‘Yes, I know what it’s like,’ I said, ‘I once lived in a cosy English village where you couldn’t pass the time of day with any female between the ages of seven and seventy without being accused of rape.’
‘Still,’ said Helmuth philosophically, ‘if he has bichos for you, who cares what he is.’
After driving for a couple of hours we turned off the road and made our way along bumpy tracks through sugar-cane fields. Presently we came to a pleasant, small, one-storeyed house, surrounded by a well-tended garden. The lawn was scattered with the evidence of children: a rocking-horse, a battered teddy bear, a rough cement paddling-pool with a small yacht listing heavily to starboard floating in it.
‘Here we are,’ said Helmuth. ‘Out you get. I’ll pick you up in a couple of hours’ time. O.K.?’
‘O.K.,’ I agreed, as I got out. ‘What’s this chap’s name, anyway?’
‘Caporal,’ said Helmuth, and drove off, leaving me standing in a cloud of dust.
Here I might say that the person in question was not called Caporal, but I have not used his real name for a variety of reasons, the chief one being that he did not give me permission to write about him. Anyway, when I had sneezed some of the dust out of my nose, I clapped dutifully outside the gate, and then opened it and walked towards the house. As I was nearing the broad verandah, a man appeared from round the side of the house. He was tall, well-built, and dressed in the usual costume of long, wrinkled boots, plus-four-like bombachas, a dirty shirt, and a battered felt hat with a wide brim.
‘Buenos dias,’ he said as he approached me.
‘Buenos dias. I wish to see Señor Caporal. Is he in the house?’ I asked.
He came up to me and swept off his hat.
‘I am Caporal,’ he said. He took my extended hand, clicked his heels together and bowed very slightly. The gesture was not theatrical, but automatic. He had a fine brown face, with dark eyes that were full of kindness. He sported a carefully trimmed black moustache under his eagle-beak nose, but his cheeks and chin were covered with a black stubble.
‘Do you,’ I inquired hopefully, ‘speak English?’
‘But, of course,’ he answered at once, in an impeccable accent that must have been the result of some public school. ‘I don’t speak it very well, you understand, but I manage to converse fairly well. But please don’t stand out here. Come inside and have some coffee, and you can tell me what I may do for you.’
He ushered me through the door which led straight into a small dining-room-cum-sitting-room. The floor was highly polished and gay with locally-woven mats, and the few simple pieces of furniture were similarly polished and glowing. He poked his head through another door and called ‘Maria, café para dos, por favor,’ and then turned back to me, smiling.
‘This is a great pleasure,’ he said sincerely, ‘I very seldom get a chance to practise my English. But first, will you excuse me for a brief moment? The coffee will be ready soon … here are cigarettes … please make yourself at home.’
He bowed again slightly, and left the room, I took a cigarette absently and then suddenly, with surprise, noticed that the box that contained them was silver, and with a beautiful and intricate design worked on the lid. Looking about the room I noticed other silver objects, a lovely slender-stemmed vase full of scarlet hibiscus flowers; on the sideboard a pair of beautifully-worked candlesticks, and, between them, a massive fruit bowl that must have weighed a couple of pounds when empty. I began to wonder if perhaps the stories about Caporal were true, for these silver articles were not made in Argentina, and together they were worth a lot of money. He came back in an amazingly short space of time, and I saw that he had washed, shaved and changed into clean bombachas, boots and shirt.
‘Now I am more fitted to entertain you,’ he said smiling, as the Indian maid padded into the room with a tray of coffee, ‘what may I do for you?’
I explained about having my own zoo in the Channel Isles, and how I had come to Argentina to collect specimens for it, and he was deeply interested. It turned out that, until quite recently, he had had some wild animals as pets, which he had kept to amuse his children, but as the animals grew bigger and less trustworthy he had sent them all down to the zoo in Buenos Aires. This had been some three days before my arrival in Jujuy, so my feelings can be imagined.
