Dance of the Dwarfs

by Geoffrey Household

  He was not a man to miss a chance of explaining himself dramatically and at length, so I knew that the affair was urgent and that he had good reason to be afraid. I told Mario to throw into a sack rice, dried and canned meat, matches and whatever he could lay his hands on instantly while I saddled up my reliable Estrellera. The disk of the sun was half above the horizon as we galloped across the creek. In another five minutes we were skirting the edge of the forest towards the only possible passage for a horse which I myself had cut. It would take a lot of finding for anyone who did not know it was there.

  As soon as we were clear of the undergrowth and into the trees I dismounted and asked him what the devil was the matter.

  He told me that four llaneros had been driving a small herd towards the foothills. Where they were going he, Pedro, did not know. But when they were two days out, nearing the rendezvous where the herd would be taken over, they had been machine-gunned from the air, the cattle scattered and two llaneros killed.

  The other two, panicked by the discovery that aircraft could shoot, had ridden back to Santa Eulalia. A mere hour ago they had routed Pedro out of bed, told him to get dressed and firmly shut the door on his wife. They then said that they were going to cut his beautiful brown throat and that, as he had once been a friend, they would stretch it tight and do a neat job. He was a traitor who had sent them off on this errand and then told the government about it on his tac-tap machine.

  To me Pedro protested that it was all a mistake and that, as I knew, he never mixed himself up in politics. To them he had said that they might as well have a last drink together — a proposal which appealed to the llaneros’ curious sense of humor.

  Keeping the bar counter between himself and the naked knives, he picked up a bottle and hurled it at the lantern which one of them was carrying. That of course set the store on fire. Pedro’s rot gut was every bit as inflammable as spilled paraffin. In the confusion he yelled to his wife to get out, jumped on his horse and took off across the llano. How he came to have spurs on I can’t imagine. I suppose they were always attached to his boots, though his normal pursuits were sedentary.

  “They are close behind you?” I asked.

  “Not very close. But now that it is day they will ride harder.”

  “How can they tell where you went?”

  Not an intelligent question. It seemed to me that he could take off into space and not see another human being for days. But of course they knew that he had not even saddle and bridle. He would have to eat raw beef unless he lit a telltale fire. He dared not let his horse rest and graze unless he kept hold of the halter, for no South American horse — except rarities like my Tesoro — can easily be caught. Water he could only find at well-known points, giving his presence away by disturbing the cattle. The forest was his only hope, and the estancia his only source of supply.

  His intention was to make his way southwest to the banks of the Guaviare and wait there until he could hail a passing canoe. The crossing of the forest would not take him more than two days or perhaps three, but he might have to wait much longer before seeing any movement on the river.

  I asked him if he had a compass.

  “Pedro needs no compass, friend. I am accustomed.”

  “Suppose they follow you?”

  “Have you ever seen any of them between the estancia and the trees? No! Since they are determined to kill me, there will be several of them together. When they have given each other courage, they will ride along the edge of the forest but they will not enter it.”

  That was certain. They never went where they could not ride.

  Thinking of the days of waiting on the riverbank, I wished I had provided him with hooks and a line. I asked him if he was likely to find game. Even an armadillo might just make the difference between hardship and starvation.

  “Nobody knows for sure. But there must be hunting.”

  “Joaquín told me there are no Indians there.”

  “Joaquín is a fool. There are. But they stay in the deep forest and I shall never be far from the edge of the llano. It is said they are very small. The less reason to be afraid of them! Now go with God before the fools come galloping up to the estancia and frighten your girl! Take my horse and keep it till we meet again!”

  “What should I tell them?”

  “They will not hold it against you. Any of them would help a friend without asking questions. Say that you gave me food and know nothing!”

  Well, I do not. I am quite certain that it was Pedro who organized the meat supply and fairly certain that he never informed the Government. The interception of the herd was probably due to some clever work by Valera and his colleagues.

