Bellingham’s eyes grew wide. “Sketch,” he muttered, and set to.
Dagny observed the sifaka with her own particular naturalist’s glass. One reclined in the crotch of two thorny branches, contemplating, elbow on knee, tilting its head from side to side as though to regard with amusement the sporting play of two youngsters. “I wonder why … there are no lemurs on the mainland.” Setting down the glass, she reached for her notebook. “And why no larger apes in Madagascar. I’ve seen some wonderful maps that definitely lead one to believe that this portion of land broke away at some point from the coast of Mozambique. At least, that’s Sal’s theory.” Stormalong nudged Dagny’s wrist with her nose, so she scratched the dog behind the ears.
“Another theory,” Tomaj said slowly, intent on his drawing, “the Malagasy like to say, is that the lemurs are their ancestors, and came over from the mainland on big rafts … rafts that seem to have been big chunks of driftwood or flotsam, from the sounds of it.”
“Ah,” Dagny breathed. “Then I do wonder … oh!”
Startled or encouraged by something, the sifaka commenced leaping to the ground, limbs splayed out, sailing buoyantly through the air. Indeed, they landed with springy hops, as though the jump of twenty feet bothered them no more than one leaping expectantly from a bed on Christmas morning, and they proceeded to … dance.
“Jesus H. Christ, they’ve ruined my composition,” Tomaj cried, not unkindly.
“Oh, my!” Dagny cupped her hand to her mouth. Dropping her pencil, she reached blindly for Tomaj. “They’re … waltzing!”
Stormalong started for the group of monkeys, but Tomaj stayed her with a hiss, and she settled on her haunches with agitation, trembling. “Yes, I like to say that. They do resemble some of the dandies of the Danube River inns.”
Evidently these sifaka did not walk on four feet. Rather, they chasséd on two legs with joyous carelessness, gamboling headlong across the thorny sand with their arms flung above their heads. Mothers with month-old babies clinging to their bellies dangled from the lowest limbs before bounding to join the waltz, capering happily with flailing arms, smiling as if they thought “whee!” before reaching another thorny tree, where they hopped until adhered there with glue. It was a veritable parade of the sideways jumpers. Some decided to sit, Indian fashion, with upraised palms balanced on their knees, spines erect, their faces basking in the few remaining sunbeams.
Tomaj mused, “Whosoever the dance did discover … Had in mind each maid and lover … With all their burning ardor.”
Stormalong couldn’t tolerate it, and she loped into the midst of the monkeys, sending them scurrying for the spiked trees once more, and this time she didn’t dare jump on any trunks.
In excitement, too, Dagny stood. “I shall have to collect one,” she breathed, reaching for the Lang’s pistol she wore in a shoulder holster when on expeditions.
“Hush, my malala,” said Tomaj, grabbing her hand and yanking her down. “If you ‘collect’ one now, it’ll ruin my sketch. Relax. Also, killing one is fady to the Mahafaly.”
So they sketched, and took notes, and Bellingham dragged over a porcelain wine cooler where Tomaj had stashed some of the favored Montrachet. He allowed Bellingham a glass, and sent a bottle over to Broadhecker on the foreshore, where men grilled the ptarmigans Firebrand had brought back.
It turned candle-lighting, and Bellingham stuck a flambeau into the sand so they could continue sketching from memory, while the sifaka chattered and barked in the thorny forest. Flying foxes twittered overhead between the treetops and the nearly full fanjava bory moon, and Sal returned from searching for his pegmatite, dropping a sack of rocks at their feet. Broadhecker brought Sal some cold ptarmigan and bread that he gratefully wolfed.
“I’ve been forming a theory, Sal,” said Dagny. She lay back in the warm sand propped on her elbows, the heat from Tomaj’s arm against hers. “Tomaj said lemurs rafted over here on driftwood from the continent, who knows how long ago?”
Sal’s gemmy earrings glinted in the moonlight, and he had altogether a new feral cast she’d never seen in him before. His lovely opalescent curls were wrapped round his head in a length of red silk, all bound up like he’d been trepanned. “Probably the Pliocene era,” Sal mumbled between mouthfuls of fowl. As of late, Sal opined that everything had originated in the Pliocene era.
