Capricorn and Cancer

by Geoffrey Household

  Even Don Felipe, though not without a shade of envy, was shocked. He decided to test the matter immediately, and beckoned to a smiling girl whose clumsy Indian figure was all turned to softness by her cotton sack.

  ‘Are you a wife of the white man?’ he asked.

  ‘No. I was.’

  ‘You have a husband?’

  ‘I am her husband,’ said a young man at her side.

  He leaned upon his digging stick, and regarded both his wife and Don Felipe with proud satisfaction.

  ‘You like her?’ enquired the administrator.

  ‘Yes! White man’s wives are the best! Many children! White man’s wives—’

  Don Felipe listened gravely to a flow of praise which would have been markedly indelicate in civilised society. The unnecessary details made it quite clear that girls who did not wear the white tunic were still sunk in the old tribal apathy, but that those who did wear it were enchanted by the attentions of husband and children.

  He permitted himself to remember that his own private life in his river settlement was extremely unsatisfactory. If only one could get Father Hilario out of the way, a conversation with Don Salomón might be profitable. Yet he felt instinctively that Carver’s transactions would be, in some way, far too individual to supply home comforts to lonely and deserving administrators.

  ‘Señor Carver will be glad that you can talk to the Icuari,’ said the sister.

  ‘You understand the language, too?’

  ‘Naturally. I think Señor Carver would wish you to come with me now,’ she added.

  ‘Magnificent! What patience! What devotion!’ exclaimed Don Felipe to cover his embarrassment.

  The track, gravelled like a garden path where the slope was steep and the mud slippery, led them up the other side of the saddle and on to a considerable plateau. Its extent could only be guessed, for the climate was still warm enough and damp enough for the taste of the Icuari and for trees; but here and there the forest had been cut and the bogs primitively drained, leaving glades of desolate beauty.

  As they entered the upper settlement, Carver, accompanied by a respectful retinue of men and women and the prancing gaieties of tiny children, came out to meet them. He had aged twenty years in nine, but was still recognisable: still a square, shortish man with a face like a hammered chunk of coarse-grained granite upon which some friend of the sculptor had drawn a burnt-cork moustache.

  If he had been attired in a string instead of a shirt and trousers, his build, Don Felipe realised, would have been exactly that of the Indians. No doubt the appearance of common humanity had helped his success. He was neither too slim nor too tall to be unfamiliar.

  ‘I must offer you my excuses. This friend—’ Carver laid his hand on the shoulder of the guide—‘should have brought you straight to us instead of coming first to ask for permission. I have never forgotten, Don Felipe, that it was you who allowed me to live here.’

  An odd reason for gratitude, you would think—to be allowed to die slowly of heat and mildew. But one grew to be content with little. What was Don Felipe himself but an underweight bag of bones and bacteria in a yellow skin?

  He responded generously, quite conscious of his Spanish pleasure that there could be courtliness between two men at the world’s end, and one of them dressed in rags.

  ‘My distinguished friend! How should I not allow it? A man such as you wishing to study our country and its people! And now I have the honour to introduce to you Father Hilario, the representative of the Bishop of the Diocese.’

  ‘It is indeed an honour,’ said Carver, with a scrupulous bow.

  ‘You are not, I believe, of the Church?’ Father Hilario asked.

  ‘Father, I fear the differences between one form of Christianity and another are—if I may say so without lack of respect—quite over the head of an anthropologist.’

  ‘But what, Don Salomón, do you teach?’

  ‘I came here to learn, not to teach,’ Carver answered. ‘But I must admit my hand has been forced. We will speak of it later. You must be very hungry.’

  Father Hilario was—and the business of satisfying a stomach which had been three-quarters empty for a week enabled him to control his indignation.

  Under a leaf shelter Carver and his two guests squatted on stools before pots of food which was dully unpalatable by any civilised standard, but far more nourishing than that of the forest tribes. The plateau grew corn and four different kinds of potato. From the lower slopes the Icuari had bananas and a little coarse rice. Don Salomón apologised for the absence of meat. They killed occasional birds and deer, but it was impossible to keep meat for more than a day or two in their climate. He might, he said, have experimented with cattle if the clearings had not been just within the range of the vampire bat.

