Yearn (5 page)

 • • • 

The window was pushed as wide as it could go. Although it was past one in the morning, the temperature had not dropped and an oppressively humid heat rose from the pavement, seemingly mingling with the moon shadow that fell in broad blue-white bands, transforming the mundane into the mysterious. D'Arcy sat at his desk, the rest of the house hushed and sleeping. Before him lay the clandestine document. He held his hand an inch above the thick yellowed paper, fingers spread over the journal as if he were, through some feat of inverted gravity, absorbing the very soul of the great man up through the pages. It was an extraordinary intimacy, this communion, and the young biographer felt both the weight of responsibility and tremendous exhilaration. He was deeply conscious that the last person to have looked upon the manuscript was Banks and now he held it in his hands. It was undeniable; their lives were irretrievably woven together.

D'Arcy glanced back down, his mind reeling between disbelief, complete fascination, and, if he were frank with himself, a deluge of sexual fantasy that had made it hard to continue reading with the cold eye of the scientist, the bulge in his trousers an uncomfortable confirmation of this distraction. In front of him were several paragraphs he'd marked in pencil—these contained the description of the climax of the ritual Banks had reported in the journal, a secret religious ritual of the native Polynesians that, if executed, imbued the main participant with great powers. But this ritual differed from other ceremonies witnessed by Banks and documented in his published journals. This one involved sex magic and of such detailed intensity that the ritual was not only extraordinary but transgressive. Certainly perverse enough to outrage those esteemed guardians of high culture, the Church of England, but also the members of the Royal Institute. D'Arcy couldn't have been more excited. The diary contained material guaranteed to compel all manner of reader to buy the biography. It was a writer's gold mine, a treasure of controversy that would make him famous. For the hundredth time in the past two hours, D'Arcy began to read the marked paragraphs:

It came about that Otheothea, my native “wife,” had a quarrel with one of her friends over some breadfruit and coconut crops she was convinced the friend had been stealing. And she needed evidence to prove her case before accusing the friend and seeking local justice. She explained to me that there was a secret ritual that if executed gave the truth-seeker the power, for a limited time, to see through the eyes of anyone they named. “Truth magic” would be the nearest translation in our English tongue. She then asked me if I'd partake in the ritual, as it required two men, one of whom needed to be a Tupia (local priest), and two women, one of them a priestess. Eager to learn as much as I could about her culture and innocently thinking it would be a simple matter of the sacrifice of a few chickens and some chanting, I agreed. Never in the history of mankind has a man been so wrong. . . .

After insisting that I should bathe and groom my hair, Otheothea led me to a clearing in a small forest beyond which it was possible to hear the pounding of the ocean against the rocks. It was (judging by the position of the stars and the lights in the sky) about two hours before dawn, the time of which was significant to Otheothea as she kept indicating my fob watch. She herself had dressed in little more than a grass skirt with a garland of flowers about her neck and woven into her hair that she had loosened and wore down her back. Waiting in the clearing was a young girl (perhaps as young as sixteen), a girl Otheothea had noticed me watching—for the creature was as lovely and comely as the young Aphrodite herself. Instead of being consumed by jealousy (as would be the custom of the women of my country), Otheothea had smiled and asked if I desired the girl. At the time, fearing I might insult Otheothea, I had denied it. But now I could see that she'd read my emotions more faithfully than I had assumed. The other person waiting in the clearing was a native man, a Tupia, another magnificent specimen of humanity, standing over six foot tall. His oiled and muscular body gleamed in the light of the fire illuminating the grassy plateau. Both wore ceremonial dress—grass skirts, beads, and necklaces of scarlet feathers. There was a formal, almost religious atmosphere, as if both were there as participants in a solemn rite.

On the ground was laid a blanket, the pattern of
which I recognized from the cloak of a man I had been introduced to as a priest: a distinctive design of strips and crosses. Upon our approach the young man lit a low burner of incense and began chanting, rocking backward and forward. The girl knelt slowly on the edge of the blanket, her knees placed carefully on two points of the pattern.

