Dragons in the Waters

by Madeleine L'engle

  But Umara did not want to leave Dragonlake, and when Quentin left Venezuela for Kent he expected to return in a few months, and then to remain with the Quiztanos for the rest of his life. The bulk of his considerable accumulation of treasure would then be used for the education of his son, and though Quentin had decided, despite reservations, to cast in his lot with Umara’s people, he planned an English education for his son, and the contradiction implicit in this either had not occurred to him or did not disturb him.

  —I thought I knew that all people were a mixture of good and bad, even the best, but I did not expect quite this amount of complication, Miss Leonis thought.—Oh, Niniane, what was it like for you?

  The discovery of the young Indian girl in Venezuela must have been a ghastly shock for the young bride in South Carolina, pregnant with her first child. Quentin had told her only that he had lived the typical life of a soldier of fortune, and that he was ready now to settle down and live like an ordinary citizen.

  Niniane must have known that her husband’s experience was as great as her own innocence, and he quickly made her sure and secure in his love. Few people in the pioneer South of those days would have thought twice about the rights of some South American Indian girl, even had they known about Umara. Stories like Quentin’s were casually accepted and soon forgotten, Miss Leonis thought bitterly, and he must have had no suspicion that the past would have any effect on the present. Pharaoh was built, and they were happy and their affairs prospered. If Umara had anything to do with Quentin’s decision to free his slaves, he told no one. And if he had played free and easy with his loves in Venezuela, there was no indication in letters or journals that his love for Niniane was anything but faithful and true.

  —And it was, wasn’t it, Niniane? Miss Leonis asked. —It was. But fidelity built on broken promises has a shaky foundation.

  One week when the mail was delivered, Quentin was in Charleston. Niniane sorted the mail, and was mildly curious when she came to an envelope addressed to Sra. Niniane St. Clair de Phair, an envelope mailed from Venezuela. It must be something to do with the portrait of Bolivar which he was having sent from Caracas.

  So she opened the letter, suspecting nothing.

  But the letter was from one of Umara’s brothers and Niniane’s safe world of home and husband was shattered.

  With white face and cold hands and heart she learned of Umara and of Quentin’s promise to return to Dragonlake. She learned that the Indian girl had died giving birth to a still-born child conceived just before he left Venezuela and his Quiztano wife and little son.

  “This is to warn you,” Umara’s brother continued, “you who took Umara from the heart of her husband, that we will not forget and that we will be avenged. When your so-called husband sent for his portrait of Bolivar—a portrait which rightfully belongs to his son —we made our plans. Know that you are much hated. It was you who made Quentin Phair betray his wife. We will not kill him—that would be too easy, and small satisfaction to us. We understand that in your religion you are told that the sins of the fathers are visited on the children, even for seven generations. Beware. You will find to your sorrow that for you this will be true. This letter has been put into English by Sean O’Connell of the Irish regiment.”

  Miss Leonis could feel within her own body the storm of sobs which racked Niniane. Her love for Quentin, and his for her, must have been real indeed, that it had survived such an opening of the past, and that it continued despite horrible proof that Umara’s brother had meant his threat. Quentin’s and Niniane’s first-born son was thrown from his horse and died of a broken neck. He had been alone. There was no reason for anybody, other than Niniane and Quentin, to suspect anything other than accident. They must have lived in terror, and there was nobody with whom they could share their fears. Of their five sons, only the two youngest survived. If Quentin had thought, when he left Venezuela, that a small fortune in jewels would satisfy Umara and her brothers he learned that he was wrong. He had lived by the standards of another age, standards, Miss Leonis thought, still acceptable by far too many people today, and those standards became a boomerang for his undoing. He died of a heart attack before he was fifty. Niniane lived to be nearly ninety-nine.

  They must have warned their surviving children, and surely the warning must have been passed from one generation of Phairs to the next. Perhaps at the time of the War between the States, fear of the revenge of the Quiztanos had faded in view of what was going on at home. And then it seemed to have been forgotten; perhaps those who were to carry the warning had been killed in battle. Certainly Miss Leonis’s parents had not mentioned it, nor had there been any questioning when her only brother was killed while hunting, by a gun accidentally set off. And perhaps she was overreacting, imagining things in her senility.

  No. There had been too many unexplained accidents; the family tree showed the untimely death of a young man in every generation.

  She began to pray.

  6

  THE BOLIVAR PORTRAIT

  The sun was brilliant and fierce the next morning. Charles was awake before his father, dressed, and went out into the passage, where he bumped into Poly, also up early and wearing her lightest cotton dress. She asked, “Where are you going?”

  Charles sighed in his tired, adult manner, and Poly knew that he was concerned. “I’m going to talk to Dr. Eisenstein.”

  “Dr. Eisenstein!” she exclaimed. Then, “Oh, I see, to ask her about the Quiztanos.”

  He nodded.

  She said, “Well, then, I think I’ll go talk to Geraldo.”

  “What about Simon?”

  “He’s probably already up in the prow, pretending to be Quentin Phair. He really has a thing about that ancestor.”

