Jennie

by Douglas Preston

  I’m getting off the subject. I remember one morning Hugo came into my office, looking haggard. He had not slept at all the night before. Jennie, he said, had refused to go to her room for the night. It had proved physically impossible to force her. You understand, although she weighed only seventy pounds, she was five times stronger than a grown man.

  They tried everything. They tried coaxing her with food. They snapped a lead on her and tried to drag her in. They signed to her until they were blue in the face. She had learned a sign from somewhere, an obscene gesture. The middle finger extended. You know what I mean. She started using the finger almost continuously in lieu of other signs. She used it to frustrate any attempt to communicate with her. You’d sign Jennie be quiet and she’d jab her hand in the air with her middle finger extended! It was outrageous! You’d say No bad Jennie! and she’d stick her finger right in your face. Imagine that! I saw this on several visits to the house. Anyway, getting back to this particular night. They finally gave up and tried to go to bed, leaving her outside. But she started running around the house, breaking things and knocking over the refrigerator. They spent all night trying to control her.

  When Hugo finished telling me this story, he put his head in his hands and he broke down and wept. I was . . . I was quite taken aback. I was shocked. I had no idea just how far things had gone. He told me that this wasn’t the first time this had happened, and what was he going to do? We talked and talked and Hugo finally said, “Here we are, two of the world’s experts on chimpanzee behavior, and we have no idea how to control this one animal.” And he laughed bitterly. For the first time in my life I felt at a total loss. I had no idea what to do, no answer for him. I felt only dread for what the future might hold.

  And then, later that year—well, did you know that Sandy and Jennie had an upset, a—No? They had a disagreement, an upset. . . . I’d rather not discuss it. In fact, I don’t really know what happened. I really don’t. You’ll have to talk to Lea Archibald about that.

  [FROM the journals of the Rev. Hendricks Palliser.]

  October 28, 1973

  Last Sunday I delivered a particularly good sermon—I ask God’s forgiveness for the sin of pride—on the guilt and suffering of Judas Escariot. I do not believe, however, that the congregation took to it. I asked the question: Was Judas chosen for the deed? It was prophesied, was it not? Where, then, is the guilt? But I muddled the answer. The good people of Kibbencook, indeed all human beings, want answers, not questions, from their religious leaders. No matter.

  This has been one of the most difficult concepts for me to accept as a Christian, why there should be suffering in a world created by a God who is both great and good. Is it not strange that as one’s suffering increases, one’s understanding of the mystery and paradox of life also increases? Perhaps this is the redemptive power of suffering, as Jesus taught us. But I suffer, and I do not feel redemption.

  Fall has always been my favorite season, and today was one of those incomparable glorious fall days of infinite blue skies and gusting winds carrying along the smell of burning leaves. This is the last year the burning of leaves will be allowed on the streets. I am growing old!

  Today, everything brought to me sudden recollections of Reba. But not her presence. I have not felt her presence, as I had always believed I should if she should predecease me. Where is she? I am afraid for her, and for myself.

  This morning, I had misplaced my shoes. After a long and frustrating search, I discovered them behind the commode. How in the world did they get there? Am I starting to become feebleminded? How could that be, when I am delivering the best sermons of my life?

  I miss Reba. I miss Jennie. God has taken from me everything I love. Why is Jennie staying away?

  November 2, 1973

  But what I find unaccountable in the autumn of my life is an irrational and growing fear of death. Not a fear of the pain of death, which any sensible man must fear, but an apprehension of the thing itself. How can this be? I do not question the existence of God or my savior Jesus Christ. No, I do not. Then why should I fear death so? It may simply be an atavistic impulse. Indeed, I believe that is what it is, an atavism from our dim past as apes.

  Jennie was in the car in the driveway and then they drove away with her hanging out the window, banging on the side of the car and laughing. I do not understand why Jennie is not coming over anymore. I think I called Mrs. Archibald. I forget what she said. Jennie has a cold? A broken leg again? I think it was the leg. Why am I so very tired?

  November 5, 1973

  I had a glimpse of Jennie in the window of her room, looking out at the last of the leaves flying into eternity from the crab apple tree. The look on her face was so sad and lost. I never see her outside anymore. Perhaps it is too cold? She missed her last lesson. I must call Mrs. Archibald and find out why.

