The Curator

The Curator
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One day, Mayer looked up from his desk piled high with books about leprosy, about crucifixions, about the economics of famine in central Asia, about medieval torture devices, about, in fact, every conceivable aspect of suffering in the world, and said, ‘you know, I can understand all of this’ – and he swept his hand over the entire macabre collection – ‘apart from the act of self-immolation.’
         ‘What on earth is self-immolation?’ asked Minoko, screwing up her nose with curiosity. The three of us had crowded into Mayer's study after a late lunch, not yet wanting to return to the museum. ‘Is it when you inject yourself with something?’
         ‘No,’ I explained, ‘it's when you intentionally burn to death.’
         But Mayer laughed, as if what I said was ridiculous. He settled back in his chair, and I sensed the approach of one of his tedious speeches. ‘Instead of an injection, Minoko, imagine a can of gasoline and a lit match. Imagine being so deeply affected by political injustice, that you seat yourself, cross-legged, on the steps of some public institution, douse yourself with the gasoline, and then burn your reasons for suicide into the heart of the world – via, of course, a frenzy of media interest.’
         ‘Wah!’ exclaimed Minoko, her eyes widening. ‘This is something I cannot imagine!’
         ‘Precisely,’ said Mayer.

Minoko had only recently joined the museum staff, and she was still impressed by Mayer’s theatrical way of speaking. I must admit I regretted introducing them, because Minoko's enthusiasm roused the worst excesses of Mayer's ego. They might have never met – the museum being so vast, and its staff so numerous – had I not invited them both to tea on the week of Minoko’s arrival. Now trapped in this weekly cycle of lunches at Mayer's apartment, I began to think I had created a monster.

‘The pain of burning to death is unthinkable,’ continued Mayer, standing up behind his desk as if delivering a lecture. ‘Generally, people about to kill themselves choose the most rapid and painless method to hand. Setting yourself on fire is thus a very rare form of suicide, and is the recourse of two distinct groups of people: raving lunatics and the spiritually enlightened. Chief among the latter are Buddhist monks, who have such immense skill at meditation that it is said they do not feel the pain of burning at all.’
         ‘Wah!’ repeated Minoko. She sat on the floor with her knees tucked up, as if listening to ghost stories by a campfire. Mayer, stroking his beard, eyes glazed with academic fervor, did not pause to acknowledge her.
         ‘Then there are are other self-immolators who fall outside these groups. For example, last Christmas, two Indian lovers of different castes ignited themselves with gasoline in a hotel room here in London, rather than be separated by their families, who were outraged by their inter-caste relationship. Clearly, the inferno of their passion outburned any physical fire.’
         ‘Waaah!’
         ‘As a social phenomenon, I find self-immolation fascinating. I’m thinking about writing my next book on the subject. My only concern is a lack of personal insight. You see, I can put myself in the mind of someone being tortured, or having suicidal thoughts, or dying of disease, and so forth, but I cannot for the life of me imagine being moved to self-immolate.’
         ‘Oh, I can.’
         My two friends turned to stare at me. Why I had admitted this ability, I was unsure. Perhaps even then I had grown weary of Mayer plundering the world’s suffering for the sake of an amusing story, and I wanted to remind him I knew something of real suffering that he would never know, no matter how many books he read. But I did not want to elaborate further. With a silent shake of my head I made it clear this was a sensitive matter.
         ‘James, James, James,’ sighed Mayer, ‘always so reticent. So full of untold tales of woe. One day we’ll fish them out of him, won’t we Minoko?’
         ‘Oh yes?’ she asked brightly. I had not yet told her much about my past.
         Mayer kept me in his steely gaze. ‘I bet there are whole chapters of history hiding behind that reluctant mouth of yours, James. I’m serious. If you ever decide to commit your experiences to paper, it would be a pleasure to collaborate with you.’
         I stood up, giving a minimal nod. ‘Well, thank you for lunch, Mayer. I enjoyed the food very much. And your conversation has been… overwhelming, as usual. But we are now late for our afternoon shift.’

* * *

Mayer never did extract his sad chapters from me, and I remain doubtful whether entire chapters could have been extracted. For my sadness can be told in a single paragraph.

