Read The Shadow of Reichenbach Falls Online
Authors: John R. King
The Shadow of Reichenbach Falls (14 page)
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And in time, as slight as Susanna was, her pregnancy was apparent to all. By then it did not matter. Her power as a scholar was matched only by the severe reputation of her husband.
She began to bring home her own theories and ideas: More monographs lay in our future. She turned her mathematical genius on social issues, creating models of human behavior that were powerfully predictive in large populations. Susanna studied the effect of education on reproductive age, the effect of career choice on life span, the effect of subsistence style on political affiliation, the effect of opiates and alcohol on cognition and performance … .
Though she began her work with large populations, she refined her models to be increasingly specific. Eventually, she claimed to be able to prognosticate the actions of five strangers to a specific stimulus.
“I’ll have to see it to believe it,” I said.
“Come along, then.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.”
Susanna led me to the banks of the Cam, where we met two of her professors—Drs. Applewight and Green. She asked us all to sit down on the grass. It was a fine September day, the dew just gone from the ground and a gentle mist meandering atop the river. Nearby, a young man sat beside a tree and worked feverishly on a manuscript he was writing. Behind him, two old gentlemen were engaged in a lawn-bowling
match. In the distance, a young man poled his punt up the Cam, a young woman sitting within the boat and holding a picnic basket on her lap.
match. In the distance, a young man poled his punt up the Cam, a young woman sitting within the boat and holding a picnic basket on her lap.
“If a pregnant woman were to fall into those waters,” Susanna asked us, “which of those five people would leap in to save her?”
I laughed, fishing a sovereign from my waistcoat and pressing it into Susanna’s hand. “None, I would wager.”
She glared at me, both affronted and intrigued. “You think no one would save me?”
“No one,” I replied flatly, “because your husband would not let his wife get near enough to the water for such a thing to happen.”
Susanna smiled, wrapping her fingers around the coin and lowering it into a pouch at her waist. “One wager lost,” she said. “After all, no good husband would stand in the way of his wife’s work. This is your wife’s work, and you are a good husband, ergo—”
“Oh, Sue, be serious! I will rescue you.”
She replied archly. “You cannot swim.”
“It makes no difference!”
“And you’re wearing your best suit.”
I nodded grimly. “Now
that
does matter.”
that
does matter.”
Dr. Applewight let out a roar of laughter and smacked my shoulder, and Dr. Green gave me a sympathetic shrug.
“I want that coin back when I’m proved right,” I said.
Susanna turned to the other two. “Well, gentlemen. Place your bets.”
Dr. Applewight, a rosy-cheeked fellow with muttonchops, looked dubiously at the old men bowling, the young man writing poetry, and the other young man in the boat with his ladylove. He reached into his own purse and clapped a sovereign in Susanna’s hand. “The young woman.”
I barked, “You must be joking! She’s got twelve petticoats if she’s got one. She’s a walking sponge. She’d soak up the Cam.”
Though all of us laughed, Applewight said, “Ah, but the physics of sponges do not occur to young ladies, who have especial empathy for their own kind when great with child.”
Susanna flashed the coin in her hand, smiled, and secreted the thing again in the pouch at her waist. “I can tell you, you are wrong, sir.”
“What?”
“I have been a young, single woman recently and can attest that they see pregnant women as creatures altogether different. The one is trying to find a man, and the other trying to keep one.”
“And both are doomed to failure,” said Applewight cheerily.
“And what do you say, Dr. Green?” asked Susanna.
Dr. Green was a round, bald-headed man with a congenital squint that might have been confused with a smile. “Clearly, it will be the brown-haired lawn bowler.”
“Clearly?” Susanna repeated, holding out her hand for the coin.
“Well, yes. The poet would like to believe he would save a girl, but he is a poet—all dreams and no action. He is sitting alone for a reason. And he is poor—a poet with perhaps two sets of clothes. He’ll think twice before wetting them.”
Susanna laughed, a scintillating sound that always scoured away the gloom. “You are right on every count about the poet—just as I would have said it—but what of the punter and the two bowlers?”
