Monkey Wars

by Richard Kurti

  “And here’s what we think of peace,” one of the others sneered, and he threw a stone at the corpse, hitting a white pomegranate smear that had been made on its forehead.

  The others laughed, then with one great heave tossed the dead monkey over the wall as casually as if they were disposing of an unwanted tree branch.

  Suddenly Mico lost all his curiosity.

  With pounding heart he darted back across the tombs, swerving past mossy statues and sliding between headstones, until he reached the main path. He scrambled across the cobbles and snuggled into the safety of the crowd, worming his way through a tangle of legs until he found his mother standing near the front, listening with rapt attention to Lord Gospodar.

  Mico clambered up onto her back, gripped her fur and tried to blot the ghastly images from his mind. Perhaps if he listened to the speech, joined in with the cheering, everything would be all right.

  “…because we, the langur, are the only troop that has the courage to fight for peace….” Gospodar was still in full flow, and his grand words were stirring langur hearts.

  All hearts except Mico’s. Didn’t Gospodar know what was happening just a short swing away?

  Then Mico’s confusion turned to fear as he saw General Pogo drop down from the tree canopy and silently take his place on the roof of the Great Vault. Lord Gospodar threw a questioning look at the general, who gave a reassuring nod.

  They were both in on it.

  Which was when the guilt gripped Mico. He had witnessed a disturbing secret, and even though he was clinging to his mother, surrounded by all the members of the langur troop, suddenly Mico felt very alone.

  As they staggered, bewildered, through the streets, the rhesus survivors realized with shame that they were strangers in their own city.

  Food gathering had always been the responsibility of the rhesus males, and as the generations passed, the females had become increasingly detached from the hurly-burly of city life; many of them had never even ventured outside the cemetery walls. But the males had been the first to die in the slaughter, all their knowledge dying with them, leaving the females to rue their seclusion.

  Out here everything was chaos: crumbling buildings jostled for space, piles of rotting garbage lay in the streets as if deposited by some monstrous tidal wave, and the noise was everywhere—hawkers haranguing passersby, couples arguing in shabby apartments, cars blasting their horns.

  The rhesus wandered, dazed, through street after confusing street, searching for somewhere to shelter, until finally, wretched and exhausted, they arrived at the banks of the Hooghly River.

  Papina had never seen such a large body of water. “Look how it ripples!” she exclaimed, mesmerized by the river’s dark, quivering energy.

  None of the other monkeys shared her fascination.

  Cappa, one of the mothers, gave a resigned shrug. “Well, this is the end. It’s every monkey for herself now.”

  “You can’t break the troop up!” said Fig, alarmed. Fig was younger than the others, still with two small infants clinging to her back.

  “What troop?” scoffed Cappa. “We’ve no leaders, no males. Just infants. We’re nothing.”

  “Then let’s choose a new leader,” said Rowna, the oldest of the females. Although neither the quickest nor the sharpest, she had a confidence that most of the others responded to.

  “Who? You?” Cappa rounded on Rowna. “Are you going to lead us out of this?”

  Rowna hesitated. The responsibility of leadership was beyond her; she knew it and Cappa knew it. That was Cappa’s great talent: knowing everyone’s weakness.

  There was silence—Cappa waited for someone to suggest that she should become the new leader; but when Willow finally spoke it was with a different idea altogether.

  “Why do we even need a leader?”

  Everyone looked at her as if she was mad.

  “We’re monkeys. And monkey troops have leaders!” snorted Cappa.

  “Did our last leader protect us when the langur rampaged into our homes?” Willow asked. “Maybe we need to find new ways of doing things now.”

  “With no leader, who would make the decisions?” Rowna persisted.

  “We could all make the decisions,” ventured Willow.

  “All?!” Cappa sneered indignantly, baring her teeth.

  “But we all have different ideas!” exclaimed Rowna.

  “When we were protected by the cemetery walls we could afford to have different ideas. Now the only thing that matters is survival.” Willow looked at the monkeys as the cold truth of her words struck home. “We have to take responsibility. All of us.”

