Candlemoth

by R.J. Ellory

  'Most people are actually aliens,' he told me one time. 'Most of the people we know are actually aliens.'

  He paused and looked at me, his expression certain, indignant almost, utterly believable.

  'Your mother is an alien,' he said. 'She's from Arcturus 7, a small satellite star that orbits Jupiter… and she has two skins. Her outward skin she takes off at night, and inside she's nothing but gloop and boogers. And one day soon, when you least expect it, she's gonna creep into your room when you're sleeping and bite off your Johnson.'

  'Shut the fuck up, Nathan.'

  His expression didn't change.

  'Sure as shit I'm tellin' the truth… and Eve Chantry is the same you know?'

  'Outta your freakin' tree,' I said. 'You've lost whatever you got when you came into this world and a handful more besides.'

  Nathan nodded. He peered at me like a condescending professor. 'So tell me this,' he said. 'How come, if your mother isn't an alien, your right eye can go one way and your left can go the other at the same time?'

  I frowned. 'They can't.'

  'Yeh right,' Nathan said sarcastically. 'You wanna know what people call you when you ain't around?'

  I raised my eyebrows.

  'Bughead.'

  'What the fuck are you talking about?'

  'Bughead… that's what people call you when you ain't there.'

  'Horseshit.'

  'So go get a mirror… go get a mirror and look see what happens when you stare at something. Your right eye goes one way and your left eye goes the other.'

  'That's just so much crap.'

  Nathan shrugged. 'Please yourself… bughead.'

  So, sure as hell, I went and got the mirror, and fool me if I didn't stare at the thing for a good five minutes. Only stopped when I caught Nathan's reflection behind me, his face fit to burst, even holding his crotch like he was going to piss himself right there and then on Karl Winterson's chequerboard linoleum floor.

  After he stopped laughing he told me I was dumb as milk. Told me that I actually believed that my mother was an alien.

  'The fuck I did,' I said defensively.

  'Then what the hell did you go get the mirror for?'

  I stood looking at him.

  'Asshole,' I said.

  'Bughead,' he replied, and started laughing once more.

  Such conversations, too many of them to remember. Stupid things, meaningless things, but things that would seem so important later. That was what we were like - Nathan Verney and I - before the real world came a-calling.

  It was one of those days in June when we heard about James Meredith. It came down as a newsflash from KLMU in Augusta, the same station I had been listening to when my father told me JFK had been killed. James Meredith was the first black student to enroll at Mississippi University in 1962, and all we knew was that he'd been shot in his back and his legs on a march someplace.

  Nathan was stunned speechless. He'd believed the white- negro situation was resolving, and things had in fact been quieter for some time. Evidently things were all aflame as much as they'd ever been; we just hadn't been paying a mind to it.

  He didn't speak of it as I expected him to. He left for home, went to see his father, and I didn't see him for two or three days.

  Seemed to me as the summer passed through Greenleaf we were spending less and less time together, and though I never felt we were losing touch I believed that those subjects where we shared the same viewpoint and understanding were diminishing in number.

  I felt in limbo, waiting for notification that my presence was required at a boot camp somewhere in the South while praying that the war would end before it came. It was as if waiting was my station for the time being, and those of us who had not volunteered in that tent with the fried chicken and potato salad felt that we would all just have to keep quiet and sit it out. There was no point making any plans. None at all. What would plans mean until we knew? Once upon a time I had thought of college, learning a trade, somesuch thing as that, but the war had changed everything. My ma knew this, and she didn't push either way. She was happy I was doing something with my time rather than sitting in my bedroom reading comic books and trying to hide the fact that I was smoking Lucky Strikes.

  At the end of June we started bombing Hanoi. I referred to the U.S. as we even though I felt that the bombing of Hanoi was nothing personal. I did not wish to bomb anyone. I was still naive, trusting that the powers that be must have at least believed with all they had that such an action was required. We knew nothing of the atrocities that were being perpetrated out there, and would not know for some time yet.

  I worked on through the summer at the Radio Store, and though I saw Nathan less than I would have liked, we stayed on the same wavelength. We never spoke of the Draft directly; to do so would have been to grant it energy and spirit, but we referred to the thing, how we would react if the thing came, if we walked downstairs one sleepy-eyed morning, and there it was.

  And so it went that way, all through '66, and it was in that year that I had more time and yet achieved less than in any previous year. Or so it seemed to me. Perhaps it was merely that I no longer felt a child, something I had believed would occur at sixteen or seventeen. It hadn't. The fragment of child within me stayed alive and well and living in Greenleaf until gone Christmas and the start of 1967. I believe I hung onto that child, the wide-eyed innocence, the sense of trust in humanity, the conviction that all folks were fundamentally well-intentioned, and that when it came down to it they would always decide in favor of good and right and equity.

