Monkey Wars

by Richard Kurti

  “Thanks to the courage of langur forces, and the wisdom of our leadership, that first phase of the rhesus clearance has been completed. They are now contained within strict limits, seeking refuge in a handful of monkey god temples, or subsisting in the forgotten slums. But we must be vigilant or the rhesus will rise up and terrorize the city again. And that is why you are so important.” Tyrell gestured expansively to his audience.

  “The langur have been chosen to bring peace to this city. A peace that it is your duty to defend, with your lives if necessary. And I for one can think of no finer cause.”

  As Tyrell sat down, the cadets immediately started cheering and thumping the ground in rapturous approval.

  Gu-Nah smiled at their enthusiasm, leaned across to Tyrell and shouted above the racket, “Makes you proud to be a langur, sir!”

  Tyrell nodded. “It’s important to keep our story alive.”

  “There were things even I didn’t know,” laughed Gu-Nah. “And I lived through it.”

  “In the hurly-burly, you can’t always see the bigger picture,” Tyrell said with a smile.

  He looked across the room and basked in the applause, unquestioning pride written on every face.

  Except one.

  The smallest cadet in the room was looking worried. He applauded like the rest, but Tyrell could see confusion in his eyes. What was it that the young monkey had failed to grasp? He waved his arms to restore quiet, then pointed at Mico.

  “You seem worried, Cadet.” All eyes turned to Mico, who suddenly felt very awkward.

  “N-no. Not at all, sir,” he stammered.

  But Tyrell wasn’t going to let it go. “Please, feel free to ask questions. After all, that’s what monkeys do.” The words were sympathetic, but there was something chilling in his tone.

  Mico hesitated, remembering how the footsoldiers had sneered at peace as they disposed of the dead rhesus. Sneered at the very thing they were supposed to be protecting.

  “Cadet Mico, tell the deputy what’s troubling you,” barked Gu-Nah.

  So now it was an order, thought Mico, he had to say something. Drawing a deep breath, he looked up at Tyrell. “I was just wondering, sir, if the rhesus lived here in the cemetery, before us?”

  “They certainly did. We had to fight our way in and drive them out. But what about it?”

  Mico hesitated. “It’s just that…there were no signs of cannibalism when we arrived.”

  Tyrell nodded thoughtfully. “Do you really think we would have let our females and our young witness the true horror of the rhesus? We took great care to clean up all evidence of their barbarity before we opened the gates.”

  Mico made a big show of smiling as if his worries had been allayed. But Tyrell looked at him sternly, as if memorizing every hair on his face.

  “Satisfied?” asked Tyrell.

  “Yes, sir,” lied Mico. “Sorry to have—”

  “No, no. It was a good question,” replied Tyrell with a polite edge that suggested it was anything but a good question.

  Gu-Nah quickly stepped in to draw the lesson to a close—he didn’t want any more awkward questions being posed on his shift—and as the cadets filed out of the room, Mico was careful to avoid eye contact with Tyrell.

  Had he glanced over, he would have seen Tyrell draw Gu-Nah to one side and quietly ask, “What sort of a cadet is Mico? Troublesome?”

  And if he had heard the dark tone in Tyrell’s voice, Mico would have known for sure that he had been marked out as a monkey to be watched.

  —

  Later that night Mico lay on the roof of his home, silently running through the events of the day. He was struggling to come to terms with history according to Tyrell. Certainly it was logical and heroic; it made you feel proud.

  But was it true?

  How could soldiers sworn to preserve peace take such delight in killing?

  He sat up, checked that no one was around, then leaped down from the roof and hurried away down the dark paths.

  A few moments later he was crouching in the shrubs by the perimeter wall, taking out the small bundle that had been hidden there, unwrapping the carving of the three monkeys in their distinctive poses.

  Mico ran his finger gently over the carved figures; they had been looked after with such loving care. Surely this was not how savages and cannibals behaved.

