Kiss of the Butterfly

by James Lyon

  ‘Roberts, Steven Roberts.’

  ‘Ahhhh, yesss, pleassse,’ he rummaged again through more papers. ‘Thisss isss for you,’ the clerk handed him an envelope and disappeared into the back room.

  Surprised, Steven opened it and found a piece of hotel stationery with a street address on Uri Utca. Not knowing where that was, he brought down his hand on the silver bell on the counter, filling the empty lobby with a loud metallic ring. The greasy-haired clerk reappeared hastily and clasped his hand over the bell to dampen the tone.

  ‘Yesss pleassse, how may I help you pleassse?’ The clerk’s forced politeness was infuriatingly servile, yet he was clearly annoyed and his use of the word “please” bordered on obdurate.

  ‘Where is this address?’

  ‘You may take a taxi, pleassse. One isss waiting right outssside the front door, pleassse.’ He gestured towards the entrance with a dramatic flourish of his arm. ‘Pleassse, it isss on Várhegy, Cassstle Hill.’ The clerk watched Steven walk from the lobby, suitcase in hand, and then picked up the telephone and dialed a number.

  As though immune to speeding tickets the taxi driver raced his aging Skoda north along the Danube and up Castle Hill. The rickety suspension banged against the uneven cobblestones as they zipped through the castle walls and past a massive palace, testimony to the bygone grandeur of the Habsburg imperial court. The taxi clanked over the cobblestones as it turned into Uri Utca and the driver slammed on the brakes, throwing Steven against the dashboard. Steven paid the driver, who rattled off as though late for the starting flag of a Formula One race.

  In the deserted street the only sound was the tweeter and chirp of birds waking to the new day as the sun’s first rays began to brighten the tops of the houses, bathing the pavement in radiance, drenching the tightly-packed two and three storey Baroque buildings in pastels.

  The blue building stood against the western wall, a patron saint on timeless watch in a second floor niche above a stone archway large enough for a coach and horses. Steven approached and knocked at a small door set in the massive gate. After waiting a respectable interval, he knocked again. Then he pounded hard. ‘Come on, open up,’ he muttered.

  Exasperated, he finally tried the door latch and it sprung open. He stepped into a gravel courtyard filled with unexpected greenery: a large tree, a flower garden and a multitude of bushes, all shimmering with hordes of butterflies, taking Steven aback. Towards the rear a green door opened, and a stocky elderly man emerged, dressed in overalls and a workman’s apron.

  He walked past Steven, shut the door in the gate, picked up Steven’s suitcase and walked into the building, taking no notice of Steven whatsoever. Steven followed him up a flight of stairs to the first floor, where the man set the suitcase on a bench in an austere room that resembled a monk’s cell, with a small bed, a writing table, and a plain wooden cross on the wall. From the window Steven could see the ramparts of the medieval city and valley. The old man showed Steven the bathroom, led him back to the room, said ‘schlafen’ in badly accented German and left.

  Steven headed for the bathroom to bathe. Staring back at him from the mirror he saw a scraggly Che Guevara look-a-like, whose bleary, bloodshot eyes would have looked at home begging at a freeway off-ramp.

  After bathing, Steven lay down. Four hours later he awoke to find a tray of food on the table. After eating, he opened the bedroom door to find the old man sitting on a chair in the hallway, reading a book.

  ‘Komme’ he said to Steven, once again in barely intelligible German, and Steven followed with his backpack. The old man took him out into the courtyard, through another door, then down into a musty cellar with vaulted brick ceilings, where he turned on a flashlight.

  ‘Komme,’ he repeated, as he led Steven through another door, then downward into another, even deeper cellar, then through a veritable labyrinth of corridors, tunnels, cellars, and more tunnels.

  Steven was completely disoriented. He followed the old man through the underground warren, until they came to a series of staircases that led up and finally out into a different courtyard, this one painted in a bright orange that magnified the midday sunlight, causing Steven to shade his eyes with his hand.

  ‘Komme,’ the old man repeated once more as he led Steven quickly inside the building to a spacious and airy upper room filled with a massive dark wood dining table that appeared to have been left from medieval times.

