The Animal-Lover's Book of Beastly Murder (2 page)

Two uniformed men of the place arrived via the side door of my cage. They carried long guns. I stood still and did nothing, barely looked at them. Crazy and excited as they were, they might have shot me at once out of fear, if I had shown any sign of anger. My self-possession was returning. And I thought Cliff might be dead, which gave me pleasure.

But no, he wasn’t. One man bent over him, pulled a bale of hay off him, and I saw Cliff’s red-haired head move. The other man prodded me rudely with the point of his gun towards my sleeping quarters. He was yelling something at me. I turned and strolled, not hurrying, into my cement room which was now bestrewn with hay and bales in disorder. Suddenly I was not feeling well, and my mouth still hurt. A man stood in the doorway with his gun pointed at me. I regarded him calmly. I could see Cliff getting up. The other man was talking with Cliff in an angry tone. Cliff was talking and waving his hands, though he didn’t look like himself at all. He looked unsteady on his feet, and he kept feeling his head.

Then a man with grayish hair, not as gray as Steve’s, came to the gate with another man who carried a bag. They were let into the cage. Both of them came quite close to me and looked at me. Blood was dripping from my left side on to the cement. Then the gray-haired man spoke to Cliff angrily, kept on talking when Cliff interrupted—a string of words from both of them. The gray-haired man pointed to the cage door, a sign for Cliff to leave. The next moments are vague to me, because the man with the bag put a cloth over my snout and tied it firmly. He also gave me a prod with a needle. By now, during the loud talk, I had lain down. The cloth smelt cool but awful, and I went into a frightening sleep in which I saw animals like huge cats leaping about, attacking me, my mother, my family. I saw green trees again, high grass. But I felt that I was dying.

When I awakened, it was dark, and there was some kind of grease in my mouth. My mouth no longer hurt, and my side hurt only a little. Was this death? But I could smell the hay in my room. I got to my legs and felt sick. I threw up a little.

Then I heard the side gate clang as someone closed it. I recognized the step of Cliff, though he was walking softly in his boots. I considered going out of the small sleeping-room, which was like a trap with no other exit but the door, but I was too sleepy still to move. I could barely see Cliff kneeling with a bag like the one the man had carried. Then I smelt the same sweet, thin smell that the man had put over my nose. Even Cliff snorted, and turned his head away, then he came at me with a rush, tossing the cloth around my nose and pulling it tight at once with a rope. I flicked my snout and knocked Cliff down with a blow against his hip. I beat my trunk against his fallen form, trying more to get the cloth off than to hurt Cliff, who was writhing and groaning. The rope loosened, and with a toss I managed to shake off the cloth. It fell on Cliff’s chest and part of his legs—stinking, evil, dangerous. I went out into the purer air of my cage.

Cliff was getting to his feet, gasping. He too came out for air, then rushed back, muttering, seized the cloth and came at me again. I rose a little on my hind legs and pivoted away from him. Cliff nearly fell. I gave Cliff the merest bump with my trunk and it lifted him off his feet. He fell his whole length on to the cement. Now I was angry. It was a fight between the two of us, Cliff with the evil-smelling cloth still in his hand. Cliff was getting to his knees.

I gave Cliff a kick, hardly more than a prod, with my left foot. I caught him in the side, and I heard a cracking sound like the breaking of tree branches. After that Cliff did not move again. Now there was the awful smell of blood mixed with the sweet and deadly smell. I went to the front corner of my cage, as far from the cloth as possible and lay down, trying to recover in the fresher air. I was cold, but that was of little importance. Slowly I began to feel calmer. I could breathe again. I had one brief desire to go and stomp a foot on Cliff, but I hadn’t the energy. What I felt was rage. And little by little even the rage went away. But I was still too upset to sleep. I waited in my cement corner for the dawn.

And this is where I am now, lying in a corner of the cement and steel cage where I have spent so many years. The light comes slowly. First there is the familiar figure of the old man who feeds the two musk oxen. He pushes a cart, opens another cage where there are more horned animals. At last he passes my cage, glances twice at me, and says something with “Chorus Girl” in it, surprised to see me lying where I am. Then he sees Cliff’s form.

