Wish

by Peter Goldsworthy

‘Have you been to the zoo recently, Linda? How would you like to be kept in a pit?’

  ‘If I was a gorilla, I might enjoy it.’

  ‘Bullshit!’

  ‘J.J.—you mustn’t see her. It’s that simple. I strongly advise—I insist that you keep away.’

  I sat, stewing. Escape was impossible. She was driving at speed, I was belted in, the doors were centrally locked.

  ‘There are more urgent matters to discuss. You want the bad news or the good news?’

  I shaped a Bad Hand, unthinkingly; she seemed to comprehend, or perhaps merely read my face.

  ‘Jill’s lawyer rang. Jill has taken out a temporary injunction to prevent you seeing Rosie—pending a Family Court hearing. She wants to stop all access.’

  ‘How did she know? The papers didn’t even mention my name.’

  ‘It was bound to get out sooner or later.’ She hurried on, as if to forestall brooding. ‘The good news is that I think we can mount a not-guilty defence.’

  ‘You’ve changed your tune since yesterday.’

  ‘I’ve been asking around. Talking to people.’

  Her body language was a little evasive, even shifty. I tried to find her eyes, she refused contact, pretending to be absorbed in driving. ‘I believe a defence can be mounted on the issue of the legal definition of an animal. And—by implication—the definition of a person.’

  I waited, still curious about her evasiveness, but willing to listen.

  ‘The problem is, to accept that a gorilla is a human, with human entitlements under law, might expose you to a more serious charge. Unlawful sexual intercourse, for one.’

  Her tone of voice turned sing-song, as if accessing parts of her memory where knowledge had been stored by rote, and never previously used, or understood.

  ‘A person who has sexual intercourse with a person under the age of twelve years shall be guilty of a felony and liable to be imprisoned for life.’

  ‘She’s sixteen or seventeen, in human years, Linda. Fully mature.’

  ‘She’s eight on her birth certificate. But that’s a worst case scenario. It won’t happen. The key is the definition of “person”.’

  ‘You’re very enthusiastic all of a sudden. I’m broke, remember? Are you doing this for love?’

  ‘Not necessarily.’

  I turned towards her, surprised, waiting for an explanation. She had braked at a red light, but kept her eyes fixed ahead, avoiding my gaze.

  ‘You have rich friends,’ she finally said, and paused, leaving a conversational door ajar.

  Surprise became incredulity. ‘Someone has offered to pay my costs?’

  ‘He feels in part responsible.’

  He? No intuition was required, the opacity of that pronoun was instantly transparent. I felt even more of a pawn, a bit-player in someone else’s script. I felt, above all, that I was being used. ‘Saint’, my hands signed to myself, a terse, angry halo.

  The light changed, the car moved on, heading away from the city centre towards Glenelg, and my parents’ home on the beach.

  ‘Isn’t he under arrest himself?’

  ‘Out on bail. You must be aware that your interests and his coincide.’

  This I refused to accept. ‘Not at all. Not even remotely. I just want to protect Wish. Clive wants a show trial on a world stage. He wants a spokes-animal.’

  Linda’s face glowed, her little pigeon head bobbed excitedly on her body.

  ‘He wants a what?’

  ‘A prophet for the Animal Rights movement. An animal Messiah.’

  My hands moved, simultaneously, emphatically. The official sign for Jesus, the middle finger of the one hand punching crucifixion-wounds in the palm of the other.

  Another bifocal sign, surely—revealing an extra dimension, putting shape to thoughts that were still half-formed. Wish, too, my hands were telling me, might become a sacrifice if Clive had his way.

  The shapes went unnoticed by Linda. She stared straight ahead, laughing softly, increasingly at home in a case that only a few hours before had seemed completely alien.

  ‘I love it, J.J. It gets better and better. He’s crazy, yes. But if that craziness includes paying for your defence, why argue?’

  ‘He’s not crazy. Crazy is exactly what he isn’t.’

  ‘Clive is a side-issue, J.J. I’m representing you, not him. If your interests diverge—it’s yours I protect. So, what do you think?’

  ‘I think I need to think.’

