A Beautiful Truth Page 3

  Girdish set about gathering his own collection of chimps and other primates, bringing them over to one of his properties in Florida, near Jacksonville. He was a gentleman amateur, the only son of a land-owning family, and he had property throughout the South.

  He believed that much could be learned from primates, chimps in particular, that they were a link to our past and could explain much of our behaviour. In this respect he was ahead of his time, and there were few in the world who knew as much about apes as he did. He travelled and sent envoys to Africa and housed a growing collection of apes and monkeys in and around the greenhouse, observatory and staff buildings of that property.

  He established the institute and started a breeding program. He developed a philosophy of what the ideal research subject would be in terms of health, size and character. He and his colleagues steadily developed tests, both mental and physical, which slowly confirmed, in demonstrable scientific terms, how closely we were linked to these creatures.

  When he died in the 1940s he left a large endowment and his work was carried on. Through the development of breakthrough drugs the institute attracted funding from the federal government and from companies around the world.

  The old observatory and staff buildings were kept and it was here that behavioural studies remained and the field station developed. The new main building expanded and the biomedical studies became the lucrative focus of the institute. But the beating heart for many was the field station.

  The original buildings had an Art Deco quality, soon hidden by various additions. There were the sleeping quarters, which had expanded over time, a winter playroom and a large safe area where cognitive tests took place. There were kitchens, offices, bedrooms, a garden which supplied some of the produce for the chimps, and numerous old rooms whose purposes changed over time.

  David Kennedy eventually became director of the field station, and oversaw its expansion. Since the late 1970s you could say that this part of the institute mimicked the life of a man. Its early days were of directionless and unlimited enthusiasm and were shaped over time by conflict, financial reality and the needs of others. When David realized his personality, where his true interests lay, the field station took its present shape. But while curiosity sometimes dies and old enthusiasms seem foolish, the nature of the field station prevented it from ever being static, and passion never diminished.

  Even when the population settled, nothing was ever settled.

  In vivid memory, his family were Podo, Jonathan, Burke and Mr. Ghoul. Bootie, Magda, Mama and Beanie. Fifi and her open heart. All the names he didn’t want to give them and the sadness that he didn’t want to see.

  David tells his assistants, when they first arrive, that they can never choose favourites. Observe, but never judge. He knows that it is an ideal—as if any ape can look without assessment: fruit is never fruit, it is either ripe or rotten. People are never people.

  He had an assistant once whose logs were always coloured by her distaste for promiscuity. It was never simply Jonathan mounts Fifi; there was always a hint of morality, a suggestion of wantonness or assault. He sat her down and said do you have a boyfriend. She was twenty-nine and had been married for seven years.

  He said when you go home tonight and you find whatever way you find to encourage your husband to hold you, make sure that you forgive him.

  His staff have come and gone in numbers. He has grown, he hopes, more compassionate with age.

  It’s a guideline, a piece of advice that David repeats, despite himself. Try not to choose favourites, try not to dislike some of them.

  He brings prospective assistants out to one of the towers and tests how quickly they can distinguish between the chimps. If they have that rudimentary skill, he gives them twenty minutes to observe a group. If the group seems peaceful and pensive and the kids have fun, a bad observer will say they were peaceful and pensive and the kids had fun. A good observer will say the alpha slept, as did two of the females. Male chimp C sat near the moat as if on guard, and the juveniles alternately rested and played. Male chimp B, before he lay down, bowed to male chimp A (though asleep). The females stayed closer to male chimp B as they rested. Female chimp C would look towards sleeping male chimp B whenever the juveniles made noise, instead of reprimanding them directly or looking to the alpha, suggesting a possible shift in power.

  Small things are big, every movement matters, morals blind us to seeing the bigger picture, and if you don’t have the empathy to watch for these things, get out of here.

  But, at some level, it really was impossible not to judge. Their talk over lunch was always about personalities. Who was mean and what was wonderful.

