Yann Martel - The High Mountains of Portugal

No one notices the chimpanzee in the tree except children. While grown-ups busy themselves with trips to the restrooms and with fuelling up their cars and their families, children look around. They grin. Some point and try to alert their parents. A random, blind gaze is all they get. The children wave at Odo as they drive off.

Five hours later, as the day is coming to an end, Peter is still looking up at the chimpanzee. Odo isn’t ignoring him. In fact, when he’s not distracted by activity in the gas station, Odo looks down at him with the same relaxed interest that Peter shows looking up at him.

When dusk comes, the air cools a little and still the ape does not come down. Peter opens the trunk of the car and pulls out his sleeping bag and Odo’s blanket. The ape hoots. Peter gets close to the tree and lifts the blanket in the air. The creature reaches down to grab it. He climbs back into the tree and wraps himself up cosily.

Peter leaves fruit, slices of bread spread with peanut butter, and a jug of water at the foot of the tree. When it gets dark, he lies down for the night in the car. He is exhausted. He is worried that Odo will flee during the night or, worse, attack someone. But he falls asleep with a last, pleasing realization: It is likely the first time since his African childhood that Odo has slept under the stars.

In the early morning, the fruit and bread slices are gone and the jug is half empty. When Peter emerges from the car, Odo comes down from the tree. He raises his arms towards him. Peter sits on the ground and they embrace and groom each other. Peter gives Odo a breakfast of chocolate milk and egg salad sandwiches.

At two other gas stations along the way, the same tree-dwelling scenario is repeated. Peter twice has to call the airline to change their reservations, at a cost each time.

During the day, as they drive across America, he finds himself at regular intervals turning his head to glance at his passenger, astounded again and again that he’s in a car with a chimpanzee. And he senses that Odo, who is otherwise much taken by the landscape going by, does the same thing, turns his head at regular intervals to glance at him, astounded again and again that he’s in a car with a human being. And so, in a constant and mutual state of wonder and amazement (and a little fear), they make their way to New York City.

Peter grows nervous as they approach the metropolis. He worries that Lemnon has played a trick on him, that at Kennedy Airport he will be stopped and Odo taken away.

The ape stares at the city, his jaw slack, his eyes unblinking. On a side road on the way to Kennedy, Peter stops the car. Now comes the hard part. He must inject into the ape a powerful animal sedative called Sernalyn, prescribed by the veterinarian. Will Odo attack him in retaliation?

“Look!” he says, pointing away. Odo looks. Peter jabs him in the arm with the syringe. Odo hardly seems to notice the prick and in a few minutes falls unconscious. At the airport, because of the nature of his cargo, Peter is allowed to go to a special bay to unload the ape. He assembles the cage and with considerable effort heaves Odo’s limp body onto a blanket on the floor of it. He lingers, his fingers hooked around the metal bars. What if Odo doesn’t wake up? Where will that leave him?

The cage is put on a dolly and wheeled into the labyrinth of JFK. Peter is accompanied by a security guard. When the customs official has gone through all the papers and verified his flight ticket, Odo is taken away. Peter is told that, if the captain gives his permission, he will be able to go in the hold during the flight to check on him.

He races away. He goes to a car wash, cleans the car inside and out, drives to Brooklyn. The prospective buyer proves to be a difficult man who magnifies every fault in the car and dismisses every quality. But Peter didn’t practice politics for nearly twenty years for nothing. He listens to the man without saying a word, then restates the agreed-upon price. When the man makes to argue further, Peter says, “That’s fine. I’ll sell it to the other buyer.” He gets into the car and starts it.

The man comes up to the window. “What other buyer?” he asks.

“Just after I agreed to sell it to you, another buyer called. I said no, because I made a commitment to you. But it’s better for me if you don’t want it. I’ll get more money that way.” He gets the car into gear and starts reversing out of the driveway.

The man waves. “Wait, wait! I’ll take it,” he yells. He quickly pays up.

Peter flags down a taxi and returns to Kennedy. He pesters the airline with his worries about Odo. They assure him that, no, they won’t forget to load the ape onto the plane, and that, yes, he will be loaded in the top hold, which is pressurized and heated, and that, no, there have been no reports of him stirring, and that, yes, he gives all signs of still being alive, and that, no, Peter can’t see him just yet, and that, yes, as soon as the plane is at cruising altitude they will inquire about Peter going to see him.

An hour into the flight, the captain gives his permission and Peter goes to the back of the plane. Through a narrow door, he enters the top hold. The light is turned on. He spots the cage right away, tethered to the wall of the plane with straps. It’s set apart from the first-class luggage. He hurries to it. He is relieved to see Odo’s chest rising and falling evenly. He puts his hand through the bars and feels the warm body. He would go inside the cage to groom him, but the airline has added its own padlock to the door.

Except for the odd trip to the restroom or for a meal, Peter stays next to the cage the whole flight. The flight attendants don’t seem to mind him being there. The veterinarian told him that a chimpanzee can’t overdose on Sernalyn. Twice during the flight he gives Odo an extra jab. He hates doing it, but he doesn’t want the ape to wake up in such a noisy, strange place. He might panic.

Enough of this, Peter thinks. He promises that he will never subject Odo to such egregious strains again. The ape deserves better.

A flight attendant enters the hold half an hour before the plane is due to land. He must return to his seat, she tells him. He does as he is told and promptly falls asleep.

When the plane bumps to a landing early in the morning at Lisbon’s Portela Airport, he groggily looks out the window, and it is he who feels panic racing through him. His heart jumps about his chest. His breathing is laboured. This is all a mistake. I’ll just turn around. But what about Odo? Lisbon surely has a zoo. He could abandon the ape in his cage at the entrance, an animal foundling.

An hour after all the other passengers have picked up their luggage and moved on, he is still waiting in the arrivals area. He spends most of that hour in a cubicle of a restroom near the luggage carousel, weeping quietly. If only Clara were with him! She would steady him. But if she were around, he wouldn’t be in this ridiculous predicament.

Eventually a man in a uniform finds him. “O senhor é o homem com o macaco?” he asks.

Peter stares at him dumbly.

“Macaco?” the man says, making to scratch his armpits while going oo, oo, oo, oo .

“Yes, yes!” Peter nods.

As they walk through secured doors, the man chats amiably in Portuguese to him. Peter nods, though he doesn’t understand a word. He remembers from long-ago conversations between his parents that this is what Portuguese sounds like, a slurred mournful whisper.

In the middle of a hangar, the cage is resting on a luggage cart. Some airport workers are standing around it. Again Peter’s heart jumps in his chest, but this time with gladness. The men are chatting about the macaco with evident interest. Odo is still unconscious. The men ask questions, to which Peter can only shake his head apologetically.