  Charles paused at the door to the promenade deck. “He says that it’s a Southern trait, particularly among the gentry, or whatever you call them, who don’t have any money. After the Civil War they didn’t have anything left except their family trees. And Quentin Phair sounds like a good person to live up to.”

  Now it was Poly’s turn to look old for her age. A shadow moved across her face. “Nobody’s that good.”

  They parted, Poly going to the galley, Charles to the deck, where he was pleased but not surprised to see Dr. Eisenstein in her usual deck chair under the canvas awning. She was writing busily in one of her notebooks, but looked up and smiled at him.

  “It has been an unexpectedly pleasant part of this voyage to be with you three young ones, nicer for us than for you, I dare say.”

  “We’ve liked it very much,” Charles said. “We’re all used to being with grownups, and we enjoy lots of grownup conversation. May I ask you something?”

  She closed her notebook, marking her place with her pen. “Fire ahead.”

  “The Quiztano village—is it the only one, or are there others?”

  “There are, I believe, a few scattered groups in the jungle related to the Quiztanos, but the tribe keeps to the settlement at the lake.”

  “Are their houses sort of airy grass huts built upon stilts right out into the lake? Do you have any pictures, maybe?”

  Dr. Eisenstein reached into her straw carry-all and pulled out a National Geographic which opened automatically to a double-spread color photograph.

  Charles studied it carefully. It showed a sizable greensward on which were two long screened houses raised slightly from the ground, and a few small round huts on higher stilts. Behind these the darker green of jungle and the shadow of mountain pressed closely. The greater part of the village stretched out into the lake, and consisted of round, airy straw houses with peaked roofs and movable straw screens like those in the long houses. The huts stood stork-like on long thin legs: under most of them, small dugout canoes were tethered. Charles studied it and nodded. “Yes. That’s it.”

  Dr. Eisenstein looked at him questioningly.

  But Charles gave no explanation. “There’s the breakfast bell. I’m hungry. Aren’t you?”

  Ever
ybody came to the dining room in summer cottons. The heat seemed to put a damper on conversation. Simon helped himself to cheese and herring and decided that right after breakfast he’d go out to the Dragon’s Lair and snooze. If it hadn’t been for Cousin Forsyth he’d have slept through breakfast, but Cousin Forsyth was a regular riser and made it clear that he expected Simon to be, too.

  But his feeling of heaviness was not only because he was sleepy. After the O’Keefes debarked, would Geraldo talk with him as he did with Poly? Or would Simon feel lost and isolated? He felt lonely and unsure.

  Mr. Theo pulled him from his thoughts, speaking softly, only to the boy. “Tell me, young Simon. Would you like to go to a concert with me in Caracas?”

  “Oh, sir! That would be marvelous.”

  At the other table Poly yawned and turned away from one of Dr. Wordsworth’s dissertations, this time on the virtues of the Spanish language, and tuned her ear to the officers’ table, trying to see how much Dutch she could understand. The men spoke rapidly, so that sometimes she could barely get the gist of the conversation; occasionally she was able to understand entire phrases, and this always pleased her.

  Geraldo brought in a platter of ham and eggs.

  “Port of Dragons tomorrow,” Dr. Eisenstein said. “Hard to believe the days have gone by so quickly. But I feel rested and ready for work. You, too, debark tomorrow, don’t you, Dr. O’Keefe?”

  “Yes, we do.”

  Mr. Phair turned in his chair so that he could speak to the other table. “Simon will miss Poly and Charles, will you not, Simon?”

  Simon speared a piece of herring. “Yes.”

  Poly tried to catch Simon’s eye, but he continued to look at his plate. She said, “We’ll see each other when we get back. That’s a promise.”

  Mr. Phair said, “That is a pleasant thought, Miss Poly, although shipboard romances seldom continue once the voyage is over.”

  Simon raised his left eyebrow but continued to concentrate on his breakfast.

  Charles was firm. “Our friendship will. Simon is our friend forever.”

  Mr. Phair looked at the Smiths, sitting side by side, eating toast and cheese. “When Simon and I—and Mr. Theotocopoulos, too—debark at La Guaira, Mr. and Mrs. Smith will be the only passengers.”

  —He’d never deign to call anybody by a nickname, Poly thought.—I’m glad he doesn’t know my name is Polyhymnia.

  Then a phrase from the officers’ table caught her attention.

  Lyolf Boon was speaking. “ … a strange tale brought me by Jan, who had it from Geraldo.” She missed the next words, then was sure she understood “ … tried to push Simon overboard. Jan said that Geraldo swears he was not mistaken. He grabbed the man …”

  Dr. Eisenstein’s voice covered the next words. “ … and thanks to Ines’s perfect Spanish I expect to have fewer problems than if I were traveling alone.”

  Poly scowled in her effort to hear Boon.

  “ … a man in winter uniform, but he slipped out of Geraldo’s grasp and disappeared into the ship before the lad could see who it was.”

  “The Quiztano language is extremely difficult, as …”

  Poly leaned toward the captain’s table.

  “ … my winter uniform is missing. That would seem to support Geraldo’s tale.”

  Poly felt a cold chill run up and down her spine. She began to spread jam on a roll in order to conceal her shudder.

  She had not heard enough.