  They continued out onto a terrace above the city wall, bright sunlight reflecting from the white stone buttresses and arches of the neo-Gothic parliament directly across the glittering Danube. They had crossed the entire width of Castle Hill via the cellars and were now on the eastern-most river side. Steven squinted and blinked as his eyes struggled to adjust to the brilliant glare of midday.

  The silhouette of a man approached, grasped him firmly by the hand and shook it heartily.

  ‘Welcome to Buda,’ Professor Slatina exclaimed warmly.

  * * *

  Interlude VIII: Backa, Salas 431: February - April 1983

  It was a typical salas, an isolated Vojvodina farm consisting of a whitewashed one story house with a corn crib and other outbuildings sheltered under clusters of tall Linden, Maple and Chestnut trees, with fields spreading out endlessly on all sides.

  The eleven arrived unannounced for supper late one frosty February night, when snow blanketed the roads, cutting the salas off from civilization. The flickering light of the television and embers of a dying fire cast jittery shadows across the whitewashed tobacco grey walls, while a dim 45 watt light bulb struggled to defeat a thick yellow lamp shade. The parents had sent the children to bed early, and then retired to the old overstuffed furniture of the sitting room with the grandparents to watch a television documentary on humpbacked whales. The men and the mother smoked and drank beer. After the humpbacked whales had finished mating, everybody trundled off to bed, the mother remaining behind to tidy up. She opened a window to air the cigarette smoke from the room.

  Unseen, two large hairy butterflies entered through the window, and fluttered to the ceiling lamp, waiting until the mother had shut the window and turned out the lights. Then followed what Ivan the youngest artlessly termed ‘a wonderful six course meal.’

  The eleven watched the flickering picture box in rapt fascination, learned of electricity, studied all they could from documentary films and what few books and magazines lay around the house. They lived off the farm animals, slowly taking blood from one after another. From the television they learned of Tito’s Yugoslavia, communism, Brotherhood and Unity and Workers’ Socialist Self-management. In February they discovered that starting the farmer’s battered car – an old Fica, the Yugoslav copy of the tiny Fiat Toppo Giggio – was not as easy as they had seen on television. They saw that the world they had once known had changed dramatically. No longer did a Kaiser sit in Vienna, a Sultan in Istanbul or a Tsar in Russia. At first they were baffled by communism and democracy, concepts unknown in their time. But the language of power stays the same, no matter which age, and they quickly grasped the essentials.

  Using the salas as a base, they traveled throughout Yugoslavia to places long forgotten, valleys long flooded, fields long built over, mines long abandoned and old watermills still churning. Slowly, bit by bit they collected the vestiges of their once substantial fortunes and compared notes. They sought out the Vlach but could not find him. Nor could they find any evidence he had ever been killed.

  And when they finally decided the Vlach was dead and their quorum would not be reformed in its full capacity, one by one, they left the salas and rejoined the world.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE TRUTH WILL OUT

  Budapest, Petrovaradin: 10-15 May 1992

  Slatina was fashionably attired as usual, looking every bit the high society Italian playboy in a beige linen suit and matching crocodile belt and shoes.

  ‘Perhaps he could be the mysterious Venetian,’ Steven thought. But he looked no older than his early thirties.


  ‘My dear Steven, how delightful to see you once again,’ Slatina placed his sunglasses on his head, hugged and kissed Steven on both cheeks. ‘Thank you so much for coming. I trust I have not inconvenienced you with these alternate arrangements. After all, precautions must be taken.’

  ‘Where are we?’ Steven demanded irritably.

  ‘But of course, of course, there is much to discuss and you must have so many questions.’ Slatina’s disposition matched the midday sun. ‘Come, we shall talk and you shall tell me of your research and of my good friends in Belgrade.’

  Slatina motioned for Steven to sit in a cushioned wrought-iron garden chair. Slatina sat while Steven remained standing and the elderly man brought a tea pot and sandwiches.

