The Taxidermist's Lover

by Polly Hall

  Frozen, I watched as the creature, the size of a small dog but with giant outstretched wings, wobbled toward me, growling and hissing. It sounded similar to the guttural echoes from your throat as you snored. A scream got stuck and I strained to emit it; only a breathy exhalation came from my mouth. The thing was getting closer to my head, now rolling slowly up my body—it had huge wide wings. And in front of that appeared two giant snakes, until I realized they were not snakes’ but swans’ heads swaying with wide-open beaks. A mad gorgon unleashed in the form of the—oh my god, I thought—it looked like the swoodle. I couldn’t move. Both swans’ heads were arched back as if to strike out my eyes. Ssssssssssssss, the creature hissed. Ssscarlett. Releassssse ussss.

  “Scarlett!” You were leaning over me. “Scarlett, what’s wrong?”

  I opened my eyes and sat bolt upright. A shaft of morning light burst through the heavy curtains of the room. You looked alarmed. There was nothing in the room except for us and the ornate furniture. The trolley of food looked too metallic and out of place in such a medieval room, as if a futuristic aircraft had landed in the middle of a period drama.

  “Did you have a bad dream?” You were looking at my face, stroking my damp hair.

  “It wasn’t a dream.”

  “You were mumbling, trying to say something.”

  “The swoodle was here.”

  “The swoodle?” I could tell you thought it amusing how I named all the hybrid sculptures.

  “You have to stop making those things—those mixed up creatures.”

  “Scarlett, what are you talking about?”

  “The show, the Spring Show. You can’t do it. It’s not right. You need to go back to stuffing creatures the way you used to. As they were in life. True replicas.”

  “But I’ve got so many specimens ready now. I can’t just pull out at the last minute. Besides it was your idea. You talked me into it, remember? Why the sudden change?”

  “It’s not right.”

  “You keep saying that. What’s not right? They are already dead. This is exactly the kind of outdated attitude that people have about taxidermy. I thought you were different.”

  “No, I don’t mean“

  “I’m doing the show, Scarlett. You can come or not. I’ve made all those exhibits and I’m going to be there.”

  So that was your final answer and, like being swept along by a strong current, I could do nothing but hang on and hope we didn’t drown.

  Christmas Day—Today

  Around Midday

  It occurs to me that I am bound to you by nothing but a verbal promise. But promises have strength greater than the breath from which they are born. You are doing up the back of my wedding dress with nimble fingers, tying the cords of silk gently so the bodice compresses my naked breasts. I have not worn the dress since that impulsive day in April and I wonder if you feel a tug of passion as you see me in it again.

  You hold a sprig of mistletoe above us and kiss my forehead then my cheeks one after the other, then whisper, “Merry Christmas my darling.” Your lips are so close to my ear, but I would’ve heard you through the thick walls of our house.

  “I sometimes forget how sweet you taste, Scarlett.”

  You toast us, clinking your wine glass against mine. Red wine. And the food is laid out on the table. You at one end, I at the other. There are no beasts in the dining room. They are all in the lounge by the fire. Before us, on the table you have placed red napkins in silver napkin rings. The candelabra sits in the center and all around are plates of delicious food. The three-bird roast is glistening and steaming, the sprouts healthily vibrant in glowing green suits, buttered and hot. The cranberry sauce is piled high in a silver dish, red and juicy. It is a feast. I watch you take a bite of turkey coated with gravy and crushed against the sage stuffing. I want to sink my hands into your meal and feel the wet flavors ooze between my fingers, the sweet cranberry sauce like innards on my skin.

  It is nearly midday but the light has hardly gained outside. The mists have settled in one dense mass, making it feel colder than it is. We could be living on a cloud. A patch of blue, shaped like a dragonfly’s wing, appears for a moment in the sky, then the white mist resumes its dominance like the smoke from your pipe. I am too interested in what happens outside myself. I am diffused like those clouds.

