The Murder in the Museum of Man (20 page)

I glanced at my watch and made motions to leave. I smiled and shook hands with Drex and his assistant. They didn’t want me to go. Just then another fracas broke out among the beasts — Royd was cuffing and verbally upbraiding Ninny, who screamed and whimpered in a most distressful way. I hadn’t realized there was so much violence among them. Young Snyders was talking at me all the time, something about achieving their original objective and starting a new program, Chimprite II, he called it. “It’s a revolutionary way of teaching nonhumans what words mean.”

I said I was sure it was nothing less than wonderful and glanced at my watch again. But with the prodding of Mr. Drex, the young man was not to be deterred. “When one of the writers types one of the five thousand or so words in the visual memory, bells go off and a visual representation of the word appears on the screen above the keyboard, with the word spelled out in big letters underneath it.”

“And many candies,” Drex added.

“Especially if they type the word over. Kupide already knows
boy, girl
, and
fuck.”

“We know you help us, Norman, when time ripens,” said Drex.

I murmured something noncommittal and was again consulting
my watch and making those polite noises that signal imminent departure when Ninny, that Parisian
provocateuse
, came ambling up followed by Royd, her cuckolded swain. She looked me over with a none too subtle come-hither leer, which I might have found comical had she not, with unequivocable and unmistakable intent, without the least warning and to my intense mortification, turned and presented her livid rump directly to me. I stood there, helpless with embarrassment, not knowing in the least how to respond. Some lout in the group of onlookers yelled, “Go for it, Norm.” Well, when Royd saw this new display of infidelity, he lunged directly at me, grabbing me by the thigh, and no doubt would have sunk his bared canines into my privates had not Drex barked a sharp command and struck the animal smartly upside the head. Still, it took them a moment to free me from the clutches of the beast, and I tore this perfectly good pair of new trousers in the struggle.

I cannot express how absolutely degrading it all was. And I did not appreciate it in the least the way Drex’s bucktoothed assistant laughed and told me that I should feel honored, because “Ninny is quite fussy about bestowing her favors, especially when it comes to nonchimps.” Lotte Landes asked me if I was all right, and I assured her I was. But the humiliation of it all! Rubbing my leg and watching where I was stepping, I beat a quick retreat to the pavilion proper, accompanied by Snyders, who implored me to stay, saying he hoped this “small incident” had not lessened my appreciation of the important work he and his colleagues were doing. I finally shook him off and quite literally fled back here.

I must say I found it reassuring to climb up through the collections. I nearly wanted to find Mort and have him open the case with the Grecian terra-cotta figurines, so I could hold one, just for a moment, in my hands. The experience, as you can well understand, has left me quite shaken. I feel as though I have been
to hell, have had a glimpse of what we emerged from and to what, to judge from what I see and hear these days, we are returning as a species. I am now more convinced than ever that Damon Drex and his assistant are themselves bent on a hoax of stupendous proportions, and I mean to do everything in my power to thwart it.

My goodness, it’s gotten late. I couldn’t have gone to the Club anyway in these torn trousers. Perhaps I’ll staple them up and stop by the Bon Vivant for a bite on the way home. The food’s not much, but there’s a waitress there who is always kind to me.

I received in this morning’s mail a snapshot taken with one of those cheap little flash cameras at the very moment that awful chimpanzee “presented” herself to me. It is not an edifying spectacle, to say the least, and the ribald note accompanying the picture from one of Thad Pilty’s assistants is tasteless beyond words. The incident, in short, still rankles, and I am more determined than ever to see that the very existence of the Primate Pavilion be put on any agenda concerning the fate of the museum.

