Mrs Caliban and other stories Read online

  At last the brother who brought the food came to say that the sentence was up. The man’s name was Dominic and he’d been dying of curiosity all the time he’d been coming to the cell. He had tried to sound Anselm out but had got no response, so when anyone asked him about his prisoner, he’d invent something. He made up anything he thought might be interesting, though nothing malicious; he said that one evening a bright light had seemed to be coming from under the door – brighter than could be accounted for by the ordinary lighting system available to the brothers; that kind of thing. By the time he unlocked the door and left it ajar, there was a fairly large corpus of mythological incident circulating through the monastery. He waited by the door, smiled widely and said, ‘No more restrictions.’

  Anselm stood up. He nodded.

  Dominic said, ‘Good heavens, they must really trust your sanity. I’ve never known them to allow anyone else in solitary to keep a razor.’

  Anselm went back to the cloister, where he strolled up and down to stretch his legs. He also needed to think. He paced back and forth in front of his favourite tree, a pear tree, which had come into bud while he’d been shut indoors, and would soon be in flower. Things were no longer simple; or, if they were, then they were so simple that nobody else was going to be able to agree with him.

  He went to eat lunch with the others. He sat down late. The brothers had already joined in silent prayer. When the talk began again, heads turned towards him. The bread was passed around. Brother Adrian said loudly, ‘You need a haircut, Anselm. See Brother Marcus after lunch. Did you hear me?’

  Anselm ignored him. He looked down the table to where the doctor sat, and said, ‘Brother Duncan, if it won’t be disturbing you, I’d like to talk to you after the meal.’

  ‘Did you hear me?’ Adrian bellowed.

  A silence fell over the company. Anselm murmured, ‘How could anyone at this table fail to hear you, Brother Adrian? You’re shouting so loudly. I’m perfectly capable of dealing with my hair, just as you must be of looking after what’s left of yours.’

  The roar of laughter from his companions turned Adrian red. He tried to stand up. The two brothers at his side held on to him.

  Francis said, ‘Argumentation is detrimental to the digestion, brothers. We all know that. Let’s have some ideas and opinions on the new wines, all right?’

  ‘They haven’t settled down yet,’ Brother Robert said. ‘It’s unfair to judge them at this stage.’

  Everyone waited for Brother Robert to say more. He had a flair for the possibilities of a wine. He was a prematurely dried-up, pernickety little man, not the sort of person anyone would take to be an expert on a matter concerning the senses. He could drink huge amounts and, since the effect was to make him progressively quieter, he never seemed to be drunk – unlike Brother Adrian, who pontificated loudly and slurred very early on during the wine-tasting examinations and thought everything tasted pretty good.

  ‘But just as a guess, Robert?’ Francis asked. ‘Good or bad?’

  ‘Oh, the red is probably going to be ordinary enough. Drinkable, that’s all. But the white could conceivably turn out to be something rather special for a California wine. Don’t quote me. That’s just off the top of my tonsure, ha-ha.’

  Two of the brothers groaned. Brother William, one of the youngest, said, ‘I thought the order hadn’t had tonsures since Father Clement’s time. I thought those were all just natural.’

  ‘Go back to asleep,’ his friend James told him.

  ‘I wasn’t asleep. I was thinking about something I wanted to ask Anselm, but now I’ve forgotten.’

  Anselm glanced in William’s direction. William twisted around in his seat and stared back. He looked baffled. He said, ‘I just can’t remember.’

  Brother Adrian thundered down the table at Robert that the red wine this year was going to be full-bodied and rich as a ruby, not like the usual cat’s piss the white wine drinkers were addicted to.

  Most of the table joined in the quarrel. Since the entire monastery was divided into lovers of white wine and lovers of red, the subject was normally a guarantee for heated debate.

  Anselm didn’t take part. He chewed his food slowly, watched by the doctor from the other side of the table.

  *

  ‘Well, Anselm, what can I do for you?’ Duncan asked. ‘Feeling nervous again? Depressed? Having dreams?’

  ‘I’ve always had dreams, Doctor. Haven’t you?’

