The Steampunk Trilogy (10 page)

“Vun day, ven I vas ten und Dottie vas five, vee vere playing dogether down by der Breede River ven I zlipped down a zteep clay bank und into der river, zmack dab into a herd of
zie koes
,
der vuns you call hippos. Der mudders, dinking I vas attacking dere young, began to zvarm over me, pushing me under der vater.

“Chust as I vas going under for der dhird dime, zomeding poked me in der head. I instinctively grabbed onto it.

“It vas a branch vhich Dottie had lowered to me. I vas able to use it to climb out of der river.

“From dot moment vhen zhe zaved mine life, I knew I vould marry her zomeday. Und zo I did.

“I have given her der best education possible. Zhe zpeaks, reads und writes Dutch, French und her native tongue. Zhe has been vorking on her English during der drip over here, und has gotten to der point vhere zhe ist ready for der McGuffey’s First Eclectic Reader. In zhort, despite dose outvard features of hers vhich you might find offensive, zhe ist an intelligent, quick-vitted vornan chust as vorthy of your respect as your own vife.”

The allusion to Cecile—like jabbing a bruise—was the final straw. Through clenched teeth, Agassiz made rejoinder.

“
Herr
Cezar, you would be well advised never to make free with the name of my helpmeet again, especially when employed as one of the terms in such an invidious equation. It is enough that I tolerate the presence of your barbaric consort in my home. You must not demand that I accord her equal status with those whom the Creator has fashioned in His true likeness.”

Cezar flungs his arms up and apart. “Ach! Your head ist dhicker den dot of an elephant, und your heart ist harder den vun of mine country’s diamonds! I von’t argue any more, Professor Agassiz. But you mark mine vords: vun day you vill have cause to regret your prechudice.”

Agassiz tugged his vest down, as if smoothing his feathers. “Be that as it may, we will operate on my terms or not at all.”

“As you vill.”

“Very good. Now, you must realize that I have a full schedule of scientific researches which I cannot just abandon for this improbable quest of yours. I will make discreet inquiries among my acquaintances and business contacts as to the whereabouts of this rascal, T’guzeri, and perhaps I will even venture abroad to track down any leads, should it coincide with any of my various specimen-collecting forays. However, you will mostly be operating on your own, though I will allow you to utilize my not inconsiderable name as a reference.”

“Oh, Professor, vot a privilege.”

“It’s nothing. Now, you spoke of a location in this region which possesses certain unique qualities your sorcerer believes will facilitate his rituals. Where is this place? It’s plain that by staking it out, we will soon have the thief in our hands.”

“Vell, I don’t exactly know. Dot’s vun ding I vas hoping you could help me vit. Perhaps if I described it to you. It’s vun of der zpots vhere life ist zpontaneously created—”

Agassiz shot to his feet. “What are you saying, man! Are you sure of this?”

“Ja, as zhure as I am of anyding.”

Agassiz’s compatriots were divided into two camps on the origin of life on earth. One group believed that life had originated in some mysterious fashion one single time, in some unknown cradle, and diffused outward to cover the globe. These credulous people, among whose numbers were Asa Gray, Joseph Hooker and Charles Lyell, also believed in some vague theory called “evolution” (best explained in the epic works
Zoonomia
by Erasmus Darwin and
Système des animaux sans vertèbres
by Jean Lamarck), which held that one kind of creature could somehow over the course of time actually become another!

Agassiz, however, belonged to those sensible types who maintained that the Creator had brought into being all the different species and races separately and fully formed, each in their own country. And as for “evolution”—Well, the fossil record plainly revealed that one kind of creature did not flow into another, but that all the vanished species had died in different catastrophes, whereupon new ones had arisen from the same wells of creation.

And now it seemed that Cezar was affirming that one of these sacred primordial wellsprings—perhaps the very one from which the Red Man, the opossum (
Didelphis virginiana
)
and maize (
Zea mays
)
had sprung—existed in Massachusetts!

Pacing back and forth excitedly, Agassiz said, “Your search becomes more imperative than ever to me, now that I realize its full magnitude. Why, if I could positively identify this American Omphalos, my name would echo down through the ages!” Cezar looked disgusted, and Agassiz hastened to add, “Oh, and of course, the return of the fetiche to the
Musée de l’Homme
would make me very happy too. Perhaps I was too hasty in limiting my involvement with your quest, Jacob. In fact, I’m sure of it. You may count on my complete cooperation and assistance. Why, together we’ll nab this witch-doctor in a trice.”

“It von’t pay to get overconfident, Professor. Don’t forget dot vee’ve got zome competition in der chase.”

“A wild-eyed
sansculotte
and a myth-besotted
martinet
?
Don’t make me laugh! What chance have they against a scientific Swiss genius?”

