Unspoken Read online

  When we had devoured the meager feast on the table, Fielding pushed his plate away and crossed his arms. “Glee,” his eyes narrowed in concentration, “sometimes I wish I knew sign language. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see you telling Sema this move was only temporary and you’re taking her home after she’s played with a few gorilla friends.”

  I swallowed hard, my cheeks stinging as though they’d been slapped. “Why would I do such a thing?”

  “Because you love that animal . . . and because you’re the most stubborn woman I’ve ever met. But I’ve got to warn you—if you don’t prepare Sema to the best of your ability, she’s going to be hurt. She’ll either be abused when the other animals test her to establish dominance, or she’ll wither away from loneliness in solitary confinement. Because that’s where Matthews wants her. You heard him yourself. He wants the talking gorilla as a headliner for his new pavilion.”

  Too weary to continue with my pretense, I dropped my chin into my palm. “Honestly, before today I was hoping I could take Sema home again, but I have been trying to keep her safe. We’ve watched videos; I’ve told her what to do if she’s challenged and I think she’ll remember. Because if her habituation fails now—well, I don’t want her living alone. That would kill her.”

  “For once, we’re in agreement.”

  I smiled at the sight of warmth in his eyes. “Truth is, Fielding, I don’t worry so much about her meeting the other g’s—I worry about her living with them.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Torn by conflicting emotions, I hesitated. “I’m afraid she’ll be bored when the newness wears off. I’m afraid she’ll regress and forget everything we’ve learned. Mostly, I’m afraid she’ll bond to them . . . and not have anything left for me.”

  Fielding raised his eyes to my face in an oddly keen look. “At last the truth comes out,” he said, his voice warmer than it had been all evening. “You’re like a mother who doesn’t want her little girl to grow up.”

  I shook my head. “That’s not it.”

  “Sure it is. Whether you admit it or not, you see Sema as your child. You don’t want to lose her.” He lowered his gaze, then picked up his glass and swirled the last of the soft drink inside. “I think any parent could understand that feeling.”

  My thoughts took an abrupt turn toward the ancient past, to the week when “Mr. Dependable” Fielding missed two days of work, then returned, surly and uncommunicative. Later I’d learned that he’d asked his pregnant girlfriend to marry him, but she didn’t want to be married . . . or have a baby.

  “Sometimes,” I said, my voice shakier than I would have liked, “life takes a turn for the unexpected.”

  He nodded without speaking.

  “I honestly wasn’t sure Sema could adjust,” I admitted, trying to draw the conversation back to the present, “but I was hoping she wouldn’t. I wanted to bring her home.”

  “Trust me, kiddo, that isn’t going to happen. Not as long as Ken Matthews is running the show.”

  “I hate him.”

  Brad laughed, his smile sloughing off the shadows on his face. “And that’s the Glee we all know and love—the one who’s not afraid to say what she’s thinking.”

  Startled by his use of the word love, I looked away. “I haven’t heard you speaking your mind in front of the big boss.”

  “Then you haven’t been listening. And you’re only mad at Matthews because of Sema. Actually, you ought to give the man a lot of credit. He’s brought the zoo into the twenty-first century, increased attendance, and he was responsible for our AZA accreditation. I don’t know if you’re aware that he actually saved Thousand Oaks—the place was near bankruptcy when he took over. This year we’ll show a profit. And don’t forget”—his grin widened—“Matthews had the good sense to hire me.”

  I stared at him, unable to stop a smile from spreading over my lips. “I can’t believe I missed all those signs of sainthood.”

  Brad grinned and swirled his glass again. “You can see a lot of things, if you look. Take this problem with Sema—there’s an answer; we just have to look for it.”

  “You actually think we can find a way out of Matthews’s grand new gorilla pavilion?”

  I heard the faint rasp of evening stubble as Fielding rubbed a hand across his face. “I don’t know how, exactly, but it’ll help if you try being a team player. Try working with us instead of against us.”

