Читать книгу Prospero's Daughter - Elizabeth Nunez - Страница 11

FOUR

PETER GARDNER, as Mumsford could have surmised from his cagey answers, had not come for the lepers. He did not stay because of them. He would never have chosen this hellhole to raise his daughter. If he were forced to tell the truth, he would have said it was his innocence that had brought him here. His naïveté. His trust sans bounds and confidence in a brother who, next to his daughter, of all the world he loved. A brother who had clung to him like ivy but only to suck him dry. Only to hide his talent from others.

They were doctors, he and Paul, when he used to live in London. Peter and Paul Bidwedder, before he changed his surname to Gardner. His parents, ardent Christians when their sons were born, named them for the loyal disciples of Christ, but regretted their decision later, with the war, after the deaths of so many of England’s most promising. After an explosion in a field in France brought their father back home a quadriplegic. By the time he and Paul left for medical school, their parents were proselytizing atheists.

It was because of their father that he and Paul decided to become doctors. He chose research, for unlike Paul, he was happiest when he was in the library, his head buried in a pile of dusty books. He told his father that he believed it was possible to grow new arms and legs for him in the laboratory. He was sure it was only a matter of figuring out the right cells and stimulating them. Then, when they multiplied into arms and legs, he would attach them where the old limbs had been amputated.

Voodoo medicine, Paul called it, but their father grabbed on to the hope Peter offered. “Maybe not as perfect as the ones you had before, Father, but they could grow back almost as strong.”

Paul scoffed at him. He was the realist, the practical man. He spoke of a future of mechanical artificial limbs. Better still, robots that could respond to human command.

“You wouldn’t have to do a thing,” Paul said to his father. “It would be like having a personal servant.”

His father preferred the fantasies Peter spun for him.

“All it would take is figuring out the human genome,” Peter said. “Then we would have the secret to life. We could even make a clone of you, Father.”

Their mother, who loved Paul best anyhow, was horrified. “Dr. Frankenstein was a monster,” she said.

Peter waved her away. “Oh, those ideas are passé,” he said. “No one is planning to use the dead.”

“Playing God,” she said.

“Yes, playing God,” Paul repeated after her, but even when he was ridiculing Peter envy was eating him up.

In medical school, it was obvious that the professors admired Peter. He was the brain, the smarter of the Bidwedder men. But the students loved Paul. He was the popular one. They consulted Peter when they were faced with a difficult problem. At examination time, they stuck to him like flies to honey, but it was with Paul they went to the pub. Peter’s ardor, his focus, his single-mindedness on curing every illness he came upon, made them uneasy. His patients were not human to him. To him, they were a mass of cells, tissue, blood and bones, not people, not living, breathing men and women with feelings and desires.

Peter became more human to them when he married. He still worked hard, but he no longer slept in the lab, as he often did when nothing mattered except the project that engaged him. His wife was beautiful: blond hair, blue eyes, a perfectly shaped oval face, and the pale alabaster skin that so many Englishmen loved. But what Peter Gardner boasted about was her virtue. He had married a virgin. So certain he was that no one could seduce her that he offered to put his head on a block to be chopped off if anyone proved him wrong. “Her virtue is nonpareil,” he said. Paul’s friends called Peter “Nonpareil” behind his back, but not only because of what he claimed for his wife, but because of what he claimed for himself. No one was smarter than he, he seemed to imply by his serious demeanor. And, indeed, all that he touched turned to gold.

Then his wife died, three years after giving birth to a daughter, and he was his old self again.

Except for his little girl, Virginia, Peter became, in all his human interactions, cold and distant. Inhuman, Paul accused him of being when Peter refused to lend him money after he lost his savings and three months’ salary at a gambling table. “Keep it up and you will kill someone one day.” It was a matter of time before Paul’s words proved prophetic.

Peter had not intended to kill the woman. He had intended to cure her. He had given her one of his concoctions. Put it in her IV drip.

It was not the first time he had given one of his patients the experimental medicine he had mixed himself. Some improved. A few died, but, as he always reasoned, most were already terminal, and nothing, except this chance he was prepared to take, would have saved them.

