Tintin in the New World: A Romance

by Frederic Tuten

  The tiny ship in the distance made him feel sad, and the rain dispirited him. He had been still for too long, alone in the huge manor with his companions, Captain Haddock and the terrier, Snowy, who was now dreaming in the glow of a fire flaring in the huge stone hearth. Tintin shuffled back to his Morris chair and returned to his book. He read:

  Later, I shaved, got dressed and went over to the trailer. The Greek wasn't there but Rose was, in a negligee and red pumps. She looked swell. I came over close. She looked awful. Her shoulder was crisscrossed with welts and her left eye was puffy and blue.

  "He was sore, Rex, and he walloped me with a clothesline. It was bad."

  "I'll kill him," I said, my stomach sick.

  "You better, or he'll get us both."

  He was a greasy Greek and he sweated a lot like all those greasers do. He was frying eggs over the grill and he didn't hear me come in, even when the screen door hissed shut. I tucked the .38 away, grabbed an iron skillet off the shelf, and cracked his head hard. He went down on the sawdust. The eggs and hot grease went over him and steamed on his face. He was groaning. I smashed him again. He went out.

  I dragged him under the counter. The eggs slid down his face and patted the floor. He wasn't bleeding. I hung the "Return Later" sign over the door and pulled down the shade. I left him there and went back to the trailer.

  "Rose, I nailed him."

  "Oh, baby," she moaned.

  "It's over now. We're free."

  She slowly slid out of her negligee. "Oh, yes, baby," she purred. I went over to her. Rose. That's all that mattered.

  There it was. Adults! Always the same: all for lust and murder. Thank the stars he knew nothing of that.

  I shall always be glad to have stayed stunted at twelve, he thought. Quirk of biological fate — my best luck.

  Windows rattled and the fireplace gusted smoke in the chimney downdraft. Snowy slept at Tintin's feet, dreaming of marrow bones heaped in secret caves, dreaming of sudden feints at arrogant crows and hairy villains. Captain Haddock's old ship's barometer sank. For a moment the wind ceased, the air vacuumed; Tintin could scarcely breathe. Then the storm flooded the night.

  Tintin put down his novel. Snowy woke, his eyes red-rimmed. "This is no night to be at sea," Captain Haddock mumbled, entering the carpeted room noiselessly.

  "No night to be at Marlinspike either," answered Tintin. "We've been home too long with too little to do. I'm tired of reading, tired of long strolls, tired of tranquil evenings before the fire. How can you bear it? Not one adventure, not one exploit in ages. I'm too young to stay still for so long. You've got your whiskey to comfort you, Captain, and you've got your old man's memories to keep you agog through the dead months."

  "Old age? Auguring asteroids! I'm not yet fifty. Tintin, my lad, if you'd learn to drink scotch and love women, you, too, would have cheering memories in old age!"

  "I have no feeling for either."

  "How do you know till you've experienced them?"

  Yes, Snowy thought, why doesn't he try? Maybe he'll grow up a bit and stay home more.

  "Captain, enough. Let's find something practical to do."

  "To do? You've everything to do here at Marlinspike. Last month you bought two Arabian steeds and rode them an inch to foamy death, now you hardly give 'em a glance when you pass the stables. They'll soon melt into glue. Then there's the observatory you had erected with a telescope strong enough to see the hairs in God's long nose. 'I've exhausted the heavens,' you said after seven hours of ripping through the skies."

  ''I'm restless by nature," Tintin said, in a sad whisper.

  "Blustering bananas! My dear Tintin, you are perfectly unsettled! My heart breaks to see you in such a funk."

  "What to do? There's an urge in me to be on the move, to set this wrong world right. Do you realize it's a year since we last adventured?"

  "What about your art collecting? Have you given that up, too? All those unopened crates of paintings you've left unexamined: that Matisse you spent ages to acquire — that one with all those naked dancing people — still in its shipping case. Tintin, this house is littered with the goods of your discontent."

  One juicy marrow bone keeps me glad for days, thought Snowy, turning on his back to let his pink belly bask in the fire's hot glow. Humans are peculiar, need so much.

