The People in the Trees

  A. Norton Perina

  December 1999

  January 13, 2000

  Renowned Scientist, Recently Paroled, Is Missing

  BY ASSOCIATED PRESS

  Bethesda, Md.—Dr. Abraham Norton Perina, the Nobel Prize–winning scientist who was recently released from the Frederick Correctional Facility, is missing.

  Dr. Perina was convicted on two counts of sexual assault in 1997 and sentenced to twenty-four months in jail; he was released in January. Earlier this month he failed to report to his parole officer. Now county police report that Perina’s home has been vacated and that none of his former colleagues have been in communication with him since before his release.

  Compounding the mystery is the simultaneous disappearance of Dr. Ronald Kubodera of Palo Alto, California, Perina’s longtime colleague and friend. At the end of last year, Perina reportedly transferred most of his assets to Dr. Kubodera, who was a scientist in Perina’s lab for many years and was most recently a professor at Stanford University. The university reported Dr. Kubodera missing on January 3, after he had failed to report for classes for two days. His apartment has apparently been abandoned.

  Perina, 76, won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1974 for his identification of Selene syndrome, an acquired condition that granted its victims extended lifespans while causing their mental decay. He was equally well known in Bethesda for his adoption of 43 children from U’ivu, the Micronesian country where the condition was first observed by Dr. Perina in 1950.

  “We are determined to locate Dr. Perina,” said a spokesperson for the Montgomery County Police Department. “Anyone with any tips as to his whereabouts should call the police immediately.”

  EPILOGUE

  We have traveled far, Norton and I. I do not mean this in some vulgar, sentimental way but literally: we have traveled far. But I am afraid that is almost all I can say on the matter.83

  What else? I can tell you that the air here is overwhelming, so full of scents that I sometimes cannot stand it and must retreat indoors, and that there has been no rain for the past ten days. In the kitchen, Norton likes great shaggy arrangements of flowers, so I spend a few mornings a week with P., our gardener, gathering armfuls of molting flowering plants, the names of which I still do not know. One is a stalky stem at the end of which is a bonnet-shaped cluster of individual buds, each as yellow as a Japanese pickled radish. Another is a branch from a tree, bristling with tiny flowers shaped like cracked pistachio shells. And still another seems to be a succulent of some sort, with thick, viscous leaves and stiff, turretlike petals. P. helps me cut them down, and I put them in a large glass jar; the sight of them never fails to delight Norton. We are very happy here, the two of us.

  Sometimes, though, I will admit, I miss the life I left behind. I think often of my lab and my colleagues, and occasionally, of my children, whom I know I will never see again. There are times when I wish I could speak again to people from my past, or when I crave my old life and wonder whether I have made the correct decision. But these moments never last long, for I am always able to search out Norton—the reason I am here, after all—for a conversation, and listening to him talk reminds me that my decision, while perhaps one with its own set of imperfect realities, was the correct one. And at any rate, I am convinced that these feelings will diminish with time.

  When I first came here, I yearned for information, for news, about the life I had left behind. Actually, I yearned for news of any kind. I could not help seeing my new life through the lens of my old. The second day here, I wondered, What are they saying about me back home? What are they saying about Norton? What must they think? I’d imagine my phone at the lab ringing, my mailbox stuffed with envelopes and pieces of paper. I had written a few notes before leaving, but kept my missives to a minimum: one to my ex-wife, explaining that I had left some money for the children in an account I had established at my bank, and since I would not be returning, they would be her responsibility; one to my sister, thanking her for her many kindnesses over the years; and one to the president of the university that did not say much of anything at all. I began (and rebegan) letters to my two children but was unable to find words to express what I needed to (and in truth was unable to determine exactly what it was I hoped to articulate), so I eventually gave up. Their mother, I know, will be able to tell them something convincing; she was always better at that than I.

  Although these cravings have lessened, they do sometimes reappear, often at night, while I am trying to sleep. The first time it happened I thought I was hungry—after all, I had not eaten dinner. Careful not to wake Norton, I ventured down to the kitchen, where I stood in front of the open refrigerator, examining the dishes that M., P.’s wife and our part-time cook, had left there that morning. I sat down at the table with a plate of boiled chicken, cubes of cheese bathed in olive oil, and buttered zucchini and ate until the sun rose, after which I was violently ill. This gluttony unfortunately repeated itself several more times before I realized that my cravings were not for food but for something far away and unattainable. Understanding this, I am certain, will make withstanding these episodes easier, and at any rate, I fully expect them to disappear entirely with time. Any new life, no matter how long dreamed of and desired, demands a period of adjustment.

  My story—Norton’s story—is almost over, but I have two more things to share with you; one will follow the other, and it is not necessary to read them. Our story could end here, and it would be, I hope, as satisfying a conclusion for you as it is for the two of us.

