The Female of the Species: A Novel

1

Errol, I’m tired of being a character. Gray leaned back in her chair. When I meet people they expect, you know, Gray Kaiser.

You are Gray Kaiser.

I’m telling you it’s exhausting.

Only today, Gray. Today is exhausting.

They both sat, breathing hard.

You think I’m afraid of getting old? asked Gray.

Most people are.

Well, you’re wrong. I’ve planned on being a magnificent old lady since I was twelve. Katharine Hepburn: frank, arrogant, abusive. But I’ve been rehearsing that old lady for about fifty years, and now she bores me to death.

When I first saw you in front of that seminar twenty-five years ago I didn’t think, ‘What a magnificent old lady.’

What did you think?

Errol McEchern stroked his short beard and studied her perched in her armchair: so tall and lean and angular, her neck long and arched, her gray-blond hair soft and fine as filaments, her narrow pointed feet held in pretty suede heels. Was it possible she’d hardly changed in twenty-five years, or could Errol no longer see her?

That first afternoon, said Errol, I didn’t hear a word of your lecture. I just thought you were beautiful. Over and over again.

Gray blushed; she didn’t usually do that. Am I special, or do you do this for everyone’s birthday?

No, you’re special. You’ve always known that.

Yes, Errol, said Gray, looking away. I guess I always have.

They paused, gently.

What did you think of me, Gray? When we first met?

Not much, she admitted. I thought you were an intelligent, serious, handsome young man. I don’t actually remember the first time I met you.

Oh boy.

You want me to lie?

Yes, said Errol. Why not.

Errol found himself looking around the den nostalgically. Yet he’d be here again, surely. He was at Gray’s house every day. His office was upstairs, with a desk full of important papers. And though he kept his own small apartment, he slept here most nights. Still, he seemed to be taking in the details of the room as if to mark them in his memory: the ebony masks and walking sticks and cowtail flyswitches on the walls, the totem pole in the corner, the little soapstone lion on the desk, and of course the wildebeest skeleton hung across the back of the room, leering with mortality. In fact, it was a cross between a den and a veldt. The furniture was animate: the sofa’s arms had sharp claws, its legs poised on wide paws; the heads of goats scrolled off the backs of chairs. In the paintings, leopards feasted. The carpet and upholstery were blood red. The lampshade by Gray’s head was crimson glass and gave her skin a meaty cast. I am an animal, Gray had said more than once. Sometimes when I watch a herd of antelope streak over Tsavo I think I could take off with them and you’d never see me again.

Yet there was no danger of her taking off on the plains today. They were in Boston, and Gray did not look like an animal that was going anywhere. She’d been wounded. She was sixty years old. Though in fine shape for her age, she’d been sited and caught in a hunter’s cross hairs. He had shot her cleanly through the heart. Though she sat there still breathing and erect, Gray had never talked about being exhausted before, never in her life.

I don’t think—less of you, Errol stuttered, apropos of nothing.

For what?

Ralph.

Why should you think less of me?

He’d meant to reassure her. It wasn’t working. Because it ended—so badly. Then Errol blurted, I’m sorry! with a surge of feeling.

I am, too, she said quietly, but she didn’t understand. He was sorry for everything—for her, for what he’d put off telling her all night, even, of all people, for Ralph. Jesus, he was certainly sorry for himself.

Pale with regret, Errol paced the den, trying to delay delivering his piece of news a few minutes more. And perhaps it is possible for parts of your life to flash before your eyes even if you’re not about to die—because for a moment Errol remembered this last year of a piece, holding it in his hands like an object—a totem, a curio.

A year ago Gray had uneventfully turned fifty-nine. Errol had finally convinced her to do a follow-up documentary on Il-Ororen: Men without History. Her now classic book of 1949 had sidestepped her most interesting material: without a doubt, Lieutenant Charles Corgie. That February, then, they’d flown to the mountains of Kenya to the far-off village of Toroto, at long last to set the world straight on the infamous lieutenant. Though he’d struck the most compelling note in the story of her first anthropological expedition, until now Corgie had been peculiarly protected.

Shocked that Ol-Kai-zer was still alive, Il-Ororen were at first afraid of her. Yet no one could remember having seen her die. When she described how she’d escaped from Toroto, the natives dropped their supernatural explanations and soon decided to cooperate with Gray’s film. They recalled that in ’48 she’d taught them crop rotation; a few claimed she’d shot only fifteen or twenty Africans, which struck Il-Ororen as moderate, even restrained. The rest, of course, declared she’d shot thousands, but then the whole story of Corgie had clearly gotten out of control. Il-Ororen lied fantastically. Charles Corgie had taught them how.

