Half Brother

  I figured I’d made a friend.

  When I got back home, I walked into the living room and Mom was sitting in an armchair, holding Zan. Her blouse was unbuttoned and folded back on one side, and Zan was sucking at her breast. She and Zan both turned to look at me at the same time, Zan’s face brown against my mother’s pale skin. I instantly looked away, feeling like I’d done something wrong, like I’d seen something I was never meant to see.

  “Sorry,” I said, and headed out of the room.

  “Ben, wait,” I heard my mother say. “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “It’s okay,” I said, stopping in the doorway, staring down at the carpet. From the corner of my eye I saw Mom put Zan down on her knee. He started whimpering and pawing her as she buttoned up her blouse.

  “Even with the bottle, Zan still seems to want to nurse,” she said. “Your father thought it might be a good idea. To try and make sure he gets everything he’d get from his own mother.”

  “Right,” I said, nodding. I didn’t want to think about it—not at all, really. “It’s sort of weird to see.”

  “I know,” she said. “I have mixed feelings about it too. And it’s not like I have any milk to give him anyway.”

  “You don’t?” I asked.

  She smiled and gave a little laugh. “You need to have your own baby to produce milk.” “Oh,” I said, blushing. “Right.”

  “Anyway, I can’t keep it up for too long; it’s getting painful.”

  I nodded and made a hmm sound, like I was all calm and interested in what she was saying. Mom was always very big on everyone talking openly, and sharing everything, and not being embarrassed about our bodies especially. She said it was unhealthy to be embarrassed about the human body, and that it was beautiful and honest and natural.

  But I’d had about as much nature and honesty as I could handle right now.

  It was another week or so before I held Zan for the first time. I was sort of nervous. I sat down on the couch and Mom put him in my arms. He was awake and he just settled against me, gazing up into my eyes and occasionally making a soft panting sound. It was a really intense look, like he expected something.

  I remembered Mom saying that chimps spent a lot of time grooming one other. So I combed through Zan’s hair with my fingers, kind of patting him and stroking him, and he got very quiet and looked at me even more intently. Then I pretended to find something interesting in his hair, pick it out, and pop it into my mouth. I made a satisfied smacking sound. Zan looked very interested at that and hooted softly.

  Without even realizing it, I was stroking him, and before long his eyes started to look sleepy, and he dozed off. Mom asked if I wanted to give him back, but I said it was okay, and stayed there like that for a little longer, Zan sleeping in my arms.

  Mom took a picture of us with my camera.

  It was hard to know what Zan thought of all the signs we made as we talked with him. But his eyes were alert and curious and he seemed to watch everything.

  He always wanted to be held, so before I picked him up, I’d sign up—just pointing my index finger skyward—and then lift him. And he loved being hugged, so I thought it would be a good idea to teach him that sign as well. Before I gave him a hug, I’d do the ASL sign, which was simple, just crossing your arms across your chest, like you were giving yourself a hug.

  The first time Dad saw me doing it he asked me to stop. “We need to start slowly with him,” he said. “We don’t want to confuse him.”

  “I think Ben’s got the right idea, though,” Mom said. “Shouldn’t we be stressing the things that are most part of his life?”

  “I suppose it’s fine for now,” said Dad. “But when we start teaching him properly, we’ll need to stick to the signs we choose. It’s got to be very methodical.”

  In the first week of August, when Zan was about five weeks old, Dad decided it was time to introduce names. We picked the morning, so he was good and alert. It was Sunday. We all gathered around him in the living room and, for some reason, I thought of church. We never really went ourselves, but I’d been to a few baptisms.

  In sign language, you get to invent your own name for yourself. A lot of the time it’s just the first letter of your name, signed somewhere on the upper part of your body, maybe the middle of your chest, or somewhere on your arm.

  For Z you stuck out your index finger and traced a zigzag shape in the air.

  Mom worried it might be a bit complicated for Zan, so I said maybe we could do it big across his entire chest, so the sign wasn’t too small and fiddly.

