Sound of Butterflies, The

by King, Rachael

  During the voyage I became acquainted with my new companions. I will tell you a little about each of them, but I feel that I will get to know them even better in the months to come. George Sebel is always immaculate in his appearance. Even on the morning we landed — when I confess I threw on my clothes, forgetting my waistcoat, and must have looked a shabby fright — George, whom I ran into in the corridor, had taken the time to comb and pomade his hair before leaving his cabin. I had no such patience, as I was soon to set foot on a new continent! While we took turns looking at the jungle and the river through Ernie Harris’s telescope, George seemed singularly unimpressed, muttering something to himself about his African expedition last year. He even stooped down to rub at some piece of grime that had lodged itself on his shoe, quite ignoring the marvellous sight of the forest. It was sprinkled with the palms and plantains, and, had the Amazon not been a jaundiced yellow, I would have expected to see the forest reflected back in the water. A city was threaded through the jungle — white buildings, some with domes, and red roofs, pushing up among the palms. It was all but dwarfed by the huge ships that were anchored in the port, no doubt laden with rubber, awaiting clearance.

  My other two companions — Ernie, the surgeon, who is also an amateur but experienced ornithologist (that’s birds, my love!) and a skilled taxidermist, and John Gitchens, who is a plant-hunter — seemed as transfixed as I. The steward pointed out the gigantic birds circling over the city, and when Ernie trained his telescope on them, he became quite agitated. He allowed me a small peek — they were vultures — but soon wrested the telescope from my hands again. I couldn’t help but be slightly disgusted by the idea of the ugly creatures, even though from this far I suppose they looked quite elegant and graceful.

  But back to George — he is a decent fellow, and has studied zoology and entomology at Cambridge. He is the official insect collector on the voyage. I feel very blessed to have been taken along as well, despite my amateur status. It just goes to show that having friends in the right places (I refer to Mr Crawley, at Kew, of course, who introduced me to the agent Ridewell) can do wonders. George has agreed to let me collect butterflies as well as assist him — he will be more than busy with the ants and the beetles and Lord only knows what else that is lurking in this forest! I think I can learn much from our Mr Sebel, provided I can penetrate the hard exterior he seems to have put up for himself.

  As for the other two, I can’t begin to explain the relief I feel at having a surgeon on the expedition with us. Although he wasn’t much help when I was ill on the boat (he being sick at the same time), it gives me great comfort to know that he will be in the jungle with us and has come prepared with every manner of instrument and medicine that he can carry. I don’t know much about the hospitals here in Brazil, but in any case, there may be times when we are too far away from them, and diseases like malaria are rife. Ernie himself is an energetic fellow. I can’t quite bring myself to call him Dr Harris, as he has about him the boisterous manner of a schoolboy that I find alternately charming and irritating. He has started to taunt George in a way that I wouldn’t dare, but I suppose he is taking advantage of George’s stoic nature to have a bit of fun.

  John Gitchens is something of a gentle giant, I feel. He is very quiet, and he has enormous rough brown hands and a big beard, which George complains is quite out of fashion. John doesn’t talk about himself at all, but Ernie told me that he has seen many more adventures than we can hope to in our lifetime. He is the oldest of us all, nearly forty, and when he looks at me I feel as if he is reading my every thought. He has the most expressive, large brown eyes that I think I have seen, though the rest of him seems to hide behind the beard. On the voyage, when the rest of us would sit down in the evening to read, he would position himself near a porthole and stare out to sea. If we wanted to play cards, he had to be coaxed quite strongly to make a fourth for bridge, sometimes refusing altogether, at which times we had to include the captain — who treated us as his honoured guests — or one of the other passengers. When we arrived at our house today, John disappeared into the forest for some hours. When he came back, the colour had returned to his cheeks and he looked alive again.

  Nothing has been seen of our benefactor, Mr Santos. We were met at the dock by one of his men, who showed us to more than adequate lodgings on the outskirts of the city — close to the forest. Within five minutes we can walk into the interior and never know that we are near civilisation. More on this later.

