Life Cycle is chapter three of the Iron Butterfly. Chapters one and two are The Butterfly’s Body and The Color of the Wings respectively.

by Richard Lutman

A district magistrate, Mr. Wang of Chang-shan, was in the habit of commuting the fines and penalties meted out to prisoners under the penal code.  On his own initiative he substituted a system whereby the prisoners would produce in his courtroom a corresponding number of butterflies commensurate with his sentence.  He would delight in freeing them, rejoicing to see them fluttering hither and thither, like pieces of tinsel scattered about in the breeze.  But one night he had a dream in which a young lady, dressed in brightly colored clothing, appeared before him.

            “This cruel practice of yours,” she said.  “Has brought many of my sisters to an untimely end.  Now you shall pay the price for satisfying your pleasures.”

            The young lady then changed herself into a butterfly and flew away.

            The next day the magistrate was sitting, sipping a cup of wine.  Suddenly, he was told that his Inspector General was outside.  He ran out at once to receive his important visitor, forgetting that one of his female companions had put a white flower on his official hat.

            The Inspector General took this as an act of extreme disrespect towards himself and was very angry.  He severely censured Mr. Wang, turned away and departed.

            Thereafter, there were no further substitutions of butterflies for penal sentences at Chang-shan.

1

Leighton’s apartment smelled of mold and noodles.  A cool breeze swept through the narrow rooms and the air conditioner rattled loudly over the sound of the sea as it smashed against the cliffs below the wildly overgrown lawn to the east.

Gloria carefully filled my glass with wine.  When I tried to look into her eyes as she passed, she didn’t look up.  Then she sat across from me, her back to the lawn.

Leighton held the wine to the light and shook it.  The glass became stained with the dark liquid.

“Tomorrow we are going to find Mrs. McLeod’s grave,” he said to her.  “We’ll take one of the launches around the eastern end of the island, row ashore then head inland.  You can join us if you like.  It could prove to be quite an expedition.  I haven’t been to the grave in years.  The lettering and detail on the stone is quite beautiful.   It is said that her husband, the sea captain, spent a lot of money to have the stone placed on the cliff above the sea to mark the place she died.  The ship was barely out of port when the fever killed her.  He never married again.  He must have loved her a great deal to have provided such a gravestone.”

“What do you want your gravestone to be like?” I said.

“Never die,” she said.  “Forever.”

She crossed her legs at the ankles.

“Everyone must die sometime,” said Leighton.  “You can’t cheat death.”

“You could take pictures,” I said.  “It’ll be fun.”

“No.” she said.

“Why not?”

“Young and foolish,” said Gloria and stood up.

“Wouldn’t you want someone to bury you like the sea captain did for his wife?”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“How is your father?” said Leighton.  “I heard he was ill.”

“Maybe much better.”

She looked uneasy.

“If you don’t want to come you can watch us from the goat pens,” I said.  “I’ll wave to you.”

“Rice, Bokchoi, and dumplings for our meal,” said Leighton.  “It should be first rate. And Garupa from the fish market on MiddleIsland.  I had Mr. Chao choose it.”

She stood by the window looking out at the overgrown gardens.

“Snake,” she said.  “Big snake.”

Leighton crossed to her and stood close.

She squeezed his arm.  He didn’t move.  She loosened her grip and caught my eyes.  The door opened and two men brought in the food on covered aluminum trays.  Leighton motioned toward the carved wooden table.  The trays were placed quietly on the green cloth.  The two figures turned and reentered the dark.

The air conditioner clattered.

Gloria slowly filled her plate, sat, then picked at the food.  Leighton didn’t hesitate and took a helping from each of the dishes.  I followed and decided on the Bokchoi, then the rice and fish.

“You’re not hungry?” he said.

She scooped a small amount of rice into her bowl and shoveled it into her mouth with chop sticks, her eyes were downcast on the bowl as if not wanting to miss a single grain.

I pushed a piece of Garupa onto my plate, then into my mouth.

“A masterpiece,” said Leighton.  “I think when they put their minds to it my cooks are the best in all Hong Kong.”

