The Female of the Species

The boy from the Land of Corgie, Osinga, was as terrified of Gray as Hassatti had predicted, but bent on his brothers’ revenge; after repeated reassurances, Osinga agreed to guide her to Toroto. Hiking out, however, he insisted on walking behind her, which made it awkward for Gray to follow him.

Errol could easily imagine Gray on this trip. Many was the time he himself had hiked behind her while a voice screamed in his head, “Go ahead, Gray, say, ‘I am tired.’ Say, ‘My muscles are killing me, Errol.’” But Gray would keep going silently in front of him, until finally Errol would growl in irascible defeat about needing a break, and Gray would answer smoothly, never out of breath, “Oh, would you like to stop, Errol? Of course. Maybe I’ll do a few push-ups while you’re resting …”

She was too goddamned much.

Toward dusk, Osinga speared mongooses and brought them to Gray like sacramental offerings. She skinned and gutted them quickly and without queasiness, for Gray enjoyed butchery. Errol had watched her take animals apart before. She liked to study the muscles glistening underneath the skin of a fresh kill, and move the joints in their sockets to see how they worked. She never called small prey “cute,” and when the glazed eyes of a mongoose in her hands rolled up, her face never softened.

Nights Gray slept fitfully, dreaming of Corgie. The dreams flipped from terror to pleasure and back again. Corgie would reach for her in her sleep, and she wouldn’t know if he meant to caress or strangle her until the moment his fingers wrapped around her neck.

The bush got thicker and more hazardous as they advanced. Through thorn trees Osinga stared at Gray’s hands, surprised that they bled. Yet she didn’t cry out or complain when the thorns stuck far into her flesh, so he assumed she felt no pain. All her life people had made this mistake with Gray.

When she stepped on a trail of fire ants and they swept up her legs, Osinga stood back and watched as she rapidly picked the insects off. At last she stamped angrily and shouted for him to help her, and he was surprised that these small animals could hurt such a thing. She seemed impregnable; she seemed that way to everyone.

There came a moment when Osinga looked up at a particular mountain and went wild-eyed. He wouldn’t go any farther; he’d only point. Gray walked the last length alone.

Once she’d climbed to the top ridge, Gray looked down into a deep valley with cliffs shooting steeply up on all sides and waterfalls sweeping down in white rushes. Finding only trees below, she worried whether this was the right place. Yet as she inched down the steep cliff toward the valley, grabbing scraggly trees and sometimes crawling on all fours, Gray could gradually discern one odd structure jutting from the foliage below, a strange, towerlike thing in blond wood. When she was nearly down, manyatta after manyatta also appeared among the trees. Aside from these traditionally constructed mud-and-dung compounds, Gray could now see three other blond-wooded buildings, large and angular and queer even by Western standards.

The rest of her way to the village Gray walked slowly, with her head high, nose to the wind. Gone was the smell of curling pages. Smoke drifted from the huts, and colors flushed beside her. Gray Kaiser was alive and in Africa and something was happening at last. When she glided past the mud-packed walls, children fled before her; men and women swept into their compounds and posts cracked against the gates inside.

As Gray drew into view of the blond tower, natives stopped carrying wood, froze mid-circle as they lashed joints on the tower with vine, left off mid-sentence as they called in their gnarled Masai. In the stillness, one figure kept jabbing angrily from the ground at a man on the third story. He was the last to turn to her, following the line of the native’s gaze as he might have tracked a fuse to dynamite.

“What doesn’t belong in this picture?”

“I don’t,” said Gray. “You don’t, either.”

“You don’t feel a little the lost sheep?” he asked. “Astray.”

It was a big comedown from antelope to sheep. “On the contrary,” said Gray, “I’ve found my way quite nicely. I have arrived.”

“I was unaware we’d become a tourist attraction.”

“Oh yes,” said Gray. “I’m here to help you set up a hot-dog concession. I thought you’d want to get in on the ground floor.”

The man smiled a little, perhaps in spite of himself. Gray took the moment to assess him more closely. Errol had seen several brownish photographs of Charles Corgie. He always wore a wide hat with a sloppy brim. His coloring was dark, his bearing sultry. His eyes flickered as if long ago someone had done something terrible to him for which he had planned a perfect revenge; when it came due he would laugh without sympathy or regret. In a few of these snapshots he was smiling, like now, though always with both humor and disdain, as if the two of you could have a high old time if he would only let you in on the joke. Of course, he was not about to.

Casually, Corgie pointed his rifle at Gray. Through their interchange he played with the gun distractedly, as people will toy with an object on a coffee table in a conversation that is sometimes awkward.

Gray nodded at his tattered khaki. “So you deserted.”

“I got lost.”

“And you still haven’t found your way home? You must not have tried very hard.”

“I tried clicking my heels together three times,” he said congenially. “It didn’t work.” Corgie turned and said something in Il-Ororen to one of the natives. The man shrank back and shook his head. Corgie repeated himself in a steelier tone; it was a voice that made all present, even Gray, take a breath. The native approached Gray and frisked her sides with a gingerly touch. “Raise your hands over your head, would you?”

Gray did not. “I’m unarmed.”

“If that’s true, then you’re very foolish. But it’s not necessarily true. White people aren’t to be trusted.”

“I’ve found that people’s generalizations are largely illuminating about themselves.”

“So what kind of generalizations do you make?”

“I’m more inclined to see people as judicious and reasonable. Unless presented with evidence to the contrary.” She raised her eyebrows at Corgie. “Which I sometimes am.”

“Some woman who can see the human race as judicious and reasonable in light of World War II.”

“What concerns me about World War II is that barbarity on such a scale seems to make smaller, everyday barbarity petty and unimportant. Actually, it’s just as important. It’s the same thing.”

“You wouldn’t be making any accusations, would you? Being our guest?”

“Oh no,” said Gray mildly. “We’re just being philosophical, aren’t we, Mr. Corgie?”

“Lieutenant. But I’m sure I would have remembered meeting such a lovely woman. I could swear we haven’t been introduced.”

“Funny. I feel as if I know you incredibly well.”

“Pretty and telepathic, too! Do you have any other special powers? They could come in useful here.”

“Certainly. I can receive disembodied transmissions, produce mirages, steal voices. All that old stuff. I’m sure you’ve covered it. But I did bring one thing you could probably use.”

“Decent tobacco.”

“Moral sensibility.”

“You remind me of aunts at Christmas who gave me socks.”

Gray nodded at his threadbare clothing. “It looks as if you could use those, too.”

Suddenly Corgie said with a smile, “Osinga!”

“Lieutenant, you of all people should have enough respect for magic not to spoil the trick.”

“I respect tricks on other people. My tricks.”

“Well, your tricks made quite an impression on the boy. He thinks quite a lot of you.”

“I bet he does. I made a bigger impression on his brothers.”

“About an inch wide and several inches deep. A cheap way to impress people.”

“It works.”

“It’s not very elegant.”

“You have far too many opinions.”

Gray stopped and looked at him. “Yes.” That’s all she said. It was an awkward moment. It is always awkward when people have nothing else to add or refute; when they agree.