Death and the Butterfly by Colin Hester

Author:Colin Hester
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781640093263
Publisher: Counterpoint
Published: 2020-04-26T16:00:00+00:00

ON THIS DARK NIGHT IN January of 1941 as the horror-show bursts of blinding light and deafening sound thrust themselves up into the sky above the City—before they whitewashed themselves across the stars and the clouds—Mac patrolled as he always did. West along Streatfield and right up Kenton Lane before retracing his steps south down Kenton then back east along Streatfield (their house was 133) before again turning north to circle around the outer crescent—that would be Portland—then pace off the inner crescent (Langland)—in essence tightening with his footsteps a noose. And though he doubtless knew his way he was a lost man, our Mac—you feel the loss of a child (no matter its age at its demise) as an amputee loses his appendage yet still vividly experiences its presence: viscerally and deeply and with blind desperation, seeking to regain at least a single momentary access to its use, a tortuous desperation that lasts forever.

This night, beneath his black and belted pea jacket, Mac wore a submarine commander’s wool mock turtle—scratchy as a Brillo—but a welcome shield against the damp sop of night air that otherwise rheumed through his aging bones and congealed his marrow. As he circled this inner crescent (Langland), he knew he would have to confront the señora, Marte Benité, who lived at 146 and would be reading her poetry books under a blanketed hood of candlelight. As she did every night.

“Señora.”

“Señor Mac. Sí?”

In his mind, Mac always employed the word “substantial” to describe both her physical bearing and that of her inner presence. He invariably summoned forth the image of Madame Defarge in Dickens (that he’d never read) or that of Pilar, the de facto guerrilla leader in Hemingway’s newest book (that Mac also hadn’t read but he’d bought and sent in the post for Christmas to his daughter up in Godmanchester).

“Lights out, oy?” Mac suggested to the señora.

“I wait for you, Señor Mac.”

“As the Luftwaffe waits for you, sí?”

“Yes, Señor Mac.”

Mac turned to go.

“How is your daughters, Señor Mac?”

“Daughter. And she’s safe.”

“Buenos.”

Mac turned away to resume his rounds. The señora waggled the book from under her cowl.

“Blood Wedding, Señor Mac.”

“Aren’t they all?”

“This time, Señor Mac, we will defeat the Fascistas.”

And together they might have except that Mac turned away not quite as crisply as he always did, and the bootheel of his Wellington clipped Señora Benité’s garden grass beneath which lurked a Luftmine-A magnetic parachute mine. This disruption of the magnetic device contained inside caused the (34) P fuse to detonate, and with an explosive outgush of razor-sharp shrapnel, the landmine blew Mac’s legs off just above the knees as cleanly and instantly as if they had been severed and dispatched by the glinting scimitar of a khan.

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