Nocturnal Butterflies of the Russian Empire. José Manuel prieto

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      Why had I traveled to Stockholm (and then later to Istanbul)? To get rich. Inspired by base instincts yet again—I should write that down, to explain to V., and to myself, how I had arrived at that table in the café in Istanbul. The account I gave of my travels at that time was quite brief and largely false. Now I could describe them in detail, scrupulously, like an eye following the sinuous Cufic writing on the doors of some Tartar houses (the Tartars from Khanato in Crimea) here in Livadia. In her second letter she told me about her trip back: how she traveled across Russia to get home, how her mother clapped her hands to her cheeks, speechless with amazement. I should begin with the trip that brought me to Istanbul, the chain of purchases (and sales); list the transactions that eventually led me to that café by the Saray, the nightclub with exotic dancers and strippers.

      Because before the butterfly business, I had sold glasses for seeing at night (natt kikare, in Swedish). And before that—just to give her a sense of the turbulent atmosphere in Russia at the time—I told her I had laid eyes (and hands) on the skins of Amur tigers, on the endangered species list; the tusks and teeth of mammoths, preserved in the permafrost on the banks of the Liena, in Yakutiya; new antlers from young reindeer (for months my refrigerator held a bottle of blood obtained when the horns were sawed off, blood that had medicinal properties, scientifically proven); also snake venom (from the Karakorum desert in central Asia); and red mercury, a mineral no one had seen before, worth hundreds of times its weight in gold. On one occasion I was contacted in Tallinn by a potential buyer, a Scotsman, redheaded and red-blooded, with a dagger in the bag he wore over his kilt, not a knife, but a dirk, which he pulled to intimidate me: he wasn’t going to fall into a trap in Russia, so far from Scotland. It’s not so much whether you deal (obey the laws) as what you deal (maximum gain with minimum risk).

      My list—the preceding one—is considerably shorter than Amerigo Vespucci’s. Did V. know (no, of course not, I’d just learned it myself) that the continent where I was born owed its name to a letter, one Amerigo Vespucci sent to Lorenzo de Medici in 1501? I’ll copy his list, Amerigo’s merchandise, for the sake of comparison. Here is what the Italian wrote, his mouth watering: “The aforementioned ships carry the following: They are laden with immeasurable cinnamon, fresh and dried ginger, abundant pepper and cloves, nutmeg, mace, musk, civet, liquidambar, benjamin, purslane, mastic, incense, myrrh, red and white sandalwood, aloe wood, camphor, ambergris, sugar cane, much lacquer-gum, mumia, indigo, tutty, opium, aloe hepatica, cassia and many other drugs that would take too much time to record … I do not wish to go on because the ship does not allow me to write.” You see, behind every voyage of discovery is hidden (that’s it! hidden!) some low motive, a little spice and “immeasurable cinnamon!” All I had wanted was to make a little money, a small fortune, just enough for a modest palace, a couple of balconies, some grandly appointed rooms, where I could live in style. At night, as I passed through my billiards room, I would pick up the cue, idly run a few balls, then go out to the balcony and stare off at the horizon, penetrating the darkness, cutting through it smoothly, like a warm knife through butter, or those night-vision goggles, the kind helicopter pilots use, with a thousand-meter range, which would also come in handy for observing the flight of certain nocturnal butterflies, their iridescent wings.