Lucy Read online

  In the period from the early 1900s through the 1920s, several European scientists attempted to create a human-ape hybrid. In Russia, biologists even organized the Commission on Interspecific Hybridization of Primates to oversee the job of making a human-ape baby. Indeed, among scientists on both sides of the Atlantic, there seemed to be no strong objection to the idea at that time. More recently, in the 1970s, J. Michael Bedford had shown that a human sperm could penetrate a female ape’s ovum under laboratory conditions. Jenny thought it was an interesting concept. But the more rational part of her, the scientist, said, No. No one would do that today, because of all the ethical issues involved. Besides, no one would have a scientific reason to do it. What could be gained? There must be another explanation.

  Jenny dove back into the text with her mind racing. She skimmed until she found what she was looking for: “In light of that, I raised up Leda, the genetically modified bonobo, to the age of maturity and began my first experiment March 3 three years ago, inseminating her with my own materials using a mild sedative to keep her calm and employing the conventional method of artificial insemination that has been proven effective in captive populations.” Jenny heard herself groan out loud. The words swam on the page. For at the same time that she was fascinated with the concept, she felt her whole body revolt at the idea. And she was acutely aware of Lucy as the living, breathing child with whom she had just had breakfast. She wiped her eyes to clear them and read, “The process failed again and again, producing no results at all until the summer before last, when I inseminated her for the ninth time on June sixteenth and succeeded in producing a zygote. The child, a male, came nearly to full term but was badly deformed and had to be destroyed.”

  Oh, no, Jenny thought: He killed a deformed baby. Could this be real? It must be a hoax. Or else he must have been mad. Jenny was standing now, pacing her study, her heart pounding. She felt queasy as she read, “After another four failed attempts, the following insemination produced a pregnancy beginning in August of last year. Lucy was born without incident April fifth of this year, weighing 2.7 kilograms.”

  “Oh, God,” Jenny said. “Oh, no.”

  It all made sense now. All the odd behavior, the nest in the tree, the girl’s superior strength. The crazy outbursts. Her keen senses … All at once, Jenny’s scientific curiosity fell away and her heart went out to the girl. Jenny felt herself flooded with emotions. She was angry at Stone, his megalomania, his lack of empathy. She was fearful for Lucy and what would come. She was fascinated as a scientist at the prospect of learning about someone who was half bonobo. And at the same time she was trying to figure out all the implications of the situation that she and Lucy were now in. For all at once Jenny recognized that she was deep in, too. Perhaps well over her head.

  She read on, her stomach churning. “I examined the child thoroughly at birth and found her to be normal in every way and completely human in appearance. This proved one of the main points of my experiment, to wit, that humans can be moved into a more favorable spot in the evolutionary matrix, a position in which we may enjoy some of the superior qualities of our bonobo cousins. That gives me hope that by this means, a new race of people, more like the bonobo but with human intelligence and language—therefore better suited to living in harmony with nature—can gradually evolve, beginning with this lineage, which I hereby bequeath to the future.”

  “He went mad,” Jenny said. That was the only explanation. Whether he was telling the truth or not, he clearly went stark raving mad. Maybe there’s a real human mother somewhere and Stone himself was simply schizophrenic. Lucy seemed like such a normal girl in most ways. Maybe this was Stone’s psychotic fantasy world.

  But at the same time, Jenny knew that modern genetic engineering could indeed make it possible. Stone really might have created a human-bonobo hybrid. And if he did, then the result of his experiment was in the living room reading Twilight by Stephenie Meyer.

  With hands shaking and her mouth dry, Jenny skimmed quickly through the sections concerning Lucy’s early childhood, nursing, and then the rapid, vaulting progress of a living child. When Lucy was four months old, Stone flew with her to London to obtain a passport: the one that Jenny had taken from Stone’s cabin.

  A year later Stone noted, “Lucy is definitely a bipedal creature and shows every sign of normal language development in so far as is appropriate to her age.”

