Though possibly: He’d direct his lawyer to file a countersuit. He’d fire that lawyer and hire another, better lawyer. He would not slink away in disgrace. He would not slink away at all—he would never resign his professorship. He would certainly never step down from the directorship of the institute that he himself had founded. Instead, he would appeal the university’s (hasty, ill-advised) decision if it went against him. If the appeal failed he would sue. He would sue the dean of the college, and he would sue the chair of his longtime department. He would sue each of the committee members. He would sue the president of the university who was ex officio on the committee.
He could marry again if he wished. It was not too late.
He would not make the same mistakes again. If he could remember these mistakes that had not seemed to be mistakes at the outset.
He could marry this woman—Lisbeth. She loved him, and would grow to love him more deeply. He would give her no cause not to love him as he’d done with other women, out of distrust of female weakness and subterfuge. But what was her last name, he’d forgotten …
Wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction. Strait is the gate, and narrow the way, that leadeth onto life.
These biblical words came to him at the wheel of the little outboard, he had no idea why. He was no admirer of the Bible. He wasn’t even certain which of the gospels this was—St. Mark? Matthew? Carefully he’d explained to anyone who asked, to interviewers, he was not by nature a religious person, yet, as a neuroscientist, he understood that religion is probably hardwired into the human brain.
Wide is the gate … That was the problem: The lake was too vast, “broad”; it was the narrower inlet he sought, to bring them to safety.
This inlet was close ahead. A few hundred yards perhaps. In a few minutes he would be close enough to the mainland to see exactly where he was.
Already it seemed to him that the waves were less severe. He was nearing land—wasn’t he? To his left, a small familiar, nameless island would appear; to his right, the rocky mainland. He would see (was he seeing?) lights on land; he knew where this was, very close to the marina. He had only to keep on course; even with this poor visibility he could not miss it.
And yet, there was a thinness, almost a transparency now to the mist. Everywhere he stared was embued with a kind of radiance. It was the illumination of the finite, which filled him with melancholy, but also, strangely, a great happiness, hope …
And then, out of nowhere, there appeared a boat—a rescue boat?—and a male voice calling to them, Did they need help?
A Lake George ranger boat, suddenly beside them. The man was both immensely relieved and terribly disappointed.
Out of the heavy rain a flashlight beam was directed at them, at the man’s grimacing face.
“Hello? D’you need help?”
“Yes! Please! We need help!” the woman cried.
The man was furious with her, in that instant. But he did not contradict her. Abashed, he followed the ranger’s directions. He followed the larger boat, which accompanied them to the marina. To his dismay he saw that, as he’d anticipated, the marina was directly ahead. He would have brought the boat in safely himself, within ten minutes.
Neither he nor his female passenger would see the flag at the end of the dock, high above their heads, hanging limp, sodden, unrecognizable as an American flag.
There, in still-pelting rain, amid flashes of lightning and claps of deafening thunder, the man and the woman were greeted by a teenaged marina attendant in a yellow rain poncho. “Great! Great job getting back, mister”—the words were as flattering as they were insincere, and much appreciated. The young man secured the boat for them, which was bucking and heaving beside the dock; he helped each of them out of the boat, the woman first, then the man, with as much solicitude as if they were elderly or infirm, and their bones fragile. “Careful, sir! Ma’am! The dock is slippery.”
Returning in the car to their motel several miles away, the man was silent in his soaked, sodden clothes as if abashed, brooding. The woman could not stop exclaiming how wonderful it was to be out of the boat, off the lake, in the car, and out of the rain! She was delirious with gratitude, relief. How happy she was, and how determined never to step into a boat again in her life! If she was expecting the man to protest such an extravagant statement, he took no notice. Halfway to the motel the man abruptly braked the car on the shoulder of the road and asked if the woman would mind driving? He had a migraine headache, all the muscles of his upper body ached.
Gratefully the woman drove the rest of the way, still in rain. How she hated rain, in the Adirondacks! She’d been shaken for just a moment, thinking, He is disgusted with me. He will make me get out of the car and walk back in the rain.
