The Daughter of Doctor Moreau(8)
“Here is my housekeeper with my daughter. Carlota, come here,” the doctor said, and the girl walked to his side. “Gentlemen, may I present my daughter, Carlota. This is Mr. Lizalde and this here is Mr. Laughton.”
The doctor’s daughter was of an age when she could still cling to her girlhood. Soon, though, he imagined they’d make her trade her youthful dresses for the maturity of the corset and the weight of long skirts. That’s what they’d done to Elizabeth, wrapped her tight in colorful velvet and muslin and choked her to death.
Elizabeth hadn’t killed herself. She’d been murdered. Women were butterflies to be pinned against a board. Poor child, she couldn’t know her fate yet.
“Could you tell him what natura non facit saltus means?” the doctor asked, apparently attempting to jest. Montgomery wasn’t in the mood for jesting.
“It means nature does not make leaps,” the girl said.
His tongue still tasted strongly of the anise he’d sipped, and he wondered what should happen if he didn’t obtain this job. He could drink himself a storm back in Progreso, he supposed. Drink and then blindly make his way to another port. South, possibly to Argentina. But he had debts to pay before even entertaining that thought. Debts Lizalde held.
Chapter 3
Carlota
Sanctus, sanctus, sanctus. Three times holy. Her father’s laboratory was a sacred space, more so even than the chapel where they prayed. Ramona said there was something holy in every rock, in every animal, in every leaf, and also in things. In stone and clay and even the pistol her father never used and kept by his bed. This is why you had to offer sakab, honey, and a few drops of blood to the alux, so that the crops might grow. Otherwise the corn would wilt. For the alux that lives inside the house there were also offerings to be made, or it would move the furniture and break the pots. The world, Ramona told them, must maintain a delicate balance, like the embroidering of a handkerchief. If you are not careful, the threads of life will tangle and knot together.
Melquíades claimed the mere thought such a thing might be possible was sacrilege: holiness could not reside in a flower or a drop of rain. Offerings to spirits were the devil’s work.
Nevertheless, the laboratory was sacred, and therefore Carlota was not admitted in there without her father. When she was, he mostly kept her to the antechamber and assigned her readings or tasks he supervised. Cachito and Lupe were not permitted inside. Not even Ramona could enter this precinct. Only Melquíades, when he had worked for them, had been allowed to freely turn the key and make his way inside.
That day, though, her father handed her the key, and Carlota turned it, opening the door to the men. Then she began walking around the room, throwing the shutters open. Light streamed in through three tall windows, unveiling the doctor’s secret world.
A long table dominated the antechamber, and upon it were set several microscopes. When her father did allow her in, he’d show her arrangements of diatoms that he’d ordered from distant places. Under the lenses, minute algae became kaleidoscopes of color. Then her father would change the slide and offer a peek at a bit of bone, a feather, a section of a sponge. For a child, it was more whimsy than scientific fact.
The wonders of microscopy were not the only ones to be found here. Taxidermied animals were stored in cabinets and jars, feathers and fur neatly preserved. The naked skeleton of a large cat was arranged on a table. The walls of the antechamber were festooned with illustrations of an equally fantastic nature. Drawings depicting the flexing of muscles, the naked skeleton, veins and arteries that looked like rivers, tracing their course across the human body. There were a number of books and papers set upon tall bookshelves and also piled on the floor. This was not, by far, the sum of her father’s books. He also kept a well-stocked library, but he worked mostly in the antechamber because it was somewhat isolated from the rest of the house.
“Have you heard of Darwin’s discussion on pangenesis, Mr. Laughton?” her father asked as the gentlemen walked around, looking at the drawings on the walls, like guests who have been admitted into a museum exhibit.
“Pangenesis is somewhat linked to heredity,” Laughton said. “The specifics evade me. You must instruct me once again.”
Carlota wasn’t sure if the young man spoke honestly or if he was merely bored or wished to brush her father off. There was a wryness to his face, the barest hint of mockery.
“Mr. Darwin suggests that each animal or plant is made up of particles called gemmules. And these in turn provide the elementary constitution for an organism’s progeny. Of course, these gemmules cannot be seen by our eyes, but they’re there. The problem is Mr. Darwin has found an answer, but not the proper one.”
“How so?”
“Darwin’s vision is too shallow. What I seek is to explore the essence of all matter of creatures and then leap beyond that. Which I have. I’ve managed to surpass him, to look at life and isolate the most basic unit of it and from it build something anew, like a bricklayer might build a house.
“Picture the axolotl of the lakes of Mexico City. It is but a small creature, much like the salamander, but should you slice off a limb, it will regrow it. Now imagine if you had the capacity to regrow a limb like the axolotl. Imagine all the possible medical applications, all the treatments that could take place if man had the strength of an ox or a cat’s keen eyes in the dark.”