A Thousand Doors

by J. T. Ellison

  Bonobos can carry the same illnesses that humans can: polio, measles, the common cold. All debilitating, possibly deadly.

  Delu beckons to Masikio, and together the two leave the infirmary.

  The infant clings tightly to me as Dr. Jakande does her initial examination.

  “She looks to be close to nine months old but is small for her age. She may be a bit dehydrated but otherwise looks to be in adequate health. I’ll run her blood to make sure she doesn’t have any of the usual suspects: measles or polio.”

  “What about the bald patches?” I ask. “Her mother had the same thing.”

  “I’m not sure just yet,” Dr. Jakande says, bending down to get a closer look at the hairless areas on the infant’s back. “But I’ll figure it out. In the meantime, you look a little bit dehydrated, too. Why don’t you go back to your quarters and get cleaned up? I should be finished up by the time you get back.”

  “Maybe later,” I say. “I want to find out if Ngondu has learned anything about what’s going on in the forest. I’m sure that Delu will have assigned a Mama to her soon enough, and she’ll be over to check on her.”

  “Oh, Mia.” Dr. Jakande gives a little laugh and glances down at the infant, who is gripping tightly to my shirt and watching my face carefully. “I think she’s already found her new Mama.”

  I do my best to block out the infant’s cries as Dr. Jakande gently pries her little fingers from my shirt collar. As I leave the infirmary, Dr. Jakande calls after me, “She needs a name, Mia. What do you want to call her?”

  I’m leaving the sanctuary tonight, and there’s no way I want to get attached to this little creature, so I give a dismissive wave and a chuckle. “I’ll leave the naming to you,” I say and step outside.

  ————

  Back in the blistering sunshine, the sanctuary is unusually quiet for a Monday morning. Except for several men standing guard at the gate; the others must have heeded my warning about the gunfire and made sure all the bonobos and their caretakers are inside until all is safe. I spend a few minutes searching for Ngondu but learn he hasn’t come back from investigating the gunshots yet.

  “Mia,” comes the unmistakable lilt of Dr. Ibori’s warm voice. I turn and suddenly he’s standing in front of me. “Mia, are you okay?” he asks, laying his hands on my shoulders. “You weren’t hurt?”

  I want to lay my head on his chest and weep, but that wouldn’t be professional, so instead I pull away. “I’m fine. What’s happening?”

  “This is not how you want to spend your last day here, I’m sure.” Dr. Ibori rubs a hand over his lips. “Ngondu found the two guides you saw in the reserve. Both dead.”

  “Both of them?” I cry out. “Why?” I ask. “Do you have any idea who those men are?”

  “I have my ideas, but I don’t think I can prove it,” he says cryptically. “Not just yet.”

  Suddenly I remember the rucksack that slipped from my shoulder in the forest. “My camera,” I say. “I dropped it when I was running. I may have gotten pictures of them.” I move toward the gate, but Dr. Ibori snags my elbow.

  “Whoa,” he says. “You can’t go. Those men could be still out there.”

  “But so is my camera, and if there’s a chance we can get it before they do, we can identify them.”

  Dr. Ibori considers this for a moment and then raises Ngondu on his radio to let him know that we are coming into the forest. There has been no sign of the men except for the two dead guides. Local law enforcement has been alerted and are en route as well, but the area is remote and their jurisdiction large. It could take hours before they arrive.

  Dr. Ibori speaks with one of the guards, who hands him a shotgun. “Let’s stay close together,” Dr. Ibori says as we move into the shadow of the trees. I can’t help but feel at once both uneasy and comforted by the shotgun that Dr. Ibori now carries. He offers me one, too, but I decline. “We go find the camera and get out,” he says firmly.

  I concentrate on the terrain in front of me, trying to remember the exact route I had taken earlier. The good thing is that while fleeing I managed to trample vegetation and break twigs, so I’m somewhat confident we’re on the right path.

  We trudge forward through the thick mire of heat and humidity, and I’m getting discouraged. “I feel like we should have come upon them by now.”

  “You were running, though, right?” Dr. Ibori asks, wiping sweat from his forehead. “You covered a lot more ground in a short amount of time.”

