Sarah Canary Read online

  Chin kept his eyes down and his mouth shut.

  Harold was unaffected. ‘This Chinaman, of course, is different. He sees an abandoned white woman and he just wants to help her. It’s very good of him.’

  Burke spoke. ‘Your English is remarkable, Chin.’

  Chin did not look up. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Remarkable. How long have you been here?’

  ‘Three years only,’ said Chin. He resisted the impulse to provide more details, to tell them he had learned English back in China and that he also spoke German. He tried instead to divert attention from himself with a deft change of subject. ‘You study nature, then,’ he said to Burke. ‘Have you ever heard of a kind of bird with only one wing? Do you think such a thing could be?’

  ‘No,’ said Burke. ‘Nature being fond of symmetry. And partial to pairs. Two eyes, two arms. Two sexes.’

  ‘One head,’ said B.J. as if he were agreeing. ‘Five fingers.’

  A moment’s silence followed and then Burke laughed abruptly. ‘You’ve put me in mind of the legless birds of paradise. Have you heard this tale? Stop me if you have.’ He paused only briefly before continuing. ‘Well, it’s a bit of a joke on us, really. The first naturalists in South America sent back beautiful specimens they called the birds of paradise. Lovely birds with no legs. The scholars in London were beside themselves, contemplating the lives of the airy creatures, eating and mating and sleeping entirely on the wing. They wrote papers of praise. Later they learned the legs had simply been cut off to make the birds fit in the boxes for the mail. Oh, it was a great embarrassment all the way ’round.’ Burke laughed again and handed the bottle of whiskey to Chin. ‘Drink up,’ he suggested. ‘Drink to paradise and the legless birds who live there.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Chin said, inclining his head slightly. The bottle was wet on the outside of the neck where Chin grasped it and the dirt on his hands turned to mud. He took an especially long swallow, a tiny celebration of Burke’s approval, though how he had won it, he wasn’t sure. The whiskey was harsh; tears came to his eyes and his nose filled. He wiped his fingerprints off the bottle with his sleeve and handed it back to Burke, who passed it to Harold. Harold cleaned around the mouth with his cuff before he drank again.

  ‘Chin, I want to show you something,’ Burke said. Swinging his legs around, he reached into a box behind him, sorting through several stoppered jars. ‘Are you familiar with this?’ The jar he handed Chin contained a single small stone. ‘I bought this off a man in San Francisco who said he got it off a Chinese boatman in Hong Kong. I’d like to get another. Have you seen such things?’

  ‘It’s medicine,’ said Chin. ‘It’s a dragon’s tooth. A very good one. Liung tse. Very valuable.’

  ‘You Chinese use that name for any fossilized tooth. But this tooth is rather peculiar. You see how the internal slopes have filled the intervening valleys so that the surface is nearly flat? Leaving only a few fissures and those are particularly narrow. You would expect this kind of wear on a human tooth. Homo sapiens. But the tooth is far too large to be human. It comes from some animal that lives in China. Humanlike, but gigantic. What could it be?’

  ‘An ape?’ Chin suggested.

  ‘Even that’s not large enough. And it wouldn’t explain the wear. Have you seen other teeth like this?’

  ‘I’ve seen many dragon teeth,’ said Chin. ‘I’ve never looked that closely. I don’t remember another one so large.’

  ‘Ah, well.’ Burke put the jar away behind him. He smiled at Sarah Canary, who was noisily finishing her bread. She smiled back. ‘Droop,’ she said. ‘Whulp. La.’

  ‘The world is full of mysteries,’ Burke observed. ‘And a very good thing, too. Harold, here, makes quite a little living from the world’s mysteries. Don’t you, Harold?’

  ‘People have a natural sense of wonder,’ Harold said stiffly. ‘I try to provide them with a little oddity now and then. Takes them out of themselves and away from their own troubles.’

  ‘Don’t apologize.’ Burke gestured extravagantly, knocking a book from the top of a crate. His voice was the loudest in the room, louder than the rain, which hit the wall with a sound like a thousand stones, louder than the wind, which rang like a celestial gong. Wherever Burke sat, Chin felt that the center of the room shifted to that spot. Harold’s movements and speeches were miserly in comparison. B.J. was mouselike. Chin found himself admiring Burke’s largeness and loudness. It seemed to him a kind of courage. ‘We all have to make a living,’ said Burke. ‘We all have to do things we can’t be proud of.’ He tipped the bottle straight into the air and gulped. He handed the whiskey to Chin. His face had taken on a drunken redness, and Harold’s eyes were glassy. Chin took another sip, smaller this time.

