by James Morrow
A noise like the croak of a Surinam toad escaped Mr. Dartworthy’s throat.
“My Lord Poseidon, having lost your trident to me in the great equatorial pageant, you are now required to do whatever I say.”
“I am yours to command, my Lady Athena.”
“Tap softly on my door. Bring your Persian poetry. Adieu.”
* * *
As the storm thrashed the city, the raindrops clattering madly against the sealed shutters, Chloe sat in her front parlor, dressed in her white linen robe and sharing a divan with Mr. Dartworthy. After pouring them each a glass of Madeira, he perused his Rubáiyát manuscript, employing a fountain pen to number the poems with the aim of producing what he called “a dramatically satisfying effect.”
“Are you not thereby violating the poet’s aesthetic scheme?” she asked.
“It matters not in what sequence a person reads Omar Khayyám, for there is little continuity from one quatrain to the next.” Mr. Dartworthy passed the pages to Chloe. “I decided we should alternate the poet’s sensualism with his blasphemy.”
“Beginning with—?”
“The sensualism, unless you would prefer—”
“I would not.” She leafed through the manuscript and, finding a Roman numeral one, read the designated poem aloud.
My love, whence came your smiling eyes so keen?
You must have stolen them from some dead queen,
O little, fragile, laughing soul that sings
And dances, tell me—what do your eyes mean?
Mr. Dartworthy applauded, then imbibed a mouthful of Madeira. “A magnificent performance, my fair philosopher.”
“Second only to the one I shall give at Alastor Hall.”
“Were I to learn the meaning of thine eyes, I should die a happy man.”
“We turn now to Khayyám the unbeliever,” Chloe said, demurely removing her left slipper. Receiving Mr. Dartworthy’s nod, she committed her talents to the poet’s meditation on the silence of God.
There are no answers written in the air,
Pray not, for no one listens to your prayer,
Great Allah does not see the world below,
So turn your eyes from Heaven if you dare.
“You did it justice,” he said.
“Throughout my theatrical career, I heard only one actress, a Miss Templeton, claim she’d gotten her fill of flattery, and she was lying.” Chloe continued to molt, dropping her second slipper and loosening her sash, thus making her thighs accessible to Mr. Dartworthy’s discernment. “Let us now revisit Khayyám the sensualist.”
Touch not your flesh of myrrh, your golden hair,
Except to bring them tender love and care,
Know your own wonder, worship it with me,
See how I fall before you deep in prayer.
“Another splendid recitation,” said the mariner. “Tell me, my fair philosopher—Chloe—do you know your own wonder?”
“Not my own, perhaps, but surely the wonder of these verses.” She availed herself of the Madeira, then leaned towards Mr. Dartworthy and rotated the top button of his silk day-shirt as if winding a clock. “Did I mention that my dressing-table holds such paraphernalia as women use to exempt themselves from procreation?”
“Please know I am not in the business of deflowering virgins.”
“Nor am I bent on maintaining my chastity under all circumstances. Like Eve, I long ago surrendered my innocence to a cad named Adam.” The Madeira was performing its intended function, allowing her she-devil dimension to emerge in full. “Your flesh is decorated, Mr. Dartworthy—of this I am certain. Pray tell, what manner of tattoo adorns your chest? A mermaid? A sinking ship? A skull and crossbones?”
“An octopus, actually. I could afford to pay the artist for six tentacles only, as opposed to Nature’s eight.”
“We need another infusion of blasphemy,” Chloe said, straightaway enacting Khayyám’s musings on the pointlessness of piety.
Alas, for all my knowledge and my skill,
The world’s mysterious meaning mocks me still,
And yet I shan’t persuade myself that I
Must bow before a supernatural will.
“A reading to remember,” said Mr. Dartworthy.
“I cannot decide which sort of poem moves me more, the paeans to Eros or the odes to doubt. Now comes our third and final hedonistic quatrain.”
Were I a sultan, say what greater bliss
Were mine to summon to my side than this,
Thy gleaming face, far brighter than the moon,
My love—and thy immortalizing kiss!
“Might I suggest a brief intermission?” said Mr. Dartworthy, his words alternating with staccato breaths.
