“Oh, yes,” Sleazy Steven Henson whistled, pressing a button emphatically as Downey motioned his hand with a flourish in the air like a magician, and there they suddenly were, side by side, the photos procured in that bar in Punta Arenas.
I missed Downey’s explanation about who I was and my genealogy of Petits and Hagenbecks, because Wiggins hissed: “Now it’s your turn to shine.”
He nodded a goodbye to Ensign Henson, and led me out of the projectionist’s booth and along a corridor to the backstage area of the auditorium. I could hear Downey’s voice droning on—and then Wiggins gently shoved me forward, pointed to a curtain that my old buddy Nordstrom was prying open.
I stepped through it.
“My friends, my friends,” Downey said excitedly. “I give you . . . Fitzroy Foster.”
The audience rose and applauded, as I saw the curtains that shrouded the walls lift and reveal multiple screens, blank for the moment, blank but not for long. Not for long: dozens of cameras had surfaced as if out of nowhere, all of them pointing at me.
I had spent the most significant years of my life dreading this very situation, scared to even be caught momentarily by some passing stranger. Dad and Mom and Cam had been right to warn me to be careful. All it had taken to deprive me of liberty was for two fraudulent tourists to snap my picture in a bar in Punta Arenas, that’s all it had taken to shipwreck me here, in this Cuban bay plundered by Columbus and appropriated by the US Navy. There I was now, there was Henri, there was Jemmy Edén, all three of us displayed like pieces of meat on a screen for our enemies to feast on. There I was, for them to do with me as they pleased.
I panicked—and yet could not run, my limbs and lips paralyzed by that phalanx of Guantánamo cameras pinning me down, strangling my face, ready to invite Henri into me yet one more time. A thousand insect eyes on the walls, flattening my torso and arms and legs into celluloid, preparing me for the tests ahead. The ultimate showdown, these cameras that had been waiting out here in the perilous air since my fourteenth birthday, if looks could kill, oh if looks could kill, waiting for this moment of truth when I could no longer evade them, the looks or the cameras.
My time had come.
“Ready for your close-up, Fitzroy Foster?”
I did not answer, tried to will myself away, sealed my eyes and hoped against hope that when I opened them I would be in Puerto Edén where perhaps at this very moment the photos Henri and I had created between the two of us were being given the ancient burial they deserved. But it made no sense to keep those eyes locked—it was a tactic that had never warded off Henri, he would overwhelm me no matter what obstacles I placed in his path. And what hope was there that he would act differently now, why would he not want to show his persistent defiance of these military and pharmaceutical and scientific denizens, prove his power?
I was fucked.
I forced my eyelids open and I was, of course, at Guantánamo and Dr. Ernest Downey, descendant of a Downey who had photographed Krao and Prince Albert, lifted his arm and brought it down as if he were flagging the end of a race and I beseeched the gods to let me die, that a flash of lightning would obliterate me from the earth, destroy me utterly, end it once and for all, but no, no such salvation, up there a man improbably called Sleazy clicked a button, one more click in the endless snapshots of my captive existence.
Not just one click. All the cameras clicked, one after the other after the other, like sharp drops of dirty rain falling, as they had over eleven years ago when my dad had tried to capture me on my birthday. It felt like all the cameras of the universe since Daguerre and Eastman and Land had perfected this art, it seemed like every eye in history, my ancestor Petit and my nonrelative Prince Roland Bonaparte and Tarbox Beals and Jacob Smith and the Downeys, all of them and thousands more clicking away in the past so I could be the center of attention, so that Henri could make his stellar appearance and again perform his assigned role, again perform tricks in front of a select audience.
Except he didn’t.
The image that almost instantaneously took shape on the screens, spread out through that bending hall of mirrors, that image was the immaculate image of Fitzroy Foster.
