by Paula Guran
“I did, Jupiter. Everyone does. I will show you a picture of mine. I grew up in a place called Lyon. It is far from here, and full of men like me.”
Where is your mama?
“She died when I was young.”
Killed by hunters?
“No, Jupiter. She got sick. Not sick like you did last month. Much worse.”
Where did you live?
“With my papa. Oh dear. A papa is something like a mama. You had one too but Ourang-Outang papas don’t live with their children. I don’t know why. My papa was a baker. That means he made bread, like I eat with my meals.”
I tried bread once. It had no taste.
Did your papa die?
“Yes, but that was much later. There was an accident, he was hit by a wagon. You’ve seen pictures of wagons.” His face changed again. “I had to go to the morgue to fetch him. I knew then I would leave Lyon, because it made me so sad.”
What is that?
“What is . . . oh, morgue? It is a house where they put the dead.”
Did they put my mama there?
“No, Jupiter. Only men.”
Why?
“Well.” He scratched his head. “I think it is because men think that only they have souls.”
What is that?
Professor waved his arms. “I was afraid you would ask! I know nothing about souls. We would need a priest to explain that—and don’t bother asking me what a priest is, because I can’t explain that either. Let’s say a soul is what makes men different from animals.”
A soul lets you speak?
More head scratching. “I’ll have to think about that one, Jupiter.”
I lived in the middle of the house, where there were trees to make nests in. It was surrounded by white walls, and Professor lived on the other side of the walls. There were some windows, spaces in the walls with bars, through which I could see into his rooms. There were also bars on the top of my part of the house.
One day Professor came to me, excited. “We are to have a visitor, Jupiter! A man who speaks French.”
What is that?
“The words I speak, that I have been teaching you. Men from different places use different sounds, and French is how they speak where I was born. Most men here speak English, or Dutch, or Malay.”
He made the playing noise. “So many ways to talk, Jupiter. But until now none here have spoken as I do.”
Is that why they are afraid of me? Because they cannot speak to me?
His face changed. “Why do you say they are afraid?”
I can smell it on your helpers. The men who clean and cook.
“Have any of them bothered you, Jupiter?”
No. But they peek in my room when you are not there. Some of them speak but I do not know what they say. And when I tried to sign back they did not understand.
Professor got quiet. “I am sorry they are afraid of you, Jupiter. Men fear what they don’t understand. Perhaps I should have let my helpers visit you, but I didn’t want to confuse you with many kinds of words.”
He stood up. “We will see how things go with the sailor, yes? Maybe we can find more friends for you.”
What is that?
“What, friend?”
No.
“Hmm. Then . . . sailor? A sailor is a man who travels on boats. I have shown you pictures of boats, yes? We need a sign for sailor, I see.”
Boat man.
His face changed. “Very good, Jupiter. You are getting better and better at thinking of signs.”
I want to see the sailor.
I smelled him as soon as he came into the house. The sailor smelled like the fish Professor sometimes eats, and like the smoke some of the helpers smell of.
I heard them while they ate.
“So, where are you from, Monsieur Goujon? Is that a Norman accent?”
“It is, Professor. I was born near Caen, but I have lived most of my life with my uncle near Paris. That is actually why I am here in Borneo. He asked me to supervise a load of precious cargo so I left my ship and will take another back.”
“Excellent. I trust you will visit me often while you are here. It is a rare treat to chat with someone who speaks the mother tongue.”
“How can I resist such a charming host? Not to mention this wonderful food.”
It didn’t smell wonderful to me. Mostly bread and burnt meat.
“I am amazed that you can survive here in this primitive land. Pirates, natives, opposing armies . . . and yet here you sit in this beautiful villa! How do you do it?”
“Ah well, it is a little miracle, I suppose. The English assume I am a French spy, and would root me out if they could, but this end of the island is run by the Dutch and the Dyaks, and they have no desire to lose the only physician in their territory.
“When I first reached Borneo some of the Malay pirates tried to take me as their personal physician, but I told them I couldn’t work that way. If they wanted my services they would have to set me free—and they did! I suspect they feared I could make them sick as well as heal them. But they come by cover of darkness, when they need me.”
“Professor, if I am not being rude, may I ask what a scholar like yourself is doing out in the wilderness? It amazed me to hear about you.”
“Hmm.” Professor’s voice got quieter. “What did you hear, exactly?”
The sailor made the playing noise. “Oh, you know what the locals are like. The natives are pagans and the Dutch aren’t much better. They say that you have turned animals into servants!”
“I suppose that is better than if they thought I turned my servants into animals.” They made the playing sound. “In fact, my friend, they are closer to the truth than you might imagine. But they are far away, too.”
“Really? I am fascinated! Please explain.”
“Very well. I should tell you I was trained as a doctor in France. I found myself working in a rural area and, alas, there were many feeble-minded people there.”
“Very sad, but I have heard that that condition runs in families.”
“It does. And often a healthy member of such a clan will produce feeble-minded offspring, even though both parents seemed completely normal.”
