Ape and Essence Read online

  Meanwhile Dr. Schneeglock, the psychologist, sits listening with a smile of hardly disguised contempt.

  "But why even bother about aqueducts?" he asks. "All you need do is just to threaten your neighbour with any of the weapons of mass destruction. Their own panic will do the rest. Remember what the psychological treatment did to New York, for ex­ample. The short-wave broadcasts from overseas, the headlines in the evening papers. And immediately there were eight millions of people trampling one another to death on the bridges and in the tunnels. And the survivors scattered through the countryside, like locusts, like a horde of plague-infected rats. Fouling the water supply. Spreading typhoid and diphtheria and venereal disease. Biting, clawing, loot­ing, murdering, raping. Feeding on dead dogs and the corpses of children. Shot at sight by the farmers, bludgeoned by the police, machine-gunned by the State Guard, strung up by the Vigilantes. And the same thing was happening in Chicago, Detroit, Phila­delphia, Washington; in London, in Paris; in Bombay and Shanghai and Tokyo; in Moscow, in Kiev, in Stalingrad; in every capital, every manufacturing centre, every port, every railway junction, all over the world. Not a shot had been fired and civilization was already in ruins. Why the soldiers ever found it necessary to use their bombs, I really can't imagine."

  NARRATOR

  Love casts out fear; but conversely fear casts out love. And not only love. Fear also casts out intelli­gence, casts out goodness, casts out all thought of beauty and truth. What remains is the dumb or studiedly jocular desperation of one who is aware of the obscene Presence in the corner of the room and knows that the door is locked, that there aren't any windows. And now the thing bears down on him. He feels a hand on his sleeve, smells a stinking breath, as the executioner's assistant leans almost amorously to­ward him. "Your turn next, brother. Kindly step this way." And in an instant his quiet terror is transmuted into a frenzy as violent as it is futile. There is no longer a man among his fellow men, no longer a ra­tional being speaking articulately to other rational beings; there is only a lacerated animal, screaming and struggling in the trap. For in the end fear casts out even a man's humanity. And fear, my good friends, fear is the very basis and foundation of modern life. Fear of the much touted technology which, while it raises our standard of living, increases the probability of our violently dying. Fear of the science which takes away with one hand even more than what it so pro­fusely gives with the other. Fear of the demonstrably fatal institutions for which, in our suicidal loyalty, we are ready to kill and die. Fear of the Great Men whom we have raised, by popular acclaim, to a power which they use, inevitably, to murder and enslave us. Fear of the War we don't want and yet do everything we can to bring about.

  As the Narrator speaks, we dissolve to the alfresco picnic of the baboons and their captive Einsteins. They eat and drink, with gusto, while the first two bars of "Onward Christian Soldiers" are repeated again and again, faster and faster, louder and louder. Suddenly the music is interrupted by the first of a succession of enormous explosions. Darkness. A long-drawn, deafening noise of crashing, rending, scream­ing, moaning. Then silence and increasing light, and once again it is the hour before sunrise, with the morning star and the delicate, pure music.

  NARRATOR

  Beauty inexpressible, peace beyond understand­ing. . .

  Far off, from below the horizon, a column of rosy smoke pushes up into the sky, swells out into the likeness of an enormous toadstool and hangs there, eclipsing the solitary planet.

  We dissolve again to the scene of the picnic. The baboons are all dead. Horribly disfigured by burns, the two Einsteins lie side by side under what re­mains of a flowering apple tree. Not far off a pressure tank is still oozing its Improved Glanders.

  FIRST EINSTEIN

  It's unjust, it isn't right. . .

  SECOND EINSTEIN

  We, who never did any harm to anybody;

  FIRST EINSTEIN

  We, who lived only for Truth.

  NARRATOR

  And that precisely is why you are dying in the murderous service of baboons. Pascal explained it all more than three hundred years ago. "We make an idol of truth; for truth without charity is not God, but his image and idol, which we must neither love nor worship." You lived for the worship of an idol. But, in the last analysis, the name of every idol is Moloch. So here you are, my friends, here you are.

