The Sacred Beasts

by Bev Jafek

  “Since I was a child. I like to look very directly into the face. I even tried to draw the faces of your animals on the wall, but it was too hard to do it standing on a ladder.” It is fortunate, I thought, that I have no tendency toward possessiveness or territoriality, considering the frequency with which people take secret possession of my house. What else do they want to possess? I always wonder. Momentarily, I was lost in thought.

  “What was she like?” Sylvie asked, as though attempting to follow my thoughts.

  Whoa, I thought, straight to the heart. “Katia? She was very extreme in everything—her loves and hates, brilliance and naiveté, exaltations and despairs. I loved her very much, though our life together was always either difficult or impossible. Sometimes, I wanted to put her on a chain in the backyard and just let her bay at the moon.”

  “That is fascinating. I would love to have painted her! There is perhaps a French word for a person like this—un monstre sacré—though it often has other connotations, such as fame. But she was a famous writer, wasn’t she? The French more often use it to describe a man than a woman, but that is just gender bias. Have all the women you loved been like this?”

  How on earth have we gotten so far so fast! I must begin conniving around this beautiful girl, I thought; she is tearing a path straight to my heart. “A sacred beast,” I said, bemused. “I like that and the fact that the French always seem to have words for things other nationalities have never noticed the existence of. It is a good word for her and yes, all the women I loved have been like this, though I have no interest in fame. Sacred bestiality is apparently one of my requirements for love.”

  “This is so very wonderful! How can one paint it?”

  “I don’t know. I only know that I have lived it and not even as a choice; rather as a compulsion.” I stared at my beasts on the walls and she followed my eyes. “I have given my life to them.” We were pensive and quiet, and somehow or other the bottle of wine disappeared; though I had no sense of time passing. We listened to the wind and that exquisitely painful, resonant chord; soundless music of longing, awe, and fierce love that is my truest self, perhaps spirit. We were very thirsty for our whirling mystery of a world, this young beauty and I. How can Allah bear such intensity in paradise?

  “Then it is a life well lived: to become what one has always loved,” Sylvie finally said.

  “To become?” I asked.

  “It occurs to me that you are becoming un monstre sacré yourself.”

  This made me laugh very deeply, laughter we shared. “Well, we do look monstrous when we create. I have just learned that today, and you are my teacher.” I am only protecting myself by calling her a child, I thought. She is undeniably an acutely perceptive, intelligent, cosmopolitan woman.

  “Why did you leave America?” she suddenly asked. This I welcomed. It shot clear of my heart. Let’s lose ourselves in history and remove this dangerous present, I thought.

  “The country knowingly re-elected a warlord who had appointed a cabinet of war criminals. He treated the economy and the environment, not surprisingly, as the spoils of war for his administration and his wealthy supporters. I was not in the States to see the Great Depression and FDR, but I saw the birth of the sixties, feminism, the civil rights movement, gay rights. The country was not always such a menace and an embarrassment.”

  “It is well-known throughout Europe,” she concurred. “He only wants absolute power and historical fame and does not actually want to solve problems or lead at all.”

  “Bush? Oh yes, and he will be famous, won’t he? He will have so mismanaged the country for eight years that it will never recover in the economic race with China and India. Historians will see the rise of Bush and the Evangelicals as the beginning of the decline of America and the rise of China as the world’s most powerful nation. We have only to carve his face upside-down on Mt. Rushmore.”

  “It is not terrible to think of. Life will go on,” Sylvie said.

  “Whatever life survives. Not my beasts, unfortunately, only the animals that can live in warm water and close proximity to humans, along with some capacity to use garbage for nutrients. Not one of these beauties on my wall will live through it. Perhaps they will have that hollow, haunted look in their eyes, like the Onas and the Yaghans. Perhaps we will all have that look on our own faces.”

  “You like to look full in the face. I do, too. But you surely do not believe that our species will become extinct?”

  “Most zoologists believe we are on the cusp of the earth’s sixth and worst mass extinction. I doubt we will last the length of the Neanderthals. We’ve only been here a third the length of their time on earth. To even imagine us continuing on this planet for another five hundred years is a great leap of faith, I think. With our cleverness in manipulating the environment and our fellow creatures has come greed, political oppression, enshrined injustice, violence and destructiveness on a planetary scale and that odd shortsightedness, our strange inability to feel the consequences of our acts.

  “All of the present computer models showing the rate of global warming depend on certain temperature-related events failing to occur—the melting of the Greenland ice sheath, for example, or the release of methane from the oceans into the atmosphere. But, we are doing absolutely nothing to halt global warming and have no reason not to expect the worst outcome: it is a 25 degree Fahrenheit increase in surface temperature almost overnight, not centuries into the future. This will cause unspeakable devastation and ruin of all planetary ecosystems. The issue of whether America, China or India will be the top global economic power in the twenty-first century—the primary concern of government at present—will then be completely trivial. We could easily have a global catastrophe lasting centuries, perhaps millennia, and life returning to barbarism if at all.