  January 15, 1974

  The snows came last night again. I awoke late, to see the sun inside the bare branches of the birch. I heard Reba’s voice in the kitchen, scolding Jennie, but then she wasn’t there and Jennie had left when I descended. I was confused and disappointed. The house was quiet and the door was locked. How was that? There are some strange goings on around here indeed. My bronchitis is back. I tried to get the Archibalds on the telephone, but no one answered.

  I dreamed last night of Langemarck. It was that late April afternoon. The German guns suddenly stopped. The silence was beautiful. There was that laughter. They were talking loudly out of habit. We were waiting behind the old Lycee by the ambulances, smoking cigarettes. Everything had the rust, that dreadful green tarnish. Even the faces of the men. Suddenly the rats were running through the deserted streets. So many rats! And then the greenish yellow cloud came, and that suffocation. We drove back over the dry roads, loaded, but leaving all the rest. I woke up fighting for breath, and coughing violently.

  January 17, 1974

  Reba’s presence has arrived, yes indeed. Thank you, God. Jennie was at her window again, looking down at the snow, watching the children towing sleds toward the golf course hill. She looked so sad, as if she wanted to go with them. I wonder why she and Sandy weren’t with them today? Jennie has proved very derelict in her lessons lately. What was it now, when I was in the world? I’ve got to write that sermon, but I can’t find my notebooks or anything. That damned cleaning woman. Nothing is where it should be. My right shoe was stolen last week. I heard them come in through the window, shouting obscenely. This has got to stop. And then every night, they’re in my room, suffocating me. I’ve called the police and they do nothing. Everything has that green rust again. The coins in my pocket turned green. Will you look at them? What was it? I am sorry, I cannot swim. I shall rest in the house, thank you. Water frightens me. Keep the children out of the cabana, that is where they keep the chlorine. Nurse tells me to stop coughing, I will rupture my lungs. Where is she? I do not wish to keep these green coins. What was it?

  [FROM interviews with Alexander (“Sandy”) Archibald, January 1993, at his “hogan” near Lukachukai, Arizona.]

  You’ve come a long way to talk to me. I’m impressed. I honestly didn’t think you’d come. Tape recorder? No, I don’t mind it. You’ve come two thousand miles to hear me talk, you might as well tape it. I wouldn’t want to be misquoted, now.

  Please have a seat on the “chaise lounge” over there. The packing crate. I’ll stoke up the fire and get this coffee going. Would you duck outside and pick up three or four lumps of coal from that pile to the left of the door?

  Thank you. Welcome to my hogan. It ain’t the Ritz, but it’s warm. You’re the first white man I’ve seen in a month, except the trader in Lukachukai, but he’s practically an Indian so he doesn’t count. I’m impressed that you were able to follow the road in the snow. That a rental out there? I didn’t know you could rent Jeeps. Smart.

  I think the coffee’s already boiling. Navajo coffee. You just keep adding grounds and boiling them. Change the grounds once every week or two. Out here they’
re so poor, they eat the grounds. They call it pan-fried coffee. Stir the grounds in a frying pan with bacon fat, fry ’em up, eat ’em. I tried it once, gives you a caffeine high all day long.

  Pam Prentiss? God, what a . . . You’ve got that tape recorder going, I guess I better watch my language. She was very complex. Very. And like all complex people, crazy as hell. She loved children and chimpanzees, but she had no use for grown-ups. She liked me just fine when I was a kid, but when I became a teenager she lost interest. No, it was worse than that—I betrayed her by growing up. She felt there was something corrupt about being a grown-up. She was smart, but not as smart as she thought. In fact, when it came to human beings she was downright stupid. And in the end she didn’t know anything about chimps. Oh, she was the world’s expert in chimpanzee linguistical development, but she didn’t know shit about their feelings. It was weird, because she and Jennie had a very intense relationship.

  Let me try to set you straight in the beginning. What Jennie’s trouble was. See, Jennie had a set of values, but she didn’t realize they were different values from the rest of us. She never could understand why she was always in trouble. In the end, I mean. She didn’t know what it was that made her angry all the time. I’ll tell you what it was. It was very simple: it was our society trying to break her, trying to make her a nice middle-class person. Like they do to everyone.

