Alexander Beliaev

by The Amphibian

  “Go, Cristo. Ill be waiting for you.”

  “Come on, my girlie,” Cristo said to the child and picked her up again. She started to cry. Cristo hurried away.

  AN ORCHARDFUL OF MIRACLES

  When Cristo turned up again a week later Dr. Salvator greeted him with a searching glance and said:

  “Now then, Cristo, pay attention to what I’m going to tell you. I’m taking you on. Youll have good pay and board—”

  Cristo waved his hands.

  “I don’t want anything so long as you let me serve you.”

  “Be silent and listen,” Salvator cut him short. “You’U have everything as I said you would. But there’s one condition: keep your mouth shut about everything you see here.”

  “I’d sooner cut my tongue out with my own hands and throw it to the dogs than breathe a single word to anybody.”

  “See you don’t have to do that,” came Salvator’s warning. With that he summoned in the white-smocked Black and ordered him to take Cristo into the orchard and place him in Jim’s charge.

  Bowing silently, the Black took the Indian outside and across the courtyard to the iron gate in the inner wall.

  In response to the Black’s knock a barking of dogs came from behind the wall, then the gate creaked and opened slowly. The Black gave Cristo a light push, shouted something in throaty tones to the Black who stood inside the gate, and went away.

  Cristo backed against the wall in fright. Charging at him were a pack of beasts with tawny black-spotted fur. Had they been in the pampas Cristo would not have hesitated in calling them jaguars. But these barked like dogs. Anyhow there was no time to puzzle it out. Cristo sprinted for the nearest tree and was up it with an agility surprising in a man of his age. The Black hissed at them, for all the world like an angry cobra, at once bringing them to. The beasts stopped their thunderous baying, lay down and put their muzzles on their forepaws, slanting their eyes up at their master.

  The Black hissed again, this time to Cristo, and beckoned him to climb down.

  “What’re you hissing there like a snake for? Swallowed your tongue,eh?”

  The Black only gave an angry inarticulate sound.

  He must be dumb, Cristo thought and remembered Salvator’s warning. Does Salvator really cut out the tongues of those who betray his secrets? This poor blighter might be one of them. Sudden fear almost made Cristo lose his grip on the tree-trunk. He wished to God he were on the right side of the great wall again. With his eyes he measured the distance between his tree and the wall but saw he couldn’t make it. Meanwhile the Black had approached the tree, got hold of Cristo’s foot and was tugging at it impatiently. There was nothing for it but to take the hint. Cristo sprang down, grinned his most engaging smile, stretched out his hand and said amiably:

  “Jim?”

  The Black gave a nod.

  Cristo pumped his hand. Once in hell, play up to the devils, he thought. Aloud he asked:

  “Dumb?”

  There was no answer.

  “Got no tongue?”

  Still no answer.

  Even if he’s got no tongue, Cristo thought, he could at least talk in signs. Instead Jim took the Indian by hand, led him up to the tawny-skinned beasts and hissed something at them. The beasts rose, sniffed at Cristo and went calmly off. Cristo felt more at ease.

  Then Jim led him on a round of the orchard.

  After the bare stone-flagged yard the orchard looked a paradise of blossom and verdure. Stretching eastwards, it gently sloped down almost to the very shoreline. Narrow alleys strewn with finely crushed bluish-green agaves and yellowish-green flowers criss-crossed it between groves of peach and olive trees. These gave shade to lush grass-its deep green broken here and there by little white-stone ponds and beds of bright many-coloured flowers. A few fountains were sending high their jets of sparkling water to lend freshness to the air.

  The orchard vibrated with the singing of birds and the roaring of beasts.

  Never in his life had Cristo seen the strange birds and animals that met his eye at every turn.

  A six-legged lizard scuttled across the path, its greenish skin coppery in the bright sun. A double-headed snake was hanging from a tree, making Cristo jump as it hissed at him with its two throats. A still louder hiss from the Black, however, silenced it; dropping from the tree it disappeared among a border of rushes. Another long snake hurried away from the path where it had been basking, helping itself along with a pair of legs. In a little enclosure, near the walk, a pig was grunting, its large single eye fixed at Cristo.

