Gerald Durrell: The Corfu Trilogy

‘When you shoot a hippopotamus or river horse,’ droned Colonel Ribbindane, oblivious to interruption, ‘as I have had the good fortune to do, you aim between the eyes and the ears, thus ensuring that the bullet penetrates the brain.’

‘Yes, yes,’ Kralefsky agreed, hypnotized by the Colonel’s protuberant blue eyes.

‘Bang!’ said the Colonel, so suddenly and loudly that Kralefsky nearly dropped his plate. ‘You hit him between the eyes… Splash! Crunch!… straight into the brain, d’you see?’

‘Yes, yes,’ said Kralefsky, swallowing and going white.

‘Splosh!’ said the Colonel, driving the point home. ‘Blow his brains out in a fountain.’

Kralefsky closed his eyes in horror and put down his half-eaten plate of suckling pig.

‘He sinks then,’ the colonel went on, ‘sinks right down to the bottom of the river… glug, glug, glug. Then you wait twenty-four hours – d’you know why?’

‘No… I… uh…’ said Kralefsky, swallowing frantically.

‘Flatulence,’ explained the colonel with satisfaction. ‘All the semi-digested food in its belly, d’you see? It rots and produces gas. Up puffs the old belly like a balloon and up she pops.’

‘H-How interesting,’ said Kralefsky faintly. ‘I think, if you will just excuse me…’

‘Funny things, stomach contents…’ mused the colonel, ignoring Kralefsky’s attempts at escape. ‘Belly is swollen up to twice its natural size; when you cut it open, whoosh! like slicing up a zeppelin full of sewage, d’you see?’

Kralefsky put his handkerchief over his mouth and gazed round in an anguished manner.

‘Different with the elephant, the largest land quadruped in Africa,’ the colonel droned on, filling his mouth with crisp suckling pig. ‘D’you know the pygmies cut it open, crawl into the belly and eat the liver all raw and bloody… still quivering sometimes. Funny little chaps, pygmies… negroes, of course…’

Kralefsky, now a delicate shade of yellow-green, escaped to the veranda, where he stood in the moonlight taking deep breaths.

The suckling pig had vanished, the bones gleamed white in the joints of lamb and boar, and the rib cages and breast bones of the chickens and turkeys and ducks lay like the wreckage of upturned boats. Jeejee, having sampled a little of everything, at Mother’s insistence, and having declared it infinitely superior to anything he had ever eaten before, was vying with Theodore to see how many Taj Mahal Titbits they could consume.

‘Delicious,’ muttered Jeejee indistinctly, his mouth full. ‘Simply delicious, my dear Mrs Durrell. You are the apotheosis of culinary genius.’

‘Yes indeed,’ said Theodore, popping another Taj Mahal Titbit into his mouth and scrunching it up. ‘They’re really excellent. They make something similar in Macedonia… er… um… but with goat’s milk.’

‘Jeejee, did you really break your leg levitating, or whatever it’s called?’ asked Margo.

‘No,’ said Jeejee sorrowfully. ‘I vouldn’t mind if I had, it vould have been in a good cause. No, the damned stupid hotel vere I stayed had French vindows in the bedrooms but they couldn’t afford a balcony.’

‘Sounds like a Corfu hotel,’ said Leslie.

‘So one evening I was overcome with forgetfulness and I stepped out onto the balcony to do some deep breathing; and of course there vas no balcony.’

‘You might have been killed,’ said Mother. ‘Have another titbit.’

‘Vat is death?’ asked Jeejee oratorically. ‘A mere sloughing of the skin, a metamorphosis. I vent into a deep trance in Persia and my friend got incontrovertible proof that in a previous life I vas Ghengis Khan.’

‘You mean the film star?’ asked Margo, wide-eyed.

‘No, dear Margo, the great varrior,’ said Jeejee.

‘You mean you could remember being him?’ asked Leslie, interested.

‘Alas, no. I vas in a trance,’ said Jeejee sadly. ‘One is not allowed to remember one’s previous lives.’

‘You… khan have your cake and eat it,’ explained Theodore, delighted at having found an opportunity for a pun.

‘I wish everybody would hurry up and finish eating,’ said Margo, ‘then we could get on with the acts.’

‘To hurry such a meal vould be an insult,’ said Jeejee. ‘There is time, the whole night stretches before us. Besides, Gerry and I have to go and organize my supporting cast of reptiles.’

It took quite some time before the cabaret was ready, for everyone was full of wine and good food and refused to be hurried. Eventually, however, Margo got the cast assembled. She had tried to get Larry to be master of ceremonies but he had refused; he said that if she wanted him to be part of the cabaret he was not going to be master of ceremonies as well. In desperation, she had had to step into the breach herself. Blushing slightly, she took up her place on the tiger skin by the piano and called for silence.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ she said. ‘Tonight, for your entertainment, we have a cabaret of the best talent on the island and I’m sure that you will all enjoy the talents of these talented talents.’

She paused, blushing, while Kralefsky gallantly led the applause.

‘I would like to introduce Constantino Megalotopolopopoulos,’ she continued, ‘who is going to act as accompanist.’

A tiny, fat little Greek, looking like a swarthy ladybird, trotted into the room, bowed, and sat down at the piano. This had been one of Spiro’s achievements, for Mr Megalotopolopopoulos, a draper’s assistant, could not only play the piano but read music as well.

‘And now,’ said Margo, ‘it is with great pleasure that I present to you that very talented artiste Lena Mavrokondas accompanied by Constantino Megalotopolopopoulos on the piano. Lena will sing that great area from Rosy Cavalier , “The Presentation of the Rose”.’

Lena, glowing like a tiger-lily, swept to the piano, bowed to Constantino, placed her hands carefully over her midriff as though warding off a blow, and began to sing.

‘Beautiful, beautiful,’ said Kralefsky as she finished and bowed to our applause. ‘What virtuosity.’

‘Yes,’ said Larry, ‘it used to be known as the three-vee method at Covent Garden.’

‘Three-vee?’ asked Kralefsky, much interested. ‘What’s that?’

‘Vim, vibrato, and volume,’ said Larry.

‘Tell them I will sing encore,’ whispered Lena to Margo after a whispered consultation with Constantino Megalotopolopopoulos.

‘Oh yes. How nice,’ said Margo flustered and unprepared for this largesse. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, Lena will now sing another song, called “The Encore”.’

Lena gave Margo a withering look and swept into her next song with such vigour and so many gestures that even Creech was impressed.

‘By George, she’s a good-looking wench, that!’ he exclaimed, his eyes watering with enthusiasm.

‘Yes, a true artiste,’ agreed Kralefsky.

‘What chest expansion,’ said Creech admiringly. ‘Bows like a battleship.’

Lena finished on a zither-like note and bowed to the applause which was loud but nicely judged in warmth and length to discourage another encore.

‘Thank you Lena, that was wonderful. Just like the real thing,’ said Margo, beaming. ‘And now, ladies and gentlemen, I present the famous escape artists, Krafty Kralefsky and his partner, Slithery Stephanides.’

‘Dear God,’ said Larry, ‘who thought of those names?’

‘Need you ask?’ said Leslie; ‘Theodore. Kralefsky wanted to call the act “The Mysterious Escapologist Illusionists” but Margo couldn’t guarantee to say it properly.’

‘One must be thankful for small mercies,’ said Larry.

Theodore and Kralefsky clanked on to the floor near the piano carrying their load of ropes, chains and padlocks.