She poked at the Bokchoi, selected several small pieces to her liking and stuffed them into her mouth.

“Did you ever find out who left you the white jade?” said Leighton.  “It was such an exquisite carving of a dragon.”

She shook her head.

I looked at both of them.  Once again I was shut out from the other world they shared.

“Perhaps the jade was from a secret admirer,” said Leighton.  “Or perhaps someone to fear.”

No.” she said.  “No one like that.  Mistake.”

She was uneasy and sought me out.  I squeezed her hand.

“I’ll say no more,” said Leighton.  “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

I wanted to kiss her, but knew she wouldn’t like it.  She loved it best in the private and humid dark of the bungalow.  I wondered of the other darks she had spread her scent through.  A scent that returned each time I closed my eyes.  I felt as though I were falling dizzily toward the black hole of her dead eye.

“What will you do while we are away?” said Leighton.

“Sleep,”  She said.

“Too much sleep is bad for you,” I said.  “You’ll grow fat.”

“No.”

“I have the scientific research to prove it,” said Leighton.

“You fill head with trash.”

She looked at me, and then turned away when I had no answer that I could give her.  Leighton poured himself a gin and tonic.  The ice cubes rattled loudly.  The tang of juniper filled the room then subsided.

“Trash?” said Leighton.   “Science isn’t trash.  It’s based on the evidence of what is around us.  What lives and why and for how long?  Surely this is nothing new to you.  We have talked about it before.  How could you have forgotten so easily?”

2

The launch stopped about thirty yards from shore and a rowboat was lowered into the choppy water.

“One hour,” said Leighton to the captain.  “Be back here in one hour.  Blow the horn and wait for us.”

He jumped in, followed by two men with machetes.  Then I scrambled down onto a seat.  The rowboat was pushed off and the men began to row toward the shore that rocked crazily ahead of us.  No one spoke.

Leighton braced himself by holding onto the bowline.  The boat hit the beach and Leighton stepped onto the coarse gray sand.  A small shrine of white stones covered with joss sticks had been built against a boulder to our left.  The two men jumped out and hauled the boat onto the sand.

“Do you know that even when it’s dry,” he said, “there’s always water here?  The waters are rumored to have magical powers.  The only time I drank the water it tasted like earth and was very gritty.  No better or worse than other spring water I’ve had.  Who was I to judge otherwise?  As for the magic take some back to Gloria.  It will make more sense to her.”

He motioned the men to follow us toward a dark patch of vines growing from the dirt cliff above the beach.

He unsheathed his machete and began to chop his way forward up the steep hillside.

“Somewhere to our right are the ruins of a Chin Dynasty village.  You can still see the worn foundations of two stone houses.  The grave is about one hundred and fifty feet east above it by a twisted tree with seven branches and a white scar that looks like a half moon.”

Before I plunged into the tangled undergrowth, I looked up at the wall above us.

“Was she there?” he said.

I shook my head.

“Maybe she will be waiting when we get back.  Maybe she won’t.  She wasn’t herself last night.   Something has happened.  It could be something serious, or not.  Once when she came to visit, she didn’t speak for hours.  Then she broke into giggles when I dropped an ice cube, and said she was hungry.”

“I didn’t see anything wrong with her.” I said.

“Didn’t you?”

He took the pipe from his mouth and knocked it against a tree.  The ashes fell over the muddy trail.

“She has never met a bloke like you before,” he said.

Through the brush and vines I saw the crew of a shrimp boat haul its nets and dump the shimmering catch onto the rough brown deck.

“I could say the same about her,” I said.

“She is true.”

“What does she do when she’s not with me?” I said.

“I don’t know.  She never told me.”

“Do you really expect me to believe that?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“In any case you’ll have a lot to tell her if she’s there when we get back.”

The sound of the machetes stopped.

We broke into a small vault of trees and vines.  One of the men pointed at the dirt.  Leighton took his machete and plunged it into the ground.