  After lunch we move back to the lounge where the creatures are waiting. I am on the chair but you sit away from me, your legs up on the sofa looking at the fire, puffing on your pipe in silence. You doze off. I sit with my face toward the window, casting my thoughts toward Rhett, wondering if he will arrive before nightfall.

  May

  May was a month of up-and-down days. It was sunny, sit-in-the-garden weather one day, then grey and clouded over the next. I’m not just talking about the weather. When the day of the exhibition arrived, I was all over the place. My emotions had become more tempestuous; you were my knight in shining armor one minute, then confined to the dungeons of my mind. I couldn’t explain this to you at the time, but you must have had some indication of my rampant highs and turgid lows.

  You were a purist, I guess. I can see you shaking your head at my assumptions. You learned taxidermy the traditional way, preserving the creature in its most lifelike form. Would you have considered anything else without me prompting you to make something different? Circumstances force us to change, adapt to our environment, like a species that evolves and sheds its tail to escape a predator. People can get lost and left behind too. Living things can make themselves extinct by a refusal to adapt, allowing the cruelty of time to eradicate them. Take the dodo for example; all the paintings make it look senseless. Early specimens of the stuffed bird show a stupefied expression, as if it were surprised it had been caught. It was big and cumbersome with tiny wings and, having adapted to life on the ground, perhaps too trusting. It was easy pickings for the rats or pigs brought onto the island of Mauritius by overambitious sailors. Dead as a dodo. Should we feel sorry for creatures that have not had the foresight to change, or do we start blaming the one species that seemingly has control over all of them—humans?

  What about the platypus? Once, it was thought to be a made-up creature, an invention like the hybrids you have stitched back to life. Only this was not a man-made invention, it sprung from creation itself. Perceptions change, as do fashions, and you were on the edge of a fashion that intrigued and repulsed. You were no more accepted than the platypus in its early discovery. You must have known you didn’t fit into that glitzy art world that Felix so easily domineered. Did it matter?

  Don’t think I’d not noticed how you avoided others of your own species (apart from me of course)—you were private but it didn’t make you unaware. So, when I met Felix at the show, I had already anticipated friction. Even with the common interest of hybridization, I knew the gap between the both of you was too far to bridge.

  “That idiot is not a taxidermist,” you said. But there was no doubt he had a remarkable following. We only bypassed the queues because you were exhibiting there too. But I knew who they were queuing for, and so did you. Felix—king of the taxidermy jungle. Top of the tree. #DyingToBeStuffedByFelix.

  I felt conspicuous but exhilarated as we arrived and parked the truck in a designated space in the private parking lot, your name written on the wall—Mr. H. R. Pepper / Exhibitor. You seemed unfazed by the queues of people snaking around the building, clogging up the sidewalk. The spectacle of the exhibition had attracted couples and groups, young and old, casually dressed like tourists huddled together untidily with their backpacks and bottled water, picnics and umbrellas. It looked like some of them had camped outside overnight just to claim their place in the queue. People were laughing and taking selfies, chatting and eagerly waiting for the exhibition to open its doors. I breathed in their vibrant colors as you tightly held my hand and we marched into the building without speaking to one another. Taxidermy was back in fashion, just like I had told you.

  For you, it was a pre
stigious honor to be exhibiting in the place you had trained, the Museum of Cultural Studies. But also a sting in the tail, as the old was replaced with the new—this was modern art, not the precise representation of a living specimen you had been taught to replicate. Had you been compelled to adapt against your will? I often wondered about this. Those animals were telling me something was wrong, and I turned a blind eye to it.

  I looked about the gallery and saw exhibits right up to the ceiling: wings and tails, beaks and claws, feathers, fur, scales and eyes. It was a carnival of organic matter reformed and staged under spotlights. I learned that the hanging crocodile was a tribute to the oldest known piece of taxidermy, found squatting in the roof of an Italian church some five hundred years after its demise. It is odd to think that a ruthless, unemotional creature such as a crocodile would be suspended from the ceiling of a religious building as a sacred relic, but you told me many specimens had survived in churches, probably due to their tough skin.

