The Study of Animal Languages

by Lindsay Stern

  It is therefore with a good deal of confusion and regret that I confess I no longer plan to support your tenure case. Your remarks today made that impossible.

  You implied, in a public forum, that our work is tantamount to animal abuse. The accusation is not just unfounded. It is dangerous. It bolsters the case of the many interests who would like to see our discipline go down the drain. Coming from anyone, it would have been dismaying. From the mouth of a scientist I have described to others as the future doyenne of ornithology, it was a shock.

  Forgive me for being blunt. I had no idea you felt this way. I am shaken—and, quite frankly, hurt—that you chose to take us down with you.

  Sincerely,

  Jeremiah

  The email is time-stamped 4:57, just under an hour ago. It is the first thing I see when I open Prue’s laptop in the kitchen, the party already under way, to download a computer game for May.

  She must have opened it, because an empty draft is saved below the text, its cursor pulsing. Painful to read, no doubt, though Jeremiah put it more gently than I would have. After today, she may as well kiss tenure goodbye.

  Her laughter wafts in from the living room, above the ebb and swell of talk, sounding forced. We have hardly spoken since the lecture. After locating our car I pulled around to the front of the building, waiting in the warmth while she said her goodbyes. A group of students intercepted her first, followed by the College president. As she thanked them Frank trailed her, seeming not to notice the people clustered near the entrance to the hall, whispering. Their faces asked the same questions that were engulfing me, namely: Who does she think she is? And: How much longer will it take for the pageantry to fade, for the damage to come to light? They were questions she seemed to have absorbed, at least subliminally, when she spotted the car and met my eye, her smile laced with fatigue. I stepped out and managed a brief, congratulatory hug before shepherding Frank, May, and Walt into the backseat.

  “A lady picked her nose!” May announced. She licked the remains of the snowball Walt packed for her outside, adding: “She picked her nose and wiped it under the seat and I saw it. I have proof. I did a whole report, like in the CIA.”

  I glanced in the rearview mirror, expecting Frank to groan at the mention of the agency. But he was staring out the window, his eyes bright.

  “Read it to us, sweetie,” Prue said, as we circled the quad. “Tell us what you found out.”

  “Okay, um . . .” May studied her notebook. “Oh yeah, here. The guy with the wrinkly neck whispered something to the lady next to him. I didn’t hear what he said, though. The lady scratched her eyebrow with her pinky. She has weird hair. Then—oh, then, the guy next to me bit off his thumbnail and blew it off his tongue. Gross.” She looked up. “That was almost as disgusting as the booger!”

  “Don’t forget your present for Grandpa, bug,” Walt murmured.

  “Oh yeah!” From her backpack May produced a rose of crinkled tissue, affixed to a green pipe cleaner. Frank, finally distracted from his musings, crowed his admiration, then tucked it into his breast pocket.

  “Wait, Aunt Prue?” May said.

  “Yes, honey?”

  Prue, seated in the passenger seat beside me, was picking furiously at her cuticles. From the way she kept glancing at me, I could tell she was hoping I would offer some reaction to the speech, positive or otherwise, and felt a flicker of satisfaction at my refusal to indulge her.

  “What do you call the thing you were standing behind?” May said, through a mouthful of snow.

  “A lectern.”

  “Okay. Aunt Prue takes her notes off the lecturn. Everybody cheers. Everybody loves Aunt Prue. The end!”

  * * *

  —

  BY NOW TWO DOZEN GUESTS have arrived—Biology faculty, mostly, along with a handful of students—congregating in the hall and living room. Dalton, mercifully, is not among them. Morton left after only a few minutes, citing the weather, followed by Edson and Adaora. Though he rarely accepts our invitations, the pianist from upstairs—Josip Milak—has arrived, keeping mostly to himself.

