Soul

by Tobsha Learner

  She slipped the needle into his vein. He inhaled sharply, then smiled crookedly. ‘I’m not real good with needles.’

  ‘Almost done. I was asking about your brother…’

  ‘We’ve emailed but we haven’t met yet.’

  The syringe was a quarter full, the entire matrix of Winston Ramirez’s lineage concealed in that small amount of blood.

  ‘He’s taken a posting in Afghanistan too,’ Winston went on. ‘He’s going to arrive a day after me. Between me and you, ma’am, it’s weird—like, we ask each other the same questions at the same time.’

  ‘But you must be excited about meeting him?’

  ‘I am. But also I’m a little scared—maybe we won’t get on…’

  ‘Twin brothers, similar hobbies, similar ambitions—you’ll like him.’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not.’

  Julia pulled the needle out and pressed a cotton ball against the welling puncture, then taped a plaster strip over it.

  Winston pulled on his shirt, then leant over and clicked the tape recorder off.

  ‘This is off the record, but ma’am, have you ever wondered why the department’s suddenly got someone like you on the case?’

  Sensing a slight threat under the question, Julia didn’t answer.

  Winston continued, ‘I guess it’s because of what happened in Brazil last year. A lot of taxpayers’ dollars went up in that operation—a few guys at the top probably did some heavy-duty soul-searching afterwards.’

  ‘What operation in Brazil?’

  He buttoned up his shirt and grinned a teasing half-smile.

  ‘If you don’t know, I ain’t telling.’

  Julia sat in a Starbucks at the edge of one of the gated communities south of the border. The gridwork of mock-Mediterranean mansions with recently planted bougainvillea tacked against their stucco walls was visible from the freeway, the fecund irrigated landscape a vivid emerald—the artifice of the great Californian dream. Outside the fence, the native scrubland was a burnt brown.

  Sipping her coffee, Julia studied the marine’s file. The twins’ biological parents both had criminal records, with the father showing characteristics of extreme violence, suggesting a genetic basis to the twins’ violent disposition. She needed to locate the parents, take blood samples and brain scans, and find out about their own parents—the twins’ grandparents. Julia was excited by the notion of tracing the lineage of the trait until she noticed a footnote at the bottom of the page: Parents deceased. It was like coasting down a road only to discover it was a dead end.

  The thought led her to her own ancestry, to a memory of sitting on her father’s lap and questioning him about Lavinia Huntington and the awkward expression that traversed his face as he evaded some of her questions. What had really gone wrong with her great-grandmother’s marriage, she wondered now.

  Her coffee was cold. Julia stared out at the Mexican gardener fastidiously blowing leaves from one side of the path to the other. It was one of those timeless sunny days that transformed everything—the sky, the freeways, the malls—into oblongs of colour: salmon-red, beige, pale indigo. Looking around, she realised she was in a landscape of consumerism, with all the recognisable totems found in any corner of the country: McDonald’s, Dunkin’ Donuts, In an’ Out Burgers, Riteway, Borders—a two-dimensional environment that felt unanchored and impermanent, as if it could all float away at any moment. Is everything expedient, Julia wondered—marriages, houses, cars, identity?

  Crushing her polystyrene cup, she attempted to dismiss the sudden image of Klaus clowning for her in the mall car park. As recollection jabbed her sharply between the temples, she understood exactly what Winston Ramirez had meant by the phrase ‘morally wronged’; she knew his anger.

  32

  Mayfair, 1861

  COLONEL HUNTINGTON STOOD in the centre of his study, holding aloft a skull whose cranium was carefully marked into divisions with red ink, like the topography of a recently discovered planet. Behind him, the glass doors of the display bureau housing his collection of skulls and artefacts stood open.

  Hamish Campbell, dressed in a striped sack suit, sat near the Colonel, writing neatly into a leather-bound notebook. Lavinia sat by the fireplace.

  ‘As you know,’ the Colonel said, ‘I am an associate member of the Anthropological Society of Paris, but despite my friendship with Monsieur Paul Broca, I disagree with his notion of measuring intelligence by the size of the brain. I side with Broca’s rival, Louis Pierre Gratiolet, who believes that brain size bears no relationship to intelligence.’