  “To avert the worst-case scenario will take truly intelligent political leaders, something Americans seem to repudiate, as well as government investment in scientific solutions equal in magnitude to the Manhattan Project that developed the first atomic weapons. Scientists have already offered a plethora of ingenious ideas—a ladder of light and heat deflectors as high as the moon, for example. But, Americans will have to give up their fondness for mediocrity, greed, short-range thinking, and the least intelligent political candidates.”

  “These are very pessimistic views,” Sylvie said, “But I must say, I have had great fears concerning global warming and know many who have.”

  “But we are at the end of the world down here. The edges are in the air.”

  “I have seen a truck parked outside. If you are concerned with global warming, are you not a hypocrite for using it?”

  “Touché! Point well taken. It is a Toyota and gets good mileage. I have always needed it to haul my scientific equipment. I assumed I would continue my studies in retirement, but if not, I will make a sculpture of it on the lawn. I envision a completely black truck with red horns added on top and a red tail at the rear, along with a smaller sculpture of a dying animal half-stuffed into the gas tank.”

  “Une merveille!” she said and laughed. “There is something else I wonder. You are a zoologist. Don’t you have your own theories concerning violence and greed and how to control them, perhaps even your own theories about your sexual preference?”

  Bull’s-eye! I thought we were in the airy realms of intellectual speculation, and now I am back with the fact of this woman’s beauty and forthrightness, right in my living room and ready for anything. “Now I am going to ask you a question,” I countered. “It is one I ask all of my zoology students when we cover primatology. I guarantee you will learn something about the world and yourself. It is a kind of secret.”

  “I love secrets! Interrogate me!” She laughed.

  Ready for anything, aren’t you? We will see about that. “There are two chimpanzee species that are closest to us genetically or in terms of evolution. One is patriarchal, heterosexual and much more violent, the males also much larger than the females. The
other is matriarchal. In its sexual behavior, it is profligate, X-rated and bisexual. It is also much less violent, the males and females similar in size. Now, I will give you two additional facts: one species is more intelligent than the other and closer to us genetically. Think of everything you know about human beings, their history and culture, all you know and all you suspect. Which species is the one that is both more intelligent and closer to us genetically?”

  Her face reflected astonishment and agitation. “That is a very compelling question! I don’t know what to answer.” Then a sly, growing smile began to form on her face. Who is playing with whom here? “I suppose I want it to be the matriarchal, X-rated, less violent species . . . but I am afraid it is the other.”

  “Well, let me be the first to inform you that nature and evolution follow your wishes, not your fears in this case. It is the matriarchal, bisexual, less violent and more intelligent bonobo chimpanzee that is our closest evolutionary twin, not the more violent, exclusively heterosexual, patriarchal species. Now look out at the world you live in and think of the web of entrenched beliefs, customs, laws, oppressions and deceptions that have been used to keep these innate biological urges invisible to you so that you, a young person, perhaps as X-rated as you will ever be, cannot even guess the correct answer.”

  “Mais ce n’est pas vrai! C’est super!” Her breath expired in astonishment. “What do your students say when you tell them this?”

  “In the sixties, they cheered. In recent years, with the rise of the Evangelicals, they often walk noisily out of the room and refuse to study zoology. It is just as well. They’re only in school to make money, anyway.”

  “It is known in Europe that most Americans now refuse to believe in evolution.”

  “A majority, yes, though the reasons go very deep. They cite religious arguments, but it is really a refusal to accept human diversity. I often suspect it is our genetic endowment from both chimp species at war: the less intelligent, patriarchal, violent side calls the other evil and wants to legislate against it, pretend it does not exist or, failing that, kill it off. That can only be done by amassing more economic resources, and the needs of the rest of the planet lie in the way.”

  “But do other zoologists believe this?”

  “As to our genetic endowment from the two chimp species, absolutely, though the scientists are primatologists rather than zoologists. My application to the present state of the American Evangelical right wing and its environmental stewardship is my own dark suspicion. If I were to air it publicly, I would be attacked not only for my application, but also for what is presently well known and accepted in primatology. That is just what happened to the biologist Rachel Carson in the 1950s, who first pointed out the dangers of environmental contamination by industry. Mediocrity carries a sharp knife.”

  “But haven’t we evolved away from this? We are another species.”

  “Of course, we have but not as much as we would like to believe. In absence of a catastrophe, evolutionary change is relatively slow.”

  “Is this what Freud believed, that we are all X-rated, that everything is sex?”

  “Freud saw a bit of the matter but none of the method. He was an armchair theorist, not a scientist. Virtually everything he postulated is intriguing but false, in my opinion, and his techniques for psychotherapy have never been effective. Actual studies of it show a patient is better off learning about life on his own.”

  “Your application of primatology to politics is extreme, though, don’t you think?”

  “I am as you see me, sitting in my armchair speculating, just like Freud, but without the cigar. Thus, it is not science. It is merely my dark suspicion, but the notion is based on science and the facts do suggest a relation. At this historical moment, too, politics is rife with dark suspicions, most without science or fact.”

  “Amazing! You must be notorious in America, too.” At this, we both laughed.

  “I suppose so. I have always been notorious to everyone but my sacred beasts.”

