The Best American Mystery Stories 2016 (25 page)

I held his gaze until my gums began to bleed.

“So what'd you do?”

“Framed her on a bunko rap. She got three to five in Joliet.”

I was deciding whether to believe that when he said, “Mike is transferring up from San Francisco. He'll be training you.”

My brain did a somersault.

Mike executed a mock bow. “Charmed, I'm sure.”

“I still have a job?”

“It won't be all wine and roses,” the Old Man said. “This office still needs a manager. And this town needs someone to shave its fur and dig the leeches out of its hide.”

I stared at him, hoping I'd misunderstood.

I hadn't.

“The agency gave me the option of staying retired or becoming your new boss. Guess which I chose?”

ROBERT LOPRESTI

FROM
nEvermore!

W
HAT AM
I? That is the question.

I sit in this cage, waiting for them to come stare at me, mimic me as I once mimicked them, perhaps poke me with sticks, and as they wonder what I am, so do I.

I don't think Mama had any doubts about what she was. I don't think she could even think the question. That is the gift and the punishment Professor gave me.

I remember Mama, a little. We were happy and life was simple, so simple. Food was all around us, dangers were few, and there was nothing we needed. When I was scared or hungry Mama would pick me up and cradle me to her furry breast.

I was never cold. It was always warm where we lived, not this place, called
Paris
or
France.
Goujon cannot talk about anything without giving it two names. Sometimes he calls me an
Ourang-Outang,
and sometimes an
ape.

Mama called us nothing, for she could not speak like people, or sign as I have learned to do. That did not bother her. She was always happy, until she died.

The hunters came in the morning, firing guns and shouting. Mama picked me up and ran. She made it into the trees but there was another hunter waiting in front of her. He made a noise as if he were playing a game, but this was no game. He fired his gun and Mama fell from the tree. I landed on top of her but she was already dead.

My life has made no sense since then.

I remember the first time I saw Professor. He tilted his head when he looked at me and spoke. We were in his house. The smell of the hunters was finally gone.

He gave me food and tried to be kind but I was afraid. The food tasted wrong and soon I got sleepy, but not the kind of sleepy I knew with Mama.

I know now something in the food made me sleep. Things were confused after that and I would wake up with pain in my head.

He did things to my head. Each time I woke the room looked different,
clearer
somehow. And one day when Professor spoke I understood some of his noises.

“Ah, Jupiter. You are with me again. And you are grasping my words, aren't you? The chemicals are working just as I predicted.”

He held out a piece of fruit. “Are you hungry, Jupiter?”

I was. I reached for it.

He pulled it away and moved his other hand. “Do this, Jupiter. It means
orange.
Tell me you want an orange.”

After a few more tries I understood. I copied his hand and he gave me the orange.

That was my first lesson. That was my first surrender.

Many more sleeps, many more words, many more pains in the head.

Soon I knew enough gestures to ask Professor questions.

Where is Mama?

“Dead. Hunters killed her. When I heard they brought back a baby I bought you from them.”

Do you have a mama?

“I did, Jupiter. Everyone does. I will show you a picture of mine. I grew up in a place called Lyon. It is far from here, and full of men like me.”

Where is your mama?

“She died when I was young.”

Killed by hunters?

“No, Jupiter. She got sick. Not sick like you did last month. Much worse.”

Where did you live?

“With my papa. Oh dear. A papa is something like a mama. You had one too but
Ourang-Outang
papas don't live with their children. I don't know why. My papa was a baker. That means he made bread, like I eat with my meals.”

I tried bread once. It had no taste.

Did your papa die?

“Yes, but that was much later. There was an accident, he was hit by a wagon. You've seen pictures of wagons.” His face changed again. “I had to go to the morgue to fetch him. I knew then I would leave Lyon, because it made me so sad.”

What is that?

“What is . . . oh, morgue? It is a house where they put the dead.”

Did they put my mama there?

“No, Jupiter. Only men.”

Why?

“Well.” He scratched his head. “I think it is because men think that only they have souls.”

What is that?

Professor waved his arms. “I was afraid you would ask! I know nothing about souls. We would need a priest to explain that—and don't bother asking me what a priest is, because I can't explain that either. Let's say a soul is what makes men different from animals.”

A soul lets you speak?

More head scratching. “I'll have to think about that one, Jupiter.”

I lived in the middle of the house, where there were trees to make nests in. It was surrounded by white walls, and Professor lived on the other side of the walls. There were some windows, spaces in the walls with bars, through which I could see into his rooms. There were also bars on the top of my part of the house.

One day Professor came to me, excited. “We are to have a visitor, Jupiter! A man who speaks French.”

What is that?

“The words I speak, that I have been teaching you. Men from different places use different sounds, and French is how they speak where I was born. Most men here speak English, or Dutch, or Malay.”

He made the playing noise. “So many ways to talk, Jupiter. But until now none here have spoken as I do.”

Is that why they are afraid of me? Because they cannot speak to me?

His face changed. “Why do you say they are afraid?”

I can smell it on your helpers. The men who clean and cook.

“Have any of them bothered you, Jupiter?”

No. But they peek in my room when you are not there. Some of them speak but I do not know what they say. And when I tried to sign back they did not understand.

Professor got quiet. “I am sorry they are afraid of you, Jupiter. Men fear what they don't understand. Perhaps I should have let my helpers visit you, but I didn't want to confuse you with many kinds of words.”

He stood up. “We will see how things go with the sailor, yes? Maybe we can find more friends for you.”

What is that?

“What, friend?”

No.

“Hmm. Then . . . sailor? A sailor is a man who travels on boats. I have shown you pictures of boats, yes? We need a sign for sailor, I see.”