  My hands moved again, more worrying than thinking. She turned to me for the first time. ‘Look, if you want to pay the costs yourself, fine. But we need to talk this out. And Professor Kinnear will be crucial to your defence. I’ve pencilled in a meeting tomorrow.’

  ‘Drop me here,’ I said.

  ‘I can drop you at home.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I just need to walk.’

  She pulled to the side of the road, and turned her head and gave me a long, suspicious look. She clearly wanted to believe me.

  ‘Tomorrow then? Twelve?’

  ‘Tomorrow,’ I lied.

  5

  I needed no directions to the Primate Section, a well-trodden path in my memory. The same colony of bored adult chimps and frisky infants filled the first of the stucco squash courts. Orang-utans still occupied the second and third. A fourth pit, the last in the terrace row, was barricaded from public access: STAFF ONLY. I stepped across the makeshift barrier and up onto the wooden viewing platform. The enclosure seemed empty. Wooden scaffolding filled much of the space: an artificial ‘tree’ which seemed to have been thrown together in a hurry. Thick hemp ropes were suspended in loops from the topmost strut; rubber tyres were attached to two of these.

  I turned away, disappointed. As I stepped back across the barrier, I heard a familiar soft bleat and turned again to see Wish appear from behind a fallen log at the back of the pit. She waved frantically; pain written on her face. She slipped through the tangle of scaffolding and squatted at the slimy edge of the moat, staring beseechingly up at me, brandishing her hands.

  ‘Wish out. Wish free.’

  The unshackling of bound hands. My heart sank. Her body was still hairless; even those scant tufts of hair spared by the razor had vanished. The black crepe of her skin was red and raw in places; her hands, between signs, itched at those sores, obsessively. Even her signing was more a kind of nervous, desperate itching at the air.

  I signed back: ‘Worry—not. I help.’

  A small family group, viewing the chimps next door, turned to watch me curiously across the barrier. One or two craned their necks to peer into the pit. Wish was screened by shrubbery, they could see nothing.

  ‘Patience,’ I signed.

  She knew the sign well: a rhythmic stroking of the chest, the act of calming oneself. I had often used that shape in lessons, to control her excitement. She teetered at the brink of the moat, clearly wanting to jump, or swim—and just as clearly unable to overcome her aversion to water. She would cross an open field for me, but not a river.

  I signed: ‘I free you.’

  She crossed her heart frantically. ‘Promise?’

  A young, efficient-looking woman in khaki shorts and desert boots appeared from behind the barrier. Her green shirt bore the zoo logo.

  ‘Excuse me, sir. This display is not open to public viewing.’

  ‘Just a few minutes. Please.’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t allow it, sir. There are other exhibitions available to the public.’

  She gestured towards the apes; I didn’t move.

  ‘She’s ill,’ I said. ‘Look at her skin.’

  ‘The gorilla is in good hands, sir. Whatever can be done is being done.’

  ‘I refuse to leave her like this. Is she having her cortisone?’

  The word startled her. She peered into my face more closely, as if matching my features with some verbal description. Her expression of firm politeness changed, became a mix of anxiety and disapproval. ‘Is your name James?’

/>   ‘J.J.,’ I signed.

  She took a single step back, alert, careful. ‘You shouldn’t be here.’

  ‘Have a heart, for Christ’s sake—she’s out of her mind!’

  She turned, reluctantly, and looked down into the pit. Wish still sat at the edge of the moat, thickset, pot-bellied, brandishing her arms.

  ‘Mr James, we know her medical history. Dr Todd was very helpful.’

  ‘Then you know about her intelligence?’

  A puzzled expression; clearly she didn’t. ‘I do know that she’s lonely. I spend as much time with her as I can.’

  ‘Look at her skin. She’s flaying herself alive!’

  ‘Our vets have prescribed a cream—I apply it twice a day.’

  ‘It’s not a skin condition. It’s her mind.’

  She stepped forward and took my elbow, but gently, more a suggestion of guidance than a wrestling-hold.

  ‘Please let me stay.’

  ‘It would cost my job.’

  ‘Then maybe you should get a job you can live with.’

  Her grip on my elbow tightened. ‘You think you know best? Using a gorilla for your own…your own…purposes!’

