An Island Called Moreau (7 page)

When I had passed this way on my arrival on Moreau Island, my exhaustion had been too great for me to take in much of my surroundings. I stood and regarded them now with disappointment. The harbor and the village were poor things; proximity to what I had regarded as a picturesque South Sea island retreat brought nothing but disillusion.

The harbor was constructed of concrete-filled sandbags, the fabric of which had long ago rotted away. A wooden walk stretched a few yards out over the water, but I would not have wanted to trust myself to it. Two battered old landing craft—one of which had been used in my rescue, I did not doubt—were moored there. The place reeked of neglect.

As for the village! In the noonday light, only a row of half a dozen palms, sloping out over the water, lent it a touch of beauty. It was no more than a collection of hovels. Some of the hovels were constructed from natural materials such as palm leaves. Others were built with the castoffs of Western civilization—ancient jerry cans, corrugated iron, old packing cases, rusting automobiles. All were miserable in the extreme. One or two brutish faces peered out of doorways, not moving in the heat. My expectations about sending cables died at once.

The only sign of activity, or of intelligence, was round on the other side of the lagoon, on the right of where I stood with Bernie. There groups of natives were bending their backs, a concrete mixer was chugging, a mobile crane swung blocks of stone out into the green water.

Sunshine enveloped me. Sweat trickled down my backbone. I stood gazing at the scene, taking in all the parsimonious evidences of mankind set against a natural prodigality. I stared down at the concrete of the quayside beneath my feet. The concrete was laid in prefabricated slabs, many of which had been broken at the corners during the process of laying. Cracks ran like lines on an automobile map, creating cartographic sketches of obliterated cities; weeds, forcing their way among the fissures and avenues, represented vegetation surviving in microcosmic Hiroshimas. All directions ultimately led nowhere. The primitive roadway, to my anxious mind, formed a diagram of what was in process; I saw I also had a miniature battle on my hands here. I would have to overcome Dart if I was ever to leave Moreau Island.

I began walking slowly along the edge of the lagoon, oppressed with a thunderous sense of fate which I tried to tell myself was nothing more than the receding tide of my weakness. The chug-chug of the concrete mixer ahead, the swinging arm of the crane, seemed to offer something stable in my uncertain state. As I advanced, I heard my name called. A hand waved from the crane. My pace became more positive in response. The arm of the crane halted in midswing, and Maastricht jumped down.

He strolled toward me, bare-chested, riot gun slung over his right shoulder.

“You're jack-of-all-trades, I see, Mr. Maastricht.”

“Nobody else to do it if I don't. Can't leave it to this gang of brutes to do sensible work.” He evaded my gaze as he spoke by glancing at the natives he referred to.

“There must be other—well, white men on the island.”

“Warren—no, no, there's no person else, just the Master and me. And Da Silva.” He ran a hand across his face, as if to wipe out a mistake he had nearly made. “I thought you understood the setup. You're slow to catch on, you a Yankee politician.”

“My brain's been boiling in my skull for too many days, Mr. Maastricht.”

“Call me Hans, for heaven's sake, man. You stuffy politicians, I don't know. Come and have a drink.”

“I don't drink. I thought I told you. You're slow to catch on.”

He looked almost straight at me and then grinned. He pulled a crumpled pack of mescahales from his pocket and lit one. “Bet you don't smoke either?”

“Correct. It's a vile habit.”

“You're not drinking, not smoking—what
do
you do, Mr. Roberts?”

I outstared him, and he dropped his eyes, muttering.

“I'm not such a bastard as I might appear.” Then he turned and kicked out with one foot, catching the wretched Bernie on one flank. “You, Bernie, what the hell are you doing? Four Limbs Long, Song Gone Wrong, remember. Back to work.”

Bernie departed, yelling and hopping. Behind us, the work crew labored slowly and clumsily on. I saw George sitting on a slab of stone, eyeing them darkly from under his hat, and gathered that he was the foreman of the gang.

“Yes, as I was saying, I'm not such a bastard. It's just that the Master—Dart—I get the custom of calling him Master—he brings out the worst. I used to be a painter, in my good days, bygone.”

