The Evolution of Jane

by Cathleen Schine

  He gave me his big smile, which made me smile back. I wondered what clothes he wore in real life. I wondered if he had a girlfriend. It was hard to imagine. I could envision him only in camping clothes, on the boat, surrounded by his family, by us. But maybe he'd thought he was going on a different kind of cruise. Maybe he came on this trip to meet girls. Well, there weren't any girls to meet. Except me.

  Oh, and Martha. I had forgotten Martha.

  "Chapter one," she was saying. "There once was a dentist, a Nietzschean dentist. His name was Dr. Karl Friedrich Ritter, and he really was a Nietzschean of the crudest sort. Dr. Ritter über alles! This dentist recognized it as his destiny as a superior person to enlighten one of his patients with the philosophic doctrine of the two of them leaving their marriages and children and starting a new race of super-Nietzschean dentist offspring in an Edenic setting, for the benefit of mankind."

  Martha was openly enjoying our attention. She was a good storyteller and like most good storytellers, she seemed to exist solely for the benefit of her audience and simultaneously to find that audience completely extraneous.

  "For years, Dr. Ritter and his patient and disciple, Dore Strauch, secretly stockpiled tools and seeds in Germany," she said. "Then one evening, they threw a party for their spouses.

  "'We are leaving for Paradise tomorrow morning,' said Herr Doktor Ritter and Frau Strauch.

  '"We are?' said Frau Ritter and Herr Strauch.

  "'No, not you,' they explained. 'Us. But, we don't want you two to be lonely while we live in Paradise, so we have planned to have you move in together!'

  "And they did."

  Now, that is a splitting event, I thought. Compared to those harsh, overly intellectual, and at the same time Romantic, which is to say Germanic, divorces, my divorce seemed to me suddenly so namby-pamby. And what about the Other Barlows' divorce, Martha's parents'? If most divorces are ugly, I think you'd have to describe the divorce of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Barlow as pretty. Mr. Barlow was incredibly generous to Mrs. Barlow after their divorce, even though it was she who left him, and he continued his genial and unstinting behavior even when he acquired a young wife and infant twins to support. My mother said, with a combination of annoyance and satisfaction that struck me as rather odd, that Mr. Barlow had behaved far better than most men embarking on their midlife nonsense. Certainly he was a better ex-husband than Dr. Ritter.

  "Chapter two," Martha was saying. "Dr. Ritter and Dore Strauch decided to locate Paradise in the Galapagos Islands. They settled on Floreana, an island Darwin had visited one hundred years earlier. When Darwin landed there on September 23, 1835, it was called Charles Island. It had recently been populated by several hundred Ecuadorian political exiles who eked out a subsistence diet of bananas and sweet potatoes. 'It will not easily be imagined,' Darwin wrote of Floreana, 'how pleasant the sight of black mud was to us, after having been so long accustomed to the parched soil of Peru and Chile.' The colony of political prisoners had died out by the time the Strauch-Ritters arrived, and there wasn't all that much black mud, either. There was a freshwater spring far in the interior, but most of the island was as arid and parched as anything Peru or Chile could have offered.

  "When the Ritters and their several tons of Paradise provisions were dropped on the shore, there was only one human inhabitant of the island—a boy who'd been hired to kill cattle. Cattle, introduced by the earlier settlers, had fared better on Floreana than their masters had, and scrawny bovine herds roamed the volcano's slopes. The boy's job was to shoot them, then drag the carcasses down to the beach for the captain of a local ship to pick up for meat every once in a while.

  "But when Dr. Ritter, Über-Dentist and Vegetarian, saw his fellow islander shoot one of the beasts, he was offended on behalf of the cow, and so he beat the boy with a stick. The terrified and bloody boy promised never to do it again, at which point Dr. Ritter stopped beating him with a stick and forced him into virtual slavery. All three of them—Dr. Ritter, the beaten boy, and the limping Dore, crippled by multiple sclerosis but obviously a really good sport—proceeded to drag their tons of belongings up miles of sharp lava boulders to the highlands. There they found a cave carved out of lava by pirates long ago, an orange grove left by the political exiles, and the stream of fresh water. And there Dore and the boy worked, while Dr. Ritter studied Eastern philosophy. Eden."

