Snail on the Slope Read online

  Nava skipped alongside, now running ahead, now lagging behind. Now and again she took hold of Kandid's arm with both of hers and hung on thoroughly contented. She talked of the dinner, which she had so cunningly concealed from the old man, of how wild ants might have eaten it if she hadn't made sure they'd never find it, of how some noxious fly had woken her up and that when she was going to sleep last night, he, Dummy, was already snoring and muttering incomprehensible words in his sleep, and how did you know such words, Dummy, it's amazing when nobody in our village knows words like that, only you know, you always had, even when you were quite ill, knew even then...

  Kandid listened and didn't listen, the usual monotonous drone penetrated his brain, he strode on and pondered dully and at length, about why he could never think about anything, perhaps because of the endless inoculations that went on in the village when they took time off from chattering, or perhaps from something else... Perhaps it was the whole dozy, not even primitive, just vegetable way of life he had led since the long-forgotten days when the helicopter had flown into an invisible barrier at full speed, heeled over, snapped its rotors, and crashed like a stone into the swamps... Probably I was thrown out of the cabin then, he thought. Thrown out of the cabin, he thought for the thousandth time. Hit my head on something, so I never recovered ... and if I hadn't been thrown out, I'd have drowned in the swamp along with the aircraft, so it's a good thing I got thrown out... It suddenly struck him that all this was actual ratiocination and he rejoiced; it had seemed that he'd lost his ability to think clearly long ago, could only affirm one thing: day after tomorrow, day after tomorrow...

  He glanced at Nava. The girl was hanging on his left arm and talking recklessly as she looked up at him:

  "They all got into a huddle, and it got terrible hot, you know how hot they are, and there was no moon at all that night. Then mam started pushing me away quietly, and I crawled on all fours between all their legs, and mam never got to see me anymore..."

  "Nava," said Kandid. "You're telling me that story again. You've told it to me two hundred times."

  "Well, what if I have?" asked Nava, astonished. "You're a queer one. Dummy. What else can I tell you about? There's nothing else I can remember or know about. I'm not going to tell you how we dug a cellar together last week, you saw all that yourself, didn't you? Now if I'd dug the cellar with somebody else, with Hopalong, now, or Loudmouth..." She suddenly livened up. "You know. Dummy, that's interesting now. Tell me how we dug the cellar, nobody's told me about that yet, 'cos nobody saw..."

  Kandid's attention was drawn away again, the yellow-green undergrowth floated by on either side, slowly waving, some creature snuffled and sighed in the water, a swarm of soft white bugs, the sort they made intoxicating liquors from, sailed by with a thin whine, the road under their feet was now soft where there was tall grass, now rough from gravel and crushed stone. Yellow, gray, green, blotches - nothing for the eye to latch onto, nothing to lodge in the memory. Now the path turned sharply to the left; Kandid walked on another few paces and halted, trembling. Nava abruptly fell silent.

  By the road, with its head in the swamp, lay a large deadling. Its arms and legs were flung out and unpleasantly distorted, it was perfectly still. It was lying on crushed grass, now yellow from the heat, pale, broad, and even from a distance it was obvious that it had been terribly beaten. It was like jelly. Kandid cautiously circled it. He became alarmed. The fight had taken place fairly recently: the crushed, yellowing grass-blades were straightening up as he watched. Kandid carefully surveyed the road. There were plenty of tracks, but he could make nothing of them, while the road made another bend some little way ahead, and what lay beyond that he could not guess. Nava was still looking back at the deadling.

  "Our people didn't do it," said she very quietly. "Our people don't know how. Buster always threatens but he can't do this either, just waves his arms all over the place... Nobody from New Village can either... Dummy, let's go back, eh? Maybe they're freaks. They walk here, so they say, not often, but it happens. Better go back, eh? ... What're you taking me to New Village for anyway? Haven't I seen New Village before?"