Strange how I find myself these days, to change the subject completely, thinking more and more of Elsbeth and how, really, I should perhaps have been more forward in my relations, I mean my physical relations, with her. Perhaps it’s the time of the year; these languid summer nights recall other languid summer nights. Perhaps it’s the memory of that summer day, many years ago, when Elsbeth and I swam together in Lake Longing, where her parents owned a cottage. (Personally, I dislike those tepid,
mosquito-ridden, squishy-bottomed, pine-fringed ponds left behind by the glaciers, but I frequented the place and even swam there to please Elsbeth.) We had, on that afternoon, emerged from the water and, as was our custom, sat on the little pier that jutted hopefully out into the small cove just down from the cottage. I distinctly remember how a certain agitation filled the air that day. It may have been Elsbeth’s playfulness in the water, which left us both rather breathless as we dripped on the warm wood and availed ourselves of bath towels. It may have been the impending thunderstorm building to a boil of blue-black clouds to the west. It may have been the mosquitoes, feasting on our blood and leaving inflamed welts on our pale skin.

The mosquitoes and the coming storm finally drove us indoors. As we rose to walk up to the cottage, Elsbeth gave me the most enigmatic glance and held out her hand for me to take. She had undone the top strings of her swimsuit, and, really, I had to avert my eyes to avoid seeing the full extent of her considerable bosom. We had scarcely made the front porch, where her parents sat reading, when the first big drops of rain came plattering down and lightning licked and cracked at the far end of the pond. I remained below with the Merriman seniors to chat and watch the spectacular display of the storm while Elsbeth went upstairs to shower and change for dinner. A short time later, I went up the stairs myself, arriving at the landing just as Elsbeth came out of the bathroom with a towel so haphazardly draped over her that I could not avoid seeing her in a single flash, coincident, I remember, with a resounding near miss next to the cottage, quite, as they say, in the round. With a little squeal of shock or delight or both, she let the towel drop altogether as she swept down the hallway and into her room.

Until that moment, which burned into my memory with searing voltage, I had allowed myself to imagine the felicities of the marital state with Elsbeth only as an aid to solitary release.
(Even now, some thirty-five years later, I can still see the full-figured contours of her striding form and hear that squeal of alarmed delight.) I had not even permitted myself to consider “doing it” until we were in fact married, an eventuality I considered somewhat remote in terms of time. I always thought it wise and proper for two people to become a union of souls before effecting a more physical connection, and still do. But with that incident at the top of the stairs, with the storm flashing and crashing all around the cottage, I stood ready in an instant to jettison my principles. I was shocked and aroused and had no defenses left against my imagination, which ran riot as to the possibilities of sexual intimacies. Trembling in the vivid aftershock of seeing her that way, I realize now that I didn’t know what to do next. I thought of following her, of at least knocking quietly on her door. But what if she had let me in? What then? It is one thing to imagine something; it is quite another to do it. I retreated to my own room, where, pulling off my wet bathing suit, I found myself agitated into a quite palpable state of masculine readiness. I began to compose little homilies to speak to both of us. I was going to tell her that it had been a great and stirring privilege to see her like that, but that we should be careful as to the liberties we took with each other, whether accidental or not, as we were not even engaged. I planned to tell her that her charms were such that only the most stalwart self-control on my part could prevent advances that she might not welcome or that, if she did, might compromise her irrevocably.

Well, the very thought that she might welcome them, that she was, right then, in the next room, a thin wall away, quite as naked as I and perhaps, in her own way, as ready as I, spurred me to provide my own relief. But still, imagine my state of mind that evening at dinner with her parents. Albert Merriman, of Merriman Chevrolet, a stout, balding, mild-mannered, amateur myrmecologist — he had published several papers on the genus
Camponotus —
grilled chicken for us on the outdoor barbecue, the somewhat charred remains of which we ate on the screened porch while the darkening world cheeped and chirped all around us. I was mortified, scarcely able to chew the potato salad or Rosalind Merriman’s rather runny coleslaw, never mind the blackened, underdone breast of chicken, thinking that I had just seen the naked body of their daughter, who was only a junior in college. Elsbeth chatted on as though nothing had happened. Indeed, as though to be deliberately provocative, she wore a thin, strapless summer dress, white with red polka dots, that was quite revealing. It didn’t help that her manner remained coy and teasing and that every once in a while she would glance at me significantly, as though she had seen me naked rather than the other way around. My particular disquiet persisted through two rubbers of bridge, during which I flubbed an underbid three no trump before the elder Merrimans (no doubt disgusted with my play) retired for the evening, leaving Elsbeth and me to the crepitating summer night.

