Gibbon's Decline and Fall (46 page)

The three female figures were as yet only rough shapes, indications of what was intended: a crouching shepherdess with sheep, a kneeling dryad, a gardener holding a sheaf of grain. Faye wanted to use Carolyn for the shepherdess, Ophy for the nymph, and, to Aggie's surprise, Aggie as the gardener. Faye had brought costumes to dress them up in during the meeting so she could take photographs and make sketches.

“What goes there in the middle, in front?” Bettiann wondered, pointing at the vacant promontory.

“The center figure in Botticelli's painting is Venus Genetrix,” Faye answered. “Venus in her role as fertility deity.”

“You'll be using something else?”

“Definitely something else, though as yet I'm not sure what.”

Hal was invited to join them for supper, which they dawdled over. “Tell me about the case,” Aggie demanded over coffee, determined not to think about this being the last time.

Carolyn wrinkled her forehead. “Do we want to talk about the case tonight?”

“Sure,” said Jessamine. “We're going to be talking about it sooner or later.”

“Okay,” Carolyn said resignedly. “This is how we think it will go. Jagger has Lolly's mother on the witness list and also one of her grade-school teachers—”

Ophy interrupted. “Dr. George Fulling is on the prosecution witness list also. He's an expert on developmental anomalies.”

“Right,” said Carolyn. “The prosecution will use Fulling
to refute Lolly's having fetal alcohol syndrome. Ophy and I laid a red herring over our bugged phone.”

“Why did you do that?” Aggie asked, puzzled.

Carolyn said, “Because we wanted people on the jury who could weigh scientific evidence, and normally Jagger would get rid of anyone with good sense. He likes them credulous, the dumber the better.

“So he's put this doctor and Lolly's mother and one of her grade-school teachers on his witness list to refute our claim that Lolly is a fetal alcohol child (which claim, need I say, we are not going to make), and we can use these same people to establish the abuse Lolly suffered at home. We've also got records of hospital admissions starting when Lolly was about nine, which show bruises and spiral fractures, plus one episode of sexually transmitted disease when she was ten. We want to give the jury the picture: why she dropped out of school, why she is the way she is.…”

Jessamine nodded. “All the prosecution cares about is showing that Lolly isn't retarded. If she's not retarded, then she's supposed to be totally responsible for whatever happens to her.”

Carolyn said, “We're going to counter this by attacking the Hail Mary Assumption.”

“You're what?” asked Aggie, dangerously quiet.

Jessamine and Ophy had been waiting for this. They shifted uncomfortably.

Carolyn said, “Just listen, Aggie:

“Media coverage of this case has used a lot of phrases like ‘Corrupted motherhood,' and ‘Breakdown of civilization.' Jagger's case must begin with the assumption that all women are equipped with a strong, overriding maternal instinct; that all babies arouse this maternal instinct; and that any woman who does not respond maternally is a rotten person who must be guilty as sin; what Sophy called the Hail Mary Assumption.”

Aggie shook her head slowly, saying, “I think you'll find that most members of the jury are likely to make that same assumption. And while I won't say ‘Guilty as sin,' I still don't think of her as an innocent.”

Carolyn took a deep breath. “Well, Aggie, we all know that. But if any of the jurors have open minds, we've got a lot of material which should at least throw that assumption into question.”

Hal smiled rather grimly, leaned back, put his fingers together.
“You're not going to call it the Hail Mary Assumption in court, presumably.”

“Of course not,” Carolyn agreed.

They fell silent, several of them covertly examining Aggie's face, which was very white and withdrawn.

“Time for dessert?” asked Stace when the resultant pause had stretched too long into silence.

Hal struggled out of his deep chair. “While you ladies have your dessert, it's time for us outsiders to do the dishes.” He and Stace went off down the hall, leaving the six of them to relax over more coffee, brandy, and a sinful chocolate torte that Faye had brought with her. They spent an hour or two trading stories of the “what I've been doing” variety, including Aggie's story of the archbishop, and all of them tried to stay away from anything controversial.