  The overwhelming impression I have of the city is that it seems to be competing with the jungle for space. There is greenery everywhere — sprouting from ledges, growing out of cracks in the buildings — and there is a heady smell of fruit from the mango trees and the blossoming orange and lemon trees. It is a curious cocktail. Banana palms grow on every roof and balcony with giant leaves that are glossy and opulent. The richness of smells and abundance of nature are a heavy contrast to the poverty of human life. Even the grander buildings have fallen into disrepair. The population has swelled recently, and I don’t know if the city is coping with the influx of people come to work in the rubber trade. There is a jumble of humanity here — whites, Indians, Negroes, and different mixtures of all three, all with their own name as if they are new races — mameluco (white and Indian), mulatto (Negro and white), cafuzo (Negro and Indian) and caboclo (all three). The dock was overwhelming with its crowds and its intense stickiness, as if a fire were constantly burning nearby. At least on the river there was a breeze — in the city, between the buildings, there is none.

  You will not believe, Sophie, the kind of cargo that was on board our ship, bound for Manaus, which is hundreds of miles up the Amazon. The captain informed us that there were grand pianos, paving stones from Europe, hundreds of cases of French champagne and other wines, cheese from Devon, fur coats from Paris (in this heat!) and many other extravagances. He even told us they had bags and bags of laundry, which had been sent from Manaus to Lisbon to be washed. Evidently the locals in Manaus don’t trust the water from the Amazon, and they think nothing of the expense of sending it away. Decadent, certainly, but also very patient, I’d say! Captain Tilly says we will have to see Manaus with our own eyes to believe it. The city is completely isolated, with no roads leading to it, but it has a complete tram system within it. They recently built an opera house and they have extravagant parties to celebrate everything. The people who live there have grown very rich from the rubber boom and they have more money than they know what to do with. Fortunately for us, Mr Santos has decided to use some of his to further British science and to cement his British interests. They say he is the one of the richest of them all, with a rubber plantation far up the Amazon that is thousands of square miles in area.

  After we arrived in our lodgings, and had settled in somewhat, we ventured into the forest a little way after John, but we didn’t find him, and he returned a long time after we did. Santos’s man came with us, to make sure that we didn’t get lost on our first outing. The road from our lodgings continued on only a few yards before we seemed to be deep in the forest. Almost immediately I saw several different morphos (do you remember the beautiful blues I showed you in the museum that day?) high up in the trees, and a few other species of butterfly that I could not identify offhand. You can imagine how this set my heart racing — already within minutes of arriving there were exciting new discoveries for me! I have a very good feeling about finding my butterfly.

  We had just made it back to the house when the heavens opened and it poured with rain. I couldn’t believe it — it happened so quickly that I hadn’t even seen the clouds gathering. In many ways it was a welcome respite from the heat — indeed, while we had been walking, our guide informed us that he would normally be sleeping away the hottest part of the day. We noticed several of our neighbours from afar, slung in hammocks on their verandas.

  Well, my little Sophie, my candle is burning down and my hand is aching with the writing. I promise I will write to you as often as I ca
n. You can send letters to me care of the agent Ridewell, whose address you have, as he will be forwarding everything to me on a regular basis. The night is hot here, but it is cold without you, my sugarplum.

  Your loving husband,

  Thomas

  Thomas sealed the letter and tied it up with string for extra protection. Ernie was already asleep, on his back with his mouth open under his moustache, a loud popping sound coming from the back of his throat every time he breathed out. Thomas had written by candlelight out of respect for his roommate. The room was sparsely furnished. Hammocks hung on either side, with small desks next to them for each man. Makeshift shelves waited in the corner for books to be unpacked and for specimens to be collected.

