Virgin With Butterflies (10 page)

T
HE SWEET STOOD KIND OF
at attention, two on each side. One of the boys brought in a teeny little bag that was scratched and scuffed and about to fall to pieces. The other one brought on a paper sack that sure looked tacky. In they came and we got introduced and the friend's name was Mr. Something that sounded like Mr. Bosco. But I knew it wasn't Mr. Bosco because Mr. Bosco was the name of a man at the Elk's carnival and street fair in Mattoon that ate snakes and everybody said was wild.

Only he wasn't very wild, I guess, because the next day he came into Uncle Ulrich's butcher shop and bought a porterhouse steak. He wasn't a wild man at all; just a nice man that was only wild when he was in the Elk's carnival. But this friend of the prince's wasn't the same man and his name wasn't the same name, but it sounded like Mr. Bosco, so that's what I'll have to call him.

Well, it certainly gave me something to think about. I hadn't been where anybody talked much English lately but I had seen those Chicago newspaper articles about those two Japanese that hadn't gone home soon enough, and now we were at war with their country. And so I had to think about how I ought to feel, sitting in a plane with
a little old man that maybe Jeff was getting ready to be a soldier to shoot because he was our enemy. I couldn't seem to see what I ought to do, and so I didn't do anything. After all, it was the prince's plane, and the prince didn't even pretend to be an American. I'd never heard of his country being at any war with Japan.

And the more I saw of Mr. Bosco the more I didn't want anybody to kill him, because he was the nicest little man you could imagine, smiling all the time when he wasn't laughing out loud. And he spoke American a lot better than a lot of people who live right in it.

Mr. Bosco was a friend, but a poor friend, anybody could see that. His little black suit was shiny at the elbows and across the shoulders and on the behind, and had a little line of fringe on the back of the bottoms of his pant legs. And his hat was so old it had two greasy spots under the brim where it sat on his ears.

He took off his hat when we was all introduced, and he took off his hat every time he started to talk to you, but he always put it right back on again.

Some people can say a thing and it's too intimate, and you so want to tell 'em they better mind their own business. But Mr. Bosco, he could ask you anything and it seemed like you couldn't feel that way.

The first time I felt this way was when we were on our way to Natal. Aunt Mary had said we might as well go that far with the prince because it was on the way back to Chicago, which I didn't know quite what that meant. Well, when we was on our way and dinner was over, there was Mr. Bosco taking his little hat off and smiling and sitting down next to me.

And he said: “You are going to be princess, yes?” he says.

“What give you that idea, Mr. Bosco?” I says.

“You gave me the idea,” says Mr. Bosco, and he laughed like a little bell ringing.

“How did I?” I says.

“You are pretty,” he says. “You don't wear paint on your lips, you travel with Prince Halla Bandah and you got a pretty old lady to go along, too, so nobody thinks you are going to be princess, so nobody thinks nothing at all,” he said.

“She's my aunt,” I says, and by this time it didn't seem like a lie. “The prince, he's just a friend,” I says, “and he gave us a lift.”

“How far are you going with the prince?” he says.

But how could I tell him when I didn't know myself? So I says, “How far you going, Mr. Bosco?”

“All the way,” he says. “I have business.”

“Where?” I says.

“All the way,” he says again. “Business here with the Brazilians,” he says, “in India, with prince's brother and the prince, too. Much business, very important. You don't know the prince's brother?”

“No,” I says, “I don't know any of the family except just this one prince,” I says.

“You wait till you see the old prince,” he says. “He is a very good man.”

“You mean this gentleman's father?” I says.

“Yes,” he says. “The old prince, he'll be very glad see you.”

“Why?” I says.

“You see,” he says, and he laughed and took a little green bug out of his pocket and held it out in the flat of his hand. It was made out of some kind of little green stone and carved like a cockroach, only without those little pinchers in the front. It had a little link on it that looked like gold to hang it on a chain if you had one.

“What's that?” I says.

“Present,” he says, “for you. Keep it always,” he says. “It will bring good luck.”

“Thanks,” I says.

I wanted to know what had made him say all of those things like that. Only I didn't want to hurt the feelings of such a nice little smiling poor man, even if he was from a country that we're the enemy of.

“Where do you live at when you're home?” I says.

“Japan,” he says, and something that sounded like “Nagasacki.”

I knew he would tell the truth so I went on. “I understand,” I says, “from the prince, that his pop wasn't very pleased with him, and so he gave him a kind of a state and sent him off to live on it by himself,” I says.

“That true,” he says, “but the old prince will be very glad see you.”

“What is a state, Mr. Bosco?” I says.

“It is like a small country. It has land, many people and the prince has his own army, like a small country. The prince is like a king there, he kills anybody that doesn't do what he tell 'em,” he says. “His brother has the same. The old prince will be glad to see you.”

“I don't get it,” I says.

“Prince Halla Bandah's father,” he says, “sent his younger son away like the older son because the two boys got into a scheme with their neighbors to do what the English will not like. The boys work together. They are blood brothers. They made an oath to each other,” he says. “The neighbors do not like the English,” he says, “the neighbors do not like the old prince much, either.”

“How far is Japan from their country?” I says.

“Not so far,” he says.

I couldn't think of much to say to that so he got up.

“You keep my little present,” he says, and then very soft, “Maybe also papa sent his young son away because his young son has no wife. You keep present. It bring you much luck, and you have many children and grandchildren, too.” And he took off his little black hat and put it right back on again. Then he laughed louder than ever, and “Merry Christmas,” he says, and he went back to where he was sitting, laughing. I sure wished he had stayed there, because I had forgotten all about it being Christmas and I didn't like to be reminded.

