Parasites Like Us

by Adam Johnson

  I clapped my hands together, then rubbed them briskly. “Well?” I asked.

  Eggers said, “Well, we brought the corn.”

  Trudy smiled. “Well, we’re here,” she said.

  I walked past them and stuck my head into the hall. There was no one there. I looked at Farley, Dad, and Lorraine. I looked in the hall again. Had Yulia really not come?

  “What are you looking for?” Trudy asked.

  “Don’t give me that,” I told her. “What exactly is going on here?”

  She looked like she didn’t know what I was talking about.

  “We brought the corn,” she said. “Eggers brought some chips. We’re here.”

  “I know you’re here,” I said. “Everyone in the world is here. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry in South Dakota is here. Where’s Dr. Nivitski?”

  Trudy said, “You told me not to pick her up. You called me and said—”

  I threw my hands up. “You’re telling me Dr. Nivitski is sitting at the airport alone, and you’re all in here baking pot pies?”

  “Hey, now,” Farley said, “that was uncalled for.”

  “This isn’t just about me,” I said to Trudy, who’d crossed her arms. “Science is on the line here. Humanity is at stake. This goes beyond personal whimsy and potato chips. This is bigger than whether you can be troubled to pick someone up at the airport. I’d do it all myself, but I’m in prison here, if you haven’t noticed. This is jail, in case you forgot what crimes I’m charged with.”

  Suddenly there was Yulia and a boy who must be her son, Vadim, standing in the doorway. I turned to Trudy and offered her a look of apology.

  I approached Yulia, and we regarded each other. She wore tight dark jeans, snug as spray-paint, and a down ski jacket, powder-white. A red scarf wrapped her neck, and her hair was hidden beneath a cap of white sable. I neared her, so close it surprised me. My breathing sent white ripples through that ultrafine fur. Yulia’s dark-brown eyes seemed depthless. Her pupils, fluctuating, hypnotized me.

  I said, “I didn’t think you’d come.”

  “Are you not pleased with my arrival?”

  The wispy fur of her hat was something out of a dream, soft and undulating. The way Yulia’s hair was pulled up showed the flare of her cheekbones, accented the cut of her jaw. Something daring rose in me.

  “No,” I said, “it’s just that I can’t believe I ever let you leave.”

  She threw me a look of exaggerated indifference.

  “I am here in a professional capacity,” she said. “I am hoping you are worth at least a tax deduction.”

  I knew the desire in her eyes. “Is that the only reason you came?” I asked.

  “No,” she said, “I also have frequent-flier miles. Soon they will be expiring.”

  Were there other people in the room? Was everyone staring at us? I didn’t know. I saw only Yulia, her red lips, her white skin, the sparkle of her Russian dentistry. “You should travel more often,” I said, “if it makes you beam so radiantly.”

  She looked at me sideways. Was she offended by my forwardness? Or was she basking in a compliment? “I notice you have denuded your hair,” she said. “You look more severe. You resemble a man of intensity. And your eyes, I would say they appear more remarkable.”

  How Hope—fleeting, exhilarating—fortified me!

  Yulia shouldered forward her son. “This is Vadim,” she said.

  The boy didn’t look like Gerry’s kids—those little truants were strong, scrappy things, composed solely of muscles and cowlicks. Gerry’s kids, you could tell, were going to make it through the next decade on rash impulses alone.

  No, Vadim was a solitary, brooding boy, thin at the waist, red about the nose. Trustful and half lost, he seemed unprepared for what life had in store, even though he’d had a dose already, traveling round the world, leaving his father behind.

  I made a show of examining the boy. I placed my hand appraisingly on his shoulder and head. He wore a yellow parka that he’d nearly outgrown, and his hair, exhibiting none of Yulia’s frizz, was cut in the manner of a bowl.

  “So,” I said, “this is the young scientist.”

  Vadim looked up. “You are the man with whom I chitchatted?”

  “Yes,” I said, “we spoke. There will be some amazing science here tonight, I assure you. We are going to conduct an initial examination on a very important botanical sample.”

