The High Mountains of Portugal (24 page)

It distressed Senhora Melo that Maria Lozora's death would not have the neat resolution of the murder mysteries of which Maria and the doctor were so fond.

Senhora Melo hears a gasp. Dr. Lozora is awake. She hears him begin to weep. He doesn't know that she's arrived, that he isn't alone. The volume increases. Great cracking sobs. The poor man, the poor man. What is she to do? If he realizes that she's there, he will be mortified. She doesn't want that. Perhaps she should make a noise to alert him to her presence. He continues to weep. She stands very still and quiet. Then Senhora Melo becomes annoyed with herself. Can it be any more plain that the man needs help? Didn't she just think that a moment ago?

She turns and heads for Dr. Lozora's office.

W
hen Peter Tovy is appointed to the Senate in the summer of 1981 from the House of Commons to make way in his safe Toronto riding for a star candidate, there is no longer any need for him to spend much time in his constituency. He and his wife, Clara, buy a larger, nicer apartment in Ottawa, with a lovely view of the river. They prefer the quieter pace of the capital, and they're happy to be near their son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter, who live in the city.

Then one morning he enters the bedroom and finds Clara sitting on their bed, holding her left side with both hands, crying.

“What's wrong?” he asks.

Clara only shakes her head. Fear grips him. They go to the hospital. Clara is sick, seriously so.

At the same time that his wife is fighting for her life, their son's marriage falls apart. He paints the rosiest picture possible of the breakdown for his wife. “It's best for all of them,” he says. “They never got along. Away from each other they'll blossom. It's what people do these days.”

She smiles in agreement. Her horizons are shrinking. But it isn't best, or even good. It's terrible. He watches conjugal partners become bitter enemies, he sees a child become war loot. His son, Ben, spends inordinate amounts of time, money, and energy fighting with his former wife, Dina, who fights back just as hard, to the delight of their lawyers and to his stupefaction. He tries to talk to Dina and play the mediator, but however civil her tone and open her heart at the start of each conversation, inevitably she loses her cool and boils up in anger. Being the father of, he can only be an abettor and a co-conspirator. “You're
just
like your son,” she spat out once. Except, he pointed out, that he has lived in loving harmony with his wife for over four decades. She hung up on him. His granddaughter, Rachel, a cheerful sprite when she was a small child, turns sour on both her parents and walls herself in a teenage tower of caustic resentment. On a few occasions he takes her out for a walk and a restaurant meal to cheer her up—and to cheer himself up, he hopes—but he can never get past her sullenness. Then she moves to Vancouver with her mother, who has “won” her in the custody battle. He drives them to the airport. When they walk through security, already bickering, he does not see an adult woman and her growing daughter but two black scorpions, their venomous stingers raised, goading each other on.

As for Ben, who remains in Ottawa, he is hopeless. As far as Peter can tell, his son is incredibly brightly stupid. A medical researcher, Ben at one point studied why people accidentally bite their tongue. This painful breakdown in the tongue's ability to work around teeth, like a sheet worker operating heavy machinery, has surprisingly complex roots. Now Peter sees his son as a tongue blindly throwing itself under gnashing teeth, coming out bloody, but throwing itself under again the very next day, over and over, without an ounce of self-understanding or any realization of the costs or consequences. Instead Ben is always chafing with exasperation. Conversations between them end in stony silence, with the son rolling his eyes and the father at a loss for words.

Amidst a swirl of medical terms, after the waxing and waning of hope over every treatment, after the twisting, groaning, and sobbing, after the incontinence and the vanishing of all flesh, his beautiful Clara lies in a hospital bed, wearing a horrible green hospital gown, her eyes glazed and half-shut, her mouth open. She convulses, a rattle comes from her chest, and she dies.

He becomes a spectre on Parliament Hill.

One day he's speaking in the Senate. A fellow senator has turned and is looking up at him with a scrutiny that is more intense than simple interest should warrant.
Why are you looking at me like that?
he thinks.
What's the matter with you?
If he leans forward and blows into his colleague's face, his breath will have the effect of a blowtorch and the skin of his face will peel off. It'll be a grinning skull that will be looking up at him.
That will deal with your stupid expression
.

His reverie is interrupted by the Speaker of the Senate, who says, “Will the honourable member continue on the topic at hand, or…?”