  "Let's take a holiday, Captain, a short trip to the High Atlas or maybe Wyoming."

  "My boy, let's steer truer to course. 'Tis no journey you now need. I fear there's something incomplete in you."

  "We've been through that, Captain. I'm content in every way, and the other thing, well, I feel nothing for it, so don't miss or want it."

  "By Orion's teeth! I've been boy and man at sea, kept a narrow 'n' solitary bunk and wished for none else, yet at times, when the sky washed golden and the sea flattened itself level into a plate of blue, when an island loomed like a ripe persimmon on the horizon, I sometimes wished my briny soul softened by woman's touch. A girl from home country, I mean, none of your port trollops. Yes. A true country girl! Then she would come and say me, 'Oh! Captain, my dear, do come to table.' And there would be waiting my steaming lamb pie and me weatherglass of malt, neat, filled to brim's edge. And this lovely plump, rosy woman, my own wifey, does bend to kiss me on my cheek as I make to tie my napkin 'bout my neck.

  "And perhaps, too, there'd be some little Haddocks swimming around me ankles, little ones all glowing and proud of their big papa.... 'And what's the wisest fish in the sea, me children?' I'd ask, with a grave, schoolmasterish frown on my face. 'Old Haddock! Old Haddock!' they'd answer in glee.

  "I miss this dear wifey I shall never know. My life charts are fixed now — too late to alter course — but I sometimes think I should have planned for warm, fertile shelter at journey's end. Yet there's time ahead left for you to share such homey joys as those I've missed."

  "Captain," Tintin said impatiently, "I offer you my final words on this matter. I've read about the subject you raise, 'bout how men hurl themselves off cliffs or blow out their brains or kill other men over the love of a girl. So, what is it I have missed? Sorrow? Do you remember that season we went to every opera at La Scala and Bayreuth. Those operas where girl and boy meet, fall in love; then, when one leaves the other, the deserted one moans, cries to heaven and to hell or joins a band of outlaws."

  Seldom hear Tintin talk so much. I like him better when he's chasing villains or getting out of a scrape.

  "Wait! I forgot," Tintin continued. "Then there's always the case of two who are in love, but one dies, leaving the other in terrible despair, always ready to sob in the street or while strolling alone in a zoo. If death does not divide lovers, it's something else, a war or TB. Sorrow is what love teaches, so what's to gain in this swamp of weepy roses?"

  "Where's my bottle?"

  "There on the floor, by the Ming vase, where you left it two hours ago."

  "And now that you have clarified your sentiments and left me no room to finish my theme," Captain Haddock said sententiously, pouring whiskey into a cup, "I may as well tell you, one of those letters came by messenger this afternoon while you were out scouting about the estate."

  "The same cream-white envelope?"

  "As ever. Here," said Captain Haddock, removing the letter from the side pocket of his gold-buttoned blue blazer.

  Tintin recognized the stationery and the address at the right-hand corner: "Avenue du Vert Chasseur, Bruxelles." In whatever remote part of the world Tintin found himself, the writer had known where to reach him to signal him to an adventure. Tintin perceived immediately that this missive was different from all the others, which, in their tone and brevity, seemed almost brusque commands. It began:

  Mon cher Tintin, for some time our destinies have linked, yours and mine. I have directed your pursuits, leaving you, however, in the time not taken by some mission at hand, to plot your own stars. I do not know how kind those stars have been to you or how well or wisely you have followed them; all that is bey
ond my power and past my design. But in those matters in which I have influence, I have seen to it that you've been the instrument of good service to this planet. Always you have been sincere and intrepid. Were you the child of my own blood and not the personage of my dreams, I could wish for no better. But once we are born and once set on path, there's more splendid uncertainty for each of us, not least among us you. Thus, I'm told, even God and his knowing stars create and direct and foreknow the end, yet the route itself and the journey's reach no one but the destined traveler may choose, though the whole map be drawn and charted to our lastmost step.

  I myself know little of the prospect before you, except that it shall be of consequence to you. Follow now your destined but alterable track, which begins at Machu Picchu, Peru. Go there now.

