had no real intention of appearing before news cameras. The only real spot of colour about him was his lapel pin from the Blood Bank, a red plastic droplet.
The bold outlines of Smilax’s face were softened by a dapper moustache, while rimless glasses diluted the peculiar intensity of his gaze. Nevertheless his was the unrelenting expression of a man used to commanding, not acquiescing. He could not fawn, like most civilian ‘experts’ consulted by the Joint Chiefs. Smilax gave orders, he did not beg to be given orders, and all the clerkliness in his appearance could not disguise the fact. Breeding, he thought, permitting himself a small, ironic smile, will out.
Toto Smilax, M.D., D.V.M.S., Ph.D. (Chem.) and M.E.E., was the scion of a good family, though only by accident. One of his earliest memories was of his mother’s shaking her head and saying, ‘Son, I don’t never want you to go wrong like I done.’
He was five years old before he learned what ‘going wrong’ meant; it meant having a child without being married first. At once Toto began to worry that he would, somehow, actually
give birth to a child out of wedlock. Every morning he looked in his bed fearfully, to see if a baby had arrived.
Lotte Smilax, his mother, had never married. She often told little Toto how her father had been an important man in the West, and how she had brought disgrace upon the family by allowing the mad butler to rape her at gunpoint.
‘It was all because my Daddy never beat me,’ she would say. ‘Oh, if only he had beat me ! But I mean to do better by you, my son. I won’t make the same mistakes. I want to give you every chance I never had.’
So saying, she would commence larrupping him with anything handy: her boot, a whip, a ladle, or a belt.
School was for Toto equally onerous, for the other children tortured him without mercy, to the limits of their fiendish imaginations. They poked him with compasses, stole or tore his books, implied that his mother was a ‘hoot’ and that he was born out of wedlock, stoned him, made up songs about him, and invited him to eat (in summer) sand and mud, and (in winter) unclean snow.
The reason they did all this was because, of course, his name was Toto. It was not a Christian name, it was not even the name of a famous hero, real or fictional. It was the name of a dog.
Poor Toto had been named for his mother’s favourite character in fiction, Dorothy’s little dog in
The Wizard of Oz
. Lotte, it must be confessed, was fond of animals, and her bookshelf was filled with dog books, including the complete works of Albert Payson Terhune and
Dog of Flanders
, which Lotte never read without weeping.
She may have been a stern disciplinarian, but Toto’s mother was also a warm-hearted, impulsively generous creature, who never could resist bringing home a hungry dog or lame kitten. Generally the hearth was merry with one or two Lads, a Rex, a Spot, and perhaps half-a-dozen Snowballs and Midnights. Lotte often encouraged them to dine sitting up together at the table with her, for she loved to have company for dinner, and Toto for his own good was restricted to his bowl on the kitchen floor, marked with his name.
Every night, curled up in his little basket, Toto would hear his mother going out to her SPCA meeting. He would lay there and pray, naming each of her pets in connection with a different kind of painful death. To finish off the list, he would conjure up a set of slow agonies for Albert Payson Terhune, whom he
somehow imagined to be Lotte’s father.
One day they took one of the mangy Rexes to the Pet Clinic. Toto wandered around the building, discovering the mysteries of veterinary medicine. Through a glass partition he saw a cat undergoing Caesarian section to give up six kittens. Toto pressed his nose to the glass wistfully. It was all so beautiful—the bright red blood, the clean linen, the very mystery of reproduction itself, laid open by a glittering knife. So this was
The bold outlines of Smilax’s face were softened by a dapper moustache, while rimless glasses diluted the peculiar intensity of his gaze. Nevertheless his was the unrelenting expression of a man used to commanding, not acquiescing. He could not fawn, like most civilian ‘experts’ consulted by the Joint Chiefs. Smilax gave orders, he did not beg to be given orders, and all the clerkliness in his appearance could not disguise the fact. Breeding, he thought, permitting himself a small, ironic smile, will out.
Toto Smilax, M.D., D.V.M.S., Ph.D. (Chem.) and M.E.E., was the scion of a good family, though only by accident. One of his earliest memories was of his mother’s shaking her head and saying, ‘Son, I don’t never want you to go wrong like I done.’
He was five years old before he learned what ‘going wrong’ meant; it meant having a child without being married first. At once Toto began to worry that he would, somehow, actually
give birth to a child out of wedlock. Every morning he looked in his bed fearfully, to see if a baby had arrived.
Lotte Smilax, his mother, had never married. She often told little Toto how her father had been an important man in the West, and how she had brought disgrace upon the family by allowing the mad butler to rape her at gunpoint.
‘It was all because my Daddy never beat me,’ she would say. ‘Oh, if only he had beat me ! But I mean to do better by you, my son. I won’t make the same mistakes. I want to give you every chance I never had.’
So saying, she would commence larrupping him with anything handy: her boot, a whip, a ladle, or a belt.
School was for Toto equally onerous, for the other children tortured him without mercy, to the limits of their fiendish imaginations. They poked him with compasses, stole or tore his books, implied that his mother was a ‘hoot’ and that he was born out of wedlock, stoned him, made up songs about him, and invited him to eat (in summer) sand and mud, and (in winter) unclean snow.
The reason they did all this was because, of course, his name was Toto. It was not a Christian name, it was not even the name of a famous hero, real or fictional. It was the name of a dog.
Poor Toto had been named for his mother’s favourite character in fiction, Dorothy’s little dog in
The Wizard of Oz
. Lotte, it must be confessed, was fond of animals, and her bookshelf was filled with dog books, including the complete works of Albert Payson Terhune and
Dog of Flanders
, which Lotte never read without weeping.
She may have been a stern disciplinarian, but Toto’s mother was also a warm-hearted, impulsively generous creature, who never could resist bringing home a hungry dog or lame kitten. Generally the hearth was merry with one or two Lads, a Rex, a Spot, and perhaps half-a-dozen Snowballs and Midnights. Lotte often encouraged them to dine sitting up together at the table with her, for she loved to have company for dinner, and Toto for his own good was restricted to his bowl on the kitchen floor, marked with his name.
Every night, curled up in his little basket, Toto would hear his mother going out to her SPCA meeting. He would lay there and pray, naming each of her pets in connection with a different kind of painful death. To finish off the list, he would conjure up a set of slow agonies for Albert Payson Terhune, whom he
somehow imagined to be Lotte’s father.
One day they took one of the mangy Rexes to the Pet Clinic. Toto wandered around the building, discovering the mysteries of veterinary medicine. Through a glass partition he saw a cat undergoing Caesarian section to give up six kittens. Toto pressed his nose to the glass wistfully. It was all so beautiful—the bright red blood, the clean linen, the very mystery of reproduction itself, laid open by a glittering knife. So this was
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