“Can I help you?” David asks with the disinterested tone he probably reserves for people who have come to his office in error.
Jaycee enters with her hand extended. “I’m Jane Cassidy.”
David stares at her blankly for a moment. “I’m sorry, but I think you’re in the wrong place.”
“You’re David Colden, right?”
“Yes, but…”
“Helena’s husband?”
“Do I know you?”
“I saw you at the funeral.”
“Sorry, but there’s not a lot I remember about that day.”
Jaycee finally lowers her hand. “I understand. I was a friend of Helena. We went to vet school together.” In response to David’s blank stare, she adds, “We worked together on chimpanzees.”
Still nothing from David.
“Charlie? Cindy?” Jaycee adds hopefully.
I can see that David is searching his memory. “Charlie, yeah. Something about HIV research, right?”
“Close. Hepatitis C.”
“Right, right. There was another research assistant with Helena, right?”
“That was me.”
“Wow.” David is taken aback. “That was, like, fifteen years ago. How did you find me? How did you even know that Helena had passed?”
Jaycee stumbles over David’s ignorance. “Helena didn’t talk about any of the work she was doing with Cindy?”
“I vaguely remember Charlie because she was so upset by it, but I’ve never heard of any Cindy, Ms. Cassidy.”
“Jaycee, please. My friends call me Jaycee.”
No, Jaycee. He doesn’t know about you or Cindy—because I never told him. I wasn’t even sure I should risk bringing you into my present, but I needed answers that you seemed to have found. I was confident that our story together would end with me. There was no reason to believe otherwise. There was no nexus, no loose ends. You were never supposed to be here.
But here you are.
“Okay, Jaycee,” David says. “I’m sorry, but I’ve really got to get home. It’s only me, you know? So…”
“I need to speak to you about my work with Helena. It’s all sort of complicated. Can I buy you a cup of coffee so I can try to explain?”
David looks at his watch again. I can tell he’s getting annoyed. “Can this wait? I can schedule a meeting with you tomorrow or the next day—”
Jaycee suddenly looks on the verge of tears. “I’ve waited as long as I can. Please, Mr. Colden.”
David is unable to refuse this plea made in my name. “David,” he says with a sigh. “Call me David.”
Seated at the Starbucks around the corner, Jaycee opens a folder and removes a black-and-white close-up photo of a chimpanzee. She slides the photo across the table to David.
“This is Cindy. After four years of intensive work, Cindy has acquired significant human language communication skills—she can ask and answer questions, make requests, and engage in conversation. All in English.”
David looks at Jaycee skeptically. “Ms. Cassidy… Jaycee, this is all very interesting, but, one, I have no idea what you’re talking about and, two, I have no idea what it’s got to do with me, or even Helena.”
“I’m getting there. Just bear with me for a few more minutes. Based on her language skills, I can prove that Cindy has a cognitive age equivalent of a four-year-old human,” she says proudly.
David leans forward, uncertain of what he’s just heard. “I think I missed that.”
“Yes,” Jaycee says, smiling. “Four years of age. And growing, we think. Cindy’s learning curve appears to be exponential, just like the language-acquisition rate of a human child.”
“You’re pulling my leg. Look, I’ve seen some interesting news stories about chimpanzees that have learned some sign language, but a four-year-old? No one has ever said that.”
“Correct. No primate has ever tested this high.”
“So, what’re you saying? There’s been a sudden evolutionary surge in the last few years? Chimps have just gotten smarter? That doesn’t make any sense.”
Jaycee laughs for the first time. “You’re looking at the wrong side of it. It’s not that chimpanzees have suddenly evolved. The primates are the same, but the science and technology are different… so much better than what other researchers had, even just a few years ago. The new computer simulations, training modules, and computer-assisted analysis are allowing us to tap into aspects of the primate mind in ways we couldn’t even dream about a decade ago. We can prove things now that a stone’s throw in time behind us were just hypotheses.”
David steals a glance at his watch. “Okay, let’s just pretend that I understand everything you’ve just said. What’s it all got to do with my wife?”
“At first I think she was just curious to see what I’d been doing after all this time. Then she met Cindy, and… Are you sure she never mentioned any of this?”
