Jennie

by Douglas Preston

  Hugo signed to Jennie Who stupid? and she signed right back You stupid! So Hugo asked her, He stupid? pointing to Mr. Pollock. Hugo was so wicked. He started to tell Mr. Pollock that Jennie and he had something in common, in their painting styles. It so happens that I love Pollock’s work, but Hugo was a bit old-fashioned in his taste for art. . . . Well, I’m off the subject again. Anyway, Jennie got excited and starting signing Stupid stupid everyone stupid! while she bobbed up and down in her chair. It was very amusing. Jennie was at her most charming self that night.

  During dessert, Bobby Kennedy came over and squatted by Jennie’s chair. I’ll never forget that conversation. He wanted to know if Jennie was having a good time, and Hugo translated.

  Jennie signed right back Jennie fun, Jennie fun! And then she asked Senator Kennedy, Play tickle chase.

  Hugo told him that Jennie wanted him to chase her down and tickle her. Senator Kennedy laughed and said, “My wife wouldn’t like that.”

  So Hugo had to tell Jennie, Wife say no.

  Jennie signed right back Wife stupid stupid.

  Kennedy laughed and laughed, and then he wanted to know who Jennie was going to vote for in the primary.

  This was a little tough to translate. Hugo had to fudge it. Jennie like him best? he signed.

  Stupid, Jennie signed. She was getting “stuck” on stupid. She often kept repeating a sign if everyone started laughing when she used it. She’d keep signing the one thing over and over again.

  Hugo lied and told him she was voting for him.

  The senator held out his hand. He gave a funny little speech, something about a banana in every pot. Jennie refused to shake his hand, though. She pushed it aside and opened her arms for a hug. When Kennedy didn’t hug her right away, she signed Hug, hug insistently and opened her arms again. He finally gave her a hug and went on, shaking hands down the table. The poor man. He was assassinated not one or two months later. He would have made a fine president, not like that horrible Nixon.

  When the dance began, Jennie’s dance card was full. Everyone wanted to dance with her. Governor Volpe danced with her. Ted Kennedy danced with her. Nobody wanted to go home without dancing with the chimpanzee. Even Warhol came over to dance with her; it was the thing to do apparently. She didn’t like him and cut him dead. [Laughs.] Oh my goodness, cut the man dead. It was so marvelously funny. It happened like this. Warhol came over and offered Jennie his hand, very languid and recherché-like. The man was a walking corpse, all white, you know, with that expressionless face. I would have thought he’d have frightened Jennie. Anyway, Jennie took the hand and pulled him down a little, while puckering her lips. For a kiss. Warhol bent over for the kiss and Jennie razzed him right in the ear, with a big spray of saliva. Oh my goodness! Then she scooted away and hid behind my dress while clacking her teeth and laughing. I didn’t see Warhol after that and I’m sure he left in disgrace.

  She was always embarrassing people like that. She knew just what to do. I still wonder, how in the world did Jennie know how to do these things? After that incident she was rather pleased with herself and started to get overly excited, so we had to take her home early. Somebody might have gotten bitten.

  As she got bigger, she became quite a handful. She didn’t bite that often—and she never bit us—but we always had to worry about it. We put locks on all the doors of our house. When she reached the age of three or so, someone always had to be with her when she went outside. Before that she was frightened to leave the yard, but when she got to be three . . . Well! There was no telling whose door she’d be banging at. She became a very bold girl indeed.

  [AN excerpt from Chimpanzee Sweeps Boston Off Its Feet, from the society page of the Boston Herald-Traveler, September 12, 1969. Used with permission.]

  BOSTON, Sept. 22—No, an organ grinder was not among the invitees to the Centennial Celebration at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts last night.

  The monkey you all saw on the evening news, sashaying about like a princess, begowned and bejeweled, was none other than Miss Jennie Archibald, scion of the blue blood Archibald family of Kibbencook, adopted daughter of the renowned scientist Dr. Hugo Archibald of Harvard University.

  It was the opinion of all concerned that the lovely Miss Archibald stole the show at the party to end all parties last evening. More than one upstaged young lady was heard to mutter under her breath, “The nerve of that chimp, coming to the party in a dress just like mine.”