  Stirred by a sudden gust, the stagnant plague-fog noiselessly advances, sends a wreath of pus-coloured vapour swirling among the apple blossoms, then descends to engulf the two recumbent figures. A chok­ing scream announces the death, by suicide, of twentieth-century science.

  We dissolve to a point on the coast of Southern California, twenty miles or thereabouts due west of Los Angeles. The scientists of the Rediscovery Expedition are in the act of landing from a whaleboat. A huge sewer, shattered where it enters the sea, stands in the background.

  NARRATOR

  Parthenon, Coliseum --

  Glory that was Greece, grandeur etcetera.

  And there are all the others --

  Thebes and Copan, Arezzo and Ajanta;

  Bourges, taking heaven by violence,

  And the Holy Wisdom, floating in repose.

  But the glory that was Queen Victoria

  Remains unquestionably the W.C.;

  The grandeur that was Franklin Delano

  Is this by far the biggest drainpipe ever --

  Dry now and shattered, Ichabod, Ichabod;

  And its freight of condoms (irrepressibly buoyant,

  Like hope, like concupiscence) no longer whitens

  This lonely beach with a galaxy as of windflowers

  Or summer daisies.

  Meanwhile the scientists, with Dr. Craigie at their head, have crossed the beach, scrambled up the low cliff and are making their way across the sandy and eroded plain toward the oil wells on the hills beyond.

  The Camera holds on Dr. Poole, the Chief Bota­nist of the Expedition. Like a browsing sheep, he moves from plant to plant, examining flowers through his magnifying glass, putting away specimens in his collecting box, making notes in a little black book.

  NARRATOR

  Well, here he is, our hero, Dr. Alfred Poole D.Sc. Better known to his students and younger colleagues as Stagnant Poole. And the nickname, alas, is painfully apt. For though not unhandsome, as you see, though a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand and by no means a fool, in the circumstances of practical life his intelligence seems to be only potential, his attractiveness no more than latent. It is as though he lived behind plate glass, could see and be seen, but never establish contact. And the fault, as Dr. Schneeglock of the Psychology Department is only too ready to tell you, the fault lies with that devoted and intensely widowed mother of his -- that saint, that pillar of fortitude, that vampire, who still presides at his breakfast table and with her own hands launders his silk shirts and sacrificially darns his socks.

  Miss Hook now enters the shot -- enters it on a burst of enthusiasm.

  "Isn't this exciting, Alfred?" she exclaims.

  "Very," says Dr. Poole politely.

  "Seeing Yucca gloriosa in its native habitat -- who would have imagined that we'd ever get the chance? And Artemisia tridentata."

  "There are still some flowers on the Artemisia," says Dr. Poole. "Do you notice anything unusual about them?"

  Miss Hook examines them, and shakes her head.

  "They're a great deal bigger than what's described in the old text books," he says in a tone of studiedly repressed excitement.

  "A great deal bigger?" she repeats. Her face lights up. "Alfred, you don't think . . .?"

  Dr. Poole nods.

  "I'm ready to bet on it," he says. "Tetraploidy. Induced by irradiation with gamma rays."

  "Oh, Alfred," she cries ecstatically.

  NARRATOR

  In her tweeds and her horn-rimmed spectacles Ethel Hook is one of those extraordinarily whole­some, amazingly efficient and intensely E
nglish girls to whom, unless one is oneself equally wholesome, equally English and even more efficient, one would so much rather not be married. Which is probably why, at thirty-five, Ethel is still without a husband. Still without a husband -- but not, she dares to hope, for much longer. For though dear Alfred has not yet actually proposed, she knows (and knows that he knows) that his mother's dearest wish is for him to do so -- and Alfred is the most dutiful of sons. Besides they have so much in common -- botany, the Univer­sity, the poetry of Wordsworth. She feels confident that before they get back to Auckland it will all be ar­ranged -- the simple ceremony with dear old Dr. Trilliams officiating, the honeymoon in the Southern Alps, the return to their sweet little house in Mount Eden, and then after eighteen months, the first baby. . .