  Temple Gardens proved to be a welcoming home for Papina and the remnants of her troop. The rough encampment they had made at the foot of the Hanuman statue when they first arrived had now grown into an established part of the gardens. Various new monkeys had joined their group, and while Rowna had become involved with a handsome male monkey called Titan, Fig was being courted by at least a dozen monkeys who she played off against one another with an easy charm and plenty of flirtatious laughter.

  Twitcher ran a class every morning to teach the young monkeys about the layout of the city, and this had been a great way for Papina to make new friends, but the main reason she was starting to feel settled was that they were no longer the newest monkeys in the gardens. In the early days her troop was always the one asking questions and looking lost, whereas now they were regarded as established residents. Newcomers would turn to them for advice about the routines of the temple, which helped Papina feel as if she belonged somewhere again.

  But the influx of new monkeys also meant that she had to face up to the grim realization that a darker story was unfolding across the city.

  Twitcher and other volunteers did an amazing job scouring the streets for rhesus monkeys in need of sanctuary, and guiding them to Temple Gardens, but each new batch of arrivals had harrowing accounts of violent abuse at the hands of langur troops. They spoke of dawn raids, of males butchered as they slept, of females running for their lives with infants clinging to their backs, of being driven from streets they had inhabited for generations.

  What puzzled and frustrated Papina, though, was that no one asked the question, Why? Why was all this happening? Neither did anyone ask what would happen when space at Temple Gardens ran out. It was as if everyone feared the answers, so no one asked the questions.

  Although Papina’s own grief had dulled into a background ache, every time they sat huddled in a group listening to the latest accounts of langur attacks, her mind floated back to the last time she saw her father, and the longing to find out what had become of him grew stronger.

  She tried to talk to her mother about it, but Willow seemed to have closed that part of her life down. Willow was pragmatic; she knew they had narrowly dodged death on that fateful night; she knew they had been given another chance and she was determined to build a better life here in Temple Gardens. Thinking about the past would only be a torment.

  But Papina’s young mind didn’t understand this. She wanted answers, and if her mother wouldn’t help, then she’d find someone who would.

  —

  It was halfway through one of the lessons that the idea first occurred to Papina. Twitcher had been teaching the monkeys to play a game where they imagined they were birds flying high above the city.

  “Close your eyes and picture what it would look like…the river flowing up and down…the great streets running in lines next to it…the smaller ones crossing them to make little boxes…the railway lines sprouting out the side of the river like the stalk of a giant fruit.

  “Now pretend that you’re a dot moving around the city. Got it? Well, the trick of navigation is to always have one eye in the sky looking down. So when you turn left, you have to move that little dot left; if you turn round and go back the way you came, that little dot has to bounce back as well.”

  Papina concentrated hard—it was certainly true that from the top of a tall tree everything looked different, but what happened if you went even higher? She tried to imagine the city as a pattern of lines and boxes; the image fluttered across her mind, but just as she was starting to pull it into focus it slipped away again, eluding her.

  Suddenly she heard fits of giggles. P
apina snapped open her eyes to see everyone laughing at Honeydew, the youngest monkey in the class, who had closed her eyes and promptly fallen fast asleep.

  “Honeydew, you really should learn to relax more,” Twitcher said with a wry smile.

  Everyone laughed, and the noise woke Honeydew with a start. “What? Is it lunchtime?” she said in a dazed voice.

  Now that food had been mentioned, Twitcher knew it would be impossible to regain the youngsters’ concentration, so he dismissed the class. As the monkeys rushed out, though, Papina hung back.

  Twitcher smiled at her. “Do you think it was too difficult for them? Some monkeys just can’t get above street level.”

  “It was starting to make sense,” Papina said thoughtfully, “but it’s going to take a bit of practice.”

  “Once you get it, there’s no turning back. You just do it all the time, without thinking.”

  “Twitcher, I was wondering…from the bird’s eye, looking down, where would the old cemetery be?”