“No, Ralph, but you may advocate for a protracted one.” It seemed to Chloe that her heart and his were beating synchronously—no, not just those two hearts: at that moment every organic pump in Amazonia was pounding out the same cadence, so that the room thundered with the blood of anacondas, macaws, ocelots, sloths, and stiletto-toothed caimans.
“The poet got it right, my fair philosopher. One kiss, and I shall live forever!”
“Immortality is not a thing to postpone,” said Chloe, whereupon she and her mariner rose from the divan and headed towards her bed-chamber, there being no other place in Amazonia that might accommodate their ardor.
* * *
Although the Albion Transmutationist Club had never been amongst Malcolm Chadwick’s favorite organizations (even the Shelley Society seemed less vainglorious), he admired the esprit de corps its members had exhibited throughout their tedious weeks on the river. But now that the quest was on hiatus, with everyone living at the Hotel da Borboleta Azul, it seemed that Miss Bathurst’s band had fallen prey to a kind of moral cirrhosis. The city had gotten into their blood, infecting them with a profligacy such as Malcolm had rarely observed outside of Alastor Hall.
Having determined how his company would get to Iquitos, Captain Runciter now spent most of his time swilling caxaça rum in the Dragão Verde. Algernon Bathurst, meanwhile, had become a fixture in that same saloon, and although he was finding estimable uses for his gambling profits (such as paying Malcolm’s hotel bill and buying him a sturdy cotton jacket), all that cardsharping was surely warping what remained of his character. As for Miss Kirsop, while she’d not quite relapsed into strumpetry, she was nevertheless sinning on a daily basis, or so Malcolm inferred from her frequent visits to Mr. Pritchard’s rooms. Worst of all, Miss Bathurst had entered into an equally unsavory arrangement with Dartworthy (their assignations were obviously not confined to recitations of Persian poetry), and it grieved Malcolm to see so intelligent a woman succumbing to the snares of a roué.
And what of the Reverend Mr. Chadwick? Had the rot of Manáos seeped into his soul as well? Was he censuring others when he ought to be judging himself? Before his conversion to the Church of Awful Doubt, he would have solicited God’s assistance in addressing this question. Instead he paradoxically sought the company of Miss Bathurst, inviting her to the Parque dos Pássaros de Guarda-Chuva for a picnic complete with bread, cheese, and wine.
“I feel compelled to raise a delicate matter,” he told her after they’d settled onto the bench. “I am rarely comfortable discussing the domain Saint Augustine called ‘concupiscence,’ and so, to reverse a common locution, I shall mince words.”
“You may begin by mincing ‘concupiscence,’ for I’d never heard that mouthful before,” said Miss Bathurst, adjusting her Panama hat.
“It has not escaped my notice that Miss Kirsop and Mr. Pritchard are indulging in liaisons.”
“Had you moved more quickly, you might have won Solange for yourself,” said Miss Bathurst, taking a bite of cheese.
“Do not make light of my distress.”
“Désolé,” the actress replied in a tone partaking equally of chagrin and derision. “You’ve assembled a splendid picnic,” she added, enjoying a sip of claret. “So splendid as to merit a recit
ation from Mr. Khayyám. ‘A book of poems underneath a tree, a loaf of bread, a flask of wine, and thee—couched here beside me—make for such bliss that to Paradise I shan’t ever need to flee.’”
“I am likewise alarmed by—”
“By my dalliances with Mr. Dartworthy?”
“I shall happily accompany you to the nearest church”—he pointed towards the Catedral de Nossa Senhora da Imaculada Conceição—“and listen as you confess your indiscretions to Heaven.”
“Heaven would hear only that my love for Ralph Dartworthy is the most exquisite thing I’ve ever known, though his octopus has but six tentacles.”
“What?”
“A local idiom.”
“I am likewise troubled by your brother’s obsession with poker.”
“Speak of the Devil!” exclaimed Miss Bathurst.
Malcolm glanced upwards, his gaze coming to rest on the approaching figure of Algernon Bathurst, hugging a canvas sea-bag as a shipwrecked sailor might cling to a floating spar.
“Good afternoon, Reverend,” he said in a merry voice. “Hello, sweetest sister.”
“Your mood becomes you, Algernon,” said Miss Bathurst. “You should traffic in cheerfulness more often.”