This patient, however, was not fatally ill. She was the patient of another doctor. Peter Bidwedder just happened to be in the ward when she was admitted. He wanted to test a medicine that had worked on his rats. He gave it to her. She died within hours. She was rich, important. The wife of a government minister. There would be an inquest.

He was terrified. He went to his brother. His brother said that an inquest would lead to others. The hospital authorities would find out about the patients who had not been cured by the medicines he had given them. The ones who had died. When Peter said to Paul that they were dying anyway, Paul reminded him that he had enemies, colleagues who hated him.

Paul recommended Trinidad. He told Peter he would hide him at a friend’s flat in London and the next day his friend would drive him to Liverpool. From there he could take a ship to Trinidad. It would cost money, lots of money. He would have to sign over his bank account to him. His house and his inheritance from their parents, too.

When Peter bit his lips and cast his eyes from side to side nervously, Paul was quick to reassure him. “I won’t need all the money,” he said. “But if that woman tries to sue, I want to be sure there is nothing left in your estate for her to take. Then, when things clear up, I’ll send you what’s left.”

“When things clear up?”

“Surely there have been no cures without fatalities. One day people will understand that and acknowledge your genius.”

Peter was in a bind. He had to trust his brother.

Paul said he knew someone with connections who could arrange for him to go to Chacachacare, a little island off the northwest coast of Trinidad. It was a leper colony, he said, but it was virtually abandoned. Most of the lepers were cured and had returned to Trinidad. There was a doctor there, taking care of the few patients who still remained, but he was old, hardly likely to ask disturbing questions. It would be a perfect hideout, he said to Peter.

Peter Bidwedder knew about the cure for Hansen’s disease. Contrary to popular belief, the disease was not easily contracted. That it was not easily contracted, however, was not the same as saying it could not be contracted by contact with infected persons. Still, the chances were so slim that a reasonable man could conclude that even on a leper colony, if he kept some distance away from the lepers, he would be safe. In any case, Peter Bidwedder had no intentions of practicing medicine with lepers. His brother was right. A leper colony was the perfect hideout. No one would think of looking for him there. All that remained was to change his last name.

* * *

It was more than two hours now since Carlos had left. Peter Gardner sat on the porch in his rocking chair, staring at the sky and brooding, his head flopped backward on his neck.

Twilight. The time in the evening he loved best. Night hovered as in the wings of a stage, waiting its turn, while the sun glittered above the darkening clouds. But this evening the sun had cast an eerie white light on the sky—electric—that had made the darkening clouds darker.

The gods frowning. The words flitted, light as gossamer, through his head and he shut his eyes, willing his brain to mount a defense.

It is he who had wronged me. He who would misuse my daughter. He who would screw her.

When he opened his eyes, he was rewarded. Forgiven, he chose to believe. For below the clouds, the sun splashed her magnificent colors: red that bled to purple, yellow that burned to orange—the exquisiteness of a sunset found only here, on these Caribbean islands.

It was art: a great painting in the sky. Dark clouds but a fire below them. In the foreground, statuary—the tall bushes at the end of the lawn outlined in the silvery light. For after science, it was art Peter Gardner worshipped: music, painting, sculpture, literature. Poetry, best of all.

He groaned and clasped his fingers across his forehead. He had no talent for poetry. In England he had tried some verses and failed. It was the boy who was the poet.

To walk silently

in the forest,

and not shake a leaf, to move

and not disturb a branch.

At twilight

let me walk—

to the drum of impending

rest, caught between sleeping and waking—

when rocks turn

malleable in the growing night, softening

to the touch of deepening

shade.

He did not want to think of him, to remember the boy’s poem he had memorized in two readings, patched together from scraps he had retrieved from the garbage after a fit of envy had caused him to tear it to pieces.

“Soft.” He waved his hand across the still air. “Soft,” he murmured again, looking around him, listening. But there was no sound, soft or loud, in his backyard, only the birds, their calls fading with the dying light. No mumblings between Ariana and the boy, no hushed whispers. He was gone. Left with the inspector. To jail. Yes, that was where he belonged.

He patted the pocket of his shirt as if to reassure himself that the packet of smoking papers was there where he had put it. He took it out now and picked up the flat thin box at the foot of the rocking chair. A bundle of letters bound in red ribbon lay close to the box. He would read them next. Carefully, laying out one sheet of the paper on his lap, he shook out the contents of the tin box until he made a thin line along the middle of the paper.