  Flipping through the pages, Jenny read lists of the words that Lucy was saying, such as Leda, Papa, book and ball, and “nana” for banana. There was a discourse on Stone’s attempts to balance his human upbringing of Lucy with allowing Leda to take her into the forest and teach her the ways of her cousins, half siblings (for Leda subsequently gave birth to babies by bonobo fathers), and other relations there. Year by year, he laid out Lucy’s progress.

  Around the time that she was four years old, Stone apparently began to have a crisis of conscience. “Lucy has become a whole and genuine person,” he wrote. “I now recognize that what I did with all good intentions may turn out to be the most monstrous folly. What I conceived of in the passion of my youth as the salvation of the bonobos—and perhaps of mankind—may simply be the worst sort of punishment for this lovely child, who has come into this cruel world through no fault of her own.” So, Jenny thought, he could at least feel remorse. Perhaps he wasn’t a monster.

  Stone went on, as if explaining to himself how he could have come to do such a thing. It had all begun with his passion for the bonobos and his certainty that people were going to drive those marvelous creatures to extinction. The only way to save them, he believed, or some of their best qualities, was to selectively breed them with humans. Although he saw their extinction as inevitable, at least part of their unique and brilliant character might be preserved if he could safely lock the bonobo genes inside humans. “Their extraordinary sweetness and perceptiveness had stolen my heart from the beginning,” he wrote. And Jenny began to see it another way: Perhaps he had not been such a madman. Perhaps Stone was a brilliant primatologist faced with the impending extinction of a beautiful creature to whom he had devoted his life. Jenny had had similar feelings about bonobos. It was what had drawn her back to the jungle year after year despite the dangers. Of course, it had never occurred to her to do what Stone did. She had never even thought through the details as he had. It was just too far-fetched.

  Over the years Stone seemed to vacillate between breast beating and trying to justify himself: “I understand that what I have done will seem beyond the pale to some. But to that charge—and to history—I have this to say: Humankind has destroyed most species with which it has come into contact and is rapidly destroying itself. Something must change in human nature. And I offer Lucy as proof to the world that, even though the ethics of what I’ve done may be questioned, the results are unequivocal. Anyone who meets this fascinating, intelligent, and beautiful girl will have to marvel at her, no matter the means of her creation. Lucy, in short, is the best argument in my defense. The way she has blended human intelligence with a bonobo’s ability to process the richness of sensory signals from The Stream, along with her gentle and loving social instincts, prove that I was right: Lucy is love made manifest. And as her offspring and their offspring continue to reproduce, a new kind of human—more human than human—will evolve.”

  Jenny felt a bizarre blend of admiration and revulsion as she realized that Donald Stone had deliberately brought this sweet, intelligent girl into the world for the purpose, in effect, of breeding. Much as he seemed to love the bonobos and her, there was something twisted and indecent in what he had done, even if, as he said, the result was unequivocally noble and beautiful. And then this thought entered Jenny’s mind: They’re going to kill her if they find out. The right-wing religious nuts. The media. The government busybodies. The crackpots and cranks and white-power mobs. How would she ever manage to protect Lucy if word got out?

  There were many other notebooks, but Jenny was too overwrought to read them. She fl
ipped through the last one and saw this scrawled in a shaky hand on a single sheet in the middle of an otherwise blank book: “Lucy, forgive me.”

  Jenny paced her study, trying to think through all the implications. What had Stone done? What had Jenny herself done by bringing Lucy here? She turned to find the girl staring at her from the doorway.

  “I sensed a disturbance in The Stream. I thought I’d see if you were all right. I hope you didn’t catch my flu.”

  And in that moment, Jenny felt that she had all the proof she needed. What she’d just read was real. The Stream. Of course. Stone himself had talked of it. It’s the way that all animals communicate. Jenny had sometimes felt it herself in the jungle. But as a product of American culture, she was inclined to dismiss it.

  Her swirling emotions overtook her now, and Jenny felt a wave of love for this girl, a powerful urge to protect her from what was coming. But could she do it? Could Lucy be protected in this world? Unable to control herself at the sight of Lucy, Jenny burst into tears.

