Deirdre Vincent
"Swallowtail"

Sam stayed in his bed until the pain subsided, then willed his body to stand. He told himself that today it was time to begin. His kitchen was small, but with the table and chair removed, he calculated there would be enough room. After filling his bucket at the sink, he knelt on the linoleum floor, dipped his rag into the soapy water, and began to scrub. He worked carefully, getting the cloth into all the corners, and cleaning out the crevices with his thick nails. Sam had cleaned hundreds, maybe thousands of floors: ceramic floors and floors of polished oak, floors of the finest Italian marble, floors that had cost more money than Sam had made in his whole life. But this time it was special, and this floor would be cleaned as no other floor had been.

When the washing was done, Sam emptied his bucket and hung his rags on the line strung over the narrow alley between his building and the next. Then he took one of his work shirts and, ignoring the complaints from his knees, dried the floor in long, sweeping arcs.

After resting a few minutes, he went to his closet and pulled out an old suitcase. Inside, tied with string, was a small bundle. Sam carried it back to the kitchen and set it down in the middle of the floor. The rice-paper wrapping, yellowed with time, fell away to reveal yardage of the finest silk, blue as July. Placing his hand on the material, he closed his eyes and saw, again, his new bride, Mei Ling. She was smiling as she handed him the folded silk.

“You take this to America,” she had said, “and when you have made your fortune, you ask an American dressmaker to make an American-style dress for me with this silk.” Her eyes had danced. “You will remember how I look?” She had put her hands around her waist. “Where I am small...” she slid her hands to her breasts, “and where I am not so small?”

Sam smiled at the memory, so clear after 49 years.

“And when you come back to China,” she had said, “you bring me the dress and maybe some pretty, American-style shoes?” She had held out her leg. “You will remember how my feet are small?” she had teased.

Sam unfolded the fabric and smoothed it out carefully. The silk quivered at the edges, as if taking in a deep breath. He stood up, to give it space.

After a few minutes, the silk settled. Sam spent some time measuring and re-measuring and, once he was sure the markings were precise, he took his scissors and started to cut. The silk puckered at the sharpness. He worked quickly, aware of the silent grievance, and as he made his way along the rough edges, the material took on an energy. The edges tightened, the center billowed slightly, then relaxed and fluttered back to the floor. When he had finished, he spread the material out into a triangle, forty inches across and thirty-four inches long. He stood again and waited.
The silk furrowed along its severed borders, fraying in protest. For a time, it puffed up and flapped, then settled again. Sam chose the sharpest needle from his sewing box and a silk thread to match the fabric. He stood at the window in the morning light, closed one eye, and patiently manoeuvered the thread through the needle. Careful not to cause any further distress to the fabric, he gently rolled its ragged edge under twice and began to stitch the hem. With every jab of the needle, the silk flinched, and pulled away.

Once the raw edges were sewn, the old man stood, and waited again. The silk struggled to lift itself.

“All in time,” Sam whispered, and the silk relaxed once more. Sam gathered it in his arms and draped it over the back of his chair. Then he made himself a pot of tea and finished off the rice from yesterday’s supper.

Over the next two weeks, under the old man’s patient paintbrush, the silk was transformed. Against the azure background, two large wings appeared, velvet to the touch, outlined in night black and dappled with yellow from the sun. Extending from the hind wings, Sam dotted two “tails,” in a blue from the summer sky. Then he built up the compound eyes, a mosaic of vision, and finally, from the head, added two long antennae that reached to the hems of the silk.

He pulled himself to his feet, put his brush and paints on the counter and looked at his creation.

“You are beautiful,” he said, awestruck.

The silk blushed and the tips of the tail-wings turned crimson. The metamorphosis was complete. The Swallowtail Butterfly lifted its wings in gratitude.

“Not yet,” said Sam. He slipped the bamboo poles into the slots he had sewn in the hems, fastened them where they joined and tied on a string that was wound around an old wooden spool. Then he fixed two small bamboo pipes to the top, to sing in the wind and, for stability, attached a red silk tail to the bottom. Satisfied he was finished, he took the butterfly kite by its bridle and held it over his head. It trembled with anticipation.

“Stay calm,” he said, as the kite began to pull away. “Not now.” He leaned it against the wall, so it could enjoy the crack of sky beyond the rooftops and feel the warmth of the sun.

Sam spent the next few days clearing out his cupboards and sorting through his drawers. There were hundreds of scraps of paper, clipped together, recording the dates and amounts of money he had sent back to China to support his family. While he had lived in poverty, he had known they were living a comfortable life on the small amount he sent every month.

Under the papers, he found the empty ginger jar where he had faithfully stashed all the extra coins for his passage home. He had planned to return to his village as a proud and respected man. He envisioned arriving, laden with gifts for his family and neighbours, building a big house, starting his own business.