Dagny said, “The point is, if these primates migrated to Madagascar that long ago, why did the monkeys on the continent transmute into such huge troglodytes that can break a man’s fingers, but the ones on Madagascar remained small, compact, harmless plant-eaters?”
To Dagny’s surprise, everyone fell silent. Suddenly no one had a theory. She looked at Tomaj’s profile as he gazed at the circle created by their feet, the centerpiece of which was the painted wine cooler. His ethereal beauty had seemed to blossom on this cruise. Every time she glanced at him, she saw his superb Hungarian grace was enhanced by the weather, as though the sun and wind imbued him with vast, arcane energy that lit up his eyes like tourmaline fireworks, and Dagny had a sensation that it had been decades since he’d been this fiery.
“Because,” Tomaj said remotely, plainly thinking about something else entirely, “they have no competition here, as they do on the mainland.”
“Yes!” Twisting to face him, Dagny placed her hand on his chest. “That’s it! Here, they have no need of growing gigantic and monstrous, or developing armor, because there are no predators! Well, aside from the fossa, but they seem fairly rare. How on earth did you formulate this theory, Tomaj? Or should I say … Professor Balásházy?”
He was pensive. “It’s simple, Miss Ravenhurst. You see it all your life. Animals attack others because they know they can. People attack others when they think they have the advantage. The winners grow strong. The losers, why … they become extinct, as Sal has told me of, finding fossils. Like your dodo. How was he to fly?”
Dagny raised her fingers to his cheekbone. His eyes flickered, and the corners of his mouth lifted up. “Is that how you have remained so superior?”
“Aye. By attacking first.”
As she slid her fingers round Tomaj’s warm throat, Bellingham piped up, emboldened by the wine. “I’ll say. That’s one of our mottos—’If it be shiny, kill it.’”
Mangled guitar strings tuned up as Tomaj finally raised his eyes to Dagny. She touched his mouth, uncaring who was looking. How vulnerable he could seem, this nefarious Traveling Bird!
“But you’ve always been very pleasant to me,” whispered Dagny.
There was a loud blast of stringed instruments. The men over by the cook fire attuned themselves to each other, and several guitars and a banjo burst forth in an explosion of masculine energy.
Cape Cod boys don’t got no sleds
Heave away, heave away
They slide down hills on codfish heads
For we’re bound for Australia.
The hellish cacophony of a dozen men came together in an oddly pleasing tune. The waister Stephen Miller in particular put his all into it, his quavering falsetto cracking high above the ragged voices of the other men.
Heave away me bonny bonny boys
Heave away, heave away
Heave away and don’t you make a noise
For we’re bound for Australia!
Dagny had to lean closer to hear Tomaj’s response.
“I’m pleasant because I love you. But I’m not allowed to love you. You belong to another.” He held her gaze for another moment. “If men are singing a shanty, then they can’t be up to mischief.”
Clambering to his feet, he joined the others playing music on the foreshore.
You belong to another … He was wrong! She didn’t “belong” to Boneaux. That was like telling Sal he “belonged” to his rocks!
Cape Cod girls don’t got no combs
They comb their hair with codfish bones
Snorting hotly, Dagny crossed her arms and turned to the water. Tomaj leaned over to a brown leather cas
e, a refined silhouette against the reflected moonlight on the water.
A seaman cried, “All right! A fiddle!”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE MAN WITH THE TALENTED TONGUE
ARE YOU RETIRING TO YOUR CABIN, MY DUCK? THE glass just turned, and Bellingham has struck eight bells.”
Dagny turned to view Salvatore, looming near the starboard rail in the bright moonlight. She replied, “While I’m becoming a geologist, you’re becoming quite a seaman.”
Sal wrapped his arms round her from behind, so they could both watch the deck where drinking seamen cavorted, fired by another round of Slushy’s Chinese wedding cake, belting out bawdy tunes regarding rotten meat and weevily bread. Stormalong lolled upside down with her head in a sailor’s lap, a bumper of booze by her paw.
Dagny said, “I’m waiting until everyone retires. I believe they’re having an ether frolic. It’s a shame that warped Zaleski fellow isn’t here—he’s got the most beautiful voice.”
“Yes. I don’t think that fellow’s half-bad, after all. He’s somewhat of a teacher to little Bellingham. Ether frolic? Hmm. Maybe I’ll join them.”
