Dragons in the Waters

by Madeleine L'engle

  Then the ancient Umara spoke three words in a language completely foreign to Simon, a language fluid as water.

  Umar Xanai came to her and asked her something in the same deep, dark tones.

  Again she spoke three words.

  The words were whispered from person to person, and then the whole village burst into cries, cries which had a harmonious, musical quality, cries which were certainly sounds of joy.

  And then Simon saw Aunt Leonis, standing in the background, next to Canon Tallis, who had been carried out on his light and flexible couch. Simon ran to them, and then he and Aunt Leonis were holding each other, and he was crying, and so was she, and they held each other and rocked back and forth as they had not since the night Simon’s mother had died, but this time the tears were tears of joy.

  So it was some time before he realized that Ouldi was speaking to him, trying to get his attention, speaking formally for the whole village. “She says that you are the One. The Umara says that you are he for whom we wait.”

  Simon pushed the words away. “No, no. I’m only Simon Renier, from South Carolina, tell them, Ouldi, please, I can’t possibly be the one …”

  Ouldi repeated calmly, “The Umara says that you are the One.”

  “Aunt Leonis—Uncle Father—”

  Ouldi kissed Simon ceremoniously on each cheek and then on the forehead. “We welcome you, Phair.”

  “I’m Simon. Simon Bolivar Renier.”

  Umar Xanai stepped forward, giving Simon the three ritual kisses. “You are the Phair.”

  “Oh, Aunt Leonis, Uncle Father, please tell them!” Simon cried. “I’m not—you mustn’t let them think—”

  Umar Xanai said, “The Phair promised that he would return. Now the Phair has kept his word and the long waiting is over.”

  “But he was a grown man,” Simon protested, “and I’m only a boy.” There was a darkness before his eyes which was only partly the darkness of approaching night.

  “You are blood of his blood,” Umar Xanai said.

  Simon paused, then said slowly, “Yes. I am. I, too, have run away when it was my obligation to stay.”

  “And now you have returned,” Umar Xanai said.

  The Umara had been sitting impassively on her litter. Now she gestured again and the bearers brought her back close to Simon. She put her small and ancient hands up to his face and gave him the three kisses of benediction. Then she gestured regally toward her dwelling place and the bearers carried her away.

  “Aunt Leonis—”

  “Yes, Simon.”

  “Well, tell them, ma’am, please tell them.”

  “What do you want me to tell them, Simon?”

  “That I am not Quentin Phair.”

  The old woman looked at the chieftain. “I think they understand that.”

  “And Aunt Leonis, I couldn’t possibly just stay here and leave you to go back to Pharaoh all alone.”

  “I’m not at all sure that I could make the trip back to Pharaoh, Simon. I’m too old for jet travel. I don’t think that my heart could stand the journey back.”

  “But Boz—what about Boz? We can’t just desert Boz!”

  “Boz is dead, Simon.”

  The boy put his hands over his eyes. No. It was too much. Bitter tears forced their way through his fingers.

  He felt a gentle but firm pressure on his shoulder, and Umar Xanai said, “It is late, and the Phair is tired from his ordeal. He needs refreshment and rest. He will be ministered to by one of the Umaras, and then he will spend the night with Ouldi in his dwelling. Tomorrow, when he is rested, he will see more clearly.”

  “What am I to do!” Simon cried. He turned desperately to Umar Xanai. “Sir, Quentin Phair is my ancestor. He is long dead. I am his descendant. I have all—all his faults.”

  Umar Xanai smiled placidly. “And you have returned to us, as you promised you would. The Umara recognized you as the One. We welcome you.”

  Hurtado and Tallis remained on the beach after the village had settled down. The dark night of the jungle was heavy around them.

  “But there are hardly any insects,” Hurtado exclaimed. “What do they do?”

  “Whatever it is, if they could bottle it they could make a fortune,” Tallis replied.

  “You really are all right?” Hurtado asked. “Don’t you think you should see a doctor?”