It was not, of course, the first time we had been alone together under these circumstances, although Al and Rosie were usually good for three rubbers of bridge. But this night, as wraithlike moths pestered the porch light, I sat with Elsbeth on the rattan sofa that faced the fieldstone fireplace and shivered with an anxiety born of conflicting desires. Despite my earlier dissipations
à la main
, so to speak, the beast in me wanted to take advantage of the situation. I wanted to use the incident in the upstairs hallway to effect, in effect, a conquest. We were sitting rather close together on the sofa. The heat of the day lingered in the cottage despite the storm. And Elsbeth affected a distinctly sensual languor as she half-sat and half-stretched beside me. Oh, how I was tempted right then to make overtures, to tell her that I had found the sight of her ravishing, that I could not get the vision of her beauty out of my mind, especially when she wore
such a low-cut, strapless dress, that I was, in short, a helpless, craven male utterly at her mercy!

But the other me, the decent, restrained me, perhaps the cowardly, self-relieved me, prevailed. With an effort, fighting the headiness of some new, provocative musk rising from her warm person, I inched from Elsbeth on the sofa. I held her hand and, as gently as I could, rebuked both of us for what had happened. I said that we would have to be more careful in the future, that I was not a man of infinite restraint, that we would have to work harder on the spiritual and intellectual aspects of our relationship if we were ever to think of building a life together based on mutual respect. Well, I had hardly finished my speech when Elsbeth, who had developed a surprising capacity for profanity, withdrew her hand and said, “Oh, for Christ’s sakes, Norman, go to bed.”

I know I did the right thing, even though I can see now, in the clarity of hindsight, that it might have been better had the beast in me prevailed. We no doubt would have married, perhaps, heaven forbid, have been forced to marry. My life might have been richer for it. I’m sure I would have been more successful professionally, perhaps as professor of archaeology at some small, respected university like Wainscott. It’s extraordinary how much of life can hinge on the decision of one moment, how close I came that warm summer night to seducing myself into seducing her.

Oh, well. The summer school students have started to arrive, and Shag Bay is littered with sailboats. The museum is nearly deserted, except for the chimps, of course, who never go away. I was hoping to get some work done on the history, but I have been interrupted endlessly by phone calls regarding Malachy Morin. It’s turned into a ghastly circus, and Corny Chard has not acted responsibly in the least. Marge Littlefield told me he was on one of those television talk shows, David Litterman or Latterman or
someone like that. Chard apparently caused quite a stir when he asserted that the cannibalizing of Michael Rockefeller by natives in Irian Jaya back in the sixties resulted in the most expensive food ever eaten in history. I mean, that is precisely the kind of publicity we don’t need.

Speaking of Mr. Morin, I had the most pathetic plea from him in the form of a nearly unreadable letter. The man is barely literate, a football scholarship student, no doubt. It seems all of his friends and colleagues have deserted him, and he’s been unable to get a lawyer, other than a courthouse drunk desperate for work, to represent him. I frankly don’t see why I should feel obligated to visit the miserable wretch. He never showed me one kindness or consideration during his tenure here. He’s committed unspeakable crimes and owes a debt to society, which he ought to pay without whining. Besides, what could I do for him? Surely he doesn’t expect sympathy from me? He needs a good lawyer more than anything else; the district attorney is looking for blood, and the whole community is in a lynching mood. And I do have to consider my position at the museum and in the Seaboard community. I am, after all, the Recording Secretary at the Museum of Man, and the name de Ratour has a long and distinguished history in these parts. I mean, if I were to be seen visiting him in the county jail and it got into the newspapers, what kind of a signal would that send?