The Doll-Master and Other Tales of Terror Page 18

  Eduardo warned that, if you got too close to a tortoise, he would show his displeasure by making a hoarse, snuffling sound and drawing his neck, head, legs and tail back into his shell—“And then you will have only the shell to look at.”

  It was a strangely beautiful shell, the wife thought. In a trance the wife stared, as others took photographs.

  . . . outlive you. All of you.

  Small, foolish creatures who stand upright and want, want, want.

  Sailors had slaughtered the great tortoises since the sixteenth century. Food, oil, tortoiseshell. For humankind was the most ravenous and pitiless predator. By the mid-twentieth century the creatures were headed for extinction; in the 1970s, less than three thousand remained in the Galapagos. Fortunately, the Ecuadoran government intervened with the establishment of Galapagos National Park.

  Here again was the story of slaughter—nonindigenous species eradicated en masse to provide a stable environment for the tortoises. The wife understood the logic of course. But—so much bloodshed, in the service of ecology!

  It was a revelation to the wife, how precarious life is. These great tortoises, that looked as if they would be invulnerable to most natural harm, were in fact highly vulnerable. Goats could overrun their islands and devour their food supplies. Within a few years, they could disappear forever from the earth. Already, entire subspecies of tortoises had vanished, to prevail in a transmogrified form in Victorian combs and the backs of looking glasses. It was a terrible thing, life devouring life. But the vanishing, the extinction—that seemed yet more terrible.

  The wife was considering the precariousness of her own life. To survive, she must be very vigilant. She was not trained in vigilance, she had led a sheltered life for more than forty years, yet now she would have to make decisions.

  Desperation, cunning.

  Adapting to changing circumstances.

  You might believe that you are relatively strong and self-sufficient and yet your (physical) survival depends upon a lucky confluence of temperature, rainfall, and food. Too much rainfall, too little—you perished. Climate too warm, or too cool—you perished. And you never lived beyond your food supply, no matter how developed your brain, or what a good person you were.

  Most of the Galapagos creatures, the great reptiles, lived in a torpor of quasi-consciousness. The most primitive sort of life, of vertebrates. They had no idea how “endangered” they were.

  “Here, you see the interior of a tortoiseshell. You see?—it is not a ‘detachable’ shell as people sometimes think, but part of the creature’s spine.” Eduardo had led them to a grassy area beneath an awning, where the shell of a giant tortoise was on display. This was a shocking sight—the great, beautiful shell, and no creature inside. When Eduardo lifted it, with some effort, you could see the cartilaginous remains of the creature’s backbone. Eduardo invited some of the children to crawl under the shell, to be photographed by their parents.

  The wife felt a kind of hurt, an insult—the giant tortoise was too noble a creature, for its shell to be photographed in this way!

  “I don’t think you should do that,” Audrey said. “I think—it’s a kind of sacrilege of the animal . . .”

  Several others murmured agreement. But Eduardo did not hear, or did not acknowledge hearing. One by one the children crawled beneath the massive shell, and their parents took pictures.

  The wife’s eyes filled with tears. Oh, this was ridiculous! She could not reasonably feel grief for the mere carapace of a ­tortoise—an emptiness . . .

  The husband came to stand beside her as if in commiseration. He too had been annoyed by the misappropriation of the shell, which he’d been photographing until Eduardo issued his invitation to the children.

  “Are you all right, darling? Quite a trek this morning. This sun is hot.”

  The husband touched her wrist. The wife smiled up at him, blinded by light.

  With a flood of relief thinking—Of course this man isn’t trying to kill me. He is my husband who loves me, he doesn’t want me to die.

  7. Moon Deck, Revisited

  “Darling? The moon is out, finally. A fuller moon.”

  It was their last night on the Floreana. Strolling musicians entertained the passengers at dinner and all of the ship’s crew and the Galapagos guides wore festive Ecuadoran costumes. Even the dignified Eduardo wore a papier-mâché hat and a colorful shirt, and posed for passengers to take pictures of him.

  “Thank you, Eduardo!”—the wife, too, took a picture. Though secretly she was disappointed with Eduardo now.