  There is one—entry, I suppose, of Norton’s writing that I have withheld throughout this story, and I must admit that I am including it now with great ambivalence. I am not sure at all whether it is the correct thing to do. I am also cynical enough, I suppose, to understand that although it should not make a difference, it may. Therefore I can say only that I hope that it will stand as a curious little footnote (for that, really, is what it is; the story is no more or less without it) and that the many qualities that have been displayed to their best effect in Norton’s writings—his wit, his intelligence, his passion and compassion—will be the things the reader remembers from this account, will be the things that define him in history. But after great consideration, I have chosen to include this fragment for no reason other than I think it remarkable for its awkward expressions of tenderness, for its openheartedness, for its proud expressions of love and its admissions of fallibility. It reminds us that love, at least the sort of pure love that so few of us will admit to feeling, is a complicated, dark, violent thing, an agreement not to be entered into lightly. One can disagree with Norton’s opinions on the matter and still think him a whole, and a good, human being. At least this is what I hope, though it is ultimately for the reader to decide for himself; I have already made my decision, long ago.

  The second thing I have to share with you—for I am as frustrated as you that I am not able to share more details of my life here, though discretion is of course a matter of necessity, not whim—is what happened that day, one year ago almost exactly, when I went to retrieve Norton from prison. It was a day that I had been awaiting for some time, and I had flown to Bethesda several days in advance in anticipation. For those three days I was able to think of little else but Norton. When Norton had first suggested his plan to me in a rare phone conversation, I had replied cautiously, even warily, but a few hours later I knew: of course this is what I would do. I had been waiting for it my entire adult life, after all, and could not find any misgiving serious enough to keep me from doing what I knew I would never regret. After all, I have always been loyal to Norton. I saw no reason that I should abandon that instinct now.

  Finally, after three days of wandering around the town, with its expensive little boutiques crowded with useless bric-a-brac I couldn’t imagine anyone ever buying (designer olive oils and vinegars; woven-rush baskets shaped like ceramic vases and ceramic vases glazed to look like woven-rush baskets), I drove to the Frederick Correctional Faci
lity to collect Norton. I had run a few errands at his request: to the store, to fetch some supplies I knew he would need, and to his accountant and his lawyer. His lawyer met me with an expression I could not interpret and silently handed me the materials that Norton had asked me to retrieve. I had not seen him since the hearing, and we spoke only a few words. I did not visit the lab—indeed, did not desire to see anyone from our old lives.

  At the facility I was frisked and made to walk through the metal detectors twice. I had left my bag, as well as the one I had packed for Norton, in the car. I was directed to a window where I signed several documents, and then made to wait in an evil-smelling concrete room. I watched the second hand of the clock tick past the minutes and waited. I had waited so long, I did not mind.

  After two hours or so, an officer came into the little room to tell me that owing to a bureaucratic mistake, Norton had been processed earlier that morning and was apparently waiting for me at his lawyer’s office. Of course I put up a ruckus, not because I was particularly annoyed for my own sake but because I hated the idea of Norton leaving without anyone to greet him and somehow finding his way to his lawyer’s office by himself, all his belongings in tow. But then the guard told me that the lawyer had come to fetch Norton himself (a detail, may I add, that he might have told me when I visited his office) and that the entire process had gone smoothly. Still, I continued (simply out of my own velocity, I suspect) to berate the officer, who remained irritatingly serene and entirely unapologetic. Finally, sensing that the guard was of limited intellectual capabilities as well as apparently immovable, I was defeated. It was beginning to occur to me that it was the last time I would ever have to visit the prison, any prison, and I was suddenly anxious to leave.

  At that very moment, I knew, Norton would be sitting with his lawyer, listening to him drone on about his parole and his obligations. He would nod, by all appearances be in total agreement: Yes, yes, of course. Of course he would submit to an outpatient program for committed pedophiles. Of course he would agree to see a psychiatrist. Of course he would agree to respect the terms of the restraining order Victor had requested. Nothing was too much, nothing was too constraining; he wanted to show he was a reformed man, wanted to be as accommodating as possible. He would sign documents, agree to meeting times and responsibilities that would, in a matter of hours and as long as we were careful, lose meaning. The lawyer, who had become strangely distant after losing Norton’s case, would be condescending, but Norton would not mind; the charade would almost be over, and he would be feeling generous.

  I was in a hurry. I know I have said that I was determined to be patient, having waited so long, but then, knowing that Norton was so close, that our new life together was about to begin, I was nervous and, for the first time in very many years, excited. I waited impatiently as I was patted down by an officer, and then finally there were only a hundred or so yards of hallway and a short drive left before I would see Norton once more. We would have a night together in a hotel, and then the next day we would be gone, and all of this—the years, our careers, our families, the trial, the humiliation—would be forgotten. Ahead of us lay something shining and clean and so new that I could not quite see it. And then I was walking down the hallway toward the exit, my heart beating faster with each step, and it was all I could do to keep myself from flinging open the doors, from running down the prison’s steps and shouting, an unformed, squawking syllable of noise. Norton was waiting; soon I would see him. What would he want to do first, in his new free life?

  Outside, as I approached my car, a flock of crows that had been congregating on its roof rose at once, a flapping, screeching rustle of black, and for a second I wanted to laugh. They seemed glorious, scattering into the toneless sky, which was as white and grainy as silt: I felt as if I could have seen forever.

