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fifteen

“You can’t go back out there again,” Dr. Marcuse said to Dillon, as he and Shoshana entered the bungalow. “Hobo has voted you off the island.”

Dillon had taken off his soaking-wet shirt, shoes, and socks, but he was still wearing his black jeans. “But he’s my thesis subject!” he protested.

Dr. Marcuse had brought in the painting Hobo had made, and had set it on a worktable, leaning against the wall. “Look at it,” he said to Dillon.

“Yes?” Dillon replied, peering at the canvas.

“That’s you,” Marcuse said. “With your arms ripped off.”

“Oh,” said Dillon softly.

“You’re not to go out there. Of course, you can still watch him all you want on the closed-circuit cameras.”

“What the hell is wrong with him?” asked Dillon, looking first at Shoshana, and then at Dr. Marcuse.

“He’s reaching maturity,” Marcuse said.

“He’s too young for that,” said Shoshana.

“Is he?” said Marcuse, giving her a withering glance. “Who knows what’s normal for a chimp-bonobo hybrid? Regardless, he’s taking after his father: when male chimps reach maturity, they become hostile loners and are very hard to handle.”

Sho felt her heart sink. If Marcuse was right, then Hobo was going to be like this from now on.

“His reaction to you, Dillon, is symptomatic,” continued Marcuse. “You’re another male, and adult male chimps defend their territories against intruding males. When Werner comes in on Monday, I’ll tell him the same thing—Hobo is off-limits to him, too. Maria is at Yerkes for the next two weeks, but I’ll see if maybe she can cut her trip short and get back here.”

“What about you?” asked Dillon.

“Werner is five-four, and sixty-seven years old—and you, frankly, are a stick insect. But I can take care of myself. Hobo knows who the alpha is around here.”

Shoshana looked at him. Dr. Marcuse could be loud and overbearing, but he did truly adore apes and treated them well. Still, even at the best of times, he was pretty high-strung—and this was not the best of times. As soon as the world had learned that Hobo was making representational art—mostly in the form of paintings of Shoshana’s profile—the Georgia Zoo had served Dr. Marcuse with papers, demanding that Hobo be returned to them. They didn’t care about Hobo as a—yes, damn it all, thought Sho—as a person. No, all they were interested in was the money his paintings were now fetching on eBay and in art galleries. If they won their suit, they’d no doubt try to sell the one of Dillon with his arms ripped off for a particularly high price.

Marcuse moved over to the large chair and picked up the printout he’d been reading earlier. He held it up, inviting Shoshana to look at it.

Sho’s eyesight was good—well, at least when she had her contacts in—but the type was too small for her to make out while he was holding it. “What’s that?” she asked.

“News coverage from June of aught-eight,” he said. He was the only person Sho had ever met who referred to the initial decade of the twenty-first century as the aughts. “Spain’s parliament committed back then to the Declaration on Great Apes.”

Shoshana knew the declaration well. It had first been put forward in 1993, and held that great apes should be entitled to the right to life, the protection of their individual liberty, and freedom from torture. So far, Spain was the only country to have adopted its provisions. Sho was all in favor of it, and so, she knew, was Marcuse. If something is self-aware—if it can communicate, and if it passes the mirror test and all that—then it should be recognized as a person, and it should have rights.

“And you think that’s got a bearing on Hobo’s case?” she asked.

“Absolutely. The Declaration defines ‘the community of equals’ as ‘all great apes: human beings, chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans. ’ And Article Two of the Declaration says, ‘Members of the community of equals are not to be arbitrarily deprived of their liberty.’ ” He spread his arms as if his point were now self-evident. “Well, the Georgia Zoo wants to deprive Hobo of precisely that.”

Sho thought about the high chain-link fence that surrounded the Marcuse Institute, and the moat around the island on which Hobo spent most of his time. “This isn’t Spain,” she said gently.

He frowned. “I know that, but the point is still correct. And Hobo should have a say in the matter—and, unlike just about every other ape on the planet, he actually can speak up on his own behalf.”

Shoshana considered this. No one had told Hobo yet about the lawsuit from the Georgia Zoo. They hadn’t wanted to upset him. Chimps were notorious for hating to travel—which made sense for territorial animals.

