The Last Neanderthal

  The animal’s best fat stores were inside the bone. Even if a beast has died of starvation and the fat stores on the carcass are all but gone, it will still have nutritious marrow in the bones. Girl had seen it herself during a time that she didn’t like to remember, but it was one of the secrets of how Big Mother kept them all alive.

  Girl settled Runt on her lap and held him while he ate. He scooped along the bone’s length and brought the jellied fat to his lips. Then he licked each piece three times over. She could tell by the way he was devouring the marrow that he probably did have the fat sickness. That’s why he got listless and dull. She was surprised that he felt this way because she was fine, but then she ate some too and immediately felt better. Still, it led her to believe that their bodies were using the food they ate in very different ways.

  Runt licked the bone clean so quickly that she made him another. He sucked that up and then, eyes shining, gave her a huge greasy kiss on the cheek. He burrowed down into the hide and soon fell asleep. All she could do was watch his quivering eyelids, soft breathing, and cheeks as smooth as the belly of a fish. He nuzzled into the crook of her arm. Holding the warmth of his body, she couldn’t bear to move. She used her foot to kick a log on the fire and settled back to let him sleep. For a little while, she felt at one with him in her arms.

  When Runt woke, it was like an eruption. One moment he was snoring and the next he was bursting with life. The fat sickness seemed to be cured. He jumped and hooted and ran around the hearth. He laughed and wanted to play. She did for a while, but then she glanced at the sky. The clouds were closing in and growing heavier.

  Girl sent Runt out to look for green poles that might help them repair the hut. To get to a stand of trees that were the right size, he had to go far out. She had him yell every few minutes so she could keep track of him. It allowed her to continue working, as she didn’t want to take the time to follow him around.

  Soon enough, Runt came bounding through the brush. “Eagle-see.” He chattered excitedly and asked Girl to follow him back into the trees. She had just set the spine pole of the hut and didn’t want to stop working. He insisted and pulled her deep into the brush toward a clearing with a large boulder and from there to a tree. It occurred to her that he must have been suffering for longer than she knew, as he suddenly seemed ten times as strong as he had been just yesterday. His grip on her wrist was tight and he wouldn’t let go.

  Runt tugged her arm until she was facing a tree. It was familiar—a large pine with bark that flaked off and a distinctive twist to its growth that told of extreme weather while it was still young and supple. She nodded hello to the tree to be polite but wasn’t sure what business Runt had with it. He put his finger into a mark that had been made on the bark: two slashes cut diagonally downward. Runt traced them with two fingers. They were made at an angle that followed the direction of the land away from the camp. He pointed in the same direction. “Eagle-see.”

  Girl didn’t know what he meant by that word this time. She followed his gaze down the rolling slope. After a long walk that way, a body would end up on the plains. She wrinkled her nose as she remembered the stories she had heard from Big Mother about them. The plains were dry and full of dust. A body would always be thirsty out there. There would be no crossing, no bison, no hooves, no sweet stink of shit. The family didn’t go there because there were no trees for protection. How could a body live without at least some trees to hide in? On the plains, the sky felt so large it could lean down and swallow a body up. The sun was free to beat on a head or burn the skin and make it bubble. Some thought that was how the sunbite came, from the harshest sun of the plains. It was almost impossible to hunt on the flat land, with few trees or natural barriers to help corner the beasts.

  Girl wanted a big drink of water after just looking in that direction.

  “Eagle-see.”

  “Ne,” she grunted.

  “Eagle-see!” He put his finger in the slashes.

  “Ne.”

  Girl didn’t know why the slashes were on the tree, but they weren’t from an animal claw. They looked as though a body had been testing a stone tooth to see if it was sharp enough. But it was odd to cut into live bark. It hurt the tree, just like cutting skin. Its sap had bled and bubbled up from the wound. To Girl it was a kind of senseless violence. Why wouldn’t a body test a tool on a downed log instead? The family injured bodies all the time, but only for food or fuel. This seemed to be neither.