  “Good idea,” said Mom.

  Dad looked intently at Zan. “You—” he pointed at him. “Zan.”

  And he touched him with his index finger, slowly tracing the Z across Zan’s chest. He did it several times, and then Mom and I did it as well, to reinforce it. “Zan,” I said. “You’re Zan.”

  “We’ve got to show him our names too,” Dad said, and made the sign for father: hand held with all fingers straight out, tapping the thumb twice against his forehead.

  “Dad,” he said, over and over again as he made the sign.

  It was weird watching him do it, calling himself Zan’s father. Part of me felt it was wrong.

  The sign for mother was the almost the same as father, only you tapped your thumb against your chin twice.

  Somehow, when Mom did it for Zan, it didn’t seem quite so fake—maybe because she spent so much time with him, and did everything a real mother would do for him in the wild.

  “Now show him the sign for brother,” Dad said to me.

  I suddenly felt sick. “I don’t want to,” I told him.

  “This is a very important aspect of the project,” Dad reminded me.

  I shook my head. “It’s a lie, though.”

  I caught a glimmer of impatience in Dad’s eyes. But I wasn’t doing this just to get at him; I really couldn’t bring myself to call myself Zan’s brother.

  “You know,” Mom said quietly to Dad, “the sign for brother is quite complicated. I’m wondering if it might confuse Zan anyway. Maybe Ben should just make up his own name for himself.”

  I saw Dad take a breath, then nod. “That okay with you, Ben?”

  “Yeah,” I said gratefully. That I could do. I thought about it a second and then made the letter B sign against my heart.

  “Ben,” I said to Zan. “I’m Ben.”

  THREE

  LIFE OF THE PARTY

  A wooden sign surrounded by flower beds told me we’d just entered Windermere. Right away I could tell it was a fancy neighbourhood. It wasn’t so far from where we lived, but it looked like it had been all planned out. It was a bit like being in the forest; there were so many trees and plants. All the houses were very nice, with bay windows and perfect lawns and flower beds and stone paths everywhere. I wouldn’t have been surprised if little gnomes in red caps appeared to wash the windows, sweep the big wide driveways, and polish all the new cars in them.

  It was the second week of August, and the chair of the psychology department, Dr. Godwin, had invited us all over for a barbecue. Apparently he had a son close to my age named David. I was sitting up front with Dad, and in the back, Mom was holding Zan.

  “Do you wish we lived here?” Dad asked Mom.

  “It shrieks new money,” said Mom.

  Mom came from old money, which meant a family in Rosedale that had been rich for a long time. She hated old money because it was snobby and lazy and rigid; but she hated new money too because it was about showing off and proved that people had their priorities in the wrong place—and if the new money people weren’t careful they could turn out to be just as bad as old money.

  Dad came from no money. He got through school on scholarships and student loans.

  “Aren’t we new money now?” I asked, confused. “Since Dad’s full professor and making tons of money?”

  “I wouldn’t call it tons of money,” said Dad.

  “We’d be new mo
ney if we lived here,” said Mom.

  Dad sniffed, but I wondered if he was a bit envious, maybe regretting that he had to live in an ugly house out in the boonies. I kind of was. I saw lots of kids on bikes, and there was a big field where some teenagers were playing Frisbee.

  We found the right house. It was like something from a fairy tale. The outside was white plaster, criss-crossed with dark beams.

  “Fake Tudor,” said Mom disdainfully.

  “Be good,” Dad said to Mom.

  “What do you mean?” Mom said. “I’m bringing a chimp. I’m going to be the life of the party.”

  We parked, and as we got out of the car, I caught Dad glancing at our beat-up old Volvo, then at the shiny new Mercedes in the driveway.

  We could hear the chatter of the other guests coming from the backyard, so Dad led us down the side of the house, through the gate, and into the garden. It was a bit like one of those scenes from a Western when the hero walks into the saloon and everyone goes quiet and turns to stare. All eyes were on us, then Mom, holding Zan in her baby sling.