  At dinner the wife had had two glasses of wine where often she’d had none. The husband had arranged for some of his Institute colleagues to be seated at their table, with whom he could talk about scientific matters; the friendly strangers who’d been at the table had vanished, the wife had no idea where.

  The husband often behaved in this way. Behind the scenes, he banished, discharged, “terminated”—sometimes employees, assistants, friends and acquaintances. Wives.

  If the wife were to ask what had happened to their dinner companions the husband would say smilingly—“Who?”

  At least, the husband had not arranged for Steffi Park to be at their table. Or perhaps Steffi Park had demurred, out of consideration for the wife.

  As the wife, eight years before, had several times demurred accompanying Henry Wheeling to events, out of consideration for the Mrs. Wheeling of the time.

  Much of the dinner passed in a blur for the wife. She was not accustomed to drinking and the air of frantic festivity was jarring. She could not keep from glancing about the crowded room in search of the beautiful black-haired Asian girl whom she saw, or thought she saw, in a farther corner.

  Talk at dinner was of the Galapagos project of maintaining endangered species by way of the “eradication” of unwanted species. Initially the project had stirred controversy from animal rights groups, but its success had made it a model for ecological agencies worldwide.

  Of course, Henry and his fellow scientists were totally in agreement with the project of slaughter in the maintenance of a privileged species. It was a scientific principle, and not really open to debate. In silence the wife listened until at last, emboldened by wine, she protested: “But the ‘introduced’ species have evolved too, haven’t they? Wouldn’t they be of interest, biologically?”

  The men looked at her as if a trained creature, a parrot perhaps, had spoken in their language, almost coherently.

  “Audrey, dear—the goats were of no ecological interest, they aren’t a species in danger of extinction! Several Galapagos species were in danger, and have been stabilized now. If the ‘introduced’ species hadn’t been eradicated, the Galapagos species would have vanished. There would be no ‘Galapagos’ now—just islands of goats.” Henry spoke sympathetically, as if he were addressing a slow-witted individual whose feelings he must not hurt. The other men laughed. “The goats had overrun some of the islands and had devoured most of the vegetation, which the tortoises need to survive. And the cats were devouring the birds . . .”

  “But the guide told us that they don’t ‘help’ the animals. They don’t ‘interfere’ with the animals. But clearly they do.”

  “The goal was to restore the islands to pre-human intervention. That was the goal, and it seems to have worked well.”

  “It just seems wrong to slaughter living things. Just—­slaughter . . . A terrible bloodbath, and no one cared.”

  The wife spoke somewhat wildly. Wine seemed to have dampened her natural reticence. The men listened as if respectfully, and only the husband replied: “Individuals don’t matter, dear. Species matter. No one slaughtered an entire species, only a subspecies on the islands. Perhaps we should change the subject now, since you seem to be emotional?”

  Stubbornly the wife persisted, “But the goats, by the twentieth century, would be an establis
hed species themselves. They were ‘introduced’ by human beings the way species are ‘introduced’ by birds, or the wind, or other animals . . . Isn’t that what is meant by evolution?”

  “No! The goats were not among the original species.”

  “But—isn’t that what the Nazis said about Jews and gypsies? Not Aryans—not indigenous species and so they have to be eradicated.”

  Now Henry was furious with her. His colleagues looked away, in embarrassment.

  “I think we should change the subject, Audrey. You are out of your depth, and making a fool of yourself.”

  “But—I was only just defending the goats. Why weren’t the Galapagos goats an interesting subspecies of goat? They were here three hundred years. Why didn’t any biologist care about them?”

  But it was hopeless. The (slaughtered, banished) goats were hopeless. As a single uplifted voice amid the theorizing of Nazis—What about the Jews, the gypsies, the “despised” minorities, granted these non-indigenous races, granted the horror of “race mingling” and “mongrelization”—would no one come to the defense of these subspecies? No biologist? No one?

  No one.

  Dessert was served. And with dessert, a sweet wine.