  After downloading May’s game I pop an antacid, waiting for her to emerge from the bathroom. Her voice wafts through the locked door, humming the theme song to Snoopy: a recent obsession she must have picked up at school. The melody calms me. All I want is to get Prue alone, which won’t be possible for at least another hour. The guests have barely made a dent in the hors d’oeuvres. A tray of chicken samosas is still on the counter, its cellophane slick with lamplight. The pigs in blankets we put out earlier have gone mostly untouched, though they tend to disappear. Maybe these will fare better.

  I am peeling the cellophane off the platter when two voices separate from the throng—Quinn’s, and a male voice I don’t recognize. They have reached the corridor now, approaching the kitchen.

  “. . . didn’t know she had a cri de coeur in store for us,” says the man.

  “I loved it, but her husband practically had a conniption,” Quinn says, discreetly. “He was sitting right beside me.”

  “Who’s she married to, again?”

  “Ivan Link? He teaches here.”

  “Oh, I don’t . . .”

  “Epistemologist. I’m sure you’ve—”

  “Wait, that guy?”

  My heart leaps into my throat.

  “You’re kidding,” the man is saying.

  “Don’t be rude. And keep your voice down. This is his house.”

  “Maybe we can find all the poles he keeps up his ass.”

  They enter the kitchen, where I have knelt before a cupboard with my back to the door, rummaging noisily.

  “Ivan!” Quinn exclaims.

  “Nice to see you,” I stand up, pot in hand. My ears burn.

  “Great party.” She smiles with horror. “Can I help?”

  The man beside her is bald, with pasty skin and a sheepish look. He takes a generous sip of wine, avoiding my gaze.

  “Da duh-duh-duh-da!” May sings, bursting through the bathroom door. As Quinn and the man chuckle at her she shrinks behind me, pushing her glasses up her nose.

  “Did you need something?” I say to Quinn, as the man slips into the bathroom.

  “No, we were just . . .” She gestures after him, glancing at the pot in my hand. May gambols toward the laptop, humming again as she loses herself to the game.

  “I’ll see you out there, then,” I say, and set the pot on the stove. When I turn back, Quinn is hastening into the corridor.

  Still smarting, I wait a moment, and then carry the tray of samosas into the living room. The guests have clustered near the darkened French windows or draped themselves over the couches. Walt has his arm slung around Jeffrey Sato, a visiting plant biologist on leave from Tokyo University. Josip is paging through a book of photographs we keep, in lieu of a television, on our vintage balsa console.

  A man I don’t recognize tosses an olive pit onto the coals in the fireplace, muttering something that prompts a whinnying laugh from the woman beside him. The fire I built when we got home has shrunken to a few liquid orange threads.

  Setting the platter down on the free end of the beverage table, I notice Prue leaning against the bookcase. Her elaborate hairdo is sagging now, haloed by frizz. A young man in tight black jeans is talking to her—or at her, rather—flapping his hands as he speaks.

  “Everything you said, it’s just . . .” He gestures around the room. “We’re a cancer, a cancer on the earth. There are lots of initiatives going on, I don’t know if you’ve heard. Green Campus is hosting a sit-in next week, as part of the divestment campaign. If you want to get involved, I can put you in touch with Kyle. . . .”

  Prue glances at her phone and then past him, catching my eye. Rescue me, her expression says. I shoot her a look that says, You dug your grave, now lie in it. Satisfied, I head back to the kitchen,
only to find myself face to face with the bald man. With a stiff nod he sidesteps me, wiping his palms on his jeans.

  The front doorbell rings. When I open the door, Natasha is standing there, shivering, her eyelashes crusted with snow. She must have walked here, because her scarf is soaked.

  “Come in, please.” I help her out of her coat. “Can I get you a drink?”

  “Wine would be great.” She tucks a curl behind her ear. “Whatever you have.”

  I return to the kitchen to stow her coat in the mudroom, only to discover Frank hunched over the counter, glaring down at a Home Depot catalog. May, still glued to Prue’s laptop, is singing to herself.

  “Everything all right?” I say, pouring myself a second glass of wine.

  Instead of answering, Frank flips a page of the catalog so abruptly that it tears. His hands are trembling. May’s flower droops from his pocket.

