The High Mountains of Portugal (27 page)

Bob and he go for a walk with Odo, much to the ape's delight. Odo forages for berries, climbs trees, asks (with a grunt and his arms raised, like a child) to be carried by Peter, who obliges, lurching and stumbling about until he's ready to drop. The way Odo holds on to him with his arms and legs, he feels he has a hundred-pound octopus on his back.

“I can give you his collar and his twenty-foot leash if you want, but they're pointless,” Bob says. “If he's in a tree, he'll just pull you up like you're a yo-yo. And if you happen to be on a horse, he'll pull your horse up too. Chimpanzees are unbelievably strong.”

“So how do I restrain him?”

Bob thinks for a few seconds before answering. “I don't mean to get personal, sir, but are you married?”

“I was,” Peter replies soberly.

“And how did you restrain your wife?”

Restrain Clara?
“I didn't.”

“Right. You got along. And when you didn't, you argued and you coped. It's the same here. There's very little you can do to control him. You'll just have to cope. Odo likes figs. Placate him with figs.”

During this exchange, Odo has been poking around a bush. He comes out and sits right next to Peter, on his foot. Brazenly, he feels, Peter reaches down and pats Odo's head.

“You gotta get physical,” Bob says. He squats in front of the chimpanzee. “Odo, tickle-fest, tickle-fest?” he says, his eyes open wide. He begins to tickle the ape's sides. Soon the two are wildly rolling about the ground, Bob laughing and Odo hooting and shrieking with delight.

“Join in, join in!” Bob shouts. The next moment Peter and Odo are thrashing about. The ape does indeed possess Herculean strength. There are times when he lifts Peter clear off the ground with arms and legs before crashing him back down.

When their roughhousing is over, Peter staggers to his feet. He's dishevelled, one of his shoes has come off, his shirt has lost two buttons, the front pocket is torn, and he's covered in grass, twigs, and soil stains. It was an embarrassingly juvenile episode, unbecoming of a man of sixty-two years—and utterly thrilling. He can feel his fear of the ape draining away.

Bob looks at him. “You'll do fine,” he says.

Peter smiles and nods. He declines the collar and leash.

When Lemnon appears, there is only the commercial transaction that needs to be completed. Peter hands over the bank draft, which Lemnon inspects carefully. In return, he gives Peter various papers. One form states that he, Peter Tovy, is the legal owner of the male chimpanzee,
Pan troglodytes,
Odo. It is notarized by a lawyer in Oklahoma City. Another form is from a wildlife veterinarian; it gives the ape a clean bill of health and guarantees that Odo is up to date on all vaccinations. Yet another is an export permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. They all look properly official, with signatures and embossed stamps. “All right, I guess that's it,” Peter says. Lemnon and he don't shake hands, and Peter walks away without saying another word.

Bob places a folded towel on the front passenger seat. He bends down and hugs Odo. Then he stands and motions to him to get into the car. Odo does so without hesitation, making himself comfortable in the seat.

Bob takes hold of the ape's hand and holds it to his face. “Good-bye, Odo,” he says, his voice strained by sadness.

Peter gets in the driver's seat and starts the engine. “Should we put his seatbelt on?” he asks.

“Why not,” Bob replies. He reaches over and works it across Odo's waist. He snaps the buckle in. The shoulder strap is too high, running across Odo's face. Bob puts it behind his head. Odo does not mind the arrangement.

Peter feels panic simmering within him.
I can't do this. I should just call the whole thing off.
He lowers his window and waves at Bob. “Good-bye, Bob. Thanks again. You've been a tremendous help.”

The drive from Oklahoma City takes longer than the drive to it. He goes at a moderate speed so as not to alarm Odo. And whereas from Ottawa to Oklahoma City he jumped from human colony to human colony—Toronto, Detroit, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Tulsa—on the way to New York City he avoids as many urban centres as he can, once again to spare the ape.

