Dance of the Dwarfs

by Geoffrey Household

  I asked the Cuban with some contempt whether he thought I was prepared to spend weeks on horseback with a pair of field glasses for the sake of political convictions or a hundred pesos’ reward.

  The Colombian waved him down — in fact, back into his chair.

  “This is all conjecture,” he said. “But I observe, doctor, that you are not accustomed to control your curiosity. Please do so! You might find yourself involved in reprisals against Santa Eulalia, and then it would be hard to guarantee your life. Or you might have to jump on the first boat back to Liverpool.”

  I replied that I was not going to be scared out of work which I enjoyed.

  “Forcibly deported was what I meant,” he answered. “It would be easy to convince the Government that you are on our side. You’re an intellectual, you see. And policemen always consider that the sympathies of an intellectual must be far to the left. Very odd, but there it is!”

  He was still amused and cordial. We might have been at a café table with an old waiter hovering around and smiling discreetly at the talk. I don’t see how these fellows can mix a sense of comedy with a cold disregard of human life. That comes naturally to the gaucho or llanero, but their disregard is not cold; it is hot and passionate.

  “Then may I assume that my life, my guns and my horses will remain with me?”

  “Of course! Why not? And we shall hope someday to employ so sympathetic a character.”

  “I can’t speak Chinese.”

  “You revolt me, brother! What’s for dinner?”

  “Stuffed pimientos and a roast.”

  “By God, you’re lucky round here!” the Cuban exclaimed, greed or hunger breaking his startled silence. “Well, no more politics — and be at ease!”

  Thereafter their relaxation was genuine. We did not, however, arrive at any convivial relationship. It stands to reason that they were not so eager for companionship as I. They probably longed for privacy and for freedom from the unending duty to their troops. Still, I could sleep soundly and I hope they did.

  They were off at dawn after a cup of coffee. The Colombian, before he left, took me to the corral on the excuse that his horse’s pastern was cut. On examination I found little or no damage. It was clear that he wanted to talk confidentially.

  “I don’t understand the llaneros,” he said. “Few of us do. Are they much influenced by superstition?”

  Every llanero would declare himself a good Catholic, devoted to the Virgin and the Saints. But since he rarely rides so far as a church and there are few missionaries to correct his errors, what he really worships and fears is a Mother Goddess with her attendant spirits. Even so he is less influenced by superstition than the settled Indians who know just enough Christianity to have lost respect for their own myths. The human longing for faith goes unfulfilled in both, leaving a void through which writhe the misty fears of spirits, the dead and magic. Joaquín at least hangs on to his old traditions, but is unable to explain what he really does believe.

  Even Mario and Teresa are afraid of duendes. When I settled in, they moved from their cabin over to the main building. Their excuse was that they could serve me better if they lived alongside. It sounded reasonable; but I am certain, now that I know them better, that the true reason was reluctance to walk the couple of hundred yards across the garden after sunset.

  So I told the Colombian that, whatever the superstitions, they were not Christian and would still be alive even if he and his party succeeded in closing every church in the country.

  “Why are there no cattle between Santa Eulalia and your estancia?” he asked.

  “I wish I knew. They think the grazing unlucky rather than unhealthy.”

  “And Pedro? Does he share this belief?”

  “Pedro either thinks he knows or is content to be ignorant. An old soldier with no imagination at all.”

  “It seems useless to ask why in this country,” he said.

  “It isn’t useless, but there is hardly ever any answer. That’s what I wanted to explain to your companion last night. To whom should I talk and what evidence would I have? He didn’t realize the emptiness. All one notices is a speck on the horizon or a dance of the dust which might be haze, perhaps a horseman.”

  “You wrote something like that when the Mission questioned your choice of this station,” he said. “You insisted that the first object of study should be the ecology of fertile soil uncontaminated by man.”

  I exclaimed that surely he couldn’t get hold of copies of the Mission’s reports to the Department of Agriculture.

