Unspoken Read online

  He looked up. “Morning. How did you two make out last night?”

  “Fine, once we got used to all the strange noises.” I pulled away, about to return to Sema, but Fielding cocked a finger at me. “Got a minute? Now that you and Sema have settled in, I think we need to go over the work schedule.”

  I forced a smile. I knew this was coming—and while I didn’t mind working around the clock for Sema, I wasn’t thrilled about being distracted by a schedule that would have me cleaning up after five other animals too. But such was the price I’d have to pay until Sema and I could go home again.

  I grabbed the tattered dinette chair from my desk and slid it toward Fielding’s. “No time like the present.”

  He waited until I sat down, then cleared his throat. “First, I want to assure you that we appreciate your work with Sema. We want you to continue, but that will involve only a couple of hours per day, right?”

  “Technically, that’s true, but even when we play, we’re signing and communicating. It’s not like I have hours of free time in a day. When she naps, I’m usually recording my notes about her progress or entering data into my computer. When she’s playing with her toys, I still have to clean up after her, prepare her foods, sanitize her sleeping area—”

  “And that’s where we’ll help. Claire and I have been handling the food prep and cleaning for five gorillas, so adding one more isn’t that big a deal.”

  I stiffened as his implication became clear. Caring for one gorilla is child’s play; we’ve been handling five.

  Fielding glanced at a letter on his desk, then eyed me with a calculating expression. “I know you’ve been accustomed to calling your own shots, but now we need you to be a team player. For the next week or two, I’d like you to conduct your sessions with Sema in the mornings and reserve her afternoons for activities that will aid her in habituation. We’ll begin today by allowing her to visit the other night areas, to smell the others’ scents and begin to identify them. If all goes well, by the end of the week we’ll move her into the exam room—the other g’s will be able to see her through the window, but we’ll keep them separated. When we’re sure she’ll be safely received, we’ll introduce her in the habitat. We’ll try the first meeting on a Sunday morning because we can better monitor the situation if the zoo is closed.”

  I nodded slowly. Fielding’s plan sounded reasonable, but I needed to let him know of my doubts. I wanted him to see the problems as I saw them, so if that meant teaching him to see the glass as half-empty rather than half-full, so be it.

  “I think you should know,” I lowered my gaze, “that I’ve had some real doubts about whether this will work at all.”

  “You said Sema was doing well.”

  “She’s fine now —in her private room and with me close by. But how would you feel if you were suddenly ripped from your home and dropped into a culture where no one spoke your language? Even if you knew the people and were familiar with their scents, not being able to communicate might drive you a little crazy.”

  Fielding leaned back and crossed his arms. “We’ve habituated gorillas before. Even animals from pathetic circumstances.”

  “But no one’s ever habituated a talking gorilla to a captive group. Sure, Sema’s excited now about being with the other g’s, but how is she going to feel a month from now? She may regress; she may withdraw; who knows?”

  “That”—Fielding leaned forward—“is why you’re here. To make sure the transition goes well. You’ll still have your daily time with her; you can keep her skills sharp.”

  I crossed my arms and shrugged. “Whatever.”

  He lifted the clipboard. “We’ll see what happens,” he said, “but in the meantime, you need to start keeping regular hours. Claire has been handling the early shift alone—I want to cut her back to three days a week and let you handle four. She needs time to study and you need time with Sema, right?”

  I narrowed my eyes. Rising before sunup has never been my idea of the best way to start the day, but if I had to prepare breakfast for six gorillas and deliver browse through trapdoors in the rooftop . . .

  “Good grief.” The words slipped from my tongue. “I’ll have to start in the middle of the night until I get the hang of it.”

  Fielding laughed. “The produce doesn’t arrive until five. And you’ll get the hang of it in no time. It’s not rocket science.”

  I sighed heavily. “Okay.”

  “Whoever doesn’t prepare breakfast ’n browse has to clean the night rooms,” Fielding continued. “Old straw swept out, clean straw put down, any and all dung tagged and bagged.”