  Do you have a favourite, David.

  He could rarely think of Podo without imagining some beloved, long-reigning king.

  Something about Fifi, who weighed two hundred pounds, made him think of Farrah Fawcett.

  And he had never met a chimpanzee as gentle as Mr. Ghoul.

  six

  Looee was quiet and still for over a month, waking only to feed or if he felt Judy moving away. His lips quivered whenever she put him down, though he was neither feverish nor cold. She knew he needed the feel of her body and she felt his panic when she saw him shiver. She rested him on her shoulder when she cooked. Applesauce, candied carrots, everything warmed by stove, mouth or hand till it held the heat of a body surprised by love. She crushed bananas, scooped the purée with the tip of her little finger, felt the tickle of his pink boy’s tongue as he sucked, the pull inside at her feet, groin and heart.

  Walt got sick and said I think I caught whatever it was he caught, and Judy looked after them both. Walt was ever brave before the wailing train of life’s horrific surprises, but he wasn’t good with the flu. Judy he said, and nnn he said, and I feel sicker than, and he rarely finished a sentence. He wondered whether it was right to be sharing a bed with a chimpanzee and he dreamt of eating prunes on a wavy sea.

  New life was in the house. Two arms, two legs, grasping fingers, inquisitive hunger, a shock from a dream that freezes the limbs, subsidence into adorable sleep, and mouth on skin, he needs me I need him to need me I need him. I’m tired. She slept.

  She kept the fire burning into May and the house acquired a sweeter, nuttier smell that was unpleasant to visitors. The bedroom grew layers of terry cloth and tissue and she kept the bathroom hot in case Looee needed warmth and wet for his lungs. Walt was hot, Walt was cold, Walt was grateful and uneasy and finally hungry and better. He explored the changing house and watched her cook with their new friend over her shoulder.

  He’ll hold your finger like a baby.

  I know.

  This house is hotter than inside a moose he said. Maybe it’s time to crack a window.

  The cloud of rheum, the film of incomprehensible memories, was lifting from Looee’s eyes, and looking down was Judy. The more his eyes cleared, the more curious and intimate Judy got.

  Walt bought some toys like a ball and a doll and a bone. He wondered what the hairy little guy could do.

  These were the days that Judy, months later, remembered when she sat on the living room floor and pondered the strangeness of her life, how none of it seemed strange till now, and now there was nothing strange, this was her little Looee. She fed him formula, not plain old milk as Henry Morris had suggested. He was fifty percent bigger in four months and Dr. Worsley was correct in figuring he was smaller than normal when he had come to them. He figured he was possibly a year, year and a half, who knows.

  The loss of a mother and the travel from Africa typically killed most chimps his age, but Judy’s presence saved him. Questions naturally occurred to them about where he came from, what ground, what air, but Henry and the circus had moved on. When you plant a sapling, sometimes you don’t care where the seed was from. They decided that as far as Looee was concerned, this was where he came from, right here.

  He slept in their bed for the first several months. Walt would sometimes be awakened by Looee runn
ing his fingers through his hair or playing with his lips and trying to pry his mouth open with those little fingers of his, I’ll be darned. They always woke up with him in the middle of the bed—he never liked anyone coming between him and Judy.

  The difference between Looee and a less hairy baby was that he could move a lot better. He could support his weight, hang on to things and climb. He never left Judy, but she could usually rest her arms.

  And he did enjoy a tickle.

  Walt thought back to the laughing chimp in the circus and figured Looee’s laugh was different. Looee’s laugh was real. You’d get him on the bed and when you’d wedge your fingers into his little armpits he smiled with his lower lip more than with his upper and then he started this little chuckle like the uck in chuckle or the ick in tickle but softer and Christ it was funny and cute. And he’d stand up and squeeze your nose then throw himself down again and away you’d go with more of a tickle on his belly and thighs, Walt and Judy’s four hands on their little hairy piano.