  See, Jennie had the power of language. She believed in her humanity. That’s what made her different from the zoo chimpanzees. And that’s what Prentiss gave her. While Prentiss may have fucked up in other ways, she gave Jennie language. It wasn’t a mother-daughter relationship, or a sister-sister, or a friend-friend. No, it was a student-teacher relationship. Very profound, more like a monk-acolyte relationship. I mean that: their relationship had a spiritual dimension. Think about that for a moment. Language is power. Prentiss was like a spiritual guide. She gave Jennie power—and Jennie used it. She used it. With language, she deconstructed and reconstructed her world. She created a new world for herself. It blew my mind to see this animal acquire language. And then literally reshape her world with it.

  Now I had a very different relationship with Jennie. There was a time when there was no boundary between Jennie and me. We were like Siamese twins. We didn’t know where one started and the other left off. [Laughs.] Why? I don’t know why. I was a lonely kid. She was the only friend I ever had who accepted me without question. She didn’t judge me, or criticize me, or lay bullshit on me. She accepted me just as I was. Now that’s irresistible.

  Jennie taught me a lot. You know, I was a smart kid. They told me I was a genius. Now don’t for a moment think I’m impressed with that kind of bullshit. Jennie taught me just how worthless that is. Being smart. Jennie wasn’t smart by human standards, but she had a set of values. Real values. You see, for Jennie, freedom was the highest value. Language gave Jennie freedom. Although I didn’t know it at the time, she taught me the real meaning of the word “freedom,” not the bullshit meaning you get from politicians and priests.

  Here’s what she taught me: human beings are terrified of true freedom. Self-imposed slavery is what life is all about. Slavery is what every human being strives for. School, college, nice house in the suburbs, nine-to-five job, promotion, retirement. People are never happier than when they are making arrangements to have their freedom removed. They pile up possessions and debt and responsibilities. It’s just as Dostoyevski said in The Brothers Karamazov. Christ offered people freedom and scared the shit out of them, so they crucified him.

  Jennie was different. She fought tooth and nail for her freedom. I don’t know where we white people went wrong in our evolution, or where we had to compromise, why we chose slavery. A coyote will chew off its own leg in a trap. I had a tarantula spider last year, big hairy old thing. Found it last fall cruising through the chamisa out there. Looking for a mate, which they do in the fall. I brought it home and put it in a big glass jar. I fed it grasshoppers, watered it, kept it warm when it was fifteen below out there. It had everything it needed. But day and night, day and night, week after week, it was trying to climb through that glass. I’d hear it faintly scratching all night long and when I’d wake up in the morning—there it was, still trying to get out. I thought, damn, even the spider, whose brain is so fucking small you’d need a microscope to see it, has that overwhelming desire for freedom. So where did we go wrong?

  Jennie had that same overwhelming desire for freedom as the tarantula. She couldn’t live in our society because we tried to rob her of freedom, just like we rob ourselves of freedom. We wanted to break her and make her a human slave like the rest of us. Live free or die, was her answer. Literally.

  I’m rambling. Jesus, now I’m really going. Well, I suppose you might as well get it all on tape. What do you want, some stories or something? Why am I here? Why are you so obsessed with that question?

  You want to know why? When we finish talking, I’ll take you for a ride. Did you see those two horses in the corral as you came in? Yeah, we’ll go for a ride, and I’ll show you some of the sights. It’s not bad out there, about fifteen degrees, with wind chill maybe five below. We’ll ride up to Los Gigantes.

  See, I can’t tell you why I’m here. You wouldn’t understand. I can only show you. Throw some more coal in the fire.

  The freedom I’m talking about is a Navajo concept. The traditional Navajos look down on those who accumulate possessions, think it’s a vice, a weakness, like drinking or adultery. They also think it’s dangerous, makes one a target for witchcraft.

  Those mountains behind us there are the Lukachukai Mountains, and that low mesa in the distance is called Black Mesa. This whole landscape is sacred. The Navajos were never expelled from their Garden of Eden. This is it. It’s a harsh landscape but it’s beautiful in its own way. You have to be out here at least a month before you can really understand what I’m talking about. All the bullshit of our sorry century just falls away like rotten scales, and you suddenly see the world for what it is.