‘I had two ostrich,’ he said, smiling at my glum expression, ‘a fox, an ocelot and a wild pig. I am so sorry I sent them. If I had only known that you were coming …’
‘Never mind,’ I said. ‘But if you do get anything during the next ten days, would you send it to Calilegua for me, or send me a message and I’ll pick it up?’
‘But, of course,’ he said, ‘with the greatest pleasure.’
He poured me out some more coffee, and we talked about other things. He had the most impeccable manners and the air of a man who had not only been used to money but to a position of authority as well. I began to wonder more and more about him, but he was far too well mannered to talk about himself, and instead tried to steer the conversation into channels which he thought would be of interest to me. Then an idea came to me. During a slight lull in the talk, I turned to him and said:
‘Do please excuse me, but ever since you brought me in I have been admiring your candlesticks. They are quite beautiful. I’ve never seen anything quite like them before.’
His face lit up delightedly.
‘Ah, yes, they are beautiful, aren’t they,’ he said staring at them. ‘They are a little bit of the old régime that I managed to keep … those and the other bits of silver you see in here.’
I kept silent, but let myself look faintly puzzled.
‘You see,’ he went on, ‘I am Hungarian. My father was chief minister there before the war. But, after the war, when the Communists came, my father was dead, and I had a wife and three children … I did not want them to grow up under such a régime. We escaped, and we only managed to bring a few of my family things with us, most of which we had to sell when we reached Buenos Aires in order to eat. I had some difficulty in getting a job: I had only been trained to be a gentleman.’
He smiled at me shyly, as if ashamed at having bored me with his private reminiscences.
‘Still,’ he said, offering me a cigarette, ‘it is nice to have a few things to remind one of the happy parts of one’s life. You would, I think, have liked Hungary in those days. There were plenty of animals there then; what shooting parties we used to have. You like shooting, or do you like the animals too much?’
‘No, I don’t object to shooting,’ I said honestly, ‘providing that the animals are not exterminated indiscriminately.’
His eyes glowed eagerly.
‘Perhaps,’ he said tentatively, ‘you would like to see some photographs … ?’ His voice died away on a faintly interrogative note.
I said I would love to see some photographs, and he went quickly into another room and soon reappeared with a large, beautifully-carved oak chest, which he put on the floor.
He pulled up the lid and tipped out on to the mat a huge heap of photographs, which he shuffled through swiftly. Photograph after photograph he pulled out of the pile, thrusting them excitedly into my hands, wanting to try and communicate some of the happiness they brought back to him. To him they represented hunts he would never forget, and the people that figured in the photographs meant little or nothing to him.
‘This is the biggest wild boar we ever shot … it was during a drive for the King of Sweden … see what a magnificent creature, it was almost a shame to shoot him … look at those tusks.’
There the monstrous boar lay on the ground, his lip lifted scornfully over his great tusks, while the King of Sweden stood stiffly, gun in hand, behind him.
‘Now, look at this. The best duck drive we had, for the Prince of Siam, five hundred-odd brace of ducks … it was a wonderful day, the sky was black with ducks … like locusts … your feet were frozen and your gun barrels were red-hot but you couldn’t stop shooting …’
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So we looked at photographs for an hour or so, photographs of a parade of animals, royalty and nobility. Then, at last, I pulled out from the pile a large flashlight photograph that showed a massive, panelled dining-room. The chandeliers were like half-grown Christmas-trees, turned upside down, hanging over a long table laden with silver and glass. At the table were seated men and women, beautifully dressed, while at the head of the table sat an elderly man, and on his right a bejewelled and turbaned Indian potentate, and on the other side of the table I recognized my host, immaculate in evening dress. It looked like a scene out of The Prisoner of Zenda.
‘Oh,’ he said carelessly, ‘that was a banquet we gave for the Maharajah. Now here, look, see these roedeer, what magnificent heads? Only in Hungary did you get heads like that.’
Presently I heard Helmuth honking his horn in the road outside, and, reluctantly, I rose to go. My host shovelled the photographs back into the chest and closed the lid.