“Perhaps the family is cursed by God.”
“I know nothing of curses, my friend. As a natural philosopher I can only deal with this world. But my breakthrough came when a fever struck our village and, alas, killed a number of small children, both the normal and the feeble-minded.”
“Death makes no distinctions, I know.”
“Very true. But it occurred to me that I had a great opportunity here that for the sake of all mankind I could not let slip away. As you know, what we call the mind is contained here, in the skull.”
“The brain, yes. I saw one once, when a man was killed by an explosion.”
“Ah. Then you understand that there is nothing magical about the brain. It is just a pile of meat, one might say. And yet all art and literature and wisdom spring from it, yes? So I decided to see if there was a difference between the healthy and feeble-minded brains.”
I heard nothing for a moment. When the sailor spoke he sounded different. “You cut open dead children? Is that legal?”
“No. Autopsies, for that is the word, are not legal in France. But they should be or how can medicine advance? My so-called crime was discovered and I had to flee the country. How I wound up in Borneo is a long story. But the important thing is what I learned. The feeble-minded brain looked different; there were variations in shape. It did not smell like a normal brain, and I became convinced that there were chemical differences. I thought, perhaps, it might be possible to improve the little ones.”
“Surely you have not been experimenting on living children, Professor!”
“No, my friend. Not even on feeble-minded ones, although I hope I will get the chance to do so. Out here I was able to try my ideas out on apes. Have you seen them?”
“I have, here and in Africa.”
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��And what do you think of them?”
“I hardly know. They seem like a joke the devil played on mankind. A satire.”
“Hmm. I think they are more likely a rough draft, if I may call it that. The Bible tells us God made animals before man, after all. I have worked on almost a dozen of them over the years, trying to improve their brains.”
“With what goal, professor? To turn them into men?”
“No, my friend. That would be neither possible nor moral. But if I can improve their ability to think, imagine what I can do for the feeble-minded children!”
I heard a chair scrape back. “That is the most fantastic scheme I have ever heard! Has there been any success?”
“Ah! There has indeed. The latest subject has been a marvel. Come with me, my friend, and you can meet my greatest triumph. He lives in my courtyard.”
I heard them coming so I backed away from the door.
The sailor was big, higher and wider than Professor or his servants. He had fur all around his face, and where there wasn’t fur his skin was red.
He stared at me, eyes and mouth wide.
“Jupiter, this is my guest, Goujon. Goujon, let me introduce you to Jupiter.”
I am happy to meet you.
“What is it doing?” said Goujon, quietly. I smelled his fear.
“The gestures? That is how Jupiter speaks. You will notice I sign while I speak to him. What is it, Jupiter?”
Is he the sailor?
“Yes, the boat man. Boat man. You see, Goujon, he invented this combination of signs to mean sailor when he heard you were coming.”
“This is amazing, Professor! I wouldn’t have believed it possible. How long have you had him?”
“I purchased him almost three years ago. He was a baby and hunters had killed his mother. He is by far the brightest and most trainable subject I have been lucky enough to encounter.”
Goujon said more and I got angry. He backed up, toward the door.
“What is it?” Professor asked me. “What is the problem?”
Cannot understand.
“Oh. The sailor has an accent. He learned to speak far from my home. I am sorry, Goujon. Jupiter gets frustrated when he can’t understand what is said to him.”
The sailor looked at me. His face changed. “You know what? So do I.”
Professor made the playing sound. “Ah, very good!”
“Could you teach me to sign, Professor? I would like to speak with your amazing friend.”
It was exciting to be teaching instead of learning.
The sailor came every day. He would say a word and I would show him the sign, then he would copy it.
Professor sat and watched. He helped when I could not understand, or when there was a word there was no sign for.
“Gold,” said Goujon.
What is that?
“Ah!” Professor said. “It’s a metal, Jupiter, like iron, but yellow and heavier. It shines. How about this for a sign? Yellow metal.”
“You leave out the most important thing about gold, Professor,” said Goujon. “It is valuable.”
What is that?
“Valuable? You can get things with it. Here.” Professor pulled flat metal things from his pocket and handed them to me. “These are coins. Here’s a sign for coin, yes? I give these to the fruit man and he gives me fruit. Then he can give them to, say, the fish man, and get a fish.”
Are they gold?
“No, Jupiter. Gold coins are very valuable. That means you would have to trade a lot to get them.”
“Or trade something very valuable,” said Goujon.
One day the sailor told us he would be leaving soon. A boat had come that would take him and the things his uncle wanted away. After that he kept coming over, but not for lessons. I heard him and Professor talking. They sounded angry.
“You can find another one. My God! With the money he would fetch in France you could hire armies to hunt the deep woods for them.”
“What do you think he is, a circus act? This is a great experiment. My greatest! I may never find another I can train so well. And when he starts to decline I will examine his brain and see how my chemicals altered it. Then I can apply what I learned to the children—”
“That’s another thing. Do you think anyone, any civilized country would let you cut up people the way you have done with that thing in there? That is madness.”
