The Vorrh

by Brian Catling

  Muybridge wanted to ask dozens of questions, but none of them could be answered by Gull, and possibly not by the woman. Feebly, he settled for the easiest.

  “Does she know what it is?”

  “It’s impossible to say; she never speaks.”

  “But I heard her. Those strange sounds.”

  “Yes, she makes strange sounds, but never speech. Sometimes she cries like an animal, or sings like a bird: Her cell sounds like a veritable menagerie! But never words, no matter what insistence or inducement is applied.”

  The man called Rice steered her back to the bed, from where steam was gently rising. Three bowls of water, a towel, and a rubber Higginson tube were under the bed, hastily stowed there when they had arrived midtreatment. Gull gripped Muybridge’s cringing arm again and propelled him jovially from the room. They resumed their conversation in Gull’s office, which was small and surprisingly sparse.

  “It’s Josephine I had in mind for your photographic studies. She has an astonishing range of facial expressions. Each of them can be summoned with the aid of a mirror and a bell. I would love to have a record of her before she is gone forever.”

  “Where is she going?” asked Muybridge blankly.

  “She has been here for two years and has been wonderfully responsive to my experiments. She can produce demonstrations of willpower that would stagger you, and there is no trace of any side effects. But I think it is time to stop. I don’t want to push her any further. Surgeons have instinct about such matters; it’s an unteachable aspect of our profession. It only grows out of experience. I feel that if she went further, she might turn, and that implacable strength might curdle and turn inwards or even worse. But she is stable and healthy now; you saw that for yourself.”

  “She refuses to speak?”

  “Yes. That won’t change. It’s from her childhood. Deeply rooted. Her parents were brought over here in the last batches of slave cargoes. She was born some years after abolition was finally enforced. She must have experienced some appalling poverty, possibly depravity. Enough to remove her from conversation entirely. But she understands everything. It could be seen as a blessing, having such a beauty graced with silence. None of that endless female prattle that most of us have to put up with.” Gull chuckled without mirth. “Anyway, what I want is a series of photographs over the next few years.”

  “But, sir, I am far too busy to give up so much time on one study. My work in America and beyond demands my constant attention. And I’m not sure a portfolio of medical portraits would sit well with the rest of my oeuvre.”

  “Quite right. Indeed, I would not ask such a thing of you. You are a busy and important man—I can see that, though I know nothing of your oeuvre or any artistic matter. These pictures would be for my attention and mine alone, a special commission. Let me explain: I am a wealthy man with few expenses except for this little folly. I intend to observe some of my special cases for the rest of their or my life, to see what long-term effects my treatments can have, and maybe adjust them every so often. The laws are changing, and private clinics like this are falling under the same bureaucratic, maternal dogmas that now so blight our major hospitals.”

  Gull had again fixed him with his demanding stare; it was clear he was determined to have his way.

  “So, to the point: I intend to release Josephine and some others. Set them up in their own rooms and keep them fed and well and off the streets. I will do this close to London Bridge, so that I might have easy access to them. In her case, I will rent an extra room and furnish it with photographic equipment to your specification. This means that you may visit her and achieve the portraits whenever you are passing through the city.”

  Muybridge was tempted. He liked the secrecy of the process: It appealed to his natural and tuned acclivities. He found the woman striking, remarkable even, and he could see that pictures of her would indeed be very fine. But wasn’t he being treated like a mere hireling? There was nothing in it to increase his esteem or proffer greater awareness of his talents, and the good surgeon obviously had his own motivation in all of this, though that meant they would surely be protected against any public and malicious rumour. He, too, was a man of position and standing, all of which must remain unassailable and worthy.

  “If I were to consider your most singular offer, then I would also need a lockable, secure space for my other optical equipment and inventions. This will enable me to spend more time in London and, consequently, more time with your protégée.”

  “Quite so!” Gull was delighted at the ease of the transaction. “You shall have a workshop, or a laboratory, or whatever you fellows call it. I can help with the expense of your inventions.”

