The Cries of the Butterfly - A LOVE STORY (52 page)

“Well, we always wanted an addition to our little family and now that I cannot conceive again, adoption seems the best alternative.”

“Have you lost your mind? A runaway girl from an orphanage? For Christ’s sakes, she is eight years old! Even if we adopt, we do so an infant. Someone who has not been imprinted, someone who is clean and unsullied by influences. Not a girl like this, for God’s sakes!”

“Is it her age, or is it something else that’s bothering you?”

“What do you mean?”

Helen smiled. “You know what I mean.”

Derek looked away. Yes, it was
that
then. His wife read him so well. A physically disfigured child would be such a dent in his perfect designer lifestyle—an ugly patch on his immaculate existence.

“So what are you going to tell the boss?” Helen asked. “Are you going to refuse him then?”

“Refuse him? Are you out of your mind? I want to keep existing, you know,” he blurted. “In any case, I owe him too much.”

“So you’re going to accept his request?”

Request?!
It had practically been an order. Derek Pringle was a distraught man.

“Let’s sleep over it,” Helen suggested.

But the next morning, it was a complete transformation. A change that stunned Helen Pringle.

“I’ve decided that we should adopt this girl…what’s her name? Whatever. … Oh, yeah, Robin,” Derek said at breakfast.

She cast him a sharp look.

But he was serious.

“How come?” she asked.

“Because it’s the noble thing to do. The Christian thing to do. And as loyal and devout Christians it’s our duty to contribute to the better good.”

Helen’s eyes narrowed. He glanced at her and she caught the cunning look in his brown eyes before it slipped away.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he whined, his eyes studiedly lowered over his poached eggs.

“What’s the deal, Derek? Come on, out with it. No hiding anything from me. We have a pact.”

“There’s no deal. Honest!”

She pressed him, but he wouldn’t play. But she didn’t really need an answer; she knew. If someone as big and famous as Wolf Butcher wanted to adopt this girl so desperately, how huge it would be for Derek Pringle to bag her. Robin was a trophy that would elevate the Pringles a few notches up the social ladder. So, for once, a little physical imperfection did not really matter. They could always fix her up with a high quality prosthetic arm.

For Helen, it was genuine good news. She had always wanted a daughter. And over the days, reading so much about this girl, Robin, and her trials and tribulations, Helen had taken a liking to her. She would be a good addition to the family and Helen was sure the girl would be happy with them. She had already thought of a new name for her. Juliette. It was Helen’s mother’s name.

The matter thus resolved, the Pringles were a happy couple once more.

Until…a phone call that evening.

“Mrs. Prinkel?” a strange male voice with a strange accent said.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Prinkel be there?”

“No…who’s this?”

“Now you listening very carefully, bitch!” the voice suddenly thundered, in strange English. “We gotton your son, Malvan. No harm coming to him if you doing what we saying…”

“What do you…what do you mean you have… Where’s Melvyn?”

“He be safe with us. Do as we telling and you seeing your sonny boy soon. Not obeying us and you seeing his dead body soon. Understanding?”

Helen felt her head begin to reel. She sat down post-haste.

The voice continued. “Listening now carefully. This is what we wanting. Number one: tell no one about this excepting your hasband. Going to police will be big, big mistake. Your phone be tapped and you and your hasband’s movement being carefully watched, every second. Second: keep hundred-thousand dollar ready, in hard cash. Three: wait for next phone call. It coming today night or tomorrow morning. Then do what we saying. Understanding?”

“Y…yes…”

“Good. Now let me telling you again—if you contacting police in any way, we coming to know. Then we stop talking to you people; then you seeing your son corpse only. You hearing of Al Qaida? No? It be very big organization—worldwide. Multinational. It did that 9/11 thing to America, remembering? We belonging to that great group. We able to destroying whole world. So to destroying small people like you, no problem for us. Understanding? So do what we saying and you coming to no harm; you be seeing your little sonny boy very soon.” And the line expired.

.

I
t was the longest night the Pringle couple had spent in their lives.

But no phone call came. Helen Pringle fainted once and revived an hour later, then began hysterically calling for her son. Derek finally stood up from his chair near the telephone in his bedroom, where he had been sitting all evening. His bladder was bursting—he had somehow managed to retain it until now, but could no more. He went to the loo, lowered his pants, fished out his dick and aimed it at the toilet bowl. But no pee streamed out, not one drop. After ten minutes of desperate trying, he gave up and returned to his chair, in excruciating pain.

It was noon the next day when the phone finally rang. By now, Mrs. Pringle was supine in bed with a steady temperature of 105. She was barely conscious and kept mumbling for her son. Mr. Pringle’s systolic fluctuated wildly between 180 and 260. His eyes had turned deep crimson and his bladder had gone insentient. His left arm throbbed with acute pain and he could barely feel his legs.

“Mr. Prinkel?” the strange voice with the strange accent and strange English said.

“Ye…yes, yes!”

“Salaam! I am Al-Fahd-Abu-Ibrahim-Bin-Abdul-Aziz-Alwaleed-Bin-Bandar. That be my name. From world-famous great organization Al Qaida.”

“Yes…yes, sir…”

“You keeping money ready?”

“Ready, sir, absolutely ready. … When can I deliver it? How do I do it? How is Melvyn?”

“He being very beautiful, thank you very much. Not to worrying, okay? You calling police?”

“Absolutely not, sir! I promise you.”

“You knowing your phone being tapped, so if you lying, then your sonny-boy becoming corpse.”

“I’m NOT lying, sir! I promise on my parents, on my wife, I did not call the police.”

“You promising on your sonny-boy’s life also?”

“Yes, sir, I do, I do! I swear on Melvyn, I…we…did not call the police, sir! Please trust me!”