The first day Errol remembered as out of the ordinary was the afternoon they were hiking from the airstrip to Toroto, since some of their equipment had been flown in late. Always eager for exercise, Gray had refused help with their cargo, so the two of them were ambitiously lugging several tripods and two packs of supplies. Errol had been in a good mood, chattering away, imagining what their new graduate assistant would be like. Arabella West, who normally would have been with them for this project, was still ill in Boston, so B.U. was sending someone else. Errol could see her now: ‘Yes, Dr. Kaiser! No, Dr. Kaiser!’ Getting up early to fix breakfast, washing out our clothes. Gray, we’ll have a sycophant again! Arabella is competent, but she passed out of the slavery phase last year. That was so disappointing, going back to making my own coffee and bunching my own socks.

What did they talk about then? Corgie, no doubt. It was a long hike, after all. Maybe Errol asked her to tell him the story again of how she found out about Toroto. Whatever happened to Hassatti? Did she still keep up with Richardson, that old fart?

She was not responding, but Errol knew the answers to most of his questions and filled them in himself. The air was dense; Errol enjoyed working up a sweat. For the first time he could remember, they were plowing up a mountain and Errol was in front, doing better time.

Too bad Corgie isn’t still alive, Errol speculated. "That would be a hell of an interview. ‘Lieutenant Corgie, after all these years in Sing Sing, do you have any regrets? And, Lieutenant, how did you do it?’"

Errol turned and found Gray had stopped dead some distance behind him. Disconcerted, he hiked back down. There was an expression on her face he couldn’t place—something like…terror. Errol looked around the jungle half expecting to see a ten-foot fire ant or extraterrestrial life. He found nothing but unusually large leaves. Are you wanting to take a break? Are you tired?

Gray shook her head once, rigidly.

So should we get going?

Y-yes, she said slowly, her voice dry.

She could as well have said no. Errol made trailward motions; Gray remained frozen in exactly the same position as before.

What’s the problem?

Her eyes darted without focus. I don’t feel right.

Errol was beginning to get alarmed. You feel any pain? Nausea? Maybe you should sit down.

She did, abruptly, against a tree. Errol touched her forehead. No. She waved him away. Not like that.

Then what is it?

Gray opened her mouth, and shut it.

Maybe we should get going, then. It’ll be dark soon.

You don’t understand.

I certainly don’t.

I can’t keep going. She looked at Errol curiously. That is the problem.

You just can’t.

That’s right. I have stopped. She said this with a queer, childlike wonder. And then she sat. Nothing.

Errol was dumbfounded. He felt the same queasy fear he would have had the earth ceased to rotate around the sun, for Errol depended as much on Gray Kaiser’s stamina as on the orderly progress of planetary orbits.

What brought this on?

I’m not sure. But I wish— She seemed pained. I wish you wouldn’t talk about Charles. Ask so many questions.

Don’t talk about him? We’re doing a documentary—

Nothing is mine. She looked away. Everything belongs to other people. I’m fifty-nine and I have nothing and I’m completely by myself.

Thanks, said Errol, wounded. "All you have is professional carte blanche, a lot of money, an international reputation. And merely me with you on the trail. Of course you’re lonely."

Gray picked at some moss. I’m sorry. It’s just—I think I imagined…

What?

That he’d be here. She seemed embarrassed.

Who?

Charles.

Gray!

Oh, I knew he was dead. But I don’t enjoy studying him much. I did that plenty when he was alive.

It was about this time that Errol seemed to remember a prop plane whining overhead, as if carrying out surveillance, spotting her: see, down below? Weakness, desire. Snapping aerial photos for a later attack: nostalgia, emptiness. The propellers chopped the air with satisfaction. Hunting must be easy from an airplane.

And lately the whole thing, she went on. "The interviews, the feasts…‘The meal was delicious!’ ‘That’s a beautiful dress!’ ‘And how do you remember Il-Cor-gie?’ As if I can’t remember him perfectly well myself. ‘No, you can’t have my shirt, I only brought three.’ Sometimes."

Gray let her head fall back on the tree trunk. You’re disappointed in me.

It’s a relief to see you let up once in a while, I guess. So you’re not perfect. Lets the rest of us off the hook a little.

You know, I’d love to be the woman you think I am.

You are.

Gray sighed and rested her forehead on her knees.

Errol relaxed, and had a seat himself. It was a pretty spot. He enjoyed being with her.

They stayed that way. Errol’s mind traveled around the world, back to Boston; he thought about Odinaye and Charles Corgie. Finally Gray’s head rose again. She said, I’m hungry. She stood up, pulling on her pack. Neither said anything more until they were hiking on at a good clip.

Food, said Errol at last, deftly, is an impermanent inspiration.

Wrong. It’s as permanent as they come. Gray Kaiser, anthropologist, is still sitting by that tree. Gray Kaiser, animal, keeps grazing.