“Ja, dot’s vot Napoleon zaid before Vaterloo. . . .”

“Come, let’s see how Jane is progressing in making your Hottentot fit for civilized eyes. I suggest that we keep your true nationality a secret, so as not to alert T’guzeri that one of his countrymen is on his tail. We’ll tell people that you’re a latifundian from Dutch Guiana, and that Dottie is a manumitted slave. This town is a hotbed of Abolitionist sentiment, and such a tale is bound to encourage sympathy.”

Entering the kitchen, Agassiz and Cezar were greeted by an astounding sight.

Dottie’s native costume had been exchanged for the latest mode of American dress. On her head was a bonnet which, appropriately enough, outlined her coal-colored face in a coal-scuttle-shaped frame. She wore a brown glazed taffeta skirt with a fichu of embroidered tulle over a wide crinoline underskirt whose extravagant dimensions completely concealed her natural posterior endowments. High-laced leather boots completed her ensemble.

Fussing with the final details, Jane and Dottie were whispering and giggling together. Upon spying the men, they both broke out in gales of laughter, Dottie’s punctuated by queer clicks.

“Come now, Jane,” said Agassiz sternly. “What’s so humorous?”

This rebuke served only to provoke further hilarity. At last, however, the women calmed down enough for Jane to say, “Oh, Professor, it’s just that this crinoline’s stiffened with whale bones!”

“And what, pray tell, makes whale bones so jocose? And mind you now, none of your usual lip!”

But this unfortunate turn of phrase sent the women into such tearful hilarity that an answer never was forthcoming.

4

WHAT THE POSTMAN BROUGHT

E
VER SINCE, AT
the age of fifteen, he had outlined in his journal his entire future career, Agassiz had never known failure—or never admitted such. True, some events had transpired in a manner less than absolutely satisfying. His marriage, for one. But there had always been an angle from which to view such partial successes, a perspective which would allow him to salvage radiant victory from black defeat. Never had he been forced to admit incompetence, actually to utter the words, “I’ve failed.”

Yet now, perhaps, that miserable occasion was here. Much as he hated to confess it, he had found an area of endeavor in which he seemed to possess no skills at all.

That field was detecting.

He had been completely convinced that once he applied his intense intelligence to the problem of the missing fetiche, he would be able to lead Cezar straight to the fiendish Hottentot sorcerer, T’guzeri. After all, what was detecting but a pale cousin of science? In both, one was presented with a motley collection of seemingly unrelated facts from which an overarching explanation had to be cobbled, leading to the ability to predict or extrapolate the actions of one’s quarry, whether man or atom. Surely the savant who had read in the grooved rocks of the Rhone Valley the ancient presence of glaciers would be able to follow the clumsy tracks of a primitive blackamoor.

And yet, such had not been the case.

Before casting their net far afield, Agassiz had argued that they should positively eliminate the city as T’guzeri’s refuge. As the Hub of the Commonwealth, Agassiz argued, the city should attract the sorcerer, even if it were not the actual Cosmogonic Locus where he would ultimately perform his necromantic rituals.

And so for two days the naturalist and Cezar had combed the cowpath-twisty streets of Boston. In their search they were accompanied by the silent yet alert and inquisitive Dottie, her inky simian features, startlingly incongruous when framed in Western accouterments, attracting stares and catcalls from the lower-class pedestrians.

The trio had made inquiry among various strata of society, searching for any information regarding a half-nude Bushman carrying a pickled portion of feminine anatomy.

First they had tried Agassiz’s contacts at the local wharves, reasoning that T’guzeri must have arrived from Paris by boat, commercial or otherwise. On an off-chance, they even visited the McKay shipyards not far from the Agassiz establishment in East Boston, where Donald McKay built his magnificent clipper ships such as the
Flying Cloud
and the
Sovereign of the Seas
,
which dominated the China-California trade. But no one they spoke to had seen the Bushman.

Crossing over from East Boston to the Shawmut mainland by ferry, they arrived at Long Wharf, with its marvelous 2000-foot-long, four-story-tall brick warehouse. But there, amid the drying nets of the fishermen and the tethered schooners, barques and sloops, as well as the rare yacht from Newport, bobbing proudly like a peacock (
Pavo cristatus
)
among chickens (
Gallus gallus
),
they drew a complete blank.

Forced to assume that the wily magician had landed elsewhere on the East Coast, they checked all train and coach stations, questioning porters and ticket-sellers, vendors, pickaroons and mudlarks. From the Fitchburg Depot on Causeway Street to the Providence and Worcester Terminus at South Cove they roamed. No luck.