My father was king of the Nbulu people of Morian Jaya, a small island in the South Pacific. Although culturally advanced, the Nbulu were an impoverished race, as they had little history of trade or political influence. Even so, a cultural promotion scheme devised by a British charity allowed me to pursue an education at Eton, the elite and expensive English boy’s boarding school. It was at Eton that I took the name James, to save Western tongues from the burden of my true name, Mbullabooloo. After leaving school, I enrolled at Cambridge and went on to complete graduate courses there, in social sciences. My theses were studies of my own culture, and they were highly commended. Cruelly, by the time I was awarded my doctorate, the Nbulu were no more. My forest homelands had been razed to the ground by loggers, and henchmen working for our corrupt Minster of Environment, himself a henchman of the logging companies, had murdered most of my tribe.

There, that is my sad story. It is better that Mayer did not get his hands on it.

* * *

Mayer’s apartment was a short car journey from the museum in South Kensington. As he drove Minoko and I back to work that afternoon, our conversation turned to less grisly matters: the new museum opening hours, a fresh outbreak of museum beetle, and a brand of feather preservative that was gaining popularity with Native American curators, but which Mayer and I agreed dulled the exotic hues of tropical birds.

We were all passionately commited to our curation duties. Working in seperate wings, I tended to my Nbulu displays, while Minoko restored ancient kimonos and Mayer looked after a collection of Sudanese jewellery. Naturally, this being Mayer, his collection featured lip plates, nipple clamps, ear hooks, nose spikes, genital sheaths, and other items that seemed unsure whether to achieve bodily adornment or mutilation. This amused me, for I had viewed an equivalent collection in the civic centre of the Sudanese capital, and the endless rows of glass bead necklaces and bracelets had been most charming.

Parking in a nearby road, we walked to the museum and separated inside the front courtyard, waving to each other as we returned to our respective departments. But when Mayer was out of sight, Minoko came running after me.
         ‘James! We do it tonight!’ she said. ‘I have it all arranged, and there is no danger. Come to me at ten o’clock.’

The hours passed very slowly after that, and the day no longer seemed quite real as I finally descended the steps to the basement flat of Minoko’s tenement. When she opened the door, she was already wearing the royal kimono. I averted my gaze, because I did not want to view her appearance until I was dressed in my own finery. After changing in her cloakroom, I returned to the hall and we stood motionless for some time, heads lowered, hardly daring to enjoy what we had achieved. It was some minutes before we began to walk in slow circles around each other, inspecting, marvelling, feasting our eyes on the exquisite fabrics.

The idea had been Minoko’s. She had come out with it suddenly, some weeks ago, climbing off of me with midnight breathlessness, the bed still shaking, the words tumbling over themselves in her zeal.
         ‘James! Next time, let us enliven our evening by wearing the finest examples of clothing from our native lands, borrowed from the museum collections!’
         At first I had been sceptical, because of the many dangers involved with 'borrowing' museum property. But she slowly convinced me of certain erotic possibilities that were only heightened by the hazards of pursuing them.

Put more simply: sexual temptation won over the objections of reason.

The sight is seared in my memory. Minoko’s twelve-layered kimono was a banquet of scarlet silk and white cloth tassels whose precise provenance I can no longer recall, only that it was a costume of the royal Asuka court and had been worn by a niece of the Emperor. It was fastened round the back with a sash whose flowerlike knot must have taken Minoko hours to tie correctly. The outline of Minoko’s almond eyes and the paleness of her face, neatly framed by black hair, accented the kimono like moonlight hovering above an autumn sunrise, and to behold her was to enter the dream of a Japanese princess on her wedding night.
         The princess seemed equally entranced by me. I was attired in the full investiture of a Nbulu prince: a suit of iguana hide trimmed with rodent fur, stitched with twine from the bark of a breadfruit tree, and adorned with a double collar of obsidian and jasper arrowheads. From my arms hung the regalia of a Nbulu coronation – various medals, and a small staff carved with likenesses of my forefathers – but it was my headdress that seemed to most entrance Minoko. Its frame was interlaced with the feathers of a bird of paradise I remember from my childhood roamings around the jungle, but have never been able to identify. Minoko’s eyes reflected the colours of the bird’s plume in flashes of orange and azure, like a shower of fireworks, heralding that rarest of romantic unions: a mingling of Japanese and Nbulu royalty.
         We lingered over the undressing for several hours, unbuttoning and untying with teasing pinches of our fingertips. At last, in the doorway of the bedroom, I ran my staff through a slackened loop in the knot of her sash, and the last folds of silk gave way.
         ‘Wah,’ she said.

