“What?”
“A Navy medic knows how to save lives from the water, so I knew when I saw his pin that he had the training. And when I saw his wooden leg, I knew he had a way to reach before throwing, rowing, or going. These observations led me to believe he would intervene first.”
The one-legged man had heard this discussion and stood there beaming, his gray hair matted with river water.
“And,” Susanna said, suddenly gritting her teeth, “it is my sincere hope that this Navy medic knows another thing—”
“What?”
“How to deliver babies,” she gasped, sinking onto the grassy bank and clutching her belly.
I don’t know if it was the shock of the cold Cam or the glad warmth of being so definitively right or the trauma of men clutching her every limb, but my wife went into labor then and there. Gladly, the one-legged Navy medic did know what he was doing. He took a moment to screw his leg back on and then positioned himself on the bank below my wife. He lifted her heels to rest on his shoulders and coached her gently.
“Ah, you’re a natural, you are. The babe is crowning.” The gray-haired medic smiled, eyes wide with amazement.
Susanna clutched my arm, gritted her teeth and pushed.
For a long while, this unpleasant process continued. Slowly the little dark head protruded. Then, with a great gush of fluid, the baby came rushing into the world. The old sailor caught her in his hands and laughed and held her up for Susanna and me to see.
The little girl squalled, covered in blood and smelling of river water.
“What should we call her?” Susanna asked.
“Let’s name her after you,” I said.
“Name her Susanna? Won’t that be confusing?”
“Then, how about Anna?”
“Anna,” she said, drawing the bloody baby toward her and kissing her on the forehead. “That’s who you are, then. Anna Moriarty.”
25
A LADY LOST
FROM THE MEMOIRS OF PROFESSOR JAMES MORIARTY:
And so, Anna entered my life just as her mother had, catching me all unawares. I had never had much contact with children, let alone newborns, and this naked, bloody, mewling thing seemed to me to be hardly human—perhaps a pupa.
I crouched beside Susanna, breathing raggedly as the Cam rolled lazily along below us. The Navy medic handed Anna to the other lawn bowler, who swaddled her in his overcoat. (I had already given my coat to my shivering wife.) The medic then drew a river-soaked handkerchief from his pocket and wiped the blood off the infant. (I would have proffered my own except that I was already using it to clean up Susanna.)
I could see the baby’s features now: the squished face, the bruise under her jaw where the man had pulled, the tiny hands and toes. She almost became human, but then I saw the umbilicus. That strange, quirked cord ran from the belly to the placental sac, which even now dangled bloodily above the ground.
I know fathers say that they love their daughters at first sight—that it is an obligation if not a compulsion. But I did not. I already had an all-encompassing love. Was I suddenly supposed to divide my love in half, giving a portion to my soul mate and the rest to this stranger? Or was I suddenly supposed to become twice the man I had been? I distinctly remember looking at that child, that half-drowned thing, and wondering who she was and what she meant.
“Isn’t she perfect?” Susanna asked me.
“Isn’t she?” I echoed.
WE RETURNED to our apartments, and Susanna gave the baby a proper bath, and I sliced the umbilicus with a pair of scissors and crimped it off with a bit of wire. Susanna showed me how to pin a diaper, and I watched with bemusement, trying to imagine myself doing any work on that end of the baby. But Susanna honestly expected me to, and soon I was to discover that I had no choice in the matter.
That should have been my first clue that everything had changed. I had always been the authority, had drawn Susanna up from the literal gutter and taught her to read and write, and opened a new world to her. I had been almost a father, but now she spoke to me in slow words with lots of deep nods as if I were a daft uncle. She was the parent now, and I was—what?—an assistant?
And the baby had done this to us.
Little Anna had stolen our lives. Once, I could lecture while Susanna learned—whether in my class or in another—but now one of us had to be home, or the baby had to go along. We even attempted it a few times, wheeling a pram in and hoping for a long nap. Little Anna would sleep until class began and then would break into ferocious wailing. I could not well change a diaper while lecturing on logarithmic functions, and I didn’t have the mammary equipment to placate her other needs. It came down to this: either my wife or I had to quit.