“Get out of my house! You are not welcome here! Go back to France, or to the devil!”
After a few minutes Professor came into my room. “How are you, my friend?”
Well. Where is the sailor?
“Ah. He is gone. He is going home. I am sorry he couldn’t come to say goodbye to you. Did you like him, Jupiter?”
I liked teaching him.
Two sleeps later and I woke, hearing screams and smelling blood.
I screamed too.
I left my nest and climbed to the top of the tallest tree. I heard more screams. Professor’s helpers were running away from the house.
The door opened and the sailor ran in. “Jupiter! Where are you? Come down!”
I stayed in the branches.
“Jupiter! The hunters are here! The professor says I must take you away or they will kill you. Hurry!”
I came down and followed him out of the house, the first time I was outside since I was a baby.
There was a cart at the door with many men. I screamed and tried to back away but Goujon was behind me. “It’s all right, Jupiter. They are my friends. They will help us get away from the hunters. Climb into the cart.”
I did, but Goujon did not. The door closed and I saw that the walls were bars, like the top of my room. I screamed.
“Shut the brute up!” said one of Goujon’s friends.
“Let him prattle. Go!”
I could smell animals I had only had hints of before. Those must be horses, I thought. Professor had shown me pictures of horses pulling carts.
And then there were so many smells and sights that nothing made sense.
There were many sleeps on the boat. I was never out of the box of bars and I was too sick to eat. No one came except Goujon.
“How are you, Jupiter?”
Sick. Where is this?
“We are going to France. That is where the professor was born.”
Where is Professor?
“He died. The hunters killed him.”
Is he in the dead house?
“The dead house? I suppose he is. But don’t worry. You will be safe from the hunters in France. There are many people there who will want to see you. No one has ever seen an Ourang-Outang who could talk before! They will pay a fortune.”
What is that?
Goujon called the place where we lived a barn and a house. It did not look like the Professor’s house. It was dark and cold and there were no trees to sleep in.
Trees wouldn’t have mattered because he did not let me out of the box.
Two sleeps after we arrived Goujon came in, excited. “Good news, Jupiter! Some professors from the university want to meet you.”
Professor is dead.
“Yes, yes, but these are other men like him. You will sign for them and they will want you to come live with them in a beautiful house full of trees and fruit and people. You will be famous, Jupiter!”
What is that?
As usual, he didn’t answer.
I heard the professors arrive. I was excited to meet them. Perhaps they would be my friends like Professor was.
But I heard Goujon talking on the way up the stairs. “The man who trained him was mad, gentlemen, quite mad. He wanted to experiment on children! I don’t pretend to understand what he did to this poor beast. The scars on his head have healed. But we had to stop the professor before he engaged in more such crimes. I’m afraid he fought to the death.”
Then I knew how Professor died.
Goujon entered the room with two other men. They had white hair like Professor and one wore circles that made his ey
es look big. They stared at me.
“He can’t speak, gentlemen,” said Goujon. “You will have to learn the signs he uses, but it is not hard. Even I can do it. Jupiter!” He started signing. “Here are two new friends for you. Say hello.”
I looked at them.
“Come, Jupiter,” said Goujon. “Show them the sign for your name. Or for sailor! You created that yourself. Boat man! Remember?”
I hooted.
“He’s a fine specimen,” said the man with the circles. “The Jardin des Plantes would be pleased to have him, but not at the price you are asking.”
“He’s not a zoo animal,” said Goujon. “He can talk! Or sign, anyway. Ask him about life in Borneo.”
The younger man came closer to my box. “Oh, why not? We’ve come this far. Jupiter, my name is Pierre. Are you hungry?”
I said nothing. I did nothing. Soon they left.
Goujon was angry. “What was that for, you brute? They would have taken good care of you!”
You killed Professor.
He backed away. “How—? Oh. You heard what I told them. I didn’t mean that, Jupiter. It was just . . . just . . . Well, they wouldn’t have understood about the hunters.”
You killed Professor.
He made the playing sound. “I’m afraid your evidence would not hold up in a court, even if you knew what a court was. You don’t want to set a quarrel with me, Jupiter. The sooner you cooperate, the sooner you can live with someone you prefer.”
I will not help you.
“No? We will see about that.”
He took the lamp and left.
Two sleeps passed. I had no food. No one cleaned my box.
On the third morning Goujon came in with a basket of fruit. “Are you ready to be sensible, Jupiter?”
You killed Professor. I will not help you.
He waved his arms. “If you starve to death it won’t help anyone! The professor is dead, Jupiter. What do you want?”
Home.
“Where do you think that is, exactly? You think you can go back to the professor’s house and live there again? Will the Dyaks bring you food and clean up your mess? You could never survive in the forests. In the name of the good god, let me help you.”
What is that?
He didn’t answer. He took the food away.
The next morning Goujon came back with more fruit. “Don’t eat so fast. You’ll get sick.”