God's Grace (10 page)
Authors: Bernard Malamud
Tags: #Fiction, #Dystopian, #Science Fiction, #Apocalyptic & Post-Apocalyptic, #Religious
He waited in vain for a random handclap. Cohn’s voice fell a bit. “Take my word for it, I would accept leadership reluctantly—my oceanographic colleagues used to say I had some talent for administration—however, I feel I ought to take responsibility because I’ve had a fairly decent education and perhaps a little more experience than most of you—to help establish what I hope will become an effective social community. Also I’m older than most of you, except maybe the old gentleman snoozing directly above me. Not that age is necessarily wisdom, but in certain ways it helps. Much, however, depends on the Lord.”
Cohn laughed jovially, but when he beheld the two boys grinning in stupefaction, he told himself either shut up or be practical. He then addressed the multitude on the subject of food—that there would be enough around if they took care.
“Don’t, for instance,” Cohn seriously pleaded, “eat just to eat, or because you’re bored. Kindly eat only when you’re legitimately hungry, and then only enough to satisfy that hunger.”
Someone in the tree let out a brash hoot whose source
Cohn was unable to determine, but there was no other discourteous response to speak of.
Cohn was unable to determine, but there was no other discourteous response to speak of.
“Please keep in mind that others have the right to share food sources equally, as free living beings. That’s saying that freedom depends on mutual obligation, which is the bottom line, I’m sure you’ll agree.”
He heard petrified silence. After waiting for a change of heart, if that was the problem rather than their comprehension of his human language, Cohn felt he ought to shift his approach. “Let me tell you a story.”
The apes seemed to lean forward in anticipation.
They understand, he thought excitedly, and went at once into an old tale of a chimpanzee named Leopold, an absentminded gentleman, somewhat a narcissist, who ate without thought of other chimps’ natural rights, until he ate himself into such swollen proportions that, swallowing one last grape, he burst.
Dead silence.
They must know that one, Cohn reflected. Either that or they don’t like the way it ended. He asked if there were any questions, and nobody had one.
Wanting to do it better—get it right—Cohn began another story, about someone he knew who fasted days at a time so he could feed poor people who had nothing at all to eat.
This man’s wife asked, “How will you give them what you don’t eat, if we have nothing to eat anyway?”
“God will take nothing from me and give something to them,” said the old rabbi.
Cohn asked if they had got the point of the story.
But the stunned apes were no longer listening. A stream of dung from where the dominant male stood barely missed Cohn’s head.
An explosion of derisive sounds filled the dense mango, and the apes, one by one, dropped out of its branches and disappeared into the woodland.
Cohn made no attempt to follow them. Either they hadn’t liked his stories, or his language had failed to communicate anything but a monotonous voice. In afterthought he felt it was perhaps overambitious to have hit them with so many new concepts.
He felt that these apes lacked Buz’s gifts of communication and wondered if he could learn, by rereading Dr. Bünder’s notebooks, how he had performed the laryngeal operation on Buz. Yet what good would the operation itself be if there were no electronic voice boxes to install?
Vaguely stirred, vaguely dissatisfied, Cohn hurried back to his cave and began to draw up plans for a heavy gate for the entrance, but search where he would, could find no strong metal pin to hang it on.
He began instead to construct a wall of split oak logs-very hard work—a device he planned to put on rollers so it could quickly be moved across the mouth of the cave in case of peril.
Since the arrival of the five chimps, Buz had made himself comparatively scarce at the cave. Reasonably enough—he liked hanging out with his new friends, understandable for a creature who had been deprived of a carefree childhood.
Once a week, or twice, he came in for supper with his dod
and stayed over. Or he came to hear a story. For months he had asked only for Cain and Abel. “Thot’s where the oction is.” Once in a while he returned for a swig of banana beer and then was out again till all hours.
and stayed over. Or he came to hear a story. For months he had asked only for Cain and Abel. “Thot’s where the oction is.” Once in a while he returned for a swig of banana beer and then was out again till all hours.
One pre-dawn night Cohn woke from a stark dream of drowning, hearing gurgling sounds. He feared another flood but then remembered Buz’s borborygmus.
