by Ned Beauman
The following month, he learnt that one of the cooks in his boarding house at Winchester had been committed to an asylum after trying to attack a boy with a skillet, and he became interested in insanity. So the next time he was in London he went on a walk from Rutland Gate in Kensington to the cabstand at the east end of Green Park, and on the way he pretended that everything he saw, human or animal, animate or inanimate, was a spy sent by a foreign power. By the time he got to the cabstand, he could divide the horses into those with pricked-up ears who were openly watching him and those with floppy ears who were pretending not to. Terrified, he ran back to the United Universities Club. He didn’t feel better until the next day, when he began his fourth experiment, which was to investigate idolatry. He put a calabash pipe on his desk and stared at it, insisting to himself that it had the power to reward or punish the behaviour of all men. Very gradually, as the hours passed, he felt a sort of reverence developing for the pipe, but he had to go to dinner before he could really bring himself to get on his knees before the thing.
In the end, these experiments frightened him. He didn’t like to think about how easy it was to demean and diminish the human intellect. More and more often, as he fell asleep after a difficult day, a particular image appeared before him. It was of a great noble building on top of a hill, a marvel of pillars and turrets, somewhere between a castle and a monastery and a stately home. But through every room and hall and corridor and staircase in the building ran a bloody, translucent, glistening tube as thick as his torso, with no beginning or end, that shuddered in a constant squelching peristalsis, staining the carpets and smearing the windows. And every so often, for no apparent reason, one knot of this intestinal beast would contract, tighter and tighter, until an entire tower or wing of the building cracked and crumbled and then toppled down the hill. The place could be rebuilt each time, but you never knew which section you would lose next, and if you tried to hack the viscid worm in half with an axe or a hammer it would just regrow, and the following day you would find it blocking the door to the pantry or twisting beneath your bedsheets. Even when he deliberately tried to picture the tube withered away to dust and the building unbesmirched, he couldn’t hold the thought for more than an instant before he saw its red flesh again.
By the time Sinner was living in his flat, however, this image didn’t come to him nearly so often, but only because now, if he was specifically trying not to think about something, it tended to be the angel child.
After that trip to Poland in November, and the terrible incident in bed with Gittins, he had for a short time returned to self-experimentation, determined that it should be possible never to ejaculate in his sleep or wake up with an erection again. Eating half a pound of liquorice a day had failed to muffle his libido, but he had discovered that if he masturbated about once every ten days he could achieve a sort of homeostasis.
Masturbation, however, was troublesome – though not, to Erskine, for the traditional moral reasons. He found the Bible unpersuasive, and the only reference his housemaster at Winchester had ever made to the male sexual urge was one short, uneasy interview in his study: Dr Paisey had asked Erskine, ‘Do you understand the difference between a bull and a bullock?’, and when Erskine had said, ‘Yes’, he had sent him away, apparently satisfied that he had done his duty. Still, Erskine had read a lot about masturbation since then, because it often came up in older books about race improvement. Joseph Howe, for instance, claimed that masturbation caused acne, pallor, dull eyes, a furry tongue, constipation, tuberculosis, epilepsy, hypochondria, insanity and, worst of all, ‘debilitated sperm’, which would in turn produce nothing but runts, weaklings and females. It was largely because of the influence of Howe and his faction that even the richest boarding schools in England refused to give up their open dormitories, coarse linens, doorless lavatories, cold showers and exhausting timetables of physical exercise, although of course these measures were generally now attributed to the toughening of the manly character rather than to the prevention of self-abuse. Rationally, Erskine knew there was scant medical evidence for Howe’s claims, but he still couldn’t help feeling that as a pioneer of eugenics he shouldn’t be so careless with his procreative serum (although he often reminded himself that Galton’s own marriage was childless). So sometimes he masturbated and sometimes he didn’t, and when he did, it took great discipline to prevent either the bloody worm in the castle or the angel child from coming into his head uninvited, to the point where he would begin each reluctant session with the self-defeating declaration, ‘I must not think of. …’
But of course the trip to Poland had renewed his experimentation in more ways than one. He had brought back to England dozens of live specimens of the beetle he had discovered. At first, because of the swastika, he had wanted to name it Anophthalmus hitleri – but then he decided that this species was not quite a supreme leader like the Reichsführer, but rather a forerunner, a John the Baptist, a hymenopterous herald. So instead he called it Anophthalmus himmleri, and hoped that Anophthalmus hitleri would come later, somehow. Five or six days a week, he studied the beetle in his laboratory in his new flat in Clerkenwell. That was also where he studied Sinner.