  After six weeks of living with Zan, I’d almost stopped thinking of him as unusual. Now, I realized again how weird it was to be carrying around a little chimp in diapers like a new baby. We must have looked like a circus act. What would they say if they knew Mom had tried breastfeeding the chimp? My cheeks burned.

  But then Dr. Godwin and his wife were hurrying over to greet us, and people started talking again.

  It turned out Mom was right. She was the life of the party—or at least Zan was. There were more people than I’d expected, and they all made a fuss of Zan, especially the women. They all wanted to hold and cuddle him. Zan was pretty happy about it all. He liked it better when women held him. With one man he started hooting and making his unhappy face, where he curled out his lips like he was crying. I didn’t blame him; the man smelled so strongly of cigarette smoke, I would’ve cried too.

  I saw some other kids loafing around out in the yard, but I didn’t feel like going over and introducing myself, so I stood around for a bit with Mom while she talked to Mrs. Godwin.

  “So where have you got Ben going to school?” she asked.

  “We’ve registered him at his local school, Brentwood.”

  Mrs. Godwin nodded and made a little sound in her throat. “You know, I’ve heard mixed things about it.”

  “Is that right?” said Mom.

  “It’s fine, of course, but a bright boy like Ben should really be going to Windermere.” “I’m not that bright,” I said. She looked at me blankly for a moment. “Ben’s joking,” said my mother.

  Mrs. Godwin smiled weakly and looked back at Mom. “They’ve got an amazing accelerated program there, and the teachers are fantastic.”

  I didn’t want to be in an accelerated program. I was having enough trouble in the decelerated program. I wasn’t exactly kidding about not being bright. I was a lousy student. Most subjects I struggled with, math especially.

  “We know Ted Lancaster, the headmaster, quite well,” said Mrs. Godwin, putting her hand confidentially on Mom’s arm. “If you’re interested, we can put you in touch with him. I’m sure they could fit Ben in.”

  “That’s very kind of you, thank you,” said Mom, in the formal voice she used when she was trying hard to be polite.

  I wandered off, but realized I was keeping an eye on Zan, just making sure everyone was treating him all right as they passed him around. There wasn’t much chance of him coming to harm, as long as people held him properly and didn’t drop him. And it was pretty hard to drop Zan—impossible, really. Even if you let go, he wouldn’t. His grip had been strong from the very beginning. Baby chimps weren’t like humans—they had to be able to hold on to their moms right away.

  I saw Dad talking to a group of other men, and wandered over, hanging back a little so I could listen in. I guessed they were all professors at the university, because Dad seemed to know some of them already. He had them all laughing.

  People loved my father. They were always telling me what a great guy he was, how dynamic and funny and smart. Even my own friends seemed charmed by him. I could tell just by looking at the professors’ faces that Dad was doing his hypnotist thing, getting them all enthusiastic.

  A silver-haired fellow with a pipe was saying, “It’s a fascinating journey you’re embarking on. I’ve done a little reading on chimpanzee cognition, and it seems they’re very good at imitating.”

  The way he said it made me think it wasn’t just a comment, but a question, maybe even a challenge. I watched Dad carefully.

  “Absolutely,” said Dad. “So the key is to make sure they’re not just imitating the signs, but making them independently.”

  The silver-haired guy took a thoughtful pull on his pipe. “Of course it also depends on how you’re defining language. As opposed to mere communication.”

  “Theo, you’ve put your finger right on a key question,” Dad said, and he wasn’t Dad any more—he was Dr. Richard Tomlin and it was like the few times I’d watched him lecturing his class. Energy and authority seemed to waft off him like a heat mirage. “This was one of the areas I focused on when designing the project. We need to see word acquisition, yes, but then we need to see Zan using language in a structured way. Ideally he’d be able to initiate conversation, grasp basic grammar, syntax, an understanding of tense.”

  “And what of Noam Chomsky?”

