The Strangely Wonderful: Tale of Count Balásházy

by Karen Mercury

  “That brings up my proposal, for it involves animals. Your aye-aye, to be exact. I should like to be the first to display it at the Menagerie du Jardines des Plantes in Paris! With your name duly noted as the discoverer, my doll, of course!” He raised his glass in another toast, but Dagny sat immobile.

  “Why … I don’t think I can do that, Paul. I’ve already promised Count Balásházy that I will turn the aye-aye over to him. If I find one, of course. I told you I’d made that promise.”

  Paul’s face turned seductive, and he looked up at her from under his lashes, his lips pursed. “Now, my doll. Who is more important to you, I or that despicable freebooter? Who after all has sheltered you and your family and has given you all employment?”

  Dagny smiled. “Why, you, of course, Paul. I don’t mean to seem ungrateful, for you have done more for my family and I than … why, anyone we’ve ever been acquainted with. You are a warmhearted, generous, great man of industry! But I do try to stay honorable in my dealings with others, and the count, well… I made the agreement with him several weeks ago. You can respect that, can you not? Being a man of honor yourself?”

  “Oh, yes, yes, of course. I see that you are a woman of honor, and do not wish to take back your agreement. But …” A sly glint came into his eye then. “What if I were to say to you that I will offer you seven thousand dollars for this rodent? What then, eh, my doll?”

  “Paul!” Dagny clapped her hands together. “That is entirely too much! No, I cannot accept the offer, I absolutely cannot. In fact, I was going to tell the count that his five thousand dollars was much too dear—”

  Paul sat up straight now, palms down on the desktop. “What if I were to say that your giving me this honor would make me the happiest man in Madagascar? I would consider it fair payment for all I have done for you … and your family.”

  If he couched it that way, Dagny could not refuse. “All right, then. I can give you the second one I find. Is that not fair? Your exhibition in Paris will most likely happen a lot sooner, and be much bigger news in the scientific world, than Tomaj’s—than Count Balásházy’s tiny exhibition in Pamplemousses.”

  Paul smiled. “Yes, that is true. But let us not say you give me the second rodent you find. Let us say you give me the first one that you find … on my property.”

  On his property? The area Dagny was most likely to discover the creature was the area north of Nosy Tovaraty, inland from Île Sainte-Marie and the Bay of Antongil. This might not be Tomaj’s land, but it was much closer to Barataria than to Mantasoa, and Tomaj could much more easily lay a claim to it than Paul.

  “All right, deal, Monsieur Boneaux.” She extended a hand, and Paul leaned far over his desk to kiss it, looking up at her with shining eyes.

  “Ah, Miss Ravenhurst. You have made me a happy man. Of course …” he wiggled an eyebrow at her. “You do always make me a most happy man.” Standing erect, he added, “I am sorry, I must get back to my engagement with my men.”

  Coming around to her side of the desk, he laid his hands upon her shoulders and kissed her, rather gently for him. Dagny imagined it was because he didn’t want to become unduly aroused. His large hands did slide up her ribs, but he stopped short and withdrew, holding her chin between his fingers, amused. “Before you skin your monkey, can you have your filanzana bearers move the conveyance? Some of my men are exercising in the yard, and we’ve placed the filanzanas off to one side.”

  “How is the mechanical dodo coming along? I should like to glimpse it again.”

  “Ah, it is … it has gone away, to the silversmith’s shop, for certain gears needs to be fabricated.”

  Dagny went back to the main concourse where the filanzana bearers gathered. A few strummed valihas, and others engaged in an awkward sport where they tried to roll large stones down a lane toward other smaller stones.

  Emerging from behind a traveler’s tree hedge, a frantic Malagasy man ran toward her, proffering a bundle, followed by approximately twenty jogging men. The fellow shoved the black furry bundle at Dagny. “Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle! Look what we have found!”

  Dagny accepted the cat-sized creature as the men pressed in around her, the dank odor of the unwashed jungle threatening to smother her. She gasped when she beheld the leathery bat ears she had heard so much of, her fingers smoothing over the tail that looked like that of a fluffy fox, but was in actuality bristly. Opening the mouth with two fingers, she finally beheld the ever-growing incisors that could chisel through coconut husk. The eyes were closed, so she could not tell if they resembled a staring owl. “Aye-aye!” she whispered to the hushed crowd.