  Surprised, the young man looked up. ‘Surely you don’t also believe there is equal intelligence between men and women, even between races?’

  ‘Is that so preposterous?’

  ‘Preposterous? It’s ridiculous. You just have to observe the behaviours of savages or of women. For example, have you ever seen a man lose his logic and engage in a fit of hysteria?’

  ‘Have you ever observed a boxing match, my good fellow?’

  ‘Regularly, sir. And I’ll have you know, I regard pugilism as a highly sophisticated and controlled ritual that requires considerable manifestation of intelligence.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ conceded the Colonel, ‘but, unlike Gratiolet, who still believes the intellectual inferiority of women and natives can be measured by earlier closure of the skull sutures, I suspect our capacity to measure intelligence is too narrow. There has been far too much emphasis on the importance of craniology in anthropology; I myself have been guilty of this. However, I do not entirely dismiss the importance of phrenology, particularly in the diagnosis of pathology—but I digress.’

  ‘But, with respect, sir, you cannot afford to doubt your own research. That would make you a heretic within the movement,’ Campbell blurted, distressed by the Colonel’s argument.

  ‘Indeed. It should be noted that Gratiolet is a self-declared Royalist, whereas I regard myself as a follower of Gladstone. Is our destiny to be shaped solely by the size of our brain, our race or our sex? I find myself wondering whether nurture has rather more to do with shaping us. Of course, whether such a utopia will ever exist where such a hypothesis could be tested remains to be seen. Somehow I suspect that such a notion is beyond the vision of most Homo sapiens.’

  Intrigued, Hamish walked over to the bureau bookcase, where he picked up a small stone axe, its flint tied to the roughly hewn handle with reeds.

  ‘Sir, you do realise that if your ideas were proved correct, over one hundred years of study would be rendered irrelevant, perhaps even vilified as hocus-pocus?’ He swung the axe as if to emphasise his point.

  ‘Of course he does!’ Lavinia sprang up and took her husband’s arm. The Colonel, bemused by Hamish’s irate tone, calmed her then turned back to the young man.

  ‘Believe me, I have not come to these conclusions lightly. My close observation of the Bakairi led me not down the path of racial superiority; to the contrary: of course there was poverty, of course there was ignorance, but there were other intelligences operating of which we have little or no understanding. Not inferior, not necessarily superior, simply profoundly different.’

  The Colonel walked over to the bureau bookcase. ‘I usually keep this locked for I am ashamed of its contents. I have not collected a skull for a good ten years.’

  Flushed and confused, Hamish pointed out a small skull with jutting frontal development. ‘You cannot believe that a prognathous skull with a small cranium can possibly house the same intelligence as, say, a Napoleon?’

  ‘I repeat, sir, I am not entirely convinced one can measure intelligence by brain size alone. In fact I shall go one step further and suggest the possibility that intelligence may not be confined to the brain but exist in other parts of the body, both visible and invisible, including the soul.’

  ‘What? Now you are a mystic as well as an idealist?’

  The Colonel laughed at the expression of indignation upon the student’s face. ‘At the moment, I am content with the role
of Doubting Thomas. Please don’t look so distressed, Campbell. I hope I haven’t thoroughly disillusioned my one fervent admirer?’

  ‘To the contrary, you have merely fuelled both his curiosity and his imagination. The time with the Bakairi tribe must have been most formative.’

  ‘Indeed, I am collating my notes into a book, with the help of my wife, whose intelligence I have never questioned.’

  Hamish turned to Lavinia. ‘I beg your pardon, Mrs Huntington, I didn’t mean to slight the weaker sex.’

  ‘I shall assume it was a comment made in ignorance not malice, Mr Campbell.’

  ‘So I am forgiven?’

  ‘You are tolerated but not absolved of your presumption.’

  The Colonel broke into a low chuckle as he closed the bureau, locking it with a small brass key.