“An artist, eh? Amsterdam's a good city for artists.”

“No, no, you misunderstand, no Rembrandt. I paint houses, inside or out. I have three men work under me. Now only animals! Come and see what we are doing now here.”

He showed me how they were straightening out the curve of the lagoon at that point by throwing in stone, so as to make a proper mooring for small ships.

“That little quay you passed was built by the Japanese, way back in the last world war, when I was a little baby. Here the water is much deeper, to make a better berth. You see the fish?”

We stood looking over the edge. The water was a clear green. A million little fish glittered in it, all the way down to sand.

“Where do you get the blocks of stone? It doesn't look as if you've been blasting the cliff.”

“No, we don't blast the cliff.” He leaned in the shadow of the crane, picking up his familiar bottle and taking a swig. “See, we have an underground reservoir for fresh water. You get to it from inside the palisade. Much stones. That was all dug out by hand, by the Beast People.”

“The Beast People!”

“You see, the secret is to keep them working, Calvert—Mr. Roberts. You must keep them working. Now I'm a Marxist, myself, unlike the Master, who's a fascist pig, so I know all about the proles. What was I going to be saying? Yes, that's right. You keep them working. First they dig out the reservoir, take several years, now they build the new quay with the stones.”

“I'd like to ask you a lot of questions about Dart, Hans. But first of all, can I send a radio message from anywhere here?”

“Through the Master's transmitters. No other way, of course.”

“That's a little awkward, because I have just moved out.”

His expression became very gloomy and worried.

“That's bad. However, he is very consistent—no, I mean he is not consistent. I will speak to him for you. You must be inside by nightfall, of course.”

“How so?”

He looked askance at me. He took another swig from the bottle. He looked at the selection of burly and hairy backs near us, at the little eyes that forever furtively regarded us over hunched shoulders. Then he shrugged expressively.

“They're dangerous?” I asked in a low voice.

He laughed roughly to show how stupid he thought my question—too stupid to answer. Instead, he took another drink. “You'll end up a drinking man before you're here a week, chum. I bet you!” I could see he was relapsing into the sullen mood in which I had found him on our first meeting.

“I don't intend to be here a week,” I said.

He gave me an odd look, and then heaved himself back into the crane.

I walked on, past the work group, to the extreme tip of the land, where the lagoon met the ocean. The water of the lagoon was green; the water of the ocean was blue. I saw how sheer the cliffs were, and knew that they went on down into deep waters. There was no continental shelf here. Anything that fell into the Pacific would keep on falling for a long way.

The air smelled good. I breathed deep, feeling strength return.

I was in a position where I could see the north coast of Moreau Island, curving to either side, since the lagoon lay roughly in the middle of its length. The island was boomerang-shaped. The high cliffs lay to the east of the lagoon; on the west, they were replaced by a broken shoreline. Out to sea was nothing, except for one sizable rock, crowned by a stunted palm, standing about a kilometer off the eastern tip of the island. Nothing else but unbroken horizon, not even a cloud. The Moon never looked quite so empty. And the empty lives about me …? From that thought, I turned away.

While I sat staring out toward the horizon, beyond which a world war was gathering strength, the dog-like Bernie crept up to me again. He panted and groveled at my feet without daring to speak. So isolated was I that I felt glad to have him there.

“Good boy, good man,” I said.

A siren shrilled. For a while, I wondered if an air attack were imminent—the work gang dropped whatever they were doing and took to their heels, shouting and bellowing as they went. Bernie jumped up and started whining, although he did not leave my side.

The stampede headed round the rim of the lagoon, making for the village. One of the natives fell, to scamper on unhurt. Maastricht jumped down from his crane and called to me.

“That's lunchtime. Now is where I switch on the music!”

He went across to a metal locker like a small sentry box which stood near the water, opened it, and pressed a switch. Drumming filled the air.

Amplifiers were dotted here and there over the island. Some were fixed to the lamp standards round the lagoon, with a concentration of them in the village.

A series of jingles burst from the amplifiers, filling the air.

One thing unites us all—that's Love!