  She leaned against me; I stood my ground, passive, immoveable. Frustrated, she dropped my arm, and vanished up the path in search of reinforcements. I turned back to Wish. I didn’t have much time.

  ‘We go—now!’ she signed, the Flat Hand pushed downwards, emphatic: this moment, here and now.

  ‘Soon,’ I signed back; an opaque shape, a bouncing of the Write Hand, forefinger and thumb pinched as if holding a pen.

  She watched the gesture with dismay, then abruptly turned her back. A small crowd—several family groups—had now gathered on the far side of the barrier; unfazed I spoke aloud to Wish for the first time.

  ‘Please! Wish—sign to me.’

  Incredulous laughter from the barrier; increasing as I repeated the request: ‘Please.’

  She turned slowly back. All animation had now vanished from her hands; her movements were slow and depressed, monotonous in tone. The Wish Hand, her signature hand, was nowhere in sight; with it had vanished the implicit sense of hope, and possibility, that always coloured her signing. I had failed her; I couldn’t help.

  ‘Tomorrow. I here tomorrow. I promise.’

  Several khaki uniforms were pushing their way through the onlookers; I added quickly: ‘I love you.’

  ‘I love you—not!’ she signed back.

  A folded net was slung over the shoulder of the largest keeper. For that big silverback me? The thought might have amused me, at other times, in other places. Momentarily I imagined myself at bay, backed into a corner—forcing them to keep their distance, or even to fire tranquillising darts. But the net was for Wish, surely—a precaution in case I had managed to set her free. Against these reinforcements resistance was futile. I allowed myself to be hustled off the viewing platform and through a STAFF ONLY gate, out of public view. I had walked every inch of the zoo with Rosie a dozen times, but I now found myself in a hidden, alternative universe of access paths, maintenance sheds, food supplies, and holding cages; the real zoo perhaps, interlocking with, and screened behind, the public facade. As we hurried through the maze I wondered, absurdly, if I might be destined for a holding cage myself; instead I was escorted up the steps of a large administration building. A door marked JONATHON TIDDY, CURATOR OF PRIMATES opened, an older man, grey-bearded, wearing a T-shirt printed with bright orange orang-utan motifs, waved away his khaki troops and ushered me into his office. The police were on their way, he advised me calmly—while we waited would I care for a coffee? His manner was one of friendly regret, less judgemental than his minions.

  ‘How unfortunate that it’s all come to court, Mr James.’

  ‘It wasn’t exactly my idea.’

  ‘Quite.’

  A small electric kettle on a sideboard boiled, and clicked off; he spooned coffee into two mugs. I sensed that here might be a kindred spirit, a mind vulnerable to reason, or at least to the seeding of a little moral uncertainty.

  ‘You realise you have a human mind locked up there.’

  ‘A mind, perhaps,’ he conceded. ‘But hardly human.’

  What could I tell him? Her brain had been artificially enlarged, grown on hormones like some hydroponic cauliflower? That way lay tragedy, I was certain: the vivisectionists, the brain physiologists, would get their blood-spattered hands on her.

  I said: ‘Whether it’s human or animal is immaterial. It’s a sick mind—you must see that. She’s scratching herself to death. Imagine what she’s going through—cooped up in that hole. Imagine taking a human child from her family and dropping her into some snake-pit. She’s terrified!’

  ‘It’s hardly a snake-pit,’ he said, mildly. ‘And it’s only temporary. We simply have no other place to put her.’

  ‘She should be with humans. She thinks she is human. Couldn’t you find somewhere else—this office, for instance?’

  ‘She’ll only be in the holding pit for another day,’ he said, and passed me a coffee.

  I set it down on his desk, alarmed. ‘Then what?’

  ‘There’s a large gorilla troop in the Melbourne Zoo—and a lot more space.’

  ‘She’s not a gorilla!’

  My hands beat my chest, involuntarily: gorilla-not! For the first time his patience showed signs of wearing thin. ‘I hardly think you are the one to lecture me on her care and well-being, Mr James. Exploiting an eight-year-old gorilla for your own sexual pleasure is a serious allegation…’

  An odd choice of words. Would he deem the crime less serious with an eighteen-year-old gorilla? It seemed a promising line to explore; a chink in his armour.