  I laughed to cover my annoyance. “I’ve been shoveling straw, scooping poop, and emptying garbage cans. What more do you want me to do?”

  “I want you to trust us. Sometimes I get the impression that you see me and Claire as the enemy. For heaven’s sake, Claire’s practically a kid, but you were awfully hard on her today.”

  For a moment I couldn’t imagine what he meant, then I remembered. “You’re talking about when I found her in Sema’s room.”

  “Of course. You really upset her.”

  “You think she didn’t upset me ? You’re the one who’s always harping about limited physical contact with the animals—”

  “Sema’s different and you know it. Besides, from what Claire told me, she wasn’t touching Sema; she was talking to her.”

  I crossed my arms, silently admitting he was right.

  Fielding shifted on his stool, turning toward me. “It’s that mother thing again—sometimes you act jealous and overprotective. You want your baby all to yourself, but that’s not how it works on a team.”

  “That’s how it works in research,” I countered. “Sema needs a controlled environment.”

  “Well, you’re not going to get a perfectly controlled situation at the zoo, so you might as well factor in certain unavoidable variables. And if you want our support, you’re going to have to let us give it—to you, and to Sema.”

  “And what do I get in return?”

  “You get my promise that I’ll do everything I can to keep Sema with the other g’s. I happen to think she’ll do well with the others . . . just like I think you could be a valuable member of our team. But I need you to widen your horizons and think of more than a single gorilla.”

  Biting my lip, I looked at him. Agreeing with him now meant I might not ever bring Sema home . . . but having her live with the other gorillas would be far better than a solitary life behind a one-way mirror.

  Choosing between two evils was easier when I considered the humans attached to each option. Matthews might be a good businessman, but he cared little for the animals beyond their potential to increase the zoo’s earnings. Fielding, on the other hand, kept a picture of baby Rafiki on his desk.

  “All right,” I told him. “I’ll do my best.”

  18

  Even the most skeptical critic of animal language studies has to admit that nonhuman creatures can grasp some elements of the English language— a family dog, for instance, can learn to recognize his name, basic commands, and commonly used words like outside or walk . I’ve seen Nana’s pug nearly turn himself inside out at the mention of a cookie , and even Charlie the tabby cat seems to understand what’s happening when Nana tells her pets good-bye.

  Most people tend to agree with the Far Side cartoon that illustrates a man offering his dog, Spot, a detailed explanation while all the dog hears is blah blah blah, Spot, blah, blah, blah.

  My research, however, has proven that Sema not only understands the words for most common things and activities; she also has a firm grasp on many abstract concepts. Over the course of our project, she has learned the meaning of words like imagine, pretend, think , and remember .

  When my alarm rang at 5:00 AM on Wednesday morning, I awoke in a cloud of contentment—an emotion that had been in short supply since Sema transferred to Thousand Oaks. I shut off the alarm clock, then rolled over and pillowed my head on my hand, a little amazed at the feeling that enveloped me. Fielding and I hadn’t found any definitive answers to my dilemma last night, nor had we fallen madly in love. But we had come to an understanding and established a new basis for our friendship—a friendship that felt more stable and mature than the relationship we’d experienced before Sema’s birth.

  I resolved to teach Sema the meaning of contentment as soon as I had a chance.

  I slipped out of bed and dressed quickly, then ran my fingers through my hair and glanced in the mirror—I looked okay. Good enough for gorillas and a couple of friends.

  After driving to work, I filled the gorillas’ breakfast bowls, then delivered them to the night rooms. I waited until I heard sounds of Sema stirring before opening her door. “Hey, sweetie,” I called, feeling more hopeful than I had in a month. “How are you today?”

  Nine times out of ten Sema responded to my usual greeting with either fine or sleepy . On that morning, however, she regarded me with a woebegone expression and moved the open fingers of both hands over her face.

  Sad .

  My cheerfulness shriveled to a lump of anxiety. “Sad? Sweetie, what’s wrong? What made you sad?”

  She looked at the television’s black screen. Movie stinky.

  “What happened? Did the machine break?”

