Now, I knew this was coming. I expected it. No family has ever kept a home-raised chimp past sexual maturity. When that happened, I was going to bring Jennie to the Barnum colony, you see, where she would have a huge area to play and be herself while she got used to the other chimps.
The Tahachee Center was a second-best option. It wasn’t nearly as elaborate as the Barnum colony, but it was pretty good. I thought it would be a nice place for Jennie. Much better than the chaos of the Archibald household. The Tahachee Center was being generously funded by the MacBruce Foundation. Thank God we weren’t dependent on government funding. We had the direct support of Simon MacBruce. MacBruce is a fiercely independent type, and he didn’t give two hoots for the Proxmire flap. It made Miller so mad to see me get the MacBruce grant!
The center is still going, by the way, and we now have forty-two very happy chimpanzees there. While they must be supplementally fed, they’ve adjusted to the semiwild life of the island very well. It’s been an unqualified success.
[FROM an interview with Lea Archibald.]
After Dr. Prentiss and Harold left, I remember that Hugo and I talked. The island reminded us of how much Jennie loved Hermit Island, and we talked about what a perfect environment it had been. We also talked about what it means to grow up. At a certain point, parents have to let go of their children. We felt that Jennie’s problems stemmed from her efforts to become independent. But you see, the problem was that Jennie wasn’t a human being so she couldn’t just “become independent.” She wasn’t like Sandy, who could move out, get a job, and find an apartment. Her rebellion could go nowhere.
We talked, and we cried, and we talked some more. Oh dear. Hugo was terribly upset at the whole thought of giving Jennie up. I was too, but not like Hugo. To let her go was the hardest decision we ever made. We talked to Sandy and Sarah about it. Sandy was violently opposed to the idea. He was so angry at us. It was awful. He threw a chair through the picture window in the living room. Oh dear, that was a terrible moment. Sarah said that whatever we decided would be all right with her.
We didn’t accept Dr. Prentiss’s proposal right away. Hugo first looked into other possible research projects or primate centers. He researched everything. There were several around the country, but all of them kept the chimpanzees in cages. There was a primate rehabilitation project starting in Africa, but that was mostly for chimpanzees confiscated from poachers, and it was a much rougher setting. The chimpanzees there were wild animals, really, and we didn’t feel Jennie would do well there. After all, Jennie had never seen another chimpanzee in her entire life. Not one.
Finally, Hugo and I decided to accept Dr. Prentiss’s proposal. I remember when Hugo made the phone call. He dialed her number and then he couldn’t even speak into the phone he was so choked up. I could hear her nasty little voice coming through the receiver, demanding to know who it was, and then Hugo just hung up. It’s so painful now to remember. How I wish he’d just left it at that. But he called her right back and said that, yes, we would accept her offer. Naturally, we wanted to see the setup and the island, and meet the caregivers. They didn’t call them “keepers” since they wanted to avoid the image of a zoo, you see.
So we flew down there. . . . Excuse me. . . . I’m a little upset. Look at me, already starting to cry. We flew down there and looked the place over. . . . Please forgive me. I’m just a useless old lady. It was seventeen years ago but it still seems like yesterday. It’s hard for me to talk about this. . . .
[Editor’s note: At this point Mrs. Archibald excused herself and the interview was resumed the following day.]
The place was so pretty. The island was about a mile wide and two miles long, quite sandy, with lots of eucalyptus trees, pines, and palmettos. The beaches were sandy and the water was so blue.
Sandy wouldn’t come. He disappeared for several days. To his girlfriend’s house. She had a dreadful alcoholic mother and she and her sister pretty much ran around like wild animals.
Anyway, there were about six chimpanzees living there, the four from the Barnum colony and two others. They had the whole island to themselves. A little bayou separated the island from the center’s buildings on the mainland. There was a pier and a motorboat tied up. The buildings were kind of ramshackle but it had a lazy air. Pelicans lounged about on the pilings. It seemed . . . nice.
