Presently the driver slowed down and swung off the main road on to a rough track that was thickly lined on both sides by thick clumps of gigantic bamboos, some of the canes being as thick as a man’s thigh and pale honey-coloured, tiger-striped with green. These huge canes bent gracefully over the road and intertwined their fluttering green leaves overhead so thickly that the road was gloomy, and it was like driving down the nave of a cathedral. The sunlight flickered and flashed between the giant stems as we drove down the rutted track, and above the noise of the car engine I could hear the strange groans and squeaks that bamboos make when swayed by the wind. Presently we came to a villa half-hidden in a riot of flowers and creepers, and here the car stopped. Joan Lett, who, with her husband Charles, had invited me to Calilegua, came out to greet me, took me inside and gave me the most welcome cup of tea. Presently, when Charles returned from his work, we sat on the balcony in the fading indigo evening light and discussed my plan of campaign.
It has always been my experience in most parts of the world that if you go to an area which is fairly well populated you can obtain most of your common local fauna without much difficulty, for the local people keep the creatures either as pets, or rear them until they are old enough to form the basis for a meal. So your first job should be to go round every ranch and village in the vicinity and buy what you can. Then you can review your collection and try and fill in the gaps (which are generally the rare creatures) yourself. I propounded this philosophy to Charles, as the ice tinkled musically in our gin-and-tonics, but to my dismay he was not inclined to agree with me. He said that he did not think the Indians in Calilegua kept anything in the livestock line, except the usual run of cats, dogs and chickens. However, he promised that the next day he would get one of his more intelligent helpers to make inquiries in the village, and let me know the result. I went to bed fortified by gin but in a gloomy frame of mind, wondering if after all I had come to the wrong place. Even the faint whisper of crickets outside in the garden and the huge trembling stars that told me I was back in the tropics did little to cheer me.
The next morning, however, things looked brighter. After breakfast I was out in the garden watching a flock of gold, blue and silver butterflies feeding on the scarlet blooms of a bush when Luna arrived. I had heard him singing, in a pleasant tenor voice, as he came down the avenue of bamboo, and as he reached the gate he paused in his song, clapped his hands in the customary manner of anyone in South America when arriving at your house, opened the gate and joined me by the bush and the butterflies. He was a tiny man, about five feet in height, and as slender as a fourteen-year-old boy. He had a handsome, faintly skull-like face, with huge dark eyes, and black hair that was cropped close to his head. He held out a hand that looked as fragile as the butterflies we were surrounded by.
‘Señor Durrell?’ he inquired.
‘Yes,’ I replied, shaking his hand gently, for fear it should break off at the wrist.
‘I am Luna,’ he said, as if this should be sufficient explanation.
‘Señor Lett sent you?’ I asked.
‘Si, si,’ he answered, giving me a smile of great charm and sweetness.
We both stood and watched the butterflies drifting round the red blooms, while I racked my brains for the right Spanish phrases.
‘¡Que lindo,’ said Luna, pointing at the butterflies, ‘que bichos más lindos!’
‘Si,’ I said. There was another pause, and we smiled at each other amiably.
‘You speak English?’ I inquired hopefully.
‘No, very small,’ said Luna, spreading his hands and smiling gently, as if deploring this terrible gap in his education.
It was obvious that his knowledge of my language was about as extensive as mine was of his. This later proved to be true. Both of us could understand a quite complicated conversation in each other’s language, but both were incapable of doing more in speech than string a few ungrammatical nouns and verbs together.
‘You … I … go Helmuth,’ suggested Luna suddenly, waving a delicate hand.
I agreed, wondering what a Helmuth was; it was a new word to me, and, as far as I was concerned, could have been anything from a new type of jet-engine to a particularly low night-club. However, I was willing to try anything once, especially if it turned out to be a night-club. We walked down the musically squeaking, creaking, groaning and rustling avenue of bamboo, and then came to a large area of lawn, dotted with gigantic palm trees, their trunks covered with parasitic plants and orchids. We walked through these towards a long, low red brick building, while the humming-birds flipped and whirred around us, gleaming and changing with the delicate sheen one sees on a soap bubble. Luna led me through gauze-covered doors into a large cool dining-room, and there, sitting in solitary state at the end of a huge table, devouring breakfast, was a man of about thirty with barley-sugar coloured hair, vivid blue eyes, and a leathery, red, humorous face. He looked up as we entered and gave us a wide, impish grin.
‘Helmuth,’ said Luna, pointing to this individual, as if he had performed a particularly difficult conjuring trick. Helmuth rose from the table and extended a large, freckled hand.
‘Hullo,’ he said, crushing my hand in his, ‘I’m Helmuth. Sit down and have some breakfast, eh?’
I explained that I had already had some breakfast, and so Helmuth returned to his victuals, talking to me between mouthfuls, while Luna, seated the other side of the table, drooped languidly in a chair and hummed softly to himself.
‘Charles tells me you want animals, eh?’ said Helmuth. ‘Well, we don’t know much about animals here. There are animals, of course, up in the hills, but I don’t know what you’ll get in the villages. Not much, I should think. However, when I’ve finished eating we go see, eh?’
