The Butterfly Plague

by Timothy Findley

George Damarosch, in faded serge, unshaven, smelling of gin and body odor, muttering obscenities to himself, so tense that he might have been on the verge of a heart attack, made his way eight difficult, forceful paces forward through the crowd. He achieved a position diagonally opposed to the edge of the gold carpet. He was exactly three hundred feet from the marquee.

  He roughly gauged the distance between the raised, extended arms of the two nearest policemen, touched with great care the ribbed handle of his .38 automatic Webster, and blew his nose.

  7:59 p.m.

  Six blocks from the theater, a custom-built, heavily armored Rolls-Royce motorcar, driven by a massive black man, made its way at a snail’s pace to the stop light.

  On the far side of the intersection began a police cordon.

  A hush fell upon the crowd.

  A motorcycle police escort, red lights blinking and flashing, rode beside and fore and aft of the automobile.

  Inside, illuminated from a mysterious source, Letitia Virden sat frozen with poise on two extra cushions and a board—in order to be seen by the crowd.

  Cooper Carter sat diagonally opposite, on a jump seat.

  As had been advertised, the Virgin was dressed in blue and white, with silver veiling. She was tense but regal. There was no outward hint of her inner fear and distrust of mobs. Neither she nor Cooper Carter spoke.

  As the light changed and the motorcycle sirens were thrown into high pitch, and only seconds before they were to proceed forward, an identical motorcar, carrying an identical passenger—identically lit and regal—pulled around the corner, cutting them off.

  Those near enough to catch glimpses of both interiors had ample cause to think they were losing track of their reason.

  Both cars contained the person—the very incarnation of the Little Virgin—Letitia Virden.

  8:00 p.m.

  The first car jolted to a stop.

  The second car—the intervening one—picked up speed to assure itself of the lead place and proceeded to the position marked by white paint at which each arriving limousine was to stop. This white mark brought the rear passenger door exactly opposite the gold carpet beneath the marquee.

  A Negro personage of immense height descended rapidly from the Rolls and ran around to the lady-door of the car. He opened it, expressionless and huge.

  The Virgin stepped down.

  She was younger than anyone remembered her to be. Surely no more than sixteen or seventeen years old. She was beautifully clothed from head to toe in sapphires and a blue sari. On her feet were silver slippers. She carried a small silver bag and her fingers were ablaze with emeralds and lapis lazuli.

  She advanced on careful toes—one—five—seven paces. Then she turned and faced the lights.

  Her black man got back into the driver’s seat and drove exactly one and one-half car lengths forward and parked. If it had been any other than the Virgin’s Rolls-Royce, it would have been moved on—forcibly, if necessary.

  A shout went up.

  The crowd raised its arms in salutation.

  The band brazened the air with fanfare.

  The choir sang “Hail to Thee, Sheba, Solomon’s Wife” by Handel-Wagner, and the Virgin, waving with one be-jeweled hand, made semicircular turns in slow motion so that all might see and honor her.

  Her stance was practiced. Perfect. Poised. Her expression was studied and her carriage aloof. From a distance you could not see the short shaved stubble on the crests of her wrists.

  8:03 p.m.

  The anthem (“Hail to Thee,” etc.) was over.

  The band began to play.

  George Damarosch blinked. There were tears in his eyes. Her image was so dear to him that he could not force his hand into his pocket. Yet, he must act—and now—if he was to accomplish his deed. The Virgin might, instanter, turn and leave him victimless.

  He prepared to stoop, crouch, and run.

  His hand flushed the gun like a startled bird from his pocket.

  8:04 p.m.

  At that very moment, two things commenced to happen.

  The first was the arrival of the first Virgin (or the second—no one, later, could remember which was which, a fact which laid the grounds for legend).

  Her car, containing, also, Cooper Carter, and accompanied by its horde of motorcycle policemen, drew up with screeching brakes to the curb side.

  Harold raced around and opened the rear door. Cooper Carter descended. He then reached in for Letitia’s hand.

  It appeared. Her arm appeared. Her bowing head—her shoulder—her back—her entire being materialized from within the motorcar.

  She stood upon the golden carpet.

  The silence that followed was profound and upset. Not a word was spoken.

  Letitia, stunned by the reception she was receiving, turned to seek its cause and saw, as though in a mirror, her own person standing there, eight paces distant, smiling at her, and holding out its hand.

  “Mother,” it said, in a voice unmistakably masculine.

  Then it was that the second thing happened.

  Letitia stepped back, as though struck.

  Her hands flew to her mouth, stifling what might have been a scream, had it been allowed to escape.

  Cooper Carter, intervening, stepped into the outstretched angle of hand and arm and gestured, as though to strike out at the advancing face with its intolerable grin.

  His hand, however, had been raised too high, and it struck, instead of the cheek, the top of the coiffure.

  There was a scream—two hundred women, hystericking in chorus—for it appeared that the head of the Sari-Virgin toppled from its place and fell to the ground.

  But no such thing happened.

  It was a wig that fell.

  Letitia turned away, ill, reaching for the sanctuary of her car.

  Harold had already returned to the driver’s seat and was unable to let her in.