  He had pale hands, black fingernails, a pale face and feet, and a little white tuft of hair on his rump that Judy liked to pat before she put his diaper on. The hair on his body was a little wiry, though Judy found ways to soften it up. There was a little boy’s body under there.

  He was squirmy in their bed and they didn’t sleep well for a long time. Walt set things up for the future. It was a large old house, with a couple of spare bedrooms that Judy had long ago decorated with insincere finality. Solid desks for future business, beds that only existed to display her latest linens. Walt took a big oak wardrobe, laid it on its back and made a sort of crib.

  They were happy to see that room change. Walt took a chainsaw to the mattress and resized it so it would fit in the flat-lying wardrobe, and why they thought the walls of a crib would contain a chimpanzee was part of a daily chorus of I didn’t think of that.

  He caused quite a fuss later when he had to sleep in his own bed. He jumped on the dresser and kicked Judy’s makeup, jumped down and halfway up Walt to hit his chest, and sometimes he removed his diaper, smeared his mattress and returned with a look that said you can’t expect me to sleep there it’s disgusting. He would walk to Judy with his palm up and whimpering, and she was quite susceptible to that. But Walt prevailed and Looee later loved his bedroom and bed.

  He hung around Judy’s neck or back throughout the day watching everything she did. He slept a lot, but wouldn’t sleep unless she lay near, and Judy cursed the noisy floorboards whenever she snuck away. His screams when he awoke had a visceral effect on her—she had no choice but to drop whatever she was doing because it felt like either the world was ending or his noises would make it end.

  Sometimes he played on his own, but never beyond the bounds of whatever room Judy was in and not for very long. He was a toddler with the agility of an acrobat, so his play was usually spectacular.

  She had to think of him constantly—that’s what occurred to her over the years as she looked back; that’s what soon made him more than a pet. He wasn’t self-sufficient, he always needed company—not just the presence of bodies, but society; he needed the emotional engagement of others. There was no denying him. You could step over Murphy on your way to doing other things or tell him to shush if he was barking. With Looee you simply couldn’t ignore him, and if he was complaining about something it would have to be addressed with just as much care as with a child. When Judy first used the vacuum cleaner, Looee screamed and leapt onto her face. She had to turn it off, show him how the power button worked and how the hose sucked up dirt. He was in a heightened emotional state whenever it came out of the closet, but he was soon able to turn it on, pull it around the house and vacuum in his own way.

  The truth was that Walt and Judy woke up most mornings with the happy suspicion that something today would be new.

  Despite her tiredness there was a new sense of vitality in Judy, and as much as she sometimes yearned for peace she couldn’t imagine returning to their old routines or waking up to days without these fresh concerns.

  You look rosier in the cheek said Walt. Let me kiss that.

  There was a loss of spontaneity in their lives but it was more of a shift than a loss. They couldn’t decide out of the blue to drive to Stowe for dinner or make love on the couch with that surprise of skin and heart. Looee had an especially uncanny knack for knowing when they were getting close to each other, sensing the change of energy between their bodies like a blind man knows that a flower is red. He added a different range of surprises to their life.

  Looee wasn’t keen on going outside at first, but he ventured onto the verandah. He was so attached to Judy that she was never worried about him going far. When it was really warm the following year she let him roam without clothes. She held his hands above his head and stood behind him, trying to teach him to walk upright—assuming that he would one day walk on twos despite his arms seeming longer than his legs. They walked hand in hand to the old apple tree which had just lost its bloom. He sat down and picked up some dry blossoms, smelled them, scattered them, made a soft noise and handed some blossoms to Judy.

  Thank you Looee.

  She didn’t know that he had ridden his mother’s back when she had climbed trees and he didn’t remember himself, but one day he looked up the apple tree and climbed it.

  He went to the top and she told him to come down. She tapped on a branch that was just above her head. He came down and hung from the branch and she couldn’t believe how strong and dexterous his limbs had become.