Dr. Prentiss introduced us to George Gabriel, who ran the place. He was a rugged outdoor type, you know, with the beard and khaki shorts and tan from the sun. He just about crushed your hand when he shook it. I don’t like men who grip your hand like that—they’re insecure. I did not, frankly, care for George Gabriel. If only I’d listened to my instincts instead of all these scientists.
Gabriel gave us a tour of the buildings first. Right away I was shocked to see a row of large cages. No one had said anything about cages.
Well, Gabriel explained those were only for temporary use. When a new chimpanzee arrives, they first put it in a cage and let it get used to them and the surroundings. They didn’t want to introduce an unknown chimpanzee onto the island without preparation. The others would have to get to know it first. So that’s what the cages were for. That’s what he said.
See, he used the word “it.” Do you see what I mean? He didn’t look on these chimpanzees as anything but things! Animals! The signs were right there, staring me in the face!
Well. It sounded reasonable to me and Hugo at the time. Then George took us to the island on the motorboat. As soon as the engine revved up the six chimps on the island came bursting out of the foliage and to the gate at the front of the pier. They knew when they were going to get fed, you see. They waited for us on the pier, making a great lot of noise, hooting and stamping on the dock and so forth. I really wondered how Jennie would fit in with these big, aggressive apes. But some of the chimps were actually signing to us and each other in ASL, and I found that comforting. They weren’t completely wild.
I was still concerned that Jennie had never seen another chimp. You know that was Prentiss’s doing. She wanted to keep the research “pure.” I had suggested once that Jennie be taken to the Barnum colony to see the other chimps, to play with them. As a diversion for her. But she said Oh no! It would contaminate the research or some such rot. George Gabriel was just so confident that Jennie would fit in. He kept saying, “Imagine if it were you. Growing up in the wild never having seen a human being. Surely you would adjust, eventually?” How the devil could he know? Later I came across a story about this child that had been raised by wolves in the mountains of France. In the eighteenth century. The wolfman of Aveyron or something like that. This is a true story; you can look it up. When they finally got him out of the woods he had to be locked in an asylum for the rest of his life. He never did adjust to being human. So how could Gabriel know? It was all a pack of lies.
When we landed, the chimps came down and searched our pockets. We gave them some treats and Gabriel put out a stack of melons and bananas for them, so that we could walk around the island without being bothered.
There were trails worn through the brush. You could see where the chimps had built their nests in the trees! It was very exciting for Hugo and me to see these things. Their tracks were like little human handprints, all over the place.
The seaward side of the island had a lovely beach, and you could see where the chimps had been digging and playing, just like kids. Not making sand castles but digging great holes for no reason, just like children do at the beach. For some reason the beach made me think about just how Jennie was going to fit in, whether the other chimps would like her, whether she would become pregnant and have children and raise them on the island. I suppose I thought about the kind of things that all mothers think about! It was a little frightening, but exciting at the same time.
Gabriel told us that their only research objective at the center was to see if the chimps continued using ASL and taught it to their young. He said the place wasn’t for research. Although if someone from time to ti
me wanted to observe the chimpanzees they could. The point was, there would be no experimenting or anything of that sort. Just observation. The chimps, he said, had already done their service to mankind.
At the time it just seemed . . . so right. A perfect answer to our problem. It was as if Jennie were going away to college. Hugo and I were taken in by the beautiful setting, the blue sky, the water, and George Gabriel’s smooth tongue.
Sandy, you know, had a different view. After we got back, he said that Jennie didn’t care about blue sky and a nice island, that she cared only about people. He said we were sending her off to prison. He thought it was just horrible and disgusting that we wanted her to mate and have a chimp family. We dismissed it as teenage hysteria. He kept repeating, “Yes, but you don’t know her like I know her.”
[FROM Recollecting a Life by Hugo Archibald.]
In April of 1974, all the arrangements had been made for Jennie to take up her new life in Florida. Dr. Prentiss suggested we have a surprise farewell party for Jennie, with all her friends, teachers, and relatives in attendance. Both Lea and I thought that a wonderful idea, and we began planning an Easter Sunday celebration. Jennie was scheduled to fly to Florida the following Wednesday.