  Well! The nerve!

  We understand that Miss Archibald is destined for higher things than cranking a hurdy-gurdy. She is being privately tutored in diction, locution, and grammar by a professor from Tufts University, and she is receiving religious instruction from the venerable Dr. Hendricks Palliser, rector of the Kibbencook Episcopal Church. Perhaps we will soon hear of her admission to the hallowed ivycovered halls of her father’s alma pater, Harvard University, with—we do not doubt—a full scholarship.

  Miss Archibald regaled the guests with charming witticisms and bon mots, delivered handily (no pun intended) in American Sign Language, which she has been learning for the past few years. She danced the night away with both Kennedy brothers and sallied forth arm in arm with the likes of Andy Warhol, the Governor, and various dignitaries and artists.

  Other guests at the party included . . .

  seven

  [FROM a letter from Alexander (“Sandy”) Archibald to the author, dated September 10, 1992.]

  Dear Mr. Preston,

  Your letter had been sitting at the Totsoh Trading Post for three weeks before I got it. Sorry for such a late reply.

  I have heard, of course, about your book. I doubt I can add anything to what you’ve already got. As far as an interview goes, I’m willing to talk to you but you would have to get out here, and that might be difficult. The nearest town is Lukachukai, Arizona, which is on the western side of the Chuska Mountains west of the Arizona-New Mexico border. Four corners area. It’s marked on most good maps. I’m about twenty miles north of Lukachukai, at a place the Navajo call Hosh ditsahiitsoh, which means Place of the Poisonous Giant Awl Cactus. You will need a good 4WD vehicle, and it would be unwise to come in the winter, because if there is snow on the ground you’ll not be able to follow the road. It’s really just two tire tracks in the desert.

  I herd cattle and sheep for a Navajo family, and I don’t keep a regular schedule. I’m afraid you’ll just have to come out here and take your chances about finding me. And you will have to find me, because I really don’t want to handle this by letter. I’m a little curious about you, too.

  Yours,

  S.A.

  [EXCERPTS from an unpublished manuscript titled “Conversations with a Chimpanzee” by Dr. Pamela Prentiss. Used with permission.]

  Setting: Archibald playroom. December 10,1969,10:00 A.M. Jennie is trying on hats in front of a mirror.

  Pam: That nice hat. Nice hat. Say nice hat.

  Jennie: Takes hat off and throws it across room. Holds out her hand for another hat that Pam has.

  Pam: No, Jennie no throw hat. No.

  Jennie: Me hat. Me hat. This is signed simultaneously, with Jennie making the sign for me (palm on chest) with one hand and hat (hand on head) with the other.

  Pam: Jennie no throw hat?

  Jennie: Me hat!

  Pam: Jennie be good. Gives Jennie the hat.

  Jennie: Puts hat on. It is a big hat which flops down over her eyes. She pulls it off and throws it across the room.

  Pam: No bad Jennie. No throw hat. Go get hat. Go. Go!

  Jennie: Go!

  Pam: No, Jennie go.

  Jennie: Go! Hat!

  Pam: No bad Jennie. No throw hat. Go get hat. Apple?

  Jennie: Gets up, collects the two hats, and brings them back to Pam. Apple!

  Pam: Thank you Jennie. Here take apple. Gives Jennie slice of apple, which she crams into her mouth while holding out her hand for more. Pam does not respond.

  Jennie: More!

  Pam: More wh
at?

  Jennie: More!

  Pam: More what?

  Jennie: More! More!

  Pam: No.

  Jennie: Apple!

  Pam: Gives Jennie another slice of apple.

  Jennie: More!

  Pam: No! No more apple. Jennie want to play with toys there? Points to Tinkertoy box. This is one of Jennie’s favorite activities.

  Jennie: Play. Play.

  Pam: Play what?

  Jennie: Runs over to the box (which is locked) and starts hammering on the lid with her hands and screaming with excitement.

  Pam: No. Jennie be quiet.

  Jennie: Hops up on the box and starts drumming on the lid with her feet. Play! Play!

  Pam: Jennie off box. Jennie play if Jennie get down.