I told Susanna that I could not imagine ending my career to spend all day, every day, tending a baby. She said she would quit school. I was relieved at first, but our decision worked doubly against me.
Spending all day together, mother and daughter developed a powerful bond. Anna gradually edged me out of Susanna’s heart. At the same time, the baby drove all thought of theories and monographs and discoveries out of her mother’s mind. For four years, Susanna bent all her will on this little life. The two of them grew inseparable, a female syndicate that plotted against the Fatherland. I had to put a stop to it.
“I have a surprise for you, my dear,” I said one August, sweeping into our too-crowded apartments. Susanna and four-year-old Anna were working together to fold the washing. I raised my hand from behind my back and presented a bunch of roses I had clipped from a wild bush near the Cam.
“For me?” Anna asked shrilly, running forward.
I swept the flowers out of reach. “For your mother.” When I saw the pouting look on her face, I said, “They have thorns, dear. I didn’t want you to get pricked.”
“I, on the other hand—” Susanna said sarcastically, and both of them laughed. “What’s the occasion?”
“It’s threefold,” I said. “First, I have become Dean of Maths and Physics.”
“No!” Susanna cried, standing and wrapping her arms around me. “Congratulations!”
I returned the embrace, careful not to snag her dress with the thorns and not to let Anna get hold of them. “And there’s more.”
“What?”
“As dean, my first act is to readmit you into the program, picking up where you left off.”
Susanna stared at me, her face betraying shock and a little annoyance. “But I can’t—not until Anna is in school. We spoke of this.”
“You cannot wait any longer, my dear. Your faculties have been slowly declining—”
Her eyes flared. Anna saw the look and mirrored it a moment later. Susanna said, “I am, if anything, sharper for my work raising a child.”
“And though I may be dean, I cannot stretch your credits indefinitely. You must return to your studies.”
Susanna wrapped Anna in her arms and stared at me. “And what happens to our daughter?”
“We’ll hire a nanny.”
“A nanny?” they chorused.
“As dean, I have a substantial pay increase. We can afford it.”
“But can Anna afford it?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Nannies are embittered spinsters or closeted Sapphites—”
“You’re being too harsh.”
“They’re paid to love—mercenaries, prostitutes.”
I looked at her in frustration, my lips holding back the words so were you.
“How dare you!”
“What?”
“I know you, James Moriarty. I know your every thought,” Susanna said angrily. “This is not for me, not for Anna. This is all for you. You want to divide and conquer, to put your wife in her place and put your daughter in her place. You want to make her an orphan in her own home!”
The blood fled my face. At last, I understood. Susanna, who had never had a mother, was trying to be a mother not just for Anna, but for herself.
“I’m sorry,” I said, spreading my hands, letting the roses fall to the floor. “I just want you back, Susanna.”
Something in her broke. She peeled her arm away from Anna and crossed to me and nestled against my chest. I raised my hands to embrace her, but she said, “Don’t.”
“What?”
“Your hand is covered in blood,” she said.
Only then did I notice the four deep punctures where I had clutched the rose stems too hard. The broken flowers lay on the floor between us.
“I will do it,” she said in resignation. “I’ll go back to school—if we can find a suitable nanny for Anna.”
“No, Mother!” Anna wailed, clinging to her.
I clenched my hand, trying to keep the blood from falling on Anna’s blond head. I whispered to Susanna, “You won’t be sorry.”
“You might be.”
We both turned out to be right.
THE SEARCH for a suitable nanny dragged on for weeks. Partly, mother and daughter had decided to be extremely picky. Partly, Susanna had been right in her dire predictions. The old applicants turned out to be sour old Tories or dissolute drunks. The young ones often had cold sores on their lips, telltale signs of their true professions. Virtuous women were unwilling to sell themselves into domestic slavery.