He would like to sleep in a proper bed and enjoy a shower, but he is quite certain that no motel owner will rent a room to a half-simian couple. On the first night, he turns off the road and stops the car next to an abandoned farmhouse. He assembles the cage, but he isn't sure where to place it. On the roof of the car? Sticking out of the trunk? A little ways off, in the ape's “own” territory? Finally he puts the cage, its door ajar, next to the car and leaves the front passenger window rolled open. He gives Odo a blanket, then he lies down on the back seat. When night falls, the ape comes in and out, making considerable noise, leaping into the back seat a few times, practically landing on Peter, until he settles in the foot well of the back seat, next to him. Odo doesn't snore, but his breathing is powerful. Peter does not sleep well, not only because he is overtly disturbed by the ape but because of nagging worries. This is a large, powerful animal, unrestrained and uncontrollable.
What have I got myself into?

Other nights they sleep on the edge of a field, at the end of a dead-end road, wherever it's quiet and isolated.

One evening he has a closer look at the papers Lemnon gave him. Included among them is a report that gives an overview of Odo's life. He was “wild-caught as a baby” in Africa. No mention is made of the Peace Corps volunteer, only that Odo next spent time with NASA, at a place called Holloman Aerospace Medical Center, in Alamogordo, New Mexico. Then he went to the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, in Atlanta, Georgia, then to the Laboratory for Experimental Medicine and Surgery in Primates, LEMSIP for short, in Tuxedo, New York, before being sent to Lemnon's Institute for Primate Research. What an odyssey. No wonder Bob said Odo was a rolling stone.

Peter lingers on certain words:
“medical”…“biology”…“laboratory”…“research”
—and especially “experimental medicine and surgery.”
Experimental?
Odo was shunted from one medical Auschwitz to another, and this after being taken from his mother as a baby. Peter wonders what happened to Odo's mother. Earlier in the day, while grooming the ape, he noticed a tattoo on his chest. Only in that area can the dark skin be made out beneath the thick coat, and there, in the upper-right-hand corner, he found two wrinkled digits—the number 65—inscribed on unacceptable paper.

He turns to Odo. “What have they done to you?”

He moves over and grooms him.

One afternoon in lush Kentucky, after filling up, he drives to the far end of the recreation area behind the gas station so they can eat. Odo gets out of the car and climbs a tree. At first Peter is relieved; the ape is out of the way. But then he can't get him to come down. He's afraid that Odo will reach over into another tree and then another and be gone. But the ape stays put. He only gazes at the forest on whose edge he is hovering. He seems drunk with joy at being in such a leafy haven. A chimpanzee afloat in a sea of green.

Peter waits. Time goes by. He has nothing to read and he doesn't feel like listening to the radio. He has a nap in the back seat. He reflects on Clara, on his disenchanted son, on the life he is leaving behind. He walks to the gas station to get food and water. He sits in the car and contemplates the layout of the gas station, its main building that was once brightly coloured but is now faded, the expanse of asphalt, the coming and going of cars and trucks and people, the recreation area, the edge of the forest, the tree in which Odo has ensconced himself, and then he sits there and just watches Odo.

No one notices the chimpanzee in the tree except children. While grown-ups busy themselves with trips to the restrooms and with fuelling up their cars and their families, children look around. They grin. Some point and try to alert their parents. A random, blind gaze is all they get. The children wave at Odo as they drive off.

Five hours later, as the day is coming to an end, Peter is still looking up at the chimpanzee. Odo isn't ignoring him. In fact, when he's not distracted by activity in the gas station, Odo looks down at him with the same relaxed interest that Peter shows looking up at him.

When dusk comes, the air cools a little and still the ape does not come down. Peter opens the trunk of the car and pulls out his sleeping bag and Odo's blanket. The ape hoots. Peter gets close to the tree and lifts the blanket in the air. The creature reaches down to grab it. He climbs back into the tree and wraps himself up cosily.

Peter leaves fruit, slices of bread spread with peanut butter, and a jug of water at the foot of the tree. When it gets dark, he lies down for the night in the car. He is exhausted. He is worried that Odo will flee during the night or, worse, attack someone. But he falls asleep with a last, pleasing realization: It is likely the first time since his African childhood that Odo has slept under the stars.

In the early morning, the fruit and bread slices are gone and the jug is half empty. When Peter emerges from the car, Odo comes down from the tree. He raises his arms towards him. Peter sits on the ground and they embrace and groom each other. Peter gives Odo a breakfast of chocolate milk and egg salad sandwiches.

