donkeys” at the head of each day’s list, and then the names that he called to me whenever there was movement in the undergrowth. It was as if we were not married, but still teacher and doting student … except that the Professor wanted sexual conjunction all the time, on the thinnest of pretexts. The moment we dismounted from our donkeys for rest or food the Professor would become attentive in that breathless, urgent way which so transformed him and so reduced him.’
We drew from her a portrait of my father made tense and engrossed by my mother’s presence, as if his self-control had been agitated by the bounce of the donkey. At night in their tent, with the moth lamp burning and the camp flaps shaking a beat, he would again go to her, saying, ‘Let me warm you’ or ‘You are beautiful in this light’ or ‘Hold me there.’ At his most wheedling, his speech would be, ‘Tonight I am tired. Take it in your hand and rub me to sleep.’ At his boldest, he briefly left the tent and returned like some foolish stranger to push money into her hand and say, ‘Be a whore for me. Pull up your night-clothes.’ Sometimes there would be tears of shame, too. But for them the only remedy was more conjunction. ‘Now we are married we can make love,’ he told her, ‘at any time.’ ‘Like animals,’ she said, meaning to tease him but also, perhaps, to induce a little forbearanceand composure when next his tumescence demanded her attention. ‘No, not like animals,’ he said. ‘The very opposite to animals with their seasons, their ruts, their “heats,” slaves to chemistry. No, it is this which separates us from the animals, our capacity to enjoy our bodies as the whim takes us, ever receptive to pleasure. Any place, any time. Now, for instance?’
‘I N THE eighth week we came deep into the forest where the people had made clearings for plantation,’ said mother. ‘The villagers there were naked by day and the Professor was much charmed by their innocence. He took notes, of course, as if the villagers were bats or beetles, and he was struck by the absence of sexual playfulness or arousal. “They are immodest like infants,” he wrote in the ledger. But all our observations seemed inconsequential once the villagers had become used to our presence and their women felt free to go about their business. As you can see from the photograph, all of them except the children and the elderly were pregnant. Not surprising, perhaps, in a society where there were few constraints on fertility. But look closely at the women. Here is the oddity which so engaged the Professor. All these women are over eight months pregnant and they are ready to produce offspring in near unison.’
This observation set my father’s mind racing. Birthin unison indicated conception in unison, the impregnation of the village’s fertile women in one concentrated period of communal – if not public – sexual intercourse. What could be the purpose of such a congress? And were the mechanisms of its control social or biological? ‘The Professor, to my cost, found the subject stimulating in every way,’ complained mother. ‘But there were lessons there for me also. I determined that the moment we returned to the city I would take charge of our conjugal lives. We would economize.’
N OW consider this. A trapper from the valley whom my father employed to transport his specimens and supplies to and from Etar claimed to understand a little ‘forest’, a tongue so labio-plosive that linguists had titled it vabap-vabap. To hear it spoken in jostling conversation was to hear a flock of doves take wing. The trapper had been hunting amongst these same trees four years previously. And he had witnessed – had, indeed, participated in – a period of communal sexual intercourse amongst the small forest community with whom my parents were now lodged. ‘You imagine them to be simple and cold,’ he said, recounting his many previous attempts to find or buy a
We drew from her a portrait of my father made tense and engrossed by my mother’s presence, as if his self-control had been agitated by the bounce of the donkey. At night in their tent, with the moth lamp burning and the camp flaps shaking a beat, he would again go to her, saying, ‘Let me warm you’ or ‘You are beautiful in this light’ or ‘Hold me there.’ At his most wheedling, his speech would be, ‘Tonight I am tired. Take it in your hand and rub me to sleep.’ At his boldest, he briefly left the tent and returned like some foolish stranger to push money into her hand and say, ‘Be a whore for me. Pull up your night-clothes.’ Sometimes there would be tears of shame, too. But for them the only remedy was more conjunction. ‘Now we are married we can make love,’ he told her, ‘at any time.’ ‘Like animals,’ she said, meaning to tease him but also, perhaps, to induce a little forbearanceand composure when next his tumescence demanded her attention. ‘No, not like animals,’ he said. ‘The very opposite to animals with their seasons, their ruts, their “heats,” slaves to chemistry. No, it is this which separates us from the animals, our capacity to enjoy our bodies as the whim takes us, ever receptive to pleasure. Any place, any time. Now, for instance?’
‘I N THE eighth week we came deep into the forest where the people had made clearings for plantation,’ said mother. ‘The villagers there were naked by day and the Professor was much charmed by their innocence. He took notes, of course, as if the villagers were bats or beetles, and he was struck by the absence of sexual playfulness or arousal. “They are immodest like infants,” he wrote in the ledger. But all our observations seemed inconsequential once the villagers had become used to our presence and their women felt free to go about their business. As you can see from the photograph, all of them except the children and the elderly were pregnant. Not surprising, perhaps, in a society where there were few constraints on fertility. But look closely at the women. Here is the oddity which so engaged the Professor. All these women are over eight months pregnant and they are ready to produce offspring in near unison.’
This observation set my father’s mind racing. Birthin unison indicated conception in unison, the impregnation of the village’s fertile women in one concentrated period of communal – if not public – sexual intercourse. What could be the purpose of such a congress? And were the mechanisms of its control social or biological? ‘The Professor, to my cost, found the subject stimulating in every way,’ complained mother. ‘But there were lessons there for me also. I determined that the moment we returned to the city I would take charge of our conjugal lives. We would economize.’
N OW consider this. A trapper from the valley whom my father employed to transport his specimens and supplies to and from Etar claimed to understand a little ‘forest’, a tongue so labio-plosive that linguists had titled it vabap-vabap. To hear it spoken in jostling conversation was to hear a flock of doves take wing. The trapper had been hunting amongst these same trees four years previously. And he had witnessed – had, indeed, participated in – a period of communal sexual intercourse amongst the small forest community with whom my parents were now lodged. ‘You imagine them to be simple and cold,’ he said, recounting his many previous attempts to find or buy a
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