Julian Comstock: A Story of 22nd-Century America (61 page)

The Executive Palace was still, in the main, a mystery to me. It was an im mense structure, finely divided into labyrinthine rooms and chambers. It housed servants, bureaucrats, and a small army of Republican Guards, in addition to the President himself. It rose three stories above the ground, and sheltered extensive basements and cellars beneath. It was the most wainscoted, draped, sashed, carpeted, and furbelowed building I had ever been inside; and I was never comfortable in it. The minor officials I passed regarded me with a disdain bordering on contempt, while the Republican Guards scowled and fingered their pistols at the sight of me.

Julian did not "inhabit" this entire space—surely no one man could have done so—but spent most of his time in the Library Wing. The Library Wing contained not just the Presidential Library (which was extensive, though mainly Dominion-approved, and to which Julian had added many items culled from the liberated Archives) but a large reading room with high, sunny windows and an enormous oaken desk. It was this room Julian had made particularly his own, and that was where I visited him.

Magnus Stepney, the rogue Pastor of the Church of the Apostles Etc., was also present, lounging in a stuffed chair and reading a book while Julian sat at the desk applying pen to paper. Pastor Stepney had been Julian's close companion for many weeks now, and both of them smiled when I entered.

They asked about Williams Ford, and my father and mother, and I told them a little about that sad business; but not much time had passed before Julian once more raised the question of his Movie Script.

I mentioned to him that I had discussed the script with Mr. Charles Curtis Easton. I was afraid Julian might be unhappy that I had taken the matter "out of the family," and gone to a stranger with it. He did seem a little nonplused; but Magnus Stepney—
who was as much an Aesthete and devoted follower of Drama as Julian was
⁹³
—clapped his hands and said I had done exactly the right thing: "That's what we need, Julian, a
professional
 opinion."

"Possibly so. Did Mr. Easton
render
 an opinion?" Julian asked me.

"He did, in fact."

"Would you care to mention what it was?"

"He agreed that the story lacked some essential ingredients."

"Such as?"

I cleared my throat. "Three acts—memorable songs—attractive women—pirates—a battle at sea—a despicable villain—a duel of honor—"

"But none of those things actually
happened
 to Mr. Darwin, or had any connection with him."

"Well, I suppose that's the point. Do you want to tell the truth, or do you want to tell a story? The trick," I said, remembering Theodore Dornwood's commentary on my own writing, "is to steer a course between Scylla and Charybdis—"

"Fine talk for a lease-boy," Magnus Stepney said, laughing.

"—where Scylla is
truth,
 and Charybdis is
drama
—or the other way around; I don't remember exactly."

Julian sighed, and rolled his eyes; but Stepney gave a little cheer and cried out, "That's just what I've been telling you, Julian! It was good advice from me, and it's good advice from Adam Hazzard and Mr. Charles Curtis Easton!"

Julian said nothing more about it that day. Initially, of course, he was skeptical. But he didn't resist the idea for long, for it appealed to his sense of Theater; and by the end of the week he had adopted it as his own.

The rest of July was devoted to producing a final script. Some scholars have suggested that Julian "fiddled" with cinema, while his Presidency was collapsing around his head. But that's not how it seemed in the summer of 2175. I think Julian saw the possibility of redemption in Art, after all the horrors he had experienced in War, though War is more customarily the business of the Commander in Chief. And I think there was a deeper reason why Julian ignored the protocols and entanglements of po liti cal supremacy. I believe he had genuinely expected to die in Labrador—had accepted it as his fate, once the Black Kite maneuver failed—and was shocked to find himself still alive, after he had led so many others to their deaths.

His order to sever all formal connections between the Dominion and the Military had sent shock- waves through both Armies. Colorado Springs was in a state of virtual rebellion, and Deacon Hollingshead had ceased to visit the Executive Palace, or to acknowledge Julian in any way. The Dominion still kept a firm grip on its affiliated Churches, however, and "Julian the Atheist" was denounced from pulpits all over the country, which made the Eupatridians and the Senate uneasy in their support of him.

