As his interview with Monseigneur Brugevin drew to a close in the primate’s vast book-lined Parisian study cluttered with African and Polynesian masks and other artefacts of diverse provenance, Dr Alexandre Sakaroff felt he had excellent grounds for optimism. Just three years after the hecatomb of the Great War with its tragic depletion of French manhood and the corresponding slump in natality, it was abundantly clear to the urbane and enlightened prelate sitting opposite him that while the Church alone could attend to the spiritual hunger fomented by so much suffering, only Science was in a position to find treatments to palliate the dreadful physical loss the nation had suffered. Indeed, this idealistic alliance between the forces of Faith and Progress, informed by a patriotism à toute épreuve, formed the well-springs of the Monseigneur’s world-view.

‘My dear doctor’, confided Brugevin affably, ‘on the first of the coming month Father Pierre Genevoix will assume the directorship of the Saint-Esprit mission in Guinea. As well as being a most dedicated missionary, he is a medical man with a profound knowledge of our African colonies. On the basis of our discussion today and in recognition of the esteem that you and your clinic evidently enjoy among the scientific fraternity, I shall be only too happy to ask him to accede to your request.’

‘Thank you Monseigneur’, replied Sakaroff. ‘I could not have wished for a more sympathetic reception.’ So saying, he accepted the Muratti’s Egyptian Blend offered to him by Brugevin and after the latter lit both cigarettes with a long wax match that discreetly mimicked a liturgical taper, the two men sat smoking for some moments in meditative silence as the aromatic volutes wafted up and dispersed into the mid-morning air.

*

Sir Percy Alcock slumped corpulently in a stately leather wing-chair in the drawing room of Featherstonehaugh Manor, his aqueous eyes wandering off into the distance as his manservant Venables poured him a third large Scotch. Mechanically raising the Waterford crystal tumbler to his lips Sir Percy took a long draught, uttered a grunt of what may well have been satisfaction, then lost himself again in his nebulous flights of thought. Minutes later the crunch of tyres on the gravel of the driveway­—inaudible to Sir Percy whose hearing had unfortunately not been spared by the sudden and alarming decline in his faculties—announced the arrival of Lady Alcock from town.

As the battleship grey Rolls saloon came to a halt by the stairway of the Manor, Giles the chauffeur, a strapping young Welshman with jet-black hair and a thrusting chin, cut the motor and athletically jumped out of the vehicle. He then began to circumnavigate it in a clockwise direction and 270 degrees later opened the door for Lady Alcock.

‘Thank you, Giles, you’ve been a perfect dear once again. I really don’t know where I’d be without you.’
‘The pleasure is mine, my lady.’

Lady Dorothy Alcock was tall and slim and some thirty years younger than Sir Percy. Widowed five years before when her husband Darius Strange was shot down over France in his Sopwith Triplane, she first met Sir Percy—himself bereft after the death of his first wife—at a war charities gala at the Ritz at the beginning of 1919 and was assiduously courted by him over the following few months. Of course it was an absurd and implausible match and the alarm at such a prospect among the social circles of both parties was high. But in the end pragmatism won the day: greatly enamoured of her first husband, Dorothy was too respectful of his memory to rush out and replace him with some sorry surrogate—which is what everyone expected her to do—and opted instead for the material security that Sir Percy with his vast inherited wealth could provide, along with what she imagined would be his quiet companionship and undemanding nature.

But while no children were expected—by mutual accord—Sir Percy soon surprised her with with a latently lubricious nature disguising total impotence when the moment actually arrived. The string of fiascos had begun on their wedding night; Sir Percy was passably inebriated by the time they entered the nuptial suite and certainly in no condition to launch an immediate assault. As Dorothy’s patient and charitable hand tried to stir his long-dormant member, Sir Percy felt a flush of shame flow through him, which only made the likelihood of his rising to the occasion even more remote. Then, without either of them uttering a word, he firmly pushed her head downwards with his splayed right hand and she took him inexpertly and yet uncomplainingly in her mouth. Something about this demand of his appalled him deeply; the only other time he had a woman do that was in the brothels of Madras. He shrank in defeat and soon fell asleep, drunk and unassuaged.