  ‘Of course. The thing to remember about dreams is that you shouldn’t let them run away with you.’

  ‘I heard from somebody once that your great dream was to be a missionary doctor, like Albert Schweitzer. Is that true?’

  ‘That’s right, yes. What good memories people have around here. We all have our fantasies when we’re young.’

  ‘You’re still not too old to do it.’

  Duncan pointed to his heart. He said, ‘I’m too old here.’

  ‘So, if it was offered to you, you wouldn’t accept?’

  ‘Probably not. How did we get on to this? I was supposed to be asking you about your health.’

  ‘I’m not sure that what I’ve got is really a matter of health.’

  ‘You look different. Were you eating all right, the past few weeks?’

  ‘Feel my cheek, Doctor,’ Anselm said.

  Duncan put out his hand and touched the side of Anselm’s face. ‘What’s wrong?’ he said. ‘It doesn’t feel like a temperature to me.’

  ‘No beard,’ Anselm explained. ‘My beard has disappeared. It’s just gone.’

  Duncan hitched his chair closer. He took Anselm’s face between his hands and turned it, first one way, then another. ‘That’s certainly what it looks like,’ he said.

  ‘And other things,’ Anselm continued, ‘have disappeared.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘And I’m getting fat. And I’d like you to take a look at my chest.’ He stood up, turned his back, unsnapped the front of his robe and took out a towel he’d kept folded there. Then he turned around, holding the robe open so that the doctor could see: two round, exuberantly forward-pointing breasts, each about the size of a pomegranate.

  Brother Duncan stood up. His mouth opened. He held out his hands as if to touch the breasts. Anselm picked up the towel and closed his robe. He sat down in the chair again.

  The doctor continued to stare. At last he said, ‘What the hell? Who are you?’

  ‘I’m Anselm. You know very well. I’ve been in solitary confinement for a long time, so you know I couldn’t have been switched. Maybe you heard something about the reason why they put me there?’

  Duncan sat down. Once more he examined Anselm’s face. ‘I can’t understand it,’ he said.

  ‘It isn’t hard to understand, only hard to believe. I’m pregnant, that’s all.’

  ‘Right. Get your clothes off. All of them. This time I’m going to give you a complete examination.’

  ‘Not on your life. I don’t see why I should be subjected to any such thing without another woman present.’

  ‘I’m a doctor.’

  ‘Does that make you better than anyone else?’

  ‘This is my job, Anselm.’

  ‘But how much do you know about women?’

  ‘I had a thorough medical education.’

  ‘Exactly. That means: not much.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, what do you think I’m going to do to you? I just want to look.’

  ‘I bet. You can give me a urine test and find out that way.’

  ‘Anselm, you don’t seem to be taking this very seriously.’

  ‘I’m taking it the only way that makes sense. I was chosen, and I accept it, and I’m glad. It’s only everybody else who finds trouble in taking it. First of all they said I was crazy and seeing things. What are they going to say now?’

  ‘Well, if it’s true, how long do you think you can keep it secret? There’s going to come a time when it’ll start to show.’

  ‘It shows already,
without the towel.’

  ‘Well, everybody’s got to know pretty soon, then. Unless you’re planning to leave here.’

  ‘No, I couldn’t leave. Doctor, you know that’s what’s happened, don’t you? You know it’s a sacred thing. And you’re bound by your oath to preserve life. You’re also pledged to keep my confidence.’

  ‘I can keep quiet. But in your condition, you’ll give yourself away. Don’t you think it would be better if I examined you now, and after that we could both go to Brother Frederick and have a chat?’

  Anselm yawned. He said, ‘I suppose so. But I’m relying on you. If they shut me up again, I won’t be able to get the exercise I need. It wouldn’t be healthy. If you really need to, I guess you can do an examination. But I’m warning you: try anything dirty, and I’ll knock your teeth out.’

  ‘This is what holiness has done for you, is it? Talking to me like that.’

  ‘I’ve been put in a position of trust. My body is a sepulchre. It shouldn’t be tampered with.’

  ‘Relax. I’m not going to tamper. I’m going to palpate.’

