The People in the Trees (61 page)

I had been with many boys over the years, a few of them, I am not ashamed to admit, my own: beautiful Guy, with his long eyelashes and curls the exact shade of copper of his skin; Terrence, with his eloquent arms and legs and ink-drop spatterings of moles; Muiva, my first and in many ways favorite child. I had loved those boys, loved their beauty, their dreamy, resigned compliance. They were lovely, and I was a man who appreciated their loveliness, who taught them that it was their gift, their gift to bestow upon others. But I had never come to one with the same sort of anger, of rage, of terrible love and hate, with which I came to Victor. And he, for his part, never stopped struggling, even when I came to him the next night, and then the night after that, and many more nights after, whispering that I would punish him, that I would break him, that I would force him to behave. And then after, when I lay exhausted atop him, I would find myself uttering words of love and longing and making him promises I had never made before, my voice sloppy with tears. Later, when he accused me, I was shocked. For I loved him, you see, loved him despite everything. At the trial I would say that I had given him exactly what I gave my other children—money, a home, an education. But really what I thought was,
I have given him more than I have given anyone else. I have given him what I always yearned to give
. That moonlit night in William’s bed, with him squirming under me, I knew what he had been trying to provoke from me, and that night I gave it to him, gave it to him without hesitation. For this is what I whispered to him before I left the room, as the sky outside began to lighten. “Vi,” I told him, the pillow still over his mouth so he would have to listen to me, “I love you. I give you my heart.”

APPENDIX

TIMELINE

1924
: Norton Perina born in Lindon, Indiana

1933
: Mother dies

December 1945
: Sybil dies

1946
: Father dies

May 1946
: Graduates from Hamilton College

June 1950
: Graduates from Harvard Medical School

June 21, 1950
: Lands in Ivu’ivu (end of lili’uaka)

Late November 1950
: Returns home from Ivu’ivu; begins work in a lab at Stanford University

Spring 1951
: Begins first experiments with opa’ivu’eke. Group A consists of 50 mice of 15 months of age; 50 percent are given the opa’ivu’eke; the other 50 percent are the control group. Group B consists of 100 newborn mice (50 percent control, 50 percent given the opa’ivu’eke).

April 1951
: Publishes paper on the opa’ivu’eke in the
Annals of Herpetology

July 1951
: Begins third experiment. Group C consists of 200 mice of 15 months of age; 50 percent are given the opa’ivu’eke; the other 50 percent are the control group.

December 1953
: Publishes paper in the
Annals of Nutritional
Epidemiology
(the so-called “Eternity Claim” paper)

March 1954
: Adolphus Sereny begins his experiment replicating Group C of Perina’s experiments

April 1956
: Sereny readies his paper for publication

September 1956
: Sereny’s paper is published in the
Lancet

February 1957
: Returns to Ivu’ivu

May 1957
: Discloses to Sereny the mice’s deterioration

January 1958
: Returns to Ivu’ivu. Publishes paper discussing subsequent mental deterioration from consumption of opa’ivu’eke in the
Annals of Nutritional Epidemiology
.

February 1958
: Returns to Stanford; ceases contact with Paul Tallent

1960
: Runs own lab at National Institutes of Health

End of 1961
: Returns to Ivu’ivu; Tallent disappears

1968
: Adopts first child, Muiva Perina

1970
: Ronald Kubodera begins work in Perina’s lab at NIH

1974
: Wins Nobel Prize in Medicine

August 13, 1980
: Adopts Victor Owen Perina

March 1995
: Arrested

December 1997
: Sentenced to 24 months in prison

February 1998
: Begins serving sentence at the Frederick Correctional Facility

GLOSSARY OF SELECTED U’IVUAN WORDS

Note: Vowels in U’ivuan are pronounced as they would be in Japanese or Spanish.

E
: Yes, or general greeting (hello, good morning, etc.)

Ea
: Look (used as a command)

Eke
: Animal

Eva
: What is it?

Hawana
: Many

He
: I am (precedes an adjective)

Ho’oala
: White man

Ka’aka’a
: A now outlawed medicinal practice

Kanava
: A tree; relation of the manama. Home of the vuaka

Ke
: What? (Used as a response)

Lawa’a
: A large fern resembling a Monstera

Lili’aka
: Literally, “small sun”; equivalent to our summer and considered the most pleasant season (100 days)

Lili’ika
: The Ivu’ivuan siesta; begins directly after the midday meal and lasts through most of the afternoon. On U’ivu, lili’ika was banned by King Tuima’ele in 1930, under the missionaries’ influence.

Lili’uaka
: Literally, “small rain,” equivalent to our spring (100 days)

Ma
: When preceding a word and followed by a glottal stop, an honorific (see below). Literally means “my” or “mine.”

Ma’alamakina
: The traditional U’ivuan spear all males are given upon reaching fourteen o’anas

Makava
: A tree that used to grow on U’ivu and now mostly grows on Ivu’ivu

Male’e
: Hut

Manama
: A tree with an edible fruit resembling a mango

Moa
: Food

Mo’o
: Without

No’aka
: A coconutlike fruit; its shells are used as bowls by the islanders; more commonly known on U’ivu as
uka moa
, or “hog food”

O’ana
: The U’ivuan year; 400 days

Ola’alu
: The prehistoric U’ivuan hieroglyphic alphabet; rarely used in modern times

Tava
: A cloth resembling kapa made from pounding palm leaves into a fiber

U’aka
: The hottest season, equivalent to our autumn (100 days)

‘Uaka
: The traditional wet season, equivalent to our winter; lasts for 100 days

Uka
: Hog

Umaku
: Sloth fat; used as a lubricant and a polish

Vuaka
: A primitive micromonkey; considered a delicacy. Hunted to near extinction on U’ivu

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My great thanks to Norman Hindley and Robert E. Hosmer for their early faith; to Fundacion Valparaiso and the New York Foundation for the Arts for their gifts of time and money; to Kaja Perina for her wit and good name; to David Ebershoff for his counsel and forbearance; to John McElwee for his humor and assistance; to Ravi Mirchandani for his charm and passion; to Jim Baker, Klara Glowczewska, and—especially—Kerry Lauerman for being delighted for me (even when I didn’t know how to be); and to Stephen Morrison for his comfort, constancy, excellent matchmaking skills, and beloved friendship.

I am so very grateful to everyone at Doubleday for their enthusiasm and care, in particular to Bill Thomas, to the smart, soothing, and hypercompetent Hannah Wood, and, most of all, to Gerry Howard for his advocacy and large-spiritedness, and for being the kind of editor who offers his engagement and intelligence with such grace and selflessness.

To the lovely and steadfast Anna Stein O’Sullivan, who believed from the start and whose opinion and advice I always treasure, my forever gratitude, respect, and affection. To Andrew Kidd, who saved me at a crucial moment and without whose brilliant editorial discernment and enduring support I would have been lost, my profound thanks.

I owe everything to Jared Hohlt, my first and favorite reader (and all-around superior human being), for his kindness, intelligence, patience, wisdom, and dear presence—but I hope he’ll settle
for my inexpressible and unquantifiable love, thanks, trust, and apologies. Everyone should be so lucky to have such a friend.

And, finally, for all the qualities and generosities listed above, as well as their irreverence and taste, my deepest thanks to my parents, Ron and Susan. My father, in particular, has not only always encouraged but often abetted my every confabulation. For that, and for many other reasons besides, this book is dedicated to him.

About the Author

Hanya Yanagihara lives in New York City.

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