  Cooper made a half-circle and now stood directly behind the masquerading figure.

  He reached out to pull it by the shoulders and thus prevent it from harming (for that seemed the intent) the true Virgin.

  But his hands grasped only sari.

  The figure spun—and, spinning, half-spun itself out of its dress.

  Two cups made of rubber, with tiny rubber nipples, fell upon the golden carpet.

  A naked male torso, heavily tanned, appeared from beneath the blue silk.

  Octavius, wheeling back now, grasped the sari and yanked it back around him, covering so instantly what had been exposed that no one could tell for sure that he had seen what he had seen.

  His action threw Cooper off his feet and the industrialist fell onto his back, helpless.

  No one, save Octavius, moved.

  “What do you want of me?” Letitia screamed.

  “But, Mother,” said Octavius, “don’t you recognize me? Mother?”

  He backed her up against the car, inside which Harold was struggling to open doors.

  Octavius placed his hands on Letitia’s shoulders, which he pressed back with unintentional force, hurting her terribly and jamming her hard into the metal body of the automobile.

  At this moment, George made his play.

  He ran out of the confusion, straight across the road, around the tail of the car and up, point-blank, against Letitia’s side.

  She turned her face and saw him.

  Octavius clawed at her veils and tore them loose.

  “Mother! Mother! Mother!” he screamed. “Please! You wanted to see me and here, Mother, I am!”

  George looked from face to face in utter confusion, made his choice, stepped back, leveled the gun and fired.

  “Oh, Mother!” Octavius cried out. “It’s me—Octavius!”

  Immediately, George ran forward, stepping into the space between the autos of the two Virgins.

  Harold, meanwhile, in a panic, had turned on the engine. Hearing the shot, he raced the motor and gunned forward.

  George’s lower limbs were eradic
ated.

  He screamed but no one heard him.

  8:04:55 p.m.

  The second Virgin reached for her wig.

  8:04:56 p.m.

  The second black man turned on his motor, reached back and flipped open the rear door of his Rolls.

  8:04:57 p.m.

  Letitia made a sliding motion into the gutter, falling on her back. Cooper Carter rose.

  8:04:58 p.m.

  George Damarosch twisted in agony and took second aim.

  8:04:59 p.m.

  He fired.

  Cooper Carter was thrown by the bullet and landed, dead, on his side, with his brains blown out onto the pavement.

  8:05 p.m.

  George Damarosch vomited and died, leaving his body sprawled on the hood of Letitia’s car.

  8:05:01 p.m.

  Octavius Rivi Moxon, rewigged—a tailor-made Virgin—walked with impeccable grace to the open, waiting door and climbed in.

  It was over. Whatever it was, it was over.

  Some said, in later years, that the Virgin herself had been seen speeding away from the scene of her mortal death. She had ascended into heaven. Triumphant.

  This is the genesis of legend.

  The believers say that when the police rushed forward to investigate these happenings, a figure in blue was seen being whisked into a large black car by a large black hand. They say that this car then drove away at such a high speed that it was gone in the winking of an eye, away into the night. They say that no one saw a boy step out of the sari at all. They say it was all a hoax. For proof of this hoax, they say that a dead man was found, half in the gutter, half on the hood of the parked Rolls-Royce, and that this was the person who had been seen discarding the masquerade.

  They say, too, that the woman lying dead amidst paint and blood and lacquer—lying dead on the pavement—could not have been Letitia Virden. She was much too old to have been the Virgin. At least fifty. (An uncharitable few said sixty-five to seventy.)

  At any rate, these facts are certain:

  A woman and two men were dead. They were lying there. That was indisputable. One of the dead men was world famous. Cooper Carter.

  Someone was seen fleeing in a large black motorcar driven by a Negro. But this was in all likelihood merely a frightened celebrity.

  A magenta handkerchief was found.

  A woman’s .38 automatic (three bullets fired) was found (explaining the battered “A” in the word “Letitia” on the marquee).

  A Negro by the name of Harold Herald was arrested in a chauffeur’s uniform and imprisoned for impersonating the driver of Miss Virden’s motorcar.

  Aside from that, only one other fact might be added. This concerns a silver pin attached to the neckline of the dress worn by the anonymous dead woman dressed in blue. Taken to the County of Los Angeles morgue, this woman was stripped of her clothes and of her few valuables and placed in a plain wooden box. The blue dress was burned. The valuables reposed for many years after in a brown manilla envelope. On the obverse side of the silver pin (a carnation design) the following words had been engraved: I hope it’s a boy. With all my love, from Bullford.

  Meaningless.

  This woman remained unclaimed.

  She was cremated after the appropriate period during which identification might have been made.

  One man was discovered to be George Damarosch, who was once married to Naomi Nola, the film star. He died in the final moments of the Butterfly Plague, at 8:05 or thereabouts on the evening of March 31st, 1939.

  His daughter claimed his body.

  She escorted it to a small chapel in Santa Monica, driving a 1934 Franklin coupe. Painted purple. She was the only one who mourned him. He, too, was cremated.