  “I have. And these people with their Gift have something that hasn’t been around in modern medicine for a long time. Whatever they used on my wound has completely taken away the infection. I’m convinced that I could walk on my leg now, but they will not permit it, and I trust their judgment. Hurtado, if you wish to remain my friend you will say nothing about their Caring Places.”

  “There is really no reason why I should say anything,” Hurtado said. “Vermeer, too, would take it ill, and I wish to remain friends with both of you. So Vermeer was right about Gutiérrez. There are two young men, of Quiztano blood, who are willing to testify against him.”

  “An unpleasant character,” Tallis understated. “He certainly never expected that Simon and I would survive the jungle. And we nearly didn’t.”

  “But it doesn’t get us any closer to finding the murderer.”

  “Doesn’t it? I rather think it does. From all the bits and pieces I’ve gathered, I’ve been able to get a pretty clear picture.”

  Hurtado looked at him and waited. Tallis’s face gleamed whitely in the starlight.

  “We know that Forsyth Phair was not, in fact, Forsyth Phair, but Fernando Propice, a Venezuelan of mixed blood, largely Levantine, long involved in smuggling, extortion, and any nasty business that came to hand. Right?”

  “Correct,” Hurtado agreed.

  “And that no bank in Caracas has either a Forsyth Phair or a Fernando Propice on the records.”

  “Correct.”

  “The murderer, I would guess, dabbled in smuggling and got involved with Propice, who tried to drag him in further than he wanted to go. The murderer wanted out, and the only way out was to dispose of Propice.”

  “And who is this person? Do you know, or is it all guesswork?”

  “It’s largely guesswork.”

  “Are you going to let me in on it, or do I have to find out in my flatfooted way?”

  Tallis’s smile gleamed. “Phair/Propice was the boss in this smuggling operation; he was almost making it. Gutiérrez was his sidekick. The murderer got tangled with them, but he didn’t want to kill anyone, or to get involved in drugs or chemicals. When he told Gutiérrez that he no longer wanted to play his game, Gutiérrez took off with Simon and me and told the man that he would kill us if he didn’t keep his mouth shut. The murderer, being more squeamish than Gutiérrez, was forced to keep quiet to avoid further bloodshed.”

  “Go on.”

  “Back to Propice. It seems more than likely that what little Quiztano blood remains in his veins went back a long time—to Quentin Phair, in fact.”

  “I know that’s what the old lady thinks.”

  “Umar Xanai and the Umara corroborate this. They knew him to be an evil and vindictive man, like Edmund in Lear, dwelling on rights he felt he ought to have, and willing to do anything to get what he thought he deserved. At one time he took himself to Dragonlake to claim the jewels Quentin Phair had left the Umara, and which Propice thought were his due.”

  “What did happen to the jewels?”

  “They were sold and the money used for education—universities, medical schools. So Propice felt abused there, too. As Quentin’s heir, he was due everything that befits the heir—the long-spent fortune, the portrait, of course the portrait, and the ancient grudge.”

  Hurtado looked across the lake at the peaceful stork-like dwellings. Violence and vengeance seemed out of place. He sighed. “I think you’re probably right, Tom. There are natures warped enough actually to be more proud of the ancient grudge than any other part of the inheritance. And it fits in with what Dr. Wordsworth told me. But you still haven’t pointe
d to the murderer. Half of Venezuela would have a motive.”

  “Simon gave me the first clue with the story of the key to cabin 5.”

  “The cabin with the portrait, yes. And Jan’s foolish lie. Geraldo is convinced that Jan is lying to protect someone.”

  “I think that Jan did not lie.”

  “Then—?”

  “Boon did.”

  “Where’s your evidence?”

  “I don’t have enough. But Boon’s winter uniform vanished. A winter uniform is less visible in the tropical dark than summer whites. It would have been easy for Boon to weigh it down and dump it on the bottom of the ocean. The key story was an attempt—a successful one, as it turned out—to implicate Jan, and so was the planting of the portrait here.”

