The Love Potion Murders in the Museum of Man (6 page)

I wish I could be as positive about the special meeting of the University Oversight Committee I attended this afternoon, an ordeal by pettiness. There are people who ask me why I bother at all with the committee. Why do I mouth bromides about maintaining cordial relations with the university, why do we want to remain, however independently, a member of the greater Wainscott family? Especially since the museum has become, in their opinion, anyway, the institutional equivalent of the rich eccentric uncle everyone secretly hopes will pop off sooner rather than later and leave them a bundle.

In part it’s because I do want to continue the long and fruitful bond between the two institutions, a bond based on mutual respect. Indeed, I would not like it to become well known how highly I regard the faculty at Wainscott. Perhaps it’s because I am, at heart, an academic
manqué
, what Elsbeth calls a wannabe. I feel that the involvement of Thad Pilty and even Corny Chard, not to mention Father O’Gould and Izzy Landes, makes us, as an institution, an intellectual force to be reckoned with.

What I want to avoid in the museum is the management style of Wainscott, especially the forces represented by Malachy
Morin. These are the people who would corporatize, to bastardize a perfectly innocent word, hell itself. They would bring in their systems, which never quite work, and their regimentation, which renders everything and everyone colorless, all the while basking in the glow of the work done by the scholars.

While independent in fact and in law (the university is challenging us in the courts, but that, we have good reason to believe, will come to nothing), we need Wainscott as a buffer between the outside world and ourselves, especially where the Genetics Lab is concerned. Groups such as the Coalition Against the Unnatural remain under the mistaken impression, which I do little to rectify, that the MOM is part and parcel of Wainscott. I know the public relations apparatus of the university would like to direct such obloquy toward us, but to do so would be to admit our independence. As may be obvious, after a few years of real institutional responsibility, I have turned into something of a Machiavel.

Ah, yes, the committee meeting. We assembled in the Rothko Room, one of those repellent boxy spaces filled with the kind of raw light you find in the upper reaches of modern buildings. It was designed to hold the paintings of the eponymous dauber, but thank God those have been stowed away. It’s the kind of place you would expect to find in Grope Tower, that offensive slab of concrete and glass that mars the redbrick gentility of the older Wainscott buildings surrounding it. (Why, I often wonder, has there been, in the long stretch between Gaudí and Gehry, such a paucity of architectural imagination?)

But I digress. The usual suspects, all getting a bit grayer, showed up for the meeting. Professor Thad Pilty, creator of the Diorama of Paleolithic Life that now graces Neanderthal Hall, has stayed on as a member. I don’t doubt his intentions, but I believe he’s being vigilant — and with good reason. Any
changes in the models and the roles of the Neanderdroids, so to speak, still come in for close scrutiny by certain members of the committee.

Constance Brattle, the expert on blame, preened a little in accepting congratulations about the success of her latest book,
Achieving the No-Fault Life
. I’m told it’s a sequel to
Effective Apologizing
, her best seller of last year. She remains the somewhat wooden Chair of the committee.

Berthe Schanke, larger than life, no-fault or otherwise, her head perfectly shaven, in studded black jacket over a T-shirt lettered with some slogan about the patriarchy, rootled as usual in the donuts that had been provided. She remains the guiding force behind
BITCH
, a coalition of groups comprising what Izzy Landes has called “the complaining classes.”

Izzy himself, academically respondent in bow tie, his nimbus of white hair swept dramatically back, took a plaudit from Father S.J. O’Gould, S.J., regarding the publication of his latest tome,
The Evolution of Evolution
, successor to
The Nature of Nature
and
The Science of Science
. And while not a best seller, it has been very well received in those quarters where it matters.

Understatedly dignified in Roman collar, Father O’Gould, now best known for
Wonderful Strife: Natural Selection and the Inevitability of Intelligence
, took me aside before the meeting to offer me his sympathy regarding Elsbeth’s situation. He said he would like to drop by as a friend to see her. I thanked him and said I was sure Elsbeth would be delighted. I told him I looked forward to hearing him give the first Fessing Lecture.