  ‘What kind of little oddity?’ asked B.J.

  ‘Entertainment,’ said Harold.

  ‘Carnival entertainment,’ said Burke.

  ‘Have you ever seen a display of performing fleas?’ B.J. asked. ‘A woman I knew had been to a carnival and she’d seen trained fleas who could draw water and turn a windmill and fire a cannon all with little silver wires fastened to their necks. She said there was a tiny carriage drawn by fleas and carrying fleas all dressed up inside. Have you ever seen an oddity like that?’

  ‘No,’ said Harold. ‘I never have.’

  ‘I think it was in England,’ B.J. said.

  Chin’s scalp itched and he scratched at it. It itched even more.

  Burke turned his head to gaze at Sarah Canary. ‘Here’s a mystery for you. A beautiful mystery. A mysterious woman. You’re familiar with the categories of Linnaeus?’ Burke asked. ‘Systema Naturae?’

  ‘No,’ said Chin.

  ‘No, of course, you wouldn’t be. If you were, it might have occurred to you that this is not an ordinary woman you’ve found.’

  ‘I never thought she was an ordinary woman,’ said Chin.

  ‘And did you ever think that Sarah Canary might well be an example of Homo sapiens ferus?’ Burke’s eyes brightened in excitement. ‘A wild woman?’ He drank recklessly. ‘Just last year a feral boy was captured near Mynepuri, India. His name is Dina Sanichar. He’s been raised by wolves since infancy, like Romulus and Remus. Had to be trapped like a beast himself and dragged in ropes, snarling and spitting, back to civilization. Of course, we have to make a distinction between human children adopted by the animals and taught bestiality and the true Homo sapiens ferus. I’m looking at Sarah Canary’s rather distinct facial characteristics – the prominent brow, in particular – and thinking she could be either one.’ He retrieved the bottle from Harold and passed it to Chin.

  ‘The feral child,’ he continued, ‘has a natural aversion to intoxicants. Miss Anna Blue would make much of this if she only knew it. I offered drink to Sarah Canary and you noted her reaction. The feral child does not laugh. Have you ever heard Sarah Canary laugh?’

  Chin considered the question. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I believe I have. Once or twice.’

  ‘Perhaps you mistook a guttural sort of vocalization for laughter. The feral child must be taught to walk upright. Have you ever seen her run on all fours?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Does she not recognize herself in a mirror?’

  Chin paused. ‘Yes,’ said B.J., sounding excited. ‘I mean, no. She does not. Well, that settles it, doesn’t it? And Dr Carr thought she was a poisoner. Remember, Chin? How she couldn’t go into the kitchen?’

  ‘So she has been examined by a medical man?’ Burke wiped a dribble of whiskey off his beard with his hand.

  ‘He only had time for a cursory examination.’ B.J. finally finished his drink, setting the empty glass down and curling onto the floor beside it. He belched softly, laid his cheek over one of his bent arms and closed his eyes. ‘But he did the mirror test.’

  ‘What about the dress?’ said Chin. ‘She was wearing the same dress when I found her.’

  Burke waved this away with one hand. ‘Obviously, you weren’t the first to find her.
She has escaped or wandered off from some previous attempt to civilize her. A special course of education is being designed for the Indian boy; naturally, you can’t just throw a wolf child into an ordinary school with other children. The process of reclaiming these souls is a very delicate one, best left to an expert. I don’t think a true wild man has ever been civilized. It would be a real challenge.’

  The wind shook the little cabin. Rain pounded on the walls outside and blew into the chimney. Harold got up and added a handful of pinecones and another log to the fire.

  ‘Do you notice that Sarah Canary has your blanket, Chin?’ B.J. said sleepily. ‘What did I tell you?’