  “Wait.” Tagged and bagged dung was a new routine since my days at the zoo pre-Sema. “I don’t know these g’s. How am I supposed to know which droppings belong to which animal?”

  “Claire and I will help you at first, but in time you’ll learn to recognize the way the g’s build their night nests.” Fielding skimmed the chart on his clipboard, then dropped it to his desk. “They have distinctive styles. Just bag the droppings, tag them with the name, and remove the soiled straw.”

  Chuckling, I lowered my head into my hand.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing,” I shook my head. “I suppose I thought—I mean, it was so easy to potty train Sema.”

  Fielding snorted. “Right. Like I’m going to teach our gorillas to use a porta-potty.”

  I exhaled a deep breath. “Okay, I tag and bag the dung. Then what? Send it to the lab?”

  “Only every other day,” Fielding said. “There’s no need for an exam if the animals aren’t sick. The minute one of them exhibits any kind of symptom, however, we rush all the stool samples to Dr. Parker’s office.”

  “Got it.”

  “Also,” Fielding continued, “Claire and I expect you to work us into your routine with Sema. She’s your project—we respect that—but she’s also the zoo’s property. Mr. Matthews wants all of us to be able to handle her—that means we’ll all need to communicate with her at least in a basic way.”

  Something in me rebelled at the idea. “Hold on a minute, Fielding. That wasn’t part of the deal.”

  The corner of his mouth dipped in a frown. “Trust me, learning sign language is the last thing on my priority list. But Matthews has a point—what if you come down with the flu? Break your leg? Take a job in Timbuktu? If something happens to you, we’ll be responsible for Sema. So it’s not only right that you teach us: it’s prudent.”

  I took a wincing little breath. By-the-rules Brad, a man who once made my heart beat at double speed, had become a card-carrying member of the Anal-Retentive Administrators’ Association.

  “Prudent,” I repeated, my voice like chilled steel. “Good grief, Fielding, when’d you become such a pain in the rear?”

  Wearing the weary and patient expression with which a father might regard a teenage daughter, he looked at me. “We also share the lecture duties.” He pulled a sheet of paper from a drawer, then slid it toward me. “You know the drill—give the standard speech for special groups; answer questions. And keep an eye on the monitors in case we get people throwing trash into the moat. We don’t often have trouble, but you know kids . . .”

  I glanced at the paper. Welcome to the Gorilla Pavilion, home of Thousand Oaks’s lowland gorilla population. As you look at our animals, you’ll notice that the faces of gorillas are different from one another, just like humans. Gorillas and humans have many things in common, but they differ, too. A man’s arms are equal in length to his legs, but a gorilla’s arms are a foot longer than his legs. The big toe on a gorilla’s foot is more like a thumb on a human hand, enabling the gorilla to grab things with its feet . . .

  The paper went on, describing the gorillas’ large stomach, family structure, and temperament. The material was standard stuff, yet comprehensive, simplified so even an elementary school student could understand.

  “Any problem with that?”

  I glanced up. “Did you write this?”

  Fielding nodded.

  “It’s pretty good.”

  “Thanks. That leaves one last thing.” He pitched a pair of rubber gloves into my lap. “The newest employee has to empty the trash cans every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Sorry, but it’s tradition.”

  I tossed the gloves back. “I don’t think I am the newest employee. I worked here before, remember?”

  He pushed the gloves to the edge of the desk. “Sorry, but Claire’s been here three years—and that gives her more seniority even if we count your previous employment. You’re definitely at the low end of the totem pole.”

  I gathered up the gloves, shot him the most withering look I could generate, then headed off to talk to Sema. As I stalked through the hall, I realized that both my gorilla and I occupied the lowest position of our social groups. Sema might not mind, but I definitely did.

  14

  As Sema enjoyed her afternoon nap, I donned the rubber gloves and walked toward the empty night areas. The zoo’s gorilla group had been outside for hours, but the musty, sweet scent of gorilla still lingered in the air at this end of the building.

