The Female of the Species

by Lionel Shriver

  “We’re in extra-special trouble today.”

  There was a strain to her voice, but after such a scene he’d expect that. “So you came back,” he said, still focused on his monument, “to admit you don’t mind being a goddess. Why don’t we have a drink on it, Kaiser?”

  Charles put his knife and grasses down and turned around just as Gray was saying, “Maybe two.” Though her vision was dancing, Gray did succeed in watching Corgie’s face go through a transformation—all its cockiness sloughed off. Gray wondered if she’d ever seen Charles look—serious. “Jesus fucking Christ,” said Charles, reaching immediately for the board on which Gray’s arm was laid, and taking her swiftly to lie on his bed.

  Gray kept trying to explain reasonably what had happened and to warn him about Odinaye while Charles cleaned her up, but he kept telling her to shut up, and finally she did. Gray did not protest when Charles took off all her clothes, which were caked with mud and soaked through; he undressed her tenderly, but also with a careful asexual air. She was surprised she didn’t mind lying before him naked. Without embarrassment she let him sponge her clean. He covered her slim, shivering body with a blanket. At last he reached for her left arm, swabbing it delicately. Gray turned her head to the side and pressed her cheek into the pillow.

  There seemed to be a commotion building outside.

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Charles, pushing her back down.

  The sound got more insistent. Waves of discontented murmuring washed through the room.

  “You know, Kaiser,” said Corgie softly, brushing the matted hair away from her forehead, “we’re going to have to put that bone of yours back. You might need it someday.”

  Gray nodded, and tried to smile. “I had,” she said, “grown rather attached—”

  “Shut up,” said Charles fondly.

  Outside, there were shouts. For a few bars the crowd struck up a chorus. Its words were unmistakable: “White skin! Red blood!” Il-Ororen shouted. “White skin! Red blood!”

  Charles acted as if he heard nothing. “I’m going to get you some honey wine. I’d give my right arm right now—if you’ll forgive the expression—for a good bottle of brandy, but then it would also be nice to have morphine and a hospital and the entire faculty of Yale Medical School. Wine will have to do.” Corgie started out the door, paused, turned back to take his gun. As he walked out of the cabin the crowd grew silent.

  “Dugon.” He spoke calmly in Il-Ororen to one of the natives in the front row. “Bring me two jugs of honey wine.”

  Dugon looked at the warriors on either side of him and then at the ground. He shifted his weight from foot to foot.

  “Dugon,” said Corgie with exaggerated patience, “did you hear me? I meant now.”

  “Il-Cor-gie,” said Dugon, not looking Charles in the eye, “is it true about Ol-Kai-zer? That her bones break and her flesh bleeds?”

  “Dugon,” said Charles, bearing down on the warrior with those eyes of his that could do their work awfully well when they had to—even if Dugon was already convinced that Charles was a mere mortal, he was discovering it didn’t make much difference. “You changed the subject. We were speaking of wine.”

  Yet Dugon was surrounded by warriors who made small motions of discouragement; Dugon looked up at Corgie with an expression of appeal.

  Charles let his gun dangle down toward Dugon’s head. “Remember this?” Dugon nodded. “Do you doubt my magic enough to test it? Because whether or not Ol-Kai-zer bleeds may be in question; whether or not you do is not.”

  Dugon bolted from the crowd. Corgie watched him go, and waited for his wine serenely, looking down at Il-Ororen as if holding court.

  “Odinaye claims Ol-Kai-zer bleeds!” a native braved at last. “Show us the arm of Ol-Kai-zer!”

  “Since when,” said Corgie, “do you tell me to do anything?”

  Since never. His eyes razed the crowd, rich and dangerous. Il-Ororen went silent, back in church. Corgie stood over them, his eyes rather than his gun poised, aimed at them, cocked, until Dugon ran back with a jug of wine sloshing in each hand. He stopped, breathing hard, and then lifted them reverently to Corgie on his porch. With one final freezing glance, Corgie turned his back on Il-Ororen and returned to Gray.

  “Intimidation isn’t going to hold them very long,” said Gray dully from the bed.