Corny Chard didn’t show up, of course, being down in the Amazon somewhere trying to document people eating other people. Standing in for Corny for the semester was John Murdleston, also a professor of anthropology and Curator of the Ethnocoprolite Collections in the MOM. He recently published
an article, “Expressive Flatulence and Male Prerogative in an Evolutionary Context,” that created a small stir in those circles devoted to such things.

Professor Randall Athol of the Divinity School arrived late and a little breathless. He apologized and voiced the hope he hadn’t missed much. Even he has published recently, something on the nature of divine fairness titled, I believe,
When Good Things Happen to Bad People
.

Ariel Dearth, the Leona Von Beaut Professor of Situational Ethics and Litigation Development at the Law School, sat restlessly, as usual, looking around him as though for the press or for clients. He cranks out books pretty regularly,
Sue Your Mother
being his latest. I’m told there are cases now where children have sued their parents for wrongful birth, bad genes, and all that.

We have a couple of newcomers, chief among them one Luraleena Doveen, a very fetching young woman of color from the President’s Office of Outreach. I think she may be the only one not in the toils of publishing something.

A Professor J.J. McNull, who joined the committee last year, smiled on everyone. He strikes me as one of those academicians who, with a bottomless capacity for boredom, sit on committees trying to look sage and saying no. I’m not sure what he’s professor of. He glances around a lot, either smiling with approval or glowering with disapproval.

Ms. Brattle opened with a short statement about “what appear to be dark happenings in the Museum of Man again leading to concerns about the administration of that institution.” A large woman with the self-obliviousness of a professional professional, so to speak, Ms. Brattle looked over her glasses at me in a manner meant to level blame. She spoke darkly of the need for “a very active subcommittee to monitor the day-to-day operations
of the museum, especially the part dealing with the very sensitive area of genetic research.” She concluded by reminding us that, as Chair, she reports directly to President Twill himself.

Remaining imperturbed, I responded that the museum’s Board of Governors was not likely to allow me to acquiesce in such a step even were I inclined to do so. I informed the committee that the museum is in strict compliance with the Animal Welfare Act and all other local, state, and federal regulations governing the research conducted at the lab. I told them that I was cooperating very closely with the Seaboard Police Department in their ongoing investigation into what had transpired the night that Professor Ossmann and Dr. Woodley died. I reminded them that what happened that night might very well have nothing to do with the lab or with their research there.

Ms. Schanke, in the kind of
non sequitur
to which she is given, stood up and spoke as though reading from a prepared statement. Looking directly at me, she said, “I know that people like you, Mr. Ratour, think that people like me are perverts. But we all know that what’s going on in those labs is the real perversion. You people are perverting nature and you’re going to f*ck everything up. You pretend to be scientists, but all you’re really interested in is the bottom line and how much money you can make …” After several more minutes of this kind of diatribe, Ms. Schanke sat down and helped herself to a Chocolate Frosted.

I let the silence at her outburst gather and provide its own rebuttal.

Attorney Dearth bestirred himself. “What Berthe’s trying to say —”

Ms. Schanke, standing again, interrupted him. “I’m not
trying
to say anything. I have said what I wanted to say.”

In what appeared to be an attempt to strike a moderating note,
Professor Athol opined how “the research into the secrets of life needs a spiritual dimension.”

“Yeah, until they find the God gene, and then they’ll find a way to market that as well,” Ms. Schanke rejoined with some bitterness.

Izzy perked up at that. “Well, judging from what’s out there, there must be lots of different God genes. I mean a Methodist God gene, a Catholic God gene, a couple of Jewish God genes, one for the Reformed and one for the Orthodox. And think about the Hindus …”

Professor Murdleston, who is hard of hearing, asked, “A Methodist gene?”

“Well, not a Methodist gene
per se
 …”

“I think Randy is trying to say something important here,” Mr. Dearth put in.

And in rare agreement with the attorney, Father O’Gould, the lilt of his native Cork still in his speech, said, “If we are nothing more than our genes, then what are we?”

No one seemed to know.