  ‘That sounds worse.’

  ‘Anselm –’

  ‘Oh, all right,’ Anselm said. He began to pull furiously at his clothes to get them off. He found that tears were running from his eyes. He cried easily now and got irritated, and felt sleepy during the daytime. ‘And my back hurts,’ he said.

  *

  ‘There’s no doubt about it,’ Brother Duncan said. ‘Anselm is expecting a child. Physically, he is now in every respect a woman.’

  Anselm leaned back in Frederick’s easy-chair. He had positioned the pillow so that it would give support at the small of his back. The pregnant belly loomed out in silhouette. His hair was brushed back and seemed much longer; the style made his face look like a woman’s.

  It took a while for Frederick, Francis and Adrian to digest the news. In the end, Frederick had to bring out the brandy. Anselm alone refused.

  ‘Oh dear,’ Brother Francis said, ‘oh dear, oh dear.’

  Brother Frederick looked the doctor in the eye and told him, ‘It just isn’t possible.’

  ‘Who knows? Darwin wasn’t wrong about everything. Eels are sexually ambivalent, and snails are both male and female at the same time; but maybe they weren’t always that way. Maybe they became like that after some other way for a long time. Do you see what I mean? Maybe Anselm is only the first. He’s evolved, so that –’

  ‘No,’ Anselm interrupted. ‘I was chosen.’

  ‘Perhaps mind over matter,’ Francis said tentatively. ‘If the desire was so strong. I’m not saying that it’s psychosomatic, but … I don’t know.’

  ‘Yes,’ Anselm said. ‘I know what you mean. Love conquers all. I know that’s true now. I’ve had the proof. In fact, I am the proof.’

  Brother Adrian looked at Anselm with revulsion. He declared, ‘It isn’t in the realm of nature.’

  ‘Nature covers a lot of territory. And it’s changing all the time.’

  ‘You know what I think we should do, Anselm? I think we should bring back the old practices and burn you at the stake.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Francis said. ‘Calm down, Adrian, please.’

  ‘If it’s a question of the survival of the Church?’

  ‘But this is Anselm. We’ve known him for five years. He’s a good boy.’

  ‘He must have been a plant. By evil forces. Who knows what really went on? We have no idea.’

  ‘I told you,’ Anselm said.

  ‘That’s what I mean. The depths of sexual depravity.’

  ‘It doesn’t have anything to do with morality. It’s all a question of love. I was given the love and it transformed me. And now that it turns out I’ve been given something else, that’s going to be a wonderful reminder of –’

  ‘Stop,’ Frederick said. ‘This is ludicrous.’

  ‘Monstrous,’ Adrian said. ‘This progeny, whatever you want to call it, has got to be a monster. You’re a living blasphemy, Anselm.’

  ‘Don’t say that.’ Anselm took out a handkerchief and dabbed at his eyes.

  ‘He’s a medical anomaly, that’s all,’ Duncan said.

  ‘This is not a miracle,’ Adrian insisted. ‘It’s an abnormality. Brother Anselm is a freak, not a phenomenon.’

  ‘Oh, you nasty man,’ Anselm said, sniffing into his handkerchief.

  ‘Yes, Adrian, really,’ Francis said. ‘Have a little compassion. In his state – after all, we don’t want to upset the baby.’

  ‘Baby? I wouldn’t be surprised if it turns out to be a toad.’

  ‘Gabriel,’ Anselm whispered. He hid his face in the crook of his elbow. Francis patted his back and gripped his shoulder.

  Frederick rose from his chair. He said, ‘Well, Anselm, we’ll just have to wait and see what you produce. In the meantime, I hope I don’t have to tell you that no word of this is to leak out of this building. And while you remain here, you’re to conduct yourself with modesty and decorum. That will be all for the moment. You may return to your cell. Perhaps you’d accompany him, Doctor? Him, her, whatever you want to call yourself.’

  Anselm stood. ‘God forgive you,’ he said. He turned towards the door. Duncan took his arm. Brother Adrian shouted after them that Anselm would burn in hell for ever and ever.