  Then a pair of large white rats, joined side to side, scuttered towards them along the reddish walk, looking for all the world like a double-headed, eight-legged monster. From time to time this dual creature went through a struggle; each rat tried to pull its way, both squeaking their displeasure. But the right side invariably won. Grazing near the path was another pair of Siamese twins, fine-fleece sheep this time. Unlike the rats they never quarreled; they must have reached a common mind long, long ago. But it was the monster they met next that struck Cristo’s imagination most. It was a big pink dog with not a single hair on it but what looked like a little monkey-or the upper part of one at any rate-sticking out from its back. The dog came up to Cristo and wagged its tail, while the little monkey kept jerking its head right and left, waving its arms, patting the dog on the back and jibbering at Cristo. The Indian dug a hand into his trouser pocket, brought out a piece of sugar and was offering it to the monkey when somebody stopped his hand and hissed. It was Jim, whom Cristo, engrossed by all those queer creatures, had clean forgotten. The old Black explained by signs that he was not to feed the monkey. Cashing in on the interlude a parakeet-headed sparrow swooped down at the piece of sugar which Cristo still had between his fingers and carried it off to safety behind a bush. From farther away, in the middle of a meadow, came the lowing of a horse with a cow’s head.

  A pair of llamas swept across the meadow, their horse’s tails spreading out in flight. Strange creatures were crowding on Cristo from all sides: dogs with cat’s heads, cocks waddling on webbed feet, homed boars, eagle-beaked ostriches, puma-bodied sheep.

  Cristo thought he was having a nightmare; he rubbed his eyes, sprinkled his head with cool water from a pond but nothing helped. In the ponds he saw snakes with fishes’ heads and gills, fish with frogs’ legs, enormous toads with bodies as long as a lizard’s.

  And Cristo again wished himself well outside the walls.

  Finally, Jim brought the Indian to a broad sand-strewn stretch in the middle of which stood a white-marble Moorish-style villa, its arches and colonnades half-screened behind the trunks of palm trees. Brass dolphin-shaped fountain spouts sent cascades of water into the pools where goldfishes frisked in the pellucid water. The biggest fountain of them all, opposite the main entrance, had the shape of a youth astride a dolphin—perhaps it was Triton, the marine god of the ancients-with a winding horn pressed to his mouth. Obviously the work of a master sculptor, the group looked all but alive.

  Behind the villa there were a few outhouses and still farther, a jungle of thorny cacti, with a white wall at the far end, showing through at places.

  Another wall, thought Cristo.

  Jim led him into a small cool room. In his sign language he explained that Cristo was to live there and then left him alone.

  THE THIRD WALL

  By and by Cristo began finding his way about in the new strange world. It didn’t take him long to find out that the animal population of the orchard was quite tame. With some he was soon even on terms of friendship. The dogs with jaguar skins, the cause of such scare on his first day in the orchard, followed him about, licking his hands. The llamas ate out of his hand. The parrots perched on his shoulder.

  The orchard and the animals were tended by twelve Blacks as dumb as Jim. At any rate Cristo never heard them speak. They all went silent about their business. Jim was a sort of superintendent over them. He gave them their work and saw that they did
it. Cristo, much to his own surprise, had been appointed his deputy. His duties were not hard. There wasn’t too much work and the food was plentiful. But the oppressive silence of the Blacks soon began to get him down. Besides, he was convinced that they had all had their tongues cut out. And every time Salvator summoned him to the office-not that it was often-Cristo thought his turn had come. But then something happened to allay his fears.

  One day he came across Jim lying fast asleep in the shade of an olive tree. The Black was lying on his back, his mouth hanging open. Cristo used the opportunity of looking for the Black’s tongue and, to his relief, found it there all

  right.

