Jennie Read online

  Praise for Douglas Preston and Jennie

  “An amazing story.”

  —Entertainment Weekly

  “I love Jennie, the book and the chimp. [Preston has] created a very remarkable person and a very important book.”

  —Jane Goodall, award-winning scientist and

  bestselling author of Reason for Hope

  “[An] engrossing story of a chimp experiment . . . Jennie is a believable character, both hilarious and heartbreaking.”

  —Cleveland Plain Dealer

  “Preston has given us a novel that is fresh and different that holds us to every page, and that not only takes us into the mind of a closely related primate, but teaches us something about our own humanity, or lack of it.”

  —Stuart Woods, New York Times

  bestselling author of Two-Dollar Bill

  “An enchanting morality tale in which genes and evolution replace the fates of ancient tragedy. . . . Preston sticks to scientific fact and so it’s to his credit that the reader finds himself asking ‘Is Jennie human?’ and to the end is never wholly convinced that she is not.”

  —Dallas Morning News

  “Jennie has everything: an unforgettable main character, a powerful theme, a heartachingly beautiful, compelling story. This is a stunning debut by a special talent. It feels like a classic.”

  —David Morrell, New York Times

  bestselling author of First Blood

  jennie

  Douglas Preston

  The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied so that you can enjoy reading it on your personal devices. This e-book is for your personal use only. You may not print or post this e-book, or make this e-book publicly available in any way. You may not copy, reproduce or upload this e-book, other than to read it on one of your personal devices.

  Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

  JENNIE

  Copyright © 1994 by Douglas Preston

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

  First published in the United States by St. Martin’s Press

  Book design by Junie Lee

  A Forge Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10010

  www.tor.com

  Forge® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Preston, Douglas J.

  Jennie / Douglas Preston.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 10: 0-765-31561-0

  ISBN 13: 978-0-765-31561-8

  1.Human-animal relationships—United States—Fiction. 2. Chimpanzees—Fiction.

  I. Title.

  PS3566.R3982J46 1994

  813’.52—dc20

  94-20132

  CIP

  Printed in the United States of America

  0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

  For Selene

  Despite appearances to the contrary, Jennie is a work of fiction. However, there is no science fiction in this book. The scientific and behavioral experiments described here actually took place, under different circumstances, with the results as reported.

  preface

  Many readers of this book, no doubt, will have heard of Jennie Archibald or will remember the details of her life as reported in the press during the period of 1965 to 1975. As a boy growing up in Wellesley, Massachusetts, I myself recall reading about Jennie in the Boston Globe and other papers. The stories I read had a special meaning to me, since the town of Kibbencook, where she lived, lies only eight miles from Wellesley. I remember my parents discussing Jennie at the dinner table. When I egregiously misbehaved, my mother more than once compared my behavior to Jennie. Jennie became, in a small way, a symbol of willful disobedience in our household.

  I decided to write a book about Jennie three years ago, while working on a story for Massachusetts Magazine about the Boston Museum of Natural History. I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Harold Epstein, a retired curator at the Boston Museum. During the course of the interview the conversation shifted abruptly to the subject of Jennie, and it required a considerable effort to return to the topic of my article. This was when I first learned many of the unpublished details of Jennie’s life. I was intrigued. Dr. Epstein was anxious to talk and so I scheduled a second interview with him later that month. That was the genesis of this book.

  Why write a book about something that was already extensively covered in the press? The answer is quite simple. The more I delved into the subject, the more I realized that what was reported in the press was at best only a small portion of the story. With few exceptions the articles were rife with inaccuracies, distortions, sensationalizing, and, in several cases, actual falsehoods. Most “science reporters” for newspapers and magazines did not have the scientific background to understand the ramifications of the story. Those involved with the story of Jennie’s life were anxious to correct the record.

  Finally, the results of the “Jennie” research have been attacked by a group of cognitive scientists who (in my opinion) did not look at the results of the project as a whole. None of these ethologists actually met Jennie. Their attacks have been based on a detailed analysis of a two-hour segment of videotape. This book tries to present the other nine years of Jennie’s life.

  At first I planned to write a straightforward book with the usual omniscient authorial voice. As I compiled my interviews and read through the Archibald papers, I began to realize that the major players in this drama were not average people. They were highly educated, intelligent, and almost without exception very articulate. As their words unfolded and the full dimensions of this extraordinary story were revealed, a conviction grew on me: there was no need for me to tell the story. Instead, in this book, I have let the people themselves speak. I have merely acted as an editor. I have kept my interpolated comments, which appear in brackets, to a minimum.