The metal blade struck something hard.  He pulled it out of the dirt and plunged it in again.  Once more the blade made contact.  He signaled the men to start digging.  In a few minutes they had cleaned the dirt from the stone with their hands and branches.  We stood looking at it.  They smiled when Leighton gave them each cigarettes.

Martha McLeod.  Beloved Wife of William.

The water in the Peach Blossom pool is

A thousand feet deep

But not as deep as my love for you

1820-1841

A gust of wind shook the leaves, and the first drops of rain bounced off the ground and flowed in rivulets across the gray face of the stone.

3

I watched Gloria in the bedroom mirrors of the bungalow.  First her eyes explored her body, and then her fingers, as if tracing herself so as not forget what she felt like.  She didn’t seem to care that I could see what she was doing.  Perhaps she wanted me to.  For an instant her eye caught mine then moved on as if nothing had happened.

The three mirrors reflected her body back upon itself, each image floating in its own silver pool.  She cupped her breasts and tilted her head back to the left, then to the right as if undecided about something she detected in her breasts.

“Fix your hair,” I said.  “It’s all over and very ugly.”

“You ugly,” she said.  “Big ugly man.”

Then she returned to the safety of the uneven light of the mirror.

“Lovers gone,” she said.  “Dead and gone.  I no longer cry for them or you.  Stupid.”

I wanted to come up behind her, press her against me, and squeeze her breasts until she cried out the way I imagined Han did.

She looked at me, rocking back and forth where she sat with a smile on her lips, her arms and legs folded to her body.  Did she imagine herself in the arms of a lover she loved through the perfume and liquor?  When she opened her eyes, the lover had gone.

Her skin shone as if covered with gold leaf.

She rose and threw her arms around me, as if she were drowning.  Then she tore her arms away.

I heard the sound of bees over the flowers and of leaves and the wind, each sound like a sharp precise pain against the cavity of my body.  I was afraid to breathe too deeply for fear the sound would cut me and bring the slow ooze of blood from my skin.

“Butterfly,” she said.  “My butterfly.  You are so much and I not.  Must not love me.  Bad end.”

“No.” I said.  “No bad end.”

“You do not know.”

“Why won’t you ever say you love me?”

4

“You are in a very enviable position,” said Brock as he studied me over his beer at the Bahama Hotel’s bar.  “But I really think you’re a bastard.  A gweilo with his feet in two worlds.  You are like the colossus of Rhodes that eventually tumbled into the sea.”

“Do you see that for me?”

“You’ll fall.  You have to.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then you will become a legend,” he said.  “The gweilo who was the lover of the one-eye and the yellow-haired English.  What does Leighton think?”

“He toasts the sunset with a large gin and tonic.”

“Fuck you. I thought Irene would save you,” he said.  “Now she’s found someone else.  You messed it up.”

“Maybe I was interested in her.”

“She liked you.   But Sonya thinks you’re a real pain.”

“I don’t care what she thinks.”

We both had been drinking since noon, and my skin felt numb.  The fish and chips no longer enough to absorb the alcohol, sat like a queasy lump in my stomach.  The fish had been undercooked and I had buried it under catsup to hide its slippery fishy taste.

“You have to let go.  Free yourself from Gloria so you can move on and find yourself the butterfly no one else has.  That’s your destiny.”

“Suppose I don’t want it.”

“What else is there?”

“Gloria.”

The words hung heavy above us.  I studied them, felt the letters in my hand.  Put them on my tongue.  They tasted sour.

“Tomorrow,” said Brock.  “Tomorrow you will have to let go.”

“Yes,” I said.  “Tomorrow.”

5

The fish had made me sick and I spent several hours vomiting my soul into the sink or in weeds along the trail.  The night was agony, my body hollow and reverberating.  Each sound became her step, or the echo of her step.  Johanna came by in the afternoon and found me on the large rock below the radar installation.

I’d been glad to see her and for a moment I thought I could fall in love with her then the feeling passed and I wished she would go away.

“You look awful,” she said.

“Something I ate.”

“You should have called me,” she said.

“There wasn’t much you could have done.”

“I met Leighton at the dock,” she said.  “He was there to meet some guests.  He invited us over for drinks provided I was able to find you.”

