A Beautiful Truth (30 page)

Complete consciousness is unattainable. I’m aware of the things in my life that are fictions but I enjoy them nonetheless. I understand my motives, and my wife’s and Tilly’s. Understanding rarely stops any of us from doing what we do.

Knowing I am an ape doesn’t stop me from being an ape.

We’ve done all kinds of tests to show that chimps are self-aware. Not just that they recognize themselves in a mirror but that they are aware of the consequences of their actions. And they therefore must act despite themselves, sometimes, because the consequences aren’t always what they would want.

I’m not sure what I am looking for anymore, except comfort.

I like being the boss.

Sometimes David is afraid of sleep. He worries about his daughter and his wife being hurt, and on very few occasions he thinks of the attrition and cirrhosis of those invisible organs he normally takes for granted.

His wife is doing a residency in Seattle for eight weeks, and it is the longest they have ever been apart.

Each time they talk on the phone she reveals some new pleasure she has found in being alone.

I like not eating so much meat she says.

He gets a little drunk some nights when they are apart.

It’s funny, isn’t it she says. Seeing things on your own for a change.

She has always said that talking makes everyone feel better. He says talking is the equivalent of grooming. The tongue and fingers are governed by the same parts of the brain. He marvels at how close they can be some nights on the phone and how words really are the equal of touch. Bakelite pressed hard against his ear.

She says it’s not just the freedom from him and from their daughter. I feel some sort of opening. I saw things so clearly today.

He thinks about the solitary figure in every religion, the monks, saints and shamans in every tradition who walk out into wilderness on their own and find revelation.

It’s what solitude does to a social animal he says.

People talk of recognizing something greater than themselves when they’re alone because we finally have to realize how helpless we are as individuals. There’s a freedom, a sense of wonder in feeling for a moment that we don’t have to please anyone or adjust to the needs of others. And there’s a fear in realizing how small we are,
how much those distant others normally insulate us from seeing the limits of our mostly incompetent bodies. When we’re on our own we seek solutions and speculate and fictionalize because that’s what we do when we’re confronted with survival. That’s revelation.

Maybe she says. I’m just saying I’d like to eat less meat. We could have fish.

He drinks and listens to music and some nights they spend longer on the phone than others. After a month he decides that words are actually not the equal of touch.

I miss you.

He listens for telltale modulations in her voice but nothing is complete without sight and the feel of her body.

Did I ever tell you about the work we did with facial recognition. We showed them pictures of the faces of some of the other chimps in the colony, and some of the staff as well, and we wanted to see whether they could identify them. Match them with names or other photos. There were photos of strangers too, other chimps and people. They were a hundred percent accurate in identifying the familiar faces, even when some were wearing hats or were at strange angles. Actually, we did other tests where they identified rear ends. All the ones they knew, they got right.

The strangers made them curious or anxious or uninterested, but the ones they knew, they knew.

I like thinking about how the world is mapped for them. How they spend so much time grooming and scrutinizing, that they are aware of any change in each other. We do the same thing, so much more than we acknowledge. People’s eyes looking all around your face, making infinitesimal judgments and looking for stories while you talk. If I could see your face right now.

I’m fine she says.

I really want to see you.

Some nights the silence over the phone is quite beautiful, and sometimes it makes him anxious.

Are there people there you like. Anyone new.

He finds comfort in the fact that many psychologists are unattractive outside their practice or have off-putting tics.

There are some really interesting people she says.

He wants to go back in time, when they were so hungry for each other.

Maybe I should come and see you on the weekend. I like Seattle.

The whiskey that helps him sleep keeps waking him up.

He was in Seattle for a conference on climate change two years ago and he dreams about the fact that most amphibians are dying. Frogs absorbing toxins through their thirsty skin. He awakes at four in the morning with a dry mouth, and calls her.

I wasn’t very popular at that conference.

I remember.

I remember there was a guy from the World Wildlife Fund who said the planet is under assault and we must shift our economy in favour of conservation. Another man from the Sustainable Development Commission said overpopulation was the problem. He said he was tired of people focusing on the economy. And another guy from the Nature Conservancy said I’m not sure the conservation movement has got it wrong, I just think we should stop talking about the environment as a separate problem, it should be a central part of our economy.

I was the quietest person on the panel. I kept looking up and down the table and out to the audience thinking we’re apes and we’re doomed not to know it.

You know how I undress people. I was picturing everyone naked and wondering how their opinions would change. Would
they offer opinions or just touch and fight and choose similar factions.

I was wedged between a scientist from the World Bank with a dark suit and a bushy beard. And this other guy from the WWF who had a neat beige shirt which he probably thought would be great for mountain climbing. All kinds of pockets. I was watching him speak and I was staring at his feathered grey hair and I started laughing at the way his hair jiggled when he moved. I hadn’t said anything so far and the first thing I contributed was to giggle at this guy’s hair.

I thought: here is a group of men, and one woman, sitting higher than the audience. We make gestures of goodwill to each other and respectfully insist that each of our viewpoints is paramount. We are here for a cause that is greater than all of us so it allows us to come together. What we call saving the planet. Some things will be agreed upon, there will be a couple of villains, there will ultimately be no concrete result, and we will all feel a little bit better for having got together as a group. And we can distance ourselves once again from those who go on with their lives, ignorant of climate change, in the pursuit of consumer goods.

I said there is no greater example of ape behaviour than what is taking place in this room right now. Finding friends and imagining enemies.

Change the words coming out of our mouths and this could be a town council, a parent-teacher meeting or a Beer Hall Putsch. The issue isn’t the issue.

We’re talking about saving the planet but we’re not really looking at ourselves, we’re just trying to gain power. Each of us.