  I noticed the faces of the others—relaxed, but what you would have to call rapt. Martha held them spellbound. She spoke, irresistible and surrounded by water, a Siren still in her wet suit. Why was she able to go on and on with this story about philosophically perverted Germans when she could not speak even a few words to me about herself? The others loved listening to her voice. So did I. So, probably, did Martha herself. Why, then, could she not turn that voice to the real topic at hand, to the story of our friendship and its untimely demise?

  "According to some reports," Martha went on, "the Ritters did not wear any clothes. They did not have any teeth, either, the forward-looking dentist having pulled them all out as protection against tooth decay, and the photographs of them show two mirthless faces with the sunken grimace of the toothless."

  I wanted her to turn to me, to talk to me.

  "The pioneer couple did find time to write reports of their life in Eden for European newspapers. They became celebrities. Millionaires started showing up at Floreana on their yachts, millionaires bearing gifts. A wheelbarrow. Flower seeds. False teeth made of metal."

  The others laughed. They were completely absorbed.

  "The newspaper articles also attracted other pilgrims, Romantics who would present themselves naked at the door of the cave and expect to be fed. Poor Dr. Ritter. The cringing clerks had followed him to the bold new world. Most of them, offended by Ritter's cold reception, went home. But one German family, hoping to heal their sickly son, moved to the Galapagos for good, to Floreana. The Wittmers. The new neighbors. The Ritters were horrified—"

  I imagined the Ritters' new neighbors in their cave. Perhaps it was identical to the Ritters' cave. Perhaps they turned it into a bed and breakfast.

  "Did they open a bed and breakfast?"

  "As a matter of fact," Martha said, "yes. Later."

  Frau Wittmer had opened a ramshackle hotel.

  "Did they have a feud, too?" I said.

  "Mmm," Martha said. "A humdinger. Even better than our feud."

  "Are we having a feud?" Mrs. Tommaso asked.

  "Yes," Mr. Tommaso said.

  Martha went on. "Chapter three. The Ritters and the Wittmers began feuding almost as soon as was humanly possible. They argued over the orange groves, the water, whatever there was on the sparse island to argue about. They dutifully fulfilled their vulgar Darwinian destinies, struggling over territory, even over reproduction. Frau Wittmer was pregnant and asked Dr. Ritter if he would help deliver the baby, what with all his dental experience. Dr. Ritter declined to help deliver any babies, explaining that to do so would not be true to his ideal of independence and innate superiority, so Margret Wittmer was left to her own devices, which included wandering up to the deserted pirate cave in a delirium, where she was found several hours later, unconscious and feverish and holding a newborn baby. Ritter felt it was safe to pay a professional visit then, and did perform some sort of surgery on Frau Wittmer, for which she was extremely grateful. When Herr Wittmer offered to pay him, the vegetarian doctor said a year of monthly supplies of potted pork and chicken would do—"

  "Martha!" I said.

  "Yes?"

  "Martha..."

  "What, Jane, what?" she said in a tone of voice I remembered from my father.

  "New neighbors," I said. "Very trying. It was very difficult on my mother, for instance, when our new neighbors moved to Barlow. You know—you. And your family. The Other Barlows. Came and appropriated her town."

  Perhaps I said this in an inappropriately intense tone. Or maybe it was simply the comment itself that caused it to clatter so loudly in the abrupt silence that f
ollowed. It was a hideous, dropped-jaw kind of silence. The other members of the group stared at me.

  "So," I continued, somehow unable to stop, "my father told her that all the starlings we saw everywhere came from a few birds brought here from England by a Shakespeare enthusiast who wanted to introduce to New York City all the birds mentioned in Shakespeare's plays, and that soon there would be Barlows, the Other Barlows, the 27 Barlows, in every tree, on every telephone pole, crowding every bird feeder. So, well, then my mother said, 'That's outrageous. Such things did not happen in Cuba.' And my father said, 'Nor in Brooklyn.'"

