow’s company soothed him and Wolf spent a goodly twenty minutes with his handsome friend, then got back to his feet and began sauntering again, his arms behind his back now.

This is the best place in the whole wide world,
Wolf thought. Not just the house but the entire neighborhood. Butcher Garden was situated at the end of the fourth lane of the posh
est
residential locality in the city-state called Salisbury Park. While officially the address was Lane 4, it was more commonly known as Butcher Street. Even that wasn’t necessary. Ask any cabbie on the island to take you to Butcher Garden and you need say no more. Moreover, who wouldn’t know where the President of the nation, along with the world’s richest man, and Hollywood’s top superstar, resided? There were no apartment buildings in Salisbury Park, only large bungalows, each with sprawling gardens, and of course the Butcher residence was the best of the best.

Butcher Garden’s front faced the south and while the ocean was a goodly three hundred yards away, the night was calm enough for Wolf to register the roar of the waves. The delightful sounds, together with the exquisite smells around him, and the chaste westerly breeze on his skin would have otherwise induced Wolf with such rapture that he would have lain down on the soft grass and instantly fallen into blissful slumber under the stars. But the ache in his chest had returned and gave him no peace. He now circled the house and moved northward, to the back garden. Here the sway of the roses was finally halted. Together with coconut palms, three adult Gulmohar trees (with crimson flowers—more flowers than leaves), two large beds of assorted cacti, and a juvenile Banyan, comprised the chief plant life here.

The servant’s quarters were on the northwest corner of the property. Moving right, eastward, Wolf came to the tennis courts, three in all, and further on arrived at the swimming pool. It was Olympic size and its shallow end adjoined the back porch of the house. The now-gray water was comatose and for a second Wolf toyed with the idea of an impromptu swim. Perhaps that would mitigate the sting in his bosom. But finally he decided he just didn’t have the zip for it.

He looked beyond the swimming pool, at the waterfall to the east, set in a thick man-made tropical forest.

Water zigzagged down handpicked rocks and boulders, descending twenty five feet to a stream, which led to an amorphously shaped pond, fifty-five feet at the broadest point. The pond teemed with a range of tropical lilies: blue and purple day bloomers (which were now contentedly asleep), and pink and white night bloomers (which were in splendid blossom). Goldfish swam around the pond lazily, but ceaselessly, protected by invisible net a foot above the water. There would be no rest for them at all. On the pond bed were the water Iris. Over the last couple of years, doing practically nothing, Wolf had often turned to the garden for solace. He knew the Iris by name: ‘The Royal Princess’, with a hue that was a mix of white and bluish-purple; ‘White Lightening’, with large blooms and a touch of pale yellow in the center; ‘Louisiana Red’, which was one of Wolf’s favorites. Then there was the ‘Double Bubble’—another of his pets—striking golden in color, with unusual tiny brown markings. The markings gave the impression of embroidery stitches. Besides the Iris, there were the ‘Water Cannas’, with dazzling flowers and ornamental leaves. The sober underground lighting and the smooth, rhythmic sound of the flowing water made it all so marvelous. Wolf watched a frog leap out of the pond and bound away into the dark.

With such beauty around him, he should have been a man in trance. He was anything but.

He now came to the car-park on the northeast corner of the estate, big enough to accept a score of four-wheelers. Circling the house, he finally was back to the front. He checked his watch and it said eleven-thirty-five. Butcher Garden had gone to sleep. Only the security people at the main gate would be attentive. And of course Bruno, somewhere around.

Call her,
his heart suddenly cried out.
Come on, pull out the handset and tap the numbers. Do it. One last time.

But he just couldn’t anymore. By now, he was completely exhausted by the effort.

He should’ve been shocked that he had fallen for someone without even meeting her. But then it was as he had told her in the letter. He had somehow connected with her at a very deep and true level, beyond the physical.
Inexplicable Phenomenon.
He realized that after the tragedy while he had Dad, and the rest of the family, he had needed someone he could get really intimate with. He yearned for a tight, prolonged hug—of a mashing of lips, of flesh against flesh. Perhaps it was this critical want, this vulnerability, that had made him fall in love this way and this easily. But some way, Savannah Burns seemed so right. She just did.
There’s no rational explanation to it
.

