Kiss of the Butterfly

by James Lyon

  ‘Perhaps,’ the Captain answered. He descended the stairs until the water reached his chest, waded to the door in the far wall and examined it. ‘The seals are intact,’ he called back.

  The Lieutenant nodded.

  The Captain touched the brick door, his fingers trembling.

  Inside the vault all was black, undisturbed by daylight, lamplight or candlelight. No sound penetrated the chamber and all was still. Yet in the dark Natalija saw, and in the silence she heard…silence interrupted by the occasional drop of water falling from the vaulted brick ceiling high overhead into the ever-rising ankle-deep pool that covered the floor. The sound of each drop echoed preternaturally, magnified by silence and stillness.

  She felt the captain long before he touched the door and sat up in her coffin in anxious anticipation. She sensed his presence, her heart pounding, as she waited for the door to open. But as before, it remained shut. And then she felt his presence recede.

  ‘Nooooo,’ she screamed. ‘Take me with you.’

  ‘Your time will come,’ the oldest said. ‘Patience.’

  Natalija lay back down, still awake, thinking of the love that had sentenced her to this torment. ‘So this is eternal damnation,’ she thought bitterly.

  And the water dripped.

  And she mourned.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  BREAKING THE SPELL

  Belgrade: 23 April – 2 May 1992

  The following day Steven returned early to the reading room, to be met once again by the bulldog librarian, dressed in the same frumpy outfit.

  ‘How is Gordana? Is she feeling better,’ he inquired pleasantly.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Her curt answer and sharp voice clouded the sunlight pouring through the windows.

  ‘Has the book been returned?’ He smiled.

  ‘No… It… Has… Not. And even had it been, it’s in a restricted category.’ Her voice rang arrogantly.

  ‘A restricted category for ethnography books?’ Steven spluttered. ‘Are you serious? Why?’

  ‘That’s unimportant. It’s restricted.’

  ‘But I’ve already seen it. There aren’t any state secrets inside,’ Steven protested.

  The pug nose jutted out across the counter at Steven. ‘Don’t mock me. It’s a serious matter. You may not see the book.’

  ‘Does that mean it’s been returned?’ he pried.

  She said nothing, and shuffled some papers.

  ‘I thought Serbia was leaving communism behind,’ Steven prodded. ‘Can folk stories destroy Serbia? What’s so dangerous?’

  The bulldog snapped at him: ‘This library has rules. You obviously cannot respect the rules, so you may no longer use this library. You must leave. Immediately!’

  Steven was shocked. ‘Why? I haven’t done anything wrong. I just want to see a book. Who are you to say I can’t?’

  ‘You may not use the library!’ The bulldog folded her arms and squinted at him angrily, her eyes reddening. ‘Leave, and take your vampires with you.’

  ‘But…’ and he stopped just as he was about to continue his objection. Uncertain as to why, Steven suddenly felt he should leave, so he walked out, his head cloudy and muddled, angry, unable to understand why he couldn’t get the book, yet unable to understand why he didn’t put up a fight. And how did she know he was researching vampires?

  ‘This is idiotic,’ he muttered as he left, shaking his head to clear his thoughts, his anger mounting as he walked towards Professor Ljubovic’s office. But the office was empty and a note on the door said that he wouldn’t be back until the following Thursday.

  Steven had lost all will to study, so he stood in front of the Philosophy Faculty, wondering how to get the Djordjevic book again. As he walked dejectedly towards Students’ Square he heard female voices call his name.

  He looked and saw Vesna and Tamara in the Aristotle outdoor café. They smiled and waved cheerfully. ‘Stefan, is something wrong?’ Vesna asked.

  Steven exploded in frustration. Still standing, he told them what had transpired in the reading room, gesticulating with his hands, his Serbo-Croatian unable to keep pace with his emotions.

  ‘Stefan, it’s okay. Just sit down and relax,’ Vesna said, pulling him by the sleeve into a chair between her and Tamara, where he sat glumly.

  ‘You should ask Professor Ljubovic to intervene. They can’t just throw you out of the reading room like that,’ Vesna said. ‘There’s no reason for a restricted list to exist.’

  ‘What’s the book about?’ Tamara inquired.