  Dad chuckled and nodded. “Well, I think we all know Mr. Chomsky’s position—that language is something only humans have; that animals can’t learn language any more than we can learn to spin spider-webs. I’m a huge admirer of his work. But I think he’s dead wrong on this one.”

  Everyone in his little group was quiet for a moment, as if Dad had said something very controversial—even obscene—but I could tell they were also impressed with how he’d just come out and said it, fearless.

  “Of course,” Dad said with a nonchalant smile, “I could be wrong. We’ll have to wait and see. Zan might turn out to be a complete moron.” His group erupted into laughter again. “As scientists, all we can do is test our hypotheses.”

  Someone touched me on the shoulder, and I turned to see a tall kid with freckles.

  “Hey, are you Ben Tomlin?” he asked.

  “Yeah, I’m Ben.”

  He offered his hand and we shook. “David Godwin.” His mother had probably told him to look out for me and make me feel welcome.

  “We were going to start a game of Risk. You interested?” I loved Risk, and nodded.

  I took a last look over the backyard, just to make sure Zan was okay, and then followed David toward the house. Their rec room was a lot nicer than Tim Borden’s. Big sliding doors led out onto the backyard. There was thick carpeting and lots of pole lights, and orange egg chairs and a ping-pong table, as well as a pool table and, on the walls, framed vintage travel posters with trains and steamships in exotic locations. I doubted the head of the psych department had a collection of girlie mags in the freezer.

  There were two other kids already sitting around the big wagon-wheel coffee table where the board was set up. David introduced me to Hugh and Evan, and then we sat down and I started counting out my pieces.

  “So,” David asked quietly, “did your dad do experiments on you when you were little?”

  “No,” I said, taken aback—then saw he was joking. “You?”

  “Big time,” he said. “Electrodes.” He put his fingers to his temples and delivered a high-voltage jolt. Everyone snorted with laughter.

  “That explains the psychotic episodes,” quipped Hugh.

  “Completely fried my brain,” David said to me. “You sure he didn’t do anything to you?”

  “Well, there were days in a dark box, but I thought that was normal,” I said.

  The other guys laughed some more. “Good one,” David said.

  Right away I felt comfortable with these guys. They reminded me a bit of my friends back in Toronto.

  T
he four of us played happily for about three-quarters of an hour, talking about the CN Tower going up, and the space probe NASA had just launched, and the Skylab space station. It seemed to me that pretty much anything was possible these days. It was 1973, and if we could build space stations, and the world’s tallest structure, why couldn’t we teach a chimp to talk?

  I was doing pretty well at Risk—mostly because I’d had some lucky dice rolls. I controlled North America and was close to taking over all of Europe, so I wasn’t particularly happy when I heard someone at the sliding doors say, “The burgers are ready, you guys.”

  I looked up and couldn’t stop looking.

  The girl was about my age. She wore a sleeveless white shirt tucked into beige shorts. Her legs were tanned a pale brown, and in the sunlight I could see the downy blond hairs of her thighs. She had a white hairband in her long brown hair. Across the bridge of her nose was a dusting of freckles. When her eyes met mine, I forced myself to stop staring.

  “Yeah, we’ll be out in a minute, Jen,” said David, not even glancing at her.

  She turned and walked back into the garden.

  “Who’s she?” I asked casually.

  “My sister. Okay, I’m attacking Kamchatka. Roll.”

  “I’m kind of hungry,” I said. “You mind if we call it quits?”

  “And foil my plans of world domination?” David said. “How dare you.”

  But he dropped the dice, stood up, and started for the doors. We all followed.

  The barbecue was about one hundred percent more interesting now. I found out Jennifer was exactly my age. David was actually older than us by a year and a half. I didn’t want to talk to her or anything—that was too scary. I just wanted to look at her.

  I ate with the other guys, while the adults sat around a couple of big tables on the patio and drank cocktails with their burgers and baked potatoes. Jennifer was sitting on a low stone wall bordering the patio, with a couple of other girls.