  “Une provocatrice aussi! Yes, you are definitely un monstre sacré. My intuition was correct.”

  We continued laughing, yet I was strangely exhausted by this encounter. She was fearless, lovely and simply the world, which would heal me like nothing else. But I must beg to go away from her, I thought. Even a sacred beast must be left to lick her wounds.

  “Lately, I often wonder uselessly about what might have saved Katia. Had we known we were sacred monsters, roaring away at the end of the world, she might have stayed, at least to roar the loudest.”

  She absorbed the implications of this. “It has been so fascinating here with you, but I suppose I must leave you to grieve again,” she said with reluctance.

  “You must,” I said softly. “But there is tomorrow and all the creation and destruction we can imagine.”

  “Yes, it is always both. Goodnight, then. You are a dear, magical monster,” she said spontaneously and kissed me on the cheek.

  I was left to my oddity, now declared monstrous, perhaps becoming loved for it. It was a sensation I could hardly bear. Mariska’s unspoken exhortation, don’t go there, entered my mind in red letters, then it sighed along with the night wind as I ate my dinner in grateful solitude and went off to sleep, this time in my bed and not on the couch. I took a last look at the balloons rolling all over my lawn in the moonlight, cackled, and slept.

  Then all humor and equanimity left me. The black, cold water engulfed the room, and I was fighting for my life again. The vitreous horned rock loomed up and with it the lonely, exquisite white face of the creature—the one I love, cannot avoid loving, a beast so sacred it has no name. It is the love of life, the great precondition, incarnate. I swim with the force of nature, of an animal. I must save this beast: it is my destiny.

  I reached the rock and grasped the animal’s huge, matted head; we were both frigid and dripping wet. It looked at me and reared up to its full length like a grizzly, towering above me on its back legs, and then I saw the greatest horror of all: its torso was dripping blood. The rocks were too sharp and its flesh was badly torn. It roared and leaped off the rock, swimming away in the distance. I cried out but could only make animal sounds, something that meant, but you will drown! There is no land left. They’ve taken it all! You will die from your wounds in this frigid, black water! My voice rose into a roar of agony like the animal’s voice, but it had already disappeared.

  I awoke in the dawn with my whole body and spirit aching. I knew what the dream meant: that I must lose them all, everything I have loved. My body felt like a locked vessel containing nothing but agony. It seemed I had made no progress, no healing, at all. I was as sick as I was when I found her body on the shore. It looked like driftwood lodged in kelp at first. Only slowly did I see the outline of a human shape, and still more slowly did I see it was the one I never wanted to find like this. Slowly, too, did I now become aware of my surroundings. The sky was clear and bright again; my body was warm and whole. That must be enough, I thought. It is all that is left. The rest has been taken from me, as it has from my dying dream beast. How incredible that I am still alive!

  Feeling very weak, I walked down my stairway to the living room and found that I was not alone: Mariska was sitting on the sofa. “Good morning,” I said. “You continue to remind me that I should change my ways and lock the door.”

  Her face was strangely flushed and cold, unsmiling. “Don’t joke. You know why I’m here.”

  I settled into my armchair, stretched and roared in frustration. “I do not have the foggiest notion of why you are here! I have just awakened from a recurrent nightmare and seem to have instantly walked into a farce. Why on earth are you here?”

  “I’ve seen you with that girl! I’ve seen the way she looks at you. You, old enough to be her mother!”

  “If you mean Sylvie, I’m probably old enough to be her grandmother.”

  “She looks at you as though she could eat you up! Like Katia.”

  “Yes,
like Katia. Both artists, they stare as voluptuously as animals. Of course, an animal wants to devour you literally; an artist, figuratively. It is really quite wonderful, the most harmless form of love.”

  “You are in no condition for this! Why have you taken up with her? When will you sleep with her?”

  “With you watching? Never! Never for other reasons, too. You are right that I am in no condition for this. Besides, I hate the idea of December-May relationships. It would be an eternal reminder that I am living, after all, in December. I decided long ago that I would never sleep with a student.”

  “She’s no student! She’s a very attractive woman.”

  “Now you sound envious! I have a question for you: Why are you so possessive of me? You always have been.”

  That silenced her. The moments crept by, then perhaps a quarter-hour had passed in stony silence. It wasn’t coming out of her, whatever it was, so I felt obliged to relieve her. She was suffering for reasons unknown and had surely done me no harm. “Nothing will ever happen between Sylvie and I but friendship and art,” I said. “Art can look like love and in a limited sense it is. But, it is friendship I need, a new friend or two. I will be alone now, and I must adapt to it.” I reached over and held her hand, and it was like electricity passing.

  “I really am confused and inappropriate,” she said. “I should not have come.”

  “I’m delighted you’re here! You have saved me again. I would otherwise be thinking of nothing but that nightmare, and now the morning light has dispelled it. Let me get you some coffee.”

  “No, I am all right now. I see more clearly. Thank you for accepting this little explosion.”

  “My life is now one explosion after another, and if I miss one, it will just be waiting for me in my dreams.”

  “Of course, you are grieving.”