We first had an inkling of Jennie’s fondness for television one Saturday shortly after my return from Africa. I woke up to the faint sounds of the television set floating up from the den. Watching the television was an early Saturday morning ritual with Sandy. It was an oddly comforting sound, one I had not heard in six months.
I found the two of them sitting cross-legged, Indian-style, on the carpet, watching the Three Stooges. Even after all these years I remember that particular program. The action was taking place in an elegant drawing room filled with people in formal dress, and the Three Stooges, themselves dressed in evening clothes, were throwing pies and food and rapping each other on the head and poking each other in the eyes, to the usual sound effects of squawking horns and pizzicato violins. I asked Sandy what the point of all this was, and I remember him explaining that a professor, as an experiment, had tried to make gentlemen out of the Three Stooges. This was the unhappy result. It was a takeoff on Pygmalion and it was particularly apt that Jennie found it amusing.
Jennie was transfixed, staring at the screen. Her little eyes glittered. I wondered what her simian brain was making of the program.
“Dad! Jennie likes to watch TV!” Sandy cried, as if reporting a revelation. “Watch!”
He turned off the television set and sat back. The screen contracted to a point. Without missing a beat, Jennie scooted over and turned it back on.
“He he heee!” she said as the picture slowly focused. She gripped the sides of the television and hopped up and down, her face inches from the screen.
“See, Dad? She can turn on the TV.” Then he added, “Jennie, I can’t see.”
Jennie looked around at the sound of her name but continued to block the screen.
“Move over!” Sandy shouted.
An advertisement came on. It depicted a ruggedly handsome man inhaling a cigarette to a chorus of voices singing about smoothness and taste. He exhaled with a sigh of satisfaction and the singing crescendoed. “Hooo heeee heee,” Jennie said, as if singing along.
“Jennie! No! Dad, make her get out of the way,” Sandy said.
The Three Stooges returned to the screen, to the theme song of “The Three Blind Mice.” Under Sandy’s protestations Jennie finally went back and sat down next to him and held his hand, with a worried look on her face. Already Sandy was becoming her best friend. She admired him and wanted to do whatever he did.
“What rubbish,” I said jokingly. “Maybe we should have left that poor animal in the jungle.”
But Sandy and Jennie were so engrossed in the unfolding drama that they did not hear me at all.
Jennie’s arrival had shaken the complacency of our suburban neighborhood. The first to show his interest in Jennie was our neighbor, the Episcopal minister from across the street. His name was Hendricks Palliser. He came calling on orders of his wife—a formidable woman. At the time neither Lea nor I knew Palliser well at all, and not being religiously inclined we had not cultivated a relationship with him. In one way, at least, he had intrigued me: in World War I he had volunteered for the French ambulance corps and, it was said, had known Hemingway. I had not been able to reconcile the cheerful, round-faced suburban rector across the street with the heroic volunteer who was, apparently, wounded at the second battle of the Ypres salient. This was the battle in which the Germans first used poison gas, and (it was said) he rescued a group of men from the gas with his ambulance.
The door chimes rang. The Reverend stood on the stoop, gray Borsalino hat clasped in hand, a nervous and apologetic look on his round face. Lea invited him in. He vigorously shuffled his feet on the doormat and ducked into the house.
Jennie was invariably excited by the arrival of strangers, but she was also shy. I saw a flash of black as Jennie shot down the hall toward the kitchen. Normally we did not allow her in the kitchen, but it seemed prudent, at the time, to pretend Jennie did not exist. We both instinctively felt that the subject of Jennie might be on the Reverend’s agenda, and the later that subject was introduced the better.
We settled into the living room. Lea offered him tea “or something else?” and he asked for sherry. His voice was soft with a slight stammer, and he had an air of embarrassment about him. He was bald, in his mid-seventies, with several large moles on his nose. His blue eyes were nervous and squinty, as if he were in bright sunlight. He was not a handsome man. And yet there was something pleasing about the face.
As Lea poured the sherry, we heard a thump in the kitchen. I remember the Reverend’s eyes darted toward the kitchen and back. We all knew there was a chimpanzee in there, but none of us wanted to be the first to mention it.