  Girl used her fingers to spread the sap into the wound and stanch the bleeding. Runt quickly batted her hand away to stop her. She looked at him and gave him a piercing growl. His renewed energy had turned into something more scratchy and difficult, as though a bug had bitten him under the cloak.

  “Eagle-see!”

  “Ne.”

  Their conversation didn’t get much further. And Girl didn’t see the need for discussion. What she believed had been passed on to her through the short generations of her family through experience, shared attention, and shadow stories on the cave wall. The things she believed felt as essential as the blood that flowed through her veins. There was stillness to her culture. There were few points of contact between families. Changes rarely had a chance to spread. There were no other ways to live. Other words weren’t needed. The family knew how things were done.

  But none of that solidity of the past stopped Runt. He chattered, flailed his arms, and filled the air with words to the point of exhaustion. Girl thought about trying to remove the marrow from his stomach, although she didn’t consider it in a serious way. But it was clear that a dull and listless Runt was an easier Runt to manage. She took a deep breath and tried to be patient with the boy. She wished for a sister or a brother that she could pass the problem child to.

  Finally she put her hands over her ears. It wasn’t so much to blot out Runt; more that her head ached from his chatter. Just thinking of the scrape from saying all those unnecessary words made her throat uncomfortable. She turned away from Runt and walked back to the remnants of the hut. All the while, the clouds overhead darkened. Girl could feel them pressing in and making the air on her back heavy. It wouldn’t be long, two suns at most, before the first winter storms of the season came. There was nothing more important than shelter to keep them alive.

  “Eagle-see!”

  The boy followed her and shouted, not just that word but a stream of noises and clicks and trills. There were too many words for Girl’s ears. The sound chafed against the craving in her belly and the weight of the baby in it. She scowled and continued walking. “Crowthroat,” she barked.

  Girl headed for the broken hut and didn’t look back. Runt would follow, as children always did. Wildcat would too. They both knew where their meat came from. It was the kind of loyalty she knew. She rested heavily in the hut for a moment and watched the clouds curling overhead. This side of the mountain was drier than the other, as the clouds raked over the top before riding down the slope. It meant that she couldn’t see how fast the storm was heading their way, but she could feel it.

  Wildcat came under the branches of the hut and sat under the new, smaller spine that she had just built. Because there were only two bodies and they still had to gather food, it would take several days to finish the shelter. The cat rubbed along Girl’s back. She reached for a small piece of dried squirrel and gave it to him. She took another from her pouch and held it out. It hung in the air, waiting. She expected Runt’s round face to show up at the side of the hut.

  “Eagle-see,” she said. The effort of saying the word was meant as a concession to the boy, a peace offering. There was no answer.

  Girl crawled out to look. The camp was empty. She stood. She sniffed. She even shouted. The boy was gone.

  Birth

  Excavating a spinal column is a finicky job. I worked with one of my smallest brushes and felt as if I were removing one speck of dust at a time. The vertebrae have many divots and curves. Hers were large, solid. I left enough dirt to support her found p
osition while uncovering enough bone for us to see.

  By the next evening, I was working on the C7 vertebra. I had staked it out in a square long before, marked with string and wooden pegs, and it corresponded precisely with Andy’s master map. I marked what I saw before I started brushing. I used an especially large scale, nine squares on the graph paper for each staked meter. I photographed each angle as I brushed, to capture every detail. Anais and Andy took out the dirt I removed and sifted it through a mesh screen to make sure there was nothing that I’d missed. A calm had settled over the site. Luckily, my baby seemed to enjoy the quiet as well. A boy, the ultrasound had said. He sat snug in my belly, showing no sign of making an appearance. I knew many first babies were late and used every moment like it was borrowed time.

  “Andy!”

  He pushed through the plastic. “How’s the baby?”

  “Which one?”

  “Your Neanderthal.” He laughed.