  I have little fear for Pedro. The forest, almost impenetrable where it meets the llano, soon becomes as open as, say, a ruined church in which the pillars are still upright but a lot of the roof has fallen on the floor. With luck he should be near the riverbank sometime tomorrow. Cutting his way through the last half mile will be long and arduous, and then he may emerge into one of those vile tangles where water, land and vegetation are indistinguishable; but with the river as low as it is a shore of sand or gravel can never be far off.

  Lord knows where this story of pygmies comes from! I have never heard it before. Provided they have always kept to the shelter of the trees it is no more or less possible than traveler’s tales of hundred-foot anacondas.

  Leading his gray gelding, I cantered Estrellera back to the estancia and noticed at least three places where the creek was quite dry between shallow pools. Chucha and Mario seemed ridiculously anxious about me. I had hardly unsaddled and turned both horses into the corral when five of the Santa Eulalia toughs galloped up, loudly demanding entry. I received them as if they were the sixteenth-century caballeros whose manners and cruelty they have inherited, and they were compelled to respond with a due measure of courtesies before coming to the point.

  I gave them my word that Pedro was not in the estancia. He had asked for food, which I had given, and then I had ridden with him to the forest and taken his horse. He had told me only that some gentlemen had tried to cut his throat and set fire to his store, but did not say why. Could they enlighten me?

  “A private affair,” one of them replied, showing no disapproval at all of my behavior. “I need tell you only that he has well deserved it.”

  I watched them through field glasses vaguely searching the frontier between trees and llano, and saw no more of them till they called in for a drink, two hours before sunset, on their way back to Santa Eulalia.

  [ April 9, Saturday ]

  I found Chucha crying this morning. She was comforting her lime sapling, or else it was comforting her. It is a totem, like a vegetable and living Teddy Bear, with which she takes refuge in trouble. She would not tell me what the matter was. I hope the loneliness is not getting on her nerves. She is a creature of closed horizons, of mountain valleys and rivers. This vast emptiness may oppress her. One needs to travel over it on a horse, not to look at it hopelessly from our oasis.

  At first she was as frightened of the horses as her ancestors in Peru. For her they were alarming and self-willed animals with ferocious sets of teeth, only to be handled by the Conquerors and certainly not by humble women. Neither Tesoro nor Estrellera was helpful. Tesoro is only half broken by European standards — and Estrellera was very well aware that at last she had a human being in front of her who could be bullied.

  But Chucha’s ancestral inferiority complex is now on the way to be cured. Partly this is due to the presence of the llaneros the other evening. They were showing off in front of a pretty girl how magnificently they ride, yet they were all much darker skinned than she is. And partly it is due to Pedro’s Pichón, who has gone out of his way to be polite to her ever since she nervously offered him the first carrot he had ever tasted. He likes women anyway. Pedro’s wife used to treat him as a pet. He is a proper corporal’s horse, quiet and unintelligent, willing to carry a pack or a rider. I think I can persuade Chucha
to sit on his back.

  But what can she wear? That’s a problem which Teresa, who dresses in a single shapeless garment with one of my old shirts underneath, would be unable to solve. Nothing at all is the right answer. It would be less indecent than a skirt rucked up round her waist; but both Chucha and Teresa would certainly be shocked at the thought of an Indian Lady Godiva. I should also fear for the pale primrose skin on the inner part of her thighs. The chiripá of the Argentine pampas would look very well on her. I must try to remember how the length of cloth used to be folded and fixed in position.

  [ April 10, Sunday ]

  I made a dashing job of the chiripá by cutting up a green nylon pup tent which it is unlikely I shall ever want. The little darling thought the whole business of fitting the square around and between her legs most improper. In an obscure way I can understand the taboo. The business of a male is to undress, not to take a too intimate delight in dressing. Naturally enough I was entranced by this unexpected modesty. She responded, but still seemed disturbed. Enjoyment without joy. I must be more considerate and stop behaving like an archduke in a high-class brothel.

