Carmen Dog (6 page)

—

May 17: Interviewed each subject separately. Refused to answer any of their queries or to speak with them in any but the manner that I myself had outlined. Thought it best to remain entirely scientific. Asked each of them exactly the same questions and made sure to ask them in exactly the same manner. Then took pictures of them naked against a grid, front, side, and back views in order to chart their changes. Some could not stand up quite straight; but whether to write down, “as yet” or “any more” am not sure, but will soon find out. A good deal of nervous giggling went on during this, though a few seemed to find it painful and tried to hide behind their hands or hair or feathers. Many looked as ridiculous as Joshua trees, stiff in their embarrassment, but one or two flaunted themselves before me.

When dealing with number 107, made sure to have cattle prod handy and that she was handcuffed before being brought in. Rosemary reported that she had no trouble doing this. 107 seemed anxious to please, even asked to be of help on the project in any way she could. She's up to something, of course. Probably can't wait to get her paws on these notes. I assured her that she
was
going to be of help and simply went on asking the planned questions in the prescribed way. She responded conscientiously enough, though I know her gentleness is an act. She could fool many people, but she doesn't fool me. What's she trying to prove, and why? Am sure she knows more than the others.

—

List of trick questions for the subjects at hand: (The doctor will explain to the grant committee that the questions are purposefully oblique and that this accounts for their rather cryptic and inadvertently poetic qualities, and that this can't be helped.)

—

Would you rather be a falling leaf or the branch from which it comes?

If the scenery were drab, would you dress to match it?

If you like men (or even if you don't), do you want to be like them or do you want to be different from them? If different, just
how
different?

If you saw a sparkling lake and, behind it, a snowcapped mountain, what would you do to try to become one with that view? Would it involve a hat?

If the lake, though very beautiful, were polluted, would you be inclined to change the lake or yourself to fit the lake?

If you laughed at a hat in a store window, would you then go in and buy it? If so, at what point would a hat become too laughable to buy?

What does the word
mother
mean to you? Is it funny?

Are
you
laughable? If so, explain.

The importance of these questions will be clear to anyone at all familiar with the situation.

—

The doctor resolves that, while remaining scientific in the strictest sense, he will strike out boldly with bold theories and with bold experiments, though he will be careful not to let his imagination take over in any way. We know now, he is thinking, the perils of
that
direction.

—

May 20: Computer, electrical equipment, and testing cage arrived and were set up by experts. Tested the levels of shock and the general efficiency of the set-up with subject number 106. Loaded the dispenser with cupcakes and fruit juices. Wanted something cheaper, but wife is insisting on good nutrition and I believe she should be catered to as much as possible, at least for the present. [The doctor blanks out this last when he remembers that his wife will be typing these notes.] All seems to be in order. Was quite an ordeal. Certainly a full day's work. Was at it with 106 for almost seven hours, not counting the hour or two I spent before bringing her in. She kept inordinately quiet through it all. Am wondering why! But have resolved, anyway, to concentrate on subject number 107 instead, the one called Isabel.

She knows something, I'm sure of it. Her behavior so belies her reputation.

—

Now the doctor stops writing and leans back to look out the window. He is thinking of number 108—that beauty 108. A strange kind of beauty she is, too. He has discovered that she was not even on the list of those to come here and he wonders why Rosemary didn't mention this. Thinks maybe he should reprimand her, just to let her know he noticed. Though, on the other hand, it is rather nice to have 108 and her sinuous, suggestive behavior, even though her reasons for it are clear and she'll not be getting any special favors out of him.