But if Deacon Hollingshead did not pay us any visits, he was welcomely replaced by Mr. Charles Curtis Easton, who was invited to the Palace to meet Julian and discuss modifications to the
Darwin
 script. Julian was charmed by Mr. Easton ("This is what you might become, Adam, if you live to a ripe old age, and grow a beard"), and delegated him to work alongside me as a Screen-Play Committee. We met on scheduled occasions, and Julian or Magnus Stepney often joined us, and within weeks we had sketched out a completely new outline of
The Life and Adventures of the Great Naturalist Charles Darwin,
which I will briefly describe.

Act One was called
Homology,
 and it dealt with Darwin's youth. In this Act young Darwin meets the girl with whom he is destined to fall in love—his beautiful cousin Emma Wedgwood—and discovers he has a rival for her affections in the form of a young divinity student named Samuel Wilberforce. The two boys enter into a Beetle-Collecting and Interpreting Competition sponsored by the local University, which is called Oxford, and Miss Wedgwood in a coy moment mentions that she'll save a kiss for the winner.

Wilberforce then sings a song about Bugs as Specimens of the Divine Ordination of Species, while Darwin retorts with musical observations on Homology (that is, the physical similarities shared by Insects of different species). Wilberforce, a ruthless and cunning conspirator, tries and fails to have Darwin disqualified from the contest on the grounds of Blasphemy. But Oxford is deaf to his pleadings. Darwin wins the contest; Wilberforce comes in a bitter second; Emma kisses Darwin chastely on the cheek; Darwin blushes; and a simmering Wilberforce vows ultimate vengeance.

Act Two was entitled
Diversity; or, An English Boy at Sea,
⁹⁴
and it covered Charles Darwin's exciting voyages around South America aboard the ex-ploratory vessel
Bea gle.
 This is where Darwin makes some of his many observations about Turtles and Finches' Beaks and such things, though we kept the scientific matter to a minimum so as not to strain the audience's attention, and enlivened it with a scene involving a ferocious Lion. Out of all these unusual experiences Darwin begins to formulate his grand idea of the Diversity of Life, and how it arises from the effects of time and circumstance on animal reproduction. He resolves to communicate that insight to the world, though he knows it won't be welcome in ecclesiastical circles. Back home, however, Wilberforce—now a ju nior Bishop at Oxford, and grimly determined to achieve even greater ecclesiastical power—has drawn on his family fortune and hired a gang of nautical pirates to hunt down the
Bea gle
 and sink her at sea. The Act culminates in a closely-fought Nautical Battle in which young Darwin, flailing about on the fore-deck with sword and pistol, speculates musically on the role of chance and "fitness" in determining the ultimate outcome of the conflict. The battle is bloody but (as in nature) the fittest survive—Darwin, happily, is one of them.

By the beginning of Act Three, called
The Descent of Man,
 all En gland is caught up in a fierce religious controversy over Darwin's theories. Darwin has published a book about the Origin of Species; and Wilberforce, now Oxford's head Bishop, has made a point of denouncing that work and ridiculing the author. He hopes by this strategy to create a conflict between Darwin and Emma Wedgwood, who have postponed their marriage (under pressure from Emma's family) until Darwin's respectability is more firmly established in the public mind. It seems a distant goal, at a time when English churches resound with anti-Darwinian rhetoric, torch-bearing mobs threaten Oxford, and Emma herself is torn by the conflict between Romantic Love and Religious Duty.

The tempest culminates in a public Debate in a crowded London hall, where Darwin and Wilberforce argue over the ancestral relations of Ape and Man.

Darwin expounds (
sings,
 that is) his doctrine eloquently, with gentle humor; while Wilberforce, under the fierce lamp of logic, is revealed as a jealous poseur. "Darwin a True Scholar!" a headline in the next morning's London
Times
 proclaims, calming the general excitement and smoothing the way for Emma and Darwin to marry. But Wilberforce won't suffer himself to be humiliated in such a manner. He accuses Darwin of blasphemy and personal insult, and challenges him to a duel. Darwin reluctantly accepts, seeing this as his only chance to rid himself of the meddlesome Bishop; and both men climb to a craggy meadow high in the wild and windblown mountains that loom over Oxford University.