  In the first cool of the evening I mounted her on Pichón — who fortunately approved of the chiripá — and suggested that we ride to the edge of the forest. She wouldn’t hear of crossing the creek; so we walked our horses up the east side of the marshes where she became more cheerful and exclaimed at the colors of the birds. I should like to dress her in flamingo feathers. A vulgar thought! It offends against her simplicity. In any case I have to be content to set off her prettiness with things folded and belted like the chiripá. It would be reasonable to ask the Mission to fly in a sewing machine.

  It has just occurred to me that Pedro’s tac-tap is out of action, so that it will take anything from three weeks to a month to make a request and get a reply. Well, we are remarkably self-sufficient.

  [ April 11, Monday ]

  This is the devil! I promised myself that nothing should hurt her while she was in my care, and now she is heading straight for tragedy.

  There were tears again during the siesta; so I petted and encouraged her until the reason came out.

  “Porque te quiero, Ojen.”

  I do not know how far the Indian of the altiplano shares our conception of love. Did the Conquerors import romantic love along with their music, speech and religion? I think I must assume they did, though all the evidence I have is that she looked straight into my eyes when she said she loved me and foresaw that there could be no happy ending.

  I replied of course that I loved her too, but she knew very well that my te quiero did not mean the same as hers. What am I to do about this when the time comes? Love is a quite unnecessary serpent in our Eden. Valera would laugh and ask me what the hell I expected. Yet I didn’t expect it. I could shrug my shoulders if Chucha had been a whore responding desperately to kindness and admiration. But what she feels and cries about is not, I think, that fairly predictable response. It is far nearer a child’s unthinking, wholehearted love. I can’t reject it and I don’t want to. There is a father/daughter relationship between us. I cannot act as my own psychiatrist, but I suspect that if I had not been using her body with immense physical and aesthetic satisfaction I could have answered with absolute sincerity and in a quite different sense that I loved her. Am I suffering from the stupid contempt of the male for the woman he has bought? But I didn’t buy her. She was a present.

  I told her that I thought she had been crying because she was lonely. She replied that she could never be lonely any more because she would remember me even if I was not there. I wonder if she read that slowly in some ragged page torn from a magazine or if it came from the heart. Does it matter? Words must have a source. Then for no reason at all she suddenly saw the comic side of the chiripá and started to giggle. Her moods travel like the flickering of wind over the rushes.

  “Now that we understand each other . . .” she began.

  That, too, was spoken out of a child’s instinct. There was a peace and confidence between us which, I see, I had hardly given a chance to grow.

  “Now that we understand each other, promise me you will never go to the trees!”

  I assumed that in some way she did not wish me to be associated with her past. I am always creating complexities where there aren’t any.

  I explained that it was my trade to go to the trees: that anything which grew on the llano in partial shade was of interest to me and that we knew far too little of conditions of soil and geology at the border. That was beyond her. I put it more simply. Why does the forest stop where it does and not somewhere else?

  “And I do not go at night,” I added.

  Nor I do. Like the llaneros, I have no exaggerated respect for predators, but it is obviously unwise to ride in the dusk where close cover overhangs the grass.

  “Not in the day either,” she insisted. “Never!”

  This smelled of the blank spot again. She had talked to the llaneros only in my presence, so the bad influence had to be Mario.

  “Listen, love! Mario has told me a dozen times what I must do and what I must not. Except in the matter of growing pimientos, I pay no attention.”

  “But he has not told you about the dwarfs.”

  I took this very seriously in order to get it all out of her. I pretended annoyance with Mario and demanded why he had not warned me.

  “It is not right to speak of them.”

  I told her that they enjoyed being talked about, that Mario was trying to frighten little girls. There was a dwarf who rode on the necks of horses and plaited the manes. The llaneros and I not only spoke of him but cursed him to hell.

  “Was Mario afraid that I would leave the estancia?”

