Jane (7 page)

“How frustrating it has been,” Dubois opined, “to have my femur to prove the upright stance but no cervical vertebrae to relate the hyoid bone with the mandible.”

“So you’ve got no proof of speech,” I sympathetically concluded.

“And what do you suppose your Java man would say if he
could
speak?” Father asked with a wry grin.

“I will tell you what he would say,” Ernst Haeckel replied. “He would call Rudy Virchow a nincompoop!”

We all roared with laughter and raised our glasses in a toast.

“All that’s water under the bridge,” Archie insisted. “Let’s get to the real point here.”

Dubois groaned theatrically. Everyone knew that the two paleoanthropologists’ favorite argument of all—where in the world other missing links might be found—had hardly been touched upon this evening.

“Well, you know what I think,” Ernst Haeckel said, eyeing his untouched dinner, “so I will spare you, Archie.”

“Thank you for that, Ernst. You should eat. They know how to cook a mean pork chop here.”

Truly, Father did not need reminding that though a staunch evolutionist, Haeckel was not a dyed-in-the-wool Darwinian. And with Eugène having found such stunning success in following his teacher’s urgings to search for his fossils in the Dutch East Indies, the two of them needed no further convincing that they were right.

“You sure you can’t be moved about a major find in equatorial Africa?” Father persisted. “My distinguished colleague, Mr. Darwin, were he here with us at this table, would agree that an ape-man will be found in Africa.”

“But you have been trying and trying, Archie,” said Eugène Dubois, finishing with a bit of gentle teasing, “and with all of your work, you’ve got less than a leg bone to stand on.”

My father laughed ruefully.

“There is only one way this dispute can authoritatively be decided,” Ernst Haeckel said. “You will arm wrestle.”

We collapsed into such a fit of laughter that the four of us were shocked to find Ral Conrath standing beside our table. He was smiling broadly, having overheard the challenge made in jest.

I was unable to take my eyes from him, thinking how handsome he looked when he smiled, how large and virile was his presence.

“Mr. Conrath,” Eugène said with much congeniality. “I never had a chance to thank you for your generous support this afternoon.”

“Well, it didn’t hold a candle to Dr. Haeckel’s brilliant discourse, but it certainly was heartfelt.”

Eugène looked behind him. “Are you alone?”

“I am, as a matter of fact. I’m staying at the De Vere tonight and thought I’d have some dinner before I turned in.”

“You must join us.”

Father and Haeckel immediately made room, and the waiter was called to bring another chair.

Within moments the conversation picked up where it had left off, as easy and convivial with the newcomer as it had been before. This Conrath fellow fit right in, I could not help but observe. I saw that Father liked the man, or at least felt some kinship with a fellow American. Ral was a Midwesterner, too, he from a small town in South Dakota. Ral was particularly attentive to Father, listening to his arguments, brow furrowed with intense interest.

“I’m a tad reluctant to state my humble opinion in such illustrious company,” Conrath began, then paused for a long enough moment that the others all chimed in with encouragement to go on.

“From what I’ve seen at Trinel and other East Indies digs, the European Neanderthal cave sites, and my work with Petrie…”

“Petrie!” Archie exclaimed. “You worked with Flinders?” William Flinders Petrie was the most celebrated Egyptian archaeologist of the time.

“I worked on the excavations at Luxor.”

“That was an impressive find,” Dubois said, “and quite a feat of engineering, too.”

“Bill’s a bit of a madman about those things. He insists on acting as his own engineer.”

“One must have men one can trust with such delicate matters,” Dubois offered.

“I’ve been on both coasts of Africa now,” Ral went on.

“Kenya?” Father asked.

“On safari there. Hunting big game. In fact, I took our president’s best friend into Amboseli, and he tells me Roosevelt can’t wait to leave office to ‘go shoot him some elephants.’”

I winced at the mention of big-game hunting, the thought of which upset me deeply.