  "I see by your expression we're at it again," Captain Haddock said glumly.

  "Not a moment too soon," Tintin exultantly replied.

  Snowy yawned. An ancient oak crashed in the park.

  — Chapter II —

  [Prow side, Tintin alone. Eight bells. Wind, N by NW, (Apollo's wind). Snowy parades the deck, his snout aloft, sniffing the aroma of brine and dolphins.]

  "Come, come, Snowy, here by me. Look up, my boy, see Orion and his dog, Sirius, and there — no, no, there! — the Dipper so large and so low as to seem ready to ladle the ocean. What a mighty sky tonight."

  The world's dream plays in the sky, but he can't quite see it, though with his child's eyes and child's heart he comes closer to perceiving it than any other human I know. I love him and will keep beside him.

  "Yes, Snowy, it makes one think about things, doesn't it? — about how this watery world came to be made and what is the sense of it, to be going on always this way, from one episode of right doing to another, to what final end, I ask ... though I've never asked this before. Yes, to what end? I ask. Snowy, look there. A phosphorescent question mark gleams dully in our ship's roiling wake. Is it a glowing sign of reply or is this milky mark a picture echo of my thoughts projected on high?"

  The night's sea and sky offer him a terrific theme, and soon, I fear, like those of his human kin, even he will burst rhapsodic and strain to lofty spheres. Oh, Tintin, brother animal whom I love, stay the animal that you are, and leave aside these extravagant sensations and thoughts. Don't trouble yourself with dreamy troubles, let humans be humans and dogs dogs. There's no matter beyond that, I say.

  — Chapter III —

  [Some weeks later. The port of Callao, Peru.]

  Pilings, moorings, fastening of stout lines to lead cleats, the chainy letting-down of anchors, the rush of ship's crew and harbor porters, the uneasy tremble of body as Tintin first steps again on land.

  The valise-piled quay, the silver-gray Rolls and capped chauffeur, the settling of luggage in trunk, the silent ride through the luxurious quarters of town. Snowy, his eyes wide, his ears pricked, his snout sniffing the open window space; Haddock listless, his beard flounced; Tintin alert, his hearing the phrase, "It's breaking, it's the cliff for me, too, then" — the voice his own. They arrive.

  The Grand Hotel of Lima. Politeness at the front desk. Señor Tintin has been expected. Manager, in morning coat, tails, and pinstripe, pants' cuffs drooping to his heels, assistants in blue suits, uniformed porters (lots drawn weeks earlier for the privilege of carrying the young detective's suitcases), the entire staff seen and unseen, in halls and kitchens, out m the gardens and by the pool, waiting for him.

  But no word for him at the desk, no letter or note of instructions. Nothing as well the following morning, when Tintin leaves for Cuzco, the middle of his journey.

  — Chapter IV —

  [A day later. Cuzco, Peru: Stop-off point en route to Tintin's appointed destination, the Inca ruins and little hotel of Machu Picchu.

  Street market. 8:30A.M. Snowy investigates the meat stalls, sniffs about the legs of tethered burros, and finally takes a position beside a blind Indian beggar squatting beneath a makeshift canopy.]

  There's dogs and dogs. Not only size, I mean. But ways of life, mastered or masterless, pampered or kicked about. This is no country for dogs here. Always can tell 'bout a place by the way my fellow dogs are doing. Too many cripples and lean ones here. Too much scrounging about for a lick of bone, too much mange and rheumy snouts, too many sunken eyes and tails between the legs — means trouble, kids stoning 'em and cars ready to run 'em over in the streets for sport. Better hug close to Tintin and the old drunk, else I'll end up in a stewpot. Creatures my size ain't got much chance.

  Oh! Look, she, there, sleek, her petite nose a little stuck up in the air but her eyes big and sad, got a mean master perhaps, or maybe she's got worms. Must get closer and sniff her out, don't want to seem too forward, though, especially here where the etiquette is unfamiliar to me. Must be careful here. Not like walking with Tintin or the captain and casually sidling up to a fine miss for a good whiff Must be careful here.