  Dr. Salvator’s day was well-planned and busy. From seven to nine he received patients, from nine to eleven he operated upon those who required it. Then he went to his villa to do laboratory work. This involved operating on animals and studying them. An experiment over, the animals went back to the orchard. Cristo, who dusted the rooms in the villa, managed occasionally to slip into the laboratories. The things he saw there would haunt his imagination for long afterwards. Hearts and kidneys carved out of their bodies lived on in glass jars. Amputated limbs seemed to be waiting for their owner.

  His skin crawling Cristo hurried out. He preferred to be among the live monsters of the orchard.

  Salvator seemed to trust the old Indian, but not beyond the third wall. And it was just what was on the other side that Cristo was so eager to see. One midday, when everybody was having a siesta, he stole up to the wall. Children’s voices floated over to him. They spoke an Indian dialect he knew but intermingling with them, as if in a quarrel, there were other voices, thin and squeaky, speaking what seemed to Cristo a very peculiar brand of Indian.

  Coming across Cristo in the orchard one day Salvator halted and, looking him straight in the eye as was his wont, he said:

  “You’ve been with me a month now, Cristo, and I’m pleased with your work. One of the servants in the lower orchard has fallen ill. You will replace him. You will see many new things there. But mind that little conversation we had about your tongue unless you want to lose it.”

  “I’ve almost forgotten the use of it with all your dumb Blacks around, Doctor,” said Cristo.

  “Excellent. Silence pays, you know. Incidentally, do you know your way in the Andes?”

  “I was born and bred in the mountains.”

  “Splendid. I will soon want to replenish my zoo with a new batch of birds and animals. I’m going to take you with me. You may go now. Jim will take you to the lower orchard.”

  Accustomed though he was to the wonders of the place, Cristo had more surprises coming.

  In the spacious sunlit meadow naked children were playing with monkeys. Almost all Argentina’s Indian tribes seemed to be represented there by children ranging in age from about three to twelve years. All of them were patients of Salvator’s. Many had undergone complicated operations and owed their very lives to Salvator’s skill. Once round the corner the children recuperated playing in the orchard till they were strong enough to be taken home.

  Tailless monkeys with not a tuft of hair on their bodies kept them company. But what really amazed Cristo was that all of them could speak some kind of Indian. They joined in the children’s games, quarrelling with them and shouting in thin high-pitched voices, though on the whole they were quite a friendly crowd.

  Sometimes Cristo was inclined to think they were human beings after all.

  The lower orchard, as Cristo soon found out, was smaller than the other one, sloped steeper seawards and ended in a big cliff rising sheer like a wall. Somewhere behind it was the invisible ocean, revealed by the roar of the surf.

  A closer look showed that the cliff was man-made and, in fact, nothing more than another wall, a fourth one, for in it Cristo found an iron door, painted grey to blend with the cliff and furthermore screened by a thick growth of wistaria.

  Cristo listened. The roar of the surf was the only sound. Where did the small door lead to? The seaside?

  Suddenly there was a hubbub of children’s voices behind him. Cristo wheeled round and saw the children staring up into the sky. He also looked up and spotted a small red balloon slowly floating up and across the orchard. The wind was heading it seawards.

  An ordinary children’s balloon, it seemed to stir Cristo deeply. As soon as the servant that had been ill reported for work, the old Indian went to see Salvator.

  “Soon we’re leaving for the Andes, Doctor. It might be some time before we come back. May I go and see my daughter and her child?”

  Salvator didn’t like his servants leaving the premises, and he didn’t speak at once. Cristo stood waiting, his eyes boldly meeting the cold stare of Salvator’s.

  “Remember your pledge,” said Salvator. “I wouldn’t like you to lose your tongue. You may go, but see you’re back within three days. Wait! “

  Salvator went into the other room and brought back with him a suede leather pouch.

  “There’s something for your granddaughter—and for your silence too.”

  AN AMBUSH

  “If he doesn’t come this time I’ll cut the painter as far as the pair of you are concerned, 111 be damned if I won’t. I’ll get smarter people onto the job,” Zurita was saying, tugging impatiently at his bristly moustache. He wore a white town suit and a panama hat. They had met well outside Buenos Aires, at a point where the pampas were taking over from the maize fields.