  The photographer had taken the bait and was becoming excited. “They are very costly to manufacture and maintain. My current work even runs parallel to your own; there might be overlapping areas of interest.”

  Gull stood up, misjudging the moment.

  “Yes, good, of course. Most interesting. Now, tell me of your whereabouts for the next six months.”

  Gull’s obvious indifference and implied doubt of the value of the photographer’s inventions prickled at his guest. They were both men driven entirely by self-interest. Their flywheels had been spinning in separate, but firm, unison, until this slip. Muybridge was coming off the surgeon’s hook.

  “Before I accept, Sir William, I must say that I have some misgivings about how a project like this might affect my status in society. If I may be so blunt, spending a considerable time alone in the presence of this damaged Negress could be compromising. I have had difficulties with women before, and I normally eschew their company. Not in an unnatural way of course!” he quickly added.

  Gull’s incredulity unfurled—he was beginning to think his guest a complete ninny. Thousands of men had their mistresses stashed away, all over the good old city; the borough of Walworth was created simply to contain the overflow! And yet, here was this photographer: no position in society, a technician, an artisan. So why was he worrying about his feeble reputation? Gull pulled his thoughts up short. Ninny or not, he needed this man. He was the only one for the job.

  “My dear fellow, there is no question of you being compromised. I will make all the arrangements to be certain that our little transaction is utterly clandestine. Your part in this scientific study will be entirely honourable.”

  His words seemed to smooth the gaunt man’s ruffled feathers, and Gull moved to execute a perfect coup de grâce.

  “My position in society will protect us both. Since Her Majesty so graciously endowed me with my knighthood, many things have become much easier to obtain and operate. I am fortunate enough to be in constant touch with her and the royal highnesses. They view me as a friend and confidant, as well as their humble physician. In fact”—he leaned towards his guest with implications of confidential undertones—“they have more than once consulted me on the delicate matter of the selection of future peers. Her Majesty has a great interest in the arts and sciences; it will be only a matter of time before a man with such a distinctive reputation as your own is proposed. Who knows? We may both meet in the Upper House before too long.” His approach was perfect and placated Muybridge completely. They shook hands on the steps outside and went their separate ways, both men departing in gleeful anticipation of the future.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The Frenchman knew there was something wrong with the food. He had tasted it in the second course. He was now on the ninth, and it was getting worse. The crème de testicule had a bitter tang, astringent and disconcerting. The kidneys had been swollen and leathery, and now the foie gras had a sulphurous aftertaste. He dined with one of his urchinous, casual companions. This alone was unheard of: He always had them removed before he bathed and dressed for a solitary dinner. The boy shovelled the food into his emaciation, washing it down with brimming glasses of the Frenchman’s favourite wine. He spat while talking, laughing out great gobfuls of exquisite cuisine, which now looked like che
wed cud as they flew ungraciously across the shining tablecloth.

  The next course smelt like the crystals that the servants used to clean the water-chamber porcelain. He started to gag. The movement roused him and he awoke in the damp mulch of leaves and the naked surface roots of the tree that signified his despair. The glowing table and the gentle candles were gone; twilight had begun to exhale from the trees. Dread swamped him as he bolted into the understanding that this was not the dream.

  He stood up and tried to collect himself, tears filling his eyes and choking his swallowing breath. He walked aimlessly away, needing to escape this immediate place that had been the site of declaration, the horrible trees that had witnessed the realisation of his sentence; he had to rid himself of their mocking indifference.

  The aftertaste of the acrid food lingered as he pushed through the cool, damp leaves. He found a hollow in one of the long-dead oaks and crawled inside its stiff embrace, the hard fungi breaking off against his shoulders. He scrabbled around to face the outside, the derringer in one hand and a small camping knife in the other. By the time night finally arrived, he had steeled himself for its attack.