In the fourth week, though, we found an old nanny with sterling references, a kindly face, and a will of iron. She spoke with the Queen’s English, knew Latin and Greek, and voted straight-ticket Tory. Her only downfall had been a ne’er-do-well husband who had spent her fortune and died. Mrs. Mulroney was, therefore, a refined lady at a streetwalker price. Best of all, Susanna liked her, and Anna spontaneously referred to her as “Grandmum.”
With that one utterance, Susanna was set free! I had at last won my wife back from our daughter. As Mrs. Mulroney settled into her domestic duties, Susanna dived back into her studies.
Her first class was a calculus tutorial, for which the professor was routinely late. When Susanna arrived, the four young men sitting there laughed to see her: “You must be the substitute!”
Susanna smiled rakishly, strode to the slate, and scrawled out a dizzying formula that crossed both boards. The giggles slowly quieted, and one by one, the young scholars began to copy down the equation. At last, Susanna turned around and said: “Do any of you know what this equation describes?”
Dead silence answered. Finally, a student named Edward Drake said, “A complex system of interactions.”
“Yes. But what exactly does it describe?”
Drake shrugged. “Some sort of chemical reaction?”
Susanna tilted her head, her smile only widening. “In a way.” She reached into her waistcoat pocket and drew out a peppermint—the type she and Anna always shared—and popped it into her mouth.
Another young scholar named John Nelson said, “It doesn’t look like a chemical reaction, but one of physics—the tracing of particles. But I can’t make out what sort of particles these are. There are four principals—D, N, A, and H, and they seem to bounce off each other in numerous ways. A chain reaction.”
“True.”
A third classmate, Rupert Higgins, scowled. “You said ‘in a way’ it was a chemical reaction, but also that it was a physical reaction. Which is it? It can’t be both, can it?”
“Can it?” Susanna replied.
The last, a student named Clive Andrews, said, “I don’t think it describes anything. There are too many other variables: fm(D), fs(A), fh(H), fp(A)—I mean, fh(H)? What kind of nonsense is that?”
“Just my question,” Susanna pressed. “What kind of nonsense is this?”
“Oh, she’s just playing with us,” said Higgins.
“Precisely,” Susanna replied. “Here are the variables: The function of m represents mind, on a ten-point scale from dull to genius. The function of p represents personality, on a scale from depressive to manic. The function of s represents sexism, from chauvinist to feminist … .”
As they scribbled, Higgins said, “But what the blazes is the function of h times H?”
“The function of h stands for hangover,” Susanna said. “So clearly fh(H) represents how your current hangover affects you, Mr. Higgins.”
“What?” he blustered.
Susanna smiled sweetly. “There you are, gentlemen—D for Drake, N for Nelson, A for Andrews, and H for Higgins. I’ve calculated the effects of your minds, your personalities, your sexism, and your hangovers to determine your actions.”
“What actions?” Drake and Andrews both blurted.
“This elaborate chain provides a probability of proper action.” She began to work through the equation, rubbing out variables and replacing them with numbers and running them through—at first two and then three and then four calculations ahead of the class.
Susanna was nearing the final calculation when she drew a quick breath, and the peppermint on her tongue rushed back and lodged in her throat. She hitched, trying to cough it out but couldn’t, and by the time she pivoted round, her face was blue. She collapsed onto the floor, passing out.
WHEN SHE awoke, Drake and Higgins knelt above her. Drake’s face was racked with dread, but Higgins was patiently picking chunks of shattered peppermint off his fingers.
Susanna smiled up at them, a smile that had always melted me: “What happened?”
Drake said, “Well, um. You choked—on that candy there. I was the first one to see it, and I ran up, trying to knock it out of you. Then Higgins told me to stop, said I was just lodging it down deeper. He grabbed you, miss—and, well, I’m ashamed to say—”
Higgins broke in, “I lifted you up with your back to my chest and wrapped my arms around your breasts and—”
“And that’s when Andrews shouted rape and ran from the room.”
