Dance of the Dwarfs

by Geoffrey Household

  Chucha’s history is deplorably vague and unsatisfactory. What else can one expect? A woman is lost among the insects and the trees. The soul clings to its name in nameless places and there is no rest for the body.

  She was given by her mother to a merchant called Samuel. That regrettable transaction must have taken place in the Eastern Cordillera of Bolivia or Peru, for her native language is Aymara. Samuel took her down to the Amazon basin. After a stay in a large city where they did not speak Spanish — probably Manaos — Samuel wandered with her up another river — probably the Rio Negro. He seems to have been an irrepressible traveler, but he was kind to her. He was drowned somewhere high up the Orinoco. How the devil he got there from the Rio Negro I don’t know, so I can’t expect her to.

  Chucha, abandoned in the merciless nowhere of our continent, very reasonably presented her undoubted charms to the first man who had a boat with an engine in it — a guarantee that, whatever his appearance, he was not a forest Indian. His name was Pepe and he traded in knives, beads and whistles. He was continually drunk and treated her brutally, whereas Samuel offered her no less affection than he gave to his pet monkey.

  When Pepe threatened to open her up with a machete she ran away from him. My girl says that the spirit of her great aunt had locked up Chucha’s womb. Her own deceased great aunt is, I am glad to say, more reasonable. I must admit that I had no idea that the plateau Indians could suffer from the muscular effects of a neurosis which one believed confined to the women of Northern Europe. She must have been sufficiently exposed to civilization to have acquired taste.

  I do not like allowing the poor little thing to die of damp rot complicated by syphilis, and I send her to you with confidence that you will save her from this otherwise inevitable destiny. In the course of various small medical attentions which she badly needed I have had her intimately examined. Indian modesty was appalled, but my girl held her hand and assured her that such was the custom among the rich.

  I can certify that when she left here she had no venereal disease, and that during the undoubted hazards of the journey up river she was under the care of a respectable matron whose husband depends on me for promotion.

  All I fear is your British sense of responsibility. I beg you to ignore it. You know as well as I do that her relationship with you will greatly enhance her value and that a dowry — tiny to you, wealth to some young llanero — would persuade him to wear out two horses in his immediate search for a priest.

  Sentimental cynicism! And barely redeemed by that warmth of friendship which a generous Latin American will allow to blaze on the strength of a single meeting! I reread Valera’s letter over a couple of stiff drinks which merely turned one half of me into a rampant stallion while the other half argued. Suppose, I asked myself, this female had been a scientist or some enterprising young woman come from Bogotá to inspect my valuable services to her country? Well, she’d have had to resist attempted rape three times a day, the afternoon attack being marked by the highest fever. Suppose Joaquín had supplied me with something not too jungly from one of the river tribes? I should probably have accepted, since the girl would have a home to which she could return with her presents and be welcome. Chucha had no home. I came to the conclusion that my conscience was bothering me just because she was so helpless. She had no more choice than a mare passed from one llanero to another.

  Was all this compunction insincere and did I in fact object to her color? Certainly not! My first inspection of the consignment had been casual, since I had not then read the accompanying Operation Manual. I thought she was possibly some niece of Teresa’s. But I found her color delightful — like a new penny set in black, straight hair rather more luxuriant than that of our river Indians. She looked neat and clean, except for the stains of the journey, and no doubt Teresa would delouse her if necessary.

  Or did I resent being given no choice? No, she would do very well. I was prepared to put Samuel’s little cutie through the hoops within five minutes and go on till next Sunday week. So, after all, compunction did appear to be the true motive for hesitation and quite sincere.

  I went to Mario’s quarters to see her. Mario and Teresa had no doubt what she had come for. They reminded me of a couple of hopeful parents determined to clear out of the room as soon as possible and leave future son-in-law to get on with it. They had evidently been assuring her that I was a nice chap, a mastermind and so forth. I told Teresa that Chucha would eat with me and took her along to my living room.

