Through a Window (26 page)

M
ELISSA CLEARLY MERITS
special attention, if only as mother of one of Gombe's most dynamic alpha males. Her life was remarkable in other ways too. For one thing, she gave birth, in 1977, to Gombe's only known twins. I shall never forget my first sight of the babies—fraternal twins whom we named Gyre and Gimble. Melissa was sitting in the late afternoon sun, holding the two tiny bodies close to her breast so that they were all but invisible. One was suckling, the other seemed to be sleeping. When Melissa moved off, followed by her daughter Gremlin, I went with them and by the time I got back to the house that evening I had a real appreciation of the enormity of Melissa's task. Most infants, by the time they are two or three weeks old, can cling to the mother without support for long periods of time. The twins gripped well enough. But one kept clinging to the other by mistake: then he would pull his brother loose and both would start to fall, uttering loud cries of distress. Melissa had to give them almost constant support, holding them close with one arm, or travelling with her legs bent so as to support their backs with her thighs. Once, that first afternoon, one of the twins half-fell and banged his head on the ground. He screamed loudly and this set the other crying too and it was several minutes before Melissa managed to quieten them. She also had a lot of trouble making her nest. I couldn't see her well, for
she was in dense foliage, but I heard a lot of crying from the babies.

That evening Derek and I talked with Hilali, Eslom and Hamisi around the fire. Hamisi described his first observation, when the babies were only a few days old. Melissa had travelled very slowly, walking a few yards at a time, then sitting and cradling the twins for a minute or two before moving on again. She had seemed exhausted and had made her nest early. The following morning Eslom managed to climb high in a neighbouring tree so that he could see into the nest. Gremlin left her small bed just after 7.00
A.M.
and began feeding nearby. But Melissa showed no signs of stirring for another hour and a half. Then she sat up and began to groom herself, occasionally making a few grooming movements on one or other of the twins. Ten minutes later she stood up, ready to go: the infants at once began to whimper. So Melissa sat down again, looked helplessly at the babies for a moment, and then lay down. Fifteen minutes later she again tried to leave—as before both babies began to cry and so Melissa, after cradling and briefly grooming them, lay down once more. The same thing happened several more times, and it was almost two hours after her first attempt to leave that she finally made it. Clutching the twins tightly and ignoring their frenzied screaming, she climbed from the tree with almost desperate haste. Only when they were all three safely on the ground did she stop to comfort them.

For the first three months of the twins' lives Melissa was followed every day for we all feared that Passion and Pom would strike again and we planned to intervene if they did. And in Melissa's mind too the memory of their bitter attack on her previous infant must have been vivid for, despite the difficulty she experienced in travelling with her two babies, she managed, during the first month, to keep close to one or other of the big males almost all the time. The advantages of this were made very clear to me one day when the twins were about a month
old. I had followed Melissa, Gremlin and Satan as they climbed to the very top of the mountain ridge we call Sleeping Buffalo. It was a grey, cold afternoon in November, with thunder grumbling in the south. Earlier it had rained hard, and our high valley was still dank and chill under the sullen clouds. I shivered as I watched Melissa feeding on palm nuts above me. Suddenly a twig snapped: I turned sharply and found, to my horror, that Passion and Pom had approached, moving almost without sound on the soft, wet, forest floor. Now they stood, motionless, staring up towards Melissa and her babies. None of the chimps above had seen them. With slow, stealthy movements Pom started to climb towards Melissa. Passion, heavily pregnant, climbed as well, but she soon stopped and watched from a low branch. Pom, creeping very quietly, got closer and closer and I was just about to yell a warning when suddenly Melissa saw them. Instantly she began to scream, loudly and urgently and, reckless in her panic, took a huge leap through space, towards the nearest branch of the next tree, the babies supported only by her thighs. My heart was thudding but somehow all three made it and Melissa hurried to sit close to Satan—who had stopped feeding and was watching Pom intently. Melissa, with one hand laid on the big male's shoulders, turned and barked her defiance at the younger female. And so the attempt was foiled. But if Satan had not been there it seems almost certain that another gruesome battle would have taken place, high above the ground, and there would have been nothing I could have done to help.