“Zuppose D’guzeri dravelled overland by vun of dose horse-drawn boats?”

“A canal barge? Let us investigate.”

But none of the sweaty roughnecks who guided the horses that pulled the seventy-five-foot flat-bottomed barges along the Middlesex Canal from the Merrimack River to Boston Harbor could supply information about the sorcerer.

The trio of sleuths made a survey of wooden South End row-houses packed with immigrants, to no avail. Hypothesizing that perhaps T’guzeri was using his small stature to impersonate a child, they visited the Home for Vagrant Boys and the many Free Schools. All wards and students were non-Hottentot.

They inquired at all thirty of the city’s “benevolent, useful and charitable societies,” but enjoyed no success.

Despairing, they journeyed to the Boston Lunatic Hospital at City Point, thinking that perhaps T’guzeri had been captured and consigned there. In the midst of the inmates’ cachinnations, Agassiz was painfully reminded of the fiasco Desor had brought about at “Bedlam College.” Unfortunately, none of the mooncalves was a Bushman.

At this point, they were at an impasse.

“My reasoning was impeccable. I was positive the rogue would hole up in the city, where his presence was most likely to pass unremarked. . . .”

“Ach, I zhould have gone to zumvun who had experience in dese matters. Like maybe dot writer Edgar Poe. Anyvun who could create a character like dot Auguste Dupin vould be able to solve dis zimple mystery.”

“Don’t make me laugh! That journalist is nothing but a drunken dreamer, with his talk of a hollow earth and such. And his morals are filthy. Why, he was practically ridden on a rail out of this city.”

“Never der less. . . .”

Thus frustrated, Agassiz turned to his network of field correspondents, men and women, amateurs and professionals alike, who had heard him lecture and been motivated to enlist in the great and glorious Army of Science. From them, he daily received packages of interesting natural oddities, which packages, sometimes slimy and reeking, occasionally still buzzing, croaking or rattling, were a source of much anxiety to Jane, who had the task of accepting the post.

Late in the afternoon of the second fruitless day, Agassiz had written the same letter to each of his representatives:

Esteemed Friend of Natural Philosophy,

Your humble Professor now asks you to keep your senses alert for a rara avis indeed! I have had reports of live African natives of the Hottentot species sighted in these parts, perhaps blown off course during some natural oceanic migration and wafted to these northern shores. I will pay double the usual bounty if you would be so kind as to forward reliable notice of such specimens. Of course, should you be able to trap them, so much the better, and you may count on my paying all freight charges for their speedy delivery, as well as recompensing you for any forage they might consume.

Yours in taxonomical solidarity,

Louis Agassiz

Now there came a clumsy knock at the door to Agassiz’s study. Ah, that would be Jane with the afternoon post. Perhaps there would already be a reply or two from the nearer correspondents. . . .

“Enter.”

The doorknob was fumbled, then the door shot open, impelled by a kick, slamming loudly into the wall.

Jane staggered in, her outstretched arms so full of packages as to obscure her face. She tottered toward a sideboard, but, midway there, let loose a high-pitched shriek and dropped all her burdens.

“Something bit me!”

Swooning onto the couch, Jane began to weep.

Agassiz hastened to shut the door, then went to sit beside Jane.

“There, there, my dear, where does it hurt? Show Papa Agass.”

Jane unbuttoned the high collar of her redingote down to well below her clavicle. “Here. Look, it’s all red!”

“The skin remains unbroken, Jane. It was probably nothing more than the sharp corner of a box. You’re altogether too impressionable, my dear. Let me kiss it better—”

As Agassiz lowered his head toward the upper reaches of Jane’s bosom, the door opened without warning. Agassiz jumped to his feet and Jane hurriedly began fastening her garments.

It was Desor. The oily German leered knowingly at his employer and attempted to twirl one end of his insignificant mustache. Instead, he succeeded only in plucking out several loosely-rooted hairs he could ill afford to do without.

Agassiz forced himself to repress his rage. It would not appear seemly to inflate this interruption out of proportion.

“Edward, I would prefer that you announce yourself in the future. What if I had been engaged in private matters?”

“I thought you were.”

“Nothing of the sort! Jane was only delivering the mail, and chose to rest her feet. Now, what, if anything, is on your mind?”

“My cousin Maurice has arrived, and wishes to meet you.”

“Arrived? It was only three days ago that you told me he had set sail. Has there been a nautical advance I am improbably unaware of?”

“I did not wish you to brood overmuch on his safety, and so delayed mentioning his journey till he was almost due.”

“Harumph! I believe you wanted to present me with as much of a
fait accompli
as possible. Well, tell Maurice that his personal interview will have to wait until I have more time. Meanwhile, you can put him to work earning his keep. Considering his skills, perhaps cleaning the stables would be the most suitable chore.”