  ‘But they do not look like a dying tribe now, would you say?’ he asked proudly.

  Sister Janet was passing the eating-floor, trying—perhaps for the sake of Father Hilario—to look stern while being pulled apart by four-year-olds. In the middle distance Sheila, surrounded by half a dozen of the white-robed, was superintending a sinister cauldron in which bones were being boiled for the manufacture of soap. The two cousins had a tendency to grow black hair—Janet between her eyebrows, Sheila upon her upper lip. Otherwise they had little in common, for Sheila, defying the climate, was bouncing and plump—a fit person, thought Father Hilario still scandalised in spite of a surfeit of potatoes, to seduce … to recruit … intolerable.

  ‘How did you obtain these unfortunate English women, Don Salomón?’ he asked.

  ‘I knew them at home—from childhood almost. Trained governesses they were. But nobody wants governesses any more. I wrote to them the very worst. Yes, I write and receive letters sometimes through my agent in Bolivia. But the worse I made it, the more they wished to come. So here they are. Unfortunate? Well, they do not think so, bless them! It compensates for a lot to see a people, naturally good, coming back day by day from death.’

  ‘No doubt you have been of much service to these innocents,’ said Father Hilario. ‘But I must know what doctrines you teach them.’

  Carver stared at him.

  ‘Doctrines? I don’t know. Ask Janet and Sheila! Ardent Anglo-Catholics, they are. Not very different from yourselves, I believe. I will try to make them take a day off if you want to convert them. Takes longer than that, does it? Well, no doubt they will meet you half-way.’

  The administrator, vaguely perceiving that there was no common ground, returned the conversation to its point of departure.

  ‘You said you had brought them back from death, Don Salomón?’

  ‘Yes. There is no scientific justification. I am probably quite wrong. But the Icuari had been very kind to me. So I fear I forgot all my principles and settled down to raise the birth-rate. Fortunately I have a chance to show you how I do it.’

  He called across the beaten earth of the village to the sister whose plumpness suggested a far too easy conscience:

  ‘Is the bride ready, Sheila?’

  ‘Oh, yes, Mr Carver! I think they are all waiting for you. But hospitality comes first, doesn’t it?’ she added brightly.

  Before Father Hilario could protest against the promised spectacle, Carver had risen and carried his two guests along with him. He stumped through the huts like a solid captain proud of his quarter-deck and entered a crowd of the Icuari which parted to let him through. The casual, contented movement was far more impressive than respect.

  Under a shelter of boughs were standing a girl in a white tunic, a young pot-bellied savage with an immense navel and a wide grin, and what presumably were their families. Four old men squatted in a corner, wise, naked and unconcerned. They were the colour of rotten pineapples and had something of the same smell.

  ‘Would you care to do a professional job on these two children, padre?’ Carver invited.

  The Diocesan Visitor did not reply. His set face was sufficient answer.

  ‘Very well then, I shall
carry on as usual. I assure you that you have no reason to object if Janet and Sheila do not. They have approved my translation of the marriage service into Icuari.’

  ‘Then you do teach—all three of you!’

  ‘I know. I should not do it. But it was unavoidable. Let me give you an example. The Icuari believe that maternal uncles become armadillos after death. That is of great interest. But once I had noted every aspect of any value to anthropology, I found the belief as inconvenient as they did. Defunct maternal uncles are a social nuisance. So I just outlined as much Christianity as a child of five could be expected to assimilate.’

  ‘A child of five,’ exclaimed Father Hilario, ‘is not too young to be corrupted.’

  ‘Really, father, you are most narrow-minded. We cannot possibly do better until you send us a missionary. Now, we are going to approve the price of the bride first.’

  Don Felipe swallowed a last mouthful, and stuffed half a potato into his pocket. His power over both contestants was in theory absolute—though in practice limited by a sincere desire to avoid trouble either with the Icuari or the Church—but he was aware that during the collision of such characters a civil servant would be wise to confine himself to his daily bread.