  After undoing the latch on the first gate, I stepped into the room and studied the night nest in the straw. The compact rimmed oval occupied the corner of the room—where, I imagined, the animal had felt safe surrounded by two solid walls.

  A soft voice interrupted my musings. “Have you figured them out?” Claire stepped into the room behind me. “Can you match the nest to the gorilla?”

  I bit my lip, then stepped closer to the nest. The dung inside was well formed, solid, and sizable, indicating a healthy adult specimen. “Um . . . Aisha?”

  Claire laughed. “Actually, Mosi slept in this room last night. You’ll always be able to identify his roo
m because he likes to sleep in the corner. The biggest nest always belongs to Aisha and Rafiki—the baby still sleeps with her, and probably will for at least another year. Aisha’s nests are always a little flattened in one corner because Rafiki can be rambunctious early in the morning.”

  I pulled a ziplock bag from my pocket, turned it inside out, then used it to scoop up the droppings in the straw.

  Claire grinned. “I can tell you’ve done that before.”

  I snorted softly. “Even potty trained gorillas make mistakes.”

  I turned the bag right-side out and zipped it, then pulled a felt-tip marker from my other pocket and labeled the specimen with Mosi’s name.

  “Up here,” Claire stepped into the adjoining room and pointed to one of the iron platforms hanging on the wall, “is Dakarai’s nest. See how the edges are less built up than the others? Sometimes I think he only makes a token effort. He uses just enough straw to cushion his behind, then he’s set.”

  I placed one hand on my hip and studied the platform over my head. “Wonder why he likes to sleep up there?”

  Claire shrugged. “Because he’s the sentinel, I suppose. The guard.”

  “That makes sense. Though if an intruder were approaching from the hallway, Mosi would see him first.”

  “Yeah, but Dakarai would sense him.” She arched her auburn brows into twin triangles. “Never underestimate the power of the silverback. He’s one amazing guy.”

  As we moved into the next room, Claire slipped her hands into her pockets. “What kind of nest does Sema build?”

  I laughed. “The Care Bear kind. I never wanted to mess with straw in the trailer, so she makes a nest with blankets tossed over an inner tube. She likes to sleep next to this old Care Bear comforter I found at a yard sale.”

  “Really? I don’t think a comforter would last in here. The other g’s like to rip things up.”

  “That would break Sema’s heart. Maybe . . . maybe habituation isn’t such a good idea.”

  Claire looked at me with a startled expression, then shrugged. “I’m sure it’ll work out. We’ll just have to keep straw in Sema’s room and let her get used to it. If we take away the Care Bear blanket tonight or tomorrow—”

  “Not yet.” I pulled another plastic bag from my pocket. “I’m not rushing her toward something that might not work at all.”

  Claire helped me clean the rooms, demonstrating the best ways to knock straw from a raised platform, scrape old straw up with a pitchfork, and run a disinfectant-soaked mop over the textured concrete floor. When we had brought several bales of straw into the area and scattered the fresh material throughout the rooms, I thanked her and went to wash my hands.

  She had left the building by the time I came out of the bathroom. Grateful for an opportunity to spend time alone with my girl, I worked quietly until Sema woke from her nap. Then I offered her a box of juice and told her I had something to show her.

  She glanced toward the TV and VCR I had set up while she slept. See movie?

  “In a few minutes, maybe. But not now.”

  See gorillas? Play with gorillas?

  “Not yet, sweetie. But I’d like to show you where the gorillas sleep.”

  With her hand firmly in mine, I led Sema into the first night room. Her jaw dropped as she took in the painted pictures, the iron platforms, the fire hoses stretched from wall to wall.

  As attractive as those sights were, they didn’t satisfy her. She pulled her hand free of my grasp. Where gorillas? When gorillas visit?

  “The gorillas are outside. They aren’t ready to meet you, but I thought you might want to look at the room where they sleep. See how they use straw for a nest?”