  Growing up with Jennie. It’s hard for me to imagine what my childhood would have been like without Jennie. I hardly remember anything before she came. It was like she was this . . . this shadow of me that finally arrived and made me complete. We had some good times. We used to go to a place called the bridge. Jennie always came along. Did my mother tell you about that? Hah! She hated me going over there. Her brain conjured up all kinds of horrors about what went on there.

  The bridge was this railroad bridge that crossed the Sudbury River. The tracks of the old Boston and Albany. A dirt road ran alongside the river and under the bridge. It was a beautiful spot, with these white clay banks and muskrats splashing about in the river. The moonlight would shine through the trestles, making crazy shadows and flickering off the water. And the stars through the trestles, millions of stars. When it got cold in the fall, we’d build a big bonfire and sit around talking. We were going to change the world. We hatched all kinds of plots, blow the world up, start a revolution. We’d get high, and our plans got ever more intricate. But it never came to anything. It was all bullshit. You can’t change the world. You’re goddamn lucky if you can change yourself even a teensy, tiny bit.

  To change, you’ve got to internalize the revolution. You’ve got to start a goddamn revolution inside your brain. You’ve got to become Hamlet, a subversive in your own court. So to finally answer your question, that’s what I’m doing out here. Internalizing the revolution. I’m making myself free.

  There was a group of us met at the bridge. We had a feeling of infinite possibilities. Funny though, at the same time it all seemed futile. That may sound like a contradiction. I guess it was a contradiction. We’d drop strawberry fields—that’s a kind of LSD, came in a pink tablet—and lie down on the sand. And we’d stare up through those old trestles, and the night sky would be boiling purple and black. And I’d think, shit—at any moment I’ll see the streak of missiles heading for Boston and that’ll be it. We grew up with that, think
ing the world could end at any moment. Expecting the world to end. At the same time, we were going to change the fucking world, totally change it, make it an anarchistic utopia. [Laughs.] That’s a teenager for you.

  So we’d gather around that bonfire, singing the Internationale, drinking cheap wine and smoking pot, thinking we were actually doing something. Jennie used to come to the bridge. She followed me everywhere. She was like a kid sister, sensitive as hell about being left out. She was a founding member of our revolutionary council. While we talked she drank Old Milwaukee beer. And why not? It made her mellow and happy. Like a happy old drunk. Sometimes we’d all get drunk and stoned and stagger around laughing. Jennie would be signing Phooey! Phooey! and rolling around on the ground and clacking her teeth. Once she threw up all over herself and we had to wash her in the river. Jesus it was wild.

  Jennie didn’t like pot. She wouldn’t touch it, even after she saw me smoking it. We never gave her any other drugs. My friends wanted to give her acid but I said no way. Jennie had no way of knowing what it was, or how it might affect her.

  We had all kinds of outrageous stoned conversations with Jennie—me translating of course. She was confused most of the time but she loved us laughing at everything she said. I wish I’d written some of those conversations down. We asked her what she thought of Nixon and Kissinger and America. All kinds of shit. We taught her stuff like Nixon sucks! and Fuck Ameri-K-K-K-a! Spelling out the “K’s” in ASL, see. She gave us her opinions on nuclear war, Vietnam, and Hubert Humphrey. They were usually one word opinions: Bad! or Phooey! Right on, Jennie!

  I did a lot of growing at the bridge. We were young and naive, but real ideas were discussed there. It’s where I lost my virginity. There were girls that came with us; they thought we were cool. There was one girl named Crystal. She was pretty experienced. Sometimes when we were stoned we’d roll down a grassy hill nearby and try to stand up. It made us very dizzy. One time, Crystal and I were rolling down this hill, and I ended at the bottom and she rolled up against me. We were both stoned and laughing, and her miniskirt had kind of gotten hiked up around her thighs. Well . . . it happened pretty fast. I was fifteen. When it was over, wouldn’t you know it but there was Jennie, sitting nearby, staring at us. She had this look on her face—I don’t know if it was fascination or horror. Her hair was standing on end. Crystal didn’t care—I suppose she was used to people watching her have sex—but I was upset. It gave me the creeps, made me feel ashamed, as if my mother had caught me in flagrante delicto.