“Thank you kindly,” said the Reverend, accepting the glass, while laying his Borsalino on the coffee table. “How was your trip?” he asked me.
At that moment there was another thump in the kitchen, and the Reverend’s nervousness seemed to increase.
I chatted about the trip, how successful it had been, and what we hoped to achieve in terms of further research. I could see that the Reverend was having trouble concentrating on the conversation. Clearly his wife had put him up to this visit, just as she made him weed the dandelions out of our yard when she believed we were not home. I felt quite sorry for Palliser, with such a wife.
In the middle of our awkward and halting conversation, a tremendous crash sounded from the kitchen, the merry sound of broken glass. The chimpanzee could be ignored no longer.
“Oh dear,” said Lea, and went off to see what had happened. There was a momentary silence and then a black form moving at high speed tore into the living room and disappeared under the chaise lounge. We could hear Lea calling for Jennie in the kitchen, in a scolding tone of voice.
“She’s in here,” I called out. I turned to the Reverend. “She’s still adjusting to life in America.”
“Yes, indeed,” he said, very nervously.
I then added: “I think that crash may have been the punch bowl Lea’s mother gave us as a wedding present.”
“How unfortunate,” said the Reverend.
It sounded so insincere that I couldn’t help adding, “At least I hope so.”
To my surprise the Reverend issued a loud and most undecorous laugh. Lea came in, looking flushed.
“She got into the refrigerator and broke the milk pitcher,” she said, and turned to the Reverend. “She loves milk.”
“Yes, indeed,” said the Reverend.
“Whooooo,” said Jennie from under the chaise lounge.
“Jennie,” I said, hoping to draw the visit to a close as soon as possible, “come out and meet Reverend Palliser.”
The Reverend could hardly disguise his curiosity. He leaned forward as two hairy hands and the top of a fuzzy head came out from under the chaise lounge and stared up at us.
“Jennie, come here,” I said in a firm tone of voice.
The chimp slid out, stood up, pursed her lips, and strolled over, as coolly and nonchalantly as a movie star.
“Shake hands,” I said.
The chimp condescended to hold out a limp hand, looking more like she expected to have it kissed than shaken.
“Why, how nice to meet you,” said the Reverend, his face wrinkling with delight. “What a charming animal you are!”
“He he,” said Jennie.
“That’s a good girl,” I said.
Quick as a flash she swept the Reverend’s hat off the table and whipped it onto her own head.
“No, Jennie,” Lea said. “No.”
Jennie picked the hat off her head and looked inside, sniffing loudly.
“Jennie!” Lea said, standing up abruptly. Lea had that peculiar ability to freeze you with a certain tone of voice.
But it was too late. Jennie reached inside the hat, and with one swift movement tore out the silk lining, tossed it like a piece of garbage into the Reverend’s lap, and clapped the hat back on her head.
“Whoops!” said the Reverend. “Oh my!”
“Jennie! No!” I cried, and lu
nged at the chimp while making a grab at the hat. But the ape was too fast for me, and she retreated under the chaise lounge.
To our great surprise the Reverend laughed, his face turning bright red. “Oh dear,” he said. “Oh my. Oh my dear.” The tears streamed down his face.
“I’m so sorry,” Lea said. “I don’t know what’s gotten into her. We’ll get you a new hat.”
The he he he he! of chimpanzee laughter issued from under the chaise. I got down on my hands and knees and could see her in the corner, sucking her toe with the hat on her head.
“Jennie! Bad, bad girl!” I said. “Come!”
“It’s quite all right,” stammered the Reverend, recovering his composure. “She’s such a sweet animal. The hat is nothing.”
I called Jennie again and she finally poked her head out, still wearing the hat, which now had a large dustball clinging to the crown. The crease had been knocked out, giving it the look of a hobo bowler. The only thing visible under the hat were her lips and whiskered chin.
“Jennie!” I yelled again, and the chimp ducked under the chaise.
“It suits her quite well,” said the Reverend.
