God's Grace (15 page)
Authors: Bernard Malamud
Tags: #Fiction, #Dystopian, #Science Fiction, #Apocalyptic & Post-Apocalyptic, #Religious
Gaining on her, he was a moment from overtaking Mary Madelyn, when she reversed direction and dipped under him. He grabbed for her where she no longer was, and fell half way through a tree. Esau hit the ground hard and lay motionless on his back.
Mary Madelyn had disappeared.
Bromberg and Esterhazy had abandoned the contest between the dinosaur and pterodactyl to see what was going on in the modern world. They stopped off to prop Esau up, who would have none of it. He rose on his knees and stomped the earth in rage.
Cohn, after his interrupted lecture, confided to Buz that Esau had become a hazard to a free society and must reform, or they might have to consider getting rid of him.
“Why don’t we get rid of her?”
“I thought you were interested in Mary Madelyn?”
“Not when she runs whenever she sees me. It says in Dr. Bünder’s book that female chimponzees seek male compony when they go into heat. Why doesn’t she do whot the book says?”
Cohn thought she seemed to be resisting her instincts.
Buz asked why.
He wasn’t sure. “Something in her. She’s an unusual person—which is to say, chimpanzee.”
Buz thought she was mad. “How om I supposed to experience sex if she won’t stond still for holf a minute?”
Cohn suggested he seek out and persuade her. “My sense of it is she would like to be courted, not gunned down from the rear by an ambitious phallus. Talk to her about
Romeo and Juliet.
She admires the play.”
Romeo and Juliet.
She admires the play.”
Buz said he disliked it. “They are both goons and so is Mary Modelyn.”
“She’s a sensitive, empathic, intelligent creature.”
That night he was awakened by the rustling of his ivy curtain. Cohn struck a match and held the flickering flame above his head.
“Who’s there?”
Mary Madelyn squatted amid the shadows on the floor of the cave.
“I have no safe pwace to go. May I pwease stay the night?”
“Why don’t you make yourself a nest in a tree? The males should be sleeping now.”
“No, they aren’t.” She was fatigued, forlorn, disquieted.
“Turn your head till I get my pants on,” Cohn told her.
When he had drawn them on he said she could stay, and lit the lamp.
She wanted to rest on some branches on the cave floor, but he said she could have Buz’s cage. “He almost never uses it.”
Mary Madelyn promised to leave before the sun was up.
He offered her a drink of coconut juice. As he poured, Cohn observed her flabby, wilted flower, and the sight of it made him slightly ill.
“It wiw go away soon,” she said apologetically.
“I can’t understand why you resist every male who approaches you.”
She said it was in part his fault. “You wanted us to wearn your wanguage. Now that I have, I am different than I used to be. If I hadn’t wearned to speak and understand human speech, I would have awready presented mysewf to every mawe on the iwand.”
She asked Cohn if he would mate with her.
“It is not permitted. I am a man. I am not allowed to copulate with animals.”
“You told us you were proud to be an animal.”
“Of course. Generically speaking.”
“You would be mistaken to think of me only as a beast,” Mary Madelyn said.
She said she had decided to sleep elsewhere.
Hairy Esau, lugging a knobby log four feet long and three inches thick, lurched into Cohn’s cave the next morning. “Where’s the bitch hiding?”
He let out a roar, his yellowed fangs repulsively visible, and raised the log as though to bash Cohn’s mind in.
He rose hastily from his unfinished breakfast. “You’re mistaken, she’s not here.”
“Saul of Tarsus saw her sneak in last night.”
Cohn swore she had left. His scalp stung as if his hair had turned into needles. How does one reason with a mad chimp
who confuses himself with a gorilla? Fearing for his life, Cohn had backed toward the storage shelves—the breakfast table the only barrier between him and the grossly angered ape.
who confuses himself with a gorilla? Fearing for his life, Cohn had backed toward the storage shelves—the breakfast table the only barrier between him and the grossly angered ape.
“Don’t be overhasty, Esau. This is a desperately serious situation. The world has been destroyed by fire and water. You heard my recent lecture on the subject. I have reason to believe that those of us left on this island are the only survivors of life on the planet. If we expect to go on living we’ve got to live as brothers. Why don’t you put that nasty log down and let’s discuss the matter peaceably.”
