The Darwin Conspiracy (2 page)

He pulled out a pair of calipers and measured the bird’s wing and wrote it in the notebook, tattered over the years and swollen from the rain despite its waterproof cover. The bird froze as he measured its beak—the all-important beak—its length, width, and depth. Since 1973, when Simons and his wife, Agatha, first came here, generations of graduate students had braved the miserable conditions to measure thousands upon thousands of beaks and search for meaning among the minute variations.

Hugh freed the bird and it flew off a few yards and landed on a cactus, shaking its feathers. He recorded the second bird and walked 
around to the north rim to check the traps. He could tell by looking that none had sprung shut. He went back to the campsite and fixed breakfast, watery scrambled eggs made from powder and weak coffee from used grinds. Then he went to the top of the island again to rest and look out over the blue-green water, choppy with waves from the treacherous currents. He sat in his familiar place—the smooth rocks, already hot, formed a throne that fit his rear. He could see for miles.

Darwin was no fool. He didn’t like it here either.

Hugh sometimes talked to himself. Or—even stranger—sometimes he couldn’t tell whether he had been thinking the words or saying them aloud. Lately, his interior monologues were becoming oddly disjointed, especially during the long hours when he worked hard under the hot sun. Half thoughts flashed through his mind, phrases repeating themselves over and over, admonitions and observations from himself to himself, sometimes addressed in the second person, such as:
If it was
Hell you’re looking for, buddy, you’ve come to the right place.

And it had been Hell that he’d looked for, no doubt about that.

Even the name of the island—Sin Nombre—had exerted an attraction the moment he heard it.

So how about it? Was he willing to share this place—this paradise, he scoffed to himself, maybe out loud—with other people?

Ten days later, they came on the supply boat. It was so loaded down with food and equipment that it rode low in the water, and in the glare Hugh could see only that there were three figures on board. He felt his pulse quickening, a churning in his gut—
Christ,
why was he anxious?

He scrutinized the campsite with a new eye—his tent, plastic dishes, bags of charcoal, supplies under a tarp. Everything appeared small and bleached out in the hot sun. There was nothing to be done about it, he thought, as he made his way down the path to the welcome mat and waited.

As the panga drew near, a man cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted out: “Ahoy—if it isn’t Robinson Crusoe.” He had an English accent, upper class. Hugh flashed a grin by way of reply; it was hardly genuine but the best he could do.

He then saw a woman, sitting in the bow, holding a coil of rope. He 
was shocked; he hadn’t expected this. She smiled as she tossed him the line and he fastened it to the iron ring drilled into the rock. The driver draped two tires over the side as fenders and Hugh, extending his arm as far as he could, helped her out.

“Elizabeth Dulcimer,” she said, and added: “Beth.”

Hugh shook her hand.

“I’m Hugh,” he said.

“I know,” she replied. “Hugh Kellem.”

She turned around to help with the unloading. She was trim, with long tanned legs under khaki shorts, sneakers and a white T-shirt. Her hair, dark and silky, fell across her back as she moved with unstudied grace. A cap shaded her face; the logo on the crest read
Peligro,
and on the back in small letters was written

The Englishman leapt off the boat, setting it rocking.

“Nigel,” he pronounced loudly, smiling. He was tall and heavyset, with long blond hair that fell on either side of his ruddy face. He wore a safari jacket with four front pockets and a neck chain with a plastic slip-out magnifying glass. He gripped Hugh’s hand and pumped it, hard, and Hugh had a momentary vision of little finches disappearing inside those thick round fingers.

Nigel looked up at the cliffside, a flicker of doubt on his face.

“I expect we should carry this gear up,” he said.

Not a good sign, thought Hugh—he’s been here all of two minutes and already he’s issuing orders. He looked at Beth, who smiled again.

It took a long time to bring their equipment up. They made three trips each and placed the supplies in three piles—one for him, one for her, and one for the kitchen. When they finished, they were sweating profusely and sat down around the campsite to catch their breath.