  — Chapter V —

  [Two days later. The hotel of Machu Picchu, huddled among its ancient stone ruins, six thousand feet above sea level. Oxygen level thin. Guest capacity, twenty. Staff present, six. Telephone none. 7:30 A.M.]

  When he woke, Tintin did not know where he was. His head and chest ached, and little white specks skidded before his eyes. He looked about the sunlit room for a familiar sign and found none. Thinking he was still in his hotel room in Cuzco and still dizzy from the altitude, he peered over the edge of the bed for the familiar green tube of oxygen, but he discovered only his maroon slippers at the blue carpet's edge. For some moments he felt so disoriented that he wondered whether or not he was a child again, that same child who frequently woke in the chilled dark of early morning, frightened that his mother had abandoned him or had died and that he was alone forever in the dark house of this large lonely world. At the very instant when he felt most abject, when he began to fall into the familiar spin of this particular and recurrent anguish, Captain Haddock entered the room with Snowy at his cuffs.

  "Why, Captain, I'm so glad to see you, and you, too, dear Snowy!" Tintin exclaimed. "I was so puzzled, and now here you are, thank heavens, to solve it all. We're here, aren't we, Captain?"

  "Here, and never to fall off the planks of this globe, me lad. You're looking bilish, as if you'd downed a cask of peppery brine."

  ''I'll soon be as bright as a razor. Just let me see your faces, dear friends and let me hear your morning bark, good Snowy, why, yes, then I'll shine like the new day sun itself."

  It's his fit, thought Snowy, letting out a long howl of greeting, the misery-mama fit that comes over all of them, young and old, 'n' it's this fit that proves them so crazy no matter how sensible they seem, for when we folks leave the den, it's over and done and there's no remembering or hankering after that old time, but these human creatures moan all their lives over for that lost den and those delicious wet teats, wanting ever and again mommy's little muzzle and her little nudges and nips. And they dare, these humans, talk of us always clinging and hungry for love, for a kick, even, so long as it's our loving master's foot that finds our backsides. Well, I do pity him. I can't show him enough affection when it comes to this type of fit.

  "What you need's a good breakfast, me boy, and that'll start this day smooth again," said Haddock.

  "You choose for me, please," Tintin answered dreamily, "and order for me some pure water from some high mountain stream, some secret rivulet whose source is known only to the just and the sane. There! From that very bubbling cleft I now see beside the jaguar's cave, some seven miles from this place."

  "Just so," Haddock assented, glancing warily at his companion, "and perhaps some fruit juice and toast while we are at it. And perhaps a breath or two of tanked oxygen after breakfast. Why, I'll even join you in a few deep breaths of that heady stuff. The air's too fine for my thick head."

  "No need for oxygen, Captain, not for me, at least — I'm feeling quite myself again. I wish to explore these hills and ruins straight after breakfast and learn
the territory of our present campaign. Remain here if you feel tired."

  Bewildered by Tintin's sudden shifts of mood and thought, Captain Haddock kept his counsel, and without another word they sped to the dining room, where they took the last vacant table in the small room. Their entrance created no stir, the other breakfasters seeming to remain attentive to their morning dishes and to one another, although a woman of olive skin and long, silver-streaked black hair did incline her head slightly toward Tintin as he brushed by her table.

  A voice from that woman's table rose above the common din.

  "Sapristi! I declare all truces broken with this man."

  "Break, break, break all you please," came another cry, "for you are a people who respect no pacts or treaties, and therefore all agreements made with your kind are a priori null and void."

  "As I thought, you had no intention of respecting our agreement from the start, you of the treacherous and bellicose race. "

  "Nonsense," bellowed a voice more commanding than the others, "we'll have no quarrels today."

  Turning rapidly to locate the source of the disturbance, Tintin caught the eyes of a large, bearded man just as the man's thick fist slammed on the table. Silverware and plates jumped, coffee erupted from the trembling cups. In the silence that followed — for all the breakfasters in the room had immediately turned still — the olive-skinned woman's voice filled the room. "Excuse us for the little tumult, fellow guests, my rowdy friends here ask your pardon, I'm sure."