  Kandid lost his temper. What the devil was all this? He'd walked this road a hundred times without meeting anybody, something worth recalling and pondering. And now, when they were leaving tomorrow - not even the day after, but tomorrow, of course it had to happen! - this one and only safe road becomes dangerous... You could only reach the City through New Village. If there was any reaching the City at all, if the City even existed, then the road to it led through New Village. He went back to the deadling. He pictured to himself Hopalong, Buster, and Barnacle, chattering ceaselessly, boasting, and threatening, as they stamped around this deadling, and then still continuing the boasts and threats, turning back from sin and going back to the village. He bent down and took the deadling by the legs. They were still hot but not enough to burn. With a flurry, he shoved the bulky body into the swamp. The quag champed, groaned, and gave way. The deadling disappeared, a ripple ran across the dark water and died.

  "Nava," said Kandid, "go to the village." "How should I go to the village if you aren't going there?" said Nava calculatingly, "now if you were to go to the village too..."

  "Stop chattering," said Kandid. "Run away now to the village and wait for me. And don't talk to anybody there."

  "What about you?"

  "I'm a man," said Kandid, "nobody's going to do anything to me."

  "Oh yes they will," objected Nava. "I'm telling you: what if they're freaks? It's all the same to them, you know, man, woman, or deadling, they'll make you into one of their own kind, you'll walk here, horrible, and grow onto a tree at night. How can I go on my own, when they could be back there?"

  "There's no such thing as freaks," said Kandid, without much confidence. "That's all travelers' tales..."

  He looked back. There was a bend in the road and what lay beyond that he could not guess either. Nava was saying something to him copiously, fast and whispering, which made it speciaHy unnerving. He took a better grip on his club.

  "All right. Come with me. Just stick close to me and if I order you to do something, do it straight away. And keep quiet, close your mouth, and say nothing till we get to New Village. Let's go."

  Keep quiet, of course she couldn't. She did stick close by his side, no more running ahead or lagging behind, but kept up a continuous muttering to herself:

  at first it was something about freaks then about the cellar, then about Hopalong and how she had walked these parts with him and made a flute... They negotiated the dangerous bend, then another and Kandid had relaxed somewhat, when right out of the tall grass in the swamp came people who halted silently before them.

  So it goes, thought Kandid wearily. Just my luck. Always just my luck. He glanced sideways at Nava. Nava was shaking her head and wrinkling up her face.

  "Don't you give me up to them, Dummy," she was muttering. "I don't want to go with them. I want to go with you, don't give me up..."

  He looked at the people. There were seven of them, all men, all overgrown with hair to the eyes and all with huge knobbly clubs. They weren't local people, they weren't clothed after the local fashion, quite different plants. These were robbers.

  "Well. why've you stopped?" said their leader in a deep rolling voice. "Come here, now. We mean you no harm... If you were deadlings, then of course, we'd have a different sort of talk, that is no talk at all, we'd take you to little bits, and that's all the talk there'd be... Where are you heading for? To New Village, I'd guess. That's all right, you can do that. You, pop, you get along. The little daughter, of course, you leave with us. Don't you fret, she'll be better off with us..."

  "No," said Nava, "I don't want to go with them. You hear that, Dummy, I don't want to go with them, they're robbers.. "

  The robbers began laughing, not gloating, just from habit.

  "Maybe, you'd let us both through?" asked Kandid. "No," said the leader, "both is out. Just now there are
deadlings around here, your little daughter would be a goner, she'll get to be a splendid Maiden or some such rubbish, and we get nothing out of that, nor do you, pop, think it out for yourself if you're a man and not a deadling, and you don't look much like one of them, though you've an odd look about you for a man."

  "She's still a girl, you know," said Kandid. "Why hurt her?"

  The leader was astonished.

  "Why do we have to harm her? She won't be a girl forever, when the time comes she'll be a woman, not one of your what d'you call 'em splendid Maidens, but a woman..."

  "It's all lies," said Nava, "don't you believe him, Dummy, do something quick as you've brought me here, or they'll cart me off this minute like they did Hopalong's daughter, since then nobody's set eyes on her, I don't want to go with them, better if I become one of them splendid Maidens... Look how wild they are and skinny, they've got nothing to eat by them either, very like..."

