Thirty Seven
Twice, that morning they let the bonobos out to exercise, calling them back inside when they started shivering. Their combined body heat kept the air inside the rooms warmer than the enclosure.
Every once in awhile Frankie would turn her BodyWare back on and try a few commands, then switch it off fairly quickly. The unresponsive hum she found spooky.
Stotts continued to scout for more food and drink.
After the Snack Shack was emptied, he searched the other buildings. She stood at a window watching him move from one building to another. He always seemed to be in motion now, moving mechanically and tense. He’d lost some weight. It was likely he had never gone this long without talking to his family, without knowing Tess was ok.
Twice that morning, she caught him staring at her, an expression in his eyes somewhere between unhappiness and alarm. Probably he wished she was a veterinarian or Quark expert or at least someone who didn’t parboil her crotch.
She spotted the keeper and others also out there searching. They didn’t seem to be finding much since most times when they left a building they carried nothing.
*
Midmorning, Stotts returned carrying some lighter fluid and a hibachi, the heavy cast-iron kind that sat on the ground.
He said, Ta-da.
What, Frankie asked.
Now we can cook.
She stared for another second, then understood, My potato flakes?
She hugged him hard—so grateful he was fixing her mistake. Perhaps from being around the bonobos so much, she was losing some sense of personal space: how long to hug, how close. He stepped back from her a bit abruptly.
He said quickly, Along with teaching Goliath to knapp, as part of that grant I got, I’m supposed to teach them to cook.
She stared into his eyes, worried she’d offended him. She could still feel his chest against her cheek. She said, Cook?
It’s another Stone-Age technology.
Early humans cooked?
Yes ma’am, he nodded.
She imagined Mama crouched by a fire, turning a mango on a spit. She asked, You want to teach the bonobos that?
My next bit of research. Probably get to it in the spring.
She looked at the hibachi and said, Well, no time like the present.
He paused.
She said, Right now, they’re motivated to learn.
He looked over at Adele and Sweetie, the closest bonobos. Adele was giving Sweetie what appeared to be a dental exam.
Frankie jerked her thumb at them and said, Right now they wouldn’t play with their toes or stare off at the sky or take a nap. If you told them food was coming, you’d have their attention.
At the word food, Adele and Sweetie turned around.
She said, It took you months to get Goliath to begin to knapp, right? And before that you worked with some other bonobo who wouldn’t do it. Lack of success is not necessarily lack of smarts. It could be lack of motivation.
Adele knuckled closer, watching them.
Stotts looked down at the ground for a moment. She saw ambition flicker in his face.
She said, You’d never be allowed to keep them hungry like this normally.
He asked slowly, Could you keep them back from the fire?
Yep.
He turned to her, his eyes serious, I mean a good four feet back. They could get burned in a second. You understand that?
Let’s try it with Mama. If she gets it, we can do it.
He said, They get too close, even once, we stop. Agreed?
Agreed.
They set the hibachi up in the enclosure so the smoke could disperse out the open vents. For wood, they broke up a small table from the office area. Kneeling beside the grill, it took them awhile to start the fire—the surprising difficulty of lighting a flammable object. They ended up using a lot of lighter fluid. She felt admiration for her ancestors rubbing sticks together.
Once the fire was crackling, she let Mama into the enclosure. Tooch was tucked into Mama’s sweatshirt, his head sticking out, his eyes riveted on the fire. Standing between Mama and the hibachi, Frankie said, Dangerous. Don’t touch. Hot hot. It can hurt you. It can hurt Tooch.
Frankie made the sign for danger—jabbing at her face with her thumb and blocking the motion with her other arm.
Mama stared at the flames flickering above the hibachi. She covered Tooch’s head with her hand, backing away. It might have been because of Frankie’s warning, or maybe, growing up with humans, Mama had at one point hurt herself on a gas stove.
Since Mama so clearly understood, they let the others in, one by one. Anytime one of them got too close to the hibachi, Mama would waa-bark at them, sharp and no nonsense. Once Marge and Adele caught on, they joined in on the barking. Soon they’d settled down several yards back from the fire, in a semi-circle, eyes big. They watched every move Stotts made.
Like a magician, he held up each of his props for them to see, making big gestures. Demonstrating the pot was empty, he poured in Orange Crush, then added the Crisco and set it on the fire. The bonobos considered his actions gravely, pressed in against each other for warmth. Frankie held onto Id just in case.
Once it was boiling, he took it off the hibachi and added the potato flakes, stirring. Frankie moved from bonobo to bonobo, giving each a precise allotment of soda, Id tucked into her sweater.
The mashed potatoes ended up tinged a light tangerine. Frankie spooned a small amount out, waiting until it was just warm to the touch. She offered the spoonful to the bonobos.
This time she didn’t have to demonstrate the food was edible. Houdina leaned forward to lip off a tiny bit of food. She moved it around in her mouth, her eyes focused on the distance—the taste of Crisco and potatoes, mixed with the sweet soda—then took a bigger bite. Seeing her reaction, the rest of them held out their hands.