  There was a long period of keeping to themselves, making adjustments, enjoying the fact that sometimes family is society enough.

  He understood a lot of what they said, and they were regularly surprised. They sensed how he learned, and taught him the names of body parts. The three would sit on the couch, and Judy would say where’s daddy’s nose. Looee would point to Walt’s nose. Where’s daddy’s eyes. Where’s Looee’s belly.

  Sometimes he stared off in space and sometimes he pointed to his own eyes when Judy asked him to point to hers. He was either getting it wrong or showing there was no difference.

  He was always watching, and aware of anything new. A wallet in the hand, a hairpin, rubber boots on a rainy day—anything unusual attracted his inspection. And he had unusual preferences which might otherwise be called taste. He screamed at a La-Z-Boy that Walt bought and was terrified when it reclined.

  The house was mapped in his mind, and he didn’t like change unless it came from himself. Judy had a rubber plant which she was very proud of, that she would move around the house at different times of the year to find the right light and humidity. She moved it to the landing and found it later in the living room where it had been for its first few months. She moved it again, and again found it back in the living room. She asked Walt why he kept putting her rubber plant back in the living room and he said why do you keep stealing my toggle bolts. Looee rested on Judy’s hip and stared at a pendant piece of amber as though it was a caramel Shangri-La.

  Judy stared at Walt. I don’t think I know what a toggle bolt is she said.

  The work required was staggering. For the first year or so Looee stayed close to Judy, and even though his curiosity meant spills and surprises, it was kept within a limited range. His constant presence would have been a trial for any mother, and Judy was the tiniest bit relieved when he got bored with her for a moment. But when his range expanded, they had to be prepared.

  A padlock on the fridge was an obvious measure. The old high doorknobs on most of the doors in the house were a boon to Walt and Judy because he wasn’t tall enough for a while. But he had quietly observed them in all their daily tasks and soon knew how to deal with every handle, knob, lever, door, switch, clasp, plug, button, tie or unlocked lock in the house. And because he was so good at climbing there was little they could put beyond his reach.

  Walt remembered the cage which Henry Morris used for Buddy. He proposed it, and Judy said absolutely not.

 
Judy made checklists all around the house and tried to keep loose objects secured unless they were willing to sacrifice them as missiles or toys. Walt put padlocks on most of the cupboards. He tried to make the electrical outlets safer and always kept an eye over his shoulder when he was manning the grill; but he also figured a burn here and there was the surest way to learn.

  Looee had an insatiable appetite for playing. And because of the weather in Vermont it often meant that diversions were required indoors. He loved hide-and-seek, but sometimes played it when others didn’t know he was playing. He climbed onto the mantel one afternoon and watched as Judy walked around the house calling his name. Looee it’s time to clean up the dining room, come on my little man, my Looee where are you. When she came around the corner he leapt from the mantel onto her shoulders and she lost control of her bladder. He then walked to the bathroom, took toilet paper and ran around the house, unravelling it and laughing.

  Judy’s concern was not her own emotional state so much as how he reacted to it. When he saw her fear or anger he got frightened himself and he would run around screaming, trying to find comfort where he could until he felt he could touch her or get a hug. It magnified the impact of simple frights and required massive mental energy from Judy to feel calm almost before her fear.

  They usually found such delight in seeing how much he could do, though, and, when they were in the right mood, they loved to watch him play. He learned by observation, by staring and remembering. He learned to crack eggs. You sit up on the counter there. He held the electric beater. He could spread butter on his toast with a knife. It was rarely done with grace or without a mess, but they imagined he would one day be more careful.

  He loved to wear Walt’s ski-doo helmet, which was half the size of his body. He wore it backwards and walked into furniture. He laughed every time he hit something, and it was impossible not to laugh when he laughed. Larry saw him do this, and Walt said do other animals laugh.