Free Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel Page A

that? Or the detail I notice every day without fail: his lovely dark nails, shiny and slightly bulbous, so that the tip of his every finger and toe glistens like a large dewdrop." Henry was pleased to be speaking in Beatrice's voice.
      "Excellent, excellent," muttered the taxidermist. He was writing as fast as he could.
      "And I have yet to describe his most eye-catching attribute, that which earns him half his species name: his fur." Henry lightly ran his hand over Virgil's back. "It's soft, thick and lustrous, the back brick-red in colour, while the   head and the limbs have more of a chestnut hue. In sunlight, when Virgil is in motion, climbing trees and jumping from one branch to another while I stand, four-footed and rooted to the ground, there is something of molten copper to his movements, a direct, unspoiled ease to even the simplest gesture, dazzling to watch."
      "That's Virgil to a letter," exclaimed the taxidermist.
      "Good." A conventional descriptive job, matching a concrete reality with its most obvious verbal counterparts, yet Henry too was pleased. It had been such a long time since he had made this kind of effort.
      "And his howl?"
      The taxidermist returned to the cassette player, rewound the tape and played it a second time. Erasmus immediately started up again in the next room. Henry and the taxidermist ignored him.
      "The sound quality isn't very good," Henry said.
      "No, it isn't. It was recorded more than forty years ago in the jungles of the upper Amazon."
      The howl had that quality, of something coming from far away long ago. It had survived--it was there, coming through all the crackling--but Henry was as much aware of the span of time and gulf of distance over which it had improbably bounded as he was of the howl itself.
      "I don't know. It's hard to put into words," he said.
      The taxidermist played the howl a third time. Erasmus was properly howling himself in the next room.
      Henry shook his head. "Nothing's coming to me at the moment," he said. "Sounds are hard to describe. And my dog is distracting me."
      The taxidermist stared at him blankly. Was he disappointed? Piqued?
      "I'll have to wait for the muse to whisper to me," Henry said. He felt a weight of weariness descending on him. "I have an idea. I'll think about the howl. In the meantime, in exchange, write something for me about taxidermy. Don't overthink it. Just dash some thoughts onto the page. That's always a good writing exercise."
      The taxidermist nodded, but Henry wasn't sure if it was in agreement.
      "And why don't you give me your play? I'll read it and tell you what I think."
      The taxidermist's reply was short: "I don't want to." Henry heard the definite tone. The full stop in his refusal had resounded like the pad of a judge's gavel being struck. There would be no appeal, or even any explanation, about why he didn't want Henry to read his play.
      "But take the cassette player with you. That way you can listen to the howl again while you're working on it."
      Henry had not bargained on that.
      "I noticed you were looking at the monkey skull mounted on the golden rod," the taxidermist continued.
      "Yes, I was. It's striking."
      "It's the skull of a howler monkey."
      "It is?" Henry felt a quiver of horror.
      "Yes."
      "But not Virgil's?"
      "No. Virgil's skull is inside Virgil's head."
    Thirty minutes later Henry walked out of the store, an impatient Erasmus pulling at his leash. It was good to be out in the brisk air again. Henry was late for rehearsal but he entered the small grocery store anyway. He asked if he could have a dish of water for Erasmus. The man behind the counter kindly obliged.
      "That's quite the store around the corner," Henry said to him.
      "Yeah. It's been there since the dinosaurs went home."
      "What's he like, the man who runs it?"
      "Crazy old man. Gets into fights with the whole neighbourhood. Comes in here to do two things and only two things: