Unsaid

by Neil Abramson

  “Actually, I think I may have another idea, if you can keep an open mind.”

  Sally laughs, but it has the edge of someone who has learned to expect little. “I’m looking at stock clerk at the Agway at the moment, so I’m open to any suggestions you have.”

  In the research lab, Jaycee types at her computer terminal while Cindy sits on the desk next to her. Every few moments, just when Jaycee appears deep in thought about what’s on the screen, Cindy reaches over and presses a few keys on Jaycee’s keyboard. Jaycee attempts to ignore Cindy’s petulant demands for attention, correcting without comment the chimpanzee’s errant keystrokes. This goes on for a few minutes until, undeterred, Cindy thrusts her doll into Jaycee’s face, blocking Jaycee’s view of the screen. Jaycee bursts into laughter and swats playfully at the doll, but Cindy pulls it out of the way just in time.

  “Cindy, I’ve got to get this letter out to Wolfe today. Now stop goofing around.”

  Cindy drops the doll back into her lap and looks as if she’s ready to comply. Jaycee leans toward the computer screen, but as soon as she does, Cindy shoves the doll back in Jaycee’s face.

  Jaycee calls out to Frank at the other end of the lab. “Can you keep Cindy busy for ten minutes while I finish this?”

  “Sure,” Frank says.

  In the time it takes Frank to walk the fifty feet between his workstation and Jaycee, Cindy’s entire world changes. The world can be very mercurial if someone owns you.

  Frank sees a dark blue Ford Explorer through the small lab window. Three men emerge—Jannick and two young and very large security guards. Both guards have sidearms. The guards lead the way to the entrance of the building.

  “Get her in the Cube,” Frank yells to Jaycee as he runs to the nearest computer terminal.

  “What’s wrong?” Jaycee jumps to her feet with Cindy in her arms.

  “Just go!”

  Jaycee drops Cindy into the Cube and hands her the doll. Cindy starts to protest, but Jaycee ignores her and slams the Cube shut. Agitated by Jaycee’s unusually brusque treatment, Cindy begins to pace in her enclosure.

  The three men step into the room without a knock or the slightest indication that they are unwelcome intruders. They enter as if they have that right.

  Jannick whispers something to the two guards, and they quickly proceed to the computer terminals and secure the keyboards.

  “Don’t do that,” Jaycee yells at them. “You’ll lose files.” The guards ignore her.

  Jannick steps toward Jaycee. “It’s over.”

  “But the extension—”

  “—is not going to happen.”

  “You can’t do that,” Jaycee says, her voice starting to rise.

  “It’s no longer up to me.”

  Cindy’s movements in the Cube become more agitated. She begins to whimper as she paces.

  “You’re a real bastard, Jannick.”

  “This really shouldn’t come as a surprise to you. I’ve been saying it for the past three months. I really did try to help you. For someone who studies communication, you just don’t listen.”

  “At least give me the week to put my work in order.”

  “You know the rules. You can’t continue to have access to the NIS computer system. Besides, this space is already committed. I promise you that we’ll carefully pack everything and send you your personal possessions.”

  “Be reasonable.”

  “We tried that, remember? I didn’t want this, but you tied my hands, Jaycee.”

  “This is because I went to Wolfe, isn’t it?”

  “This isn’t punitive and it’s not personal,” Jannick says. “It’s because the grant is over and NIS needs to make transitional arrangements.”

  “What about all my work from the project? I want copies.”

  “Your work belongs to NIS. It always did.”

  Jaycee starts toward the computer on the nearest table—an act of defiance. One of the security guards steps in front of her.

  “I told you before, I won’t just abandon Cindy,” she says.

  Cindy now runs from one end of her enclosure to the other, shrieking every few seconds.

  “She’ll be cared for, I assure you,” Jannick says.

  “How? By putting her back in the general primate pool?” Jaycee shouts in part to be heard above Cindy. She moves toward the Cube to comfort Cindy, but the second guard blocks her path. Cindy sees this and erupts into full panic.

  Jaycee stretches her hand out to Cindy around the guard. Cindy reaches through the bars and briefly touches Jaycee’s fingers before the guard puts his hands on Jaycee’s shoulders and moves her away.

  Frank shoves the guard. “Get the hell off her.”

  The guard unsnaps the safety on his holster. “Please don’t do that, sir,” he says in a voice so calm that it is frightening.

  Jannick steps between them. “Not necessary,” he says to the guard.

  Jaycee takes Frank by the arm. “This isn’t going to help anything.” She turns on Jannick. “This isn’t over. We’ll be back.” Then Jaycee calls to Cindy around the guard’s shoulders as she signs, “I’ll be back for you, Cindy. I promise.” But Jaycee’s words are nearly unintelligible over Cindy’s screaming.

  At the doorway of the lab, Jaycee looks back to Cindy one more time. Cindy wraps her hands around the bars of the Cube and pulls, but of course the bars don’t move. They never do. The Cube has become just another cage.

  Cindy throws her head back and screams.

  I will never hear my own child calling for me. I always thought there’d be more time to convince David that, his past notwithstanding, he wouldn’t lose everything he loved. Now I’m grateful I didn’t really try. It is actually a great comfort to me that David need never answer those questions asked in the timid voice all children use when they’re experiencing a pain that they don’t understand—“Where’s Mommy?” “Is she coming back?” “Can I talk to her?”

  I don’t need to forget the sound of my own child’s voice. But as long as I retain the smallest smattering of sentience, the terror of Cindy’s scream will stay with me.

  6

  Many hours later, when the sky has turned dark, I find David still in his office staring absently at a document on his computer screen. Several paper coffee cups litter his newly disorganized desk, and our photograph is now buried under pages of memos and faxes.

  In all our time together, I never fully understood what David’s day actually involved. It’s not that he kept it from me. I think it was more that I was afraid to see how hard and cold he could be to others.

  Today, this is what I discovered. David:

  Took thirty-two phone calls;

  Made twenty-one phone calls;

  Attended four meetings within the office;

  Lost his patience with three associates and one paralegal;

  Apologized twice;

  Received five faxes;

  Sent four faxes;

  Argued with Martha three times;

  Ignored several calls from Max;

  Revised, but did not finish, two briefs;

  Interviewed a potential expert witness by telephone;

  Read 146 e-mails (excluding spam, which he deleted without reading);

  Sent 134 e-mails;

  Forgot to return a call to Joshua;

  Ate lunch at his desk;

  Chewed through twenty-three toothpicks;

  Looked at our picture seven times;

  Picked up the phone and dialed our home number three times, each time remembering only after the first ring that I wasn’t there.

  I would’ve liked to see some evidence of internal struggle, to be able to observe that David was working hard to hold it together on his first day back. I say this not out of narcissism, but because of my concern that David will fall into his old patterns of allowing work to take over his life to the exclusion of any meaningful emotions at all. It is only in the interstices of David’s day that he will know remembrance, grief, sorrow
, and, finally, healing. Pain explains a great deal of human conduct, but the fear of pain even more. I worry that David’s fears—of loneliness, the new silence of our home, the needs of our animals, and probably twenty other things hanging off in the shadows—will drive him to fill any void with the work he knows and does well.

  Thinking about the hollowness of David’s day suddenly draws me back to Cindy. It’s a vision that I’ve been fighting against for hours because I know I’ll never be able to unsee it.

  Trapped in her Cube and alone now in the cavernous lab, Cindy stares at the door that has been key-locked from the other side. People have entered the lab to feed and observe her, but none of them was Jaycee and so none of them mattered to Cindy. Her enclosure looks much smaller to me in Jaycee’s absence.

  Cindy peers nervously around the empty lab and, still holding my doll in one hand, moves over to the board in her Cube. She slowly begins to tap on the symbols.

  The words PLAY NOW appear on Jaycee’s computer screen across the room, but no one is there to read them. Cindy continues to type and the words CINDY BE GOOD NOW appear on the screen.

  Finally, Cindy gently puts the doll down, bends over the symbol board, and slowly, clumsily, taps buttons with the index fingers of both hands. The words SORRY SORRY… SAD… OUT NOW appear on the computer screen.

  When she realizes that no one is coming to answer her, Cindy picks up her doll and moves to a corner of the enclosure. She catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror and quickly looks away.

  Then she makes herself as small as possible and, hugging her doll, rocks on her feet.

  It was always extremely rare when the very distinct worlds of my husband’s work and mine collided other than through our direct intervention. So I’m understandably shocked when Jaycee knocks on the door to David’s office just as he is preparing to leave for the day.

  “Can I help you?” David asks with the disinterested tone he probably reserves for people who have come to his office in error.

  Jaycee enters with her hand extended. “I’m Jane Cassidy.”

  David stares at her blankly for a moment. “I’m sorry, but I think you’re in the wrong place.”

  “You’re David Colden, right?”

  “Yes, but…”

  “Helena’s husband?”

  “Do I know you?”

  “I saw you at the funeral.”

  “Sorry, but there’s not a lot I remember about that day.”

  Jaycee finally lowers her hand. “I understand. I was a friend of Helena. We went to vet school together.” In response to David’s blank stare, she adds, “We worked together on chimpanzees.”

  Still nothing from David.

  “Charlie? Cindy?” Jaycee adds hopefully.

  I can see that David is searching his memory. “Charlie, yeah. Something about HIV research, right?”

  “Close. Hepatitis C.”

  “Right, right. There was another research assistant with Helena, right?”

  “That was me.”

  “Wow.” David is taken aback. “That was, like, fifteen years ago. How did you find me? How did you even know that Helena had passed?”

  Jaycee stumbles over David’s ignorance. “Helena didn’t talk about any of the work she was doing with Cindy?”

  “I vaguely remember Charlie because she was so upset by it, but I’ve never heard of any Cindy, Ms. Cassidy.”

  “Jaycee, please. My friends call me Jaycee.”

  No, Jaycee. He doesn’t know about you or Cindy—because I never told him. I wasn’t even sure I should risk bringing you into my present, but I needed answers that you seemed to have found. I was confident that our story together would end with me. There was no reason to believe otherwise. There was no nexus, no loose ends. You were never supposed to be here.

  But here you are.

  “Okay, Jaycee,” David says. “I’m sorry, but I’ve really got to get home. It’s only me, you know? So…”

  “I need to speak to you about my work with Helena. It’s all sort of complicated. Can I buy you a cup of coffee so I can try to explain?”

  David looks at his watch again. I can tell he’s getting annoyed. “Can this wait? I can schedule a meeting with you tomorrow or the next day—”

  Jaycee suddenly looks on the verge of tears. “I’ve waited as long as I can. Please, Mr. Colden.”

  David is unable to refuse this plea made in my name. “David,” he says with a sigh. “Call me David.”

  Seated at the Starbucks around the corner, Jaycee opens a folder and removes a black-and-white close-up photo of a chimpanzee. She slides the photo across the table to David.

  “This is Cindy. After four years of intensive work, Cindy has acquired significant human language communication skills—she can ask and answer questions, make requests, and engage in conversation. All in English.”

  David looks at Jaycee skeptically. “Ms. Cassidy… Jaycee, this is all very interesting, but, one, I have no idea what you’re talking about and, two, I have no idea what it’s got to do with me, or even Helena.”

  “I’m getting there. Just bear with me for a few more minutes. Based on her language skills, I can prove that Cindy has a cognitive age equivalent of a four-year-old human,” she says proudly.

  David leans forward, uncertain of what he’s just heard. “I think I missed that.”

  “Yes,” Jaycee says, smiling. “Four years of age. And growing, we think. Cindy’s learning curve appears to be exponential, just like the language-acquisition rate of a human child.”

  “You’re pulling my leg. Look, I’ve seen some interesting news stories about chimpanzees that have learned some sign language, but a four-year-old? No one has ever said that.”

  “Correct. No primate has ever tested this high.”

  “So, what’re you saying? There’s been a sudden evolutionary surge in the last few years? Chimps have just gotten smarter? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  Jaycee laughs for the first time. “You’re looking at the wrong side of it. It’s not that chimpanzees have suddenly evolved. The primates are the same, but the science and technology are different… so much better than what other researchers had, even just a few years ago. The new computer simulations, training modules, and computer-assisted analysis are allowing us to tap into aspects of the primate mind in ways we couldn’t even dream about a decade ago. We can prove things now that a stone’s throw in time behind us were just hypotheses.”

  David steals a glance at his watch. “Okay, let’s just pretend that I understand everything you’ve just said. What’s it all got to do with my wife?”

  “At first I think she was just curious to see what I’d been doing after all this time. Then she met Cindy, and… Are you sure she never mentioned any of this?”

  “I don’t remember it. Honestly, though, between work, her illness, and the animals, I can’t swear that I was listening as hard as I should’ve been.” David shrugs. “She did say that she was working on some research. I thought it sounded like a good way for her to keep a positive attitude. She didn’t mention the subject, and I didn’t ask.”

  “Well, actually, she became a critical part of the team. We’d reached a plateau with Cindy’s language development. We became too insulated. Then Helena started making her trips—”

  “Trips? As in plural?”

  “Yeah. At least a dozen over the last year. Of course they tapered off when…”

  David is visibly shocked. “I’m sorry, but you must be wrong about that. I would’ve noticed that many trips.” David studies his coffee, as if he may be trying to remember my absences during that period, but the truth is he wouldn’t have noticed a pink bulldozer parked in our living room at that point in our lives. He shakes his head. “Really, you’re mistaken.”

  Jaycee doesn’t push him on it. “Whatever the actual number was, she made a unique connection with Cindy. There were only two people Cindy actually communicated with—me and your wife. For whatever reason, no one else was a
ble to establish the bond that Cindy requires for the use of language.”

  “Are you telling me that Helena signed with this chimpanzee?”

  “Yes. You did know that she could sign, right?”

  “Sure. She has a deaf cousin, but—”

  “—and then Helena began doing her academic research. She was always much better on that end of things than I was. It was Helena’s idea to put the mirror in Cindy’s enclosure, so Cindy could actually watch herself sign. After that, Cindy actually began using non-manual markers—”

  “Non-manual whats?”

  “Markers. Body language to augment meaning. The mirror was simple, but brilliant. I should’ve thought of it, but I didn’t. It really was a breakthrough for Cindy—probably raised her CAE by over a year.”

  “I get it now,” David says. “You’d like her research notes, right? I haven’t found any yet, but whatever I find I’d be happy to give you.”

  “I wish that was it, but it’s not. We’re at the end of our grant. I applied for an extension and was turned down.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Have you tried another source? Perhaps if—”

  “I’ve gone everywhere and talked to everyone. Even Washington. Believe me, it’s not for want of trying.” Jaycee struggles to keep it together. “I was kicked out of CAPS.”

  “I see. So where’s Cindy now?”

  “She’s waiting at CAPS at the moment. NIS is required to obtain approval from the US Department of Agriculture before they transfer primates between facilities. It’s supposed to allow the USDA to track the primates to ensure that a chimp infected with something like Ebola isn’t moved by accident to a facility that doesn’t have the correct level of biohazard containment. It can take up to a month to get the approvals, maybe less if there’s someone making the right phone calls. I have someone at the DOA who is keeping an eye out for the application for Cindy, but we can’t even be sure that NIS will follow the regulations.”

  “And once Cindy gets transferred?”

  “She gets shipped out of CAPS and goes back into the NIS general population at another facility.”

  “And that means…?”

  “Invasive primate biomedical research—bloodborne pathogens, tuberculosis, seizures, organ transplantation, and developmental surgical techniques. Once she’s transferred…” Jaycee can’t bring herself to finish the sentence. I know that in her own career, Jaycee has seen too much of the horrors Cindy will face.