  ‘Vampires, what else?’ he answered.

  Vesna rolled her eyes and shook her head. Tamara smiled.

  ‘Well, obviously vampires hold the key to Serbia’s military success,’ Vesna spat sarcasm. ‘Letting a foreign spy such as you see the book means Serbia will lose the wars in Croatia and Bosnia. Without vampires to support him, Milosevic will lose power and Serbia might become a normal country. Then they’d stop sucking our blood, and that of course, can’t happen.’

  ‘Vesna, what’s gotten into you today? You’re really negative,’ Tamara chided.

  ‘We’re killing our own people; inflation is over 1,000 percent; my father’s salary is four months late. Just yesterday he finally got paid for December, and hyperinflation meant that all we could afford was two bars of soap, a kilogram of flour, a kilogram of onions, and washing machine detergent. One month’s salary! And we’re forbidden to withdraw our foreign currency savings from the bank. What are we supposed to live on? If my brother in Frankfurt didn’t send us money each month, there’s no way we could live. And my parents are dipping into the hard currency they keep under the mattress. Soon we’ll have nothing left. The better question is: why are you so complacent? Oh, I forgot, you’re in love and your father’s a Party member.’ Vesna flung the comment at Tamara and lit a cigarette.

  Tamara also lit up, clearly offended. They sat mutely, pretending to ignore the tension. Finally Tamara spoke. ‘Your presentation last night was excellent!’ she gushed. ‘Everybody’s talking about it! All the graduate students think you’re just marvelous, and the assistant professors are all jealous they didn’t think of it first and publish something.’

  ‘Yes, it was good,’ Vesna admitted. ‘Even though I don’t like the topic. We were both very proud of you.’

  ‘Well, thanks. I hope you…’

  ‘Oy yoy!’ Tamara interrupted, jumping from her chair and grabbing her backpack. ‘I was supposed to meet Bear fifteen minutes ago. He’ll kill me.’ She raced off leaving Steven alone with Vesna.

  ‘She’s always forgetting things,’ Vesna said. ‘Poor Bear.’

  She continued: ‘Seriously Stefan, you did a very good job last night. You were serious and well organized and your presentation was interesting.’

  Steven felt tingles run down his spine as he looked at her wide bright smile, teeth gleaming whitely in a large oval face. Her dark eyes shone through the long chestnut-brown hair that partly covered her high cheekbones and flowed past her shoulders. Her unaccustomed kindness unnerved him.

  ‘Thanks Vesna, but I’m stuck,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what to do next…I think I’ve pretty much tapped out all the libraries here in Belgrade, and I need a break. I feel trapped here…it’s so oppressive sometimes I can’t breathe. How do you stand it here?’

  ‘I grew up here, and I can’t leave, so there is no use thinking about it,’ she said, her face suddenly blank. They studied their drinks awkwardly.

  ‘I have an idea,’ she said, suddenly brightening. ‘Let’s visit used bookstores and see if we can find a copy of that book. I’m certain we’ll find one somewhere.’ She had an adventurous gleam in her eyes.

  Steven’s face lightened: ‘That’s a great idea.’ He called for the bill, which came to a little over 15 million dinars, less than 10 cents.

  Their first stop was a bookstore at the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences, across from the Philosophy Faculty. It took a moment for their eyes to adjust to the gloo
my interior, its dark bookshelves reaching to the ceiling. A man on a ladder sorting books called out ‘May I help you?’ without looking at them.

  Vesna explained what they wanted and he climbed down, tugged at his goatee and pulled a large binder from under the counter.

  ‘Djordjevic,’ he muttered as he leafed through the binder. ‘Hmm…Tihomir…ah, yes, 1953…hmm. We don’t carry it. Only 100 copies were published. It was placed on a restricted list prior to publication… that was a different era you know. Rankovic – Tito’s enforcer – was running things. That means all the copies were probably seized by the UDBA and destroyed.’

  ‘UDBA?’ asked Steven.

  ‘Yes, the old name for the secret police. I suspect you won’t find it anywhere, except in a few select libraries scattered around former Yugoslavia. Even then it may be restricted. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Wow, Rankovic,’ Vesna whispered as they walked out. ‘That’s a big deal. He was the head of the secret police. What’s in this book that’s so important? Are you sure it’s only ethnography?’

