The Daughter of Doctor Moreau(28)
“I hope so,” Moreau said with a firm determination that caught Montgomery off guard.
“Sir?” Montgomery asked in confusion.
“Lizalde has grown impatient and tired of me. For years now I’ve promised him results and have little to show.”
“But the hybrids are real,” Montgomery protested.
“Yes, yes, they’re real, and we also both know how frail they can be,” the doctor said, grimacing. “There is still something in everything I do that defeats me. I fall constantly short of the things I dream. Limbs are crooked, deformities spring up, errors mar my work. Once have I come close to perfection, and well…it’s not a success I’ve been able to replicate.”
He was no doubt speaking of Lupe and Cachito, who were strong and agile and quick-witted. The rest of Moreau’s creatures were prone to inspire pity. The oldest ones were more mangled, but the young ones had their infirmities, too.
“I spot more gaps each day, imperfections that ought to never have been,” Moreau continued. “Even if I was given three decades I don’t think I’d be able to unknot this puzzle. But I don’t have three decades; I don’t even have a year. Lizalde is fed up. To him Yaxaktun is fallow land which could be put to better use and my project has lost its luster. I’ve written to him, but he’s become intractable. Our funds are dwindling and he is unlikely to provide us with more money or supplies.”
Then Cachito was correct. The doctor was in the midst of an economic emergency, and Montgomery had been kept blind to this fact. He disliked secrets and sleights of hand, but before he could complain, the doctor spoke again.
“This is why the arrival of the young Lizaldes seems like divine providence. Montgomery, they might be our salvation.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Carlota. Isn’t she young and beautiful? If one of them were to court her, we might be able to survive this dry spell. They won’t toss us out, and if she were to marry, everything is assured.”
Ah, so that was the plan! Rather than have to drag Carlota to Mérida in search of a husband, it seemed the doctor had determined a husband had presented himself before her. It made sense. His sister had married at eighteen. He, himself, had been twenty-one on the day of his wedding. Montgomery had married for love. Carlota would be wed to a fortune. Perhaps she wouldn’t mind. Fanny had a love for fine things, and when a husband could purchase pearls, many flaws could be forgiven, as was obvious by her second union to a wealthier man. “Have you discussed this with your daughter?”
“No. It’s not for her to decide,” Moreau said, his eyes adamant and calm.
That was true for the law favored Moureau’s course of action. Even when a woman had attained the age of majority and turned twenty-one, she was not allowed to live outside her father’s home without his express permission, or to do much of anything on her own. Therefore, should Carlota find her father’s plans disagreeable, she still would not be able to extricate herself from him. And yet he thought it cold to not even inform the girl that she might be paraded in front of two gentlemen like a fine horse and quickly sold.
“If they come to visit you must be polite to them. Don’t worry about my daughter, I’ll see that she behaves herself. No more squabbling with those boys, you understand?”
“I understand, sir,” he said, without any inflection in his voice.
That night as Montgomery sat in his room and poured himself a glass of aguardiente, he thought again about Fanny. He hadn’t in a while. In the first months of her departure he drank to forget her, but time had done its work, and he didn’t dwell on her as he’d once done. His imaginary letters to her had dwindled. What use was it to write solely in his head? Yet that evening he found himself composing a missive.
We are all commodities at Yaxaktun. Commodities to be sold and traded and bartered. Our prices vary, of course. Carlota Moreau is worth gold and rubies. Though, with a man like Eduardo Lizalde, I wonder if he’ll know it. Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.
He drank his aguardiente and closed his eyes. He’d spent too much time in this place. He ought to leave. He’d been able to lull himself into a state of half-contentment, but the arrival of the Lizaldes was a sign. If he remained here, he’d grow mad like Moreau, who spent his days in obsessive pursuit of a secret that could never be had.
Chapter 9
Carlota
She fed the parrot and whispered a ditty to it. When she was done tending to the birds, she took her father’s medical bag and headed toward the old workers’ huts. Dr. Moreau was supposed to look at Aj Kaab’s teeth the previous day, but again he was remiss in his duties and again Carlota decided to provide assistance. Aj ts’aak yaaj, the healer, that was what the hybrids sometimes called her father in Maya, copying Ramona’s words. But it was Carlota who most often worried about tending to their teeth and bones and limbs. She did not mind such tasks. In fact, she delighted in them. She liked keeping busy; she liked helping others.
Aj Kaab still looked sleepy when she called for him that Saturday morning. It was indeed early, before mass or breakfast, but it was best to get such matters out of the way. Aj Kaab yawned and stretched his arms while Cachito dragged a chair and a table outside his hut. Carlota set the medical bag down and went to fill a pitcher with water, so she could wash her hands and rinse Aj Kaab’s mouth.