Дуглас Престон - Jennie

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?

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.