  “Could you help me up?”

  My joints were all loose and wobbly. My body was getting ready for the challenge of pushing out an infant with a big skull.

  Andy held out his hand. We had developed a technique for getting me off the ground: he would crouch behind me and wrap his arms under my arms and over my belly, and then we would stand up together. Caitlin entered just as we were mid-hoist.

  “Evolution is clearly a tinkerer, not an engineer,” she said, looking down her nose at us.

  “If only Rose were a gibbon.” Andy sighed.

  “Precisely,” said Caitlin. Andy was the only one who dared to tease her, but she took many of his attempted jokes seriously. “The smaller head and the broader canal of a gibbon makes for a much easier birth.”

  “Yes.” He nodded solemnly. “But if Rose were a gibbon, wouldn’t she throw her own feces all over the place?”

  Andy gave a last heave to help me stand. As soon as I was on my feet, I heard a crunch. The sound was terrifying, like a breaking bone. I was standing outside the string border, but I immediately assumed that I had stepped on and broken some part of my Neanderthal.

  “What was it?” I shrieked.

  “My back,” Andy said, gasping.

  I turned around to find him hunched over, his breathing uneven.

  “Did I break it?”

  “It went out.”

  Caitlin helped Andy lie down on the ground. I later learned that he had an old injury that had been aggravated, but I still felt as though I had broken him. Caitlin pushed the plastic aside to say, “Call an ambulance please, Michael.”

  Everyone had assumed that I was about to give birth, so they all looked shocked to see Andy emerge from the cave on a stretcher. The attendants brought one with wheels. To get back to the parking lot, they popped the wheels down for the flat stretches on the trail and flipped them up to carry the stretcher over the roots and rocks. They gave Andy a shot to help with the pain, but I could still see the agony in his face.

  Once he was in the ambulance, I squeezed in and gently took his hand. I was crying again, although this time I didn’t care who saw.

  “Rose?”

  “Andy?”

  “Go home,” he said. “And tell Simon I wish him the best of luck.”

  “He’ll be a great parent, I’m sure.”

  “Not with the baby.” Andy grimaced. “I mean with you.”

  I got out of the ambulance, and Caitlin got in to accompany him to the hospital. I watched them drive away.

  Without Andy, I couldn’t continue working. No one else would be crazy enough to lower and raise me without a crane. Or at least, no one offered. All I could do was worry about Andy and hover around the others. They all eventually settled down and went back to their jobs. No one touched my Neanderthal, but they worked on the artifacts around her. Two students cleaned and packed the finds that we had extracted. Anais cataloged the tag number, measurements, and description of each artifact with perfect accuracy. I had tried to catch her out more than once, but she seemed born for the job. I attempted to help with lunch and succeeded only in burning my wrist on a pan. After a few hours, I knew that I was in the way. Andy had said it: Go home.

  I announced my departure with a wave. Anais started to organize a visiting schedule, but I asked her to stop. I really wanted to be alone and get some rest. Simon would come on the weekend, when his course was over. The hospital was close to the flat. I would be fine. No one said much more than a quick good-bye. They assumed I wouldn’t be able to stay away and would probably reappear in a day or so. I drove to the flat in Vallon-Pont-d’Arc and put my work belt and keys on the Ikea shelves, which had been delivered and set up by an expensive man-with-a-van. I sat on the daybed and blinked.

  It was Tuesday and I had promised Simon that I would have the baby on the weekend. I was left to wonder what I should do with my free time—not something I was accustomed to having. I had declined a birthing course, as it was nothing I couldn’t learn from a book. Maybe the following day I could help Anais with cataloging. It would be good for me to get into the nitty-gritty. I wanted to check in on Andy too. But just then I felt exhausted.

  I put my hands on my belly when the baby kicked. I had been around enough of my friends’ babies to know that although it took a while for them to be able to express themselves, they emerged with their personalities fully formed. Who was this baby? I didn’t know him, even though I was clearly half responsible for making him. I ate a bowl of ice cream and decided there was only one logical step after that. I napped.

