The Amphibian / Человек-амфибия. Книга для чтения на английском языке

The Sick Granddaughter

The sun was angrily hot. An old Indian, thin and ragged, was plodding along a dusty country road that ran through alternating fields of wheat, maize and oats. In his arms he carried a child covered against the sun with a little blanket very much the worse for wear. The child’s eyes were half-closed; an enormous tumour bulged high on its neck. Whenever the old man stumbled the child groaned hoarsely and its eyelids quivered. Then the old man would stand still to blow into its face.

“If only I can get it there alive,” he whispered and quickened his pace.

Once in front of the steel gate the old Indian shifted the child onto his left arm and gave the side door four raps with his right hand.

He had a glimpse of an eye through the spy-hole, the bolts rattled and the door swung open.

The Indian stepped timidly inside. Standing in front of him was a white-smocked old Black with a head of snowwhite hair.

“I’ve brought a sick child,” the Indian said.

The Black nodded, shot the bolts home and motioned to the Indian to follow.

The Indian looked round him. He found himself in a small prison-like court, paved with big flagstones, with not a blade of grass anywhere. A wall lower than the outer one divided the court from the rest of the estate. At the gateway in the inner wall stood a large-windowed whitewashed building. Near it squatted a group of Indians-men, women and children.

Some of the children were playing jackstones with shells, others were wrestling in silence. The old Black saw to it that they did not disturb the peace of the place.

The old man eased himself down submissively in the shade of the building and started blowing into the child’s bluish inert face. An old Indian woman squatting down beside him threw a glance at the pair.

“Daughter?” she asked.

“Granddaughter,” the Indian replied.

“It’s the bog spirit as entered your child. But he’s stronger’n any evil spirit, he is. Hell bring the poor thing back to health.”

The Indian nodded.

The white-smocked Black, who was making a round of the sick, stopped in front of the Indian and beckoned to him to go in.

The room that the Indian entered was big and bare, except for a long narrow table, covered with a white sheet, standing in the centre of the flagged floor. A second, frost-glass panelled door was opened and in strode Dr. Salvator, a tall, broad-shouldered, dark-complexioned man wearing a white smock. The black eyelashes and eyebrows were the only hair on his head. He must have taken to shaving his head long ago, for it wore as good a coat of tan as his face. An aquiline nose, a jutting chin and tightly compressed lips lent to his face a cruel, one might say, predatory expression. The cold look of his brown eyes sent little shivers down the Indian’s spine.

The Indian made a low bow and stretched his arms with the girl in them towards the doctor. With quick, sure and yet careful hands Salvator took the sick girl from the Indian’s arms, unwound the rags with which she was swathed and tossed them very neatly into a receptacle in the corner. The Indian made to retrieve them but was stopped in his tracks by a peremptory “Leave them where they are”.

Then Salvator laid the little girl on the table and bent over her. In profile now, he seemed to the Indian a bird of prey poised to strike. Salvator was examining the tumour with his fingers. These too struck the Indian’s imagination. They were long and amazingly supple and seemed to be able to bend not only downwards, but from side to side and even upwards. The Indian, normally a plucky man, tried to fight down the feeling of fear the extraordinary doctor had aroused in him.

“Excellent, splendid,” Salvator was saying, as if in admiration of what he saw. The examination over, Salvator turned to the Indian.

“Come in a month’s time, when the moon’s new again, and you’ll have your little girl back-healthy.”

And he took the girl behind the frost-glass door.

Meanwhile the Black had led in the next patient, the old woman with a swollen leg.

The Indian made a low bow in the direction of the frost-glass door and went out.

In exactly twenty-eight days the frost-glass door was opened again.

The little girl, sporting a new dress, lively and apple-cheeked, appeared in the doorway. There was alarm in her eyes as she caught sight of her granddad. The Indian lunged forward, picked the girl up, smacked her a kiss and examined her throat. The tumour was gone. There was only a tiny reddish scar where the girl had been operated upon.