  ‘You would start by teaching the names of common objects, of course,’ said Burke. ‘Especially those objects whose value would be readily understood by the primitive. Blanket. Fire. Water. In a simple setting. At first, the wild man should deal only with a few other humans and those should always be the same. Perhaps only two. One human to tend to physical needs – cleanliness, food. A second responsible for education. How are most children civilized? Why, within the family, of course. Create a family for the wild man. A mother. A father. Avoid the temptation to move too fast, to overwhelm the wild man with too many facts, too many philosophies. You wouldn’t expect the wild man to appreciate opera immediately, for instance, even if that was one of your eventual goals. You wouldn’t even take him to church right away. No, the best possible situation would be a sort of bridge between savagery and civilization. A remote cabin somewhere with a very few human companions. A life with elements of the familiar. And then the wild man could be taught to perform certain simple tasks. I’m not talking about tricks here. I mean, we’re not talking about a dog.’

  ‘We’re not talking about a flea,’ said B.J.

  ‘It would take a great deal of time,’ said Burke. ‘A great deal of patience. But so much could be learned on both sides.’

  B.J. yawned widely. Chin heard his jaw crack. A pinecone burst apart in the fire, sending a shower of sparks upward. The sparks were small, brief stars, like those of a firecracker, smaller and briefer than the lives and affections of men. Yet somewhere beyond the clouds and the rain were the real stars. What did human sorrow matter to the real stars? And was it too implausible to suppose that something even larger existed, that some larger Chin sat and watched the real stars and thought that they were, after all, only a blink in time and tried to imagine something smaller still? Chin made a satisfying ring of this image in his mind, connecting the large and little stars, the large and little Chins. An afterimage of red lights danced above the fire for a moment more. Then the sparks existed only in memory.

  ‘It would be holy work,’ said Burke. ‘I truly believe that. God created nature for man, and when we study it, whenever we can find the pattern to unravel part of it, what we are seeing then is the mind of God. I can’t concede the objections to Darwin. The more pattern, the more perfection.’

  ‘What about women?’ B.J. asked.

  ‘In what way do you mean?’

  ‘Are women part of the man God created nature for or are they part of the nature God created for man?’

  There was no answer, just the wind and the rain, just the fire and the small sound of Sarah Canary’s dress as she settled herself onto the floor for the night. Minutes passed. Sarah Canary pulled Chin’s blanket over her. She took several deep breaths. Chin turned and looked at B.J. He had stopped trembling and his chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm. ‘He’s gone to sleep,’ said Chin. ‘And so has Sarah Canary.’

  ‘It’s a good question, though,’ said Burke. ‘It’s one I hadn’t thought of. Speaking scientifically, it makes sense to treat women simply as a less highly evolved form of man. Their brains are smaller. They’re more delicate, evidence lower levels of metabolism and energy. This works out rather well for men, of course. We can do without them, but I don’t think the reverse can be said. Is that answer enough?’

  Harold reached for a crumpled blanket on the floor by one of the crates. Another crumpled blanket lay beneath it. He tossed the second to Burke. Wrapping it around himself, Burke stretched out between B.J. and Chin. Harold took a space closer to Sarah Canary. Chin lay down. He slept fitfully, waking whenever his position became uncomfortable. He woke because he was hungry. He woke because he was cold. The rain continued, but the wind had stopped. The fire was out. Burke snored like a beast beside him. B.J. sighed with every breath. Chin rubbed his arms and held himself. He went back to sleep. He woke again when B.J. screamed.

  ‘Lord preserve us!’ cried Burke. ‘What is going on?’

  B.J. was standing in the dim light by the far wall, holding the corner of the brown blanket whose mysterious lumps and folds Chin had noticed when they first entered the cabin. Chin jumped to his feet and joined him. Underneath the blanket, underneath B.J.’s shaking hand, was the black, twisted, and open-eyed face of a dead child.

  ‘What are you doing there?’ said Harold sharply. ‘That thing there is none of your business.’

  ‘I was cold,’ said B.J. ‘I just wanted the blanket.’ He looked at Chin, his face white in the dark room. ‘I wasn’t taking it. Nobody else was using it.’

  ‘Calm yourself,’ said Burke. He produced a second bottle of whiskey and picked up B.J.’s discarded glass. ‘Calm yourself. Have a drink.’ He poured again, stepping across the room to join them. He pulled on the blanket gently, but it was frozen inside B.J.’s fist. Setting the glass down, he unwrapped B.J.’s fingers and finished peeling the blanket back. A stale, medicinal odor filled Chin’s nose. The little body, topped by the agonized human face, ended in a fish’s tail. ‘What do you think of it?’ said Burke. ‘It’s an embalmed mermaid. She comes from the coast of Australia. Australia is a young continent, so its fauna is a bit strange.’ He picked up the glass of whiskey again. B.J.’s hand had not moved; it still clutched and shook in the air above the body. Burke put the glass inside B.J.’s fist and curled B.J.’s fingers around it. ‘Drink up,’ he said. When he released B.J.’s hand, the whiskey spilled from the glass.

