Lionel Shriver - The Female of the Species

The envy of any housewife up to her ears in dish towels and phone bills, the women of the Lone-luk had their water carried, their children watched and wiped, their meals prepared and their plates cleaned, while they sat in judgment, sculpted and wove, led religious services, and oversaw the production of goods for trade. However, one could recognize in them, as in equivalent patriarchal oppressors, the cold boredom of domination .

GRAY KAISER ,
Ladies of the Lone-luk , 1955

Il-Ororen thought they were it. Yet they did not have the celebratory abandon of a culture that saw itself as the pinnacle of creation; rather, they were a sour, even embittered lot. If these were all the people in the world, then people were not so impressive .

I have wondered if they took Charles in as readily as they did because they were lonely .

GRAY KAISER ,
Il-Ororen: Men without History , 1949

I remember, in a rare moment of simple dispassionate clarity toward the end with Ralph, she said to me, You win and you lose; you lose and you lose; you lose.

Some choice, I said .

She was a beautiful woman, and she was tired .

ERROL MCECHERN ,
American Warrior:
The Life of Gray Kaiser , 2032

Errol, Im tired of being a character. Gray leaned back

It was fitting that Gray finally do a documentary about

Hassattis mother also called Gray l-oo-lubo, taking her into the

Ive decided what to do with you, said Charles cheerfully

These scenes have their satisfactions, but they cost you. In

Errol scanned the compound in the dying light. The sites

It was a relief to be back in Boston, and

Pamela Rose was the first evidence, but there was more.

North Adams, Massachusetts, is a dark industrial town in the

By the time Gray turned the knob of the front

The sounds at breakfast were unusually loud: the gurgle of

Errol tromped for a couple of miles back down the

So Errol told the crew about Nora and Frank; he

Ida ODonnell lived across the street from Cleveland Cottons in

I can feel your heart beating, said Ida. Here. She

For the next three evenings running, Errol threw on his

I know you dont want to hear this, Errol, said

I told him.

Errol spent the night at Grays. The worst was over,

Why?

Things were beginning to happen. Little things, Errol told himself.

There was a mirror in the foyer that reflected a

Errol went to the screening of Grays documentary about Charles

The next week Errol was awakened in the middle of

The following morning Errol got up at six, for he

The house seemed quieter by far without Bwana, though that

Errol arrived at the manse with his present for Gray

Errol, Im 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.

Im telling you its exhausting.

Only today, Gray. Today is exhausting.

They both sat, breathing hard.

You think Im afraid of getting old? asked Gray.

Most people are.

Well, youre wrong. Ive planned on being a magnificent old lady since I was twelve. Katharine Hepburn: frank, arrogant, abusive. But Ive 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 didnt 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 shed hardly changed in twenty-five years, or could Errol no longer see her?

That first afternoon, said Errol, I didnt hear a word of your lecture. I just thought you were beautiful. Over and over again.

Gray blushed; she didnt usually do that. Am I special, or do you do this for everyones birthday?

No, youre special. Youve 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 dont 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 hed be here again, surely. He was at Grays 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 sofas 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 Grays 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 youd 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. Shed been wounded. She was sixty years old. Though in fine shape for her age, shed been sited and caught in a hunters 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 dont thinkless of you, Errol stuttered, apropos of nothing.

For what?

Ralph.

Why should you think less of me?

Hed meant to reassure her. It wasnt working. Because it endedso badly. Then Errol blurted, Im sorry! with a surge of feeling.

I am, too, she said quietly, but she didnt understand. He was sorry for everythingfor her, for what hed 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 youre not about to diebecause for a moment Errol remembered this last year of a piece, holding it in his hands like an objecta 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, theyd 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 hed 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 shed escaped from Toroto, the natives dropped their supernatural explanations and soon decided to cooperate with Grays film. They recalled that in 48 shed taught them crop rotation; a few claimed shed shot only fifteen or twenty Africans, which struck Il-Ororen as moderate, even restrained. The rest, of course, declared shed 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.