That really does comfort you, doesn’t it? Errol laughed. She was amazing.

Errol hoped Gray had gotten this eccentricity out of her system, but the following afternoon she proved otherwise. They were sitting in a circle of several women, all of whom had been girls between sixteen and twenty when Corgie ruled Il-Ororen. Now they were in their fifties like Gray, though Gray had weathered the years better than this group here—their skin had slackened, their breasts drooped, their spines curved. Still, as Errol watched these women through the camera lens while Gray prodded them about Charles, their eyes began to glimmer and they would shoot each other sly, racy smiles in a way that made them seem younger as the interview went on, until Errol could see clearly the smooth undulating hips and languorous side glances that must have characterized them as teenage girls.

It was the men who believed he was a god, one of them claimed in that peculiar Masai dialect of theirs. We weren’t so fooled.

Another woman chided, with a brush of her hand, He was your god and you know it! I remember that one afternoon, and you were dancing around, and you were singing—

I was always dancing and singing then—

Oh, especially after!

Now, why did you suspect him, though? Gray pressed.

Well. The first woman looked down, then back and forth at the others. There were ways in which he was—very much the man. She smiled. A big man.

The whole group broke down laughing, slapping the ground with the flats of their hands. Very, very big! said another. It took minutes for them to get over this good joke.

Yes, said one woman. But if that makes him the man and not the god, then you give me the man!

The interview was going splendidly now, yet when Errol looked over at Gray she was scowling.

No, no, another chimed in. Now I have said years and years Il-Cor-gie was not ordinary. He was a god? I don’t know, but not like these other lazy good-for-nothings who lie around and drink honey wine all day and at night can’t even—

That’s right, that’s the truth, they agreed.

I’m telling you, she went on, "that the next morning you did feel different. You could jump higher and run for many hills and you no longer needed food."

Yes! I felt that way, too! And it was a proven fact he made you taller.

What do you mean it was a proven fact? asked Gray.

Errol looked over at her so abruptly that he bumped the camera and ruined the shot.

Well, look at Ol-Kai-zer, said one of the women, smiling. She is very, very tall, is she not?

They all started to laugh again, but cut themselves short when Gray stood abruptly and left the circle. Errol followed her with the camera as she stalked off to a nearby woodpile. The whole group stared in silence as Ol-Kai-zer bore down on a log with long, full blows of an ax until the wood was reduced to kindling. Panting, staring down at the splinters at her feet, Gray let the ax drop from her hand. Her shoulders heaved up and down, and her face was filled with concentrated panic. Her cheeks shone red and glistened with sweat. She would not look at Errol or at the women, but at last looked up at the sky, her neck stretched tight. Then she walked away. This was Gray Kaiser in the middle of an interview and she just—walked away.

Did we offend Ol-Kai-zer? asked a woman.

No, no, said Errol distractedly, still filming Gray’s departure. It’s not you… He turned back to them and asked sincerely, "Don’t people ever do things that you absolutely don’t understand?"

The women nodded vigorously. Ol-Kai-zer, said one, was always like that. Back in the time of Il-Cor-gie—we never understood her for the smallest time. Then—yes, she was always doing this kind of thing, taking the big angry strides away.

I did not like her much then, confided one woman in a small voice. Her name was Elya; this was the first time she’d spoken.

Why? asked Errol.

Elya looked at the ground. She was the lightest and most delicate of the group; her gestures retained the vanity of great beauty. Back then—it was better before she came. Il-Cor-gie became funny. It was better before her. That is all.

He did get very strange, another conceded.

But you know why Elya didn’t like her—

Elya looked up sharply and the woman stopped.

He did, during that time remember, have us come to him almost every night.

Especially Elya—

Shush.

But he was not the same, said Elya sulkily. The passing of so many years didn’t seem to have made much difference in her disappointment.

Yes, that is true, said the woman. He was hard and not as fun and you did not jump as high in the morning.

He was far away, said Elya sadly.

Not so far, and you know it. You know where he was—

She bewitched him!

It is a fact, many murmured. She took his big power away. That is why he ended so badly. It was all her fault.

Errol had this on film, and wondered how Gray would feel when she got this section back from the developers. She’d already confided to Errol that it was all her fault, and might not enjoy being told so repeatedly as she edited this reel.

Meanwhile the hunter was stalking the trail Gray and Errol had just hiked down the day before. Perhaps he paused by the same tree where Gray had thrown down her pack, picking up flung bits of sod and finding them still fresh, to quickly walk on again, completely silent as he so often was, and dark enough to blend in with the mottled shadows of late afternoon.

After putting away the camera, Errol found Gray in the hut where they were staying.

Why did you walk off like that? asked Errol.

I felt claustrophobic, said Gray.