  Baltasar, in a white blouse and a pair of blue-striped trousers, was squatting by the roadside, plucking dejectedly at the sun-parched brittle blades of grass.

  He himself was beginning to regret having sent his brother to spy on Salvator.

  Though Baltasar’s elder by ten years, Cristo was strong and lithe and as cunning as a pampas-cat. But he was not reliable. He couldn’t settle down to anything. There had been a time he took up farming but soon dropped it, thoroughly bored. Then he ran a dockside tavern till he drank himself out of house and home. Lately Cristo had been earning a precarious living on the windy side of the law. With his sharp wits he could ferret out anything but was not to be trusted with much. He might even betray his own brother if it were made worth his while. Baltasar knew his man and was as worried as Zurita.

  “Are you sure Cristo saw the balloon, anyhow?”

  Baltasar shrugged his shoulders. He would have much preferred to drop the whole affair there and then, go home and have a glass of cold water laced with wine in the peace and quiet of his shop.

  A cloud of dust mushroomed over the turn of the road and was lit up by the last rays of the setting sun. A shrill drawn-out whistle was heard.

  Baltasar livened up.

  “That’s him! ” he said.

  “Not too damned soon either,” said Zurita.

  Striding briskly towards them was Cristo—no longer a doddering old Indian with a sick grandchild come to see the doctor. Giving another whistle Cristo came nearer and saluted the pair.

  “Well, have you seen the ‘sea-devil’?” Zurita asked him by way of greeting.

  “Not yet, but he’s there all right. Salvator keeps him behind four walls. The main thing is Salvator trusts me. That sick granddaughter did it.” Cristo laughed, narrowing his sly eyes. “She nearly gave the whole show away though. When she recovered, I mean. Here’s me, picking her up and kissing her like a loving granddad and she kicks away and fairly bursts into tears,” and he laughed again.

  “Where did you get the girl?” asked Zurita.

  “Money’s hard to get, girls aren’t,” said Cristo. “And her mother’s happy too. I got five pesos-she got her daughter back healthy.”

  That he had also received a sizeable sum from Salvator he didn’t trouble to mention. All the more understandable this, since he wasn’t going to share it with the child’s mother.

  “A regular zoo that place—chock-full of monsters.” And Cristo started his story.

  “That might all be very interesting,” Zurita said after some time and lighted
a cigar, “but you haven’t seen the goods. What do you propose to do next?”

  “Make a trip to the Andes.” And Cristo told them of Salvator’s plan.

  “Splendid! ” exulted Zurita. “We’ll attack the place as soon as Salvator’s party leaves and carry the ‘sea-devil’ away by force. The place’s so out-of-the-way one could do it in broad daylight and nobody the wiser.”

  Cristo shook his head.

  “The jaguars will bite your heads off. Even if they don’t you won’t find the ‘sea-devil’-not until I’ve found out where he is.”

  “Then here’s what well do,” Zurita said, after thinking it over for a while. “Well ambush Salvator’s party, take him prisoner and hold him to ransom. The ‘sea-devil’ 11 be the price.”

  With a slick movement of his hand Cristo drew a cigar out of Zurita’s breast pocket.

  “Many thanks. An ambush’s better. But Salvator’s sure to pull some trick on you-promise to deliver the goods and never do it or something. Those Spaniards-” the rest of the sentence was lost in coughing.

  “Well, what do you suggest?” Zurita said irritably.

  “Patience. Salvator trusts me but only as far as three walls go. He must be made to trust me as he trusts his own shadow, then he’ll show me the ‘sea-devil’ of his own free will.”

  “Well?”

  “Well, Salvator will be attacked by bandits,” he jabbed his finger at Zurita’s chest, “and delivered from them by an honest Araucanian”- he tapped his own chest. “Then there will be no secrets from Cristo in Salvator’s house. And no lack of golden pesos,” he added in an aside for himself.

  “That’s not a bad idea.”

  Then they agreed on the road Cristo should suggest to Salvator.

  “On the eve of the departure 111 throw a red stone over the wall. Have everything ready.” And Cristo was gone.