  He peeled his shirt off slowly. Every fibre stuck to him with layers of sweat. He put on his nightshirt, which was crisp on his skin for a moment before it, too, was swallowed in dampness. He knelt for a brief prayer on the hard tiled floor, and climbed into his hammock. This he accomplished with some difficulty: he tried to go in with his knees first, but the wretched thing kept spinning around and throwing him out. Finally he backed in, sat down and gingerly lay back with his feet on the ground. Then he swung his legs up, and found that he was most comfortable. It was certainly a welcome relief after the hard berth on the ship.

  After four weeks on the sea, Thomas’s legs had taken some adjusting to dry land. As he had walked through town, the buildings about him seemed to undulate. But for the first time since they had set out, his stomach felt calm — apart from the excitement gnawing at it from the inside — and he felt the stirrings of the appetite that had well and truly deserted him somewhere in the Atlantic. He had eaten ravenously at dinner, when the deluge was just beginning to ease. John Gitchens returned soaked and smiling; he grabbed a half a loaf of bread and made a line of wet footprints to his room, where they soon heard him vigorously unpacking.

  In the twilight Thomas had ventured outside again, as the mechanics of the cicadas and crickets started up and the smell of wet earth rose and permeated his clothes, his skin. The air still held its moisture from the downpour; he could feel it on his face and hands.

  As night fell, the forest was outlined black against the softening sky. It seemed to suck away the last of the light. Thomas stood on the balcony with his face turned towards the jungle sounds, and a new cacophony of rhythms — booms and clacks from toads and frogs, mostly — enveloped him.

  Earlier in the day, as they walked through the forest, the noise had enthralled him. The forest in England was a silent place — nothing but the sound of his feet crunching on pine needles; animals stayed out of sight. Here, the air throbbed with the screams of birds and monkeys, the distant crack of falling branches, and the scuttling in the undergrowth of creatures that could choose to be seen or sink into camouflage on the forest floor. The air was thick with heat and moisture; he felt as if he were wading through warm porridge.

  When he caught sight of his first morphos, their blue wings shining in the sun like stained glass, he felt a familiar stirring in his trousers. This was something he couldn’t explain, and had long ago given up trying to. Ever since he was a young lad, his body had occasionally — only occasionally — reacted this way to the excitement of spotting and catching butterflies. This was not a problem for him when he was alone, roaming through the fields of England — and it didn’t happen often, usually only during the chase of a particularly rare species — but in company it was an inconvenience to say the least. He took off his hat and held it with both hands in front of him, enjoying the sensation of his hardness pressing against his breeches as he spotted another morpho, then a pair of buttery Pieridae.

  Ernie had finally turned on his side, and was no longer snoring. It hardly made a difference to the night sounds and Thomas wondered if he would ever get to sleep. He put his hand to his groin and thought about Sophie. His dear, sweet Sophie. The way her tiny, thin nostrils went red in the cold. The way she stamped her foot out of frustration, but always kept her good humour. The feel of her breasts the first time they had made love — not on their wedding night, when she had just wanted him to hold her, but two nights after. Her breasts were heavy and smooth and the nipples were cold to touch. She had been trembling that first time he entered her, but the next night she had pulled him on top of her, lifting her nightgown to receive him quickly. He remembered the square of moonlight in her hair, her eyes dark smudges in her face. By the end of the week she was moving around beneath him, little sounds escaping her. She had begun to guide his hands to the places that gave her most pleasure, and together they learned about each other’s bodies as well as their own.

  He had nearly made love to her in the park once, in a discreet pocket of forest, when she had accompanied him to collect butterflies. He had brought a rug, and they sat down together well out of sight of the forest path. He remembered kissing her, and the velvet of her fluttering tongue, like the wings of the butterflies in the jars that lay beside them. One of his hands was in the earth, and as he scratched at the ground, the damp odour of mushrooms was released. He moved to lie on top of her and she opened her mouth wider, but when he began to lift her skirts, she pushed him away and sat up.

  ‘Not here, Thomas,’ she said.