  She was very gentle and submissive like most Indian women, but I preferred to assume that she might have some elementary pride. So I decided to put off the moment of truth as long as I could without going crazy, gave her some sweets to suck, showed her round the habitable rooms and told her a bit about myself and my work.

  She followed me around with blank brown eyes, wide open. After a while she began to murmur a little chatter. Her Spanish was soft and passable. The white blouse and skirt that Valera or his girl had dressed her in were damn near transparent when she had the setting sun behind her. It was time for Sir Galahad to have another drink just to keep the conversation going.

  When I produced bottle and glass she gave her first sign of being more than a pet monkey with the power of speech — a little involuntary movement as if she were shrinking from an outsize spider. I said I never drank more than a finger — the length of it, not the breadth — and waggled it at her. I showed her the proportion of rum and fresh lime juice that I liked and let her play with the tinkling ice and soda. Confidence was established. She told me that she was about fifteen, that she was born in Peru but couldn’t remember it clearly.

  She was very hungry and stuffed herself with beef and corn as soon as Teresa brought in our meal. She then was far more talkative. Her father had come down from the Central Cordillera to the lowlands, having been selected for one of the Peruvian Government’s resettlement schemes. That, of course, is my own interpretation of her disconnected bits and pieces. He died of TB, as far too many of them do when they leave the winds of the altiplano for the damp and heat, and her mother carried on working in the plantations. When she was twelve Samuel and the rivers gathered her up.

  “Why didn’t you tell all this to the captain and his señora?” I asked.

  “I was afraid.”

  “What of, child?”

  “Of the señora.”

  “But why?”

  “Because she hid me.”

  I suppose there is some logic in that. Valera’s girl created an atmosphere of guilt. Chucha’s reaction to it was not unlike that of some city teenager running away from home. To admit exactly where she came from could mean that she would be handed over to the police. She didn’t see the Establishment as safety, in which she was instinctively right. The Establishment — if any member of it with a pair of white trousers could be found — would simply have put her on board a canoe in the pious hope that she might reach some nuns and the near certainty that she would not.

  Her matt copper had taken on a patina of green. Being fascinated by the quivering of the bell-shaped breasts, I did not notice it until we were near disaster. All those sweets she had eaten were no foundation for an Argentine-sized grill of beef. She was overcome by shame and looked round frantically for somewhere to be sick. Natural good taste or are the Children of the Sun brought up to consider it a disgrace? I don’t know. Here we use the open grass or the back of Pedro’s store. We also pride ourselves in shooting the contents of our stomachs as far away as possible, regardless of where they land. I suppose she was overwhelmed by a tiled floor, four walls and a table with plates, knives and forks on it. To me it was an indoor camp, but to her the high splendor of a Lord Mayor’s banquet.

  She made a rush for the nearest window on the outside wall and flung open the wooden shutters. She was very obviously near collapse due to the long weariness of her journey and, perhaps, relief. Relief will often make one more wobbly than the original cause of the strain. She was also in trouble with
her hair. So I held her head till she was empty.

  I fetched Teresa and explained that Chucha was ill and tired. No doubt Teresa had spotted it much earlier, but had not thought that the master would pay attention. She bedded Chucha down on my spare mattress in an alcove between the kitchen and laboratory and gave her a hot, aromatic tea, possibly more effective than remedies from my medicine chest. Chucha thanked me with great gravity and said she was sorry. So was I.

  But I had been rewarded by my first sight of a puma. It must have been crouching very close to the house. However, my eyes had not had time to adjust to the darkness and I only had a vague glimpse of it as it cantered away.

  [ April 2, Saturday ]

  The next morning she hardly lifted her eyes, but had put a scrap of red ribbon in her hair. She was very attentive to Teresa, learning about a house with walls and how to clean it — all very foreign to her after years of bamboo huts and canoes. She took a little lunch with me and was all “Si, señor” and “No, señor” as if she had just come out of a convent.