‘I am so sorry,’ he said contritely, ‘I have been boring you with my photographs. If my wife had been here, she would have entertained you more amusingly.’
I protested that I had enjoyed them very much, and, as we went out on to the verandah, there was one question I felt I must ask, whether it was good manners or not.
‘Tell me, Señor Caporal,’ I said, ‘don’t you ever miss all that? After having that wonderful life, with money and hunting and influential friends? Don’t you find Argentina, to say the least, a little dull?’
He looked at me and laughed.
‘Señor Durrell,’ he said, ‘that which I have been showing you is past, like a dream. It was wonderful while it lasted. But now I have a new life. I am saving a bit of money, so that I may send my children to school in Buenos Aires, and I will have enough left over, I hope, to buy a very small estancia for myself and my wife when my children are grown up. What more do I want?’
I pondered on this for a moment, while he watched me, smiling.
‘Then you like your job here,’ I asked, ‘managing this estancia?’
‘But of course,’ he said. ‘It is much better than the first job I had when I first came to Argentina.’
‘What was that?’ I inquired curiously.
‘Castrating bulls in Cordoba,’ he said chuckling.
I walked down to join Helmuth in the car, feeling very thoughtful. It seemed that I had been privileged to spend the last two hours with a very unusual human being: a truly happy man, and one without bitterness.
By now my collection of creatures had grown to such an extent that it was a whole-time job looking after it. No longer could I go off for three or four days at a time and leave poor Edna to cherish my creatures. Also I was busy building cages for those tame animals which, up until now, had either been at complete liberty, or spent their time tethered, but on leashes. I had originally intended to fly my collection back to Buenos Aires, but the air freight estimate, when it arrived, looked as if it had been worked out by the Astronomer Royal in light-years.
There was nothing for it, I would have to go by train, a two-day and three-night journey that I did not relish, but there was no alternative. Charles arranged the whole thing for me with a speed and efficiency that was typical of him. This in spite of the fact that he had his own work to do, as well as being extremely worried over his wife Joan, who was ill in hospital. So I hammered and sawed in the garden, getting cages ready for my train-journey, and keeping a stern eye on those animals which were still loose and therefore liable to get up to mischief.
The biggest of the still un-caged animals were the coatimundis, Martha and Mathias, who, on collars and chains, were tethered under the trees. I am fond of coatimundis, though they are not everyone’s idea of the most charming of animals. But I find something very appealing about their long, rubbery, tip-tilted noses, their pigeon-toed, bear-like walk, and the way they hold their long, ringed tails straight up in the air when they move, like furry exclamation marks. In the wild state they are gregarious, travelling through the forest in quite large parties, uprooting logs and stones, snuffling in every nook and cranny with their vacuum-cleaner-like noses for their prey, which may range from beetles to birds and from fruit to mushrooms. Like most small, gregarious mammals they have quite an extensive vocabulary, and the conversations of a troupe of coatimundis would, I am sure, repay investigation. Mathias would converse with me by the hour in a series of bird-like squeaks and trills; if, when investigating a rotten log or a stone, he thought he was nearing a succulent beetle or slug, the sounds would turn to snuffling grunts, pitched in different keys, and interspersed with a strange champing noise made by chattering his teeth together at great speed. When in a rage he would chitter violently, his whole body shaking as if with ague, and give prolonged, piercing whistling cries that would almost burst your ear drums.
Both the coatimundis had fairly long leashes which were attached to a convenient tree. When they had uprooted and investigated every log and stone within the circle of the leash, they were moved to a fresh tree. Every time this happened, Mathias would spend ten minutes or so marking out his circle of territory with the scent gland at the base of his tail. He would solemnly shuffle his way round in a circle, a look of immense concentration on his face, squatting down at intervals to rub his hindquarters on a convenient rock or stick. Having thus, as it were, hoisted the coatimundi equivalent of the flag, he would relax and settle down to the task of beetle-hunting with a clear conscience. If any of the local dogs were so misguided as to approach his territory they never did it a second time. He would walk slowly towards them, champing his teeth alarmingly, his tail erect, stiff as a poker, and puffed up to twice its normal size. Having got within range he would suddenly dart forward in a curious, rolling run, uttering his piercing, ear-splitting screams. This ghastly noise had the effect of undermining the morale of any but the bravest dog, and, when they had hurriedly retreated, Mathias, quietly chattering and trilling to himself, would wend his way round in a circle, re-marking his entire territory. During all this, Martha would be sitting at the extreme limit of her chain, watching Mathias with adoring eyes, and uttering tiny squeaks of encouragement.
