Haggopian and Other Stories

In one of these tanks hammerheads of over two metres in length were cruising slowly from side to side, ugly as hell and looking twice as dangerous. Metal steps led up to this tank’s rim, down the other side and into the water itself. Haggopian must have seen the puzzled expression on my face for he said: “This is where I used to feed my lampreys—they had to be handled carefully. I have none now; I returned the last of my specimens to the sea three years ago.”

Three years ago? I peered closer into the tank as one of the hammerheads slid his belly along the glass. There on the white and silver underside of the fish, between the gill-slits and down the belly, numerous patches of raw red showed, many of them forming clearly defined circles where the close-packed scales had been removed and the suckerlike mouths of the lampreys had been at work. No, Haggopian’s “three years” had no doubt been a slip of the tongue—three days, more like it! Many of the wounds were clearly of recent origin, and before the Armenian ushered me on I was able to see that at least another two of the hammerheads were similarly marked.

I stopped pondering mine host’s mistake when we passed into yet another room whose specimens must surely have caused any conchologist to cry out in delight. Again tanks lined the walls, smaller than many of the others I had so far seen, but marvellously laid out to duplicate perfectly the natural environs of their inhabitants. These inhabitants were the living gems of almost every ocean on earth; great conches and clams from the South Pacific; the small, beautiful Haliotis excavata and Murex monodon from the Great Barrier Reef; the amphora-like Delphinula formosa from China, and weird uni- and bivalves of every shape and size in their hundreds. Even the windows were of shell—great, translucent, pinkly glowing fan-shells, porcelain thin yet immensely strong, from very deep waters—suffusing the room in blood tints as weird as the submarine dappling of the previous rooms. The aisles, too, were crammed with trays and showcases full of dry shells, none of them indexed in any way; and again Haggopian showed off his expertise by casually naming any specimens I paused to study and by briefly describing their habits and the foreign deeps in which they were indigenous.

My tour was interrupted here when Costas, the Greek who had brought me from Kletnos, entered this fascinating room of shells to murmur something of obvious importance to his employer. Haggopian nodded his head in agreement and Costas left, returning a few moments later with half-a-dozen other Greeks who each, in their turn, had a few words with Haggopian before departing. Eventually we were alone again.

“They were my men,” he told me, “some of them for almost twenty years, but now I have no further need of them. I have paid them their last wages, they have said their farewells, and now they are going away. Costas will take them to Kletnos and return later for you. By then I should have finished my story.”

“I don’t quite follow you, Mr. Haggopian. You mean you’re going into seclusion here? What you said just then sounded ominously final.”

“Seclusion? Here? No, Mr. Belton—but final, yes! I have learned as much of the sea as I can from here, and in any case only one phase in my education remains. For that phase I need no…tuition! You will see.”

He saw the puzzled look on my face and smiled a wry smile. “You find difficulty in understanding me, and that is hardly surprising. Few men, if any, have known my circumstances before, of that I am reasonably certain; and that is why I have chosen to speak now. You are fortunate in that you caught me at the right time; I would never have taken it upon myself to tell my story had I not been so persistently pursued—there are horrors best unknown—but perhaps the telling will serve as a warning. It gives me pause, the number of students devoted to the lore of the sea that would emulate my works and discoveries. But in any case, what you no doubt believed would be a simple interview will in fact be my swan song. Tomorrow, when the island is deserted, Costas will return and set all the living specimens loose. There are means here by which even the largest fishes might be returned to the sea. Then Haggopiana will be truly empty.”

“But why? To what end—and where do you intend to go?” I asked. “Surely this island is your base, your home and stronghold? It was here that you wrote your wonderful books, and—”