Дуглас Престон - Jennie

We decided to bury Jennie’s ashes on Hermit Island. It was the happiest place of her life, the only place where she could be herself. We put them in a clay jar that Sandy had made as a child, a big clunky thing colored in big green and yellow stripes. Sandy had been so proud of that jar when he brought it home. We kept it on the windowsill of the kitchen ever since. It was just about the only thing Jennie hadn’t managed to break. It was indestructible.

We went to Hermit Island two weeks later. It was late May, but it was still cold and blustery. Hugo got the boat out of the barn and fixed up the engine — it had broken over the winter somehow — and we put it in the water in Franklins Pond Harbor on Saturday morning. It looked like bad weather, so we bundled up in sweaters and slickers. There was quite a chop out in the sound and I made the mistake of musing out loud that perhaps it might be just a little dangerous? Well! Sandy just about had a fit. So we loaded up the boat and set out.

The air still smelled of winter, it was that cold. On the way over it started to drizzle, and the water in Hermit Cove was black. Just as we got there the Monhegan foghorn began blowing, making these long soundings that rolled across Muscongus Bay. Ever since, I’ve associated that sound with burying Jennie on Hermit Island. So low and sad, like some lost lonely creature of the deep.

We hiked about the island, all through the wet grass, and got soaking wet. Sandy scattered a handful of ashes here and a handful there. He strewed some along the rocks and at the base of a spruce tree Jennie liked to climb.

We buried the jar with the rest of Jennie’s ashes in the hole in the back of the fireplace where Sandy found the secret letter. We fitted the stone back in place, and then we lit a fire and made some hot tea. And we talked about Jennie, and we toasted her. We cried a little, but we tried to make it a happy moment. In a curious way it was a release. What kind of life would Jennie have had, if she lived? If she couldn’t get along with other chimpanzees? And you know, she never would have accepted other chimps. I really believe that now. So what kind of a life was she going to have? Locked up in a cage? Put in a zoo? I’ve come to feel, over the years, that maybe her death was a blessing in disguise. She was too... too free for the world of people. Although chimps and humans are supposedly so closely related, there is still a gulf there — a vast gulf. We almost bridged that gulf, but in the end it didn’t work.

So we huddled by the fire, and the roof leaked more than ever, and Sandy said a few words and we left. That was what, seventeen years ago? And we’ve never been back to Hermit Island. I don’t imagine there’s much left of the cabin, after all those winter storms. The roof was already on its last legs. It isn’t that we avoided the island, it was just that we never seemed to get around to it. We always talked about going back. Now with Hugo gone, I don’t suppose I’ll ever get back there. The boat was sold, Sandy’s in Arizona, Sarah’s in New York. I’m just a useless old lady now.

I still go to Maine, and Sarah visits every August with the grandchildren. Sometimes when I’m in the farmhouse, and the fog rolls in, I listen to the Monhegan foghorn, blowing, just blowing, and I think of the day we buried Jennie. And I think of Jennie’s cold little jar there in the hermit’s cabin in that secret place.

You know, I’m not a religious person, but sometimes I think I can hear Jennie hooting and laughing from a great distance when the waves are crashing on the shore. Of course it’s bosh, just my imagination, but it always gives me a start. Yes indeed it does. And who knows, maybe she is out there somewhere in that big old strange universe of ours. Maybe when I die she’ll be there waiting for me with open arms and a big halo around her head. Now wouldn’t that be something?

It snowed last night. Did you hear the wind all night long? When it blows like that, it just sucks the heat right out of this place. Out the smoke hole. We’ll go for another ride today. The desert in the snow is the most beautiful sight in the world. That coffee should be ready in a few minutes. Tortillas and beans for breakfast? Good, because that’s all I’ve got. Unless you brought the bagels and smoked salmon from Zabars. [Laughs.]

We slept late. I’m usually up long before the sun. Throw open that door, let’s see what happened. Ahhhh! Look at the snow! Stretching all the way to the mountains like a blanket of white. A blanket of forgiveness. Snow heals the earth. The Navajos, see, they believe that a living being named Hak’az asdzdáá , or Cold Woman, brings the snow. They worship her, because without snow the land would burn up and the springs would go dry.

Pile some more coal on that fire and let’s warm this joint up.

Where were we? Will you look at this, he’s already got that damn tape recorder going. Sorry about last night. I still have a few things to work out. Ahhhh, well.

Anyway, they told me in the hospital that Jennie was dead. I wasn’t a bit surprised. I knew it already. I knew it the morning I woke up in the nature preserve that I was going to see Jennie for the last time. It was like a death already, to see Jennie in that cage.

You know, they’re gonna tell you it was an accident. That’s what they all decided. She fell and hit her head. That’s what they decided. Right. Let me tell you: they just couldn’t face the truth. Oh, they believe it all right, but I know better. She didn’t fall. I saw the autopsy report. I saw her body. But what really matters is that I knew her. Goddamnit, I knew Jennie, and I know exactly what happened that night. When I first went in that building, I saw what she was doing to herself in that cage, pounding with all her might on her own head with her fists. I saw where she’d pulled her hair out. I saw her run at the bars of the cage. I saw that she’d reached the end of the line. The morning after, when I woke up in the hospital, there were these huge bruises on my side. I was wondering just where those came from, when I realized. It was from Jennie gripping me, holding me for all she was worth. That’s how desperate she was. That’s how much she loved me.

That injury wasn’t caused by a fall. Bullshit! There were two parallel fractures in her skull. What happened was, she woke up in the dark, all alone, silent. And she saw that she was still in the cage. She saw that even I , her friend and protector, couldn’t save her. I was gone, dragged away kicking and screaming, and that must have scared the shit out of her, to see me dragged away like that. She thought I was God and when she saw me dragged away by Gabriel and his men she knew it was all over. I was her last hope and when she saw that she knew it was over. And so she ran full tilt at the bars of her cage with her head. Broke her skull, just shattered it. Deliberately. She killed herself. She wanted to die, and she killed herself. She was going to live free or she was going to die. There was no middle ground.

Jennie was capable of understanding the meaning of death. That crazy old minister, Palliser, taught her all about death. I mean, the poor guy thought he was teaching her about Christianity, but all he did was scare her shitless about death. Jennie and I talked about it, about death. Like about her dead cat. Man, she remembered that cat of hers for the rest of her life. She couldn’t understand just what the hell death was, how someone could just disappear. The whole concept was a mystery. The fact that it could happen was what scared her. And then when Palliser’s wife died, I remember she came back from across the street, and she was following me around, asking over and over again Sandy dead? See, she said dead but what she meant was “Are you going to die?” So she went around signing Sandy dead? Sandy dead? Whimpering and dragging herself around behind me, afraid to let me out of her sight. She was just as scared of death as any human being. But scared not for herself, but for me . Think about that.