  ‘Afternoon tea is yet one more proof of the magnificent cultural heights achieved by the English,’ Slatina purred gracefully, sniffing the aromas from the teapot. ‘Would you not agree?’

  Steven muttered and remained standing.

  ‘So tell me, young Roberts, how is your research progressing?’

  Steven responded by opening his backpack, removing the wooden stake and laying it brazenly on the table. ‘Mrs. Lazarevic gave this to me.’

  Slatina started at the sight and spilled his tea, clearly recognizing not only what but whose it was.

  ‘She said I was to tell you…’ Steven fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a piece of folded paper, ‘that the Emperor’s pets have escaped…and it’s time you return and finish the job.’ He placed the paper face up on the table for Slatina to see.

  ‘And she also told me a great deal more,’ Steven folded his arms on his chest. ‘A kresnik?’ He let the word hang in the air and looked expectantly at Slatina.

  For the first time since Steven had known him, Slatina appeared at a loss for words. The smile disappeared as the professor picked up the stake, hefted it and rapped it hard against his open palm. ‘I haven’t seen this for a long time,’ he mused. ‘You know, of course, that it belonged to Katarina’s father.’

  ‘What in the hell is going on,’ Steven exploded. He no longer cared about his fellowship from the Balkan Ethnographic Trust, nor did he care for his relationship with his mentor. He now felt like walking away from graduate school and his Ph.D. entirely, simply to get away from Slatina. ‘I thought I was going to Yugoslavia for ethnographic research, but instead I find out you’ve sent me on some weird vampire hunt, where I don’t know if I’m the hunter or the hunted.’

  His loud voice attracted the attention of the old man, who came out onto the terrace. Slatina waved him away.

  ‘What is the Balkan Ethnographic Trust? What are you using me for? I don’t like being manipulated!’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course.’ Slatina remained sitting and looked Steven up and down, clearly taken aback. ‘I must apologize most profoundly for my failure to communicate to you the circumstances of your position. Due to the sensitive nature of the matter I felt it best to not inform you fully until you had gained further knowledge and I was certain you could be trusted. Certainly you have earned the right to many answers. Please calm down and tell me what you have done thus far.’

  ‘No,’ Steven said defiantly. ‘First you tell me what’s going on. I want to know what you’ve gotten me mixed up in.’

  ‘I must once again apologize,’ Slatina said sincerely. ‘I should have been more forthcoming with you prior to the start of your journey. Yet I feared if I told you, you would think me deluded, or that you would fear the dangers involved. Either way you would not have gone, and I knew no one else of sufficient moral stature and maturity who I could entrust with…’

  ‘Trust with what,’ Steven interrupted.

  ‘Steven, I shall be very blunt with you,’ Slatina said. He stood, grasped Steven by both shoulders and looked directly into his eyes, unblinking.

  What Steven saw made him gasp, for the professor’s eyes reddened until they were a deep luminescent scarlet, and then his irises altered their shape to resemble those of a large feline. Steven saw power and strength in them, as well as a brief flicker of a soul that had comprehended the depths of human darkness and was haunted by it.

  Then in a heartbeat the scarlet eyes sprang and burst through his own, crawling into the core of his soul as Slatina’s gaze clutched Steven in an iron grip. Steven watched powerless as Slatina reached inside him, ripped out his heart and handed it to the jackal-headed Anubis, who placed it on a golden balance to be measured against a glowing feather. A hideous beast with a crocodile head and hippo hindquarters crouched at his side, growling and salivating in anticipation of devouring Steven’s pulsating heart. As Anubis lowered the heart on the balance Steven felt chills course throughout his body. He watched in horror as the balance began to dip downward, only to gradually halt its movement and then ever so slowly ascend until it was level with the feather. And then the feather inched downward as the heart rose ever so slightly. The growling beast roared with dismay and vanished, and suddenly Steven was back on the terrace, looking into Slatina’s gentle smile.

  He felt violated and naked, ashamed to look at the professor. An uncomfortable silence followed, in which Steven stared at the tile flooring.

  Finally Slatina spoke. ‘You have the heart of a good man, Steven Roberts. What I shall share with you…you must never divulge to anyone. Otherwise you will suffer your life to be taken.’

