Lucia

by Alex Pheby

  There a tuft of hair, caught on the splinters from the cheap wood, and a lack of care taken in the sanding, or no sanding at all, the effort being wasted on her, and the wood raw from the joiner’s yard, or the timber yard, just right for the catching of threads and hair and the scratching of skin.

  A crucifix is both a symbol of death and life, since it was from here that Christ was risen. And now a tree grows from the dead girl’s crucifix, from the womb of it, and the hair that adheres to this womb is transformed into a bush of pubic hair from which white roses grow and the petals of these roses, now mature in death where they were buds unopened in life, fall ripely like snow. Then snow falls like petals and, around the corpse of the child, shawled women gather to witness her death. They are like those that witnessed the death of Christ, except that to these women the girl is an idiot, not a saviour, a moron who deserves her death, since, as they say to each other:

  —Only a fool thinks she can warm herself with matches.

  The Egyptian system of writing is complicated – sometimes pictographs are to be read symbolically, sometimes an alphabetic substitution is employed, sometimes combinations of signs have specific meanings or functions, and sometimes the images are simply descriptive. Amongst the other writing there recurred at intervals an object like those depicted in the much later tomb at Kom Ombo and which are understood to be medical instruments.

  My colleague had made one of his characteristic intellectual leaps and suggested that if this object was a scalpel, or something similar, and these priests were charged with carrying out a medical procedure which the deceased was resisting, then this might fit the paintings, though what function that could have in the tomb decorations was something he could not guess.

  And give you your head

  At the rear of the procession, the household slaves bring the canopic jars, dragged on a sledge, and behind these come the personal effects, the bed and the chair.

  THE SHUYET SHADOW OF LUCIA JOYCE

  NEAR L’ÎLE DE PUTEAUX, PARIS, 1934 (FOR EXAMPLE)

  Many generations of men have made their living creating objects. This is so obvious that it is not worth saying, since the definition of the word ‘object’ is broad enough that it includes everything, almost, that there is. Except a soul cannot be considered an object, nor can anything of the class of ineffable things, such as ‘rights’ or ‘happiness’, so if that’s what you are thinking, then revise that idea.

  Still, some narrowing of the field is necessary if this statement is to be useful, so let us instead say that many generations of men have made their living from the creation of, and sale of, physical objects of this or that sort, the value of which is determined by their utility. You will argue that there are classes of objects that are sold with no specific utility, such as jewellery, from which many generations of men have made a living, but the counter argument to this is that those objects possess a relative utility, and surely you are not arguing that beauty is without utility in the world?

  This is by the by, since many generations of men have made their living from the creation of objects of utility, and this does not preclude the existence of many generations of men that have made their livings from the creation of objects the utility of which is not immediately obvious (history is full of objects which we do not recognise the utility of, and the modern world is full of objects that historical man would not have recognised at all, never mind anything else).

  This is also by the by, since the question is, should a man be responsible for the use to which his objects are put once he has made and sold them? If a man buys scissors, for example, from a maker of scissors, is the maker of scissors responsible for the use to which they are put? If he heats metal to the requisite temperature and then hammers it into blades, or if he casts metal in the shape of blades and finishes them on a lathe, or on an abrasive wheel, or if he utilises a drop hammer to make a scissor shape, or by any other method makes an object recognisable as a scissors, is he responsible when a man buys it and then drives it into the stomach of a bystander?

  You will say no, since the function of a scissors is not for it to be driven into the stomach of a bystander, but rather is to cut paper for the making of decorations at Christmas, or to follow the chalk marks on a piece of cloth and so cut the back, front, and sides of a girl’s dress, so that they can be sewn into something that she might wear. However, if a scissors can be driven into the stomach of a bystander is this not then something that the maker of the scissors should be responsible for, since there is nothing preventing him from rounding off the ends of the blades so that they are incapable of puncturing the skin?

  The question is not a simple one to answer.

  To try another example: what if, rather than a scissors, which is an object that a dressmaker might use, the blacksmith makes objects that a doctor might use, such as a scalpel, or a speculum, or something with some unspecified function the designs for which are supplied to the blacksmith by the doctor? Doctors are respectable men and they do not wish to be questioned, so it is possible, you will agree, that a blacksmith might well not know to what use an instrument is to be put, allowing the burden for the responsibility of its use to be put on the man who commissions the making of that item. A blacksmith can reasonably assume that a respectable man will not commission to be made objects that will be put to disreputable uses.

  Also, if we are speaking of generations of men, what if one’s grandsire was the blacksmith in question? What if, finding himself with very many orders for a particular item, an ancestor of a modern man alive today specialised in the creation of bespoke articles for men of medicine, and retooled his workshop, trained apprentices, and in every other way decided to capitalise on his success, and created whatever object he was asked to create by men of medicine? Would he then be responsible for the uses to which the object was put, and could his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren be expected to be responsible for them?