After this initial débâcle ever less frequent attempts were made to consummate the act and Sir Percy covertly resorted to pills, potions and powders whose dubious efficacy was in any event greatly diminished by his increasing fondness for the bottle. As a prelude he conjured up all variety of extravagant images to set the heart thumping and the blood racing: one recurring vision was of Lady Dorothy being vigorously and expertly drilled every which way by swordsman Giles on the spacious back seat of the Rolls…How did the limerick go? ‘There was a young lady named Ransom/Who was rogered three times in a hansom.’ But all, alas, to no avail.

‘Bloody fool I was to have married a woman so young in the first place,’ mused Sir Percy one day as he nursed his umpteenth Scotch. ‘I shouldn’t be at all surprised if she were seeing a young fellow in town…Unless Giles himself…Balls! That sort of thing only happens in those silly bloody French novels…That’d be all I need, my own mechanic making a monkey out of me!’

*

Synchronized with dual raucous blasts of the ship’s horn, the twin steamer stacks of the S.S. Floride belched a dark double cloud into the pearl-grey sky above Conakry harbour. In the distance the outline of the Îles de Los was just visible, the atmosphere heavy with hazy humidity and that peculiar electricity preceding the thunderstorm. The wet season was approaching and the wharves and docks were a picture of frenetic activity as the country’s produce—rubber, palm oil, gum, coffee, ivory and cattle—was loaded onto French, British and German steamships. All the agricultural wealth of the vast fertile hinterland would soon be dispatched to feed the needs and desires of the metropolitan masters.

Seated on the quarterdeck in a wicker armchair sheltered beneath a rigid canvas canopy, Father Genevoix spread out the ordnance survey map on the table, then leaned across the table to point out to his guest the precise area in which the operation would take place.

‘Chimpanzees are reasonably abundant around here, in the Fouta Djalon’, explained the missionary, pointing to a large mountainous area of Moyenne-Guinée some 200 kilometres north-east of the capital. ‘Normally they’re hunted at the same time as other apes and various types of wild animals.’

Dr Sakaroff, who was suffering from the excessive humidity and quietly cursing the absurd amount of clothing he had somehow seen fit to wear as he mopped his brow once again with a distressed linen handkerchief, could not help but marvel at the zeal and composure of his colleague, seemingly oblivious to the oppressive heat, as he detailed the intricacies of capture and the inevitable obstacles that lay in their way.

‘Natives from various villages join to mark out a specific area for hunting in which they’ve already carefully laid traps. The hunters form a circle then slowly but surely reduce the area they’ve traced, moving in on the animals that have either fallen prey to their traps or are now too tired or scared to take flight. In the final stage of the hunt the chimpanzees are literally bludgeoned into submission or death. Some exhibit fractured limbs and broken teeth, while others die from internal injury…’
‘But surely the object of the exercise, Father, is to bring them back alive!’ cried Sakaroff in an exasperated tone.
‘I’m perfectly aware of that, Doctor, and if you’ll let me proceed, I shall address that issue in good time.’

Father Genevoix took a discreet sip of lemonade from the glass in front of him­—the Syrian stores on the waterfront employed a small army of indigenous youth who spent the day agilely running up and down gangplanks, bearing trays of refreshments to the officers and guests on the steamships—and returned to his map, detailing the area in question with the tip of a pencil.

‘As I was saying, death is, unfortunately, statistically quite common. If the chimpanzee does not succumb to the actual beating it receives upon capture, the sadness and privations of captivity will most likely finish the job. Of course if we bear in mind that this animal is prized above all for its meat, this is perfectly understandable. Some tribes are averse to eating the flesh while others share no such taboo. And now chimpanzee meat is being sent to other parts of Africa and also to Europe. There is even one notorious establishment in the heart of Paris where—strictly off the menu, mind you—the most fanciful creations can be enjoyed if one has the right recommendation and the money to pay for it. I’m not sure what it says about our so-called civilization but there, my dear Doctor, you have a perplexing phenomenon: the noblest species of Creation in the world’s most civilized city paying an extravagant, insane amount of money to ingest the meat of a distant cousin from one of the world’s most primitive regions…’

