Dance of the Dwarfs

by Geoffrey Household

  Beyond and through this tangle I twice thought I saw movement. Distance could not be estimated, for thin ropes and thick ropes were so intermingled that perspective was unreliable. When I spotted the duende, it was not less than thirty yards away. I could not have seen it at all unless at the same time it had been trying to get a clearer view of me. I was reassured by our common motive of curiosity. It was really there.

  It was not a monkey. It was dancing up and down to look at me from behind liana stems which approached the horizontal. No American monkey would have done that, but would have pulled itself up by arms or tail. It was not the butt of a rotten liana in an inexplicable state of instability, for it had a face. It was a dwarf all right, but unfortunately I could never see the face in profile which would have helped me to decide whether he was as human as myself or somewhat lower down the family tree.

  His ears were not prominent. He seemed to have a small beard, but the light was so bad that I could not tell its color or the color of skin. Height was impossible to judge with any precision. Assuming he was standing on the ground and that the rest of him was proportionate to head and shoulders I reckon height as not less than forty two inches, not more than fifty. The eyes were indistinguishable but the straightforward stare seemed to make binocular vision quite certain. The jack-in-the-box jumps were rather like those of a stoat or weasel popping up to get a view over intervening undergrowth. If that is the dwarfs’ technique of hunting, one might easily get the impression of a dance. I may have been looking at two of them. I think now that I was.

  It was my usually quiet Estrellera who demoralized me. There was a hardly perceptible freshening of the dawn wind. At once she neighed in alarm and was off across the llano with the painful, clumsy rabbit hops of a hobbled horse. Up till then I had been fascinated and half skeptical — still ready to accept one of the startling freaks of radical leaves which account for most duendes — but now I remembered that I was a sitting target against the gray gold of dawn and that, as Estrellera’s behavior proved the dwarfs to be real, the missile which stopped a jaguar could be real too. Leaving that out, one of the normal weapons of the forest Indian is a curare-tipped dart shot from a blowpipe. A deep scratch, and that — at any rate for birds and monkeys — is it.

  However, I had undoubtedly been seen, so nothing would be lost if I could summon up enough guts to show myself openly and emphasize my peaceful intentions. In case they knew what a gun was, I laid it across two branches behind me and stood up with hands spread out and down, which I hoped was an interhuman gesture that they would understand. I then beckoned to him or them to approach. I also threw down my machete and made faces to indicate that it was a present.

  Nothing happened. I was aware of the utter inadequacy of my attempts to communicate, yet I suppose the Conquerors when meeting potentially hostile Indians could do little better. I kept telling myself that if anyone got up from behind the lianas to shoot at me I should have time to swing round the trunk into cover. It then occurred to me that any hunter, having once attracted attention to the lianas, would make a circuit into the open woodland and shoot from behind a tree. I had no possible cover from that side; so I forced myself to wave a hand and smile a sickly smile like royalty from a glass coach, shinned down the tree into the bushes and got out fast by the cut passage.

  Estrellera was still legging it across the llano, which gave me an excuse to run after her. When I caught her she was damp with sweat and needed a lot of gentling before I dared untie the hobbles. Why on earth should she have been so terrified? For her anything vaguely human is a possible friend carrying possible nourishment. I have known her to extend her lips towards a large tame monkey in the hope of getting half his sweet potato. It was the monkey which was alarmed by her greedy and affectionate approach.

  Do the dwarfs anoint themselves with jaguar fat or glands? An ingenious theory which would account for her instinctive dash away from the edge of the cover. My own sense of smell — invaluable for detecting fine botanical distinctions — is exceptionally well trained, but the richness of the forest border at dawn drowns all individual scents. I think that I did pick up a faint, musky effluvium, though I cannot be quite sure.