“So, this is it,” Nigel finally said, surveying the campsite with obvious disappointment. “Somehow I expected more. All those generations of students, you know. You’d think they’d build the place up a bit. I suppose they had nothing on their minds but birds—birds and sex, of course. You can probably get a whiff of that.” He inhaled. “Crikey, it does smell, doesn’t it?”

“That’s guano.”

“No shit.” Nigel chuckled at his own joke.

“You get used to it,” said Hugh. “I don’t even smell it anymore.”

Nigel looked at him and then turned to gaze out to sea. “At least you’ve got a world-class view here,” he said. “Now, what island is that?”

“Santiago. One of the biggest.” Hugh pointed out the other islands, giving a brief description of each. “You’ll get to know them in no time.”

“I expect so.” Nigel paused a moment. “So, what exactly happened to that chap who was here with you—Victor? He came down ill?”

“Yes. He was evacuated. Some kind of stomach ailment.”

“I see. And you’ve been alone ever since?”

“Yes. Six, eight months, something like that.”

“Hmm. Well, not to worry. We’re here to rescue you. The cavalry.”

He held a fist to his mouth, imitated the sound of a bugle, and clapped Hugh on the back, startling him. Then, moving uncertainly among the rocks, Nigel chose the best place to pitch his tent and put it up quickly.

It had side vents and a canopy, much fancier than Hugh’s. Beth pitched her tent, a snug two-sleeper, off to one side.

Nigel emerged carrying a knapsack. “By the by,” he said. “Almost forgot. I’ve got some post for you.”

Hugh recognized the envelope—a corporate return address, his name printed in large confident letters. He felt his cheeks redden as if he had been slapped: it was from his father.

“Thanks.”

He folded the envelope and shoved it in his back pocket.

After dinner they sat around the fire on the sawed-off tree stumps imported from San Isabel. Hugh was tired after a day of showing them around the island; it had felt odd pointing out the fixed points in his shrunken world—the crater’s bottom, the dry, cracked bushes, the mostly vacant nests, the traps baited with bits of banana. “How many finches are not yet banded?” Nigel had demanded. “Six,” Hugh had replied. “And they’re smart as thieves. I don’t think you’ll catch them.”

“We’ll see about that.”

Hugh’s stomach churned—he wasn’t accustomed to meat and Nigel had unpacked two thick steaks and fried them in oil, flipping them in the air like pancakes. Afterward Beth produced a quart of Johnnie Walker Black and poured each of them a strong one. Hugh felt it burn
his throat as he leaned back to watch the smoke and embers shooting up into the darkness.

“As I calculate it,” said Nigel, after knocking back half his scotch,

“this drought is well on its way to becoming one for the record books.

Isn’t that right? When was the other one again?”

“Nineteen seventy-seven,” said Hugh.

“And how long was that? Something like a year?”

“Four hundred and fifty-two days,” said Beth. She was seated on the rock, leaning back upon the stump, her brown legs curled to one side.

The fire lit up her high cheekbones and her eyes, framed by her black hair, gleamed.

Nigel whistled. “And how long has this been?” He looked at Hugh.

“Two hundred thirty-five days.”

“That’s good for the study.”

“Good for the study, bad for the birds.”

“What’s been the effect so far?”

“Seeds are in short supply. Not much mating. Some chicks have died in their nests. They’re listless. Some are desperate.”

“Which ones? What are the variations? The beak sizes?”

“God’s sake,” put in Beth. “He’s not your graduate student.”

“That’s all right,” Hugh said. The truth was he liked having someone to talk about it with. “The
fortis
are hurting, especially the smallest ones. Their beaks are too tiny. They can’t handle
Tribulus.
You see them trying—they pick it up and turn it around and then drop it. Some of them get into this herb—it’s called
Chamaesyce
—and the leaves coat their feathers with this white sticky latex. It bothers them and they rub their crowns against the rocks until they go bald. Then they get sun-stroke. You see them lying around dead, these little bald finches.”

“And the next generation?”

“It’s too soon to tell, but it’ll be like the last drought. The ones who survive will be the ones with the deepest beaks. And they’ll go on until one year there’ll be heavy rainfall and then you’ll suddenly see a multitude with narrow beaks.”

Nigel mimicked the tone of an announcer: “Darwin’s living laboratory. Step up and watch as natural selection works its daily miracles.