  The forest grew dim as the shadows lengthened into one continuous form. The world outside of the tree was beyond dark but constantly moving; blue blurs matted with the dense blackness of distance. Things slid and rustled, crawled and flapped, in the infinite depth of closeness. He held his hand before his face to test the old adage. It was true—he could not see it—yet the ebony fluid in his eyes sensed all manner of things swirling within a terrifying proximity. A prayer almost found its way to his lips. It began in the icy fear of his heart, the ventricles white with the frost of anticipation, and travelled outwards to become a pressure, like wind against the meat sails of his lungs. Funnelling up, it passed like a shadow through the rehearsal of his vocal cords, up into his mouth, tongue, and lips, before being garrotted by the thin, taut wire of his mind. No heart word would ever pass that frontier unchecked; not even a hollow, sapless tree was allowed to hear that hypocrisy.

  Towards what might be dawn, he slept. By the morning, no creature had worried him, and a vague sense of hope had begun to return. Perhaps he could survive? Maybe he had some deep, inspired understanding of the wilderness. Many great explorers underestimated their gift until confronted by extreme adversity; his inventive mind might be capable of transcending these base afflictions. Other, lesser beings had triumphed before when tested thus.

  He was beginning to feel the warm flood of confidence, when he saw his boots. They had been handmade in Marseille, adventure boots, worn to confound and conquer the savage lands. The straps that held them in place had been eaten through, gnawed away, so that only stubs remained on either side of the nibbled leather tongue. He sat bolt upright to observe the outrage, wiping the morning dew from his eyes and face. It was sticky and pungent. He looked at what he had removed and sank with the realisation that it wasn’t dew: It was saliva. He was soaked in it. He scrabbled to his feet, banging his head and knees against the rough interior of the gnarled oak, causing a shower of dry fungi to crumble and snow about his departure. He lurched out of the tree’s vertical enclosure, flailing at his wet clothes and his soggy hair in a pathetic attempt to wipe the mess away. His indifferent boots became loose and vacant, twisting away from his agitated feet, so that he stumbled over them on the wet, thorny ground, which grabbed at his socks and bare ankles. He yelped, hopped, and slid, falling facedown into a gully full of mud and harsh stones, the derringer firing a deafening, burning blast.

  He lay there, hoping he was dead. Nothing had ever been as bad as this; his Paris apartment seemed like a dream he had never had. Then, with the pistol’s fire still ringing in his ears, he heard Seil Kor’s voice, far off but distinct.

  “Seil Kor!” he bellowed frantically. “Seil Kor!” He called again and again and then got a clear reply.

  “Do not move, effendi! Just call; I will come to you.”

  This they did for hours, without success. Sometimes his voice seemed farther away, lost in the depths and twists of the vast, impenetrable forest’s endless animal trails. Two or three times, the Frenchman heard something move in the thickets of trunks and leaves, but it was not his salvation; more likely, it was his demise stalking him, the recent taste of his body on its breath. He plucked the reloaded derringer from his pocket and turned a full circle. Then he saw it. Far back in the trees, a hunched, grey creature was watching him. He could not make out its form; it might even have been human. A twig snapped behind the Frenchman and he spun in the opposite direction.

  “Effendi!”

  Seil Kor was coming towards him, parting the leaves with a purposeful grace.

  He rushed to the tall figure and flung his arms around him, bursting into tears, his diminutive, brightly robed body shaking against the protection of the quiet black man. He was saved. Then he remembered the thing watching him, and he untangled himself, looking back to see if it was still there. It had moved to a point a little farther away, shadowed but still watching. He clutched Seil Kor with one hand and pointed with the other.

  “Do you see it?” he asked.

  “Yes, but I wish I did not.”

  “What is it?”

  There was a long pause while Seil Kor again made the gesture of moving his hand above his head. The creature moved into a patch of bright light. It was a kind of human. Its skin was grey and wrinkled, like that of a primate deprived of fur. It was motionless in their observation.

  “What is it?” he asked again.

  “I fear it is Adam,” answered Seil Kor.

  The Frenchman coughed out a single, uncontrollable laugh. Its nervous splutter startled the creature, who loped into the foliage.

