A Stone's Throw by James Ziskin (best sci fi novels of all time .TXT) 📕

The interior of Gammelhem revealed itself not as a residence but as a full-blown shrine to blood sports. Dead animals crowded every square meter of wall space. The trophies seemingly came from all seven continents, including a stuffed sea leopard from Antarctica. Rhinos and big cats surrounded a line of timber wolves mounted as if in a snarling pack. From closer to home in Sweden, elk, moose, fallow deer, and wild boar contended with full-size bear, lynx, and wolverine. All were preserved by faultless taxidermy.

Through a bank of windows giving out on the grounds, Brand saw something she could hardly credit. In a large steel cage, a pair of Bengal tigers playfully shadow boxed with each other in the snow. The enormous animals stopped tussling and turned to stare directly at the window where she and Hammar stood.

“Are those…?”

Hammar followed Brand’s wide-eyed gaze. “Oh, yes. The baron keeps quite an extensive menagerie.”

Penned goats and sheep foraged in a sloping paddock below the lodge. The twin tigers seemed to have an eye for them, too. Farther down the hill, near the collection of barns, a herd of exotic, shaggy-haired Highland cattle gathered in hock-deep snow drifts. The combination of predators and prey animals struck Brand as somehow perverse.

She gestured at the Bengals. “Woody Allen made an observation, ‘The lion will lie down with the lamb, but the lamb won’t get much sleep.’ When those tigers let out their roars in the middle of the night, do the cattle stampede?”

“How typical of a Jew to misquote the Holy Bible,” the baron said. “The prophet Isaiah mentions not the lion but the wolf and the lamb.”

“I think the insomnia is the main point, isn’t it?” Brand returned lightly.

“My dear ones are named Hillary and Bill,” Baron Kron said, indicating the two tigers. “It amused me to name them so, even though they are actually mother and son. We can visit them later, perhaps to get their views on the latest Middle East crisis. But now, come, I am anxious to introduce you to Jimmy.”

He led them up another set of stone steps, walls on both sides again dominated by heads of dead beasts. At the top of the stairway stood a welcoming committee of two: a Romani woman, colorfully dressed, standing with a small-statured chimpanzee got up in a traditional bellhop’s uniform.

“You see, I have turned out the whole circus for you,” the baron said.

36.

The little ape took Brand by the hand and led her into an immense, gallery-like sitting room. The woman, evidently the ape’s keeper, trailed behind. Hammar and the baron brought up the rear.

Brand had never experienced the touch of a chimpanzee before. The little guy’s skin was creased and black but gave off the uncanny warmth of a human hand. He loosened his grasp when they all arrived at a small seating arrangement of couches and leather club chairs.

“Veronika.” The baron took up Brand’s hand that the chimpanzee had just dropped, put it to his lips, and led her to a couch. He sat down beside her. Up close, he smelled of tobacco. Underlying that was the slight scent of decay.

“I must have your permission to call you by your Christian name,” he said. “I feel as though we are old friends. You must use mine, which is Gösta.”

The baron gestured toward the chimp bellhop. “What might Jimmy get for you? He makes an excellent martini. And we also have a very nice bottle of French champagne just waiting to be corked. Or perhaps beer?”

Brand resisted informing the man she wasn’t thirsty. The emotional hangover from the scene at the sauna the night before put her off alcohol. More to see the animal perform than because she would consume one, she chose the cocktail.

The chimp’s female handler pronounced a few curt words in an unrecognizable tongue. The little ape ambled over to a wet bar set-up. He climbed with an easy movement onto a stool in order to reach the countertop. Brand watched, fascinated. Jimmy unerringly selected an emerald bottle of vermouth from a crowded shelf of liquors. He opened it, splashed a few drops into a shaker and then immediately dumped the liquid back out.

“He needs to know if you prefer gin or vodka,” the baron asked.

“Um, gin, I guess,” Brand said.

Again, the Romani woman directed the chimp with a brief command. From the collection of bottles, the animal fetched up a liter of Beefeater. He poured a generous portion into the shaker that had been rinsed with vermouth. Using a scoop, he added ice, then closed the shaker and gave it an agitated rattle.

    “Shaken, not stirred, you see?” the baron called out.

Transferring the mixture into a glass, the chimp climbed down from the stool. He took the cocktail off the countertop. Bringing it over to Brand, he slopped only a very little liquid on the way.

“Thank you,” she said, accepting the prize. She found it difficult not to applaud.

The chimp stared up at her with a teeth-baring grin that looked more like a grimace.

“Should I tip him?” Brand asked.

The baron laughed. “Oh, you must taste your martini first. Sometimes Jimmy has a heavy hand with the vermouth.”

“It’s excellent,” Brand said, taking a sip. The taste of the gin took her back to her days as a drunk, and not in a pleasant way.

“Gå nu,” the Count commanded. Leave now. The handler led the little chimp away. Brand was sorry to see them go.

“Do you like my little fellow primate?” Kron asked, rising to serve himself and Hammar glasses of champagne. “Chimpanzee, you know, that is a Bantu word that means ‘fake man.’ I find it interesting to keep such a creature around me, though he can get tiresome. The comparison between ape behavior and that of the homo sapiens is always instructive.”

“Homo sapiens means ‘wise human,’ doesn’t it?” Brand said. “Although there are times when I look around and have to conclude wisdom is not