Father Genevoix remained suddenly silent as if mentally calculating the inherent perversity of this interspecies exchange and perhaps attempting to apply some kind of theological rather than merely anthropological judgement to it. ‘So, as it stands’ he continued, ‘and here we strike the crux of our problem, only a small proportion of chimpanzees captured are destined for scientific experiment and practically all of them are currently earmarked for German laboratories…’
‘German laboratories!’ interjected Sakaroff indignantly, ‘I thought this was a French colony!’
‘I know, my dear doctor. Please, I share your outrage. The fact that yesterday’s enemies are depriving France of a rare opportunity for scientific study is indeed galling. They’ve been characteristically cunning about it, mind you—the operation has been run for them by an Italian hunter who has offered substantial premiums to the natives in the Fouta Djalon to join him in his hunts on the understanding that the animals suffer as little injury as possible during and after capture.’
‘And is there nothing we can do to persuade this Italian to work for us?’
‘We have already attempted to come to some agreement with him but so far he has been rather evasive. Nevertheless, as a result of our entreaties he promised to deliver us several specimens but unfortunately all three were ill from dysentery and died within a week. I have spoken with the Governor-General, who has taken a personal interest in the matter and advised the regional governors in the Fouta Djalon to assist in organizing hunting parties that meet our requirements.’
‘Excellent, Father!’ beamed Dr Sakaroff with obvious delight. ‘Please excuse my earlier impatience. I’m sure it was partly due to this dreadful humidity.’

While Sakaroff reached for his lemonade, Father Genevoix clapped his hands, prompting the appearance of a native boy whom he proceeded to curtly address in patois before affectionately patting him on the behind. Seconds later the boy returned with a long stick bearing a plaited bamboo oval at one end that functioned as an efficient ventilation system for Dr Sakaroff when beaten to and fro with long rhythmic strokes.

‘If you care to examine this’ said Father Genevoix, handing the doctor a roneoed typewritten report bearing the heading: Capture et transport des chimpanzés dans le Fouta Djalon, ‘I think you will agree that it answers in considerable detail any concerns you may have. The rainy season is just around the corner and the going will be tough, so I suggest, Doctor, that you remain here in Conakry and persevere as best you can until our return. All veterinary matters I shall place in the capable hands of Major Daubigny, who has outlined in the report the optimum diet and travel conditions for the animals.’

*

The Kohen walks seven times around the body, mutely reciting kabbalistic formulae as the clay becomes fire. Then the Levite jerkily circles the body in the opposite direction, intoning the words that will cause the fire to fade slowly to water and the water to flow through the body. Then Rabbi Loeb walks once around the body and places a piece of parchment inscribed with the holy Tetragrammaton in its mouth…

‘Shem HaMeforash’ murmured Sakaroff, seated in the middle rows of the Cinématographe Royal, a cream-coloured art nouveau confection located near the end of the long jetty—the pride of Conakry—that brought the traveller from his ship to the heart of the port’s commercial activity. On the linen screen spread in front of the sparse audience, Le Golem de Prague was being erratically projected by means of an obsolete Pathé projector whirring noisily away at varying and unpredictable velocity.

As the Golem born from dust is led to the synagogue in order to prepare for his mission of salvation, reminiscences of Sakaroff’s Russian childhood are vividly replayed in his fertile and unquiet mind. In the moving picture of his extraordinary life the flickering image of his mother reading the Jewish legends to him by candlelight forms the tender opening sequence. Then follow terrible superimposed scenes of pogroms and carnage in Kiev, Smyela, Nyezhin and Brest-Litovsk. These fade mournfully to black before the iris opens wide again and the brilliant émigré medical student arrives at the Gare du Nord by train. In the next scene the hidebound luminaries of Parisian medicine are shown surrendering to the experimental daring and flamboyance of the young doctor, a prodigy whose ancestral faith is now merely distant folklore, replaced by an overwhelming scientific passion to discover the enigma of the life force—that élan vital his good friend Bergson had so captivatingly posited. Now, under the infernal sun of Cairo, Sakaroff is sporting a sola topi as he poses with the Egyptian viceroy Abbas Hilmi in front of the hospital he created. Back in Paris again he stands before the lectern at the Collège de France, detailing his skin and bone grafts to a rapt audience. In sudden close-up, a copy of one of his books, the manifesto whose title laconically underwrites his entire existence: Vivre. Now the clinic and research laboratory at Vincennes take shape—the summit of his life’s work—along with the ‘menagerie’ from which he elects the subjects of his curious experiments. And then the catalogue of just rewards for a celebrated and enterprising surgeon: the honorary doctorates, the spotlight of the press, the astronomical professional fees, the erotic surge of the chauffeur-driven Packard as it swiftly conveys him to a house of assignation near the Bois de Boulogne, the dazzling soirées at his cubist villa outside Nice…Then, flashing forward to the foreseeable future, a dramatic montage of overlapping newspaper headlines evokes the storm of controversy and ridicule that breaks when the public learns of his secret experiments.