  Lucy crossed the distance between them and pressed Jenny into her arms, patting her gently on the back as one might do with a child who has fallen. Lucy’s head barely came up to Jenny’s breasts. So small. So vulnerable. Yet so powerful. Jenny felt Lucy’s energy surging through her. She now believed what Stone had written. Lucy was real. And she knew that she mustn’t let anyone find out. She must protect the girl at all costs.

  “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” But Jenny couldn’t speak and simply let her tears flow. The room was suffused with sunlight. The squirrel was still in the tree, screeching about the hawk.

  6

  LUCY’S FIRST THOUGHT WAS that she had made Jenny sick. But then her eyes fell on her father’s notebooks scattered around the chair, and she understood. Lucy had completely forgotten that Jenny had taken the notebooks from the camp. Now Jenny stood on the brink with Lucy, and all the evidence that she’d been ignoring flooded in on her in one great wave. Lucy held Jenny in her arms as she wept briefly. Then Jenny gathered herself and held Lucy at arm’s length to study her.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know how.”

  “Of course. Of course.” Jenny let go of Lucy and turned, taking a few steps toward the window. She turned back and said, “With the attack, the murders—it was too crazy for me to think clearly. Not that I would have believed you anyway. Oh, wow, I just don’t know what this means yet. I’m afraid for you, Lucy.”

  “Papa warned me that people wouldn’t believe. Or that if they did they’d want to destroy me. He also said that there would be good ones. Good humans. I sensed that you wouldn’t care that I’m not human.”

  “You are human. You’re as human as I am. You’re no different than if you had … I don’t know. Some other genetic difference. An albino is different. There are all kinds of people. You’re human,” Jenny repeated, as if trying to convince herself. “You’re human.”

  “It’s okay, Jenny. I know what I am. I’m something completely new. Papa made sure that I had no illusions about how people might react.”

  “This is real, right? It’s not some sort of hoax?”

  “It’s real.”

  “Then that was your mother? The dead bonobo in the hut?”

  “Yes. Leda.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I know.”

  “What was the plan? I mean, I’m trying to get my mind around this. What was your father’s ultimate plan for you? What on earth was he thinking? He talked about breeding, like you were some sort of prize animal. How could he do this to you?” Jenny looked as if she might begin to weep again, but she held back her tears. “Why would someone do this to a child?”

  “We were supposed to move to London next year. He’d been grooming me for this my whole life. I was to go to college in England. People would be told that Papa had lost his wife to a disease in Congo. Papa’s idea was that I would be the universal Eve for a new race of people.”

  “So you were supposed to have children?”

  “Yes. Assuming that I could get pregnant. That was always a question. It still is. But if I could, then I’d raise my children to be leaders, teachers, thinkers. They would have children … and so on.”

  “Breeding … He created you to breed. Oh, God.”

  “Yes, that. But also because Papa loved bonobos. They would be spared extinction, at least in part. Papa envisioned a new race coming into its own in perhaps as little as a thousand years, because they would have the advantage of a material culture that had already been invented. And language.”

  Jenny sat heavily in her chair and looked down into her lap, breathing in and out. She gave a shuddering sigh. Then she looked up and stared at Lucy. “Do you understand how crazy this is?”

  “No, not really. It’s all I’ve ever known. It was always the plan. I knew that he felt a lot of guilt in the end. I wasn’t sure exactly why.”

  “Lucy. I’m sorry. But to take another human being and—” Jenny stopped herself and gestured. “We’ll talk about this more as time goes on. But that plan, his plan …” She took a deep breath. “Just let’s wait until you’ve become a bit more used to things outside the jungle.”

  “What will we do now? Are you going to send me away?”

  “No, no, of course not. I can’t. I mean, I brought you here.” Jenny thought for a moment and then fixed her eyes on the girl. “Then you really don’t have any family in England, right?”

