My Family and Other Animals

by Gerald Durrell

  ‘My! You look really sumptuous tonight,’ said the Captain, leering at Mother and rubbing his hands, swaying gently. ‘You’ve put on some weight lately, haven’t you?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Mother primly.

  The captain eyed her up and down critically.

  ‘Well, you seem to have a better handful in your bustle than you used to have,’ he said.

  ‘I would be glad if you would refrain from making personal remarks, Captain,’ said Mother coldly.

  The captain was unabashed.

  ‘It doesn’t worry me,’ he confided. ‘I like a woman with a bit of something you can get your hands on. A thin woman’s no good in bed – like riding a horse with no saddle.’

  ‘I have no interest in your preference, either in or out of bed,’ said Mother with asperity. ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and attend to the food.’

  More and more carriages clopped up to the front door, more and more cars disgorged guests. The room filled up with the strange selection of people the family had invited. In one corner, Kralefsky, like an earnest hump-backed gnome, was telling Lena about his experiences with Houdini.

  ‘ “Harry,” I said to him – for we were intimate friends, you understand, “Harry show me what secrets you like, they are safe with me. My lips are sealed.” ’

  Kralefsky took a sip of his wine and pursed his lips to show how they were sealed.

  ‘Really?’ said Lena, with total lack of interest. ‘Vell, of course it’s different in the singing vorld. Ve singers pass on our secrets. I remember Krasia Toupti saying to me, “Lena your voice is so beautiful I cry vhen I hear it; I have taught you all I know. Go, carry the torches of our genius to the vorld.” ’

  ‘I didn’t mean to imply that Harry Houdini was secretive,’ said Kralefsky stiffly; ‘he was the most generous of men. Why, he even showed me how to saw a woman in half.’

  ‘My dear, how curious it must feel to be cut in half,’ mused Lena. ‘Think of it, your bottom half could be having an affair in one room while your other half was entertaining an archbishop. How droll.’

  ‘It’s only an illusion,’ said Kralefsky, going pink.

  ‘So is life,’ replied Lena soulfully. ‘So is life, my friend.’

  The noise of drinking was exhilarating. Champagne corks popped and the pale, chrysanthemum-coloured liquid, whispering gleefully with bubbles, hissed into the glasses; heavy red wine glupped into the goblets, thick and crimson as the blood of some mythical monster, and a swirling wreath of pink bubbles formed on the surface; the frosty white wine tiptoed into the glasses, shrilling, gleaming, now like diamonds, now like topaz; the ouzo lay transparent and innocent as the edge of a mountain pool until the water splashed in and the whole glass curdled like a conjuring trick, coiling and blurring into a summer cloud of moonstone white.

  Presently we moved down the room to where the vast array of food awaited us. The King’s butler, fragile as a mantis, superintended the peasant girls in the serving. Spiro, scowling more than normal with concentration, meticulously carved the joints and the birds. Kralefsky had been trapped by the great, grey, walruslike bulk of Colonel Ribbindane, who loomed over him, his giant moustache hanging like a curtain over his mouth, his bulbous blue eyes fixed on Kralefsky in a paralysing stare.

  ‘The hippopotamus, or river horse, is one of the largest of the quadrupeds to be found in the continent of Africa…’ he droned, as though lecturing a class.

  ‘Yes, yes… fantastic beast. Truly one of nature’s wonders,’ said Kralefsky, looking round desperately for escape.

  ‘When you shoot a hippopotamus or river horse,’ droned Colonel Ribbindane, oblivious to interruption, ‘as I have had the good fortune to do, you aim between the eyes and the ears, thus ensuring that the bullet penetrates the brain.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Kralefsky agreed, hypnotized by the Colonel’s protuberant blue eyes.

  ‘Bang!’ said the Colonel, so suddenly and loudly that Kralefsky nearly dropped his plate. ‘You hit him between the eyes… Splash! Crunch!… straight into the brain, d’you see?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ said Kralefsky, swallowing and going white.

  ‘Splosh!’ said the Colonel, driving the point home. ‘Blow his brains out in a fountain.’

  Kralefsky closed his eyes in horror and put down his half-eaten plate of suckling pig.

  ‘He sinks then,’ the colonel went on, ‘sinks right down to the bottom of the river… glug, glug, glug. Then you wait twenty-four hours – d’you know why?’