  It was safe and proper, however, to put on the paternal face which he used for official occasions. Judicially and with his finger-tips together, he heard the bridegroom declare that six poles of seasoned wood, sheltered from rain and free of white ant, were offered for the bride.

  Carver turned to the four old men.

  ‘Am I to accept the six poles?’

  They made a solemn pretence of consulting one another, but it was plain to Don Felipe that the committee’s decision had been reached, much as elsewhere, before the formal meeting.

  ‘It is too cheap. He must add a roof beam.’

  ‘You hear?’

  ‘I will add a roof beam.’

  The bride’s expression turned from slight anxiety to pride. She had cost her husband—considering his tools—months of patience and hard work.

  During the ceremony Father Hilario kept silence, for it was simple and reverent. There could be no doubt that this heretic and his two women, however abominable their doctrine, had accustomed the Icuari to Christian ritual. It was not until dancing and drinking began, and the laity—if one could think of them as laity—had reverted to their primeval paganism that he demanded:

  ‘Was that woman your wife, or was she not?’

  ‘By tribal law she was,’ Carver replied.

  ‘And how long has she been so?’

  ‘Sheila, how long was she my wife?’

  ‘You bought her from her uncle when she was eight. No. 47 on the card index. A very obstinate case of worms. You ought to remember, Mr Carver,’ said Sheila sternly. ‘I do not know how you got on at all before Janet and I came.’

  Don Salomón for the first time looked slightly embarrassed.

  ‘It’s the bad habit of trusting to your cards,’ he said. ‘Of course! Comes back to me now. Pretty little thing she was. She came in on that bad lot of skins. They rotted in six months. Shocking! I had to pay for her all over again.’

  ‘With what kind of skins?’ asked Don Felipe politely.

  ‘Otter. The price of a wife is nine skins. Quite understandable. A mink coat, as it were. A very sound medium of exchange originally.’

  ‘Sound, in heaven’s name!’ Father Hilario exclaimed.

  ‘Originally, I said. When the Icuari were a river people it was a practical form of dowry. It proved that the bridegroom had enterprise and could handle a canoe. But after they migrated to these valleys they found few otters, and soon wiped those out. To get nine otter skins took years of hunting. And by the time the last was collected, ants or mildew had usually destroyed the first. A man like that—’ he pointed to the aggressively dancing bridegroom—‘had no hope of a wife till he was so old that he would care for nothing but sitting round a fire.

  ‘That was the position when they received me as their guest. Too little money chasing too many goods. Result—no children. We are all conservative in these matters. The Icuari would not change from otter skins any more than we will change from gold.’

  ‘And so you took advantage of that?’ asked Don Felipe with an entirely neutral courtesy.

  ‘Yes. There was nothing else for it. I gave a standing order for otter skins in Bolivia. No one else wants them. My agent thinks I am mad. But he collects them for me, and I go and fetch them twice a year.’

  ‘But then you do not leave any wives for anyone else!’

  ‘Oh, that’s an exaggeration! But whenever I find a promising child with no hope of a husband, I marry her myself and sell her when she is fit to be sold.’

  Don Felipe was ashamed of his past inactivity. What an exposure of his liberal administration! And under the horrified eyes of the Church!

  ‘This passing through your hands enhances their value?’ he asked.

  ‘No! No! No!’ answered Carver with forced academic patience. ‘It reduces their value. That’s the whole point. As a man of the world, you should understand it at once.’

  The Anglo-Saxon shamelessness of the man was distasteful to Don Felipe. Any truly Christian gentleman would have clothed such a remark in more decent ambiguity.

  ‘And how did you—to use a frank expression—get away with it?’

  ‘Simple, once I had their confidence! Night after night with the old men. There they are! Just like politicians anywhere else—walking memories, but no constructive thought for the future! Chatter, chatter. I took it all down. Rivers flowing and maternal uncles, and quiet acceptance that the tribe must die. And then they came out with the tale of a custom permitting a husband to sell his wife for anything he liked to take. Quite legal, but half forgotten. Naturally! Who would want to sell a wife when it was practically impossible to buy one?

