Had you the time or inclination, you suppose you could do some research and ascertain whether the Buddha had webbed feet or if Uncle Larry was pulling your leg. And you might dig out that dog-eared Bible that Grandma Mati sent you before she moved back to the Philippines and check Exodus, Chapter Eight, to see if there really is a passage therein about Egypt being invaded by frogs. Those things you could look up, but what about the Greek business? How there supposedly were fifty sisters called the Danaids who ventured out of the reedy marshes of the Nile delta to bring the gift of water to the most arid region of the Peloponnese. Fifty sisters, mind you, one for each year of Sirius Bs orbit around Sirius A. The Danaids were descendants of reed-wielding Io, who in Egypt was known as Isis, a word that referred to seat or throne-as well as to the Sirius system. Gee, you had said, so many crisscrosses, overlaps, and connections.
Yes, agreed Diamond. Yes, indeed. And Im barely skimming the surface. All those ancient marquee cultures were drinking out of the same gourd. Or the same dog dish. Dog as in Dog Star. Virtually everything that sparkled in the Golden Age of Greece was borrowed from the Egyptians, and the Egyptians adapted their routines from the royal blacks of Nubia. We moderns overlook Nubia, we forget how proud and fancy and influential it was. Nubia played Professor Longhair and Big Mama Thornton to Egypts Elvis. The Nubians were lake and river dwellers, and well acquainted with amphibians and stars and mushrooms. I could go on and on.
As far as youre concerned, he did go on and on. And now, at the conclusion of his rant, he is bringing up mushrooms again.
I realize its cracking your little heart in two, but Ive got to get over to the hotel and hear what Yamaguchi has to say. Hes not supposed to say anything else before the conference tomorrow, but, heh-heh, he gives every indication of being out of control. Diamond slides his hand up your skirt, plucks like a lyre the sex-encrusted crotch line of your panties. You would have stopped him, except that for the past ten or fifteen minutes, he has been squirming in his seat, and it is obvious he is in pain again. Moreover, his plucking is vibrating the lips of your vulva, and it feels, in a vulgar and embarrassing way, rather agreeable. Before I go, however, well, Id be remiss if I neglected to say something else about the mushroom.
Ill forgive you if you dont. You wouldnt want to miss Yamaguchi.
No, no, you really must hear this. The Africans often referred to Sirius as the seed star. It may sound quaint today and not very hip, but they believed emanations from the Sirian system were a pouring out of the seed of the soul and that the seed which, um, energized the world came directly from Sirius. Okay? Now, are you aware that its possible for seeds to drift through space, through outer space? That seeds, over time and on their own, could theoretically travel from one solar system to another?
Wouldnt they die out there?
Some might, but many are perfectly equipped to survive for millions of years; indefinitely, in fact. Mushroom spores, for example, aside from being very light in weight, have a particularly lengthy viability.
This is another tidbit you gleaned in Timbuktu?
Well, I sure as hell didnt hear it from Dean Witter. One of McKennas rants, no doubt. Imagine it: the hardy spores of psilocybic mushrooms blowing through darkest space, sifting and sailing, rubbing elbows with particles of cosmic dust for eons before finally entering Earths atmosphere and eventually falling into bed, so to speak, into the moist soil of some prehistoric meadow. Where they spread their mycelia and display their fruit. Which, someday, inevitably, will be sampled by a hungry or merely curious primate. Bingo!
Bingo?
Yes. Yes, indeed. A light goes on. The energizing of the world has begun. The awakening of the soul. You see, the Nommo wouldnt have had to voyage to Earth in a starship or even to project telepathically. Everything they had to teach our species, from philosophical values to the anatomy of their star system, could have been transmitted through the medium of the mushroom. The mushroom may be the microphone of the overmind.
And we know, dont we, Larry, you say with just a salt of sarcasm, that mushrooms are associated with frogs?
Good girl.
And the frogs have started to disappear.