  He’s right. I pick up my pace, but each pop of a branch or rustle of leaves makes me startle. Out of the corner of my eye, a dark figure ducks behind a tree. My heart spasms in fear, and I stumble. Dr. Ibori is immediately at my side and steadies me. “It’s okay,” he says. “Look.”

  I follow his gaze. Peeking out from behind a coral tree, teeming with hummingbirds, is Matthieu, the adolescent male bonobo. I breathe a sigh of relief. At least he’s okay. Matthieu scampers out from behind the tree and travels about thirty meters, then looks back to see if we are following him. Dr. Ibori and I exchange curious glances and follow Matthieu into the shadows. He takes us on a winding path through thick vines and cloying orchids. Foliage much denser than I remember. No wonder I’m so scratched up.

  “There,” I say recognizing the fallen tree. “That’s where I left her.” We rush over, and sure enough the adult female is still lying on her stomach, her breathing labored and her eyes glossy with pain.

  “Mia, the camera,” Dr. Ibori reminds me gently. “We’ll see to her, but we have to find your camera.”

  I nod and reluctantly move away from the female. I find my rucksack a few yards away, but there’s no sign of the camera. We scour the ground until once again Matthieu comes into view. He’s cradling something small and black in his arms, and for a moment I think he’s carrying a small bonobo. But no, it’s my camera. He examines it intently and then begins to swing the camera by its strap.

  “Matthieu,” I call out, trying not to scare him away. I’m not naive enough to think that Matthieu will just meander over and hand me the camera. He may be comfortable around humans, but that doesn’t mean he’ll comply. I dig into my rucksack and pull out a small package of popcorn that I had tucked away for a snack. I show Matthieu the bag and toss out a handful onto the ground. Curiosity gets the better of him, and he walks over to investigate. He picks up a kernel and gives it an experimental lick. Finding the taste pleasing, he pops it into his mouth, then eats the rest. I hold the bag, and Matthieu, dragging the camera behind him, comes closer.

  “It’s all yours, Matthieu,” I say. “Just give me the camera.” Matthieu reaches for the bag and momentarily releases his grip on the camera, and Dr. Ibori swoops in and grabs it. I relinquish the bag of popcorn to Matthieu, and he toddles off into the forest.

  I turn my attention back to Dr. Ibori, who is already looking through the digital pictures I’ve taken. “Do you recognize anyone?”

  He nods grimly. “I do.” He points at the camera display. “This man here. Dr. Warren George. He studies communicable diseases in a laboratory in Kinshasa.”

  “Why is he all the way over here?” I ask.

  “He experiments on animals. Primates. The treatment of his subjects isn’t well regarded.” Dr. Ibori looks over at the female bonobo struggling to breathe on the forest floor.

  “I still don’t understand,” I say. “Is he poaching our bonobos to study, or is he bringing bonobos into the sanctuary?” The thought makes my blood run cold. Could Dr. George have brought bonobos infected with some disease into Bone River? Why, though?

  “I don’t know,” Dr. Ibori admits. “But let’s get her back to the sanctuary and see what we can find out.” He sets the shotgun down on the ground, and we move to the female’s side and kneel down. Dr. Ibori lays a large hand on her forehead. “Don’t worry, Mother,” he says. “We are here to help you.” The femal
e somehow seems to understand his words and doesn’t struggle as together we carefully hoist her onto Dr. Ibori’s shoulder.

  This is when I notice him. Just off to the side of the female.

  An infant bonobo. Covered in rotting leaves, and still. “Twins,” I say in disbelief. “She had twins.”

  “Is it alive?” Dr. Ibori asks, stooping beneath the weight of the female.

  I brush aside the leaves. “Barely,” I say. “Male, approximately nine months, like his sister. We have to get both of them back to the infirmary.”

  I gently ease my fingers beneath the small creature when a loud crack erupts. I watch in horror as Dr. Ibori spins around from the force of the bullet and crashes to the ground along with the female bonobo. Blood is everywhere, though I can’t tell if it’s Dr. Ibori’s or the bonobo’s or both.

