Collected Fiction

by Henry Kuttner

  The clipper lay at anchor; he could see the chain. And he could see movement on the deck. Perhaps. He swam toward the ship. But the waves were growing troubled. They, slapped at him, slapping his cheeks . . .

  “Minho filho! Pedrinho—”

  And—“Pedro!” his father’s deeper voice rumbled, with worried urgency in it. “Wake up!”

  He felt a cool, dry hand laid on his forehead, and something warm and electric seemed to dart through his head. He heard words he did not understand, but they were calling him, summoning—

  He opened his eyes and looked up at the little shrunken face of the gipsy, Beatriz Sousa. For a long, long moment her incredibly bright black eyes stared down at him, and the toothless mouth whispered a word or two more. Then she nodded as though satisfied and drew back, giving Margarida room to fling herself forward and hug Pete’s head roughly to her capacious bosom.

  “Ai-i! Pedrinho, coelzinho, my little rabbit, do you hear me? You are awake now?”

  “Sure,” Pete said, yawning and blinking as he tried to wriggle free. “What’s the matter? Why was the Senhora Beatriz—” The old gitana was stuffing strong black tobacco, heavy with perique, into her battered pipe; her eyes were hooded by wrinkled lids. She seemed to have shrunken into a smaller person, now that she was not needed in the house. She did not look up when Manoel gave her a resentful glance and growled, Your mae ran out and got the old woman. I say it is foolishness. Now get up, boy. At once!”

  Margarida sidled into the kitchen, pulling Beatriz Sousa with her, whispering to the old woman to ignore Manoel. “He is a good man, Senhora, but he thinks a slap will cure all ills.”

  UNDER Manoel’s baleful and somewhat bleary eye, Pete shucked his pajamas and got into patched underwear and worn denim shirt and trousers. He was hoping Manoel would say nothing. But a calloused hand reached out and gripped his shoulder as he turned to the door. Manoel scowled down into the boy’s face.

  “It is past noon,” he said. “What sort of sleep is this? Your mae could not wake you. She came in crying to me, and I need my sleep.” That was true, Pete thought, examining the telltale symptoms of bloodshot eyes and the circles under them.

  “I hope you did not fall into the canal last night, men pai,” he said politely.

  “That is as may be,” Manoel growled. “Now listen to me, rapaz. I want you to tell me the truth. Do you know the white powder that Beberricador sells at night, by the docks?”

  Pete said very firmly, “I have never touched that powder, men pai, or anything else that Beberricador sells. Never In my life.”

  Manoel leaned forward and sniffed doubtfully. “You do not lie often, Pedro. Your breath does not smell of wine, either. Perhaps you were simply tired, though—there is something wrong when , not even blows will waken a sleeping boy. What am I to think?”

  Pete shrugged. He was ravenously hungry and anxious, to escape from-this inquisition. Besides, what was wrong? He had slept too long; that was all. And Manoel was ill-tempered at being awakened while the clangor of a hangover still beat in his grizzled head.

  “Come, Pedrinho,” Margarida called from the kitchen. Manoel pushed the boy away and Pete, glad to be released, hurried into the next room. He heard his father’s body drop heavily on the bed, and knew that within minutes he would be snoring again. He grinned, winked at young Gregorio, and turned toward his mother at the stove.

  “Pedro—” Beatriz Sousa was beside him, staring very intently into his eyes.

  “Sim, Senhora?”

  “Pedro,” she whispered, “if you are troubled—come to see me. Remember, I can look through a stone wall farther than most. And don’t forget there are many kinds of dreams.” Her toothless Jaws clamped; she hobbled past him and straight out the doorway, her black skirts whisking. Pete looked after her, baffled. He didn’t quite know what to make of Beatriz. All this fuss because he’d overslept. Funny!

  “You scared me, Pete,” Gregorio said. “I thought you were dead.”

  “Do not use such words, spawn of the devil,” Margarida squealed, spilled stew hissing on the hot stove. “Go and make yourself useful for a change, nasty one. Look, Cypriano Jose is at the garbage. Pedrinho, eat your stew. It will strengthen you.”

  Pete didn’t feel particularly weak, but the stew was rich and spicy, and he ate fast. Afterward, remembering the toad, he went out to look in the rock-pile, but it had hidden itself somewhere in the cool, dark recesses and he could not see even a glimmer of the strange, bright, tiny eyes. So he took a home-made rod and headed for the canal.