  Twitcher hesitated. He knew from long experience that answering these questions was like stirring up a bees’ nest of trouble.

  “You don’t need to know that, Papina. It was from another life.”

  “But I want to know,” she insisted.

  “Have you spoken to your mother about this?”

  “She won’t talk about the cemetery.”

  “She’s got good reasons.”

  “I have to know what really happened to my father. I was too young to remember much, but if I go back, maybe…”

  Twitcher shook his head. “You can’t go back. Not ever. It’s too dangerous. The langur have taken the cemetery for themselves.”

  “Well that’s too bad. I’ve already made up my mind,” she replied defiantly. Then, softening it with a charming smile, she added, “I just need your help to tell me how to get there.”

  Twitcher studied Papina. He’d always had a soft spot for her, ever since he first saw her in the dump in the slums, dodging the jaws of the python. Many young monkeys would have fallen to pieces, but she had steeled herself and outwitted death. Twitcher thought she had real courage, not something many monkeys had, and he did not want to be the one to crush her spirit.

  “Well…,” he said finally, “I suppose it wouldn’t be very responsible of me to let you go roaming the streets on your own now, would it?”

  Papina’s face lit up with joy and she threw her arms around him. “Thank you, Twitcher! I knew you’d help.”

  —

  Three nights later they put their plan into action. During the day Papina collected chamomile pollen from an herb garden on a nearby balcony; she took it back and secretly mixed it with her group’s food, careful to avoid eating any herself because chamomile was a sedative. As the moon rose, she watched her mother and the others all drift off into a deep, drugged sleep; then she crept away to meet Twitcher and they set off into the tangle of city streets.

  It was the first time Papina had strayed far from Temple Gardens since arriving as a nervous refugee, and she immediately felt her stomach knotting with anxiety. But she had huge faith in Twitcher—he was not one of those loud boastful monkeys who went strangely silent when things got difficult; his self-deprecating manner belied a real strength of character. Papina felt that she could trust him no matter what.

  His knowledge of the city was exhaustive—he seemed to have the entire street network lodged in his mind, and it wasn’t long before they found themselves running stealthily up the road toward the old cemetery. At the crest of the hill, Twitcher dived into the shadows under a mobile tea stall and pointed to the main gate—they could see silhouettes moving in front of it in the shadows.

  “The entrance is guarded. This is as far as we go,” he said, trying to hide his relief.

  “You didn’t really think we were just going to walk in?” Papina smiled. “As if. There’s a secret entrance. We used it all the time when we played hide-and-seek. I bet they haven’t found it yet.”

  “That’s really not a good idea,” Twitcher warned, trying to think of a reason that would stop her.

  “Why don’t I lead from here?” Papina cut in.

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “No.”

  Twitcher gave a resigned sigh. “After you, then, I suppose.” And he followed Papina as she darted down an alley that skirted the cemetery.

  Even though it had been many moons since she’d last played here, the memories flooded back, and soon they arrived at a stone pool built into the outside of the cemetery wall that collected water from a nearby rising well. Papina looked down at the fresh, clear water gurgling gently, and the sound transported her back.

  Twitcher watched her silently. He’d seen that air of loss so many times on the faces of refugee monkeys, but to see Papina in the grip of it stirred something within him that he’d never felt before, a longing to make things better, to somehow heal her life.

  Being Twitcher, of course, he wouldn’t dream of telling her, so as usual he made a quip. “Ah, so we’re going to swim in?”

  “How did you know?” Papina’s earnest expression wiped the smile from Twitcher’s face.

  “What?!”

  “This is how the fresh water gets into the bathing pool. There’s a hole in the bottom of the wall. All you’ve got to do is dive down and feel for it.”

  Twitcher peered nervously into the bubbling water. “Fine,” he said, trying to put on a brave face. But Papina knew that monkeys who hadn’t been brought up as swimmers could be frightened of water.

  “Look,” she said gently, “why don’t you stay out here and keep a lookout for langur patrols?”