He could still hardly believe that the boy was here in his flat. On his return from Poland in the autumn, Erskine had noticed that Sinner never appeared in Boxing any more. So, even though after his humiliation at Premierland he’d promised himself that he would never try to see the boy again, he went back there, hoping to speak to someone who might know where Sinner was; but he couldn’t bring himself to approach any of the seedy figures hanging around the gates, so the only conversation he had was with a newspaper hawker who stood outside a secondhand furniture shop shouting, ‘London Jewish Sentry, one penny! For Jews only! One penny! London Jewish Sentry, strictly for Jews!’ As Erskine went past the hawker broke off his stilted patter and said, ‘Would you like one, sir?’
Erskine turned. ‘Is that a joke?’
‘I’m sorry, sir?’
‘Do I look Jewish to you?’ said Erskine angrily, although he now noticed that the hawker didn’t look Jewish himself and also didn’t sound anything like a Cockney.
‘It’s only a penny.’
‘Are you mentally deficient?’
The hawker just cringed and thrust the newspaper at him. Erskine took it, intending to fling it pointedly into the gutter, but instead of asking for money the hawker thanked him, turned away and resumed his shouting.
Sitting in a cab on the way back to Clerkenwell, Erskine glanced over what he’d been given. Written for some reason in English, not Yiddish, it was really no more than a pamphlet, with about half a dozen articles and no advertisements. The main headline was ‘JEWISH-RUN MERCHANT BANKS FIND GREAT SUCCESS IN LONDON – Celebration across Hebrew world as permanent conquest of financial markets now assured, achieving in Britain what has already been achieved in Germany.’ There was also a cheerful report on the spread of Bolshevism in certain Welsh mining villages, a leader exhorting Jewish shop owners not to give jobs or fair prices to non-Jews, and on the back page some ‘frank advice’ to Jewish men on how to marry a girl from a rich English family, including a warning to ‘taste the fruit before you purchase the orchard’.
On any other day Erskine probably would have been very intrigued, but all he could think about then was how to find the boy. In the end, he hired a man from an agency in Camden which advertised in The Times, but the man could only report that Sinner was rumoured to be down and out somewhere around Blackfriars, so Erskine had resumed the hunt himself – and struck lucky. He hadn’t consciously intended to bring Sinner back to his flat for experiments: he just wanted to know where Sinner was. But when he saw the boy’s pathetic condition, he had realised there was a bargain to be made. And now, three days after they had met in the street, Sinner was standing naked in Erskine’s laboratory while Erskine took detailed notes on his anatomy. It had been an ordeal to wait even that long, but there would have been no point in beginning his
work while his subject could still barely stand.
‘Turn around,’ said Erskine, and Sinner did, so that he was facing the glass tanks full of soil, like inside-out coffins, in which Erskine kept his insects. Erskine studied Sinner’s buttocks, comparing them in his mind to those of the Polish boy, and comparing them in his notebook to those of a normal healthy male. Did that particular part of the body belong to Sinner’s stuntedness or to his strength or to the contradiction between the two? His penis certainly belonged to his strength: it would have been big on anyone, and on a boy of less than five foot was almost grotesque, particularly to Erskine, who had never quite got over the shock that real men did not resemble Greek statues in the British Museum. Back at Premierland, Sinner’s muscles had looked so firm that they could almost have been the exoskeleton of an insect, and although they’d softened they were still marvellous. Several times Erskine sketched the perfect little crease between Sinner’s buttocks and the backs of his thighs. He wondered if he would have to destroy the notebook later.