The trailing off of the Speaker's voice is significant. Peter looks down at his papers and realizes that he has no idea what he's been talking about—no idea, and no interest in going on even if he did remember. He has nothing to say. He looks at the Speaker, shakes his head, and sits down. His colleague, after another second of staring, turns away.

The Whip comes round to his desk. They are friends. “How's it going, Peter?” he asks.

Peter shrugs.

“Maybe you should take a break. Bust loose for a while. You've been through a lot.”

He sighs. Yes, he needs to get out. He can't take it anymore. The speeches, the endless posturing, the cynical scheming, the swollen egos, the arrogant aides, the merciless media, the stifling minutiae, the scientific bureaucracy, the microscopic betterment of humanity—all are hallmarks of democracy, he recognizes. Democracy is such a crazy, wonderful thing. But he's had enough.

“I'll see if I can't find something for you,” the Whip says. He pats him on the shoulder. “Hang in there. You'll make it.”

A few days later the Whip comes back to him with a proposal. A trip.

“To
Oklahoma
?” Peter responds.

“Hey, great things come from remote places. Who'd ever heard of Nazareth before Jesus showed up?”

“Or of Saskatchewan before Tommy Douglas.”

The Whip smiles. He's from Saskatchewan. “And it's what came up. Someone bailed out at the last minute. The State Legislature down there has invited Canadian Members of Parliament to visit. You know, the knitting and maintaining of relations, that sort of thing. You won't have much to do.”

Peter isn't even sure where Oklahoma is, exactly. A marginal state of the American empire, somewhere in the middle of it.

“Just a change of air, Peter. A little four-day holiday. Why not?”

He agrees. Sure, why not. Two weeks later he flies to Oklahoma with three Members of Parliament.

Oklahoma City is warm and pleasant in May, and their hosts display gracious hospitality. The Canadian delegation meets the governor of the state, state legislators, and businesspeople. They are shown around the State Capitol, they visit a factory. Each day ends with a dinner. The hotel where they are lodged is grand. Throughout the visit, Peter talks about Canada and hears about Oklahoma in a relaxed fog. The change of scenery, the change of air, even—soft and moist—is soothing, as the Whip predicted.

On the eve of their last full day, a day that has been left open for the recreation of the Canadian guests, he notices a tourist brochure about the Oklahoma City Zoo. He has a fondness for zoos, not because he's particularly interested in animals, but because Clara was. She was on the Board of Management of the Toronto Zoo at one time. He expresses the wish to visit the Oklahoma City Zoo. The legislative assistant who is their go-to person at the State Capitol looks into it and comes back to him with profuse apologies.

“I'm so sorry,” she says. “Usually the zoo is open every day, but it's closed at the moment because of major renovations. I could check to see if they'd let you in anyway, if you're interested.”

“No, no, I don't want to be a bother.”

“There is a chimpanzee sanctuary south of town, in Norman, at the university,” she suggests.

“A chimpanzee sanctuary?”

“Yes, it's an institute for the study of—of monkeys, I guess. It's not normally open to the public, but I'm sure we can make that happen.”

She does make it happen. The word “senator” works wonders on American ears.

The next morning a car is waiting for him in front of the hotel. No one else in his delegation is interested in joining him, so he goes alone. The car drives him to the Institute for Primate Research, as the place is called, an outpost of the University of Oklahoma in the middle of empty, brushy countryside ten or so kilometres east of Norman. The sky is blue, the land is green.

At the institute, at the end of a winding gravel driveway, he sees a large, vaguely menacing-looking man with a beard and a big belly. Next to him stands a lanky younger man with long hair and bulging eyes; clearly, from his body language, he is a subordinate.

“Senator Tovy?” says the larger man as he steps out of the car.

“Yes.”

They shake hands. “I'm Dr. Bill Lemnon, director of the Institute for Primate Research.” Lemnon looks beyond him into the car, whose door is still open. “You don't have much of a delegation.”

“No, it's just me.” Peter closes the door of the car.

“What state are you from again?”

“The province of Ontario, in Canada.”

“That so?” His answer seems to give the director reason to pause. “Well, come with me and I'll explain to you briefly what we do here.”

Lemnon turns and walks away without waiting for him to fall into step. The unintroduced subordinate scampers along behind.