  “Adam?” said the Frenchman, the sound of the laugh still wet in his mouth.

  There was no sound from Seil Kor, whose drooped eyes were full of remorse.

  “Seil Kor?”

  There was still no answer.

  “Seil Kor, that animal is barely human. How can it be Adam? He would be thousands of years old by now.”

  “The Bible says that Adam died,” said Seil Kor. “It even says that the tree planted on his grave grew into the wood that became the true cross.” He looked out into the trees and started to walk away from the place of the sighting. “We must go. We have come too far.”

  The Frenchman tried to follow but had to stop to retrieve his gnawed shoes, slipping them on loosely and trying to hold them in place with his bunched toes.

  “Please, wait!” he called ahead.

  Seil Kor stopped walking, his back towards the shuffling dandy. As the Frenchman drew near, he began to walk on, without a word or any indication that they were travelling together. His pace was slow to allow the Frenchman to follow. He seemed to know where they were and where he was going. After many awkward moments and several turns, they reached a broader path. The widening space vented some of the tension between them, and the Frenchman’s queries bubbled uncontrollably to the surface.

  “Please, Seil Kor, tell me more,” he implored. “I assure you I will listen this time.” He looked beseechingly at his guide, who considered him evenly before slowly beginning to speak.

  “There are different Bibles, with different tales,” said Seil Kor. “In these regions, the truth is told. Adam was never completely forgiven; his sons and daughter left this place and occupied the world. He waited for God, waited for forgiveness and for his rib to grow back. But he became tired of waiting and walked back into the forest. The angels that protected the tree let him pass because there was nothing else for him to do in that sacred place. But in his absence, God forgot him, and so he has remained. Each century he loses a skin of humanity, peeling back through the animals to dust. This is what I was reading to you when you went away.”

  There was real upset in Seil Kor’s voice, and for the first time the Frenchman realised that his affections for the young man were reciprocated. All that nonsense about Eden had been his way of bringi
ng them closer.

  “I did not understand before,” he said. “Will you forgive me and tell me more of your wondrous book?”

  Seil Kor turned, looking deep into his companion. “You have much to learn,” he said, smiling slowly, “and I will teach you. But we must leave this place quickly.”

  The Frenchman took his outstretched hand and they walked together through the flickering foliage.

  —

  They were still talking about Adam when he thought he recognised the broader track as the one that would lead towards the station and, hopefully, the waiting train. He had endured quite enough of this. Even with Seil Kor’s fanciful stories and his warming presence, he wanted to be back in the hotel with hot water and cold wine. His ankles and toes hurt from the exertions needed to keep his ruined shoes intact. The bruises, cuts, and insect bites rubbed incessantly against his stained robes, the texture of which now expressed itself as irritant and rough. Dried saliva still covered him and had turned rank and sticky under the humid heat of the forest, its persistent odour seeming to have gained access to every pore of his exhausted body.

  “Adam will never leave now,” Seil Kor was musing. “The angels have grown old and weary in the forest; perhaps they have forgotten their purpose. Perhaps God has forgotten them all.”

  “How much farther do we have to walk?” asked the Frenchman, realising that he had recognised the wrong track and that there was no sign of the rail line.

  “Two more hours,” answered Seil Kor.

  Tsungali’s hand guided Uculipsa out in a long, slow motion, the gleaming bolt pulled back and forth to load one of the charmed, .303 rounds into the breech. The nose of the rifle poked through the bushes, sniffing at the voices that were approaching.

  Tsungali pulled the eager rifle back; it was not his prey. He slid the bolt open and removed the cartridge, placing it in one of the charm pouches he wore on a bandolier. He did not see the thin trace of string escape from the flap of the pouch, the low, damp air catching it in a gust of heated breath. Every bird in the immediate vicinity took off in a startlingly discordant flapping of wings. Tsungali’s gaze twisted up sharply and he observed them in keen suspicion, as they filled all the spaces in the sky between the leaves of the canopy.