  There was a raspberry mousse, and there was a greenish-yellow creamy pie. There was something like a banana custard topped with mango. Desserts on the Floreana were exotic, delicious. The husband appreciated exquisite desserts like these—mousses, crème brûlée. The wife had learned to make such desserts for him, and for dinner parties; she was grateful for his praise, which did not come casually.

  Carefully she would remove the “little apples of death” from the tissues in which they’d been wrapped. She saw herself mashing the little apples into a paste, in the privacy of her kitchen. If she checked her larger suitcase, the apples could not be detected. She would wrap them in layers of cloth, in underwear. She would not touch them with her bare fingers.

  She would use her blender to whip the greeny-yellow paste into a liquid. She would add cream, and she would add a teaspoon of liqueur. She would serve the dessert in a special dessert glass, which the husband particularly admired, from a set of heirloom crystal she’d been given for their wedding.

  For herself she would make a dessert that mimicked the husband’s dessert. Like the marine iguanas that so closely resembled their volcanic-rock habitat they could scarcely be distinguished from the habitat, the wife’s dessert (yogurt, banana) would mimic the husband’s (lethal) dessert.

  The husband trusted the wife utterly. For she had not ever given him reason to distrust her. Unquestioning, the husband would eat the dessert, and the husband would never suspect. Even when he began to be ill, and when he began to be very ill, the husband would never suspect.

  “Darling? The moon is out, finally. Come!”

  Weakly the wife tried to resist with the excuse of feeling light-headed after hours that day in the equatorial sun, and several glasses of wine, but the husband said, “It’s our last night on the Floreana. Our last night in these ‘enchanted isles.’ Tomorrow is—home.”

  Home, so intoned that it rhymed with doom.

  The husband had seized the wife’s hand as you might seize a small fluttering bird, to still it. A captive hand. The wife thought—I didn’t write to Imogene. She will never know.

  It was late: near midnight. On the second-level deck at the lighted prow of the ship revelers were laughing, dancing. Ecuadoran musicians played noisily.

  “No, darling—the Moon Deck. One more flight.”

  The wife had no choice but to obey. She could not scream—no one would hear her. And why would she scream? There was no danger, Henry was clasping her hand protectively.

  They stepped out onto the Moon Deck. It was windy here, yet smelled of oil. It was very dark. Earlier the wife had glimpsed a faint, full moon but now, so strangely the moon seemed to have vanished.

  Clouds of the hue of tar covered the sky on all sides like a tent-top pegged tight to the ground. In gusts of wind, the wife could not breathe.

  The wife was about to turn to the right, toward starry lights at the deserted prow of the ship, but the husband said, with a gentle tug at her elbow, “This way, Audrey”—to the left, into the deepest pitch of darkness.

  Big Momma

  “Damn you, Violet—you are a shameless liar.”

  Her mother was disgusted with her, again. But how could her mother even guess that Violet hadn’t been telling the truth? Could her mother read her mind?

  So she’d taken a few dollars out of her mother’s wallet. She hadn’t taken any large-denomination bills (twenties, fifty) but only small-denomination (ones, fives) and she’d left much more than she’d taken. Her mother used credit cards anyway, rarely cash. But there was her mother fuming and fussing like she’d stolen a thousand damn dollars.

  “Were you at the mall? With who? How’d you get there? Did you take the bus? Did someone give you a ride? Who? How’d you get back? Where’ve you been? It’s after six.”

  It’s after six. So what. Violet made a pinched little face, luckily her mother didn’t see or she’d have gotten a sharp slap.

  In her mother’s hot-vibrating presence Violet wore her sulky face. It was an airtight mask of some material like satin or silk, which she could draw down over her actual face. Like Hallowe’en. That morning at school she’d borrowed her friend Rita Mae’s new lipstick, dark maroon, near-to-black, to apply to her mouth, that gave her a dazzling-sexy look (she thought), so after school the eyes of older guys trailed after her.

  Trouble was, she’d forgotten to wipe the lipstick off when she returned home. First thing her mother said, staring at her—“You! At your age! Looking like a, a . . .” Her voice trailed off, she could not utter the word Violet flinched to hear.