  I learned this was not the case in February.

  It was obvious from her manner and speech that Eve Chantry was unwell. She appeared outside her house less and less frequently, and sometimes I felt like I was her last lifeline to the known world. I would visit two, perhaps three, times a week, and more often than not I would find her still in bed in the mid-afternoon. I had taken to entering unannounced, and one Wednesday afternoon in the middle of that month I went as usual. I took fresh milk, some eggs, some pancakes my mother had made. I found Eve asleep, a tray of food from the previous night still untouched on the bed. I knew enough to understand that as long as she continued to eat regularly then she would be fine. Alarm bells were installed and operational from that moment.

  She woke easily, but even as she slurred into consciousness I could tell that there was something wrong. Her face seemed different, her speech a little awkward, and I recognized the indications of a stroke that had been so present in my father's manner.

  I insisted she see a doctor, and after much disagreement she conceded defeat. She was a proud woman, a single- minded and ferociously independent fighter, and the possibility that she would be unable to fend for herself was perhaps more damaging than any other single threat.

  Dr. Backermann came unhesitatingly. He examined, he questioned, he tested, he scribbled copious notes in a grubby little book, and then he took me aside and peered at me slightly suspiciously over gold-rimmed half-moon spectacles.

  'You are not a relative, Daniel Ford,' he stated with authority. He delivered this message as if it was an unfortunate and brutal revelation.

  'No Sir,' I replied.

  'I do not therefore understand your involvement.'

  I remember smiling, as if humoring a child.

  'Eve… Mrs. Chantry and I are friends,' I said.

  'Friends?' Dr. Backermann asked.

  'Sure,' I said. 'I visit a couple of times a week, bring some food over, keep her company.'

  'Mmm,' Backermann grunted, a further hint of suspicion in his tone.

  He again peered at me inquisitively over his spectacles.

  'You understand that I am not at liberty to discuss her medical condition with you,' Backermann said drily.

  I nodded. 'She's gonna be okay, though?'

  I heard myself ask the question, and already there was that strained sense of hope present. It sounded like a plea.

  'Okay?' Backermann asked
, almost to himself. 'She has had a stroke, much the same as your father…'

  Backermann looked at me to see if I would react. The last thing he wanted was some over-emotional youth on his hands.

  'So it is with a stroke,' he went on. 'You have a body that is worn out, that's the basis of it, and when the body starts to wear out there is little that you can do. Sometimes things improve significantly by themselves, and sometimes they don't.'

  'What about hospital?' I asked.

  'Hospital?' Backermann echoed. 'There are places you can send folks in this condition, places where specialists in such fields work to improve conditions for them, but we're talking a great deal of money, and unfortunately Eve Chantry never got it into her mind to take care of such things as medical insurance.'

  I was confused.

  'So you're not going to do anything?' I asked.

  'Not going to do anything?' Backermann asked back. 'And what would you have me do?'

  I frowned, shrugged my shoulders. 'I don't know, you're the doctor.'

  Backermann smiled deprecatingly. 'It is a money-driven world, Mister Ford,' he said, his tone condescending. 'If you care to find something in the region of ten or twenty thousand dollars then I would be more than happy to refer Eve Chantry to Charleston State Hospital and instruct they start work tomorrow.'

  I stood immobile and silent.

  Backermann seemed to be waiting for me to say something.

  My head was empty.

  Backermann sighed a little impatiently, and then walked to the head of the stairwell.

  'I'll check on her, Mister Ford,' he said. 'When I'm down this way I'll check on her. If something happens you can call me or my assistant. Aside from that she should rest, take plenty of fluids, eat some proteins…'

  He was already starting down the stairs.

  There was no money here; his work was done; everything else was platitudes.

  I stood there for some time. I perceived then the utter emptiness of the house. Its size dwarfed me, made me feel grandly insignificant, and when I crossed the landing and entered Eve's room, I was aware also of how tiny she seemed beneath the covers.

  'I will die you know,' was her greeting.

  I sat there on the edge of the bed and took her hand.

  She smiled. The tension down the right side of her face seemed to have eased a little, but it was still obvious that the stroke had done its work.

  'You cannot expect me to be anything but the candle- moth,' she added.

  I frowned.

  'The what?'

  'The candlemoth,' she repeated.

  I had heard her correctly.