  Methods of production improve with time in a manner analogous to the processes of evolution, and soon a hundred objects, a thousand, can be produced as easily as one once could be produced. Also, when there is one thing in front of the eye this appears very specific and unique, with ten, less so, with a hundred it is hard to concentrate, and with a thousand you become blind to them, as if you were saying ‘lettuce’ a thousand times – soon the word loses its meaning. Try it – the word will become nothing before long, and you will lose patience.

  As methods of production improve, and sales increase, and increasingly large numbers of men rely on the creation of these objects for their living, and the owner of the factory rarely visits it and hires a manager/board of trustees, and retires, and all the functions of the blacksmith’s forge are forgotten in the mists of time, there is a legal obligation to provide a dividend to shareholders. Questions of responsibility over the use to which objects are put are derogated to the executive functions of the state, and statements such as ‘I just make them, I’m not responsible for what people do with them’ become very rational indeed – impossible to argue with, even, under the law. So, at that point, if all the scissors of the world were used to stab the stomachs of all the bystanders of the world it would not be the maker of scissors who was to blame, even if without scissors there would be no scissoring.

  Again, the question of the proper use to which objects are put comes to the fore – without scissors, after all, there would be no pretty dresses for little girls, and no Christmas decorations, so let us imagine something like, for example, the curette, which is an instrument which can be used in a variety of ways in a variety of procedures, but which is primarily used for the scraping or debridement of tissues in the human body.

  It is an innocuous looking instrument, and would certainly not raise an eyebrow if designs for it were taken to a blacksmith and he was asked to create one, nor if one were seen in a factory, and less so ten, or a thousand generations later. Even its name is innocuous – there is something about French, when read by an
Anglophone, which predisposes one to think of romantic and pretty things, something that cannot be said of German, for example, which is an aggressive-seeming language when one does not understand the meaning of the words.

  Should the makers of curettes, then, be responsible for the uses to which curettes are put? This would depend on what uses those are, so let us give examples. Should the maker of the curette be responsible for its use in the treatment of cerumen impaction in the external ear canal? A man receiving treatment for poor hearing who goes to his doctor and who, perhaps ten minutes later, leaves able again to hear a pin drop on the desk in his study will not, habitually, write a letter of thanks to the company that manufactures the curette which removes his earwax. Another man has a sebaceous cyst; a somewhat more drawn out procedure is carried out to treat it, during which a variety of instruments are used, including a curette, and throughout which he is tugged hard on the scalp, and it is all very tiresome. Does he write a letter of complaint to the manufacturer who supplies his doctor? He does not – he might grumble, perhaps look up the address of the General Medical Council, but that is all. A last man takes his daughter for the removal of a foetus which has improperly lodged itself to the wall of her uterus and which threatens the birth of a feebleminded child.

  What should he do?

  The answer is nothing, since he has no reason to thank anyone, nor any remedy under the law if he has a grievance, since the formation of a company with limited liability protects the makers of objects from the consequences of their use, providing there has been no dishonesty in the sale. If a company made a thing that was then used to kill all the unborn children in the world, even if they had sold it advertising this function, it would not be subject to censure, since it is the responsibility of the purchaser the use to which he puts an object, and the world can continue as normal, the livelihoods of generations of men secure, and the market for curettes unaffected, it seems, and also all other objects, regardless of how they are used.

  I looked at the other images with this in mind, and while there were many things that did not fit this explanation, there were certain elements that might have done, including one panel which depicted a table in the Egyptian style – a two-dimensional representation of its surface and the things laid on it. On the table were laid herbs, jars of oil, and what passed in the period for medicines, especially honey.

  And join your limbs together

  Shabtis, in the form of statues of workers who will carry out tasks for the deceased, are brought.

  DR W.G. MACDONALD

  LONDON, JANUARY 1935

  It is not sufficient or desirable to obtain the necessary tissues from a supplier of offal – there is always a delay between the death of the animal and the sorting of the meats that introduces decay into the organs of the foetus. Nor should one attempt to secure unborn calves through the usual suppliers – slaughterhouses and butchers who are able to meet the demand are used to providing much larger foetuses which, for the purposes of the serum, are overdeveloped (and sold by weight, which introduces extra costs that are needless in this case). It is better to develop a relationship with a dairy farmer with a sizeable herd, and make it clear to him that good money can be made from the products of any terminations, or from any spontaneous miscarriages from a pregnant cow. This should, with luck, provide a reliable supply of the embryonic tissue, though in discussion we have wondered if this means of sourcing is ideal. It may be that taking foetuses in this way predisposes the tissues to problems that we might not easily be able to recognise – nature has a habit of aborting calves that will develop mutations, for example, and while often there are visible signs in the development prior to death, just as often there are not (as is attested to by the delivery of a sizeable number of seemingly perfectly-formed stillbirths at term every year). By sourcing only spontaneous abortions and the products of terminations (which tend to be done in ill, very young, or elderly mothers, in the main) we run the risk of injecting our patients with cells that are predisposed to error in vivo.