The child kept pushing her granddad away with her hands and had even cried out when, kissing her, he pricked her with his stubbly chin. He had to let her down. Salvator came in. There was a flicker of a smile on his face as he patted the child’s head and said:

“Here, take your child. You were only just in time bringing her. Another few hours and even I would not have been able to recall her to life.”

The lips in the Indian’s crinkled face quivered and tears came into his eyes. He gave the little girl another hug, then fell on his knees before Salvator.

“You saved my granddaughter’s life,” he said in a stifled voice. “A poor Indian has nothing but his own life to repay you with.”

“What do I want with your life?” wondered Salvator.

“I may be old but there’s strength in my arms yet,” the Indian went on, not rising from his knees. “I’ll take the little one to her mother-my daughter-and then come back. My life is now yours-for what you’ve done for me. I will serve you like a dog. Please don’t say no, I beg you.”

Salvator pondered.

He was chary of taking new servants. Not that he didn’t need any. There was much work to do. Help Jim with the gardening, for instance. Come to think of it, he did need a servant. He would have preferred a Black, to be sure, but this Indian fellow seemed all right…

“You make me a gift of your life. Very well. I accept it. When can you come?”

“I’ll be back before the first quarter’s over,” said the Indian, kissing the hem of Salvator’s smock.

“What is your name?”

“Cristobal, Cristo for short.”

“Go, Cristo. Ill be waiting for you.”

“Come on, my girlie,” Cristo said to the child and picked her up again. She started to cry. Cristo hurried away.

An Orchardful of Miracles

When Cristo turned up again a week later Dr. Salvator greeted him with a searching glance and said:

“Now then, Cristo, pay attention to what I’m going to tell you. I’m taking you on. You'll have good pay and board – ”

Cristo waved his hands.

“I don’t want anything so long as you let me serve you.”

“Be silent and listen,” Salvator cut him short. “You’U have everything as I said you would. But there’s one condition: keep your mouth shut about everything you see here.”

“I’d sooner cut my tongue out with my own hands and throw it to the dogs than breathe a single word to anybody.”

“See you don’t have to do that,” came Salvator’s warning. With that he summoned in the white-smocked Black and ordered him to take Cristo into the orchard and place him in Jim’s charge.

Bowing silently, the Black took the Indian outside and across the courtyard to the iron gate in the inner wall.

In response to the Black’s knock a barking of dogs came from behind the wall, then the gate creaked and opened slowly. The Black gave Cristo a light push, shouted something in throaty tones to the Black who stood inside the gate, and went away.

Cristo backed against the wall in fright. Charging at him were a pack of beasts with tawny black-spotted fur. Had they been in the pampas Cristo would not have hesitated in calling them jaguars. But these barked like dogs. Anyhow there was no time to puzzle it out. Cristo sprinted for the nearest tree and was up it with an agility surprising in a man of his age. The Black hissed at them, for all the world like an angry cobra, at once bringing them to. The beasts stopped their thunderous baying, lay down and put their muzzles on their forepaws, slanting their eyes up at their master.

The Black hissed again, this time to Cristo, and beckoned him to climb down.

“What’re you hissing there like a snake for? Swallowed your tongue,eh?”

The Black only gave an angry inarticulate sound. He must be dumb, Cristo thought and remembered Salvator’s warning. Does Salvator really cut out the tongues of those who betray his secrets? This poor blighter might be one of them. Sudden fear almost made Cristo lose his grip on the tree-trunk. He wished to God he were on the right side of the great wall again. With his eyes he measured the distance between his tree and the wall but saw he couldn’t make it. Meanwhile the Black had approached the tree, got hold of Cristo’s foot and was tugging at it impatiently. There was nothing for it but to take the hint. Cristo sprang down, grinned his most engaging smile, stretched out his hand and said amiably:

“Jim?”

The Black gave a nod.

Cristo pumped his hand. Once in hell, play up to the devils, he thought. Aloud he asked:

“Dumb?”

There was no answer.

“Got no tongue?”