This went on for about an hour, although to Erskine it seemed to pass in minutes. Then he went to his club, where he found himself unable to make even the most primitive conversation. On Monday Erskine asked Sinner, just out of the bath, to assume a variety of positions: one foot up on a chair, then a boxer’s crouch, then bent over. By the end, the boy seemed to be half enjoying it. ‘Don’t you want this one?’ he asked, putting his fists up and cocking his head. ‘This is what the snappers always get me to do.’
‘I am not a cheap newspaper,’ said Erskine.
On Tuesday, he used a tape and calipers to take measurements. He didn’t allow himself to touch Sinner’s goose-pimpled skin with his fingers, but while Erskine was on his knees taking the circumference of Sinner’s thigh the boy’s penis began to stiffen. Just as with the angel child, Erskine couldn’t look and couldn’t look away. But on Sinner’s face was a rare half-smile, and Erskine realised with disgust that this was a deliberate attempt to goad him. As punishment, Erskine pressed the points of the steel calipers into the skin of Sinner’s left calf as hard as he could until they produced two beads of blood, but the boy didn’t flinch and didn’t lose his erection. Erskine dropped his equipment and left the room, wondering if he ought to prepare a bucket of ice water for the next session; wondering, deeper down, if he ought to prepare two buckets.
On Wednesday, still shaken, Erskine left Sinner alone. But on Thursday, in the laboratory, he said to him, ‘I need a sample of your ejaculate.’
‘My what?’ The boy was shuffling around in a shirt and trousers that belonged to his host, both absurdly baggy on him. Erskine preferred it when he wore a dressing gown because it reminded him of his first sight of Sinner as a pugilist, climbing into the ring at Premierland. He knew he would eventually have to order Sinner some new clothes – he already had all the measurements a tailor could possibly need – but he was reluctant to do anything that would make it easier for the boy to amble out into the world beyond the flat.
‘Er. …’
‘You want me to shoot my load.’
Erskine nodded and handed Sinner a test tube. ‘I wish to study it under the microscope for abnormalities.’ He had not yet had the courage to study his own sperm for signs of masturbatory debilitation.
‘How do you want me to do it?’
‘I’m sure you know exactly what. …’
‘Will you do it for me?’
Erskine coughed. ‘No, I will not. This is science.’
‘Are you going to watch?’
‘No!’ shouted Erskine. Then he went out of the laboratory and stood in the drawing room humming to himself. A few minutes later Sinner called out, ‘I’ve done it,’ and he went back in. Sinner held out his cupped hand, ootheca oozing between his fingertips. The test tube was on the desk, empty.
‘I specifically told you to use the apparatus,’ said Erskine in a voice like glass.
‘Thing was too cold.’
‘You’ll have to do it again.’
‘Don’t you want it?’ said Sinner, and raised his hand to Erskine’s face as if to smear the fluid on him. Erskine screamed, backed out of the laboratory again and locked the door from the outside. There was a pause, then Sinner began to rattle the door handle.
‘Let me out.’
‘I will in a moment.’
‘Let me out or I’ll smash this door and then I’ll smash your face.’
‘Don’t threaten me! You can’t threaten me! Remember your condition!’ But the entire door was squeaking and juddering on its hinges. How could the boy have regained so much of his strength already? Could he really break down the door?
Then the juddering stopped. Erskine felt a moment of triumph.
‘Actually, perhaps it’s best if you stay in there for a few hours. You can meditate on gratitude and respect and—’
‘And your precious beetles,’ taunted Sinner back through the door.
‘What?’
‘I’ve been wanting to meet them properly. I think they watch me while I’m doing poses for you.’
‘Do not touch them!’ screeched Erskine. He rushed to unlock the door, but as soon as the key turned the door flew open, knocking him on to his back. Sinner stood over him, fists clenched, teeth bared. Then the boy raised his bare foot, ready to stamp on Erskine’s face.
‘For God’s sake remember what I’ve done for you,’ whimpered Erskine.