  When the house was closed and silent in the heat of the afternoon I gathered her up. She took it very naturally. Well, one would expect that. But I mean a little more by “naturally.” There was no immediate, pretended response, nor any of those artificialities which so delightfully disguise a too eager response. She merely hid her face and dissolved into a softness.

  I spent a little time and trouble on her. She was nearly passive, except for a slight tremor of muscles which showed that she was not uninterested. There was no trouble due to great aunts. I found her peculiar softness stimulating. It may be due to the fact that like most Indians she has hardly any waist. The little darling had to put up with me from the siesta till dinner time, and soon after that we had the two air mattresses side by side and were off again. For God’s sake, what I have been suppressing for the sake of tropical agriculture!

  Today I noticed that she was not walking with quite her usual grace. I can’t help it. It’s going to get sorer before it gets better, like the drought. Her very simple sweetness intoxicates me. She doesn’t — or rather didn’t — know how to kiss properly. Her minor erotic response is a caress of arms, legs or hands. She ought to have a tail like a cat.

  That reminds my one-track mind that she also saw the puma. She was frightened out of her wits and insists that it would have got her if I had not held her. That is nonsense. She would have to be unconscious and lying still for a longish time before the puma would have dared to investigate. I told her it was certainly a dog. I don’t want her to catch the jitters from Mario and Teresa. If she is to be happy here, she must have absolute confidence that the llano is just as empty under the stars as under the sun.

  Anyway she has never before set eyes on a puma — jaguar, yes. One cannot judge accurately the size of the big felines. I am told that they seem of immense length and impossible narrowness when they spring. Yet the same fellow rolled up asleep is just a furry ball and could easily be a dog, and not a very large one at that. I suspect that I saw what I wanted to see and that it was in fact a stray dog. Santa Eulalia crawls with them, all too bloated with beef offal to travel far from home. But the guerrilleros may well take along a few dogs for hunting. Alternatively it could have been put ashore to earn its own living by some Indian who was tired of its demands for a more dog-like diet than bananas.

  [ April 3, Sunday ]

  I like Chucha’s smell — an undefinable blend of young animal and fresh vegetable. But I don’t like my own. At dawn this morning I felt remarkably clean inside and filthy with stale sweat outside. So I got up, had a shower, climbed the wall so as not to wake up Mario by opening the gate and strolled out over the cool, gray llano.

  For the first time I saw cattle between the creek and the forest. What is left of the grazing there seems to me exceptionally good, but beasts are never allowed to stray round the north end of the marshes and down into the corridor. If they do, the llaneros give them up as lost. They say it is because there is no intervening strip of parkland where the cattle could easily be rounded up. Certainly the forest is dense and begins abruptly. On my explorations of it I have found that after cutting a first passage through the green wall one has little further need of the machete and can even ride at a walk under the big timber. The llaneros may be right in holding that if a man tries to follow the cattle he merely drives them deeper into the forest and loses himself into the bargain. But they give up too easily. It’s their distaste for the forest which counts.

  As soon as the sun began to bite — which it does within twenty minutes of clearing the horizon — the cattle drifted into the shade and disappeared. To get on the wrong side of the creek they must have broken away from a bunch up north. It seems unlikely that they could not have been rounded up in the open. Was a small herd being driven towards the Cordillera through parkland unfamiliar to the llaneros?

  I also searched for tracks of our visitor, but could find none — not surprising since the ground is as hard as a city pavement. Dead grass showed an impression where something had lain down about twenty yards from the house. I also found a dropping, but it looked more human than animal.

  [ April 4, Monday ]

  For civilized man — if I still am — it is a refreshing experience to be sexually and aesthetically satisfied, yet not emotionally involved. Love, no. Tenderness, yes. No concern for the future beyond a firm intention to preserve her as she is. No concern for her past except gratitude that it has led to so satisfactory a present.

