The Parasol Flower

by Quevillon, Karen;

  “Maybe not. Still, I am telling you I am very sorry for you. For what happens to you.”

  “Thank you, Suria.”

  “I’m telling you, too,” says the ayah, bending to Hannah’s ear, “about the box of the paints and the brushes. Sahib want, but I save. In Anjuh and my room, I hide them under our mattress.”

  “What?” Why had the old woman chosen to save the paints but not the paintings? Or the copybook? Hannah would never be able to replace her paintings, unique as they were. Yet the brushes and the box, the paints, these things could have been purchased again!

  Suria’s shaky smile opens into a grin. As is the custom with the natives, her teeth have been filed to points, and they are stained red from chewing betel paste. A devilish effect. “I tell tuan I not know where. And I am think for you, memsahib.” She taps her temple. “With paints and brushes, she can make more paintings.”

  Hannah squeezes the old woman’s hands. It does have a certain logic. Besides, Suria has risked her job, and likely her skin, to disobey the colonel. “Well done, Suria. Thank you. Truly. I’ll get them from you in the morning.”

  Forty-Five

  I worked my way through every single document the Munks had retained in relation to The Descent of Woman. (Barnaby returned home to his cat. Celia kept up a brisk daily routine of comings and goings that involved tai chi, shopping, advisory to various boards, and rose gardening.) The bulk of my reading was Eva’s research notes: copious observations about the natives, particularly the various Malay customs and rituals concerning the relationships of family members, “courtship and mating,” and fashion. The Peterboroughs’ retinue of servants—no doubt an easy source of information—provided much of the fodder for her anecdotal observations. One girl named Malu, a biracial teenager, seemed to fascinate Eva. This hypervigilance was understandable, given the girl was apparently charged with Charlotte’s care and amusement. Yet, knowing Eva—as I now felt I did—I understood her fascination (and the almost paranoid surveillance of her employee) to be scientific at its root, having to do with Malu’s mixed parentage.

  Whereas Eva’s research notes featured the family’s experience in Malaya, Charles’s logbook consisted of entries for Indonesian and Australian subjects. Flipping back and forth from the published book to the logbook and research journals, I realized that The Descent’s key chapter, “Sexual Selection in the Human Races,” did not cite any empirical evidence for the “Malay type” presented. Remarkably, the book’s crowning arguments relied solely on the field studies Charles had performed elsewhere.

  I was conscious, too, of the fact that David Maikin must have worked from at least some of these same documents. The entries in Charles’ logbook were the most incriminating. Here, he had dated and documented his physical observations of hundreds of research subjects, first Indonesian and then Australian aboriginals, women between the ages of fourteen and seventy-four. It was a gruesome read, partly because of the vast number of entries, partly because of the stark, objectifying language. Yet, as Barnaby had reminded me in Oxford, the findings collected from the research had been published in scientific journals before being abridged for a key chapter in The Descent of Woman. At the time, nobody had so much as flinched.

  Neither had I, when I studied up on The Descent prior to meeting Barnaby. All that I remembered clearly was striving to understand the Peterboroughs’ theory. Granted, in the book, the dehumanizing details of the “empirical evidence” had been mostly stripped away, and the language was formal, to be sure. Still, how could I have read quite so uncritically? Why? Perhaps, quite simply, because I agreed with the book’s conclusion: biology did not support the (then prevailing) idea that the female sex is inferior to the male. I appreciated the book’s conclusion, so it was all I wanted to see. By contrast, David Maikin had smelled a rat. He’d sifted through the scientific evidence for gender and racial equality, searching for something to outrage his readers.

  For all that Maikin did uncover, he must not have found the photograph. Pressed seamlessly between the blank latter pages of a logbook, it was an image of a Malay woman. She was completely naked, of middle age, and posed in a sexually provocative position. The effect was disturbing, to choose an insufficient word. Part catalogued specimen, part pornographic muse, she glared dully at me through the camera lens.