Dagny nudged Sal in the ribs with her elbow. “No frolics for you. You promised to spend tomorrow’s forenoon with me, looking for that tomato frog. Now tell me, brother.” She imagined she could hear the sifakas making their alarm call over the ridge of treetops, the characteristic see-faaakh from whence their name originated. She spoke quieter now. “Tomaj loves us, in the manner we love Zeke.”
“As he loved Yves, his quartermaster.”
Dagny tilted her head. “Yes, very similar, I should suppose.”
“Only—”
“Only what?”
Sal squeezed her tighter to prevent her from lurching over the rail. “Tomaj loves you differently. He loves you in the passionate way that I’ve heard a man can only love a woman. I see his face when he speaks of you or thinks of you. He gets this look, like he’s gazing miles out at the most beautiful East Indiaman he could ever hope to see. He looks—dare I say it—happy when he speaks of you. He loves you—”
Dagny elbowed Sal harder this time. “Dear brother! He has the same happy look when he speaks of you, and that’s what I’m trying to discuss! When I first met him, he seemed melancholic. The weight of the ocean hovered over his head. You have to admit there’s a deep sadness that permeates his spirit and seems to go beyond the normal cares a man of business might have …”
“Yes.”
Dagny frowned. It seemed the ship pitched with the rollicking dancing of the men against the deck. “What I mean to say is …” She spoke against Sal’s cheekbone. “I am the mistress of Paul Boneaux. Boneaux is his most hated enemy. How can he reconcile this in his mind? How can … how can we stop from—”
“Pipe down!”
Sal and Dagny jumped as one body at the sudden blaring scream close to their ears. Sal spun to protect Dagny, but when he saw it was only Slushy, his body relaxed against hers. Opening the dark-lantern to reveal Slushy, Dagny shoved Sal out of the way to politely confront the bootblack.
“Slushy,” she said. “How nice of you to come visit.”
The pygmy had been ineffectually hailing the crew below. He had a creature of some kind in his claw. “Mademoiselle! I’ve come to you with a message!” He flung out the arm that held the critter, causing the lizard to flail its limbs about wildly, informing Dagny that it still breathed life. “You are to proceed to House of the Diabolical Monkeys the moment you return to Tamatave!”
Dagny and Sal both inhaled loudly. How on earth was this bootblack concerned with Mantasoa?
“So …” Dagny said calmly. “You’ve been to Mantasoa lately?” Slushy wrenched the lizard, smashing it to his chest as though praying to some obscure god. He whispered, “No, but my men have been! You see, I’ve been keeping an eye on you, by the orders of the admiral. And I know that …” Here he looked sideways. His voice fell to a hush, and Dagny and Sal leaned in. “… Monsieur Boneaux demands you visit him the moment you return.”
Dagny sighed. “All right. Listen here … give me that lizard, will you?” She grabbed the lizard without looking and slammed it to her side at her hip. “If you’ve been a snitch for Monsieur Boneaux, that’s none of my affair. What I want to know is, why on earth were you booted from New York?”
Slushy commenced to darting his eyes from side to side, hunched over secretively, and Dagny and Sal had to move in even closer. “You see, it’s like this. You have to understand the different factions of society at work at the time. When the lake in the Collect, which was a notorious slaughterhouse teeming with curing carcasses and chemicals, was filled in 1813—at the same time they razed Bunker Hill—and the Bull’s Head Tavern, which had formerly been the pot-house for any number of disreputable—”
“We know the Bull’s Head Tavern!” Sal cried. “On the Bowery! Why, it was like a second home to us! Then you must be familiar with Shaker McGee, that tough bog-crawler who ruled it for many years? Oh, of course, we didn’t arrive in New York until ‘12, right before they finished filling in the Collect.”
At the revelation that Sal knew of the Bull’s Head, Slushy’s reminisces turned vague. “Yes, then you must know that the Sixth Ward area at the time was a rich, simmering stew of humanity—”
“Particularly in the summertime,” Dagny muttered.
“—with the varied divisions, the strata of society, if you will, of artisans, shoemakers, tailors, bakers, carpenters—why, one never knew who one’s friends were, and to tell the truth, a fellow had to have an extra eye in the back of his head to see things the way they really were—like that lizard in your hand!”