“You telling anyone else then?”

“No one, sir, no one… My wife’s very sick, but I didn’t even call the doctor. Please believe me, sir… Sir, please let my son go, I beg you. You can have all the money you want…please hand over my son to me. I’ll do whatever you say…”

“Okay, you getting another phone call in evening. You waiting patiently for it, okay? Then doing as per instruction.” And the line died in Derek Pringle’s hand.

He let out a long wail of agony and fell to the floor. And he sobbed huge tears of utter misery.

On the bed, Helen Pringle, who had suddenly come to life, swooned again.

.

S
even pm.

Seven-thirty.

Eight.

Eight-thirty.

Eight-forty-five.

Nine.

No phone call.

Ten pm.

Ten-thirty.

Eleven.

Eleven-thirty.

Midnight.

No phone call.

One-five am.

One-ten.

One-fifteen.

One-eighteen.

One-twenty.

One-twenty-one.

One-twenty-two.

No phone call.

One twenty-four.

One-twenty-fi…

The doorbell rang.

Derek Pringle’s heart leapt a foot in his chest, then constricted fiercely…like some hare being squeezed by a python. His wife lay on the bed, her eyes shut tight, her limbs thrashing restlessly. Her face was a deep frown and in between moans of affliction, she grumbled unintelligibly.

The bell rang again.

Robot-like, Derek Pringle finally got to his feet and went to the door.

He stared stupidly at the boy before him. The boy stared back for a while, then his face broke and he leapt into Derek’s arms. A squeal of disbelief, then delight, ripped the night, as father and son hugged and kissed violently. Then from the shadows of the passage a tall figure moved into the light.

Derek Pringle finally looked up. He wiped his eyes and then he could see again. But what he saw at the doorway made his jaw plunge.

Standing before him was the moviestar, Wolf Butcher.

.

“
Y
ou’re not just a screen hero, you’re a real life hero, Mr. Butcher. A TRUE hero! I don’t know how we can thank you. We just can’t enough! Oh, we’re so grateful to you…so very, very grateful!” And Derek Pringle took Wolf’s hands again and held them tight, his eyes swimming with tears of gratitude.

His wife was speechless. But her beholden eyes told their story. In her mind, she was hugging Wolf, and hugging him tighter still, and saying thank you…
thank you…oh, thank you so very, very much!

And in all this, Wolf was flushing with embarrassment.

When finally they settled down—a bit—it was two-thirty am and the boy, Melvyn, exhausted to his bone marrow, was fast asleep in his bedroom.

“Well, it was sheer luck I found him,” Wolf said. “I often go to the beach late in the night. It is so peaceful then and there is no fear of being recognized and mobbed. The life of a moviestar—even a retired one—is not easy, you know.” He laughed.

“Oh, we know, we know,” Derek Pringle nodded solemnly. “But hadn’t it been for you, our son would’ve been murdered by those animals. They’re so dangerous.”

Earlier, Melvyn had narrated how a strange heavily bearded man of medium height and wearing a skull cap had accosted him after school. The guy called himself Mr. Joseph and said that he worked for his father and that his father had suddenly taken ill and was hospitalized. Mr. Joseph said that Melvyn’s mother had sent him to collect Melvyn and bring him to the hospital. Very scared and unthinking, Melvyn had sat down beside Mr. Joseph in the latter’s car, a rundown Plymouth. On the way, Mr. Joseph had handed Melvyn a flask of warm milk.

“Your mother said you must drink this. It’s chocolate milk.”

“But I never drink chocolate milk! I don’t like it.”

“But you must drink, or I can’t take you to see your father. That’s your mother’s orders.” And he gave the boy a long, piercing look.

Melvyn shrugged and drank the milk.

A while later, he began feeling drowsy and didn’t know when he passed out.

When he awoke it was dark and he was in the back seat of the car. His hands and legs were tied with rope and his mouth gagged with bales of cloth. The man, Mr. Joseph, was asleep in the front seat. Melvyn tried to free himself, but the cord was tied too securely. He was hungry and thirsty, but he got neither food nor water that night.

The next morning, Melvyn realized that the car was parked near a beach. Though he couldn’t see the ocean, he could hear it through the dark, drawn windows of the vehicle. Mr. Joseph returned and untied the boy’s hands and mouth so he could eat the food Mr. Joseph had brought him. But no sooner had Melvyn finished, he was tied up and gagged again.

All day he remained in the car. It was hot and very uncomfortable. His shirt, soaked in his sweat, stank. In the evening, he was fed again, then after dark, he was brought out of the car for the first time and allowed a pee. Oh, how nice it felt to feel some breeze on his skin, to breathe fresh air. This time around, he was made to sit under a coconut palm and tied up to its trunk.

That was how Wolf had found him, around midnight.

“There was no sign of any car or anyone else. The beach and surroundings were completely deserted,” Wolf said. “But let me tell you, these Al Qaida people are ghastly. One doesn’t want to entangle with them.”

A fresh bout of gratitude followed, making Wolf flush again.

It was almost three am when he finally rose to leave.

At the door, Derek Pringle said, “If there is anything we can do for you, sir, anything at all, please let us know. We would feel absolutely honored to be of any help. We are in your eternal debt.”

Wolf hesitated, then turned around and faced Pringle. His face turned grim. He placed a hand on the man’s shoulder.

“You know now how it feels to lose a child. You know exactly how it feels, Mr. Pringle. It is worse than death,” he said, looking deep into Pringle’s eyes, and Pringle nodded vigorously. “I have one request for you. Please don’t take my child from me. Robin is my life. Don’t snatch her from me, sir.” His eyes were beseeching. Then he quickly turned around and ran down the steps.

.

S
tanley Knott was waiting when Wolf returned.