The boy brought his foot down with a thump on the floorboards just next to Erskine’s head, then sneered and walked unhurriedly on into the spare bedroom.
After a moment Erskine got to his feet, went back into the laboratory and looked around for any damage. There was none, except that his notebook was open on the desk and the pages were sticky. The boy was an animal, he thought. He locked the door behind him, went back to the desk, bent down and several times inhaled deeply the smell of the notebook, which stuck to his brain like candle wax spilled on bare skin. Then he burnt the notebook in the grate in the sitting room. He felt sick, and unpleasantly alive.
The following day Sinner wouldn’t come out of his room.
‘Seth,’ said Erskine through the door. ‘Come on. You must be hungry.’
It was the first time that Erskine had called Sinner that, and indeed the first time in months that anyone at all had used the name. It made him uneasy. ‘Go and grow a wooden tongue,’ he said.
‘Is that from the Yiddish? How charming. My point is, I’m sorry if you were upset by what happened yesterday.’
‘Upset? You’re the one who nearly pissed your pants.’
‘Either way, let’s forget it.’
‘What the fuck did you say the point of all this was, anyway?’ replied Sinner.
‘What?’
‘I know you’ve got some excuse for it all. I know you’ve got your magical fucking science.’
‘Quite. I have some theories that I want to test. And you’re right, you ought to understand your place in them. If you come outside, perhaps I can explain.’
Sinner opened the door. Erskine went to the kitchen and poured a brandy for himself and a ‘beer’ for Sinner, which was in fact Welch’s Malt Tonic, virtually non-alcoholic, recommended for ‘convalescents, nursing mothers, sufferers from insomnia and dyspepsia’. He’d ordered two cases after it became clear that Sinner, in his current condition, couldn’t tell the difference. The boy had not, so far, demanded gin or whisky, and Erskine suspected that Sinner was not quite as oblivious to his own wellbeing as he pretended to be.
They sat in the drawing room.
‘Do you know anything at all about racial improvement?’ said Erskine.
Sinner didn’t answer. He could tell that he was about to get a lecture at least as long as Pearl’s in New York; here was the same pompous urge he seemed to arouse everywhere he went. Even some of the posh sissies he’d picked up in the weeks before he went to St Panteleimon’s had given him monologues as foreplay. It was always boring. On the other hand, he did want to fin
d out what Erskine’s pretext was for keeping him here. He hadn’t felt any gratitude to the staff at St Panteleimon’s – they did what they did because their stodgy god told them to and they wanted to get to heaven – and he didn’t feel any gratitude to Erskine, either. He’d known a very few truly unselfish people in his life – Anna, maybe Frink, maybe one or two others – and Erskine was no more one of them than Albert Kölmel.
‘Well, you understand at least that if you want one day to produce … it doesn’t matter what … say, a dog that runs very fast – then you let certain dogs breed, but not others, depending on how speedy they are? You see? Good. But what if you have one dog that is very intelligent and watchful indeed, but is born with crippled hind legs? You can let it mate with the others, but then you may set yourself back by several generations with regard to speed. Or you can neuter it, but then you may never get another dog that is so intelligent and watchful. What do you do?’
‘Get a police horse instead.’
‘Very droll, but no: normally, you might neuter the crippled dog, let brains be damned. You do so for the sake of the other dogs and their eventual young. Carr-Sanders puts it very well.’ He’d memorised the quotation for a poorly attended lecture he’d given at the UUC, and he recited it now in a lecturer’s voice. ‘“It is the net effect which alone is relevant; the occasional production of a gifted individual from a defective stock, which is theoretically possible as a rare phenomenon, cannot compensate for prevalence of defect, especially when it is remembered that by eliminating defect and raising the average fitness we are really making the appearance of highly gifted individuals far more likely.” Although actually he’s talking about human beings there. And he’s quite right, because it’s the same with Jews, for instance. Jews, by and large, are greedy and traitorous and unpleasant, which is why so many great minds believe they ought to be driven out of civilised society. I know you won’t be offended because those are just the facts.’