Lea was busy convincing the Reverend that Jennie’s behavior was out of the ordinary, not her usual shenanagins. “Isn’t it terrible!” she said. “I just can’t understand what’s gotten into her. She’s never acted like this before.”
I saw no alternative but to sacrifice my dignity and crawl under the chaise myself to retrieve the chimp and the hat. I grabbed Jennie by the foot and dragged her out. Her piercing screams filled the room, sounding for all the world as if she were being stretched on the rack.
“The poor thing,” said the Reverend. “She’s frightened.”
“With good reason,” I said, seizing the hat from her head and dragging her toward the bathroom. I locked her in. Her pounding and muffled screams gave the house the air of a nineteenth-century insane asylum.
When I returned, I found Lea still apologizing while the Reverend turned his hat over in his hands. Jennie’s five minutes with the hat had completely destroyed it.
“The poor thing,” said the Reverend, almost to himself, and then it all came out in a stammered jumble. “My wife is afraid of animals. She isn’t too keen on the idea of having a monkey in the neighborhood.”
There was a silence. What he had been sent over to say had just been said.
“I, myself, have always liked animals,” he added wistfully.
“I just can’t understand Jennie’s behavior—” Lea began again, not very convincingly.
“I’m sure,” I said, “that as Jennie gets a little older she’ll settle down.”
As if on cue the screaming redoubled and the Reverend winced. “I hate for her to be in there on my account.”
We talked some more, rapid exchanges of small talk spoken during lulls in the storm. Then, from upstairs, the sleeping baby woke and also began to howl. Lea went up to get her while I released Jennie from her imprisonment.
As soon as the door opened her cries ceased, and she looked up at me with the most pathetically sad and frightened little face. She waddled over and opened her arms to be hugged, looking contrite. I carried her back into the living room.
Palliser sat on the sofa, looking rather at a loss, his hands folded on the table. Jennie climbed down and laid her hand on his and made a low, mournful hoot. Lea came down with the baby.
“Oh,” said the Reverend to Jennie. “You’re sorry. You want to say you’re sorry.”
Jennie hopped up on the sofa and opened her arms for a hug. Palliser picked her up and hugged her, her furry head briefly nestling against his bald pate.
“What a darling,” the Reverend said, a little breathlessly. “I do think she likes me. Yes, indeed, I do.”
Jennie sat in his lap, playing with one of his buttons.
“Aren’t you a nice girl,” he said again, patting her back. “Here, a welcome-to-America present for you,” and he gave her back the hat. Jennie snatched it and clapped it on her head. Then she gave a big hoot and jumped to the floor and began strutting around.
“You don’t have to do that,” I said to Palliser.
“Oh, but I want to. She’s very cute in a hat. Every monkey needs a hat, right, Jennie?” He turned to us, beaming, as if he were the father himself.
Jennie spun around and came strutting back, clacking her teeth with happiness.
The Reverend finally rose to leave. “We won’t say anything about this to Mrs. Palliser,” he said, stammering slightly and turning red with embarrassment. “The hat was a gift from her. But I never really liked it; I’m not a hat person, you know. She feels I ought to be covering up my baldness. One doesn’t, so she tells me, expose one’s baldness these days. I’ll say I lost it.”
He scurried out the door.
“Oh no,” said Lea, looking out the window, “there she is, on the stoop, waiting to hear the news.”
I saw that the very thick Mrs. Palliser was indeed standing in the door, with a sour expression on her face.
“What an oddly pleasant fellow,” said Lea. “Jennie seems to have won him over. He’s not at all what I expected.”
“I don’t think there will be any winning over the wife,” I said, watching her follow him into the house with a firm shutting of the door.
three
[FROM taped interviews with Dr. Harold Epstein, Curator Emeritus, Department of Anthropology, Boston Museum of Natural History, in his office at the museum in July 1991, November 1992, and January 1993.]
Do you know the expression “Words pay no debts?” There is, you see, nothing I can tell you that will change anything. Or pay any debts. We’re here because almost everything that was written about this thing was a pack of lies. You’re finally going to tell the truth.