“Cliff?—Hey, Cliff! What’s the matter?”

The cage isn’t locked, it seems, and the old man comes right in, bends over Cliff, says something, holds his nose and drags the big white cloth out of the cage. Then he runs off, yelling. I get to my feet. The cage door is slightly open. I walk past Cliff’s body, nudge the gate wider and walk out.

There is no one in the park. It is pleasant to walk on the ground again, as I haven’t done since they stopped the weekend rides so long ago. The dry ground even feels soft. I pause to raise my trunk, pull some green leaves off a branch, and eat them. The leaves are tough and prickly, but at least they are fresh. Here is the round fountain, that I was never allowed to pause at, or drink from, on the weekend outings. Now I take a long cool draft.

Behind me there are excited voices. The voices are no doubt back at my cage, but I don’t even bother looking. I enjoy my freedom. Above me is the great blue sky, a whole world of emptiness overhead. I go into a thicket of trees growing so close that they scrape both my sides. But there are so few trees, I am immediately out again, and on a cement path where apes and monkeys in cages stared goggle-eyed and chatter in amazement as I stroll by. A couple of them huddle at the back of their cage, little hairy fellows. Gray monkeys yell shrilly at me, then turn their blue behinds at me and scamper to the far corner of their cage. But perhaps some of them would like to ride on my back? From somewhere I remember that. I pull some flowers and eat them, just for amusement. The black monkeys with long arms are grinning and laughing, holding on to their bars, jerking the bars up and down and making a clatter.

I stroll over, and they are only a little afraid, much more curious than afraid, as I stick my trunk around two of the bars and pull the bars towards me. Then a third bar, and there is room for the black monkeys to scramble out.

They scream and titter, leaping along the ground, using their hands to boost them. One grabs my tail mischievously. Two of them take to a tree with delight.

But now there are footsteps from somewhere, sounds of running feet, shouts.

“There she is! By the monkeys!”

I turn to face them. A monkey scrambles on to my back, using my tail to get up. He slaps my shoulders, wanting a ride. He seems to weigh nothing at all. Two men, the same as yesterday, with the long guns, come running towards me, then halt, skidding, and raise their guns. Before I can lift my trunk in a gesture that might indicate friendliness, before I can kneel even, three shots go off.

“Don’t hit the monkey!”

But they hit me.

Bang
!

Now the sun is coming up and the tops of the trees are greenish, not all the trees being bare. My eyes go up and up. My body sinks. I am aware of the monkey leaping nimbly from my back to the ground, loping off, terrified by the gunshots. I feel very heavy suddenly, as if falling asleep. I mean to kneel and lie down, but my body sways sideways and I strike the cement. Another shot jolts my head. That was between the eyes, but my eyes are still open.

Men scamper round me as the monkeys did, kicking me, shouting to one another. Again I see the huge cats leaping in the forest, leaping on me now. Then through the blur of the men’s figures I see Steve very clearly, but Steve as he was when he was young—smiling, talking to me, with his pipe in his teeth. Steve moves slowly and gracefully. So I know I am dying, because I know Steve is dead. He is more real than the others. There is a forest around him. Steve is my friend, as always. There are no cats, only Steve, my friend.

Djemal’s Revenge

D
eep in the Arab desert lived Djemal, with his master Mahmet. They slept in the desert, because it was cheaper. By day, they trudged (Mahmet riding) to the nearest town, Elu-Bana, where Djemal gave rides to tourists, squealing women in summer dresses and nervous men in shorts. It was about the only time that Mahmet walked.

Djemal was aware that the other Arabs didn’t care for Mahmet. A faint groan came from other camel drivers when he and Mahmet approached. There was much haggling over prices, dinars, between Mahmet and the other drivers who would at once pounce upon him. Hands would fly and voices rise madly. But no one exchanged dinars, only talked about them. Finally Mahmet would lead Djemal to the group of staring tourists, tap Djemal and yell a command for him to kneel.