  “Why not? It’s held them for five years. Now, drink this.” Gray had several sips, then shook her head. “More.” He poured it in her mouth until the wine dribbled down her chin.

  “Just like a man,” said Gray, wiping the wine away with her good arm. “Trying to get me drunk.”

  “That’s right,” said Charles, “this is what I should have done to you a long time ago.” Charles leaned over and kissed her lightly between the eyes. “Now drink some more.”

  “No, Charles, I can’t. It’s just making me sick. Besides, it’s not going to make that much difference and you know it.”

  Charles stood up and sighed; Gray realized that he was interested in getting her drunk partly in order to put off resetting her arm. Charles looked down at it, its temporary dressing beginning to show red; his face paled.

  “You don’t know what you’re doing, do you?”

  “I bluff with them all the time,” said Corgie, gesturing outside. “This…”

  “You’re not in your train set anymore.”

  Charles looked up and down the length of Gray Kaiser, as if memorizing her hard. “You do seem life-size.”

  “Go ahead, Charles.”

  It was one thing to shoot a piece of clay in the chest; it was quite another to work the bone back into the skin of a woman who actually existed. Corgie took a long swig of wine.

  Corgie picked up her arm and put it down again. Breathed. Tried again. Breathed.

  Charles did it. He straightened her arm, and worked that horrible red thing back inside her limb, closing the folds of her flesh over the bone, burying the secret of her mortality back where it belonged. He took one of the sticks from his model monument as a splint and swathed the break with parachute silk. When he was finished, the sweat was pouring down his cheeks as freely as down Gray’s. Breathing heavily, they wiped the moisture from each other’s face.

  The chant outside had changed. “Show the arm of Ol-Kaizer!”

  “Maybe we should show it to them,” said Charles. “They might be impressed. I did a good job.” And Charles did seem more proud of this achievement than she had ever seen him be of his dominance over Il-Ororen, or even of his precious architecture.

  The tone of the gathering outside was angrier now. It sounded like nothing less than a lynch mob. Once in a while a stone hit the side of the cabin.

  Gray lay on the bed, trying to keep her mind steady, for she felt she’d need a clear head soon. She was right. Corgie began to clean his gun.

  “I’m sorry,” said Gray.

  “For what?”

  “For that uproar. It’s my fault.”

  Corgie stopped oiling his trigger. “It’s not your fault you broke your goddamned arm. I mean, you’re not a god, are you? Isn’t that the whole goddamned problem? I swear, you get into this stuff too deep, you start believing it, and you look down at a cut on your arm and, sure, the natives are surprised you bleed, but the thing is, so are you. Well, we bleed. And it’s hard enough to go around bleeding all over the goddamned place without feeling guilty about it. I mean, for Christ’s sake, Kaiser, doesn’t it hurt?”

  Gray shrugged, winced, let her shoulders carefully back down.

  Charles went back to cleaning his gun, ramming the rod down its barrel. “I’m telling you,” he continued, thrusting the rod in and out, “you’ve seen too many real, real stupid movies, Kaiser. The old ones, maybe, without any sound. God, give me a woman who screams once in a while. Give me a woman who cries sometimes, and who throws her arms around your goddamned neck and begs for forgiveness—”

  “Forgiveness!”

  “Woman looks down at a broken arm
as if she’s some kind of robot with a few wires cut. Comes in here to be repaired. Practically took out my soldering iron by mistake, Kaiser.”

  A rain of stones pattered against the front wall of the cabin.

  “Charles,” Gray asked carefully, “have they ever gotten upset like this before?”

  “No.” He tried to sound casual.

  “Charles,” said Gray, “your airplane doesn’t work, does it?”

  Corgie laughed, beautifully. “I’d love to be in that movie of yours, Kaiser. The one where the two of us leave in a cloud of dust and turn into a speck in the sky. That’s a nice ending.”

  “You mean it doesn’t,” said Gray heavily.

  “Of course, then there’s the helium balloon.”

  “What?”

  “You know, when I give Odinaye an honorary degree for being so smart—and hell, a purple heart for bravery; the guy’s first-rate, let’s face it—and float off and leave the Emerald City behind.”

