The Murder in the Museum of Man (16 page)

In my day, in one of the reception rooms, on one of the love seats placed discreetly in one of the alcoves, we would read together. Elsbeth was an English major, and I remember her reading to me from Hopkins. I can’t say I listened to the words as much as to the sound of her voice sweetly telling the lines. “ ‘… all things counter, original, spare, strange …’ ” She laughed. “Just like you, Norman, strange, counter, spare.” And she laughed again when I tried to steal a kiss. “Not here, you silly, not here.”

I especially remember the music room, where, as I plonked away on an old upright Vose, she would sing in her tremulous soprano from a book of lieder. She used to tease me with Schubert’s
Die Unterscheidung
, her eyes bright and mischievous as she sang,

How the memory of that music mocks me now! Teach me with kisses what my eyes speak! That, she would not deny me, but love you, Norman, that she couldn’t do! Was I naive to think then that exactly the reverse pertained?

I very nearly proposed to her the night of the senior prom. We had left the main party at Union Hall to walk by Bramble into the rose arbor, which had been decorated with Japanese lanterns. There, within earshot of the big band flourishes from the dance — Lester Lanin’s, I believe — we sat on one of the benches, a frilly old thing of cast iron painted white. There we inhaled the sweetness of alyssum, which presaged the bouquet of the budding rosebushes, and dreamed of our future together. Other couples were doing the same, but the maze of hedges kept all of us virtually alone, and tradition has it that a good many Wainscott marriages were proposed and not a few prematurely consummated in that fragrant place.

I remember our own night there so vividly, it nearly makes me weep. The perfume of the tiny flowers, the softness of the air, the distant sound of some popular love melody, Elsbeth’s hand in mine, the low cut of her ball gown showing off her creamy shoulders, gorgeous neck, and, I must admit, quite unnerving
décolletage
. We sat as in a dream on one of those antique benches in a bower of our own. I told her how beautiful she looked, how her eyes were like dark jade, how … “Kiss me, Norman,” she said with a finger to my lips. And we leaned toward each other and kissed. “No!” she expostulated, drawing back. “Really kiss me!” And with a sensation I had not experienced till nor since then,
her tongue pushed into my mouth and entwined with mine. I confess I lost all restraint. Fed upon, I fed back. My hand dropped to her breast, down over it, nudging (how easily those formidable-looking garments give way!) until the incredible fullness of it was in my hand. I’m not sure what would have happened had not another couple, somewhat drunk, burst into our magic nook and begun, with crude and boisterous comments, to applaud our embrace.

I stood up immediately if somewhat awkwardly and would have thrashed the male member of this party had Elsbeth not restrained me. And when they finally left, I of course apologized profusely for the liberties I had taken, saying that our momentary lapse in no way lessened my respect for her. I very nearly proposed to her then, not only because I loved her but to cast our moment of illicit passion in a salutary light. But I was afraid she would think I was only doing the honorable thing since, in all but the ultimate sense, our intimacies had begun. But a certain coolness had descended on Elsbeth’s manner, which confirmed my sense of trespass. And the more I tried to apologize and accommodate her feelings, the more distant she grew until, back at the dance and emboldened by a few too many glasses of champagne punch, she blurted, with a crudeness she had developed of late, “Oh, for Christ’s sakes, Norman, stop your damn whimpering.”

The fact is I still cannot walk by the arbor in front of Bramble Hall, especially when the roses are in their glory, without a tinge of bittersweet regret. I have never gone back into the nooks and enclosures, which, I am told, are no longer safe, even during the day. And even if I did, I’m not sure I could find the exact spot where, uninhibited, our passion had such a brief and fruitless bloom.

Yes … Where was I? Yes, the article. Upon arrival this morning I went directly to the library. As I was about to enter the
stacks in search of Frederick Hummer’s
My Years at the MOM: A Life Preserved
, I noticed the shelves of
National Geographic
lining one of the reading areas. I resisted perusing them long enough to find the Hummer book, which is a trove of information about the museum in the early years of this century. But once out of the stacks I began a feverish browsing through the
Geographic
, starting in late 1969. Usually I never get very far in this worthy publication, the way its pictures and prose open up worlds so distant and various. This time I scanned only the tables of contents. In early 1971, I found what I was looking for. “Re-creating the Past in Loa Hoa.” I nearly expected to find the article razored out. It wasn’t. There was the island in all its pristine beauty, the plugs of extinct volcanoes standing like sentinels, the lush, deeply clefted valleys, the lapis sky. I flipped to the next page and a picture of a younger though still aggressively bald Raul Brauer, girded in a loincloth, his upper torso flamboyantly tattooed, his right hand holding a formidable blade worked in jade. I think my heart stopped for a second or two. For flanking him, also in loincloths, were a beardless Thad Pilty and a grinning Corny Chard. I read the caption to confirm what I could scarce believe. Sure enough, along with a few others it listed Assistant Professor C. Chard and graduate student T. Pilty. Corny’s smile had something demonic about it, and there was a feral aspect to Thad’s expression I have never seen before. Perhaps it was the long hair tied back in a swaggish ponytail or the intentness with which he looked into the camera.

I photocopied the article and brought it up here, where I have gone over it several times. Asked about ceremonies involving the eating of “long pig” (a Polynesian euphemism for human beings), Brauer is reported to have answered, facetiously it was assumed, that “short pig would have to suffice for the present.” Needless to say, I feel plunged right back into the whole sordid business. Perhaps I should just call Lieutenant Tracy on Monday
and show him this. Not that it constitutes, when you think about it, anything like proof.