  My first source was the posthumously published memoirs of Dr. Hugo Archibald, Harkison Curator of Physical Anthropology at the Boston Museum of Natural History and Adjunct Professor in the Department of Zoology at Harvard University. I did not have the opportunity to talk to Dr. Archibald. He tragically passed away in 1991, not three weeks before a scheduled series of interviews with him were to begin. His memoir, Recollecting a Life, was evidently based on an extensive journal that he kept for much of his life. Unfortunately, extensive efforts to locate this journal failed, and, in fact, there is reason to believe he destroyed it shortly before his death. I might also add here that it is not the intention of the present work to explore or even address the somewhat puzzling circumstances surrounding Dr. Archibald’s untimely death.

  The extracts from Dr. Archibald’s memoirs have been supplemented by interviews with his colleagues and family members. All interviews were taped by myself and have been reproduced with editing only for clarity and economy. With the exception of the description of the home movies at the end, none of the words herein are my own.

  It is important to point out that not everyone involved with the story agreed to be interviewed.

  During the course of the interviews, several people expressed doubt regarding my motives or “point of view.” Let me say that I, personally, have no point of view. Those who read this book must judge for themselves what really happened and why. I am aware there are several instances where interviewees contradicted each
other’s accounts. Many hours of interviews did not resolve some of these contradictions, and I therefore can make no claim to know where the real truth lies, or whether, in fact, this book indeed presents the truth.

  I am grateful to Harvard University for permission to quote from the Archibald papers; to the Boston Museum of Natural History, to the Center for Primate Studies at Tufts University; to the Tahachee Center for Primate Rehabilitation; and to the Archibald family, particularly Lea Archibald and Alexander Archibald.

  jennie

  one

  [FROM Recollecting a Life by Hugo Archibald, Ph.D., D.Sc., F.R.S., published by Harvard University Press. Copyright 1989 by The President and Fellows of Harvard College. Used with permission.]

  The Cameroons, April 15, 1965

  I will not soon forget the day the two Makere men brought the chimpanzee into camp. The animal was slung over one man’s shoulder and a thin rivulet of blood trickled down the shining hollow of the man’s back, black blood glistening against black skin. I watched him through the half-open flap of the tent. He stopped in the clearing in front of the tent and slid his burden sideways on to the hardpacked dirt, where it lay with arms crossed. His friend stood next to him. Both their feet and legs were white with dust to the knees. The man straightened up and clapped his hands twice, sharply, to announce their arrival. I waited. The men knew I was in the tent, but to show myself too quickly would make negotiations over the price more difficult. I soon heard Kwele shouting at the visitors in Pidgin, the lingua franca of the Cameroons.

  “Whah you done bring, hunter man? Na bad beef dis!”

  Kwele was a fine negotiator. We had worked out an excellent system of softening up the seller.

  “Masa no want dis beef! Masa done get angry too much. Go away!”

  All this was part of the routine, and Kwele relished his role a great deal, perhaps a little too much. Naturally, I was excited by the prospect of acquiring the skull of a female chimpanzee. A small group of camp assistants had dropped their work and converged on the scene, with that look of boredom mixed with the faint hope that something unexpectedly unpleasant might happen. The two men stood behind the animal, stubborn and silent.

  I moved aside the flap of my tent, without getting out of my chair. The shouting stopped and Kwele stood there grinning, holding a shovel.

  “Eh!” he said. “Dese hunter man got um beef. Masa no want dis beef?”

  I smiled and clapped my hands softly, as etiquette required. “Iseeya, hunter man,” I said.

  “Iseeya, sah,” they said in unison. They were thin, with a delicate tracery of tattoos on their abdomens and around their nipples. One carried a tiny crossbow with a fascicle of darts.

  “Thank you, Kwele,” I said. Kwele grinned again, then scowled at the men.

  The men shuffled their feet in the dust.

  The animal was a female Pan troglodytes, a lowland chimpanzee, and she was very pregnant.

  “You kill this beef with poison arrow?” I asked the two men.

  One of the men stepped forward. “He go for stick, sah, shoot um with arrow.” He held up the crossbow for me to inspect. (“Stick” is the Pidgin word for tree.)

  I knelt by the animal and looked at her face. The eyes, which were half open, suddenly widened. It gave me quite a fright; the bite of a chimpanzee can break one’s arm.

  “Whah! Na alive, dis beef!” shouted Kwele accusingly, delighted to find one more thing wrong with the specimen. “Mebbe ’ee go hurt Masa! Den you go pay!”

  “Poison be working,” said one of the men placidly. “Ee go die one time.” Then he added, firmly: “Masa gone pay twenty-five shillings.”

  “Na whatee!” cried Kwele. “Masa no go pay twenty-five shillings. Mebbe ’ee no go die attall!”

  “ ’Ee go die one time,” the man repeated stolidly. He knew the efficacy of his poison, and so did I.

  The dying animal stared at me with round dark eyes, and a gurgle sound issued from her throat. Her mouth opened, exposing a row of worn, heavily caried incisors. The hairs around her muzzle were gray, and one ear was in tatters, torn and healed long ago. She was old, and I remember thinking, Better to die old after a full life. And, of course, they would have killed her for food anyway.