  “And I click my heels. We’ve made these jokes before.”

  “For once in my life I have more important things to think about than new jokes. We’re going to have to make do with the old ones.”

  The whole cabin shook. Corgie checked out the window and shot over the head of a man grappling up a stilt; the warrior dropped back to the ground.

  “Charles, what if they storm the cabin? Are the two of us just going to pick them off as fast as they come?”

  “Us! Since when do you approve of shooting people?”

  She looked down. “Since now, maybe.”

  “No, Gray,” said Charles sadly. “We might squelch this for a little while, but one rifle is nothing. Here this gun is like a scepter. The kingdom’s falling, Gray, and without a kingdom a scepter is a stick. Now, come here.” She came over to the window wrapped in a blanket; keeping an eye outside, Corgie made her a sling. He told her while he tied the knot, “I’ve always wanted to be in a revolution. I’m just surprised to end up on this side of things is all.” The cabin shook again; Charles turned away from his handiwork with tired irritation, to shoot once more over the head of a would-be visitor and have him drop to the ground. “Show the arm of Ol-Kai-zer!” rang through the room.

  “Would it help if I went out to them?” asked Gray.

  “They’d run you straight through,” said Charles calmly. “Christ-like, but still not very appealing. Now, go get dressed. Put together a little food and a knife and some water. Pronto.” He gave her a pat on the ass, as if treating himself to a moment of pleasant masculine condescension.

  “What for?”

  “You’re going on a trip. The back pole is still an exit they don’t know about. The trail is covered in brush all the way to the cliffs, right? Now get going.”

  “Then,” she said uncertainly, “I should put together enough food and water for two.”

  Charles fired another shot. When he turned around again he looked angry. “Don’t just stand there,” he said in the same tone he used with Il-Ororen. “Move it.”

  “But why—”

  “Idiot! How are the two of us going to saunter off into the horizon? With the music playing and the sun setting and the credits rolling happily down the screen? Why don’t you use your mind a little when we actually need it? They’re mad at me, Kaiser. Haven’t you noticed? They’re peeved. They’re peeved at you, too, gracious agricultural consultant that you might have been. Our friends have been had, darling. They want in here. No one is sliding down that back pole without someone else at this window with a gun. It may be only a scepter but it still packs a punch. Now pack up and get the hell out of here before it’s too late, and we both end up skewered on the same spear like one big messianic brochette.”

  “But, Charles, why don’t I take the gun and you slide down the pole?”

  Charles looked at her squarely. “Is that an offer?”

  “Yes,” said Gray. She drew her blanket closer around her and looked away from Charles, embarrassed. She didn’t know what she was doing. She’d said yes because it sounded nice. That wasn’t enough.

  Charles said nothing until she looked back at him, at a face that was haggard and regretful. It was a face that knew what it was doing. “You couldn’t,” said Charles. “Your arm…Besides, I might be able to talk them out of this. You’d never swing that. You don’t have the clout.”

  “But all those Kenyans you’ve shot. If one, why not two…Remember?”

  “Your first morning here. You were excellent,” said Charles with satisfaction. “You impressed me enormously that day.”

  “But you said there was no limit.”

  “And you said there was.” Charles smiled philosophically, glancing out the window to find the natives were getting restless. Once more, though, he did not fire into the crowd but shot off a tree branch over their heads. It crackled and fell, scattering Africans beneath it. Charles turned back to Gray. “Well, touché. You were right.”

  “What’s the limit, Charles?”

  “You,” he said readily.

  “That’s it?”

  “Yep. Just you.” The simplicity seemed to please him.

  Gray would not understand this for a long time. Already projecting herself into this coming confusion, Gray asked Charles one more thing: “Even if I make it—later, how is this going to make me feel?”

  “Alive, for one thing,” said Charles. “Swell. And maybe lousy, too.” Gray still didn’t move, so Charles had to explain patiently, “You’ll feel like you owe somebody something. And you will. Just not me. Pass it on. Give him my regards.” And then Charles looked out the window again, in a pang of jealousy over someone who, as it turns out, was not yet born.