“I don’t remember it. Honestly, though, between work, her illness, and the animals, I can’t swear that I was listening as hard as I should’ve been.” David shrugs. “She did say that she was working on some research. I thought it sounded like a good way for her to keep a positive attitude. She didn’t mention the subject, and I didn’t ask.”
“Well, actually, she became a critical part of the team. We’d reached a plateau with Cindy’s language development. We became too insulated. Then Helena started making her trips—”
“Trips? As in plural?”
“Yeah. At least a dozen over the last year. Of course they tapered off when…”
David is visibly shocked. “I’m sorry, but you must be wrong about that. I would’ve noticed that many trips.” David studies his coffee, as if he may be trying to remember my absences during that period, but the truth is he wouldn’t have noticed a pink bulldozer parked in our living room at that point in our lives. He shakes his head. “Really, you’re mistaken.”
Jaycee doesn’t push him on it. “Whatever the actual number was, she made a unique connection with Cindy. There were only two people Cindy actually communicated with—me and your wife. For whatever reason, no one else was able to establish the bond that Cindy requires for the use of language.”
“Are you telling me that Helena signed with this chimpanzee?”
“Yes. You did know that she could sign, right?”
“Sure. She has a deaf cousin, but—”
“—and then Helena began doing her academic research. She was always much better on that end of things than I was. It was Helena’s idea to put the mirror in Cindy’s enclosure, so Cindy could actually watch herself sign. After that, Cindy actually began using non-manual markers—”
“Non-manual whats?”
“Markers. Body language to augment meaning. The mirror was simple, but brilliant. I should’ve thought of it, but I didn’t. It really was a breakthrough for Cindy—probably raised her CAE by over a year.”
“I get it now,” David says. “You’d like her research notes, right? I haven’t found any yet, but whatever I find I’d be happy to give you.”
“I wish that was it, but it’s not. We’re at the end of our grant. I applied for an extension and was turned down.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. Have you tried another source? Perhaps if—”
“I’ve gone everywhere and talked to everyone. Even Washington. Believe me, it’s not for want of trying.” Jaycee struggles to keep it together. “I was kicked out of CAPS.”
“I see. So where’s Cindy now?”
“She’s waiting at CAPS at the moment. NIS is required to obtain approval from the US Department of Agriculture before they transfer primates between facilities. It’s supposed to allow the USDA to track the primates to ensure that a chimp infected with something like Ebola isn’t moved by accident to a facility that doesn’t have the correct level of biohazard containment. It can take up to a month to get the approvals, maybe less if there’s someone making the right phone calls. I have someone at the DOA who is keeping an eye out for the application for Cindy, but we can’t even be sure that NIS will follow the regulations.”
“And once Cindy gets transferred?”
“She gets shipped out of CAPS and goes back into the NIS general population at another facility.”
“And that means…?”
“Invasive primate biomedical research—bloodborne pathogens, tuberculosis, seizures, organ transplantation, and developmental surgical techniques. Once she’s transferred…” Jaycee can’t bring herself to finish the sentence. I know that in her own career, Jaycee has seen too much of the horrors Cindy will face.
“Why don’t you just try to buy Cindy?” David asks. “I know it might be a chunk of money, but I can contribute some and get others to—”
“I tried that, of course. Cindy’s not for sale. A signing chimp out there in the real world where people can see what she can actually do? NIS isn’t going to let that genie out of the bottle. It’s the same reason why they won’t give me back my research notes so I can finally publish the journal paper.”
“So for now?”
“She waits.”
“Why don’t you go public. Take it to the
Times
or something.”
“If I do that, they’ll just go ahead and transfer her now. By the time I find her, it’ll be too late to do anything for her except grieve.”
Jaycee removes a photograph from her folder and lays it on the table in front of David. In the picture, Cindy holds Jaycee’s hand and they both look directly into the camera. Jaycee is smiling.
Jaycee then takes out a short stack of memos and research reports and pushes the documents toward David. Some of these documents bear the NIS insignia and others the crest of the US government. “This is what I was able to recover about my work before I was thrown out.”