When Helmuth had assured himself, somewhat reluctantly, that there was nothing edible left on the table, he hustled Luna and myself out to his station-wagon, piled us in and drove down to the village, over the dusty, rutted roads that would, at the first touch of rain, turn into glutinous mud.
The village was a fairly typical one, consisting of small shacks with walls built out of the jagged off-cuts from the saw mill, and whitewashed. Each stood in its own little patch of ground, surrounded by a bamboo fence, and these gardens were sometimes filled with a strange variety of old tins, kettles and broken barrels each brimming over with flowers. Wide ditches full of muddy water separated these ‘gardens’ from the road, and were spanned at each front gate by a small, rickety bridge of roughly-nailed branches. It was at one of these little shanties that Helmuth stopped. He peered hopefully into the riot of pomegranate trees, covered with red flowers, that filled the tiny garden.
‘Here, the other day, I think I see a parrot,’ he explained.
We left the station-wagon and crossed the rickety little bridge that led to the bamboo gate. Here we clapped our hands and waited patiently. Presently, from inside the little shack, erupted a brood of chocolate-coloured children, all dressed in clean but tattered clothing, who lined up like a defending army and regarded us out of black eyes, each, without exception, sucking its thumb vigorously. They were followed by their mother, a short, rather handsome Indian woman with a shy smile.
‘Enter, señores, enter,’ she called, beckoning us into the garden.
We went in, and, while Luna crouched down and conducted a muttered conversation with the row of fascinated children, Helmuth, exuding goodwill and personality, beamed at the woman.
‘This señor,’ he said, gripping my shoulder tightly, as if fearful that I might run away, ‘this señor wants bichos, live bichos, eh? Now, the other day when I passed your house, I saw that you possessed a parrot, a very common and rather ugly parrot of a kind that I have no doubt the señor will despise. Nevertheless, I am bound to show it to him, worthless though it is.’
The woman bristled.
‘It is a beautiful parrot,’ she said shrilly and indignantly, ‘a very beautiful parrot, and one, moreover, of a kind that is extremely r
are. It comes from high up in the mountains.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Helmuth firmly, ‘I have seen many like it in the market in Jujuy, and they were so common they were practically having to give them away. This one is undoubtedly one of those.’
‘The señor is mistaken,’ said the woman, ‘this is a most unusual bird of great beauty and tameness.’
‘I do not think it is beautiful,’ said Helmuth, and added loftily, ‘and as for its tameness, it is a matter of indifference to the señor whether it be tame or as wild as a puma.’
I felt it was about time I entered the fray.
‘Er … Helmuth,’ I said tentatively.
‘Yes?’ he said, turning to me and regarding me with his blue eyes flashing with the light of battle.
‘I don’t want to interfere, but wouldn’t it be a good idea if I saw the bird first, before we start bargaining? I mean, it might be something very common, or something quite rare.’
‘Yes,’ said Helmuth, struck by the novelty of this idea, ‘yes, let us see the bird.’
He turned and glared at the woman.
‘Where is this wretched bird of yours?’ he inquired.
The woman pointed silently over my left shoulder, and turning round I found that the parrot had been perching among the green leaves of the pomegranate tree some three feet away, an interested spectator of our bargaining. As soon as I saw it I knew that I must have it, for it was a rarity, a red-fronted Tucuman Amazon, a bird which was, to say the least of it, unusual in European collections. He was small for an Amazon parrot, and his plumage was a rich grass-green with more than a tinge of yellow in it here and there; he had bare white rings round his dark eyes, and the whole of his forehead was a rich scarlet. Where the feathering ended on each foot he appeared to be wearing orange garters. I gazed at him longingly. Then, trying to wipe the acquisitive look off my face I turned to Helmuth and shrugged with elaborate unconcern, which I am sure did not deceive the parrot’s owner for a moment.
‘It’s a rarity,’ I said, trying to infuse dislike and loathing for the parrot into my voice, ‘I must have it.’
‘You see?’ said Helmuth, returning to the attack, ‘the señor says it is a very common bird, and he already has six of them down in Buenos Aires.’
The woman regarded us both with deep suspicion. I tried to look like a man who possessed six Tucuman Amazons, and who really did not care to acquire any more. The woman wavered, and then played her trump card.
‘But this one talks,’ she said triumphantly.
‘The señor does not care if they talk or not,’ Helmuth countered quickly. We had by now all moved towards the bird, and were gathered in a circle round the branch on which it sat, while it gazed down at us expressionlessly.
‘Blanco … Blanco,’ cooed the woman, ‘¿como te vas, Blanco?’
‘We will give you thirty pesos for it,’ said Helmuth.
‘Two hundred,’ said the woman, ‘for a parrot that talks, two hundred is cheap.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Helmuth, ‘anyway, how do we know it talks? It hasn’t said anything.’
‘Blanco, Blanco,’ cooed the woman in a frenzy, ‘speak to Mama … speak Blanco.’
Blanco eyed us all in a considering way.
‘Fifty pesos, and that’s a lot of money for a bird that won’t talk,’ said Helmuth.