In the dark he could hear the chimp stealthily picking through the food stores for some morsel or other. Outside, the sky lit up in foggy flashes of summer lightning.
Cohn aimed his torch at Buz, who instinctively bristled when the light hit him. He self-consciously climbed down the shelf.
“I hope you aren’t monkeying with my phonograph records ?” Cohn said
“I om not a monkey,” said Buz. “Ond I don’t eat voice records like some stupid gorillas do. Whot I om looking for is a piece of coconut condy for Mary Modelyn.”
“Who’s Mary Madelyn?”
“The girl chimponzee I om interested in.”
“Did you give her that name?”
Buz proudly said he had. He said naming was nobody’s monopoly.
Cohn said it had been Adam’s task and on this island was his. “But I have no objection if you name a few names —if you kindly notify me first.”
Buz said he didn’t see why he had to. Naming names was freedom of speech. Cohn dropped the subject, not wanting to inhibit him.
“Are you romantically interested in her?”
“Thot depends. Om I sexuolly moture enough yet?”
“That’s for you to say, Buz. Some male chimps are slower than others. Some attempt to mount a female when they are eight or nine months old.”
“I hod nobody to mount when I was thot age, not even my mother to proctice on.”
Cohn told him not to worry, he’d get the swing of it when he had to.
“Not with thot loudmouth Esau around. He growls when he sees me looking ot her. He’s two years post my age and hos strong muscles.”
“Is Esau the aggressive male? Did you name him too?”
“He’s the hairy ape. I hov named all the new ones.”
Cohn wanted to know the other names.
“Melchior is the old one.”
“Named for whom?”
“Dr. Bünder’s father-in-law. He used to give me marsh-mollows.”
“Who else?”
“Luke and Saul of Tarsus are twins.”
“Where did you get their names?”
“Dr. Bünder had two gerbils with those names.”
Cohn got out of bed, slipped on his robe, and they sat in their rockers facing each other. He asked Buz if the apes were a family, and Buz replied they had met in their wanderings on the island after the Flood.
“Where did they stay during the Flood ?”
Buz said he didn’t know, probably in trees. He said that Mary Madelyn liked Melchior and got along with the twins, but not with Esau. “All he wants is sex.”
“Won’t she oblige?”
“She hosn’t yet but con’t guorontee whot might hoppen ofter she goes into heat. She says she would prefer me os a lover if I hurried my development.”
“You’re almost there.”
The cave was lit by light flashes in the sky.
“Whot’s thot?” Buz asked nervously.
Cohn explained it was heat lightning, also nothing to worry about. “It’s caused by a discharge of atmospheric electricity traveling from one cloud to another.”
“Why don’t I know about thot?”
Cohn admitted he had never told him and guessed neither had Dr. Bünder. “I can’t tell you every fact I know.”
Buz said he had every right to know what was going on in the world without asking the human race.
Cohn replied there wasn’t much of the human race on the island. “But if you stayed home nights and paid more attention to your reading, instead of fantasizing when you can begin to have sexual relations, you’d pick up a lot of useful information about the world around us.”
Buz said he had his own life to live and would live it as he saw fit.
Cohn, feeling Buz had become snappish lately, which he attributed to the approach of puberty, wouldn’t argue with that. He did say he was concerned about getting the new chimps organized and living by the law of the island.
“Whot law is thot?”
“A law we’ll have to put together—all of us—but it won’t work unless we can communicate with one another. That means speech. Maybe we ought to begin teaching these recently
arrived chimps a sign language. You know Ameslan, and I know a little, and if we can persuade them to show up for language lessons, we can teach them several signs a day. That’s at least a beginning.”
arrived chimps a sign language. You know Ameslan, and I know a little, and if we can persuade them to show up for language lessons, we can teach them several signs a day. That’s at least a beginning.”
Buz then sprang an astonishing surprise. “I hov already taught the new chimponzees to speak the English longuoge and hoven’t only been fontasying sexuol relations.”
“You have what?” Cohn said in amazement. “Is it possible?”
