Gathering Evidence

by Martin MacInnes

  It was understandable we grew oppressed, solitary in their company. Jane formed models and projections from the data gathered, staying awake to monitor activity in the nests. The troop continued to call out sporadically through the night. Alice and I tried to eliminate thoughts of more midterm threats and concentrate on the most urgent crises. I considered the troop increasingly lost, shorn of and loosened from identity, and I wondered in what pathetic and creative ways the animals would compensate for the now permanently frustrated migratory instinct. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed that every interaction of mother and infant from birth was at once preparation for and expression of the central migratory instinct, that the instinct was crucial even in governing maternal care of males, who would not ultimately journey far from home. Carrying the young infant ventrally, on the mother’s underside, allowing no greater distance than a metre to separate the two in the first six months, then slowly easing out, the infant prised apart as in an agonisingly attenuated gravitational pull. Her new larger body made her increasingly distinct from her mother, made her physically separate, and in parallel with this she continued slowly falling. Almost a year old, she could exist as far as four metres distant, though these excursions were still rare and brief and provisional. Every day, every hour and every moment was a scaled version of the larger, later emigration. At three years, bigger, approximately fifty pounds, her mother allowed her almost out of sight, as far as ten metres, and now carried her dorsally, changing the infant’s perspective, pushing her eyes directly outwards rather than pressed in against her side. She was weaned at four or five. In the next two years she more obviously practised emigration, keeping to the same sub-group but frequently wandering alone. Then she left the sub-group and practised foraging with others. Finally, after all this fine-scaled preparation, she was ready, and without gestures or any difference in the preceding routine, she left her mother, her natal group and the whole cluster of conspecifics that was everything she’d ever known, and she exiled herself, journeying towards a new troop. And then she returned, months later, in the state we were witnessing. The identity of the animal was destroyed.

  XI

  It was midway through the second week of the treatment and John watched the doctor arriving, making his way through the vestibule, appearing to notice neither the raincoat nor any of the boots and making no reference to the mould that was spreading through the house. As usual he laid the case on the end of the long table and took his coat off and hung it on the chair. Under his coat he wore a fading brown corduroy jacket and a dark jumper, with dark trousers and a pair of immaculate plain black shoes. The shoes never had the slightest mark or drop of moisture on them. He never wiped his feet on the mat, standing waiting on the steps to be invited in, long arms drooping at his sides, deep case held not far above the ground. Despite the damp fog and the unpaved driveway and the track that he had had to walk along from wherever he had chosen to park his car, he never brought any dirt into the house; he never marked either the linoleum vestibule floor or the pale wood floor of the kitchen. He watched the doctor unpacking at the table, noting again that it was difficult to place his age; on some mornings he appeared significantly older, perhaps even approaching retirement age, but on mornings such as this he was a little younger, with more colour in his cheeks, a quickness in his step, the appearance, even, of a thicker mass of hair.

  ‘How did you sleep last night?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Any recall? Any disturbances?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Very good. We’ll continue with the sedatives. How is everything, from your perspective? How do you feel the treatment is going?’

  ‘I don’t know. The nausea isn’t as bad, but I still don’t feel myself, and I still don’t remember anything, only these flashes, which I can’t read. It’s hard. It feels strange that I’m here on my own, that no-one has come.’

  ‘What do you mean, John?’

  ‘I don’t know. My family, my friends. It’s just strange, it isn’t right.’

  ‘John, all the evidence I have indicates an exemplary rate of recovery. I know this is disorienting, I know it’s hard, but I promise you your memories will return, soon. You really are getting better. As soon as you’re up to it, we’ll look at making contact with people again. The important thing is not to strain or push too hard. When you least expect it, everything will come back.’