The hair on Djemal’s knees, front legs and back, was quite worn off, so his skin looked like old leather there. As for the rest of him, he was shaggy brown with some clotted patches, other patches nearly bare, as if moths had been at him. But his big brown eyes were clear, and his generous, intelligent lips had a pleasant look as if he were constantly smiling, though this was far from the truth. At any rate, he was only seventeen, in the prime of life, and unusually large and strong. He was shedding now because it was summer.

“Ooooooh!—Eeeeeek!” a plump lady screamed, jolted from side to side as Djemal stood up to his impressive full height. “The ground looks miles away!”

“Don’t fall! Hang on! That sand’s not as soft as it looks!” warned an Englishman’s voice.

Little filthy Mahmet, in dusty robes, tugged at Djemal’s bridle, and off they went at walking pace, Djemal slapping his broad feet down on the sand and gazing about wherever he wished, at the white domes of the town against the blue sky, at an automobile purring along the road, at a yellow mountain of lemons by the roadside, at other camels walking or loading or unloading their human cargo. This woman, any human being, felt like no weight at all, nothing like the huge sacks of lemons or oranges he often had to carry, or the sacks of plaster, or even the bundles of young trees that he transported far into the desert sometimes.

Once in a while, even the tourists would argue in their hesitant, puzzled-sounding voices with Mahmet. Some argument about price. Everything was price. Everything came down to dinars. Dinars, paper and coin, could make men whip out daggers, or raise fists and hit each other in the face.

Turbaned Mahmet in his pointed, turned-up-toed shoes and billowing old djellaba, looked more like an Arab than the Arabs. He meant himself to be a tourist attraction, photogenic (he charged a small fee to be photographed) with a gold ring in one ear and a pinched, sun-tanned visage which was almost hidden under bushy eyebrows and a totally untended beard. One could hardly see his mouth in all the hair. His eyes were tiny and black. The reason the other camel drivers hated him was because he did not abide by the set price for a camel ride that the others had established. Mahmet would promise to stick to it, then if a tourist happened to approach him with a pitiable attempt to bargain (as Mahmet knew they had been advised to do), Mahmet would lower the price slightly, thus getting himself some business, and putting the tourist in such a good mood for having succeeded in bargaining, that the tourist often tipped more than the difference at the end of the ride. On the other hand, if business was good Mahmet would up his price, knowing it would be accepted—and this sometimes in the hearing of the other drivers. Not that the other drivers were paragons of honesty, but they had informal agreements, and mostly stuck to them. For Mahmet’s dishonesty, Djemal sometimes suffered a stone thrown against his rump, a stone meant for Mahmet.

After a good tourist day, which often went on till nearly dark, Mahmet would tie Djemal up to a palm tree in town and treat himself to a meal of couscous in a shack of a restaurant which had a terrace and a squawking parrot. Meanwhile Djemal might not have had any water even, because Mahmet took care of his own needs first, and Djemal would nibble the tree leaves that he could reach. Mahmet ate alone at a table, eschewed by the other camel drivers who sat at another table together, making a lot of merry noise. One of them played a stringed instrument between courses. Mahmet chewed his lamb bones in silence and wiped his fingers on his robes. He left no tip.

Maybe he took Djemal to the public fountain, maybe he didn’t, but he rode while Djemal walked into the desert to the clump of trees where Mahmet made his camp every night. Djemal could not always see in the darkness, but his sense of smell guided him to the bundle of clothing of Mahmet, the rolled up tent, the leather water bags, all of which were permeated with Mahmet’s own sweaty, sharp scent.

In the early mornings, it was usually lemon-hauling in the hot summer months. Thank Allah, Mahmet thought, the Government had established “camel ride” hours for the tourists, 10–12 in the mornings, 6–9 evenings, so it left the drivers free to earn money in the daytime, and to do all the tourist business in concentrated hours.

Now as the big orange sun sank on the horizon of sand, Mahmet and Djemal were out of hearing of the muezzin in Elu-Bana. Besides, Mahmet had his transistor on, a little gadget not much bigger than his fist, which he could prop on his shoulder amid folds of djellaba. Now it was a wailing and endless song, with a man singing in falsetto. Mahmet hummed, as he spread a tattered rug on the sand and threw down some more rags upon this. This was his bed.

