The Butterfly Boy Read online

  Title Page

  THE BUTTERFLY BOY

  Tony Klinger

  Publisher Information

  Published in 2013

  by Andrews UK Limited

  www.andrewsuk.com

  Copyright © 2013 Tony Klinger

  The right of Tony Klinger to be identified as author of this book has been asserted in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyrights Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to take this opportunity to thank the many people who have helped me whilst I was writing this book. As you know books don’t spring forward out of a vacuum. This story is no different. It was inspired by the real struggles of the heroic and outstanding people who every day has to fight to overcome their disabilities.

  On a personal level I couldn’t have written this book without the constant encouragement over so many years of my darling wife, Avril, who has stood behind me when necessary and always at my side whether or not I have deserved such love and support, as have Georgia, her husband Matt, Sarah, my daughter and Daniel my son and his wife Doctor Sarah. You’ve all waited so long and patiently for me to be the writing man I was supposed to be.

  In my short professional life as a novelist you need all the help and guidance you can get and again I have been singularly blessed. Therefore I want to publicly thank the lady who is my excellent and ever encouraging literary agent, editor and friend, Jenny Stanley-Clarke.

  Without this reading like an award acceptance speech I also want to pay tribute to my remarkable parents who are both long since together in the after life. Lily and Michael Klinger were truly wonderful people and he was one of our finest film producers.

  Many years ago, when I was seventeen my then agent, the late and lamented Greg Smith, told me I should be a novelist but I persisted with my career as a film maker. To prove his point he took one of my story outlines and procured an offer for me to write that story as my first book. I rather arrogantly and very stupidly turned down the very generous offer. I have enjoyed a successful and productive career making films and in academia but oh how right Greg was since I now know that I was meant to be a story teller. I live to write but life if full of mysterious circles and right now I am preparing that story as a film and as the book I should have written so long ago.

  Dedication

  To all my family, friends and those that made this book possible. I love and thank you and appreciate your enormous patience and trust in me.

  In the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king. Or put more beautifully and, I think hopefully, as the French poet Paul Claudel wrote: “For the flight of a single butterfly the entire sky is needed.”

  Tony Klinger

  Northampton, England, 2013

  Prologue

  Nuremberg, Germany

  1935

  I’m not normally a pessimist but my situation is very bad, even by my standards. I am in a green walled interrogation room deep in the bowels of the Nuremberg Gestapo Headquarters. It is a lonely, intimidating place when you’ve been sitting, tied by tight ropes to a solitary wooden chair for what seems like an eternity. The room is damp, cold and I am very scared.

  Forgive me, I should introduce myself, my name is Arnulf Hessel, but I’ve always been known as Arnie. When I’m frightened I draw up a mental inventory, pros and cons. I am scared so I am doing this now. I find this makes me see my life clearly, even if it doesn’t solve my problems it does serve to take my mind off them for a little while. On the plus side is my age, I am 23, and I’m as fit as a butcher’s dog. I have always been bigger than most men, not far short of 2 meters, or nearly 6’ 6” in the other, English measure. This has always been an advantage for me, with both men and women. I wish I were in a warm bed with a hot woman right now. Back to the list, my eyes are blue and my hair is what I shall call dirty blonde, although my loving mother has always insisted it is the color of corn. Above these surface pluses I list my love of painting, and this love dominates my life, becoming a bit of an obsession, as I have grown better at it with time and patience.

  As I look around at the depressing, claustrophobic little room I find more negative thoughts crowding my mind unbidden. Of course I do admit that I can be a bit obstinate sometimes, OK, all the time. Some see strongly held beliefs as a virtue but on this evil night I am forced to admit this trait has landed me on this chair in this terrifying room. Being of mixed parentage I normally insist is an advantage but on this particular night I will admit that having a Jewish mother, however loving and kind, and a Christian father, who I don’t really understand, is not a good thing for your health in Hitler’s glorious Third Reich.

  I can hear footsteps approaching in the corridor and I can’t help but tense up in my chair. The heavy fall of booted feet on unforgiving concrete jars my nerves like a series of alarm bells. The noise ceases as they reach the door of my cell and a key is turned in the heavy lock of the metal door. I compose myself, trying to wipe the fear from my face, but you can’t control the sweat that pops unbidden onto your brow, this mute traitor to my self-control.

  Two men enter the room, one, Ratwerller, is dressed in a civilian suit, and he is thin, and reminds me of a hairless white rat, his head and face are pointed, unnaturally smooth and feral, but it is his eyes that I shall always remember, they are black lifeless pools, magnified horribly by metal framed spectacles. He is Rat, because that is how I can best describe him, preceding his bigger, fatter, uniformed colleague. Rat and I were renewing our long since moribund school connection. We had never been friends.

  “Hello Arnie, you do remember me, don’t you, we were friends at school?” the Rat asks me in what passes for his most pleasant tone, a high-pitched whine with a slight lisp. I instantly remember why I have never liked this man; in fact he has always repulsed me. “Call me what you want, you always did.” I reply, perhaps too influenced by all the American tough guy gangster movies I watch. I am about to learn that in today’s Germany such talk has a price.