She climbed up next to me and stood with her arms on her hips.

“I can see why you come here,” she said.  “It must be spectacular at night.”

She ruffled my hair then sat next to me on the hot stone.

“It’s good to see you,” she said.  “I’d begun to wonder. Things have been beastly at home.  I just had to get away.  Can I stay for the night?”

“Are you sure you want to?”

“Positive,” she said.

I smiled.

“Am I foolish to be in love with you?”

“Do you know how old I am?”

“I don’t care,” she said.  “I need you in my life.  Is there any hope?  Leighton says I should save you.”

“He talks too much,” he said.

“I want to try anyway.”

What would she look like in the morning as she finally lay next to me, hair askew and smelling of stale sex?

“There’s not much to eat,” I said. “Some sardines, noodles and peanut butter.”

“A banquet.”

“For breakfast we can go down the hill to the hospital for some congee.”

“I’d love to do that.”

“The Land Rover pulls up at seven the food pots are quickly unloaded and their contents are spilled all over the place.  Fifteen minutes later everything is removed whether you’re finished or not.”

She laughed.  “My father visited here years ago, but he never mentioned much about what went on here.  He’d always been fascinated by Leighton.  He thinks he should be knighted for the work he’s doing here.”

“I don’t think Leighton would like that much.”

“Will we go for drinks?” she said.

“I’ve never refused him yet and I don’t think I could now.”

“I look a mess,” she said.

“He won’t mind,” I said.  “Why do you love me?”

“I don’t know.  It’s one of those things that just happens.”

“Did Leighton say what time he wants us to join him?”

“Half five.”

I started to say something to her.  Then she threw her arms around me as if holding on for dear life.

6

“I remember your father,” said Leighton where he stood by one of his bookcases.  “You don’t look like him at all.”

“I hope not,” said Johanna.

He laughed.   Johanna and I sat at a small carved table in the living room that Leighton had decorated with Chinese art.

“There goes another theory.  Have you lived here long?”

“Since I was ten,” she said.  “Father was posted here as part of the diplomatic corps. “

“Ah.  The infamous Diplomatic Corps.”

“You don’t like them?” she said.

“They have their place.   Do you ever want to go back?”

“This is where I belong.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.  Very much so.”

“To England, then” said Leighton.  “May she still be as we left her.”

We held our glasses toward the ceiling and drank.

“How are your butterflies?” said Leighton.

“Even with all this rain the numbers are good.”

“That’s good to hear.  Someone from the reclamation office was here a few days ago nosing about.  He was very dodgy.”

“I’ll have an updated list for you soon,” I said.

“Good.  I think I’ll go into Hong Kong and give it to him in person so I can stick it up his arse.

“What do you do to keep yourself busy?” said Leighton to Johanna.  “I’ve heard of many English who had nothing to do and drank themselves back to England where they died.”

“I don’t think I’ll end up like that,” said Johanna.  Sometimes I work for my father.  Lately, though I’ve been looking around for other things to do.   Father arranged it so that each of his children had just enough to barely live on.  He wanted to see what we would do.  Both my brothers went back to England to work in banks.”

“Do your brothers like living in England?”

“Yes,” said Johanna.  “The one time I did go back for a visit things were dull and I missed the smells the excitement of Hong Kong and the beauty of the islands.”

“Have you had many lovers?” said Leighton.  “You’re far too attractive for this place.  I’d hate to see you end up an old maid.”

She laughed.  “Nothing serious although I was very much in love with a Chinese boy once.”  She looked at me.  “I’ll tell you about it sometime.”

“Did your father know?”

“I don’t think so.  He wants me to marry someone of my own class.  But he hadn’t counted on Hong Kong.”

“Sometimes I wish I could stay longer,” I said.

“Then why don’t you?” said Leighton.  “I’m sure it can be arranged.  I’ll see what I can do.”

“I’d like that,” said Johanna.  “I’d like that very much.  And I’ll talk to father.”

7

Johanna stood next to me by the screen doors of the bungalow looking out at the rain.

I reached for my glass of whiskey and drank it.