Of course, he was not angry at her in the slightest. He too was relieved—obviously. Several times he embraced her, kissed her roughly on the mouth as soon as they entered their motel room.
Their nostrils pinched, the room smelled musty. Outside the sliding-glass doors to their little balcony the vast lake was invisible in rain, mist. Perhaps there was no lake at all, they’d been under a cruel enchantment. There was no “visibility” from the windows of their room, they had only each other.
In revulsion for their soaked, soiled-seeming clothing they took lengthy showers. The clothing was hung to dry by the woman. When Lisbeth came out of the shower she saw Mikael hunched over his laptop, sitting on the edge of the king-sized bed. At last the terrible storm was lifting. Rain came less ferociously. Lisbeth returned to the bathroom to dress and when she emerged again, she saw Mikael on the phone, on the balcony. She heard his lowered voice. She heard him laugh—somehow, this was disconcerting. For he had not laughed with her.
How lonely she felt, he’d moved so quickly beyond her! She understood by the way in which his gaze slid over her, appraising, bemused. He told her he’d decided to return to Cambridge a day early, they would leave in the morning. Early Sunday morning—“We’ll beat the traffic.”
Tenderly he stooped to kiss her. Rubbed his rough beard against her cheek. As if it had all been a joke of a kind and their lives had never been seriously at risk.
“Hey. You saved us.”
She would protest afterward, he’d given no sign.
No sign. No hint. Not a word.
He hadn’t been unhappy. (No more than any of us are unhappy!)
Many people would contact her. Most of them were strangers. Brun’s family, ex-wife, relatives. Colleagues at Harvard and at the institute. Journalists. She’d been unable to keep confidential the (shameful, incomprehensible) fact that Lisbeth Mueller had been the companion of Mikael Brun for several days before he’d returned to his Cambridge home and killed himself. She’d had to give statements to police. She could give only a faltering, uncertain testimony that altered each time she gave it. She did not lie but she neglected to tell all that she might have told. What had been intimate between them she would never reveal. She would not show anyone—not even the grieving Brun children—the pictures of Mikael Brun alone and with Lisbeth Mueller on her iPhone. Nor could she bring herself to reveal to anyone that among the final words Mikael Brun had said to her were these playful, not very sincere words—Hey. You saved us.
For she had not saved them, had she?
She was furious with the man, and came to hate him. She was devastated. She was in love with him, and wept for him, in a frenzy of grief she could not reveal to anyone. She could not sleep for she was pleading with him—Why? Why did you do such a thing to yourself, and to me?
It was clear, Mikael Brun had prepared his last things before he’d left for Lake George. All had been neatly organized, awaiting his return from Big Burnt. That seemed to be incontestable, she would not contest it. Her heart was lacerated by the realization that, in his last hours, her lover had forgotten her entirely. Not one of the last letters had bee
n addressed to her.
She could not think of any words she might wish to utter to anyone. She had not an adequate language, she had no script. And so, eventually she gave up trying.
The Return to Monsterland
Sequoia Nagamatsu
TRAIN CAR, 1998
Mayu called me from the train car that Godzilla had grabbed hold of––no screaming or sobbing, no confessions of great regrets, no final professions of love. She did not ask to speak to our five-year-old daughter, who was unknowingly watching the news coverage of her mother’s impending death, as the train crashed into the side of a skyscraper and through a set of power lines. My wife spoke of feeling the radiation of his body coursing through her own, the view down his Cretaceous mouth, an atomic breath swirling in a maelstrom of blue light. And then, before there was nothing but a roar and static, she said: “You should be here; he’s simply magnificent.”
GODZILLA (IRRADIATED GODZILLASAURUS)
{Descp. Resembles Tyrannosaur with pronounced arms. Dorsal plates similar to Stegosaur. Semisapient. Powers: atomic breath, nuclear pulse, imperviousness to conventional weaponry (and meteor impacts), regeneration, amphibiousness, telepathy with other kaiju. Weaknesses: high voltage, oxygen destroyer WMD, antinuclear energy bacteria, cadmium missiles, Mechagodzilla.}
Field Notes: lumber-waddle. posturing roar. rhythmic stomp with son. perhaps a game? picks up palm tree and throws. swats seagull. defecates two meters high––radiation: 15 krad. moves arms up and down. calisthenics or victory dance. long roar. shuffles across beach. throws log into water. throws rock into water.