Still no answer.

Even if he’s got no tongue, Cristo thought, he could at least talk in signs. Instead Jim took the Indian by hand, led him up to the tawny-skinned beasts and hissed something at them. The beasts rose, sniffed at Cristo and went calmly off. Cristo felt more at ease.

Then Jim led him on a round of the orchard.

After the bare stone-flagged yard the orchard looked a paradise of blossom and verdure. Stretching eastwards, it gently sloped down almost to the very shoreline. Narrow alleys strewn with finely crushed bluish-green agaves and yellowish-green flowers criss-crossed it between groves of peach and olive trees. These gave shade to lush grass-its deep green broken here and there by little white-stone ponds and beds of bright many-coloured flowers. A few fountains were sending high their jets of sparkling water to lend freshness to the air.

The orchard vibrated with the singing of birds and the roaring of beasts.

Never in his life had Cristo seen the strange birds and animals that met his eye at every turn.

A six-legged lizard scuttled across the path, its greenish skin coppery in the bright sun. A double-headed snake was hanging from a tree, making Cristo jump as it hissed at him with its two throats. A still louder hiss from the Black, however, silenced it; dropping from the tree it disappeared among a border of rushes. Another long snake hurried away from the path where it had been basking, helping itself along with a pair of legs. In a little enclosure, near the walk, a pig was grunting, its large single eye fixed at Cristo.

Then a pair of large white rats, joined side to side, scuttered towards them along the reddish walk, looking for all the world like a double-headed, eight-legged monster. From time to time this dual creature went through a struggle; each rat tried to pull its way, both squeaking their displeasure. But the right side invariably won. Grazing near the path was another pair of Siamese twins, fine-fleece sheep this time. Unlike the rats they never quarreled; they must have reached a common mind long, long ago. But it was the monster they met next that struck Cristo’s imagination most. It was a big pink dog with not a single hair on it but what looked like a little monkey-or the upper part of one at any rate-sticking out from its back. The dog came up to Cristo and wagged its tail, while the little monkey kept jerking its head right and left, waving its arms, patting the dog on the back and jibbering at Cristo. The Indian dug a hand into his trouser pocket, brought out a piece of sugar and was offering it to the monkey when somebody stopped his hand and hissed. It was Jim, whom Cristo, engrossed by all those queer creatures, had clean forgotten. The old Black explained by signs that he was not to feed the monkey. Cashing in on the interlude a parakeet-headed sparrow swooped down at the piece of sugar which Cristo still had between his fingers and carried it off to safety behind a bush. From farther away, in the middle of a meadow, came the lowing of a horse with a cow’s head.

A pair of llamas swept across the meadow, their horse’s tails spreading out in flight. Strange creatures were crowding on Cristo from all sides: dogs with cat’s heads, cocks waddling on webbed feet, homed boars, eagle-beaked ostriches, puma-bodied sheep.

Cristo thought he was having a nightmare; he rubbed his eyes, sprinkled his head with cool water from a pond but nothing helped. In the ponds he saw snakes with fishes’ heads and gills, fish with frogs’ legs, enormous toads with bodies as long as a lizard’s.

And Cristo again wished himself well outside the walls.

Finally, Jim brought the Indian to a broad sand-strewn stretch in the middle of which stood a white-marble Moorish-style villa, its arches and colonnades half-screened behind the trunks of palm trees. Brass dolphin-shaped fountain spouts sent cascades of water into the pools where goldfishes frisked in the pellucid water. The biggest fountain of them all, opposite the main entrance, had the shape of a youth astride a dolphin – perhaps it was Triton, the marine god of the an-cientswith a winding horn pressed to his mouth. Obviously the work of a master sculptor, the group looked all but alive.

Behind the villa there were a few outhouses and still farther, a jungle of thorny cacti, with a white wall at the far end, showing through at places.

Another wall, thought Cristo.

Jim led him into a small cool room. In his sign language he explained that Cristo was to live there and then left him alone.

