Half Brother

by Kenneth Oppel

  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.

  TWENTY-TWO

  CH-72

  Mile 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.

  That morning, one of the other handlers brought Igor out to the field with Zan, and they seemed to be getting along pretty well, playing in the trees and breaking off low branches to make nests.

  “He’s a strange hybrid,” I heard Peter say to Mom. “I mean, he tries to sign with the other chimps. He’ll sign before he’ll vocalize. He tries it with them, and sometimes he gets really angry when they don’t understand, and there’s a showdown and it gets physical. He’s no coward. I’ve seen him stand up to pretty much everyone, except Zeus. Him, he just ignores, but I think it’s fear.”

  “We taught him too well,” said Mom. “To be a human.”

  Peter nodded. “And it’s harder for him to fit in like that.”

  I felt suddenly really sad. We’d made it impossible for him to be what he was. Making him human made it easier for us to care for him and teach him—and maybe even love him. But now, could he ever be loved by chimps?

  Later, when I told this to Sue-Ellen, she said, “Rachel loves him, and I think he loves her too. They sleep together, all cuddled up, just like a mother and baby. You watch, tonight after dinner. And I think he and Igor are starting to get closer. He just needs to learn how to play, chimp-style, a bit more. It’s rough stuff. We wouldn’t like it.”

  We were walking past one of the other paddocks where some of the older chimps were playing. They liked to bite each other and throw each other around.

  “If they did that to us, they’d kill us,” I said.

  “Yep.”

  “Is that Sheba?” I asked, pointing. She nodded.

  “What’s wrong with her? Her bum’s all swollen.” It seemed enormous, like two fleshy red lobes.

  Sue-Ellen looked at me, smiling faintly. “That’s not her bum. That’s her genitalia.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling foolish.

  “That’s what happens when the females are in estrus. It shows they’re ready to mate.” “And does she?”

  “Oh, all the time. Lately she seems to like Rex best. That’s why we’ve been putting them in the same paddock. They usually have a go at it, around this time.”

  We stood there by the fence, watching, waiting for them to have a go at it. I felt the day’s heat on my hat, my face, trickling from my armpits down my sides. I glanced over at Sue-Ellen, saw the faint sweat rings on her T-shirt and suddenly felt a deep surge of desire. It was kind of awkward, waiting for chimps to start mating, standing a few inches away from a girl, but I was pretty curious too.

  Rex came sniffing around Sheba, but after fifteen minutes nothing much seemed to be happening and Sue-Ellen laughed and said, “Another time, I guess.”

  “Another time,” I echoed, half disappointed, half relieved.

  On our third night, Peter had Mom and me over to his place in Reno for fondue. He lived in a little apartment building not far from the university campus. He was on the top floor, but he had an air-conditioning unit in his window and it was going full blast, so we were pretty comfortable.

  Mom had brought the best bottle of wine she could find at the liquor store near our motel. The store was called the Liquor Barn and seemed to sell mostly whisky and beer.

  We all sat down around the wobbly table and stuck our bits of bread and meat into the fondue pot. When Peter served the wine he poured me a full glass and winked.

  “Helson’s gonna make an alcoholic of me,” he said. “Some of the days on that ranch …”

  I was so much happier here than I had been at Helson’s dining table. For the first part of the meal Peter wanted to know about us and what was going on back in Victoria—about my school and what happened to Jennifer, and who was Shannon, and was that going anywhere, and was I going to keep going to Windermere? Normally I might have been self-conscious answering around Mom, but things felt different somehow, with just the three of us—or maybe I’d just had lots of practice talking about myself with Dr. Stanwick.

  Afterwards Peter asked Mom about her research and when she’d submit her dissertation. He asked a little about Dad and his rat experiment.

  He and Mom finished the bottle of wine pretty fast, and then Peter got out some cold beer.

  Holding his bottle, Peter looked from side to side, a bit nervous, like the guy who gives James Bond secret information before getting fed to sharks in the next scene.

  “There’s stuff going on here,” he said.

  I sort of giggled, and so did Mom.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  Peter wasn’t smiling. “It’s hard for me to figure out because
I’m so new, and people aren’t sure they can trust me yet. I’m not sure I can trust them either.”

  “You’re sounding a little paranoid, Peter,” said Mom.

  “I know, but just listen. I think Helson’s star is falling at the university. Some of the stuff he does here is kind of, well, way out there. He’s done these experiments with pigs and electroshock.”

  I swallowed, thinking of the other night’s pork.

  “And there’s this thing with gibbons he’s got going in another barn, putting newborns in total isolation for the first week of life and studying the results.”

  “I can’t imagine they’re good,” said Mom.

  Peter shook his head. “His experiments aren’t attracting much funding, and I know for a fact his budget got cut back last year. He was hoping to make a lot of money renting Zan out to all these people—he calls them his patients. He’s not a licensed psychotherapist but a lot of people like to get counselling from him.”

  “There’s a lot of weird people out there,” I said, and tried to help myself to a beer, but Mom caught my hand and put it firmly on the table.

  “Anyway,” said Peter, “I don’t think Helson’s had any other requests for Zan. In Manhattan, maybe it’d be huge, you know, chimp therapy, who knows. In rural Nevada, no.”

  “What’s worrying you, Peter?” Mom asked.

  I looked at Peter. “You don’t think he’s going to sell Zan?”

  “Look,” said Peter, “this could get me into a lot of trouble, but … Helson got a letter from the Thurston Foundation.”

  “Who’re they?” I asked, looking from Mom to Peter.

  “They do biomedical research with animals,” Mom said.

  Now I remembered: the newborn chimp in the isolette, rocking to comfort himself. That was the Thurston Foundation.

  “They’re really bad,” I said.

  “One of the worst,” said Peter. “They do a lot of drug trials, for hepatitis and tuberculosis and other things. Makes Helson’s ranch look like a five-star resort.”