I wish Tesoro could speak. There may be some scent from the forest or some trick of the light which alarms horses. That would be enough to create a legend and to cause the abandonment of the estancia through lack of labor. If one’s only method of transport proves unreliable without any explanation, one falls back on gremlins like aircraft pilots in the last war. A pity that I cannot materialize some arms and legs on these forest fairies and put them to work on irrigation channels!
[ April 13, Wednesday ]
I have tackled Mario and laid down the law that he is not to frighten Chucha with a lot of nonsense. I got little of interest out of him except confirmation that dwarfs don’t climb. That is why he is always mending walls and stopping up holes which a little chap could squeeze through.
He admitted that low morale was the reason for the estancia being deserted. Cattle grazing in the corridor between creek and forest had been lost. In the llano beyond the marshes, where the line of the trees sweeps away to the northwest, horses had vanished into the darkness and once a man. Why not, I asked, an increase in the number of jaguars following a favorable year for the game? No, the llaneros ruled out jaguars. But why in God’s name dwarfs? Because they had been seen dancing. How far away and how much light? Close to the estancia and dark. Any moon? Don’t know.
It was all worthless evidence, with a slight bias in favor of actual, physical hunters from the forest. On a starlit night one’s eyes pick up movement at, say, seventy yards, and can vaguely recognize size and gait. That is to say, I could not distinguish with certainty a cow from a horse or a puma from a big dog, but I could distinguish a man from any of them.
“So the llaneros killed Manuel Cisneros,” I said in the hope that he would be surprised into confessing it. I could then be sure that they had made up the whole story.
“No, Don Ojen, no! He went away when he could get no one to herd the cattle.”
“Why didn’t you go too?”
“What should I do? I am not a llanero. We must eat, Teresa and I and the boys who were then at her skirts. And he gave me the paper saying that I might stay as long as I liked.”
“But all the time you were afraid?”
“Not much. In the day, as you know, what could be more peaceful? At night one must stay indoors. Then there is no danger.”
“How do you know there isn’t?”
“Because there never has been.”
Not a satisfying answer on the face of it. But knowledge can only be founded on experience. How do I know there isn’t a blue orange? Because there never has been.
My summing up has to be — with a mass of reservations — in favor of pygmies. Here is a picture of them:
1. They are hunters and food-gatherers like the most primitive of the forest Indians. They only leave the shelter of the trees after sunset or before sunrise. Sound enough. That is when the deer, peccary and small game are to be found browsing at the edge of the llano.
2. They will come as far as the estancia in rare and exceptional years when the creek can be crossed.
3. They won’t wade (? fear of alligators or eel) and they clearly have no canoes or their presence would have been reported on the river. This is hard to believe. They must have seen canoes and their culture cannot be so primitive that they are unable to build one.
4. They are very timid and won’t face a wall. Won’t, I think, not can’t. Presumably they have observed this place for years and know that it is inhabited by very large men on very strange animals.
5. Tribal dances take place at night on the llano. A forest glade seems a more natural choice; but one must not underrate the power of religious tradition. Perhaps they lived in the open some thousands of years ago.
Having put this down on paper, I feel it adds up to beings as improbable as duendes. You pays your money and you takes your choice. But I am determined to know. To be the discoverer of Homo Dawnayensis really would be something!
[ April 15, Friday ]
Teresa tells me that we are shortly going to run out of coffee. That is where Pedro’s store was useful. He could always keep us going with staples if I forgot to order in time or the Government Canoe failed to deliver. One would expect some inquiries about him, but it is not surprising that the Intendencia shows no curiosity. I doubt if Pedro transmitted a message a month before I came here. He sent off his reports and did his ordering by the canoe.
Perhaps it is my duty to let somebody know what has happened, since I am the only citizen for miles around who can write. But what with pygmies, fornication and fatherliness I have hardly given a thought to Pedro. I don’t know the movements of the Government Canoe — Pedro was the only person who could make a reasonable guess — and I refuse to spend days in Santa Eulalia waiting for the chance to send off a letter. Mañana! One of these days the Intendencia or the Mission will send somebody to see how I am getting on.
We may have had a visit. I woke up at five to hear Tesoro neighing, and some plunging in the corral. So I went out, suspecting that my pair of beauties might have set about Pichón. They do not see why he should have carrots while they get stale bread. Answer: carrots are too precious to be used for wholesale bribery.
I found all the horses sweating. Tesoro had stamped an agouti into the dust. Was the agouti responsible for the excitement, or was there anything else which panicked the horses? My only reason for suspecting there might be is the improbability of an agouti entering our compound at all and then taking refuge in the corral. Mario of course showed no sign of life. He hears nothing and sees nothing, safe from duendes and disturbances behind his closed doors.
I searched the llano with my torch from various points of vantage but saw nothing. When I returned to the house I threw open the shutters on the south side to see if the first gray of morning showed any movements between estancia and forest. It did not. One might as well be out to sea in an absolute calm.
[ April 16, Saturday ]
On the other shore of that sea are a bunch-of frightened and murderous outlaws. Should I have foreseen what was on the way to me? I prefer duendes with no politics to men with them.