  After checking on the fridge and on the condition of the fresh supplies – a meat-concentrated diet, which the doctor had introduced, in addition to the list of items he requested, and which he found difficult to follow, still lacking in appetite, still feeling a sort of grey insubstantiality, a greyness that he recognised, unpleasantly, in the tight cords of fat covering one end of the stretch of liver packed in a stained brown paper bag, a cut with a strong odour that filled out the fridge and beyond, distracting at least from the smell of the fungus – the doctor gathered up his coat, his case, and told him that he would see him the same time tomorrow. After he closed the door – he always waited twenty seconds before setting the lock, not wanting the doctor to hear him, thinking it might reflect badly, conveying paranoia, an unreasonable preoccupation with security – he returned to the kitchen and slowly pulled one edge of the curtain. The doctor, carried in the fog, which still showed no signs of abating, had effectively disappeared. On the sill, beneath his fingers, he felt the thick black-green webbing of the fungus. He closed the curtain and turned around. He hadn’t eaten since he woke, and when he had mentioned this the doctor appeared concerned, focusing a severe expression and making him promise to cook the liver as soon as he left. He recommended frying it lightly, with the faintest smear of butter, allowing the meat to turn almost exclusively in itself, to progress in its own fluids.

  Approaching the fridge, he considered what he’d told the doctor and wondered whether he had over-reported, or under-reported, his symptoms. Both his condition and his perception of it were constantly in flux. There were times – typically in the evening, after the doctor had gone – when he felt a little stronger and when he believed he might have unwittingly exaggerated his state in order to play the role assigned to him, justifying the doctor’s presence. Other times he believed that the opposite was the case, that he was so determined to be better that he created false lulls, hallucinated spells of wellness that inevitably drifted away; unable to face the reality of what was happening, he turned himself away from it. It was impossible to know which reading was definitive.

  Opening the fridge door, the smell hit him immediately, as if it had grown stronger in the brief time elapsed. The brown paper bag, smeared in blood and fat, had started to degrade and parts were transparent. Whatever the doctor told him, he wasn’t going to eat this. The idea of consuming it, absorbing it, this thin sheet of grey pungent liver, was grotesque. But he couldn’t leave it here, in the fridge, continuing to fester, affecting the other items and the fridge itself, which he had already emptied and scrubbed clean. He couldn’t put it anywhere, equally, that the doctor might discover it. The thought of the conversation, everything he would have to explain – why he didn’t eat the liver; why he felt he had to hide it from the doctor – was exhausting. He suspected, already, that the doctor, as he left each day, opened the bins outside as part of his ongoing ‘survey’, his ‘diagnostics’. He had heard, once, the familiar light clip of the lid closing. He would have to wrap the bag well, conceal it elsewhere.

  He searched for a plastic bag, put his hands inside and eased it over the liver. He tied the bag securely and entered the vestibule, where the freezer was kept. He took the other items out and packed the meat deep inside. Store it at the bottom, he thought, where it would never be seen. Suddenly, a vision came to him: an industrial park, a tall building, a strip of beach, the sea. And he knew that was where his things were. But why? Why weren’t they here, in the cottage? He tried to let the memory flow, but his deliberate intervention had already petrified it. Frustrated, he let the freezer lid drop
.

  At night, after his meal of soup, vegetables and bread – which he was careful to inspect for any hint of rot – and at the first signs of tiredness, having taken his sedative capsule, he went upstairs to the bedroom. The bedroom was oddly free of personal effects; again he had the feeling he didn’t belong here, being merely a guest. No mementos, no clear markers of time, no photographs or paintings on the walls, no books. As the tiredness rose he got up from the bed and slid open the wide cupboard doors. Clothes hung along the railing, and in the long shelf above was a series of large canvas bags. Inside these were more clothes, carefully folded and with a slight musty odour suggesting they hadn’t been taken out for some time. He pulled out and unfolded a slim black vest top. He looked at the arms, the neck, and felt a sudden movement, a sense of animation, gone as soon as it began. As the room started to blur, he pulled himself to the bed, huddled under the duvet and laid his head down as carefully as he could. In his last moment of consciousness he tried to focus, willing the resolution, imploring himself to remember this thought the next night: Don’t take the sedative. Remain awake, aware, concentrate.