  ‘She’s not a child. Sixteen or seventeen in human years. And what I am accused of, and what happened, are entirely different things.’

  He nodded and waved a hand, calm again, acknowledging the point. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t wish to prejudge you. Of course I must give you the benefit of the doubt. But until the court case is concluded, surely it’s in everyone’s best interests if you stay away from her.’

  The words might have been Clive’s. His civilised calm began to irk me as much as Clive’s—as much as Jill’s. People without feelings, I was beginning to think them—people whose hands were always frozen, expressionless, at their sides. I tried to hide my own hostile feelings, there was a more important issue at stake.

  I said: ‘My sole concern is what it has always been—her well-being.’

  His eyes held mine for a moment; reassured, he nodded. ‘I’ve spoken to my colleagues in Melbourne. She will be introduced slowly to the members of the troop—there is a strict protocol we follow in such matters. If socialisation doesn’t work, then some other avenue will be explored. There have even been cases of gorillas successfully repatriated to West Africa.’

  Another promising choice of words: ‘repatriated’, with its human connotations. I forced myself to remain calm, to say, as reasonably as I was able: ‘She’s not wild and never has been.’

  A knock at the door interrupted his reply; the young keeper stuck her head through the gap and announced the arrival of the police. Expecting the nearest highway patrol, I was surprised to see Crilly appear in the doorway. Vogel followed close on his heels, clipboard in one hand, heavy torch, broad daylight notwithstanding, in the other.

  They seemed to know Tiddy; I realised that he would probably have been interviewed already.

  ‘The big feller wasn’t actually in the cage with his girlfriend was he, Dr Tiddy?’

  Crilly grinned, amusing himself. Tiddy answered, icily: ‘We don’t keep primates in cages at the Adelaide Zoo, Detective.’

  Water off a duck’s back. Crilly turned back to me. ‘What are we going to do with you, Tarzan? Maybe they should keep you here. Join the colony.’

  He seemed more expansive than previously, less world-weary. I said: ‘I don’t understand what you’re doing here. It’s none of your business if I cho
ose to visit the zoo. I haven’t broken any law.’

  Vogel was terse, and to the point. ‘You are on bail.’

  I was feeling more sure of myself than at my first arrest, a slightly older hand, now, certain of my rights.

  ‘It wasn’t a condition of my bail that I keep away from the zoo.’

  Crilly said, his amusement a little pained: ‘We could charge you with harassing a witness.’

  He glanced to Vogel, collusively, then back to me. I put a Fist Hand snout over my nose and stared him in the eye. He hadn’t a clue what I was saying.

  Vogel took control. ‘We’re charging you with trespassing.’

  I was handcuffed again. Tiddy, with an air of apologetic regret, led us out of the building and through his hidden world. At the high perimeter fence he pressed a lever, an electric gate rolled ponderously to one side. We found ourselves disgorged from the back of the zoo; a familiar car waited among the trees. As the large gate began to roll shut behind us I glanced back. Tiddy was watching from the narrowing gap. He waved, tentatively, and although I couldn’t answer in kind, my spirits rose, slightly. I nodded, hoping that I had given him food for thought.

  6

  ‘I can get you out again if you promise to behave.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You know what I mean. I’ve prepared an agreement. And spoken with the Police Prosecutor—he agrees.’

  Linda slid a sheet of paper from her valise, and passed it over. A close reading wasn’t essential, I knew exactly what it would say.

  ‘If I sign this I can get out?’

  ‘It would still need a rubber-stamp from the magistrate. But I foresee no problems.’

  ‘When can I go?’

  ‘Tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Tomorrow? Jesus, Linda—I have to get out of here tonight.’

  She stared at me, lips pursed, saying nothing, waiting. At length I took the pen, the longest tongue that I had ever wielded, and signed. Linda slipped the sheet carefully back into her valise, and slid out another, rice-paper thin.

  ‘I also have a message for you. A fax. From your mother.’

  She passed it across, snapped shut her valise, and rose to leave. ‘If I am to continue acting as your legal counsel, I expect, in future, that you will act on my advice.’