I
The spine of one of the seventy-two volumes of Henry Travis's magnum opus, Study of Natural History, was digging into his lap. He had acquired the collection for a paltry lire from an Italian friend to resell to an antiquarian, but a curious flip through changed his mind.
The twenty-second issue detailed the profile of a flower called by the author Stairway of the Sun, o r Sonnentreppe in German, native to West Africa. What caught his attention about the aforementioned was the delirious and neatly detailed story of its effects on the Ndipaya tribe and the European expeditionaries. Travis wrote that the plant was used by the Ndipaya to select their new chieftain, who was to consume it as a demonstration of power. Apparently the flower secreted a substance that either killed you or, if you survived, transformed you. The metamorphosis included the development of extraordinary physical power and a change in appearance: height was gained and the skin tone became grayish, cadaverous. However, the counterparts to this divine power were an insatiable appetite, to the point of consuming human flesh; a very short life expectancy, no chieftain managed to exceed five years in office; and a predisposition to insanity that legitimized the other members of the community to assassinate their leader if necessary. Whether the flower killed the candidate or the cacique was assassinated, the ritual consisted of cutting off the victim's head, which was thrown into the stinking waters of a swamp, and setting fire to the rest of the body. The last cacique, who died a month ago, ended his days in this way, after three years in office.
Travis convinced one of his companions, a Prussian mercenary, to take the test. The companion ate a flower without the prior preparation that was carried out by the Ndipaya. Following the ingestion, Travis noted the three phases experienced by his companion from the first day until his death: euphoria, relapse and catatonia. During the euphoria phase, the companion demonstrated superhuman energy and strength. Three days he went without sleep and won every bare-knuckle fight. A week later he fell into the relapse phase. This phase was characterized by an acute melancholic state and by the companion's obvious bodily change. His skin took on the color of ash, he devoured a wretched goat with his teeth, and his once sympathetic character became twisted to the point of intractability. The group was forced to chain him up and lock him in a wooden hut. Three days after this incident, the catatonia phase began. Some Ndipaya children approached the hut to look around, where they sighted the effigy of a being that would have wandered through the castle of Otranto. Although it was breathing like a fish out of water, it remained motionless, paralyzed. There was no way to revive it. In an oversight, the Ndipaya managed to murder him while Travis was exploring the catacombs erected by the locals in a cave system. The remains of his severed skull were found in the swamp waters. Travis and his companions did not dare repeat the process.
Oswell liked the story. It fit the bill as a superpowered version of Heart of Darkness. He wrote down the name, Stairway of the Sun, out of sheer desperation. He still hadn't found anything that would be of interest to Edward and failure was unacceptable.
II
James Marcus finished writing his last paper. His assistant would take care of tidying up the writing and the bureaucracy. He wasted no time with trifles, as he decided on his first day of work as a university professor. Although talented, it took him a triumph to rise in the academic hierarchy because of his repulsion to be an ass-kisser and his questionable deontology. Lonely and
unorthodox, his student body renamed him Herbert West. He did not bother to find out who this damned Herbert West was to spare himself the offense; for if offended, there would be no mind capable of conceiving the consequences.
Born in Texas, in the middle of the Chihuahuan Desert, near the Mexican border, James did not choose to be the fourth and last child of a ranching couple who ran a cattle ranch with their offspring: Hector, the firstborn; Betty and Chloe, the middle children; and James, the youngest. While his three older siblings swam in the poisonous pool of social conformity, Jamie was the oddball, the black sheep, the stinker of the family, the crazy kid in town. His passive, unassuming personality was the target of taunts, ridiculous nicknames and beatings. When James complained to his parents, they would respond with a lazy "be a man". But he never wanted to be the kind of man his parents and siblings wanted him to be. His ideal type of man ranged from Albert Einstein to Victor Frankenstein.
