Butterfly Winter. W. Kinsella P.

to remember is the Wizard descending from the sky in a multicolored balloon, distributing baseballs like party favors. In this part of Courteguay, time is measured since the arrival of baseball. It was not all that long ago, and one or more of the versions of Courteguayan History begins just before the first baseball season. Those who remember the event, or claim to remember, sometimes refer to it as the Teaching Time. After-history being almost as interesting as history itself, the stories told by liars are often more entertaining, contain more truth than those told by people who actually witnessed events.

      From the research of the Gringo Journalist:

      A FIRSTHAND ACCOUNT OF BASEBALL COMING TO COURTEGUAY

      The Teaching Time, perhaps a year, perhaps considerably longer, depending on whose story you believe. It is speculated that Time in Courteguay began on the opening day of the Courteguayan National Baseball Association, at the moment when the Old Dictator, who may or may not have been Octavio Court (I have so far been unable to determine if there ever was an Octavio Court, so ephemeral is his memory, so steeped in fog the short history of Courteguay), threw out the first pitch at Jesus, Joseph and Mary Celestial Baseball Palace, in San Barnabas, inaugurating the four-team league encompassing two teams each from San Cristobel and the capital city, San Barnabas.

      During the baseball season, a cloud in the early evening sky is an occasion. The temperament of the land is regulated by the heat. The season, which is theoretically year round, is curtailed during the rainy months by hurricanes and torrential downpours, but not shut down. I am told that there was a law enacted against rain falling before nine in the evening, (but who enacted it?) a time when all but the longest extra-inning game was in the records and the fans and players had safely returned to their homes.

      Sandor Boatly, the Wizard, as well as some historical sources, claims that Boatly demonstrated baseball by first teaching a would-be player to hit, first grounders, then flies. Boatly then played at every position on the field, showing how each player should conduct himself. He even visited the priests enclosed behind chain-link fencing and before long, though there were not enough for a single team, let alone two, they laid out a diamond and enjoyed a rousing game of scrub.

      It is said that years later, Dr Noir repeatedly mouthed the words, ‘There is no need for God in a warm climate,’ as he personally shot priest after priest where they were trapped inside their chain-link prisons.

      As one must have in any odd or experimental project, Sandor Boatly had luck on his side. Just as the people in some societies have no resistance to alcohol, or religion, the people of Courteguay were seemingly born with no resistance to baseball, and it seems they were born with an innate knowledge of the game that only had to be scratched to bloom fully. Many of the young men were blessed with uncanny ability, the pitchers, with no training, able to throw 90 mph fastballs, the hitters, equally untrained, able to club five-hundred foot home runs, the infielders capable of performing contortions like gymnasts, able to retrieve sharply hit baseballs from the short outfield grass and throw accurately to first base, always a hairsbreadth ahead of the fleet runner.

      But how much of this is true? The Wizard is at best a charlatan. Could he, as many claim, actually be Sandor Boatly? It seems unlikely, but just as I feel I have a handle on him, he does something that makes me want to believe everything he tells me. For instance, no matter how many times I change it back, when I next open my manuscript my description of the Wizard in the second sentence has been changed to charming charlatan.

       TEN

       The Wizard

      The birth of Julio and Esteban Pimental was my first triumph. I lurked in the dry weeds behind the shack while the births were taking place. My eyes glistened and my skin shone like polished teakwood.

      Hector Pimental, who considered it unmanly to be anywhere in the vicinity of womens’ work, still couldn’t keep himself away from the birth. What if my prognosis was right? What if Fernandella were to produce from his seed the two finest baseball players ever to come out of Courteguay? Hector fancied himself selling his services as a stud, fathering an army of sons, graceful, powerful baseball players all. He fantasized the pleasure he would receive while doing his duty for Courteguay.

      ‘The first one was born in the catcher’s crouch,’ Hector cried, as he came upon me where I hunched in the brittle undergrowth eating a mango. ‘His little hands are already scarred. He has suffered several broken knuckles. He has a stolid face and full head of black hair. I will name him Esteban.’

      I stared at my reflection in the blue brook that had mysteriously appeared behind the tin shack that Hector and Fernandella called home. Handsome and lean as a coyote, I thought, rubbing my thin hands together and deciding that as a reward I would add a name, and henceforth be known as Alfredo Jorge Blanco.

      An hour later Hector Pimental returned.

      ‘The second one, the one we will christen Julio, was born wearing baseball cleats,’ he announced with wicked pride. He stared at me, dressed in my ink-blue robe covered with mysterious symbols. ‘The fingers on his pitching hand are like talons, the first two fingers splayed, the nails sharpened to fierce points.’

      ‘Did I not prophesy so?’ I asked. I was now Geraldo Alfredo Jorge Blanco, having added yet another name as soon as I heard Hector crashing through the thicket toward me.

      I continued to rub my hands together, maintaining a calm outward appearance as I tried to decide how to best exploit the situation. Hector Pimental’s only motivation was greed; he would need much guidance.

      ‘I am a wizard,’ I repeated several times under my breath, shaking my head as if to clear away confusion. I should not be surprised, I told myself. One has only to trail dreams obsessively in order to make them come true.

      After the births, Carlotta, the midwife, swaddled Esteban and Julio in blankets made from freshly laundered sugar sacks. After she stretched Esteban out of his catcher’s crouch, and attempted to force Julio to lie like a normal baby and stop the continual pitching motions, she propped the babies, one on each side of Fernandella, their tiny maple faces each resting against a swollen breast. It was then that the midwife discovered that, along with the twins, Fernandella’s womb had expelled two miniature baseball gloves, one a catcher’s mitt, three cumquat-sized baseballs and a pen-sized bat. If Julio was the pitcher and Esteban the catcher, who held the bat was never known.

       ELEVEN

       The Gringo Journalist

      The Wizard, after washing his most colorful costume in the clear stream that had appeared beside the home of Hector and Fernandella Pimental, set off for the capital of San Barnabas. He did not have bus fare so walked part way, then with the help of an acquaintance who was already on a bus, he was pulled through a window, suffering only minor sprains and a large rip at the rear of his caftan. He presented himself at the Presidential palace as an emissary of the miraculous, stupendous, fabulous, baseball-playing babies who had been born near San Cristobel. The Wizard lied outrageously, claiming that he had personally delivered the babies, and that he had a medical degree from Port-au-Prince Hospital in Haiti. The Wizard had heard that in Haiti, anyone with a sharp knife and more than one ounce of disinfectant could call himself a doctor, so he didn’t exactly consider his story a lie.

      The Wizard’s message did eventually reach the Old Dictator, passing first through the head of the Secret Police, one Dr Lucius Noir. The Old Dictator, who like the Wizard had a nose for a profitable situation, decided after leaving the Wizard waiting at the gate for 24 hours to give him an audience.

      The Old Dictator donned his whitest uniform, one with flamingo-colored birds as epaulets, and stationed himself