Hans rubbed his red face, then took another drink.
“Jean-Francis,” Malakai murmured.
“What?” Hans said.
“Jean-Francis,” Malakai repeated. “You know those Congolese—they’re all named Jean-Francis.”
“Right,” Hans said, tossing him a strange look. “Yeah. It’s just…” He stared at his drink.
“I guess shit happens, especially in this business,” he said.
“I guess it does,” Malakai said. He looked at Hans, and wondered if he should kill him. But when he wasn’t drinking, Hans was one of their best fighters. They were going to need him. And besides, it would be hard to do it without someone noticing, and then he would likely be executed himself. What would be the point of that?
Hans, as it happened, was killed two weeks later by a land mine. Malakai didn’t feel anything then, either.
He heard a soft knock on his door, and wasn’t too surprised to discover it was Clancy. She had what remained of the Scotch with her.
“What do you think?” she asked. “Should we finish it?”
“Sure,” he said. I’ll play Hans again, tell you all of my sad stories.
But she didn’t ask him to tell stories. She talked about her own life, about growing up, about her family, as if she was trying to get it all straight in her head. Eventually, though, she got quiet, and he thought she was going to leave. Instead she smiled wistfully.
“The first ape I ever saw was an orangutan,” she said. “My dad was working in Malaysia, and Mom and I went for a visit. I guess I was about seven, because Renee wasn’t born yet. We went to this place where they take orangs that have been captive or injured, and rehabilitate them back into the wild. Sort of a halfway house.
“We were on this sort of boardwalk, raised above the jungle floor. There was a feeding platform built up around a tree, and when feeding time came, the orangs came in from everywhere. And this one just dropped down next to us, and he looked right at me. We were no further apart than you and I are now. And I saw… Well, there was somebody in there, behind those eyes. A mind, and a heart, and a soul. A person. Not ‘almost human,’ but completely orangutan. Perfect the way he was. Except then I noticed he was missing an arm. I was told later that he’d touched an electric fence, and it basically set him on fire.”
An odd, distant look crept into her eyes.
“The thing is, whatever we do with apes—experiment on them, train them to perform, even teach them language—everything we do just keeps them from being what they are. What they’re supposed to be. We got kicked out of a paradise, not them. Yet we feel like we have to drag them out with us. I guess misery loves company.”
She took another drink of the whisky and passed the bottle to him.
“I love orangutans,” she said, and she smiled. “They’re my favorites. They’re so deliberate…” She frowned. “I’ve told you this before, haven’t I?”
“Yes,” he said. “The zookeeper joke.”
“Am I boring you?” she asked.
“I didn’t say that.”
“I think I am,” she said. “I’m naïve, and I’m boring, and what else?”
“I think you’ve maybe had too much to drink,” he said.
“No,” she said. “Not too much.” She suddenly stood, walked over to him, and began to work the top button of his shirt.
“What on earth are you doing?” he asked.
“How long has it been, that you have to ask that?” she said, undoing the second button.
“I’m twice your age,” he protested. “No, you’re more than twice my age,” she said. “Are you saying that’s the line you won’t cross? That’s the one thing you find objectionable?”
“No,” he said. “I just didn’t think—”
“Just shut up,” she said, “I want this, and you’re what I’ve got.” She was trying to sound flip, he realized, but then he saw it in her eyes, heard it in the quiver of her voice. She was terrified, and trying to be brave. Again, his respect for her intelligence rose a notch.
He had that one little glance before she bent and began kissing his neck.
She was right about one thing. It had been a while—a long while. But he hadn’t forgotten, and his body certainly hadn’t. Her skin was soft, and as smooth as glass. No scars, anywhere. She gripped him as if they had been together all of their lives, and at times he actually found himself embarrassed at both her willingness and her dominance. It left him panting, wishing he was younger, wishing he was someone else.
When it was done, he wasn’t certain what to do, but she snuggled into his arms. He just lay there, feeling his arm go to sleep.
“Thanks,” she after a bit. “I know you weren’t that into it, so thanks.”
“No,” Malakai said. “It was… I am very satisfied, believe me. It was such a surprise, you know?”
“Yeah,” she said, and she chuckled. “The look on your face was priceless.”
“Are we ‘hanging out’ now?”
“No,” she said. “I think this was just a one-time deal. But I enjoyed it. And I made you feel something.”
“I suppose so,” he said.
“Score one for me.”
He thought she was falling asleep, but then she murmured something.
“What was that?” he asked.
“Did you love her?” she said again. “Solange?”
He took a deep breath and let it out, again wishing he had a cigarette.
“Yes,” he said. “Very much.” “And your son.”
He felt his throat constrict. He nodded.
“I was in the bush,” he said. “Hunting chimps. My uncle wasn’t with me, that time. He had an infected leg, and so stayed home with Solange and my boy. There was a rebellion, of sorts. Bands of Hutu men, killing every Tutsi they could get their hands on. This was long before the genocide in Rwanda. It was a sort of warm-up to it.” He stopped, then continued. “So they killed my parents-in-law, and my uncle who was, of course, not Tutsi, and Solange. And the boy. They had been dead a day when I got back.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“It taught me something,” he said. “It taught me you can’t lose something unless you have it.”
“That’s a terrible lesson,” she said. “All the more because it makes sense to me. Last week it wouldn’t have. Now it does.”
She kissed him on the cheek and sat up. She reached for her shirt.
“I talk too much after sex,” she said. “I know this. It’s one reason…” She trailed off. “Never mind. Look, I’ll let you get some sleep.”
He caught her hand.
“Unless you very much object, I would like you to stay for a while,” he said.
“Well,” she said after a few breaths. “Maybe for a little while.”
She lay back down and spooned against him, and in what seemed a short time, she was asleep.
22
Dreyfus rubbed his eyes and closed his laptop. Then he reached for the television remote.
There was little there to give him hope. All of the rough patches of the world were heating up. Serbs and Croats, Hutus and Tutsis, Shi’ites and Sunnis and any of another fifty ethnic and religious groups blamed one another for the plague that was killing them all. Minority groups in eastern China were rising against Beijing and being brutally punished for it.
Indonesia, which had the fewest reported cases of the Simian Flu, had closed its borders and was violently enforcing the isolation. Christians were being burned alive in Egypt and Muslims were being beaten to death in Tennessee. The Ganges was aflame from a chemical spill near the city of Varanasi. Some people were taking it as a religious sign of some sort and were immolating themselves in the burning river.