The Daughter of Doctor Moreau(10)
“Come here, Mr. Laughton. Allow me to show you the fruits of my labor,” her father said, and he pulled the curtain aside with the flair of a showman.
Behind it there was a large box with the sides made of glass and set upon wheels so that it might be rolled around. Laughton knelt down to better look at the box. Laughton then quickly turned to Mr. Lizalde and whispered something she could not hear, and Mr. Lizalde whispered something back, but by their faces it was clear the young man was shocked.
For Carlota, the sight was unusual, too. She had never had a chance to gaze at the hybrids at this stage; her father kept them from her until they were more mature. The creature inside the box had the body and size of a large hog. But its limbs were all wrong, and instead of hooves it was developing fingers, thin protuberances of flesh. Its head also looked misshapen, squashed. It had no ears, and its eyes were closed. It was asleep, suspended in a murky substance that could not be water but instead resembled a film or mucus, and the same mucus covered its mouth.
She wanted to press her face against the glass or tap it with a finger, but she did not dare. She suspected that Laughton wanted to do the same, and he couldn’t move, either. They both stared at the creature behind the glass, at the way its back was arched, and the backbone that seemed to stick out, razorlike, all the nubs tracing a long line against the taut skin. The eyes…she wondered what was the color of the hybrid’s eyes. It had no hair, not even a bit of fuzz even though Cachito and Lupe had fuzz over their faces. Soft as down yet plentiful, it also covered their arms and legs.
“What is that?” Laughton finally asked.
“A hybrid. They are all developed in the womb of pigs. Once they reach a certain point of maturation, they are transplanted into this chamber. The solution is a mixture of a type of algae and a fungus which together excrete certain chemicals that spur the growth,” her father said. “The hybrid is also provided with a nutritive solution to ensure bones and muscles do not atrophy. There is more to it than that, of course, but you are looking at a creature that will have, in a few weeks, the ability to walk upright and manipulate tools.”
“Then this is…you’ve mixed a pig with a man?”
“I’ve gestated an organism inside a pig, yes. And some of its gemmules are from another animal, and some others are from humans. It is not a single thing.”
“It’s…it’s definitively alive?”
“Yes. Sleeping for now.”
“And it’ll live? You’ll eventually take it out of there and it’ll breathe and live?”
It barely seemed alive now, but it was breathing. You could tell because it twitched a bit. But it looked for all intents and purposes like a deformed animal that someone had pickled.
“Sometimes they don’t,” Carlota said, remembering the hybrids the previous year and the year before that. They’d all died in the womb, and her father had complained about the quality of the animals he could get, that he couldn’t work if all he had were pigs and dogs.
But Melquíades was no hunter to drag in big cats or monkeys. Melquíades was already rather upset that her father wanted jaguars every six months and this necessitated going to a city and talking to people Melquíades didn’t want to talk to. Hunters normally traded in pelts and demanded an exorbitant price to drag a jaguar to Yaxaktun. And Melquíades had that pain in his gut and didn’t like going on tiresome errands.
Her father nodded. “No, they don’t always live. It’s part of what I’m trying to perfect. The process is not yet entirely without its problems.”
“It’ll live,” Laughton whispered.
Her father clapped his hands and smiled. The sound was loud; it seemed to bounce off the ceiling. He smiled.
“Come, gentlemen, let’s meet a more developed hybrid,” her father said, and he ushered them out of the room. “Lock up, Carlota.”
So she did, closing the door behind the gentlemen, first the laboratory, then the antechamber.
Her father guided them to the kitchen, which was patterned with azulejos, each tile showing a drawing of a flower or a geometric shape, evoking the days of the Mudéjar. Glazed pots hung next to the doorway. The trasteros were stacked with baskets and clay dishes—the porcelain was stored in the dining room, along with the glasses and serving bowls. Cooking pots were heaped upside down, waiting to be filled with beans and rice. There were two cast iron comales to cook the tortillas and two metates to grind the corn, as well as a wall rack containing a multitude of wooden spoons, ladles, chocolate whisks, knives, and all manner of tools.
In the center of the kitchen there was a big, rough, old table with benches on each side. Ramona, Cachito, and Lupe were sitting there. When they walked in, the three of them stood up.
“You’ll be wanting food, doctor?” Ramona asked.
“No, Ramona. It’s fine for now. I wanted to introduce Mr. Laughton to our two young friends. These are Livia and Cesare,” her father said, using the formal names of the young hybrids.
Her father had a good Latin name for each of his creations, but Ramona had nicknamed each and every one of them or they called one another another thing. Cachito was small, hence his moniker. Lupe simply looked like a Lupe to Ramona. No, Ramona did not use the names the doctor liked. Even the doctor’s daughter had a nickname. Carlota was Loti and sometimes she was even Carlota Hija del Elote Cara de Tejocote, when Cachito and Lupe giggled and thought themselves funny with their rhymes and puns.