  The power button on the DVD blinked at me; I pressed play and immediately the opening screen appeared. Apparently the problem didn’t lie in the machine.

  I sank to the floor and sat cross-legged next to my girl. “Was the movie bad?”

  She lifted her hands, hesitating, then her gaze darted toward the screen. Bad men, stinky bad.

  I groaned inwardly, wishing I’d taken the time to preview the movie before leaving it with Sema. But what could she have seen in a Natural Wildlife production? This wasn’t When Animals Attack or one of those other voyeuristic productions . . .

  Sema’s eyes narrowed as they often did when she was thinking hard, then she brought her flat hand to her nose and moved it through the air in the vague shape of an S . I remembered the sign: elephant . Because we didn’t see elephants every day, it wasn’t a word we used often.

  Apparently she’d seen elephants last night.

  “Oh, sweet girl.” I rose to my knees and waddled toward the television, where the remote lay atop the VCR. Taking it and moving back to Sema, I pressed play , then fast forward .

  Sitting together, Sema and I watched a progression of jerky images—gazelles, lions, a tiger, a group of bonobos. None of the segments contained violent images, nothing that should have upset my girl.

  Then I saw the first elephant. Beside me, Sema swung her head from side to side in a wide arc. “It’s okay, sweetie,” I soothed her. “Let me watch so I can help you understand.”

  I pressed play and the images slowed to the normal speed. I saw a group of elephants gathered by a watering hole. Several were older females with calves; nothing violent marred the scene.

  Then a sudden shot shattered the elephants’ calm. One of the females charged toward two men who appeared in the distant brush; a moment later she fell to her knees in midcharge. Her calf, screaming in fear, ran after her; then dropped to the ground, a spray of dirt rising from the impact of his fall. He did not rise again.

  Beside me, Sema whimpered and lifted her hands to cover her eyes. A narrator’s resonant baritone cut through the confusion on-screen.

  “After the first several shots, the entire group begins to run,” he said as the camera focused on the fleeing animals. “The mothers push their young forward. Tina, who had been near Torn Ear when the fatal shot was fired, sustains an injury of her own. The others know she is hurt; they can smell the bloody discharge dripping from her mouth.”

  Tears stung my eyes as the camera zoomed in on the wounded youngster.

  “Tina’s mother, Teresia, keeps dropping back to run with her daughter, occasionally reaching over to touch the younger animal with her trunk. But at last Tina’s strength gives out. The others in the group stop as well. By this time, blood pours from Tina’s mouth and her sides heave with every breath. She slips from her feet and tumbles to the ground, dying with a single shudder.”

  Like Sema, I wanted to avert my eyes from the television. Mercifully, the cameraman kept his lens focused on the group of elephants huddled around their wounded relative.

  “At this point, Teresia and Trista panic,” the narrator continued, “Notice how they work their tusks under Tina’s back and beneath her head. At one point they succeed in lifting her into a sitting position, but her body, of course, cannot remain upright. Watch Tallulah—see how she tries to stuff a mouthful of grass into Tina’s mouth? She is desperately trying to evoke signs of life where life no longer exists.”

  I held my breath as I watched the bigger elephant try to force-feed the dead animal. They reminded me of a scene depicted in Fossey’s book—a female gorilla had died during the night, and at sunrise the silverback had mercilessly beaten the body. I had read of other gorilla groups in which ailing animals were “picked on” by the others. Could what looked like cruel behaviors actually be well-intentioned?

  I thought the elephant scene could get no worse, but then Teresia, Tina’s mother, knelt down and worked her tusks under the dead elephant’s shoulder. Pushing with all her strength, she began to lift, and when she was finally able to stand, the weight of the dead youngster snapped Teresia’s ivory tusk only a few inches from her lip. I flinched at the loud pop of breaking bone. The narrator didn’t need to comment; anyone could see the ragged bit of remaining tusk within a bloody sheath.

  Tears had begun to sting my eyes when the elephants ran; now they welled up and overflowed, running down my cheeks. Sema turned her back to the screen and picked up one of her gorilla dolls, which she rocked in her arms.