  Now, high above the main auditorium of the exhibition space was a redeemed crocodile given pride of place, sporting the ominous switchblade wings of an albatross. It looked as if it could glide away at any moment if the metal wires that held it in place were to snap. It had a mission, a buoyancy about its pose, capable of sinking its teeth into the spectators below and rolling them to the depths or launching itself up into the air and out the glass roof—a perfect killing machine manufactured by sewing together bird and reptile. With more sufficient legs than God intended, gone were the prehistoric flaps that caused it to waddle ungainly on land. Attached to its hips were the long legs of a large rattite, possibly of an emu or ostrich; the clawed toes looked muscular and lean compared to the hard, scaled exterior of the croc’s body. Those huge striding legs primed with power, its wings strong and proud, and solid unbreachable body, witnessed individually, were impressive parts from a butchered whole.

  As I observed it up there, in suspended animation, I witnessed a cool, slow tear squeeze from its eye and roll slowly down its preserved cheek. It had been paired with creatures that would impair its true nature, and no doubt those other creatures felt affected by its essence too. The crocodile knows what it is; it thrives in swamp not savannah, it waits beside hollows and dips, not the wide-open space of the desert plain or the vast depths of an ocean. How could it be persuaded to share a body (join ranks) with a species it could crush easily in its jaws? Why should it? I felt its pure frustration festering. “Release me,” it screamed. “I need to be what I am,” it said. It seemed to plead with me, begging for help to sort out the confusion. The croc dominated, but the other creatures fought with all the might of their will. The sailing craft of albatross wings stretched out and sought freedom in the suffocating auditorium; the bounding muscle of the ostrich legs poised to kick back with sharpened toes. It was a troubled mess.

  Of course, I admired the artwork, the precision, and the time it had taken to make the creature appear as if it would come alive at any moment. This was your lifelong obsession. And here was an exquisite piece of work, created by Felix De Souza, which rivaled your talents. It was a demonic invention, a brutish fiend with the charcoaled wings of a fallen angel.

  The museum was packed by now with milling visitors and I felt a surge of pride that you were a part of it, yet Felix’s creations were magnificent. You had worked on almost all species over the years ranging from birds, reptiles and large mammals. “Fish are mostly replicated and remodeled,” you told me. “True taxidermy only uses the outer layer of the animal, its skin.” I remembered when you applied your craft to the fallow deer, muntjack and tufted ducks that were delivered to you in frozen packages. Their effigies were so lifelike I needed to touch them to make sure they were dead. There was no confusion of their souls like the chaos I witnessed in the hybrid creatures.

  My eyes flicked toward a winged, web-footed beast with fangs. Its monkey face was cute but, combined as it was with two protruding fangs and spread wings, the menace was palpable. A pseudo nativity display created a bottleneck of spectators who craned their necks to take in the busy scene: the baby Jesus replaced by a lamb with a dog’s head (the lamb of dog) and life-size woolly pigs with antlers peered into the crib. Mary and Joseph were nowhere to be seen, but a looming yeti with three phalluses offered gold, frankincense and myrrh from its groin. A few people shrieked with laughter, others held their hands to their mouths. Most simply stared or took photos. I thought about our next Christmas, although it was many months away, and wondered what gifts it would bring.

  A hush descended over the gallery as the squeal of a microphone was switched on.

  “The seeds of dreaming are formed. Creative energy exchanged.”

  Felix’s voice was silky soft, even when delivered through the amplifiers. It looked like he was about to fellate the microphone; he held it to his lips like an indie singer, caressing it, so his breath was heard between each word.

  “We create because the impulse is within us.”

  His long brown hair curled onto his shoulders; his smooth tanned skin looked like hot caramel against his off-white linen suit. He was even more attractive in real life. Standing next to me, two girls giggled and nudged each other, holding their phones up to record every word. He was one of those men whose persona created enough enigma to attract interest, but there was something incongruent about him. He was like one of those creatures in the gallery and you knew it: a manufactured fake.