Yes. Something is afoot. Some force, some program that was set into motion millennia ago, has begun to accelerate. Youve mocked, perhaps with justification, my little conceit about the pad, but when I speak of being on the pad, all I mean is being intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually prepared to fully participate in the next breakthrough in evolution. It may occur as a sudden mutative thrust, rather than the microstep by microstep advancement weve come to accept, and ninety percent of the population-those frozen in the ice pack of their bankrupt doctrines and brittle clichEs-may be left behind. Id hate to find you in their company.
Thats sweet of you. But you dont need to worry about me. If I can ride out this darn market, you think, Ill take my chances with evolution; fast, slow, or down the middle. Truthfully, I cant understand why youd want me on the pad.
Ah, hoptoad! Cant you see? You have potential! Youre a mother lode of wit, of spunk, of courage, of adaptability. But its all repressed and misdirected. You need to cut loose, open up, break free. He snaps your elastic. And youre potentially the best piece of ass in Seattle. You slap his hand away from your groin and push him toward his side of the car. Whats more, I adore your voice.
Really? You soften with a suddenness no mutative thrust could ever match. Really? You do?
SIX P.M.
As he limps across the street in the rain, Diamonds good-bye kiss reverberates in your mouth like a firecracker in a silverware drawer. The screwball certainly can kiss. You have to grant him that. But can world-class kissing compensate for… . Oh, no! Hes turning around and heading back to your car. You hope he isnt going to wax sentimental. Hes already tried to extract a promise from you to meet again later in the evening or before his flight tomorrow. You said you would see what you could do. It would influence your decision if there was a chance that you could smuggle him into your disco for an hour or two. Sit him down at your computer.
Gwendolyn, he says, raindrops glistening on his stubble like champagne on a scouring pad, I hope youre not going to start thinking of me as your guru.
Good grief! You have to laugh. Uh, of course not, Larry. Not a chance.
I cant save your soul …
How about my job?
… nobody can but you. At this stage of the game, its every man for himself. Every woman, too.
I can live with that.
The Nommo cant save us, either. They may be from Sirius, they may be an extrusion of the overmind, they may be both at the same time. But they arent going to ride to our rescue, any more than Jesus is or Marx or any cavalry charge yet devised by the sanctimonious pimps who shill for our assorted and voracious ideologies. Mistrust them all, sweetheart.
Oh, I do.
The Advent of the Nommo may not necessarily improve our lot. It might even make things worse. Perhaps the best we can hope for is that things will be different. That cycles will be broken. That dogmas will be discredited. Uncle Larry is for change, Gwendolyn. Hes for slipping into new skin, sharing information irresponsibly, and belly flopping into those ancient ponds whose still waters weve gone so very long without parting.
Fine.
Yes. Well, just thought I ought to mention that.
Thanks. Youre considerate.
Yes. Yes, indeed. And in return, maybe someday youll be considerate enough to tell me what youre doing with a fucking monkey in the trunk of your car.
He rips you with his eyes, then hobbles away.
SIX TWENTY-ONE P.M.
You fling open the trunk with what amounts to a prayer in your heart, praying that the conspicuously silent AndrE has not perished for lack of oxygen-a detail you should have considered earlier-and are immediately reminded of the Mona Lisa. AndrE and Leonardos famous model share an ability to look quizzical and curious despite the fact that neither has eyebrows. Ham actors, for whom eyebrows ar
e the banners and billboards of all emotion, could learn a lot about expression from the browless Mona, the browless macaque.
Straighten Andr Es hair, dress him in a Florentine smock and a thin veil, seat him on a loggia with eroded rocks and several miles of bad road behind him, and he could be the Mona Lisas double. The monkey exhibits the same dainty (and browless) faceful of elusive sentiment, hinting at bewilderment-or is it private amusement? He looks so searching, so poignant, so altogether human as he regards you with unexpected quietness from his nest of Popsicle wrappers and tire chains, that you cannot help but think of Italian art. And evolution.