  “Go get my pistol,” I said. Kwele ducked into the tent and came back with the holster carrying my Ruger .22 magnum. I checked the barrel to make sure it was loaded and leveled the gun at the animal’s heart. A shot to the head would have destroyed the thing I needed for my taxonomic studies: the skull.

  Then a movement began to take place, a quick even movement of the animal’s body. I backed up, thinking she might be reviving. But then I realized something far different was going on. The animal was aborting her fetus.

  “Roll her on her back,” I shouted.

  There was a sudden sharp murmur from the crowd; this was turning out to be far more interesting than yet another bargaining session for a dead specimen. The female chimpanzee began to shudder, and a whitish head, slick with thin black hairs, appeared. In a second it was over. The fetus lay on its side in the dust, and the afterbirth was sliding out. The mother’s eyes were still open, looking.

  Then I heard it: a tiny whistle; a thin simian cry.

  “This thing’s alive!” I said. “Kwele, go get a basin of water. You, hunter man, get back.”

  The crowd shoved forward and for a moment I thought the baby would be trampled.

  “Back!” I cried.

  I picked it up and, not knowing what else to do—and feeling more than a little foolish—I whacked it lightly on the back. The thing whistled and squeaked. I called for a machete and one was thrust into my hands; as I cut the umbilical cord a great “Ahhh!” rose from the crowd.

  “Help me,” I said to Kwele, who had returned with a sloshing basin. “Help me wash it. And you all, get back! You no go push, you hear! Go back to work!”

  The crowd backed up, jostling each other. No one went back to work.

  We washed it in the basin and Kwele held it while I carefully towled it dry. The baby chimpanzee had a white face, and fine black hair covering its body. It was a female. The hair was very long and as it dried it fluffed out from the chimp’s body. When the animal was dry I wrapped her in the towel and cradled her in my arms. She had an impossibly tiny face, wrinkled and owlish, and her eyes were open. In a curious way her face looked both sorrowful and wise, as if she had seen a great deal of the world and its troubles. Which was amusing, since the only thing she had seen so far in the world was my unshaven face hovering over hers. It cried again, a very small sound, and the eyes widened and looked into my face. A wobbly arm, no bigger than a twig, reached up with five little fingers spread wide and groping, and it touched me on my chin. It was a sweet gesture, and in that brief moment, I was hopelessly entranced.

  I have been asked many times why I took such a fancy to this little animal. My only answer is this: if you had been there, if you had seen this tiny little animal, with the pot belly and the surprised beady eyes peering at the world for the first time, and heard its helpless voice, you would have been won over just as I was. Perhaps this sounds overly sentimental coming from a scientist whose career had been collecting dead chimpanzees and examining their skeletons. I cannot, in the end, defend my sentimentality, except to say that scientists are human beings too. It was an utterly enchanting little animal.

  When I recovered my senses I heard the sounds of an argument. Kwele was sweating and gesturing broadly at the two men, but the two men were not even looking at Kwele. They were looking at me. What they saw had, apparently, encouraged them to raise the price.

  “Na whatee!” Kwele was shouting. “Masa done hear? Hunter man want de bigger dash! Fifty shillings! Hunter man no palaver with Masa no more. Get out! Go away!” He advanced at the men, flapping his arms like a big buzzard. They stood their ground, their faces without expression. The female chimpanzee lay on her back on the ground, momentarily forgotten, but still looking with strange terrible eyes at
me and her baby.

  The look in those dying eyes will never leave me. They stared upward like two cloudy gemstones, colorless, without light. The poison in the arrow that had struck her was, in chemical structure, like curare; it paralyzed first, killed second. It is not a merciful death: one dies fully conscious and aware of one’s surroundings. The Africans call it chupu. It is a high-molecular-weight globulin protein, and as such it could not penetrate the placental barrier, which is why the infant was spared its effects. Looking back across nearly twenty-five years, knowing now what I did not know then—it seems to me it was a prophetic look, a gaze not at the present but into the future. I have always wondered: what was she thinking, as she hovered between life and death, when she saw this strange, white, hairless primate gently cradling her baby?

  If this sounds like strange talk from a scientist—so be it. If there is one thing I have learned from a lifetime study of science, it is that the world is not a place we human beings will ever comprehend. Understand, yes; comprehend, no. The reason for this—like the reason for almost everything in the way we think—is evolution: our brains did not evolve to help us comprehend the true meaning of things, only to understand their mechanical workings. Knowing the true meaning of reality does not contribute to one’s ability to survive, and thus this kind of understanding was not addressed by evolution.

  I averted my eyes from that intense dying stare, and found myself looking at Kwele. “Fifty shillings!” he repeated. “Hunter man be robber man!”

  “We don’t want the female,” I said, and then to make sure I was understood, repeated it again in Pidgin: “Masa no want dis beef. Kwele, shoot dis beef and tell hunter man to take it and get the hell out. Tell hunter man go for bush. Give him the fifty shillings.”