  ‘No… I… uh…’ said Kralefsky, swallowing frantically.

  ‘Flatulence,’ explained the colonel with satisfaction. ‘All the semi-digested food in its belly, d’you see? It rots and produces gas. Up puffs the old belly like a balloon and up she pops.’

  ‘H-How interesting,’ said Kralefsky faintly. ‘I think, if you will just excuse me…’

  ‘Funny things, stomach contents…’ mused the colonel, ignoring Kralefsky’s attempts at escape. ‘Belly is swollen up to twice its natural size; when you cut it open, whoosh! like slicing up a zeppelin full of sewage, d’you see?’

  Kralefsky put his handkerchief over his mouth and gazed round in an anguished manner.

  ‘Different with the elephant, the largest land quadruped in Africa,’ the colonel droned on, filling his mouth with crisp suckling pig. ‘D’you know the pygmies cut it open, crawl into the belly and eat the liver all raw and bloody… still quivering sometimes. Funny little chaps, pygmies… negroes, of course…’

  Kralefsky, now a delicate shade of yellow-green, escaped to the veranda, where he stood in the moonlight taking deep breaths.

  The suckling pig had vanished, the bones gleamed white in the joints of lamb and boar, and the rib cages and breast bones of the chickens and turkeys and ducks lay like the wreckage of upturned boats. Jeejee, having sampled a little of everything, at Mother’s insistence, and having declared it infinitely superior to anything he had ever eaten before, was vying with Theodore to see how many Taj Mahal Titbits they could consume.

  ‘Delicious,’ muttered Jeejee indistinctly, his mouth full. ‘Simply delicious, my dear Mrs Durrell. You are the apotheosis of culinary genius.’

  ‘Yes indeed,’ said Theodore, popping another Taj Mahal Titbit into his mouth and scrunching it up. ‘They’re really excellent. They make something similar in Macedonia… er… um… but with goat’s milk.’

  ‘Jeejee, did you really break your leg levitating, or whatever it’s called?’ asked Margo.

  ‘No,’ said Jeejee sorrowfully. ‘I vouldn’t mind if I had, it vould have been in a good cause. No, the damned stupid hotel vere I stayed had French vindows in the bedrooms but they couldn’t afford a balcony.’

  ‘Sounds like a Corfu hotel,’ said Leslie.

  ‘So one evening I was overcome with forgetfulness and I stepped out onto the balcony to do some deep breathing; and of course there vas no balcony.’

  ‘You might have been killed,’ said Mother. ‘Have another titbit.’

  ‘Vat is death?’ asked Jeejee oratorically. ‘A mere sloughing of the skin, a metamorphosis. I vent into a deep trance in Persia and my friend got incontrovertible proof that in a previous life I vas Ghengis Khan.’

  ‘You mean the film star?’ asked Margo, wide-eyed.

  ‘No, dear Margo, the great varrior,’ said Jeejee.

  ‘You mean you could remember being him?’ asked Leslie, interested.

  ‘Alas, no. I vas in a trance,’ said Jeejee sadly. ‘One is not allowed to remember one’s previous lives.’

  ‘You… khan have your cake and eat it,’ explained Theodore, delighted at having found an opportunity for a pun.

  ‘I wish everybody would hurry up and finish eating,’ said Margo, ‘then we could get on with the acts.’

  ‘To hurry such a meal vould be an insult,’ said Jeejee. ‘There is time, the whole night stretches before us. Besides, Gerry and I have to go and organize my supporting cast of reptiles.’

>   It took quite some time before the cabaret was ready, for everyone was full of wine and good food and refused to be hurried. Eventually, however, Margo got the cast assembled. She had tried to get Larry to be master of ceremonies but he had refused; he said that if she wanted him to be part of the cabaret he was not going to be master of ceremonies as well. In desperation, she had had to step into the breach herself. Blushing slightly, she took up her place on the tiger skin by the piano and called for silence.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ she said. ‘Tonight, for your entertainment, we have a cabaret of the best talent on the island and I’m sure that you will all enjoy the talents of these talented talents.’

  She paused, blushing, while Kralefsky gallantly led the applause.

  ‘I would like to introduce Constantino Megalotopolopopoulos,’ she continued, ‘who is going to act as accompanist.’