  Gray went to her corner, dressed, and packed her knapsack. It must have sickened her to remember to take the rolls of film, the tapes, all her notes—to even now be planning on cashing in on her “study” should she succeed in returning home. It would have been a relief then, when Corgie instructed her from the window, “Don’t forget those notes of yours, Kaiser. You write all this up and you get this published, understand? I want to be immortal somehow.”

  When she finished packing, Charles carefully threaded the strap of her knapsack around the sling. A spear flew through the window and lodged in Corgie’s mattress. They did not make a joke about it. Gray looked at the spear, deep in the bed. Feathers from the hole floated up through the air and caught in Gray’s hair. Corgie picked them out one by one. All the sourness was gone from his face, the vengeful glimmer. There were a lot of things to say, but it was too late for all of them, so the two kept quiet and stones rattled against the door and Charles Corgie kissed Gray Kaiser, ol-murani, goodbye.

  In the oddest way, Gray did not quite enjoy it. It was, simply, not the kiss of two people who had loved each other hard and had to part. It was the kiss of two people who had fought each other up until the very last minute. It was a reminder, in its unfamiliarity, of what they had not been doing.

  Charles helped her down the pole from above. That hand extended, keeping her poised above the ground for a moment before it let go—the long, tired tendons, the skin still dark and oily from cleaning his gun—was the last she saw of him. Silently she crept through the brushy pathway to the forest, making her way to the trail she’d followed down the cliffs on the way here. Deftly, dutifully, quietly, she hiked the narrow switchbacks, while behind her the rhythm of Corgie’s rifle increased steadily, like a final salute. Yet soon after she started up the mountain, the firing stopped altogether. Gray decided she was too high to hear anymore. Later, when she could no longer see into the valley, she was sure she heard an explosion she couldn’t explain.

  While the pain in her arm was keen, Gray was grateful for its steady distraction. It was despite the wound rather than because of it that Il-Ororen might have made out down her cheeks the tears which far more than blood proved her a human being.

  The trip back was grueling work, and Gray bore down on it. She slept poorly, with the snarl of cheetahs at the
edge of her ear. Gray told Errol later that those days on the trail she was as close to being “an animal” as she’d ever come, in a compulsive, dead migration to the rest of her herd. The body persevered. The mind went numb, speaking only to say: Don’t step there; avoid those ants; this branch is in your way.

  She did make it to Hassatti’s tribe. Though in a fever, she refused to rest more than a couple of hours and insisted on being taken to Nairobi right away. She wouldn’t talk about what had happened, and made the bumpy trip in a pickup truck in silence. When she reached the city, she hired a man to take her in a small prop plane over the peaks of Kilimanjaro.

  During most of this trip, too, she didn’t speak, nor did she explain her purpose. She gave her pilot directions until she recognized the deep valley surrounded by the plunging cliffs she’d stared up at so often from the hammock on Corgie’s veranda. She told the pilot to fly closer; circling, the plane drew lower. Trees obscured the muddy huts, but Gray was not looking for traditional architecture.

  “Wait,” she said, “this might not be the place.” Gray scanned back and forth across the valley. “Closer.”

  The plane swept lower, and Gray wondered how Il-Ororen must feel, seeing another god fly by—were they ready for their next messiah? No, surely they’d made do with the old one. Charles was such a resourceful man, he had that way of talking to them—and they’d always listened to him in the end, always. Well, they enjoyed him, didn’t they? He was a fun god. Most certainly he’d pulled something. And wouldn’t Charles be surprised when they landed roughly between banana trees and Gray Kaiser stepped out of the cockpit, smiling, finally able to kiss him and take him up in the sky with the credits rolling?

  Gray’s eyes darted across the familiar valley, panicked. “This can’t be right,” she said. “Maybe these valleys look a lot the same, I don’t know…”

  There was no tower. There was no treehouse, no gym, no cathedral. The plane flew closer in, at Gray’s insistence, to the pilot’s distress, until, there—she got her bearings. Gray fell back in her seat.