The “Jennie period,” as I like to call it, took place between 1965 and 1974. I was head of the department. Hugo was about twenty years my junior and was the Curator of Physical Anthropology. Hugo assumed the chairmanship when I retired in 1974. Until this Jennie business, he was one of the most capable and creative scientists the museum had the privilege to employ.
The museum? It hasn’t changed its appearance in one hundred and forty years. It’s like Churchill said, it was ugly yesterday, it’s ugly today, and it’ll wake up just as ugly tomorrow morning. I always thought it looked like a grim Crusader castle. When it rains, those rooftop gargoyles spout water. At dusk, bats drop down from the eaves and swoop about. They scare the secretaries. The museum park used to be surrounded by a great wrought-iron fence with spikes. They took it down when someone jumped off the roof and landed on it. They had to cut out a piece of fence, you see. The spikes had gone clear through the fellow’s gut. It was one of those A.B.D.s finally giving up. A.B.D.? It means “All But Dissertation.” The museum is full of them, graduate students who are incapable of finishing their dissertations. They stay on for years, living off grants, examining specimens, gathering data, wandering about the halls.
That statue out front is Thierry de Louliz, venerable founder of the museum. It is always covered with pigeon lime: pigeons love to defecate on his head. It is a perfectly absurd statue, the old man holding that fossil fish like Napoleon with his sword. He was much feared and hated during his lifetime, but I think he looks like a dotty old uncle, cutting a ridiculous figure among the sycamores. I have not, thank goodness, accomplished enough in my life to be awarded a postmortem statue. Louliz’s great accomplishment was to dogmatically oppose Darwin’s theory of natural selection to the bitter end. I mean, to the bitter end of Louliz. His last words were, “Zis Darwin, I tell you, iss a great fool.” [Laughs.]
The building inside had a most peculiar smell. A combination of damp granite, cheap cleaning fluids, and old buckram. Plus a faint smell of mortification. Dead flesh. There were a lot of dead things in the museum. Some thirty million specimens. Two million in the osteological collection—that’s bones—and another three million alcoholics. Alcoholics, my frien
d, is what we term animals preserved in jars of fluid. Millions of insects and spiders. Snakes, tortoises, frogs and salamanders, rocks and minerals, meteorites, you name it. Ten thousand human skeletons and several hundred mummies. Not Egyptian mummies, but Indians, Aleuts, Tierra del Fuegans, those sorts of people. The collection represents a history of graverobbing, murder, and mayhem stretching back one hundred and forty years. I am being facetious, of course. Don’t print that. I’m eighty-five years old, and I have gotten into the habit of saying whatever I damn well please.
To get to the old Anthropology Department, one had to walk through the African Hall, past an archway framed by a brace of elephant tusks, world record size. The elephant was bagged by some bloodthirsty trustee of the museum in the 1920s. Hugo Archibald was a physical anthropologist, a collector of dead specimens. I am a cultural anthropologist—I study the living. His research was on the phylogeny of the primates. He spent years in Africa, Asia, and South America, collecting specimens.
We are primates, you and I. Naked apes. His early work was brilliant. His idea, you see, was to look at human evolution from the phylogenetic viewpoint, rather than from the fossil record. He examined the morphology—the shape—of all the closest living relatives to man. Those would be the great apes: gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, orangutans, and so forth. He wanted to know: what are the relationships? Where does Homo sapiens fit in? In the end, Hugo put us in the same family as the great apes. He said we didn’t merit a family all by ourselves. I’m not sure I would go that far, but it’s an interesting thought. And an idea influenced, no doubt, by the existence of Jennie. In the end, you see, because of Jennie, he lost his objectivity.
To do the work, Archibald needed skulls. He measured them, and quantified the differences in their shape. From there, using a technique known as phylogenetic or cladistic analysis, he drew a family tree—a drawing of the relationships among the species. Which characteristics were primitive, and which derived? One has to look at many skulls from each species to smooth out the natural variations in shape. Uncle Albert, you see, might have a strange lump on his head that is unnatural. You can only know that by looking at several skulls. Hence, Hugo made many collecting trips after ever more rare animals. His legacy is a collection of physical anthropology that is second to none, a great scientific resource.
Jennie Page 4
