Endangered (3 page)

“There's no way I'm staying in this creepy place after dark.”

She looked pained — she'd spent her life setting up this “creepy place,” after all. “There's electricity and satellite Internet access, and plenty of food in the office fridge. The usual security guards will be on duty. They'll keep us safe. And that bonobo is your responsibility. So yes, you are staying here.”

“What do I do if he gets worse during the night?”

She shrugged sadly, as if to say that if he were meant to die, it might be tonight or it might be tomorrow, and there was no difference. Soon after, she was gone, and the bonobo and I were closed into her office as the rest of the sanctuary went dark.

 

I trusted that the guards were solid if my mom was okay leaving me with them, but I still figured to stay extra safe I'd barricade myself in her office with the bonobo until morning. I raided the kitchen, got plenty of warm milk, made myself an omelet with chopped mango on the side, and settled in with my mom's laptop. First thing to do was go online and track down my dad. He was awake, and we were video chatting within a minute.

Now that I was almost in high school, now that I was talking online to my father in his business suit while he ate his breakfast, I felt like an adult — and, more important, a member of the world and not only of Congo. As he told me about his upcoming work day, I fished under the neck of my shirt and brought out the silver chain that he'd given me for my fourteenth birthday.

He was being typical Dad, excited and scattered. Once he'd finished his monologue about his construction projects, he closed with an exuberant “I miss you so much! How are
you
?”

In response, I tilted the laptop screen so the little bonobo came into the picture.

“Whoa. Sophie, is that a ferret?”

Of course my dad knew exactly what a bonobo looked like; he had spent plenty of time around the sanctuary back when my parents were together. “It's the baby Jesus,” I said, bowing my head piously and lifting one of the bonobo's arms so he made the sign of the cross.

“Sophie!” my dad said, scandalized. His side of the family is Italian-American and pretty religious.

“What?” I said. “I thought that would score me points with a Catholic.”

“What's his actual name?”

“He doesn't have one yet,” I said. “You know Congo. Here you don't name babies until you know they're going to survive.”

My dad got his teasing face on. He's an elegant, skillful teaser — you feel loved the whole time he does it. “Until then you'll, what, assign him a number? What if he
does
die? Unless he's named and baptized, he won't go to ape heaven.”

“I don't know, Dad. What do
you
think I should name him?”

“Tilt the screen more so I can get a better view.” I did. “Wow! He's so
ugly
.” Dad said the word reverentially, like ugly was the most marvelous thing in the world.

The tired bonobo's head bobbed as my dad and I talked. But some terror kept wresting him awake. The moment he'd be about to nod off, he would startle and cry out.

“Don't talk about him dying,” I said. “Bonobo Number Eight is going to live.”

“Eight's sort of an appropriate name. Considering the state of his fingers.”

My dad had picked up a very African sense of humor during his years in Congo. Everyone here constantly laughed at tragedy, as if insulting misfortune would keep it at bay.

“I'm not calling him Jesus. And I'm not calling him Number Eight.”

“
Otto
, then. Everything's prettier in Italian.”

And so he became Otto, baptized with rejected milk.

 

He didn't sleep that whole night, which meant I didn't, either. I stayed awake in the semidarkness, watching Otto try to fend off his exhaustion. At first I assumed he was keeping himself awake because he was afraid of nightmares, but then I started thinking that maybe he'd been asleep when they'd come to take his fingers. It was warm in the office, so I unwrapped his towel and put him under my shirt so he could grip me directly, skin on skin. He seemed to like that, and started panting softly. He clutched and clutched, sometimes shivering and sometimes sweating, his panicky heartbeat beating its wings against my chest.

I dozed for spurts in between attempts to get him to drink. I'd noticed how calm he got while I was talking to Dad and figured he enjoyed the vibrations of my voice. So I sang, starting with the couple of Congolese lullabies I could remember and soon transitioning to hip-hop. Whenever Otto's bottle went cold, I carried it to the water boiler my mom used to make tea, bathing it in hot water until it was body temperature. He never drank, though. How long had he already gone without sustenance? It wasn't as though he was running on some nuclear reactor; unless he took something in soon, he'd wind down and stop.

Sometimes his belly would clench like he was trying to poo, but nothing ever came out. I knew he'd had diarrhea before, from the stains he'd had when I found him, but his not having any now was more worrying than reassuring. He was probably all dried up inside. Maybe that explained the cramps. I pressed the bottle against his mouth, poured some milk on my fingers and tried to dribble it in. Nothing doing.

My mom called a couple of times during the night. I suspected she felt bad about departing: If she hadn't had a dinner date with my aunt, she would have stayed. Unlike my dad, though, she wasn't the type to come out and say she regretted leaving me alone. Instead, she talked about how dangerous it was to be on the road after sunset, I guess to imply why she hadn't returned. There is no word in Lingala for
evening
, because this close to the equator the sun goes down very quickly, and day becomes night almost without warning. Even before I learned how to cross a street, my parents taught me to keep track of time in the afternoons to make sure I didn't get caught outside. Especially if you were a girl, the moment night fell you stayed where you were and locked the door.