It is the doctor himself who returns Basenji (106) to the dayroom and dumps her on the old couch (which is now covered with the same sterilized blue nylon as their smocks). He would have hired an assistant for such menial jobs as this, but he doesn't want any of his findings to leak out to anybody even remotely connected to the opposite sex, so he's doing all the work alone except for the help of his wife, whom he's sure will remain loyal if only out of her dependency on him. She seldom goes out except for groceries and has few friends, her best one now, luckily, dead. Also probably a good thing, in some ways, that her hips hurt her when she walks and that her hands are quite out of shape with arthritis. More so than ever, and recently he's noticed she's been looking quite thick in the neck. He'll get her some calcium and some cod liver oil capsules for the osteoporosis. Perhaps he should see to it that she drinks more milk. No doubt she will appreciate that small attention. Help to keep her loyal. But if she wanted to get even for some inadvertent slights on his part, she certainly could do great damage.

They all crowd around Basenji when the doctor leaves. She is utterly silent now, and will not or cannot answer any of their questions. When their names were changed to numbers and all the frills removed, that was a bitter realization to them all, and now Basenji's condition makes them realize that, grateful as they are to be alive, they have much to be concerned about still—perhaps even including their lives. And yet many of them were quite taken with the doctor and still are, even after this. They talk about him constantly: How tall! How thin! What secrets do the dark eyes hold? (One must remember that he is, after all, the only male around. Some even find his cruelty an attractive mystery and think perhaps they can change him through their love or their good example.)

Basenji seems to have quite given up. “Sing for her, Pooch,” they say. (Suddenly they are calling her Pooch again. They have tried to remember to call her Isabel, but that name is so equated in their minds with someone nasty and quite the opposite of Pooch that they have found it hard to stick to it. And anyway, they do not have a strong feeling that Pooch needs to be Isabel.) And Pooch does sing. Just soft, simple lullabies, and the three or four best singers join in in harmony. (They had been practicing quite a bit just for the fun of it.) But it is hard to tell if Basenji even hears them or not.

That night, as they are being locked up, Pooch requests that Basenji be allowed to share her cage and Rosemary agrees. All night long Pooch holds, by turns and at the same time, both the baby and the trembling, unresponsive Basenji, who is also hardly more than a child. Pooch feels herself to be older sister to them both.

—

May 21: Questioned number 107 for five hours, both the subtle questions and direct questions about leaders, also word associations, but it took her no longer to respond to
knife, motherhood, gun, leader, plot, widower
than it did to
kitchen, glove, fairy tale
. She did hesitate on
flower
and
doormat
. I wonder why. Must check into. But not one decent reply to anything. Had no opportunity to use the rewards in the dispenser. After the first hours, violent, diffuse struggling, all four limbs and head with micturation (must confess had forgotten to allow her to go to the bathroom either before or during) and, as with the first subject, number 107 became more and more silent as the session went on so that, by the end, she appeared to have lost her voice altogether. Am all the more convinced that this subject is on the way up and is capable of both violence and leadership, in spite of her mild demeanor. Why else this stoicism?

Was exhausted after session and carried on the late afternoon researches outside where observed one female in grocery store gobbling up produce as fast as she could and then crawling out on all fours so as not to be seen at the checkout counter. Are there no depths to which these creatures will not stoop! Am reminded of Marcus Aurelius, who said, “How comes it that souls of no proficiency or learning are able to confound the adept and the sage?"

And now, leaning back and looking out the window, he is wondering what would be the best scheme that involves using that baby; what would be most profitable to his researches?

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May your crimes make you as happy as your cruelties have made me suffer.

—Marquis de Sade

Pooch and Basenji curl up again together in the same cage, and Phillip, though she has always said she hates children and has never willingly held the baby if anyone else was available to do so, has now taken it in with her for the night. Many of the others wanted to, but Phillip insisted and finally won out as Pooch's oldest and dearest friend (even though oldest only by the proximity of her cage both here and at the pound). Actually, for all Phillip's talk of hating the baby and for all her ignoring it, the baby has always been quite taken with her, sometimes clinging to her legs in its efforts to stand up and, since Phillip loves to sit on the floor, the baby is always squinching itself over to her (it can't as yet really crawl) and curling up in her lap. Phillip never pushes it away, though she also never acknowledges its presence. Perhaps it is her bright colors and smooth, dry skin that lure the baby, but also perhaps the baby, on some level, understands Phillip better even than she understands herself. Now, however, Phillip hugs the baby to her and pats at it distractedly, making soft, sibilant nonsense sounds, hardly aware she is doing so.