She watched me, then took her cup raised it to her lips, lowered it, and smiled.

I stared past her to the wall, sensing only the rise and fall of my chest and the throbbing of my muscles.  I was getting drunk, but not in the way I wanted.  I closed my eyes and felt a desperate uncertainty.

“To the fearsome butterfly hunter who breaks the heart of an English girl,” said Johanna.

She drank quickly.

“Why does it have to rain?” she said.  “I hate it when it rains, everything is so wet and miserable you can’t think straight.  Look at this,” she said and knelt down.  “An American penny.  Is it yours?  Maybe it will bring me luck and you’ll love me after all.  May I keep it?”

“Why not?  Everyone needs a little luck now and then.”

“Do you?”

“I’ve never thought about it.” I said.

“I don’t believe that.”

She held the penny unsteadily under my eyes.

“Damn you.” she said.  “What’s the matter with you?  I’m talking to you.”

The rain hissed against the screens.

“I know.  Why did you come here?”

“I don’t know.  I thought I’d find something that would help me to understand you.   But there’s nothing here.  Nothing.  I feel as though I’m standing on a ledge.”

“Then jump.”

“Fuck you.”

She began slowly undressing, her fingers undoing the buttons on her blouse, then fumbling with the zipper of her skirt.

“Damn.” she said then jerked the skirt down.  The skirt and blouse fell about her ankles with her bra and panties.  She stood in the center of the room naked then took a step toward me.

Her arms circled me as she drew my body to hers.

“Put your clothes on,” I said.

“What’s the matter?”

“I can’t,” I said.  “Not now.”

She turned away fighting tears.

“I’m sorry,” she said.  “Please don’t hate me.”

“I don’t hate you.  I might even love you.”

“Could you?  Perhaps I was wrong in coming here.  I never thought this would happen.   Maybe I made it all up.  Maybe I’ve made everything up.”

“No, you weren’t wrong in coming here at all.  And I know what I have to do about Gloria.”

8

After ten days Gloria still had not returned so when Brock said he had arranged for a boat to the Ling Dings I found the offer to join him hard to refuse.  I also thought in some way I could hurt Gloria by going to this island of great pleasure.  She would know that I had been with another woman and a small battle would have been won.

The day’s heat had been unusually fierce.  Even standing on the deck of the motorized junk, I could feel my skin burn.  Ahead the islands were covered in a thick blue haze.  They looked more formidable than any islands I’d seen.  The huge expanses of gray rock were surrounded by patches of faded green.  The boat bumped against a worn cement pier and we stepped out.

“The perfect yin and yang,” said Brock. “Beauty and ugliness.  It’s really quite a beautiful place once you get used to it.  I tried hiking there last year.  I was curious.  The heat was unbearable, even for me, and the trails led nowhere.”

The soldier frowned as he looked at my passport then thrust it back at me.

“Two hours,” he said.  “You go in two hours.”

He looked at Brock.

“You stay all night.”

“Welcome to China,” said Brock.

We climbed the short steep trail to the door of the first building.

“You are new,” said the woman who came out to greet us.  She was dressed in jeans and an untucked white blouse.   She studied me then nodded to Brock.  “I have just the one for you.  Tina Chen.  You like it here.  Come again.  She is young and from Hong Kong.  Very special.  Speak English like from New York.  She will make you happy.  Feel good, ready to go back to wife.”

I followed her inside and down the stale smelling hallway.  She stopped at the end of the hall and opened a door.  I stepped inside and the door closed behind me.

A girl came shyly into the room behind me.  She wore dark glasses and her face was covered with a light scarf.  Something about her walk and the way she held herself made me think of Gloria, but I knew it couldn’t be.

The girl trembled.

“No light,” she said in a muffled voice.  “Better that way.  Lie down.  Massage first then feel better for what come.”

I took off my shirt and lay down on the hard table.  I heard her open a bottle, then the slippery rustle of her hands on my skin the way Gloria’s hands rustled over my skin and I thought I smelled her.  I rolled over, grabbed her.   The glasses and scarf fell from her face.  She backed away and crouched into the shadows, tears glistening.