  Kandid looked about him helplessly, then an idea occurred to him, one that seemed good to him. "Listen, people," he pleaded, "take us both." The robbers approached without haste. Their leader inspected Kandid carefully from head to foot.

  "No," he said. "What do we need somebody like you for? You village lot are not fit for anything, you've got no desperation in you, why you're alive I don't know, we could come in and take the lot of you with our bare hands. We don't need you, pop, you talk a bit queer, no knowing what sort of a man you are, you get yourself to New Village and leave the little daughter with us."

  Kandid sighed deeply, took a grip on his club with both hands and said softly to Nava:

  "Now, Nava, run! Run, don't look back, I'll hold them back."

  Stupid, he thought. Of course it would turn out stupid. He remembered the deadling lying with its head in the dark water, like jelly, and lifted his club above his head.

  "Ey-ey!" cried the leader.

  All seven, shoving and slithering, rushed forward in a mass. Kandid could still hear the pattering of Nava's heels, then there was no time for that. He was frightened and ashamed, but his fear left him very quickly, since unexpectedly it pretty soon became clear that the only real fighter among the robbers was the leader. Fending off his blows, Kandid saw that the rest of them, while continuing to wave their clubs in an aimlessly aggressive manner, were just knocking into one another tottering from their own heroic swings, stopping often to spit on their palms. One of them suddenly gave a despairing squeal: "I'm sinking!" and collapsed noisily into the swamp, two of the robbers at once threw away their weapons and set to work dragging him out. The leader, however, pressed on croaking and stamping his feet, until Kandid caught him a chance blow on the kneecap. The leader dropped his staff, hissed sharply, and squatted on his haunches. Kandid leaped back.

  The two thieves were busy dragging the sinking one from the bog; he was completely stuck, his face had gone bluish. Their leader sat on his haunches and was examining his injury solicitously. The other three, sticks raised, were crowding about behind his back, also examining the injury over his head.

  "You're a fool, pop," said the leader reproachfully. "You didn't ought to do that, you village yokel. I've never seen the likes of you, and that's a fact... You can't see what's good for you, village yokel, blasted thick oaf..."

  Kandid waited no longer. He turned and raced after Nava as fast as his legs would carry him. The robbers called out after him, jeering and angry, the leader shouting: "Stop him! Stop him!" They didn't come after him, and Kandid wasn't happy about that. He experienced feelings of disappointment and annoyance and as he ran tried to imagine how these clumsy, awkward, and unmalicious people could so terrorize the villages and also in some way destroy deadlings, those agile and merciless fighters.

  Soon he caught sight of Nava; the girl was bounding along about thirty yards ahead, banging her hard bare heels down on the ground. He saw her disappear around a bend and suddenly reappear coming toward him, then freeze for an instant and race sideways straight across the swamp, leaping from root to root, amid flying spray. Kandid's heart stopped.

  "Don't," he roared, breathless. "Have you gone crazy? Stop!"

  Nava at once halted, grabbing at a liana, and turned toward him. Now he saw another three robbers emerging from the bend, who stopped, looking now at him, now at Nava.

  "Dummy!" cried Nava penetratingly. "You hit them and run here! You won't sink here don't be scared! Hit them, beat them! That's the way! Go on! Go on! Give it to them!"

  "You there," said one of the robbers solicitously, "stop that shouting, just hold on, or you'll fall in, drag you out after..."

  Behind him the robbers began stamping and crying:

  "Ooh-hoo!" The three in front waited. Then Kandid, seizing hold of his cudgel at both ends, thrust it ahead of him across his chest and flew at them, knocked all three down and fell over himself. He knocked himself badly on somebody but leaped up at once. Everything swam before his eyes. Somebody again cried out in terror: "I'm sinking." Someone's bearded face thrust at him and Kandid struck it a blow with his staff without looking. The staff broke in half. Kandid flung the fragment from him and jumped into the swamp.