Esau, breathing noisily, his small eyes restlessly roaming the cave, called Cohn an idiot. “Your stupid schooltree has made her too proud to dip her butt for friends.”
He swung his log at Cohn, who ducked, barely escaping having his head crushed. Stealthily he felt behind him for his 30.06 Winchester, at the same panicky instant thinking, I mustn’t use it.
If he could tease the French saber out of its sheath, the sight of it might scare the beast away. Esau kept his brutal log raised as he inched toward Cohn, who was then assailed by a more frightening thought: Is he the Lord’s messenger who has this day come to slay me?
Without waiting for a formal response, he overturned the table between them. Esau was scalded by a pot of hot mint tea.
The ape let out a quavering cry that rose to a scream when he dropped the log on his burnt foot. His mouth dribbled and eyes bled tears of rage.
Cohn, instead of taking up a weapon, grabbed a witch’s
mask from the shelf and held it over his face, at the same time ululating and grunting.
mask from the shelf and held it over his face, at the same time ululating and grunting.
It was a contorted white mask with watery red eyes, a nose like a bent bone, and wet black mouth. The mouth moved obscenely as Cohn howled.
Esau, erect in fright, stared wide-eyed at Cohn’s horrid mask. He let out a whine, as if he had lost control of his bodily functions. Bolting out of the cave, he ran groaning into the forest. No one saw him for months afterwards.
After two days, Mary Madelyn, looking her neat, attractive self, returned to the schooltree to resume her education.
None of the male apes approached, or even seemed to notice her presence, but Cohn, on greeting her, had kissed her fingertips.
He thought he had handled Esau badly and would have to do better in the future, assuming the chimp returned. Esau must be patiently talked to and counseled until he understood what was required of him for the common good.
Cohn sent Buz into the forest to locate the rebellious Alpha Ape and ask him to return to the community, but Buz, after a full day’s search, saw no sign of him and figured he had made for the headlands.
He told Cohn, in unconcealed trepidation, that an albino ape seemed to be in the woodland trees again.
“I saw him but he didn’t see me.”
“Who is this type and is he for real?” Cohn wanted to know.
“A white ape, they can be nasty people.”
“Have you ever known one?”
“Dr. Bünder has a long porogroph on them in his book. Sometimes they get schizoid, or like thot.”
“He’d better stay out of here.”
But on the next dark night the albino, grown a few feet since Cohn had last laid eyes on him, appeared in his cave. Either dawn broke then, or he lit the cave with his white presence.
Cohn hastily retreated to the rear.
Rising on his legs, the albino pantomimed flinging a spear at Cohn, or someone like him.
“That was like in a dream,” Cohn explained. “I was attempting to defend myself, not hurt anybody.”
To get rid of the ape, he reached for a black witch’s mask hanging on a peg on the wall.
The ape tore the mask from Cohn’s hand and held it in front of his face, becoming a white ape with a black face, pierced by a red witch’s eye. The sight sent a chill through Cohn and he bolted the cave.
In the forest, in an instant, he encountered a black-faced white ape. Cohn squared off in the circling crouch of a grunting Japanese wrestler, to hold the ape off as best he could; but the fierce creature grabbed his arm and yanked him over his shoulder, his large paw grasping both of Cohn’s hands, his long ape-arm pinning his kicking legs.
“Let’s talk about this,” begged Cohn.
The white ape, bumpily running with a struggling Cohn on his shoulders, leaped for a low bough of an ebony tree, and with his free hand, both legs, and a grunt, swung himself and his victim into the tree.
He’ll destroy me up there. Should I try prayer, or is the white ape God’s messenger come to execute His purpose?
“Are you God’s messenger?”
If the ape knew he wouldn’t say. He had with a vibrant roar stopped in his tracks.
Above them, holding to an upper branch, stood George the gorilla, his right hand aiming a large black coconut—if not a rock—at the head of the white ape carrying Cohn.
The tree began to shake as if it had conceived a mad thought, but the swaying gorilla held tight to his black object.