Primate similarities notwithstanding, you would prefer to avoid the subject of evolution. Not that you doubt Darwins theory. To the contrary, when you were a schoolgirl you used to argue, as schoolgirls will, evolution with Grandma Mati. Your grandmother did not believe in evolution. She believed in a literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis. She believed in the Bible, in Imelda Marcos, in her homemade octopus adobo, and not much else. Grandma Mati did not accept evolution in Oakland, California, and now that she is back in her ancestral village on the outskirts of Manila, she probably accepts it less. You, on the other hand, have always accepted it as a matter of course. Yet, until you met Larry Diamond, you thoughtlessly presumed that evolution was over with, that it had achieved its goals, then petered out. You, like millions of other arrogant chauvinists, had taken it for granted that the human species was the end product of the evolutionary process, its culminating and crowning glory. How could you have held that notion for an instant?
We, with our propensity for murder, torture, slavery, rape, cannibalism, pillage, advertising jingles, shag carpets, and golf, how could we be seriously considered as the perfection of a four-billion-year-old grandiose experiment? Perhaps as a race, we have evolved as far as we are capable, yet that by no means suggests that evolution has called it quits. In all likelihood, it has something beyond human on the drawing board. We tend to refer to our most barbaric and crapulous behavior as inhuman, whereas, in point of fact, it is exactly human, definitively and quintessentially human, since no other creature habitually indulges in comparable atrocities. This negates neither our occasional virtues nor our aesthetic triumphs, but if a being at least a little bit more than human is not waiting around the bend of time, then evolution has suffered a premature ejaculation.
In any event, Andr E, for all his restrained and reflective Renaissance mien, seems to have endured his imprisonment salubriously. If he is uncharacteristically compliant as you lead him into your building, his motor skills are normal, his eyes bright. The question now is what to do with him until Belford gets home. Hours have passed since you last went to the toilet, and your bladder, repeatedly jostled by Diamonds prow, feels as large as a ripe melon, bursting and bruised; yet, if you are uneasy about leaving AndrE alone, you are doubly uneasy about allowing him to accompany you to the bathroom. What type of woman would let a monkey watch her pee?
In the end, wobbling along with your legs squeezed together, you usher him into the tub, fasten his harness chain to a faucet, and draw the shower curtain closed. By the time you plop down on the toilet seat, your stream is already underway. A close call, but you made it! You have voided only about a cupful, however, before the shower curtain is ripped down like a tyrants flag, and AndrE, jibbering all the while, is giving you the simian once-over. You attempt to stem the flow, but its just too painful, so, avoiding his gaze, you blush and squirt away. To the best of your knowledge, AndrE has never enjoyed the companionship of a lady macaque, but you have the distinct sensation that he has a pretty good idea of what it is you are trying to conceal. With that in mind, you are hasty and furtive when the moment comes to dab yourself dry, and you turn obliquely away from him to yank up your underpants.
You smell like midweek at the Biloxi Shrimp Festival, yet a shower and a change of clothes are out of the question until … until what? You are uncertain. Maybe you need to sit quietly somewhere and think.
When you go to unhook AndrEs tether from the faucet, his expression is less that of Leonardos Mona Lisa than Frans Halss Laughing Cavalier. You might even describe it as a smirk. Larry Diamond mentioned-God knows you cannot remember why-that frogs, relatively speaking, have unusually large bladders, providing a reserve of water that their bodies make use of on those occasions when they are trapped on dry land. For your own urinary receptacle, you desire Nommo dimensions because there is absolutely no way you will go to the bathroom with this animal again.
SIX FORTY-NINE P.M.
The Nile will teem with frogs. They will come up into your palace and your bedroom and onto your bed, into the houses of your officials and of your people, and into your ovens and kneading troughs. The frogs will go up on you and your people and all your officials.
Thus promised the Lord God in Exodus, Chapter Eight. In what century was that written, you wonder, and what does it mean? It seems the opposite of what is happening nowadays. Nowadays, its people and officials who are teeming, while frogs are becoming quite scarce.
You read the last line again. The frogs will go up on you and your people and all your officials. You are reading aloud to AndrE, whom you have tethered to one of the living room radiators (for once you are glad your building has old-fashioned steam heat) and given a loaf of rye bread to mangle and eat. The macaque fancies raisin bread, but you havent any raisin bread on hand, and you are sick and tired of catering to his tastes. I dont understand this biblical language, AndrE, you say, but at least Larry wasnt lying about Egypt being invaded by frogs. Id almost prefer it if hed lied. What if all that weird stuff he said is true? Maybe we should read some more. Okay?