The weather had warmed up from an unusually cold winter, and we planned an outdoor barbecue and Easter egg hunt. Jennie did not care for barbecued food, but she loved an Easter egg hunt. In addition to eggs, which Jennie loved to eat raw, we planned to hide all of Jennie’s favorite fruits and vegetables. It would be a one-chimp Easter egg hunt.
When the day came, everyone turned out. Dr. Prentiss and Harold Epstein had rounded up all the volunteers and assistants who had worked with Jennie during the Jennie project. Lea had gone to the nursing home and arranged for Rev. Palliser to come with his nurse. Lea’s mother came over, as did my mother. There must have been twenty or thirty people from the museum—curators, secretaries, and technicians, retired and current, who had befriended Jennie during her years there. I sent a blanket invitation to all museum employees, past and present, and even Will, the cranky old Scottish elevator operator, showed up, proudly driving a new Lincoln Continental.
We wanted the party to be a genuine surprise for Jennie. That morning Harold and I took Jennie out for a drive to Lake Kibbencook while Lea and Dr. Prentiss made the preparations and received the guests.
We drove on the circle drive around the lake. The leaves were budding on the trees, like a green mist in the branches, and the daffodils along the lake shore were in full bloom. It was a soft, warm day. We stopped at the Lollipop Gardens, a park along the lake where the trees had been trimmed into fanciful shapes. The lake was very still and cold, and the trees and sky were mirrored in its surface, another world trembling on the surface of the lake, darker and more mysterious than our own.
As we walked along the balustrade by the lake, a pair of swans came gliding by, the ripples shattering the reflected images into a confusion of blue and green and black. Jennie was excited to see the swans. She signed Play, bird play at them, murmuring and squeaking with interest. The swans ignored us and soon disappeared around the shore. Jennie was disappointed and signed Phooey bad bird.
We continued, each of us holding one of Jennie’s hands. Jennie was in high spirits and she shook our hands free to climb up one of the lollipop trees. It was a yew cut into two stacked boxes, and Jennie sat on the top box screaming with joy, clacking her teeth and shaking branches, as if proclaiming her presence to the entire world. “I am here!” she seemed to announce. “I exist!” Her voice echoed across the lake and came back faintly from the far shore, transformed into something distant and sad, like the cries of a lost animal.
For some reason her boisterous happiness depressed my spirits. It occurred to me that this was probably the last time I would walk along this lake with Jennie, and the last time Jennie would see spring in New England. Harold was also subdued. I consoled myself with the thought that Jennie would be far happier in Florida with her own kind than forever imprisoned in the world of human beings.
At one point I turned to Dr. Epstein and said, “Harold, do you think we’re doing the right thing?”
He had been so positive about this decision that I expected—and was hoping for—some reassurance, but instead he was silent, looking out over the lake.
“You know, Hugo,” he said, “I don’t really know.” He looked to the Kibbencook Hills, blue beyond the water, as if looking for some kind of answer. Then he said quietly, “All I know is, I’m going to miss that chimpanzee.”
We drove back to the house without speaking.
Everything had been carefully planned beforehand. The guests would arrive at noon, and we would be there a half hour later.
As we pulled into the driveway, Jennie was instantly excited by the shining crowd of cars lining both sides of the street all the way to the corner. I honked a warning that we had arrived. Harold and I walked Jennie around to the backyard, where everyone had lined up to greet her, all sixty of them. When we turned the corner and saw the people, Jennie stopped dead and stared. Everyone shouted in unison, “Happy Easter, Jennie!” and began to cheer.
Jennie was so overwhelmed she did not move. Then she saw Rev. Palliser, and she let out a shriek of joy and ran toward him. He was in a wheelchair and his nurse from the nursing home looked more than a little apprehensive. Jennie hopped into his lap and hugged and kissed him, while the old Reverend sobbed, the tears rolling down his wrinkled face. He knew who she was, in a vague sort of way, and he patted her on the head, saying over and over again, “Good girl, that’s my girl. Good girl.”