‘Madre de Dios, but he talks all day,’ said the woman, almost in tears, ‘wonderful things he says … he is the best parrot I have ever heard.’
‘Fifty pesos, take it or leave it,’ said Helmuth flatly.
‘Blanco, Blanco, speak,’ wailed the woman, ‘say something for the señores … please.’
The parrot shuffled his green feathering with a silken sound, put his head on one side and spoke.
‘Hijo de puta,’ he said, clearly and slowly.
The woman stood as though transfixed, her mouth open, unable to believe in the perfidy of her pet. Helmuth uttered a great sigh as of someone who knows the battle is won. Slowly, and with a look of utter malignancy, he turned to the unfortunate woman.
‘So!’ he hissed, like the villain in a melodrama. ‘So! This is your idea of a talking parrot, eh?’
‘But señor … ,’ began the woman faintly.
‘Enough!’ said Helmuth, cutting her short. ‘We have heard enough. A stranger enters your gates, in order to help you by paying you money (which you need) for a worthless bird. And what do you do? You try and cheat him by telling him your bird talks, and thus get him to pay more.’
‘But it does talk,’ protested the woman faintly.
‘Yes, but what does it say?’ hissed Helmuth. He paused, drew himself up to his full height, took a deep breath and roared:
‘It tells this good-natured, kindly señor that he is the son of a whore.’
The woman looked down at the ground and twiddled her bare toes in the dust. She was beaten and she knew it.
‘Now that the señor knows what disgusting things you have taught this bird I should not think he will want it,’ continued Helmuth. ‘I should think that now he will not even want to offer you fifty pesos for a bird that has insulted not only him, but his mother.’
The woman gave me a quick glance, and returned to the contemplation of her toes. Helmuth turned to me.
‘We have got her,’ he said in a pleading tone of voice, ‘all you have to do is to try and look insulted.’
‘But I am insulted,’ I said, trying to look offended and suppress the desire to giggle. ‘Never, in fact, in a long career of being insulted, have I been so insulted.’
‘You’re doing fine,’ said Helmuth, holding out both hands as if begging me to relent. ‘Now give in a bit.’
I tried to look stern but forgiving, like one of the less humorous saints one sees in ikons.
‘All right,’ I said reluctantly, ‘but only this once. Fifty, you said?’
‘Yes,’ said Helmuth, and as I pulled out my wallet he turned again to the woman. ‘The señor, because he is the very soul of kindness, has forgiven you the insult. He will pay you the fifty pesos that you demanded, in your greed.’
The woman beamed. I paid over the grubby notes, and then approached the parrot. He gazed at me musingly. I held out my finger, and he gravely climbed on to it, and then made his way up my arm to my shoulder. Here he paused, gave me a knowing look, and said quite clearly and loudly:
‘¿Como te vas, como te vas, que tal?’ and then giggled wickedly.
‘Come on,’ said Helmuth, revitalized by his session of bargaining. ‘Let’s go and see what else we can find.’
We bowed to the woman, who bowed to us. Then, as we closed the bamboo gate behind us and were getting into the car, Blanco turned on my shoulder and fired his parting shot.
‘Estupido,’ he called to his late owner, ‘muy estupida.’
‘That parrot,’ said Helmuth, hastily starting the car, ‘is a devil.’
I was inclined to agree with him.
Our tour of the village was not entirely unproductive. By careful questioning and cross-questioning nearly everyone we met, we managed to run to earth five yellow-fronted Amazon parrots, an armadillo and two grey-necked guans. These latter are one of the game-birds, known locally as charatas, which is an onomatopoeic name resembling their cry. They look, at first glance, rather like a slim and somewhat drab hen pheasant of some species. Their basic colouring is a curious brown (the pale colour a stale bar of chocolate goes) fading to grey on the neck. But, see them in the sun and you discover that what you thought was a matt brown is really slightly iridescent with a golden sheen. Under the chin they have two drooping red wattles, and the feathers on their heads, when they get excited, stand up in a kind of crest that looks like a lengthy crew-cut. They were both young birds, having been taken from the nest when a few days old and hand-reared, so they were ridiculously tame. The Amazon parrots were also tame, but none of them had the knowingness of the vocabulary of Blanco. All they could do was to mutter ‘Lorito’ at intervals, and whist
le shrilly. Nevertheless, I felt for one morning’s work we were not doing too badly, and so I carried my purchases back in triumph to the house, where Joan Lett had kindly allowed me to use their empty garage as a sort of storehouse for my creatures.
As I had no cages ready for the reception of my brood, I had to let them all loose in the garage and hope for the best. To my surprise this arrangement worked very well. The parrots all found themselves convenient perches, just out of pecking range of each other, and, though it had obviously been agreed that Blanco was the boss, there was no unmannerly squabbling. The guans also found themselves perches, but these they only used to sleep on, preferring to spend their days stalking about the floor of the garage, occasionally throwing back their heads and letting forth their ear-splitting cry. The armadillo, immediately on being released, fled behind a large box, and spent all day there meditating, only tip-toeing out at night to eat his food, casting many surreptitious and fearful glances at the sleeping birds.