They walk around a bungalow and a few sheds until they come to a sizable pond shaded by giant cottonwood trees. The pond has two islands, one with a cluster of trees. In the branches of one of these, he sees a number of tall, skinny monkeys swinging about with extraordinary grace and agility. The other island is larger, its tall grasses, bushes, and few scattered trees dominated by an imposing log structure. High poles support four platforms at different heights, connected by a web of ropes and cargo-net hammocks. A truck tire hangs from a chain. Next to the structure is a round hut made of cinder blocks.

The director turns and faces Peter. He seems bored with what he is about to say even before he has started.

“Here at the IPR, we are at the forefront of studying primate behaviour and communication. What can we learn from chimpanzees? More than the man on the street might think. Chimpanzees are our closest evolutionary relatives. We share a common primate ancestor. We and chimpanzees parted company only about six million years ago. As Robert Ardrey put it: We are risen apes, not fallen angels. We both have large brains, an extraordinary capacity for communication, an ability to use tools, and a complex social structure. Take communication. Some of our chimpanzees here can sign up to a hundred and fifty words, which they can string together to form sentences. That is
language
. And they can make tools to forage for ants and termites or to break open nuts. They can hunt cooperatively, taking on different roles to catch their prey. They have, in short, the rudiments of
culture.
So when we study chimpanzees, we are studying an ancestral reflection of ourselves. In their facial expressions…”

It is interesting enough, if delivered somewhat automatically, without any warmth. Lemnon looks annoyed. Peter listens with a distracted ear. He suspects the assistant at the legislature oversold him. She probably didn't mention that the visiting senator wasn't from the U.S. Some of the chimpanzees appear on the larger island. At that moment he hears a voice calling.

“Dr. Lemnon! Dr. Terrace is on the phone.” He turns to see a young woman standing next to one of the buildings.

Lemnon is jolted to life. “I have to take that call. If you'll excuse me,” he grunts as he walks off, without waiting for a response from his guest.

Peter breathes a sigh of relief at seeing the man go. He turns to the chimpanzees once more. There are five of them. They move slowly on all fours, their heads low, the bulk of their weight in their upper bodies, held up by their thick, strong arms, while their shorter legs follow along like the back wheels of a tricycle. In the sunlight, they are surprisingly black—roving patches of night. They amble a little distance and sit down. One of them climbs onto the lowest platform of the log structure.

Nothing much, but there's something satisfying about watching them. Each animal is like a piece of a puzzle, and wherever it settles, it belongs, clicking into place perfectly.

The subordinate is still with him.

“We weren't introduced. I'm Peter,” Peter says, extending his hand.

“I'm Bob. Pleased to meet you, sir.”

“Same here.”

They shake hands. Bob has a prominent Adam's apple. It keeps bobbing up and down, which makes his name easy to remember.

“How many monkeys do you have here?” Peter asks.

Bob follows his eyes to the main island. “Those are apes, sir. Chimpanzees are apes.”

“Oh.” Peter points to the other island, where he saw the creatures swinging through the trees. “And those over there are monkeys?”

“Well, as a matter of fact, they're also apes. They're gibbons. They're members of the ‘lesser' apes, as they're called. The rule of thumb is, monkeys have tails and apes don't, and generally monkeys live in trees and apes live on the ground.”

As Bob finishes speaking, the chimpanzee sitting on the low platform climbs and swings with acrobatic ease to the top platform. At the same time, the other apes, the lesser gibbons, reappear in the tree on their island, dancing through the air from branch to branch.

“Of course, nature serves up lots of exceptions to keep us on our toes,” Bob adds.

“So, how many chimpanzees do you have here?” Peter asks.

“Thirty-four right now. We breed them to sell or loan to other researchers, so the number varies. And we have five being reared by families around Norman.”

“Reared by human families?”

“Yeah. Norman must be the cross-fostering capital of the world.” Bobbing Bob laughs, until he notices Peter's nonplused expression. “Cross-fostering is where baby chimps are raised by human families as if they were human.”

“What's the point of that?”

“Oh, lots. They're taught sign language. It's amazing: We communicate with them and see how their minds work. And there's lots of other behavioural research going on, here and elsewhere, on the social relations of chimpanzees, their forms of communication, how they structure their groups, patterns of dominance and submission, maternal and sexual behaviour, how they adapt to change, and so on. Professors and PhD students from the university come here every day. It's as Dr. Lemnon said: They're different from us, but weirdly similar too.”