At two other gas stations along the way, the same tree-dwelling scenario is repeated. Peter twice has to call the airline to change their reservations, at a cost each time.

During the day, as they drive across America, he finds himself at regular intervals turning his head to glance at his passenger, astounded again and again that he's in a car with a chimpanzee. And he senses that Odo, who is otherwise much taken by the landscape going by, does the same thing, turns his head at regular intervals to glance at him, astounded again and again that he's in a car with a human being. And so, in a constant and mutual state of wonder and amazement (and a little fear), they make their way to New York City.

Peter grows nervous as they approach the metropolis. He worries that Lemnon has played a trick on him, that at Kennedy Airport he will be stopped and Odo taken away.

The ape stares at the city, his jaw slack, his eyes unblinking. On a side road on the way to Kennedy, Peter stops the car. Now comes the hard part. He must inject into the ape a powerful animal sedative called Sernalyn, prescribed by the veterinarian. Will Odo attack him in retaliation?

“Look!” he says, pointing away. Odo looks. Peter jabs him in the arm with the syringe. Odo hardly seems to notice the prick and in a few minutes falls unconscious. At the airport, because of the nature of his cargo, Peter is allowed to go to a special bay to unload the ape. He assembles the cage and with considerable effort heaves Odo's limp body onto a blanket on the floor of it. He lingers, his fingers hooked around the metal bars. What if Odo doesn't wake up? Where will that leave him?

The cage is put on a dolly and wheeled into the labyrinth of JFK. Peter is accompanied by a security guard. When the customs official has gone through all the papers and verified his flight ticket, Odo is taken away. Peter is told that, if the captain gives his permission, he will be able to go in the hold during the flight to check on him.

He races away. He goes to a car wash, cleans the car inside and out, drives to Brooklyn. The prospective buyer proves to be a difficult man who magnifies every fault in the car and dismisses every quality. But Peter didn't practice politics for nearly twenty years for nothing. He listens to the man without saying a word, then restates the agreed-upon price. When the man makes to argue further, Peter says, “That's fine. I'll sell it to the other buyer.” He gets into the car and starts it.

The man comes up to the window. “What other buyer?” he asks.

“Just after I agreed to sell it to you, another buyer called. I said no, because I made a commitment to you. But it's better for me if you don't want it. I'll get more money that way.” He gets the car into gear and starts reversing out of the driveway.

The man waves. “Wait, wait! I'll take it,” he yells. He quickly pays up.

Peter flags down a taxi and returns to Kennedy. He pesters the airline with his worries about Odo. They assure him that, no, they won't forget to load the ape onto the plane, and that, yes, he will be loaded in the top hold, which is pressurized and heated, and that, no, there have been no reports of him stirring, and that, yes, he gives all signs of still being alive, and that, no, Peter can't see him just yet, and that, yes, as soon as the plane is at cruising altitude they will inquire about Peter going to see him.

An hour into the flight, the captain gives his permission and Peter goes to the back of the plane. Through a narrow door, he enters the top hold. The light is turned on. He spots the cage right away, tethered to the wall of the plane with straps. It's set apart from the first-class luggage. He hurries to it. He is relieved to see Odo's chest rising and falling evenly. He puts his hand through the bars and feels the warm body. He would go inside the cage to groom him, but the airline has added its own padlock to the door.

Except for the odd trip to the restroom or for a meal, Peter stays next to the cage the whole flight. The flight attendants don't seem to mind him being there. The veterinarian told him that a chimpanzee can't overdose on Sernalyn. Twice during the flight he gives Odo an extra jab. He hates doing it, but he doesn't want the ape to wake up in such a noisy, strange place. He might panic.

Enough of this,
Peter thinks. He promises that he will never subject Odo to such egregious strains again. The ape deserves better.

A flight attendant enters the hold half an hour before the plane is due to land. He must return to his seat, she tells him. He does as he is told and promptly falls asleep.

When the plane bumps to a landing early in the morning at Lisbon's Portela Airport, he groggily looks out the window, and it is he who feels panic racing through him. His heart jumps about his chest. His breathing is laboured.
This is all a mistake. I'll just turn around.
But what about Odo? Lisbon surely has a zoo. He could abandon the ape in his cage at the entrance, an animal foundling.