“How are you doing over there, sweetheart?” my mom asked.

“I still can't get him to drink anything,” I said, voice cracking.

“Keep trying,” she said. “The nursery mamas will be there at dawn and they'll help you. But in the meantime, just keep trying.”

During my childhood, I'd only half listened when my mom talked about the sanctuary, that half more from affection for her than from actual concern about the glorified kennel she'd spent hundreds of thousands of dollars getting together. But now I asked her everything she knew about bonobos. I looked online, too, not that there was a ton of info about them. They were way less famous than the other great apes, the chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans, even though a recent study showed they were our closest relatives, sharing over 98.7 percent of our DNA.

Otto still hadn't taken in any milk by morning. One time he dozed for ten minutes before startling, and that was the night's one minor victory. Otto and I shuffled out of the office, and what a sight we must have been. Neither of us was smelling too good: I'd gone twenty-four hours without access to deodorant, and Otto was giving off odors of spilled milk and passed gas. His little remaining head fuzz and my crazy 'do were both sticking up at odd angles. Looking like a case study for evolution's rejects, we headed into the nursery.

Mom's sanctuary was divided into three parts. There was a main structure, then a thirty-acre electrified enclosure where the adult bonobos lived, and the nursery, where the orphans spent their early years. The nursery was a one-room building with a fenced yard, the site (appropriately enough) of the former school's kindergarten. A mural on the wall showed painted children smiling in front of a rainbow. It had probably been beautiful once, but now it was covered in smashed bananas, and there were always rambunctious bonobos running around in front of it, occasionally humping the painted-on kids.

Otto and I crossed the sanctuary lawn slowly so he wouldn't get alarmed by new people or new apes. I'd be keeping him in my arms, anyway, since he couldn't come in direct contact with the other bonobos until his health was cleared. As the high-pitched calls of the young bonobos grew louder, Otto tried to pivot to see what the fuss was. I turned him around so he was facing forward, unlatched the gate, and went inside.

Motion exploded above me, and I was simultaneously bitten in the leg and kicked in the head.

Two black flurries scurried away, giggling maniacally. Mama Evangeline ran after one, a stick raised in her hand. “Songololo! Eh!” Then she saw me and stopped. “Eh, eh, mamas,
la princesse
is here!”

It sounds sweet, but
princesse
was no compliment. “Hello, mamas,” I said cautiously. Three women approached me, each draped in
baby bonobos. Baby bonobos clutching ankles. Baby bonobos slapping bosoms. Baby bonobos sitting on heads and swaying, trying to jump from one mama to another.

In the wild, bonobo infants spend the first five years of their lives virtually attached to their mothers. When they're really young they cling to her belly, and when they get older they ride on her back, like a jockey. The guidelines on how to keep a young bonobo healthy are pretty short: When they're with their mothers, they're happy and healthy; when they're not with their mothers, they begin to die. Remove a chimpanzee from its mother, and it will still play with its friends and chow down on whatever you put in front of it. Remove a bonobo from its mother, and it immediately despairs. For a long time, zoos couldn't keep any bonobos, because they kept dying. It sounds crazy now, but for a long time veterinarians didn't think an animal's emotional state could affect its health. It took years for scientists to figure out that unhappy animals get sick easier.

After everything each orphan had been through to get to the sanctuary, when a new one arrived it was an uphill struggle to lift its despair enough to stay alive. The bonobo had to feel like it had a mother again, and as soon as possible. Back when she had only a few bonobos to take care of, my mom bonded with each one. I remember her trudging through our house with a bonobo on each leg and each arm as she got me ready for school. Once there got to be too many bonobos, she hired local women to be full-time ape mothers. I wondered if they listed that as their occupation on official forms.

Except for Brunelle, the mamas loved to tease me. Maybe they knew I never really understood why all this money should go to a home for apes when people all over Congo were dying in poverty. Or maybe they noticed I didn't visit much. Possibly they liked to hassle me because I was half-white, and they assumed I needed to be taken down a notch. Or four.

Profiting from my hesitation, the bonobo named Songololo scampered over to kick me in the shins and run off again, laughing her head off the whole time. Clearly she was on the mamas' side.

“Hi, Sophie,” Brunelle said. She was younger than the other two mamas, and in past summers we would spend hours in the nursery, doing each other's hair. Brunelle came from poverty in a nearby village, and was so good at her job that my mom hoped she would one day head the sanctuary. I was about to respond to Mama Brunelle when Songololo took a flying leap off Mama Evangeline's head. She missed me and sprawled in the soil, then picked up a big handful of the dirt, sprinkled it over her body, and proceeded to lick it up.

Mama Marie-France grunted and nodded. She was three hundred years old and not about to make small talk with anyone.

“That's the ugliest bonobo I have ever seen,” Mama Evangeline said.

Mama Brunelle looked like she was going to say something nice, but then another bonobo infant sucked in a mouthful of water from a bucket and spat it at her. The bonobo ran away, and Mama Evangeline chased after it.