  Ideally, we should find a perfectly healthy cow, with a perfectly healthy gestation, and remove the foetus at four months (which is best for our purposes, since the organs are sufficiently differentiated for us to separate them, but still flexible enough to provide cells capable of rejuvenation in the patient) but for practical and financial reasons this is, at present anyway, difficult to achieve. No doubt when the treatments become widespread we can maintain our own herd for precisely this purpose and once the cows reach the end of their breeding lives we can offset the running costs (feed, shelter, veterinary bills, stud fees, et al.) by selling them for meat and leather in the normal way. Presently, this would consume more capital than we have at hand, so this will have to remain a dream for now, the fulfilment of which we will certainly aim for in the future. The day will come, I can imagine, where we will have a very pleasant clinic in the countryside and the patients can relax and watch the cows in the field and listen to their contented lowing as they recuperate.

  In the meantime, we should always make sure we are sourcing the best possible specimens from whatever suppliers we use. I cannot stress how much our success will rely on this – any scrimping, carelessness, or lack of attention in the selection at this stage will drastically reduce the possible efficacy of the serum. If the efficacy is reduced, the effect on the patient will be lessened, and we will certainly not be in a position to claim that our process has superior results to the transplantation of monkey glands, to name our most obvious competitor in the field. We know from experiment that our procedure gives better results, so we need only allow that fact to become known for us to reap the rewards (for both us and our patients) that many of the shameless quacks we see operating all around us reap. But that does rather rely on us getting the best quality foetuses.

  Always check the development of the hooves – it is around four months that these become distinct, firm and yellow. The skin of the foetus is a light pink, and a little transparent – it’s possible to see the ribs, red muscles, and blue organ sac through the skin – so the yellow of the hooves is very noticeable. Too young, and the hooves remain transparent and you find that the organs are not sufficiently developed to separate easily; too old, and the organs become too specialised towards bovine function for our purposes.

  The foetus should be less than a foot long, certainly, and if the testicles have descended into the scrotum, or the teats are developed (a little pinch here and there with the forefinger and thumb can save a lot of time) it is past its best and should be turned down. Similarly, if there are hairs on the lips, and eyelashes on the face – these are both signs that it has spent too long in the womb.

  Even once bought, the specimen should be examined carefully. If there is an unpleasant odour when opened this is a sign that there has been too much decomposition. Unborn calves should be almost odourless, just as a slab of meat would be – they have not been in the grass, there will be no faecal matter, and the foetus should be more or less sterile. Have no qualms about returning it at this point – if the seller has lied about the freshness of his wares this is certainly nothing you need to feel embarrassed about and he should provide a refund.

  If everything is as it ought to be, then go ahead and separate out the intestines and the lungs and discard them – we are after the organs of secretion primarily, so also see if you can locate the thyroid (in its neck). We have discussed routinely cracking the skull and removing the material inside, and certainly this is something worthwhile – the pineal, pituitary and hypothalamus are in there. It is not terribly difficult to do, no more effort than shelling peas, but there is a tendency for fragments of bone to come with the brain, and this can be a problem in the preparation of the serum, so only do it if you can be sure of a clean break – if there’s any doubt, discard the head and contents along with the skin and bones. One day we might come up with a neater solution to this problem, but at the moment err on the side of caution.

  Whatever remains, wrap,
place in a cool dark bag without anything in it that might disturb the contents while in transit – in fact, just use an empty doctor’s bag (we have one or two in the office) and bring it to us as quickly as you can.

  Once puréed, filtered, and added to normal saline, the serum can be used in treatment via needle injection into a muscle mass. That is if one can get the patient to co-operate. It is unethical to administer treatments without informing the patient as to what the treatment is, but there is a group of patients for whom this serum would be helpful that seem incapable or unwilling to be helped regardless of how slowly one explains it to them. It might be easier in these cases to simply enter the room and, in an unguarded moment, slip the needle into wherever one can find. Otherwise, one might outline the reasoning behind the treatment, how the treatment is manufactured, the quality control procedures in place, and what benefits the patient might be expected to receive, and still receive a kick to the shins when it comes to the injection. Whether this is down to the familiar anxiety we all feel over the needle, or whether psychotics, neurotics and schizoids are naturally prone to disruptive behaviour, we don’t know, but it’s certainly something that should be taken into account.

  You should always talk to the attendants prior to entering the consulting room – they will know if the patient is the kind to cause a fuss, and if they are, or if you get the impression that they might be – sometimes these attendants are a bit reticent to bad-mouth their patients to outsiders – it’s perfectly acceptable to have the patient restrained in a straitjacket, or by two or more attendants in advance of entering the room. In my opinion, based on personal experience, this should be standard procedure, and not just for the wellbeing of a man’s shins! Needles are fragile things and can easily break off in a girl’s thigh if she decides all of a sudden to rear up out of the chair and aim a kick. Then there’s the issue of removing the needle before she embeds it into herself, or tears the skin running into the wall or door; any number of accidents can be caused if she’s not in control of herself, as they often aren’t. And then, unfair though it might be, we are the ones to blame, despite having done nothing but receive the blows. Certainly do not retaliate, regardless of the provocation (though I needn’t point this out, I hope).