  Jennie: Climbs down from box and waits while Pam opens box. As soon as the lid is raised she scoops out an armful of Tinkertoys and dumps them on the floor. Play! Pam play!

  Pam: Jennie make house?

  Jennie: House!

  Pam: You and me make house. Say, Jennie make house.

  Jennie: Jennie.

  Pam: Say, Jennie make house. Jennie . . . make . . . house.

  Jennie: Me Jennie.

  Pam: Make. Make.

  Jennie: Screams in frustration and whacks the floor vehemently with both hands, over and over, her sign for play.

  Pam: No. Jennie be quiet. Make. Make. Say make.

  Jennie: Say make.

  Pam: Good! House. House.

  Jennie: House.

  Pam: House. Make house.

  Jennie: House.

  Pam: Jennie make house?

  Jennie: Play!

  Pam: Say Jennie make house. Jennie make house.

  Jennie: Jennie make house.

  Pam: Good! Good Jennie! Good! Jennie make house! Pam starts building a house with the Tinkertoys, fitting the rods into the wheels while Jennie watches, fascinated. Jennie’s favorite time will come when the structure is finished, and she will be allowed to knock it over, shake it to pieces, and take it apart.

  Jennie: Hopping with excitement. Good Jennie! Me good Jennie good!

  [FROM an interview with Harold Epstein.]

  You keep asking me about Jennie’s aggressiveness. Let me see if I can explain to you what we know about chimpanzee aggression. It seems that no matter how much you discuss this subject with journalists, they just don’t get it. Please don’t take offense, I don’t mean you necessarily. I can’t understand why some people have such a hard time understanding this.

  As Jennie got older, she became more aggressive. This was normal. Mind you, this was not the kind of aggression you see in disturbed human beings. Her aggression operated according to a set of rules. It was normal chimpanzee aggression. Are you with me so far?

  Second point: chimpanzees are not the gentle, peace-loving animals that people once thought. Jane Goodall spent years studying chimpanzees in the wild. She learned that chimpanzees in the wild are very aggressive. They—especially the males—are obsessed with status and their position in the social hierarchy. They’re ruthless social climbers. Chimpanzees spend a great deal of time sorting out who’s boss and who isn’t. Goodall saw many examples of violence, deliberate murder, infanticide, and even cannibalism. Chimpanzees do not fight fair; they gang up on the weak. Sometimes male chimpanzees will beat up female chimpanzees. They fear and loathe strangers. They are territorial. A group of male chimpanzees will sometimes operate like a street gang and go cruising the edge of their territory looking for strange chimps to attack and kill. Jane Goodall, you know, was quite distressed when she realized the Gombe chimpanzees were showing more and more of the ugly traits of humans.

  I’m deliberately using anthropocentric terms here. The ethologists are going to kill me when they read this. Let them! The point I’m trying to make is this: chimpanzees (and most other animals) do not live a pure, peaceful existence, killing only to eat. Nor is mankind living in a corrupt and unnatural state, as supposedly evidenced by the high level of violence in our society. I’m trying to lay to rest the notion that violence is deviant—either in chimpanzees or in humans. Aggression is built into our genes and that’s that.

  If you’re going to write a book about Jennie, you need to understand these points. So many of these journalists who wrote about Jennie never could understand the source of Jennie’s aggression. These so-called science journalists know as much about science as I know about fixing cars.

  You see, like most “pop” thinkers, these writers assumed that any aggression on Jennie’s part must be the result of the corrupting influence of human society. Or they said it was abuse at the hands of scientific researchers. Or the result of living in a dysfunctional family, or whatever. This is defective thinking. This idea that animals in nature are uncorrupt and peaceful, while man is corrupt, violent, and unnatural, is sheer, unadulterated, unmitigated, onehundred-percent crap.

  If the murder rate that Jane Goodall saw among the several dozen chimpanzees she studied in Gombe were extrapolated to New York City, for example, there would be over fifty thousand murders a year there. “Man is the only animal that kills for pleasure” you hear people say. What poppycock! Where do people get these ideas? That’s as ignorant as asserting the world is flat. Anyone who has owned a cat—and who had two brain cells to rub together—would know this isn’t true. Animal behaviorists have noted again and again that predatory species often kill when they have no desire to eat. They are killing because the instinct to kill is very strong. Whether they experience “pleasure” when killing is a moot point.