Very soon after that incident the twins developed quite bad rashes on their bellies and inner thighs, and Melissa, we noticed, had lost a good deal of hair in the region of her groin. This was because all three were becoming fouled with urine and faeces. Usually a baby's excrement falls neatly between the thighs of the mother as she sits—and if, by chance, there is a mistake, the mother quickly picks a handful of leaves and wipes herself clean. But it did not work this way with the twins, and Melissa simply
could not cope. And then, on top of this, Gyre somehow hurt his foot. Clearly he was in considerable pain, for he screamed loudly almost every time Melissa moved—a strange scream, high-pitched like the wild cries of some sea bird in distress. Poor Melissa—the crying of one sick twin was bad enough, but so often Gimble joined in, frightened, perhaps, by the intensity of his brother's calls. Sometimes when they yelled Melissa sat and cradled them until they quietened. But at other times, holding them tightly, she moved on very fast, uttering a series of cough-like grunts—as though she was threatening them. Usually they then screamed even louder and, after a few minutes Melissa, utterly confused or fed-up (or both), climbed into a tree and, with the same quick movements, constructed a large nest. During this process the screams were redoubled and could be heard from afar. But once Melissa lay in her nest with them, all was quiet.

Now that Melissa could no longer keep up with the big males, she and Gremlin spent much time in the vicinity of camp. It was fortunate indeed that Passion, heavy with child, was no longer interested in devouring the infants of others. And Pom, although she could almost certainly have snatched one of the twins without much difficulty, clearly lacked the nerve to tackle an older female without the support of her high-ranking mother. However, while the danger of a cannibalistic attack thus seemed remote, we were worried on another score. For Melissa, preoccupied with the task of transporting and quietening her twins, spent less and less time in feeding. Some days, indeed, she fed for only an hour—whereas normally an adult chimpanzee spends some six to eight hours a day in feeding. We gave Melissa extra bananas, and the men gathered some of the wild fruits that were in season and offered those as well.

After a week I decided that we should give Melissa a course of antibiotics. I hoped that this would get into her milk and help to clear up Gyre's infected foot. And so, for five days, we took a little supply of bananas with us when we followed Melissa and,
at regular intervals, handed her one—laced with medicinal powder. I don't know if this helped, but Gyre's foot did get better and soon Melissa was able to go about her daily business with no more difficulty than before.

Gyre's injury, however, was a setback from which he never really recovered and from then on it was clear that Gimble was developing much faster than his twin—and even Gimble was way behind a normal youngster. It was not until he was six months old, when most infants are already taking their first steps, that Gimble began to pull himself to different positions on his mother's body. Yet once he began these exercises, Gimble was soon able to scramble up onto Melissa's back. Having mastered this skill he very often rode on his mother during travel, or draped himself with his head hanging over her shoulder as she sat feeding. Sometimes he even slept like that. Probably he liked getting away from the somewhat crowded accommodation offered by the maternal lap. It was not until he was ten months old that, for the first time, he broke contact with Melissa to take his first tottering steps and climb onto his first small branch. Gyre, however, never even tried to walk or climb. He remained quietly on his mother's lap, often with his eyes closed.

The 1978 dry season was unusually harsh and by August there was less food than usual at Gombe. Even before this there had never seemed to be quite enough milk for two infants, and now it was obvious that both twins were permanently hungry—at almost any minute of the day there was one, if not two, infants tugging urgently at Melissa's breasts. Gimble, stronger and more active than his brother, almost certainly took more than his fair share of the scant supply, and so Gyre became more and more lethargic. When he fell sick with the cold that was going the rounds, his weakened system could not cope. The cold became pneumonia and one day Melissa arrived in camp carrying Gyre, a small limp body, in one hand. He was too weak to cling to her, he breathed with difficulty and his eyes remained closed.