  ‘My wife learned her scientific skills at the side of her father, the eminent naturalist Reverend Augustus Kane. Now, I believe it is time for the gentlemen to retire to the library, where a good claret and a cigar may lead to more frivolous discourse.’ Sensing an unspoken tension between the two younger people, Colonel Huntington hurried them out of the study.

  Hamish exhaled, sending a thin stream of cigar smoke through the bluish atmosphere. Sitting opposite the Colonel, his feet comfortably perched on an ottoman, he contemplated the room. It was the perfect literary gentleman’s retreat: a circular space lined with bookcases from ceiling to floor, all carefully ordered according to subject, which was exactly how Hamish would organise his library, when he had the fortune to afford one. The books themselves reflected the Colonel’s diverse interests: Plato, Socrates, Epicurus, as well as more contemporary titles such as Macaulay’s History of England, Darwin’s Beagle Diary, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Lady Montagu’s Letters from the East, and many others beside. To the young student, the collection was an exhilarating insight into the mind of his mentor.

  He glanced furtively at Huntington, who was stretched back in his chair, the quintessence of a man at his intellectual pinnacle, courageous in his opinions, resolute in his pursuit of originality. Would Hamish ever achieve such ease in his own skin? Would he ever belong so unselfconsciously?

  One of the Colonel’s trouser legs had ridden up; the vulnerability of this strip of flesh suddenly seemed so seductively within his reach that it took all Hamish’s resolve not to lean across and caress it. Instead, he glanced over at the leopard skin covering the parquet floor and found himself wondering how Huntington might look naked upon it.

  Trying to exorcise the salacious image, he glanced up to the mantelpiece. A sculpture of a female figure squatted there. Looking at her pointed breasts, swollen belly and rather pronounced vulva, he assumed she must be a fertility goddess, a trophy from some exotic expedition—the Pacific Islands perhaps?

  There were several other artefacts around the room: a mummified head with wisps of hair trailing behind its shrunken ears; a totem pole embellished with several bear-like creatures; a bow made from bone and hide—each contributing to the ambience of the library as a place of learning and bizarre ritual. The most spectacular was a canoe strung from the rafters above their heads, a hollowed-out log etched with stick-like animals and figures, and smelling faintly of charcoal.

  The Colonel followed Hamish’s gaze. ‘A burial canoe, they would place their dead in it and send it burning down the Amazon. I commissioned that one for myself. The shaman insisted. He told me that now I had eaten and shat with them, I would have to bury two souls: my black one and my weak white ghost brother.’

  The two men laughed. Again, Hamish felt the excitement of approval, of belonging.

  ‘Interesting how the Celts, too, sent their dead across the water,’ he said.

  ‘It is one of the eternal elements, water. We float in the womb, and at our death they send us floating back out into that great lake.’

  ‘Colonel…’

  ‘James, call me James. I think we can dispense with formalities.’

  ‘James, I am seeking a position to further my studies. The subject I have chosen for my doctorate is fairly contentious and I need to prove I have both the support and the tuition of a respected professional.’

  ‘What do you want from me exactly?’

  ‘An endorsement for my first published leaflet.’ He placed the manuscript that had been sitting on his lap onto the ottoman. ‘And I would like to volunteer myself as your assistant for a period—say, a year—before I go up to Oxford. If you were to agree, I would consider it a great honour.’

  ‘Does it not concern you that we are of differing opinions when it comes to craniology?’

  Hamish tapped his cigar into the ashtray and studied the underbelly of the canoe. His father was a timber merchant who had made a modest fortune through supplying artisans with the best and most seasoned woods. Hamish thought of him now, how he would be fascinated by the exotic nature of the wood hanging above. A man born and bred in Lancashire, the merchant had been determined to ensure that his only child would become a gentleman. He had succeeded to the point that father and son had become estranged. Hamish recalled now with shame his pomposity and his mortification at his father’s dialect and rustic manners. To his secret regret, he knew he would be embarrassed to introduce his father to Colonel Huntington.