Ah well. I did get some reading done in the Remick archive. It’s a bit dry — business and family most of it — but I found George W. Remick’s letters to his mother from the Union Army quite touching. Extraordinary how fervent he was in his patriotism, how ready he was to die for his country. I have also unearthed the log of the
Silver Fleece
, a Remick trader active about the time the museum was founded. It was captained for ten years by Reuben Remick Riley, a cousin from the Boston branch of the family. I suppose I should fly to Boston one of these days and see what’s there. Which reminds me, if I’m going to drive up the Newhumber to Remsdale for a look at the old Remick homestead, I should have Don Tartley over at Bud’s Garage give my old Renault a tune-up.

It is not very professional, it is even unseemly, to become obsessed with one’s suspicions. But since finding that article in the
National Geographic
, I cannot escape a morbid fascination with the possibility that a deeply entrenched, highly dangerous cannibal cult exists among outwardly respectable people right under our noses here at the Museum of Man. Yesterday, as I was going into the archives on business having solely to do with the history, I ran into (not literally) Raul Brauer just as he was leaving. What a deadly look he gave me! And Mrs. Walsh seemed more flustered than ever, so I didn’t pursue the matter of the missing files. Indeed, when I returned to my office I locked the door, unlocked my desk, and took out my father’s
revolver. Just feeling its precisely balanced heft in my hand reassured me. Perhaps I should take it out into the woods for a few practice shots, although, frankly, I cannot imagine myself pointing it at another human being, even at a bunch of ravening cannibals, let alone firing it.

Speaking of which, there was another meeting today of the Oversight Committee. The whole circus might have remained little more than that were it not for this pall of dread, which thickened palpably for me when Corny Chard started in with his particularly gruesome contribution to the proceedings. Randall Athol, his blond whiskers bristling around his precious pink mouth, set the tone for the meeting when he asked Thad Pilty if the models would be wearing furs. It took the good professor a moment to realize that the man’s question was serious and another moment to realize it was hostile. Bemused and then amused, Professor Pilty replied, “Of course, but not furs in the sense of fur coats, rather clothing made of animal skins, including bits of fur.” Well, that made Professor Athol rap his pencil on the table like a prosecuting attorney and say, “Then they will be wearing fur?” Before Thad Pilty could answer, Izzy Landes, God love him, interrupted with, “What do you expect them to wear, tuxedos and evening gowns?” But Athol, with that capacity for absorbing rebuttals that would silence better men, went on with some nonsense about promotion of the fur industry and all that that would imply.

Professor Pilty pointed out in response that the making of clothes from animal skins was undoubtedly a major step in man’s (Professor Brattle: “and woman’s”) physical and social evolution. Without clothing, he said, we would have had to restrict ourselves to warm climates or grow thick fur all over our bodies. That image sent Mr. Onoyoko off into quiet laughter and caused Professor Landes to speculate on the amount of time one would have had to spend in barbershops as a consequence. Not to
mention, Father O’Gould said, the cost of shampoo and treatments for dandruff. Corny Chard joined in, and you can imagine the rest of the persiflage — pattern baldness in sensitive areas, flea and tick problems, spring shedding, fur envy, postnuptial molting — until Professor Athol had only Ariel Dearth defending him with a portentous “I think Randy’s trying to make a serious point here. We are assuming at least that the skins and furs will be synthetic?”

Professor Pilty conceded that they would be, if only because synthetics last longer, being resistant to the kinds of vermin that typically infest museums. Ms. Parkers of the Office of Outreach sensibly suggested that the signage could indicate that while “cave men,” as she put it, wore animal skins, these particular furs were artificial. Athol said that would satisfy him and added that the informational material should point out that “these people wore furs because that was all they had to wear.”

Dr. Gordon, after checking her watch, excused herself, and the meeting turned to talk about signage and signs, giving Professor Athol an opportunity to display all his specious expertise on the subject. He told the gathering that any informational plaques contemplated for the diorama would have to conform to the Wainscott Language Code. He said any use of the word
man
would need special scrutiny. Not to be outdone, Professor Brattle proposed that any literature about the diorama use the term
preherstory
instead of
prehistory
. In noting her remarks, I wrote her term down as “prehair story,” which didn’t make a whole lot of sense. I interrupted to ask for a clarification, and Professor Brattle explained, with a certain amount of condescending patience, the difference between history and herstory. Izzy Landes sat sputtering all through this before erupting into erudition. Eyes snapping over lowered half-frame spectacles, he pointed out that
history
derives from the Latin
historia
, meaning “narrative or account,” which derives in turn from the Greek
histor
, meaning
“wise” “a quality I still take to be gender-free.” On the other hand, he continued, the singular masculine possessive is from Middle English
his
and has nothing to do with the word
history
or its etymology.

A kind of chastised silence settled on the meeting then, into which lull Professor Murdleston, speaking down his chin, began mumbling about depicting a “communal John.” Murdleston, the occupier, as one wag put it, of an endowed stool, is known for his excavation of the Oberscheiss “latrine” not far from where the first Neanderthal was found in Germany. According to Murdleston, true civilization began with communal defecation. Site analysis showed, he said, the equivalent of a “four or five holer” that helped “foster a bond of trust and intimacy that allowed early man (“and woman” — Professor Brattle) to develop true civilization.” I had the feeling that John has been bothering Thad with this idea, and Pilty probably told him to bring it up before the committee. I think Thad was surprised when no one objected to Murdleston’s suggestion that several of the models be depicted “tunics up and squatting discreetly at one side of the camp.” In fact, I think there was some murmured approval for the daringness of it all. Father O’Gould demurred, saying that showing the models at some form of prayer would be more edifying. Professor Murdleston replied that communal defecation may well have been an early form of prayer. Izzy Landes rejoined that sometimes it still is, however solitary. Personally, I don’t know what it would add other than a kind of spurious realism for its own sake.