Yann Martel - The High Mountains of Portugal

“Dr. Lemnon! Dr. Terrace is on the phone.” He turns to see a young woman standing next to one of the buildings.

Lemnon is jolted to life. “I have to take that call. If you’ll excuse me,” he grunts as he walks off, without waiting for a response from his guest.

Peter breathes a sigh of relief at seeing the man go. He turns to the chimpanzees once more. There are five of them. They move slowly on all fours, their heads low, the bulk of their weight in their upper bodies, held up by their thick, strong arms, while their shorter legs follow along like the back wheels of a tricycle. In the sunlight, they are surprisingly black — roving patches of night. They amble a little distance and sit down. One of them climbs onto the lowest platform of the log structure.

Nothing much, but there’s something satisfying about watching them. Each animal is like a piece of a puzzle, and wherever it settles, it belongs, clicking into place perfectly.

The subordinate is still with him.

“We weren’t introduced. I’m Peter,” Peter says, extending his hand.

“I’m Bob. Pleased to meet you, sir.”

“Same here.”

They shake hands. Bob has a prominent Adam’s apple. It keeps bobbing up and down, which makes his name easy to remember.

“How many monkeys do you have here?” Peter asks.

Bob follows his eyes to the main island. “Those are apes, sir. Chimpanzees are apes.”

“Oh.” Peter points to the other island, where he saw the creatures swinging through the trees. “And those over there are monkeys?”

“Well, as a matter of fact, they’re also apes. They’re gibbons. They’re members of the ‘lesser’ apes, as they’re called. The rule of thumb is, monkeys have tails and apes don’t, and generally monkeys live in trees and apes live on the ground.”

As Bob finishes speaking, the chimpanzee sitting on the low platform climbs and swings with acrobatic ease to the top platform. At the same time, the other apes, the lesser gibbons, reappear in the tree on their island, dancing through the air from branch to branch.

“Of course, nature serves up lots of exceptions to keep us on our toes,” Bob adds.

“So, how many chimpanzees do you have here?” Peter asks.

“Thirty-four right now. We breed them to sell or loan to other researchers, so the number varies. And we have five being reared by families around Norman.”

“Reared by human families?”

“Yeah. Norman must be the cross-fostering capital of the world.” Bobbing Bob laughs, until he notices Peter’s nonplused expression. “Cross-fostering is where baby chimps are raised by human families as if they were human.”

“What’s the point of that?”

“Oh, lots. They’re taught sign language. It’s amazing: We communicate with them and see how their minds work. And there’s lots of other behavioural research going on, here and elsewhere, on the social relations of chimpanzees, their forms of communication, how they structure their groups, patterns of dominance and submission, maternal and sexual behaviour, how they adapt to change, and so on. Professors and PhD students from the university come here every day. It’s as Dr. Lemnon said: They’re different from us, but weirdly similar too.”

“And all the chimpanzees live on that island?” Peter asks.

“No. We bring them out here in small groups for experiments and sign-language lessons, and for a little rest and relaxation, as is the case with the group you see now.”

“Don’t they try to run away?”

“They can’t swim. They’d sink like stones. And even if they did get away, they wouldn’t wander far. This is home for them.”

“Aren’t they dangerous?”

“They can be. They’re strong and they have a mouthful of knives. They need proper handling. But they’re mostly incredibly sweet, especially if you’re promising them candy.”

“Where are the other ones?”

Bob points. “In the main compound, there.”

Peter turns and starts walking towards the building, assuming it’s the next stop on the tour.

Bob comes up behind him. “Oh! I’m not sure that’s part of — of the visit, sir.”

Peter stops. “But I’d like to see the other chimpanzees closer up.”

“Well — um — we should maybe talk to — he didn’t say—”

“He’s busy.” Peter starts off again. He likes the idea of irking the almighty Dr. Lemnon.

Bob hops along, making noises of hesitation. “All right, I guess,” he finally decides, when he sees that Peter isn’t going to change his mind. “We’ll make it quick. This way.”

They turn a corner and come to a door. They enter a small room with a desk and lockers. There is another metal door. Bob pulls out a key. He unlocks the door and opens it. They go through.

If the island in the pond gave the appearance of a sunlit idyll, here, inside this windowless building, there is the reality of a dark and dank underworld. The smell hits Peter first, an animal reek of piss and misery, the tang of it made fierce by the heat. They are at the entrance of a rounded, tunnel-like corridor of metal bars that shreds the space around them, as if the bars were a grater. On either side of this corridor hang two rows of cubic metal cages. Each cage measures about five feet on either side and hangs in the air from a chain, like a birdcage. The front rows are set off from the back rows so that every cage is easily visible from the corridor, one closer up, the next a little farther in. The cages are built with round steel bars and are perfectly see-through, offering not the least privacy. Underneath each is a large plastic tray littered with the refuse of its inmate: rotting food, excrement, pools of urine. Some cages are empty, but many are not, and those that are not contain one thing and one thing only: a large black chimpanzee.

An ear-splitting explosion of shrieking and screaming greets them. Raw fear grips Peter. His breathing is cut short and he stands rooted to the spot.

“Quite the effect, huh?” shouts Bob. “It’s because you’re new and ‘invading’ their territory.” With his fingers Bob signals the ironic quotation marks around the word “invading”.

Peter stares. Some of the chimpanzees have bounded up and are shaking their cages with fury. Restrained by horizontal chains, the cages swing only so much. It’s the way the apes are suspended in the air, cut off from each other, from the very earth, that freaks him out. They have nothing to hide behind, hold on to, or play with, not a toy or blanket or the least bit of straw. They just hang there in their barren cages, the very image of incarceration. Hasn’t he seen movies like that, where a new inmate walks into a penitentiary and all the inmates start to jeer and catcall? He swallows hard and breathes deeply, trying to master his fear.

Bob moves forward, occasionally hollering some comment or other, unconcerned by the mad ruckus. Peter follows him closely, walking in the exact middle of the corridor, well clear of the bars. Though he can see that the animals are securely confined — in cages and then behind bars — he’s still afraid.

Every three or four cages there is a heavy-gauge chain-link fence that runs from the corridor bars to the wall and ceiling of the building, separating one set of cages from the next. Yet another layer to the confinement. Each of these fences has a door through it, at the back, next to the wall.

Peter points to a fence. “Aren’t the cages enough?” he yells.

Bob shouts back, “It allows us to release some of the chimpanzees so they can be together in larger but separate spaces.”

Indeed, in the relative darkness of the compound, Peter notices on one side of the corridor four chimpanzees lolling about the floor, near the back wall. At the sight of him, they get up and start acting out. One makes to rush the bars. But at least they look more natural like that — on the ground, in a group, lively and dynamic. Bob gestures that Peter should squat down. “They like it when we’re at their height,” he says in Peter’s ear.