“It is more than possible, it is on occomplished foct”
Cohn felt an overwhelming elation. Apologizing for his previous invidious remark, he kindled the lamp and drew the ivy curtain. When the night was warm he kept the ivy tied in bunches at the sides of the cave opening.
Long shadows whirled on the walls.
“But how can they talk if they have no apparatus for speech?” Cohn asked in a whisper, “no adequate larynx?”
“Their speech is not os well articulated os mine, but they hov ocquired longuoge because they hov faith.”
“In whom and what?”
“In whot I hov told them.”
“What was that?”
“Thot they could learn if they hod faith.”
“Incredible,” Cohn muttered. “A stupendous miracle if it has really occurred.”
Buz insisted it had. Unusual things were abroad on the island. “Fruit is more abundont and sweeter this season. I heard mogic strains of music in those winding caves we found—prettier music thon you play on thot voice mochine.
Ond now my friends hov learned to talk by an oct of faith. If you hov faith you con hear them talk.”
Ond now my friends hov learned to talk by an oct of faith. If you hov faith you con hear them talk.”
Cohn humbly said he hod faith.
Though Cohn, as scientist, could not explain how the chimps had learned to speak English, he was of course gratified that they had learned. If explanation was needed: the world was different from once it was; and what might happen, and what could not, he was not as sure of as he used to be. It seemed to him that after a frightening period of incoherence, there was now a breath of settled purpose in the universe. One could not say for sure where the Almighty stood after the Second Flood; but if He had permitted the visiting chimps to learn one of the languages unique to homo sapiens—had allowed them to go on living through Devastation and Flood in order to learn—one might say—why not similar good grace for Cohn?
In celebration of the miraculous descent, or spontaneous emergence of human speech among the apes, he planned a seder. Cohn figured that the fifteenth day of Nisan had gone its way, but since there were no calendars available, one could not be held responsible for exact dates.
It wasn’t, anyway, the date that counted, it was the mood and purpose of the occasion: simply a celebration—nothing extraordinary—a means of bringing together the island company, and at the same time politely thanking Someone for favors received. Nothing wrong with a little sincere gratitude for every amelioration of an unforgivable condition caused by the Creator. He had his problems too. After
all, First Causes were not always first causes; and maybe He was having second thoughts about these matters.
all, First Causes were not always first causes; and maybe He was having second thoughts about these matters.
Anyway, it was a beautiful early spring. The bright green grass was ankle-high. Fragrant flowers, astonishing ones, were scattered everywhere. Mimosas were abloom in flaring yellow. Oleander was white and bougainvillea royal purple. Each color seemed deeper, more livingly intense, than its ordinary color. It seemed a splendid year ahead. Peace to all, amen.
Cohn diligently cleaned the cave, swept, shined, mopped. And he had built a long teak table that would seat eight—three on each side bench, one at head and foot.
He carried out and hid, according to ritual, all suspected unleavened food, recalling how his mother, holding a candle in her hand, had prayed on this occasion, “May all the leaven in my possession, whether I have seen it or not, be annulled and considered as dust of the earth.” In those days dust of the earth was a more innocent substance.
Cohn was the official host and Buz assisted. The guests were the five new chimps, and George the gorilla, if he was in the mood to appear. Any way one looked at it, the gorilla was a permanent inhabitant of the island and had to be encouraged to join the company. Cohn had more or less forgiven him for destroying his father’s record—“Kol Nidre,” nothing less, a sad loss—probably George had thought the record was a licorice wafer or something equally good to eat.
To invite him personally, since there were no mail deliveries, and since Buz wouldn’t go in his place to persuade him to attend, Cohn scouted George’s usual haunts. He came across his nests in the flattened deep grass but rarely
found a trace of George himself, not even a fragment of fibrous dung where he had recently made camp. Gorillas soiled their nests but were not themselves soiled; chimps, because of their liquid excrement, would tend to perform their bowel functions outside their nests, and save himself who loitered below. Who was, therefore, the more civilized?
found a trace of George himself, not even a fragment of fibrous dung where he had recently made camp. Gorillas soiled their nests but were not themselves soiled; chimps, because of their liquid excrement, would tend to perform their bowel functions outside their nests, and save himself who loitered below. Who was, therefore, the more civilized?
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