  On the way Bento Barbosa, who was rich and owned ships, waved a sausage of a finger at him and called him a sonambulo, so Pete knew that somebody, probably Gregorio, had been gossiping. He made up his mind to clout Gregorio’s head later. But Bento Barbosa thought it was a good joke, and he twirled his raven mustachios and sent jovial laughter after Pete’s retreating form. “Mandriao!” he shouted happily. “Preguigoso!’ Lazybones!”

  Pete wanted to throw a rock at him, but he thought he had better not. Bento Barbosa had ships, and it had been in Pete’s mind for some time that he might one day be lucky enough to sail in one of them., Cartagena and Cocos and Clipperton . . . So he just went on walking through the hot Florida sunshine, his bare feet scuffing up the sandy dust, and thought about the dream he’d had. It was a good dream.

  The canal was quiet. While Pete fished he was in a backwater where nobody else existed. He waited for the fish to bite, and wondered when he’d be on a boat, sailing out across the Gulf. Tampico and Juba called Mm, and he heard the thunder rolling, heavy and ominous, above Paramaribo, where dragons lived. Mailed in shining green and silver they swept in sinuous flight against the blue, their enormous wings darkening the sun, their scaly armor clashing. And Campeche, and the Isle of Pines with its marble temples and its laughing, bearded pirates. Well, and there was Cartagena too, and Cadiz and Cochabambo, and all the enchanted ports. They were real enough to young Pedro Ignacio da Silva Coutinho, and his brown toes wriggled with excitement above the still green water of the canal.

  Oh, nothing much happened to Pete that Sunday. He sauntered home in the evening, his head full of shining pictures, and he heard little of the noisy family life boiling around him as he ate his supper.

  Out in the stone-pile the toad squatted with its glowing jewel-eyes and, maybe, its memories. I don’t know if you’ll admit a toad could have memories. But I don’t know, either, if you’ll admit there was once witchcraft in America. Witchcraft doesn’t sound sensible when you think of Pittsburgh and subways and movie houses, but the dark lore didn’t start in Pittsburgh or Salem either; it goes away back to dark olive groves in Greece and dim, ancient forests in Brittany and the stone dolmens of Wales. All I’m saying, you understand, is that the toad was there, under its rocks, and inside the shack Pete was stretching on his hard bed like a cat and composing himself to sleep.

  And this time the bed began to revolve right away, and spilled him out Into darkness. He was expecting it, somehow. He didn’t worry about being able to breathe now, he just relaxed and let himself sink, while his eyes accustomed themselves to the green gloom. It wasn’t gloom at all, really. There were lights and colors. If it hadn’t been for the feel of the water gliding by against his skin he might have imagined himself up in the sky, with meteors and comets blazing past. But these were sea-things, shining in the dark, the luminous life that blazes beneath the southern sea.

  First he’d see a tiny twinkling speck, like a star, and it might have been next to his face or a mile away, in that immense, featureless void, with its faint hint of green. It would grow larger. It would turn into a radiant sun of purple or crimson or orange and come rushing at him, and swerve aside at the last moment. There were sinuous ribbons of fire that flowed into bright patterns, and there were schools of tiny fish that flashed by like sparks. Down below, in the deeper abyss, the colors were paler, and once an enormous shape blundered past down there, like the sea-bottom itself moving heavily. Pete
watched awhile and then swam up.

  UNDER a thin new moon the sea lay quivering with silver. Beyond him was the silent isle, and a rakish, sweet silhouette hung at anchor in the lagoon, the Yankee clipper, its bowsprit pointing now at the sky, now at the sea. To and fro it rocked, and Pete, rising and falling upon the same rhythm, was glad that he shared the waves with that lovely shape. Pete knew ships and loved them, and this was a dream of a ship. What he-wanted more than anything was to see her under sail, with white canvas straining full of the breeze and a creamy wake parting behind her stern.

  He began to swim toward the silent clipper, and he was almost at the anchor chain when a marlin drove up to the surface and tore at him, and a stabbing pain went through his arm. The marlin had a man’s face. It was very serious and thoughtful, and it was holding a glass tube tipped with a long sharp needle, and it wasn’t a marlin after all. It was old Dr. Manning, come down from his little hilltop house.