Tobacco and marijuana. He did not smoke one without the other. He was suspicious of things unaltered. Nature to him was a traitor, bringing disease to roses in bloom, blight to crops before harvest. Cancer to humans.

Rain made floods. Drought dried grass and sucked moisture from fruit. But on his land the grass was green; flowers blossomed in the dry season.

If Mumsford had not run off with the boy, he would have shown him what he had done with orchids. He would have taken him to his nursery to see the anthuriums he had grafted to calla lilies.

He rolled the paper into a cigarette, put it between his lips, lit it, and sucked the smoke deep into his lungs. The tobacco was for the taste, the marijuana to increase its potency, to calm his nerves. And this evening he needed to calm his nerves: the boy had spat in his face. This evening he needed to remind himself why he was here, why he could not return to England.

He reached for the letters. Some were in envelopes, some simply folded. He was a scientist. A meticulous man. The folded letters were his, copies of the ones he had written to his brother. Of the ones in envelopes, only two were from Paul, the others his, returned unopened to the sender. Slowly, gingerly, he unfolded the first one he had written to his brother.

July 15, 1950

Cocorite, Trinidad

Dear Paul,

How long must I wait for the boat to Chacachacare? Virginia and I have been here three weeks now, living in a shack in Cocorite. This can’t go on much longer. When will that man come to take us there?

Don’t think I don’t appreciate all you are doing for us. I shall repay you well, I promise.

Your brother,

Peter

He refolded the letter and opened one still in its envelope, the first Paul had sent.

July 31, 1950

Lancashire, England

Dear Peter,

By the time you receive this letter you would already have had the answers to your questions. The bearer is a friend of a friend. He will take you and Virginia to Chacachacare.

All is well here. There was an inquest, and, as you anticipated, blame was placed squarely on your shoulders. Everything is out in the open. Her husband wants blood. Your blood absolutely, and so do the others. Even the ones you cured have become afraid. They have made you into a monster. They say your medicines were meant for animals. A woman claims that she has grown hair on her arms and chest, a man that he laughs like a hyena. Lies, of course. All lies.

Not to worry. I won’t tell where you are hiding. Place your trust in me.

Your brother,

Paul

Place your trust in me. Peter Gardner had laughed scornfully when he first read those words. Trust him? As a serpent’s egg. He needed him but he did not trust him. He had turned their mother against him. He had put her up to comparing him with Frankenstein. He was sure of that.

Playing God? That’s what she had accused him of, and yet she had claimed she did not believe in Him. They were hypocrites all. But he had to be careful. He was in his brother’s power. In his next letter he was obsequious.

November 12, 1950

Chacachacare

Dear Paul,

We have arrived safely. The friend of your friend must have told you so. I apologize for having taken this long to write, but I was not sure it would be prudent. I wanted to wait a while. There may have been spies checking your post box. Four months, I think, is long enough. They would have given up by now, certain you have no knowledge of my whereabouts. In any case, they love you and would not want to harm you. You have been a kind and generous brother to me. You cannot know how much I am grateful to you.

The weather here is rotten, unbelievably hot, but at least now it is dry. The incessant rains have come to an end, though, alas, not the mosquitoes. My poor Virginia suffers, but I have managed to make a salve for her and to procure some netting.

We stayed for a while at the doctor’s house. As you said, he asked no questions, but he does not need me. The patients here can take care of themselves, and the doctor, though quite old, is more than enough for the few who may need his help.

I have now found a better house for Virginia and me. It is not England, but it is not uncomfortable. I am, as it were, lord again of my own manor. I have a housekeeper, who does my cooking and cleaning. I don’t think she is long for this world, but she has a daughter who helps.

Yes, and there is a boy, Carlos. He gabbles like a thing most brutish. Hardly language, as you and I would call it. A sort of English, I think he means it to be, with dats and dises and deres. No ths whatsoever, and not a verb to match its subject.

Maybe I’m not altogether out of the business of improving the lot of humans, though at this moment I would hardly call the little savage human. Maybe I shall teach him to speak so at least he’ll know his own meaning. We shall see. But he makes an amusing playmate for Virginia. She is quite taken with him.