  Without thinking, I scramble for the shotgun that Dr. Ibori laid on the ground. It’s been decades since I’ve fired a gun. Not since I had gone pheasant hunting with my grandfather when I was twelve. But muscle memory is an amazing thing, and I aim and fire as soon as I spot the men. I pull the trigger, and the explosion fills my ears. Once, twice. That’s all I need.

  The man with the gun drops to the ground and clutches his thigh in pain. I swing the gun back toward the older man, who raises his hands in front of his face as if warding off the bullets.

  “Stay there,” I say. “Don’t move.” My words sound muffled, as if I’m under water, but they must have heard me because they both stay put.

  Suddenly, I’m surrounded by a group of familiar faces. Ngondu and a handful of other staff from Bone River have arrived.

  “Are you hurt?” Ngondu asks me.

  “No, no,” I say and press the gun into his hands. “But Dr. Ibori.” I scramble over to where Dr. Ibori and the mother bonobo are sprawled in a pool of blood. Together Ngondu and I turn Dr. Ibori over, and he stares sightlessly up at us. His shirt is drenched with blood and his chest is still.

  I press my hands over the wound in hopes of stanching the blood flow, but I know it’s too late. My mentor is gone.

  Ngondu helps me to my feet. “Go with Victor,” he tells me kindly. “He’ll get you back to the sanctuary.”

  “I don’t want to leave him,” I cry.

  “I will stay with Dr. Ibori, don’t you worry. He will not be alone.”

  I nod and allow Victor to lead me away. I glance back at the mother bonobo, lifeless and forgotten in the chaos. That’s when I remember the infant. I find the twin where I must have dropped him when I reached for the gun. He is shivering, and his dark eyes are wide with fear. I carefully lift him to my chest, and I turn back to follow Victor from the rain forest.

  The other patrols are dealing with the men who shot Dr. Ibori. Both are on their bellies, hands behind their backs, guns trained on their heads. I must have only grazed the man I hit. Very little blood seeps from his leg. Part of me is relieved that I haven’t killed him, part of me wishes I would have.

  Victor and I make the trek back to the sanctuary in silence. The infant clutches my index finger tightly with his little hand, and whenever he makes a sound I stroke his back and press him a little closer.

  ————

  Back at Bone River, we are met with a flutter of concerned staff. I can’t bring myself to tell them what has happened to Dr. Ibori. I’m ushered into the clinic, where Dr. Jakende is waiting for us. She takes in my blood-covered hands and the baby bonobo. “I’m fine,” I tell her, my voice breaking.

  More than ever I want to leave this place. I want to go home and see my parents. I want to crawl into my childhood bed and pull the covers up over my head. I want to forget Bone River and the bonobos. Someone takes the infant from me and guides me to a chair. I sit, and Mama Delu presses a cold cloth to my face. She wipes Dr. Ibori’s blood from my skin, all the while talking to me in soothing tones.

  A telephone rings from the office area. I’m shaking even though the air in the clinic is hot. Someone tucks a blanket around my shoulders. Dr. Ibori is gone. He’s really dead.

  Ngondu finally comes back and fills us in on what the police were able to get out of the two men, one of whom was Warren George, just as Dr. Ibori thought. An animal rights activist infiltrated Dr. George’s laboratory. Seeing the horrific conditions the animals were enduring, she managed to smuggle the female bonobo and the two infants into the reserve and planned to go public when she had rescued as many other animals as she could.

  “He’s been crying for you,” Dr. Jakende says as she gently lays the male infant in my arms. I’m crying, too. For Dr. Ibori, the guides, the animal rights activist, for the mother bonobo and her orphans.

  Again the telephone rings, but no one moves to answer it. We are all listening intently to Ngondu’s account of what happened.

  “When Dr. George found out about what the activist did, he wanted his ‘patients’ back––dead or alive—to destroy any evidence. The other man, a hired thug, panicked and shot the guides after they overheard the conversation of silencing the pretty scientist.” Ngondu glances my way. I guess I was the pretty scientist. Tears roll down my cheeks and land on the infant’s face with a small splash.

  “Money,” Ngondu says. “Dr. Ibori was murdered because Dr. George was making a lot of money on the drugs he was testing in his lab.” Ngondu shakes his head. “The body of the woman who infiltrated his research facility was found. She, too, was murdered.”

