Half Brother (30 page)

“He’s been having a bit of a bad patch, Ben. I’m not going to lie to you.”

Zan and Rachel were still getting along, and they shared a cage at night, but apart from her, the other chimps weren’t accepting him. Part of it was Zan. He didn’t
want
to fit in. He liked spending time with Peter outside the chimp house, but that was about it.

“But you said last time he was making progress,” I said, confused.

“Sometimes there’s a kind of delayed thing,” said Peter. “Helson says he’s seen it before. They’re okay for the first little while, then they freak out. Maybe we were delaying it with Helson’s human therapy experiment. I thought it was a stupid idea myself, but he’s technically my thesis supervisor, so I can’t really say no to him. Anyway, Zan’s gotten kind of … antisocial.”

“What do you mean exactly?”

“He doesn’t seem to enjoy much,” said Peter. “He’s not eating so well. He pulls out the hair on his arms a bit.” I swallowed. “Why would he do that?”

“Helson said it’s common. It’s a trauma reaction. It passes. He, um, also rocks by himself sometimes.”

I remembered that film I’d seen last year, that tiny chimp in a tiny cage, hugging himself and rocking and rocking, desperate for any kind of contact and comfort. The rip in my chest started opening up again.

“What about Rachel? Doesn’t she hug him?”

“Yeah, when Zan lets her, but sometimes he just wants to be alone.”

“He misses us,” I said.

“I’m there with him every day, Ben. I’m taking flak from Helson because I’m carrying Zan around everywhere and feeding him by hand. He just wants to toss Zan into a cage with the other adolescents and be done with it.”

“What would happen?” I asked, horrified.

“They’d fight, they’d scream, but then Zan would finally realize he’s a chimp and get on with his life. That’s Helson’s theory. Not a big fan of babying.”

“We’ll be down in two weeks,” I said.

“I know. Helson’s pissed off, though. He thinks you’ll just set him back.”

I didn’t care about Helson. I needed to see Zan, but it killed me to think my presence might hurt him more.

I fought to keep my voice steady. “Do you think I shouldn’t come?” I asked.

“You come,” he said. “You need to see him.”

“Does Zan need to see
me?”

“I can’t think of anything in the world that would make him happier,” said Peter.

Before falling asleep that night, I worried about Zan, and when I woke up, I worried about him some more.

I crashed and burned on my final exams. I had hardly opened the books. I’d told Mom and Dad I was studying, but I wasn’t.

Report cards came two days before Mom and I were to leave for Nevada.

Dad said, “Your marks can’t be very pleasing to you, Ben.”

I took a deep breath. “The data is correct, Dr. Tomlin. I am unexceptional. Project Ben was a failure. But don’t worry. I’m sure there’s somewhere you can send me.”

He looked at me, and there wasn’t any anger in his eyes, only sadness. He exhaled, and then stabbed me with a smile. “Well, it’s been a tough term. I hope you and your Mom have a good time in Nevada.”

I wanted to say something to him.

Sorry,
or something like that.

I felt my hands twitch, like they wanted to sign, like they wanted to say the thing my mouth couldn’t. But no words came.

M
ile by mile, the heat grew as we drove south, until it was almost better to keep the windows rolled up, to keep out the searing wind. Dad’s Mercedes didn’t have air conditioning. We tried to leave early in the mornings and find a motel by four.

The trip was so different from the one Dad and I had taken two years ago, crossing Canada. This time I sat up in front with Mom the whole time and we talked and talked and our words filled the car. I loved it. Away from Dad, Mom seemed different, younger, happier—freer somehow. We talked a lot about Zan, how we felt when he first arrived, and how our feelings about him changed week by month by year. We talked about the things he’d done that made us crazy and made us love him, and the things that made us shake our heads in amazement.

When Mom and I listened to the radio, sometimes we sang along together, so loud once that we didn’t hear the siren
of the police car that was trying to pull us over for speeding. The cop was pretty harsh with Mom when he first came to the window, but she was so apologetic and pretty and charming that within three minutes he was chuckling, and he let us go with a warning, and wishes for a great vacation in Reno.

I had my birthday on the road. I turned fifteen, and that night at dinner the waitress brought out a cake with sparklers on it and everyone in the diner sang “Happy Birthday to You.” It was the best birthday ever, because I knew I’d be seeing Zan the next day.