* * *

‘So, gentlemen, I shall see you all at next Tuesday’s conference, and I do hope this new strain of museum beetle doesn’t devour your exhibits in the meantime.’ Professor Randall sat in his armchair at the head of the conference table, drawing the meeting to a close with a broad grin of conclusion. Our venue was the Melvin de Beer room, an imposing glass-roofed chamber in a corner of the museum’s south wing. The meeting’s agenda had been exactly the same as the previous one: a tiresome debate over how to allocate space in the new basement gallery. As the other curators filed out of the room, still muttering their objections to Professor Randall’s proposals, Mayer and I both made our way to the head of the table. I did not know why Mayer sought a private audience with the professor, but he did not seem to mind me being there, and as for me, Mayer’s presence suited my aims perfectly.
         ‘Professor, I will get straight to the point,’ said Mayer, without asking me if I wanted to speak first. ‘Diverting funds from my department to the new African media centre is crippling my research programme. Why do you want to destroy what is – let’s face it – one of your museum’s most productive divisions? It’s financial suffocation!’
         ‘Explain what you mean by productive,’ instructed Professor Hastings. He folded his arms and yawned to cover a smile of bemusement.
         ‘Well, for example, we have published the most number of journal articles of any division this year, if you take into account our number of staff.’
         ‘I hardly think that the… the…’ – Professor Randall trailed off, searching his brain for an obscure snippet of information – ‘…that the Journal of Afro-Asiatic Nipple Clamping is reputable enough to count in our measures of departmental productivity. Is it even peer-reviewed?’
         ‘Of course! Well, perhaps the process is a little unconventional…’
         ‘In any case, Mayer, your publications are nothing to do with our funding strategy. As we have pointed out to you time and time again, your research section is the only section in the whole museum to have made no effort to raise money through public events. The coffers of the museum cannot continue to mollycoddle your rather… obscure studies while even the dead walrus researchers are raising charitable donations–’
         ‘But that’s absurd, professor! Why should we have to waste time…’
         The argument dragged on and on, the room darkening with the approach of dusk, Mayer growing increasingly furious, and the professor squinting at him ever more scornfully.
         With their sour words ringing in my ears I gave thanks I never had cause to dispute financial matters with Professor Randall. I was too fond of him to endure any disagreement. To me, he was the epitome of the kindly old English professor, with his plump, bespectacled face perched on a skeletal body, giving him the shape of a lollipop. He was a treasure trove of stories, and during casual dinners at his Mayfair home he would transport me to distant corners of the globe with a single glass of gin and a well-crafted anecdote. Above all, I admired his resourcefulness as director of the museum.
         ‘I’m sorry you feel that way professor, but if things continue as they are, my department is doomed,’ Mayer finally concluded. He placed one arm along the edge of the glass table and rested his forehead on it, sighing loudly.
         ‘Oh, come now Mayer, it’s not as bad as all that,’ chuckled Randall, but I could see he was fed up with the situation. ‘Gentlemen, please, even I grow weary of discussing these pecuniary matters. What of your other news? Mayer, do tell me something positive about your current work.’ But Mayer only sighed again.
         ‘Mayer is working on a new book, professor,’ I offered.
         ‘Oh yes?’ We both look at Mayer, who slowly lifts his forehead into a more sociable position.
         ‘He seems to be pursuing the project with his usual fanaticism,’ I explained. ‘The topic is quite obsessing him.’
         This is enough to prompt Mayer back into the world of spoken language. ‘Well, yes, you can never be too thorough with these historical overviews,’ he said, ‘even though I am writing for the popular market.’
         ‘And what, if I may ask, is the topic of this book?’
         ‘Self-immolation,’ both Mayer and I replied, simultaneously.
         The professor chuckled again. ‘A worthy subject, I’m sure.’
         ‘Mayer is even going so far as to study the meditation techniques used by Buddhist monks to prepare themselves for the act.’
         ‘Oh, are you?’
         ‘Well, it helps to get some inside perspective when dealing with psychological states quite alien to us Westerners. Otherwise, I don’t feel I can properly explain the motivation of these people.’
         ‘Quite, quite.’
         After discussing Mayer’s book for a few more minutes, I asked Professor Randall if he minded me boring him with a few questions about a request I had received. That autumn, the Royal Geographic Society would be staging an exhibition of Polynesian warfare and wanted to include some Nbulu weaponry from the museum's collection.
         ‘But of course, James. I will leave the arrangements entirely to your discretion. You needn’t have asked my permission.’