  Craig did clear his throat, but still no one said a word. By now, they had all turned their eyes away ever so slightly so as not to witness my shame any further. All except Martha. She gazed at me with the subtlest suggestion of a smile and an expression of tender nostalgia. It was an oddly intimate exchange, that glance we shared. It continued, a complete acknowledgment of a perfect understanding, even as Martha burst out laughing.

  I thought, You, Jane, are a fool, and now everyone here knows you're a fool. And Martha not only knows you're a fool, she remembers that you're a fool.

  I thought for one terrible instant that Martha might wink at me.

  But she didn't. She just moved on in her story. "Right," she said. "So ... then the baroness came. She arrived, like Yankee Doodle, riding on a donkey—astride her mount, pistols in her holsters, dark glasses shading her green eyes, dressed like a circus lion tamer. Baroness von Wagner de Bousquet's entourage included two fawning, servile lovers trailing along behind her.

  "The baroness proclaimed herself empress of the Galapagos, built a shack out of corrugated iron and called it Hacienda Paradiso, whipped anyone who defied her, and shot at a handsome young visitor who had resisted her charms in order to win his favors by nursing him back to health—but she missed and shot one of her lovers in the stomach. She made a movie about herself, sought financing from North American millionaires for a luxury hotel, received a deed for the island of Floreana after seducing the Galapagos governor's aide, and disappeared with that aide and one of her other lovers. All three of them were probably murdered by the Wittmers and yet another lover who had been recently cast off and frequently beaten, who himself was later found mummified on a beach with a Norwegian sailor. The end."

  The end. How convenient for them, I thought.

  "It is a good story, isn't it?" Martha said. "Margret Wittmer is still alive. Cheerful old lady. She still runs the hotel, such as it is, and lives there, a little old lady of ninety, greeting tourists. When we go to Floreana, you'll all meet her."

  No one winked at me as I climbed out of the hot tub, which was a relief. In fact, the incident seemed to be completely forgotten as soon as it happened. Perhaps they hadn't really noticed my preoccupied, ill-mannered outburst. Perhaps it had never occurred. Perhaps everyone was simply too tired to care.

  I took a shower, then stretched out on my bunk to read. I flipped through Margret Wittmer's memoir, in which she accused Dore Strauch of murdering Dr. Ritter. Then, in the interest of fair play, I skimmed Dore's memoir, which Martha had photocopied for us. It was called Satan Comes to Paradise, and in it Dore accuses Margret Wittmer of murdering Dr. Ritter. Both of them identify the baroness as a dressmaker from Paris who fled to the Galapagos to escape her debts.

  Now, with this image in mind, I think it is time to discuss Paley's argument from design. William Paley was one of those admirable English natural theologians, the parsons who collected beetles and butterflies, who believed the earth was so wonderful and complicated that it had to have been created by an intelligent God who could best be served and honored by study of his marvelous works. Darwin was planning to be just such a country clergyman, until it occurred to him that the force behind the beautiful design of a butterfly was not an intelligent, benevolent Creator, but a history of opportunism, violent struggle, and meaningless accident. In nineteenth-century England before Darwin and his glimpse into the abyss, science and belief went together, as quaint as love and marriage, as a horse and carriage. Because there are butterflies and they are so beautiful and we appreciate their beauty, they must have been made just for us, so that we could enjoy them! We conscious observers are here, the universe is here to be observed, so the universe exists for us to observe, the universe exists for us.

  Here is my question: Does the spectacle of Baroness von Wagner de Bousquet atop a donkey, one of her lovers bathing her feet in the Ritters' precious drinking water, argue for or against Paley's theory? On the plus side, could there be any other reason for the baroness and her six-shooters than our enjoyment of her fantastic, glittering arrival on Floreana Island? On the other hand, how could someone so absurd and unreasonable be planned, much less executed, by someone as proficient and experienced as a Supreme Creator?

  I put this question to Gloria, but she just said, "Let's think of the baroness as a mutant," and went out to try her hand at fishing off the bow.

