The Daughter of Doctor Moreau(27)
“Are we in debt with them, Montgomery? Is it like the nohoch cuenta?” Cachito replied rather than provide him with a name.
The hacienda owners controlled their workers through two forms of debt. The little debt was when they bought products at the tienda de raya. But the large debt was incurred when they married or a burial was held; the money borrowed covered all the church and municipal fees. Slavery was forbidden by law. In practice, a quick note by a mayordomo in a ledger, indicating a sum that was owed, ensured the workers never left. There was no tienda de raya at Yaxaktun, there was no ledger where he noted fees, and thus it was a strange comment.
“What could make you say that?”
“Carlota reads the doctor’s letters out loud for him when he’s tired.”
“You and Lupe spend your waking hours listening behind doorways,” Montgomery said. “How could you be in debt with Lizalde when you’ve never met him?”
“Well…you are in debt with him.”
“Because I’m an idiot. You on the other hand are smart.”
“The doctor is in debt, too. That’s what I’ve understood behind doorways.”
“Let’s get that table,” Montgomery said, because he couldn’t be discussing Moreau’s financial dealings with Cachito.
They brought the table out from its storage and set it before one of the huts. It wasn’t long until the doctor and his daughter appeared, she carrying his bag and supplies, while he leaned on his cane.
Carlota laid the instruments that would be needed on the table. She was careful to keep her eyes on the task at hand and did not glance at Montgomery, by which he knew she was still upset.
The hybrids lined up and received their medication, the youngest ones first. La Pinta and Estrella and El Mustio were at the front of the line, skinny, flat-faced, doglike creatures, slight of size and hardly that remarkable when you compared them to some of the other specimens, for there were a dizzying variety of shapes and animals represented.
Moreau, afflicted with a strange creative streak, had made furry hybrids with hunched shoulders and short forearms, but also apelike things whose knuckles could brush the ground when they walked, their spines curved. He’d created a squat hybrid that had the round, startled eyes and the long tongue of the kinkajou, another painted with the telltale dots and stripes of the paca, and yet a third with the small ears and distinctive bony, transverse bands of the armadillo. There were those with malformed ears and protuberant jaws and bristly hair that almost hid tiny eyes. It was a confusing medley of fang, fur, scales, showcasing the plasticity of bones.
Yet, despite the twisting and turning of their flesh, it was possible to spy the original animal that had originated them: Cachito and Lupe clearly resembled wild cats, while in other faces one could identify the fox and the playful coati. Parda had a wolf’s snout and moved in great leaping strides, Weech was small and limber, while others shuffled or limped by, catching their breath with effort.
In the beginning Montgomery had been surprised by their countenances, even alarmed by their odd gaits. He thought of them as creatures from myth, beings that might have belonged in a medieval manuscript, the product of a feverish scribe’s imagination. Or else they were the monsters that inhabited the edges of maps. Here be dragons!
Montgomery now regarded the hybrids simply as the people of Yaxaktun.
And so they came in order, and he chided El Rojo for attempting to move ahead of the line, as El Rojo always did, and patted Peek’s shoulder and chatted with Cachito.
It was like every other week, only it wasn’t. Montgomery took out a cigarette and lit it, watching as the doctor worked, thinking of the young men who’d stopped by, and the more he thought of those nosy idiots, the more irritated he felt.
Afterward, when all the hybrids were dismissed and had returned to their huts, Montgomery helped Carlota gather the doctor’s things and took everything back inside. The girl did not linger in the laboratory, excusing herself.
Montgomery knew he was about to be reprimanded, and perhaps the girl knew it, too. Or else Carlota’s stubborn anger compelled her out of the room, since she normally liked the laboratory, and they had, more than once, spent a good hour there, cleaning and sorting Moreau’s tools and supplies. At times, he’d show her how one could cut an animal’s skin and mount a specimen. “Are you picking fights with the neighbors because you are bored, Laughton, or is there another reason for the performance you gave today?”
“I was trying to get rid of them quickly. I might have managed it, if your daughter had not intervened.”
“Then it is Carlota’s fault?” the doctor asked, a trace of impatience in his voice.
“No, sir. It’s just I didn’t need her assistance, but I realize I’ve mucked it up. Maybe you should send a letter to the Lizalde boys telling them not to visit. We could make up something to keep them away.”
The doctor examined a bottle with a yellow liquid, holding it up to the light. “Why would I do that?”
“They don’t understand the work you perform.”
“They don’t. They think I run a sanatorium for the poor,” the doctor said, as he carefully placed the bottle back on a shelf.
“Best you pen the letter, sir. I can take it tomorrow. If they visit they might discover the truth. And to be frank, sir, they strike me as the type of men who might show undue interest in your daughter.”