  “No. My family’s in the jungle. I’m a humanzee.”

  “Where did you hear that word?”

  “It was in one of Papa’s books. Half human, half pygmy chimpanzee.”

  “Don’t ever call yourself that. You’re a person.” Jenny hugged herself as if she were cold. Bands of yellow sunlight lay hot across her knees. “I just have to think and plan. You can’t go to England. You obviously can’t go back to Congo.”

  Lucy took a step and stood before her chair. Jenny raised her head and they looked at each other for a long time. “I’m afraid, Jenny. I’m afraid of what you’ll do now that you know. You’re a scientist. What if you think and plan and then you decide that the best place for me is in somebody’s laboratory?”

  Jenny took Lucy’s hands and firmly pulled her down until she was kneeling. Jenny’s sandy-red hair hung around her face in great cascades of curls. “I would never do that. I would never do anything to harm you. I’m in a bit of shock, that’s all. Lucy, I promise you this: I won’t abandon you. I’ll take care of you. But we have to think ahead in case the truth comes out.”

  “All right. I trust you, Jenny.”

  Jenny stood with a sigh. Lucy sat back on her heels on the African carpet and watched as Jenny went to the window to look out into the garden. Lucy could feel Jenny’s sadness pouring through her.

  “Obviously, you’ll have to stay here.”

  “I’m sorry that makes you sad.”

  Jenny turned to face her. “That doesn’t make me sad. You’re charming and lovely and I’ve already grown very fond of you. What makes me sad is thinking about the future and what might happen to you—to us—because I brought you here.”

  “What will I do here?”

  “You’ll go to school just like any other teenager. You’ll live with me. That’s all there is to it.” And then brightly: “I could adopt you. You’ll be an adult in less than four years. I could adopt you in the meantime.”

  Lucy felt a thrill at the thought. “You’d do that?”

  Jenny thought for a moment and then laughed carelessly, almost crazily. “I can’t believe this is happening. Yes, I suppose I would do that. I don’t see any other way. You have to stay here now. That will make it official.”

  Lucy desperately wanted to have a place in the world once more. But she didn’t want to ruin Jenny’s life. “There will be trouble,” she said. “I’m afraid I’ll bring you grief somehow.”

  “How? No one will know.”

  But Lucy had a sinking fee
ling. She heard the squirrel calling. The hawk. The hawk is always out there, circling. “Maybe. But then what if someone does find out?”

  “That’s what we have to plan for.” Jenny seemed to be gathering her inner strength. “I have to think. Think this through. But for now we’ll just live.” She took a deep breath and Lucy could see Jenny trying to think things through logically. “There’s no reason that you can’t have a normal life. You’ll go to school and make friends. I will adopt you. You’ll become an American citizen. We’ll go to the beach and have parties and take trips and see new places.” And then more enthusiastically: “Let’s take a trip before the school year begins. That’ll give us time to think. We’ll go up to the Boundary Waters. It’s old forest. Not like Congo, but I think you’ll like it.”

  “I’m certain I will if you say so, Jenny.”

  Jenny took Lucy’s hands and gave her a hard look. Then a look of surprise crossed her face. “Oh, no. I just had a thought.”

  “What?”

  “Harry has your blood. He’s got your DNA.”

  “What will he do with it?”

  “Nothing, I would think. He has no reason to. Anyway, he’s a dear friend. But it’s over there in the hospital. I’d better get it back just in case.”

  Jenny picked up the phone and paged Harry. Outside the window silence had fallen. The hawk had taken the squirrel. The only sound was the ticking of the clock on Jenny’s desk. Then the phone rang, and Jenny asked Harry to bring the blood samples to her, saying, “No, no. She’s fine,” and, “I’ll explain later.” Lucy noticed the photograph on the desk and picked it up. She remembered the day it was taken. One of the men who brought supplies upriver took it with a new digital camera. He had brought them the print on his next trip. Lucy felt a wave of love for Jenny for having the presence of mind, the heart, to salvage it for her.