How does it go? How did the great man put it?”—he tilted his head back slightly, as if trying to remember, but the words came so easily he 
clearly knew them by heart—
“daily and hourly scrutinising, throughout the
world, the slightest variations; rejecting those that are bad, preserving and
adding up all that are good; silently and insensibly working, whenever and
wherever opportunity offers.”

Hugh didn’t mind the showing off. The scotch was warming his system and rendered him charitable. He looked across the fire at Beth but couldn’t read her reaction.

“But of course Darwin didn’t quite get it, not when he was here, did he?” Nigel continued. “I mean, he mixed up all his specimens, took finches from the various islands and put them all in the same bag. He had to go begging to FitzRoy to look at his finches.”

“That’s right,” said Beth.

“And there’s only one single sentence in
The Voyage of the Beagle
that even hints at the theory.”

“So they say.”

“Ah, well. You’ve got to hand it to him. He got there eventually, though he took his sweet time about it.” Nigel looked over at Hugh.

“Tell me,” he asked, “exactly what is it about Darwin that engaged your interest?”

The question had been thrown down like a gauntlet. Hugh was startled.

How to answer? How could he even begin to put what he felt into words? He admired so many things about Darwin—his methodical exactitude, his boyish enthusiasm for experiments (imagine, playing the bassoon to see if earthworms could hear!), his demand for facts, nothing but facts, and his willingness to follow them wherever they led, wading knee-deep into lakes of hellfire if need be. But one thing he admired above all else was Darwin’s ability to think in eons—not centuries or millennia but entire epochs. He elongated time, stretched it out, examined cataclysmic events as if in slow motion. He could look at mountain ranges and imagine the earth’s crust rising up ever so slowly. Or come upon marine fossils high up in the Andes and envision the antediluvian seabed that buried them there. How extraordinary to possess sight that could stretch so far backward that the infinitesimal wheels of change and chance became apparent in their movement, like Galileo examining heavenly revolutions through the telescope. And how brave to measure yourself against the eons of all that time and recognize you live in a 
Godless universe and admit your nothingness. Hugh found that oddly comforting—the nothingness.

“I like that he took the long view,” he finally replied.

Nigel turned to Beth. “And you?”

Hugh leaned forward to listen. Beth took a swig of scotch and spoke matter-of-factly.

“I like that when he came to these islands and went inland, he took a single book with him.”

“Which was . . . ?”

“
Paradise Lost.
He read it here and then he thought about what he saw here and somehow he put the two together.”

“Meaning what, exactly?” asked Nigel.

“He found Eden, he ate from the tree of knowledge, and the world hasn’t been the same since.”

“I see. ‘And they realized they were naked and they covered themselves.’ I see what you mean, though—it is like paradise here.”

“I’m not so sure,” she said. A few minutes later she got up and stretched, reaching her arms above her like a dancer, and then walked off toward her tent, her body disappearing into the darkness.

The two men were silent for a while, and Hugh felt the weight of the other man’s presence now that he had finally stopped talking. But Nigel wasn’t quiet for long.

“You know,” he said, tilting his head toward the spot where Beth had been sitting, “it’s interesting to hear her talk about Darwin like that.

There’re these rumors that she’s related to him somehow, somewhere way back there, a great-great something or other.”

“But she’s American,” Hugh said.

“Yes, it’s unlikely, I know. Just a rumor. Some people collect these kinds of legends around themselves. And she’s certainly a legend, all right.”

“In what way?”

“Part of a fast crowd, Cambridge, London, the States. Stunningly beautiful—well, that you can see for yourself. Read everything, done everything. She was married for a while to a brilliant chap, Martin Wilkinson. He had everything going for him—read history at St. John’s Oxford, took firsts in every subject under the sun, good family, world at his feet. But he has problems, a depressive actually, an incredible writer 
and conversationalist but mentally unstable. He went into a downward spiral. They’re divorced. It was quite the talk there for a while.”

“And you’ve known each other for . . . how long?”

“Oh, ages. But things have picked up since the divorce.”

“Ah. So you’re . . . what? Going out together?”