Still, Georgia did have several chimps, and several bonobos, too. It wasn’t clear which group they wanted to keep Hobo with; he had been conceived when the two populations had been housed together during a flood. It probably hadn’t occurred to Marcuse in his zeal to fight the lawsuit, but Hobo might well want to be among his own kind—whichever kind that was.

But there was more to the zoo’s lawsuit than just custody. They also wanted to have Hobo sterilized—to keep the endangered chimp and bonobo bloodlines from being contaminated by his hybrid sperm. But although lots of reasonably complex ideas could be communicated to him, trying to explain the effects of castration would probably exceed his ability to comprehend.

“Are you going to brief him about what’s at stake—assuming he’ll listen to us at all now, that is?” Sho asked.

Marcuse seemed to mull this over for a few moments, then he nodded his great loaf of a head. “He’s likely to just get more antisocial as time goes on. Which means if we’re going to get through to him at all, there’s no time to waste—we’ve got a very narrow window here.”

And so he and Shoshana headed back out into the sunshine, leaving Dillon behind. Marcuse led the way, taking bold steps as they crossed the bridge, his footfalls like thunder on the wooden boards. Hobo seemed to have been waiting for him, and he swayed on his spindly, bowed legs, looking at Marcuse from a dozen feet away—a standoff. Sho suppressed the urge to whistle the theme from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

She couldn’t see Marcuse’s face but she imagined he was again staring directly at the ape, trying to establish dominance.

Hobo bared his teeth: large, yellow, sharp.

Marcuse made a hissing sound, and—

And Hobo averted his eyes and dropped his head.

Marcuse confidently closed the distance between them, and, straining as he did so, he crouched near the ape, who was now sitting on his haunches.

Hobo, Marcuse signed. Pay attention.

Hobo was still looking at the ground, meaning he couldn’t see the signs. Sho gasped as Marcuse reached out to touch the bottom of Hobo’s face, afraid the ape was going to lash out at the contact, but he allowed Marcuse to lift his head.

Do you like it here? he asked.

Hobo was still for a time, and Shoshana was afraid the ape had given up signing altogether. But at last, he moved his hand, held in an O shape, from his mouth to his cheek. It was a sign that combined the words for eat and sleep, and it expressed the simple thought: Home.

Yes, Marcuse signed. It’s your home. A pause. A seagull flew by overhead. But your home used to be Georgia Zoo, remember?

Hobo nodded, a simple, and very human, gesture.

Georgia Zoo wants you back—be your home again.

Hobo briefly looked at Marcuse’s face. You there?

No.

He pointed questioningly at Shoshana.

No. None of us. But: other apes!

Hobo made no reply.

What you want? Marcuse asked at last. Here? Or zoo?

The ape looked around his little island, his eyes lingering for a moment on the statue of the Lawgiver, and lingering again when they came to the gazebo at the island’s center, with its screen windows and doors to keep the insects out, and his easel and work stool in the middle.

Home, Hobo signed again, and then he spread his arms, encompassing it all.

Okay, Marcuse replied. But others want to take you away, so you’re going to have to help us.

Hobo made no reply. Shoshana thought Marcuse’s blue polyester trousers might give up under the strain of him crouching for so long. There will be a fight, he signed. Understand? A fight over where you will live.

Hobo briefly looked at Shoshana, then back at Marcuse. His eyes were dark, wet.

If you speak, Marcuse continued, you can stay here—maybe.

Hobo looked around his little island domain again, and glanced back at the bungalow, off in the distance. Stay here, said Hobo.

Shoshana wondered if the Silverback was going to raise the question of Hobo’s violent behavior, but he seemed to be letting that pass for now.

That’s right—but you have to say it to other people. To strangers, or…

He took a deep breath, then let it out. Shoshana knew there was no way Hobo could understand what Marcuse wanted to convey: Or else people will think I coached you in what to say.

Strangers, said Hobo, and he shook his head and bared his teeth. Bad.

It’s important… Marcuse began.

But Hobo made the downward sign for bad once more, and then suddenly bolted away, running on all fours to the far side of the island.