Virgin With Butterflies (18 page)

Well, believe me after what I went through with
those Soodans, I was scared to go, but Aunt Mary says, “Go,” so I went.

Mr. Bosco took me along a narrow hall and up a set of stairs that I thought I was nearly to heaven when I got up it. And he opened the door and told me to go ahead, and I went on by myself through a gallery like, I mean it was a hall with one wall made out of stone lace that you could see out of.

It was getting dark and I felt like I was in jail.

I got to the end of it, and there was a door and it was a little bit open.

I waited a minute and then I just opened it and there was a big, big room with pretty near no window at all and just about as much furniture as there was window.

I couldn't see for a minute, and what I saw when I got so I could, I will surely never forget until I am too old to remember anything and that will be when I am dead.

I believe Pop was right about me having a good memory, but I didn't trust too much to it. Like Aunt Mary, I would write down if people said words that I wasn't use to and might forget, and that's how I remember now.

But I don't think I would have ever forgotten the prince's old father.

He looked just like God—not the Old Testament God, full of fire and war and eyes for eyes and teeth for teeth—he had a face that was old, but without a cross or a mean or a worried line in it. And gray hair in a long bob and a beard and a gray gown with some white and black on it, and he came towards me and I sure felt like crossing myself when I looked up into that beautiful face.

He smiled and held out both of his hands, and his hands were firm and warm. After we had looked at each other for a while, he spoke to me in a kind of English I had never heard, but it was the best English there is, you could feel that.

“I'm glad to see you,” he says, “so glad.” And we went to the only two chairs in the room, facing toward a dark wall, and we sat down.

“You are a Catholic, aren't you?” he says.

“Yes, sir,” I says.

“Do you know Saint Cecilia?” he says.

“I've seen her pictures,” I says, “playing the organ, with little angels dropping roses on her hands.”

“I always thought that wasn't much of a blessing,” he says, “having to play the organ with a lot of roses to get in the way of your fingers. Well, I think you look like Saint Cecilia.”

“And I was thinking,” I says, “that you look like God.”

“Thank you,” he says.

“Oh, that's all right,” I says, “but you do.”

“My son is in love with you,” he says. “He wants to have you for his wife.”

“Don't you worry about that,” I says.

“I'm not worried,” he says. “I only wish it was possible, but I know it is not,” he says.

“You mean because I'm a Catholic?” I says.

“No,” he says, “I mean because you are not in love with him.”

“How do you know?” I says.

“Your friend Mr. Bosco told me,” he says, and he smiled and so did I.

“He tried to get me to,” I says. “Did he tell you that, too?”

“Yes,” he says, “he did. But now he knows you won't do it.”

“I couldn't,” I says, “but I feel sorry for him.”

“So do I,” he says.

“Do you know what is happening at that cathedral, where I left him?” I says.

“Yes, I do,” he says.

“Please tell me, is he safe?”

“What is safety?” he says. “In this world it is one thing we should not seek. Being safe is not as important as being right, and if we die for what we know to be right, is it not better than living for what we know to be safe?”

So we sat there quiet for awhile. And soon a little door opened, and two shave-headed priests came in with little tiny lanterns and then two more and two more, till there were quite a lot. From the light of the lanterns I could see that at the back of this arch was a kind of an altar. There seemed to be things, hooks like, or little brackets in the wall on each side of it, and they hung their little lanterns on both sides. And the light got bright enough for me to see that the altar was just two gold doors.

“That,” he says, “is a shrine.”

“I see,” I says.

“There once was a great statue on a hill before this house,” he says, “and there came an earthquake, many years ago, and the statue fell down and was broken to bits.”

“I know,” I says, “and the stone hand fell and rolled down the hill in the front door, with the ring on it, and so this house was blessed, and that's why you put the
ring around your boy's neck like a holy medal. And the stone in the ring is called Hankah.”

“And when Hankah was lost,” he says, “you know who risked her life to get it back. But who told you the story of Hankah?”

“A Mr. Swift,” I says, “in Chicago, that I always call Mr. Wens, like I call Mr. Bosco, Mr. Bosco.”

“Is Mr. Swift a butcher?” he says.

“No, sir,” I says, and I sure was surprised how much he knew about American history. “He's an FBI man.”

“Oh, yes,” was all he said. And we didn't say anything more till all the priests had gone out, two by two.

“Well,” he says, “the wise men have come to bring Hankah back here, and I thought, since it was you that saved it for us, you might like to be here when it came home safe to rest,” he says.

There was a clacking now, like the galloping of ponies that I had heard back there in the cathedral, only here they seemed to be mighty little ponies.

“What is that?” I couldn't help asking.

“Prayer wheels,” he says, but I still didn't know what that meant.

The door on each side of the arch opened, and four of the same wise men come in, two at each door. And two of the wise men had a little pillar and on it was my old friend the big ring.

We stood up and the gold doors swung open. There, in a bluish light, was the big stone hand broken off at the wrist.

They said prayers and the old prince bowed over three times and I did, too. And the blind wise man came
in, led by the two little boys, and he took the ring and held it up and red and blue lights shot out of it. While a soft, deep gong kept sounding he put the ring on the stone finger of the hand.

The men shut the doors and went out, and the priests took the little lantern down and walked out two by two, and the ponies galloped for a second, and the gong went, and that was all.

The old prince turned and took my face in his hands and he kissed me on the forehead, like I was being blessed by the bishop.