Two weeks living among their kind on the island reserve we’ve created for them, and I still can’t wrap my head around the love my wife felt for these creatures. During the atomic age, when nations illuminated the atolls dotting the Pacific, we gave birth to many of the kaiju. Annihilation begetting annihilation when the living ghosts of Hiroshima still roamed the streets. The Ministry of Defense contacted me partly out of kindness, I suspect. The widower of the famous monster biologist, the silent partner who stayed in the lab. I knew the creatures almost as well as Mayu did––the half-life of their blood, the frequency of their telepathic thoughts, the variations of their origins and resurrections. I could, without a doubt, answer Japan’s questions about new monsters being born in the wake of Fukushima, of old monsters shaken out of armistice. And so I said yes because I hated their kind, because my daughter, now a college student, still reads the letters her mother left her, because I need to experience the beauty my wife saw before she died.
Dear Ayu,
I had to watch the video of your first steps from the bottom of the ocean. I wish I could have been there. But I guess all of our practice trying to walk paid off! Do you remember how we watched old news broadcasts of the epic kaiju battles of the sixties? I’d pick you up by the arms, your feet resting on mine, and we’d take one giant step after another, waddling across the living room. Whenever I let you go, there would be a moment where we both thought that you could make that first step on your own. But you flapped your arms like Rodan or Mothra, trying to maintain your balance before crashing to the ground. Your father tells me you’re moving nonstop now with your newfound freedom, that you circle the house until you’re so tired that you need a nap. I wish you were here with me. I hope these letters will help you understand why I was away so much. It’s just me, a steel sphere, and two tiny windows right now. Miles of ocean are dead because of us––the Oxygen Destroyer killed a former Godzilla several decades ago along with everything around him: suffocation before the atoms of his body weakened, leaving nothing but bone. A shark hunts in vain––still. A jelly billows past like a cloud. I rake away layers of shells and fish husks from his skeleton with the submarine’s robotic arm, collect him piece by piece. Godzilla died then because we didn’t understand, because we are always afraid––and despite him saving us from danger time and again, we never seem to learn.
MU
Sunken civilization. Geologic curiosity. Aquatic paradise. Scuba-dive excursion. Mu, home of the Naacal, shaken beneath the waves overnight––temples entombed in lava, megalith highways to the Mariana Trench. The Naacal, catamaran refugees, ancestors of Egypt and the Fertile Crescent. Manda, water-dragon guardian, still defending the Naacal after millennia. At a college dive, Mayu and I discussed her dissertation on the Kaiju as Heritage, creatures who came before us, were created by us, that served us. Creatures, I added, that no longer belonged. But we must find a way for them to belong, she insisted. “Try reasoning with a three-story lizard,” I said. “Tell that to the parents of children who died when these creatures decided to throw down on their school.” A piece of Mu has been placed off the coast of the reserve for Manda to protect, a collection of pillars, the worn smirk of a marble warrior, three thousand pounds of drowned mountain. Five miles of ocean surrounded by an electromagnetic field. This is what we can give them. This is where they belong.
MOTHRA (MOTH GODDESS, CURRENT STAGE: LARVAL)
{Descp. Segmented brown body. Blue eyes. Pronounced mandibles. Powers: silken spray, several beam weapons, strong psychic communication. As an adult, able to create gale-force wind with wings. Lightning from antennae. Effectively immortal (phoenix life cycle). Travels with faerie sisters, the Elias––three-inch women in red tunics.}
Field Notes: undulates around island. tries to follow butterflies and moths. visits other kaiju. sways head with Varan. chews on shrubs and grasses. draws mandalas on beach with body. sends sonic pulse to Manda. the Elias, Lora and Moll, ride its back. Elias laugh frequently. whispers. song.