  “Only the first,” he replied. “I was much impressed by your contribution. Indeed I thought this visit to you quite unnecessary. But my companion is not accustomed to judge by internal evidence. He has not that sort of education.”

  Well, I suppose it is not surprising that these able and misguided fellows who take to the mountains should keep a line open to former colleagues in the administration. Evidently he has no great respect for his lieutenant. It’s my guess that the Cuban is their chief of security. All chiefs of security are, inevitably and by profession, bastards. I had better control my curiosity and go on minding my own business whether in Santa Eulalia or Bogotá.

  [ March 20, Sunday ]

  The heat is windless and silent, illimitable as daylight on the moon. Nothing moves until an hour before sunset when again one hears the birds on the marshes and the monkeys howling at the edge of the forest.

  The herds, split up into small, languid bunches, are far out in the llano or in the shade of the woodland close to Santa Eulalia along the Guaviare. The llaneros are weary of their half-starved, tireless horses and ride no more than they must to see what casualties, if any, there are among the resting cattle. Losses are few. Puma in the open or jaguar on the edge of cover must be bold and hungry to tackle these formidable, half wild beasts and are likely to be trampled into a bag of empty skin. Near water the anaconda is the worst enemy. These giant constrictors kill seldom, but a young animal has no chance against them. The llaneros swear that an anaconda can pulp the life out of a full-grown bull but is unable to swallow it.

  Among my other reasons for the choice of the estancia was its unfailing water supply. According to Mario, Pedro and Joaquín the chain of marshes and the nameless creek which drains them never dry. I hope not, but the rains ended a month too soon. The creek is a necklace of pools linked by shallows and the level of the marshes has sunk.

  The acequías which irrigate our garden have little water in them. They must be deepened and extended, but Mario and I alone cannot do it. Labor is unobtainable. The few available Indians of Santa Eulalia, suspended in almost complete idleness, will not work through the heat of the day — for which I don’t blame them — cannot be induced to leave their wretched huts to live here, will not ride the twelve miles and return.

  Nor can I get llaneros, whatever pay I offer. They are the last of the world’s horsemen, now that the Mongols have taken to cities and the Bedouin to oil and education. It would be beneath their dignity to work in a field. I never even see a solitary rider on the skyline who might welcome a change from his futile life of producing valueless, ownerless beef.

  So there we are! In this exceptional drought a lot of my work is going for nothing, since I cannot get enough water to the parched crops. I have tried the primitive device of a balanced pole, leather bucket and counterweight. It works and my carpentry was fun, but the labor of raising and tipping water is endless and intolerable. Thank God the horses and ourselves have an inexhaustible supply from the deep well in the courtyard!

  I could not persuade Mario to show interest in my hydraulics. Unless I keep him working in my sight he insists on stopping holes and breaches in our ruinous adobe wall. It is good enough to keep out cattle, which don’t come here anyway, but it will not, he says, keep out deer. That’s true enough, and it might be wise, before the rains, to have some wire flown in to top the wall. Mario has never seen a wire fence and could not understand it until I drew a pic
ture for him. He then assured me it would be useless. He is obsessed by a vision of deer crawling underneath the wire, which is preposterous. To listen to Mario, one might think this country was swarming with game, all eager to eat up experimental crops and not in the least afraid of human settlement. I think I am again faced by the blank — evasive and at present unmeaning.

  [ March 22, Tuesday ]

  Alarums and Excursions! Santa Eulalia has been reminded that it is governed.

  Normally we have no Government, unless one counts Pedro. We have neither education nor police nor public works on which to spend money, and no property or income on which to raise it. Since there is nothing worth stealing, there is no crime but manslaughter. One cannot call it murder, for there is no intent to kill. One gentleman decides that the words or eyes of another are offensive. As they may have one-eighth of Spaniard between them and an ancient tradition of violence while in liquor, they slash at one another with their knives. A pint or two of blood is mopped up. Its former owner quickly replaces it or dies. First aid is administered by Joaquín. The affair is recorded by Pedro. That is all.