Give me news about the situation at the hospital. Do you think the matter will blow away soon?

Yours always in trust and gratitude,

Your brother,

Peter

For eight months he did not hear from Paul. He wrote to him again and the letter came back, unopened, the envelope stamped with the words Return to Sender. Addressee Unknown. He wrote again, four more letters. All returned. Addressee unknown. Then this one, the last. When he saw the date, he knew he had been betrayed. March 15. The Ides of March. Et tu Brute?

March 15, 1951

Lancashire

Dear Peter,

This is the last letter I will write to you, and I suggest you cease writing to me. Though I know you have been careful to mail my letters to people who could post them to me from other countries, it is still dangerous to send them. Your letters may be traced. I do not like being questioned, either. The postman mentioned to me the other day that he has noticed I get foreign letters without a return address. It will only be a matter of time before he tells that to the authorities.

Yes, I have many friends. People like me, the postman likes me, but loyalty and friendship cost money. I can bribe the postman. I have bribed your colleagues already. They take the money as a cat laps milk and have sworn to secrecy about your experiments.

Did you really think, Peter, you could grow limbs in a test tube? My God, what you did to those animals! One of your colleagues showed me a rat with six legs. Were you mad?

But now they have the money, your colleagues will keep your secrets, though I may need to pay off those who may still want more. Promise a man enough money and he’ll tell the clock the time. He will swear eight o’clock if you tell him that that was the time when you were in such and such a place. Those grand doctors who used to drink with me and think me foolish and you the genius now do my bidding. Money, my dear Peter, talks and walks. You would not think how much they praise me now. There is no better doctor in London, they say. Fools!

Here it is, Peter: I have taken the house in Lancashire, the money the parents left you, and your bank account, what was left of your bank account after I paid out the bribes. Remember, you transferred everything to me. Of course, I am aware of our agreement. But, my dear brother, I have no intentions of returning your money to you, or giving you back your house.

You asked if I thought “the matter” would blow away soon. It will never blow away, dear brother. That woman’s husband and her family will hunt you down forever. So it is no use thinking you can come back. There is no coming back for you.

But, perhaps, you think I should send you some money. Let me tell you this, brother. You have no estate. Your estate is mine. I feel sorry for your daughter. I feel sorry that because of you she is stuck in that savage place. But she will be able to leave one day, when she is old enough. A bit of advice, brother. Marry her to an Englishman. He will bring her back and restore to her what you have deprived her of. But you can never leave. Not ever. Don’t trouble your mind with that thought. I will be the first to turn you in.

I do not feel sorry for you, Peter. I never liked you. You always thought you were better than me and so did Father. Now see who has the last laugh.

Conscience? Surely a man who has no conscience cannot ask me such a question. But if you were to ask, Peter, here is my answer. If my conscience were a corn on my big toe, I would wear special shoes. But the truth is, I do not feel that deity that so many claim troubles their souls. I feel no guilt. Indeed, I think I deserve what I now possess, as you deserve your exile.

Take heart, dear brother. What’s past is prologue. The future is yours to discharge, as it is mine. Now that I have the means, I will make the best of mine. Make the best of yours. You have your books.

Paul.

He could recite the letter by heart. He had read it at least a hundred times. You have your books. All he had were two volumes of The Complete Works of Shakespeare, a couple of science texts, and some novels. He wanted to take more but Paul said no. “Too much baggage. You’re a man on the run.”

The ribbon lay on his lap. He picked it up and retied the letters. His head ached, his eyes stung. The sun had all but descended. There were embers still, but the day was over. Done.

What’s past is prologue. He had his red leather-bound book; he had his notes; he had the formulas for his inventions.

“Ariana!” He called for her. “Ariana! Don’t you hear me call?”

She came softly, a leaf floating on a breeze.

He was sleepy, so sleepy. The marijuana. His brother.

She touched his arm to stir him.

“Patricia?” He was thinking of his wife. “Patricia?” He reached up and stroked her cheek.

“You love me, Master? No?” she asked.

Not alabaster skin. Not Patricia. Brown. Too brown to be alabaster skin tanned brown.

“Ariana?”

“You love, no, Master?”

He sighed. “Dearly. Dearly, my delicate Ariana.”