“I hope we didn't upset you with the Hail Mary bit,” Carolyn said later when she encountered Aggie in the hall. “I know how you feel about these things, party line and all that.”

“It's a … bad time for me just now,” Aggie murmured. “Please don't be angry with me, Carolyn. The archbishop's request has made me question things I've taken for granted for years. In a way, I can see your side of this. I see similar things in the parish all the time, men ignoring the children they father, and the Church taking very little account of it. Let some single father leave his kids with sitters all day because he has to work, or even with a mistress or second wife who doesn't give a hoot for the kids, that's okay, but let a single mother hire a nanny so she can work to support them, that isn't okay, she's unfit, and they take the kids away.

“I see the fundamental unfairness of that. The sexism of it. I've always seen the sexism of it, just as you do. You solved the problem by giving up your religion. I will not give up my religion, so I may simply have to accept sexism. We sisters have done it for hundreds of years. Perhaps they have been more welcome in heaven than the feminists today. God moves, as we have always been taught, in mysterious ways.”

She went down the hall with a still and shuttered face, leaving Carolyn to stare after her, positive that Aggie was indeed going to leave them. Well, if it had been their last time, it had been a well-shared time. Carolyn comforted herself with that thought as she crawled into bed beside Hal, being careful not to wake him.

“Nice girls,” murmured Hal, too drowsy to be PC.

“Wonderful friends,” she corrected. “It was good to be with them. We had a good time.”

It was the last good time for a long time.

The news broke Saturday. Despite Carolyn's best efforts at occupying the smaller half of the bed, Hal had not slept well, and when Carolyn got up, he announced his intention of staying right where he was for an hour or so. Carolyn patted him on the shoulder, pulled the light covers up around him, and left him there while she started the coffee and walked out to the road to get the paper. She was accompanied by a strangely lethargic Leonegro, who ambled beside her with his head down, as though he'd lost something along the way. She unfolded the paper as she strolled back, only to be stopped short by the size of the headline that took up half the front page.

Her first thought was how sensible it had been to let the news out on a weekend. People would have a day or so to get used to the idea before the workaday world started over again on Monday. Her second thought was that one or two days wouldn't be anywhere near enough for anyone to get used to the idea.

When she got back to the house, Aggie was waiting outside, her white-bordered short veil whipping in a light breeze.

“I turned on the TV in the kitchen,” she said. “Carolyn, they're saying—”

Carolyn handed her the morning paper. “I know.”

The others were assembled, gathered around the little TV Carolyn kept in the kitchen, Bettiann full of exclamations and horrors, the rest of them suspiciously unresponsive.

“You knew!” challenged Aggie, catching a conspiratorial glance between Ophy and Jessamine. “Ophy, you knew!”

“Ophy merely thought something of the kind might be happening,” Carolyn soothed diplomatically. “You know, in his work Simon picks up rumors from all over the world.”

“But you didn't say anything to me.” Aggie was angry, her skin ashen. “Why didn't you tell me? You should have told me.”

“It was only a rumor,” said Ophy firmly.

“But what is it? What's happening?”

“No one knows,” said Jessamine, looking up from the paper, one obviously hastily composed in the middle of the night, banner headlines and all. “It says right here, Aggie. No
one knows. Some indication of a genetic change, that's all. Happening to everyone at once could mean it's a virus.…”

“A disease!” Aggie cried.

“Well, many viruses cause disease, yes, but they don't have to. Some viruses change the organism. This may be one that makes some kind of hormonal change. That'd be my guess.”

“That thing you told us about a few years ago, Jessamine,” Aggie demanded. “You talked about a universal carrier.…”

Jessamine frowned. “The viral carrier?”

“Didn't you tell me you're not allowed to use it anymore?”

“There are several viral carriers, and we can't use the primate carrier anymore. Not since ninety-seven.”

“Because it was dangerous! What if somebody did use it! Maybe someone—”

Jessamine shook her, though gently. “Aggie. It's possible. But unlikely. Besides, the virus by itself is harmless. What we used it for was to carry pieces of genetic information into living cells, to change the cells by changing the genetic code inside them. There are still some permitted usages, like using it to cure genetic diseases like cystic fibrosis.”

