The Four Fingers of Death (87 page)

“Morton, really—”

“Because I know there are a lot of problems in a relationship like this. I am certain that many human relationships have problems associated with them, and that is the conventional shape of the human relationship. There’s the constant pressure that you would feel as a human being, because you are not accepting of your primatological origins, on, for example, the subject of sexual relations with multiple partners. Probably you are in an almost constant state of desire for multiple partners and are just fighting this off because you don’t understand your primate essence. This is how I felt until recently, this desire for multiple partners, that is until you and I began to experience our unique bond. Once I began to experience the singularity of this bond, then I began to see the precious, frail way that human beings insist on this idea of monogamy. Even though it most often fails to be realized, there’s a crazy, ridiculous lovableness about it. I don’t know if I can live up to it, however. Just so you know. This would definitely be one of the areas we would have to cocounsel about, in regard to our relationship. I feel, for political reasons, that I really need to stay close to my origins in the chimpanzee community, and to honor the separate and parallel cultural evolution that we are developing in the chimpanzee community, and that means, probably, that this monogamous ideal is not going to be possible in the way you are used to. On the upside, however—”

“Morton, Dr. Koo is going to be here any minute, and he’s going to have to examine you in order to determine—”

“I don’t really have any preconceptions about your serving me, in the way that human females are sometimes meant to serve the males, because I am a male of my species and you are a woman from yours. While it’s true that women are lower status in chimpanzee communities, I have read enough about my bonobo relatives to understand that matriarchal primate communities do exist, and that patriarchy is really an accident of history as much as anything. So if you need to have a certain amount of independence, a room of your own, in the context of our relationship, that’s really all right with me. I don’t expect anything more. You don’t need to cook for me, because I really am observing a raw food diet these days, which is healthier anyway, and you certainly don’t need to do my laundry, because I don’t have any clothes and don’t like wearing them much. It’s really just the status issue, I suppose. I
am
used to a little bit of deference, because I am a male, and because I’m large and strong by human standards, and because I can grab things with my feet, which you are simply unable to do. So there will be some areas where my status needs to be acknowledged, and we will have to agree on that. But I am willing to grow and learn, you know, especially if there are sexual techniques and positions that you want to teach me. Really, chimpanzees don’t have a lot of ideas about sexual positions. It’s kind of the same thing all of the time. A steady diet of what I believe you refer to as doggy style—which is a genuinely unappealing term. However you want to instruct me in this secret language of sexual relations, I am your happy pupil.

“Also, I am happy to listen to your story of coming to awareness in the sisterhood of the feminine. I am actually a very good listener, which I understand is not often the case with the males of your species. I don’t think, for example, that Larry is a very good listener, but I am a good listener because, for the time being, I am learning a lot about your language, and I am incredibly interested in your language, and I would like to learn more.”

“Stop, please, Morton, stop.”

“What I hear you saying is that in the context of this conversation I haven’t given you much room to express your point of view. I understand. I do. But I’ve been rather angry today. I was a little bit angry with Larry earlier, and I just need to be able to talk through some of this, within the cocounseling paradigm. There will be time for you to speak in a minute or two. As far as anger goes, I’m thinking that you’re going to recommend some anger-management modality, and I want to say that on that subject I have done a little bit of reading, on primal scream therapy, and I can see how that might be very useful for the kind of anger issues I’ve been experiencing. If I could perhaps purchase—or maybe the university could purchase for me—some of the foam bats that are used in the primal scream therapeutic scenario, I might really be able to make some progress, so that you won’t have to feel disappointed in how I express my anger. I want you to know that I would never be one of those fellows who would use my power to threaten a gentle and sweet woman who is the object of my love. That’s not the way that I am.

“Let me know when and how you would like to begin the cocounseling, or however you want to proceed, just let me know at your earliest convenience when you are ready to begin, and I will be happy to proceed—”

“Morton!”

“What?” the chimpanzee shouted, in a cry that sounded to him more chimpanzee than human, like the nervous laugh of the low-caste adolescent. Was he not paying attention? Was he not being sufficiently deferential? Was he not making progress in his honorary membership in the world of the human beings? Whatever else his cry signified, it was a cry that happened to coincide with the arrival, through the doorway, of Dr. Woo Lee Koo.

Woo Lee Koo, intrepid researcher, was followed by a slightly sheepish and perhaps mildly intoxicated Larry Hughes, so that Morton’s modest cell now contained the entire stem cell research team—Dr. Woo Lee Koo and his retinue of full-time graduate students. It was a rich moment, a moment that seemed to suggest drama, evolutionary history, philosophy, ontology, the very notion of consciousness itself.

“Well, Morton,” said Koo. “Here we are. And how pleasant to make your acquaintance.”