  Well, as I say, Government has intruded upon our peace. The first I knew of it was a yellow haze which resolved itself into half a dozen men riding up to the estancia — on borrowed horses since they had arrived at Santa Eulalia by a military launch.

  The cavalcade consisted of a captain, a sergeant, three men and an unwilling guide. It never occurred to me before that strangers might need one. The tracks are little used and deceptive. Neither I nor my few visitors follow the same path except in the wet season. We may come in from any point on a semicircle of nothing.

  That evening we had little but our homegrown vegetables and canned meat — of which they would all be heartily sick. So as soon as Mario and the guide had seen to the horses and I had exaggeratedly welcomed the party, I told their Captain that it was not too late for some duck if we hurried.

  He jumped at the opportunity, and I sent him up the marsh with instructions to show himself on the shore of an inlet where the birds were just beginning to settle. They did what I expected, changing direction and circling low over the pools and rushes at the mouth of the creek. The light had nearly gone, but the flighting duck were black against the vivid green of the western sky and it was one of those memorable evenings when I was shooting like the angel of death. Fifteen duck with sixteen cartridges and all dropped where I could get at them!

  Meanwhile the sergeant and his men had gathered in the kitchen and their horses were tethered to the old hitching posts outside. Mario and the guide were obstinately reluctant to leave them there, but I would not have them in the corral with my own. I am prepared to put up one or, at a pinch, two when passers-by stay the night, but I drew the line at crowding six into the small enclosure with possible damage to Tesoro, Estrellera and the sun shelters.

  “And if they break loose into the garden?” Mario asked.

  “Well, hobble them and turn them out onto the llano. They can come to no harm,” I said.

  But perhaps I should not be as free and easy here as in Argentina. Pumas do range over the llanos, though I have never seen one. And a horse unaccustomed to marshes might go unwarily into the water over his knees and land himself in trouble with electric eel or sting ray. No shortage of those sods!

  “For the honor of the house a horse must not be lost,” Mario insisted. “I shall put them, if the master permits, in the hall.”

  I shrugged my shoulders and told him to go ahead. The hall is a ruin with hardly any roof, but it has four stout walls, a solid door and shuttered windows.

  While the rest of the party were drinking rotgut and helping Teresa to pluck the duck, Captain Valera and I opened up the whisky which the Administration had sent me — presumably knowing that I might have visitors and wishing to reinforce my goodwill. I found Valera a delightful and intelligent companion. He had chosen to serve in the vast wastelands of Colombia and was supported in discomfort and hardship by a vision of what his country could become. He was the type of idealist who might well have joined the revolutionaries in the Cordillera, but he loathed them and their methods. They might, he admitted, bring more social justice to the Indian and the laborer, but then would stick fast in the mess of their doctrinaire economics, and take fifty years, like the Russians, to arrive at the same point that Western democracies had reached in thirty.

  He knew all about the Mission and was enthusiastic over what he called my self-sacrifice. I explained that I hadn’t any, that in me scientific curiosity took the place of patriotism in him. We were both doing what we most wanted to do.

  “And what about women?” he asked. “Forgive me — but I don’t see one.”

  I replied that I was not too sure of Government regulations. Laws for the protection of the Indians did exist, though they were somewhat starry-eyed and unenforceable. So I preferred to avoid illegalities which could be used against me if anyone wanted to stop my work.

  I may have sounded prim, and he smiled at what he thought typical Englishness.

  “I wonder Mario and Teresa haven’t shoved something in your bed already,” he said.

  “It would have to be pitch dark,” I answered. “The only possible candidate has not much nose left.”

  He said that he might be able to do better for me than that. If I didn’t like it, I could return it by Government Canoe. He would let me know.

  I hope he does nothing of the sort. The casual way in which Latin Americans pass secondhand females to each other is inclined to inhibit desire. As soon as the rains come, I shall fly up to Bogotá and fornicate more artistically.