“No,” said Gloria.  “No.  Not what think.”

I pulled her to her feet and pushed her against the wall.  My fist drove into her face.  She let out a yelp then collapsed onto the floor whimpering.

“No.” she said as I slammed the door.  “Not understand.  Come back.  Must come back.”

9

Back at the bungalow and after drinking a whole bottle of whiskey I found myself in the in the desolate ruins of the old Vietnamese detention center.  Outside the leaves were quiet.  Harsh light seeped through the broken membrane of a window where it fell on the iron wings of the butterfly statue.

I stared at them wishing to hold her again, shaded by the rusting wings where we could decay together.  I will let her keep the secret of her eye.  I know longer care.  My heart has closed.

I saw her shed her clothes like skins.

Her hair was warm.

-Quiet, she said in a whisper.  –Quiet.

The twisted metal menaces.

I drew my knife ready for the kill.

10

Piles of sand and loosely stacked bricks spilled out into the street in front of number 227 Long Fish Street that ran parallel to the Sai Kung harbor. The six-story building had been freshly painted.  Wash hung from bamboo poles on the roof.  A group of children who were playing in the sand stopped and watched as I entered the narrow doorway.  The hallway was stifling and smelled of rotten fish and urine.  I climbed the stairs to the third floor and knocked at the first door I came to.  I heard someone move, then the door opened and a young Chinese girl stood before me.  She had short black hair and wore a yellow blouse and jeans. She studied me intently.

“Welcome to my father’s house, Wilson” she said.

“Who are you?” I said.

“I am Scarlett.  Gloria’s sister.  Did not she tell you about me?”

“She told me nothing.  I’m looking for her.”

“That is very bad.  She is not here.  She has been away a long time.  I thought she was with you because that is where she should be.  I am hungry.  Will you take me to McDonalds?  I like their fries.   They are the best in America, do not you think?  My birthday is tomorrow.  Will you give me present of pearls?”

She took my arm and led me back outside.  For a moment the children stopped their games and stared at us.  Scarlett smiled at them.

She guided me around the corner to a red brick building.  We entered, ordered the fries and sat.

“You have many questions?”

I nodded.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing.  Americans always suspicious.”

“Where’s Gloria?”

“I told you.  Gone.”

“I must see her.”

“But you saw me and now you are here.  Not very romantic if you ask me.  Not like the island.”

“What has she told you about the island?”

“It is a place full of snakes and butterflies.”

“What game are you playing?”

“No game.   Why you think that?  You are foolish.  You want me like you want her?   I can tell.  I give you a baby.  Make you a man again.  You are very sexy.  I like the way you move, I think.”

“You bitch.  Where is she?”

“American like bitches.  We can go back to my room.  No one is there.  I make you forget Gloria.  Even though she is my sister, she is a no good, I think.  My baby will have two eyes and speak English.”

“Just like Gloria’s baby?”

She shook her head.

“She does not have a baby anymore,” she said.  “Mistake.  Very sad.”

“Where is she?”

“Maybe with Han where she belong.  She deserve him.  Now go.”

“Not until you tell me where she is,” I said.

“You should not have gone to the island, I think,” she said.

“I didn’t know she’d be there.”

“But she was.”

“I have been waiting for her to return.  Two weeks.”

“I have been waiting longer,” she said.  “Whole family waiting longer.  I know who you are.  My sister does, too.”

“And who am I?”

“Puzzle pieces.”

She laughed.  “Many puzzle pieces.  Too much for Gloria, I think.  You hurt her very much.  You are a big fucking bastard.”

I got up and walked back outside and headed for the waterfront where I knew there would be a breeze to cool my thoughts.

She ran after me.

I stood looking down into the oily water, oblivious to the calls for a gaito boat from the woman with gold teeth.  She kept pointing at one boat where a man with no arms smiled back at me.

I almost felt like hiring him to take me to the island where an amusement park had once been.  I’d step ashore and search out the remains, knowing there was nothing left.  Perhaps I could find a small stone hut still free of the jungle.  I’d live there until I died and my bones mingled with the bones of the Ferris wheel and the roller coaster.