This afternoon the Cuban and two other fellows, all bristling with automatic weapons, arrived in a jeep — the first motor vehicle I have ever seen in this vast corner of the llanos. They put a lot of trust in their weatherman. If the rains caught them in the middle of nowhere, they would have to get back to the Cordillera on foot.
In Santa Eulalia they had found nobody to bully except women and children who did not even understand their questions. Futility and the searing heat had not improved their tempers. Chucha took one look at the party and dashed into the kitchen where she deliberately dirtied her face and hair to give the impression of some sort of half-witted slut working for her food. She instinctively felt that these three sullen revolutionaries had appeared from a traditionless world and might not even have the dubious, vestigial chivalry of the llaneros.
I received them as caballeros, for which they did not give a damn. Marxism is too mannerless a creed for Latin America.
The Cuban wanted to know if Pedro had been killed or not. He had no evidence one way or the other but a pile of ashes. I said that I had every reason to believe Pedro was alive, failing very bad luck, and explained what he had told me and how he had escaped.
“He was much too frightened of you to give your plans away,” I added.
“How do you know he was?”
“Because any fool could read his thoughts. He never could keep his mouth shut.”
“So it was you who informed the Government?”
I replied that I knew no details. Even if I had, how could I have passed them on?
“There are aircraft which come down here.”
“Not since your last visit.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Go back to Santa Eulalia tonight and ask. At least one horseman would have seen the plane and by the time it comes down there are always two or three of them on the spot, like ants.”
“Have your servants in!”
He could not let them off without a homily. Mario, Teresa and Chucha were lectured on the joys of a society in which ruthless capitalists would no longer own the land and exploit their labor. I did not point out that Mario was the only landowner present.
Mario was quite calm and unaffected. He said that not a soul had visited the estancia but Pedro and the llaneros who were after him.
“When did your master last go to Santa Eulalia?”
“On Tuesday.”
“And before that?”
Mario genuinely could not remember. Owing to anxiety over the lack of water and then the arrival of Chucha, I had not been in Santa Eulalia since the guitar-playing evening. He said that the last time the Government Canoe called he had gone himself to meet it.
“What for?”
I was relieved that Mario offered no unnecessary information. He just said that he had gone to fetch our stores.
“Did you send off any letters?”
“Yes, many.”
I interrupted to point out that it was unlikely any of them could have reached Bogotá yet. I was poked in the belly with a machine pistol and told to shut up.
Teresa came next. Since she never left the estancia, she merely confirmed what Mario had said. If he had claimed to have visited the sun, she would have backed him up. The Cuban disregarded her mumblings and tried Chucha.
“Where do you come from?”
“I am Peruvian.”
“And what do you do here?”
“I am a servant.”
“Do you sleep with the master?”
“Of course.”
“Why of course?”
“Because I like to.”
This reply was too simple for the Cuban. I translated his snort of disapproval to mean that any little Indian would feel affection for any capitalist lecher who was kind to her.
“How did you get here?”
“By the Canoe.”
“Who paid your passage?”
“Captain Valera,” she answered proudly.
She thought all these chaps with guns must belong to the same incomprehensible, ungentle society and that Valera’s name would command respect. Her entire conception of politics is that one should avoid policemen. They shut you in gaol until you consent to pull your skirts up.
The Cuban dismissed them all to the kitchen and started to undo his pistol holster. I was not impressed — or managed to persuade myself that I was not. The fellow was irresponsible, but presumably part of a chain of command. I thought it wise to remind him of it.
“I admit that Valera is a friend of mine,” I said. “But so, I hope, is the gentleman who accompanied you on your last visit.”
“You knew what was planned.”
“I guessed it and told you so frankly, but I could not know time and place. A little logic, friend! Pedro said nothing, but let us assume he did. Then what is the only way I could pass the information on? Through Pedro! So why bring me in at all?”
“It would do me good to shoot you,” he said.
I replied that it was quite safe to shoot me, that my servants would run away and my body would not be found for weeks. He should not be selfish, however. Someone else might like to interrogate me and have the pleasure of shooting me afterwards.
“I shall report to my headquarters,” he said, “and then come back to fetch you.”
To that I could only answer that I should be delighted to see him at any time, and would he and his party like a few vegetables for their journey?
To my astonishment he accepted them, saying that I was very different from other Anglo-Saxons.
“On the contrary, I am a typical Anglo-Saxon,” I said. “The Americans are not. They are no more Anglo-Saxon than Filipinos are Spanish. A revolutionary should not confound national origins with language.”
When they had driven away I was left gasping at myself. Insolence combined with extreme courtesy is just the sort of quality which in the French Revolution would have sent an aristocrat to the guillotine next morning. But I am neither aristocrat, landowner or capitalist, and my courtesy is only a flower upon the normal, upcountry manners of Argentina. It makes them stop and scratch their heads. Also it emphasizes the superiority of the classless scientist, and that is what they want to believe. Marching together under the Workers’ Flag we shall reform society. Balls from the Thoughts of Mao, or vice versa. I shall go and give Chucha a bath.