  Some were afraid to speak its name aloud, so only a few responded, “Eh-eh,” which was how they pronounced it.

  “But—Inona ity?” What is this? “It has been—mamono.” Killed.

  “Eny.” Yes. “We do not like this animal.”

  “Well, yes, but… I would much prefer a live one. Tsy tìako ity.” I do not like this. “Can you not capture one alive?”

  While she attempted to convey the word “capture” in a combination of French, Malagasy, and sign language, Paul approached, full of jollity.

  “Miss Ravenhurst, I forgot to mention to you. My men have made a sort of felt out of fur and fibers that you may be able to use for your stuffed—my, what is this?”

  “Eh-eh!” a few bold men exclaimed to their master.

  “Aye-aye!” Dagny cried needlessly, in her excitement shoving the dead animal up against Paul’s waistcoat. “Isn’t it wonderful? It’s a real, living—well, perhaps not so very ‘living’—”

  Throwing his hands in the air, Paul backed away from the lemur. “Où l’avez-vous trouvé?” he asked the men.

  As they climbed over each other to be the first to tell him where they’d found the creature, Zeke meandered up, limping.

  “God-damnit,” he snarled. “The carpenters said it’d take three months to make a saloon bar for me, because all the wood for hundreds of miles around here is going to make the queen a jackass palace or other. I’m just going to have to use some of that inferior soft palm wood, and the bar will look like a mushroom, unless you think Balásházy happens to have a bar from Russia lying around. That seems like the sort of thing he’d have. Now I’ve stepped on something …”

  Lifting his foot behind him, Zeke stretched to see over his shoulder. “Oh, fuck me dry!” he bawled, apparently unaware that was a favorite motto of Balásházy’s. “The queer fish animals they have around here! Will you take a look at this, Dagny?”

  Cradling the dead aye-aye, Dagny squatted down to view the bottom of Zeke’s boot. There, as flat as a coin and nearly as bashed, was the tiniest chameleon she’d ever seen. His poor protruding eyes had been flattened in surprise, and his squashed mouth wailed for salvation. The critter was only an inch long! This must be the miniscule chameleon she had never been able to view. “Wait, Zeke … let me peel it off your boot.”

  Paul said, “Did you hear, my doll? This man has found this rodent not fifteen miles from here … on my property!”

  “Oh, is that so?” Dagny said as she stood. She waved the flat lizard in the air, frowning at it. “Well, I don’t believe a dead aye-aye is of much use to anyone.”

  Paul stilled. “Dead? What is wrong with dead? Aren’t all of your animals dead?”

  “Is that your aye-aye?” Zeke queried, fearlessly taking the animal from Dagny and holding it up to inspect it.

  “But you shoot all of your specimens!” Paul cried.

  Dagny corrected, “Some of them, if I cannot get them any other way. But I’ve heard the aye-aye is dauntless and unafraid of humans, and I’ve devised a way to catch a live one. A stuffed aye-aye at Jardines des Plantes will hardly cause the uproar that a live one would. I was under the impression our agreement was for a live one.”

  “Bah!” Paul spat. “You merely don’t want this one because you want to find a live one for your lover!”

  Holding out the flat chameleon with indign
ation, Dagny put her free hand on her hip, but Zeke beat her to it, turning to Paul and questioning, “Might I ask, how did you know this one was shot? Have you looked at it?”

  Paul sputtered as he tried to reach for the expired lemur. “I … I have assumed that it was shot, because most dead animals are!”

  Zeke stomped backward into the crowd of men, holding the lemur away from Paul’s clutches. “It’s fairly evident that you had foreknowledge of this critter just ‘happening’ to be here at this moment, which would seem to invalidate whatever agreement you made with my sister.” Zeke could be a creepy customer when he had half a mind to.

  “Foreknowledge? That is impossible! Dagny and I have just made this agreement not a quarter of an hour ago, isn’t that right, doll? I think it is what they call synchrone, such happenings that, that happen at just the precise—”

  “Ow!” yelped the fellow who had brought the aye-aye, as Zeke was not only stamping on his foot, but shoving the deceased creature in his face, as well. Clawing the odious animal from his face, the fellow demanded of Boneaux, “Monsieur, when will you give me the five dollars you said for the monkey?”

