Elizabeth Hand - Winterlong

“But there is,” Miss Scarlet retorted. “If I am ever to become truly human I must learn from these poor souls—”

“Why torture yourself?” said Jane angrily. She stopped in front of a cage where a single animal, massive and barrel-chested, with long matted auburn hair and hands the size of a bunch of plantains, crouched in front of a flattened sheet of polished metal. It regarded its distorted reflection impassively, fingers working the same strange patterns in the air, brow furrowed as though it sought to remember something.

“They are not torturing themselves,” Miss Scarlet said at my elbow. Her pupils dilated and her hackles stiffened. “You have imprisoned them—”_,

“They would die without us!” Jane repeated. I left them and crossed to another cage, my heart pounding. In this one a number of small monkeys leaped and fought and howled. Several of them stopped and raced to the edge of the cage to stare up at me, paws writhing between the bars to pat at my knees as they squealed and chirped. But after a moment their cries grew petulant, their tiny black fingers clawing angrily when I did not acknowledge them. I pulled myself away.

In the next cage a family of the tall red-haired apes reclined against a log. The largest groomed one of the younger ones, parting its long fur so that I could see the scars where it too had been venesected. I hurried away to lean against a crooked metal railing, trying to breathe through my mouth so as not to smell the stench of fear and numbing boredom that seeped through that place.

“—then why do you never try to speak to them, Jane, why these endless games in the name of research—”

Jane stalked over to me, throwing her hands into the air as Miss Scarlet followed her, arguing. I pressed my thumbs to my eyes and breathed deeply. The sound of Miss Scarlet’s shrill voice seemed to alarm the other animals in the Primate House. The small monkeys began to screech, the sullen mother ape to grunt, “ Go, go, go, “in a guttural voice that grew gradually louder and louder.

“Scarlet, you know I hate it worse than you do—”

I opened my eyes. Beside Jane, Miss Scarlet swung her arms up and down furiously, heedless of her stiff garment tearing as she bobbed on her heels. “Why did you ever teach them, can’t you see they are trying to remember—”

I let out my breath and asked, “What are they trying to remember?”

Miss Scarlet’s long teeth gnashed as she cried, “Speech! They are descended from geneslaves, they taught them once to speak with their hands—”

“Hundreds of years ago!” exploded Jane. “They don’t know what they’re doing anymore, it’s—”

“Then teach them!” cried Miss Scarlet. The monkeys exploded into screams and hoots of fright. Miss Scarlet crouched, rose up on her hind legs as though she were going to spring at Jane. Jane moved closer to me, her hand fumbling at her waist for her pistol. Then Miss Scarlet whirled and ran across the room to the cage nearest the outer door. In front of it she stopped, stock still, shoulders drooping and long arms dragging so that her knuckles grazed the floor. Jane turned to me, her eyes filled with tears.

“She gets like this every time she visits them,” she said, her fingers dropping from the pistol. She motioned me to follow her to where Miss Scarlet stood in front of the last cage.

Two pathetic figures squatted inside it. They stared dully at a stream of urine threading to a rusted grate in the concrete floor. Grizzle-headed, naked, with red and listless eyes, they were still indisputably of Miss Scarlet’s blood and kind. She hunched before them, her arms enfolded over her head, eyes shut, making a soft hoo-hoo sound as she swayed back and forth. Jane and I stopped behind her. I drew my hands to my throat—hairless, no scars there—and my eyes burned. But I could not cry: not when tears were denied my dear guide, who squatted before a cage and moaned with an animal’s mute and ageless grief. I stood beside Jane Alopex, the girl staring at her feet with her hands clenched at her sides. In the cage sat the two chimpanzees, one of them scratching at the dirty floor, the other raising its head to regard Miss Scarlet. Dirt caked the lines about its eyes, and a fly lit upon its cheek before it dipped its head again to gaze at the concrete. Miss Scarlet buried her face in her paws.

“Come, Scarlet,” Jane said after a few more minutes. “Your friends will be here soon.”

“Yes. Yes, of course,” Miss Scarlet said in a low voice. She stood, turning from the cage to take my hand. “Forgive me, Jane. Wendy.”

The monkeys hooted as we crossed the courtyard, and one of the great apes bared its teeth at us. At the door of the Primate House the Keeper informed us that Toby and the other Players had arrived by pantechnicon and were already setting up in the amphitheater.

“Best hurry,” he said, patting Miss Scarlet’s head as she passed. “Come again, Scarlet. We miss you around here.”

Miss Scarlet composed herself, smiling wanly. By the time we reached the path to the amphitheater she was calmly discussing the evening’s performance; but she avoided looking into any of the cages.

Afternoon had faded into a clouded but promising evening. I felt that the day’s heightened strangeness, its revelations and fears, all seemed to be leading up to this performance and this place: an ancient amphitheater dug into the earth, where already the first palanquins of costumed revelers gathered in small groups, and where I could spy Toby and the rest of the troupe struggling to unload a striped pantechnicon.

The amphitheater had been built into the hillside facing the Engulfed Cathedral, that sinister finger pointed accusingly at the sunset. Torchieres burned between rows of stone benches set into the damp grass, and a few children ran shrieking between their pockets of yellow light. A crowd of Zoologists had gathered to watch Toby and Justice and Fabian contend with the sets for The Tempest. A pair of striped horses were hitched to the gaily painted pantechnicon, the wagon piled with baskets of costumes and props. The horses whickered and kicked viciously at Fabian as he swung a papier-măché column from the wagon onto the hillside.

“How thoughtful of you to drop by,” he called as we slipped through the crowd. He tossed me a hamper, then turned to where Justice panted up the hillside.

“Perfect timing, Aidan. All the hard work’s done,” said Justice, wiping his brow as he climbed the last few steps to join us. “Toby was looking for you.”

His hair had fallen from its thick braid, and he wore the heavy dark-blue smock we donned when building or striking sets, worn and stained: very much a Player and not a Child of the Magdalene. But I grinned to see him anyway. Glancing around for Gitana or Mehitabel, I spotted them with Toby at the bottom of the slope, stringing lantern globes across the grassy sward that would be our stage. I hefted the basket Fabian had thrown to me and started down the hillside with it. Justice grabbed another hamper and hurried after me, sliding on the slick grass.

“I wish Toby had let you come with us,” I said. Behind us I heard Jane’s hoarse laughter and the excited voices of other Zoologists greeting Miss Scarlet. “Miss Scarlet showed me a cinematograph—”

Justice shrugged. “There was work to be done. And I had to go over my lines—”

“With Mehitabel?” I sniffed. Justice looked back at me, grinning.

“Yes, as a matter of fact. She’s really quite talented.”

I set the hamper on the ground, pretending to tighten its fastenings. “I would have helped you, if you wanted.”

From the stage area echoed giggles and Toby’s booming voice lamenting, “ Not that one! Sweet Mother, the girl has no sense at all!”