For the first time since my fourteenth birthday, my startled face stared back at me, back at the audience of military brass, boring into the eyes of the CEO of Pharma2001 and his devotees, parading in front of everyone else, but above all befuddling, astonishing, enraging Dr. Ernest Downey.
Henri had disappeared!
As a murmur rose from the spectators, Downey cried out, “A glitch! A glitch!” and ordered Ensign Henson to try again—“and this time make sure you get it right!”
This time there were no coy remarks, no asking me if I was ready for my close-up. He just grabbed hold of my arm as if I were about to escape him, as if that could guarantee a different outcome. I did not attempt to free myself, did not even have the presence of mind to seek Cam’s reaction—I was too fascinated with that face of mine that I hadn’t seen in a picture for so long, too stunned that it should seem so wonderfully unrecognizable.
My initial shock changed into something else, delight, vindication, understanding, the hint of merriment in my throat, when the next clicks sounded in the cavern of that auditorium and yes, once more proof that Henri had retreated from my existence, only Fitzroy Foster grinning from each screen, grinning in the photo and grinning in reality, and then I heard a laugh and I knew it was my Cam, I knew that I wasn’t dreaming, I knew that we had won this battle, that Cam had been right to trust Henri.
Next to her, Admiral Peabody stood up and lifted his arms to placate the assembly, their murmurs of displeasure turning into irritation as they also rose, more indignant at themselves for having fallen for this scam than at Downey for daring to perpetrate it, and yet ready to indulge the famous scientist one last time, still willing to believe him when he begged them to return to their seats.
The third time—oh that third click, just like the definitive one all those years ago that had separated my existence from its past, now separating me from Henri as if cutting two Siamese twins down the middle. He had said goodbye to me, left me alone with my own identity and image, here in 1992, while he, my visitor, my Henri, returned to his existence in cartes postales gathering dust in Parisian bookstores and Old World libraries, concealed in grubby attics and arcane collections, Henri was no longer present, trapped back in 1881 forever, in silence and death forever.
“A hoax!” Cam yelled out now. “Those other pictures—Photoshopped, gentlemen, using my own husband’s computing skills to defame him, abuse him, ensnare him. As you can see, the only evidence Dr. Downey has for his farfetched hypotheses and accusations are two doctored photos of two Patagonian Indians, probably brothers, maybe cousins, a hoax, a hoax!”
Pandemonium ensued.
Admiral Peabody barked out something that must have been some sort of order, because I found myself hustled away by Wiggins, was still too dazed to object until I saw Cam dragged along by two Navy officers and that was it, I’d had enough, I began flailing and screaming, calling out to her even when she was no longer present. Nordstrom rushed over and helped to subdue me.
“Hey,” Wiggins said. “Hey, you won! You wouldn’t want your children to see you with a black eye in the family album, would you? Enjoy your victory!”
“Where are they taking her, you bastard?” I said.
“To the admiral’s office, just like you. Come along nicely and you’ll both be all right.”
I realized that it made no sense to get beaten up, give him that satisfaction.
“What happens to us now?”
“If I had to guess, I’d say you’re on your way home. But under what terms, well, you’ll just have to be patient, Mr. Foster.”
I decided to heed his advice and was rewarded by Cam, more ebullient than I had ever seen her—and that was saying something!—embracing me in the admiral’s office and then, without the slightest sense of ridicule, dancing with me. Not stoppi
ng when Peabody and Downey abruptly entered, she seemed to be savoring their amazed faces as we swung around and around the room.
Until she realized that our victory waltz was provoking the officer who still held our destiny in his hands, and she ceased the twirling and said to him:
“So, Admiral, when do we leave?”
“Right now. I’m a man of my word.”
Downey was not happy. “Against my express recommendation. I told him, I asked the Admiral”—again, Downey seemed to be speaking more to himself than to anybody in the room—“how can we be sure this isn’t a temporary lull, that tomorrow—or right this minute—our patient won’t have a relapse? And even if that were not the case, you, Fitzroy Foster, you’re still valuable, irreplaceable, unique. Not useless. No, no, no. If I could have just a year, just a few months, with his body, Admiral, we could examine what residues remain dormant, what vital signs have been altered. A month, Admiral.”