  ‘Of course. I saw it with my own eyes in the reading room. It’s simply a compilation about vampires in the lands of Yugoslavia. I was able to look at part of it…it’s an amazing collection of articles. Djordjevic categorizes vampires and their behavior. It’s based on years of scholarship. My presentations were nothing compared to what he did. I need to find that book!’

  They spent the rest of the day searching Belgrade’s used bookstores. Everywhere they met the same puzzled looks: no one had ever heard of Djordjevic’s works, much less seen them.

  As they walked back towards the Philosophy Faculty Vesna muttered: ‘The UDBA sure did a good job destroying it.’ A little further she stopped and began talking to herself, staring off into the distance: ‘I’m pissed off,’ she said. ‘Why did they want to destroy knowledge and keep it from the people? The authorities will respect us only when we stand up to them. They can’t keep us down forever. I’ll find that book for you, Stefan. I’ll do it purely out of spite, what we here call inat.’

  ‘Thanks. Although you shouldn’t feel obligated,’ Steven said, uncertain what had provoked her outburst.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ she suddenly announced.

  ‘You want to come with me to the student cafeteria?’ he asked. ‘My treat.’

  ‘Why don’t you come to my place,’ she offered. ‘My grandmother’s preparing lunch.’

  ‘Isn’t it too late for lunch?’ he looked at his watch. ‘It’s already 3:00 o’clock.’

  ‘Stefan, how long have you been in Serbia?’

  ‘Four months.’

  ‘Hasn’t anybody invited you over to their house for lunch?’

  ‘Well, no…not really…I mean I eat lunch with my host family on Sunday afternoons.’

  ‘Here in Serbia everybody works until 3:00, then they come home and eat, so lunch is typically served between 3:00 and 4:00. We’ll be just in time.’

  ‘Okay,’ he smiled. As a student he had long ago learned to never turn down a free home-cooked meal.

  They fought their way onto the steps of an overcrowded trolleybus that leaned to one side. A large man jammed his armpit into Steven’s ear, while Vesna squeezed against him from the other side, her face pressed just below his chin, where he could smell her perfume, feel her hair and feel her skin against his neck. The sensation was arousing.

  At the Medakovic neighborhood they squeezed off the bus and walked uphill through a street of apartment flats into a graveyard. The sound of the new leaves rustling in the tall Chestnut trees was music to Steven’s ears after the crowded bus, but Vesna hurried ahead.

  Steven followed her into a world of death set in stone and bronze…a statue of a youth holding a freshly rolled-up newspaper; a gravestone with an etched photograph of a man standing proudly in front of his Mercedes Benz; a statue of a boxer in his fighting stance. He stopped, fascinated by the celebration of worldly materialism in a place where it no longer mattered.

  ‘Hurry up,’ Vesna called. She stood like a statue, hands planted on her hips, legs apart, chestnut hair draped across the shoulders of her black leather jacket. ‘I don’t like being here.’

  ‘We don’t have graveyards like this in America,’ he called, and followed her to a residential neighborhood and a house surrounded by a low wall topped by a spiked iron fence. They passed through a gate, decorated with a dried flower wreath and a front door protected by a horseshoe.

  ‘You’ll like my grandmother,’ Vesna called to him as they entered the house.

  He seemed uncertain whether her statement was a prediction or an order.

  * * *

  Steven lay in bed groaning, trying to recover from the enormous meal. When they had entered the house, Vesna’s grandmother had immediately begun fawning over Steven. ‘Vesna has told us so much about you,’ she gushed, causing Vesna to blush fiercely and avert her eyes. But she continued: ‘she told us what a wonderful job you are doing in your research of our folk stories.’

  Vesna interrupted: ‘Grandma, please.’ Then Vesna’s mother and father arrived home from work and they all sat at the table and ate. Still the grandmother continued to dote on Steven, offering him food until he felt he would burst, all the time asking him about his family, where he was from, what his parents did, what his interests were. When she asked him if he had a girlfriend, Vesna once again blushed and said: ‘Mama, make her stop, she’s embarrassing him.’