  “How did he manage that?”

  “Easily enough. If he was on the bridge in the small hours of the night he could have lowered it into the water without being seen.”

  “So could anybody else.”

  “It was Boon who was alone on the bridge, the only one watching the radar scan. A fishing boat could easily come right up to the Orion; the portrait could be lowered, and no one the wiser.”

  “This is guesswork.”

  “Back to Propice for a moment, then. It’s all part of the pattern. He paid or blackmailed someone to run Simon down with the fork lift, and that little scheme was foiled by Poly. So then Propice ordered Boon to push Simon overboard. Boon probably refused to kill, and then Propice threatened him until he thought he had no choice.”

  “Geraldo’s talk of reluctance,” Hurtado said. “Yes, it fits.”

  “I see Boon moving slowly to the boy with a heavy heart—for he appears to be a foolish rather than an evil man, Alejandro. And when Geraldo stopped him and he did not have to complete an action which was totally repugnant to him, he decided the only way out was to kill Phair.”

  “What about the portrait?”

  “It’s probably Propice’s hold over him. If Boon didn’t play along, Propice would pin him for smuggling, easy enough to do if he was already in Propice’s and Gutiérrez’s net. My theory is that Boon intended his smuggling to be a strictly on-shore business. It seems that his tastes are fairly expensive and he wanted to pick up a little extra cash. Also, he knows something about art.”

  “Plausible,” Hurtado said. “We’re fairly certain the art ring is centered in Port of Dragons.”

  “It probably seemed innocent enough at first. But the innocent don’t stay innocent when they think they can stay on the edge of crime. Drug dealers aren’t worried about anybody’s conscience, nor would it concern a Gutiérrez that Boon would try not to do anything which would reflect on the Master of the ship.”

  “You have a vivid imagination, Tom,” Hurtado said. “Imagination does not hold up in court.”

  “No, but you agree with me,” Tallis said. “You arrested Jan on the gamble that the murderer would then betray himself. Or that he would not let someone else hang. I think your gamble will pay off.”

  “There’s not much time.”

  “I don’t think Boon will let Jan take the rap. He got into deeper waters than he intended, and he ran scared. I think he will stop running.”

  “He’d better stop soon, then. I can play for time only so long. What we have to do is find a way to turn imagination into evidence.” He looked about him through the velvet dark. “This is an incredible place.”

  “Not so incredible as all that. We who have spent our lives in cities tend to forget that human beings were not meant to live in anthills. Only insects can manage to survive in such conditions. And our work does not often take us among the innocent, Alejandro. We have been over-exposed to the darker reaches of the human heart.”

  Hurtado continued to look out over the lake to the dwellings. “They expect the boy to remain here.”

  “Yes.”

  “They don’t really think that he is Quentin Phair?”

  “They don’t think about such things the way we do. Because Simon is Quentin Phair’s direct descendant, he partakes in his ancestor and can fulfill his destiny.”

  “They won’t force him?”

  “Alejandro,” Tallis said, “this is simply something I don’t want to think about tonight. It strikes me as being a far more difficult problem than finding the murderer of Propice, for which you really don’t need me. As soon as you had all of the information you would have put two and two together exactly as I have done. But Theo sent for me, and I came, and I think that I came because of Simon.”

  “A boy you’d never heard of ?”

  “He needed me, Alejandro. He has been far more wounded than I, and it occurs to me that perhaps the Quiztanos are the only ones who can complete the healing.”

  “He appears perfectly healthy.”

  “He has been wounded in spirit. He attempted to hold on to an idol—and when he was forced to see him as a human being who lied and lusted and was as other men, it was like having the rug pulled out from under him. He has been exposed to murder; he has almost been killed himself; it has all been too much for him.”

  Hurtado said, “He has to grow up sometime.”

  “He is doing precisely that, Alejandro.”

  “What about the old lady?” Hurtado asked.

  “She is dying.”

  “I see. Yes, it will be difficult for the boy. But surely you can’t think that staying here is a possibility.”