“The punter wouldn’t abandon a girl he himself is hoping to impregnate—if you pardon my candor—”
“Nothing to pardon—”
“—to save a girl that”—he gave me a sheepish grin and blurted—“that someone else has impregnated.”
“True.”
“So that leaves the two bowlers. Now, the astute observer will see the lurching step of the gray-haired one and will glimpse beneath the fold of the pant knee a rounded hinge, and will know that the man has a wooden leg.”
“Excellent!”
“Which, coupled with his age, makes him incapable of saving a pregnant woman—whereas the brown-haired man is hale and whole and younger, too. If anyone saves her, it would be he.”
Susanna took his coin, spun it between finger and thumb, and tucked it into the pouch at her belt. “I’m sorry to say that you, too, are wrong. The man who will save me is the man with the wooden leg.”
The professors and I all spoke at once: “Bosh!” “Preposterous!” “What nonsense!”
“I’ll show you.” Susanna undid the purse and tossed it to me. “For safekeeping.” Then she rose and strode away from us, her black skirts swaying back and forth. She walked along the path until she had come to a point equidistant between the subjects—the poet at the tree, the lawn bowlers, and the punter and his date. Then, with theatrical flare, she slipped on a stone and went tumbling down to crash into the Cam.
The punter stood tall, staring into the brackish water and prodding with his pole. The young woman with him wailed quietly and pushed the water gently aside as if she was clearing sand from the lid of a treasure chest. She apparently could not catch a glimpse of the drowning woman.
Meanwhile, the poet leaped up and screamed, and a rogue breeze riffled the pages of his epic poem and bore them away. The poet gave chase.
Last of all, the two lawn bowlers stared at the spot where the young girl had fallen. The brown-haired one ran to the riverbank and stood with hands wringing as he said, “I can’t swim.” The gray-haired one ambled down beside him, paused a moment to unscrew his wooden leg, and handed it to his friend. Then, grabbing the wooden toe, the one-legged man hopped into the river. He extended the leg out across the water, and in moments, caught hold of Susanna’s shoulder. He hoisted her up from the water.
Only now did I run for the bank (I had not wanted to destroy her experiment) and clambered down beside the one-legged man, who towed my wife to the side. I grasped her shoulders and pulled her farther up from the muddy water and said, “How’d you know?”
She pointed at the Royal Navy medic pin on the man’s lapel, and the wooden leg that had been his lifeline to the side. With a simple smile, she said, “Reach, throw, row, and go.”
“What?”
“A Navy medic knows how to save lives from the water, so I knew when I saw his pin that he had the training. And when I saw his wooden leg, I knew he had a way to reach before throwing, rowing, or going. These observations led me to believe he would intervene first.”
The one-legged man had heard this discussion and stood there beaming, his gray hair matted with river water.
“And,” Susanna said, suddenly gritting her teeth, “it is my sincere hope that this Navy medic knows another thing—”
“What?”
“How to deliver babies,” she gasped, sinking onto the grassy bank and clutching her belly.
I don’t know if it was the shock of the cold Cam or the glad warmth of being so definitively right or the trauma of men
clutching her every limb, but my wife went into labor then and there. Gladly, the one-legged Navy medic did know what he was doing. He took a moment to screw his leg back on and then positioned himself on the bank below my wife. He lifted her heels to rest on his shoulders and coached her gently.
clutching her every limb, but my wife went into labor then and there. Gladly, the one-legged Navy medic did know what he was doing. He took a moment to screw his leg back on and then positioned himself on the bank below my wife. He lifted her heels to rest on his shoulders and coached her gently.
“Ah, you’re a natural, you are. The babe is crowning.” The gray-haired medic smiled, eyes wide with amazement.
Susanna clutched my arm, gritted her teeth and pushed.
For a long while, this unpleasant process continued. Slowly the little dark head protruded. Then, with a great gush of fluid, the baby came rushing into the world. The old sailor caught her in his hands and laughed and held her up for Susanna and me to see.
The little girl squalled, covered in blood and smelling of river water.
“What should we call her?” Susanna asked.
“Let’s name her after you,” I said.
“Name her Susanna? Won’t that be confusing?”