  There was a strange taste under Pete’s tongue. He blinked up at Margarida’s worried fat face. “Minha mae—” he said, puzzled.

  “Thank the good God!” Margarida cried, enfolding Pete in a hysterical hug. “My Pedrinho—ai-i gracas—”

  “Thank the good doutor, rather,” Manoel said grumpily, but he too looked troubled. Margarida didn’t hear. She was busy smoothing Pete’s hair and then mussing it up again, and Pete didn’t know what the fuss was all about. Dr. Manning was snapping his black bag shut. He blinked doubtfully at Pete, and then sent Margarida and Manoel out of the room. After that he sat down on the bed and asked Pete questions.

  It was always easy to talk to Dr. Manning, and Pete explained about the pirate islands with their magical names, and about the southern sea and the ship. It was a wonderful dream, Pete said, watching the doutor’s puzzled eyes. He hadn’t been taking any drugs, no. Manning was especially inquisitive on that point. Finally he told Pete to stay in bed awhile, and went into the kitchen. Though he kept his voice low out there, Gregorio managed to slide the door open a crack, and Pete could hear what was being said. He didn’t understand all of it.

  Dr. Manning said he’d thought at first it might be sleeping sickness, or even narcolepsy, whatever that was, but—no, Pete Was healthy enough physically. Manoel growled that the boy was bone-lazy, spending his time fishing and reading. Reading! No good could come of such things.

  “In a way you’re right, Manoel,” Dr. Manning said hesitantly. “It’s natural for a boy to day-dream now and then, but I think Pedro does it too much. I’ve let him use my library whenever he wanted, but it seems . . . h’m, it seems he reads the wrong things. Fairy tales are very charming, but they don’t help a boy to cope with real life.”

  “Com certeza,” Manoel agreed. “You mean he has crazy ideas in the head.”

  “Oh, they’re rather nice ideas,” Dr. Manning said. “But they’re only fairy tales, and they’re beginning to seem true to Pete. You see, Manoel, there are really two worlds’, the real one, and the one you make up inside your mind. Sometimes a boy—or even a! man—gets to like his dream world so much he just forgets about the real one and lives in the one he’s made up.”

  “I know,” Manoel said. “I have seen some who do that. It is a bad thing.”

  “It would.be bad for Pete. He’s a very sensitive boy. If you live too much in dreams, you can’t face real, life squarely. And Pete will have to work for his living.”

  “But he is not sick?” Margarida put in anxiously.

  “No. He’s thinking the wrong way, that’s all—for him. He should get out and have more interests, see what the world’s really like. He ought to go to Campeche and Tampico and all these other places he makes up dreams about, and see them as they really are.”

  “Ah,” Manoel said. “If he could go out on the boats, perhaps—”

  “Something of the sort.” Dr. Manning nodded. “If he could go on the Princesa, for instance, tomorrow. She’s bound to Gulf ports, and Pete might ship as a cabin boy or something. The change and contacts would be just what he needs.” Manoel. clapped his hands together. “Bento Barbosa owns part of the Princesa, I will talk to him. Perhaps it can be arranged.”

  “It would be best for Pete,” Dr. Manning said, and that was the end of the conversation, except that Pete lay quivering with excitement at the prospect of seeing the Gulf ports at last.

  He went to sleep again, but he did not dream this time. It was a lighter slumber, and he drowsed for hours, waking once in awhile as voices came to him. Manoel, in the kitchen, was talking angrily, while Margarida tried to quiet him.

  Slap! and Gregorio began to wail. “You will keep your tongue still after this!” Manoel shouted. “There is no need to run gossiping down the street. This is a private matter.”

  “He is only a menino,” Margarida pleaded, but Manoel roared at her angrily.

  “His tongue wags night and day! Just now Bento Barbosa asked me what was wrong with Pedro and said he could not send a sick boy on the Princesa. I had to talk to him a long time before he would agree to take Pedro. There must be no more of these—these—” Manoel cursed. “It is too hot here in Cabrillo and the air is bad. Once Pedro is out on the water he will freshen up. Deus, do you think I would send him away if he were really sick, woman?”