  I shook my head.

  Eve Chantry used my hand to pull herself up into a sitting position.

  'There is the biological view of life, and then there is everything else,' she started. 'The butterfly is proud to be so colored and graceful, to spread its wings in the sun. The moth however, its closest relative, is a night creature. The moth possesses beauty equal to a butterfly, but it does not see it… more importantly, people don't see it because it is primarily nocturnal. And moths are attracted to light because they wish to be seen, to have their own magical beauty recognized.'

  Eve Chantry squeezed my hand and smiled.

  'Leave a candle on the porch at night and watch them come. A biologist will tell you that the reason the moth circles the flame is because it naturally flies towards a source of light, that the wing nearest the source will take shorter strokes thus creating the ever-decreasing circle.'

  She shook her head.

  'That's not true. They see the beauty of their own wing in the light, and wishing to emphasize it, wishing everyone around to see it, they draw ever closer in order to illuminate it further. The heat is a worthwhile price to pay for being a butterfly. They gather momentum, the circle decreases, and suddenly, unexpectedly, in that last split second, in that last beat of the fragile wing, they catch fire… and whoosh! The body aflame, bright yellow and red and blue… the moth becomes a butterfly at last.'

  Eve nodded.

  'That's a candlemoth.'

  I smiled, squeezed her hand. I did not understand the significance.

  'And the reason I tell you this, Daniel Ford,' she said, interrupting my half-formed questions, 'is that I am an old woman, and soon I will die, and there is nothing that you or I can do to change the fact that I am an old woman about to die.'

  She looked away towards the window for a moment.

  'People change, of course they do,' she went on. 'People change a little every day, and sometimes you can meet someone down the road and they are utterly different from the person you thought they were… but then sometimes it's you who has changed, and they stayed exactly the same, and now you merely see them from a different point of view…'

  Eve paused as if to catch her breath a little.

  'Truth is truth, you are who you are, and though your viewpoint might change, and though you might possess a different perspective about something, your heart and what you believe and who you are inside is only ever you… and you have to follow that heart, you have to believe what you're doing is right, and no matter what anyone might say or think or do you have to trust yourself to make the right decision.'

  She fell silent for a minute or two.

  The window was slightly open. The cooling breeze lifted the netting and flicked it into the room like a sail.

  Three sheets to the breeze, I thought. She sails towards her own death with three sheets to the breeze. I said nothing however. I sat silent, immobile.

  I could feel my own heart beating.

  'So when it comes,' she whispered, 'remember that it's your choice, and your faith, and your heart you follow. If you don't want to go to war, then don't go… but only you, only you can decide that. You hear me?'

  I nodded; I heard her.

  Even here, even after suffering a stroke, she was still the most perceptive and direct person I had ever known.

  She knew what was in my mind. She saw inside my thoughts, my heart, my soul, and she knew also that at least half of any decision I might make would depend on Nathan Verney.

  She was telling me to decide alone.

  I asked myself if I had ever really decided anything alone.

  'And so at some point I will turn towards the candle, and I will fly ever closer, and in one last brilliant burst I will be gone,' she whispered. 'And you, Daniel Ford… you must let me go.'

  I looked back at the window. I didn't wish to see her eyes.

  'There,' she said.

  She pointed at a chest of drawers against the wall.

  'The lower drawer to the right,' she said. 'Open it.'

  I rose, crossed the room, opened the drawer. Among neatly folded sheets and pillowcases was a square wooden box.

  'Take it out,' Eve said.

  I lifted the box, and turning it over I realized it was not a box at all, but a small wooden picture frame.

  Behind the glass was a perfectly preserved moth, its wingspan no more than two or three inches, but within those wings every hue of gold and brown and russet and sienna captured.

  'Jack made it for our daughter,' Eve Chantry said. 'And you shall take it with you today.'

  I looked at her.

  She raised her hand, a single finger extended.

  'Not a word,' she whispered. 'Not a word, Daniel Ford.'

  I nodded.

  There would be no arguing today.

  Or any other day.

  Eve Chantry was dead within a week.

  She left no will, no family could be traced, and then a gray man with deep shadows beneath his eyes appeared. He said he was a representative of Carolina & North Eastern United Trust And Savings, that Mrs. Chantry had owed more than a thousand dollars on the house, that the house would now be repossessed by the bank, sold at auction, they would recoup their losses and the remainder would be turned over to something called the Community Fund.

  The gray man with deep shadows seemed to be completel
y unconcerned with any funeral arrangements or expenses. He was there to collect his dues, and collect his dues he would.