  I did not ride home immediately since Mario and Chucha would have noticed that I came from the forest, not from the east side of the marshes. So I walked Estrellera along the wall of trees — well out of range — with the red ball of the sun now hurling its first heat at us. When we were south of the estancia and out of sight I crossed the creek. It is possible that the dancers were moving on a parellel course. The monkeys were certainly hurling abuse at something below.

  Teresa’s scrawny and hideous hens had been doing their duty while I was away, so there was an excellent and very welcome breakfast. My violent prejudice against canned foods admits one exception. American bacon is superb. Chucha wanted to know why I had no geese and why I came from the south. That was easy. I told her that I had slipped the wrong cartridges into my pocket and found it out too late; so I had gone down the creek in the hope of putting up a capybara in the rushes.

  I had to open up a couple of cartridges and show her the difference between No. 2 and No. 5. She was not suspicious. The little love is always eager to understand what I am doing and why I do it, and I am as eager to satisfy her curiosity. Chuchas taught to university standard might be a greater gift to the world than wheats which resisted our extremes of drought and tropical rain. But one dream is as fantastic as the other. I doubt if I shall live to see the day when there are sheets of water above the dams and mile after mile of crops and homesteads on the llanos. And I wonder if the hunting ape which is me would not then be homesick for the remembered heat and emptiness.

  It occurred to me while conducting on the breakfast table our elementary demonstration of the weight and diameter of lead shot that there was an explanation of Pedro’s wounds which neither I nor the two guerrilleros had ever thought of. If the weapon which killed him was a shotgun fired at fairly close range there would be nothing out of the ordinary in two pellets striking him simultaneously and side by side while the rest of the pattern missed. The same goes for the jaguar; but one must assume much heavier ball than that of any normal cartridge. This theory suggests an old muzzleloader — just the sort of thing which pygmies would be expected to have. But how do they trade for powder and ball when nobody has ever recorded their existence? It won’t do.

  In the cool of the evening, some four hours ago, I rode out to see what had happened to the machete. I did not think that the dwarfs would still be in the neighborhood but, if they were, I should have plenty of warning from Tesoro. I should not get him anywhere near the edge of the forest without a major conflict of wills.

  He showed no more nervousness than usual at leaving the llano. Beneath the caju tree my machete lay where I had dropped it. I put it back in its sheath and then explored on foot, leading Tesoro. The rush basket of lianas seemed to be the apex of a very rough triangle, stretching away to the northwest. Chucha and I had ridden along the inner side of it.

  I found and closely examined the spot where the pair of little people had been. I could clearly see the top of the caju and the fork in which I had been sitting, but anyone eighteen inches shorter could not and would have to jump up and down unless he climbed onto the prostrate lianas and exposed himself fully. Nothing was to be seen, no tracks, no trace of cutting, no small possession dropped. The tangle was so thick that only a bird or an arrow could have reached me in a straight line. To arrive at the caju tree the dwarfs would have had to make a circuit through clean, close timber. I suspect that they were doing so — with what intentions one cannot guess — when my nerve broke and I took quickly to sunrise and the open llano.

  More precautions for my own safety as well as more tact will be needed. I must assume that the pygmies have for centuries observed white men on their horses and Indians in their canoes and that contact, when there was any, proved abrupt and bloody. Take, for example, the melancholy experience of go
rillas in Central Africa ever since Du Chaillu shot the first of them little more than a hundred years ago. Their opinion must be that we are barbarous apes who pay no attention to the civilized gestures of a decent and respectable paterfamilias. Has anyone ever been killed by a gorilla? Certainly not, provided he obeyed gorilla convention and retired when requested to do so.

  I should try to encourage Homo Dawnayensis to visit us and then open communications while remaining in the shelter of the walls. I wonder if prime, fat duck would not tempt him.

