The Daughter of Doctor Moreau(26)
He paused for a moment, pondering both the conversation with the young men and Carlota’s reaction to them. Montgomery had teased her about the boys because she had been cruel to him before. But now he thought better about it and decided he shouldn’t have bothered her. Should he apologize? Yet it was such a small thing, and he felt embarrassed to imagine himself sinking to his knees, pressing his hat against his chest, and begging the lady’s forgiveness. If she should refuse the apology, it would sting. What he should do, Montgomery decided, was to think less about Carlota Moreau and more about something, anything else.
It was damnably hard, though. Carlota got under one’s skin, like a splinter.
“Good day, Montgomery,” Cachito said, springing beside him. Although full-grown, Cachito hardly reached Montgomery’s chest. He was skinny and quick and his fur was tawny, darker around the ears, with the spots and streaks of an ocelot. He possessed a youthful voice that was often merry. He was friendlier than Lupe and more tractable than Carlota, who despite her sweetness could turn sour in an instant. The girl was spoiled, a miniature empress.
“Good day to you, too,” Montgomery said, thankful for the interruption. “We’re running late, but we best pull the table outside.”
“We’ve been waiting,” Cachito said eagerly.
Fridays it was time for all the hybrids to receive their injection and a tablet, which helped keep their stomachs in check, since the injection could make them queasy. Without this regimen they’d die. But it was something else that also inspired Cachito’s enthusiasm. Along with whatever treatment Moreau provided the hybrids, he also administered a substance that sent them into a dreamy stupor. He’d seen men who consumed opium and observed the same dull expression on their faces, and he didn’t doubt this was the same. It lulled them, like the alcohol the doctor let the hybrids have each week.
Montgomery couldn’t even fault the doctor for this. Through the years he’d seen the way the bodies of the hybrids twisted, he’d seen the pains they endured. Moreau’s experiments produced creatures that were not whole, that were sickly, that often died young. Their lungs didn’t work right or their hearts beat erratically. They could have no progeny, as the doctor had seen to that, but if they had been able to produce offspring Montgomery doubted any would have been able to come to term.
He’d never wanted any children. Fanny hadn’t liked that about him. She dreamed of a big family. Montgomery feared his children would take after him, that they’d be drunks and braggarts. Or even worse, that they would bear a resemblance to Elizabeth. What a horrid discovery it would have been to see his sister’s face again, haunting him during his waking hours.
The doctor had not created any new hybrids in the last three years. For that, Montgomery was grateful, recalling some of the creatures he’d had to bury. Fragile things that were wrapped in cloth and rested in their makeshift cemetery. Ramona lit candles for them, and Carlota said prayers. Montgomery said nothing at all.
“How long until the doctor comes?” Cachito asked.
“Dr. Moreau will be here soon, no doubt,” Montgomery muttered.
“Maybe you can ask him to give us a bottle of rum afterward?”
“It’s Friday, not Saturday, and far too early for drink,” he said, feeling like a complete hypocrite because he’d sometimes drunk himself well and good around the early hours of the morning.
“It’s not for merrymaking. Aj Kaab’s tooth has been hurting.”
Aj Kaab had teeth in two rows, teeth that never ceased to grow, and if they were not pulled they might pierce through his skull. He was the oldest hybrid, thick-voiced and gray, born before Lupe and Cachito and therefore afflicted with more deformities. Then there came Peek’, who looked like he was all bones these days, his skin gone mangy. áayin was an aged creation, too, his caiman’s skin always peeling in large patches. Most of the hybrids wore clothing. In the case of the more humanlike ones, such as Cachito and Lupe, regular clothes would do. But others had shapes that defied a common tailor or else buttons and laces proved a challenge to their malformed hands. In áayin’s case, he had a long tail and he found most fabrics itched. Carlota boiled chaal che’, rubbing the soothing liquid against his back.
“The doctor better see about that tooth. I’ll let him know,” Montgomery said, stopping to look at the black pigs in their corral, half-buried in the mud, taking their nap. Pork was one of those dishes you could count on in Yucatán, but the doctor used the pigs for his experiments and thus Moreau and his daughter were more likely to dine on turkey or fish. The hybrids had a mostly vegetable diet with the occasional chicken. When Montgomery hunted, something else might go into the pot.
He didn’t hunt that often, and when he did Ramona took care to make an offering for the aluxes, so that the hunt would fare well. Ramona had grown up in a town where they followed the tradition of primicias, not in the city where people might forget the old ways. So he followed the tradition, to please her, and even asked the stones for their favor. Ramona was strict about these things, and the others enforced the proceedings as rigorously as Moreau enforced his sermons.
Lupe was the one of the lot who was not pious.
Cachito leaned forward on the fence. “I heard there was one of the Lizaldes here today.”
“Now was that Lupe or Carlota telling you things?”