The Third Wall

By and by Cristo began finding his way about in the new strange world. It didn’t take him long to find out that the animal population of the orchard was quite tame. With some he was soon even on terms of friendship. The dogs with jaguar skins, the cause of such scare on his first day in the orchard, followed him about, licking his hands. The llamas ate out of his hand. The parrots perched on his shoulder.

The orchard and the animals were tended by twelve Blacks as dumb as Jim. At any rate Cristo never heard them speak. They all went silent about their business. Jim was a sort of superintendent over them. He gave them their work and saw that they did it. Cristo, much to his own surprise, had been appointed his deputy. His duties were not hard. There wasn’t too much work and the food was plentiful. But the oppressive silence of the Blacks soon began to get him down. Besides, he was convinced that they had all had their tongues cut out. And every time Salvator summoned him to the office-not that it was often-Cristo thought his turn had come. But then something happened to allay his fears.

One day he came across Jim lying fast asleep in the shade of an olive tree. The Black was lying on his back, his mouth hanging open. Cristo used the opportunity of looking for the Black’s tongue and, to his relief, found it there all right.

Dr. Salvator’s day was well-planned and busy. From seven to nine he received patients, from nine to eleven he operated upon those who required it. Then he went to his villa to do laboratory work. This involved operating on animals and studying them. An experiment over, the animals went back to the orchard. Cristo, who dusted the rooms in the villa, managed occasionally to slip into the laboratories. The things he saw there would haunt his imagination for long afterwards. Hearts and kidneys carved out of their bodies lived on in glass jars. Amputated limbs seemed to be waiting for their owner.

His skin crawling Cristo hurried out. He preferred to be among the live monsters of the orchard.

Salvator seemed to trust the old Indian, but not beyond the third wall. And it was just what was on the other side that Cristo was so eager to see. One midday, when everybody was having a siesta, he stole up to the wall. Children’s voices floated over to him. They spoke an Indian dialect he knew but intermingling with them, as if in a quarrel, there were other voices, thin and squeaky, speaking what seemed to Cristo a very peculiar brand of Indian.

Coming across Cristo in the orchard one day Salvator halted and, looking him straight in the eye as was his wont, he said:

“You’ve been with me a month now, Cristo, and I’m pleased with your work. One of the servants in the lower orchard has fallen ill. You will replace him. You will see many new things there. But mind that little conversation we had about your tongue unless you want to lose it.”

“I’ve almost forgotten the use of it with all your dumb Blacks around, Doctor,” said Cristo.

“Excellent. Silence pays, you know. Incidentally, do you know your way in the Andes?”

“I was born and bred in the mountains.”

“Splendid. I will soon want to replenish my zoo with a new batch of birds and animals. I’m going to take you with me. You may go now. Jim will take you to the lower orchard.”

Accustomed though he was to the wonders of the place, Cristo had more surprises coming.

In the spacious sunlit meadow naked children were playing with monkeys. Almost all Argentina’s Indian tribes seemed to be represented there by children ranging in age from about three to twelve years. All of them were patients of Salvator’s. Many had undergone complicated operations and owed their very lives to Salvator’s skill. Once round the corner the children recuperated playing in the orchard till they were strong enough to be taken home.

Tailless monkeys with not a tuft of hair on their bodies kept them company. But what really amazed Cristo was that all of them could speak some kind of Indian. They joined in the children’s games, quarrelling with them and shouting in thin high-pitched voices, though on the whole they were quite a friendly crowd.

Sometimes Cristo was inclined to think they were human beings after all.

The lower orchard, as Cristo soon found out, was smaller than the other one, sloped steeper seawards and ended in a big cliff rising sheer like a wall. Somewhere behind it was the invisible ocean, revealed by the roar of the surf.

A closer look showed that the cliff was man-made and, in fact, nothing more than another wall, a fourth one, for in it Cristo found an iron door, painted grey to blend with the cliff and furthermore screened by a thick growth of wistaria.