Beside it, a cigar box held a few dozen photos, faded and bent. In one, a young Sam with his father and mother. In another, he looked proud and serious on his wedding day, standing beside his beautiful Mei Ling. And then a photo of Mei Ling, taken on the pier, the day he left. She was trying to look brave and mature but he saw the sadness in her face. He shuffled through the rest, searching for the young man who had immigrated with so much hope. He was there, outside a coalmine, standing tall and confident. And in another, with the vegetable delivery truck he had driven for eight years. And then the picture of his daughter, Shan Lin, born seven months after he had left. And Shan Lin, at six, standing in front of her school. Mei Ling and Shan Lin on a picnic somewhere. And then Mei Ling and Shan Lin in a faded, Chinese newspaper whose headlines told of a mother and child perishing in a fire.  

And no pictures after that. No pictures of the backbreaking strawberry picking or the years on the fishing boats. No souvenirs of the houses he cleaned or the sidewalks he swept. Once the dream had died, there was no use keeping a record of his days. He had taken the money he’d saved, and gambled all of it away, playing Fan-Tan.

Sam dumped all the photos into his brown canvas bag, along with his books and papers. He hauled the bag onto his shoulder, wincing at the pain in his chest, and then approached the kite, waiting against the wall.

“It’s time,” he said, picking it up by the bridle point. The kite stretched, billowed, and subsided. Sam made his way down the narrow staircase and out into the alley. The brick buildings towered over him, and he held the kite sideways as he walked, so as not to rub it against the rough walls. Familiar smells greeted him as he made his way along: sweet ginger, fried pork, incense. The kite prodded his side, encouraging him. At the end of the alley, Sam opened a dumpster and threw his canvas bag inside.
“Now we must hurry,” he whispered to the kite. He quickened his pace, stopping only when the pain became unbearable, and after an hour’s walk, found himself at the ocean’s edge. Branches on the tall cedar trees danced slightly while the bushes, snuggled at their bases, blew freely. The winds were perfect. Sam carried his kite to the open field and set it down carefully on the grass. He smoothed it out, tugged gently on the string, then checked the frame.

“That’s a pretty good kite, Mister.” A small boy with a toothless grin stared down at Sam. “Aren’t you afraid it’ll tear in the wind?"

Sam shook his head.

“Why don’t you put it up on your bedroom wall instead? I’ve got a really cool kite on my wall.”

Sam looked up. “A kite has no spirit unless it’s flown. You must fly your kite at least once.”

“But you might lose it,” the boy persisted.

“A kite will decide its own destiny,” explained Sam. “You must give it the chance.”

Sam took a thin brush and small bottle of gold paint from his jacket pocket and crouched down beside the kite. The boy knelt at the opposite end.

Into the right eye of the butterfly, Sam painted his soul. It was difficult at first, because the eye of a butterfly is small and the old man had a large soul. But the eye was deep and, with patience, Sam was able to put it all in.

“What’s that for?” asked the boy.

“It’s to help the butterfly find its way home.”

“What kind of a butterfly is it?”

“It’s a Swallowtail,” said Sam.

“A sorrow tale?”

Sam looked at the boy. “Yes,” he answered. “A sorrow tale.”

Sam and the boy walked to the edge of the field and watched the waves breaking quietly on the beach below. Sam closed his eyes and waited for the wind to tell him it was time. The kite shook in anticipation. Sam turned his back to the sea, held up the kite by the bridle point, and let out the line. The kite rose on painted wings. He let it fly away a little, then pulled in on the string so it could climb. And up it went until it found a steady wind. Sam guided it carefully until it claimed its rightful place in the sky and then he watched it enjoy the play.

“Can it do anything?” asked the boy.

“It flies,” answered Sam.

“Is that all?”

“It might sing when it’s happy. Listen, you can hear it now.”

The boy twisted his head to hear the bamboo pipes sing out as the kite dipped, and soared.

“That kite over there has blinking lights, and sirens, and it can attack other kites and even dive-bomb people.” The boy pointed to a large kite lying on the grass nearby. Two men were hunched over it, doing a final check before they lifted it over their heads. It was over eight feet across, made of ripstop nylon, with a 6mm pultruded carbon frame, studded with barbs. It was equipped with 600 feet of 150-pound test line and decorated with a neon-yellow skull on a black surface. A small crowd gathered to watch it climb. The eye sockets lit up as it caught the wind, and the kite made an eerie sound as it rose.

Young children in the group stepped back in fearful awe, as the kite went higher, flashing and moaning and twisting in the wind.

Then it saw the beautiful butterfly.

The black kite flipped, swirled into a dive, and mounted quickly, heading for Sam’s kite. Startled, the butterfly swerved to the right, then turned to look its pursuer in the eye. The black kite drew back slightly. It hovered for a second, then charged. Its lights blinked red, the spikes on its cross sticks flashed, blinding in their intensity. Sam’s kite held its space, its colours brilliant in the sunlight. A gust of wind caught the pipes and the butterfly sang out. Then another gust, and the kite broke free, and took Sam’s soul home.