The Love Potion Murders in the Museum of Man

by Alfred Alcorn

  And, I reminded him, it’s not just the Ossmann-Woodley strangeness that has attracted undue attention to the lab. Bert, one of our remaining chimps, is back in the news. In a so-called exposé in this morning’s Bugle, Amanda Feeney-Morin repeated the canard that Bert “was tortured with forced intoxication” during the final stages of animal testing for ReLease, the Ponce’s promising new drug. RL, as I may have mentioned, is a morning-after medication for those who have imbibed too much. It combines, among other things, a drug that affects the elasticity of the cardiovascular system, a high dose of vitamin B, and a powerful analgesic. Its commercial potential is said to be enormous.

  Ms. Feeney-Morin claims in her article that Bert is now the pongid equivalent of a recovering alcoholic. She claims, erroneously, that Bert has been sent to a program that deals in post-traumatic stress syndrome among animals subjected to “inhumane” experimentation.

  I have been over to the Pavilion myself to check on Bert. To be honest, he does appear quite depressed; he has, tinged with self-disgust, that hankering, haunted look in his eyes that many of us can identify with. As Father O’Gould once remarked in another context, there are times when low self-esteem may be a sign of intelligence.

  In fact, another chimp, one named Alphus, also took part in the experiment and showed no ill effects whatsoever. But then, Alphus is an exceptionally intelligent member of his species. He apparently succeeded in letting his keeper know that he wanted to participate.

  Be that as it may, with this morsel of misinformation Ms. Feeney-Morin has given herself the pretext to rehash yet again the whole so-called controversy revolving around the development of RL. For instance, about six paragraphs into her skein of fabrications, she trots out the “ethical issues” she and others claim attend the development of a “hangover” pill. Given all the other ills of the world, the argument goes, should we really be diverting the time and resources to contrive a medication that encourages people in drinking by ameliorating its more immediate and tangible consequences?

  As my good friend Izzy Landes has pointed out, if lovers can have a morning-after pill, why not boozers? Why not, indeed? Is not the alleviation of suffering, whatever its origins, a noble cause?

  In any event Ms. Feeney-Morin has succeeded once again in riling up the animal rights contingent. My phone did not stop ringing this morning for more than ten minutes. One gentleman asked to speak to Dr. Mengele before launching into an abusive tirade. To those making more respectful inquiries, I stated that Bert did in fact undergo a successful detoxification process — admittedly, more like two steps than twelve — and has rejoined his fellow chimps as a functioning member of that community. It’s more than you can say for a lot of people out there.

  This continuing fuss has made it clear to me that we need to proceed as expeditiously as possible to find places for the animals still on the premises. Back a couple of years ago, we had a sizable population of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes, not pani-cus) that a somewhat demented keeper, one Damon Drex, tried to induce to wax literary. (Mr. Drex, I hear, was recently released from a mental institution and has gone to work for a zoo.)

  When I became Director, I decided to close down the Primate Pavilion on the grounds that chimpanzees, whatever their DNA reads out to be, are not human, and have no real place in the Museum of Man. I objected, diplomatically, of course, to the neat paradigm proposed by one or two of the older board members that the Pavilion represented man’s distant past, the museum proper his recent past and present, and the Genetics Lab his future.

  The Primate Pavilion is now simply known as the Pavilion, although it still contains primates, mostly human, who occupy the same offices built for Damon Drex’s typing chimps. We have leased much of the space to Wainscott at a very good rate, thanks to arrangements worked out and insisted on by our new counsel. Indeed, the premises don’t look all that different than they did before, what with people in their cubicles bent over computer screens. One big difference, of course, is that there are no droppings on the floor.

  But there are still some rhesus cages upstairs, and the old, unconverted part of the ground floor, with its doleful cages and rather pathetic inmates, still exists. Plus ça change, plus la même chose! And, under strict supervision, these animals are licensed to the Genetics Lab for experimental uses. Under strict supervision from the appropriate state and federal agencies, I might add.