  I could see no markings on the back of the card. No indication as to who had taken the photograph or where. I guessed, because of this, that it had been developed by the photographer himself. Charles? Or had one of his colleagues sent it to him? Whoever she was, had she complied, to be posed wearing nothing more than bangles? I decided it made no sense to ask about her consent or complicity, given the context. Then I decided that it did make sense to ask. I shouldn’t presume the woman to be some sort of slave.

  Although she had a grim expression on her face, it was perhaps no more grim than the other Victorian-era women I’d seen in family photographs, standing behind their seated husbands. I thought I’d once read that this aloofness was owing to camera technology; the exposure time needed for the shot was so long that no one could maintain anything but a “flat” expression. But when I went looking, I couldn’t find this supposed fact anywhere; I began to wonder if I’d made it up. Could a whole generation of people be rendered humorless because of a technology?

  The Malay woman had a cleft palate. This—her broken mouth—haunted me the most. Had she been singled out because of this abnormality? And yet the image was of her sexuality, surely, not her pathology. Was that any better? But how could it be? The questions that proliferated in my mind around my discovery created bad feelings. I felt exposed in some way I could not quite fathom, or consider legitimate, and I felt ashamed by my inner protestations. Maybe because I was feeling dubious and defensive, whatever the reason, I kept the photograph aside when I boxed up the Peterborough documents. That is, I kept it aside, then slipped it into my own notebook. I took it with me when I left Celia’s. I took it. And never told her I’d done so.

  Of course, I never mentioned the photograph to Barnaby either. Barnaby had “reopened,” as he put it, his original investigation into the parasol flower. Although he’d turned up nothing decades earlier, he felt that perhaps something new might have come to light since then. Wasn’t the world smaller and less wild? And, at the very least, he reckoned he could make faster and further inroads since the invention of the internet.

  When we caught up on Skype, I told him I’d found nothing about a parasol flower, or anything similar, in the Peterboroughs’ research notes. Indeed, they had spent relatively little time on botany. The Parasol Flower illustration must have been a late addition to The Descent, perhaps included even after the manuscript had been penned and prepared for press.

  For his part, Barnaby reported that none of the organizations he’d contacted in Asia, or the databases he’d searched, made any reference to an enormous whorl-shaped bloom. “It’s rather a delicate business,” he told me. “One doesn’t want to come off looking like a nut.”

  “Yeah. The botanist I spoke with at Kew told me a flower like that wouldn’t be biologically possible, or something similar. Not evolutionarily possible? I don’t know, he seemed to consider me just really confused.”

  He grunted. “The trouble is that there isn’t a plausible explanation for how such a plant could enact photosynthesis on that scale, if it really were under the jungle canopy as she depicts it. Besides this, the blossom violates a sort of naturalistic economy. Why would a species dedicate so much of its resources to support an enormous bloom when a smaller one would do?”

  “I don’t know.” For some reason the question irritated me. “Maybe a smaller bloom wouldn’t do. Why does the Rafflesia bother?”

  “The Rafflesia is a parasite,” he reminded me. “Technically speaking, that’s not a flower head.”

  “Well, it could have been a smaller parasite, on this logic.”

  “I mus
t admit it’s disheartening.” He ran his hands through his hair, sending it springing off in all directions. “I’d hoped to be able to find some sort of lead on it. Even an amateur snap. Hasn’t the entire planet been photographed by Japanese tourists?”

  “Maybe it’s heartening, in a way,” I countered. “The planet still has more remote and untouched acreage than we imagine.”

  He leaned toward his screen. “Mmph. At least you’ll be seeing the painting of it shortly.”

  Celia had helped me to arrange a visit with her son, Thomas Munk, in Brighton.

  “I’m looking forward to it,” I said.

  The truth was that I was looking beyond my meeting with Thomas and his two paintings, precisely because there didn’t seem to be much of anything after. There were the few paintings on Charlotte’s list, spread now amongst the Munks, and those that Hannah had enclosed in her letters to Godot. I was coming to the end of the road and I didn’t like it. Surely Hannah Inglis had created more than a couple dozen “sketches,” promising as they were, and the few paintings for the Peterboroughs.