“Then, how about Anna?”
“Anna,” she said, drawing the bloody baby toward her and kissing her on the forehead. “That’s who you are, then. Anna Moriarty.”
A LADY LOST
FROM THE MEMOIRS OF PROFESSOR JAMES MORIARTY:
A
nd so, Anna entered my life just as her mother had, catching me all unawares. I had never had much contact with children, let alone newborns, and this naked, bloody, mewling thing seemed to me to be hardly human—perhaps a pupa.
nd so, Anna entered my life just as her mother had, catching me all unawares. I had never had much contact with children, let alone newborns, and this naked, bloody, mewling thing seemed to me to be hardly human—perhaps a pupa.
I crouched beside Susanna, breathing raggedly as the Cam rolled lazily along below us. The Navy medic handed Anna to the other lawn bowler, who swaddled her in his overcoat. (I had already given my coat to my shivering wife.) The medic then drew a river-soaked handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the blood off the infant. (I would have proffered my own except that I was already using it to clean up Susanna.)
I could see the baby’s features now: the squished face, the bruise under her jaw where the man had pulled, the tiny hands and toes. She almost became human, but then I saw the umbilicus. That strange, quirked cord ran from the belly to the placental sac, which even now dangled bloodily above the ground.
I know fathers say that they love their daughters at first sight—that it is an obligation if not a compulsion. But I did not. I already had an all-encompassing love. Was I suddenly supposed to divide my love in half, giving a portion to my soul mate and the rest to this stranger? Or was I suddenly supposed to become twice the man I had been?
I distinctly remember looking at that child, that half-drowned thing, and wondering who she was and what she meant.
I distinctly remember looking at that child, that half-drowned thing, and wondering who she was and what she meant.
“Isn’t she perfect?” Susanna asked me.
“Isn’t she?” I echoed.
WE RETURNED to our apartments, and Susanna gave the baby a proper bath, and I sliced the umbilicus with a pair of scissors and crimped it off with a bit of wire. Susanna showed me how to pin a diaper, and I watched with bemusement, trying to imagine myself doing any work on that end of the baby. But Susanna honestly expected me to, and soon I was to discover that I had no choice in the matter.
That should have been my first clue that everything had changed. I had always been the authority, had drawn Susanna up from the literal gutter and taught her to read and write, and opened a new world to her. I had been almost a father, but now she spoke to me in slow words with lots of deep nods as if I were a daft uncle. She was the parent now, and I was—what?—an assistant?
And the baby had done this to us.
Little Anna had stolen our lives. Once, I could lecture while Susanna learned—whether in my class or in another—but now one of us had to be home, or the baby had to go along. We even attempted it a few times, wheeling a pram in and hoping for a long nap. Little Anna would sleep until class began and then would break into ferocious wailing. I could not well change a diaper while lecturing on logarithmic functions, and I didn’t have the mammary equipment to placate her other needs. It came down to this: either my wife or I had to quit.
I told Susanna that I could not imagine ending my career to spend all day, every day, tending a baby. She said she would quit school. I was relieved at first, but our decision worked doubly against me.
Spending all day together, mother and daughter developed a powerful bond. Anna gradually edged me out of Susanna’s heart. At the same time, the baby drove all thought of theories and monographs and discoveries out of her mother’s mind. For four years, Susanna bent all her will on this little life. The two of them grew inseparable, a female syndicate that plotted against the Fatherland. I had to put a stop to it.
“I have a surprise for you, my dear,” I said one August, sweeping into our too-crowded apartments. Susanna and four-year-old Anna were working together to fold the washing. I raised my hand from behind my back and presented a bunch of roses I had clipped from a wild bush near the Cam.
“For me?” Anna asked shrilly, running forward.
I swept the flowers out of reach. “For your mother.” When I saw the pouting look on her face, I said, “They have thorns, dear. I didn’t want you to get pricked.”
“I, on the other hand—” Susanna said sarcastically, and both of them laughed. “What’s the occasion?”
“It’s threefold,” I said. “First, I have become Dean of Maths and Physics.”