While his family spent the day working or repeating the same stupid rituals, James theorized about the wondrous worlds invented by Jules Verne. Inspired by the creatures that populated his works, he first experimented with insects. Satisfied, he tried the decomposed corpse of a dog he found lying in the street. He tried experimenting with his despicable older brothers. He almost killed Hector when he offered him a poisonous concoction he had prepared himself. Threatened by his family, he fled the village. Starving and dressed in rags, in Houston he associated with a charlatan who sold rejuvenating creams prepared with arsenic in exchange for fifty cents a day. He came up with the happy idea of adding lead to the mixture and negotiated to raise his salary to one dollar. The newspapers announced the death of ten women. Wanted by the police, the charlatan and James escaped from Houston to New Mexico, where the charlatan, without his knowledge, sold him to a wealthy family for fifteen dollars cash. He was forced to work for the Kowalskis in exchange for a bed in the basement, leftovers from sumptuous meals, and a penny he occasionally stole from the butler when it was his turn to wash his frock coat. Because of his high level of education, he served as a private tutor to the Kowalski's kids. He went to the library six out of seven days a week to study and prepare for his classes. It was during one of these visits that he met a prissy Swiss professor. The Swiss professor asked him a technical question and James solved it in a way that impressed the mannered foreigner.
The Swiss professor paid for his passage to Europe and the entrance exam to the University of Berne. He slipped away from the Kowalski house to embark in New York and disembark in Marseilles; and from Marseilles he traveled by train to Bern, the capital of Switzerland, where he was awarded a scholarship to pursue a degree in Chemistry. For his brilliant performance, he was again awarded a scholarship for a doctorate in Microbiology. He graduated the same year that World War II started. Taking advantage of his contract as assistant professor and Swiss neutrality, he did not participate in the conflict. In 1944 he received a letter from Texas: Hector had died in the Normandy landings. James threw the letter in the trash.
In barely a decade, the pedigreed American became a respected and well-positioned academic. He bought an imposing mansion in the Alps to enjoy a solitary and quiet life of success. He paid cash for the house, which was a good thing because he was suspended from work and pay for overstepping his duties during an experiment with human subjects. He served the suspension and resumed his former lifestyle until he received a call from the only person he could consider a friend: Oswell Ernest Spencer.
Two years before finishing his Ph.D., he did a research stay in California. He met Oswell at a cocktail bar that he entered to waste time before returning to campus. James recognized Oswell from seeing him in the halls of the science faculty. Before leaving, Oswell approached him out of the blue and sat down next to him at the bar. He introduced himself as the aforementioned Oswell Ernest Spencer, son of an English magnate and a physics student. Despite sharing neither character
nor social background, James hit it off with the posh Brit by the coincidence that they both shared a misanthropic worldview. Oswell scoffed at the whole world, he didn't give a shit about anything. As he explained to her during a drunken night out, he existed by and for his goals, not to save anyone. James told him about his more modest life trajectory and his lousy family. Oswell praised his late father, Abraham, his role model. James complained about the mediocrity of his parents and the imbecility of his siblings. Oswell recounted the outrages he committed as a teenager; James his childish experiments.
After he left California, he lost contact with Oswell until nineteen sixty. There was a call on his office phone. He instantly recognized his caller's dry, melodramatic accent. Oswell explained that he had founded a pharmaceutical company, Anzec Pharma, and was seeking his advice on the development of new markets. He jotted down some loose ideas, but was of little help because of his disinterest in finance. He didn't get another call until sixty-one, until a couple of days ago. This time, Oswell questioned him about a plant called Stairway of the Sun. James knew it by hearsay, from discredited research by Henry Travis. Oswell speculated on the possibility that what Travis described was true. James was hesitant; he, too, wanted to stumble upon a Holy Grail that would relaunch his career. Finally, Oswell advised him that he would talk to Edward Ashford, a friend of his who was also a shareholder in Anzec Pharma.
James reread his latest paper. At regular intervals, he glanced sideways at the yellowed phone in his office. When would it ring again.