* * *

I discovered their secret meetings in an unpleasant way.
         It wasn’t that I was emotionally hurt. At no stage had Minoko and I formed a meaningful relationship, even as our nights of forbidden dress became more frequent. Ever since the massacre of my tribe, I had suffered from a dread of growing close to anyone, as if the scars of that event still cloaked my heart, a barrier to love. Besides which, following just one coy attempt to describe herself as my girlfriend, Minoko herself exuded flippancy. And after five or six of our strange sessions I realized it was no longer the girlish and excitable Minoko for whom I felt attraction, but rather the princess she became once enrobed in those beautiful kimonos. Thus, my feelings existed purely in a fantasy world, and I was immune to damage.
         Yet there was something nasty, I must admit, as I stumbled into Mayer’s museum office late that Tuesday evening, having stayed after working hours to restore some wooden bracelets in my collection. Something nasty in the sight of the unshirted Mayer, nipples clamped, leaning over the shuddering body of Minoko, her body glistening with trails of his spittle and strange Sudanese resins. I crept away without them noticing. Long afterwards, the idea of my Japanese princess consorting with that bearded ogre, with his perverse array of pain-inducing ornaments, continued to rile. Although I did not later mention my discovery to anyone, I started to excuse myself from the weekly lunches at Mayer’s apartment.
         My reaction was only mild irritation, mind you, and it never deepened into malice or vengefulness or anything like that.
         It was merely annoying.

* * *

That summer, as I approached my twenty-seventh birthday, Mayer’s efforts to preserve his level of funding from the museum trustees grew into a bitter campaign of speechmaking, leaflet posting, and boycotting of departmental meetings. By August it was plain to everyone that the energy he expended in protest would easily raise enough money to support his research, if he would only direct it into fundraising activities. Now isolated from the other curators, and out of favour with the trustees, Mayer confided in me that he was thinking of leaving for a private institution in France. He explained to me that the post – head of African art valuations for a consortium of dealers – clashed with his moral principles, but the policy of the museum administration left him with no choice.
         While Mayer considered his options, I was busy preparing a group of Nbulu weapons for loan to the Royal Geographic Society’s exhibition. This involved searching through crates of material I had not previously sorted, and the process was grueling.