While the bonobos ate, Frankie fed Id tiny bits of mashed potato from her finger, hoping to make up for some of the breast milk Tooch was taking.
Frankie and Stotts saved their allotment of liquid to drink instead of using it to make the mashed potatoes. Earlier that day Stotts had told her an object held in the mouth could help fight the thirst. In Syria, in the desert, he used to suck on a pebble during the heat of the day. It made the salivary glands work, keeping some liquid in the mouth.
At the moment, they were each sucking on a raw macaroni noodle, moving it around in the mouth like a horse mouthing its bit. Over time the noodle softened enough to eat. They tried to concentrate on the fire, but could hear every sound of the bonobos eating.
Stotts said, I wouldn’t be able to do this without you.
She turned to him, surprised by the surge of gratitude she felt.
The two of them didn’t talk as much now, but at each decision point they looked to the other, partners on a high wire struggling for balance.
*
Later in the day, Stotts went outside again.
Frankie caught a glimpse of him through a window, turning slowly in a circle, surveying the sky. From inside, she couldn’t figure out what he was searching for. After he came back inside, she stepped out the front door.
Out here, the depth of the silence was intense, as though the world was holding its breath. The few clouds seemed incomplete. She turned all the way around, staring upward, before she realized what was missing. No planes. No helicopters. Not even an emergency drone.
Just before dusk, Stotts clambered up the climbing structure again and stayed there a long time. He turned slowly. His gaze didn’t pause once. She didn’t need to climb up to know there was nothing there to see.
*
That evening they lit the hibachi again. Stotts hadn’t said a word since dusk.
They opened the five cans of sweet corn remaining and forked the corn into bowls. Frankie had never
liked canned corn, but she found her eyes focused on this food, as though it were talking to her in some way: the yellow so very bright, the niblets plump and gleaming. Even though there was so little corn, the bonobos enjoyed it enormously, tossing a single niblet into the mouth at a time and sucking on it like candy.
She forced her eyes away, biting instead through the piece of raw macaroni in her mouth. It made a loud crunching noise.
Meanwhile Stotts sautéed some macaroni in a little soda. In the darkness, the bonobos watched with great seriousness when Stotts spooned the noodles into a bowl, then squeezed on a packet of cheese sauce.
Once Houdina—the taste-tester—tried a spoonful, the others picked up individual noodles to try. At the taste, some of them peeped and bounced on their haunches. Perhaps those who’d been raised in a human family remembered this food.
Stotts and she sat together, off to the side, sipping their allotment of soda She felt such gratitude for the concept of liquid. The fire heated her face, sparks popping and flying into the air.
She tried to drink as slowly as possible, to make it last, but when she was finished, her head still hurt. She began picking up the empty cans of corn, one at a time, and tilting them over her mouth to catch any drops that might remain.
They hadn’t been talking much all day. Perhaps this was why she heard Stotts’ words so clearly.
He asked, Is there any way I met you years ago? At a conference? Or earlier, when we were kids?
Doubt it, she said, I grew up on the East Coast. Why?
The last few days, you just . . . you seem familiar.
Holding a can in her hand, she turned to him. He waited, his expression intent.
Each important moment in life has about it a stillness, an extra beat, an awareness at the edges. Something inside her clicked. Some animal part of her brain.
For the third time in her life, she heard that raspy inner voice whispering in her ear. It stated flat and factual, He’s fallen for you, honey.
The can dropped from her hand.
The clank of it hitting the ground echoed in her ears. Flustered she reached for it but her fingers seemed all rubbery and the can rolled. In the end she had to use both hands to pick it up.
Even in the gloom, every detail of the can appeared crystal clear. She stared at it, the bright image of yellow niblets and the red Del Monte logo. The thought crossed her mind that she might be experiencing something medical—a minor stroke or some pre-migraine ephemera.
Her eyes drifted, tugged back to him. He was lit up, luminous, by far the most interesting sight here. Her eyes unable to turn away.
He was saying something, probably teasing her about dropping the can. She couldn’t hear his words for there was a high-pitched metallic ping at the limits of her hearing.
He felt right to some essential part of her—her gut, her skin, her toes—this, the most decent man she’d ever met.
Him, a married man with a child.
AFTER THE STORM: DAY 2
Thirty Eight
That night she was restless in her pile of bonobos, had difficulty falling asleep, kept jerking awake, filled with disbelief.
Even with this broken sleep, in the first light of dawn, she woke with a zing of energy.
Pushing her way out of the pile of sleeping bodies, she walked down the hall. She saw his mattress already put away for the day, as though he’d never slept here, as though he’d never existed.
She moved into the office area, a rising urgency, searching for him. Through one of the windows, she spotted him outside, looking upward.
When she stepped outside, he looked over. His gaze different, intent.
She walked closer.
She’d spent enough time around him that she could close her eyes and describe him so anyone could pick him out in a crowd—his eyes, height and buzzcut, the small scar in his right eyebrow, the attentive way he occupied his body.
