Дуглас Престон - Jennie

Anyway, there were about six chimpanzees living there, the four from the Barnum colony and two others. They had the whole island to themselves. A little bayou separated the island from the center’s buildings on the mainland. There was a pier and a motorboat tied up. The buildings were kind of ramshackle but it had a lazy air. Pelicans lounged about on the pilings. It seemed... nice.

Dr. Prentiss introduced us to George Gabriel, who ran the place. He was a rugged outdoor type, you know, with the beard and khaki shorts and tan from the sun. He just about crushed your hand when he shook it. I don’t like men who grip your hand like that — they’re insecure. I did not, frankly, care for George Gabriel. If only I’d listened to my instincts instead of all these scientists.

Gabriel gave us a tour of the buildings first. Right away I was shocked to see a row of large cages. No one had said anything about cages.

Well, Gabriel explained those were only for temporary use. When a new chimpanzee arrives, they first put it in a cage and let it get used to them and the surroundings. They didn’t want to introduce an unknown chimpanzee onto the island without preparation. The others would have to get to know it first. So that’s what the cages were for. That’s what he said.

See, he used the word “it.” Do you see what I mean? He didn’t look on these chimpanzees as anything but things! Animals! The signs were right there, staring me in the face!

Well. It sounded reasonable to me and Hugo at the time. Then George took us to the island on the motorboat. As soon as the engine revved up the six chimps on the island came bursting out of the foliage and to the gate at the front of the pier. They knew when they were going to get fed, you see. They waited for us on the pier, making a great lot of noise, hooting and stamping on the dock and so forth. I really wondered how Jennie would fit in with these big, aggressive apes. But some of the chimps were actually signing to us and each other in ASL, and I found that comforting. They weren’t completely wild.

I was still concerned that Jennie had never seen another chimp. You know that was Prentiss’s doing. She wanted to keep the research “pure.” I had suggested once that Jennie be taken to the Barnum colony to see the other chimps, to play with them. As a diversion for her. But she said Oh no! It would contaminate the research or some such rot. George Gabriel was just so confident that Jennie would fit in. He kept saying, “Imagine if it were you. Growing up in the wild never having seen a human being. Surely you would adjust, eventually?” How the devil could he know? Later I came across a story about this child that had been raised by wolves in the mountains of France. In the eighteenth century. The wolfman of Aveyron or something like that. This is a true story; you can look it up. When they finally got him out of the woods he had to be locked in an asylum for the rest of his life. He never did adjust to being human. So how could Gabriel know? It was all a pack of lies.

When we landed, the chimps came down and searched our pockets. We gave them some treats and Gabriel put out a stack of melons and bananas for them, so that we could walk around the island without being bothered.

There were trails worn through the brush. You could see where the chimps had built their nests in the trees! It was very exciting for Hugo and me to see these things. Their tracks were like little human handprints, all over the place.

The seaward side of the island had a lovely beach, and you could see where the chimps had been digging and playing, just like kids. Not making sand castles but digging great holes for no reason, just like children do at the beach. For some reason the beach made me think about just how Jennie was going to fit in, whether the other chimps would like her, whether she would become pregnant and have children and raise them on the island. I suppose I thought about the kind of things that all mothers think about! It was a little frightening, but exciting at the same time.

Gabriel told us that their only research objective at the center was to see if the chimps continued using ASL and taught it to their young. He said the place wasn’t for research. Although if someone from time to time wanted to observe the chimpanzees they could. The point was, there would be no experimenting or anything of that sort. Just observation. The chimps, he said, had already done their service to mankind.

At the time it just seemed... so right. A perfect answer to our problem. It was as if Jennie were going away to college. Hugo and I were taken in by the beautiful setting, the blue sky, the water, and George Gabriel’s smooth tongue.

Sandy, you know, had a different view. After we got back, he said that Jennie didn’t care about blue sky and a nice island, that she cared only about people. He said we were sending her off to prison. He thought it was just horrible and disgusting that we wanted her to mate and have a chimp family. We dismissed it as teenage hysteria. He kept repeating, “Yes, but you don’t know her like I know her.”

In April of 1974, all the arrangements had been made for Jennie to take up her new life in Florida. Dr. Prentiss suggested we have a surprise farewell party for Jennie, with all her friends, teachers, and relatives in attendance. Both Lea and I thought that a wonderful idea, and we began planning an Easter Sunday celebration. Jennie was scheduled to fly to Florida the following Wednesday.

The weather had warmed up from an unusually cold winter, and we planned an outdoor barbecue and Easter egg hunt. Jennie did not care for barbecued food, but she loved an Easter egg hunt. In addition to eggs, which Jennie loved to eat raw, we planned to hide all of Jennie’s favorite fruits and vegetables. It would be a one-chimp Easter egg hunt.

When the day came, everyone turned out. Dr. Prentiss and Harold Epstein had rounded up all the volunteers and assistants who had worked with Jennie during the Jennie project. Lea had gone to the nursing home and arranged for Rev. Palliser to come with his nurse. Lea’s mother came over, as did my mother. There must have been twenty or thirty people from the museum — curators, secretaries, and technicians, retired and current, who had befriended Jennie during her years there. I sent a blanket invitation to all museum employees, past and present, and even Will, the cranky old Scottish elevator operator, showed up, proudly driving a new Lincoln Continental.

We wanted the party to be a genuine surprise for Jennie. That morning Harold and I took Jennie out for a drive to Lake Kibbencook while Lea and Dr. Prentiss made the preparations and received the guests.

We drove on the circle drive around the lake. The leaves were budding on the trees, like a green mist in the branches, and the daffodils along the lake shore were in full bloom. It was a soft, warm day. We stopped at the Lollipop Gardens, a park along the lake where the trees had been trimmed into fanciful shapes. The lake was very still and cold, and the trees and sky were mirrored in its surface, another world trembling on the surface of the lake, darker and more mysterious than our own.

As we walked along the balustrade by the lake, a pair of swans came gliding by, the ripples shattering the reflected images into a confusion of blue and green and black. Jennie was excited to see the swans. She signed Play, bird play at them, murmuring and squeaking with interest. The swans ignored us and soon disappeared around the shore. Jennie was disappointed and signed Phooey bad bird .

We continued, each of us holding one of Jennie’s hands. Jennie was in high spirits and she shook our hands free to climb up one of the lollipop trees. It was a yew cut into two stacked boxes, and Jennie sat on the top box screaming with joy, clacking her teeth and shaking branches, as if proclaiming her presence to the entire world. “I am here!” she seemed to announce. “I exist!” Her voice echoed across the lake and came back faintly from the far shore, transformed into something distant and sad, like the cries of a lost animal.