Boat man.

His face changed. “Very good, Jupiter. You are getting better and better at thinking of signs.”

I want to see the sailor.

I smelled him as soon as he came into the house. The sailor smelled like the fish Professor sometimes eats, and like the smoke some of the helpers smell of.

I heard them while they ate.

“So, where are you from, Monsieur Goujon? Is that a Norman accent?”

“It is, professor. I was born near Caen, but I have lived most of my life with my uncle near Paris. That is actually why I am here in Borneo. He asked me to supervise a load of precious cargo, so I left my ship and will take another back.”

“Excellent. I trust you will visit me often while you are here. It is a rare treat to chat with someone who speaks the mother tongue.”

“How can I resist such a charming host? Not to mention this wonderful food.”

It didn't smell wonderful to me. Mostly bread and burnt meat.

“I am amazed that you can survive here in this primitive land. Pirates, natives, opposing armies . . . and yet here you sit in this beautiful villa! How do you do it?”

“Ah well, it is a little miracle, I suppose. The English assume I am a French spy, and would root me out if they could, but this end of the island is run by the Dutch and the Dyaks, and they have no desire to lose the only physician in their territory.

“When I first reached Borneo some of the Malay pirates tried to take me as their personal physician, but I told them I couldn't work that way. If they wanted my services they would have to set me free—and they did! I suspect they feared I could make them sick as well as heal them. But they come by cover of darkness, when they need me.”

“Professor, if I am not being rude, may I ask what a scholar like yourself is doing out in the wilderness? It amazed me to hear about you.”

“Hmm.” Professor's voice got quieter. “What
did
you hear, exactly?”

The sailor made the playing noise. “Oh, you know what the locals are like. The natives are pagans and the Dutch aren't much better. They say that you have turned animals into servants!”

“I suppose that is better than if they thought I turned my servants into animals.” They made the playing sound. “In fact, my friend, they are closer to the truth than you might imagine. But they are far away too.”

“Really? I am fascinated! Please explain.”

“Very well. I should tell you I was trained as a doctor in France. I found myself working in a rural area, and, alas, there were many feeble-minded people there.”

“Very sad, but I have heard that that condition runs in families.”

“It does. And often a healthy member of such a clan will produce feeble-minded offspring, even though both parents seemed completely normal.”

“Perhaps the family is cursed by God.”

“I know nothing of curses, my friend. As a natural philosopher I can only deal with
this
world. But my breakthrough came when a fever struck our village and, alas, killed a number of small children, both the normal and the feeble-minded.”

“Death makes no distinctions, I know.”

“Very true. But it occurred to me that I had a great opportunity here that for the sake of all mankind I could not let slip away. As you know, what we call the mind is contained here, in the skull.”

“The brain, yes. I saw one once, when a man was killed by an explosion.”

“Ah. Then you understand that there is nothing magical about the brain. It is just a pile of meat, one might say. And yet all art and literature and wisdom spring from it, yes? So I decided to see if there was a difference between the healthy and feeble-minded brains.”

I heard nothing for a moment. When the sailor spoke he sounded different. “You cut open dead children? Is that
legal
?”

“No. Autopsies, for that is the word, are not legal in France. But they should be, or how can medicine advance? My so-called crime was discovered and I had to flee the country. How I wound up in Borneo is a long story. But the important thing is what I learned. The feeble-minded brain looked different; there were variations in shape. It did not smell like a normal brain, and I became convinced that there were chemical differences. I thought perhaps it might be possible to improve the little ones.”

“Surely you have not been experimenting on living children, professor!”

“No, my friend. Not even on feeble-minded ones, although I hope I will get the chance to do so. Out here I was able to try my ideas out on apes. Have you seen them?”

“I have, here and in Africa.”

“And what do you think of them?”

“I hardly know. They seem like a joke the devil played on mankind. A satire.”

“Hmm. I think they are more likely a rough draft, if I may call it that. The Bible tells us God made animals before man, after all. I have worked on almost a dozen of them over the years, trying to improve their brains.”

“With what goal, professor? To turn them into men?”

“No, my friend. That would be neither possible nor moral. But if I can improve their ability to think, imagine what I can do for the feeble-minded children!”

I heard a chair scrape back. “That is the most fantastic scheme I have ever heard! Has there been any success?”

“Ah! There has indeed. The latest subject has been a marvel. Come with me, my friend, and you can meet my greatest triumph. He lives in my courtyard.”

I heard them coming so I backed away from the door.

The sailor was big, higher and wider than Professor or his servants. He had fur all around his face, and where there wasn't fur his skin was red.

He stared at me, eyes and mouth wide.

“Jupiter, this is my guest, Goujon. Goujon, let me introduce you to Jupiter.”

I am happy to meet you.

“What is it doing?” said Goujon quietly. I smelled his fear.

“The gestures? That is how Jupiter speaks. You will notice I sign while I speak to him. What is it, Jupiter?”

Is he the sailor?

“Yes, the boat man. Boat man. You see, Goujon, he invented this combination of signs to mean
sailor
when he heard you were coming.”

“This is amazing, professor! I wouldn't have believed it possible. How long have you had him?”

“I purchased him almost three years ago. He was a baby and hunters had killed his mother. He is by far the brightest and most trainable subject I have been lucky enough to encounter.”

Goujon said more and I got angry. He backed up, toward the door.

“What is it?” Professor asked me. “What is the problem?”

Can not understand.

“Oh. The sailor has an accent. He learned to speak far from my home. I am sorry, Goujon. Jupiter gets frustrated when he can't understand what is said to him.”