While Sakaroff applies the finishing touches to his elliptical self-portrait, the pianist seated to the left of the screen strikes up the initial measures of a music-hall theme that accompanies the opening frames of the second film on the evening’s programme, Fantômas contre Fantômas. Swiftly dispelling the vague melancholy caused by his recollections, Sakaroff immerses himself in the delirious peregrinations of the masked genius as he descends into the bas-fonds of Paris. Hoodlums murder a bank messenger, a voice resounds from inside a wine-cask, a wall begins to bleed, and at Lady Beltham’s masked ball Fantômas appears, followed by a second Fantômas, and then a third, these clonal apparitions underlining the elusive ubiquity of the Emperor of Crime.

*

‘Crikey!’

Sir Percy Alcock gave a start. The rain was pelting down against the great leadlight bay window of his ground-floor study at Featherstonehaugh Manor where he had been idly perusing the latest issue of the Illustrated London News. Then he happened upon the photograph that prompted his sudden ejaculation. The left-hand side of the image showed a feeble-looking septuagenarian with a few sparse tufts of hair, diffuse gaze, hunched shoulders and general worldweariness, while the right-hand panel depicted what was apparently the same individual but with far more abundant hair, a more upright carriage, and a vigorous engaging glint in the eye. Reaching for a pair of scissors in the top drawer of the desk Sir Percy carefully—or at least as carefully as he was capable of—cut out the photograph, folded it in two and slipped it in the pocket of his bottle-green velvet smoking-jacket.

The following morning the rain had vanished and Featherstonehaugh Manor bathed in honey-gold sunshine. Lady Dorothy was busy deadheading the rose bushes in the garden next to the ornamental fish pond when Sir Percy, immaculately pranked out in cream cricket flannels and a blue-and-white-striped blazer, plodded acrosss the lawn with faltering steps and collapsed with a sigh into an ample cane garden chair, next to which a matching circular table displayed a decanter of sherry and two glasses on a silver tray.

‘Dorothy,’ he began with a tremulous voice as he poured himself a generous initial draught.
‘Yes, darling?’
‘Remember that French chap…what was his name?…Levallois?’
‘The auctioneer fellow? Yes, darling.’
‘I’ve been thinking it might be nice to take him up on that invitation of his.’
‘To go to Paris?’
‘Yes. I thought we might motor across. I’ve…um…already discussed the matter with Giles…Bit stiff on him perhaps but after all, he’s here to serve, wouldn’t you agree?’

*

Prior to embarking upon the Floride the five surviving chimpanzees were interned in the Hôpital Vétérinaire in Conakry and habituated during a week to a diet of bread, rice and sugar in combination with the indigenous fruit that constituted their habitual fare. Major Daubigny refused to allow any of the captured specimens to undertake the arduous voyage without previously having adapted to this new regimen. In making his final selection among the dozen candidates delivered from the Fouta Djala he likewise eliminated any chimpanzee that showed signs of chronic coughing or suffered from acute diarrhoea or dysentery. The analysis of one animal that died the day after its arrival in Conakry revealed severe anemia and a febrile condition ressembling malaria.

