W. Kinsella - Butterfly Winter

For Barbara Lynn Turner Kinsella

Table of Contents

Title Page W.P. KINSELLA Butterfly Winter

Dedication For Barbara Lynn Turner Kinsella

Part One: The Wizard PART ONE The Wizard ‘… anything that can be imagined exists.’ — WHAT THE CROW SAID , ROBERT KROETSCH

Chapter One: The Wizard

Chapter Two: The Wizard

Chapter Three: The Wizard

Chapter Four: The Wizard

Chapter Five: The Wizard

Chapter Six: The Wizard

Chapter Seven: The Wizard

Chapter Eight: The Wizard

Chapter Nine: The Gringo Journalist

Chapter Ten: The Wizard

Chapter Eleven: The Gringo Journalist

Chapter Twelve: The Gringo Journalist

Chapter Thirteen: The Wizard

Chapter Fourteen: The Gringo Journalist

Chapter Fifteen: The Gringo Journalist

Chapter Sixteen: Esteban Pimental

Chapter Seventeen: The Gringo Journalist

Chapter Eighteen: The Wizard

Chapter Nineteen: The Wizard

Chapter Twenty: The Wizard

Chapter Twenty-One: Hector Pimental

Chapter Twenty-Two: The Gringo Journalist

Chapter Twenty-Three: The Gringo Journalist

Part Two: Butterfly Winter

Chapter Twenty-Four: Ali

Chapter Twenty-Five: Fernandella Pimental

Chapter Twenty-Six: The Wizard

Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Gringo Journalist

Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Gringo Journalist

Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Gringo Journalist

Chapter Thirty: The Gringo Journalist

Chapter Thirty-One: The Wizard

Chapter Thirty-Two: Julio Pimental

Chapter Thirty-Three: The Gringo Journalist

Chapter Thirty-Four: The Wizard

Chapter Thirty-Five: The Gringo Journalist

Chapter Thirty-Six: The Gringo Journalist

Chapter Thirty-Seven: The Wizard

Chapter Thirty-Eight: The Gringo Journalist

Chapter Thirty-Nine: The Wizard

Chapter Forty: The Wizard

Chapter Forty-One: The Wizard

Chapter Forty-Two: The Gringo Journalist

Chapter Forty-Three: The Wizard

Chapter Forty-Four: The Gringo Journalist

Chapter Forty-Five: The Gringo Journalist

Chapter Forty-Six: The Wizard

Chapter Forty-Seven: The Gringo Journalist

Part Three: The Wound Factory

Chapter Forty-Eight: The Wizard

Chapter Forty-Nine: An excerpt from a chapter of a novel written by the Wizard

Chapter Fifty: The Gringo Journalist

Chapter Fifty-One: Milan Garza

Chapter Fifty-Two: Quita Garza

Chapter Fifty-Three: The Gringo Journalist

Chapter Fifty-Four: The Gringo Journalist

Chapter Fifty-Five: The Gringo Journalist

Chapter Fifty-Six: The Wizard

Chapter Fifty-Seven: The Wizard

Chapter Fifty-Eight: The Wizard

Chapter Fifty-Nine: Dr Lucius Noir

Chapter Sixty: The Gringo Journalist

Chapter Sixty-One: The Gringo Journalist

Chapter Sixty-Two: The Gringo Journalist

Chapter Sixty-Three: Julio Pimental

Chapter Sixty-Four: The Wizard

Chapter Sixty-Five: The Wizard

Chapter Sixty-Six: The Wizard

Chapter Sixty-Seven: The Gringo Journalist

Chapter Sixty-Eight: The Wizard

Chapter Sixty-Nine: The Wizard

Chapter Seventy: The Wizard

Chapter Seventy-One: The Gringo Journalist

Chapter Seventy-Two: The Gringo Journalist

Chapter Seventy-Three: The Gringo Journalist

Chapter Seventy-Four: The Gringo Journalist

Chapter Seventy-Five: The Gringo Journalist

Chapter Seventy-Six: The Gringo Journalist

Chapter Seventy-Seven: The Gringo Journalist

Chapter Seventy-Eight: The Wizard

Acknowledgements

Also by W. P. Kinsella

Copyright

About the Publisher

‘… anything that can be imagined exists.’

— WHAT THE CROW SAID , ROBERT KROETSCH

‘The word chronological is not in the Courteguayan language, neither is sequence . Things happen. That is all there is to it. In most other places, time is like a long highway with you standing in the middle of a straightaway while the highway dissolves in the distance in both directions, past and future. In Courteguay, if you picture the same scene, time occasionally runs crossways so that something that will happen in the future might already be behind you, slowly receding, while something from the past may not yet have happened.’

—THE WIZARD

‘You appear to be a man in your late 60s,’ the Gringo Journalist says. ‘I have always been what I appear to be,’ replies the Wizard. ‘And,’ he adds, the words barely audible under his creaking breath, ‘I always tell people what they want to hear, whether it is truth or fiction.’

‘I am told that you move from place to place as if by magic,’ the Gringo Journalist continues.

‘There is no magic, there are no gods,’ says the Wizard.

‘You are currently referred to as a wizard, even by your enemies.’

‘It takes a wizard to know there are none,’ says the Wizard.

The Wizard lies in a high, white hospital bed. The room is banked with flowers, bouquets made up of various combinations of the eleven national flowers of Courteguay. The Wizard stares up at the Gringo Journalist, who is lean and blond, holding a sleek black tape recorder toward the Wizard as if he were offering a bite from a sandwich.

The Wizard, who has discarded his hospital garb, is wearing a midnight-blue caftan covered in mysterious silver symbols that look like what a comic strip artist might use to intimate curse words, and insists on being paid for the interview, not in Courteguayan guilermos, but in American dollars. He forces a smile for the Gringo Journalist, his gimlet eyes twinkling.

‘Interviews are so tiring. Even wizards die, did you know that?’

The morning air is cool and lustrous, rife with possibilities, silvered with deception, tasty as fresh lime.

‘Here I am. Cool pillows, a clean room, a ceiling fan. And I still have a listener, something terribly important to one who is a storyteller. An excellent way to die. I close my eyes and my long life slides by like a newsreel, like a canoe floating on placid water. The room is liquid with memories. Me, planting baseballs like seed corn, waiting for the stadiums to grow and flourish.

‘My enemies, and they are many, will deny it all. Without me there would have been no Julio or Esteban Pimental; their father was a gambler but I was a better one. It is not something I am exactly proud of. But it is all connected, as everything is. Knee bone connected to the thigh bone. Now hear the word …’

The Gringo Journalist asks another question, watches the Wizard’s eyes, waiting. He wants to know how to find a place, a place important to his research.

‘My friend, it is very difficult to give directions in Courteguay. Objects have minds of their own. In the night houses sometimes slip across a street, or change places with a house a few doors away. One might go to bed in a home on the south bank of a river and wake in that same house but on the north bank, and the basement not even damp.

‘So, you want to know about Julio Pimental? Perhaps the greatest pitcher ever to play in the Major Leagues, certainly the greatest pitcher ever to come out of Courteguay. That is somewhat easier than giving directions. The rumors you have heard are true. Twin boys playing catch in the womb. An unusual event in many parts of the world, but not in Courteguay. Here the unusual is the norm. The sky once rained silken handkerchiefs. There was a woman with three breasts … a man with a square penis.