Pooch now clings to Basenji as much for herself as for the younger creature. Neither of them makes a sound. It is the others who are restless and sighing. Arista stares beyond her bars with blinking half-closed eyes, flexing her fingers. Dodo looks fierce and yet, now and then, utters a squeaky “Oh.” Doris and Myna flutter aimlessly about their cages, feathers flying out beyond the bars. Myna's are drab, but Doris's are a brilliant green.

Mary Ann laughs a strange, nervous laugh and clumps about her four-by-eight cage on partially webbed feet. Whether she is tending toward duck or swan it's too early to tell. Now and again someone lets out a squawk or a whoop of some sort. Phillip leans, weaving her head back and forth over the baby. She has always looked rather dangerous and now she looks more so than ever. There are whisperings of plans for escape. None feasible. They wonder about whether Rosemary can be trusted or not or whether they have any choice but to trust her and does she or doesn't she seem changed lately, and, if changing, isn't she more likely to be on their side? Most are wishing that they could ask Pooch to sing and they think that, for their sake, she would probably rouse herself to do it, but even the most degenerated among them knows better than to mention it, except for Mary Ann, whom they keep shushing and who keeps answering with yet another quack of “I forgot, I forgot."

The next day others enter the laboratory one by one, but each returns on her own two or four feet. Some are quite stuffed with cupcakes and fortune cookies. Some have been patted on the head and tickled under the chin or even given little kisses on the cheek. Clearly the doctor is using every means at his disposal. Many have eaten their fortunes, especially those who have forgotten how to read, but others have the little slips of paper tucked in the pockets of their sterilized blue smocks. Many of the fortunes read more like warnings, though not all:

—

Continue on your present course and you will never be an intellectual.

You will figure prominently in the nightmares of others.

You will never marry a prince. To be a duck is to marry a duck.

Beware of changes that do not foster motherhood.

—

And so forth.

None of the others return from the laboratory in anywhere near as bad shape as Pooch and Basenji. Some, in fact, even return with secret little smiles on their faces and, besides the fortunes, they have little gifts such as earrings, multicolored beads, and perfume, all from the five and ten. Some even have key rings with their number in gold paint on green or blue plastic. It almost suggests that the keys to the cages or to the laboratory itself might be the next reward. Some have a few red, white, or blue chits, but they can't figure out what to do with them except play checkers or tiddledywinks, which they do.

Through all this coming and going and through all the arguments as to whether the gifts should be accepted at all or, once accepted, used, and whether one
should
return with a smile on one's face, or whether one should be
allowed
to return with a smile, Pooch and Basenji have been absolutely silent. Pooch has been up and about in a kind of fit of dusting and sweeping, though flinching at the slightest touch or loud noise. She has cared for Basenji by herself, fed her and washed her (rather vigorously), but neither of them has uttered a sound, not even a whimper. Once or twice the baby has reached for Pooch, but after a good look at her it pulls away shouting its one word, “No."

Phillip has kept quiet through all this also, sitting in a lotus position and rocking back and forth, tongue flicking in and out between her teeth more than ever. She has not yet had her turn in the laboratory, but she is determined that, when the time comes, she will not be like the others, so easily daunted or so easily pleased. She will protest in no uncertain terms the treatment of all of them and especially the treatment of Basenji and Pooch. She resolves that, if need be, she will fight back, will grab hold and squeeze, will bite. She is thinking how wonderful if only she really were what she imitates so colorfully ... how wonderful if she did have a bite that was deadly. But now, in her present form, she hasn't much more strength than an ordinary woman and the doctor is a tall, not at all fat, but large-boned man. She will have to be quick about it and get a good grip first. She also resolves that, if killing is necessary, she will not be turned away from it by any moral or tender feelings she has picked up from Pooch. Perhaps she can save them all.