  ‘I can’t,’ said B.J. ‘I can’t hold it steady enough. Am I here, Chin?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Chin.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Burke guided the glass to B.J.’s mouth. He tipped it and the liquor ran down B.J.’s chin. ‘I can’t swallow,’ said B.J.

  Chin turned again to the little figure whose face expressed such anguish. She must have died in terror. So much terror that she had, in fact, become terror; her facial expression was more vivid to Chin than her strings of hair, her tiny, exposed breasts, or even her unexpected tail. He turned away, queasy, the whiskey shifting in his stomach. He remembered the promise he had made to Tom, to show him something never seen in the world before, and how Tom had imagined it would be something beautiful like striped horses. Would Tom have been satisfied with this? Would anyone want to go to his death too soon after seeing such a face?

  Harold spoke softly. ‘“Where the winds are all asleep,”’ he said.

  ‘“Where the spent lights quiver and gleam,

  Where the salt weed sways in the stream,

  Where the sea beasts, ranged all round,

  Feed in the ooze of their pasture ground;

  . . . Where the great whales come sailing by,

  Sail and sail, with unshut eye . . .”

  ‘Poetry,’ he said. ‘Matthew Arnold.’

  ‘I’m sorry to have woken everyone.’ There was a quiet hysteria in B.J.’s voice, a quality Chin recognized, even in as short a time as he had spent in the Steilacoom asylum. It was a tone of voice by which any patient there could be identified. Yes, I’m crazy, it said, but I’m no trouble. Yes, I’m crazy, but look how quiet I am. ‘Let’s just pretend it didn’t happen. Let’s all go back to sleep now. I liked the poem.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you’re familiar with a book called Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. Of course, you wouldn’t be.’ Burke stood, staring sadly
down at the mermaid. ‘Curious volume. Authorship something of a mystery. But it attempts to explain the monstrous in nature. Uses the metaphor of the railroads – you’ll be interested in this, Chin. The idea is that the embryos of all animals begin on the same main line but take a turning off at some point. Evolution happens because an embryo stays longer on the main line. Monstrous births occur when the turning is taken too early. You get these mixes, like the duck-billed platypus, which is something halfway between a bird and a rat. And this mermaid.’

  ‘The mermaid is mine,’ said Harold. ‘Burke bought it from a ship’s captain in San Francisco and I bought it from Burke and came here to collect it. I plan to exhibit it. It’s none of your business.’

  B.J. returned to his spot on the floor and curled up on his side. ‘Did you want the blanket?’ Burke said.

  ‘Not anymore. Cover it up again.’

  Sarah Canary lay back down in her corner. Chin returned to his spot. He was awake a long time, thinking of Sarah Canary and the mermaid and of Tom. He was never aware of having fallen asleep, but he must have done so, because Burke woke him with a whisper toward morning. Burke had obviously spent the night with the whiskey bottle. His hair pointed in a variety of directions and his eyes expressed the same energetic confusion. The slurring of his speech made him spit on Chin while he talked. The quieter he tried to make his words, the more he spit.

  ‘I’m giving her up,’ he said. On the ‘p’ a drop of whiskey landed on Chin’s left hand. It was filled with tiny yellow bubbles. Chin drew his hand across his sleeve. ‘My darling Sarah Canary,’ Burke shook his head. ‘My angel. I have to give you up. B.J. is right. If you were a man, it might be different. Then we might convince ourselves you had a profitable, productive life ahead. Work. Philosophy. Contemplation. But what can a woman expect? A woman of your age. A woman who can’t even eat prettily.’ Chin wiped spittle off his cheek with one hand and pushed back the hair that had come loose at the sides of his face. He was surprised at his own sense of disappointment. He had not said to himself that perhaps Burke would take Sarah Canary and relieve him of responsibility. He had not said to himself that perhaps Sarah Canary would be safe with Burke. But clearly he had thought it, somewhere deep and unheard inside.