Then the other door away down where I had come in opened, and Mr. Bosco came in and took me away to the outside of what I guessed was my room. I guessed, too, that we weren't going to dress for this dinner. I hadn't brought anything as I didn't know how long we were coming here for.

But I didn't know
what
we had come here for, either, or I would have been more nervous than I was. So I waited for Mr. Bosco to say what he looked like he wanted to say, and when he said it I was sure surprised.

“You want to go home now. You finish your work, so, after tonight, you can go.”

“You mean it?” I couldn't hardly keep from crying.

“I will miss you,” he says. “What will you want to take with you?” he says.

“I don't know,” I says.

“I have a present,” he says, and he went away down the hall.

So I went in, and there was Aunt Mary combing her white hair and Lady Burroughs talking and smoking her
cigarettes, and there was my best formal and slippers and lingerie and everything all laid out, and two girls to help dress with marks on their foreheads and all wrapped up in loose things like scarfs.

So we were ready to dress, so Lady Burroughs left us to do it, and I guessed she was going to, too.

I looked nice all in white, Aunt Mary said, and she wore everything deep blue. When we were ready we sat down until we were called to come and eat. While we were waiting I found out I was going to go home alone, by myself.

It seemed that Aunt Mary had to go to England, where she said she was with the intelligence, which I didn't understand, but that's what she said because I wrote it down, and that book I wrote it in was one of the three things the Lord didn't mean me to get home without.

Well, it was time and we went down.

We all met in another great big room with tapers like they light candles with in church, thousands of 'em, all around the walls. And there was Mr. Bosco in his same little suit, but everybody else, you bet, done up like for Cinderella's ball. Sir Gerald had his uniform on, instead of the old hunting coat and the wrinkled pants he had worn before. And he sure had a good corset to hold his belly in, and it did, too.

He had colored ribbons with teeny weeny little medals all over one side of his bosom, and his hair brushed straight up on the sides and his mustache straightened out real nice.

And there was Lady Burroughs, not looking like a rummage sale like she had in the afternoon. She was
thinner, too, in her corset and a black velvet formal and rhinestones in her hair in a little crown like—or maybe they were—diamonds—and a cigarette holder to match. Aunt Mary and me were dressed like I said.

The doors opened and two soldiers came in wearing uniforms and big striped things on their heads like Franchot Tone and Gary Cooper in
Beau Geste
—that was the first movie I can remember, but I sure never forgot it.

They got out of the way, and we waited and then the old prince came in.

He was all in a fine quality white woven gown and a long white coat thing to the floor. But the prince wasn't there. And he didn't come and he didn't come. Finally I guess the old prince knew we couldn't wait all night so we went to the table and sat down.

I talked to Aunt Mary, like you do, with just my eyes, indicating the place across the table that was set for him but stayed empty.

Aunt Mary just shrugged her shoulders.

So we ate, and it was good. Each of us had a man to take care of feeding us, but the man to serve the prince had nothing to do.

I felt like the old prince was taking his time with the dinner. And after awhile we sort of ran down and couldn't think of much to say, except Lady Burroughs, and everybody was glad, I could see, for her to go on and on.

The food was all served in a most civilized way, with silver and gold dishes, but after awhile we couldn't just go on forever and so we went into still another big room. The room was on the ground floor and along one wall of it were tall windows, round at the top with stone lace
over 'em and no glass. They opened right out into the black night. Lady B. went on talking.

At first I wasn't right sure, but I began to think I heard something, away off, a soft clattering and rattling and a jingling, like a lot of horses walking or foxtrotting over a gravel road.

Pretty soon they all heard it, and Lady Burroughs looked real relieved that she didn't have to keep on with her talk anymore. So she stopped.

From then on we just sat there and waited, except Mr. Bosco. He couldn't stand it and he got up and nodded to the old prince and walked straight out of the room towards the front doors.

By this time it was plain that the clatter and the jingle was being made by maybe a hundred horses out there in the dark. And we heard 'em ride right up to the house.

There was a sharp order and the horses stopped. Then there was another order, and the men all got off and chains jingled and horses blew their noses, and suddenly there was Mr. Bosco.

“Your son is here,” he says.

The old prince got up, and we all got up, too.

“Which one will it be?” I thought.

Then we heard a firm quick step, in boots, coming along the stone floor of the hall and I thought to myself, “It's not Halla Bandah, in his little soft gold slippers. It's the other one,” I thought.

Then he got to the door and came just one step in and stopped there with his heels making a pop of a sound, and I thought to myself, “It's nobody I ever saw before in my life.”

But it was, you bet. But what a difference.

Halla Bandah looked tall, and no wonder. He was in a uniform just about like Gary and Franchot and with boots with heels, and with the things on his shoulders to lift them up. And with the big high thing on his head he was nearly as tall as Gary and that's taller than anybody.

He stood there like a soldier, and like a soldier he spoke to the only other one of us that was a soldier—General Sir Gerald stood and listened to him like on a battlefield.

“I came to report, sir,” he says. “My soldiers are ready to go where we are sent,” he says. “I went away to sell what I could, sir, to get money to buy my brother back to us so he would not make friends with the Japanese. Before I go, sir, I did not like to speak my fears about my brother, so when you asked me, I would not talk, even to my father. But, sir, before I can return, my brother took orders from the Japanese, and I found out that he was going to build an airfield like he would plant an orchard, so now I have come to tell you, sir, and to my father I must say that my oath with my brother was a bad oath, so it is no longer.”