  As my conversation with Barnaby grew more meandering, I floated the topic. Surely Hannah had left more artwork? There was mewling, and I watched him reach off-screen. Setting Pluto on his lap, Barnaby began rubbing the cat’s little chin vigorously. “She could have died young,” he cooed to his baby. “Tropical fever. Heatstroke. People died young in those days.”

  “Meh.”

  “She could have become pregnant. Suppose she finally had children, and involved herself with home decorating and her husband’s career. That’s what women were supposed to do.”

  “Hannah never willingly stopped painting,” I heard myself say with conviction.

  “What?” He laughed. “What makes you say that?”

  “I—” What had made me say that? Taking a moment, I tried to articulate my intuition. “She wrote about how important it was to her to make a contribution. She wrote about how she couldn’t stop painting. She wrote in ways that…about painting, about life… I just can’t believe she would have given up on it.”

  “She gave up on Godot,” he remarked.

  “Hardly. It was a miracle she kept writing to him for so long when he wasn’t replying.”

  I thought of Hannah’s letters to her teacher, in which she was increasingly critical of her husband and their British community. Increasingly disturbed. Lonely. Reckless. Privately, I’d debated whether she’d been forced out of society or had chosen to leave it. And I reckoned that, apart from the Peterboroughs, Hannah’s drawings and paintings had probably never been appreciated by anybody. For all intents and purposes, she had died without “making a contribution.” But the thought of her giving up painting? No, I couldn’t abide that.

  Onscreen, Barnaby Munk was blinking at me. He’s stopped arguing with me because I’m beyond reason. I very clearly remember thinking that.

  “Let’s go then,” he said.

  “What?” Even for Barnaby, it was an abrupt goodbye.

  “I’ve been looking for my next walking holiday,” he said. “Let’s go there.” He waved at me with Pluto’s paw. “Hello? Kuala Kangsa?” he said. “Malaysia!” My mouth opened and a sound slid out. “Well, I believe the place is still there,” he said. “So let us go, Nancy. We must. We will see what the locals can tell us about parasol flowers. And Hannah Inglis.”

  “I’m supposed to see Tommy’s paintings next week,” I said, stupidly. “But…sure. Yes. After that.” I nodded my bulbous Skype head sagely. My stomach was suddenly alive with butterflies.

  “Good-o!” He grinned at me.

  “I’m supposed to call him Thomas,” I added. “Tommy” was reserved for family.

  “Quite. And he’s rather fashion-conscious.” Barnaby wrinkled his nose. “Might be worth spiffing yourself up a little, Nancy.”

  Forty-Six

  I was secretly pleased that Daphne insisted on driving me to Brighton. I would get a break from public transportation. Bob had insisted, too. “I’m self-sufficient,” he murmured behind his hand, “even though I don’t let on.”

  Daphne drove slower than I might have liked, but we proceeded without rest stops and traffic was flowing. We arrived in Brighton half an hour before my one o’clock meeting with Thomas Munk, just as planned. Having spent some time gazing at the coastline from the car, we rolled into the little parking lot of his office.

  I’d made it obvious, or so I thought, that I was meeting Thomas on my own. Daphne exited the car when I did, hurrying after me. “I’ll step away after the introductions,” she promised. “I need to know you’ll be safe. This way,” she whispered, for we were inside the building by now, “he knows that I know that he’s alone with you.”

  Since I’d told the Plewetts I would be traveling to Malaysia with Barnaby Munk, they were more protective than ever. “He’s seventy-one,” I’d said to them, of Barnaby. “We’re not having an affair!” Somehow, saying that had just made the situation seem weirder.

  Outside Munk, Misener, & Wallenstein, I told Daphne, “I doubt that I’ll be ‘alone with him.’ It’s a busy office building.”

  Indeed, the reception was filled with couples and singletons, all checking their phones. The receptionist, encircled by a high desk veneered in faux birch wood, rang Thomas for me, who came out without much delay. As promised, Daphne introduced herself, begging off right after to sit down with a Conde Nast magazine. Tommy was slim, short-haired, and, as Barnaby had predicted, extremely well-tailored. His dark almond-shaped eyes were Celia’s. I guessed that he’d inherited a great deal from his mother, because he looked nothing like his uncle Barnaby.