“Djemal!—Put yourself there!” said Mahmet, pointing to a side he had discovered was windward of the place where he intended to sleep. Djemal gave out considerable heat, as well as blocking the gritty breeze.

Djemal went on eating dry brush several yards away. Mahmet came over and whacked him with a braided leather whip. It did not hurt Djemal. It was a ritual, which he let continue for a few minutes before he tore himself away from the dark green shrubs. Fortunately he wasn’t thirsty that night.

“Oy-yah-yah-yah . . .” said the transistor.

Djemal knelt down, turning himself slightly against the wishes of Mahmet, so that the light wind nearly stuck him straight in the tail. Djemal didn’t want sand up his nose. He stretched his long neck out, put his head down, almost closed his nostrils, and closed his eyes completely. After a while, he felt Mahmet settling against his left side, tugging at the old red blankets in which he wrapped himself, settling his sandaled heels in the sand. Mahmet slept as he rested, almost sitting up.

Sometimes Mahmet read a bit in the Koran, mumbling. He could read hardly at all, but he knew a lot of it by heart, since childhood. His school had consisted, as the schools consisted even now, of a roomful of children sitting on the floor repeating phrases uttered by a tall man in a djellaba who prowled among them, taking long strides over their heads, reading phrases from the Koran. This wisdom, these words were like poetry to Mahmet—pretty enough when one read it, but of no use in everyday life. This evening, Mahmet’s Koran—a chunky little book with curled corners and nearly obliterated print—remained in his woven knapsack along with sticky dates and a stale hunk of bread. Mahmet was thinking of the forthcoming National Camel Race. He scratched a flea somewhere under his left arm. The camel race started tomorrow evening, and lasted for a week. It went from Elu-Bana to Khassa, a big port and a major city of the country, where there were even more tourists. The drivers camped out at night, of course, and were supposed to carry their food and water supplies, and make a stop at Souk Mandela, where the camels were to drink, then push on. Mahmet went over his plans. No stop at Souk Mandela, for one thing. That was why he was making Djemal go dry now. When Djemal tanked up tomorrow, and just before the race started in the evening, he could go seven days, Mahmet thought, without water, and Mahmet hoped to make it in six, anyway.

Traditionally, the Elu-Bana to Khassa race was very close, drivers flogging their camels at the finish. The prize was three hundred dinars, quite enough to be interesting.

Mahmet pulled the red blanket over his head, and felt secure and self-sufficient. He hadn’t a wife, he hadn’t even a family—rather he had one in a faraway town, but they disliked him, and he them, so Mahmet never thought about them. He’d stolen as a boy, and the police had come a few times too often to his family’s house, warning him and his parents, so Mahmet had left aged thirteen. From then on, he’d led a nomadic existence, shining shoes in the capital, working for a while as waiter until he was caught stealing out of the till, then picking pockets in museums and mosques, then as assistant pimp for a chain of bordellos in Khassa, then as runner for a fence during which time he’d been winged in the calf by a policeman’s bullet, giving him a limp. Mahmet was thirty-seven or thirty-eight, maybe even forty, he wasn’t quite sure. When he won the National Camel Race money, he intended to make a down payment on a little house in Elu-Bana. He’d seen the two-room white house with running cold water and a tiny fireplace. It was up for sale cheap, because the owner had been murdered in his bed, and nobody wanted to live there.

The next day, Djemal was surprised by the relative lightness of his work. He and Mahmet cruised along the lemon mountains on the outskirts of Elu-Bana, and Djemal’s two huge sacks were loaded and unloaded four times before the sun went down, but that was nothing. Ordinarily, Djemal would have been prodded much faster along the roads.

“Ho-ya! Djemal!” someone shouted.

“. . . Mahmet! . . . F-wisssssss!”