  A door slammed and there was silence. Pete dozed again, and remembered Cocos and Cartagena, and the dragons sailing over Paramaribo, and finally he decided he was awake. So he got up, drank the coffee Margarida forced on him, and went out. His arm was still sore from Dr. Manning’s hypodermic needle.

  He took a circuitous route to avoid passing Bento Barbosa’s store, and this brought him past the gitana’s gate. The old woman called to him, and he couldn’t pretend he hadn’t heard; you couldn’t fool Beatriz Sousa’s sharp black eyes. So he went uneasily into the garden and up to the porch, where the Senhora sat shuffling the tarots on a flimsy table.

  “Sit down, Pedro,” she said pointing to the creaky cane chair opposite her. “How are your dreams today, mens neto?”

  It was funny that she’d never called him grandson before. It was funny, too, that she hadn’t once looked up at him since he’d opened the gate. The wise, bright eyes were focused on the cards as they slapped softly down. Flick—flick—and a nod; flick, flick, and now the silvery head lifted and the bright black eyes looked straight into Pete’s.

  “A long time ago I lived in Lisbon,” she said, in softly slurred Portuguese that made the name of the city Leesh-boa. “But before that, meus neto, my tribe was in the mountains where ,there are only old things, like the trees and the rocks and the streams. There are truths to be learned from the old things—” She hesitated, and her brown, shrunken claw closed over Pete’s hand, “Do you know the truth, Pedrinho?”

  Puzzled, he met her bright stare. “The truth about what, Senhora?”

  A moment longer she searched his eyes. Then her hand, dropped and she smiled.

  “No. Never mind. I see you “do not. I had thought perhaps you might need advice from me, but I see you need nothing. You are safe, menino. The old magic is not all evil. It may be very bad for men in towns, but a gift is not offered to one who had no use for it.”

  Pete did not understand, but he listened politely. “Sim, Senhora?”

  “You must decide,” she said with a shrug of her narrow shoulders. “You need no help from me or anyone. Only remember tills—you have no need to be afraid, Pedro, never at all.” The toothless jaws worked. “No, do not look at the tarots. I will not read your future for you. Your future . . .” She mumbled something in the gipsy tongue. “Go away now. Go.”

  Pete, feeling that he had somehow offended the old woman, got up reluctantly. She did not look after him as he stepped down from the porch.

  EVEN when he got home that evening and found Margarida busy packing the gear that he would need and hovering between pride and tears, he could not quite believe all this was for Pedro Ignacio da Silva Coutinho. Manoel superintended, sitting by the stove and scornfully rejectin
g dozens of articles his wife wanted to put in the sea-bag. The children were delirious with excitement, and neighbors kept dropping in with good advice. Within an hour Pete had been given twenty assorted crucifixes, charms and amulets, all designed to protect him from the dangers of the sea. Manoel snorted.

  “A strong back and a quick eye are better,” he declared.

  Margarida threw her apron over her head suddenly and burst into sobs. “He is not well,” she wept. “He will die, I know.”

  “You are a fool,” Manoel told her. “The doutor said Pedro is healthy as a jackass, and as for you, stop acting like one and bring me more wine.

  As for Pete, he went out into the yard and looked around it with new eyes, now that he was leaving. All the ports of the world lay open to him, Tampico and Campeche and a thousand more, and the pirates were singing on the Isle of Pines, and over Paramaribo the dragons were flying with their mailed and clashing wings.

  ‘When Pete went to bed that night he was quite sure he wouldn’t oversleep again. Not with the ports of the world beckoning to him. Through the open window beside him came the faint sound of song and music from the Castle and the other waterfront taverns, the last sounds he would hear from little Cabrillo on the Gulf before he sailed away on the Princesa into a beckoning world.

  What he’d find there, of course, was up to Pete. But he was sure there were magicians in Tampico and leopard-skins and golden thrones in Juba. Dragons and pirates and white temples where magic dwelt. And best of all, the places he didn’t know about yet, the ones that would come as surprises. Oh, not entirely pleasant surprises. There should be a hint of peril, a touch of terror, to emphasize the brightness of adventure.

  Tampico . . . Tampico . . . Juba and Campeche . . . Paramaribo . . . Cocos and Clipperton and Cartagena . . .

  They blended into a singing silence in his mind.