William Vollmann: Butterfly Stories

The lesbian was looking at him and the clerk was looking at him and finally the lesbian said: Two beds.

A deep flush overpowered the boy's stoic face.

The train from Saloniki to Istanbul was supposed to take two days, but sometimes it took three or four. It all depended. When the Greek soldiers heard where the boy and the lesbian were bound, they shook their heads and made fierce throat-slitting motions. Before the border the soldiers got off, giving them fresh goat cheese and shaking their heads again. The lesbian laughed.

This time it looked like the train was going to take three days at least. It had broken down twice. They were at the Turkish border, just inside the wire. They were all starting to wear thin on each other. There were five of them in the compartment: the boy who wanted to be a journalist, the lesbian who didn't want to be anything, a sad boy from England, Ulrich and the doctor. The doctor had been expelled from Saudi Arabia for seducing a nurse. - The girls in Saudi Arabia may be clean in the sense that they're virgins, he said with a bitter wink at the lesbian, — but I don't like a virgin who stinks!

Your brain stinks, said Ulrich. Your heart stinks. Your soul stinks.

Ulrich was the son of an SS officer. He was an alcoholic tramp. He and the boy who wanted to be a journalist got on quite well. - Oh, you poor little American, he'd chuckle every now and then. The boy smiled back grimly. .

The sad boy from England liked to read aloud from the lesbian's guidebook. She was becoming fond of him, as it seemed. He read the same passages over and over, and she leaned back against his shoulder smiling with closed eyes. Sometimes the boy who wanted to be a journalist got so jealous and miserable at the sight of them that he went out and stood in the corridor, or got off the train to trudge back and forth in the snow beside the dark-shawled Turkish women who squatted round a fire. Ulrich never went with him for these walks, but sometimes the boy felt an eerie feeling in the back of his neck and would turn to see the German watching him from behind the half-dark window, waving ironically.

I know a man in France. . began the sad English boy.

Oh, good, said Ulrich sarcastically, having another slug of brandy.

The train sat in the sunny snow.

It snows pretty good in Frankfurt, doesn't it? said the doctor, trying to be friendly.

No, said Ulrich.

He and the doctor had already had a fistfight.

Brigitte, Brigitte, Brigitte. . droned the English boy.

No, my name is Bridget, said the lesbian. Brigitte is French.

The boy who wanted to be a journalist got up and went into the corridor so that he could take his pill where no one would see. Just after he had unscrewed the top from the vial, a giant grimy palm shot silently down onto his wrist and the grey scarred fingers wrapped instantaneously around his wrist, and then the other grey hand reached and took the vial away.

What is this? said the grey hands' owner. Why?

Antipsychotics, said the boy who wanted to be a journalist. They said I have to take these. They said if I don't take these maybe I'll kill myself.

Kill? said the German in astonishment. Why not kill?

He gave back the vial. The boy who wanted to be a journalist took his pill, and then they both went back into the compartment.

Not only Germans kill, said Ulrich presently, but they do it more thorough. Only Germans are the peak, you know.

Crazy bastard, said the doctor, opening a black portmanteau to get at his very own bottle of Scotch.

So I cracked that little nurse's legs open, and what do you think I saw? said the doctor.

No one else was much interested, but the boy who wanted to be a journalist was fascinated. - What? he said. What did you see?

Maggots, said the doctor. That little pink tomato of hers was white with crawlers. Now when I say maggots I'm using the vernacular, you understand; I can't vouch for their being the larvae of dipterous insects -

Without warning, Ulrich punched the doctor in the face, cracking his head smartly against the wall. The doctor's mouth fell open, and his nose began to bleed. No one said anything, and for a moment the doctor just sat there breathing heavily. Then he lunged at Ulrich, who grinned and flung up a grey bar of a forearm with automatic precision to slam against the doctor's chest and throw him back.

The doctor sat down moaning. He wiped his nose on his sleeve and stared at the blood. He touched his nose again. His hand came away crimson as if he were a murderer. He pinched his nostrils shut. Then he stood up. He looked piercingly into everyone's eyes. Then he got his portmanteau and went out of the compartment. The boy who wanted to be a journalist heard him going up the corridor sliding open the doors of all the compartments to look for a vacant seat. After awhile he heard him come back and go down the other way. When he ducked outside to take his pill, he saw splashes of blood in the hall. Presently the doctor came back again. There were no compartments free. The doctor stood in the corridor with his nose pressed angrily against the window all that day and into the night when the train began to move again and into the next morning when they got to Istanbul. Then he stomped off to the airport. He was flying around the world, he'd said. It was his fifth time.

Ulrich, the lesbian, the English boy and the boy who wanted to be a journalist were sharing a room in the Hotel Gungor. The lesbian had read about it in her guidebook. They didn't have a map of the Sultanhamet district, so the boy who wanted to be a journalist went with the lesbian for directions to the office of police. A thug in a black uniform directed them to the inspector, who got up and offered the lesbian his armchair. He kissed her wrist and shook the boy's hand warmly. When all was understood, the thug showed them out to where Ulrich and the English boy were waiting. The English boy looked scared. Ulrich kept making punching motions and shouting: I am fighting machine!

Is anybody hungry? asked the lesbian, who had taken charge.

They all were, so after they'd checked into the hotel they went and found the Pudding Shop, an enclave of the sixties whose jukebox played "Revolution," "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" over and over. Ulrich, who was not used to being with people who could stand him, was so delighted with them all that he bought the dinner. All the journalist wanted was vanilla pudding.

You want hashish sir I excuse me? said a Turkish boy.

Get out now or I kill you, said Ulrich.

His life is probably very difficult, said the lesbian.

I kill him! shouted Ulrich.

Don't you think that life is inherently difficult? the lesbian persisted.

I don't think it's inherently difficult, said the boy who wanted to be a journalist. I only think some people make it difficult for themselves.

What are you talking about? said the lesbian scornfully. You take pills to keep alive!

You do what? said the English boy.

The boy who wanted to be a journalist didn't say anything. Ulrich laughed and had another shot of brandy. - You — you poor little American, he said, laying a hand on his shoulder.

The lesbian wore tall white socks up over her nylons. She had very big breasts, and the nipples usually showed through the purple or black blouses she wore over her skirt. The English boy was wild about her. As for the boy who wanted to be a journalist, he could no longer care less. Maybe that was why he suddenly seemed to be less thanatophilic. His unhappiness (which was probably biochemical, since he could find no reason for it) seemed irrelevant. One of his best friends, a boy who wanted to be a revolutionary, had written him: