The Vorrh (36 page)

Muybridge was about to ask a question, when the implication of the words hit home.

‘There is also some distortion of the libido,’ Gull continued. ‘The peripherscope and the Lark Mirror seem to call something wild out of otherwise docile patients; the continual application of the devices seems to heighten these effects in a cumulative manner. In fact, I have some more hypno-optical instruments that I would very much like you to see, while you’re here.’

As he looked at Muybridge’s troubled and knotted face, which was again taking on the countenance of a vengeful God crossed with a scolded child, he was interrupted by a long, mournful wailing, a sound so unusual that it arrested all other sounds around it. Muybridge, his own thoughts disturbed, recognised it as a savage animal, exotic and lethal; he had heard such things before, and instantly knew it was not native to these shores.
On his extensive travels, he had heard the calls of many such feral beasts – perhaps these bolted corridors really did contain a zoo?

Again it sung out, and this time he caught the tincture of its humanity. He had taught himself to listen carefully to many peculiar tongues, to hear and trust his instinct to decode their meaning. This one had the same extreme edges he had heard in the mountain tribes of Guatemala, or the Eskimo shudders of the high Alaskan plains; the songs of the nomads of the fallen land bridges to Greenland and the North Pole. It was totally out of place.

‘Ah, this will interest you!’ Gull pointed to the source of the eerie noise and Crane knocked on the metal door. A few moments later, it was opened by a small, bald man wearing a white apron and stiff, red gutta-percha gloves.

‘Good day, Sir William. She is restless again.’

‘Good morning, Rice. Let’s have a look at her, shall we?’

The howling stopped when she saw Gull. Her huge eyes widened and she covered them with her ornate, scarred hands. She had luminous black skin, which had been polished into blues and purples by the smooth, uninterrupted breeding of thousands of years. She was slight, but not emaciated like the others, and had a head of statuesque beauty, more horizontal than vertical, like a long lozenge of graceful stone balanced midway on the poised, slender plinth of her neck. Muybridge had seen and met Negroes in America, had seen their plight and their strength. But she was quite a different species.

‘Allow me to introduce you to Abungu. We call her Josephine here. Josephine, this is Mr. Muybridge. He is the man who made the picture you so love.’

She put her hands down and looked into the photographer’s mystified face.

‘Show him what you have done with it!’

Crane grabbed at her clothing, trying to pull her into action.

‘Leave her Crane, she will do it herself.’

Josephine crossed the room, leaving a trail of water, which seemed to be coming from her underskirts. The men pretended not to notice. She went to a small trunk that had been painted the same colour as the cream cell. She opened it and stood aside; it was full of neatly stacked pieces of paper, all the same size, and all with one rough edge, as if they had been torn from notebooks. The men crossed the room to the trunk and its owner.

‘Show him, Josephine,’ encouraged Gull. She dipped down to retrieve the top sheet and lifted it in front of Muybridge.

‘Take it!’ said the doctor, using much the same tone as he had with the black woman. Muybridge felt he should say something about being patronised in such a way, but curiosity reigned and he followed the command. He glanced at what he was holding, then looked again in surprise: it was a perfect copy of his print,
Phases of the Eclipse of the Sun
. Staring at it more closely, he saw that it was not a photographic print at all, but a drawing made on paper with black ink, identical to the one he had left with Gull years before. Only the five lines of text, which explained its provenance and gave the times of the exposures, had been left out. Each drawing had a hastily scratched ‘A’ in its corner: her signature. Every ‘A’ missed its middle, joining stroke, so that it appeared closer to an inverted ‘V’.

Muybridge looked from Gull, who was stroking his jaw and partially concealing a smile, to the sleek radiance of the woman, whose huge eyes looked right through him, then back at the box full of paper.

‘Go ahead, help yourself. She won’t mind,’ said Gull.

He picked up a small wad of paper and examined it. Each image was exactly the same. She had made hundreds of copies of his picture, all signed the same way. Gull saw the question and answered it before it became sound.

‘Josephine is remarkable. She constantly surprises us. I once showed her your picture. She could not have looked at it for more than a minute.
Some weeks later, after a session with one of my new instruments, she was given some paper, pens, pencils and ink. She is allowed those, she is one of our passive patients, the only one not showing the disturbing side effects I told you of before. Anyway, she sat down and started making these copies. From the first to the last, they have all been precisely the same. If I gave her paper and ink now she would make another.’

Muybridge wanted to ask dozens of questions, but none of them could be answered by Gull, and possibly not by the woman. Feebly, he settled for the easiest.

‘Does she know what it is?’

‘It’s impossible to say, she never speaks.’

‘But I heard her. Those strange sounds.’

‘Yes, she makes strange sounds, but never speech. Sometimes she cries like an animal, or sings like a bird: her cell sounds like a veritable menagerie! But never words, no matter what insistence or inducement is applied.’

The man called Rice steered her back to the bed, from where steam was gently rising. Three bowls of water, a towel and a rubber Higginson tube were under the bed, hastily stowed there when they had arrived mid-treatment. Gull gripped Muybridge’s cringing arm again, and propelled him jovially from the room. They resumed their conversation in Gull’s office, which was small and surprisingly sparse.

‘It’s Josephine I had in mind for your photographic studies. She has an astonishing range of facial expressions. Each of them can be summoned with the aid of a mirror and a bell. I would love to have a record of her before she is gone forever.’

‘Where is she going?’ asked Muybridge blankly.

‘She has been here for two years and has been wonderfully responsive to my experiments. She can produce demonstrations of willpower that would stagger you, and there is no trace of any side effects. But I think it is time to stop. I don’t want to push her any further. Surgeons have
instinct about such matters; it’s an unteachable aspect of our profession. It only grows out of experience. I feel that if she went further, she might turn, and that implacable strength might curdle and turn inwards or even worse. But she is stable and healthy now, you saw that for yourself.’

‘She refuses to speak?’

‘Yes. That won’t change. It’s from her childhood. Deeply rooted. Her parents were brought over here in the last batches of slave cargoes. She was born some years after abolition was finally enforced. She must have experienced some appalling poverty, possibly depravity. Enough to remove her from conversation entirely. But she understands everything. It could be seen as a blessing, having such a beauty graced with silence. None of that endless female prattle that most of us have to put up with.’ Gull chuckled without mirth. ‘Anyway, what I want is a series of photographs over the next few years.’

‘But sir, I am far too busy to give up so much time on one study. My work in America and beyond demands my constant attention. And I’m not sure a portfolio of medical portraits would sit well with the rest of my oeuvre.’

‘Quite right, indeed I would not ask such a thing of you. You are a busy and important man, I can see that, though I know nothing of your oeuvre or any artistic matter. These pictures would be for my attention, and mine alone; a special commission. Let me explain: I am a wealthy man with few expenses except for this little folly. I intend to observe some of my special cases for the rest of their or my life, to see what long-term effects my treatments can have, and maybe adjust them every so often. The laws are changing, and private clinics like this are falling under the same bureaucratic, maternal dogmas that now so blight our major hospitals.’

Gull had again fixed him with his demanding stare; it was clear he was determined to have his way.

‘So, to the point: I intend to release Josephine and some others. Set them up in their own rooms and keep them fed and well and off the streets. I will
do this close to London Bridge, so that I might have easy access to them. In her case, I will rent an extra room and furnish it with photographic equipment to your specification. This means that you may visit her and achieve the portraits whenever you are passing through the city.’

Muybridge was tempted. He liked the secrecy of the process: it appealed to his natural and tuned acclivities. He found the woman striking, remarkable even, and he could see that pictures of her would indeed be very fine. But wasn’t he being treated like a mere hireling? There was nothing in it to increase his esteem or proffer greater awareness of his talents, and the good surgeon obviously had his own motivation in all of this, though that meant they would surely be protected against any public and malicious rumour. He, too, was a man of position and standing, all of which must remain unassailable and worthy.