“But that’s neither here nor there,” Ral continued. “I’m no expert, mind you, but I follow with great interest the adventures of pioneers like yourselves, and I’ve decided that I’m going to have to throw my hat in the ring with Professor Porter and the late, great Mr. Darwin. Africa’s the next place the missing link is going to be found.”

“You sound very sure of yourself, Mr. Conrath,” I said, finally finding my voice.

He looked me dead in the eye. “And you are…?”

“Jane Porter,” I said and put my hand on Father’s arm.

“This is my daughter, Mr. Conrath.”

“I’m very glad to make your acquaintance, Miss Porter, and the truth is, yes, I’m close to one hundred percent sure West Central Africa is going to give up some extraordinary ape-man fossils in the next few years.”

“West Central Africa? Do you mean Gabon?” I felt myself grow suddenly warm beneath my high-necked blouse and serge jacket. Gabon was the location of the Ogowe River. “Then you must be familiar with Mary Kingsley and her several expeditions.”

Ral Conrath looked momentarily blank, but Ernst Haeckel, certainly progressive in some quarters but not, as it appeared, with a woman’s right to be heard as well as seen, interrupted, dismissing Miss Kingsley’s adventures as mere trifles—“fishes and fetishes”—and clearly unworthy of serious discussion.

“A woman alone has no business trekking around Africa,” Haeckel said. “It is unseemly. Very unseemly.”

The professor’s words left me chastised and uncomfortable, and I began tucking into my untouched roast beef with less gusto than violence. Father noticed, of course, but it was neither the time nor the place to defend independent womanhood.

In fact, the talk had turned to the plight of the Belgian Congo in the past fifty years—King Leopold’s horrible slaughter of ten million black Africans in that country he claimed to own. The men argued about whether the Englishman Sir Henry Morton Stanley had been tricked or had gone willingly at Leopold’s behest, leading one of the great exploratory expeditions into the Congo. One that led to further exploitation.

“Well,” Father observed wryly, “it wasn’t much worse than what President Andrew Jackson did to the American Indians with his Indian Removal Act.”

And with that, I found my voice once more.
Who was any man—even the great Ernst Haeckel—to shut me up?
“I believe the urge to colonize and subjugate is universal in the human species.”

All the men quieted and turned to look at me. I put down my knife and fork and straightened my back. “My once-favorite monarch, Elizabeth Tudor, ran riot over Ireland. She killed damn near half the Irish population in her lust for power.”

Ernst Haeckel looked scandalized and Dubois amused, but the only reproach I perceived from Father for my vulgar language was a single raised eyebrow.

That said, I felt my appetite return, a real appetite, and I finished my dinner, every carrot and pea and roasted potato, sopping up the gravy with a bread roll.

I was well aware that Ral Conrath was appraising me with great interest, but I refused to meet his eye.

*   *   *

Later, as we stood in the grand lobby of the De Vere, Eugène, who was coming home with us, was saying his good nights and giving final thanks to Professor Haeckel. Mr. Conrath took the opportunity to approach Father and me.

“Like I said, Professor, you’re right on the mark with Africa, but take my word for it, Gabon’s got the limestone formations you fossil hunters have the most luck with, and I know where to find ’em.” He handed Father his card and spoke to us in low tones. “I’ve got something of great interest to show you. Why don’t you let me tell you more about it?” Then he looked straight into my eyes and said quite suddenly and entirely out of context, “It’s rare to see a woman with a steel backbone.”

“That’s my Jane,” Father said, not in the least offended by the man’s familiarity.

“It’s refreshing in the extreme,” Ral added.

Far from blushing with embarrassment, I felt a rush of excitement that shuddered through my frame, and I said, “I hope you do come and talk to us, Mr. Conrath. We would be very happy to hear what you have to say about West Africa.”

“It would be my pleasure,” he said, pumping Father’s hand. When he gave me his little finger-to-forehead salute, I hoped nothing in my expression gave away my strange discomfiture.