  In other words, we still have in residence a number of troglodytes. To oversee them we appointed Dr. Angela Simone as the Ruddy and Phyllis Stein Keeper of Great Apes, the endowed position Mr. Drex previously occupied. A well-respected primatologist, an attractive young woman with a sympathetic manner, Dr. Simone is devoted to her charges and punctilious when it comes to treating them humanely. She realizes that her duties are to be phased out gradually. (What we will do with the position, I’m not sure. Perhaps we could put the occupant in charge of the personnel department I plan to establish for the museum.)

  On the other hand, Dr. Simone may be with us for some time. We have not found it easy to “place” the animals. Some of them have been sold or donated to other institutions. You can’t give the creatures away to private citizens because, frankly, they don’t make good pets. You don’t see sensitive-looking people leading them around the streets the way they do with slow greyhounds.

  Some of the animals have been habituated back into the wild on an island off the coast of Africa. As an aside, there are times when I think it would be handy if certain humans could be habituated back into some wilderness more suitable to their feral natures. I am thinking about people like Malachy Morin, who might benefit from living in a real state of nature. Though, to give credit where credit is due, he has settled down somewhat since his marriage to Amanda Feeney, the Bugle reporter.

  The fact remains Mr. Morin does not know how to do anything except hang out with the boys and bluster and bully people around. Or try to. As it stands he has been able, through his cronies, to get himself made a university Vice President with responsibility for museums and other affiliated institutions. He remains my superior on some organizational charts, which are utter fabrications. In reality he is little more than a nuisance.

  The fact is, I want to more than hold the line against any university encroachment. For instance, once the chimpanzees are out of the Pavilion, I intend to remove the rest of the primates as well — the people, that is. Well, not entirely. What I want to do is to convert the space in the Pavilion into curatorial areas open to the public. Here, at designated times, people would be allowed to watch as the curators and restorers tease from the matrix of time and rock and neglect some priceless ancient object, reclaiming beauty and restoring to wholeness at least some fragment of our shattered past.

  None of this vision would come to pass, I know, if the university were to succeed in getting its bottom-line, budget-obsessed bureaucrats in charge here. That’s what I am struggling against. That’s why these sudden dark happenings are a threat not just to my institutional survival, but to the fulfillment of a necessary dream.

  6

  We have had the worst possible news. I went with Elsbeth to the clinic this morning. We knew it wasn’t good the moment we entered Dr. Berns’s office. I sat next to Elsbeth holding her hand. The good doctor shuffled some papers, took off his glasses, and sighed. “I’m afraid,” he said, “the results are not good.

  “We’ve found a tumor in the pancreas. A very aggressive form. The prognosis is not good even with treatment.” His words blurred. I clutched her hand thinking only that before long there would be no hand to hold. The doctor said we could try therapy, but he did not recommend it. He said he had some medication that would ease the discomfort and keep the symptoms at bay. “You have perhaps three months, perhaps less. I would try to live them as best you can.”

  Elsbeth, I must say, took it rather well. After a few moments of quiet shock in which she let the reality of her situation register, she gave me a hug and turned to the doctor to discuss with him seve
ral salient points.

  “I want to stay home,” she said. Then, “I’m staying home regardless. No tubes. No needles. No beeping machines. No endless tests to find out how badly I’m doing.” She laughed, inviting us to laugh, such is her generosity of spirit. She said she wanted “killer” drugs for sleeping, “but honestly, I don’t want to drowse my way into the next world.”

  Dr. Berns, a large, bearded presence, said he would have all the tests run again. He wrote out a sheaf of prescriptions. He told her to call him any time of the day or night if she needed him. There was more than a trace of emotion in his voice, and he gave her a big hug when we left.

  In the car, in the low-slung parking garage with the bright slabs of autumn light visible in the distance, she broke down and cried and cried in my arms. Then, composing herself, she said she had known about it for some time. Nothing specific, but something going fundamentally wrong. She said it had kindled within her a latent faith, “not so much in a personal God, Norman, but in life itself.”