  The first contraction woke me up with a jolt. In the daze of sleep, my mind developed a complicated rationale. I was quite sure that I had fallen asleep for so long that storm clouds had gathered. Lightning must have hit the olive tree outside, been conducted through the frame of the daybed, and wrapped around my belly. I stood up and felt around clumsily. My daybed was wet. Had I knocked over my glass? It took me a minute to realize that my water had broken and was now dripping by my feet. I felt as though I were in some kind of comedy act, but then I imagined the horror I might have inflicted on the excavation site. Why hadn’t anyone warned me how much water there could be? I was glad to be near a toilet.

  Another contraction caught me by surprise. I put my hand on my belly, almost laughing at the pain. It was as if my body had started on a journey without me. It took a while for my mind to catch up. I cleaned up and changed and realized that I had to call Simon.

  He picked up the phone right away.

  “The contractions have started.”

  “Oh, shit.” He sounded panicked.

  “I know. It’s early. First babies are supposed to be late!”

  “You mean the baby is not following your schedule?” I couldn’t tell if he was joking. “Why do I ever listen to you?”

  “Can someone cover your class tomorrow?” I asked, all business again.

  “Argh!”

  “At least first babies are slow. We’ll wait for you.”

  “Gah.” Simon dropped the phone. I could hear him scrambling around and swearing, and then a door slammed.

  “Simon?”

  I guessed he was on his way.

  I knew giving birth could be traumatic, but as I sat on the daybed and felt the contractions contort and pull at my muscles, I felt only calm. With my prepacked bag in hand, I walked down the cobblestoned street to the small village hospital, thinking the exercise might help me relax and keep my breath even. I pushed through the doors.

  “Je vais avoir un bébé,” I said to the nurse at the front desk.

  “Comment vous sentez-vous?”

  “Bien,” I said. Meaning “I’m fine.” And I was.

  The nurse got me settled in a room. There was some clucking about whom I should call. I had done Andy enough harm, and even though he was in a different wing of this same hospital, I knew I needed to leave him to heal, so I assured them that Simon was on his way. I didn’t say that he was coming from England, nor did they think to ask.

  I lay on a bed in a scratchy gow
n with the sharp smell of antiseptic all around me. I understood the expression waves of pain for the first time. Each contraction came as a submersion. If I could go with it and try to relax, I knew I would’ve been spat out the other side. I adjusted the bed with the remote. There was a strange popping sound, like a bubble had burst my serene state of mind. I wasn’t sure what had made the noise, but the next contraction felt like a vise around my middle, gripping with a power I’d never felt before. I wanted to stop the contractions just for a moment, but they kept coming. My mind clouded over with the darkest thoughts. I tried to will in more light.

  Between contractions, I gave myself pep talks. A nurse came in to check on me. I didn’t want an epidural. She rubbed my back. I knew that anticipation of pain could make it worse, so I kept trying to clear my head. And then the next contraction would roll in, and it felt like two large hands taking the length of my body and wringing it.

  The doctor came in to check on me and said something, but rapide was the only word I could make out.

  Labor progressed until I felt like I was brushing up to the edge of death. At some point, that baby changed the way I thought about my body. I no longer worried about getting hurt, being turned inside out, or dying. All I wanted was for my baby to get outside of my body. It didn’t matter how. I can’t describe this as love. It was so different from what I’ve felt for my own mother or Simon. It was desperation.

  A fetal heart monitor was stuck to my belly and I could hear the regular beats. I started to imagine that I was a bomb. By that time, I would have happily exploded if it got the baby out. Before that moment, I’d assumed that fear was only a sensation that protected my body from harm. As the contractions climbed, death became more than just a possibility. It was a likely truth. The statistical probability that I would survive childbirth meant nothing to me. I knew a fear so deep that it opened its gaping mouth and swallowed me up.