Come on, there, Baby, don't matter the Shape—

Be Beastly now, rock, push, and shove,

Wolf, leopard, jackal, with man, bull, and ape!

Maastricht came up to me, laughing at the expression of disgust on my face.

“So we train 'em and keep 'em happy at the same time. Break down that narrow gap between human and animal.” He launched a kick at Bernie, who was slinking close to me. “Get out, you brute! There's no food here!”

“Leave him alone! Why should you treat him like that? Bernie, here, come on, good man, stay with me if you want!”

Whimpering, Bernie came back toward me and crept fearfully behind my back, where he remained to make quiet growling curses at the Netherlander.

Maastricht's face had gone brick-red. He clutched the butt of his riot gun without unslinging it. “Let me warn you, hero! You are just new here! Keep at my good side. That's what I say—keep at my good side! You are already enough in peril. You do not know the Beast People like I. Why you think Dart turns you out? Because he hopes they tear you apart, so he then don't got any problem with you, right?”

“You degrade these people by brutality, but they don't look dangerous.”

His anger left him abruptly, and he turned away to avoid my eyes. “Only after nightfall do things get dangerous on Moreau Island, hero. If he want you back and locked in by then, it is not for your sake, don't worry! It is so that these friends of yours don't go amok with taste of blood, savvy! Ask Bernie!”

He climbed back into his crane and began to eat his lunch.

The singing continued raucously, echoing across island and ocean.

Go ape now, Baby, have yourself a ball—

Get with the loving, forget the Shape,

Groove it on in a laughing fall,

Wolf, leopard, jackal, with man, bull, and ape!

I went over to the crane and asked Maastricht, “Why give them this muck? Why not Haydn?”

He spluttered with laughter over his bottle. He was tapping one boot to the rhythm.

“Jesus, but you are an idealist! I forgive you, hero—I was an idealist once. I even went to Church. Haydn? Papa Haydn? Why vex them with things they don't understand? You got to dress up smart for Haydn, right, hero! This is a utopia, not a prison camp.” He bellowed with laughter and then repeated what was possibly a favorite line. “This is a utopia, not a prison camp.”

There was no sense in arguing with him. I folded my arms and leaned against the machine, looking up at the sky where fulmars sailed.

Maastricht passed me down a coconut still encased in its green husk and said, more reasonably, “You understand the Master is content as long as nobody make trouble. His interest is in the similarity of human and animal. Form and attitude determine behavior—he will tell you if you ask him.”

“Moreau practiced vivisection in Wells' novel.” As I spoke, I was watching three seals, or at any rate seal-like creatures, come swimming into the lagoon from the open sea. “He tortured human shapes out of leopards and other animals—a peculiarly nineteenth-century occupation, it seemed, until the process was virtually reversed in the concentration camps of the last world war. Dart says he duplicated Moreau's experiments. Research is too kind a name for it. He is using a scalpel simply as an instrument of torture.”

“You God-freaks are all the same! You condemn without bothering to find out facts. Pfhah! The Master's not Moreau. Give him his damned due. Time has moved on since that crude stuff.”

“Nobody who behaves—”

“I show you something, hero! Watch this!” He pointed toward the three seal creatures and then leaned out of the cab, calling to them. Bernie, excited, dashed to the edge of the water, inserted fingers in both cheeks and whistled. The seals turned in our direction.

Maastricht flung a piece of food into the water to hasten their progress, but they moved slowly. As they neared, I saw that their faces were surprisingly human, though obscured by long flowing black hair. Finally, they rested against the rocks, shaking water out of their eyes, and calling, “Hello, Hans!”—while at the same time looking warily at me.

Bernie was hopping up and down, trying to communicate with them. “Speak only with speech, come out from water, yes. New Four Limbs Long, good, good man. No Bearded One, two, three, five …”

They gave him good-natured glances, but were dismissive, too, as if they accepted that Maastricht's companions were not to their taste. Their faces were rounded and not unlike seals; their noses were flattened, their skins very dark, and their eyes had an epicanthic fold which made them resemble Japanese. Their bodies were shaped like human bodies, except that they had four flipper-like appendages instead of arms and legs.