  “I can’t let you go in there on your own!”

  “And I can’t have you splashing about like a bird in a bath.” Papina smiled. “It’ll be safer this way—”

  “No.”

  “I’ll be fine!”

  Twitcher realized he was trying to persuade an immovable will. He nodded reluctantly. “Just don’t get caught. Whatever you do, don’t get caught.”

  Papina smiled. “Don’t worry, I know this cemetery like the back of my hand.”

  And with that she dived into the pool and was gone.

  Mico had come to really enjoy the night exercises.

  Once he’d learned to conquer his fear of the dark, he found that in many ways night was the soldier’s friend. Although it was harder to see the enemy, it was easier to find hiding places, and because there was much less noise, it was possible to use each sound to read the darkness.

  Tonight’s exercise was a solo mission, “Going to Ground.” Mico had to dig himself into the undergrowth and stay there until dawn. At some point the instructors would come looking for him, and he had to try and avoid detection.

  Judging by the position of the moon, Mico reckoned he was about halfway through. He’d made a shelter in a secluded corner between a collapsed headstone and the gully that ducted fresh water into the Great Vault. It had all gone pretty smoothly apart from the group of cockroaches that had tried to invade his camp, but after he’d eaten a few, they got the message and retreated. Now he was just sitting and waiting for any sign of the instructors.

  It was a subtle splash, but Mico’s ears immediately pricked up. He had listened to the steady babble of the water in the gully long enough to detect even the slightest change in sound.

  He spun round and pulled back into the shadows, ears straining to track every movement.

  Someone seemed to be wading down the gully toward him; their approach was cautious, as if they were checking every shadow.

  Mico had expected the instructors to approach through the trees, as he’d assumed they wouldn’t want to get their fur wet, but he’d obviously misjudged them. Quickly he worked out a plan: he’d wait until they were nearly on him then he’d slip out, double back and hide under a tomb they’d already checked. Whatever happened, he was determined not to get caught.

  The splashing got closer and closer; they weren’t changi
ng their course—this was going to be easy.

  Mico picked up a palm leaf and bored a small hole in it; then, lifting the leaf to his face, he leaned forward and peered down the gully. The leaf trick was something they’d just learned; it meant the whites of his eyes couldn’t be seen and it was surprisingly effective.

  He inched forward without a sound until he could see along the entire length of the stream…

  Then he froze in shock.

  Wading toward him was a small rhesus monkey up to her chest in water.

  Cold dread seized Mico, the fur on his back bristled, he felt his heart start to pound…the enemy was here!

  If this was an attack, he should raise the alarm. But if he moved they’d surely pounce on him.

  They?

  Mico looked again. The rhesus was alone. And far from being savage and dangerous, she looked rather vulnerable.

  Suddenly she stopped, looked around cautiously, then climbed out of the stream and darted into the undergrowth.

  Mico immediately followed. He had to track her, find out exactly what kind of sabotage she was planning. The rhesus was quick, and she seemed to know exactly where she was going. Dodging from shadow to shadow, she made her way to the perimeter wall, where she disappeared into the bushes.

  Mico crept down the path. He could hear the rustling of leaves as she clambered through the dense shrubs. She obviously hadn’t been taught the art of silent approach, unlike Mico, who slipped into the bushes and picked his way through the tangle of vegetation…

  Creeping up on the rhesus, undetected…

  Closer and closer…

  Until he glimpsed her fur in the moonlight. Incredibly, she was crouched by the same niche in the wall Mico had discovered, and she was slowly unwrapping the little bamboo bundle, until she held the monkey carving in her hand.

  Mico watched as she gazed at the three little monkeys longingly, running her fingers gently over the carved figures.

  Instinctively he knew she wouldn’t harm him.

  Despite his oath of allegiance to Lord Gospodar, despite the punishments he risked, Mico couldn’t help feeling that he wanted to help this rhesus. She was not a savage barbarian, but a frightened and lonely young monkey.