  Teresa was using her longest spit for the duck and needed wood as well as charcoal, so we had to wait some time for our meal. Meanwhile Valera opened up the subject of his visit.

  It appeared that guerilla activity had been spotted from the air before the commando could disperse and vanish into the foothills. The General Staff was not in the least bothered about an advance southeastwards in our direction which could get nowhere and occupy nothing. The guerrilleros might as well put out to sea. But since they had never come down to the llanos before Military Intelligence was curious.

  So Valera had been ordered to ask questions wherever there was any articulate soul along the banks of the Guaviare to answer them. He had called at Santa Eulalia and talked to Pedro, who had denied any knowledge of guerrilleros but had spoken of the mysterious doings of the Englishman at the estancia and his unknown visitors.

  I said that I did very occasionally give hospitality to travelers who might be Marxists or horse thieves or Venezuelans on the run for all I knew. It was the custom in Argentina to keep open house and ask no questions, and I presumed that Colombian courtesies were the same.

  That satisfied Valera. After all, no one could talk to me for long without realizing that I have no politics. I was determined not to mention my suspicions of the llaneros’ cattle market. I shall not give away Valera’s secrets either.

  While we ate he told me plenty. His second task was to report on whether a small, airborne force could attack from this side and startle the revolutionaries into retiring further north where troops from Bogotá could get at them. After returning to his temporary headquarters he intended to do some mapping with this operation in mind. I advised him to leave his mapping for another month when the rains would reveal unexpected lakes and creeks. I could imagine his handful of troops boldly attacking some guerrilla outpost and finding too late that there was a sluggish river hidden in a fold of the ground.

  He asked why I suspected that there was any guerrilla activity so far east. I could only answer that Pedro and the llaneros had told me so.

  “That’s a lot more than they ever told me,” he said.

  I was saved from what might have been awkward interrogation by Mario and Teresa coming in to clear away and to report that the troops had gone over to their former cabin for the night.

  Across the garden I could hear singing and general jollity.
A red glow suspended in blackness showed that the five men had started to grill a second supper in the chimney. I knew that they had a plentiful supply of rum to go with it. It seemed a pity that Mario and Teresa, whose life was so lonely, should not join the party.

  “Can any of your fellows play a guitar?” I asked Valera.

  “My sergeant. Like an angel.”

  I told Mario to drop everything and take Teresa and my guitar over to the other side of the garden, leaving us to look after ourselves.

  He would not, though I could see he longed to. I was exasperated by his fear of the dark.

  “Look, friend Mario, there are no duendes who can stand an electric torch!” I exclaimed. “It is as good as the Sign of the Cross. I will see you both over to your old house.”

  He sulked but had to agree. Valera came as well, assuring him that duendes invariably respected his rank and uniform.

  We stayed long enough to listen to a song and then relieved them of our presence so that they would be less inhibited. Teresa, as befitted a respectable matron, had withdrawn to the doorway of the next room — a shawl-shrouded figure with a black grin. Mario was becoming noisy. It was clear that I had done the right thing.

  “Why wouldn’t they go?” Valera asked when we had settled down for a last whisky before turning in. “Snakes? Or is this place haunted?”

  I was surprised that he should accept the possibility so naturally. But he had an open mind and he probably knew deserted plantations on the riverbanks where there is something one might call an aura of despair and death.

  “Not in the least. Thoroughly cheerful,” I said. “It must be the result of their loneliness before I came. In the forest I should not blame Mario. If a man is superstitious and cannot put a name to the night sounds, there is no place which is not haunted.”

  “But here —” he made a magnificent Latin gesture to describe emptiness and knocked his glass over “— we have no companions but the stars.”

  “That’s what I feel myself,” I answered. “The forest is on our doorstep but we are not of it. Like a cinema screen. So near, so different a life, such limited values. And we observe it all from our seats.”