Gagarin resisted but finally began to back off, still clutching Joanes’s hand with his teeth. Joanes screamed. His hand and the monkey’s mouth were attached by something resembling strings of chewing gum. Afterward, the monkey separated himself fully from Joanes, two fingers remaining clenched between his jaws.
“Come here, come here!” said the man, clearly shocked, as he pulled to gather up the chain.
Backing away, the chimpanzee dropped one of the fingers, the pinky. The man reproached him, threatening him with his fist, and the monkey glanced at him and sat down at his feet, gnawing the other finger, the ring finger, as if it were a candy bar. He was soon as calm as he’d been when he entered the cabin, as if all his rage, having claimed its due, had simply disappeared. Or as if the whole thing had been nothing more than a brief show, just to let them know what he was capable of. Now he showed an almost vainglorious indifference toward them, even his master.
On the floor, Joanes was holding his hand to his chest. Both his hand and his nose, which was broken and bent at a strange angle, were bleeding profusely. His eyes were rolling back into his head as if he were going to faint.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” the woman repeated.
The man continued to scold the monkey. With his back bent, supplicant, he approached Joanes to ask his forgiveness and explain that he didn’t mean for this to happen, that he’d only wanted to scare him a little, just a little, that he was so sorry, that he didn’t know why Gagarin had reacted that way. He was so shocked, he looked on the verge of tears. Then he begged the woman’s forgiveness and said that Gagarin wasn’t like that, that he didn’t hurt people.
He didn’t get the chance to finish what he was saying. The professor, who in the meantime had picked up the cane, went up to him and thwacked him on the head.
“Shut up, old man!”
The man fell to his knees. Without knowing what had happened, he made to protect his head with his hand. He looked at the chimpanzee, but Gagarin was in his own world, impassive. The professor hit him again and the man collapsed, motionless.
Both Joanes and the professor’s wife watched the scene, paralyzed.
“What did you do that for?” she asked her husband. “He was apologizing.”
“I don’t trust him.”
Still holding on to Joanes’s finger, the chimpanzee contemplated his now unconscious master. Without letting go of the cane, the professor turned toward the animal, who simply scratched his armpit, moved as far away as the chain would permit, and went on chewing the finger.
The professor crouched down next to the man to take the machete off him. Next he opened his backpack and, with a look of disgust on his face, rummaged through its contents until he found a shirt. He tore it in two and used one of the strips to tie the man’s hands behind his back. With the other he gagged him, but not before tying a double knot in it, so that it would stay snug between the man’s teeth.
“This way he won’t be able to give the monkey any more of those orders,” he explained.
He acted confidently and efficiently, as if cuffing and gagging were among his normal daily activities. Afterward he went over to the bed and let himself flop onto it. His wife edged back to give him some space.
“Are you OK?” she asked.
He nodded, wiping the sweat from his forehead. He let go of the cane and stared, stunned, at the machete, as if he didn’t know what it was. He put it down on the bed, then rubbed his hands over and again on his pant legs.
“Are you sure you’re OK, darling?” the woman insisted.
Instead of responding, the professor turned to Joanes and asked, “Is there a first aid kit in that backpack of yours?”
Joanes nodded. Dragging his feet, the professor went to get the backpack. He turned on the flashlight for more light. He took out the first aid kit and examined its contents. Next he dragged Joanes over to a wall and propped him up against it.
“The hand first,” he said.
He cleaned it with water, disinfected it, and then, for want of a better option, cauterized the base of the two severed fingers using silver nitrate sticks. He worked with the same care he would have shown his own son. Joanes let him. The professor bandaged Joanes’s hand and mocked up a sling. Lastly, he took care of the blows to Joanes’s face.
“We’ll need to straighten up that nose.”
But when he went to do so, Joanes recoiled, saying, “No, no. .”
“We should do it now rather than later.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Suit yourself. It’s your nose.”
Joanes’s treatment left the first aid kit nearly empty. Once he’d finished, the professor got to his feet with a groan. The man was still unconscious, and his monkey didn’t pay any of them the slightest attention. Joanes contemplated his pinky. To see it lying on the floor among the trash made him feel a kind of self-pity he’d never felt before. The only sound to be heard was the howling wind.
The professor put the first aid kit back in the backpack and then pulled out the satellite phone.
“Leave that alone!” said Joanes.
He tried to get to his feet, but the pain stopped him.
“It won’t take more than a minute,” said the professor. “It’s best if you stay still.”
With trembling fingers, he dialed a number and waited.
“The lines are up. It’s ringing,” he told his wife.
She had sat up and waited with one hand resting on her chest. She looked as though all the blood had drained from her face.
The dial tones rang for what seemed like an age. Then the professor had a kind of paroxysm when at last someone answered. He pressed the phone against his ear and covered the other one to isolate himself against the noise of the storm. Clearly anxious, he repeated a name various times, that of their son’s partner.
“Is that you? I can’t hear you too well. . yes? Is that you?”
The professor told the person down the line who he was and without further ado asked about his son. He repeated the question, spacing out the words to be clear. Then he went silent.
“So, he’s OK?” he asked apprehensively.
Another silence.
“What you mean is he’s going to be OK.”
Another pause. Then, looking at his wife with a great smile, he said, “He’s out of danger.”
Very slowly, she laid back down and closed her eyes.
The professor went on talking for a while, garnering more details about what had happened — the explosion of an air tank during a diving trip; the guide had died; several nearby boats had seen it all happen and someone had requested help over the radio; a helicopter didn’t take long to arrive and rescue the professor’s son and his partner. The professor repeated every new piece of information for the benefit of his wife.
“Yes, of course we’re going to come,” he said. “But we can’t say when. We’re still in Mexico, stuck in this hurricane. Yes. . good. . good. . I’m so grateful. Please, don’t let him out of your sight. . no. For the time being there’s no number you can reach me at, but I’ll contact you as soon as possible. . yes? Hello? Can you hear me? Are you still there?”
He looked at the telephone screen. The connection had gone.
“Battery’s dead,” he said.
He went back to his wife’s side. On the way, he dropped the telephone into Joanes’s backpack. The old couple hugged.
“Thank God, thank God,” they said.
A few moments later, the professor pulled slowly away from her. Shaking and trying not to look either his wife or Joanes in the eye, he walked off to the adjacent room, closing the door behind him.
The professor’s wife rifled around in her travel bag and pulled out a pocket mirror, which she proceeded to use to check her appearance. She sighed, then took a hairbrush and calmly ran it through her hair without taking her eyes of herself in the mirror. She behaved as if she were in her own bed, in her own room, and as if she’d forgotten everything that had gone on that night. The color had returned to her cheeks. She looked as though she were about to get up and start walking around the cabin.