  “Why don’t I introduce you to some of our colleagues?” I say, regretting the offer as soon as it leaves my lips.

  He scowls. “They didn’t get it.”

  “Didn’t get—”

  “The speech.” He stares at me. With a flourish of his hand he adds, “Schmoozing out there, like nothing happened. Like she never said a goddamn word.”

  I glance at May, then back at him, but he only sniffs. I say, quietly, “I think it went over surprisingly well.”

  He shoves the catalog across the counter, so violently that it slides off the far edge. Then he licks both forefingers, smoothing them over his tufted eyebrows. There is a fresh ink stain on his suit, bleeding from one of the many pens he keeps in his breast pocket.

  Before I can point it out he barrels past me and back into the party. I retrieve the catalog and follow him, worried he is about to make a scene, but he veers into his room.

  “. . . from the Himalayas, I think,” Natasha is saying, when I return with her merlot. Noboru, a consummate flirt, has cornered her near the piano.

  She accepts the glass and adds, for my benefit, “I was just telling him about this myth we read, in my anthropology class, about the origin of language?” She swills her wine, smiling. “You’ve probably heard it.”

  “Try me,” I say, charmed—to my surprise—by her simpering tone. Then again, it is probably the alcohol.

  “The first human beings had two mouths,” she says, “just like they had two eyes, nostrils, and ears. The first mouth chewed and spat and sucked, while the other breathed. One day the skin between them tore, leaving a cleft here”—she taps the furrow between her nose and upper lip.

  Her lip gloss is coral red, applied so liberally it has clumped near the corners of her mouth. As she gesticulates, basking in our attention, I feel a twinge of sympathy. While she has mentioned various friends of hers during our meetings, I have only ever seen her walking alone across campus, weighted down by her viola. This party will probably be the highlight of her weekend.

  “. . . the two mouths had to contend with each other,” she is saying now. “One representing desire, the other harmony. Speech is the thunder of their collision, they say. The quarrel of appetite and law.”

  “Sounds like Freud had a plagiarist,” Noboru says. With his free hand, he reaches for a samosa, tilting his paper plate. A lone blueberry rolls across it, curbed by a smear of hummus.

  “Was one, more likely,” I say.

  Natasha hesitates, glancing at me.

  “You ever been analyzed?” Noboru asks her, through a mouthful of samosa.

  Without warning, her hand darts to my left shoulder, swiping something off my back. When I stiffen, she retracts it, adding: “Just some chalk, from class before.”

  I peer over my shoulder, only to find a ghostly smear down the whole of my blazer. Noboru whistles.

  “Hang on, let me take care of this,” I say, and set down my wine. Why hadn’t Prue said something?

  “Oh, professor?” Natasha calls after me. When I turn she says, “I have a draft of my next chapter—I was wondering if I could send it to you?”

  I nod—too curtly, I realize, because she practically cringes as she adds, “Any chance you’ll be in your office this weekend, so we can go over my first one?”

  As a TA, Natasha has been granted a key to the Philosophy building, though she is supposed to limit herself to normal work hours. She says, “I was planning to work there on Sunday.”

  “I won’t be, unfortunately,” I say, choosing to overlook her tacit confession. “But let’s definitely meet next week.”

  She thanks me, and I head for the bedroom, pausing on the way to feed the catalog into the fire. The flames roar back to life, eating through an image of a lawn mower. With the poker I wedge it under the grate, calmed by the sudden heat. My indigestion is fading, at long last. In its place is a sharpening hunger.

  “Hey, bro?” Walt calls out.

  He is hovering over the beverage table, balancing on one crutch as he tops off his martini. The table, crowded with open bottles, is positioned dangerously close to the piano.

  “You good with May?” He smacks his nicotine gum. A flake of pastry clings to his goatee.

  “I just called a car,” he adds, screwing the cap on the bottle of Absolut. “Dinner date with Julia in twenty.”

  “When can we meet her?” I drag the table a few inches toward the wall, making the bottles clink.

  “If I don’t fuck it up, you mean,” he says.