David ignores the stack. “I’m sorry about your situation, but I still don’t understand what you think I can do to help.”
“I need you to help me get Cindy out of CAPS before she gets transferred. I need you to get a court order.”
David leans back in his chair. Even before he answers, he begins to shake his head.
Jaycee jumps in before David finds his voice. “I know it’s a lot to ask after what you’ve been through, but I just thought you knew about Helena’s work with me and you’d want—”
“I’m sorry. I wish I could help, but I can’t.”
“But I don’t have much time. Once Cindy is transferred—”
“It’s just not possible for me for a host of reasons. I can’t even think of a legal basis for what you’re talking about. Every first-year law student learns the rule—animals are chattel. Cindy legally is property. She’s no different under the law than the chair I’m sitting on—and she’s not even your chair.”
“That’s the whole point. She’s not property. She’s got a thinking mind, chairs don’t.”
“That’s a lovely sentiment, but it’s not the law. Not today, anyway. There isn’t even a valid forum to bring that kind of claim and no law you can use to bring it under.”
Jaycee removes a thick spiral notebook from her bag and hands it to David.
“What’s this,” he asks without opening it.
“Helena’s research notebook.”
What David had told Max in reference to the books lining my living room wall was basically correct. I’d read them—devoured them, really—as my illness progressed and my work with Jaycee continued. I read to find information useful to Jaycee’s work with Cindy. But that was only part of it. I also was hoping for some private message in all the printed words to halt my growing anxiety that when I finally succumbed, I would face a series of dark and hostile rooms or, worse, just a note that said, “Life is a struggle and then you die. The end.”
So I not only read, I made notes—pages and pages of notes in the notebook David now holds. I recorded quotes and chapter abstracts, thoughts about what I’d read, ideas for future research, sketches of Cindy, summaries of my interactions with her, and suggestions for improving the assumptions embedded in the computer
programming. I know I left blank pages at the end of the book for the lightning bolt of understanding that never came.
Jaycee waits for David to open the notebook and look at the lasting evidence of my own hand, as if she believes that will compel David to offer his help. I didn’t realize until this moment how little Jaycee understands the pathology of fear. David places the notebook on the table unopened between them.
“Couldn’t you just look at the issue?” Jaycee pleads. “Make some phone calls, write some threatening letters? Buy me some time until I can figure something else out? I have money saved. I can pay you.”
“I can’t do it. It’s not about money. I’d need to get it approved by the firm, and they won’t. And even if they would, I’m just not the guy… not now. My plate’s got too much on it as it is.”
“But Helena—”
“—never mentioned this to me at all. She never asked for my help with it when she was alive.”
“But she—”
“—is gone.” David’s sharp tone reminds me of a dog emitting a low growl when someone gets too close to his food bowl—a warning before the bite. David lets out a deep breath, and when he speaks again, he is slightly more kind. “I know this is important to you. I see that. I can try to get you a referral, but…” But it is a losing cause and the only lawyers who would take it are those Jaycee wouldn’t want. David doesn’t need to finish the sentence. Jaycee gets it.
“I see,” she says, defeated. She begins collecting her papers when the first tears finally come. “I’m sorry,” she says as she wipes them away. “I didn’t plan on the waterworks. I know you’ve got your own grief.”
“There always seems to be enough to go around.” David rises.
“I’m sorry, but I really need to get home now. I’ve got all of Helena’s animals waiting for me. If you give me your card, I’ll e-mail you if I have any better ideas.”
Jaycee offers David the folder, but he hesitates. “It’s just a copy,” she says. “My contact information is in the file.” David takes the folder without further protest. “Please pass it on if you think of anyone. Anyone at all.”
“I will.”
Jaycee slides the notebook over to David. He stares at it for a moment and then places it into his bag.
They shake hands and then David leaves for the parking garage and his long ride home. By the time he gets to the highway, David’s head is filled with work and he has completely forgotten about Cindy.
I’m not as lucky. I’ve no distraction that is equal to the task of excising from my mind the image of Cindy alone and afraid in her cage.
I know this image. I’ve seen it before. It is of despair and of learned helplessness. It is, I am certain, one of the images that bind me to this time and this place.