Jennie (33 page)

I mean, this guy was just a poor, ignorant simpleton from Franklin's Pond Harbor, Maine, who didn't understand the world at all. Didn't have a clue.

It was very weird. And then at the end of the letter, he said he was coming up there. He was coming. He wanted some answers. I mean, it took a second for us to figure out what the hell he was talking about. Whew. That's when we realized it wasn't just a letter. It was a suicide note. Tundish had written it right there, and put it under the fireplace. And then he just walked into the ocean.

My father was reading the letter out loud. And when he finished,
his voice was cracking, and I saw his hands were shaking. I mean
shaking
. And he put the letter down and the look on his face was awful . . . It scared the shit out of me. I'd never seen him so frightened. So he got all gruff and stuffed the letter in his pocket and said he'd give it to the local historical society. I think he probably just threw it away. No one ever said a word about it again.

In his book my father fudged that whole issue—like so many others—by saying the letter was illegible. That was my father's way. If something was unpleasant or difficult, his way of dealing with it was simply not to deal with it. To bury himself in work, or pretend it never happened.

Oh, I'll tell you, there's a lot that isn't in that book of his. A lot. And I'll tell you something else. There's a lot that isn't going to be in your book either. You can no more understand and tell the truth about Jennie than that guy from
Esquire
. No offense. Even if we did tell you everything. Which we won't. Nobody ever tells the full truth.

Damn! Listen to that wind!

[F
ROM
an interview with Dr. Pamela Prentiss.]

I didn't see Jennie at all from the time the project ended in the summer of 1973 until spring of 1974. Almost a year. Without a structured environment, Jennie became very difficult. She was also starting to reach sexual maturity. Naturally, the Archibalds wanted to get rid of her. So they asked me if I would take her to the Tahachee Island Rehabilitation Center. This was a center I had started for rehabilitating laboratory chimpanzees. It was also a breeding colony of chimpanzees in the United States. There is, you see, the very real possibility of the chimpanzee becoming extinct in the wild. If things keep going on the way they are in Africa, it will be inevitable.

Now, I knew this was coming. I expected it. No family has ever
kept a home-raised chimp past sexual maturity. When that happened, I was going to bring Jennie to the Barnum colony, you see, where she would have a huge area to play and be herself while she got used to the other chimps.

The Tahachee Center was a second-best option. It wasn't nearly as elaborate as the Barnum colony, but it was pretty good. I thought it would be a nice place for Jennie. Much better than the chaos of the Archibald household. The Tahachee Center was being generously funded by the MacBruce Foundation. Thank God we weren't dependent on government funding. We had the direct support of Simon MacBruce. MacBruce is a fiercely independent type, and he didn't give two hoots for the Proxmire flap. It made Miller so mad to see me get the MacBruce grant!

The center is still going, by the way, and we now have forty-two very happy chimpanzees there. While they must be supplementally fed, they've adjusted to the semiwild life of the island very well. It's been an unqualified success.

[F
ROM
an interview with Lea Archibald.]

After Dr. Prentiss and Harold left, I remember that Hugo and I talked. The island reminded us of how much Jennie loved Hermit Island, and we talked about what a perfect environment it had been. We also talked about what it means to grow up. At a certain point, parents have to let go of their children. We felt that Jennie's problems stemmed from her efforts to become independent. But you see, the problem was that Jennie wasn't a human being so she couldn't just “become independent.” She wasn't like Sandy, who could move out, get a job, and find an apartment. Her rebellion could go nowhere.

We talked, and we cried, and we talked some more. Oh dear. Hugo was terribly upset at the whole thought of giving Jennie up. I was too, but not like Hugo. To let her go was the hardest decision
we ever made. We talked to Sandy and Sarah about it. Sandy was violently opposed to the idea. He was so angry at us. It was awful. He threw a chair through the picture window in the living room. Oh dear, that was a terrible moment. Sarah said that whatever we decided would be all right with her.

We didn't accept Dr. Prentiss's proposal right away. Hugo first looked into other possible research projects or primate centers. He researched everything. There were several around the country, but all of them kept the chimpanzees in cages. There was a primate rehabilitation project starting in Africa, but that was mostly for chimpanzees confiscated from poachers, and it was a much rougher setting. The chimpanzees there were wild animals, really, and we didn't feel Jennie would do well there. After all, Jennie had never seen another chimpanzee in her entire life. Not one.

Finally, Hugo and I decided to accept Dr. Prentiss's proposal. I remember when Hugo made the phone call. He dialed her number and then he couldn't even speak into the phone he was so choked up. I could hear her nasty little voice coming through the receiver, demanding to know who it was, and then Hugo just hung up. It's so painful now to remember. How I wish he'd just left it at that. But he called her right back and said that, yes, we would accept her offer. Naturally, we wanted to see the setup and the island, and meet the caregivers. They didn't call them “keepers” since they wanted to avoid the image of a zoo, you see.

So we flew down there. . . . Excuse me. . . . I'm a little upset. Look at me, already starting to cry. We flew down there and looked the place over. . . . Please forgive me. I'm just a useless old lady. It was seventeen years ago but it still seems like yesterday. It's hard for me to talk about this. . . .

[Editor's note: At this point Mrs. Archibald excused herself and the interview was resumed the following day.]

The place was so pretty. The island was about a mile wide and two miles long, quite sandy, with lots of eucalyptus trees, pines, and palmettos. The beaches were sandy and the water was so blue.

Sandy wouldn't come. He disappeared for several days. To his girlfriend's house. She had a dreadful alcoholic mother and she and her sister pretty much ran around like wild animals.

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.”

[F
ROM
Recollecting a Life
by Hugo Archibald.]

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.