  The wood merchant had made enough money to send his son to Eton, but not enough to guarantee a stipend that would allow Hamish the trappings of a city gentleman all his life. Thus Hamish had made his way by capitalising on his charm, his good looks and intellect. He had ingratiated himself with the wealthiest boys at school, engineered weekend invitations to their country estates, charmed their mothers—many of them young and beautiful—in the thousand ways a handsome young gentleman could. In short, Hamish Campbell was gifted with all the attributes ambition required; something Huntington had recognised in his first encounter with the young man and of which he had initially been most suspicious.

  Now Hamish needed a new patron. The relationship with Lady Morgan had suddenly become complicated, and he was running out of strategies to avoid a physical liaison. It was a dilemma; Lady Morgan was besotted, and Hamish was genuinely enamoured of her wit and ironic social commentary. Yet here before him was a benefactor who could also function as his mentor—an entirely different proposition, and one that was infinitely more exciting. But could Hamish afford to ally himself with someone whose controversial views might prejudice his own future publications?

  He glanced at the painting that hung above the walnut desk and immediately recognised in Icarus the young James Huntington. It must have been painted when Huntington was not much older than himself. The splendour of the youth was undeniable: his pale skin shone like Carrara marble; the fine dusting of dark hair that led down to his sex was rendered with such painstaking detail as to suggest each individual hair prickling along the skin. Hamish marvelled at the delicacy of the brushstrokes. He could almost smell the sweet sweat of the young man as he contemplated the great expanse of crisp morning air, the shafts of the rising sun transforming the valley spread before him into a tantalising patchwork of emerald hills, towers and citadels set against a distant sea. No wonder Icarus jumped, thought Hamish, and he was filled with a great exhilaration at the wealth of opportunities now spread at his own feet.

  Lavinia walked down the stairs after checking on her sleeping son. Through the half-open door of the library she could hear the two men in intense discussion. Tantalisingly, the conversation was not fully audible.

  Lavinia glanced around to see whether any of the servants were visible; the corridors were empty. Silently, she moved closer.

  ‘Well, is it such a dilemma that you cannot answer?’ The Colonel’s rumbling baritone rolled across the gentle hiss of the fireplace. An ember crackled.

  ‘I am prepared to embrace your findings if I am able to arrive at them through my own observation,’ Hamish said, ‘as your assistant.’

  ‘How very noble of you,’ Huntington replied, astounded by the impudence of the young man
. ‘And what do you imagine your tasks may be?’

  ‘I would be your personal secretary.’

  Outside in the corridor, infuriated, Lavinia gripped the doorknob. Surely James can see through the young student’s obsequious manner, she thought, fighting the impulse to interrupt.

  ‘Are you sufficiently advanced in your field that you believe you can offer a contribution to a scientist whose experience spans decades?’ the Colonel continued.

  ‘Forgive my audacity, sir, but I have been told by my professors that I have an original eye.’

  The Colonel stood up and poked the fire. As he did so, he caught the reflection of the doorway in the mirror over the fireplace. He could just make out the pale phantom of his wife’s dress in the sliver of shadow between door and frame.

  ‘Lavinia, would you care to join us?’ he asked without turning.

  Lavinia entered the library sneezing at the thick cigar smoke. She placed herself in front of Hamish Campbell, who immediately rose to his feet.

  ‘My husband has an assistant. He has no need of another.’ She could not contain the tremor in her voice.

  ‘My wife has extraordinary hearing. I am thinking of offering her services to Scotland Yard.’

  Hamish repressed a smile as Lavinia glowered at her husband.

  ‘Oh, do sit down.’ The Colonel strolled to a large globe in the corner and began to spin it in an attempt to dispel his irritation. ‘In truth, Lavinia, it would benefit me to have an assistant with formal training, as well as someone who will be able to help me present my lectures.’

  ‘But I can do that.’

  ‘My dear, it is essential that my work is respected, especially given its controversial nature. I cannot possibly expect my fellow anthropologists, particularly the less enlightened ones, to take me seriously if I employ my wife as my assistant.’ He turned to Hamish. ‘You understand my quandary?’

  ‘Indeed.’ Hamish hoped his reply was sufficiently diplomatic.

  ‘What remuneration would you expect for your efforts?’ the Colonel continued, ignoring Lavinia’s evident anger.