  Anselm let himself be led quietly to his cell. He lay down on his back and closed his eyes. He knew that he should try to think of some plan, some way of protecting himself. There were malicious and unscrupulous men around him, who despised him and who would have him at their mercy when the baby was born. He couldn’t decide whether telling the outside world would help him or put him into greater danger.

  He thought about the baby and smiled. He was feeling good in spite of the backaches. He fell asleep smiling.

  *

  Frederick went to Francis for comfort. He said, ‘Francis, this thing will be the end of me. I don’t know what to do. I can’t tell anyone outside. On the other hand – I mean, it couldn’t be. It couldn’t be. You don’t believe it, do you?’

  ‘Well, the trouble is, we all know that he was a man when he arrived here.’

  Frederick paced the room, smacked his hands together and pulled at his hair. He kept repeating that it wasn’t possible.

  ‘But it’s happened,’ Francis said.

  ‘OK, OK. What I meant was: it isn’t possible that it could be another divine birth. In which case, in which – you aren’t helping, Francis.’

  ‘In which case, it’s an ordinary human birth.’

  ‘Yes. A phantom pregnancy brought on by Anselm’s overwhelming neurotic craving to become the object of his devotion: the Virgin Mary.’

  ‘And when he gives birth?’

  ‘It’s all going to be gristle and leftover pieces of stuff.’

  ‘Frederick, sit down for heaven’s sake. You heard what Duncan said. It’s going to be a child like any other child.’

  ‘Then he was screwing somebody in my monastery, damn it all.’

  ‘As a man or as a woman?’

  ‘Oh, Christ,’ Frederick said. ‘Years clawing my way up the ladder, being polite to creeps and crazies, and playing along with the whole business: you do me a favour, I’ll do you a favour. And then I got my own team and whipped it into shape. I worked like hell on this place, you know that. Not that they’d actually let me have it for my own – no, I’m only the deputy; that makes it less trouble for them. And now this happens.’

  ‘But no matter what’s caused it, it’s a joyful thing.’

  ‘Not for the man in charge, Francis. No, siree. What the hell am I going to do?’

  ‘All these emotions – it’s wearing me down. Try to relax and be happy. Don’t work yourself up like this.’

  ‘Easy for you to say. You aren’t going to have to carry the can.’

  ‘Neither are you. Nobody’s going to blame you for this. Especially if you call in Duncan to explain the situation.’

  ‘He doesn’t have an explanation.’


  ‘That’s just it. What you do is what everyone else is going to do: wait and see.’

  ‘No. We believe in God, the Virgin Birth, Christ the Redeemer, the teachings of Mother Church and the life everlasting. And that’s damn well it. None of this newfangled nonsense. And don’t start quoting Vatican Two at me – I’m sick to death of it.’

  ‘But you wouldn’t do anything to harm Anselm, would you?’

  ‘How are we to know that this isn’t some kind of unholy thing? That’s what Adrian believes.’

  ‘The man’s a fool, you know that. He’s jealous of Anselm and he’s frightened of his own feelings. Forget what he believes. Let’s say for the moment that we’re dealing with an ordinary mother and child. It would be very wrong to do anything to harm them.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of harming anyone. Don’t look at me like that.’

  ‘You tell me what you were thinking about, then.’

  ‘I don’t know. There doesn’t seem to be any way out. Why did this have to happen to me?’

  ‘It didn’t. It happened to Anselm.’

  ‘But it affects us all. No man is an island.’

  ‘And no woman, either.’

  Frederick jumped up again, kicked the table, and said, ‘Damn it, damn it, you can’t keep them out of anything.’

  *

  Anselm walked back and forth for exercise. He passed his favourite tree, the flowering pear. He had stood for a quarter of an hour in front of it the night before, astonished at how its pale petals held the light so that he was able to see the whole tree blooming in the darkness.

  In the daytime the tree seemed smaller than it had at night. He wondered why that should be. Maybe it had appeared large in isolation and because of being surrounded by black: a trick of the light and of the eye perceiving it. Or maybe the night showed the truth and the daytime tree was deceptively small.