He regarded the big house.

It was a dwelling his father had built with great love and care. Put together with black stone, its most remarkable feature was its single-storied nature. The structure was linearly spread, roughly in a ‘C’ shape. No multiple floors for the Butchers. The front porch led to a hall which bifurcated into two clear sections. The east wing was for the family. On this wing, there were rooms on both sides of the passageway. First was the living room, on the swimming pool side, the north side. Across the living room, on the south, was the family theater. Next to the theater came two Home Offices, one for President Grant and the other for Butcher Organization. Further up was the family kitchen, the pantry and the dining room. Then the laundry room and two storerooms, followed by the library and a pool room. Next to the living room on the north side, were the bedrooms, ten in all, all master-size. Wolf’s was the first.

The west wing was chiefly for guests and visitors and kicked off with a media room on the south side. Across from this was the Great Room—sixty-five feet by forty. The west wing had its own kitchen, pantry, dining room, laundry room and storerooms, as also a bar. Further up was a theater, another library, a pool room, and a badminton hall. And still further westward were the guest bedrooms—a total of twelve.

Wolf’s eyes suddenly misted. The sprawling house looked so cold and lifeless right now. At one time, it had been thriving. That was when there had been a little irresistible girl called Philippa. That was when there had been four more booming people—two men and two women. That was then. Only five now remained and the big house simply consumed them.

As he slowly climbed the porch steps, he felt he was entering a haunted house—there was such an eerie feeling to it. He felt lonelier than ever before. Eleven days ago, he had been so upbeat.

.

F
or the next three days, Wolf remained closeted in his room. He would check his mail every ten minutes; he remained rooted by the telephone near his bed, and carried his cellphone to the loo.

With hope in his heart, Wolf waited.

.

T
he evening of Sunday, March 23.

After a quick dinner in his room (which the ever-obliging Rochelle had quietly provided—as she had done on so many occasions in the past three days, much to Grant’s consternation. He had wanted his boy at the dining table with him), Wolf shaved and showered.

Suddenly he was upbeat, for the first time in two weeks. Something had lit in his heart, a sudden flame, some instinct that told him that Savannah would not fail the deadline. That she was merely playing it to the hilt, extracting every ounce of revenge. And she had every right to. Only if he suffered as she had, could he even come close to understanding the deep hurt he had caused her. And when she announced herself, he would be ready. If she came, he would without a pause take her in his arms. If she called, he would rush over to her.

He put on his favorite suit: a light blue shirt on dark blue trousers and a similarly colored jacket, topped off by a blood-red tie with black spots. He looked in the mirror and he smiled. His face glowed, his eyes sparkled, and he looked every bit of the superstar who had made the world wobble at the knees, momentarily yielding to uncharacteristic narcissism.

With a lung saturating breath, he sat down close to the edge of the bed, leaning back against the headboard, and waited. Doing nothing—not watching television, not listening to music. Nothing. Just waited, staring out the French windows at the gray of the night outside.

Ten o’clock. He could feel the excitement in him—the mild sizzle of the blood in his veins. He straightened for a second and stretched his chest.

Eleven o’clock. His pulse began to rise now, with a blend of anticipation and budding trepidation.

Eleven-thirty.
She will come, keep the faith, she will!
But he could feel the dampness on his brow. He laid his left hand softly on the telephone instrument; his right hand already cuddled his cellphone.

Eleven-forty-five.
She is leaving it to the very last second, dude. You cling on!
But he could barely breathe.

Eleven-fifty-five. He gulped once, then opened his mouth wide and sponged a huge helping of air. His skin had begun to bristle.

Midnight.
He stared at the wall clock and his body humped. Then a dreadful sinking feeling formed in the pit of his stomach and swelled.