The Snake Charmer

Ral Conrath had been expected at noon and by five had neither come nor called on the telephone. I was sorely disappointed at missing the larger-than-life expedition leader. I’d spent an afternoon of unspeakable boredom with Mother’s idea of a fine suitor at a riverside picnic and had rounded on her at the front door of the manor. Could she have chosen anyone more perfect to annoy me? I’d demanded. Mother’s lips quivered in outrage at having been spoken to so rudely by her ungrateful spawn, and for a moment I thought I might receive the first slap of my life. But at that very moment the sound of an automobile puttering up the drive froze us both in our places.

And there came Father, striding out past us to meet the black Ford Model A and the solitary figure at the wheel—Ral Conrath, his hair tousled by the wind, his face weathered and tawny, and his presence a very breath of fresh air to sweep away the poison swirling around Mother and me.

Ral did not use the door. With a hand on the frame, he vaulted athletically over the side and came down gracefully on the gravel drive.

I could hear my mother’s sharp intake of breath and her chuckle to see Father greet this hale fellow with an ardent handshake.

“Is
that
Mr. Conrath?” Mother asked me, as though all the recent unpleasantness between us had never occurred.

“It is. A very late Mr. Conrath.”

He and Father were walking toward us, already sharing a laugh.

“Mrs. Porter,” Father said, “may I present…”

“Mr. Conrath,” my mother finished for Father, putting out her hand, which, to my utter astonishment, the man kissed with all the gallantry of a high nobleman.

More surprising was the girlish giggle that escaped from Mother’s lips. She had never, in all of my memory, come out with more than a cultured chortle.

“Madam,” Conrath said, gazing into her eyes, “I do believe the beauty of the mother surpasses that of the daughter.” Then he turned and winked at me as if to say there was no slight to me at all. It was only praise for an older lady so much more in need of compliments than a beautiful young women like myself.

“You have my sincerest apologies for the tardiness. A milk truck—what do you call them here, ‘lorries’? Well, one of them crashed smack into a telephone pole, knocking down the lines to Cambridge, so I couldn’t call to say I’d been tied up with some outfitters in London.” He turned to Father. “What they showed me today will hold great interest for you, Professor Porter.”

“‘Archie,’” my father ordered. “None of this Professor Porter business. What is it these outfitters are selling?”

“Metal canoes. Fantastic, I tell you. Perfect for the tropical climes. No mildew. No rot. Nothing gets to the hulls. Barnacle won’t stick. Three or four of these boats and we’re home free up the Ogowe. But look here, I’m getting ahead of myself. I don’t even have the job yet.”

I watched astonished as Mother slipped her hand through Ral Conrath’s arm and led him inside. I had just seen her being charmed, as an Indian fakir with a flute does a hooded cobra.

I took my father’s arm, and without a word we followed Ral and Mother into the manor.

It was going to be a very interesting evening indeed.

*   *   *

My amazement extended through dinner, during which Ral regaled us with stories that he promised would “curl Mrs. Porter’s hair.” He spoke of living for months at a time with a tribe of cannibals; of a pride of lions and pack of hyenas who were at war with each other and into whose path Ral had unintentionally stepped; of ruthless Arab slave traders on the Barbary Coast who did not stop at stealing Negro tribesmen but had a going concern in kidnapping and delivering beautiful white women to the harems of Persian sheikhs. His adventures were something out of H. Rider Haggard’s
Allan Quartermain
or
King Solomon’s Mines,
and when he took the great liberty of teasingly calling his hostess “She Who Must Be Obeyed,” I had a brief but sinking sensation that if I were to reread the fictions of that famous author, I might discover among the chapters the very tales being told at our dinner table.

But surely Ral Conrath was who he claimed to be. He knew far too much about exploration and site engineering and fossil hunting to be a charlatan. I quieted my racing heart and suspicious mind and allowed myself to be swept away, as were my parents, into the wonders of our guest’s world.

“Won’t you tell us about yourself, Mr. Conrath?”