  Despite her obvious disappointment, Sema walked through the rooms, peering around corners and looking up through the platforms’ fretwork as if an animal might be hiding just out of sight. She knuckle-walked through the layer of straw Claire and I had put down, occasionally picking up a handful and sniffing it. At one point she sat back and knuckle-beat her chest, spreading the hollow pok-pok-pok sound throughout the rooms, then she scampered back to my side.

  Gorillas sleep here?

  “Yes, Sema, every night.”

  Sema sleep here?

  “Not tonight, sweetie. Perhaps soon you can sleep in there.”

  I pointed to the empty exam room, but Sema shook her head. Stinky Glee. Sema sleep here, here, with gorillas. Hurry hurry sleep here now.

  “Not now,” I repeated. “But come with me and I’ll show you a movie. Would you like to watch gorillas on TV?”

  See gorillas!

  Taking my enthusiastic charge by the hand, I led her back to her room. While she napped, I had rifled through Fielding’s video collection and found a Natural Wildlife DVD of free-living gorillas interacting in the jungle.

  As I slipped the DVD into the player, I glanced over my shoulder. Sema had climbed into her blanket-covered inner tube and nestled her plush bear in her arm. She looked like a middle school girl settling in for videos and snacks at a slumber party.

  Maybe she was more human than gorilla . . . and while I didn’t want her to settle here, I didn’t want her to be injured or traumatized when she was allowed to interact with the other g’s. I’d studied this video when I first began working with gorillas, and I knew it contained footage of animals demonstrating proper submissive behavior.

  I hoped Sema would watch and learn.

  15

  For the next three days, I wrestled with an undeniable reality. Each morning I woke in Sema’s room, convinced I’d be able to slip away at five o’clock like every other full-time zoo employee, but at four thirty I’d look at my girl and see loneliness in the deep wrinkled wells of her eyes.

  I couldn’t leave her. If I left, she’d be completely alone.

  And so I got up every morning, helped Claire prepare breakfast ’n browse, and staved off Sema’s persistent questions about the other animals.

  After breakfast, I tried to help Sema concentrate on her reading, but like a child counting the days until Christmas, she didn’t want to think about anything but the other gorillas. She ended most of our arguments by calling me a stinky nut and facing the wall in a silent pout.

  Films proved to be our salvation. Sema watched the free-living gorillas with fascination—and fortunately, Fielding had a vast DVD collection.

  One afternoon Claire stepped into our room. “We had to show films to Kamili,” she said, a shy smile lighting her face. “She was raised by humans, remember? When she came into heat, she desperately wanted Dakarai’s attention, but she couldn’t figure out how to approach him. So one day we brought her into her night room, set up a TV outside the window, and left one of these DVDs playing. A month later, we confirmed her pregnancy.”

  At that point I wasn’t overly concerned about Sema’s reproductive knowledge, but I wanted to be sure she understood the group’s social structure. As she watched the film, I sat beside her and provided a running narration in spoken English and sign language.

  “See that silverback? Isn’t he handsome? Dakarai is the silverback here,” I told her. “He is the leader and he protects the others. He does not know you, so when you meet him, he may scream; he may beat his chest; he may rush toward you. If he does, don’t run away. Just lie down on your belly and be still.”

  Sema’s round eyes drank in the images, but I wasn’t sure how much she understood. On the off chance she was thinking of herself as some kind of a human hybrid, I found footage of an angry male charging Sigourney Weaver from the movie Gorillas in the Mist . Sema watched the charging silverback, then turned to me.

  Gorilla angry? Gorilla run?

  “Yes,” I told her, “but keep watching. If you stand still like that woman, the gorilla will calm down and be good. Then Sema and the gorilla can be friends.”

  I left the DVD playing and stepped out to get a juice box from the kitchen. The search took longer than I had planned—Claire had moved our juice boxes to another cupboard—and when I returned, the film had advanced to the scene where native poachers murdered Dian Fossey’s favorite gorilla friend, Digit. Sema’s eyes had gone wide and her hands lay silent in her lap.