All the other creatures I had acquired were doing splendidly. Juanita, the peccary, grew fatter and more charming each day, and lorded it over the parrots. My precious yellow-naped macaws had given me heart-failure by appearing to go into a decline; I eventually discovered that they were not ill but, for some obscure reason, wanted to sleep inside a box at night, a fact that I discovered quite by accident. As soon as they were supplied with a sleeping box their appetites revived and they started to do well. Among the cats the little Geoffroy’s was now quite reconciled to captivity, and played such strenuous games of hide-and-seek with his tabby kitten companion, as well as a game they invented which appeared to be called ‘Strangle Your Neighbour’, that I began to wonder if I would get them to Buenos Aires alive, let alone Jersey. Luna the puma had tamed down a lot, and even condescended to allow me to scratch her behind the ears, while she rumbled contentedly deep in her throat. The poor half-starved ocelot was now fat and glossy. Having lost the apathy of starvation, she was now very full of herself, and regarded the interior of her cage as sacred, so the process of cleaning her out or feeding her was fraught with danger. Thus are one’s kindnesses sometimes repaid.
Among the new creatures which I had added to my collection were two of the most enchanting members of the monkey tribe, a pair of douroucoulis which had been caught in the forest by an Indian hunter. He had been a very good hunter, but unfortunately I had paid him rather too lavishly for the monkeys, and, overcome by the size of the payment, he had retired to the village and stayed drunk ever since, so these were the last specimens I got from him. There is quite an art in paying the right amount for an animal, and by paying too much you can easily lose a good hunter, for between your camp and the forest always lies a series of gin-shops, and hunters are notoriously weak-willed.
Douroucoulis are the only nocturnal
monkeys in the world, and from that point of view alone would be remarkable. But when you add to that the fact that they look like a cross between an owl and a clown, that they are the gentlest of monkeys, and that they spend a lot of time clasped in each other’s arms exchanging the most human kisses, then douroucoulis become, so far as I am concerned, irresistible. They have the huge eyes, typical of a nocturnal creature, surrounded by a white facial mask edged with black. The shape of the mouth gives you the impression that they are just about to break into a rather sad, slightly pitying smile. Their backs and tails are a pleasant shade of greenish-grey, and they possess great fluffy shirt-fronts that vary from pale yellow to deep orange, according to age. In the wilds these monkeys, like the coatimundis, are gregarious, travelling through the trees with silent leaps in troupes of ten to fifteen animals. The only time they make any sound is when feeding, and then they converse among themselves with loud, purring grunts which swell their throats up, or a series of bird-like tweets, cat-like mewing, pig-like snufflings and snake-like hissings. The first time I heard them feeding among the dark trees in the forest I identified them as each of these animals in turn, and then became so muddled I was convinced I had found something new to science. I used to dig large red beetles out of the rotting palm-trees for the douroucoulis, insects of which they were inordinately fond. They would watch my approach with the titbits, their eyes wide, their hands held out beseechingly, trembling slightly, uttering faint squeaks of excitement. They would clasp the wriggling beetles in their hands with the awkward grace of a young child accepting a stick of rock, and chew and scrunch their way through them, pausing now and again to utter squeaks of joy. When the last piece had been chewed and swallowed, they would carefully examine their hands, both back and front, to make sure there was none left, and then examine each other for the same reason. Having convinced themselves that no fragment remained, they would clasp each other and kiss passionately for five minutes or so, in what appeared to be an orgy of mutual congratulation.