  A root subsided under his foot and he very nearly came to grief, but at once leaped for the next and proceeded jumping heavily from one snag root to another, in a spray of black stinking mud. Nava squealed in triumph and whistled as he came toward her. In the rear angry voices resounded: "What happened to you, butterfingers, clumsy devil?"

  "What about you, then, tell me that!"

  "We let the girl go, the girl won't last long now..."

  "The man's gone mad, fighting!"

  "He ripped my clothes, blast it, what clothes too, best you can get, my clothes, but he tore them. Not even him, it was you tore them..."

  "That's enough talky-talk, when all's done; we've got to catch them, not talky-talk... See, they're running, and you talky-talk!"

  "What about you, then, tell me that!"

  "He hit my leg, see? Damaged my poor knee, but how he did it, I don't understand, I just swung and ..."

  "And where's Seveneyes? Boys, Seveneyes is sinking."

  "Sinking! That's right, sinking... Seveneyes sinking and they talky-talk!"

  Kandid came to a halt, and likewise grabbed hold of a liana; breathing heavily, he listened and watched the odd people piled up on the road, flailing their arms about, dragging their Seveneyes out of the bog by leg and head. Gurgling and snoring sounds filled the air. Two robbers were already moving toward Kandid, knee-deep in the black sludge, testing the quagmire with their staves. They were avoiding the root-snags. Lies again, thought Kandid. You could cross the swamp by a ford and everybody said you could only do it by the road. They used the robbers as bugbears, good Lord, what bugtoears!

  Nava tugged his arm. "Let's go, Dummy," she -said. "What're you standing there for? Let's go quick ... or maybe you want to fight a bit more[9] Wait then and I'll find you a good stick, then you can beat these two and the Others'11 get scared. Though if they don't, then they'll get the better of you, 'cos you're only one, and they're one ... two ... three ... four..."

  "Go where?" asked Kandid. "Will we get to New Village?"

  "We'il get there very like," said Nava. "I don't know why we shouldn't get to New Village..."

  "G" forward then," said Kandid, who had got his breath back by now. "Show me the way."

  Nava lightly sprang off into the forest, into the very depths of the green fog of undergrowth.

  "I'm not too sure which way we should go or how," said she as she ran. "But I've been here once, or maybe not once but more. Hopalong and I used to come here, before you came... Or no, you were here, only you were still going about witless, couldn't understand anything, couldn't talk, looked at everybody like a fish, then they gavie me to you, I married you, but you don't remember anything, likely..." Kandid jumped after her, striving to keep his breathing regular and keep exactly to her footprints. From time to time he glanced back. The robbers were not far off.

  "I came h
ere wilth Hopalong," continued Nava, "when Buster had his wife abducted by thieves, Hopa-long's daughter. He always used to take me with him, wanted to exchange me maybe, or just wanted to take me as his daughter, anyway he went with me into the forest, 'cos he was wasting away with grief for his daughter..."

  The lianas stuck to their arms, lashed their faces, and dead tangles of them dragged at their clothes and tripped them up. From above, detritus and insects rained down, and sometimes heavy, shapeless masses accumulated and plunged downward through the tangle of greenery and swayed about above their heads. To left or right could be glimpsed sticky purple clusters. fungi of some sort, or fruits, or some repulsive creatures' nests.

  "Hopalong used to say, that there's a village somewhere here..." Nava spoke lightly as she ran, as if she weren't running at all but lolling on her bed at home: it was obvious straight away she wasn't a local girl, the locals couldn't run. "Not our village and not New Village, some other, Hopalong told me the name but I've forgotten, it was a long time ago, after all, before you came ... or no, you were here, only you couldn't think, and they hadn't given me to you yet... And use your mouth when you breathe, no sense in using your nose, you can talk fine that way too, this way you'll get out of breath, we've a long way to run yet, we haven't got past the wasps, where we'll have to run fast, though maybe the wasps have gone from there since... They were the wasps of that village I was telling you about, but Hopalong used to say there's been no people in the village for ages, the Accession's happened there, he says, so there's no people left... No, Dummy, I'm lying, he was talking about another village..."