The ape released his hold on him and Cohn, freed, felt himself falling through the thick-leaved swaying ebony, bumping his head till it sickened him. He landed, with a swooshing thud, in a bouquet of giant ferns at the foot of the tree.
In the bright sunlight that broke through the forest canopy, the white ape seemed to dissolve, and the ebony stopped its frightful shaking. The forest was hushed.
Buz appeared in the undergrowth wearing a Japanese general’s cap and blasting a long tin horn.
The nervous gorilla high in the tree thrust two fingers into each ear as Cohn tried to shake himself awake; but how could you if you hadn’t slept?
A disturbing desire possessed him, fortunately yielding affection, not so easy to come upon these days. And affection grew against his will—a difficult way to love.
After the schooltree class they strolled amid the dappled
palm trees lining the sea. Cohn walked at ease, Mary Madelyn standing upright or knuckle-walking by his side. When they rested she groomed his balding head. In turn, he groomed her breasts and belly. They talked as friends.
palm trees lining the sea. Cohn walked at ease, Mary Madelyn standing upright or knuckle-walking by his side. When they rested she groomed his balding head. In turn, he groomed her breasts and belly. They talked as friends.
And Buz, forgetting his manners, persistently trailed them, and neither of them could convince him to leave them to their privacy. He hung around, eavesdropping, hiding behind the trunks of trees, or pretending to be asleep as they sat on the ground. Sometimes he brachiated quietly above them, observing their actions. Cohn, when he spotted him, recalled the serpent licentiously regarding Adam and Eve in intercourse.
They liked holding hands as they walked together. Mary Madelyn, after consuming a passion fruit he had picked for her, kissed Cohn full on the lips.
Buz complained high in a tree. He shredded bark with his teeth, obviously deeply jealous.
He had told Cohn he was old enough for sexual experience and wished to copulate with Mary Madelyn. He didn’t know by what right his own dod interfered with his courtship of her. She was his kind, not Cohn’s.
Cohn said that on this island there was only one kind—sentient, intelligent living beings. “We’re sort of affectionately in love,” he told Buz, “or something close to it.”
Buz wanted to be in love too, and Cohn replied his time would come. He mentioned Hattie, and Buz hooted in ridicule. The chimp stomped away but got over being angry with Cohn in less than a week. Instead of following the lovers, he began to collect rare stones and shells on the beach.
Cohn had taught him the rudiments of polishing stones, and had also told him some appealing stories of sublimation. Buz said he didn’t like the stories, yet it was apparent he had learned something. On the other hand, he formally moved out of the cave, taking along eight cream coconut bars and an old hat of Cohn’s.
Cohn had taught him the rudiments of polishing stones, and had also told him some appealing stories of sublimation. Buz said he didn’t like the stories, yet it was apparent he had learned something. On the other hand, he formally moved out of the cave, taking along eight cream coconut bars and an old hat of Cohn’s.
Cohn agreed it was time Buz had a place of his own, though he expected him to drop in at the cave whenever he felt like it. If he happened to be busy, he was sure Buz would understand.
On their wandering walks, or as they rested in the warm grass, or sat together in a tree, Mary Madelyn and he talked about
Romeo and Juliet.
Cohn had read her the first act three times, and she greatly enjoyed the balcony scene. She liked to say, “‘What wov can do, that dares wov attempt.’”
Romeo and Juliet.
Cohn had read her the first act three times, and she greatly enjoyed the balcony scene. She liked to say, “‘What wov can do, that dares wov attempt.’”
She had never seen a balcony and imagined a vine-entangled baobab in which Juliet was confined by two hefty, threatening guardian apes. Then Romeo, a youthful, handsome chimpanzee, appeared, scared off the offensive apes with a display of strength, and released Juliet from her prison-tree. They lived together, afterwards, in his happy flowering acacia.
Cohn didn’t tell her about the sad future fate of the lovers. He would let her find that out herself. Mary Madelyn was not the curious reader Buz was, yet she liked to be read to and learned well by ear.
“Am I wovwy as Juwiet?” she asked Cohn.
“You have your graces.”
“Wiw you ever wov me?”
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