  Second thing, “How dare you take money from me? How much did you take?”

  Inside the sulky mask Violet mumbled what sounded like Don’t know. Or, Didn’t take anything.

  “Don’t you know that the mall is dangerous? Hanging out there is dangerous?”

  Inside the sulky mask Violet mumbled something totally unintelligible. Could’ve been uh-huh, or OK. Or nah.

  “Don’t they warn you at school? Or don’t you listen? There’ve been children ‘abducted’ here—a two-year-old toddler taken right out of a backyard, with her mother just inside a screen door on a telephone.

  “Right now there’s a five-year-old girl missing for a week, her mother was buying something in JCPenney and when she turned around, the little girl was gone. And before we moved here, a three-year-old boy who disappeared allegedly from inside his own house just a few blocks from here. All of them—vanished without a trace.”

  “Jeez, Mom! Those were little kids.”

  “What do you mean, ‘were’? Why do you say ‘were’?”

  “I mean—they’re really little kids, that somebody could pick up and walk away with, kind of easy. Not like—”

  “And you’re so ‘big’—you? You’re thirteen years old, you weigh—what?—ninety pounds?”

  Violet’s face flamed as if her mother had slapped her. She was short for her age and fat for her height—in fact Violet weighed ninety-five pounds. And she was only four feet eleven inches—one of the shortest girls in eighth grade.

  Worse yet she was growing breasts, and hips—soft, spongy flesh she just hated—envying the skinny girls who eyed her with disdain if not pity. Even Rita Mae who was practically her only friend pitied her.

  Shamed, furious, Violet ran away upstairs. Heavy-footed on the stairs to show her mother what she thought of her—there was nothing so upsetting to Violet as her weight, didn’t her cruel mother know?

  At the foot of the stairs her mother was shouting up at her—“I know you took money and I want it back, Violet—every penny, I want back.”

  Violet slammed the door to her room. Her
heart was beating crazy-hard. Her lips felt swollen as if in fact her mother had slapped her.

  “Hate hate hate you. Wish I was dead.” Thinking, then—“Wish you were dead.”

  Couldn’t stop from crying, quick hot tears, for going to the mall after school with Rita Mae Clovis and Carliss LaMotte had been a dumb idea since the other girls had even less money than Violet did and had to “borrow” from her. That was why, in fact, Violet had taken the money—only seventeen damn dollars!—because Rita Mae had suggested it: “Your Mom won’t know it’s gone. In our house it’s just Dad who has cash in his wallet but you could never get Dad’s wallet from him.” Violet had been so eager to please Rita Mae, and the other girl who was mostly Rita Mae’s friend, she’d done what Rita Mae had said. Now, her mother would never trust her again.

  They hadn’t taken the bus to the mall after school. They’d gotten a ride with a high school senior Carliss knew, who worked at the New Liberty Mall. They’d gotten a ride back from the mall with some older guys Rita Mae claimed to know, two of the girls (Violet, Carliss) crammed into the rear of the station wagon smelling of spilt beer, stale cigarettes, dirty gym clothes, so tight that Carliss (giggling like an idiot) had to sit on the lap of one of the guys and Violet was crushed against a door, ignored. Everyone was loud-laughing and acting stupid except Violet staring out the window wishing she was anywhere else including dead because it was pretty clear, the guys were not remotely interested in her.

  At South Valley Middle School Violet Prentiss was “new”: a transfer student.

  Damn she hated South Valley!—twice the size of her old school where she’d had at least three good friends, girls she’d known since kindergarten. At the new school, unless she wore Midnight Kiss lipstick and painted her nails dark maroon, faked a black rose tattoo on the inside of her arm, and “pierced” her ear with a mean-looking silver clamp the way Rita Mae Clovis showed her, Violet was totally invisible.

  They’d moved to this new city just eighteen miles south of their former city because Wells Fargo had transferred Violet’s mother and she’d had no choice but to move. Her mother said it was lucky she hadn’t been downsized only just relocated in a branch of the bank in a faster-growing suburb than the one in which they’d been living for as long as Violet could recall.