Cristo listened. The roar of the surf was the only sound. Where did the small door lead to? The seaside?

Suddenly there was a hubbub of children’s voices behind him. Cristo wheeled round and saw the children staring up into the sky. He also looked up and spotted a small red balloon slowly floating up and across the orchard. The wind was heading it seawards.

An ordinary children’s balloon, it seemed to stir Cristo deeply. As soon as the servant that had been ill reported for work, the old Indian went to see Salvator.

“Soon we’re leaving for the Andes, Doctor. It might be some time before we come back. May I go and see my daughter and her child?”

Salvator didn’t like his servants leaving the premises, and he didn’t speak at once. Cristo stood waiting, his eyes boldly meeting the cold stare of Salvator’s.

“Remember your pledge,” said Salvator. “I wouldn’t like you to lose your tongue. You may go, but see you’re back within three days. Wait! “

Salvator went into the other room and brought back with him a suede leather pouch.

“There’s something for your granddaughter – and for your silence too.”

An Ambush

“If he doesn’t come this time I’ll cut the painter as far as the pair of you are concerned, I’ll be damned if I won’t. I’ll get smarter people onto the job,” Zurita was saying, tugging impatiently at his bristly moustache. He wore a white town suit and a panama hat. They had met well outside Buenos Aires, at a point where the pampas were taking over from the maize fields.

Baltasar, in a white blouse and a pair of blue-striped trousers, was squatting by the roadside, plucking dejectedly at the sun-parched brittle blades of grass.

He himself was beginning to regret having sent his brother to spy on Salvator.

Though Baltasar’s elder by ten years, Cristo was strong and lithe and as cunning as a pampas-cat. But he was not reliable. He couldn’t settle down to anything. There had been a time he took up farming but soon dropped it, thoroughly bored. Then he ran a dockside tavern till he drank himself out of house and home. Lately Cristo had been earning a precarious living on the windy side of the law. With his sharp wits he could ferret out anything but was not to be trusted with much. He might even betray his own brother if it were made worth his while. Baltasar knew his man and was as worried as Zurita.

“Are you sure Cristo saw the balloon, anyhow?”

Baltasar shrugged his shoulders. He would have much preferred to drop the whole affair there and then, go home and have a glass of cold water laced with wine in the peace and quiet of his shop.

A cloud of dust mushroomed over the turn of the road and was lit up by the last rays of the setting sun. A shrill drawn-out whistle was heard.

Baltasar livened up.

“That’s him! “ he said.

“Not too damned soon either,” said Zurita.

Striding briskly towards them was Cristo – no longer a doddering old Indian with a sick grandchild come to see the doctor. Giving another whistle Cristo came nearer and saluted the pair.

“Well, have you seen the ‘sea-devil’?” Zurita asked him by way of greeting.

“Not yet, but he’s there all right. Salvator keeps him behind four walls. The main thing is Salvator trusts me. That sick granddaughter did it.” Cristo laughed, narrowing his sly eyes. “She nearly gave the whole show away though. When she recovered, I mean. Here’s me, picking her up and kissing her like a loving grand – dad and she kicks away and fairly bursts into tears,” and he laughed again.

“Where did you get the girl?” asked Zurita.

“Money’s hard to get, girls aren’t,” said Cristo. “And her mother’s happy too. I got five pesos-she got her daughter back healthy.”

That he had also received a sizeable sum from Salvator he didn’t trouble to mention. All the more understandable this, since he wasn’t going to share it with the child’s mother.

“A regular zoo that place – chock-full of monsters.” And Cristo started his story.

“That might all be very interesting,” Zurita said after some time and lighted a cigar, “but you haven’t seen the goods. What do you propose to do next?”

“Make a trip to the Andes.” And Cristo told them of Salvator’s plan.

“Splendid! “ exulted Zurita. “We’ll attack the place as soon as Salvator’s party leaves and carry the ‘sea-devil’ away by force. The place’s so out-of-the-way one could do it in broad daylight and nobody the wiser.”