  *

  He spent the following day searching through the house, more carefully studying the contents of the cupboards and the drawers, going over the objects he found, running his hands along the material. He laid all of his own clothing together on the bed and attempted to arrange the collection chronologically, imagining the cycles and routines of his days. He emptied out the kitchen cupboards, examining the dry goods and imperishables, telling himself that he contained this, that these foods were a part of his diet and likely had been for some time. This was his life. He was brief with the doctor, submitting to the questions and tests quickly and quietly so that he could sooner resume his search. In the evening, tired, frustrated, disappointed at being no closer to unpacking his memory, he prepared for bed. Although he hadn’t taken the sedative – he’d crushed it with the heel of his hand and washed it down the sink – he still felt exhausted. He didn’t think he’d be able to stay awake. As he undressed in the bedroom, he looked at the tops of his arm, his neck, the hard case of paler skin progressing, insect-like, over the wounds, wondering what he had dreamed of, what had done this to him. Lying in the bed and turning off the cabinet lamp, he knew he might be leading himself back towards the source. He wanted this; he also feared it. He didn’t have a choice; he couldn’t risk missing something important. He had to remember. Whatever the doctor said, he had to do this.

  He climbed into bed, lying as usual on the left side, absently laying his hand over the empty part of the mattress. Adjusting to the darkness, he noted the small radio set on the cabinet on his side. Though the dial was turned off, he had the impression of hearing music, so faint it was almost imperceptible. He smiled, comforted. A sense of companionship, of no longer lying there alone. Another impression, an arm reaching over him towards the dial, the music again. Suddenly he could feel her, as if she were there beside him. The warmth of her arm rising, the material of her T-shirt brushing his skin, the statement of a languid, deeper pleasure, a comfort on the edge of sleep. He saw, again and again, her arm arcing, the pleasure she took in the act, the satisfaction in reaching for the music, switching off the dial, tumbling away to sleep. He wasn’t alone. He shared his life and it was beginning to come back to him. He wanted to feel, again, her arm over him, her body against him, her warmth in the bed. He settled into his pillow, imagining the moment again, exploring it infinitely, savouring it and luxuriating in it, knowing in full the tiniest sliver of movement that composed each part. Nothing could rival its ecstatic significance, a whole life, a universe, contained in and expressed by her arm lifting over him in the last part of the night, gently, faintly cutting the audio, the music still, for minutes after, seeming to echo, and stutter, and continue playing.

  XII

  It was still most likely we were witnessing an enduring, extended initiation period, that her behaviour would eventually stabilise and she would become more or less reintegrated as part of the group. But I continued to notice bizarre, improbable details. Her nests were astonishing. Each night, she built it to more than twice the height of the others’ – in Alice’s words, ‘exhibiting compensatory excess’. I considered that she was building in fear, trying to more fully banish the possibility of sighting her. Again, I wondered at what the animal had encountered, what horrors she had seen, what had happened on her journey. Beginning early and sometimes long into darkness she made a tall mound, a cone shape, inside which she was obscured entirely. Bonobos’ designs were always interesting, as I’d already seen with the younger male, and though little research had been done, it was believed individuals stamped unique and identifiable ‘prints’ onto their nests, that no two nests were the same and that with enough care the individual could be traced back from the nature of its building. The species built more elaborate and dense nests than common chimpanzees did, helped, among other reasons, by the animal’s frequent tendency to walk on two legs, freeing its forelimbs to gather. I hadn’t seen her constructing her nest – she disturbed easily and quickly so we were careful to stay at a distance, and it was difficult to make her out through the foliage and the approaching darkness. Jane, however, reported seeing her destroy her nest one morning, showing unusual energy and enthusiasm dismantling it with teeth and arms, flinging the pieces aside. She knew I would be interested and, after the animal had left, gathered what remained before it eroded entirely and took the small fragments back to our camp. There were several clumps – dirt, leaves and twigs – still matted in with resin and saliva. These segments, vertical cross-sections, enabled me to see the layered, thatched design and to note in it the beginnings of a spiral pattern. A single fig fruit, squashed and hard to make out, was embedded into the wall fragment. I felt a sudden chill, in the heat and torpor of my dank tent. Was she starving herself? Was she gathering up the food offered to her and gluing it onto her nest each night?

