Night of the Animals(143)

Chandani spoke in her usual velvety tone, but now St. Cuthbert noticed a haughty but exquisitely measured new timbre in it. She was excited, her tail rising slightly, her brow arched. “You have released great beauty tonight—but now comes the discharge of justice and nobility. Only British lions can offer those things. Let us free.”

“Oh, come on then, and enough canting,” said St. Cuthbert. “Oi’ve ’ad my share of speeches tonight.” He was swaying a bit on his feet, holding his chin out, as if doing that alone might keep him from falling on his face.

Suddenly, both Astrid and St. Cuthbert saw the spectral quarkbeam shoot a second time out of the American Embassy. The lashing ray then whipped down again like an angry snake and drove its head into Lubetkin’s Penguin Pool. The ramps, somehow restored to their dual-helix “DNA” shape after heavy Cuthbert’s damage to them earlier, began to twist around. It was as if the architecture had been switched on; the white, sloped inclines of the Altar of Lost Chances started to whirl around like the wing-blades of death itself. As it turned, Neuters poured out of the Altar, pulling out their stunners and spreading like leukemia.

Astrid felt terrified. But in her and St. Cuthbert’s midst, they were beginning to see a counterweight to the cult’s artful technologies. The souls of the animals were quickly collecting into an emerald nimbus, half alive, half supernatural, which kept expanding and expanding. Within the cloud St. Cuthbert and Astrid could see all the animals, led by the black leopard, Monty, beginning to attack the white Neuters. It was a gory, glittery battle, and the animals seemed to be gaining an advantage.

“Oh, it’s bostin beautiful,” St. Cuthbert said, breathless. He turned to the lions. “Where’s your door now? Daynt see it here. Quick, quick!”

“Please, Cuthbert. Get out of there!”

The old male with a scraggly mane, Arfur, walked in slow, arthritic steps toward the back of the terraces. There was a small green door built into one of the sort of cement predellas upon which content lions were supposed to display themselves to the public. For safety purposes, it could not be locked on the outside, only latched up, in the event that a keeper needed to escape. St. Cuthbert quickly opened the green door. On the other side of the recessed double-gate staging area was a heavy chain. Getting down on his hands and knees arduously, Cuthbert crawled in, cut the chain, and opened another outer door which, at last, gave the great felids free and clear passage to their beloved country.

When St. Cuthbert came back, Arfur was jogging around a little, as if preparing himself; he kept circling the shiny-leafed Chinese tree of heaven, which had been planted in the lions’ living area.

“Go, then,” St. Cuthbert said. “Fight!” But the lions did not leave. They seemed to be flexing their limbs, bumping one another, working themselves into a kind of kill-state.

“Holy man,” said Chandani. “We are here to save the animal world. You are part of that kingdom—only part. This does not mean we have no needs of our own, nor selfishness, nor desires. We want you. Surely, you could have seen that, long ago.”

Then St. Cuthbert turned and finally saw Astrid in the water—like Drystan, so many, many years ago, struggling to stay up. There was something wrong with her limbs now. Whether it was the Death, or fatigue, or a simple lack of coordination, the great swimmer, the queen of Highbury pool, suddenly couldn’t seem to swim or even hold herself up above the five feet of water. She slipped below, gasping. The “Christ of Otters” in Astrid was gone.

“Drystan! Bostin! You came! You came! I knew you would!”

Astrid splashed down into the moat water again, coughing, and trying to scramble, again, up the other side, and flailing and slipping and sliding, trying to rise to her feet, but falling again and again. And that was when Chandani leaped onto Cuthbert.

“God, no,” shouted Astrid.

“It’s OK,” said Cuthbert, who was smiling. “Let them have me.” The lions piled onto him with such force they rolled en masse down into the moat, but Astrid bravely threw herself at the tangle of man and beast.

They were in the water again, and Astrid grabbed for this ancient lunatic who she thought might be her long-lost grandfather. She could not tell what was lion and what was human—it was all warm and ragged and desperate. The lions were speaking, but Astrid no longer could understand them, yet, underwater, it did sound like the phrase she’d heard herself saying before, the underwater words, gagoga maga medu. And the words emerged in bubbles as the swimming lions reached for Cuthbert and now Astrid with their huge jaws. Astrid felt that the lions harbored no ill will, but there was real rage in their movements. Unlike the Neuters, the lions killed with passion and with meaning, using the same blessing phrase Astrid had heard from Kibali and Cuthbert had heard from the otters years ago in Dowles Brook. Like so much aggression by cats of all sizes, the line between affection and murderousness was both blurry and long. Just as any household Siamese will “play” with a fortuitously caught mouse, the lions’ assault on Cuthbert was not without an element of real fondness.

“Don’t kill him,” Astrid commanded the lions, her voice full of its own animal-to-animal heat. She had never heard herself speak with such conviction. “Do not. I will not lose him! Not again!”

And with that, the lions broke off their attack. It was as simple as that. They respected firmness.