  I must admit that I am curious to know at what age she ceased to be Samuel’s pet monkey and became his mistress. There does seem to have been a transition. But I lay off the subject, and with natural good taste she rarely mentions him. She is nearly as neat and hairless as an infant. Obviously she has never had a child. I suppose that problem is bound to crop up. I shouldn’t be surprised if Joaquín has some earth-shaking remedies for it.

  I find to my amazement that she can very slowly read. Samuel taught her. While I am working in the laboratory she respectfully ferrets about among books, papers and written scraps, watching me to see if all is permitted. Her curiosity is unceasing, and I try never to show impatience.

  The patterns of mathematical formulas fascinated her.

  “How do they tell a story, Ojen?” she insisted.

  Ojen is the nearest she can get to Owen. With the help of a box of matches she easily grasped the principle of algebra. Either she has exceptional intelligence or I should make a very good father.

  I should not like her to find Valera’s letter. I doubt if she would understand its complexities, but no woman could miss the tone of contempt. So I have torn it up after translating it and have rewritten the diary entry of March 31 to include my English version of it.

  I do not know whether she is happy, or merely ecstatic at so miraculous a change in her life. Perhaps the difference between the two can no more be analyzed for Chucha than for a child. I am disconcerted by her innocence. An odd word to use. I wrote it without thinking, but it’s true. She has the innocence and goodness of the savage. Well, more the animal than the savage. The complicated mind of the savage is repulsive to anyone but an anthropologist. Chucha is all simplicity. I suppose that’s what I mean.

  Her religious beliefs are on a par with those of the llaneros. Jesus was kind and hangs on a cross in churches. God is very far away and of dubious importance. But the Virgin is all love and answers prayers. I gather that Chucha and Teresa are pooling their knowledge of the subject. It would be blasphemy to add any commentary of my own. I feel that those two and the Mother of God all understand each other very well.

  [ April 6, Wednesday ]

  I really must stop rogering Chucha afternoon and night and get on with my work. She is setting an example. She remembers nothing of the cereals and tubers of the altiplano but has picked up some knowledge of nursery gardening while trotting along behind mother in the plantations of the Montaña. With Mario’s permission she has taken over the care and wa
tering of his few peaches, lemons and oranges and is trying to raise a lime cutting in the shade. I just managed to prevent myself giving a lecture and telling her that she was doing it all wrong. But she must have green fingers. Not a leaf has flagged or dropped.

  I shall give up this diary altogether. There is no need for it. I haven’t the time in the evenings and I am no longer interested in fortifying myself against a blank spot which isn’t there.

  [ April 7, Thursday ]

  No need for it? The devil must have been looking over my shoulder if he ever comes as far afield as the llanos of Colombia. Put it this way: I do not need a personal diary, but it looks as if I might need a record of facts. So, having got into the habit, I will keep it up.

  This morning I thought Chucha was asleep, but she suddenly raised her head from the odd position where it had collapsed and said:

  “Ojen, there is a horse coming.”

  I couldn’t hear a thing myself. There was absolute silence. I have noticed that she seems to be able to hear sound waves through the ground as well as through air. They arrive, of course, much quicker.

  As soon as I too heard it, I slipped on shirt and trousers and put a clip into the Lee-Enfield. I doubt if I should have bothered if I had been alone. It was papa being over protective. All the same, the incident was more than unusual. The rider had come from Santa Eulalia in the dark, which the llaneros will not, and he was traveling at a much faster pace than they ever do.

  Mario had recognized the visitor and opened the gate by the time I got there. It was Pedro, riding his gray gelding bareback with only a halter. He had been using his spurs in good earnest. The beast was bleeding, fighting for breath and full of alarm.

  He did not dismount and for once wasted no time in empty speech.

  “They are going to cut my throat, friend! I have no hope but you.”

  He begged me to give him quickly as much food as he could carry and to ride with him to the edge of the forest. He had nothing at all with him but his machete and an old revolver tucked in his belt.