The Story of Madame Flutterby
Madame Flutterby
My Aunt took me to my first opera.... MADAME BUTTERFLY
It was just after the second world war.... War, uniforms, veterans, women with fatherless children, men with legless bodies, telegrams advising loved ones of a loss and the endless parades, memorial services and the National Anthem seemed the only music saturating me. It all evoked deep mourning and gloom in our family. When I finally went to my long anticipated opera, something I was told was a magical event to relieve the sadness of everyday life, I imagined flutterbys (that was what I called them then), angels and princesses....
When I realised there were no butterfly's and that opera was fraught with deep misery and betrayal, I cried...I've avoided seeing it again....At this late age, when I heard it was playing in the grand Opera House 'Teatro Colon' in Buenos Aires, I decided to go with a good friend and break my childhood resolve.
We were to meet in a park to have a picnic and then finish the day with opera....I was devastated when she sent a text...GOT A STUDENT ......NEED TO WORK.... I lay back nibbling on olives and cheese and took in the the bright sky. I dozed off.. I awoke to a thousand butterfly's circling me... I love butterfly's but these were in plague proportions. As I sat up batting at the ones on my face, it disturbed be that several were squashed under me.... I let my bag absorb the uneaten picnic. I decided to miss the 'no butterfly' Madame Butterfly and head off to a Milonga...
I glanced in the mirror after changing into my Tango shoes and saw that my little black dress still the glorious softest pure silk, but now had pink and blue butterfly’s all over it.... The hem had also been transformed into wing-like flags..I loved it.
I sat with the crowd of women all eager to attract a Tango partner. I had no time to really think about my dress... A handsome man in a navy suit gave me a nod.....In between songs he said... "The music is no good here today... Do you like opera?.... I have marvelous tickets. Come with me... Madame Butterfly is playing.... I think you are appropriately dressed..." He looked down at my dress.
I couldn't begin to tell him the story which started in my early childhood and continued today.
It was a wonderful performance.... At the end of the night we walked through the same park where I'd fallen asleep....
"Oh look !" he said. A thousand butterfly’s .....all dead...Look how the breeze blows them along...They live for only a day, you know."
He pulled me towards him and kissed me with such a passion I thought I would expire too.
"I want you to have this" he said.
He pushed a tiny packet into my hand... It contained a pair of ear rings... each with a delicate filigree butterfly dangling from a fine gold chain ... I put one in each ear.
"I'll admire those flutterbys everyday" he whispered