“Last night all the gods of gaming were with me!” her brother exclaimed. “The contest was seven-card stud. Senhor Nogueiro, the wealthiest baron in Manáos, spreads his four queens and reaches for the pot—but then I tip my hand: the seven, eight, nine, ten, and knave of diamonds! This bag contains over three hundred contos de réis, easily worth four thousand English pounds!”
Malcolm expected Miss Bathurst to whoop for joy, but her response was rather more complex—a start of surprise followed by a thoughtful frown and cool words delivered in a sardonic tone. “I’d always known you were a genius at cards, little brother. Your decision to announce your good fortune in public likewise bespeaks great intelligence, for only by being robbed at knifepoint will you elude the guilt that accrues to undeserved wealth.”
With a tilted smile Algernon Bathurst acknowledged the merit in his sister’s sarcasm. He sat down and said, quietly, “Tell me, Reverend, will it rain today?”
“As it did yesterday, and as it will tomorrow,” said Malcolm. “Might I offer you some claret?”
“My luck is intoxicant enough.” Algernon clasped his sister’s hand and brought it to his chest. “The arithmetic is thrilling. My winnings will cover Papa’s debts in toto, with enough remaining to pay Runciter a dividend of five hundred pounds. Dartworthy and Pritchard will divide another five hundred, which leaves more than a thousand for our own needs. In short, dear Chloe, we can all go home. Arriving in England, you and I shall appease our father’s creditors, rescue him from the workhouse, and live in genteel poverty ever after.”
To Malcolm’s consternation, and to Algernon’s apparent bewilderment as well, Miss Bathurst neither smiled, laughed, nor praised the gods of gaming. Instead she lapsed into a brown study, speaking not a word.
“Sweetest sister, are you not delighted by this turn of events?”
“Naturally I’m pleased by the thought of breaking Papa’s chains. I pray you, reward Captain Runciter and Mr. Pritchard as you propose, then join them on the next packet-steamer headed east. Exchange your contos de réis for pounds in Belém, hop aboard a brig to Plymouth, and secure our father’s deliverance. Mr. Chadwick will want a berth on both of those vessels. As for myself, I intend to press on. I cannot answer for Ralph or Solange, but I suspect they will come with me.”
“Do you not grasp what has happened, Chloe? We needn’t win that preposterous prize after all!”
“You needn’t win it, but I must,” Miss Bathurst retorted. “‘For ’tis not mere blood we seek but the thrill of mocking the cosmos.’ Quite the best of Carmine the vampire’s lines, do you not agree?”
“How much wine did you drink before I got here?” asked Algernon.
“Beyond aesthetic matters, I am persuaded that a finding against the Almighty at Alastor Hall will ultimately benefit our human race,” said Miss Bathurst. “Solange put it better than I ever could. ‘If there exists a species of ignorance certain to keep increasing the premiums on the bliss it buys, then a belief in God is surely that creature.’”
“Chloe Bathurst, I’ve never been more exasperated with you,” her brother seethed, “and I’ve not forgotten the time you put snails in my bed!”
As he sipped his claret, Malcolm realized that the actress’s decision had elicited his qualified admiration. She might be a reckless dreamer, a foe of decorum, and the despair of Heaven, but her refusal to abandon the hunt boasted a perverse élan.
“I’ve changed my mind about the wine,” Algernon told Malcolm. “Pour me enough to make me forget my sister’s obstinacy.”
“Please recall that at present we occupy not the Garden of Eden but a swamp of iniquity—Nineveh on the Rio Negro, as Solange once put it,” Miss Bathurst told her brother. “There are thieves everywhere. I advise you to forego the claret, proceed to the hotel, and hide your money in your mattress.”
“Allow me to attempt some wise counsel as well,” said Malcolm to Miss Bathurst. “When we make our way across the Andes, you must take care not to drive yourself too hard, lest you ruin your health. You are neither Carmine the vampire, Mr. Coleridge’s wraith, nor any other immortal in your repertoire.”
“You said ‘we,’” she noted.
“If you would have me by your side during the journey, that is where I shall be.”
“That you might supervise my friendship with Ralph?”
“That I might help your mission to succeed. Yes, Miss Bathurst, surprising as it sounds, you may henceforth regard me as a member of your club.”