At the moment, however, she stared at him like she would at a total stranger who’d stepped out of her bathroom.
Morning, she said.
Ma’am, he replied.
His eyes seemed different somehow, bigger than before or luminous. She stared into them, wanted to clamber inside, wander around, bring in a pup tent to live there in that shimmering space.
He dragged his gaze away to the sky.
He said, Help should arrive today.
Rescue meant all sorts of things now. She listened. The silence was perfect, the sky empty. With this knowledge, they looked at each other and then away.
They prepped mashed potatoes for the bonobos. Beside him, she forgot her thirst and hunger. They sat next to each other as they had before, but the space between them was different.
In her lungs, she could remember the pain she’d felt after she left her married professor—the emptiness, how hard it was to breathe.
She should concentrate on being relieved she could feel this way again. It had been so long. This was a sign of her health returning, like the way she was truly hungry again for food. She should simply enjoy this different type of hunger. Soon after the cleanup vehicles got here, the two of them would stop being together all day long. His family would return from England. Chores and people would separate them. This feeling would ease, the ache in her gut. She didn’t need to take this seriously. She was just healthier.
He held out a few more pieces of raw macaroni for her. She scooped them from his hand, the feel of his palm on her fingers. She tossed the pasta into her mouth and sucked on the pieces, as though on the finest of chocolates, closing her eyes.
They sat there, waiting for help to arrive, for sand-plows, the National Guard and FEMA, all the people and noise and busy life to step between them.
*
After they’d fed the bonobos and brought them back inside, he pulled a knapsack on.
Where you going?
I’m just going to check the farmhouse down the road. See if I can find any supplies.
She looked out across the dust in the direction she thought he meant, then asked what she hadn’t dared to until now, But rescue will get here today, right?
He wouldn’t look at her when he said, Might as well get something for us to drink while we wait. You stay here and make sure the bonobos don’t misbehave.
He headed off down the road toward the nearest house. She watched him get small in the distance.
He came back an hour and a half later, dragging a red plastic sled piled with Gatorade and Diet Coke, a full knapsack on his back. She caught sight of him through the window. He visited each of the other enclosures first, dropping off some of the liquid with the other humans, talking with them, standing in the doorway, pointing in the direction that he’d come from.
She met him in the doorway of the bonobo building. Before unloading the sled, he pulled out of his pocket a single Frappuccino in a bottle and handed it over, saying, For you.
She cupped it in her hand for a second. This jar of liquid glittered.
She said, Thank you.
Her emotions banging around inside her, like a child told to sit still for way too long.
He inclined his head.
Twisting the metal cap, the bottle made a satisfying pop. She held it under her nose, the scent of strong coffee.
She kept her eyes shut to savor it, drank two long gulps, then stopped herself and handed it to him. He considered the mouth of the bottle that she had drunk from, then raised it to his lips and drank also.
*
After Stotts’ success, all the humans left the Foundation midmorning to search the nearby farmhouses for supplies. If they heard rescue vehicles, they would rush back.
Frankie was worried the very hungry and thirsty bonobos would break out of the building if she was gone more than an hour, so before leaving she called them into the sleeping chamber, telling them there was
fruit hidden in the piles of bedding. Once they were all inside, searching through the hay, she stepped out and locked the door. They turned to look at her, their eyes big with betrayal.
Sorry, she said, I just . . . We need to . . . Sorry.
Once she was outside, she heard for the first time the rising animal howl coming from one of the other buildings, an atonal song of distress, echoing and muffled. Turning, she tried to place the noise.
Stotts jerked his chin toward the gorilla building. He said, In the wild, the gorillas don’t drink water, but eat juicy vegetation all day. Without food, they get dehydrated quickly.
She stared at the cement building, then back at him, How much do they eat?
40 pounds a day.
She paused, The whole group?
No, each one of them.
Startled, she looked at the building again, then back at the plastic child’s sled they pulled. It wouldn’t carry more than 40 pounds. If they made trips all day long, filling the sled completely each time, they wouldn’t be able to lug back enough for even the gorillas.
She asked, What about the others?
They’re doing better than the gorillas.
What do they think is going on?
He looked confused, so she added, The humans.
He said, Oh. I didn’t talk that long with them. Martin, the chimp guy, seems pretty angry. He thinks the governor’s incompetent.
What about Rita?
She reads a lot of sci-fi. She asked if I thought it could be a solar flare or an EMP.
And the keeper?
She’s the one caring for the gorillas. She’s just worried.
They headed out, moving quickly across the fields away from the Foundation. She could hear the gorillas when the wind blew in the right direction. So long as she was walking beside Stotts, it seemed easy to move with energy. She tried to remember when she’d last had a full meal.
Being from Manhattan, she was accustomed when outside to noise. This silence was deep and biological: the wind, the rustle of their clothes, their feet moving through the dust.
Theory of Bastards Page 27