  I look up at the clock on the wall. I have to leave in the next few hours in order to catch my flights back to the States. But I’m a witness to murder, and I’m sure I’ll have to delay my departure. In the coming week the university is expecting me to begin teaching at the outset of the new semester. They may have to wait.

  “What are we going to do now?” Ngondu asks. “What will happen to the bonobos? To us? Will we close down?”

  “I’m sure that Dr. Ibori has made arrangements for the sanctuary beyond his death,” Dr. Jakende says. “There must be a trust or something.”

  I hadn’t thought about this. Bone River is Dr. Ibori and Dr. Ibori is Bone River. One cannot survive without the other. I push the thought away.

  Mentally, I make a list of what needs to happen next. I need to speak to the police and give my statement. I need to call the university. I need to let them know that they may need to make arrangements for someone to cover my classes until I arrive. Dr. Ibori’s funeral must be planned. That would fall to those of us who knew him best. He has no family beyond those of us at Bone River.

  One of the vet techs is trying to feed the female infant while I am feeding the male infant. “She won’t eat,” the tech says in frustration. The female bats the bottle away and reaches for me.

  The tech tucks her into my free arm, and I awkwardly take the bottle and tip it to her lips. It takes her a moment, but her thin, pink lips wrap around the latex nipple and her eyes widen in surprise and she begins to suck vigorously.

  Dr. Jakende comes to my side and looks at me expectantly. “Have you come up with names yet?” she asks, and I smile up at her.

  “His name is Abioye––’Son of Royalty,’” I say, thinking of the twins’ mother who died. “And her name is Ayana,” I whisper as Ayana’s eyes close sleepily. “That’s her name. ‘Beautiful Blossom.’”

  “Lovely,” Dr. Jakende says.

  Again the phone rings and rings. Mama Delu gets up to answer it. After a moment, she calls out, “It is someone asking for the person in charge.” The room grows quiet. No one speaks.

  I set the now-empty bottles aside and carefully get to my feet. I hand Abioye to Dr. Jakende and Ayana to Ngondu. Mama Delu holds out the receiver to me, and I press it to my ear and listen. After a moment, I lower the phone to my side and turn to face my colleagues.

  I won’t be going back home. Not tonight, not tomorrow. Maybe never, I think.

  “The remainder of
the bonobos at Dr. George’s research facility are going to be sent here,” I say. “We are going to have a full house of very ill bonobos, my friends. We have work to do. We have to prepare.”

  The Senator’s Wife

  Alisha Klapheke

  One

  The house-sized closet full of wool suits, strapless cocktail dresses, and kitten heels stares at me.

  It is the worst kind of horror.

  How did I—the art history grad student who valiantly battles a penchant for shoplifting art supplies—end up as a senator’s wife? A snort escapes me. Because of David. He’s how I landed here. Ten years ago, his mind was sharp enough to challenge my eager ideals, his ass was the best I’d ever seen, and he was the ticket away from my workaholic mother who never understood the word weekend.

  I grab for the painfully sensible purse on the top shelf, my knuckles dragging against a forgotten book. Leaving the taupe nightmare of a purse where it is, I slide the heavy tome out of its hidden spot.

  Monet’s Life at Giverny.

  The glossy cover reflects the closet’s harsh lighting. This is a book that longs for beeswax candles and flea market lamps, so much the better for perusing the images of paintings, mills, and fading portraits of the artist himself. The book was a gift from Mom on my eighteenth birthday. I really don’t care to think about how long ago that was.

  My diamond watch says it’s time to dress for the stupid dinner party. I can’t help but sigh. No one at the party, except Vivi and Rob, who are horrible, will want to talk to me. They never do. This book, however, has been waiting just for me. The pages slip through my fingers. They smell like my college library, like dust and faded perfume. Monet has always been my preferred artist. It’s cliché at this point—every student on the far side of elementary school says the same—but I don’t care. Monet loved the colors of the garden, river, and field. He struggled with his art, slogging through pits of lost inspiration only to soar to the heights of artistic confidence. An ache spreads through my chest and squeezes my heart. I never even tried to struggle with my art. I simply became David’s wife and threw in the towel. Or brush.