"It's Virgil," replied the taxidermist.
"Who?"
"They're both here."
He indicated what he meant with a nod of the head. In front of his desk, set next to the wall, stood a stuffed donkey with a stuffed monkey sitting on its back.
"Beatrice and Virgil? From the play you sent me?" Henry asked.
"Yes. They were alive once."
"You wrote that?"
"Yes. What I sent you is the opening scene."
"The two characters are animals?"
"That's right, like in your novel. Beatrice is the donkey, Virgil is the monkey."
So he was the author of the play after all. A play featuring two animals that have an extended conversation about a pear. Henry was surprised. He would have picked realism as the taxidermist's favoured style of representation. Evidently he was misjudging him. Henry looked at the dramatis personae standing next to him. They were exceptionally lifelike.
"Why a monkey and a donkey?" he asked.
"The howler monkey was collected by a scientific team in Bolivia. It died in transit. The donkey came from a petting zoo. It was hit by a delivery truck. A church was thinking of using it for a nativity scene. Both animals happened to arrive on the same day at my shop. I had never prepared a donkey before, nor a howler. But the church changed its mind and the scientific institute decided it didn't need the howler. I kept the deposits and the animals. That happened on the same day too, their abandonment, and the two animals came together in my mind. I finished preparing them, but I've never displayed them and they're not for sale. I've had them for some thirty years now. Virgil and Beatrice-my guides through hell."
Hell? What hell? Henry wondered. But at least now he understood the connection to The Divine Comedy. Dante is guided through inferno and purgatory by Virgil and then through paradise by Beatrice. And what would be more natural for a taxidermist with literary aspirations than to fashion his characters out of what he worked with every day? So of course he would use talking animals.
Henry noticed three pieces of paper taped to the wall next to the two animals. On each was text surrounded by a border:
"Are these part of your play?" Henry asked.
"Yes. They're posters. I have a scene where they would be projected onto the back wall as Beatrice is talking."
Henry read the posters again. "The monkey isn't popular, is he?" he asked.
"No, not at all," replied the taxidermist. "Let me show you the scene."
He started going through some papers on his desk. Without hesitation he had taken Henry's answer to be yes. Henry didn't mind. Beyond indulging the man out of politeness, he was intrigued.
"Here it is."
Henry extended his hand to take the papers. The taxidermist left Henry's hand hanging in the air and cleared his throat instead. Henry realized he was intending to read the scene aloud to him. After looking at the text for a moment, the taxidermist started:
Food again, thought Henry. First a pear, now a banana. The man is obsessed with food.
The taxidermist broke off his reading. "That's when the projector would be turned on and the posters would appear side by side in big letters on the back wall."
He returned to his play. He read in a steady, unaffected voice, laying out the words in an easy way. To each character he gave a different tone, so Beatrice the donkey spoke softly while Virgil the monkey expressed himself with greater animation. Henry found himself listening to them without being aware of listening to the taxidermist.
The taxidermist stopped again and looked up at Henry. He seemed to hesitate. "Well, how would you describe Virgil? What does he look like to you?" He got up abruptly and went to one of the workbenches. He brought over a powerful lamp. "Here, I have a light," he said, with resolve. He set it on the desk and directed its beam at the monkey. Then he waited.
It took Henry a moment to realize that the man was serious. He really did want him to describe the stuffed monkey. It dawned on Henry with amazement: this is the help he wants. It's not a matter of encouragement, or confession, or connections. The help he wants is with words. Had the taxidermist made the request to Henry ahead of time in his letter, he would have refused, as he had refused writing commissions of all kinds for years. But here, in this setting, next to the very characters, in the fire of the moment, something in Henry woke up and yearned to rise to the challenge.
"What does he look like to me?" Henry said. The taxidermist nodded. Henry leaned close to the animal, to Virgil, since he had a name. He felt like a doctor about to examine a patient. He noticed that Virgil was not sitting on the donkey, on Beatrice, the way the peacock in the other room was set on the hippopotamus, as a convenience in the absence of a table. He had rather been mounted so that he sat naturally on Beatrice. His rump, two legs and an outstretched arm were laid out in a way that fitted the shape of her back perfectly, and his long tail, curled at its end, flowed so that it rested snugly against her back and side, looking very much like a casually set anchor in case she made a sudden movement. His other arm was resting on a bent knee, hand open, palm up, in a relaxed pose. Virgil had his mouth open and Beatrice her head partly turned and one ear swivelled round. He was saying something and she was listening…
Henry thought for a moment. Then he started. "Off the top of my head, without any preparation or much thought, I'd say Virgil has the pleasing dimensions of a smaller dog, neither too bulky nor too slight. I'd say he has a handsome head, with a short snout, luminous reddish-brown eyes, small black ears, and a clear black face-actually, it's not just black-a clear bluish-black face fringed with a full, elegant beard."
"Very good," said the taxidermist. "Much better than what I have. Please continue." He had picked up a pen and was writing down what Henry had said.
"I'd say," continued Henry, "that Virgil's body is robust and well built, served by long, attractive limbs, flexible and strong-they look flexible and strong-with a powerful hand or prehensile foot at the end of each. His narrow hands have long digits, as do the feet."
"Oh, yes," the taxidermist interrupted. "Virgil plays the piano. He's a very good player. He can play on his own a Brahms 'Hungarian Dance' for piano four hands. As a final flourish, he curls up his tail and taps the last note with it, bringing down the house. And look at the patterns on his hands and feet."
Henry looked. He went on. "I'd say the palms of his hands and feet are black and covered"-he paused and examined them from different angles to get the play of light-"are black and filigreed with loops and whorls that look like the finest silverwork."
"That's absolutely right," said the taxidermist.
"I'd say his long tail, longer than the rest of him, the pride and joy of him, is as dextrous as a hand, with a grip like a constrictor's coil."
"But it also has fine motor control. He plays chess with it. Virgil-"
Henry raised a hand to stop the taxidermist. "A tail with a grip like a constrictor's coil, yet with a deftness of touch that allows him to move a pawn on a chessboard with it."
What other details would Beatrice notice? Henry wondered. He peered into Virgil's mouth.
"And he has good teeth-why does no one ever mention that? Or the detail I notice every day without faiclass="underline" his lovely dark nails, shiny and slightly bulbous, so that the tip of his every finger and toe glistens like a large dewdrop." Henry was pleased to be speaking in Beatrice's voice.