  Steven could see this was no idle threat: Slatina, he was now sure, had clearly carried it out on previous occasions and would not hesitate to do so again.

  ‘And by accepting this information you shall bind yourself to me in a very difficult quest,’ Slatina continued. ‘Is this what you want?’

  Steven stood, silent and uncertain. Uncertain whether he wanted to enter further into Slatina’s strange world, and whether he fully comprehended the choice he was about to make. ‘What kind of a quest? What’re you talking about?’

  Slatina’s eyes maintained their eerie glow: ‘Good against Evil, Light against Dark, a quest that could end with you losing your soul and your life, or perhaps saving the souls and lives of others.’

  Steven looked at him for several moments, frightened by the eyes and the power that lay behind them, unsure of himself and Slatina, unsure of the wisdom of what he was doing.

  And then he nodded his head affirmatively, although still uncertain.

  ‘Do not nod your head. You must say it. You must give me your spoken word,’ Slatina looked directly at him with those unearthly cat eyes, now a dark crimson.

  ‘Yes,’ Steven’s voice emerged uneven.

  ‘Very well. I know you to be trustworthy and a man of honor and conscience. The light you nurture within your heart is strong…’ Slatina’s voice trailed off. He smiled at Steven, his eyes now reverting to their normal shape and color.

  Slatina approached the wrought-iron rail of the terrace and looked down. He sniffed the air from habit. ‘Sit down, drink your tea, eat a sandwich, and permit your old professor to share with you a tale unlike any you have ever heard.’

  Only now did Steven notice the railing was covered with butterflies. They moved aside as Slatina approached, making space for him.

  ‘I fought on these very battlements when we drove the Turks from Buda in 1686,’ he exclaimed wistfully. ‘We lost many good men and destroyed the entire city in the process. But that is another story, one which I shall tell you on another, perhaps less serious occasion.’

  Steven looked at him and listened, uncertain whether to believe Slatina’s claim about fighting in a battle at this very spot over 300 years ago. After all, the professor looked so young. Steven sat down, picked up a sandwich and realized he had lost his appetite.

  ‘Now, where shall I begin,’ Slatina asked as he stood at the railing, both hands firmly grasping the wrought iron, staring across the river over the rooftops of Buda and Pest into space, as though transported back through time. ‘I was born in 1640 into a patrician family on the Dalmatian island of Hvar, to a goodly mother, kind and wise.
Her family married her off at a young age to the heir of the Slatina family, a rogue by the name of Hektor, ten years her senior, may God abandon his soul to the fires of Hell. Have you ever been to Hvar, young Steven? It has the oldest indoor theatre in all Europe and is really quite beautiful. We are proud of it… But I digress.’ His eyes shone as he recalled his home.

  ‘My mother was beautiful, pure and gentle with a strong faith in God. My father was a wastrel, whose life was given to pursuing worldly pleasures: gambling, women, wine and exotic powders and pastes from the Orient, what we today call narcotics. She brought with her a dowry of several servants, slaves, vineyards on the north side of Hvar and on the island of Vis. The family press made a rather good Vugava. You do know about Vugava, of course…’ his voice trailed off as he wandered through distant memories.

  ‘Vugava?’ Steven was confused.

  ‘Yes, our white wine, raw, primitive and powerful, and it is made only on Vis. It won the name “Queen of Wines” from the Greeks, and was exported throughout the ancient world: Cyprus, Crete, Rome, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera… As a wine it is not for everyone…but I digress yet again.’

  ‘To feed his evil habits and cover his gambling debts, my father traded with the Turks and the Genoese contrary to the laws of Venice…’

  ‘Venice?’ Steven asked, intrigued. ‘What did he have to do with Venice?’

  ‘Venice? But of course you know that Hvar was a Venetian possession at the time.’

  Steven kicked himself for forgetting Balkan history. ‘So, are you the one they called the Venetian?’

  Slatina looked surprised. ‘How did you know that? It was my nickname when I served the Habsburg Emperors.’ His tone showed newfound respect for Steven.