  Ronald Kubodera

  December 2000

  83 I know the reader is probably wondering how we have managed to successfully avoid detection. All I can say on the matter is that such things can, under the right circumstances, be arranged without too much trouble.

  Also, I would like to apologize in advance for the regrettable coyness of this epilogue. I loathe it myself but am sure the reader will understand that anything more candid could lead to unpleasant consequences.

  POSTSCRIPT

  (This is the missing fragment from Norton’s account of his difficulties with Victor, from this page.)

  I would like to tell you that things became markedly easier after this episode, but they did not. Or rather, they both did and did not. In the days immediately following his release from the basement, it is true, Victor seemed willing to admit defeat: he was quiet and obedient and lowered his eyes shyly, almost flirtatiously, when he passed me in the hallways. Indeed, what was most noticeable about him was his new quietness. Victor had never been a particularly noisy child, but neither could he be called taciturn; he, like the others, liked to hear himself talk and make all sorts of pronouncements. He had been, I suppose, social, and soon after ceased to be.

  I do not wish to give the impression, though, that he became a recluse after his punishment. Rather, he seemed to mature somewhat; there were no more curls of the lip when I asked him to do the dishes on a night other than his usual one, no more scowls when I instructed him to do his homework, no more heavy sighs when I reminded him to use his manners or modulate his voice or when I corrected his grammar. Instead there was a sort of blankness, an absence, almost as if he had been given a sort of benign, bloodless lobotomy. Still, he was not an automaton; he continued to do the things the other children did—fight, play, talk, argue, laugh. He never cried, but he had never cried. It was something I had always respected about him.

  And I too played my part. He was a proud boy, and I understood that and could be sympathetic to it. So I never reminded him of his humiliation, never used his behavior as a lesson to the others. And I never called him Victor again. I wanted him to maintain his dignity.

  But then, after a month or so of this new calm, he once again became beastly. He skipped school and lied about it. He pushed Drew down a flight of stairs and broke his wrist. He shaved—carefully, and with great artistry—an extremely vulgar word into the plush fur of our neighbors’ cat. I walked into the room he shared with William one night and caught him doing this. For a minute, though, I could only stare at the tender way one arm encircled the cat while in his right hand, the razor—my razor—purred through the soft landscape of the animal’s hair. He was murmuring to it in a low comforting way, but what was most startling when he finally turned was his expression: in his flat eyes were the expected defiance and rage but also a sort of genuine bewilderment, as if he were unable to stop himself from misbehaving, as if his hand, moving silkily through the cat’s fur, was manipulated by demons over which he had no control.

  After that, relations between us once again grew sour and dark. At dinner he would shout at me without provocation, hurl terrible accusations my way. Of course I was not hurt by them, but I was growing weary of these fights, of hitting him, of thinking of new ways to punish him, to force him into obedience. I dreamed one night that Victor was a particularly large and aggressive spider, with tough, sinewy legs and cruelly glittering red eyes. For some reason I was trying to guide him into a small and flimsy woven basket. I tried tricking him, forcing him, and even enticing him with a smudge of grainy honey, but he escaped me again and again, and I woke up with my hands, still in fists, sticky with sweat and frustration.

  And then suddenly, just when I was about to throw him into the street or to have him institutionalized (such things are not as difficult as one might think if one knows the right people), he would improve, become compliant and almost meek, would seem once again to recede. But I soon grew to fear and mistrust these periods of fake calm most of all, for it meant that he was conjuring something particularly nasty; he would wait for me to be soothed into complacence and then, when I was fat and sleepy and unaware, would come flying at me, his
inexplicable rage as sharp and dangerous as talons. At these times I wondered if he might be ill in some way, although really Victor’s fury was too purposeful, too controlled, to be attributable to mental disease; rather, it was part of a concerted campaign to make me—what? Kill him? Kill myself? Even today I am not sure what it was he was hoping to make me do. Perhaps it was merely a game for him, a series of feints and withdrawals, each time more serious and potentially dangerous than the previous one. Naturally, I was able to dispense with him rather quickly; after all, I was the adult, and smarter and stronger besides, and he the child. But he was also a boy, and indefatigable, and had hours and hours in which to perfect his cunning, in which to sharpen his mischief as cleanly and carefully as another would whittle a blade.

  One night I came home late from the lab and found on the floor of my study a neat little hill of shards. Stepping closer, I found it to be the ruins of a large crystal bowl that Owen had given me when I had won the Nobel. The crystal had been heavy and as pure as water, saturated with color, liquid lozenges of aqua and green the color of serpents. The bowl was one of the few gifts Owen had given me, and one of the most meaningful, for it had originally been his. Seeing it one day at his apartment, I had exclaimed over it and held it wonderingly to the light, watching the reflections of color it made slide around the room in circles. Owen had snatched it out of my hands, screeching that I would break it, and an argument had begun. But then that year a package, huge and bulky and wrapped in layers of brown butcher paper, had arrived, and inside, wrapped in cloth and tied with waxed red twine inside a wooden crate, was the bowl, as perfect and weighty and jewel-bright as I remembered it.