  Note: On the 1st of May, 1939, a beach house at Topanga Canyon Beach, long the subject of intrigue and controversy, was sold by the firm of Chadd and Gold. It brought forty thousand dollars. Its former occupant departed for parts unknown, leaving behind the following missive:

  Dear Ruth,

  I don’t know where I’m going or how long I shall be away. I’ll miss you, but you should know that, at long last, I have a friend. He’s black and will protect me. I have a feeling that I need protection. I don’t know why, I just feel that, inside.

  The strange thing is, I love him.

  Is that wrong?

  Will you think of me? Thank you.

  I will think of you.

  Good-bye, with affection,

  from

  O.

  P.S.: I wish my mother had recognized me. Do you think she did, before that man shot her? If so, do you think it would make her happy or sad? Let me know. I’m interested, and you know so much more about Mother than I do. Have to rush now. There’s a building on fire down the street, and we are both very fond of flames. Are you? They seem to make one feel well.

  O.R.

  There was no address. But Ruth was almost glad of that. She would not have been able to answer without telling Octavius that it had been her father who had killed his mother. And, too—in answer to the final question—she would have had to say that she was not fond of flames. She only wished that she could say one final thing to Octavius Rivi, and it was that flames make you feel well, friend, because they burn with their own intensity, not yours. When your intensity is finally involved, the flames are then called fire…and don’t ever fall in love with fire.

  But he already had.

  Book Four

  The Chronicle of

  the Exodus

  Saturday, April 1st, 1939:

  Falconridge

  4:00 p.m.

  Ruth came to the bottom of the steps.

  This was the only way up from the parking lot—up the Star Steps to the top.

  She wore her mother’s black-fox coat, Dolly’s Panama, and had placed George’s magenta handkerchief in her pocket.

  She carried their ashes, mingled, in an urn. She had consigned George’s broken body to ashes that morning, at 7:30.

  She paused. There was the first step.

  NAOMI NOLA.

  Whether it came first or last depended on which direction you were walking. The family joke.

  It was a long climb. Three hundred and forty-two steps.

  The sky was ominous—gold and green.

  She sweltered in the coat, but her determination to wear it cooled her. Her mother had left it to her in her will. “My beautiful black-fox coat, which I have cherished. Gift of my husband, George, on the birth of our son.”

  Its style was outrageously dated, but it was Naomi’s—it suited her period—and, thus, it had always suited her.

  Ruth clambered up the stairs—names babbling at her feet. What a crowd of memories was there—NAOMI NOLA—MARIE DRESSLER—LETITIA VIRDEN.

  Ruth paused and smiled. She could not help it. The thought had just occurred to her that—given her relation to Octavius—the Little Virgin could only be called: The Immaculate Deception.

  But, oh—death. What a dreadful way to die.

  “I won’t think about that,” thought Ruth. “I won’t think about it now.”

  There have been other deaths. The mode was relative.

  The letters were in faded paint. Chipped and screwy and sad.

  GEORGE D. DAMAROSCH.

  The top.

  Before turning to the house she turned back out and looked down on the spreading cities far below and beyond her. Westbury, Hollywood, Brentwood, Beverly Hills, Culver and far, far—far away, Santa Monica and the sea. Of course, she could not really see that far. But it was all there for her mind to conjure. To form and to grasp by implication. Elucidations from a known distance.

  The premonition of excitement shook her. There is death, of course, she thought. Our hated-loved ones and the dear ones whom we argue with, must die. The dialogue ends, sometimes abruptly, but the sense of dialogue persists. Dolly would go on talking. Naomi, too, would continue her silent, marvelous thoughts. And George, with clasped hands, would stand forever, rigid with tant
rums on his tongue. It didn’t matter. Ruth only had to be there. What, she wondered, looking at the cities, is this strange exhilaration in someone else’s birth, in someone else’s death?

  She wanted the dead and the unborn to talk to each other. And to the living.

  She turned.

  There it was.

  Falconridge.

  She had been a girl here. Her room had five windows, each with its own vine and its own leaded panes. The vines were not real. They were made of rope and wire and paint. Her father had no patience with growing things that might not reach the zenith of their perfection until after he had walked away from them. The trees were all boxed and movable, and in the twenties there had been coolies whose only job it had been to rearrange the trees twice daily, even four times (if there was a lawn party). If their employer had been in a truly Macbethean mood, he would yell at them through his megaphone (which he kept at home), upbraiding them for their lack of artistry. “Garden hacks!” he would scream. “Landscape forgers!” Or, “Willy-nilly bush-puller!” and (Ruth’s favorite) “Ham-fisted bush-league tree surgeons!”

  The trees had been moved so often that even the most frequent guests never had seen the landscape in the same order on two consecutive visits. Douglas Fairbanks called the house Dunsinane. He swore to Ruthie (aged ten) that one day there would be a gardeners’ revolt, and that George would regret it.

  Ruth continued down the long stone walls. The boxed trees, dry and lichen-encrusted, had all died from lack of the coolies’ loving care. They stood, bone-branched and ghostly, in their unpainted wooden graves.

  The grass abounded on the lawns, tall, uncut, and bleached. A few plaster casts of Valentino and Bushman reached out with their pseudoancient salutes in the direction of the house.

  In some of the windows glass was broken.