A glorified grub, a far cry from the bright-orange-and-yellow wings that Mayu and my daughter loved. Perhaps the most beloved of the kaiju because she is a goddess, because through her spritely companions we understand the moth’s chirps, the roars and groans of other kaiju. “Godzilla doesn’t hate humans but humans hate us,” the little sisters declared on national television. Fair enough, I say. But he still flattened my favorite soba shop in the country with several elderly ladies inside, used Tokyo Tower like a toothpick. Maybe we shouldn’t have used missiles, maybe we could have spent time coming to an understanding. But parlays are an afterthought when people are running out of their cars and screaming down the street. Mayu said that’s typical human behavior, the kind of trait that would ruin humanity in the end: Shoot first, ask questions later. She reminded me it was the kaiju who saved us from alien invasions––the Kilaakians, the Millennians. Ayu, who became quite the activist in her junior-high class, following her mother’s letters as text, would always say, “Kaiju don’t kill people; people kill people” and “Love is the greatest weapon of all!”
The Elias sisters pay me no mind most of the time but occasionally flutter around my head, giggling like schoolgirls, providing me insight into each of the creatures: Godzilla is very sad today. Godzilla remembers your wife and is sorry. Godzilla cannot help being Godzilla. Manda is lonely. There were once many sea dragons in the sea. Manda knows Mu is far away. Mothra remembers when humans were not here. Mothra says those were peaceful times. Mothra says quiet will come again one day. Baragon has indigestion from eating a strange plant. Gorosaurus wants to find love. Anguirus wants to get to know Rodan better. Nobody really likes Kumonga. Kumonga is grumpy. Kumonga will try to kill you.
Dear Ayu,
Yesterday I brought you with me to the NHK television studio to talk to the Elias. You’ve just turned two now, so I imagine you won’t remember any of this except for impressions of faerie feet dancing on your tummy, making you laugh, of Lora and Moll singing lost melodies into your ear. Atlantean ballads, Babylonian hymns, they said. You held your Mothra stuffed animal, your most prized possession, which has watched over you in your crib since you were born. Lora and Moll reclined on the plush wings as I interviewed them. I have to admit, I’d like to fancy myself the Margaret Mead of the kaiju world. The people have stopped running, little on
e. At least for now. The time has come to listen to those we call monsters.
The sisters talked of Mothra being part of a menagerie of earth deities, each with a counterpart, creating balance in the world. The earth created Battra to destroy evil but this moth became evil itself. And so Mothra was created to bring good into the world. When darkness rises, the forces of good must restore balance. One cannot exist without the other, you see (even for the creatures humanity creates). And so some of our monsters are reborn when we need them. I try explaining this idea of balance to you during our hikes. You on my back, as I shed calories at the base of Mount Fuji. I tell you these things in the hope that you’ll grow to appreciate life, to see humanity in concert with the earth instead of in control of it. Your father and I, despite what he might believe about his semiannual donations to environmental nonprofits, disagree in this matter.
Back home, I put you on the quilt your grandmother made you with your Play Zone console while I transcribed my interview with the Elias. I reclined on your father’s chair and concentrated on my work. You’ve figured out how to play “Pop Goes the Weasel” by pressing a red button and seem genuinely delighted every time you hear the music play, as if it’s a new discovery. I put on my headphones and ignored you for the rest of the afternoon. I gave you a sippy cup and read through a study of a colleague’s pharmaceutical research based on the DNA of sixteen captive shape-shifters. Imagine, antiaging skin! You stared at me blankly. You did not cry or fuss. You’ve always been good about letting Mommy be.
ANGUIRUS (IRRADIATED ANKYLOSAURUS W/ STYRACOSAURIAN CRANIAL FEATURES)
{Descp. Long, clubbed, spiked tail. Orange spikes and horns on gray skin. Five brains (one in head, others near limbs––heightened reflexes & locomotion). Capable of bipedal motion but generally quadruped. Powers: lacking in ranged attacks and special abilities but rarely concedes in battle, advanced burrowing abilities, use of spiked carapace by jumping backward onto enemies, able to curl into ball and travel at high speed. Oldest and perhaps most consistent ally of Godzilla.}
Conjunctions 64: Natural Causes Page 20