  I gestured largely, to show how meaningful our work would be, but Vadim’s brown eyes were unreadable. He asked, “Is it not prudent to first wait for the results?”

  Wise words indeed. They made me inspect the boy closer. To be Vadim’s age, I knew, was to be plagued by unknowns.

  Yulia patted Vadim’s shoulder and squeezed once, to let him know she was there.

  “Well,” she said, looking into my eyes, “shall we see this corn, perhaps?”

  Eggers cleared his throat. “We have some preliminary business,” he said.

  I’d forgotten Eggers was even in the room! How to speak of this night with anything approaching method, let alone objectivity? Dear guardians of tomorrow, I know not what future you inhabit when you read these words, what centuries or millennia have transpired. All I know for sure is that you all hold doctorates in anthropology, so you understand the principles of uncertainty at work in any version of the truth, let alone a saga soon to be stained by love and lust, as this one is. So I apologize in advance if I forget some particulars or lose track of any participants. As dedicated anthropologists, you will, I know, be especially offended at the destruction of an ancient artifact that I will shortly relate. I say only this: every thought and every action that shapes the rest of this wily and temperamental sojourn must be understood in terms of Dr. Yulia Terrasova Nivitski.

  Everyone gathered around the kitchen island. The setting sun had purpled the room, and folks nibbled on orange potato chips from a festive bowl.

  Trudy spoke up. “First things first, Dr. Hannah. We’ve been working on a project.”

  I looked to my father and Lorraine. I looked to Farley. If they knew what Trudy was speaking of, they gave nothing away.

  “What is this project?” I asked. “What are you talking about?”

  Eggers stepped from behind the counter. Dorito in hand, he gestured solemnly. “Dr. Hannah,” he said, “I told you yesterday that everything in my lodge had been confiscated by the sheriff, but that wasn’t exactly true.”

  Farley took a keen interest in this. He slid his casserole dish into the oven without taking his eyes off the boy. Trudy came forward to join Eggers. They looked at each other a moment, as if deciding how to proceed.

  “One article of clothing was spared,” Trudy said. “It was at the dry cleaners.”

  Farley just shook his head—he checked his watch to time the dish, but it looked as if he was taking note of the exact moment and place this statement was made. “Does anyone hear this?” Farley asked. “A Clovis using the dry cleaners? Is no one bothered by this?”

  Eggers ignored him, strolled into the hall, and returned with a garment bag from the cleaners. “Here you go,” he said, handing me a hanger that must have weighed thirty pounds.

  I looked around the room, my eyes finally meeting Trudy’s. “What is this?” I asked.

  “Go ahead,” she said. “Open it.”

  I slipped off the bag to reveal a grand coat, cut from the softest, richest pelt I’d ever seen. The pile of the fur must’ve been four inches thick. The coat closed with a set of toggles carved from antler that buttonholed into a rather smart-looking set of sinew loops. And the crowning glory was a large hood ringed with fleece cut from fur whose color and fluff I’d seen only in Pomeranians.

  To Eggers I said, “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “I did the outside of the parka,” Eggers said. He eyed Farley. “Using strict Paleolithic technology. I brain-tanned the hide, then soaked it in brine for three days. I smoked it, waterproofed it, then worked it soft with a hand loop. The p
anels were cut with obsidian flakes, and I did the seams with a needle shaped from a heron’s beak. Trudy did the inside.”

  I laid the coat on the countertop so everyone could see, then folded it open to reveal an interior that was completely quilted and embroidered. The lining of the coat was a patchwork of fabrics, sewn into a large map of North America that depicted the Corderillan and Laurentide glaciers, which once extended from Siberia to South Dakota. All was glacial ice, except for a narrow gap that cut across Alaska and Canada: the route the Clovis followed to South Dakota.

  Trudy joined me to explicate her work:

  “American pilots in World War II used to sew maps of Europe in their coats,” she said. “That way, if they crashed or bailed out, they could always find their way. Since this is a Clovis coat, I sewed in a map of America from twelve thousand years ago.” She began explaining the different fabrics she’d incorporated. “The aqua satin is from a kimono my grandma sent me that was too short,” she said. “The white canvas was cut from a cooking apron that Farley donated.”