“No!” Susanna cried, standing and wrapping her arms around me. “Congratulations!”
I returned the embrace, careful not to snag her dress with the thorns and not to let Anna get hold of them. “And there’s more.”
“What?”
“As dean, my first act is to readmit you into the program, picking up where you left off.”
Susanna stared at me, her face betraying shock and a little annoyance. “But I can’t—not until Anna is in school. We spoke of this.”
“You cannot wait any longer, my dear. Your faculties have been slowly declining—”
Her eyes flared. Anna saw the look and mirrored it a moment later. Susanna said, “I am, if anything, sharper for my work raising a child.”
“And though I may be dean, I cannot stretch your credits indefinitely. You must return to your studies.”
Susanna wrapped Anna in her arms and stared at me. “And what happens to our daughter?”
“We’ll hire a nanny.”
“A nanny?” they chorused.
“As dean, I have a substantial pay increase. We can afford it.”
“But can Anna afford it?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Nannies are embittered spinsters or closeted Sapphites—”
“You’re being too harsh.”
“They’re paid to love—mercenaries, prostitutes.”
I looked at her in frustration, my lips holding back the words
so were you.
so were you.
“How dare you!”
“What?”
“I know you, James Moriarty. I know your every thought,” Susanna said angrily. “This is not for me, not for Anna. This is all for you. You want to divide and conquer, to put your wife in her place and put your daughter in her place. You want to make her an orphan in her own home!”
The blood fled my face. At last, I understood. Susanna, who had never had a mother, was trying to be a mother not just for Anna, but for herself.
“I’m sorry,” I said, spreading my hands, letting the roses fall to the floor. “I just want you back, Susanna.”
Something in her broke. She peeled her arm away from Anna and crossed to me and nestled against my chest. I raised my hands to embrace her, but she said, “Don’t.”
“What?”
“Your hand is covered in blood,” she said.
Only then did I notice the four deep punctures where I had clutched the rose stems too hard. The broken flowers lay on the floor between us.
“I will do it,” she said in resignation. “I’ll go back to school—
if
we can find a suitable nanny for Anna.”
if
we can find a suitable nanny for Anna.”
“No, Mother!” Anna wailed, clinging to her.
I clenched my hand, trying to keep the blood from falling on Anna’s blond head. I whispered to Susanna, “You won’t be sorry.”
“You might be.”
We both turned out to be right.
THE SEARCH for a suitable nanny dragged on for weeks. Partly, mother and daughter had decided to be extremely picky. Partly, Susanna had been right in her dire predictions. The old applicants turned out to be sour old Tories or dissolute drunks. The young ones often had cold sores on their lips, telltale signs of their true professions. Virtuous women were unwilling to sell themselves into domestic slavery.
In the fourth week, though, we found an old nanny with sterling references, a kindly face, and a will of iron. She spoke with the Queen’s English, knew Latin and Greek, and voted straight-ticket Tory. Her only downfall had been a ne’er-do-well husband who had spent her fortune and died. Mrs. Mulroney was, therefore, a refined lady at a streetwalker price. Best of all, Susanna liked her, and Anna spontaneously referred to her as “Grandmum.”
With that one utterance, Susanna was set free! I had at last won my wife back from our daughter. As Mrs. Mulroney settled into her domestic duties, Susanna dived back into her studies.
Her first class was a calculus tutorial, for which the professor was routinely late. When Susanna arrived, the four young
men sitting there laughed to see her: “You must be the substitute!”
men sitting there laughed to see her: “You must be the substitute!”
Susanna smiled rakishly, strode to the slate, and scrawled out a dizzying formula that crossed both boards. The giggles slowly quieted, and one by one, the young scholars began to copy down the equation. At last, Susanna turned around and said: “Do any of you know what this equation describes?”
Dead silence answered. Finally, a student named Edward Drake said, “A complex system of interactions.”
“Yes. But what exactly does it describe?”
Drake shrugged. “Some sort of chemical reaction?”
Susanna tilted her head, her smile only widening. “In a way.” She reached into her waistcoat pocket and drew out a peppermint—the type she and Anna always shared—and popped it into her mouth.