  “Why not?”

  “Tom, these people are—for all Vermeer says—a primitive Indian tribe.”

  “You do sound like a city boy. Would you want your son, had he been through what Simon has been through, to live in Caracas? Or New York? Or Charleston? Haven’t you seen something healthy in this place?”

  “He’ll revert,” Hurtado said. “He’ll be no better than a savage.”

  “And we? How much better than savages are we?”

  “Oh, have it your own way,” Hurtado said. “When will you be ready to be moved?”

  “By tomorrow. But I must stay here until my mind is at ease about Simon. Forty-eight hours together in the jungle can forge a close friendship.”

  The next day had the timeless quality of a dream for Simon. Ouldi took him through the village, through the Caring Places.

  Simon stood in the cool interior of the Caring Place for the dying. There were two long rows of low beds, twelve on each side. Only two of these were empty. By most of the beds a Quiztano was seated, holding the hand of the dying person. The air was fragrant with flowers. Here was no horror, only an ineffable sense of peace.

  “I’m not sure—” Simon whispered.

  “Not sure of what?”

  “That I’m strong enough. I’m afraid of death.”

  “That is all right,” Ouldi said. “So am I. I have been out in the world and I have learned fear and lost faith. So I have returned to Dragonlake to lose fear and regain faith. That will happen to you, too.”

  Several of the Indians started to sing. “A soul is going,” Ouldi said. “It is being sung into the land of the blessed. But many of those who are brought here to die do not die. They get well, and they take some of our peace and some of our caring with them.”

  “And my ancestor started all this?”

  “With the Umara.”

  “Everybody here is so good!”

  But Ouldi shook his head. “No. We are as other people. Some good, some bad. Many leave Dragonlake and choose the material goods of the world.”

  “Ouldi, what am I to do?”

  “You will do what is right. I am trying to hide nothing from you. It is a constant struggle for us to keep to the Quiztano ways. If you become one of us it will be your struggle, too, will it not? You would not wish us to change?”

  Simon shook his head. “My ancestor started these Caring Places. No, I would not want you to change, Ouldi. I would be the one to have to change.”

  “Not as much as you think.”

  “Gutiérrez—you said he turned his back on the way
s of his people?”

  “Not only Gutiérrez. All of that particular tribe. And they learned to like to kill. Not to eat, not for life, but to destroy.”

  “What’s going to happen to him?”

  Ouldi moved his shoulders sinuously. “He is an evil man. He will be made to pay.”

  Simon shuddered. “And Jan? What about Jan?”

  “Jan did not kill. The Englishman knows that.”

  “But who did?”

  Ouldi shrugged. “I do not know his name. But it is someone Jan thought of as a friend. He will be sad. Come, I still have much to show you.”

  The passengers stood on the promenade deck of the Orion, all leaning on the port rail and looking down at the dock. Geraldo had summoned them together, saying that the captain, el señor comandante Hurtado, and Mynheer Vermeer wished to speak to them. Everybody watched as a dark car drew up.

  “Look!” Mrs. Smith cried. “It’s Jan!”

  Jan left the car, crossed the dock, and ran up the gangplank to the Orion. He did not look at the passengers.

  Charles moved to his father. Dr. O’Keefe took his son’s hand in his own.

  “Daddy, Charles,” Poly said, “has Jan been cleared?”

  “Wait. No doubt we’ll find out what’s going on in a minute.”

  Dr. Eisenstein looked relieved. “I couldn’t bring myself to believe that Jan would murder.”

  “Someone did,” Dr. Wordsworth said, “and I would like to know who it was.”

  They all turned as they heard the screen door into the ship close with a light slam. Vermeer came out onto the deck, affable as usual. Dr. Wordsworth took a step toward him, then stopped.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “Perhaps you all saw someone getting out of a car just now? And now you want to know what is going on, and why you have been asked to come together here. It is my sad duty to inform you that Mynheer Boon went to the captain last night and confessed to the murder of Mr. Phair.”