  “The elephants know they cannot defeat death,” the narrator intoned, “but they do not leave. They stand beside Tina’s body for hours, gently caressing it with their trunks and feet. She has fallen on rocky soil, but the others scrape up trunkfuls of earth and scatter it over the carcass. Trista, Tia, and the others break branches from the surrounding shrubbery and place the limbs on Tina’s body. By nightfall, their burial is complete. Slowly they move away, lingering at a distance until Teresia, who had maintained a vigil over her daughter, slowly lumbers off to join them.”

  I pressed the stop button, then powered the machine off. Beside me, Sema leaned against me, her face to the wall, her chin resting on her chest in the universal body language of sorrow.

  Elephant , she signed again, elephant die . Sad, bad sad.

  I nodded, not trusting myself to speak, as the memory of my own losses passed through me like an unwelcome chill. I closed my eyes as images flashed on the backs of my eyelids—sheet-covered bodies on the beach, the strobic glow of the ambulance’s red lights, twin sprays of lilies on matching coffins at the front of the church.

  I was trying to prove that humans and animals could use language to bridge the gulf between us, but grief was a far more pervasive link.

  Wordlessly, I slipped my arms around Sema’s warm bulk. Locked in her embrace, I wept for myself and my animal friends half a world away.

  19

  I never got around to teaching Sema the word contentment that day. She’d already learned die from watching Gorillas in the Mist ; the elephant footage had reinforced that sad concept. I would have liked to shelter her from any further examples of the word, but life had other plans.

  Sema and I were in the office together after lunch—I was trying to record the emotions she’d displayed after watching the elephant movie; she sat pouting in Fielding’s squeaky chair because I’d refused to spin her. Claire was working at the computer, probably surfing the Web for gorilla news, while our fearless leader was off doing whatever fearless leaders do when they’re not motivating the troops.

  Claire broke the silence with a startled, “Oh!” then picked up the remote and powered on the television. I looked up, annoyed by the interruption, but the feeling faded when she tuned to Animal Planet. “Just got an e-mail from the Gorilla Symposium,” she told me. “Something happened to one of the g’s at the Dallas Zoo this morning. Animal Planet ’s airing a report at one.”

  I glanced at the clock—12:58, so we were just in time. I turned to Sema, who was kissing the photo of baby Rafiki. “Sweetie,” I said, “want to go get one of your toys from your room? Maybe one of your dolls would like to spin.”

  Sema’s eyes narrowed as she considered my request (and probably the motivation behind it), then she slipped off the chair and knuckle-walked out of the office.

  “Prevention,” I told Claire. “She got really upset this morning after watching a video about elephant poachers. If this report is bad news, I don’t want her to see it.”

  We both looked up as the special came on. We saw a picture of a handsome young blackback, then an overhead shot of a zoo pathway and a blanket-covered body.

  Claire groaned. “Oh, no.”

  The camera cut to a khaki-clad Animal Planet reporter who explained the story. Jabari, a thirteen-year-old gorilla at the Dallas Zoo, had come from Toronto nine years earlier. At first friendly and affectionate, the young male had grown more skittish as he matured. But earlier that morning the 350-pound animal managed to slip out of a supposedly escape-proof enclosure and wander the zoo for forty-nine minutes. During that time he attacked three people, including a mother and her small child. While zoo personnel scrambled to contain him, the Dallas police arrived and shot the gorilla, killing him instantly.

  I glanced toward the hallway, where Sema had not yet appeared.

  “Zoo officials have no idea how Jabari got out of his pen,” the reporter said. “Four doors stand between the gorillas and the outside world. Rock climbers have tested the twelve- to sixteen-foot-high walls to be sure no animal could climb them. Electrified wires guard the top of the enclosure, and trees in the habitat have been trimmed so no branches extend over the public areas. Jabari’s means of escape is a mystery, but his motivation less so. The young male was maturing, and rivalry within his gorilla family may have caused him to flee.”