We pulled onto the gravel drive of Helson’s ranch around ten-thirty in the morning. Peter must have heard our car coming, because he emerged from the chimp house to meet us. He looked different. He’d cut off his beard, just leaving the moustache, and it made him look younger and handsomer, but also kind of vulnerable.

He opened his arms to me and I gave him a big hug. Then Mom surprised me by hugging him too and giving him a kiss on the cheek—something I’d never seen her do around Dad.

“I’ve got Zan in a cage by himself,” Peter said. “I figured Rachel might get a little jealous, so I moved her to the other side.”

As I walked into the chimp house, my stomach did gymnastics. What if he’d forgotten me? What if he thought I was a traitor for leaving him?

All the chimps set up their usual din when we entered
the building. Zan was in the corner cage, and as I slowly approached the bars, he turned.

He stared for a moment, motionless, expressionless, and for a second I thought:

It’s happened. He’s forgotten me.

Then his eyebrows shot up and his lips pulled back in a smile to reveal his lower teeth. He raised himself on his legs and ran to the bars.

His hands greeted me instantly. He pursed his lips for a kiss and I let him shower my cheeks, and then I kissed him all over his forehead and face.

Come tickle!
he signed.
Hug! Hug!

I pushed my hand through the bars and tickled him as much as I could. He didn’t smell like us any more. Not our soap or shampoo or food. He smelled clean, but more like a real animal. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was being here.

“I missed you, Zan. I missed you so much,” I said aloud. I didn’t even try to sign it because my feelings were in such a hurry.

Out. You me out. Open now!

“Can he come out?” I asked Peter. “Or can I go in?” “We’ll bring Zan out after lunch.”

The way Peter said it made me realize these were Helson’s rules, but I didn’t care right now. It was so good just to be beside him, and we talked and laughed and played through the bars. He greeted Mom warmly too, and they spent a long time grooming.

Though he still seemed small compared to the other chimps in the colony, I could tell he was bigger now, in the face and
chest and legs especially. His skin was a bit darker too. Just two months. He looked pretty healthy. Peter had been taking good care of him. I checked Zan’s arms and saw a few mangy patches where he’d pulled out his own hair. It didn’t look too bad. But then Zan smiled and I noticed one of his upper teeth was missing “What happened to his tooth?” I asked. It was too early for him to be losing baby teeth.

Peter nodded uncomfortably. “Bit of a run-in with Zeus.”

“Helson put them together?” Mom said, aghast.

“Part of his acclimatization regime,” Peter replied. “Zan and Rachel are very friendly now, and that’s great, but the ideal would be to introduce another male into the mix. I’ve been working on Caliban and Igor slowly.” He rocked his head side to side. “Limited success so far, but I’m still hopeful. It’s early days. But Helson’s more of a tough-love guy. He wants Zan integrated faster. So he started bringing in some of the other males, sometimes two at a time. Mostly it goes okay—if everyone just kind of stays out of everyone else’s way. Other times, there’s trouble.”

“Doesn’t Rachel stand up for him?” I asked.

“She does, but her status is fairly low, and she’s not that strong, so she backs down pretty fast if she’s ganged up on. Anyway, Zan’s still wary of the other males and he usually gets as far away as he can, against the bars of the cage. He turns his back on them, which they don’t like—it’s insulting. But Zan doesn’t know that. So he just stares out the bars.”

Like a prisoner, I thought, wishing I could take him a million miles away.

“One day Helson let Zeus in,” Peter continued, “and Zeus watched Zan for a while, and then just walked over and gave him a smack. Zan’s face hit the bars, and his tooth got cracked right in two. We had to remove it.”

My eyes watered just thinking of it. I looked at Peter’s cattle prod, and imagined shoving it into Zeus’s chest and zapping him until he fell over. Why would anyone pick on someone so small?

The chimps suddenly all hooted and we turned to see Dr. Helson entering the building with Sue-Ellen.

“Sarah, lovely to see you again,” he said, shaking Mom’s hand—and holding it a little longer than I thought was necessary. I was watching him more carefully now, after what Dad had said. “And, Ben, hello there, young man. I’m sorry I didn’t come out to greet you. I was on a long-distance call.”

“We were just noticing Zan’s missing tooth,” Mom said directly.

Dr. Helson shrugged. “A baby tooth. It’ll come back.”

“Perhaps it’s not wise to have Zeus and Zan in the same cage yet,” Mom said.