Dagny raised the little lizard to her face to examine it in the moonlight. It had decided to go to sleep, but it opened two of its three eyes when it sensed her warm face nearby. “The three-eyed lizard!” she cried. She held it to the dark-lantern, and saw the pineal eye that contracted in the light at the apex of its cranium. “Where did you get this, Slushy?”
Slushy breathed on the lizard. “Oh, I have my ways. I heard the Captain mention you were looking for one. Not recalling that, I was about to throw it into the stew pot in the caboose when I noticed it had the additional eye. And another thing. I’ve a message for you from the Captain. You’re to meet him in his cabin.”
At this, Dagny nearly forgot all about the lizard. “The Captain? Why, it’s after midnight. Were you supposed to give me this message earlier?”
“No, no. I was just down there, refreshing his Montrachet.” He leaned in confidentially to Dagny. “He has an even better gift for you, better than this lizard.”
She should be ashamed by the alacrity with which she shoved the lizard into Sal’s hands and headed for the companionway, but she was not.
The sentry outside Tomaj’s door seemed to have been instructed not to open his mouth. Touching her throat for any sign of sweat, Dagny entered the great cabin, arguably grander accommodations than those Tomaj occupied on Stormalong. There were richly polished teakwood bulkheads instead of canvas walls, and dazzling brightwork that sent reflections of dozens of hot planets glowing from the walls. Inhabited by a couple of eighteen-pounders, she smelled the slow match, as if recently fired in practice.
Her nostrils flared at a whiff of his vanilla and berry scent, which warmed her quim with memories of his face buried in her neck, and she twirled about anxiously. “Tomaj?”
A lamp swayed from the beam, its warm flame reflected against the deckhead. On a dining table there was propped a strange egg-shaped … egg?
The egg rolled about a little from the motion of the tide, but it had been contained in its orbit by three geodes, possibly of celestine. Six outspread men’s hands could not cover its entire surface, it was so large, and Dagny moved toward it, bending low and frowning. Was this her gift? What sort of bird could have laid this giant egg?
“The elephant bird. Your Madagascar dodo.”
Dagny jumped. Clad in the Turkish dressi
ng gown from the day in the baths, the silk fabric slipped down a little off Tomaj’s delightfully dark-skinned shoulders, his chest brazenly bare. Tied in a silk ribbon, his luxuriant mane of black hair was tossed over his shoulder, his nipple teased to erection by the feathers of his own coiffure.
“Elephant …?” She vaguely imagined an elephant. It was a large creature, but she didn’t think it was capable of laying eggs.
He wore silk trousers and enticing red morocco slippers, and he came forward with a glass of port. The wide yellow sash slid asunder, and she stopped breathing at a glimpse of his lean belly, so erotic in its tautness her legs became weak. She felt about blindly for a chair.
About his state of undress he did not seem to notice or care; he found her a chair, and sat her down at the table. “Yes, your dodo is what we call an elephant bird. It was eleven feet tall, according to native legend. The last white man to see one was Flacourt, the French governor of Madagascar, who built the fort near here. We still occasionally find fossilized eggs such as this. Drink.”
Fanning herself, Dagny obediently drank. “So you knew about this elephant bird. This entire time I’ve been looking for a dodo, which perhaps was only found in the Mauritius. This is much grander and exciting!”
Tomaj smiled slyly. “I knew, but I wanted to have an egg to give you. I just got it today.”
“Has anyone found any skeletons?”
“No one that I know of. Perhaps you will. It was called the elephant bird, or roc according to Marco Polo, because it was so enormous it could pounce on an elephant and carry it away. This is from Marco Polo’s description of Madagascar, which found its way into the Arabian Nights. In Malagasy the word is rukh.”
When she looked up at him, for he refused to sit, she was made dizzy with craving for him, and the wine didn’t help the matter. He leaned his haunches against the table and crossed his long arms across his chest, seemingly unaware that this pose presented her with a grand view of his admirable penis, clothed in silk, at half-mast nestled between his lean, strong thighs. Choking a little on the port, she forced her eyes back to the egg.
The Strangely Wonderful: Tale of Count Balásházy Page 18