  I was alone in the cabin, and it was calm and airy. I switched over to The Journal of the Beagle for a while, then took up the guidebook by Michael H. Jackson. I lay there contemplating the wonders of Floreana, natural and unnatural, my mind wandering to visions of the other Michael Jackson writing a guide to the Galapagos in his white glove, his stretched-mask face deep in thought, to thoughts of Michael the ex-husband, the details of whose face I found it difficult to conjure up at all. I daydreamed on my bunk, with no knowledge that I was asleep, until I was awakened by the sound of voices outside my window. Two voices, a man's and a woman's, hushed and urgent.

  "How much longer?" said the man. I could barely hear him over the roar of the engine. His voice was faint, sincere. "I don't think I can stand it." Could it be Jack? Or Craig? Craig. It had to be Craig. Unless it was Mr. Tommaso or Brian the honorary Cornwall or Jeremy Toll.

  The woman replied, though I could not make out any of her words. Her voice was almost inaudible.

  "But where?" said the man. "When?"

  The woman uttered some indecipherable noises.

  "Oh, if only...," said the man. Then his voice dropped even lower. Then I thought I heard him say a name. "Martha."

  Was he talking to Martha?

  Or about Martha?

  Why was Jack talking to Martha and wondering where and when? Why for that matter was Craig talking about Martha and sighing, "Oh, if only..."? And what was Mr. Tommaso, a married man, doing? Or Brian? As for Jeremy Toll, he was ancient. Ancient and prissy. He had no right.

  The woman replied, her words even softer, even more obscure than before.

  "Oh, God, if only everything weren't so difficult," said the man.

  The voices stopped. I waited a minute. I parted the noisy metal Venetian blinds. I looked through the crack. The deck was empty.

  It might not have been Martha at all, just someone saying her name. I might even have misheard it. Perhaps they said, "Marvelous weather we're having," or "It's so cold I wish I had a parka," or "Have you ever read Siddhartha?"

  And what difference did it make if they had said Martha? How could it matter to me what Martha did? Martha had veiled herself from me in the filmy contentment of impersonal acquaintanceship, although she was having a highly personal-sounding assignation with a strange man. That strange man was Jack, whom I had considered making my own particular impersonal acquaintance. So what? Anyway, it might just as easily have been Craig, who was extremely friendly to Martha. But then, so was everyone else. Jack hung around her like the teacher's pet. Of course, he was the teacher's pet. The others came and went, drawn like insects to Martha the candle. She treated them all with the same courteous warmth.

  I thought about Martha a lot more than I wanted to. That night, before dinner, I told Gloria I'd heard some sort of assignation being made outside the window.

  "Pish posh," she said.

  "Pish posh?"

  Then, I don't know why, I began telling her about Martha. I explained that she was not just my cousin, not just my friend, but
my best friend, my most important friend growing up, that she moved to my town when we were children, that we lived in identical houses.

  "But we're different religions," I said.

  "You're religious?"

  "Well, no."

  I was lying down in our cabin, feeling a little seasick and exhausted from our day hiking and looking and snorkeling. Gloria had just showered and didn't seem the least fatigued. She shook out her wet gray curls, put on black culottes with pink rickrack bordering the bottoms and a Peruvian poncho, and said, "Darwin's wife was very religious. She worried that they would not get to be together in heaven because of his theories. That's very sweet, I think. Like worrying that he might catch cold if he didn't wear his galoshes."

  Gloria put on a necklace of large shells, which rattled pleasantly when she moved. Her earrings were long dried pods painted a bright orange. The cabin smelled of sunscreen.

  "We were such good friends," I said.

  The gentle clatter of Gloria's accouterments, the summery coconut aroma of the lotion, the waves, lulling in a large, sickening sort of way, the heat of my own sunburn, like a mild fever—all of it peacefully cradled me.

  "But you won't get to go to heaven together," she said, "being different religions and all."

  I told Gloria that I used to wonder what age everyone was in heaven. "Like, what if your husband died and then you lived for thirty more years and then you died and there you both were. Would he be your age? Or would he be the age he died at, and you would be thirty years older? What kind of reunion would that be?"