  As he gulps down the vodka May gallops into view, falling to her stockinged knees just in time to slide across the floor, up to his feet. A few guests applaud. Embarrassed, she wraps her arms around Walt’s shin.

  “The computer froze,” she whines. “I was in the middle of a level.”

  With a flick of her head, she propels her dark bangs—badly in need of a trim—out of her eyes. To me, she adds: “Aunt Prue’s on the phone. She said to get you.”

  “Let’s go fix it,” I say, as Walt’s phone dings. He plucks the olive from his martini and, to my horror, offers it to May, who pops it in her mouth.

  “That’s my ride.” He sets his glass on the piano. “See you tomorrow, bug. Be good.”

  May takes my hand. Together we turn back toward the kitchen, pausing to pour her the cup of ginger ale Prue supposedly promised her. As she gulps it down I pave a paper plate with four layers of prosciutto, a trapezoid of Brie, and two pigs in blankets for myself. If Prue can send herself up in flames, why shouldn’t I?

  “If we’re lucky, it’ll remember where you were,” I say, when we have returned to the kitchen. I restart the laptop, stuffing the last of the ham into my mouth.

  “Why are you eating so fast?” May says.

  “Sorry.” I cover my mouth. “Want some?”

  She scrunches up her face.

  “How about dessert?”

  But she is staring past me, into the living room. Not until I follow her gaze do I notice that the rest of the house has gone silent.

  Eight

  When we emerge from the kitchen the guests are standing where they were, motionless as a tableau vivant. Most of them still have drinks in hand, though no one is speaking. They are all facing the french windows.

  Frank is blocking them, his head near the ceiling. He must be standing on something, but the couch is blocking my view of his feet. His hands are raised before him, trembling. They are holding something. Something moving.

  It is Rex, struggling to free himself. His wings are crushed against his body, his head twitching. One pinkish leg stamps in midair.

  “Let me put it this way,” Frank says. “Why, exactly, should I not?”

  I look from face to face, and see a mix of confusion and alarm. Rex, meanwhile, has opened his beak. He might be shrieking, if Frank’s thumb weren’t pressed against his throat.

  “Come on,” Frank says. “You’re a civilized bunch. Who can give me a good reas
on?”

  A croaking sound, barely audible, issues from Rex. Frank adjusts his grip. His cheeks are flushed, but he has not raised his voice.

  “The clock is ticking, folks,” he says. “And don’t bother citing some right to life, unless you omnivores are prepared to explain why you have no qualms about eating chickens.”

  May shrinks against me. I whisper, “You stay here.”

  She nods. I edge along the wall, the better to startle him from the side.

  “It doesn’t belong to you,” someone calls out: Natasha, ever the eager student. I scan the room for Prue, and instead lock eyes with Quinn, who raises her eyebrows. Noboru approaches her, murmuring something.

  “Doesn’t belong to me,” Frank repeats. “Is that the best you can do? Anyone else want to weigh in here? You’re all scholars, aren’t you? Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill this goddamn beast.”

  A loud groan sounds, suddenly, followed by a series of cracks. Frank glances downward. He is standing on our console, which he has dragged over from the couch—hardly strong enough to support our art books, let alone a man. He seems to realize this, and hesitates.

  “Let me help you down, Frank,” I say, beside him now.

  His Adam’s apple glints with sweat. Instead of answering he disengages his right hand and, still gripping Rex, draws a fountain pen from his breast pocket. Rex takes the opportunity to wriggle one wing free. It flaps, uselessly.

  “What do I have here?” Frank says. With his teeth, he yanks off the cap, flinging it my way. I dodge. He brandishes the pen, the tapered metal point catching the lamplight.

  He says, “What are you all, lobotomized?”

  Rex is croaking again. His wing catches the tissue of May’s flower, nudging it free. It lands headfirst on the hardwood.

  “What you are looking at”—Frank stabs the air—“is the deadliest weapon of all time. It’s what we’ve used to terrorize our fellow creatures, tyrannize our fellow man, and spread our smoke and steel across this naked earth.”