‘If I were to consider your most singular offer, then I would also need a lockable, secure space for my other optical equipment and inventions. This will enable me to spend more time in London, and, consequently, more time with your protégée.’

‘Quite so!’ Gull was delighted at the ease of the transaction. ‘You shall have a workshop, or a laboratory, or whatever you fellows call it. I can help with the expense of your inventions.’

The photographer had taken the bait and was becoming excited. ‘They are very costly to manufacture and maintain. My current work even runs parallel to your own; there might be overlapping areas of interest.’

Gull stood up, misjudging the moment.

‘Yes, good, of course. Most interesting. Now, tell me of your whereabouts for the next six months.’

Gull’s obvious indifference and implied doubt of the value of the photographer’s inventions prickled at his guest. They were both men driven entirely by self-interest. Their flywheels had been spinning in separate, but firm, unison, until this slip. Muybridge was coming off the surgeon’s hook.

‘Before I accept, Sir William, I must say that I have some misgivings about how a project like this might affect my status in society. If I may be so blunt, spending a considerable time alone in the presence of this damaged Negress could be compromising. I have had difficulties with women before, and I normally eschew their company. Not in an unnatural way of course!’ he quickly added.

Gull’s incredulity unfurled – he was beginning to think his guest a complete ninny. Thousands of men had their mistresses stashed away, all over the good old city; the borough of Walworth was created simply to contain the overflow! And yet, here was this photographer: no position in society, a technician, an artisan. So why was he was worrying about his feeble reputation? Gull pulled his thoughts up short. Ninny or not, he needed this man. He was the only one for the job.

‘My dear fellow, there is no question of you being compromised. I will make all the arrangements to be certain that our little transaction is utterly clandestine. Your part in this scientific study will be entirely honourable.’

His words seemed to smooth the gaunt man’s ruffled feathers, and Gull moved to execute a perfect coup de grâce.

‘My position in society will protect us both. Since Her Majesty so graciously endowed me with my knighthood, many things have become much easier to obtain and operate. I am fortunate enough to be in constant touch with her and the royal highnesses. They view me as a friend and confidante, as well as their humble physician. In fact,’ he leaned towards his guest with implications of confidential undertones, ‘they have more than once consulted me on the delicate matter of the selection of future peers. Her Majesty has a great interest in the arts and sciences; it will be only a matter of time before a man with such a distinctive reputation as your own is proposed. Who knows? We may both meet in the Upper House before too long.’ His approach was perfect and placated Muybridge completely. They shook hands on the steps outside and went their separate ways, both men departing in
gleeful anticipation of the future.

* * *

The shrill steam slid through the trees: the train, ready to leave, was calling for passengers. Had his footwear been more stable, the Frenchman would have jumped for joy. Instead, he squeezed his friend’s hand with a mighty happiness, especially for one so small, and they moved on towards the sound, the Frenchman leading and pulling the long frame of his laughing, stooping companion through the leaves and high grass.

He saw the stillness set before his eyes, heard everything stop, just before he was yanked off his feet by Seil Kor coming to a sudden halt. Everything was arrested: the birdsong, the rustle of leaves, the shudder of life’s continued existence. He scrambled up, preparing to ask his friend for explanation, when he saw his guide hollow. The electricity and moisture, the pulse and the thought, the tension and the memory – all had drained out of him, into the ground. Seil Kor crashed to his knees, breaking some of his straight fingers in their vertical collision with the earth; they snapped like dry twigs, but he did not notice. The Frenchman broke out of his shock and rushed to embrace his friend, who toppled into his arms. There was no weight; he had become a wildly staring husk. His eyes, which darted to and fro, were the only sign of life.

‘HELP! HELP! FOR GOD’S SAKE, HELP!’ he screamed towards the trains. He found the Derringer with its last cartridge and fired into the air. ‘HELP, PLEASE, HELP!’

Then, just as he heard people running to their aid, the sound of something else reached his ears, turning his blood to water: a laugh, so close that, for a moment, he thought it was Seil Kor himself. It hung in the air around his dying friend.