Many years ago, just after leaving Cambridge, I had lead an expedition to salvage what remained of the Nbulu’s material legacy. Upon arriving in Morian Jaya, now totally barren, we recovered from the wreckage of my village a modest quantity of clothing, weapons, sacred objects, musical instruments, and hunting tools. We packed up these items with mixed feelings of grief and anger, like nature lovers caging orphaned animals for a zoo. The consignment was taken by boat to Portsmouth harbour, and then by lorry to a prepared vault in the museum, where I have tended it ever since.
         The space allocated for the public display of my collection is tiny, and I must change the exhibit often, to allow all of the noteworthy items to be seen over the course of a year. I admit, however, that I have left some particular items locked away, unwilling to face the painful memories I associate with them.
         Some of these memories spring from the last time I saw my tribe, four summers before that grim expedition. Preparations were being made for my initiation into the tribal brotherhood of warriors. My father, one of few to escape the looming massacre, instructed me in the use of the machete, the river harpoon, and the blowdart, which were all tools of both war and hunting. My father was a master of the blowdart and would lie in the middle of the village clearing at dawn, killing fruit bats as they flew overhead with tiny motions of his inflated cheeks. I remember watching their bodies fall like burst balloons, and running to catch them before they hit the ground.
         The blowdarts were now packed in a crate of mixed weapons on a high shelf in the basement vault. I had left this crate until last, knowing unpacking it would be emotionally difficult, but the time came when I could no longer avoid the task, as the exhibition was imminent. With quivering hands I lifted out the hundreds of hollowed water-reed joints that contained the blowdarts. And from under these, at the very bottom of the crate, I retrieved a long steel case filled with transparent phials. Carved from quartz, the phials contained the potion in which the ends of the blowdarts were dipped before battle or hunting trips. The active drug came from the tubers of a plant indigenous to the forests of Morian Jaya, and it did not kill outright, but paralyzed, leaving the victim able to breathe yet incapable of directed movement.
         Having unscrewed its crystal cap, I held a phial to my nose and sniffed its contents tentatively. The aroma was still sharp, and the tang of guano and decaying jungle leaves brought a tear to my eye.

* * *

On the morning before the official opening of the Royal Geographical Society exhibition, I arrive early at the museum and begin moving the pallets of Nbulu artefacts into a van parked outside the courtyard entrance. The courtyard is quiet in the first chill of autumn, and the museum visitors have yet to appear. Soon, an insured driver will arrive to transport my precious cargo to the society, which is only a few blocks down the road. As I wheel the final pallet into the back of the van, Mayer trundles up, a piece of paper in his outstretched hand.
         ‘Thanks awfully for passing this note on for me, James,’ he says. ‘It will have much more impact, coming from you.’
         ‘It’s my pleasure, Mayer,’ I tell him. ‘You know, a lot of people at the museum are going to miss you.’
         Mayer laughs. ‘Oh, I’m sure they'll miss having someone to victimize. I certainly won't be missing museum life. Paris will be refreshing after this stale prison, and a great deal more lucrative. I do think it’s a pity though, James,’ he adds, a playful note coloring his voice, ‘that I never got those stories out of you. That would have been fun.’
         ‘Oh, but Mayer,’ I say, shaking my head as if to reprimand him. ‘You’re already in my story, my dear fellow.’ And I take a blowdart reed out of my jacket pocket, and with a quick puff of air shoot its poisoned needle into his neck.
         ‘Good god,’ he says, and a tensing of the muscles around his eyes shows he would be widening them in horror if the paralysis toxin was not already taking effect. He looks at me as if I am a new arrival of nipple clamps. ‘Did… you… Minoko…,’ he mumbles, and then slumps to the pavement. I look around to ensure no one is observing us, remove the dart from Mayer’s neck, and put it back into my pocket. Mayer has collapsed half against the trunk of an old oak rising from between the courtyard flagstones, with his legs splayed at odd angles amongst the scattered acorns and leaf litter. Dragging him out into a more exposed position, I arrange his limbs into the classical posture of a meditating Buddhist monk, with the foot of each leg resting under the thigh of the other, and his hands clasped together in his lap. He wobbles slightly, but remains upright. I walk over to the van, and return with a large plastic carton of gasoline. His breathing quickens as I pour the liquid over his body. After placing the empty carton next to him, I strike a match and set him on fire. He is immediately engulfed by flames, and their roar overpowers the sound of his breathing. Higher and higher the flames go, already stripping his thin hair and spreading bubbling patches of black carbon across his scalp.
         Looking up, I watch the blaze casting a wonderful light on the overhanging branches of the oak, a foretaste of the autumn bonfires and Guy Fawke’s firework displays the museum will host in coming weeks. The dancing shadows on the flagstones below are like sprites who have strayed too late into the morning, drunk on foreign witchcraft. Still no one notices, and the courtyard is ours alone. Mayer slouches to one side in a flurry of embers, a shadow leaking fireflies into the brisk air. I stay watching until the soot begins to settle on my shoes.
         Then I walk down the road to the Royal Geographic Society and await the arrival of the van.