I could tell Dr. Helson didn’t like this at all. He seemed to stand a little taller and his nostrils flared.

“Strange as it may sound, Zeus was doing Zan a favour. Zeus was asking for an acknowledgement of his superiority, which is natural and right in a colony. It’s also Zeus’s way of saying ‘Snap out of it.’ And after that slap, I noticed Zan didn’t spend as much time staring meekly through the bars. Wouldn’t you say, Peter?”

“He’s a little more active now, definitely,” said Peter.

“Your Zan’s just having a good long sulk,” Helson said, looking from me to Mom. “It’s not good for him, and it’s upsetting the harmony of my colony. He needs to adjust. Faster the better. Now, I hope you’ll have dinner with me tonight.”

I noticed Mom hesitate a second before saying, “That would be lovely, thank you.”

“I’m off early tomorrow for a conference in Florida, so it’s my one chance to visit with you properly. Barbara’s getting back tomorrow and Peter knows the ropes. They’ll be able to answer any questions you might have for your doctoral dissertation, Sarah.”

“Thank you very much,” said my mother. “I’m sure it’ll be a very productive visit for me.”

That afternoon after lunch, Peter took Zan out to one of the fields with me and Mom. Sue-Ellen came along. School was out for her too. She’d grown up with chimpanzees and was completely comfortable around them. She was patient and gentle and respectful—and it made me think her father couldn’t be a complete monster, or where would she have learned all this? Zan really seemed to like her.

Mom had brought her notebook and was observing Zan, and asking Peter all sorts of questions. Sue-Ellen and I mostly played with Zan in the shade of the few trees.

“He’s such a darling,” she said. “Caliban and Igor are sweethearts, but they have nothing on Zan.”

I wondered if she was just trying to be nice, but she seemed genuine. She’d learned some signs on her own, so she could talk to Zan. She was quite pretty, a bit short maybe, but I liked watching her breasts move under her halter top. I wondered if she was interested in me.

At the end of the afternoon Peter had to put the collar on Zan and walk him back to the chimp house. Outside his cage Zan gave me a hug, squeezing his arms around me so tight it started to hurt.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I told him, but if he understood, he didn’t believe me. He clung to me even tighter. “Zan,” I said. “Let go! You’re hurting me!” And I actually gave him a thump on the back to get his attention. I’d never hit him before.

“Zan!” said Peter, and lifted the cattle prod.

At the mere sight of the prod Zan whimpered and stopped squeezing me. I didn’t like to see him threatened like that—or that Peter was the one to do it—but I was glad Zan let go. He was a lot stronger than I remembered.

Sorry,
he signed to me.
Sorry.

Sorry,
I signed back, and stroked his arm and shoulder.

We tickled a bit more. I wanted to show him I wasn’t angry. And after a while, he seemed happy enough to jump up onto Peter and get a piggyback into his cage.

That night at dinner I think Dr. Helson tried to get Mom drunk. He kept filling her wineglass. This time, Zan was not
in a cot beside us. Peter had not been invited. It was only Helson, me, Mom, Sue-Ellen, and Winston.

Just like last time, Dr. Helson had cooked the meal. It was pork—from one of the pigs on his farm, he told us. Apparently he had all sorts of animals on it. He wasn’t just interested in chimpanzees.

The food was excellent. And I didn’t want a single bite of it.

Back at the motel later that night, I said to Mom, “I don’t want Zan to be here.”

“I know,” she said. “But I think this really might be the best place for him, Ben.”

“Right! He’s already lost a tooth. Next it’ll be a toe, or maybe Zeus’ll just bite his head off. Dr. Helson wouldn’t care.”

“I don’t like him either,” Mom said.

“Put an eye patch on him, give him a white cat to stroke, and he could be a Bond villain.”

We laughed and it felt good, but it didn’t change the fact that Zan wasn’t safe, and one day he could get hurt. Or worse.

We only had three more days at the ranch, and Mom and I both wanted to spend as much time with Zan as possible. Peter had taught Zan about eight new signs, and Zan certainly didn’t seem to have forgotten any of his old ones.

I was glad Dr. Helson had disappeared for his conference. I hated him, his tall arrogant body and cold green eyes. The way his alpha male gaze settled on my Mom—and then on me, like I was some newborn chimp he’d like to destroy so he could mate with my mother and make more of his own offspring.
Good riddance, Dr. Helson.