“She is in love with you,” said Scarlett.  “It is very bad.  Nothing good will come of it.  My fortuneteller says it is so.”

“Fuck your fortuneteller.”

11

“She wasn’t at her father’s house,” I said.

“I thought she might be,” said Leighton.  “She used to go there a lot.”

“Do you know anything about her sister?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I met her.”

“I thought someday you might.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It wasn’t necessary,” he said.

“Fuck you.”

He poured me another drink.  I downed it quickly.

“I think Gloria has really gone this time.”

“What did you expect?”

“Does Gloria have a child?”

“You must be careful,” said Leighton.  “I’ve seen the large female cobra again.  Make sure your doors and windows are tightly shut.  I expect her to be quite dangerous if confronted.”

He stood before me toweling himself.  He finished and tossed the towel over his shoulder.

“Every so often someone gets bitten.  I remember my first cousin telling me how he saw two cobras mating in the living room of his rented bungalow near a tea plantation.  He never went back and sent for his belongings later.”

“You didn’t answer me.  Does Gloria have a child or not?”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t believe you.”

He disappeared into the bedroom and emerged a few minutes later dressed in an embroidered silk robe.

“How did Gloria seem the other day?” said Leighton.  “There was a time not long ago when she would have been eager to join us on our search for the grave.

“I’ve never seen her like this before.  She is slowly wasting away, and not from lack of food.  She used to be so of full of life it was a wonder.”

There was a knock at the door.  Leighton excused himself and I heard the sound of excited voices from the dark outside.

“I have an emergency,” he said.  “Someone has tried to kill himself.  A model patient, too.  Very upsetting.”

He darted into the bedroom again and returned dressed in a crisp shirt and shorts.

“This one will be hard to explain to the directors.  Come back later and I’ll tell you all about it.  It will help you forget Gloria.”

        12

 “Where’s Han?” I said.

The clerk who had been watching me since I entered the jewelry store just off Nathan Road shook her head.

“Han?”

Again she shook her head.

The sun jangled off the gold chains and bracelets in the display window.  The narrow street was full of bustle and noise.  The cool from the air conditioner was pleasant against my hot skin.

A woman entered, talked to the clerk, then sat down.  She signaled me to wait, looked under the counter and gave the woman a package.  The woman nodded and left.

“Marry,” she said.  “Go to New Territories.”

“Who did he marry?”

“She very beautiful and smell like yellow flowers.  He very happy.”

“What was the girl’s name?”

“Not remember.” She said.

“Gloria?”

She shook her head.

“Did she have a patch on one eye?”

“No.  She have two places for eyes.”

The phone rang.

“I must go.  Next week.  Maybe Tuesday.  You come again.”

I turned and saw a girl across the street that looked like Gloria.  By the time I’d crossed to where she had been. She was gone. It was raining harder now.

13

I heard a loud knock on the door and rose from the table to see Gloria standing in the rain under the bamboo that grew beyond the path to the bungalow.  A battered suitcase was on the ground next to her.

“Hello butterfly.  Wait long,” she said.  “No more letters.  No foolish.  I come back.  Marry.  Things be good.  Have your baby.  Only baby.”

“Go away,” I said.  “I don’t want you anymore.  You no longer exist.  You are nothing more than words.”

She hid her face.

She cringed as I raised my hand to hit her.  I couldn’t do it and my hand fell to my side.

“Come inside and dry off.  I’d hate for you to die of cold because of me.  That’s the least I can do for you.  Then you must go.”

She picked up her suitcase and followed me into the bungalow.

“Stay.  I change.  You see,” she said.  “Have tea later.  Be fine.  Know what must do.  Explain all.  I am here.  Never leave now.”

She opened the bedroom door.

I heard her scream, high-pitched and terrifying like a dying animal.  I rose and ran to the bedroom.  She stood before me blood oozing from a wound on her cheek.

“Butterfly.  I love you.”

She took a step toward me and collapsed.  In the dark behind I saw the cobra rise, hood extended.