Morton, who was as yet not entirely schooled in the deciphering of human expressions, wanted to believe that Koo was just another weakling whose skull he could crush if he needed to, but Koo had a more intimidating effect upon him. Koo, who was a little Asian guy with thinning hair and a completely impassive disposition, would be nobody’s idea of intimidating, certainly no chimpanzee’s idea of intimidating, and yet Morton felt genuinely worried. As if he would be tortured any minute now, perhaps with electrodes attached to his privates. He indulged in a little of that cowering, deferential aspect that younger chimps use around the alpha males. How was this so? Koo couldn’t outfight him. He doubted that Koo could even outthink him, but Morton was heavily outnumbered in the cell, in the corner, by the shackles, and the three humans were staring at him with an expression that he wasn’t sure how to interpret, and he was
afraid
. He was especially afraid of Koo. Humans really
were
more ruthless than any other species. They always had weapons stashed away. If they couldn’t take you the fair way, which they never could, they got out the depleted uranium.

“Morton, both Larry and Noelle are reporting that there have been some unusual changes in your demeanor. They are reporting that you are able, in fact, to speak. This is exciting news not only for me, but for the research we are undertaking, and for medical research generally, and I’m therefore wondering if you’d be able to demonstrate your new skill for me.”

Morton cowered over by the shackles.

Koo said, “I understand if you might be feeling a little reticent at the moment, perhaps a bit shy. And I know that you and I have had our difficulties in the past, and it’s possible that you don’t really want to speak to me, based on some of our prior interactions, but I’m wondering if you would just consider talking for the sake of science. If for no other reason. It may not seem to someone with your background that this is such an estimable accomplishment, to speak for the sake of science, but consider what is at stake. You are now, despite international regulations on stem cell implantation, the world’s first talking chimpanzee. Isn’t that something that would interest you? You are, without having even set foot out of this cell, a celebrity, a scientific miracle. Would you be willing to speak to all of this? To the broader implications of your case?”

Larry, who’d been keeping his distance behind the other two, muttered something Morton could barely make out:

“… pretty talkative when he was getting ready to tear me to shreds. He had a lot to say then.”

“Maybe I can motivate him,” Noelle said. And thus Morton’s beloved came forward, supplicatory, offering to him her shapely hand. Morton had, he learned all at once, given insufficient attention to the specifics of the human hand. The latticework of its gracefully engineered anatomical parts. Hers was long and slender—perhaps it was the kind of hand that made for a good piano player—and it had a number of silver rings encircling its digits. And he noticed there was a ring on her
thumb
, and Morton had to admit that he was momentarily offended by the thumb ring. The humans really lorded it over the rest of the world with their big restless hands, and yet they had to decorate them too? Still, he was willing to forgive her almost anything, and the pink, hairless, almost fetal quality of Noelle’s hands, likewise the painted fingernails, slightly chipped, these seemed exotic. The color of her nails was the color of the sky, some desert sky blue, a color that was not entirely out of phase with Noelle’s eyes, but here he was looking at her hand, and though he wanted to maintain a vigilant silence, a dignified silence, the presence of this hand, and the longing he associated with it, with its mound of Venus, these made it nearly impossible not to do what Noelle asked of him. He melted at her gentle touch.

“Morton,” Noelle said, “Dr. Koo just wants to get to know you; that’s what he’s here for. We all want to get to know you. Don’t keep yourself from us. We are so proud of you, and we
care
about you, and our concern, above even your value as a scientific accomplishment, is for Morton, the
friend
to our research. Please feel like it’s okay to tell us a little bit about yourself. Let us help.”

With a sigh, he began. If the world could have shifted on its axis, it might have.

“Well,” he began, “that subject you were remarking on before, about how I’m a celebrity in the outside world. Let’s go back to that point for a second, if we could. Because you know it’s true I have never really been outside, not in any sustained way, and if I’m such a big celebrity, according to what you have said, then why the heck can’t you let me get to see a little of the outside? A celebrity, I mean, in my humble opinion, that’s somebody with an entourage, with a parade of vehicles. I have no such celebrity, insofar as I can evaluate these things.”

“It’s for your protection, really,” Dr. Koo remarked. “We find that most of the animals are more peaceful for not having to undergo the kind of stimulation that they would have to endure in, for example, a zoo environment.”

“Boy, I’ve heard that one before,” Morton rejoined. “The old ‘it’s for your protection’ line. That’s a classic. Why don’t you try allowing
me
to make some decisions about the danger and whether or not I’m in danger? Would that be so difficult for you? To allow me to make my own informed decisions? Maybe that would be an important part of your experimental protocols.”

Koo chuckled at this response, which only piqued Morton further. And yet the doctor, in recognition of a changed landscape, did offer the following:

“If you are willing to let me ask you a few questions for my own records, then perhaps we could take a quick trip outside, as long as this voyage is carefully supervised. Additionally, you would have to agree to refrain from talking in public, at least for the time being. And you would have to travel in areas that we believe are safe, so that you aren’t exposed to any harm. So that you aren’t somehow lost. There has been, for example, a rash of kidnappings taking place in Rio Blanco at present. Drug related, I believe. But we could take you for a little drive, if you agree to our requirements, as I have outlined them. It would be much easier for us if we could continue this arrangement in a way that is consensual; I’m sure you agree that it would be good for the team.”

“Consensual. That’s a word that I’m honestly grateful to hear, because it’s my understanding that not very much has been consensual around here. For example, what would you hear if you could get that lemur down the hall to open up about some of his experiences? I’m betting that
consensual
is not the word he’d use. I’ve heard him moaning in pain all the day long—”