  “Naughty boy!” Rat hisses, he signals to his colleague who I shall call Fat Face who walks around my chair twice. I feel the hair on the back of my neck rise as he goes out of sight behind me. I am expecting something bad to happen when he is out of sight but there’s nothing I can do except to tense myself waiting for the inevitable impact. Fat Face looks at me as he circles in front of me as if I am a particularly ugly specimen in a laboratory, a charming smile plays on his porcine face, which makes him look like an over ripe cherub. Fat Face stops pacing when he gets behind me for the third time whilst Rat walks in tiny mincing steps to the door where he stops and turns. “Teach our young friend some manners will you.” he calls over his shoulder as he leaves the room. Fat Face begins to hum an unconvincing classic tune as he smiles and cracks his knuckles one by one out of my field of vision. “Wagner?” I ask, “Yes, Wagner’s Ring Cycle,” he responds, “It is a long composition” he adds with some conviction. “You have a nice voice” I tell him honestly, “Thank you.” He answers, as he punches me hard, twice, in the kidneys. I try to cut off the howl of pain I feel, trying to stem it to stop him getting too much satisfaction. Just as I think I am managing the pain and the situation Fat Face slams his fist into
my right ear, making my hearing go flat and the sounds in the room echo, my eyes are swimming with unbidden tears, now he hits me in the left ear, systematically jarring me so that the pain reverberates through my body, robbing me of coherent thought. Fat Face is still humming his tune in his pleasant voice, but now it is sounding a little strange because of my ears. I can feel the blood from them drip down onto my neck. He is still smiling as he walks in front of me to continue his work. He removes his the jacket and shirt of his uniform and pauses, he has a barrel chest, full of matted hair and sweating muscle. He follows my eyes to his torso and flexes his biceps.

  “I have to keep in shape for this job.” I nod my head; he is built like a powerful gorilla. He clearly enjoys his job, as his tongue licks at his sweating top lip as he starts to sing the Ride of The Valkyrie and he hits me with all his might in my stomach. I am unable to move because of the ropes holding me to the chair so I find myself straining into a fetal position. Now his humming and singing is beginning to really annoy me as Fat Face hits me squarely on my chin with an uppercut punch of such power that I hear my neck bones creak as my head snap back. “Stop!” I call, “Please stop!” I plead, Fat Face holds up his right forefinger for me to be silent. I smile in the hope he will accept my plea and stop hitting me. “I’ve learned my lesson, I will be polite, sir, I promise.” I don’t care if he knows I am a coward but I can’t take much more of this beating without permanent damage. I hate pain, especially my own pain, and always have. Fat Face smiles, but there is no warmth reaching those cold eyes. He looks at his knuckles as if examining works of art and spotting some torn skin puts the damaged part of his hand inches from my mouth. “”Look what you did, go on, lick it better.” I don’t have a choice do I? I leaned forward and lick his knuckles. He sighs appreciatively and strokes the back of my head with his free hand. “Good boy,” he says, “That’s very nice.” He removes both hands and then without pause he cups them both and cuffs me as hard as he can on both my ears. I howl in pain but as I do so he forearms me in the face twice. I feel two or three of my teeth being dislodged and I spit them out to avoid swallowing them.

  Fat Face has resumed his singing and humming, all the time smiling. It is his obvious enjoyment of his sadistic beating that makes me lose my last vestige of self-control and fear. I lash out with my feet and kick the grinning bastard in his balls, he doesn’t collapse, but subsides slowly to the floor, a balloon minus air, his eyes comically cross, holding himself and groaning, at least he isn’t singing. He lies there groaning, prostrate at my feet. “I should kick your head in!” I roared, then my anger and humiliation get the better of me, and I kicked his head as hard as I can, knowing I have nothing to lose. I am panting with the effort. Now I get the feeling that there is another presence in the room. I look up and my skin crawls as I see it is Rat. He smiles, exposing his yellow, feral teeth, which are more like small pointed fangs.

  “Don’t you like the music Arnie?” Rat asks me. I don’t like the look of the small leather object he extracts from his jacket pocket. His intent is obvious but there is nothing I can do as he raises the cosh high above his head and brings it crashing down on my head.

  I’m somewhere in endless blackness, it’s actually quite pleasant here. Like a big, warm dream. I don’t feel anything. Memories of my life are swimming to the surface behind my eyes; I can hear something but can’t make it out. Perhaps this is death, maybe I’m dead. I remember my parents, paintings, lovers, and friends. Someone is slapping my face, reality is coming back and with it pain and realization of my vulnerability.

  My eyes open and I discover that I am back in my original cell with my friend, Hans. “How are you?” he asks gravely, “You don’t look so great.” “I’m OK.” I answer, but I don’t even convince myself. “You look bloody awful, like death warmed over.” Hans continued, always the bloody realist, never discrete. “What did the bastards do this to you for?” he asks as he tries to clean me up with the aid of some spit on his dirty handkerchief. “I think it was because I simply don’t like Wagner.”