Everyone crowded around. I had never seen Jennie so happy. Every person she recognized—and many she hadn’t seen in a year or two—she hugged and kissed.
At one point Will bellowed out, “You bluidy rude ape, you haven’t shook me hand yet!” and Jennie rushed over to get another hug. Finally the excitement was too much and she sat cross-legged on the ground, grinning from ear to ear, while everyone gathered around and applauded.
Dr. Prentiss acted as the master of ceremonies. All the treats had been hidden around the yard—apples, oranges, bunches of grapes, bananas, eggs, papayas, cooked yams and sugar beets, pineapples, pieces of sugarcane—all of Jennie’s favorite foods.
She sat Jennie down and signed: Jennie go Easter egg hunt?
Jennie hopped up and down and whirled about, so excited she could not get a sign out.
Easter egg hunt? Dr. Prentiss signed again.
Hunt! Hunt! she signed frantically, and whipped off to the crab apple tree with everyone in hot pursuit. She immediately found a banana, and then began discovering more treasures in the gnarled roots. With each discovery she gave a short scream or hoot and stored it in the crook of her arm. Soon she was carrying so many fruits that she could barely walk, and with every step fruits would tumble to the ground and she would stop to gather them up, losing more in the process.
It was comical to watch. When she finally could not move with all she was carrying, she sat down and screeched with frustration.
Dr. Prentiss gently signed I hold food for Jennie. Jennie give me food. I give food to Jennie later.
After a long moment agonizing over the offer Jennie dropped the armload of fruit and continued her search, bringing each armful back to the growing pile. Everyone had a marvelous time trailing after Jennie and giving her hints as to where things were hidden.
When the hunt was over Jennie sat at her pile and began to eat, stuffing the fruits into her mouth, with the juice dribbling down her chin. When she ate fruits like oranges she often spat out the fruit pulp, a practice we had tried to discourage. Soon the ground around her was littered with wads and boluses of chewed fruit, but this was Jennie’s day and we were determined not to discipline her.
While the barbecue was cooking Jennie took turns playing tickle-chase with various people, and soon almost everyone had joined in the chase. I brought out my movie camera and filmed Jennie having the time of her life.
When the party was over, I had everyone line up and wave good-bye and blow kisses, while Jennie waved back. As people left, Jennie stood at the front door and shook their hands or kissed and hugged them. I was surprised to see just how many people became emotional and even wept as they said good-bye; Jennie had touched many lives.
Harold, Dr. Prentiss, and I had discussed for some time how best to bring Jennie to Florida. We ruled out the car, because the drive was over twenty-four hours and would be exhausting to us and Jennie. A commercial plane was out of the question, since airline regulations required Jennie to be in a crate in the cargo hold. We did not want Jennie to arrive at her new home traumatized.
We decided to charter a light plane, a six-seater Beechcraft. Jennie, we regretfully decided, would have to be sedated for the journey; in a small plane, a rambunctious chimpanzee could be dangerous. The flight was scheduled for that Wednesday. Dr. Prentiss, Lea, and I would accompany Jennie to Florida and see her settled in her new home.
On Wednesday morning we arose at five o’clock. Jennie was grumpy, having been woken up much earlier than was her wont. We brought along her favorite blanket, a thick cashmere throw, much chewed and threadbare, which had been a wedding present from an old college roommate of mine. We also brought a duffel bag packed with her clothes and favorite toys.
We had worried about what Jennie might make of these preparations, but she was too sleepy and grumpy to pay them much mind. As soon as we were in the car she wrapped herself in the blanket and fell asleep.
We arrived at Nobleboro Field just as the sun broke through the ground mist. We were the only people there. Frost lay on the tarmac and the sky was a flawless ultraviolet. The pilot taxied to the runway, and we wrestled Jennie’s duffel bag of toys into the cargo bay and climbed aboard. Jennie became quite alert when she saw that we were getting into a plane. Dr. Prentiss signed Jennie fly? and Jennie gave a low hoot and signed Fly back.
Jennie Page 25