  And then the grandmother asked: ‘Don’t you think our girls are pretty?’ causing Vesna to blush once more.

  By the time they finished lunch the sun had set and Vesna walked him to a different bus stop, holding him under the arm all the way there. ‘It isn’t good to cut through a graveyard after dark,’ she said.

  He wasn’t certain how to react to her hand under his arm. He had seen her and Tamara hold each other like this and had observed other women holding men like this, even though they were only friends. Did she like him, or was it simply a gesture of friendship? She was always so stern and critical of his work. When she placed her hand under his arm he felt a strong attraction to her, which he instinctively resisted. When she kissed him on the cheek just before he boarded the bus, he was pleasantly surprised.

  ‘I like her,’ he said to himself.

  His reverie was interrupted by a sharp knock on his door. ‘Come in,’ he called.

  Dusan stuck his head around the door. ‘Telephone for you.’

  Steven said: ‘Hello.’

  ‘Stefan, is that you?’ He heard a faint female voice in English shouting across an ocean of static and interference. It sent a tingle up and down his spine. ‘Katarina, how are you?’ he shouted back.

  ‘Good. I can barely hear you. How are you doing?’

  ‘Pretty good.’

  Dusan’s grandmother looked at Steven from the kitchen, obviously displeased with the level of his voice.

  ‘Marko asked me to call and see how you’re doing. He asked why you haven’t written.’ Her voice barely overrode the static.

  He lowered his voice so not to offend the grandmother. ‘But I wrote several times, both to him and you. Last week I received two letters from Professor Slatina and three from you, all at the same time. It must be the war. Can you hear me?’

  ‘Yes, I can hear you,’ Katarina’s voice sounded tense. ‘You don’t have to shout. That’s what Marko was afraid of. How’s life in Belgrade? Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes, I’m very busy and I’ve found lots of information about….’

  ‘Have you been to Novi Sad yet?’ she cut him off in mid-sentence.

  ‘No, only Belgrade. As I said, I’ve found a lot of material about…’

  ‘Marko wants you to go to Novi Sad.’ She cut him off once again just before he could utter the word vampire. ‘He said you should work in the archives and libraries there, especially the Matica Srpska,’ she said, referring to the famous Serbian national collection in Vojvodina. ‘And visit my mother. I must go now. Stefan, pleas
e be very careful of what you say and who you say it to,’ her voice sounded worried. ‘I miss our talks.’

  ‘I’m being careful. Everything is okay. When are you coming this summer?’ But the line went dead before she could answer.

  ‘But am I being careful?’ he asked himself. His time with Katarina was now a faint and distant memory, overpowered by his afternoon with Vesna.

  * * *

  Katarina set down the cordless phone, lay back in the lounge chair, shaded her eyes against the bright noonday sun and squinted at Scripps Pier, the La Jolla Cove, and the hang-gliders flying over the cliffs at Torrey Pines. In the lounge chair next to her Slatina held a volume of Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, his eyes hidden behind sunglasses.

  ‘He’s getting closer.’ Katarina turned to Slatina. ‘You must tell him.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Slatina nodded, pensively, still looking at the book. ‘Yet the telephone is dangerous. We must speak face to face.’

  A butterfly flew drunkenly across the patio and lighted on Slatina’s book. He looked at it curiously and sniffed.

  ‘You really should’ve told him before he left,’ Katarina said, disapproval in her voice.

  ‘Katarina, please trust me,’ he said kindly. ‘Had I told him the truth he would have thought me a fool or worse, and I would have frightened him off. I would have accomplished nothing.’

  ‘But he’s so naïve,’ she pleaded. ‘He knows nothing…and you know what a good heart he has. As he learns more the risks to him will increase. It’s dangerous. Please call and tell him to leave at once.’

  ‘Now, Katja, as long as he knows nothing they will not cause him trouble,’ Slatina said.

  Both sat silently, staring at the sun glistening off the Pacific.

  Katarina broke the silence. ‘Promise me you’ll get him out.’

  Slatina turned and looked sternly at her. ‘Katja, please, do not exaggerate the situation.’

  ‘I mean it. Promise me.’ Her voice was tense. ‘And soon.’