  Walking me to the elevator, Thomas explained he was full partner, practically a managing partner. With a glance at my attire—I’d worn my one pantsuit—he remarked that at various times he’d put in his own fair share of pro bono at “rough spots” in the city. He pressed the button for the penthouse. Yes, he’d always liked the south, he said; really, he couldn’t get away from London fast enough.

  His L-shaped office had a charming view of a verdant park with an old-fashioned bandstand, a view I forgot the moment I turned my back to it. For hanging on the wall opposite the large windows was The Parasol Flower.

  I nearly toppled headfirst onto the boardroom table as I walked toward it.

  “Impressive, isn’t it?” I heard him say.

  Recovering myself as best as possible, I answered, “Very.”

  “So I understand you’re something of an expert? When it comes to pioneering women artists?”

  I didn’t reply. I wanted to not talk to this man. To not talk at all. I needed to be alone with the painting, and I was soon seized with a horrible feeling of frustration that I would never be alone with it. I would never be able to return to it, even. To sip it in slowly. To look up from my armchair, from my table, from my lover, to find something new and peculiar in each viewing. Because I was not Thomas Munk, this man who was bothering me while I tried to drink of this flower, just sip a little of its shifting palette of oranges, pinks, and yellows. They were all the more surprising to me, having held on so long to a black and white etching, a pale simulacrum. Yet it was the richness of the texture of the work that struck me first and foremost. The sumptuousness of the glossy leaves and razor-sharp spikes of palm. Filamentous tendrils curling over themselves. The blossom’s paper-thin petals, almost transparent at their edges and shimmering slightly. I had to pull myself back before I was drawn too far into the center of the whorl, of that whole incredible world—a place, a moment, an abundantly lush moment, that could not possibly have been so intense. Could it?

  “I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “I’ve not seen it before.”

  “Of course.”

  Silence for a while.

  “I understand you saw the etching of it in The Descent, is that right?” he asked.

  I nodded. “White do
es a…magnificent job, but…of course it’s not the same.” I judged that I’d better bring myself to talk properly to my host. I closed my eyes and turned to smile at Thomas Munk. “How did you happen to inherit this particular painting?”

  “Oh, well, I wanted it. I asked Mummy for it, I suppose. I was on hand when she and my father were sorting through Nan’s estate.”

  You wanted it, and so you took it. If only life were so simple. Without realizing it, I’d turned again toward the painting, again felt its spiraling contours reaching into me and pulling me closer. “Nobody else wanted it?”

  “No, I don’t think so. I don’t think my grandmother much cared about collecting, from what I could tell. Old Barnaby took the one of the Sikh man. A few went to the Trust…”

  I forced myself to turn away from the painting in a renewed effort to get my wits about me. I only had so much time with Thomas Munk; I ought to be using it effectively.

  “I enjoy jungle scapes,” he said rather shyly. “You know, palms in the garden, tropical motifs. I don’t know, I always have.”

  “And you took one other Inglis, right? Nude House Girl.”

  It wasn’t my imagination that the man flinched when I spoke the name of the work. Really, I thought, men could be such children.

  “That one I have at home.” He fiddled with his lapels. “Oh dear. I thought you were only interested in seeing the flower painting.”

  “Oh, I—I’m very glad to have seen The Parasol Flower.” My mind raced. How had I possibly given that impression? Our correspondence quite clearly referred to both works; I was meant to be seeing both works. Now he was backing out? I decided to fib as necessary. “It’s absolutely no trouble for me to make a second stop, Mr. Munk. We’re staying the night in Brighton. Such a nice city to visit, too.”

  He and I batted questions of time and convenience back and forth and ultimately agreed that we would stop by his house early the next morning before he left for work. I spent a few more minutes savoring The Parasol Flower and recording some notes and images—Tommy even helped me remove the painting from the wall to see if there were any markings on the back of the frame or canvas—before steeling myself to leave. It was a good thing I had Daphne waiting for me in the lobby.