I’m grateful that you’ve invited a primatologist I said.

I’m really thirsty. Wait a second.

He drinks warm water by the bed.

I said I’m glad you’ve invited a primatologist, and I acknowledge that I have my field of expertise as much as anyone. But when we’re sitting here asking what can we do, how can we save the earth, we’re not asking who
we
are. There’s lip service paid to human beings as a species but we really don’t talk about what that species is.

I said this room is what this species is. Us up here debating, you down there judging. All of us wanting to be heard. Everyone seeing things through our own eyes yet believing that what we see is reality or the same as what everyone else in the room is seeing. We’re happy when we hear opinions that agree with ours, and unhappy or surprised when it seems that someone is seeing this room differently.

We’re born as individuals with an equal need for others. We have hair, skin and teeth. Some of us produce milk. Most of us have no sense of our bodies until something goes wrong.

We’re talking about global consciousness and enlightenment and progress and we have no sense of the fact that we are talking apes. You laugh when I say ape. We’re not talking about saving the planet, we’re talking about the survival of our species. Let’s at least start there and forget about our species for a second. We’re talking about the survival of things like trees and mild temperatures and exotic animals, anything that nourishes our fantasies about deathless gardens.

You should have heard me.

I told them about Podo.

I said years ago we had an alpha male in the colony who was the champion of supporting another chimp’s cause. If that chimp was down or beaten up he would make sure that the other chimps who hurt him or her would feel what we call justice. And if the next day the tables were turned and yesterday’s victim was
the bully, Podo sided again with the victim. He kept one chimp, Jonathan, as a sort of perennial scapegoat or whipping boy, and the rest he won over by siding with them whenever they were losing. It didn’t matter what the issue was or whether he had beaten them up yesterday. The issue wasn’t the issue. He stayed alpha for a very long time.

And there are chimps who bully and only support the victors. They too gain power. We can think of these types as Democrats and Republicans.

Honey she says.

And I don’t think that any of their machinations are elaborate products of consciousness or are wicked or planned far in advance. They just do them. They want power.

Honey.

And I can’t remember how I finished exactly. I said we’re bald, bipedal apes. And I shouldn’t even say bald because we actually have more hair than chimpanzees it’s just less visible.

We will never change our behaviour, we will only change our words.

Please honey she says.

Yeah.

It’s one o’clock in the morning. I’m speaking today and if I don’t get more sleep.

I’m so sorry baby. I couldn’t sleep. I’m afraid of sleep.

He is neither awake nor asleep nor here nor there. He still thinks he is in his early twenties and pities or despises the man he sees in the mirror.

When he looks at the older ones like Ghoul or Mama he can’t believe how they’ve changed. And Burke with his gigantic swagger. He was a baby.

My daughter was a baby.

My mother left my brother and me when we were kids, and while I never once have blamed her I wonder sometimes who I would be if she had been near me. I find more answers as I age, but some of them seem even further away.

I call old friends and feel embarrassed for the fact that the only time I call is when my wife is away.

I call my brother who seldom answers the phone.

I feel proud of him, and close to him, though we have no real idea who we are anymore.

I think about the different directions two bodies can take from the same womb.

I think I would feel less lost if I kept in touch with everyone I ever befriended.

I see the chimps’ need to reconcile and I feel some sort of awareness that no matter what my body’s needs might be, it will never be complete without friends.

At that conference in Seattle I felt powerful, really satisfied for a second, but nobody talked to me.

After seven weeks of being apart from his wife he drives home after seeing a fight. The girl his staff call Beanie was found injured in the morning. She has lacerations to her face. He hates not having footage of everything.

He watched Mama fight with Magda, so Magda was probably the culprit. Mama turned to Ghoul for support, suggesting there is a real shift in power and Jonathan, at least, is not so much in the picture.

Mama fought with Magda and then Burke joined in to fight Mama. And then Ghoul joined in and Jonathan, and it all went on too long.

He feels raw when there is a fight like that. He wishes he could somehow tell them to stop.

He saw Looee far away from the fight, running in circles and hitting himself.

He wants to talk to someone.

Seven weeks is almost long enough for yearning to expire.

He thinks about flying his daughter in from Austin.

He sighs when he walks through the door and pours himself a drink.

He thinks about the fight he watched.

Sometimes he can’t shake the feeling that someone is watching over him and he is certainly not religious. We’re born with the feeling that there is something greater than ourselves, first our mothers, then school, god, bosses, a vigilant sky blemished with guilt and remorse. God is the alpha. Taxes.

He turns on the radio, then the TV, and later he listens to music. He drinks wine that a friend in California made and knows that it will give him vivid dreams. He thinks for an eyeblink about fishing out some pornography or even calling Sarah.

There is something greater than ourselves and it keeps us from being ourselves.

He drinks more and thinks he might as well sleep in the chair, and he doesn’t know if he is sleeping or not.

Legs on the leather sound like someone shifting in the bath upstairs.

Those nights you took vodka to the bathtub while we played in the basement, sad mother.

We drank Coca-Cola in bottles with dad, who mourned his weakness for women.

A child swims through sea lice and is stung from lips to ankles and your cells are pierced by vodka in the tub.

This suburb is your body.

Dad said that even if she’s an old family friend, when a woman sits across from you, pulls aside her panties and shows you her pussy, you guys will understand when you’re older.

Mother.

The oceans are your bathwater.

Did you know ten thousand years ago, as blood vessels colonized your face, that a human nose could one day be grown in a jar.

Why don’t you come downstairs. Come back.

His breath wakes him up.

He awakes and the house is empty.

I’m so glad you’re coming home soon.