  “It was my lucky apron, eh?” Farley corrected.

  Her finger pointed to a patch of pink fabric and then a swatch of creamy velvet. “The pink came from one of Eggers’ old polo shirts, which I found in the grad lounge, and of course you recognize the baby-blue of the old curtains that once hung in the Hall of Man. This velvet came from that big chair Peabody used to sit in.”

  I remembered that chair, all right. How many times had I sat in that old white chair in Peabody’s office, listening to him speak of the grand excavations he’d been a part of? There was Folsom Creek and the Iowa Mounds. Peabody had worked the Manitoba Washouts and had personally met Ishi, a Native American whose California tribe existed completely on Stone Age technology until they were discovered and eradicated by land-grabbers in the year 1910. Ishi, the sole survivor, then walked to San Francisco, where he spent the remainder of his life trying to tell the story of his people to passers by who didn’t know his language.

  Trudy’s words brought me back. “Only five arts are truly North American,” she concluded. “Clovis points, Anasazi ceramics, quilting, jazz, and the blues. So this jacket is truly American.”

  I looked at Trudy. She’d somehow just synthesized nearly every important thing in my life into something beautiful and functional. I realized, right there, that her dissertation thesis would work, that she had the instinct and intellect to show the world how an ancient people’s religion, art, philosophy, and physical needs were all met by a single object: a Clovis spear point.

  Vadim inspected the coat. “What’s this?” he asked.

  He ran his hand over a pocket that had been sewn inside the breast. It was embroidered in cursive with the words “Open in Case of Emergency.” When I tried to open it, I found it was sewn shut. I looked to Trudy.

  She smiled. “Open only in case of emergency” she said.

  “What’s in it?” I asked.

  “Essentials,” Eggers said.

  I ran my hand over the pocket. There was something in there for sure, some sort of object, but I couldn’t tell what. Was it hard or soft? Did I hear the crinkle of paper in there? I didn’t try to guess—my brain was simply consumed with the beauty of the coat, the grandness of the gesture that brought it to me.

  “Eggers,” I said. “Trudy. I don’t know what to say.”

  “We wanted to say thanks,” Trudy added. “You know, for all you’ve taught us.”

  “It’s just an arigato, that’s all,” Eggers said. “We’d been wanting to do something for you for a while. And when I heard a brown bear got hit by a train up in Glanton, I just had to get that skin.”

  “Glanton?” Farley asked. “That’s thirty miles away.”

  Eggers shrugged. “It was no big deal. When you have the right fur parka on, you can walk forever. Besides, who would pass up a free bear pelt?”

  Trudy said, “You should have seen the thing before I drycleaned it. The fur was all matted with blood. Don’t forget it had been tanned with brains. And then Eggers used rancid grease to waterproof the backing.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” I said.

  Eggers said, “You don’t have to say anything. It’s a gift.”

  Yulia ran her hand across the pile, the fur shining dark brown one way, almost silver the other. “Put it on,” she commanded.

  Here let me mention that, in my day, I was not a bad-looking fellow. I was broad of shoulder, lean of physique, though admittedly I tended to slouch. My hairline was respectable, and more than one woman had told me I possessed fine hands. Though I wouldn’t say anyone had ever called me devilishly handsome, I could tell when certain women in the faculty senate cast an appraising glance my way. So, when I donned that bear parka, and stood to my full height, I can attest with a certain authority that Yulia gave me a look—a darting, up-and-down flash of the eyes—that suggested this evening might take a turn toward the salacious.

  The coat made me feel large and stoic.

  I clapped my hands twice. I needed to make a speech.

  “Your attention, please,” I said. “A toast is in order.”

  Lorraine shifted into bartender mode, pouring sodas from two-liter bottles into paper cups my father stoked with ice cubes. Farley took the opportunity to stick toothpicks in his mushroom surprise, and Eggers circled the Formica-topped island, pushing his prized potato chips on everyone.