  [ April 29, Friday ]

  I took the beginning of the evening flight and got a fair bag in time to lay out the gifts before it was completely dark. I spread out half a dozen duck on our side of the creek just at the point where I always cross, now beaten hard by hooves. Nearer to the estancia I put a brace of geese and fresh bread; and then, at about a hundred yards from the gate, some bits of pup tent with teal. If any of this should go, I shall soon have them round clamoring for rations like robins on a windowsill. Obviously a rifle must be close to my hand until I know more of their weapons, but it should never be necessary to use it.

  I am now going to sit up and watch with Chucha. I have let her into the secret and explained that the absurd duendes of Mario and Joaquín are as human as ourselves, that I have seen two of them with my own eyes and that once they come to trust us they will turn out to be as harmless as other Indians.

  [ April 30, Saturday ]

  A little after eleven we opened the heavy shutters of one of the windows which give directly on to the llano. The night was silent with the stars singing. Insects, which become a bearable nuisance by the end of the dry season, left us in peace. We had an oblique view to the south of the estancia: an expanse of low, dead grass with no cover of any kind except the old rubbish tip beyond and to the right of the gate. There was no moon. The brilliant starlight enabled us to detect movement up to at least two hundred feet.

  Sitting so still and so close, we came near to absorption into the silence. Whether it was a mystic peace or an animal peace I do not know, and it is possible that they are the same. I will call it a peace of Eden from which we could advance to the still wider unity of llano, forest and our neighbor the Andromeda nebula, in that clear air shaped rather than misty to the naked eyes.

  Our mating was inevitable without definite approach from either side, then still, intense, utterly motionless. Why is there no word in English but the wretched “orgasm” which smells about equally of the medical school and the brothel? I have never known that a physical sensation so pure and immeasurable could exist, as if the spirit were using the body for its own purpose rather than the normality which is the other way round. Our reason for being part of the night was all forgotten since we were the young night itself.

  A fine pair of nature watchers Chucha and I would make! When we returned to our bench as silently as we had fallen from it, they were there for us, but at the very limit of vision. The black outline of the rubbish tip was broken. We both saw the two torsos — though with no more detail than logs of wood — jumping up and down with the curious movement which could be a hunting technique or a primitive form of the dance.

  I did not dare use a torch for fear of frightening them away. When they vanished behind the mound and did not reappear, I was about to attempt speech. Chucha actually did so, in a few musical syllables which I could not understand. She told me afterwards that it was Aymara and that she was appealing to them not to be afraid. They were more likely to recognize Spanish than Aymara, but the gentle voice made her meaning plain whatever she spoke.

  The scent had its usual effect on the horses, and I dashed out to restore confidence. Pichón was the craziest, trying to break out of the corral, a rail of which he had already smashed. The other two hate and fear the smell of the forest people, but by now must be more accustomed to it. I partly calmed them and then looked over the wall to see if our visitors were near. They were not, but I again glimpsed an indefinable patch of night cantering away from the direction of the rubbish tip. Cantering best describes the motion. The back of the shadow, so far as it had any outline at all, seemed to be rising and falling more than that of a dog which stays fairly level. The felines come nearer to this flexible, concertina action and I should vote for puma rather than dog if I were not sure that this animal belongs to the pygmies.

  [ May 1, Sunday ]

  I have left Chucha to take her siesta alone. I wonder if she, too, feels that we have reached a summit of perfection which we shall never approach again. In God’s name, why wouldn’t she? But she would not leap to masculine immoderation as I do or ever admit, being a woman, that the future cannot equal the past.

  That, however, is not the only reason why I have been sitting at the laboratory desk through the hours of heat. It is conducive to thought, and I must think urgently.

  When the sun rose, Chucha and I went out to see what had happened to the peace offerings. The feathers of some of the birds were slightly disturbed, but that was all. Though birds are a major item in the diet of all forest peoples, there could be several explanations of why they did not take them. The wild fowl of the llano might be unfamiliar. Or they might consider them carion, possibly poisoned. How were they to know that the birds were fresh shot and a purposeful gift?