Cristo shook his head.

“The jaguars will bite your heads off. Even if they don’t you won’t find the ‘sea-devil’-not until I’ve found out where he is.”

“Then here’s what well do,” Zurita said, after thinking it over for a while. “Well ambush Salvator’s party, take him prisoner and hold him to ransom. The ‘sea-devil’'ll be the price.”

With a slick movement of his hand Cristo drew a cigar out of Zurita’s breast pocket.

“Many thanks. An ambush’s better. But Salvator’s sure to pull some trick on you-promise to deliver the goods and never do it or something. Those Spaniards-” the rest of the sentence was lost in coughing.

“Well, what do you suggest?” Zurita said irritably.

“Patience. Salvator trusts me but only as far as three walls go. He must be made to trust me as he trusts his own shadow, then he’ll show me the ‘sea-devil’ of his own free will.”

“Well?”

“Well, Salvator will be attacked by bandits,” he jabbed his finger at Zurita’s chest, “and delivered from them by an honest Araucanian” – he tapped his own chest. “Then there will be no secrets from Cristo in Salvator’s house. And no lack of golden pesos,” he added in an aside for himself.

“That’s not a bad idea.”

Then they agreed on the road Cristo should suggest to Salvator.

“On the eve of the departure I’ll throw a red stone over the wall. Have everything ready.” And Cristo was gone.

Though the plan of attack was well worked out an unforeseen circumstance nearly made it fall through.

Zurita, Baltasar and a dozen cutthroats hired in the dockside, wearing Gaucho clothes all well armed and mounted, had taken up stations alongside the pampas road. The night was dark. The gang listened hard for the hoofbeats.

Suddenly the bandits heard the chugging of an engine, quickly drawing nearer. Two powerful headlights stabbed the darkness and before they knew where they were a big black car had rushed by.

It had never entered Cristo’s head that Salvator could travel in this new, unconentional way.

Zurita was beside himself with rage and disappointment; Baltasar was amused.

“Take it easy, master,” he said. “They travel by night and will rest in the daytime. We’ll overtake them.” And he spurred his horse on; the rest followed suit.

They had ridden hard for the better part of two hours when they spotted the glow of a campfire ahead.

“That’s them. Something’s happened. Wait for me here while I do some scouting.”

And dismounting, Baltasar crawled snakelike into the darkness.

He returned in an hour.

“The car’s out of order. They’re repairing it. Cristo keeps watch. Come on, let’s hurry and get it done with.”

It was a quick job. The bandits took Salvator’s party by surprise – just when they had repaired the car-and tied Salvator, Cristo and the three Blacks hand and foot with not a shot fired.

One of the bandits, who acted chieftain, Zurita preferring to stay in the’ background, told Salvator that they were prepared to ransom him for a big sum of money and named it.

“Youll have it,” said Salvator.

“That’s for you. And it’s double if you want your men set free too,” said the bandit following up his advantage.

“I haven’t got that much money available,” Salvator said, after a pause.

“Finish him off! “ the bandits shouted all at once.

“I’ll give you till dawn to think it over,” said the bandits’ spokesman.

Salvator shrugged his shoulders as he repeated:

“I haven’t got that much available.”

His coolness impressed even the bandits.

Taking Salvator and his men aside, the bandits ransacked the car and found the spirits intended for collections. Soon they were drunk and sleeping on the ground.

At crack of dawn somebody crawled softly to Salvator’s side.

“It’s me,” came Cristo’s voice. “I managed to untie myself and have killed the bandit on watch. The rest are drunk and incapable. Let’s hurry! “

They got in, the Black driver started the engine, the car leapt forward.

Behind there were shouts and a few rifle shots rang out.

Salvator pressed Cristo’s hand.

Only after Salvator’s departure did Zurita learn that Salvator had been willing to pay. Wouldn’t it have been simpler just to take it than try to kidnap a “sea-devil” nobody knew was worth anything? It’s all over bar the shouting, though, he thought. And he waited for news from Cristo.