  She had heard enough.

  Captain Pieter van Leyden said, “But this is incredible.”

  Boon said, “That girl is listening.”

  The captain looked over at the next table, but Poly was talking with Dr. Eisenstein about the Quiztano vowels. Nevertheless, he spoke in a low voice. “If Jan gives it credence I cannot dismiss it offhand. And if your winter uniform has disappeared—when did you notice this?”

  “Not until after Jan had come to me. I had no reason to think about it before. Then, since Geraldo had said the man who attempted to push the boy overboard was wearing a winter uniform, I automatically checked my own, partly to prove that the whole thing was a wild tale. If you will remember, it is the second time in a few hours that Jan has come to me with great worry.”

  Berend Ruimtje, the second officer, was thoughtful. “Jan may look more Dutch than we, but he is part Quiztano. All Quiztanos are superstitious.”

  Olaf Koster, the engineer, asked, “How does superstition come into this? Geraldo told Jan that the man’s arms were outstretched, ready to push, and if he had not been there the boy surely would have gone overboard. A pity Geraldo couldn’t identify the man.”

  The captain spoke slowly and thoughtfully. “Just in case there is a grain of truth in this—which I doubt—we will keen a rareful watch on the boy until he debarks at La Guaira. And I would like to see Jan and Geraldo at nine-thirty, sharp.”

  Immediately after breakfast Charles sought out Jan and firmly closed the door to the compact office/bedroom. The steward was at his desk, typing out the next day’s menus. He had a worried look and the furrows between his eyes were deep. Charles began without preamble. “One time when I was talking to Dr. Eisenstein she said something about the Quiztanos expecting a young white man to come to them from over the sea. I didn’t think much about it then, but now …”

  Jan looked at his watch. It was barely nine. “It is a folk story. Why does such ancient folklore interest you?”

  “I’m interested in old stories, and in different kinds of peoples. Poly and I told you about our friends, the Ga-eans. Lots of people thought they were primitive, too. But—” He paused, appeared to move into a brown study. Jan looked at him expectantly. Finally Charles continued. “I dreamed about it.”

  “It?”

  “The Quiztano village at Dragonlake. I dreamed I was there. I saw a picture of Dr. Eisenstein’s this morning, and it’s exactly the way it was in my dream. And I’ve been dreaming about Quentin Phair. Do you know about him? He’s Simon’s ancestor who was given the Bolivar portrait. I’m sure it’s Quentin because he looks like Simon, only older, and with dark brown hair. Maybe it’s just because Simon talks so much about his ancestor, and because Poly and I were reading about the Aztecs last year …”

  Jan asked, “But you think it’s more than that?”

  Charles looked questioningly at Jan. “These dreams—they aren’t regular dreams. They seem to break through barriers of—”

  Jan was listening intently.

  Charles sighed. “Barriers of time and space. It’s as though a window opened and I could see through, see things people don’t ordinarily see.”

  “I am a quarter Quiztano,” Jan said. “Dreams are to be taken seriously. What have you dreamed about Simon’s ancestor?”

  “I thought I saw him in the Quiztano village. He was dressed the way people used to dress in olden days—velvet and silk and lots more color than nowadays. He was saying goodbye, and all the village had turned out to wish him Godspeed. He was going across the ocean to England, and he stood next to the young Quiztano woman I saw him with in another dream. He promised, in front of everybody, that he would return. Then the dream faded.” Charles stopped.

  Jan picked up a paper knife and looked at it intently. He said, “We are speaking in private?”

  Charles indicated the closed door.

  “What we say will not leave this cabin?”

  “I promise.”

  “You are still only a child—but it did happen as in your dream. The Quiztanos are still waiting. When I first came to Venezuela from Holland I made my first pilgrimage to the Quiztano village at Dragonlake, to see my grandfather, and to try to understand that part of me which is not Dutch. Umar Xanai—my grandfather—came to meet me. And so did the Old One.”

  “The Old One?”

  “The Umara.”

  “Umara?”

  With much questioning, Charles learned that the Umara presides over the religious ritual of the Quiztanos. She is trained
from birth to hold the Memory of the Tribe, and this Memory, Jan emphasized, is the chief treasure of the tribe—“the Memory and the Gift.”

  “Greater than the jewels and things Dr. Wordsworth told Dr. Eisenstein about?”

  “Without a memory a race has no future. This is what my grandfather told me.”

  On the day when Jan went first to the Quiztano village, the Umara had come with Umar Xanai to greet him. She was older than anyone Jan had ever seen before. She was so old that it was said that she had spoken to Bolivar himself, although Umar Xanai made it clear that the chronological age of the Umara was not important; it was the extent of her memory which gave the ancient woman her authority.

  She had walked slowly to Jan, helped and supported on either side by two young women, one of whom was being trained by her in the Memory, to be the future Umara. When she was close to Jan she stared at him in silence for a long time. Then she shook her head. ‘He is not the One. He is not the Fair.’

  “So they are still waiting,” Jan told Charles. “Whenever a young white man comes to the village the Umara is brought out to see if he is the one.”

  “Will this happen to me when we go there—if we’re allowed to go?”