  There was silence as the monkeys’ minds grappled with the idea.

  “So how exactly would it work?” asked Fig.

  “We talk problems through. Share ideas. Agree what to do. Consensus. Like the ants.”

  Cappa snorted. “You really think we can learn from the ants?!”

  “Oh how funny!” Fig smiled as she started to understand. “I think I like it.”

  And once the first monkey had endorsed the idea, some of the others felt bold enough to nod their agreement, until the weight of opinion swung behind Willow.

  “So, which way do we turn now?” asked Fig with disarming innocence. “What do we all think?”

  The monkeys looked at one another. They looked across the river. And no one said anything.

  “And that is what happens when monkeys have no leader,” pronounced a voice from the shadows. “They starve by the riverbank.”

  The rhesus immediately huddled, shielding their young, peering into the darkness to see who had spoken. All of them shared the same terrifying thought: the langur had returned to finish them off.

  Cappa snarled defiantly, “You want to taste your own blood? Step closer!”

  “If you insist.” The reply came loaded with dark intent as a patrol of bonnet macaques emerged from the shadows.

  Papina stared at them wide-eyed. A fluffy mop of hair on top of their heads made it look as if they were wearing caps, and several of them walked on their hind legs, giving them a distinctive, imperious air.

  Although she’d never seen one before, Willow knew that the bonnets were the oldest monkeys in the city, and demanded obedience. Aware that an aggressive response would only get them into more trouble, Willow hurriedly stepped forward. “Our troop has been attacked. We’re looking for a new home.”

  “So, you’re all alone?” the bonnet leader mused as he strode over to Willow. “No males?”

  Papina slid closer to her mother, gripping her hand tightly as the bonnet paced around them.

  “Well, staying here is out of the question, old girl,” he finally pronounced. “These are our streets.” As much a warning as a statement of fact.

  “We meant no harm,” Willow said hastily. “Only we don’t really know the city at all.”

  The bonnet scoffed. “Word of advice: start learning your way around, or you won’t last two moons. Every corner of this city is bagged. Every monkey troop has its own patch. And this is ours.”

  The bonnet turned his back on the rhesus—as far as he was concerned, the matter was closed—but Willow scampered around to block his path. “There must be room for us somewhere?” she pleaded.

  “Still here?” The bonnet’s patience was wearing thin.

  “Please. We have infants. They’re hungry and cold. They can’t walk much farther. Please.”

  The bonnet cast his arrogant gaze over the fidgeting young rhesus. “I believe there’s still some room in the slums,” he said loftily, evoking wry chuckles from his comrades.

  “We’re not slum monkeys!” protested Rowna.

  The bonnet turned and glared down his snout at her. “It looks to me as if you don’t have a choice.”

  “But that’s not fair,” said Willow. “You’re monkeys just like us and—”

  “Fair?!” Aggression flared across the bonnet’s face. “Did you care about fairness when you were lording it insid
e the cemetery walls? Did you ever think about what it was like outside?! We won these streets, over many moons. We fought for them. We earned them. If you were careless enough to lose your home”—he shrugged indifferently—“that’s no concern of mine.”

  “So you’re just going to abandon us?” Willow retorted.

  The bonnet paused, exchanged a dark glance with the patrol, then pointed at Fig. “We’ll take her…and her.” He had picked out the youngest, most comely females.

  A malevolent smirk spread across the faces of the bonnet patrol. Papina glimpsed it but didn’t know what it meant.

  Willow drew her monkeys into a huddle and whispered urgently, “It smells of danger.”

  “But maybe it’s our best chance,” said Fig. “How long will our infants last out here?”

  “They have plenty of females,” Cappa warned darkly. “You’d never make it back to their troop.”

  “If they were going to hurt us, they’d have already done it, wouldn’t they?” said Fig.

  Willow could see how torn she was. “Look, if you want to go, go. Do what you think is best.”