Ever since you brought out Grandma Matis old Bible, the monkey has been so attentive, so respectful, that it actually lends a modicum of credence to the claim that he is a Christian monkey, that he has been born again. No. Couldnt be. Ridiculous. A coincidence or a con. At any rate, this is the scene: you are sitting rather primly in your favorite Geoffrey Beene Arkitektura chair with an open Bible on your lap, reading the Word of the Lord to a heedful Barbary ape, when through the front door, which you had left ajar on the off chance that Q-Jo Huffington might happen down the hall, there suddenly bursts Belford Dunn.
SIX FIFTY-SIX P.M.
Belford weeps.
He actually weeps. So moved is he by the tableau upon which he has intruded-moved not merely by his abrupt reunion with his beloved pet, but by the unexpected, unprecedented sight of you sweetly reading from the Holy Scriptures to your erstwhile antagonist, that teardrops the size of guppies swim down his cheeks.
And through the tears he is beaming, beaming with such radiance that you would not be surprised if he formed a man-made rainbow. His smile seems to say, Here at last, my dream come true: my little family, my domestic unit, together, all safe and cozy and sweet, savoring each others company while pursuing greater knowledge of the splendor of God.
Once he has pasted your face with trembling kisses and nearly squeezed the banana-flavored crap out of AndrE, who appears amused but hardly overjoyed to see his big master, Belford explains, I just couldnt stand it, so I went out to the airport and found a sailor who was willing to trade flights with me for sixty-five dollars. Thats a lot of money for swapping tickets, but he was a Christian, he told me, so I knew he wouldnt waste it on beer and card games. Speaking of cards, is Q-Jo back, too?
Huh! Not only is Q-Jo not back, Belford, she was last heard of going through a locked door without a key.
Oh, now, honikins!
Either that or… . Or what, Gwendolyn?
Well, well straighten all that out, dont you worry. But first, you gotta tell me how you found him. My little rascal! Where was he, what was he doing? Tell me everything.
You concoct a story, a fictional account that puts you in a favorable light, while Belford paces back and forth between you and AndrE. Presumably, he fails to detect the fumes that rise from your sex-soiled body, perhaps because the macaque is like
wise a study in pungency. In any case, he is equally adoring of you and his pet, a situation you find both endearing and irritating.
Im ashamed to admit it, Gwen, but there were moments this weekend when I lost faith. In AndrE, in you; in Jesus, even.
Thats understandable, Belford, and Im sure we all forgive you. You are equally sure that not one of you noticed.
Your alleged swain is feeling amorous toward you, you can tell by the way he caresses your forearm, by the moony look in his eyes. He is ripe for a little harmless exploitation, yet you must be cautious, you must proceed slowly. Listen, you say, you and AndrE need to spend some time alone together. Why dont you take him over to your place for an hour or two? Then, maybe you and I can visit for a bit. You can secure him later on and come back over here. But only for a while, because Ive got a huge, stressful day tomorrow.
Well, all right. I heard on the radio in the taxi that the market probably wont open in the morning, not because of the crash, they were saying, but because of that atmospheric interference weve been having the past week. I dont know if its sunspots or what.
Its going to be a rough day in any case. Here. Here are your car keys. You give him a generic prEt-A-porter smooch and nudge him toward the door. Well talk in a couple hours. Bye-bye, AndrE. Have a nice evening. While I try to repair my shower curtain, you evil beast.
Bye, honey. Thank you so very much. I dont know how I can repay you.
Oh, well think of something.
SEVEN-FORTY P.M.
Leaving the shower curtain in a heap on the floor, you enjoy a leisurely soak. At one point, smelling the washcloth, you cant help but wonder where into Diamonds speculations fits the fact that human sexuality reeks of cod. An activity so basic, so primal-and so obviously perfumed by the tides… . Gosh, you are surprised that the sniff cadet didnt make a big deal of it. Mostly, however, you think about business. It may be to your advantage if the markets do close for a day or two. Youll have more time to put your oil futures play into action, as well as to sweep a few things under the carpet. If it isnt too late. If Posner hasnt already decided to yank your plug.