Another young scholar named John Nelson said, “It doesn’t look like a chemical reaction, but one of physics—the tracing of particles. But I can’t make out what sort of particles these are. There are four principals—D, N, A, and H, and they seem to bounce off each other in numerous ways. A chain reaction.”
“True.”
A third classmate, Rupert Higgins, scowled. “You said ‘in a way’ it was a chemical reaction, but also that it was a physical reaction. Which is it? It can’t be both, can it?”
“Can it?” Susanna replied.
The last, a student named Clive Andrews, said, “I don’t think it describes anything. There are too many other variables: f
m
(D), f
s
(A), f
h
(H)
,
f
p
(A)—I mean, f
h
(H)? What kind of nonsense is that?”
m
(D), f
s
(A), f
h
(H)
,
f
p
(A)—I mean, f
h
(H)? What kind of nonsense is that?”
“Just my question,” Susanna pressed. “What kind of nonsense is this?”
“Oh, she’s just playing with us,” said Higgins.
“Precisely,” Susanna replied. “Here are the variables: The
function of
m
represents mind, on a ten-point scale from dull to genius. The function of
p
represents personality, on a scale from depressive to manic. The function of s represents sexism, from chauvinist to feminist … .”
function of
m
represents mind, on a ten-point scale from dull to genius. The function of
p
represents personality, on a scale from depressive to manic. The function of s represents sexism, from chauvinist to feminist … .”
As they scribbled, Higgins said, “But what the blazes is the function of
h
times H?”
h
times H?”
“The function of
h
stands for hangover,” Susanna said. “So clearly f
h
(H) represents how your current hangover affects you, Mr. Higgins.”
h
stands for hangover,” Susanna said. “So clearly f
h
(H) represents how your current hangover affects you, Mr. Higgins.”
“What?” he blustered.
Susanna smiled sweetly. “There you are, gentlemen—D for Drake, N for Nelson, A for Andrews, and H for Higgins. I’ve calculated the effects of your minds, your personalities, your sexism, and your hangovers to determine your actions.”
“What actions?” Drake and Andrews both blurted.
“This elaborate chain provides a probability of proper action.” She began to work through the equation, rubbing out variables and replacing them with numbers and running them through—at first two and then three and then four calculations ahead of the class.
Susanna was nearing the final calculation when she drew a quick breath, and the peppermint on her tongue rushed back and lodged in her throat. She hitched, trying to cough it out but couldn’t, and by the time she pivoted round, her face was blue. She collapsed onto the floor, passing out.
WHEN SHE awoke, Drake and Higgins knelt above her. Drake’s face was racked with dread, but Higgins was patiently picking chunks of shattered peppermint off his fingers.
Susanna smiled up at them, a smile that had always melted me: “What happened?”
Drake said, “Well, um. You choked—on that candy there. I was the first one to see it, and I ran up, trying to knock it out of
you. Then Higgins told me to stop, said I was just lodging it down deeper. He grabbed you, miss—and, well, I’m ashamed to say—”
you. Then Higgins told me to stop, said I was just lodging it down deeper. He grabbed you, miss—and, well, I’m ashamed to say—”
Higgins broke in, “I lifted you up with your back to my chest and wrapped my arms around your breasts and—”
“And that’s when Andrews shouted rape and ran from the room.”
“Yeah, but it wasn’t rape, see, miss, because when I squeezed your chest, the candy came popping out, and I caught it in my hand and crushed it.”
“You saved my life.”
He blushed deeply. “I guess I did, miss.”
She nodded. “Thank you. But what about Nelson? What did he do?”
Both men looked at each other and shrugged.
“I’ll tell you what he did. He finished the calculation, realized what it meant, and skulked out of the room.” The two young men traded looks of shock. Susanna extended her hands to them. “Help me up, and let’s go see.”
They lifted her to her feet, and the three of them went to Nelson’s desk to see the completed equation.
“Here it is, in black-and-white,” Susanna said. “You, Drake, have a high intelligence and a moderate personality—are even an egalitarian, with deep compassion—but you’re feeling quite dulled by a raging hangover from last night’s revels.”
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