“I am deeply moved.”
And I am deeply perplexed, thought Malcolm—perplexed and melancholic and in mourning for my Maker.
* * *
For all his present religious skepticism, and despite his apparent assent to Solange’s aphorism about blissful ignorance and rising premiums, Chloe could make little sense of Mr. Chadwick’s decision to join the quest. If he sought to confirm his doubts about God, there were easier means to that end than continuing the treacherous journey to Galápagos. He could simply spend a quiet evening at home, reading Omar Khayyám or Percy Bysshe Shelley or, for that matter, “An Essay Concerning Descent with Modification.”
Not surprisingly, Ralph and Solange also chose to remain with the expedition: such was their devotion to atheism, free thought, and Chloe Bathurst (or so she surmised). Mr. Pritchard, meanwhile, after searching his soul and consulting his self-interest, decided to favor an immediate £250 payout over a hypothetical £600 share in the prize. Of course, this meant that he and Solange must go their separate ways, a situation that was causing the courtesan but little regret, “the fire having gone out of our fornication” (quoth Solange). As for Captain Runciter, he sat down, performed the computation, and realized that, with Flaherty eaten and Pritchard also out of the picture, his own share now topped £2,000, enough to retire from smuggling and “live like the king of an impoverished country.” So he, too, would be going to the Encantadas.
When not sporting with Ralph or fretting over the time they were involuntarily squandering in Manáos, Chloe assuaged her anxiety by strolling along the wharves of the foggy Rio Negro, contemplating the Indian work teams as they loaded nets filled with latex peles onto Belém-bound schooners and brigs. Accompanying Chloe on her fifth such excursion was Ralph, whom she’d invited along, and Mr. Chadwick, who’d invited himself. As the three travelers reached the end of the central pier, the mists parted to reveal a peculiar tableau.
A slender young man—sunburnt, side-whiskered, bespectacled—sat on his haunches inside a ring of dead birds, twelve in all, each with a blazing crimson body, black wings, and a disc-shaped crest. Beyond this strange circle, two Arauaki servants deposited other avian specimens in a crate bearing a London address. At first Chloe imagined that the white man was practicing a rel
igious rite, but then she decided he must be a collector, aiming to sell his birds to European connoisseurs—no, not simply a collector: a scientist, too, for he scrutinized the specimens with an intensity that partook more of curiosity than of avarice.
“Excuse me, sir,” said Chloe. “Am I correct to infer you are a naturalist?”
The young man replied in a cheery English accent. “Hunting specimens is the love of my life, or so I persist in telling myself—for why else would a man keep paddling up the infernal Negro and the wretched Uaupés? Thus far I’ve suffered three bouts of malaria and two snakebites.”
“Such hardships are not unknown to me,” said Chloe, “for I, too, am a naturalist.”
“A profession not typically associated with the female gender,” said the collector, rising.
“My sex is evermore evolving. I am Miss Bathurst of Covent Garden, and this is my friend Mr. Dartworthy, intrepid mariner, and my other friend Mr. Chadwick, reluctant Deist.”
“Wallace,” said the young man. “Alfred Wallace of Hertfordshire. Because you are yourself a naturalist, Miss Bathurst, you will appreciate my thoughts concerning these particular specimens of galo da serra, the cock-of-the-rock, genus Rupicola.”
“Ah, yes, the fabulous galo da serra,” said Chloe, feigning expertise as deftly as Algernon might bluff a flush.
“What most interests me is the problem of intraspecies variation,” said Mr. Wallace.
“A mystery I have pondered as well.”
“As you can see, not every galo da serra is a luminous red—four of my exemplars tend towards orange. Observe, too, how the width of the tail-band fluctuates from specimen to specimen, as does the diameter of the crest. At what point, I ask myself, do such differences become so pronounced as to demark two separate kinds of bird? Might there exist some physical law, analogous to Mr. Newton’s universal gravitation, that governs the progression from variant to variety to species?”
Good Lord, thought Chloe—another transmutationist! Though apparently not in possession of a full-blown theory of natural selection, he was clearly on the scent. She clutched her distressed stomach and then, recovering, undertook to learn whether Mr. Wallace was the sort of scientist who might carry his conjectures to Oxford.