On board, the chimpanzees were housed on the upper deck in three cages placed between the machine room and the kitchen. At nightfall canvas tarpaulins were thrown over the cages to compensate for the drop in temperature. The animals had nothing to fear from the daily washing-down of the deck as the cages were placed on a plinth isolating them from the surface. Weather permitting, the tamer of the chimpanzees—Pépé and Coco—were allowed out of their cages to gambol on deck, all the while restrained by improvised flannel belts. Just after reaching Dakar one of the younger specimens succumbed to amoebic dysentery but his condition rapidly improved after a silver nitrate enema was administered along with judicious injections of emetine.

The arrival in Marseille was complicated by customs formalities, the officials clearly nonplussed by the arrival of animals unaccounted for on their list of normal imports. But thanks to the helpful intervention of the customs director himself, the chimpanzees were finally cleared and delivered by truck to the Gare de Marseille where, after being transferred to smaller individual cages, they were allowed to be taken on board the Marseille-Paris rapide as luggage.

Early next morning, as the train pulled into the Gare du Nord, a clutch of press photographers could be seen jockeying for position on the platform. As Dr Sakaroff and his entourage descended from the train with their caged specimens, they were quickly surrounded. The doctor, no stranger to medical controversy and its subsequent amplification in the popular press, good-humouredly complied with the photographers’ demands and, after instructing one of his assistants to attach a belt to Coco and liberate him from the cage, posed graciously with the creature on the platform before a battery of exploding flashbulbs.

*

OBSERVATION VII

Englishman, retired company director and property-owner, age 69. Occasional mucous discharges of venereal origin, complicated by prostatitis. Marsh fever contracted in India where he spent 15 years. Chickenpox at age 54. At 66 years of age, peritonitis, most likely of appendicular nature—laparotomy required. General alcoholic symptoms. Chronic fatigue. Impotence.

Dr Sakaroff placed the patient’s card on his table and gazed contemplatively into space. On the desk in front of him the brown manila dossiers piled up, his early failures now outnumbered by an ever-increasing success rate. Desperate men deprived from birth or maimed by war had consented to act as guinea pigs in the hope of recovering a vitality and a virility they had lost or never known. These were the trail-blazers, the vanguard who had now made way for the wealthy and the celebrated. The latter, whether from vanity or the understandable desire to maintain their most valued faculty in a state of alert, were now the almost exclusive beneficiaries of Sakaroff’s medical ingenuity.

A curt rap at the door and Sakaroff’s secretary entered, a statuesque blonde who addressed him in Russian.

‘Dr Vailland is arriving now with the specimen from Maisons-Alfort, Doctor.’
‘Thank you, Marina. Please ask Edouard to prepare the instruments.’

Sakaroff succumbed to the same nervous excitement he felt every time he donned his gown, pulled on his gloves and stepped into the operating theatre. On one of two stainless-steel operating tables Sir Percy Alcock, prudently blindfolded by a black cloth bandage, lay naked under local anaesthetic. At the head of the table a nurse removed the bowl of water, the lather and the razor with which she had just shaved his abundant pubic hair. With the toilettage complete Sir Percy’s glabrous scrotum, illustrated by an anarchic grid of violet veins and pink rivulets, resembled the fluvial cartography of some remote colony. His long languid penis wandered off out of sight to the left and would now be taped up flat against his stomach prior to operating.

As Sakaroff and his surgical assistant revised the instrument tray, Dr Vailland, accompanied by three young doctors sworn to secrecy about the details of the operation, wheeled in Coco—likewise shaved and anaesthetized—on a hospital trolley. Two of the doctors then carefully picked up the limp chimpanzee and deposited him on the operating table next to Sir Percy, who had meanwhile quietly begun to snore.
Addressing himself to the three doctors, Sakaroff explained his modus operandi.