  ‘It’ll be fine,’ he breathed. ‘Nobody will come.’ But when he covered her face with insistent kisses, she turned away and got to her feet. She stood over him, with the strong trunks of oak trees stretching above her, and her blonde hair wisping about her face. Her hands were balanced on her hips, and she no doubt thought she was warning him off, but it only aroused him more. He had turned away then, and busied himself with his collecting equipment, while she gathered up the rug and brushed off her skirts.

  He gave a soft moan and turned on his side, bringing his hands away from where they would be tempted and folding them under his cheek.

  But he couldn’t sleep. After managing to steer his mind away from thoughts of his wife, he focused on the day to come, which gave him a new kind of excitement. He couldn’t help but worry a little — certainly there were dangers to be met in this country. If it wasn’t the snakes and the giant spiders, or the stinging ants and the prickling plants, it was the mosquitoes, or the diseases. And the alligators. Those that had gone before him had even had trouble with the people — for hadn’t one explorer overheard a plot to kill him by some of the Indians who were assisting him? It was only his knowledge of the language that had saved him. Thomas vowed to learn as many of the languages as he could. There was Portuguese first, of course, but there was also a shared Indian language, the Língoa Geral, which all of the tribes understood. But when would he fit it in? In between collecting and preserving and studying, he might not find the time. He would speak to the others about it tomorrow.

  Tomorrow. He turned onto his back and crossed his arms behind his head. He imagined the forest again, its fragrant trees and twisted flowers. He pictured himself standing in a clearing with his net in his hand, while a cloud of butterflies floated around him. He could make out some of the species he knew — a multicoloured Papilio machaon, a transparent Cithaerias aurorina with its bright pink spot on its lower wings — and there, in the middle of the cloud, was his butterfly. The left wings were a glossy black, the right sulphur-yellow: a crazy asymmetry that went against all the laws of nature. It was larger than any of the others and it hovered with a regal presence, alone.

  The butterfly had never been caught or recorded. Thomas had heard of it through Peter Crawley at Kew Gardens. He stood one day with Peter in the palm house at Kew. He had removed his jacket and was fanning himself with a newspaper — the glasshouse was very humid to promote the growth of tropical plants. They were discussing the lecture on South American butterflies they had both attended the night before at the Natural History Museum. It reminded Peter of a rumour that had floated around Kew for some forty years, that both Alfred Russel Wallace and Richard Spruce had seen a giant swallow-tailed butterfly in their travels in the Amazon. The two gre
at explorers had spoken of it separately, in whispers, not able to give a positive sighting of it, but both agreeing that it had the most unusual marking — on one side its wings were yellow, on the other side black. It shouldn’t even have been able to fly with such markings, as the black wings would absorb more heat and weigh one side of the creature down. They conceded that it could have been a trick of the light; that the long evening shadows distort images in the jungle, much as the moon appears to be bigger when it rises over the horizon. They were busy enough with their own new species without worrying about one that perhaps did not exist.

  Thomas remembered Peter’s little round glasses misting up as they spoke, his awkward tongue tripping over his slight lisp, and a little girl with a blue ribbon in her hair who was standing behind him, about to pull a delicate flower from the spiky stem of one of the exhibits. Then Peter said something that Thomas immediately knew would change his life forever.

  ‘That chap that I introduced you to. Ridewell. He was asking about you. It seems there’s an expedition to Brazil being planned to collect specimens. Some fellow over there, a rubber tycoon of some sort, is anxious to pamper British interests in his company. He’s funding some chaps to go over there, through the Natural History Museum. Ridewell was impressed by your comment about what little kudos there is in beetle-hunting and butterfly chasing in England. He wondered if perhaps you might be interested in a bit of a challenge.’

  The rumour of the black and yellow butterfly ingrained itself in Thomas’s mind. With encouragement from Peter, and from the friends he had made at the Entomological Society, he decided not only to take the opportunity to fulfil his dream of becoming a professional naturalist, but to make a mark in history by capturing, studying, naming and bringing home the elusive specimen.