  A tiny, fat little Greek, looking like a swarthy ladybird, trotted into the room, bowed, and sat down at the piano. This had been one of Spiro’s achievements, for Mr Megalotopolopopoulos, a draper’s assistant, could not only play the piano but read music as well.

  ‘And now,’ said Margo, ‘it is with great pleasure that I present to you that very talented artiste Lena Mavrokondas accompanied by Constantino Megalotopolopopoulos on the piano. Lena will sing that great area from Rosy Cavalier, “The Presentation of the Rose”.’

  Lena, glowing like a tiger-lily, swept to the piano, bowed to Constantino, placed her hands carefully over her midriff as though warding off a blow, and began to sing.

  ‘Beautiful, beautiful,’ said Kralefsky as she finished and bowed to our applause. ‘What virtuosity.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Larry, ‘it used to be known as the three-vee method at Covent Garden.’

  ‘Three-vee?’ asked Kralefsky, much interested. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Vim, vibrato, and volume,’ said Larry.

  ‘Tell them I will sing encore,’ whispered Lena to Margo after a whispered consultation with Constantino Megalotopolopopoulos.

  ‘Oh yes. How nice,’ said Margo flustered and unprepared for this largesse. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, Lena will now sing another song, called “The Encore”.’

  Lena gave Margo a withering look and swept into her next song with such vigour and so many gestures that even Creech was impressed.

  ‘By George, she’s a good-looking wench, that!’ he exclaimed, his eyes watering with enthusiasm.

  ‘Yes, a true artiste,’ agreed Kralefsky.

  ‘What chest expansion,’ said Creech admiringly. ‘Bows like a battleship.’

  Lena finished on a zither-like note and bowed to the applause which was loud but nicely judged in warmth and length to discourage another encore.

  ‘Thank you Lena, that was wonderful. Just like the real thing,’ said Margo, beaming. ‘And now, ladies and gentlemen, I present the famous escape artists, Krafty Kralefsky and his partner, Slithery Stephanides.’

  ‘Dear God,’ said Larry, ‘who thought of those names?’

  ‘Need you ask?’ said Leslie; ‘Theodore. Kralefsky wanted to call the act “The Mysterious Escapologist Illusionists” but Margo couldn’t guarantee to say it properly.’

  ‘One must be thankful for small mercies,’ said Larry.

  Theodore and Kralefsky clanked on to the floor near the piano carrying their load of ropes, chains and padlocks.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said Kralefsky. ‘Tonight we will show you tricks that will baffle you, tricks so mysterious that you will be agog to know how they are done.’

  He paused to frown at Theodore, who had dropped a chain on the floor by mistake.

  ‘For my first trick I will ask my assistant not only to bind me securely with rope but chain as well.’

  We clapped dutifully and watched, delighted, while Theodore wound yards and yards of rope and chain around Kralefsky. Occasional whispered altercations drifted to the audience.

  ‘I’ve… er… you know… um… forgotten precisely the knot… Um… yes… you mean the padlock first? Ah yes, I have it… hm… er… just a second.’

  At length, Theodore turned apologetically to the audience.

  ‘I must apologize for… er… you know… er… taking so long,’ he said, ‘but, unfortunately, we didn’t have time to… er… practise, that is to say…’

  ‘Get on with it!’ hissed Krafty Kralefsky.

  At length, Theodore had wound so many lengths of rope and chain around Kralefsky that he looked as though he had stepped straight out of Tutankhamen’s tomb.

  ‘And now,’ said Theodore, with a gesture at the immobile Kralefksy, ‘would anyone like to… er… you know… examine the knots?’

  Colonel Ribbindane lumbered forward.

  ‘Er… um…’ said Theodore, startled, not having expected his offer to be taken up. ‘I’m afraid I must ask you to… um… that is to say… if you don’t actually pull on the knots… er… um…’

  Colonel Ribbindane made an inspection of the knots that was so minute one would have thought he were chief warder in a prison. At length, and with obvious reluctance, he pronounced the knots good. Theodore looked relieved as he stepped forward and gestured at Kralefsky again.

  ‘And now, my assistant, that is to say, my partner, will show you how… easyitisto… er… you know… um… rid yourself of… er… um… several yards… feet, I should say… though, of course, being in Greece, perhaps one should say metres… er… um… several metres of… er… rope and chains.’

  He stepped back and we all focused our attention on Kralefsky.

  ‘Screen!’ he hissed at Theodore.

