Don't Call It Night by Amos Oz Read Free Book Online Page A

acquaintances and had to leave him behind, he would run after the Jeep sobbing heartrendingly, like a small child that has been unfairly treated. Whenever he was reprimanded he would take umbrage and disappear, climb a tree, or go on the roof, as though he had made up his mind to hand us his final resignation, but then he would come back to make peace, with transparent attempts to make friends all over again, to compensate us with all kinds of endearing efforts, polishing Erella's glasses and putting them on the cat, until we had no choice but to forgive him and stroke him. On the other hand, he was also capable of going on strike when he felt that we had been unfair to him. For instance, once when I smacked him because of some fruit that had vanished from the storeroom. On such occasions he would stand with a chastened air in a corner of the room eyeing us reproachfully, as if to say, How could you sink so low, the world will judge you as you deserve, until he forced us to feel that we had wronged him, and the only way to make amends, he indicated with an unmistakable gesture, was to open the sealed can where we kept the sugar lumps. When Immanuel was ill with jaundice, the ape taught himself how to fetch a cold drink from the refrigerator and how to hand over the thermometer, he even took his own temperature non-stop, as if he were afraid he'd caught the disease. Well, after a few years this chimpanzee reached the age of puberty, he grew a hermit-like thatch of white hair on his face and chest. The first thing he did was to fall in love with Erella. He clung to her. He hardly left her for a moment. That is, I must explain, he courted her in a rather touching way, combing her hair, blowing on her coffeeto cool it, handing her her socks, but also in sexual ways that became harder and harder to take. He would feel her skirt, pick at it, cling to her back when she bent over. And so forth. I won't go into detail. When we locked ourselves into our bedroom at night he was overcome with jealous rage and stood outside our window groaning as though he'd been wounded. At first it seemed amusing and even charming, soon he'd be serenading her under her window, but it wasn't long before we realized we had a serious problem on our hands. For instance he took to biting me and Immanuel if we so much as touched her in his presence or if she touched one of us. Immanuel was so startled he began blinking and fluttering his eyelids again. You have to understand, Noa, if you want to follow the rest of the story, that a chimpanzee is a strong, fast-moving animal, and when he's angry or aroused he can be quite dangerous. Once or twice he got her into a clinch from which she couldn't break free and I had to prise her loose by force. It was the merest chance I happened to be at home. Suppose I'd been away? The vet occasionally gave him shots of estrogen, but it didn't cool his ardour. We didn't know what to do: we couldn't get rid of him and we didn't want to hurt him, he'd become one of the family. Can you understand: we'd raised him almost from birth. Once when he swallowed some broken glass we flew him to Lagos for treatment. We sat watching over him in a shift system for four days and nights to make sure he didn't rip off his dressing. After the incidents with Erella, the vet advised neutering, and I was in a torment of indecision, almost as if I were the intended victim. I came to the conclusion that the least terrible solution would be to return him to the wild. So the weekend before Christmas I put him in the Jeep, he was always eager to go with me on one of my long trips, and to be on the safe side I drove more than sixty miles into the forest. I didn't tell Erella or Immanuel. It was better they should think he'd just vanished. That he'd heard the primeval call of the forest and been drawn back to his roots. It's a recognized phenomenon, but I'm not an expert and I can't say for sure. We stopped for gasoline on the way, and as usual he put