“Nonsense. Maurice is a gentleman. I will have him mount some butterflies.”

Before he could be countermanded, Desor left.

Agassiz sidled up to Jane, now standing and ready to depart. He nuzzled her hair.

“All this talk of mounting reminds me of something—”

Jane giggled. “Gracious! Don’t make me blush, sir! At least not till tonight. . . .”

After Jane had gone, Agassiz recovered his mail from the floor and began opening it. A missive from his most faithful English correspondent, one C. Cowperthwait, which would normally have received priority, was hastily put to one side.

Only one package pertained to his search. Agassiz did not recognize the sender’s name, as it did not belong to one of his regular affiliates.

Sirs:

I heerd as how you was lookin for a runaway nigger of yourn. I got me one here that I come on while it was fleein to Canada. Mebbe its yourn. I am sendin you a token by what mebbe you can tell. If so, you will be obliged to come and get it, as its in no shape to travel. Gold only, no banknotes.

Yourn,

Hosea Clay

Agassiz opened the small parcel that went with the illiterate letter.

Inside was a severed black man’s ear, blood dried to a crust on it, a curly hair or two adhering.

Agassiz dropped the box in shock; the ear tumbled out to lie accusingly on the carpet.

My God! Such was the contagious brutality that white men who were forced to dwell side by side with blacks eventually sunk to! What an epic tragedy this mixing of the races was! The whole country was tainted by it, and would be for its entire span of existence. Thank the Lord that he, Agassiz, remained innocent of all culpability in the whole sorry affair, by virtue of his Swiss birth and scientific outlook. . . .

Using a pair of large tweezers, Agassiz retrieved the ear and consigned it, along with the letter and box, to the belly of the room’s Franklin stove. Even at this time of the year nights could grow chilly, and a little fire would go unremarked.

The last letter was from Agassiz’s mother.

Dearest Son,

You know that Cecile has been laboring under many stresses of late, not the least of which is your unavoidable absence. When she began to lie abed for most of the day, we expected the worst. Doctor Leuckhardt has now delivered his diagnosis, and it pains me to inform you that it is tuberculosis.

Cecile and the children are relocating to Fribourg, as Doctor Leuckhardt believes the change in atmosphere will benefit her, and as she is very homesick.

Cecile and the children send their love. Your wife says not to worry, as it can do her no good, and will only hinder your work.

With deepest affection,

Mama

The letter slipped from Agassiz’s lax hand to the rug. Thoughts and memories, half-formed recriminations and justifications swarmed in his agonized brain like
Apis mellifera
in a field of clover.

After a seeming eternity of confused reverie, the study door opened once more.

Like a nor’easter, the redoubtable Captain Dan’l Stormfield blew in, bringing his maritime perfume.

At first, Agassiz could barely focus on the man’s words. But eventually he found himself captivated once more by the fisherman’s lively speech, and drawn out of his funk.

“Howdy, Perfesser! Well, ye can damn me for a spineless jellyfish, but I ain’t brung ye that miraculous swordfish like I promised. It’s like this. My wife found out about the critter, and sorta took him over. Ye see, she’s been a-houndin’ me for a year to get her one o’ them newfangled Howe sewin’ machines, and I been resistin’, cuz of the cost. So when she learned what that swordfish could do, she just took him over, and what could I say? Now she’s got him in a tank in the front parlor, and she’s a-workin’ him day and night to make herself and all her friends the latest Gay Par-ee fashions. The poor fish is hard put to keep up with the demand, and I daresay it will expire soon. I’ll try to get it for ye then, as a dead fish is better than none, I figger. Meanwhile, though, I brung you something new.”

Stormfield reached under his greasy sweater and pulled out the corpse of a bird.

“That’s a common robin,
Turdus migratorius
.
What would I want with that?”

Chewing the stem of his pipe with satisfaction, Stormfield advised, “Look a little closer, old hoss.”

Agassiz took the bird. Its feathers felt peculiar, raspy and scaly. There was webbing between its toes, and what appeared to be gills behind its ears.

“Ayup, it’s a sea-robin all right! I netted it smack dab in Marblehead Harbor itself. Can’t say why such queer things always appear in them waters. It’s just like they pop outta nowhere—”

Agassiz found some ready coins. “Very well, I will buy this ‘sea-robin’ of yours for dissection. But if I find it to be another artifact, you will be in for a severe reprimand.”

“Sure as Santa Anna’s got a wooden leg, that there bird is a gen-yew-wine fish. Or is the other way round?”

After biting his coins, Stormfield, on the point of leaving, stopped, plainly alarmed by something outside, seen through the study window.