* * *

‘Oh, there you are James,’ says Professor Randall. ‘Have you heard the terrible news?’
         I have just returned from the society buildings, having installed my exhibition pieces next to a display of Samoan spears and shields. ‘Yes, Minoko telephoned me while I was unpacking my pieces for the RGS show. What an appalling tragedy.’
         The professor is standing next to a policeman, who says, ‘I believe you were a close friend of Mayer Winneton?’
         ‘Indeed I was.’
         The policeman nods. ‘Right. Well, I was just giving Professor Randall here confirmation that we aren't treating his death as suspicious. It seems obvious, from what the professor tells me, that Mr. Winneton had become severely irrational in dealing with his work situation – pretty much displaying a persecution complex, I think it's safe to say, although I'm no psychologist. His obsession with people setting themselves on fire is something you first brought to the professor's attention, isn't it? This really is a clear cut case of suicide.’
         ‘Self-immolation,’ I say.
         ‘Pardon?’
         ‘Officer, this may make things even more clear cut.’ I hand him the note. ‘Mayer gave it to me early this morning, saying only that he was leaving, and asking me to pass it on to the museum trustees. It's heartbreaking I did not grasp its true meaning.’

To the staff of the Victoria and Albert Museum,
I am leaving you all. You have driven me to it. None of you understood what you have put me through, but undoubtedly my leaving will make you see.
sincerely,
Mayer Winneton

* * *

Later that day, my father phones.
         ‘Mbullabooloo!’
         ‘Hello father.’
         ‘You have killed the European infidel?’
         ‘I have.’
         ‘You killed him with a weapon of our people, and burned the body in the traditional manner?’
         ‘I did.’
         ‘My son, I am so proud. Today is your twenty-seventh birthday, and you have demonstrated your right to be admitted into the brotherhood of warriors. Today you proved yourself truly worthy of the Nbulu. I hereby declare that you are officially initiated as a man of the Nbulu.’
         My heart soars. ‘Thank you, my father, thank you.’ Whenever I hear my father’s voice, my British education yields to the wild uproar of the jungle at night, and this Western world with its books and cars and pop music subsides into the mists of tropical undergrowth, until my soul is flooded with love for my homeland. Soon more of these Western tyrants who surround me their arrogance will feel my wrath. Look at them, walking around with their luxury items as if my mother goddess forest was not destroyed to make them matchsticks and floorboards and chairs upon which to seat their corpulent bottoms. As if my brothers and sisters were not murdered in cold blood, just to create more toys for them to play with. They will suffer yet!
         ‘My son, may I ask how you selected the man you sacrificed? Was it in the traditional manner? You did not waste your energies on hatred?’
         ‘I did not, father. The man merely annoyed me. I vaguely objected to his existence.’
         ‘Mbullabooloo, you fill me with pride. And have you found the woman?’

* * *

Minoko is waiting for me at my apartment.
         ‘You are not wearing your kimono, Minoko.’
         ‘James, how could I! How can you ask that of me? Mayer died today, James. Our friend Mayer is dead. And what are all these letters I found in your bedroom? Addressed to Mayer with pre-postmarked French stamps, discussing details of a job contract with him? Answer me, James!’
         ‘Do not call me James, Minoko. For I am now a Nbulu prince. You are to call me Mbullabooloo.’
         ‘What! I don’t understand, James!’
         ‘Then observe.’ From a parcel under my arm, I remove a small bundle covered in brown wax paper. I unwrap the dress and lay it out on the carpet in front of Minoko. It is the royal bridal gown of the Nbulu, and it has not seen daylight since the day I sealed the paper with my tears all those years ago on the island of Morian Jaya. It is still immaculate. The iguana hide is interspersed with iridescent leaves from the sapling of a breadfruit tree, and at the ends of the sleeves are cuffs ringed with feathers from the unidentified bird of paradise. Minoko’s eyes melt into wonder, and she swoons into my arms.
         I sprinkle a handful of dust over her raven hair. ‘The ash of Mayer,’ I whisper. ‘I anoint you, my queen.’
         ‘Wah,’ she sighs.