“Yeah, but it wasn’t rape, see, miss, because when I squeezed your chest, the candy came popping out, and I caught it in my hand and crushed it.”
“You saved my life.”
He blushed deeply. “I guess I did, miss.”
She nodded. “Thank you. But what about Nelson? What did he do?”
Both men looked at each other and shrugged.
“I’ll tell you what he did. He finished the calculation, realized what it meant, and skulked out of the room.” The two young men traded looks of shock. Susanna extended her hands to them. “Help me up, and let’s go see.”
They lifted her to her feet, and the three of them went to Nelson’s desk to see the completed equation.
“Here it is, in black-and-white,” Susanna said. “You, Drake, have a high intelligence and a moderate personality—are even an egalitarian, with deep compassion—but you’re feeling quite dulled by a raging hangover from last night’s revels.”
Drake laughed in a self-effacing way. “Right there in black-and-white.”
“Your attributes put you in the eighty-fifth percentile for correct action. Your score was second only to Higgins, in the ninety-eighth percentile.” She turned to her rescuer. “Though your intellect is not as keen as Drake’s, and though you tend toward depression and are a staunch chauvinist, you’ve no hangover at all—due to your alcoholism.”
Higgins only stared in amazement.
“The combination of these less-than-stellar attributes, though, actually gave you an advantage in this crisis.”
“How could that be?”
“Look at Lord Salisbury,” Drake said, clapping his classmate on the back. “He’s got all the same demons as you, and he’s brilliant in Parliament.”
Higgins allowed himself a small smile. “What of the other two?”
“Well, here’s Andrews—a genius who tends toward mania, a feminist of the highest order, and moderately hungover. He ranks in the tenth percentile.”
“Rape!” Drake shouted mockingly, lifting his hands and pantomiming running from the room.
“While Nelson has a brain of no particular brilliance, a depressive nature, deep chauvinism, and a terrible hangover. He scored in the
fifth percentile—and skulked away.”
MY WIFE had returned, and I couldn’t have been more delighted. In fact, I had helped her plan this whole experiment: I am the professor who was late. I’d given her the names of the four other students and had profiled them for her, and all the while that this drama played out, I was waiting beyond the door. Susanna had made me promise not to rush in, though I had no notion she planned to actually inhale that mint.
“One of these days, my dear,” I chided her after that class, “your sociological experiments will get you killed.”
“WOULD YOU like to see my master’s thesis?” Susanna asked me one March morning, just prior to receiving a summa cum laude in maths and sociology from Jesus College. It was a provocative question. Of course I wanted to see it. After all, her history of publication had begun with me, though for the past three years, she had kept her master’s thesis a secret. She had dropped only occasional titillating clues. To ask if I wanted to see her master’s thesis was only slightly less provocative than asking if I wanted to see her naked.
My eyes strolled over the hundred fifty pages of schematics and formulae, and I tried desperately to parse out the meaning of it. Had she mathematically mapped every tissue in a human body? Had she captured the lineage of every royal personage in Europe? As my puzzlement grew, Susanna’s delight grew likewise. At last, I had to admit my ignorance. “What is all this?”
“This, my dear Dr. Moriarty,” she said, “is a map of the criminal underworld of London.”
I gasped involuntarily. “Indeed?”
“Indeed. You see that this map began with my so-called father. He had worked out a very advantageous trade. His prostitutes would occasionally become pregnant. They could work in that condition, of course—some men preferring it—but once they delivered, he donated the babies to the orphanage: little wicker baskets and little desperate Cockney notes, just what the beadle fell for. Well, the orphanage fed and clothed these children until they, too, became ripe, at which point Father appeared and adopted the pubescent girls. He magnanimously took them away, a philanthropist who alleviated the orphanage’s terrible burden while simultaneously sating London’s terrible desires. See? That’s how Father’s scam works.”
The Shadow of Reichenbach Falls Page 13