  I don’t remember his words, but I felt hot while watching him move, the muscles in his arms flexing as he gestured toward the exhibits. His beautiful neck and jawline, his lips. It was not until his gaze met mine that I realized how enchantment worked. He looked inside me as he spoke. I felt as if he were speaking directly to me while addressing the enthralled crowd. It was not a fleeting glance but a penetrating look of longing and wonder. I felt my cheeks flush with blood, then he looked away and stopped mid-sentence. I followed his gaze to see you standing at the other side of the balcony scowling at him, shoulders back, arms crossed, chest puffed out. I shrank back against the wall as you turned your head slowly to see me looking at you. I offered a nervous smile, but your features hardened. In that moment, there was no one but us three in that crowded space. Felix, you and I, a triangle of differences. The heat from my cheeks was replaced with an icy film of sweat down my back.

  What was that look that passed between you and Felix like a flint-hard spark of recognition? Had you seen how he looked at me? Or was it just professional rivalry?

  Apparently, all his art was formed by sourcing already-dead specimens—he prided himself on never killing a living thing. Somehow, this did not endear him to me. If you are going to enter this kind of world, surely you need to enter it fully. And that means you need to look death in the face. You were never afraid to kill, but you never killed out of malice. Nor did you ever kill just for your art. No, you just had the gift. Some men, like Felix, like to talk about things they have never really experienced themselves. On a visceral level. There was a rumor going around that he never actually got his hands dirty (those sensuous, sinewy artist’s hands), but instead employed a workforce to stitch and glue his creations together, guided by his pristine, computerized designs.

  He finished his presentation by gesturing to the display of bizarre hybrid creatures that littered the gallery and invited people to buy his book. Once more, his eyes met mine, but when my eyes flicked around to find you, you were gone.

  The noise was escalating in the room, hot and dense like the volume of people swarming about in a sludge of anticipation and intrigue. There was timed entry to the building due to the crowds who were lingering in the sunshine outside and loitering around the exhibits. Some were taking photos on their mobile phones even though the signs everywhere stated this wasn’t permitted. Security guards in their dark, synthetic uniforms looked dull among the natural skins of the animals and high art set on plinths and behind glass screens.

  Birds wings were attached to mammals, scales and feather
s were stitched to fur. There was even a mermaid with a grotesque human face—a bit like a full-size parody of a child’s doll. A water feature trickled behind it so the tail was immersed in a turquoise pool full of enormous fish bones. A trio of zebra with cows’ heads rode on a moving carousel. The zebras’ bodies had what looked like udders attached to the underside of their monochrome bodies. I had to look away when I realized the udders were actually bags of eyeballs suspended in viscous fluid.

  I took a breath and stared up at the crocodile with outspread black wings, hung from the ceiling. Its mouth was open in a toothy grin showing a row of dazzling gold teeth.

  “Doesn’t he make you want to cry?” a smooth voice curled behind my ear as if a cool breeze were caressing my neck. Patchouli and hints of some delicious musky scent enveloped me and momentarily eased my headache. Felix was behind me, having prowled his way through the crowd. Where were you? In one of the side rooms, where your exhibits were shown?

  “How long did it take you?” A short, round woman butted in and pointed up at the hybrid croc. I noticed her rounded fleshy hands so unlike my own. She seemed to be made from concentric circles. I was trapped between the wall, Felix and the heft of the other woman.

  Felix stared upwards at his creation as if puzzled by the magnificence.

  “It comes to me in such floods, I think I might wake drowned one day.”

  The woman greedily eyed his soft, parted lips as he basked in confidence and flashed a grin at me. She mopped her brow with a crumpled tissue and continued staring up at him as if he were the artwork to be admired. He was good-looking in a film star crossed with a pirate sort of way, but it wasn’t his looks alone that fixated me. You would have described him as a self-obsessed wanker, yet it was as if an intoxicating drug oozed out of him. I was as hooked as this other woman.