  ‘Ah! Hm… yes,’ said Theodore, and laboriously moved a screen in front of Kralefsky.

  There was a long and ominous pause, during which we could hear panting and the clanking of chains from behind the screen.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Margo, ‘I do hope he can do it.’

  ‘Shouldn’t think so,’ said Leslie, ‘all those padlocks look rusty.’

  But at that moment, to our astonishment, Theodore whipped away the screen and revealed Kralefsky, slightly purple of face and dishevelled, standing free in a pool of ropes and chains.

  The applause was genuine and surprised, and Kralefsky basked in the adulation of his audience.

  ‘My next trick, a difficult and dangerous one, will take some time,’ he said portentously. ‘I shall be roped and chained by my assistant and the knots can be examined by – ha ha – the sceptics among you, and then I shall be cast into an airtight box. In due course you will see me emerge miraculously, but it takes some time for me to achieve this… er… miracle. The next act will kindly entertain you.’

  Spiro and Megalotopolopopoulos appeared dragging a large and extremely heavy olive-wood chest of the sort that used to be used for storing linen. It was ideal for the purpose, for when Kralefsky had been roped and chained and the knots examined minutely by a suspicious Colonel Ribbindane, he was lifted into it by Theodore and Spiro and slid into the interior as neatly as a snail into its shell. Theodore, with a flourish, slammed the lid shut and locked it.

  ‘Now, when my assis… er… my… er… um… partner, this is to say… signals, I will release him,’ he said. ‘On with the show!’

  ‘I don’t like it,’ said Mother. ‘I hope Mr Kralefsky knows what he’s doing.’

  ‘I shouldn’t think so,’ said Leslie gloomily.

  ‘It’s too much like… well… premature burial.’

  ‘Perhaps when we open it he’ll have changed into Edgar Allan Poe,’ suggested Larry hopefully.

  ‘It’s perfectly all right, Mrs Durrell,’ said Theodore. ‘I can communicate with him by a series of knocks… um… a sort of Morse code.’

  ‘And now,’ said Margo, ‘while we are waiting for Krafty Kralefsky to escape, we have that incredible snake charmer from the East, Prince Jeejeebuoy.’

  Megalotopolopopoulos played a series of thrilling chords and Jeejee trotted into the room. He had removed his finery and was clad simply
in a turban and loincloth. As he could not find a suitable snake-charming pipe, he was carrying a violin which he had got Spiro to borrow from a man in the village; in his other hand he held his basket containing his act. He had rejected with scorn my slow-worms when he had seen them as being far too small to aid in the cultivation of the image of Mother India. He had insisted instead on borrowing one of my water snakes, an elderly specimen some two and a half feet long and of an extremely misanthropic disposition. As he bowed to the audience the top fell off the basket and the snake, looking very disgruntled, fell out on to the floor. Everyone panicked except Jeejee, who squatted down cross-legged near the coiled snake, tucked the violin under his chin and started to play. Gradually, the panic subsided and we all watched entranced as Jeejee swayed to and fro, extracting the most agonizing noises from the fiddle, watched by the alert and irritated snake. Just at that moment came a loud knock from the box in which Kralefsky was incarcerated.

  ‘Aha!’ said Theodore. ‘The signal.’

  He went to the box and bent over, his beard bristling as he tapped on it like a woodpecker. Everyone’s attention was on him, including Jeejee’s, and at that moment the water snake struck. Fortunately, Jeejee moved so that the water snake only got a firm hold on his loincloth; however, it hung on grimly and pugnaciously.

  ‘Ow! My God!’ screamed the incredible snake charmer from the East. ‘Hey, Gerry, quick, quick, it’s biting me in the crutch.’

  It was some minutes before I could persuade him to stand still so that I could disentangle the snake from his loincloth. During this time, Theodore was having a prolonged Morse code conversation with Kralefsky in the box.

  ‘I do not think I can do any more,’ said Jeejee, shakily accepting a large brandy from Mother. ‘It tried to bite me below the belt!’

  ‘He will apparently be a minute or two yet,’ announced Theodore. ‘He’s had a little trouble… er… difficulty, that is, with the padlocks. At least, that’s what I understand him to say.’

  ‘I’ll put the next act on,’ said Margo.

  ‘Think,’ said Jeejee faintly, ‘it might well have been a cobra.’