  “Be serious will you,” he rejoined, before continuing in a much louder voice, “These animals will be made to learn that they cannot get away with behavior like this in a modern society!” He speaks with exaggerated volume, hoping to scare the listeners we are both convinced lurk just outside our cell door.

  “I would keep quiet if I were you Hansy,” I warn him, “It really doesn’t pay to upset the servants of the new order.” Hans throws back his aristocratic Prussian head and hoots with laughter. “Don’t tell me the little Corporal has frightened Arnie Hessel, I don’t believe what I’m hearing. The little man is a bad joke, a momentary aberration. He came and he will go like a puff of smoke, poof he’s here and poof he’s gone, not a trace. You mustn’t let these little bastards grind you down Arnie, it’s not in your nature to give in.” Hans claps me on the shoulder and I wince in pain as its one of the many places I have been damaged by the sadistic Fat Face, it gives me another jolt of pain to join the many others jostling for my urgent attention all over my body.

  “Sometimes,” I say to my friend, “you have to bend with the wind, before it becomes a storm and it snaps you in half, to adapt or you won’t survive.” Before I can complete my warning the door to our cell bursts open and in come Rat and Fat Face.

  “Commendable sentiments Arnie,” Rat says, happily smiling. He turns to Hans and continues, “You would do well to learn from your friends lesson,” he says to Hans, “You don’t scare me you lousy little bastard!” shouts Hans. Fat Face is on Hans before he can even draw breath, punching him to the ground. Rat pushes me out of the cell before I even realize what he’s doing. I can hear that Hans is taking a beating but there’s nothing I can do about it. I move down the corridor as Rat shoves me forward, using his boot to prompt my movements. I don’t want to feel the weight of that cosh on my head again if I can avoid it.

  “You’re a lucky man Arnie,” Rat breathes quietly to me as he marches me towards the gentlemen’s toilet. “You’re not a queer are you?” I ask, as he jostles me to a row of sinks opposite the urinals. “Very amusing,” he laughs, and just for fun he hits me in the stomach which makes me bend over at the waist bringing my face down to the level of the washbasin. He holds my head down with one of his hands whilst turning the cold-water tap on with the other. Rat begins to wash my face with a strange intimacy and attention that is even more unsettling than his previous brutality. He continues to talk as he does so. “You’re a very lucky young man, if I had my way we would strictly impose the laws dealing with defectives like you and that would be an end to you and your line like you. It’s what comes when you take good Aryan stock and dilute it with sub human blood. But as it is your very nice mummy and daddy have come to get you; what are you going to say about our hospitality?”

  I decide to play along with his obvious concern, “I shall tell them how kind you were throughout this misunderstanding.” I try to pour all the scorn and irony I can into these words, but I don’t want to upset the applecart so close to my possibly getting out of this place. He clearly doesn’t like my line in sarcasm as he pushes the bar of soap into my mouth before I can finish. Rat resumes the conversation as I gag on the foul tasting carbolic taste.

  “I thought you had really learned your lesson but perhaps I shall leave you alone with my colleagues for another session, he tells me that there are still one or two things he would dearly love to discuss with you.” I shake my head as Rat pushes my face into the water and holds it there for what seems like an eternity, I think I’m drowning he holds me down for such a long time, I nearly lose consciousness before he lets me up for a gulp of air. “So Arnie, for the record, how are you going to say we treated you?” he asked me with the oily solicitude of a latter day Uriah Heep.

  “You have treated me with courtesy at all time.” I answer, having had enough of his courtesy to last me a good long while. I just want to be somewhere that Rat
is not, far from his clutches. I might not understand why this stinking functionary of a hated regime should be so concerned about my parents, after all my father is only a middle ranking bureaucrat himself, and my mother, that most questionable citizen of the Reich, a Jewess.

  I don’t arrive at any conclusive answer to this interesting question as the cleansing process is concluded without further incident. Rat dries me off with brisk efficiency, although his every gesture is permeated with loathing. He finally unties my bindings, which had, of course, been totally unnecessary in my particular circumstances. My wounds are now patched up and are largely concealed under a fresh change of clothes supplied by Fat Face who gently helps to dress me. I catch my reflection in the mirror and am amazed at how normal I appear.

  Rat ushers me into the hall with elaborate courtesy as if he is leading some visiting potentate on a tour of his station house. During the walk towards the public part of the building Rat becomes ever more unctuous. “Now we can all forget that little bit of unpleasantness can’t we Mister Hessel?” I smile in response, I just can’t believe or understand the reason for this total transformation. “What about my friend?” I ask, sensing now is the time to do deals. “He has already been released, while we were cleaning you up after your, accident.” He answers as he stands before a large wooden door and hesitates, “It goes like this, our story, you got involved in a unfortunate brawl, you were arrested, you took your punishment like a true son of the Fatherland, no hard feelings?” He holds out his hand to shake mine, forgetting my problem for a moment. Of course I ignore his small discomfort.

  “Why shouldn’t I say the truth, that your brown shirted thugs attacked me and my friends while we were having an innocent drink in our favorite beer hall for no reason. Then we were arrested and beaten up, again for no reason, then I am let out, again without an explanation that makes any sense, and now what do you want, a bloody thank you note?”