  Cut to the other members of the expedition, as they toil up the hill toward the oil wells. Professor Craigie, their leader, halts to mop his brow and to take stock of his charges.

  "Where's Poole?" he asks. "And Ethel Hook?"

  Somebody points and, in a long shot, we see the distant figures of the two botanists.

  Cut back to Professor Craigie, who cups his hands around his mouth and shouts. "Poole, Poole!"

  "Why don't you leave them to their little romance?" asks the genial Cudworth.

  "Romance indeed!" Dr. Schneeglock snorts deri­sively.

  "But she's obviously sweet on him."

  "It takes two to make a romance."

  "Trust a woman to get her man to pop the question."

  "You might as well expect him to commit incest with his mother," says Dr. Schneeglock emphatically.

  "Poole!" bellows Professor Craigie once more, and turning to the others, "I don't like people to lag be­hind," he says in a tone of irritation. "In a strange country. . . You never know."

  He renews his shouting.

  Cut back to Dr. Poole and Miss Hook. They hear the distant call, look up from their tetraploid Artemisia, wave their hands and start in pursuit of the others. Suddenly Dr. Poole catches sight of something that makes him cry aloud.

  "Look!" He points a forefinger.

  "What is it?"

  "Echinocactus hexaedrophorus -- and the most beauti­ful specimen."

  Medium long shot from his viewpoint of a ruined bungalow among the sagebrush. Then a close shot of the cactus growing between two paving stones, near the front door. Cut back to Dr. Poole. From the leather sheath at his belt he draws a long, narrow-bladed trowel.

  "You're not going to dig it up?"

  His only answer is to walk over to where the cactus is growing and squat down beside it.

  "Professor Craigie will be so cross," protests Miss Hook.

  "Well then, run ahead and keep him quiet."

  She looks at him for a few seconds with an expres­sion of solicitude.

  "I hate to leave you alone, Alfred."

  "You talk as though I were five years old," he an­swers irritably. "Go ahead, I tell you."

  He turns away and starts to dig.

  Miss Hook does not immediately obey, but stands looking at him in silence for a little while longer.

  NARRATOR

  Tragedy is the farce that involves our sympathies, farce, the tragedy that happens to outsiders. Tweedy and breezy, wholesome and efficient, this object of the easiest kind of satire is also the subject of an Intimate Journal. What flaming sunsets she has seen and vainly attempted to describe! What velvety and voluptuous summer nights! What lyrically lovely days of springl And oh, the torrents of feeling, the temptations, the hopes, the passionate throbbing of the heart, the humiliating disappointments! And now, after all these years, after so many committee meetings attended, so many lectures delivered and examination papers corrected, now at last, moving in His mysterious way, God has made her, she feels, responsible for this help­less and unhappy man. And because he is unhappy and helpless, she loves him -- not romantically of course, not as she loved that curly-headed scamp who, fifteen years ago, swept her off her feet and then married the daughter of that rich contractor, but genuinely none the less, with a strong, protective tenderness.

  "All right," she says at last. "I'll go ahead. But promise you won't be long."

  "Of course I won't be long."

  She turns and walks away. Dr. Poole looks after her; then, with a sigh of relief at finding himself once more alone, resumes his digging.

  NARRATOR

  "Never," he is repeating to himself, "Never! What­ever mother may say." For though he respects Miss Hook as a botanist, relies on her as an organiser and admires her as a high-minded person, the idea of being made one flesh with her is as unthinkable as a violation of the Categorical Imperative.

  Suddenly, from behind him, three villainous-looking men, black-bearded, dirty and ragged, emerge very quietly from out of the ruins of the house, stand poised for a moment, then throw themselves upon the unsuspecting botanist and, before he can so much as utter a cry, force a gag into his mouth, tie his hands behind his back and drag him down into a gully, out of sight of his companions.

  We dissolve to a panoramic view of Southern Cali­fornia from fifty miles up in the stratosphere. As the Camera plummets downward, we hear the Narrator's voice.

  NARRATOR

  The sea and its clouds, the mountains glaucous-golden,

  The valleys full of indigo darkness,

  The drought of lion-coloured plains,

  The rivers of pebbles and white sand.