Peabody just shook his head. “You promised proof and didn’t deliver. And I promised they could leave if there was no proof and I will deliver, I will keep my word.”
“Listen, listen,” Downey said breathlessly. “This is what happened, I figured it out. I overreached. I’m to blame for frightening him out of his wits”—pointing at me—“cornering him into a near-death experience. You know what war is like, Admiral, when you’re bombarded, when someone comes at you with a knife, you know what the body does in order to survive, how the brain’s amygdala reacts automatically. If he had been alone like my poor daughter, he could have killed himself, like she did, in order to kill the marauder inside. You saw his face, you saw him pray for death. Didn’t you, Fitzroy, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” I answered, even as Cam tried to shush me.
I felt sorry for him, that’s how much I had mellowed, that’s how much I had learned that revenge only destroys us, that’s what Henri had taught me before leaving—yes, I actually felt sorry for that Downey son of a bitch. He simply didn’t get it, never would. He was unable to fathom that Henri’s disappearance could not be reduced to the iron laws of biology and chemistry and physics. He would never believe that a far-off ceremony on an island lost at the southern end of the world, a burial of photos, might have any effect on this other island thousands of miles away. He did not believe that Henri—or Krao or Ota Benga or even Topsy—had agency, had a say in when they appeared and where and why. I said yes to Downey because I felt he needed some sort of consolation, he had to unearth a scientific explanation or he would go crazy and I would be responsible, I would have to carry the guilt of his darkened eyes for the rest of my life.
“You see, Admiral, you see,” Downey exclaimed. “Under surveillance twenty-four hours, unable to commit suicide, like my daughter did. So, instead, his cells accelerated and then exterminated all visual traces of that intruder from his memory and skin, an all-out attack on the enemy virus. Don’t you see, Admiral, if we keep him we can fight this plague, find a vaccine before it strikes again. Because that monster’s waiting out there, they all are, to bring down our civilization, don’t you see, don’t you see that there’s no other recourse?”
“No,” Cam said. “Bad science, Admiral. My husband never had any visitation of any sort. Those last photos prove how boringly normal he is. And even if we were to admit—we don’t, there’s no evidence, not one substantial piece that would stand the test in an American court or a laboratory for that matter—that he once had a hint of this sickness—by now it’s clearly been burned away and expelled. He’s just like any other human being.”
Downey turned to me. “Stay,” he pleaded. “I can’t lose you, my boy. Not again.”
“What do you say, Mr. Foster?” Peabody said. “Because if Dr. Downey happens to be right, it’s your children and grandchildren you’ll be saving from a possible pandemic. Would you be willing to sacrifice a week, contribute to the cause?”
“I think the cause will survive fine without me,” I said. “I’m really, really tired.”
“How about your wife then? Now that she has no fears regarding your future, maybe she’d care to join us?”
“You’re continuing with the research?” Cam asked, with genuine interest.
“Of course we are. The Pentagon was investigating this outbreak before Dr. Downey was installed as head of the team. This initiative remains one of our top priorities.”
“I think,” Cam said, “that I’d rather go back to working on cancer. I’ve been toying with a different approach, a less warlike one, to a cure. I mentioned it, in fact, to Mr. Clarke, the CEO of Pharma2001, and he said to get in touch with him if I needed preliminary funding.”
“Not if I can help it,” said Downey. “And you’re not leaving this base until certain conditions have been met.” He set out the terms in rapid-fire sequence. We were to sign a binding document stating that any revelation of the research in which Dr. Downey and associates were engaged, or our experience since our boat was boarded, would be in violation of the Espionage Act of 1917, and subject to immediate imprisonment. Second, Mr. Fitzroy Foster agreed to be photographed once a week by emissaries of the Pentagon’s choosing. And third, if the visual disorder recurred in the patient, he would promptly be retained at a site determined by the Center for Disease Control.
