Albert passed him from behind, carrying a sack of fish heads. He said only “Good morning,” and nodded to indicate Karel should follow. They crossed to the Reptile House, white hairs atop the old man’s head waving lazily in the breeze. He was wearing a white lab coat that had a footprint on the back of it. They entered the building through the rear and stopped opposite the enclosure for the giant tortoise so Albert could scrutinize its carapace at length. He eyed one side especially critically, pointing out a stretch of what looked like mold. He didn’t say anything. In response to their attention the tortoise rose up on her feet, considered movement, and lowered herself down again.
“Ever feed her something like that?” Karel asked, to break the silence. He indicated the sack of fish heads.
She ate only vegetation, Albert said. Which was about the only type of food she could catch. He turned away from her enclosure and at a crossing hall handed the fish heads to an assistant heading toward the crocodiles.
They stopped again on the snake tier at a glass enclosure that seemed empty. Karel was all attention, trying to be the star pupil. What am I looking at? he thought. Albert tapped the glass. A snake appeared, a hognose, unnoticed in plain view by Karel because Karel was still, as Albert always told him, inexperienced at seeing. The old man’s tapping the glass made clear that he’d seen Karel’s confusion, and Karel thumped his forehead on the pane and let it rest there, despairing of ever learning anything. The hognose, a mottled brown with an upturned nose like a shovel lip, rose and hooded its neck and hissed loudly, mimicking a cobra, and then struck at the glass. When Karel didn’t move, it rolled over and played dead, its mouth agape and tongue hanging out.
At the lizard tier they stopped beside the desert iguanas. A small gecko looked on from across the aisle, waving its tail like a prowling cat. Albert gathered the long metal tube and a bag of olives left for him against the wall and prepared to enter the enclosure at the end of the row while Karel watched a brilliant yellow iguana, entranced at its way of growing torpid in intricate attitudes. Albert cleared his throat, and Karel came to himself and followed him around the back of the tier.
The old man smoothed his hair and straightened his coat, as if preparing to meet royalty, and then tapped the door loudly to clear away dim-witted individuals who hadn’t registered the vibrations of his footsteps. He opened it, gestured Karel through, and followed. They watched carefully where they stepped. Iguanas scattered in various directions and then froze as if playing a children’s game. Some froze on branches, others head downward on rock faces. A few squeezed into clefts in the piled shale. Albert was making tiny squeaking noises with his pursed lips. He had his sights set on a small brown lizard with a large head, clinging to a rock not much bigger than itself. He identified it as a crested anole. Not feeling good, he said, but she wouldn’t hold still for the noose.
The noose was the usual way of gathering specimens, a thin bamboo pole a few feet long with a string running its length and a tiny lasso dangling from the end. Few lizards seemed to mind having the pole waved cautiously over their heads, and most were gathered this way without harm, after some admittedly exasperating maneuvering of the miniature noose. When the noose tightened they always spread their legs stiffly, as if refusing to believe they were being lifted from the earth.
“So,” Albert said, “we resort to drastic measures.” He held up an end of the metal tube and fitted an olive into it. He put his mouth to it like a bugle, aimed the other end at the anole, and blew hard. The olive ricocheted off two walls and the anole bounced off the rock and rolled over limp.
A larger lizard scurried to the olive and clasped it, stopping in that position.
“It doesn’t hurt them?” Karel asked, amazed.
Albert shook his head, gathering the anole gently into a mesh specimen net. Its small mouth gaped, and Karel could see grain-sized teeth. “Ripe olives,” Albert said. “The nomads, when they want to kill them for food, use pebbles or nails.” He held the little drooping animal up for Karel’s inspection. An assistant passed by and stared at them through the glass. “How would you describe her on a field report?” he asked.
Karel coughed, immediately nervous.
“You’d start with size,” Albert said.
“Size,” Karel said quickly, and trailed off.
“Extensible throat fan,” Albert said. He pointed out the throat sac. He asked Karel if there were other distinguishing characteristics.
Karel nodded, appreciating his tone. He pointed out to Albert the coloration, the crossbands, the compressed tail with a crest supported, Albert demonstrated, by bony rays.
“She loves the sun,” Albert said fondly, and prepared to leave.
Karel asked what was wrong with her.
“That we’ll find out,” Albert said, and he smiled, and patted the anole with his forefinger as he might pat a soap bubble.
Outside the enclosure he went on for Karel’s benefit, though he’d been ready to leave. His voice was patient. He offered the information whatever Karel’s capacities. She was a member of the Iguanidae family, fourteen genera, with forty-four species native to their range. She was small for the group. Did he notice the five clawed toes? Did he notice the teeth attached to the bony ledge inside the jaw? She’d only lay one egg every couple of weeks. Her mate would defend his territorial range by elaborate behavioral signals that resembled energetic pushups. When they found a mate, Karel would see.
He left Karel to the feeding, and Karel, once he’d returned from the food kitchens, sat among the iguanas and anoles in their enclosure, watching them eat their mealworms and grapes, gazing at his reflection beyond them in the glass, and smiling at passing assistants, who smiled indulgently back.
He stopped by Leda’s on the way home. He was so inured to not finding her there that he was already backing away from the hedge, angry with himself for being so pathetic, when he realized he’d seen her. She was sitting in a lounge chair, holding a letter and envelope out in front of her like mismatched socks. He hesitated and then passed through the gap in the hedge to their garden. She said hi and smiled at him as if not wanting to forget something else. While he fumbled and made hand motions of hello, she slipped the letter into a flimsy overseas envelope with a dreamy precision. She was wearing a blue-and-white striped blouse with a gory ketchup stain that had not washed out, and her brown hair fanned across her cheeks. There was a faint vaccination mark on the tan of her arm. Her forehead looked damp. She said, “Well. I haven’t seen you in a while,” sounding like a much older girl.
“So hi,” he said. His hands described a half-wave and caught themselves.
She looked at him steadily, as if she’d forgotten something about him, and set the letter aside with an odd delicacy that stirred him. He felt again reduced in her presence, and to compensate stepped forward for no reason and tipped a planter holding some pale trumpets, flopping them dismally onto the ground and spilling dirt.
“Eep,” she said, bending close. She helped him gather the dirt back into the terra-cotta planter. She said her mother would die. She sounded pleased. Her eyelashes were longer at the outer corners, giving her eyes a special slant.
She settled back into the lounge chair while he tried to get the trumpets to remain upright. They tipped and drooped and packing the soil seemed not to help, and finally he left one hand cradled around the stems and tried to settle himself into a comfortable crouch beside them. She produced a bundled blue sweater and attached ball of yarn from somewhere and arranged them on her lap. Her shoulders and the back of her neck were red, and he worried tenderly about sunburn. She was focused on the sweater. There were shortages, and apparently it was being sacrificed for another project. She began winding, her hand a rapid satellite around the ball of wool, and in thin rumples and lines the sweater began to disappear. He was disheartened by her ability to shift in his presence to an abrupt and neutral lack of interest, the way dogs might in the middle of play.