  But that was not my problem. What has been occupying my thoughts is the dog/puma. It could have no objection whatever to fat duck killed that very evening. Yet the dog did nothing à la Sherlock Holmes. Like a trained spaniel? Nonsense! The solution in the end stuck out a mile. There never was any dog/puma at all. What I saw on both occasions was a “dwarf” running. He must be an anthropoid which goes on four legs when in a hurry, or else an animal which stands up on two when looking over obstacles.

  Once that is accepted, everything falls into place. But I have decided to say nothing until I am quite clear in my own mind. Meanwhile this diary alone will be the inventory of conjectures and material evidence.

  Now that the creek is completely dry our friends can stroll over any night to inspect us and leave no tracks. If only I had realized earlier that my dwarfs were nearer duendes — though solid enough — and that even two weeks ago there were muddy patches to reveal where they were crossing, I could have settled all doubts. This may be a nightmare, but I am going to assume that when Chucha leaned out of the window after that first dinner she was spotted and stalked, and that the scent of the horses has attracted duendes on several occasions to a likely source of meat.

  I deduce considerable speed and courage, for the jaguar did not stand, preferring to leave its kill and snarl from the safety of a branch. It may have been momentarily winded when the branch broke or it may have been hurt in the struggle with the bullock; but still it was a full-grown jaguar and it was killed by a bite through the spinal column.

  It is now so obvious — and always should have been — that the two holes at the base of Pedro’s skull were not made by any bullets but by two slender and powerful canine teeth.

  [ May 2, Monday ]

  Yesterday before sunset I ordered Mario to stable the horses in the hall at night as he had done when Valera’s party were here. Chucha has already announced that we saw small Indians. She is more excited than afraid. From her point of view they are nervous, pitiable little creatures who screw up their courage to look at the estancia and then run. I have let it stand at that.

  Mario asked no questions, merely saying that he had heard the horses plunging and heard me go out to them. I suppose he and Teresa checked doors and windows and pulled the common blanket over their heads. It is plain that I can never call on him for help if needed. He is right. A machete would be a useless weapon in the dark, even if one forced attack from the front by keeping one’s back against a wall.

  Having admitted that precautions should be taken for the safety of the horses, I could talk more frankly than when I pooh-poohed all his dwarfs and duendes. It was essential to find out whether he knew any solid facts at all.

  “Have you eve
r lost so much as a hen?” I asked.

  “No, Don Ojen.”

  “Then why do you shut yourself up at night?”

  “Because the master told me always to do so.”

  “What did he know?”

  “It was just that the llaneros would not go into the woods after the cattle.”

  “Did they ever see what was taking the cattle?”

  “It is said that Don Manuel did.”

  Always this exasperating “it is said!” I asked him what the llaneros themselves thought. He replied that they would not talk about it after one of them had been lost, horse and all.

  “That bit of paper of yours — when did Don Manuel give it to you?”

  “Before he rode away for the last time.”

  “He had ridden often into the forest?”

  “Just as you do.”

  “The llaneros had left already?”

  “You know it is hard to say if a llanero has gone or has not gone. Some stayed on the east side of the marshes and rode in for their food and money so long as we had some to give them.”

  “So Don Manuel tried to kill the dwarfs?”

  “He never said they were dwarfs.”

  “Then who did say it?”

  “Perhaps those who saw them. Perhaps Joaquín.”

  “Was Don Manuel’s body ever found?”

  “Who would go and look for it?”

  “Yet apart from the cattle and one llanero who may have ridden off to find himself a woman, the dwarfs have never done any harm to anyone.”

  “Who knows?”

  “Then why did Don Manuel tell you to shut yourself up at night?” I asked, returning to the only solid ground.

  “Well, look! I will tell you his words. He said to me: ‘Mario, my valued gardener, take this paper which says that if I do not return you may stay here. And if you do not cross the creek and shut your door tight at night, you and Teresa and the boys will never have anything to fear.’”