  From previous glimpses of the full height of her nests – she was exceptional, as far as I was aware, in destroying her nest each morning – I was able to sketch a reconstruction of the whole model. It was strange, completely atypical in the species. The concentric spiral pattern defining the walls seemed to adhere to strict mathematical constants. I was unsettled by the suggestion of mechanisation, of a designed, almost industrial elegance. We drew maps of the sub-groups’ movements through the day, recorded the position of the troop’s nests when they came together in the evenings and within this, night after night, I saw the same thing. Not only was she isolated within the troop, but she remained separated by an exactly constant distance. Somehow her conspecifics were able to position themselves around her by this invariant distance, irrespective of where in the forest they were placed. She must somehow have communicated to them, expressing how far away they should stay.

  I didn’t speak about this, aware how it would sound, knowing that what I was describing wasn’t strictly possible, but I continued to dwell on it. I thought of disease, something that appeared directly as shapeless and wild, unfathomable but which, both from extremely close and extremely distant perspectives, expressed certain mathematical regularities. I woke sweating from a dream image, the swirl and coil of a double helix rising up and revealed in global epidemiology maps charting infection rates from a super-virus. Did her conspecifics know to keep just far enough away to be protected from her? From the disease?

  It wasn’t just in her nest or her position each night: I heard it in her voice. Capturing this proved difficult, but one night we found the correct distance and in the morning listened back to her audio. Through the next day, it was all I could think about. Eventually evening came and the animals regathered and we returned to our camp. I took the device and lay on the hammock. Jane was standing in front of me, waving, smiling. She mentioned rice and I nodded, reattaching earphones. I kept playing it back. It was instinctively unpleasant to listen to, even after many repeats. I wondered whether it had the same effect on al
l primates, a kind of pan-genus sympathy. The cry wasn’t panicked; it wasn’t an eruption or a plea for help. There was control and restraint inside. She was alerting the troop to the danger, but not only that. I checked: the gaps between the sounds were the same, identical: 1.4 seconds, unwavering. I knew what she was doing – she was trying to restore order. She was terrified. Whatever was happening – around her, inside her – she didn’t understand, and she was scared. She was protesting whatever was happening and enacting it too. She slowed down her pulse, drawing herself in; she was dying. At first I thought it was an effort to stabilise and control anxiety, to dampen the heat and excess of her terrified and quickly beating heart, lock herself into a slower rhythm, limit the heat and movement and noise she made in an effort to elude the animal, the predator. But there was no predator, there was just herself, in her nest, sick. Her voice was the sound of the rhythm of the disease, the vacillating heat and tempo of the fever. None of this was deliberate, it was just happening, all of it was happening, and I couldn’t explain it. I felt my centre swaying and dipping – my body, my heart, my breath – and I recognised the rhythm. I was dipping and swaying in the hammock to the tempo she expressed. I knew what was going to happen but that didn’t mean I was able to forestall it. As best as I could, I gathered myself up and launched off the hammock, bending and manipulating my weight and pressing onto the material so I was able to get down from the height. I ran, though as I looked down my feet appeared to be making no progress, to be going over the same spot of earth again and again, and eventually, somehow, I found myself vomiting in the trees.

  I assured them it was nothing. I admitted it all, the sickness coming every second day, sometimes several consecutive days, but maintained I was otherwise perfectly healthy, that after each bout of sickness I was able to continue in a completely neutral frame of mind. Besides, what option did I have? We couldn’t abandon the work. I am not stupid; I am not so irresponsible as to put you or the animals in any danger, I said. My symptoms don’t conform to any known virus; I am sure of it, I repeated.