YEAR TWO,
MONTH FIVE,
DAY NINE
Living with human grief . . .
The wreck of half their hopes . . .
The loss, almost, of their love . . .
Sharing the wreck, the loss, the grief . . .
But living with other hopes and other loves . . .
Living with purpose.
You reach a sort of calm where you all accept that what’s done’s done, but there’s no going back to where you were before. When Mom comes home from work you get her her vodka and orange juice and give her a hug, but you don’t sit in her lap and finger through her hair while she drinks it. You listen to Dad at supper, and make encouraging grunts and ask the right questions, but you don’t ask the wrong questions—nothing about the future of the Reserve, nothing about funds, nothing about Grog.
You have to learn about Grog in other ways, because you aren’t allowed to see him anymore.
The morning after the press conference Ms. Callaway had come over. She had telephoned before and asked Mom and Dad to stay at home and for Eva not to go to school. She explained that by publicly criticizing Honeybear for dressing chimps up in human clothes Eva had broken important clauses in the contracts with World Fruit and SMI. They would overlook it this time, but they were going to insist on a strict code from now on about what Eva was allowed to do or say. If she broke any of the code, they wouldn’t just cut off funds to the Pool and Eva’s company, they would also sue Eva’s company for damages. Eva’s company had no assets except Eva herself, and she was highly valuable. The legal question of whom she belonged to was still unresolved, so any lawsuit was likely to be extremely expensive, and might end with Eva finding that she belonged to SMI, a piece of property they could do what they liked with . . .
Eva was amazed. She’d known before she got home that Mom was going to be upset—very upset—and Dad might be angry, which he had been. But this level of fuss! It was almost mad, except that Mom and Dad didn’t seem quite so surprised.
“Now is this all quite clear to you too, Eva?” Ms. Callaway had said.
“On a talk show or something—if they ask me?”
“You must support the policies and products of the companies in question.”
“Uh-uh.”
“In that case you had better refuse invitations to appear on programs other than those in which an agreed list of questions is adhered to. This will somewhat restrict your appearances, I’m afraid.”
“Okay. Provided they don’t stop me from going to the Reserve.”
Ms. Callaway didn’t know about the Reserve and looked blank.
“If you must,” said Mom.
“Out of harm’s way,” said Dad.
“I must further emphasize,” said Ms. Callaway, “that SMI owns complete rights to all reproductions of any performance by Eva, and this includes the unfortunate episode last night. They will refuse permission for all future showings of it, and any such showings will be illegal. All tapes will be regarded as pirated, and their owners prosecuted. Any support by you for such a showing, public or private, will be treated as a breach of the contract, with the consequences I have spoken of. I expect you recorded the conference—may I have the tape, please?”
It was still in the shaper. Eva hadn’t seen it—she’d been waiting for a moment when Mom wasn’t around. Now Dad took it out without a word and gave it to Ms. Callaway, who put it in her briefcase and left. She hadn’t said anything about Grog that time. That came later.
Eva had only begun to understand what she’d done as the day went on.
“That was something!” Cormac had exclaimed. “That was really something!”
“You were great!” Bren had told her.
“Terrific!” Ginny had agreed.
Mr. Sellig had wanted to scrap the prepared subject for that afternoon’s ethics lesson and have a discussion on animal rights, but Eva had told him she wasn’t allowed to.
On the news programs that evening rival companies had shown pictures of chimps, and extinct animals, and were snide about the fact that SMI was refusing permission to let anyone show the sequence.
Grog had called. It was difficult with Mom in the room, so Eva had answered mainly with grunts.
“How’s things?”
“Mmmm.”
“Lil and Dan not too happy?”
“Uh.”
“Tell them I’m sorry—no, better not. From my point of view it was . . . hell, Eva, I’d never guessed—I was just keeping my fingers crossed and you came up with that!”
“Uh?”
“Not seen it yet?”
“Uh-uh.”
“You’d better be quick. SMI is going flat out to suppress every damn tape. Anyway, it’s just what I wanted. We’re off. I’m setting up office tomorrow.”
“Uh!”
(The idea of Grog in an office was a contradiction in terms.)
“Sure. You’ve opened the gates. It’s a tide. It’s a wave. Now we’ve got to ride it. See you.”
He hung up.
“Grog?” Mom had asked.
“Uh.”
“It’s all his fault.”
Three days later a letter had come from Ms. Callaway saying that any attempt on Eva’s part to see or talk to Giorgio Kennedy or any persons connected with any organization set up by him for the return of chimpanzees to a natural habitat would be treated as a breach of contract.
So from then on, no Grog, no face-to-face. Eva saw him quite often on the shaper, though, leading marches, lobbying politicians, addressing meetings. The cameras wouldn’t be interested in him, but he always seemed to have one of their darlings along with him, some singer, some sports star, some billionaire’s boyfriend. Before long the demos were big enough to attract the shaper cameras in their own right. There were banners with slogans, and a symbol—not a chimp but a broken butterfly, one bright wing ripped apart. More and more you saw the same symbol sprayed on to walls as you were driven around the city. Kids at school started coming for autographs again, bringing cards with the broken butterfly printed in one corner.
“Uh-uh,” Eva said, and explained that she wasn’t allowed to, but she signed a separate piece of paper for them to stick on to the card later. Grog had been right, she realized. The movement was a wave. She could feel it all the time now, in the way people reacted to her. The singers and sports stars were only the glitter at the crest, but underneath came the growing surge of ordinary people, millions now, thinking the same thoughts, asking the same questions, moving in the same direction to the same end.
Early one evening, before Mom was home, Mimi Venturi telephoned.
“Eva, my pretty, is something I wish to discuss. I have this idea.”
“Uh?”
“You come here, to my apartment? Tuesday morning.”
“I thought we were doing a commercial.”
“Is cancelled. That stupid Grog.”
“Uh?”
“All his fault. You come?”
“You know I’m not allowed to talk to him?”
“Is in Berlin. No time for his poor mama. That boy!”
“How is he?”
“Is well. Is happy. Is boring—I send a car.”
“Okay.”
Mimi’s apartment was a good kilometer in the air. A real butler answered the door.
“Ms. Venturi is not yet home,” he said. “If you do not mind waiting.”
He showed Eva into the living room. It was almost dark, because the blinds were down, shutting out what must have been a stupendous view. Grog was sitting in an armchair reading a file.
Eva hesitated a moment, then scuttled across the carpet and leaped onto his lap. He laughed and ran his fingers across her pelt. Eagerly she began an inspection of his new beard.