Mr. Dearth wondered aloud what two people were doing in the lab alone at night.

Izzy asked the learned counsel if he was suggesting there ought to have been chaperones.

“No, I am wondering where the security guard was.”

I informed the committee that there were, as usual, two guards on duty in the Genetics Lab building itself, one making rounds, “who can’t be in all places at all times,” and one watching an array of monitors.

“You mean to say there was no video monitor set up in the lab where this tragedy occurred?” Dearth asked me in his best withering courtroom manner.

“There was a monitor,” I replied, “until several of the researchers, led by Professor Ossmann, took the matter to the American Civil Liberties Union and forced us to remove it on the grounds it was an invasion of privacy.”

Mr. Dearth subsided.

Izzy waxed philosophical at that point. He noted that we are increasingly taking over our own evolutionary destiny; that,
vide
his latest publication, evolution itself is evolving. Once Crick and Watson let the genie out of the bottle, well, there was no putting it back in.

I agreed. I pointed out that before long we will be raising pigs with genetically altered hearts that can be transplanted into human beings.

Ms. Berthe declared that for most corporate types the genetic modifications wouldn’t be necessary.

Thad Pilty weighed in at that moment, saying that “transgenic swine are already old hat.” In an attempt to lighten the mood, he added, “Before long, theoretically, anyway, you’ll be able to grow yourself a second sex organ.”

Not everyone laughed.

Izzy chortled. “I think it’s quite enough to manage one.”

“Tell me about it,” said Ms. Doveen, trying not to giggle.

Ms. Brattle brought us back to the frowning level by recalling the attempts of Dr. S.X. Gottling to produce a new “perfect” human genotype at the lab using chimps as experimental models.

Professor McNull scowled his approval of her disapproval.

The question, Professor Athol stated somewhat pretentiously, “is not what is to become of us, but what are we to become?”

“I see lots of room for improvement,” Izzy said.

Ms. Doveen inquired very sensibly if it might be possible for someone to be concocting a potent aphrodisiac in the lab without the knowledge of management.

I told her such a thing was possible but not very probable given the protocols in place for developing and testing such a drug before it would be allowed on the market.

“But you don’t know for certain?” Professor Athol spoke in an accusatory tone.

“That’s true,” I said, “any more than you would know for certain whether one of your deans was downloading pornography into the hard drive of his office computer.”

Ariel Dearth revived from an uncharacteristic somnambulence. “But if such a drug were under development in the lab, it would be in your interest to cover it up, wouldn’t it?”

“I resent your insinuation,” I replied. “And what possible motive could we have for covering up that or any other research?”

Mr. Dearth smiled. “What I mean, Mr. de Ratour, is that should you be experimenting with anything like a powerful aphrodisiac, then the museum could be liable for wrongful deaths.”

Izzy gave a snorting “ha!” Then he said, “And what rich postmortem pickings there would be for you, Ariel, and the members of your … profession.”

It was Father O’Gould who stepped in to point out that we were meeting to offer advice to the Genetics Lab, if it were needed, and not to indulge in accusations based on speculation.

I thought at that point the meeting might be over or move on to something else, perhaps whether the university’s health coverage should pay for sex-change operations and that sort of thing. Instead, Professor Athol brought up Bert and the chimp’s participation in the development of ReLease, and, with that, the ethical issues surrounding the use of animals in medical experiments.

Father O’Gould, I noticed, leaned forward, evincing a close interest in what I had to say. “Well, first,” I began, “we subscribe, as I’ve noted, to all the provisions of the Animal Welfare Act.
Additionally, we take every measure possible to assure the comfort both physically and psychologically where the latter applies of the organism in any experiment.”

Father O’Gould nodded. “The question is one of stewardship. We need always balance the mercy due our fellow creature with the mercy due our fellow man …”

“And woman,” Ms. Brattle interjected.

Ms. Schanke, visibly agitated, burst forth: “What you’re both really saying in fancy language is that it’s all right for us so-called human beings to torture other animals, even those that share ninety-eight percent of our DNA, so that booze-swilling men don’t have to suffer hangovers …”