  “Aha!” bellowed Zeke, falling even farther back into the clutch of men, now holding the poor creature to his chest. “Five dollars, eh?”

  “Five dollars?” cried Dagny. “Why, Paul, that’s highway robbery! Zeke, give this man twenty dollars, and let’s take our leave.”

  Boneaux made one final lunge, whisking the flattened lizard from Dagny’s grip. To hold onto it would have meant its utter disintegration, so she relinquished it, much to his superior satisfaction.

  He now fluttered the forlorn lizard, crowing, “I will keep this for you … next to your smelly monkey!” He glanced at the chameleon, jumped with fright, and dropped it.

  The men now all crowding around the hunter who had received the twenty dollars, Zeke and Dagny made their escape back to the filanzana.

  “Wow,” said Zeke, as they clambered aboard the conveyance. He held the aye-aye propped up in his lap, fashioning it into a sitting position, ready for tea. “So this is the sacred goal of the animal world? Fairly ghoulish. Look at this long finger!”

  The bearers lifted the palanquin chair and set off trotting down the rise. The aye-aye’s arm jiggled as though urging friends to deal him another hand of cards. Zeke continued, “That Boneaux could sure use a serious jawbation, trying to give you that flapdoodle. As if you’d be a gump enough to believe that bilgewater. The monkey just walked by at the exact same moment…” Zeke fell to chuckling to himself and clucking his tongue. “Besides, aren’t these nocturnal critters?”

  “I did believe that nonsense at first. I may have even taken him at his word, though I would never have allowed him to give me seven thousand dollars for it, for an animal I didn’t collect myself… if you hadn’t happened along. You surprise me, brother!”

  “What?” Zeke said vaguely, playing with the monkey.

  “You’ve always defended Paul, told me I needed to continue meeting with him, though you hated it, of course. But you’ve never questioned a single thing he’s said or done, and now you’re jumping to my defense!”

  Zeke chortled. “‘The man who never changes his opinion is like stale water that gives birth to mental reptiles.’”

  Dagny sputtered. “Zeke! You’re just full of surprises today!”

  Zeke dandled the monkey on his knee. “We’ll be all right without Boneaux, once I get my lodge going. What was that on the bottom of my shoe, anyway?”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THE CRUELTIES THAT LURK IN THE BLACKENED SPIRITS OF MEN

  Barataria

  SO YOUR IDEA IS TO BAIT THE FOREST WITH GOURDS?” “Aye, Miss Ravenhurst. The aye-aye is so stupid, he puts his arm into the gourd to get the egg, but he can’t get it out again.”

  They walked down the arbor covered with passionflowers, dormant and bare in this wet season that had begun to pelt the island with violent falls of rain. Dagny was pleased to see Barataria again, solid and coralline white with its wings of painted fieldstone, like the home she’d always longed for as a child. Gardeners moved about the trimmed lawn, removing spent spikes of mignonette.

  “I have a night-glass that can help us see in the dark.”

  “Aye!” Bellingham was attired like a miniature seaman in a greatcoat that was much too large for him. “You don’t even have to sit watch all night! All you have to do is come back in the morning, they’ll still be lying there, panting like, but refusing to take their hand out of the gourd.”

  “Dear Bellingham!” Dagny was inclined to put her arms around the boy, but it wasn’t proper, as she wasn’t his mother. Holy Eleanora Brown stood on the front portico, hands folded before her lap, bowing her head. Dagny nodded at her and felt slightly guilty. Of what, she wasn’t sure. Behind Ellie another girl glowered, just as Dagny had seen her glowering on a number of occasions before. “And what is your given name, might I ask? I can’t keep calling you Bellingham.”

  Men yelled inside the house. Their voices were far distant from the drawing room or reception room, toward the back of the house where Dagny had never been. Dagny and Bellingham stood two abreast in the hallway, next to immobile servants who leaned forward with platters in their hands, or posed on the grand staircase with feet on different steps, listening.

  “But Tomaj!” shouted Youx, his syrupy Creole tones echoing down the black-and-white tiled hallway. “Pete here has incontrovertible evidence!”