“You brought something to show-and-tell, in San Francisco in ninety-seven. What was that?”

“I brought a vial containing a solution of viral carrier in which I'd incorporated a stretch of genetic information. It was a siamang-wolf match. I thought it had to do with detection of pheromones, with the sense of smell.…”

“You said it had something to do with reproductive behavior.”

“I said I
thought
it might, yes. Because both siamangs and wolves are monogamous. But when I tried it on the bonobos, it had no effect, Aggie.”

“You tried to … infect the chimpanzees with it, right?”

“I don't like the word ‘infect.' We tried it on the nasal mucosa of a couple of chimps to see if their smell acuity or reproductive behavior would change. It didn't.”

Aggie was silent, still very pale. “Oh, God,” she whispered. “Oh, God.”

Carolyn poured a cup of coffee and held it to Aggie's lips. “Hey, Aggie. Come on.”

“This is why,” said Bettiann in a dull voice, looking up from the paper. “It's why William's been like that. It's why Charley tried to kill himself.”

“Who?” asked Ophy, suddenly alert. “Who?”

Bettiann babbled. Agnes stared into the coffee cup as though mesmerized, mumbling something about the Vatican must have known, that's why they'd called the conference.

The phone rang: Stace.

The phone rang again: Simon calling Ophy from Paris.

And yet again: Patrick calling Jessamine from Nuevo Los Angeles.

“No, Patrick,” she said. “I didn't know.… No, I didn't want to get pregnant because I didn't want to carry some other woman's child just to massage your ego. It had nothing to do with this.… Patrick, why are you yelling at me! I didn't do it.”

“Yes, you did,” said Aggie.

Jessamine turned on her angrily. “Aggie. For God's sake!”

Aggie's face was gray and hard as stone. “Not for God's sake. No. You did it, Jessamine. Out of pride. Out of hubris! Thinking you know more than God.…”

“Patrick, give me your number. I'll call you back, maybe tonight.” She turned back from the phone. “Aggie, what's with you?”

“I've been trying to tell you, you did it. In 1997. You brought it to show-and-tell. It was a little vial with a black seal at the top. I can see it, see you holding it. I can still hear your voice. Genetic material, you said. Viral carrier, you said.…”

“And I told you, it wasn't what I thought it was—”

“It
was
what you thought it was when you brought it. But when you left the meeting, it was water.”

“What are you.… !”

“Sophy took it.”

Sudden silence.

Aggie sobbed dryly. “I saw her. Everyone was getting coffee. She took it from the table where you'd set it. She emptied it into a little bottle. She filled the vial from the water pitcher. She put the top back on. She looked up and saw me watching. She smiled at me and put her finger to her lips.…”

“Aggie! And you didn't tell me,” Jessamine cried.

“I
couldn't
tell you! She was so bright, with this light around her. I saw … like, wings, scales, strangeness! I got dizzy; I thought there was something awesome there; I could
see the gleam of eyes, something like … rainbows. She was shining. And when it was over, I thought, oh, I'd been hysterical and it was only some kind of joke. Or she knew something we didn't and she was protecting us from ourselves, protecting you from yourself, Jessamine.…”

“And now you think she … she what? Used it to infect humans? What humans? Us? You think she infected us with the stuff?”

“There was a literacy conference in Rio the fall of ninety-seven,” said Aggie. “I attended it. Last year Faye was all over Europe and around the Mediterranean, researching her commission. Two years ago you and Hal went to Hawaii, Carolyn, to visit your boys. Bettiann, you and William took a Pacific cruise in January of ninety-eight, didn't you?”

“Australia,” said Bettiann. “And New Zealand.”

“I went to China,” said Ophy. “A medical meeting. And you went somewhere, Jess.”

“India,” said Jessamine. “A human genome conference. My boss was supposed to go, but his wife was ill.…”

“Maybe it wouldn't have mattered,” murmured Agnes. “Maybe by then your boss carried it, too. Maybe it spread by itself.”