The little green bug felt cold in my hand. I didn't like to interrupt Aunt Mary when she was writing in her little book. It was a funny kind of a book, because in a book the pages stay in it after you've wrote on 'em, like my compostion book at school. But this book of Aunt Mary's, it had pages in it, too, but when you pinched the back of it the pages would come right out without ever tearing and could be folded once, just to fit in some envelopes she had in a pocket on the back of the book. She sent one home from wherever we were at, like Panama,
where a young American man came for it to a hotel we had lunch at, and he had coffee with us.

And when we were in Rio we stopped at a place with a big American flag, and she gave that envelope to somebody while I was getting a drink of water, but I saw her do it and I came back and neither one of us mentioned it but we just sat there and had a cup of tea.

So after Mr. Bosco left me, I waited till Aunt Mary got through writing and came and sat with me. So I told her about Mr. Bosco, but not all, and I showed her the bug.

“That is a great compliment,” she says. “Americans or Englishmen that I have known, when they want to compliment you, they says they want you to come and sleep with them,” she says. “A Brazilian pinches you as you go by, but in my experience an Asian,” she says, “he wishes you many grandchildren. And often, if you don't look out, he'll give 'em to you.” And she said the bug was good luck just like he said. “It's a scarab,” she says.

Then I told her I didn't want the prince to make any mistakes about my intentions. I said I didn't mind visiting him up here in the air while I was waiting till I could go back to Chicago and get my job back, if I could get it back. I said I was glad of the trip as travel sure gives you an education, but I wouldn't for the world have the prince get any idea I was expecting anything like that.

So she said I wasn't to worry, and I said all right I wouldn't, anyway, as far as Natal, where we was nearly getting to, and where I supposed we would be saying goodbye to 'em all.

“Listen, child,” says Aunt Mary, “first think what this is. It's something you can talk to your grandchil
dren about,” she says. “Why not take the whole trip and enjoy it?”

“But Aunt Mary,” I says, “if I decide I don't want my grandchildren to be Indians, and that's what I expect to decide, how will I ever get back from India? Suppose Mr. Hoover goes broke?”

“There's always the king,” she says.

“What king?”

“George.”

“I never heard of him,” I says. “Is the king of India named an ordinary name that every waiter in the world has been called by?”

“He's Emperor of India,” she says.

“And named George?”

“Certainly. He's also the king of England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales.”

“Oh, I didn't know he had anything to do with our friends here,” I says.

“He has a lot to do with them,” she says, “and but for him, my dear, I wouldn't be here, or you, either.”

“King George?” I says.

“The same,” she says.

“I don't get it,” I says.

“You will,” she says. “What are you worrying about?”

“Just this,” I says, “it's one thing to thumb a ride halfway around the world, if you need it. But it wouldn't be polite to do that, and then if the prince makes you an honorable proposition—like everybody seems to be hinting that he might do—to say no, thanks, bud. Manners is manners,” I says. “It's one thing to walk home from Humboldt Park, but quite another thing to
start back from India, with nothing to your credit but that you've tried to live right,” I says.

Aunt Mary's laugh made everything seem all right. “Will you trust me?” she says.

“Sure,” I says, “but don't you come to me some dark night over there and say, listen, honey, he's a nice boy, and his folks are right well-to-do, and hadn't you better just go ahead and be a princess? Because if you don't his bad brother has got a snake farm and he's going to put you in it to think it over. I seen it in a movie and I couldn't sleep for a week.”

“Don't you worry,” she said, so I didn't.

We didn't see much of Natal. We went in and we got the gas and oil checked, and we turned to the right and went right out of Natal again. Bing, right out over the water.

It was the biggest thing I ever saw, and I've lived on Lake Michigan for years.

Before we got to Natal, the prince talked to Aunt Mary for awhile, and then he leaned over to me and “Thank you,” he says.

And “Thank you,” I says. After all it was his gas and oil and his boys waiting on me and his flowers on the trays and his airplane seat I was getting used to sitting in.

But then I thought, “And it's his friend that's Japanese, and that sits talking to him all the time so serious. Maybe Aunt Mary don't think much about the fact that we're at war with Japan,” I thought, “but then she hasn't got a letter in her bag from a long lean Texas cowpuncher that's quit driving a yellow taxi to go and
fight those fellers—one of whom could be a friend of the man whose airplane I'm getting this free ride in.”

But Aunt Mary didn't seem to pay any attention to Mr. Bosco, and I didn't like to bring up the subject of his Japaneseness, so I didn't. And that's what was in my mind as we left Natal.

It was night, the lights were on and the black curtains were pulled over the windows. We were to Hell-and-gone out over the water when the copilot came back with a paper in his hand. He said we couldn't go to Dakar, which it seems we had meant to do, because of something about some German people and some French people, and so we was going to Libeeria. And I certainly didn't care, because neither one of those countries—Dakar or Libeeria—had I ever heard of till that minute, and so while they were talking about it in all the languages I couldn't understand, I went to sleep.

Something woke me up as if a gun had gone off. But it wasn't a noise, it was the lack of noise that did it. One of the engines quit and the lights got dim, and then it seemed like our plane was going over a rough road because I was shaken nearly out of my seat and people looked scared. The prince brought me a lifesaver—not the kind you eat, with a hole in it so your wife won't know you've stopped at a bar on the way home, but another kind, with a hole in it, too, that you put your head in, instead of your tongue. It was like a bustle of my grandma's that Aunt Helga let me put on once to be Martha Washington at school, but my wig fell off and everybody laughed.