  “I don’t call that ‘incontrovertible’!” Tomaj bellowed back. “Is there something written down on paper? No, there is not! I’m not bowing to this bilge!”

  A clattering of glassware and the general murmuring of about fifteen men told Dagny she should not approach any farther. She looked at a footman with raised eyebrows.

  The servant pointed with his carafe of booze. “He cannot ship his cargo of silk and tea.”

  “Why not?” The footman shrugged. Dagny put her fingers on his velvet shoulder and shoved him. “Well, you best hurry in there, then! They will surely need refreshment!”

  Scurrying off like an uncertain rabbit, he opened the door to the room, and a cloud of shouting voices (and a tumbler of liquor) spilled forth.

  Dagny looked down at Bellingham. “Do you know anything about this?”

  The towheaded youth gazed at a wall, shaking his head remotely. “About what, Miss Ravenhurst?”

  “This rumpus!”

  His pink lower lip glistened. “Rumpus? No. I just cannot remember my Christian name.”

  “Oh!” She took the boy in her arms, sliding her fingers through his flaxen hair. She was surprised at the matronly swell that rushed through her. The poor boy! “Well, we shall come up with a new name for you, then. Get one of the missionaries to baptize you.”

  Clutching Bellingham, Dagny walked closer to the door that had remained open. Men milled about in various stages of frustrated disarray, cravats hanging undone, shirtsleeves rolled up to their elbows, hair standing on end. Dagny recognized Chick, Sergeant Townshend, and others of the plantocracy such as Launois, and Alexander Cameron from Maine.

  Chick proclaimed, “I just came from a levee in Mantasoa three days ago. There was certainly no mention of anything like this!”

  “Well, of course not, dear Chick,” Tomaj boiled with barely suppressed rage. “The embargo doesn’t affect you. It’s of the utmost suspicious interest that it only seems to concern raw silks and teas from the Orient—two commodities that only I trade.”

  “Yes, was there mention of coffee?” Monsieur Launois questioned a rather dubious pockmarked fellow who stood uncertainly with giant hands dangling at his sides.

  “No, no coffee was mentioned, sir.”

  “It’s that bastard Boneaux at it again!” shouted Tomaj, striding in ever-tightening circles. He paused to slosh more booze into his glass. “He’s the only one powerful enough to have Ramavo’s ear—”

  “—and her pussy,” chortled Cameron.


  “—who could get her to enact such a heinous and pointless new law!”

  “Might I point out, Count,” suggested Sergeant Townshend, “that Boneaux has freshly legitimate reasons to gripe with you. At my ball I seemed to recall a certain naturalist who caused quite a stir between the two of you.”

  All became hushed, and more than a couple of men backed away from Tomaj. His eyes narrowed, his nostrils flared, and he slowly strode over to Townshend, tossing the booze glass into his left hand as he did so. “Why, you boorish pantaloon,” he growled. “How dare you bring that blameless girl into this.”

  Townshend held his hands up to the ceiling. “But, Count. It is a well-known fact he fancies her, and at the ball she only had eyes for you. It was quite evident to everyone in the room.”

  “Yes, yes,” ventured Cameron. “She turned down many others for a dance.”

  “Stay here,” Dagny whispered to Bellingham, and walked into the study. In a new commanding tone, she said loudly, “Gentlemen. I’m sorry if I was the source of any sort of business strife.” She curtseyed before a stunned Tomaj. “Count. I will get to the bottom of this affair if you will kindly explain it to me.” Casually, as though she burst into business meetings all the time, Dagny went to the sideboard and poured herself some booze. The carafe stood next to a strange candelabrum for eight candles, but only the two center candles had been used. “If I may speak to you in private, Count…”

  Tomaj seemed to suddenly wake. “Private, yes! Will you excuse us, gentlemen?”

  With much slamming down of liquor glasses, the men took their leave. Only the fellow with pustules festooning his face dared pause and speak to Tomaj.

  “There was more I didn’t get to tell you. Just in case you was doing the logical thing and thinking of avoiding Tamatave port and just standing out of your own harbor. Boneaux’s also been sniffing around looking to purchase some of his own ships. Sent someone down to inspect a frigate, that Frenchy vessel what brought stores to Bourbon.”