Zé chewed the end of his pencil and rubbed his left cheekbone in unconscious imitation of the captain. I could ask Vik, he thought, except that I can’t figure out how. This was a native boy a year or so older than Zé who appeared to be indigenous to the dockside, and with whom he had struck up a sort of friendship despite the lack of a common language. Vik had a smattering of Portuguese and English, and had taught Zé a few words of Hindi, but it was hardly a sufficient linguistic basis for explaining such a sophisticated concept as that of a man who turned into a wolf. The greater part of most of their conversations was conducted in sign language, with odd words thrown in here and there — usually very loudly, since Vik seemed convinced that Zé would understand him if only he shouted loudly enough.
Another drop of sweat fell on his book, and he wiped it off absently, noticing in passing that the page was quite pocked with damp patches. It had been uncomfortably hot and humid ever since they had put into port, even when the skies opened — as they did fairly often — and released a torrent of rain as solid as the sea. Zé found this quite remarkable, being used to the air feeling fresher after rain had fallen.
If it is a werewolf, he thought, I wonder if Father has silver bullets for his revolver? And that led to another idea, just as exciting: did his mother make them for him? Emilia Da Silva was a jeweller, and he had watched her casting small metal trinkets often enough; though since the captain had acquired the Isabella she also ran the business from an office in Lisbon, and that took up much of her time. Zé visualized his father stalking something in deep shadows, gun in hand, but his picture of the werewolf itself was somewhat hazier. The illustrations in O’Rourke’s books showed hairy beasts that bore very little resemblance to actual wolves — not that Zé had ever seen a real wolf, except a stuffed one once — but he wanted the werewolf to be more formidable, somehow, than those often ill-drawn pictures. To be a better adversary.
Unaware of his son’s train of thought, Da Silva headed away from the stinks of the waterfront into the only slightly different stinks of the town, making for a small grey church that sat on a bare sward that perhaps once had been green with grass, incongruous amongst tall palm trees and leathery-leaved frangipani.
The Portuguese who had colonized this shore had been as much evangelists as explorers and, like most zealots, had been enthusiastic in suppressing local religions and, often forcibly, substituting their own. That missionary zeal meant that there was no shortage of priests in the area, which should have been good news, since in most places a priest was a reliable, not to say indefatigable source of information.
Father Miguel Domingues did not look, at first sight, like the kind of ascetic who wore a hair shirt, being decidedly on the plump side. But on closer inspection, his chin and his round skull alike had both been shaved to within an inch of their life, and his lips were bracketed with deep furrows and were too thin for his full face. It gave him a forbidding air, and Da Silva’s heart sank. He looks like a damned Jesuit, he thought.
The priest arched his nostrils at Da Silva and eyed the captain haughtily, taking in eyepatch and scar and incongruously blue eye, and damp untidy hair and four o’clock beard, somehow combining an expressionless stare with the appearance of being singularly unimpressed. Da Silva returned the stare and decided the feeling was mutual, though how Domingues managed to cope with wearing full clerical fig without apparently raising a sweat was, admittedly, quite a trick.
‘What can I do for you, my son?’ he enquired, in the peculiarly gentle tone that some priests affected, and that never failed to set the captain’s teeth on edge. They probably took a special course on it at the seminary, he decided. Unctuous condescension certificate.
Da Silva had already made up his mind not to beat about the bush by skirting around the topic. He lit up a cheroot, partly because the priest looked the type to be irritated by smoke, with his flaring patrician nose — though God knew his sinuses must have had to put up with much worse things than cigars, living here — and said bluntly, ‘Have you heard about this wolf that’s supposed to be eating children?’
The priest gave him a raking stare that said plainly, What business is it of yours? but answered in an indulgent tone. ‘Of course. Tragic. But these things happen, my son. I fear that despite all our efforts, many of these poor souls remain unenlightened.’
And that makes it all right if they’re eaten, does it? Da Silva thought. He blew smoke out, and wiped sweat from his upper lip. ‘It doesn’t worry you?’
‘It saddens me deeply,’ replied the priest. ‘If those poor children had been baptized they would now be with God, however unfortunate their lives on earth.’
There’s my problem, thought the captain. I don’t believe that any more, if I ever did. Why should God be so petty as to turn them away? Aloud, he said, ‘What do you think about the rumour that it’s some kind of supernatural beast?’
At that, Father Domingues chuckled indulgently, his prejudices about seafarers obviously confirmed. ‘My son, my son,’ he said, overt condescension creeping into his voice that implied not only superstitious sailor but also, and not very far behind at that, ignorant peasant as well. ‘I do hope that we have put that sort of superstition behind us. We are, after all, living in the twentieth century now.’
The captain, who was rather more than half inclined to dismiss the better part of religion’s trappings as superstition invented by priests to subjugate ignorant populaces — especially those parts which led the ordained to believe in their own superiority, if not omnipotence — bared his teeth in something that was almost a smile. ‘But a lot of people do still believe in that sort of thing. Don’t you believe in the Devil, Father?’ he added. A little to his surprise the priest reddened, but the captain was careful not show his amusement.
‘Evil can come in many forms,’ the priest said sharply, looking at Da Silva with narrowed eyes. ‘But prayer is always effective.’
Da Silva stared back, suddenly furious at the sheer stupidity of the man’s arrogant ignorance, and bit back an angry retort. Prayer is always effective! Yes, and I’m the grand panjandrum of all India. He had to take care not to show his anger, though, so merely raised an eyebrow fractionally. ‘I’m sure I can count on your prayers, then,’ he said, and turned to go.
To hell with the whole pack of them, he thought viciously. If they’re too bloody narrow-minded to see what’s in front of their noses, then I’ll get the information I want from someone who knows. Still imagining he could feel Father Domingues’s gaze on him, he took a few deep breaths to steady himself. An unwise reaction, given the truly heroic level of putridity in the street.
Carefully he picked his way along, skirting deep, opaque, chalky-yellow puddles that you would never even consider putting a foot into. Not if you wanted to keep your boot intact, that was. And then he frowned, feeling another presence watching him, though when he looked round there was nothing suspicious to be seen. Not even the priest.
He was roused from his thoughts by a voice cutting through the cacophony of the street and speaking cultured Portuguese. ‘Excuse me, senhor capitão, but perhaps I can be of help.’ He turned round abruptly, his accoster having come up on his blind side, to see an elderly man clad only in a dhoti and a coat of dust. This ancient recoiled slightly at Da Silva’s grim expression, but persisted. ‘If you were wanting to know about the. wolf, that is.’