I grew up in a small house in a tropical village. Our compound was ‘L’ shaped that went round one side of our house and to the back, rather like a typical semi-detached house in suburban England. Next to our house was another house with a wide path rather than a compound next to it, and next to this wide path was a stream.
The two houses were on a slope, with ours being the higher and, by comparison, much the larger. For some reason, the family in this other house did not have the use of the compound behind their own house, but we did. We had a back door and they did not, so perhaps this had something to do with it.
There were two tall palm trees at the front, with one coconut tree for company. At the side was a rambutan tree, with fruit so sour that no-one cared for them at all. Along the edge of the back compound were a guava tree, a soursop tree, a lime tree, some pandan plants, several papaya trees, a clump of banana trees and another rambutan tree which sometimes bore few fruit and at others not at all. In the middle of the compound was a large clump of pineapple bushes.
Childishly I yearned for the guava tree to be an apple tree. I wished and wished for the papaya tree to be a pear tree. Faithfully and without fail, these trees provided us with delicious fruit which we ate mostly after each meal, but still I wished that they were different. I thought that children in England were really lucky because they not only had Enid Blyton type adventures, they actually had real apples from real apple trees. I wished I was in some English village tracking villains and enjoying building snowmen.
One morning I noticed a slight movement of what I thought was a dried leaf beneath the guava tree. It moved again, so I went closer to see why it was moving when the other leaves around it were still. I reached out to pick it up, but stopped just in time, when I noticed that it had legs – black, stick-like legs, each one as fine as a piece of black thread.
I continued to observe. I ignored the world around me with its own timetable, as I spent almost half an hour or so watching a miracle.
Here was a young butterfly emerging from its cocoon, drying out its wings in the beam of sunlight which had fallen through the leaves of the guava tree. As the beam moved along with the hour of the day, the butterfly crept forward with it, as though to keep up with the warmth that was on the move.
Eventually the butterfly’s wings fluttered faintly. Its legs trembled. I could not help but notice how fine its knees were, as they took the weight of the young butterfly, now fully emerged and walking slowly. I was slightly disappointed that its wings were a dull brown and not a bright splash of an assortment of colours, but at the same time, I was thrilled that it was alive and not flying away from me.
I had to tear myself from the spot and carry on with the business of the day – I had been on my way to the bathroom when I had been distracted by this creature.
When I returned and looked for the butterfly, I could not see it. I was so terribly terribly disappointed. It had flown away and left me! I sat down on a large stone beneath the guava tree and looked around, in case there were others. There were not, but a movement caught my eye. It was my butterfly! It had continued to crawl forward in my absence, and had made very good progress in that time, so I had been looking for it in the wrong spot.
Unexpectedly it seemed to shake and flutter and, with a little leap into the air, flew up and away, lightly flapping its young wings. It flew around in a circle near me and then in a straight line away from me to land on a small branch in the lime tree to wait for a few moments before this time flying away, with great confidence and grace, out of my sight. I marvelled at how shiny its dry wings were.
I stood up and remained under the guava tree for a while, thoroughly heartened that the butterfly had hung around and waited for my return before taking off. Suddenly I was glad that in our compound was the guava tree and not an apple tree. I knew that butterflies and apples were around for only a few months in the year in England. Here in our compound, I had butterflies all the year round, except when it rained.