  And in the midst of them the City of the Angels.

  Half a million houses,

  Five thousand miles of streets,

  Fifteen hundred thousand motor vehicles,

  And more rubber goods than Akron,

  More celluloid than the Soviets,

  More Nylons than New Rochelle,

  More brassieres than Buffalo,

  More deodorants than Denver,

  More oranges than anywhere,

  With bigger and better girls --

  The great Metrollopis of the West.

  And now we are only five miles up and it becomes increasingly obvious that the great Metrollopis is a ghost town, that what was once the world's largest oasis is now its greatest agglomeration of ruins in a wasteland. Nothing moves in the streets. Dunes of sand have drifted across the concrete. The avenues of palms and pepper trees have left no trace.

  The Camera comes down over a large rectangular graveyard, lying between the ferro-concrete towers of Hollywood and those of Wilshire Boulevard. We land, pass under an arched gateway, enjoy a trucking shot of mortuary gazebos. A baby pyramid. A Gothic sentry box. A marble sarcophagus surmounted by weeping seraphs. The more than life-size statue of Hedda Boddy -- "affectionately known," reads the in­scription on the pedestal, "as Public Sweetheart Num­ber One. Hitch your wagon to a Star.'" We hitch and move on; and suddenly in the midst of all this desola­tion, here is a little group of human beings. There are four men, heavily bearded and more than a little dirty, and two young women, all of them busy with shovels in or around an opened grave and all dressed iden­tically in shirts and trousers of tattered homespun. Over these rough garments each wears a small square apron upon which, in scarlet wool, is embroidered the word no. In addition to the aprons, the girls wear a round patch over either breast and, behind, a pair of somewhat larger patches on the seat of their trousers. Three unequivocal negatives greet us as they ap­proach, two more, by way of Parthian shots, as they recede.

  Overseeing the labourers from the roof of an ad­jacent mausoleum sits a man in his middle forties, tall, powerfully built, with the dark eyes and hawk nose of an Algerian corsair. A black curly beard em­phasizes the moistness and redness of his full lips. Somewhat incongruously, he is dressed in a pale grey suit of mid-twentieth-century cut, a little too small for him. When we catch our first sight of him, he is absorbed in the paring of his nails.

  Cut back to the gravediggers. One of them, the youngest and handsomest of the men, looks up from his shovelling, glances surreptitiously at t
he overseer on the roof and, seeing him busy with his nails, turns an intensely concupiscent look on the plump girl who stands, stooped over her spade, beside him. Close shot of the two prohibitory patches: no and again no, growing larger and larger the more longingly he looks. Cupped already for the deliciously imagined contact, his hand goes out, tentative, hesitant; then, with a jerk, as conscience abruptly gets the better of tempta­tion, is withdrawn again. Biting his lip, the young man turns away and, with redoubled zeal, addresses himself once more to his digging.

  Suddenly a spade strikes something hard. There is a cry of delight, a flurry of concerted activity. A moment later a handsome mahogany coffin is hoisted to the surface of the ground.

  "Break it open."

  "O.K., Chief."

  We hear the creaking and cracking of rent wood.

  "Man or woman?"

  "Man."

  "Fine! Spill him out."

  With a yo-heave-ho they tilt the coffin and the corpse rolls out onto the sand. The eldest of the bearded gravediggers kneels down beside it and starts methodically to relieve the thing of its watch and jewellery.

  NARRATOR

  Thanks to the dry climate and the embalmer's art, what remains of the Managing Director of the Golden Rule Brewing Corporation looks as though it had been buried only yesterday. The cheeks are still pink with the rouge applied by the undertaker for the lying-in-state. Stitched into a perpetual smile, the up­turned corners of the lips impart to the round, crumpet-like face the maddeningly enigmatic expression of a Madonna by Boltraffio.

  Suddenly the lash of a dogwhip cuts across the shoulders of the kneeling gravedigger. The Camera pulls back to reveal the Chief impending, whip in hand, like the embodiment of divine Vengeance, from the height of his marble Sinai.

  "Give back that ring."

  "Which ring?" the man falters.