There was excitement, Djemal didn’t know why. Men clapped their hands. Praise or disapproval? Djemal was aware that no one liked his master, and Djemal took some of this ill-feeling, therefore apprehension, upon himself. Djemal was ever wary against a sneaky blow, something thrown at him, meant for Mahmet. The huge trucks pulled out, loaded with lemons brought by scores of camels. Drivers sat resting, leaning against their camels’ bellies or squatting on their heels. As Djemal walked out of the compound, one camel for no reason stretched his head forward and nipped Djemal’s rump.

Djemal turned quickly and lifted a protruding upper lip, baring powerful long front teeth, and snapped back, not quite catching the camel’s nose. The driver on the other camel was nearly thrown by his camel’s recoil, and cursed Mahmet roundly.

“. . . !” Mahmet gave back as good as he got.

Though Djemal was already full of water, Mahmet led him again to the town trough. Djemal drank a little, slowly, pausing to lift his head and sniff the breeze: he smelt the perfume of tourists from afar. And he also heard loud music, not unusual as transistors blared all day from every direction, but this music was bigger and more solid. Djemal felt a wallop on his left hind leg. Mahmet was walking, in front of him now, pulling his rein.

There were flags, a grandstand, tourists, and a couple of loudspeakers whence the music came. All this at the edge of the desert. Camels were lined up. A man was speaking, his voice unnaturally loud. The camels looked good. Was it a race? Djemal had once been in a race with Mahmet riding him, and Djemal remembered that he had run faster than the others. That was last year, when Mahmet had acquired Djemal. Djemal had a fleeting recollection of his first master, who had trained him. This man had been tall, kind, and rather old. He had argued with Mahmet, doubtless over dinars, and Mahmet had won. That was how Djemal saw it. Mahmet had taken Djemal away with him.

Djemal was suddenly in a line with the other camels. A whistle blew. Mahmet whacked him, and Djemal loped ahead, taking a minute or two to get into stride. Then he was galloping straight into the setting sun. He was ahead. It was easy. Djemal began to breathe regularly, settling down to keep the pace for a long time, if necessary. Where were they going? Djemal could not smell leaves or water, and he was unfamiliar with the terrain.

Ka-pa-la-pop
,
ka-pa-la-pop
. . . The hoof beats of the camels behind Djemal faded out of hearing. Djemal went a trifle slower. Mahmet did not whack him. Djemal heard Mahmet chuckle a little. The moon rose, and they kept on, Djemal walking now. He was a little tired. They stopped, Mahmet drank from his watersack, ate something, and bundled himself up against Djemal’s side as usual. But there was no tree, no shelter where they lay that night. The land was flat and wide.

The next morning, they set off at dawn, Mahmet having had a mug of sweet coffee brewed on his spirit lamp. He switched on his transistor, and held it in the crook of his leg, which was cocked over Djemal’s shoulder. Not a camel was in sight behind him. Nevertheless, Mahmet urged Djemal on at a fair pace. Judging from Djemal’s firm hump behind him, he was good for four or five days more without showing any sign of flagging. Still Mahmet looked to right and left for any lines of trees, any kind of foliage that could give shelter from the sun, however brief. When noon came, they had to stop. The heat of the sun had begun to penetrate even Mahmet’s turban, and sweat ran into his eyebrows. For the first time, Mahmet threw a cloth over Djemal’s head to shelter it from the sun, and they rested till nearly four in the afternoon. Mahmet had no watch, but he could tell time quite well by the sun.

The next day was the same, except that Mahmet and Djemal found some trees—but no water. Mahmet knew the territory vaguely. Either he had been over it years before, or someone had told him about it, he couldn’t quite remember. There was no water except at Souk Mandela, where the contestants were supposed to stop. That was a detour off the straight course, and Mahmet had no intention of stopping there. On the other hand, he thought it best to give Djemal an extra long rest at midday and to make up for this by traveling far into the night. This they did. Mahmet navigated a bit by the stars.

Djemal could have done all right for five days without water, with moderate pace and load, but Djemal was often loping. By the noonday rest of the sixth day, Djemal was feeling the strain. Mahmet mumbled the Koran. There was a wind, which blew Mahmet’s coffee brewer flame out a couple of times. Djemal rested with his tail directly towards the wind, his nostrils open just enough to breathe.