The climax of the movie is essentially that duel, with ruses and low tricks attempted by Wilberforce, and thwarted by Darwin. There is singing, and pistol-shooting, and some lively screaming from Emma, and more pistol-shooting, and wrestling about on cliff-edges, until Darwin stands wounded but victorious over the cooling corpse of his ruthless enemy.

Followed by a wedding ceremony, bells rung, cheerful noises, and so forth.

Julian gave his approval to this outline, though he took a certain plea sure in pointing out the distance between our dramatic liberties and historical truth in the strictest sense. ("If Oxford has Alps," he liked to say, "then perhaps New York City has a Volcano, geography being so flexible a science.") But these were amicable objections, not serious ones; and he understood our motives in remodeling the obstinate clay of history.

As for the songs and their lyrics—so important to the success of any such enterprise—what could we do but recruit Calyxa's formidable talents? Julian supplied her with a biography of Darwin recovered from the Dominion Archives, along with works discussing the taxonomy of beetles, the geography of South America, the habitat and life-cycle of Pirates, and such subjects. Calyxa undertook her assignment very seriously, and read all these books with close attention. Several times, when the house hold help was absent, I was delegated to attend to Flaxie's infant requirements (which were numerous and urgent) while Calyxa continued her creative work at the desk or the piano.

In a few days she had sketched out Arias and melodies for all three Acts of
Charles Darwin.
 She presented these to Julian on a night when he arrived along with Pastor Stepney for our weekly Script Conference. Julian leafed through the music and lyric sheets with deepening appreciation, judging by the expression on his face. Then he turned to Calyxa and said, "You ought to sing some of it for us. Magnus doesn't read music, but I want him to hear it."

"Most of the Arias are male parts," Calyxa said, "though Emma Wedgwood has a song or two."

"That's understood. Here," Julian said, handing over one of the first sections, in which the young Charles Darwin, during a beetling expedition outside Oxford, spots his cousin Emma in the woods.
⁹⁵
Calyxa sat down at the piano and picked up the song at the point where Darwin is inspecting the contents of his bug-net, singing:

These creatures yet are all alike in

Several ways that I find striking:

Six legs fixed on a tripart body;

External shells, some plain, some gaudy;

Some have wings, or hooks, or hair

—distinctions, yes, eight, ten, a dozen—

And yet in General Structure they're

As like as I am to my cousin.

Here comes my cousin now! And as she

Pauses in the shady hedge-wood

I hope she'll turn her eyes to me,

That young and pious Emma Wedgwood!

White summer dress, blue summer bonnet,

A red coccinellid clinging on it—

"Stop!" cried Julian. "What's a
coccinellid
?"

"Ladybug," said Calyxa, tersely.

"Very good! Carry on."

All life intrigues me, without doubt,

And yet in truth (for truth will out),

I find Miss Emma's pretty legs

More interesting than Skate-Leech Eggs...

There were a few more interruptions from Julian, when he needed some point clarified, but for the most part Calyxa sang without interruption—the whole score, except for one duet (which she couldn't manage by herself) and the final choral Medley. She sang the male parts with gusto and the female parts in a fine contralto, and banged the piano with great enthusiasm and skill.

Little Flaxie could not sleep through all this noise, of course, and her nurse eventually brought her down to join us. In the end we had nearly an hour of Calyxa's wonderfully entertaining per for mance, at the end of which she sat back from the piano with a satisfied smile on her face. She undid the scarf she was wearing, "and down her slender form there spread / Black ringlets rich and rare," while Julian clapped his applause, and the rest of us joined him for a long ovation. Even Flaxie attempted to clap, though she was inexpert at it, and her flailing hands passed in mid-air more often than they collided.

It was altogether the finest time we had had for quite a while, and we might have been some large family, joined together after a long absence, taking delight in one another's company, and never heeding the griefs and dangers that circled about us like carrion birds over a tubercular mule.

It was late that summer when an assassin crept into the Executive Palace and hid himself in the Library Wing, for the purpose of putting a pistol to Julian Conqueror's head and killing him.