Otheothea turned to me: “She is for you. She is part of the magic. The four of us will make a window of pleasure, and together our joy will join to wake the Earth Lizard and he will give me the eyes of my enemy for half a day.”

At the time I thought I had misinterpreted her intention, a meaning lost in translation. But when she placed my hands on the oiled breasts of the young girl, and she herself had straddled the lap of the priest, the nature of this magic ritual was apparent.

 • • • 

An ember suddenly crackled in the hearth, startling the young biographer, absorbed as he was by the detailed description of the ritual. It was almost as if Banks had written the account as a set of instructions left, if not for himself, for posterity. Even if he had hidden the journal it was evident to D'Arcy that some part of Banks must have assumed its discovery sooner or later, otherwise why had he not destroyed the pages, or even not written them at all? It was a moral argument the biographer allowed himself to be pursued by.

D'Arcy stared into the fire. It was as if the four figures themselves danced amid the flames, bronze skin gleaming as buttock pounded into buttock, breast against breast, Banks's pale figure embraced by both man and woman—all abandoned to an instinctive animal force greater than the conventions of both D'Arcy's era and that of the late eighteenth century. This transcended the rationality of modern man. Gripped by inspiration, D'Arcy could hardly breathe. It was a powerful and seductive vision. He returned to his reading. The next two pages provided a detailed account of the ritual itself, involving an elaborate orgy the movement of which appeared to be so highly choreographed that the four participants would reach orgasm simultaneously, the intent being (as far as D'Arcy could ascertain) that the energy of this sexual climax would then channel directly into the truth-seeker, who had hung about his or her body objects belonging to the person she/he wished to see through the eyes of. In the ritual described by Banks it was locks of hair, and some beads that belonged to the woman his native “wife” had accused.

Afterward Banks wrote of his skepticism, but also of his intense pleasure in witnessing such a ritual. Then came the last paragraph, the content of which fascinated the young biographer almost as much as the sexual acts so beautifully and lyrically portrayed.

I had dismissed the whole event as an excuse for the usual indulgence of the senses these people (as innocent as children) so delighted in, and had just decided to regard my involvement as a delightful memoir I might return to when age and infirmity had made such pleasures unobtainable when Otheothea who, up until that moment, had been lying quietly beside me, seemed to go into an apoplexy. Her eyes rolled up into her head and she began to shake wildly. I could not bring her to her senses. This went on for just under an hour until, as swiftly as it had begun, the paroxysms ceased. Sitting up and smiling peacefully, the native girl appeared to have returned to her normal self. “I have been with her, Joseph, I have seen through her eyes and she is guilty.”

After these words she insisted I accompany her to the hut of her enemy, gathering witnesses along the way. Upon arrival, despite violent protests from the accused, Otheothea went straight to a wooden chest in the corner and opened it. Hidden inside were the stolen fruits and crops. The location of the chest was not obvious, and neither were the crops hidden within. And I could not find a rational explanation except to acknowledge that the sex magic had worked and Otheothea had seen through her enemy's eyes in order to locate the stolen crops.

Naturally the notion that such a ritual might indeed be empowering is deeply disturbing to me. I cannot afford such methods of promotion to become available to either my contemporaries or descendants. This kind of alchemy is not fit for either Christian or Englishman . . . and yet, it is mesmerizing.

 • • • 

By the time D'Arcy had finished reading dawn was already creeping in under the curtains and the fire in the hearth was reduced to smoldering embers. He closed the journal. Already he felt like an entirely different man from the one who had sat down to study the journal eight hours before. He had been transformed. He felt as if his notion of perception, the borders of reality, even his understanding of what religious worship might be had been blown apart. The discovery of the journal was more than just an extraordinary piece of luck that would doubtless propel his biography into a league of its own. It had also stirred D'Arcy to new heights of aspiration: to control the gaze of your enemy, to actually leave your body and enter another? These adventures promised to be as much a thaumaturgy of the senses as the orgy itself. And what if the ritual actually worked? He sat there staring across the familiar planes and shapes of his study and yet he was in Polynesia, lying naked and satiated in a jungle clearing by the smoldering remains of a log fire, his spirit having flown from his body and then returned, restored, renewed, the doors of perception yawning open. If only he had that power—to be able to see through the eyes of anyone he liked for an hour, to experience what they were seeing. What would he do with such a gift?

