Aurorarama - Jean-Christophe Valtat [44]
“I’m impressed, really,” he said, becoming almost dizzy when he lifted his eyes toward the vault.
A titanic amount of work and skill had gone into this scheme, and he really wondered what was the point, beyond sheer performance. It did not look like the kind of cheap entertainment that the surroundings promised, but neither was it credible as a scientific or cultural endeavour. The idea of having real Eskimos going through the motions of hunting stuffed animals seemed especially ludicrous when everything around seemed designed for wax figures. It was enough to look at those four real Inuit in furs who came out of an igloo and blinked around, hands over their eyes, seeming as lost as Gabriel, to understand the absurdity of it all.
The four Eskimos regrouped and walked toward the exit, coming closer to Gabriel, who could hear them laughing behind their sleeves, when a fifth one, in an employee’s uniform, darted out of the igloo and ran after them, apparently furious. He caught by the arm the last of the group, a long-haired, bowlegged, smelly fellow who seemed to be hiding something under his parka, and whispered to him something in Inuktitut that Gabriel had not enough vocabulary to grasp but that was, by the sound of it, an unequivocal reproach. The other fellow strove to free his arm, pulling faces at his aggressor, while the remaining three seemed rather amused at the scene. Suddenly, another of the uniformed guards, a white man, strode from the entrance toward the group.
“Hey, Oosik,” he said, “what’s going on here?”
“Nothing, nothing, sir,” said the Eskimo guard, who looked rather embarrassed, while the others now laughed openly, elbowing each other in the ribs.
“Oosik, cousins or not, I told you to be discreet when you took them in,” said the white guard. “People are working here and have no time to fool around.”
“They gave me good advice for the igloos,” pleaded Oosik.
“And I’m giving you some as well,” said the guard. “Get them out of here, before I tell Mr. Peterswarden. Hey, but what are you hiding here?” he exclaimed, pointing at the long-haired Inuk Oosik was holding by the sleeve.
“Nothing,” said Oosik, blushing. “It’s a little joke between us.”
The oldest of the four befurred Inuit—a small, stocky man with a wrinkled face—said something to the long-haired man, who laughed and pulled out his hand from under his parka, showing a little carved knife he had stolen from the igloo. He handed it to the white guard with a smile that lacked some teeth. But the smile waned as the guard briskly grasped the knife and returned him an angry look. There was an instant of awkward silence. Gabriel could see the other Inuit get tense. The old one extended his hand toward the white guard, as, Gabriel supposed, a gesture of appeasement, but the guard violently pushed it aside, and taking a whistle from his breast pocket, blew it, the shrill sounds causing a commotion that rippled across the stilllife scenery. Guards suddenly appeared from all the corners of the hall, running toward the Inuit. Kelvin stepped in, trying to calm the guard, but the man would hear nothing, and tried instead to seize the thief, who, in his turn, pushed the guard back so violently that he fell to the floor. The other Inuit looked at each other, and then, without a word, all four started to run toward the exit, though other guards were now blocking the way. The Inuit tried to dodge them, but were tackled, and a wrestling match ensued that the fur clothes of the Eskimos seemed to muffle and make more playful to the casual observer (who, tired as he was, found it a good excuse not to intervene). Screams and swearing echoed through the hall, until more guards, streaming from the rear in Keystone Kops quantities, managed to catch and control the Eskimos. Other Inuit employees of the palace, along with Oosik and Kelvin, were trying to placate the guards. The fur-clad Inuit were now being put back on their feet and dragged away