  What the hell do you think’s going on when you feed your dog and let him out the door and he chases a squirrel up a tree? He’s not hungry, but he wants to kill. Or when your cat stalks birds for hours in the backyard. Even members of nonpredatory species, like horses and chickens, can be vicious and aggressive. Cannibalism and murder are prevalent throughout the animal world. So where does this idea come from that man alone is vicious, violent, and corrupt? It comes from “pop” thinking that is antihumanistic and self-righteous. New Age science. At bottom, it is thinking based on that most preposterous of ideas, an idea that we Jews invented but which you Christians refined to the apex of absurdity, the myth of Original Sin. Man is corrupt. Man is evil. Man is a sinner from birth. [Laughs.] What a load of rubbish!

  Now I’ll tell you something. You want to know what the real Original Sin is? Because there is a kind of original sin that all human beings are born with. I’ll tell you! It’s the aggression built into our genes by evolution. Aggression that once served a purpose. But now, with modern weaponry, it has become horrifically maladaptive—

  Excuse me. Please excuse me. Thank you. I am becoming excited. Let me catch my breath. What I wish to say is, mankind has done a much better job controlling violence than most animal societies that we have studied. There have been, to be sure, spectacular failures—most notably in this century. Our capacity for violence is greater, but not necessarily our desire.

  This brings me back to my original point. Jennie’s aggression was built in. Nothing caused it. People have aggressive impulses. Those who can’t control them either go to prison or into therapy, depending, in large part, on what socioeconomic level of society they come from. Those who overcontrol those impulses, who are passive, end up in a depression or suicidal. It’s a fine line.

  I believe Jennie had to walk a similar fine line. Only it was more difficult for her, because she was programmed according to a different set of rules. In hindsight, it was unreasonable for us to expect another species to understand and obey our social controls. Heck, we have enough trouble getting our own citizens to obey our controls.

  You get my point? Okay, so let’s talk about Jennie’s aggression in this context. When Jennie became aggressive, it was almost always because of some chimpanzee idea of status, dominance, and the social hierarchy.

  Let me give you an example. In Jennie’s universe, Hugo was the dominant male, the “alpha” male. Nobody had higher
status. Thus, if Hugo were arguing with someone (like me), Jennie would threaten that other person.

  I remember well some of the scenes that Jennie caused. Once, Hugo and I were down in the basement room at the museum. We were sitting on the floor, playing with Jennie and talking about the design of some experiment. We had a disagreement—I can’t even remember what about. We never raised our voices or anything obvious like that. We were merely disagreeing. While making some point, I touched Hugo on the arm, and quick as a flash, Jennie displayed and rushed over and bit me, and then signed Angry, bite, angry.

  Hugo, of course, scolded Jennie. Jennie cowered and seemed very surprised. She held up a limp hand—you know, the pronated wrist gesture that indicates submission among chimpanzees—and signed Sorry sorry.

  Hugo asked Jennie why she bit me, and Jennie answered Man hurt.

  Hugo asked, Man hurt who?

  You Hugo Hugo.

  Harold no hurt Hugo. Harold friend.

  Sorry sorry sorry. Harold friend Harold friend.

  [Dr. Epstein demonstrated the conversation in ASL.]

  The conversation went something like that. She had misunderstood our human interaction. She saw it in chimpanzee terms.

  When Jennie got to be three or four, she watched Hugo’s interactions with other people like a hawk. If you were talking to Hugo, and touched him or patted him on the back, Jennie might take that as a threat and bristle up and bark. She made a Wraaa! barking sound to indicate a threat. Once I nearly got bitten when I clapped Hugo on the back a little too vigorously, congratulating him for something. I had to speak very sharply to Jennie. That was another thing: if you showed fear or backed down, she would bite you. If you stood your ground and spoke or signed angrily to her, she usually chickened out. That’s another chimpanzee behavior mode. They’re just as cowardly as humans. But let us think for a moment what cowardice is in evolutionary terms. On the other hand, let’s not. Back to the story!