[ April 18, Monday ]
I am fully occupied by Chucha who wants to be taught to ride and to write. Writing is just a matter of practice. She recognizes the letters and their phonetic values, but cannot imitate them. I can find an exact parallel from personal experience. I know the difference between Estrellera’s forearm and Tesoro’s, but I’m damned if I can draw it.
Samuel’s system of primary education was to teach her words or syllables, not individual letters. The reason seems to have been that they had a couple of books — half a Don Quixote and a handbook of butterflies — but seldom any paper. I do not wish to discuss Samuel more than I must. I salute him from a distance. One of his sources of income was the capture and mounting of butterflies. But Chucha, to his credit, was not for sale.
I am getting her used to Pichón before we start on the elementary aids. Today I took her over the creek, up the west side of the marshes and then across to the forest at a gentle canter. She was so occupied by staying on — or rather by her own pride in staying on without difficulty — that we were only half a mile from the trees before she realized it and squeaked.
I dismounted at once in the shade of a palm — partly because I had already decoyed her nearer to the forest than I thought possible, partly because her blowing hair and the green chiripá were sending me crazy. When I lifted her down from Pichón, I found that she was just as impatient. After that first mutual explosion I took the sheepskin off Tesoro and made her more comfortable while the horses grazed.
It was a good moment to reinforce her growing confidence. I asked her as she lay in my arms why she was so afraid of Mario’s ridiculous duendes.
“I am not afraid of anything with you,” she said.
She is not. I wonder what her mental picture of me really is. That remark from a civilized woman would mean nothing. A charming, trivial erotic response. But Chucha means it as sincerely as a child of five. I am number two to God. Fortunately I cannot disillusion her. I write “fortunately” because I do not know whether I should or I shouldn’t.
When we had remounted I took her at her word, and we rode back along the forest: a motionless face of brilliant, light green until the sun disappeared behind the cloud of the treetops and the continual death of plants became as obvious as the abounding life. It was the same forest that she knew and no more remarkable when seen from a horse than from her rivers. Monotony after monotony, and always safe so long as a man can carry his food and find enough water.
She promised that she would not worry so long as I took Tesoro with me on my explorations of the botanical frontier. It is curious that she should realize his watchdog qualities when she does not yet recognize exactly how he shows anxiety. He was on edge all the time and fighting my hands, but I was able to pass off his nervousness as greed. I said that he wanted to go closer and see what was edible among such a luscious variety of green stuff. In fact he was set on bolting for the brown llano. He strongly dislikes the forest and is inclined to shy at nothing — which makes him as poor a guardian as a watchdog which barks at everything.
This evening’s ride has cleared the way. I have two objects in wanting to spend whole days in the forest. One is to see if there is any evidence at all of the little hunters. Since I have little woodcraft, it would have to be obvious enough for any boy scout — the ashes of a fire, an arrowhead, a blazed tree, something of that sort. The other object is to find a place of refuge for Chucha and myself. I am confident that I can deal with any ordinary bandit and talk him out of unnecessary violence; but political idea
lists on the run are new to me. It is possible that this obstinate Cuban might return to the estancia with orders to snatch me up to the Cordillera or shut my mouth for good. In that case — assuming I could reach the horses — I should have to try Pedro’s trick and find safety for us both in the forest.
[ April 19, Tuesday ]
I must make this a long and exact entry: a record of facts to which I may someday have to refer in public. What public? There is no public. I wish Valera would return or that a plane would come in out of the blue or that some wireless operator would notice that there are never any messages from Pedro. I am here to conduct experiments in tropical agriculture. I am not the secret agent of the CIA or any other bunch of prejudiced whore-cum-spymasters. And I am not to be lied to and double-crossed by a damned mulatto murderer who happens to have read a handbook on the interrogation of suspects — if he can read.
At dawn I saddled Tesoro, who could carry me farther into the forest than I had penetrated by any of my cursory explorations on foot. I knew that, once in the tall timber, the trunks were far enough apart for man and horse, provided always that the rider was not aiming for any particular point and was content to go where he could.
My excuse to Chucha was hunting. We are short of fresh meat. So I took the Lee-Enfield on the off chance of meeting deer or peccary. I also took a small bundle of colored beads, iron nails and dried fish wrapped in a length of the bright green pup tent. I felt slightly absurd playing at Robinson Crusoe, but it seemed the best method. If I laid out a present in some prominent place and it subsequently disappeared, I could rule out duendes,
I would far rather have taken the mare but, since Chucha found some special magic in Tesoro, I had to ride him. He began to play up as soon as we had crossed the creek and had to be shown who was boss. The cut passage, through which I had taken Pedro, was already closed by fern and offshoots from the fallen scrub. I had to use the machete and lead Tesoro with the other hand. After that we had leaf mold under foot and could move generally westwards though never in a straight line. Silence was absolute, proving that two hundred feet above my head the sun was blazing on treetops and already inhibiting all activity. At dawn and in the cool of the evening I have known the forest as noisy as an ill-organized public meeting.
Dance of the Dwarfs Page 7
