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ALSO BY COLIN HESTER
Diamond Sutra
(reissued as Diamonds and the Ten Thousand Things)
Copyright © 2020 by Colin Hester
First hardcover edition: 2020
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any and all historical inaccuracies are intentional.
“Death and the Butterfly” epigraph copyright © 2020 by Colin Hester and David Allan Cates
English-to-German translations courtesy Dr. Johanna Timm
English-to-Spanish translations courtesy David Allan Cates and Ms. Roselia Arellano-Sandoval
“Stand by Your Man.” Words and music by Tammy Wynette and Billy Sherrill. Copyright © 1967 (renewed) EMI Al Gallico Music Corp. Exclusive print rights administered by Alfred Music. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Alfred Music.
“My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys.” Words and music by Sharon Vaughn. Copyright © 1976, 1980 Universal—Polygram International Publishing, Inc. Copyright renewed. All rights reserved. Used by permission. Reprinted by permission of Hal Leonard LLC.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hester, Colin, 1951– author.
Title: Death and the butterfly : a novel / Colin Hester.
Description: First hardcover edition. | Berkeley, California : Counterpoint, 2020.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019026332 | ISBN 9781640093256 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781640093263 (ebook)
Classification: LCC PR6058.E725 D43 2020 | DDC 823/.914—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019026332
Jacket design by Sarah Brody
Book design by Wah-Ming Chang
COUNTERPOINT
2560 Ninth Street, Suite 318
Berkeley, CA 94710
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Above the battlefield,
Death and the butterfly
dance with the fallen.
—ANONYMOUS (translated from the Japanese)
Contents
Polo at Daybreak; Or, A Prayer in Snowfall
Polo in Gaza; Or, A Poem of Longing
One
Finned—like iron sharks—the bombs slid out of the belly of the plane and into the night, coursing downward in scent of the city beneath.
They did not take long to find the ground. And to the two Luftwaffe fliers in the cockpit of the twin-engined Dornier 17, the bombs caused several small gray eruptions on the landscape beneath, at this altitude no more significant than the plops of frogs in a pond. Nor did the fliers hear any sound: not from the bombs they had unleashed nor even the endless hammering of the Daimler-Benz engines, for the two had long ago ceased hearing anything in the cockpit save each other’s voices. They were clad in leather headgear and leather jackets, and now that the bombs had registered their seemingly inconsequential puffs, the pilot frowned and returned his attention to the task of flying. The other airman had unfolded navigational charts in a cascade across his lap, and with his gloved hands in the tight confines he began to somewhat awkwardly refold them.
After a moment the pilot turned to him. His face was solemn, and he said over the roar of the engines:
“Das ist London.”1
“Nein, Herr Major,” the navigator replied. He again unfolded the chart and lifted it slightly towards the pilot and pointed with a gloved finger to coordinates upon it, saying:
“Das sind die East End docks.”2 He then pointed to the instrument panel arrayed above their heads—to the gauge marked kompass.
The pilot ignored the gauge. “Die East End docks von wegen!”3 he said. He moved the rudder slightly to the left, and the plane dipped. Below, the gray eruptions caused by the bombs had crested and now began to settle. The plane leveled, and the pilot faced straight ahead. “Strikter Befehl vom Führer persönlich: eine Bombardierung von London ist verboten.”4
“Es
