I squeeze my eyes shut, as if it’s so simple to disappear, to wish I was dead. To wish, for the first time, I don’t have a father named Graham Hutchinson.
24
KANE
––––––––
“What the heck are you doing?”
I don’t move as Nolene, still in her gym sweats and wearing her ski mask, hurries over to a sobbing Amy to untie the ropes binding her hands and feet to the chair.
“Look at this mess! What’s got into you? You do something like this, you wait for me. We have to do it right, not go off on some half-baked terror tactics.”
I keep quiet as Nolene rips into me. I don’t look at Amy.
Nolene hauls Amy to her feet, disgust darkening her eyes. “I should make you clean her up.”
“I’ll do it,” I say.
“Like I can trust you to go near her right now.”
My lips tighten. “You can trust me. I’ll help.”
I reach for Amy, but she shrinks away from me, her eyes raw and wild. “Don’t touch me! Don’t you touch me!”
I drop my hand.
Steering Amy out of the room, Nolene mutters, “I can’t believe you had the cheek to givemethe humiliation lecture.”
Only when the door closes behind them do I sink heavily onto the couch and yank the ski mask off. What came over me? It’s a question I have no answer to. All I know, is that in the shamed aftermath of my cruelty, I’m no better than the white-coated vivisectors in those pictures. Why, when I’m fighting one cause, do I start compromising on others?
I don’t want the memory, not now, not after this, but my guard is down and I’m too weary to stop its intrusion. There I am nearlysix years ago, the vet on call at an all-night emergency clinic. It was an unusually busy night. I can see myself so clearly, my green scrubs spattered with urine and flecks of blood from the night’s patients—a lab with post-operative complications, a cat hit by a car, with such severe head trauma she didn’t make it, and a terrier pup with Parvo.
My shift was ten minutes from finishing and the call came in. Ten minutes. I often wonder what trajectory my life would have traveled if I didn’t pick up the phone.
On the other end of the line, the nasally voice belonged to the spokeswoman for a well-known animal welfare group. She explained that the head of the Hillview Biomedical Institute was leaving. In a gesture of goodwill, he wanted to donate to them a number of baboons who were no longer needed for experimental purposes. The welfare group wanted a veterinary report, but their regular vet was in hospital with appendicitis. Would I be willing to examine them?
No, I longed to say. All I wanted right now was a hot shower and the cool comfort of my bed. But primates, particularly baboons, so rare in this part of the world, held a particular fascination for me so I arrived at HBI an hour later, the sun already blazing down on the inner-city high-rises. Barbara, whose animated face in no way matched her nasally voice, met me outside the drab red-brick building.
Following stiff greetings in the reception area, Ivan Klaasen, the head of HBI, escorted us up several floors to where the primates were housed. In the elevator, I studied the man. He appeared jaded and tired, deep lines bracketing his mouth, exclamation points for all the words spilling out of him.
“I’m leaving HBI in two weeks,” Ivan said. “I’ve accepted a post in Finland.”
From Barbara’s impatient expression, I could see the man’s personal life held no interest for her, but this was a political game she had to play. “Sorry to hear you’re leaving.”
“I’m not sorry to leave.”
As we walked down an empty corridor, fluorescent lights marking our progress, Barbara asked, “Ivan, how many primates are at HBI?”
“Roughly two hundred in total,” he said with surprising transparency. “Baboons make up most of the stock.”
“How many are we getting?” Barbara asked.
“Fifteen.”
“Fifteen,” she repeated, her voice carefully neutral. “How long have they been here?”
“Coming up to eight years.” According to Ivan, the rest of the primates were currently in research projects or else scheduled for upcoming studies. Only these fifteen remained at “loose ends.”