  What could I say? Words of comfort failed me. Because there really were none. Reassurances? Of what? We’ll make your death a nice one, Elsbeth, the best money can buy. Emotions, like words, can seem like clichés. I am devastated, of course, when I am not being incredulous. Life is a habit, after all, and it’s always a shock when death, that lurking, monstrous joker, reaches out his inevitable hand.

  And what do you do when you have news like this? I feel constrained to call up friends and invite them over for a drink. For a lot of drinks. But we have no ritual response for such announcements. The prognostication of death is, culturally speaking, a recent phenomenon. But surely, we need the comfort of family and friends at these moments, more perhaps than when the body is already cold.

  I did call Diantha and Winslow Jr., Elsbeth’s daughter and son. Diantha, who has been estranged from Elsbeth for more than a year — some dispute over a boyfriend — broke down and wept. “Let me speak to Mommy,” she kept saying. I put Elsbeth on and tiptoed away, leaving them to a tearful, long-distance reconciliation.

  Win Jr., a businessman very much like his late father, took the news very much in stride. He consulted his calendar and said he would fly in from New York this coming Sunday. He had been able, just, it seems, to fit his mother into his schedule.

  I also called our good friends Izzy and Lotte Landes. They dropped by in the afternoon “for a drink and a good weep.” Lotte, who has become a good friend of Elsbeth’s over the last couple of years, ran her through a gamut of lifesaving drills. Yes, Berns was a good GP, but Keller Infirmary wasn’t called “Killer Infirmary” for nothing. They knew a specialist in Chicago who had come up with an aggressive new therapy that showed lots of promise.

  Elsbeth shook her head. “I’m not up for some kind of high-tech torture.” But she calmed and comforted them as well. Was her resignation, I wondered, her way of reassuring the rest of us?

  Korky Kummerbund came over right away, bringing a big bouquet of lilies. He wept and figuratively, anyway, banged the walls. He is quite literally a sweet man, gay, but not in the least fussy about it. He’s of the opinion that people of his predilections should stay in their closets, but make them much bigger, with porches and mountain views, and invite in special friends.

  The Reverend Alfie Lopes, Wainscott Minister and Plumtree Professor of Morals (They’ve dropped the “Christian,” I’ve noticed, in the name of fair play. As long as they don’t drop the “Morals,” I shan’t complain.), said he would come to see both Elsbeth and me whenever we wanted him. I said why not simply come over for dinner and a chat. We made a date. As the years go by, I have come to appreciate Alfie more and more. He refers to himself as an Afro-Saxon and is not shy about being proud of both traditions.

  Elsbeth’s plight has certainly put matters in perspective for me. I can care for and think of nothing else. Everything else pales to insignificance. Let killers roam the Genetics Lab. Let Wainscott have the museum. Let war begin and the glaciers return. I don’t care. I want my Elsbeth restored to her old vibrant self. I feel cursed. It seems I no sooner have Elsbeth in my life, have scarcely sat down at life’s feast, when it is all going to be taken away from me. Perhaps I am being selfish in this. I know Elsbeth is the one who must suffer and die in the prime of her life. But I would change with her, take her place, in a moment. Only the result would be the same. My life would be over.

  7

  It is Friday, the thirteenth of October, and the trees are in their autumn beauty as never before. And though as suspicious as anyone, I no longer fear bad luck. Surely we have had our quotient.

  Lieutenant Tracy, an edge of worry to the serious set of his face, came by to make what appears to be in retrospect a curious request. It seems that Police Chief Francis Murphy has been putting the pressure on. I watched attentively as the lieutenant rubbed his hands together. “Of course, Norman, he’s only getting heat from the Mayor’s office. His Honor is planning to run for Congress and doesn’t want a monkey around his neck.”

  I nodded, indicating my understanding in a general way. Then the lieutenant told me something I had heretofore more felt than realized: It would be better for all concerned if Ossmann-Woodley was a clear-cut murder case; if someone had deliberately dosed them with the intention of having them kill each other in a sexual frenzy.