‘The operation, gentlemen, consists in the chimpanzee’s left testicle being cut in two and the two halves subsequently positioned on the outer side of the parietal layer of the patient’s left vaginal tunic. The chimpanzee’s right testicle, on the other hand, will be divided into four fragments which will then be placed on the outer side of the parietal layer of the right vaginal tunic. In the course of the first month following the operation, two graft fragments on the right and a single fragment on the left will most likely be eradicated, leaving one graft on the left and two on the right, which probably best corresponds to the nutritive capacity of the vaginal tunics. Dr Vailland and myself will work simultaneously in excising the testicles and grafting, thereby assuring the transplanted organs a certain, shall we say, freshness…I trust this is all quite clear, gentlemen. Are there any questions?’
‘Yes,’ volunteered one of the doctors, phrasing his query with a hint of scepticism. ‘What concrete benefits can the patient expect from the operation?’
‘Well, given his current state of decrepitude,’ replied Sakaroff, ‘I expect the changes in his general constitution to be little short of spectacular. Increased muscular strength, physical energy and intellectual agility. The muscle tone will improve, some wrinkles will disappear, and sexual potency should be considerably enhanced…Anything else, gentlemen?’
‘What about post-operatory complications?’ asked a second doctor.
‘For the patient or the chimpanzee?’ replied Sakaroff to the merriment of all present. ‘The patient will remain in hospital for a week or so with a bandage that must be changed twice daily. On leaving the clinic he will be equipped with a truss similar to those employed for hernias, a minor inconvenience he will have to bear for perhaps a month or two until the testicular sack heals completely. As for Coco,’ continued Sakaroff, fondly patting the head of the dormant animal, ‘he will wake up a eunuch, needless to say, but apart from that, fit as a fiddle. The operation entails no life-threatening consequences whatsoever and he will doubtless live out the rest of his days peacefully in a zoo somewhere. A propos of which I might add—and this, too, gentlemen, is strictly confidential—that I am currently negotiating with the American entrepreneur Monsieur PT Barnum to purchase single testicles belonging to the cleverest of his performing apes. Of course it remains to be seen whether the lucky recipients of these organs will benefit from the alleged brilliance of the donors…’

*

Venables, dressed in full livery, placed his index finger to his lips in admonition as Giles swung open the door of the antechamber and walked briskly towards him. The chauffeur instantly broke his step, closed the door behind him with care and trod softly on the red-and-brown Shiraz carpet that deadened the creak of the parquet. The two servants edged closer to Lady Dorothy’s bedroom door and cocked their ears. On the wall behind them an elaborately framed engraving depicted a wounded Psyche being bound to a tree by Cupid.

From behind the bedroom door emerged muffled sounds of altercation: gasps, grunts, exclamations and cries, along with what was clearly the noise of glass or crockery being shattered. Then, quite audibly, the exultant bark of Sir Percy: ‘O my God, like a dog!’, followed by a short mad burst of laughter.

In the dimly-lit bedroom, under the satin canopy of the big four-poster, Lady Dorothy was down undecorously on her hands and knees, her camisole gathered up to expose her milk-white buttocks. Sir Percy, clad only in a flannel nightshirt, hitched it up with one hand to reveal a monstrous erection while his other paw roughly explored Lady Dorothy’s compliant rump.

In the antechamber Giles unbuttoned the flies of his pinstriped trousers and Venables followed suit. Venables then spat copiously into the palm of his right hand and reached into Giles’ open trousers. Giles quickly stiffened with excitement and returned the favour. As Sir Percy vigorously thrust his sword in up to the hilt, Lady Dorothy cried out in wrenching pain or pleasure. Grunting loudly Sir Percy rocked to and fro, rapidly attaining something like cruising speed. In the engine room of his mind’s eye he saw the massive piston of a marine diesel in motion, then the steam-hammer of a pile-driver rising and descending with frightening force. Sweating profusely he crossed the threshold of delirium and began to travel back through time to the dawn of Creation. Vine tendrils had crept in through the open bedroom windows and a lush primeval vegetation had invaded Featherstonehaugh Manor and its dependent buildings. The formal gardens were all overgrown, the sap was rising, a dreadful humidity had taken root, and the air reverberated with the chirrup of hornbills and the squawk of gibbons as they danced from branch to branch…

As the two dishevelled servants on the other side of the door persevered in their exertions, Sir Percy engaged full throttle and at the moment of climax uttered a long ungodly howl. Pulling himself off Lady Dorothy he began beating his chest in apoplectic triumph, this victory tattoo echoing in his ears with the feverish rhythm of malarial drums.