Just then his eye fell upon Tuttle's white glove, which he had placed at the base of Sir Joseph Banks's marble bust as a kind of trophy or offering. Inspired by the sight, a small trickle of an idea started glinting in his consciousness, an idea of revenge, of empowerment, an idea that might reverse forever the calamitous set of circumstances he now found himself in. If D'Arcy had such a gift, even for an hour, he would be able to find out at exactly what stage Tuttle was in his book. He would be able to read the actual pages, gauge whether Tuttle's biography would be a real threat to his own. He would triumph no matter what.

Physically exhausted but with his mind racing with excitement, D'Arcy threw himself down on the daybed in a corner of the study. Strategies danced like dervishes about him. His plan would have to be extremely well executed. To conduct a ritual like that in London would not only be potentially ruinous (if it were ever discovered), it would also no doubt be illegal. And yet the advantage gained would be tenfold. Not only would he be able to thwart Tuttle's publication (a concept that was as delicious to him as any fought duel), he would also have undergone the same experience as Joseph Banks himself, and the idea of being thus fused forever to his great idol was almost as irresistible.

He lay there imagining all the consequences—himself basking in the fame of scandalous celebrity, the book sales, the sheer pleasure of trumping Tuttle in the reviews, the covert pleasure of being in his skin for an hour, perusing his notes. . . . His mind was made up; he had no choice. It was as if the very discovery of the journal—the way it had organically arrived in his hands, the arbitrariness of Harry the sweep's appearance, the coincidence of D'Arcy having stayed in that afternoon when the chimneys were being cleaned—was destined; he was compelled to commit body and soul to the journal. He had to perform the magic.

But now, having persuaded himself, he was confronted with the bleak reality of planning the event. Whom, if anyone, could he trust to take part in such a potentially dangerous ritual? Just then he was reminded of Prudence, his paramour at Golden Square. For the right price she would play a part. She had already proven herself a mistress of all kinds of salacious games—the kind of role play found betwixt man and woman, games that turned nature on its head and always excited. She would be the perfect mistress of ceremonies for such an event. And it would be easy for her to recruit a young girl of her profession. But who could play the other man's role? He had to be handsome, open-minded in his lovemaking, and desirous of other men as well as women. Just then an early blackbird began whistling outside D'Arcy's window. The birdsong immediately brought to mind the cheerful whistling of Harry the young chimney sweep.

 • • • 

“You want me to do what?” Prudence, known as Mademoiselle Inferno amongst certain members of Parliament, looked indignant; indignant as is possible clad in a corset, stockings, riding crop, and short fur cape. D'Arcy had disturbed her at work, insisting that he needed to speak to her directly despite the fact that she was with one of her more particular gentleman friends (as her maid put it). The prostitute, although well fond of D'Arcy, who was one of her younger and certainly more handsome clients, was not happy at the interruption.

“It is a magic rite, an ancient religious ritual, Prudence. We will be the first in England to have executed it,” D'Arcy clarified enthusiastically, swept away by his own rhetoric.

“I wouldn't be too sure of that, Mr. D'Arcy. I've had some very peculiar libertines in my time. I just never thought you were inclined that way.”

“Prudence, this isn't just some simple orgy, this is genuine magic-making—communion with the raw power of sex itself.”

“Please, keep your voice down, Mr. D'Arcy. I am a Catholic, I'll have you know. I don't hold stock with dancing with the devil nor doing anything else with him. I have my reputation to think of.” Prudence, who liked to think of herself as a cut above other working girls, pursed her lips.

“Trust me, Prudence. This isn't devil worship or witchcraft. This ritual is from the South Sea Islands, from a land the French once described as La Nouvelle Cythere, an island where a woman with your skills would be considered a queen and welcomed in the highest realms of power.”