As soon as Cam and I quite willingly signed the document, Downey grabbed it, held it aloft triumphantly. “Because he will be back, you know that, right?” he crowed. “And when you relapse, there’ll be no getting away.”
He tried to follow us as we left the room, but Peabody seemed to have had enough for one day and closed the door firmly in Downey’s face. “So where do you go from here?” Peabody asked as he escorted us to a jeep waiting outside. “What’s next?”
The questions—so apparently innocent—terrified me.
This liberty, this freedom from Henri, was all that I had dreamed of since that lethal birthday in 1981 and now that the dream had come true, the truth was that I did not know what to do with my life, where I was going from here, what was next.
Henri had protected me from having to answer or even ask those questions.
And now I was alone.
Solo, solito y solo.
I missed him. I missed Henri.
He had left me, as the dead always end up leaving us. Leaving me without guidance and company. How could I possibly know what came next?
Cam, however, had ideas, was chock-full of plans and projects. She had never been inhabited by Henri and could not possibly realize how suddenly bereft I felt now that he had vanished, gone without even so much as an explanation or a goodbye or a last word of advice. Cam would soon enough tell me about all the wonders that lay ahead of us. For now, though, it was up to her to answer the admiral’s question, up to her to point north. “Home,” Cam said, laughing. “That’s next. We’re going home.”
Her enthusiasm, spilling out of her all through that trip to Boston, should have been infectious.
She spoke of returning to her research on the cancer that had deprived her of both parents—if Henri had been persuaded through kindness and empathy to cease his malignant growth inside me, perhaps this was a model for a different pathway, perhaps aberrant cells, instead of being bombed like an enemy, could be coaxed into becoming healthy again, could become partners rather than tumors. And then she spoke of my genius for code writing and computers and why not, now that I didn’t dread cameras, invent a way of creating three-dimensional representations of the inside of the body, why not create a phone that sent pictures instantly, why not break down the one-sided way in which pictures are produced, why not offer people control over their visual images so they would no longer be trapped by others as I had been trapped, why not? She spoke of the charities we could create and the millions we could help if our work and fortunes prospered. She spoke of starting to live together like any other couple today, of concerts we could attend and friends we could recover or make, of barhopping and how to enjoy the bloom of youth that had been forbidden us f
or so long. She spoke of dinner at exquisite restaurants tasting dishes I had never savored and excursions to museums and public squares and seaside resorts in a car that she would teach me how to drive. She spoke of Paris and Berlin and the beaches of Bali and the mosques of Morocco and the heights of Tibet, a wide-open Earth whose sights we could drink in, the resplendent artistic heritage of our species, without fearing the everlasting snapshots of a thousand tourists gone berserk. She spoke of building a house of our own and sallying forth arm in arm to furnish it and choose from every color in the rainbow, and scout for appliances and the right neighborhood, and that there needed to be a room so we could care for my dad when he was too old to live by himself, care for him as one should every elder member of the tribe. She spoke of taking care of the future as well, opening a family album inaugurated by a picture of the two of us holding hands and smiling at the camera or maybe a snapshot of our bodies racing in unison through the waters of a pool or a lake, she spoke of pictures of children we would bring into the world and their children and, if we were lucky, our great-grandchildren, and photos of Hugh’s wedding and Vic’s first baby and anniversaries and bike rides and PTA meetings and political marches brimming with other bodies, and dancing, dancing, dancing. She spoke of that night of love in Punta Arenas and what was singing inside her, how just and ethical and appropriate it would be if the seventh generation of Pierre Petit and Carl Hagenbeck were to have been conceived precisely there, were to start swimming toward the light in a place so close to where their crimes against humanity had originated. She spoke, bless her, as if all our troubles were behind us.
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