  When the sodas had gone around, I lifted my cup high.

  “To my students, Eggers and Trudy,” I said. All eyes turned to me, and there was my father, looking, for once, anticipatory and proud. Lorraine even seemed strangely at home with our company—it felt like she belonged. Farley sported an oven mitt, and at that moment, he was the brother I’d never had. As for Eggers and Trudy—I couldn’t even look at them without getting choked up.

  “To my students,” I said again, but my lip began to quiver. Yulia cocked her head slightly, her eyes sending me support and understanding, and when I thought what a lucky man I was, when I took stock of all I’d been blessed with, the tears started to flow. I had to set my soda down and cover my face. Yulia put a hand on my shoulder. She thumbed the streams from my cheeks. This was happiness overpowering me. This is joy I’m talking about. I cleared my sinuses and tried to compose myself, but the emotion wouldn’t let go.

  “Here, here,” Farley said, and everyone drank.

  I’d never felt happier. To Yulia, I opened my arms for a hug. She looked a little surprised and tried to give me one of those lean-way-over-and-tap-you-on-the-back hugs. I knew all about halfhearted touching techniques. I was an expert at spotting those. When I got my arms around Yulia, I showed her a real embrace. I pulled her shoulders into mine. Through four inches of bear fur I could feel the pressure of her breasts as they struggled, fought, and then relinquished against me. Yulia said something rapidly in Russian, yet I understood her. When it comes to certain utterances between a man and a woman, no translation is needed.

  I was on top of the world. I walked around the kitchen island to Eggers, who was going through all the cabinets, even though each door was labeled with a strip of masking tape that spelled out the contents inside. He was checking to see which Tupperware containers were airtight and which had matching lids. By the time I grabbed his shoulder, he was holding a frying pan in each hand, as if determining the heavier and more capable.

  We both wore dark parkas. We were family. I admit I was still a little weepy. “Eggers,” I said, “I want you to know how touched I am by this coat.”

  He set the pans down and, without really glancing at me, inspected some resealable freezer bags. “Sure, Dr. Hannah. You’re the greatest. Don’t sweat it.”

  He tugged the bags this way and that, to test their give.

  I squeezed his shoulder. “Eggers,” I said, “nobody’s ever done anything like this for me.”

  Eggers set the bags aside and eyed a roll of plastic wrap.

  “That’s great, Dr. Hannah,” he said. “Don’
t mention it.”

  He unrolled some of the wrap and stretched it to its breaking point.

  I looked him in the eye and said, “Whenever I can be of service to you, anytime, anyplace, and no matter what engaged, I will assist you.”

  I don’t know how Trudy’s words came to my lips, but after I’d said them, I’d never felt better. It had reassured me immeasurably to hear those words from Trudy, but now I’d discovered it felt even better to speak them to others.

  Eggers went back to the bags. He handed me a one-gallon freezer bag and asked me to hold it open while he poured half of the corn—about a kilo—directly from Keno’s ball. Tiny and opalescent, the beads of corn shifted like tapioca pearls.

  “That goes to Dr. Nivitski for research,” Eggers said. “The rest is mine.”

  Corn in hand, I turned from Eggers to find my father and Lorraine. They were standing over the sink, talking. I couldn’t help it. I was in such a mood that I said to them, “Whenever I can be of service to either of you, anytime, anyplace, and no matter what engaged, I will assist you.”

  My father just stared at me.

  Lorraine said, “Well, good to hear. That’s great news.”

  For spice, I added, “Believe me, I’ll be there for you. Take it to the bank.”

  I felt like a million dollars. I downed a whole glass of soda and followed it with a fistful of chips. Vadim was standing there. I tugged the kid’s yellow jacket.

  An eleven-year-old with a missing parent can be a tough customer. I knew that.

  Still, I said, “Whenever you need me, little guy, I’ll be there. You get caught in a tough spot—I’m your man.”

  He looked up at me with an expression of cool incomprehension.

  “Why do you say that?” he asked.

  “You’re a kid,” I told him. “Kids need to know when people are there for them.”