  “People can tolerate evil,” he said. “It’s the unknown that frightens them. Especially when a genetics lab is involved. We still believe in monsters.”

  “But Lieutenant, we don’t have enough evidence yet to call it murder,” I pointed out.

  He nodded his agreement. “Would you or the museum mind if we did make it official. I mean as a murder?”

  I thought over his request for a moment. “It won’t help us much. Any new hook gives the Bugle and others the opportunity to drag the whole thing through the mud again. But I appreciate being asked.”

  “And it wouldn’t be the truth, would it?”

  I rebuked myself inwardly for having neglected that most important consideration. But I said, “Perhaps it would be more effective for your purposes if you could announce new evidence at the same time.”

  He turned thoughtful, then said, “I think you’re right. If the ME has anything new from those follow-up tests, we can do it then.” He smiled and rose to go. “Norman, thanks. And I’ll keep you updated.”

  I wish I could be as positive about the special meeting of the University Oversight Committee I attended this afternoon, an ordeal by pettiness. There are people who ask me why I bother at all with the committee. Why do I mouth bromides about maintaining cordial relations with the university, why do we want to remain, however independently, a member of the greater Wainscott family? Especially since the museum has become, in their opinion, anyway, the institutional equivalent of the rich eccentric uncle everyone secretly hopes will pop off sooner rather than later and leave them a bundle.

  In part it’s because I do want to continue the long and fruitful bond between the two institutions, a bond based on mutual respect. Indeed, I would not like it to become well known how highly I regard the faculty at Wainscott. Perhaps it’s because I am, at heart, an academic manqué, what Elsbeth calls a wannabe. I feel that the involvement of Thad Pilty and even Corny Chard, not to mention Father O’Gould and Izzy Landes, makes us, as an institution, an intellectual force to be reckoned with.

  What I want to avoid in the museum is the management style of Wainscott, especially the forces represented by Malachy Morin. These are the people who would corporatize, to bastardize a perfectly innocent word, hell itself. They would bring in their systems, which never quite work, and their regimentation, which renders everything and everyone colorless, all the while basking in the glow of the work done by the scholars.

  While independent in fact and in law (the university is challenging us in the courts, but that, we have good reason to believe, will come to nothing), we need Wainscott as a buffer between the outside world and ourselves, especially where the Genet
ics Lab is concerned. Groups such as the Coalition Against the Unnatural remain under the mistaken impression, which I do little to rectify, that the MOM is part and parcel of Wainscott. I know the public relations apparatus of the university would like to direct such obloquy toward us, but to do so would be to admit our independence. As may be obvious, after a few years of real institutional responsibility, I have turned into something of a Machiavel.

  Ah, yes, the committee meeting. We assembled in the Rothko Room, one of those repellent boxy spaces filled with the kind of raw light you find in the upper reaches of modern buildings. It was designed to hold the paintings of the eponymous dauber, but thank God those have been stowed away. It’s the kind of place you would expect to find in Grope Tower, that offensive slab of concrete and glass that mars the redbrick gentility of the older Wainscott buildings surrounding it. (Why, I often wonder, has there been, in the long stretch between Gaudí and Gehry, such a paucity of architectural imagination?)

  But I digress. The usual suspects, all getting a bit grayer, showed up for the meeting. Professor Thad Pilty, creator of the Diorama of Paleolithic Life that now graces Neanderthal Hall, has stayed on as a member. I don’t doubt his intentions, but I believe he’s being vigilant — and with good reason. Any changes in the models and the roles of the Neanderdroids, so to speak, still come in for close scrutiny by certain members of the committee.

  Constance Brattle, the expert on blame, preened a little in accepting congratulations about the success of her latest book, Achieving the No-Fault Life. I’m told it’s a sequel to Effective Apologizing, her best seller of last year. She remains the somewhat wooden Chair of the committee.