  “At first, yes. But not now. He says that if you believed they were there, you would go and talk to them.”

  What a compliment! To the scientific spirit of inquiry? Or to the essential humanity of Christian culture? But it left the main question of whether they were duendes or pygmies unsettled.

  “What else did Mario say?”

  “I told him about the dog. He said it belonged to them and that we must take good care when dogs can cross the creek. That is all.”

  Odder and odder. That a race of forest pygmies could exist is possible. Between the Cordillera and the llanos they would have more than thirty thousand square miles to play in — a primordial, uninteresting area the size of Scotland and just as unexplored as Scotland would be if travelers were confined to the Great Glen, the Forth and the Clyde.

  Against their reality and in favor of myth or a folk memory is this nonsense of dogs. If they have dogs they must have been exposed at some time to Spanish influence. Then there would be some written record of them, perhaps two or three hundred years old. Even if lost, it would be alive as rumor and I should surely have heard it among a dozen other yarns of man-eating trees and Eldorados. I cannot believe that the memory should be entirely confined to Santa Eulalia.

  I shall ride over tomorrow and see what I can extract from Joaquín.

  [ April 12, Tuesday ]

  Pedro’s store is burned to the ground. No doubt the Government will give him some compensation when the news gets through, which could be several weeks unless Pedro himself quickly finds river transport. Meanwhile his poor wife is living wretchedly in an abandoned hut. She must in fact be far from destitute, but is naturally unwilling to dig up her flour bags from the ashes in the sight of all. Loyalty to Pedro. She must not lose the money which is to buy that tavern in Bogotá, however much she suffers meanwhile. I shall send some food, and I have told her that if she needs petty cash she can borrow from me. Marvelous generosity! She couldn’t use more than about sixpence a day if she tried.

  Joaquín was drying fish in the sun. They stink to high heaven and then become sweet. I find them quite edible if stewed like salt cod with plenty of garlic and tomatoes. So I bought a few from stock in order to vary our diet and encourage so exacting a craft.

  “I have a
question, Joaquín,” I said at last, “for your wisdom in such matters is greater than mine. What should a man do if he meets a dwarf?”

  He did not answer, busying himself with the fish, and finally spoke more to himself than to me.

  “They will not cross water.”

  “Can they climb?”

  “It is said they cannot.”

  That ruled out monkeys, which anyway are one of the staple foods of forest Indians and so familiar that they could not be feared. As for ground-living apes, it is certain that there are not and never were any in the Americas.

  “Have you ever seen one?”

  “Never. My father did.”

  “What did it look like?”

  “Who knows what he has seen in the dusk?”

  “They don’t come out in the day?”

  “All such things dread the sun.”

  “They are duendes?”

  “It could be.”

  “What else is said about them?”

  “They dance.”

  I let that go. Conversation with Joaquín has the advantage that neither party is necessarily expected to say anything for minutes on end. Whether he spends the intervals thinking or merely sitting I do not know. I myself find them useful for chewing over what he has said and working out the next move. This time I had an inspiration worthy of an anthropologist.

  “Is that why there was no guitar in Santa Eulalia?”

  “That is why.”

  “But have the dwarfs ever come so far to dance?”

  “Who knows?”

  “And at the estancia?”

  “It is said that Manuel Cisneros saw them.”

  “Have you ever heard that they hunt with dogs?”

  “What need would they have of dogs?”

  That was all I could get out of him. For Pedro they were real and neither more nor less to be feared than any other unapproachable tribe. For Joaquín they are clearly duendes.

  Yet his treatment of the subject differed from the matter-of-fact way in which he usually describes the various spirits which surround us. The llaneros too seem to feel a distinction. They believe, of course, in duendes but will not normally allow them to interfere with their daily life. The dwarfs do interfere. They are responsible for the llaneros’ reluctance to travel at night between Santa Eulalia and the estancia, and also for the fact that the grazing west of the marshes and the creek is never used.