  ‘Well, I saw my way at once. I could buy them young for otter skins and sell them for something sensible when they were fifteen. That is what you have just seen me do—sell a wife for the makings of a sound hut. I shall put the married couple in it, of course.’

  ‘I have a liberal education,’ exclaimed Don Felipe. ‘No one can say I do not sympathise with temptation. But eighty-nine!’

  ‘Yes, it’s astonishing how my little family grew. I taught them a bit of sensible religion and tried to give them self-respect. Any man can handle a girl up to the age of eleven or so. But time passes. When my first batch of wives were close on twelve, I had to send for Janet and Sheila.’

  ‘It is beyond belief!’ Don Felipe cried, all the more angry because he was aware of a most improper jealousy. ‘And then to introduce two crazed women to assist you!’

  Carver stood up and, instantly, the old men with him.

  ‘What the devil do you mean, man? Crazed women—those two angels? Come out of here immediately!’

  The Icuari had perceived his anger. Don Felipe realised that they would strike out like frightened children if Carver made the least gesture of violence, but had a human faith that Carver would not. After all, he himself had sometimes been in a position to raise a finger. He scurried through the dancers a little ahead of his host, endeavouring to preserve an expression of the utmost geniality.

  The Diocesan Visitor followed more slowly, smiling with inexplicable tenderness. He even blessed the bride as he passed her. It was extremely unfair, Don Felipe thought, that Father Hilario should leave the secular authority to interrogate this disgraceful debauchee and then shy away from the results. Typical of those black crows, it was! The Church, to start with, had been altogether too ready to bring in its thunders and, having made all the trouble, was now being exquisitely courteous.

  ‘Don Salomón,’ Father Hilario was saying, ‘you have been in the forest how long?’

  ‘Let me see now! Crazed women indeed! Let me see! A year before I found the Icuari. And six—no, no, over eight years since.’

  ‘Verily what devotion! No wonder it was difficult at fir
st for us to understand each other.’

  ‘I cannot see why. Souls for God you want, don’t you? Well—if I may use your terminology—when I began to love this people, so did I. Increase and multiply, that is what I am trying to make them do. Clear, I hope? Many thanks! No reason for a government officer to think we are all mad, is there? Look at that!’

  Sister Janet, attended by two nursery maids in the white tunic of Carver’s wives, was telling a story to a dozen or so of fascinated infants.

  ‘Suffer little children to come unto Me,’ Carver explained. ‘I ought not to allow it. It is gross interference with their own folk-lore. But the fact is, padre, I have found in practice that if you want to raise a whole community from the dead there is nothing like elementary Christianity to do it.’

  ‘That has been our experience, too,’ said Father Hilario gravely. ‘I’m very glad to hear it confirmed from such an—unexpected quarter. May I inspect the children, sister?’

  ‘Of course, reverend padre,’ Janet replied proudly. ‘Their heads are beautifully clean now.’

  Don Felipe, left out of the conversation in disgrace, also looked closely at the Icuari nursery class. He knew what Father Hilario was up to. Either of them, from long experience, could distinguish as little as one-eighth of white blood. There was none.

  He ventured to reassert himself with a delicate question:

  ‘Sister Janet, the bride whom we have just seen married—would you describe her as … well … inexperienced?’

  ‘Certainly not, Don Felipe. She was one of my best pupils.’

  The administrator blinked his fever-yellowed eyes under the impact of such innocence, but tried again.

  ‘And you see nothing questionable in this second marriage?’

  ‘No, Don Felipe. After all they are quite normal girls. They would be very disappointed if they had to belong to Mr Carver’s family for ever, wouldn’t they?’

  Father Hilario opened his arms in a jovial gesture which included the desolate, rain-sodden hill-top and all the children, old and young, upon it. His bark of laughter sounded through Icuari mists the sunlit trumpets of Europe.