  Fig looked at Willow searchingly. “Would you go?”

  Willow turned and studied the bonnets—for all their airs and graces, she knew what lurked in their hearts. “No. I wouldn’t.”

  It was enough for Fig. “Then that’s settled,” she said and, turning to the bonnets, announced with a breezy smile, “Sorry, we’ve had a better offer.”

  Her friends stifled a laugh. For a timid monkey, Fig really picked her moments to be cheeky. But none of the bonnets smiled. They were irritated that these strays showed so little respect.

  The leader paced over, stood on his hind legs and looked down at them darkly. “If you’re still here when we come back, we won’t be nearly as civil.” Then he gestured to his patrol and in an instant they were gone.

  Papina looked up at her mother, at Fig and the others, and felt a swell of pride. So that was how consensus worked.

  Then, with a guilty jolt, Papina realized that for the first time that night she’d stopped pining for her father. Maybe the only way to cope with this strange new world was to tackle it head on.

  “Mine!” declared Breri.

  “Why?” protested Mico.

  “Because I’m the eldest.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  Just a short while ago Mico and his brother had been delighted when they’d set eyes on their new home. It was a small mausoleum with matching triangular walls, a flat roof for lounging on and a ledge running all the way round, ideal for ripening fallen fruit. But the moment they dashed inside and saw four large stone blocks arranged in the cool, dark space, the trouble started. Both young monkeys wanted the same tomb for their bed.

  Breri bared his teeth. “You want it?” he sneered. “Fight me for it!”

  Mico hesitated—he longed to lash out at that smug, domineering face, but he didn’t want to deal with the consequences. Breri was a big, muscular cadet, with a reputation for being able to wrestle three friends at a time, while the one thing everyone knew about Mico was that he was small.

  Mico was ashamed of his size. He had always been smaller than other monkeys his age, and his mother continually made excuses for him. “Every monkey grows at their own pace,” Kima would say, or, “He’s been a little ill recently.”

  But the truth was simple: Mico was small, and in the langur troop, physical strength was everything.

  “So that’s settled, then,” Breri announced as he stretched out on the tomb, gloating. “The lesser monkey loses.”

  Infuriated, Mico leaped at Breri, landed on his back and knocked him to the ground.

  “You want some?!” sneered Breri. He swung round, but Mico clung on tightly, staying just out of reach. Relishing the fight, Breri thrust backward. “Take this!” And he slammed Mico into the wall.

  Mico grunted as the air was knocked out of him, but still he held tight, digging his claws into his brother’s fur. Breri had no option but to grab Mico’s tail and yank it as hard as he could.

  Mico screeched and loosened his grip and before he knew it, Breri had pinned him painfully to the ground.

  “Pathetic!” Breri smirked. Then he grabbed Mico and lifted him off the floor, holding him above his head like a trophy.

  “I am the master!” he trumpeted.

  It was a humiliating end to the fight; Mico tried, unsuccessfully, to wriggle free.

  “Say it!” ordered Breri.

  “No!”

  “I am the master!”

  “NO!”

  Suddenly another voice boomed across the room.

  “I am the master!”

  Still holding Mico above his head, Breri spun round and saw their father, Trumble, standing at the entrance.

  “Put. Him. Down.” Trumble spoke with utter self-assurance.

  For a moment Breri hesitated. It was a brief flash of rebellion, but Trumble saw it and knew that his eldest son was already starting to break away. Soon Breri would be his own monkey.

  But for now Trumble was still the head of this family, and he still had a few tricks up his sleeve. “Put him down before I swap this for a poky little crack in the cemetery wall. Then there’ll be no arguments.”

  Mico and Breri knew their father well enough to understand that this wasn’t a bluff. Reluctantly, Breri dropped Mico to the ground and skulked off.

  “Are you hurt?” Trumble asked gently.

  Mico shook his head. His father swung over and put his arms around him. Neither said anything; they didn’t need to. Trumble had lost count of the number of fights he’d broken up over the years; a vindictive streak ran deep in Breri, and there was no doubting the pleasure he derived from bullying Mico.