“Oui, princesse,”
she called over her shoulder. “We have been hoping you would finally get a nice Congo boy, but couldn't you have found one that was better-looking?”

Even Mama Brunelle thought that was hilarious.

I'd hoped Otto would perk up around other bonobos, but he didn't seem to have attention for anything but my torso. His eyes were doing their almost-closing thing. Maybe he would finally fall asleep.

Mama Marie-France came over, peered at Otto, and snorted.

“All done yet, ladies?” I asked. I switched Otto to my other hip, anxious to get past the hazing. I'd put bandages over Otto's blisters, and they squished as I moved him, like he was wearing a
diaper. The babies didn't wear actual diapers — they delicately moved away and pooed elsewhere if they needed to go. “Because I need your advice.”

“Maybe she's worried that they can't afford a place of their own,” Mama Brunelle hooted, unable to resist. “Maybe Sophie is worried she'll have to move into the jungle and live with her bonobo mother-in-law.”

“Really, Mama Brunelle?” I said. “You too? Listen. I can't get him to drink, and he hasn't —”

“Peed or pooped?” Mama Brunelle finished, suddenly serious.

“They're still in the honeymoon period,” Mama Evangeline said. “He'll start pooping around you soon, believe me.”

“Quiet, mama. Not peeing?” Mama Brunelle said. “Sophie, you may be a fourteen-year-old widow.” Her tone had gotten severe. She scrutinized Otto, gently stroked his ear. He inclined his head toward her, though he kept his eyes closed.

Mama Marie-France finally spoke up. Her French wasn't very good, so she spoke in Lingala. “Not a widow,” she said. “They can't get married. No ring finger!” Proud of herself, she put her hand into a pouch at her waist and stuck a handful of guava leaves into her mouth, a local cure for diarrhea.

Mama Evangeline loved that jab. Mama Brunelle, though, put her arm around me and steered us away. Following her lead, Mama Marie-France dropped her teasing and huddled around me and Otto, chewing away. While Mama Evangeline used her stick to bat away any nursery bonobos who came over to investigate, the other two mamas helped me wet Otto's bandages to remove them without yanking out his hair, and to soothe ointment over his hip wounds. We put a dollop on his ring-finger stump, too, since it was still a little scabby. He closed his eyes and scrunched up his face, looking baffled by all the attention.

The other nursery bonobos swarmed Mama Evangeline as
she heated up bottles for the morning feeding, until one of them discovered a dung beetle and they surrounded it instead, shrieking from the far side of the yard as they goaded one another to touch it.

Leaning against a wall was a muscular adult female bonobo; she was sitting there so quietly that I hadn't noticed her before. She watched me masterfully, her eyes sparking.

“Anastasia,” Mama Brunelle explained. “The queen of the enclosure. Songololo's her child and usually lives with her in there. But we noticed Anastasia was rejecting her, so she's in the nursery for today. Which means mom's here for a couple of days, too. She's not a great mother. Maybe because she was raised among humans and was never taught how to take care of an infant.”

Anastasia stared at me, frank and unfriendly:
Do not mess with me, hairless one.

No wonder Songololo felt she had the right to dropkick me the moment I walked in. As the alpha female's daughter, she would be the crown princess out there in the enclosure. I lay in the grass so I wouldn't have to feel Anastasia's eyes on me, and stared at the clouds while Otto yawned and dozed. Whenever he jerked awake, I tried to tempt him with a few choice berries from the nursery's supply. Nothing doing. Every time he startled, I'd blow on his mouth until he pursed his lips for a kiss.

Eventually Mama Evangeline looked tired of batting bonobos away, so I said good-bye to the mamas and wandered with Otto back to my mom's office.

I found her doing her morning e-mail. “Mom,” I said before she could speak, “I'm really sorry about yesterday.”

She hugged me and stroked Otto. “Darling! How is our little bonobo?”

“Not good,” I said. “I can't get him to drink, and he hasn't peed or anything.”

We discussed Otto for a while. Usually Mom named the bonobos after towns in Congo, but she liked his name, especially since it was easy for Lingala speakers to pronounce. Though she tried, she couldn't disguise how worried she was that he'd die.

“Maybe we could try flat soda?” she finally proposed. “Who doesn't like soda when they're sick?”

I transferred Otto to my mother and went to the kitchen to get some orange soda. When I returned to the office and saw her holding Otto, I had a crazy thought:
It's a good thing my mom's here to help me take care of my baby.

Of course I didn't say that, but poured the soda into a glass and put it in the sun to warm up a bit, then dipped in a soft wooden spoon and held it to his lips. When he smelled the soda, Otto's eyes opened. For the first time, his face showed an expression other than pain or despair: curiosity. Slowly he brought his lips forward and sipped, then took in the whole spoonful. Hands shaking, I poured another and held it to his lips. He drank it too quickly, and most of it dribbled down his chin. It beaded on the down of his face, the droplets glowing bright orange in the morning sun, like jewels.