When Melissa climbed into a tree, supporting Gyre only with her thighs, he fell, landing with a thud on the hard ground some ten feet below. Melissa rushed down to gather him up, embrace him and groom him. He was still breathing when she moved off, but she carried him as though he were already dead, slung over her shoulder and held in place with her chin. He fell several times, lying motionless on the ground until she picked him up. The following morning he was dead.

I was sad when Gyre died, and disappointed at the lost opportunity to chart the development of twins in the wild and study the relationship between them. Nevertheless, I couldn't help but feel that, for both Melissa and Gimble, it was for the best. Certainly Gimble then began to make up for lost time. Soon, although tiny for his age, he was practising acrobatics in the branches and playing with other youngsters. He became increasingly active, gambolling from place to place, performing little stamping displays, turning somersaults, and, on many occasions, playing wildly with fallen leaves. Sometimes he swept them into a great pile with his hands, then moved backwards, pulling them after him. Or he pushed them ahead of him in a mound that grew bigger and bigger as he went. Often he rolled in the leaves, and once he threw handfuls all over his head and back, then rubbed them against his face.

Melissa still had her problems, but they were different now. Gimble often refused to follow her when she was ready to leave: either she had to drag him away, or she had to wait. Once, as she tried to pull him after her, he seized hold of vegetation with both hands and clung on for some moments before she could wrench him free. Eventually she got him onto her back, but after she had taken only a few steps he leapt down and ran back to play. Quickly Melissa grabbed him again and dragged him after her. Soon he escaped and once more ran to play. Melissa chased after him, but he avoided her and hid behind a tree. Melissa followed and, as he gambolled away, grabbed at him—and missed. He began to play again. Melissa watched for a moment, then reached out cautiously, seized his hand and began to pull him over the ground after her. Gimble bit her hand but it was only in fun and she reciprocated, tickling him. Soon he was laughing loudly. After that she once more put him on her back and this time he stayed on board.

Throughout Gimble's infancy Gremlin was an integral part of the family. At Gombe there is no closer relationship in chimpanzee society than that between a mother and her grown daughter. Females seldom start to leave their mothers, even for a few hours, until they are about ten years old—and then only when they are sexually attractive. There are definite benefits for a young female who hangs around with Mother. For one thing, she can often get the better of females older than herself because her mother usually intervenes on her behalf if things go wrong. The mother typically joins forces with her daughter against the early challenges of young males, too. But it is not all roses. The young female has to pay a price for this protection and support: her mother will dominate her utterly, showing all the authoritarian discipline of a Victorian matriarch. Thus it is Mother who chooses the direction of travel, Mother who decides whether they should move fast or slowly, Mother who automatically gets first choice of feeding place and food. Gremlin, like all the other young females, soon found this out for herself.

When, for example, they were termite fishing Melissa repeatedly displaced Gremlin from her working place, or reached over and took her daughter's tool. At first Gremlin often threw tantrums. I remember one occasion when Melissa seized a spendid long tool that Gremlin had just fetched and prepared: Gremlin hung on tight, whimpered, then gave little screams. At this Melissa embraced her until she quietened—and
then
took the tool! But as time went on Gremlin became increasingly philosophical: she sometimes whimpered a little when her mother robbed her thus, but then she would move off to find herself a new place to
work, or to pick herself another tool. Sometimes Melissa only needed to look towards her daughter with, presumably, an acquisitive gleam in her eye, for Gremlin to relinquish her claim to a food item—to a tunnel in a termite mound or a fruit-laden branch, for example. When Gremlin got to a tree ahead of her mother, and she determined, after gazing up, that there was only a limited supply of food, she would often move away of her own accord, leaving the field clear for Melissa. This was as it should be. Melissa had suckled Gremlin and shared food with her for years—now it was important that she take over the richest supply so that she could build up her strength and nurture other youngsters. And Gremlin, with only her own healthy body to care for, not only had lower nutritional requirements, but also the unbounded energy of youth. Moreover, she could feed high among the slender branches that were out of bounds for her heavier mother.