  Just then, from outside, they heard Kima call, “Fresh mangoes! Nice and juicy!” Which made Mico and Trumble feel suddenly hungry.

  —

  As the moon rose, bright and clear, Kima chased everyone out so that she could lay some fresh palm leaves on the floor. Breri scampered off to be with his cadet friends, who were discovering new swings up in the tree canopy. Left on his own, Mico decided to check out the views from the roof.

  When he scrambled up the pediment, though, he found his father already sitting there in a pool of cool moonlight, surrounded by carefully arranged piles of stones.

  In his youth Trumble had fought in the elites until a bad injury cut short his career. Desperate to still serve, he had become a quartermaster, responsible for troop supplies. Trumble’s logical mind was well suited to the job, but the key to his success was the stones.

  Over many seasons Trumble had carefully scoured Kolkata’s streets and collected a mass of small stones; some contained flashes of color, others were deep black, while a few were transparent like glass. Having carefully polished them all, Trumble set about devising a complex system of accounting. Some stones represented different types of food, others stood for weapons, that much Mico knew, but the clever part was how these stones were distributed across a set of empty coconut shells. This told Trumble exactly which provisions were running low, what had to be acquired today and what could wait.

  Only Trumble fully understood how the system worked, but the whole troop knew that it did work. Shortages were something the langur didn’t have to worry about.

  Mico watched Trumble carefully moving the stones from pile to pile, from coconut to coconut. Not wanting to disturb the air of studied concentration, Mico remained silent and instead started running his finger along the scar that stretched across his father’s back.

  Even though it was now an old wound, the fur stubbornly refused to grow back, leaving a bumpy pink ridge that was curiously insensitive to touch. Ever since he could remember, Mico had enjoyed running his finger along the scar, pressing harder and harder until his father noticed with a start.

  Tonight, though, Trumble quickly sensed that something was troubling Mico. He put the stones down and peered over his shoulder.

&nbs
p; “Not playing with the others?”

  Mico shrugged. “Did it hurt? When it happened, I mean?” he asked, stroking the scar again.

  “Not at the time. It was in the heat of battle. But afterward, when it was being patched up…” Trumble grimaced, remembering the pain.

  “Was there a lot of blood?”

  “Oh yes. It was a real mess.”

  Mico nodded. Now they were getting to the heart of the problem. “So…when you were in the elites…were there things you did that…did you ever have to…”

  “Did I have to kill?”

  Mico looked at his father, amazed that he could read his mind.

  “Your brother asked the same thing when he was your age.” Trumble smiled at Mico’s astonishment. “Every young monkey asks—it’s natural.”

  “Well?” persisted Mico.

  “The elites protect the whole troop,” Trumble replied gently. “Sometimes that means doing things that are…difficult.”

  “So that’s yes?”

  Trumble nodded—Mico might be small but he was sharp. “Does it worry you?”

  Mico hesitated; he remembered the mutilated, lifeless monkey being dragged up the wall, the gaping wounds, the lolling head, the fur matted with blood. “Was your fighting…brave?”

  “It was dangerous, if that’s what you mean.”

  But that wasn’t what Mico meant. “Were you…” He tried again. “Were you heroic? Did it matter how you killed?”

  Trumble felt out of his depth. He’d never been questioned so closely about this. The langur were a fighting troop; it was what they did.

  “What’s upsetting you?” he asked.

  Mico hesitated. He couldn’t tell the truth without revealing the terrible secret he had witnessed. “I think I’d be frightened,” he said finally.

  “That’s what training is for. It teaches you to put your fears aside.”

  “But when monkeys get horribly wounded or killed…How can that ever be right?”

  Trumble sighed. “It all comes down to trust. We don’t have to question everything, because we trust Lord Gospodar.”

  “But asking questions is…” Mico frowned. “It’s what monkeys do. Monkeys question.”